Page 31 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
Well, technically, yes, he was a lawyer. But what he knew about police procedure in Australian country towns wouldn’t fill a teaspoon. ‘She’ll need a town solicitor if she gets charged with anything.’
Marigold sniffed. ‘Someone like Dorley, you mean? Because he’s the only one we’ve got, and I don’t see Hannah heading out of town again any time soon, do you?’
Tom thought wistfully of the crossword he could be doing. The clues to 6 down and 11 across might be cryptic but at least they could be resolved without getting personally involved. He wasn’t here in Hanrahan to feel bad for the town residents that their local solicitor was useless. He wasn’t here to be of use to anyone.
‘We all know that Ironbark Station is hosting a campdraft this year.’
He looked up. ‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Marigold, that is the exact opposite of what is happening. Bruno is crook as a snake-bitten dog and you know it—’
‘Bruno isn’t going to run it, Tom. You are. With Hannah’s help.’
Marigold clearly didn’t understand the dynamics at play between father and son at Ironbark Station. If Tom was riding, training the stockhorses,involved, then yeah, maybe he’d be able to talk his dad into letting him ‘take over’. But the way things stood now? Not bloody likely.
‘I wish I could help,’ said Tom. Which would have been true once upon a time, before the adventurous, do-anything-and-everything life he loved got shredded by a shard of steel. ‘Only, I just took on another project which is going to take up all my time.’
Marigold’s eyes narrowed. ‘What project?’
He picked the only one that was even remotely doable. ‘The pub. You said it yourself, Marigold, the old girl needs some attention.’
‘What’s stopping you doing both?’
He didn’t have an answer for that, one that he could say out loud, anyway. He was in too deep with his lie about why he’d come home.
‘Tom.’ Josh didn’t say anything else, just his name.
He sighed. Now he felt like a total selfish shit. What sort of a mate would he be if he ignored the worry in his friend’s eyes?
This was going to end badly. ‘I’ll contact the Southern Campdrafters Association,’ he said wearily, ‘and have the Ironbark Campdraft reinstated on the calendar.’
CHAPTER
12
Hannah could have recited her third year Bachelor of Veterinary Science lecture notes on the feline reproduction system with her eyes closed, but she had them propped up on the whiteboard anyway. It paid to be careful.
It especially paid to be careful when your hands weren’t the steadiest and the subject matter was making you cry.
Speying a cat: first, an incision is made in the midline of the belly, into which a spey hook is inserted to locate the body of the uterus. The ovarian ligament can then be broken and the ovarian artery tied off. Repeat for remaining ovary, and then follow the uterine horns to the uterine body. Tie off and remove.
So many unwanted kittens in the world. Out they popped, willy-nilly, little furry feet and pink noses for their mother cats to love and yes, sure, okay, six weeks later they were out in the wild decimating the local populations of quokkas and skinks and willy wagtails … She got it. Feral cats were a problem.
But still, there was an inherent unfairness to being obliged to sabotage the uterine horns of one animal while at the same time all you could think about was your own uterine horns.
By quarter to nine on Monday morning, however, the cat’s ordeal was done, and the animal lay tucked under a little warming blanket, sleeping off her anaesthesia. Hannah bent down and listened to the snubby little muzzle breathe in and out and used the last of the clean swabs to remove the tears from her cheeks. Her own cheeks. Not the cat’s, obviously.
Josh had disappeared shortly after eight to grab a coffee and then head out for a day of blood-testing cattle, for which she was mighty thankful. She was sick of looking at his long face and ashamed of herself for having put the expression there. She needed a break from thinking about herself and being busy at work was the greatest respite she knew.
By late morning she’d rescued a pet rat from a juvenile olive python and felt compelled to keep its shocked, quivering little body in the front pocket of her scrubs until it fell asleep eating a lettuce leaf. She’d wormed and vaccinated a litter of eight-week-old wirehaired terriers and had to hold all of them—all eight—to her cheek, and she’d paid so many bills and caught up on so many patient records, her desk in the back office looked positively bare.
What now?
The post-it note with her GP’s phone number was stuck on the bottom of her computer screen, where Josh had left it before he cleared off.
No, nope. Not ready for that.
