Or sad. Jo guessed it depended on your perspective.
‘Looks like another stump’s gone,’ said Ethel. ‘My mother would have a conniption if she could see the state this house is in.’
Ethel and Dot had been waiting for Jo when she and Luke had pulled into the yard that abutted the homestead. Their old two-tone station wagon was parked beside a lean-to that still housed a utility truck, one of those ones you’d see in old-fashioned movies with a great curved bonnet and a lot of chrome trim. Ethel’s hair, when she climbed out of the car to greet them, was still shining damp from a morning wash and she’d smelled like cold cream.
‘And who’s this young man?’ she’d said, her eyes on Luke.
‘This is my son, Luke. He’s volunteering on our dinosaur dig since he’s on school holidays.’
‘Hello, Luke. I hope you like boiled chocolate cake, because there’s a big one sitting in that Tupperware box on Dot’s knee.’
Dot was waving through the windscreen.
‘Um …’ Luke looked at Jo with slightly panicked eyes.
Jo laughed. ‘I think the word “boiled” has scared him, Ethel. Don’t worry, Luke, it’s normal cake. You’ll love it, I promise.’ She turned to Ethel. ‘Is Dot okay?’
‘Not too chipper this morning,’ Ethel had said. ‘But she won’t want you to make a fuss.’
Hmm. Maggie’s words of caution floated back to her. Perhaps she could encourage the Dirt Girls not to linger too long at the dig site today.
‘Does everything look the way you remember it?’ said Jo as they wandered deeper into the house.
‘A little dustier. But otherwise, yes.’
They went into the kitchen and the mouse smell grew stronger. Jo tried the tap, but nothing came out.
‘The tank’s disconnected, pet,’ Ethel said. ‘There was a leak some years back, and not enough money around for a fix.’
A thin timber shelf ran along the wall above a counter and a gap where an upright stove must once have stood. The shelf had cup hooks dotted along it, and it was easy to imagine a pretty set of cups and saucers displayed along its length; the very ones she’d seen in the display cabinet last week, perhaps. Curtains hung at the window over the sink, faded almost to calico, but the faint impressions of large cheerful flowers were just visible.
There were two bedrooms, one painted pink and one painted yellow. They were small and stuffy, their windows shut tight and nothing furnishing them but for specks ofPeriplaneta australasiaedroppings (or cockroach poop, as Luke would say) where the lino floor had cracked. There was no sign that anyone had visited in the last decade, let alone the last few weeks.
‘Did the police come here, Ethel?’
‘If they did, they didn’t use my keys to do it. There’d have been nothing stopping them lifting a sliding door off its tracks and having a look around. I don’t know why we bother locking the front door, really. We never did when we lived here. You want to see the sheds, too?’
‘If you don’t mind. Hux wanted to be sure no-one’s been using this place as a hideout.’
‘He’s certainly doing everything he can to help his friend.’
‘Yes. I guess he is.’
‘Come on then. Let’s do a quick tour and then we can get going down to the dig site. I don’t know anything about missing men and hideouts, but I’ve got a feeling about our dig site, pet. A real good feeling.’
Ethel’s enthusiasm was catching. Jo had a feeling herself.
Right.
Here they were, finally, the whole team, standing on the edge of the dig site, ready to proceed. Everything looked perfect: red soil; a nearby gum tree with bark the colour of milk and leaves a muted green; spinifex tufts looking like wombats with long greenish hair. This wasexciting.
Ethel could clearly feel it too: she was rolling up her shirt sleeves as though she was ready, there and then, to be given a spade. ‘I’d love to get my hands dirty again. Dot, too.’
Jo smiled. Ethel was keen, but should she be jumping down a metre-deep hole? A broken hip was the last thing they needed out here. ‘I’ll need someone to look through our spoils for fragments,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you and Dot can do that from inside the shade tent.’
‘I’ll handle that,’ said Ethel. ‘Dot’s got her wonky eye.’
Of course.