Push

We talked about kids, about Nora's grandkids and about Christmas. Nora asked about Keith's business, and how it was going.'

'Business is good,' I replied. 'Keith's had a lot of 'come and fix the problems your competitor created' projects. The hardest part is he wants to gloat when they call him, but he has to be subtle.'

Nora grinned. 'I'd pay good money to see you keeping that opinionated mouth shut, Keithie.'

Keith rolled his eyes good naturedly. 'It's not that much of a stretch, is it?'

Nora and I laughed.

'Have you rented the farmhouse out?' I asked her, changing the subject.

'I've been renting it out on Air BnB,' Nora said. 'I'm getting a decent amount of money out of it.'

'Did you ever want to live there?' Keith asked. 'Excuse me if I'm being presumptuous, but didn't you and Rob have plans to move in together? And if he was a farmer, presumably he wouldn't be coming to live with you.'

The question seemed to shock Nora. She shook her head.

'No, Keith,' she said. 'Rob wasn't my lover.'

'I'm sorry,' I apologised for my husband. 'We just assumed...'

Nora waved aside my apology. 'Everyone assumed, Penny. I know what they were thinking, and why they were thinking it. It's easy enough to align random happenings and come up with a certain conclusion that makes perfect sense, and yet is also perfectly wrong.'

We all fell silent.

'I married my husband when I was sixteen,' Nora said suddenly. 'He was twenty-eight. That should have been the first clue. There's a certain sort of man that dates a girl that young, and it's not a good one. God knows why my parents agreed to the union. I know why I agreed; I was at the romantic, impressionable age where 'forever' didn't really seem to mean anything, and Jamie seemed to be a good catch.'

My aunt reached for a cigarette and lit it. 'He started hitting me within months of the wedding. I ran home. My parents sent me back. I ran off with another man, a shearer, but someone tipped Jamie off as to where I was hiding, and he and his mates came around and found us.' She paused, her face and tone bitter. 'I was eighteen, and Jamie decided it was time we had a family. I agreed, because I thought he wouldn't hit a pregnant woman, but I was wrong.

I was twenty-one, with a toddler and a newborn when he beat me so badly I thought 'I have to get away'. I thought 'well, I'll go the police', but we had a new recruit on the force. Rob. He wasn't always a farmer, back when he was young and his parents were running the farm, he obviously had to go elsewhere to make money so the police force it was. It wasn't a career that suited him. He saw me, he saw my bruises, he heard my story, and do you know what he said to me?'

Keith and I shook our heads.

'He said 'go back and learn to be a good wife and Jamie won't hit you. Your silly stories will ruin his name. Just because he lost his temper once doesn't mean he's a bad man.'' Kitty paused, drew on her cigarette. 'I thought 'oh, this is it. I have to go back home'. So I did. I had two more children to him, and endured years of beating. Just about every week there was a new bruise, a new cut, a concussion or a broken bone. And everybody knew, everybody saw me, and God, God in hindsight it's almost funny how they'd pretend they hadn't seen me, or if they couldn't avoid me, how they'd pretend my eye wasn't swollen shut, or my arms weren't bruised. Nobody cared, because I'd done the unthinkable, I'd run off with a shearer. Penance, it was, that's how they saw it, penance.'

Keith lit a cigarette. 'Christ, I'm sorry.'

Nora stared darkly at the street. 'Thank God he met someone else. Thank God he left me. Everyone thinks I kicked him out, but that's just the sob story he told his parents. I didn't care what he told anyone, all I cared was that he'd gone. I wept with pure happiness the day I realised he was never going to come back. Then I got a job at the pub, took over paying the mortgage, and just got on with things. Rob's parents died and he inherited their farm and left the police force. Then, a few years' back, Rob himself fell off the perch. He'd been gone three days before anyone found his body. His wife had long left him and his son was in jail for fiddling with young kids.

A sad end but one he fucking deserved. I certainly didn't shed any tears. I wasn't even going to attend his funeral, but his solicitor contacted me and told me about the will, so I went. I thought I might as well play the game, and let everyone think I was his lover, because they're going to find out I was his beneficiary sooner or later. If they thought I was his secret partner, they'd be less likely to spread mean gossip. I can deal with gossip, but not the mean, vindictive, nasty kind.'

'Maybe Rob felt guilty,' I suggested.

'Maybe,' Nora said. 'His ex-wife and son were furious that I scooped the lot. They both tried to sue. They both failed. The will was rock solid.'

'Did you ever feel morally pressured to give them some of the estate?' I asked.

'Maybe sometimes, but Rob, for whatever reason, obviously wanted me to have the place. The funny thing is, most people around here assumed Rob and I had commenced a secret relationship and for whatever reason, all my sins of the past were forgotten, and it was even seen as the 'right' thing that Rob left his property to me.' A grin crept over her face. 'I don't know how they'd feel about me if they knew how many couples I'd secretly joined in bed over the years.'

Keith, Nora and I laughed.

'Ah, fuck,' Nora said. 'Life is a funny thing.'

'Do you still meet up with the couples?' Keith asked.

Nora shook her head. 'No honey, I have a lady friend these days, and we keep it very quiet. But tell me, how did you two find my friends? Did either of you keep in contact with Chris or Kitty? Because I hate to admit I'm a nosey old bitch, but I'd love to know a few more snippets of information on what went wrong with those two.'

'No, we didn't keep in contact,' I said, intrigued. 'What do you mean 'what went wrong'?'

'They separated,' Nora said. 'Kitty just upped and left one day. She took her son with her, but sent him back to his father a few months later. Seems she'd returned to carnie life, and it was too hard to drag a young child around from pillar to post with her.'

'Wow,' I remarked. I turned to Keith. 'Could you imagine?'

'Could I imagine?' Keith repeated. 'I could see it a mile off.'

We fell into silence. The day was hot and I was suddenly emotionally tired, even though we were still months away from retail workers having their penalty rates cut, and droughts being declared, and new coal mines procuring financing.

I thought of an ex-cop who felt so guilty about not helping a domestic violence victim that he left her his estate, and a girl with chameleon green nail wraps and the son she'd sent to live with his father, and wondered if any of us ever really knew the full story, about anything, anywhere, anyone, or if we were all just guessing, just hoping to get through the day.

The End