Wingnut

Unlike Luke, Jock did not have a good time at the farmer's markets. Luke had no problems determining why; he could clearly imagine Jock glowering at women, who as a gender he disliked, from behind a table stacked with cherry tomatoes, beans, peas, grapes, strawberries and corn (the current seasonal surplus), while berating their offspring for dare putting their sticky fingers over his produce.

Jock certainly wouldn't pull out a pocket knife and carve faces into giant radish or carrot – why anyone had ever thought to grow radish eluded Luke, because if ever there was a devil's food, this was it, and needless to say it grew like bloody wildfire on his property – and hand it to an intrigued child. He wouldn't ever be 'the man who can carve things with the big knife', and nor was he the type to exchange leftover produce with other vendors at the end of the day, and come home with a loaf of artisan bread, a piece of organic rump, half a dozen eggs and some home grown honey.

Nope, Jock had instead managed to be banned from one market, threatened with the same from another and have experienced some of the most miserable takings in the history of Luke's forays into the farmer's markets.

'Ah, here he comes, Mister Farmer himself,' Jock announced to the five other drinkers. 'He tells us all he makes money out of the markets, and he sure had me conned, but all I did was waste five days of my life that I'm never getting back.'

'You were the one who insisted on taking my place,' Luke replied diplomatically. 'I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.'

'You owe me for the time I wasted!' Jock exclaimed. 'Eight hours a day I reckon, for five days, at fifty dollars an hour. That's two thousand dollars.'

'Two thousand dollars?' Luke snorted.

'What, you thinking about paying Robbie the money you owe him?' Joe Eastwood interjected. A childhood friend of Robbie's, he was well aware of the debt Jock owed, and the trouble it was causing the young electrician. 'Because last I spoke to him, you were still in debt to the tune of twenty-two hundred. He isn't a charity, Jock.'

Jock's face turned purple.

'I'm not paying that bastard a penny! He ripped me off,' Jock exclaimed.

'Ripped you off?' Joe echoed incredulously. 'You still believing the lies Tim Riordan tells? You got a good deal.'

Luke Wilms sipped his beer.

'Maybe we should do a show of hands?' Luke suggested sardonically. 'We'll see who hasn't ripped poor, honest Jock off.'

'You fucking...' Jock began.

But he was swiftly cut off by the bartender, who icily reminded Jock that there was a woman in the bar, and he could take his temper and foul language elsewhere.

'I'll never drink here again,' Jock spat. 'Fuck you all.'

He stormed out of the bar and towards his five year old Mazda ute. Luke wasn't sad to see him go. The only thing he regretted was, as the bartender remarked, that Jock was almost guaranteed to return to the drinking hole within the next week. How many times had he stormed out after arguments with other patrons? It had to be a dozen, at the very least.

Luke drank some beer and stared at the sole female patron out the corner of his eye. He'd noticed her when he'd first walked in, but he hadn't recognised her, and had assumed she was here with a partner who was off taking a piss. But no man had come out of the bathrooms, and the more Luke stared at her, the more he saw a nervous twitch at the corner of her eye.

Perhaps the verbal spat with Jock had rattled her? If so, he was genuinely sorry. He didn't like to cause a lady any trouble, particularly not a pretty one like this one.

'Apologies for that, little lady,' he said, catching her eye. 'Jock's one of our local characters.'

The woman smiled quickly. She was in her mid-forties and not the typical patron at a country pub. Her cut off jeans and tee revealed a toned, tanned body that was in remarkably good nick, a decent sized chest and strong arms. She was either in a manual job or she worked out. Probably the latter, if her manicured nails were anything to go by. Her blonde hair was mid length and wavy, and her brown eyes were fringed with mascara-coated lashes.

'It doesn't matter,' she said. 'I'm just passing through.'

Luke's curiosity was piqued.

'Where are you off to?' he asked.

'Oh, I'm not sure yet,' she said with a smile. Her teeth were straight and white, but naturally so, not bleached the fluorescent white shade that television stars seemed to prefer. 'I'll see when I get there.'

There was a waver to her voice that suggested that her smiles and confidence were nothing but a front. She was on the run. From a man, probably. There was no wedding ring on her hand, but she wore a gold link bracelet, necklace and earrings, none of which looked cheap.

Why had she stopped here? Knowing what he did about women, Luke guessed it was to use the bathroom and to take a breather. She wasn't exactly anonymous here, but on the other hand, who would think to look for her at a country pub?

'You get an early start this morning?' he asked.

She nodded. 'Left home just after ten. Been driving non-stop.'

'Any chance he's following you?'

Her head jerked up. That had caught her attention.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' she lied.

Luke shrugged.

'Was just going to offer you somewhere to spend the night, if you need to rest your head,' he said. 'No offence meant.'

The woman returned to her drink. The bar was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

After a while, the woman looked up at Luke, a fearful expression on her face.

'I don't have much money,' she said.

'That's okay,' he said. 'I'm not asking for payment.' He paused. 'No payment at all, you understand?' he added, just in case she thought he might want sex.

The woman stared at her drink. She weighed up the offer, and just when Luke was convinced she was going to decline it, she surprised him by accepting it.

'I'll be gone tomorrow,' she promised.

'It's up to you,' he said.

Ten minutes later, she was following him out to the car park.

'My name's Shelley,' she said.

'Luke. Luke Wilms.' He offered his hand.

Shelley shook it. She gave him a tired smile, the smile of a woman who'd seen too much and needed to put her feet up for a day or two.

'It's nice to meet you, Luke.'

~~~~~~~~~

Jason Hobbs, more commonly known as Wingnut, due to the unfortunate combination of male pattern baldness and protruding ears, watched Luke and Shelly leave the pub.

Thirty-three years of age, five foot nine and scrawny, he rarely drank at the bar, instead preferring to go home to his wife and son. He'd been introduced to his wife by mutual 'friends' nine years ago, when some smart arsed little fucks had been taking the piss out of him for not having graduated high school, let alone university. They said they had the perfect woman for him, someone just as lacking in ambitious and brains.

Until the night he arrived at Amanda's parent's house to take her to Hogs Breath for dinner, every woman he'd been with had been white and skinny. Not through choice, more through random coincidence, though his friends hadn't been aware of that. They'd been convinced size eight white girls were his type, and thought it would be hilarious to set him up with a short, fat, Chinese-Australian girl who worked for a large supermarket chain.

The journey to Hog's Breath was nerve wracking. He'd never liked dating. But when they arrived, and Amanda ordered a mega cut prime rib with fries and veggies, and washed it down with Victoria Bitter, he found himself staring at her.

Amanda met his gaze.

'I'm not even going to pretend I got this body by accident,' she said. 'There's no thyroid problem. I just like food.'

Those words harked the end of his days as a single man. After dinner he invited her back to his share house, and the next morning he kicked out his four-weeks-behind-in-the-rent housemate and took Amanda back to her house to pick up her clothes. They got married six months later in a traditional Chinese wedding, and Jason gave up pretending he had a normal hairline, shaved his head and grew a beard.

They'd moved from Brisbane to the country two years ago when Amanda was offered a job as assistant store manager. Their son was two at the time, young enough to be transportable, and Jason was confident he'd quickly find work. Since leaving school at sixteen, when his mother had announced he had two options; convince his father to start paying child support, or get a job and pay his own way, Jason had worked in a number of jobs. Landscape yards, golf courses, schools, warehouses and civil construction, he'd done the lot.

He'd known he wouldn't have any troubles finding work, and he hadn't. He did a few shitful weeks in labour hire, mainly on farms, and quickly showed he was a man who could operate machinery with a level of skill others could only dream of. Jason now worked a minimum of twenty hours a week for Kyle O'Sullivan, one or two days a week with a landscaper, and ran a small slashing and mowing business.

His wife was a full-time, permanent employee and she received holiday and long service leave benefits, whereas if Jason wasn't working, he wasn't getting paid. For that reason, when her parents requested the couple join them on a trip back to China, Jason elected to stay behind. The cost of his fights, plus four week's lost wages was just a touch too much for them to stomach, and as it was, they were headed into winter when he'd get less work.

Jason's wife and son had boarded the China Southern flight two hours ago and he was already bored and lonely without them, hence his trip to the pub.

'What do you reckon?' Joe asked him. 'How long will it be until Jock's back here drinking again?'

'A week, maybe two, max,' Jason guessed. 'He rang me up a few weeks ago and asked to hire my slasher attachment. I wasn't using it when he wanted it, so I told him my rates. He told me to fuck off, that he'd die before paying that. He rang me back that night and told me it was daylight robbery, but he'd pay it.'

Joe laughed. 'How bad were your rates?'

'I thought they were pretty good. He always pays cash when he hires equipment, or has me in to do something.'

'You reckon he actually knows what a bank is?'

'Yeah, he does, but he says he prefers the old school system of cash wherever possible,' Jason said. 'I reckon he also likes the feeling of power when he counts cash out in my hand. Let's me remember that I'm a fly-in pleb and he's a landowner.'

Joe rolled his eyes in disgust.

'I don't know how you stand it,' he said.

'Money's money. Besides, I make him pay me up front nowadays.' Jason paused. 'You said something earlier to Joe about him owing your mate money. What's the deal with that?'

'Exactly as I said,' Joe replied. 'Jock hired one of my mates to rewire his house. My mate did the work, presented the bill, and Jock decided it was too much and he wasn't going to pay.'

'Did your friend provide a quote?'

'Yep, wrote one out for Jock, and only ended up going fifty dollars over. There was a small, unforeseen problem. It was a great price for the work, but my mate's old employer got in Jock's ear and convinced him that Robbie was screwing him over. Jock now wants Robbie to reissue the invoice for twelve hundred and he says when Robbie does it, he'll pay in full, but not a day before then.'

Fire burned in Jason's belly at the idea of Jock taking advantage of a tradesmen like that. He had no problems whatsoever believing the tale, because Jock was known for this sort of shit, and it irritated the death out of him.

'What's your mate going to do?' Jason asked.

'I don't know. If it went to Court, Robbie'd probably win, but then there'd be the time and money involved.'

'So Robbie either needs to accept twelve hundred or nothing,' Jason stated.

'Yeah. And the way things are going for Robbie, I reckon he's going to crack and accept the twelve hundred, just so he doesn't walk away entirely empty handed.'

'Unless he manages to convince Jock to pay in full,' Jason mused. 'You reckon he's got a chance of doing that?'

'Not unless he threatens physical violence. Even then,' Joe shrugged. 'Robbie would end up buried in a hole. Jock can and would shoot him, and Robbie knows it. He keeps a loaded rifle under his couch. I remember him talking to my Dad about it.'

'He keeps his cash tin in his pantry,' Jason mused aloud.

'You've gotta walk through the lounge to get to the kitchen,' Joe said. 'I remember him saying that, too. He said every man should have a firearm and cash at the ready, but to have the firearm accessible before the cash, because money's no good if you're dead.'

~~~~~~~~~~

If it was possible to feel like less of a man, Robbie would have loved to know how.

On the floor of the van, tucked inside his overnight bag, were a brand new pair of jeans, shirt, and belt. They were clothes that Audrey had bought for him to wear when they went out to dinner on Saturday night. The gift had been a cold, hard punch to the gut, not because she wanted him to dress differently to how he normally dressed, but because she wanted – needed – him to dress in newer, less shabby clothes.

The friends had been city people, slick and professional, all in white collar, professional jobs. All lived within six kilometres of the central business district. None had had anything in common with him, and all had exclaimed 'where?' when he tried to explain where he lived. Thank fuck he hadn't told them he lived in a converted shipping container.

One of Audrey's friends had noticed that she paid for both his and her meals. The woman's eyes had narrowed and an expression of distaste had crossed her face. Robbie knew what she was thinking. Why had her friend dragged this bumpkin from the middle of nowhere into Brisbane, and why in fuck's name was she paying for his meal?

Yeah. So... yeah. Fuck.

A hard lump formed in the back of his throat and he wondered if he'd cry or scream first.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luke's weekend with Shelley had been, in a word, interesting.

She hadn't said much about her past. They both knew she was running from a man, but whether he was a husband or boyfriend or pimp was unclear. She wasn't an innocent, that was for sure. There was a hardness about her, despite her anxiety, and he was confident she'd earned a few dollars either dancing around a pole or on her back.

He'd made up a bed in one of the spare bedrooms, and she'd slept there on Friday night. She'd woken early and cooked him sausages and eggs for breakfast, and he'd eaten the meal while eyeing her up with a mixture of curiosity, concern and lust.

As he stared at her, it occurred to him that he hadn't seen her check her phone. Odd. Everyone was always checking their phones these days, reading their email, messaging people, searching for dirty pictures and movies to wank over. There was a whole world of possibilities crammed within the plastic and metal devices.

'If you need to charge your phone, just plug it in,' he said.

'Do you get service out here?'

'Here you do. There's a booster tower, at least I think that's what you call it, down the road. I never have any issues making or receiving calls.'

'It's okay,' she said. 'I don't have a phone.'

Bullshit you don't, he thought. He had no doubt she had one, it was obviously just being hidden away for some reason. Perhaps she didn't want anyone tracking her. That could be it. Phones could be used to track people, couldn't they?

Shelley saw him growing wary, and neatly changed the subject, not realising that by doing so she was only increasing his suspicion.

'Any plans for today?' she asked.

'Nope,' he replied. 'Just going to do some work on the farm.'

Four acres of cultivation was really more of a large garden than a farm, but most of the locals found his endeavours hilarious, and because they laughingly called it his 'farm', he found himself doing the same.

'Need a hand?' she asked.

'Sure, if you're bored. Just keep an eye out for Jock. He likes to keep an eye on what I'm doing and give advice. He's the reason the last owners sold the place. He pissed off the wife so much she took a backpack sprayer filled with glyphosate and drew a cock and balls in his front lawn.'

'I'll keep that in mind,' she agreed.

Normally Luke wouldn't have encouraged a lady friend to help out, but he was curious about Shelley. She wasn't forthcoming in talking about herself, and had evaded all of his questions the night before, so he thought he might put her out in a field and see if she knew what to do.

'Well,' he said. 'That was the best breakfast I've had in a while. How about we get dressed and head out? You got a pair of boots with you?'

'Uh, no.'

'Never mind. Wear your oldest jeans, shirt and shoes and I'll do my best to keep you looking pretty.'

'I should have something like that in the car,' she said. 'I only took one of my suitcases in last night.'

Shelley had an old Ford Longreach panel van with New South Wales plates. Luke had made a note of the registration details, though he wouldn't have been surprised to learn the car or the plates or both were stolen or borrowed. It was currently parked out the front of his house, under a Jacaranda tree.

Half an hour later, the two of them were at the farm shed. Luke had an impressive amount of machinery and equipment for a hobby farmer. The owners before him had had a love of shiny toys, and Luke himself was not exactly much better in that regard. He'd always loved trucks, cars, anything that went forward or back and had a motor, really.

'Is this an organic farm?' Shelley asked, picking up a book about organic pest control and flicking through.

'No, not anymore. It used to be, it even hard organic certification, but it lapsed when Jock sprayed the place.'

'This Jock sounds like an interesting character,' Shelley said. 'Why did he spray it?'

'There was a problem with caterpillars.' He nodded his head towards a large container. 'The old owners used this, which is certified for use on organic farms. I've used it twice myself, and found it worked well. Jock didn't agree. He thought he had a better solution. Ended up killing half their crops and lost them their organic certification to boot. When they complained, he told them their hobby farming was costing his real farm money and they could go and fuck themselves.'

'Was he costing them money?'

'I'm hard pressed to understand how a minor caterpillar problem, that was being managed, would cause Jock any real financial harm,' Luke replied drily. 'This place was immaculate when I bought it, better than it is now.'

'Wow. To an untrained eye, it looks spectacular. It's exactly what you would imagine a farm to look like.'

The same sentiment had been echoed by more than one woman that Luke had taken home, but he didn't mention that. Instead, he shrugged.

'Jock's a troublemaker,' he said. 'Three weeks after he sprayed their crops, the woman went to the local farm supplies store and bought the round-up. She sprayed his lawn, then went home and she and her husband listed their place for sale. They'd had enough of him and his shenanigans. By all accounts, he'd been horrible to them from day dot.'

'Why?'

'This property intersects two parcels of land owned by Jock. If he owned it, or the owners just left it to lie fallow and didn't mind him trampling all over it, he'd save a bit of time moving machinery and livestock around. He actually wanted to buy it, but because there's a house on it, the price has always been too high for him to stomach. He also hates hobby farmers. And women.'

Shelley put the book down.

'Sounds like a real charmer,' she said.