Lawson's Bend by Nicole Hurley-Moore

Author:Nicole Hurley-Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2018-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

***

‘So this is what you’ve been up to,’ Dan said as he walked up the stairs of the old barn.

Stephen stopped hammering and turned around at the sound of his friend’s voice. ‘Hey, Dan, how are you going?’

‘Good. I see that you’ve been busy,’ he said, turning in a circle to look at Stephen’s renovation.

‘Yeah, I reckon that’s an understatement.’ He put down the hammer and grabbed a large bottle of water from the makeshift table and took a gulp. ‘When I’m not working on the farm I’m here, and that’s pretty much my life at the moment.’

‘Well, that’s not exactly true, is it?’

Stephen frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Rumour has it that you’ve been spending time with Henny Bolton.’

‘A little, but we’re just friends,’ Stephen said.

Dan chuckled. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘It’s true. Henny doesn’t want a relationship. She’s still pulling herself together after her mum’s death.’

‘Listen, mate, she didn’t even see you when we were kids.’ Dan paused for a second before he went on. ‘All I’m saying is don’t let it happen this time, otherwise you’ll end up in the friend zone forever.’

‘I can’t force her to fall in love with me. I don’t think it works that way.’

‘More’s the pity,’ Dan added with a wink. ‘So are you going to give me the tour?’

Stephen laughed. ‘It’s one big room, Dan—hardly tourworthy.’

‘What made you think you could make this old place liveable, anyway? I mean, it’s pretty dilapidated.’

Stephen grabbed an old crate and sat down on it. ‘There’s another one of these over there,’ he said, pointing to the far end of the room. Dan walked over to retrieve it and sat down facing Stephen. ‘Nah, structurally it’s sound—aesthetically, well, that’s a whole other subject.’

The two-storey barn had sat on the edge of the Drake farm for decades—in fact, it preceded them. When Stephen’s father bought the place in the late eighties the barn was already standing. At some stage the electricity and water had been hooked up and in the beginning Stephen’s dad had used the bottom level of the barn as a storage space and somewhere he could tinker on his old car. The place hadn’t been used very much in the past ten or so years as the Drakes had a newer and grander shed closer to the house.

‘It’s still on the farm but far enough away from the house. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.’

‘What does your dad have to say about it?’

‘He’s okay. Mum had only been gone six months when the whole thing happened at the res. He was rattled, which is one of the reasons I didn’t go away to uni or move out, as you know. I don’t regret my decision but I can’t stay in that house forever.’

‘It’s understandable. I remember Leon saying that his mum wouldn’t let him out of her sight for four years.’

‘Yeah, I think that’s a natural response, but after a while you feel constrained. But I didn’t mind too much, and it wasn’t as if I had a relationship going on like Leon did.

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