The Last Dingo Summer by Jackie French

Author:Jackie French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

Correction: The winner of the annual Gibber’s Creek chainsaw sculpture competition was Jim Headmore, not Headless. Apologies, Jam!

SCARLETT

The sink was full of dirty dishes. Alex was happy to wash up, but only when someone asked him to. He didn’t seem to notice mess. Or maybe he thought that pixies came out at night to clean it up. She supposed his grandmother had done the housework when he was young, and in her experience, everyone in a communal house like the one he’d been in before he came to live with her left the washing-up ‘to soak’, until the crud dissolved or the saucepans evaporated with the end of the universe. Wanting a clean house was a shameful example of the ‘white Protestant work ethic’, though everyone she knew who wasn’t white, or Protestant, also preferred their dishes clean . . .

Scarlett dumped her bag in her bedroom, then wheeled out to clean up the sink before she put dinner on.

Pepper steaks, she decided, because Alex loved pepper steak, and it was quick to make. She shoved a couple of potatoes in the oven, checked there was sour cream in the fridge, noticed two bottles of beer that had not been there when she went out and there was no milk and bread left, and they’d need both for breakfast. She rang through a short but urgent shopping list to be delivered before the shops shut at six pm, then got to work with the suds.

Coffee mugs, with dried sludge at the bottom. Yuck. Alex refused to drink instant coffee, and though he was right — it didn’t really taste of anything — at least it didn’t leave a mess. Dinner plates with gravy stains, glasses with . . .

She stopped, gazing at the glass in her hand. A glass with a lipstick stain. And not her colour lipstick; nor had she left a lipstick-stained glass behind her when she’d left for home.

Home, she thought. I love Alex. Of course I love Alex. But Dribble is still my home.

Fish would say that was significant. And I am thinking of Fish because I do not want to think about lipstick. Pale pink lipstick, just like Barbara wears . . .

Barbara had been after Alex since their first year as students. He’d admitted sleeping with her ‘a few times’, whatever that meant, in that first year too . . .

The door opened. ‘Wonderful, you’re back. I’ve missed you.’ Alex loped over and kissed the top of her head. She thought of Jed’s words and grabbed his hand, then rose, almost completely steady now, and held her mouth up to his. He hesitated, then kissed her, a firm brief kiss, tasting slightly of the curry he must have had for lunch, that left her wanting much, much more.

‘How was Jed?’ He moved over to open the fridge, took out a bottle of tomato juice, poured himself a glass, then added Tabasco. ‘Want some?’

‘Yes, please.’ She carefully washed the offending glass and put it in the rack.

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