Pine Creek by Kamille Roach

Author:Kamille Roach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kamille Roach

What do you mean, there’s something you never told me?

CHAPTER 34

SARA HATED THE drive west into the Central Tablelands. She had only travelled part-way a few times and that was to access running trails. Must-haves safely packed, she drove along the winding, hilly Great Western Highway. She ticked things off in her head: exercise clothes, calorie counter, pillow, emergency contact number (Pene), computer, three bottles of shiraz, the only fresh food she had – apples, tomatoes, bread and eggs – a carton of long-life milk, and several freezer meals. In her cup holder was a travel mug full of black coffee.

Sara checked the rear-view mirror several times and listened to the engine of her Volvo for an off note. She then pulled over to the edge of the road and checked the tyres. She was bodily buffeted by a passing truck as she climbed back inside the car. She slipped an Enya CD into the slot and turned the volume to low. Alternating sips of coffee and water, she checked her teeth for stains in the mirror. Counted four on the in breath, four on the out breath.

When she reached the section of road where the highway had been sliced into the mountainside, the crag still bearing the scars, Sara held her breath. The thick metal guard between the road and the sharp drop into the trees was dented and coloured with paint from cars.

Descending into gentler curves, the road became bordered by fields and big trees. Leaves met overhead, the canopy creating shaded tunnels.

As she drove, Sara imagined the busy shearing shed, her mum with the scones, her dad setting up the empty wool bags. She suddenly missed the inclusion that shearing had once brought. ‘All hands on deck,’ Mum would say as she baked the entire day before.

Sara had loved the warmth and hum of shearing time; the sheep, thick with fleece, mustered into the wooden yards by lithe sheepdogs. The shearers walking around in old blue singlets and patched pants, thick-chested with hands grown big from gripping the handpiece. Bow-legged, bent-backed, they pulled moccasins onto their feet and reversed through swing doors, and then reappeared dragging a sheep by its upper half. With the sheep’s head behind an elbow, they pushed the spiked comb into the woolly topknot, which landed softly on the floor.

Bent double all day, the men pushed the clippers back and forth. The shaft above each shearer spun as the fleece peeled off in big sweeps. The roustabout’s broom kept busy separating the dirty crutchings from the clean wool. Dad ready to hug the fleece, lift and cast it onto the table, clean side up, before Sara and Anne’s fingers nibbled the skirtings. Sara and Anne were always separated from the men by the skirting table and the line Dad made in a hard-heeled walk across the wood floor between them.

Flocks of sheep grazed in the fields bordering the road. Sara remembered the pristine white of the gangly Merinos in the sun after they’d been shorn.

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