‘I imagine every man in Wessex has been enjoying saying that each time they go past.’
‘Well, itisimpressive.’
It was something, that’s for sure. With Elvis being the clear winner of the community vote for Wessex’s mascot, even after a recount, the committee had wasted no time in getting things under way. Emma had been keeping Bel updated on the statue’s progress, but seeing it in person was a whole different experience. It wasenormous, well over seventeen metres tall. Visitors could climb a staircase right up to the top to look out, getting a panoramic view of the main street, which had been given a facelift since Bel had left. Brightly coloured pots of petunias and geraniums sat outside most of the stores, and the street’s facades and verandah posts had been given a fresh coat of paint. It lifted her spirits to see the place looking so much more vibrant.
As they passed by Dwyers’, Bel felt a little tug of affection. It felt like a lifetime since she’d seen the old place.
It had been a little over a year since the wedding and the big flood. Larkin had invited Bel to the one-year anniversary celebration, a reunion of the wedding party for a week-long trip to Vanuatu, where Larkin and Tristan had gone on theirhoneymoon. She’d politely refused, and the current status of the cousins’ relationship was non-speaking.
Bel was okay with that. She’d rather repeatedly kick her little toe on the corner of the table than attend a week-long reunion with Tate. Larkin had told her he was planning to bring a date, as if that would somehow make it better.
The drive out to Emma’s passed by in a blur of landmarks—the O’Donnal’s rusty old milk can letterbox, and further along, the Simpsons’ home-made, brightly painted metal mailbox, which was shaped somewhat like a horse, or donkey—its true identity was an ongoing debate around town, and was made even more confusing by the fact that neither animal was kept on the property. They passed by the faded FLOWERS FOR SALE sign on the old readside stall that hadn’t been used for years, and the little white wooden cross beneath a huge old gumtree, a memorial to Bobby Robinson, who’d died decades earlier in a car accident. All the things that she’d driven by a thousand times and never taken that much notice of. Suddenly they meant something; they were all little markers of home.
The cattle grid at the entrance to Emma and Craig’s driveway rattled beneath Dean’s ute and the house appeared ahead. The brightly coloured play equipment and the massive trampoline, surrounded by neatly kept shrubs and flowerbeds, was still there in the front yard. Everything looked the same, only Bel felt a sadness lingering. No laughing children playedon the equipment, no one rode the bikes that lay on their sides, abandoned, and it was unusually quiet.
Bel went to help unload her suitcases, but Dean waved her away. ‘You go up and say hello. I can bring these in.’
The front door opened with its familiar squeak and Bel looked up to see Ayla, Emma and Craig’s eldest, standing in the doorway. Her heart lurched at the child’s hesitant expression. Once Ayla would have run down the stairs to greet her with a huge hug. She was now eight, and taller than when Bel had last seen her. Jack the cattle dog stood protectively by the child’s side until he recognised Bel. His thick tail thumped on the floor and she smiled slightly at the dopey grin on his blue-grey face.
‘Hello,’ Bel said, stepping closer to Ayla. ‘Look how tall you’ve got.’
‘Hello,’ Ayla said, almost shyly. ‘Are you here to look after us?’
‘I am. I came back to give Mum a hand. Where are the others?’
‘In their rooms. Mrs Sheppard said we all needed to give her a break.’
Bel remembered Mrs Sheppard from her gran’s CWA days. She could understand the woman maybe needing a little rest. She’d seemed old when Bel was a kid, so she had no idea what age she was now, but she probably wasn’t up to running after four active children.
She made her way inside and found Mrs Sheppard in the kitchen. She greeted the older woman, who somehowmanaged to look exactly as Bel remembered her as a kid, and Bel barely had time to ask how she was before Mrs Sheppard was grabbing her handbag and bustling out the door. ‘Thank you,’ Bel called, and Mrs Sheppard gave her a wave without turning around.
Bel turned back to Ayla with narrowed eyes. ‘Did you guys give Mrs Sheppard a hard time?’
‘No,’ Ayla said with a beguiling innocence that may have fooled some people but not Bel, who’d know the child since she’d been in the womb.
‘Ayla Louise Prichard,’ Bel said, planting her hands on her hips.
‘We didn’t do nothing. She said we were being too noisy and sent us to our rooms.’
Bel decided to give Ayla the benefit of the doubt, seeing as Mrs Sheppard’s days of being able to handle loud children were probably long gone. Emma had been stressed enough trying to sort out the kids’ situation from Sydney, being unable to take care of them herself and with her parents travelling overseas. The ladies of Wessex had been doing shifts in the Prichard house so as not to disrupt the children’s routine even more.
‘Okay. Well, let’s go and tell the others they can come out. We’ve got a lot of stuff to do.’
‘Like what?’ Ayla asked curiously.
‘Like having fun,’ Bel said.
‘So we don’t have to go to school?’ the little girl asked hopefully.
‘Funafterschool,’ Bel amended as she walked down the hallway to the bedrooms.
She opened the door to Ben’s room. ‘Hey, kiddo.’
The little boy looked up from a picture book and Bel felt her heart break a little. Where was the lively little ratbag she used to know? ‘Hello, Aunty Bel. Are you here to take care of us?’
‘I sure am,’ she said, crossing to the bed and sitting down. ‘Is that okay?’
He shrugged and turned back to his book.
