The Rouseabout Read online

  Penguin Books

  the

  Rouseabout

  Rachael Treasure lives on a sheep farm in Tasmania with her husband, John, and her children, Rosie and Charlie. Together they breed and train kelpies, border collies and Waler stockhorses.

  Rachael has an exciting, ever-changing website at www.rachaeltreasure.com featuring stories from her life on the farm and working-dog training information.

  PRAISE FOR RACHAEL TREASURE’S BESTSELLERS

  Jillaroo

  ‘Rebecca is a wonderful character being both feisty and fallible … The author’s solid and believable characters and plot … make Jillaroo a widely appealing read. In short, a real treasure.’

  Australian Bookseller and Publisher

  ‘Jillaroo has plenty of laughs, tears and emotion – this is a rural romance novel that will be enjoyed by generation X’

  The Weekly Times

  The Stockmen

  ‘I loved this honest and heartfelt tale of life on the land – it captures the very essence of being Australian.’

  Tania Kernaghan

  ‘… this is a terrific book – compelling, gritty, sexy, moving and funny – with some vibrant characters, set against heart-stoppingly beautiful Australian countryside. It’s so well depicted you’ll want to flee the city and find your very own stockman …’

  Australian Women’s Weekly

  The Rouseabout

  ‘A heartwarming look at women on the land’

  Who Weekly

  ‘Kate is a true Aussie heroine’

  Newcastle Herald

  ‘A rollicking good read’

  Brisbane Courier Mail

  RACHAEL

  TREASURE

  the

  Rouseabout

  Penguin Books

  For my mother, Jenny Smith, and in memory of my grandmothers, Edna May Smith and Joan Mary Wise.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Australia)

  250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada)

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd

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  Penguin Ireland

  25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd

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  Penguin Group (NZ)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2005

  This edition published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2008

  Text copyright © Rachael Treasure 2008

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Based on an original script by Rachael Treasure developed with assistance from Screen Tasmania.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  penguin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228438-5

  Chapter One

  Kate Webster hung upside down on the spindly Hills hoist in the backyard of her rented house in Orange. She felt her temples pulse with blood and the bite of the clothesline’s metal bars behind her knees. Her long dark hair hung down and brushed the brittle, neglected lawn. From other, leafier gardens, the smell of suburban dinners drifted over the fence into her own barren yard. Swinging gently, Kate raised a tacky plastic sheep trophy to the dusky pink sky. Gold plastic glinted in the evening light.

  ‘Whoo-hoo! Victory is sweet!’ she hollered. With her other hand, she lifted a chunky brown stubbie from the ground and clanked it against the bottle of the bloke hanging beside her. He looked cute, Kate thought. Even upside down, with the first-place blue ribbon tied about his head in a big kewpie-doll bow. Christ, she thought, as drunkenness rushed to her head. Did I win him too? What was his name again?

  Kate thought back over her day. She was supposed to have been working, dishing out sound, serious advice to farmers at the Orange Field Day in her shapeless navy polo shirt with the Department of Agriculture logo stamped above her right boob.

  Even though it was her first field day, she’d engaged the farmers straightaway. It wasn’t just her pretty young face that drew them in. It was also her earthiness, the fact that she was recognisably one of them; the way she casually kicked the dirt with the toe of her unpolished boot as if inspecting the soil and root systems of pastures, her arms folded across her chest. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the men as she talked. Despite her greenness within the department, Kate realised she could do this job on her ear.

  So, not long after lunch, she’d done a runner from the department’s display and entered herself in a sheep-counting competition. When her turn came, she relished being in the dusty yards with the sheep, instantly judging the sheep’s flight zone, summing up how toey they would be. When she had them sussed she swung the gate open a little way, and as the lead sheep darted past she began to flick her hand in the sheep’s direction, counting. Just as she did back home on the farm. She quickly tallied the big-framed wethers, scanning them with intense dark eyes. Three. Six. Nine. The sheep rattled past, lifting dust with pointed seashell hooves. When Kate reached one hundred she hooked her index finger into the pocket of her faded jeans. At two hundred, she slipped another finger in. Her other hand hovered above the mob as they rushed through the gate. The tail enders bunched and bustled beneath the fug of dust but Kate instinctively stepped towards them to slow the rush and expertly resumed the steady flow.

  Then she was back in the rhythm of the count: 294, 297, 300. Another finger in the pocket, then six final sheep galloped past. The last one baulked before she shut the gate. She turned towards the lanky judge and gave him her tally as the crowd offered up a scattered clap. They watched the strong, curvy girl with the face of a country beauty lob the fence. Then they turned their attention to the next competitor.

  At the end of the competition, trophy and blue ribbon in hand, Kate had made a beeline for the makeshift bar that leaned beneath a rusty corrugated-iron roof. She knew she should have headed back to the department’s display to help her colleagues pack up. But surely one celebratory beer wouldn’t hurt.

  At the bar Kate washed the dust from her throat with a swig of ice-cold beer. The thinning crowd straggled past on their way home. Some had cattle canes, or freebies from the fencing companies, others had bags of brochures on pumps and the latest tractors. Tired mums pushed cranky kids in prams, while husbands trailed behind. The men glanced longingly at the bar. Kate turned her back on them and swigged again at her beer.

  From the other end of the bar a young guy in a blue stock-and-station agent’s shirt had nodded at her. He was wearing a big black cowboy hat, like Tim McGraw on the Country Music Channel. His jaw hadn’t seen a razor for days and his already tanned skin was darkened even deeper with dust.

  ‘
Congratulations,’ the stock agent said, a smile lifting one corner of his sly-dog mouth. ‘Most blokes count in twos, but I noticed you can count in threes.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not “most blokes”,’ Kate said, sending him a cheeky smile that invited him to move over to her. He took up her sheep trophy and ran his fingers across the plastic ridges.

  ‘Pretty rough conformation,’ he said. ‘You’d cull that one for sure.’

  As he sat the trophy back on the bar and fingered the yellow tassels of her blue ribbon, Kate noticed how good his arms looked, strong and tanned, emerging from the casually rolled-up sleeves of his stockie’s shirt. Pen and notebook in his shirt pocket. Mobile phone clipped to his plaited belt. A stock-standard stockie, Kate concluded. But a cute one.

  ‘Another beer?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Kate. ‘Who’s counting?’

  God, she thought now, as she looked at his black hat lying on the lawn beneath the Hills hoist. What was his name again? Was it Andrew? Mark? She shut her eyes and blood pumped behind them. She’d been upside down too long. When she opened her eyes again she was met with the vision of the stockie’s flat, smooth stomach, which revealed itself as his shirt tails drooped towards the crackling dry lawn. Hair on his stomach trailed invitingly towards the silver buckle of his leather belt. He’ll do, Kate thought, ramming her own shirt into her jeans so she didn’t expose her soft, milky white tummy to him. She swigged on her beer again.

  ‘I am Count Kate and I love to count! Ye-ah-ah-ah!’ she sang out. ‘Sesame Street,’ she explained. ‘One of my regular shows. Love it.’

  ‘You also like paddling pools and trikes, by the looks,’ he said, nodding towards the cluster of colourful toys scattered around the yard.

  ‘They belong to my dog, Sheila,’ Kate said. ‘She’s spoilt rotten.’

  At the sound of her name, Sheila emerged from her kennel on the back step to lick at Kate’s upside-down face.

  ‘And I love you too,’ Kate said.

  ‘Your kelpie obviously likes to give you tonguers,’ said the stockie flirtily, his face turning slowly redder in the glow of the sinking sun.

  ‘Tonguers and beer. That’s what she likes.’ Kate tried to prise the dog’s liver-coloured lips apart and pour beer into her mouth. But the old dog was wise to the drunken version of Kate. She sighed and padded off to her mat, her long claws clicking on concrete.

  ‘Not up for a beer, eh? More for me then!’ Kate said, angling the beer to her upturned mouth. She felt the cool liquid fizz out her nostrils. Laughter spluttered from her lips, together with froth, beer and spit.

  ‘Gawd! I hate bat-skolling,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm.

  ‘You’re a crazy girl. But I like it.’

  The stockie swung nearer her so the Hills hoist shuddered. As he pressed his stubble-fringed lips to her mouth, Kate couldn’t stop laughing. The whole clothesline shook. Suddenly, like a twig, it snapped. Kate’s shoulder slammed the solid earth. The stockie fell with her, hitting the dust.

  ‘Ow! I think I broke my bum bone,’ he groaned.

  Kate lay on her back next to him looking up at the evening sky beyond the garish orange tiles of the roof. She shook with laughter and wondered if she would wet herself. As she snorted with hilarity, the stockie rolled over to her, swiping the blue ribbon from his head before gathering her up. He kissed her hungrily with an open mouth, like he was eating a meat pie. His hands grappled under her shirt for her breasts, and he pressed his fingers on her as if he was fat-scoring the backs of prime lambs. As his hand slid across Kate’s midriff, she pulled it away and moved it to her bum. She’d much rather he touch her there. They kissed like that on the suburban lawn in Orange, New South Wales.

  Kate felt detached, as if she was watching it happen from outside herself, knowing she shouldn’t. But as the stockie persisted and she tasted his beer and sweat, she felt the heat rise between her legs. She wanted to feel someone’s skin against hers. Anyone’s, really. A man to make her forget. This bloke would do. She pressed hard against him and plunged her hand into the stale warmth of his jeans.

  But then the phone started to ring inside. It rang and rang. Kate knew who it was. She pulled back from him guiltily.

  ‘I have to get that. I have to go,’ she said.

  Kate resisted waking. The pain of her hangover sliced through her scalp. Her guts rumbled and knotted like twisted sheets. She rolled over to blink at the dawn light invading the room through a crack in the blind. She pulled the pillow over her head but she knew there was no escaping it. She could still hear Nell in the next room.

  ‘Mummy! Mummy! Muuuum!’

  Nell’s voice quavered as her calls turned into cries. Kate rolled onto her back, looked at the fly-spotted ceiling and groaned. The stockie from the field day was still in her bed.

  ‘Oi,’ she said, prodding him in the gut so that he grunted. Through clenched teeth she said, ‘You have to go. You have to get out of here. I don’t want my daughter to see you.’

  ‘Daughter?’ he murmured into the pillow. ‘Daughter? You said you had a dog, not a daughter.’

  Just then, her housemate Tabby began thudding on the door.

  ‘Kate. For God’s sake … get up! Nell needs you and I’m not doing the rounds this morning!’

  Kate didn’t need X-ray vision to know that Tabby was standing there outside her bedroom door. She’d be wrapped in her glowing white bathrobe, her blonde hair swept back in a neat ponytail, her face made up and ready for work.

  Kate also knew that Nell would be trying to drag furniture over to the door in her room so she could reach the handle and get out. She’d have big fat tears on her red cherub cheeks. Her pull-up night nappy would be sodden with wee and she’d have morning hair. Sticky-up hair, soft-as-fairy hair, Kate thought. A cocktail of love and guilt swamped her. She glanced at the man beside her. The dark hair on his outspread arms suddenly looked coarse and ugly. She wished he would go.

  ‘Hell,’ said Kate, jumping, as her clock radio blasted out Lee Kernaghan.

  ‘There ain’t nothing like a country crowd, little bit crazy and a little bit loud. We’ve got our own way of turning things upside down’ … sang Lee.

  With a jolt, the song’s lyric reminded Kate of the night before and a sudden vision of the Hills hoist looking like a broken TV antenna with its snapped limb and slack wires made her cringe. Then Kate remembered the call from her aunt Maureen. Her stern voice cutting through Kate’s alcohol-addled brain, demanding to know where the hell was she? And why hadn’t she come to pick up Nellie? Then, Kate remembered, an hour or so after the call, Maureen had turned up. Her lips were thin with fury as she deposited a ruffled, sleepy Nellie on the doorstep, while Kate tried hard to seem sober and pretended there wasn’t a naked stranger passed out in her bed.

  Kate pulled back the doona and groaned as she hauled on her grubby dressing-gown. She tossed her hair up into a purple band that had long ago lost its elasticity. Then she threw the bloke’s clothes onto his dozing body and shoved his hat over his head.

  ‘Bugger off now please, Tim McGraw,’ she said, before stepping painfully on the plastic sheep trophy lying on the floor.

  ‘Ouch!’ she said, hopping from the room.

  Steam rose from Kate’s coffee cup and swirled in a beam of sunlight. Kate slouched with her head in her hands as Nell sat beside her, banging her legs rhythmically against her chair. Nell held up her Vegemite toast and made plane noises before cramming the soggy slice into her mouth.

  ‘Mummy sick! Mummy sick. Bleaaarrrck,’ she said, sticking out her brown-smeared tongue. Kate gave her a weak smile.

  ‘Just eat your breakfast, stirrer.’

  Nellie grinned so hard that chewed toast tumbled from her mouth and plopped onto the tiled floor. Behind the sliding glass door, through cloudy pupils, Sheila eyed the crumbs, drooling. Kate sighed. She hadn’t fed the poor dog last night and she was out of dog food again. Tabby strode in, snatching up her keys from t
he kitchen bench.

  ‘Shall I cook again tonight?’ she said. ‘I’ve got netball though, so dinner won’t be until 7.30.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Kate queasily.

  Tabby glanced at the clock, picked up her sleek black briefcase and arched an eyebrow at Kate.

  ‘You’ll be late for work,’ Tabby said. She headed out the door to her sweet-smelling banker’s car, where Kate pictured her sliding her tiny, neat bottom onto the clean upholstery. Kate jumped at the slam of the car door. It said it all. She swallowed down a wave of nausea as she gulped her coffee.

  ‘I want a drink too, Mummy! Drink! Drink!’ said Nell, holding out her grubby little hands.

  ‘All right.’ Kate sighed, pushing herself up from the table. ‘A “please” would be nice.’

  Sheila whined at the door and gave two quick scratches on the glass. Kate let out a noise of frustration and flung the door open. She threw a piece of cold toast, margarine congealing in dobs on the crusts, and Sheila caught it with a crocodile snap.

  ‘I’ll take you for a walk tonight,’ she said, slamming the door.

  ‘Must be hard keeping a working dog in town,’ said a voice from the doorway. Kate turned to see the Hills-hoist man standing in his boxer shorts. She leapt across the cool kitchen lino and pushed him out of Nell’s view.

  ‘Shower’s that way,’ she said, pointing down the hall. Behind the grimy glass, Sheila began to bark loudly, her hackles raised.

  ‘Siddown, Sheila!’ growled Kate.

  ‘Who’s that, Mummy?’ Nellie asked. When Kate ignored her question, Nellie thudded her juice on the table. Orange liquid splattered across the floor and up the wall.

  ‘The plumber, Nell,’ Kate said. ‘It’s the plumber. Come to fix the shower.’ Nell rubbed her little hands through her hair and frowned.

  ‘I need toilet, Mummy.’

  ‘But the plumber’s using the bathroom.’

  ‘Toilet!’ Kate watched Nell’s cheeks turn pink and her jaw jut out.