Fifty Bales of Hay Read Free

the telly for two minutes. You know. An anniversary bonk? Just a quickie.’
    Stella glanced at the clock. ‘Now? C’mon, Tom. There isn’t time.’
    ‘I know,’ he said sullenly. He planted a kiss on Stella’s sweat-covered forehead and took Ned with him into the tiny office, which was more like a cupboard. She heard him boot up the computer. She pulled on her sundress, shoved on her work boots and went out into the blistering heat to fetch Milly.
    ‘Welcome to my world, Nigella, welcome to my world!’
    Stella had just set the steak out on the kitchen bench when the radio came to life. ‘Stella, you on channel?’
    It was Tom. He delivered the news over the crackle of the two-way for Nancy in the homestead to hear too. News that they would harvest through until late, now the day had cooled a little. News that he wouldn’t be back till after ten that night.
    ‘And by the way, happy anniversary, babe. Over,’ he said. Stella hung up the radio handpiece, put the steaks back in the fridge, reached into the freezer to dig out two lemonade icy poles and thrust them at Milly and Ned. Then she flicked on the TV to ABC kids.
    ‘Watch him for me for a bit, please, Milly,’ she said. ‘Thanks, darling. Mummy needs a ten-minute power nap.’
    Milly, perplexed by the sudden arrival of icy poles just before tea, nodded her little dark curly head at her mother and proceeded to open the treat for her little brother first, then herself. Stella shut the door of her bedroom, sat down on the bed and began to cry. She slid open the top drawer of the bedside table and pulled out the gift she had ordered for Tom. She undid the lid and as she did, smeared the tears away over her sweating hot face.
    She had saved every cent for this anniversary gift for Tom. Money that she had made from selling two litters of kelpie pups she had bred. Her plan this evening had been to cook Tom up a big steak, have a beer with him once the kids were in bed, put on the new lingerie she’d ordered off the net, then give him his present. Then give him herself.
    Inside the beautiful timber box was a thick leather belt, made by the local saddler, but what was most stunning about the belt was the buckle.
    Stella, their tenth anniversary in mind, had a few months ago ventured round the back of the machinery shed where her husband’s old busted-up 1980 Holden WB Statesman sat slumped, wheel-less and rusting, on blocks beneath a pepper tree. The ute was just a body now,stripped of its engine, the three panels including the roof still dented from the night Tom had rolled it coming back with Stella from a B&S ball. He hadn’t been over the limit. Tom was reliable like that. Once they knew neither of them weren’t seriously injured, they had joked that the dopey roo they had hit on the slippery gravel road must’ve been drinking, the way it had suddenly wobbled in front of them.
    But she had felt Tom’s sadness when the mechanic had told them the ute was a write-off. His hurt was tangible. He loved that ute. She loved that ute. It was a link to the days when their love had first begun to bloom.
    With a screwdriver and a small hammer, Stella had carefully chipped off the metal steering-wheel badge. The badge was silver and held the logo of the proud Holden lion that sat with its paw on a globe. She had rubbed the badge on her jeans as she walked back home, then set the collector’s metal disc on the kitchen table and carefully and intricately sketched her design around it. It had cost her fifty bucks to ship the thing to the States, but the craftsman there had done a brilliant job of setting the ute badge into a rodeo-size buckle with the wording 1980 WB Statesman amid looped swirls and entwined ropes of silver and gold. On the back, in fancy steel writing, he had inscribed: Happy 10th anniversary, Tom. Eternal love, Stella .
    Stella ran a fingertip over the tiny bumps and curves of the beautiful buckle. Then she put the lid on the box, threw the lingerie