Winter Read Free

There’s no bed even.’
    â€˜I’ll sleep on the floor.’
    â€˜Well, that’s just ridiculous.’
    â€˜I don’t give a shit if it’s ridiculous or not.’
    â€˜We’ve got a nice room for you here. The bed’s all made up, and dinner’s nearly ready.’
    â€˜I told you, I’m not sleeping here. I’m sleeping in the homestead.’
    â€˜You can’t sleep there on your own. Just stay with us for a few days and we’ll see if we can sort something out.’
    At that point I picked up my bag and started for the door.
    â€˜Winter, where are you going?’
    â€˜Where do you think?’
    â€˜No, look, wait a minute. This is just crazy. Honestly, Winter, this is not the way to do things. In the morning I’ll see if Ralph can move a bed in and then perhaps you can camp there for a night, if that’s what you want.’
    â€˜I’m staying there tonight and every night. I’m back for good.’
    I opened the door and went out into the cool evening air. It was dark outside. Really dark. I could hear Sylvia’s voice. ‘Ralph, do something. Stop her.’
    I snapped. I stood there in the blackness. I screamed back at them. The one thing I’d promised myself I wouldn’t say. The one thing that was unforgivable.
    â€˜This is my property and I’ll do what I want.’
    There was a silence inside. I wondered if I’d made both of them disappear. In that blackness anything was possible.
    Then Ralph came out. He went to take my bag but I wouldn’t let him. I backed off, half a dozen steps.
    â€˜I was just going to carry it there for you,’ he said mildly.
    â€˜I can carry it myself,’ I said.
    â€˜Well, I’ll get the ute and bring a bed down.’
    â€˜I’ll give you a hand.’
    It was quite a business. We had to fetch the ute from a garage then unlock the barn and go up into the loft and drag out a mattress and four different sections of a bed. We got it into the homestead, into my old bedroom, then Ralph realised he’d forgotten a screwdriver, so it was back to the barn to get that.
    When he said ‘Now how about coming back to the house for a spot of dinner?’ I had another of my attacks of weakness and shame, and said, ‘Yeah, OK, thanks’.
    But it hadn’t been such a good idea, judging by the effect I’d had on Sylvia.
    I left their house, ignoring Ralph as he followed me out the door saying, ‘You don’t have to go to the homestead now. You can stay here and watch TV. Don’t worry about Sylvia, she’s just a bit stressed.’
    It wasn’t as dark as before, because the moon had come up over the hill, behind the orchard. It was dark enough though, and I stumbled a few times as I headed towards the duck dam. At one point I thought I’d lost my way, which had me panicking, but then I saw the silhouette of the homestead, like a lighthouse, and from then on I was OK.
    We hadn’t locked it again after delivering the bed. There was a light on the verandah somewhere but I didn’t know where to find the switch, so I didn’t waste time looking. Instead I opened the door and groped my way into the sunroom.
    It was just so dark. The air felt stale. The faintest wisp of cobweb drifted across my face and caught on my eyebrows. For a few moments, as I spread my hands across the wall trying to find the switch, I felt sick. I didn’t know what I was doing there. I didn’t know what would become of me. I didn’t know where to find the bloody switch.
    It was such a relief to feel it under my fingers. Things got a bit easier after that. Using the light from the sunroom I turned the kitchen lights on, and worked my way through the house flicking every switch I could find. Only then did I feel a bit safer.
    Ralph and I had already set up the bed in my bedroom, using Ralph’s trusty screwdriver. But I’ve never seen anything