The Party Line by Sue Orr Read Free Book Online

murmuring was interrupted by a hum. It drilled his slumber, gradually drawing him to wakefulness.
    He stumbled to find a warm jacket in the darkness and went outside. The noise was coming from the barn, across the paddocks. Ian shook his head, forcing himself awake. It was the sound of a truck. He searched the black horizon and saw flickering lights fading.
    There was nothing in the shed worth stealing. Ian went to bed and hoped for sleep.
    He remembered the night’s strangeness the next morning, when he got up to milk. Everything was in order at the shed; he wondered if he’d imagined it all. But when he swung open the barn doors, there were four new towering stacks of sweet, dry hay before him.
     
    Later that morning, after he returned from milking, Gabrielle came out of her bedroom in her pyjamas, unsteady in half-sleep.
    ‘I dreamed about her again, Ian,’ she said, smiling.
    ‘Me, too,’ he replied. He turned away from her.
    ‘I’ve been telling Nickie at school how she sends us both the same dreams. She thought it was really neat. She’s so happy, isn’t she? Mum, I mean.’
    ‘She is.’
    ‘She told me last night that it never rains up there during the day. Just at night. It rains every night so everything grows properly. But the days don’t get ruined. Heaven days are just non-stop sunshine.’
    ‘Imagine it, Gabrielle. Isn’t it just something?’ His back to her, always. ‘And did she say to you how it’s usually good rain, a nice heavy downpour so it sinks deep into the ground and lasts? That’s what she said to me.’
    ‘No,’ said Gabrielle, wide awake, spoon and bowl clattering on the bench. ‘She never told me that. But probably she was going to and I woke up too soon.’
    Gabrielle would, sometime soon, catch him out. Instead of rushing to share her dream first, she would drift into the kitchen and, in a sleepy way, ask him what he’d dreamed about the night before.
     
    He might bluff about the weather in Heaven, but Ian couldn’t deny the press of spring, now less than a month away. The cows in the herd were swollen in calf, barely able to drag themselves forward through the muddy pastures to meet the tractor at feeding-out time. Remembering the chilling remark about rotten hay causing abortions, Ian constantly put his hand against the tight bellies, searching for the squirm of life within.
    The donor of the new hay remained a mystery. It was obviously not Jack, and Ian sensed it wouldn’t be wise to tell him about it. Jack and Ian went to the cattle sale in Paeroa most weeks — never to buy, but to see what prices other farmers’ stock were fetching. On the Wednesday following the arrival of the bales, Ian had slipped in beside Eugene Walker at the stockyard rails.
    ‘I just want to say, Eugene, thanks.’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘The hay you dropped off. It’s appreciated. And I understand, you know … why you had to do it that way …’
    Eugene leaned away from Ian, his arms folded across his chest. ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’
    Ian nodded. Maybe he’d never understand the rituals around farming, around helping out a neighbour too proud and volatile to accept charity. At least he’d acknowledged the good deed.
     
    Vivid green buds clung to the branches of bare trees. When he stood, shoeless, on the ground near the house, he felt a timid warmth in the soil beneath his feet. He imagined sensing actual movement there, too, just below the surface; tiny grass shoots unfurling, pulsing upwards, seeking light. It was strangely enervating and helped to keep Bridie at bay.
    At first Jack had called in every morning to lay down the day’s tasks. But as the season neared its end, his visits became sporadic. The main task, they agreed, was fencing, and there was enough work there to keep a man busy for months.
    No matter how the conversations began, they ended on the same note: Jack’s lament at the cost of farming. His demeanour teetered, always, between gruff