Maybe she was coming down with something, Skye told herself, pressing her hot cheek against the misted glass. Maybe she should skip the Y tonight, head straight home and let Nell put her to bed. Her mother would enjoy that; she hadn’t had anyone to fuss over since Charlie died. She closed her eyes and tried to distract herself . . . Nell running her a bath or making her a cup of tea; Nell shaking drops of lavender oil onto her pillow to help her sleep, the way she had when Skye was a child. Yet even as she lingered over the details, Skye knew she had to go to work. There was only one way to deal with this ache.
‘Miss Holt, our group have finished. I think everyone has, actually.’
Skye’s eyes sprang open. She took a deep breath and turned around, hoping she didn’t look as flustered as she felt. ‘I was just watching the rain,’ she said hastily. ‘Water is so important to us, isn’t it? It would be nice to have a river or something like that in the design.’
The class regarded her impassively. She’d been thinking nothing of the sort, and she couldn’t help feeling that they knew it. She cleared her throat. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Who’s ready to share their design with the class?’
A few hands went up, but the bell rang before she had a chance to choose one.
‘Ohh,’ complained one of the more artistic children in the front row. ‘We really wanted you to see ours. Can we show you?’
Skye glanced again at the clock, but only so it appeared as if she was considering the request. She already knew the answer. She had to leave now if there was going to be time. ‘Next week, Ellen.’ She smiled. ‘I promise you can go first.’
Even so, it seemed to take the class an age to pack up.
Hurry
, Skye urged them silently as they dawdled at the sink and carefully folded their smocks. When it seemed as if Ellen was going to stay at her desk until each of her Derwents was arranged chromatically, Skye scooped up the pencils and thrust them at her.
‘Sorry, you’ll have to do that in the hall. I’ve got an appointment.’ She felt herself blushing again at the lie. She snapped off the art-room light and began running through the school towards her car, splashing across the playground without even noticing that her feet were getting wet.
Hamish looked up as she charged into his office twenty minutes later. ‘You’ve made good time,’ he said. ‘I think that’s a personal best.’
‘Shh,’ said Skye, turning to shut the door. It had no lock, so she pushed a chair against it.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘You’ve got a class in fifteen minutes.’
‘Ten’s all I need,’ said Skye, unbuttoning her jeans. She eased them down her body, then kicked them into a corner with her underwear. ‘Lie down, Jess, and don’t look.’ The dog complied obediently. Skye pushed Hamish back into his chair and sat on the desk in front of him. She smiled lasciviously, then slowly opened her thighs. Hamish groaned, though more out of frustration than desire.
‘Jesus, Skye. Why now?’ he protested, resolutely remaining in his seat. In response, she spread her legs further apart and reached around to clasp his buttocks, pulling him upwards to her, then slid her fingers into his shorts. He resisted for only seconds more, sighing as she drew out his cock and rubbed it against her.
‘I’m guessing that’s the end of foreplay, then?’ he muttered, voice thickening as she opened herself to him. Skye felt her body receive his greedily, hips rising towards him, flesh warm and wet. Hamish’s mouth fell upon a nipple, still covered by her shirt, and she arched and shuddered. But it wasn’t Hamish she was thinking of, her eyes tightly closed, pelvis flooded with heat. It was Ben. Ben fucking her on a desk just like this, his own desk, in 5C’s room; Ben’s mouth hot against her throat as he began to thrust, Ben’s fingers between her legs, his sweat on her skin.
Ben sneaked a quick look at his watch, though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t until he reached the halfway point. Eighteen minutes. Damn. He could have sworn it had been at least half an hour since he set out. It certainly felt like it in his legs, his lungs. He’d been doing this run for months now, ever since he moved to Melbourne from the country, and though it should have been getting easier, it wasn’t.
The trouble, he reflected, was that he wasn’t a natural runner. He hated it, if he was honest; he’d only taken it up to keep fit and because he’d never been any good at team sports. The fitness wasn’t an issue at home, in Tatong—just being on the farm seemed to keep him in good nick, with the fences to be checked and the stock to be moved. Here it was different. Here he sat all day behind a desk, then went home to sit some more in front of marking, his dinner, the laptop. It hadn’t even been a year, but already he could feel his spine beginning to curve, his shoulders sinking forward rather than braced to meet the day.
His father still stood up straight. Sixty-six and fit as a bull, as solid as a eucalypt. Ben had no illusions that the old man had actually needed his help to move that stock or check the fences. He’d managed alone for years, never calling in anyone else when Ben was away studying or seeing Cassie. It had been the company his father was after, Ben thought, and immediately felt guilty. How long had it been since he’d rung his parents? His mother would know, to the hour no doubt. She’d hated the idea of his leaving Tatong, of his travelling down the Hume to a life in the city. She’d prayed about it, as she did about everything, beseeching God to give Ben a posting in a local school. When God had decided to send him to Fitzroy Primary instead it had fallen to Kirra, Ben’s younger sister, to comfort her. It must be divine intervention, Kirra had told the heartbroken woman, it must be the Lord’s plan for Ben’s life. Though she was only eleven, Kirra had rolled her eyes at him as she wrapped her arms around their mother.
He’d ring them when he got back to his flat, Ben thought, picking up his pace in remorse. He missed Kirra, the surprise package that had arrived on his thirteenth birthday, long after he’d accepted being an only child. He missed his parents too: Mary’s blue eyes, her rosary beads and her soups; his father’s long stride across the paddocks. But he’d been busy, he told himself. He’d been settling in, trying to get his act together. They’d understand that. He might ring Cassie as well, though this seemed less urgent. Cassie, the girl he’d been seeing for a month or two before he moved to Melbourne, still rang him occasionally, but the heat had gone out of her voice. She was interested in what he was doing, she laughed at the right places in his stories, but she was neutral, detached. She hung up easily, rather than lingering on the phone. She called him ‘Ben’, instead of Benny, or Big, or another of the score of pet names she’d had for him when they both still lived in the country. She hadn’t come down to visit him at Easter, or the end-of-term break after that. Mind you, Ben acknowledged, he hadn’t been back to visit her either.
The halfway mark loomed out of the morning mist, a willow tree dipping its branches in the creek beside the track. Ben touched its trunk, rested a minute, then pushed off again, heading back the way he’d come. He wondered if it was Cassie he’d dreamed of the night before. He’d woken that morning with a hard-on—a proper one, not just because he’d needed a piss—but only a vague recollection of what had produced it. There’d been a girl, of course, and she was bending over him so that her hair fell into his eyes and he couldn’t see her face. Was it Cassie? He didn’t think so. Cassie didn’t have hair like that, dark blonde and wavy. More to the point, she didn’t move like that either: fluid, lithe, as if she were being poured from the pan. Ben couldn’t even remember the last time he’d fantasised about Cassie.
Suddenly, something swept past Ben’s ankles, causing him to stumble. ‘Sorry!’ called a voice behind him. ‘She gets a bit stupid sometimes. Jess, come here! Come back, girl!’
Ben turned around and found himself face to face with Skye.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’
She was wearing running gear, like himself, and there was a faint sheen of sweat across her shoulders and down her neck. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he had the sudden impulse to reach across and pull it loose, the way it was when he’d last seen her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Skye said again. ‘Usually she’s pretty good and stays next to me, but every so often she thinks she sees something and then she’s off.’
The dog had returned and stood panting between them, her coat wet where she’d plunged briefly into the creek. Ben squatted down to pat her. ‘You’ve just got lots of energy, haven’t you, girl?’ he said, then looked back up at Skye. ‘What did you say her name was?’
‘Jess,’ said Skye. ‘Jessica officially, but she isn’t a Jessica. Jessicas stay to heel and don’t get themselves filthy in the creek.’ She watched while he continued to scratch the dog between her ears. ‘She likes that. You’re good with animals. It’s a shame you didn’t become a vet.’
‘What, and deprive 5C of my brilliance?’ scoffed Ben, but he was pleased that she’d remembered.
‘Do you have a dog of your own?’ Skye asked.
‘No, not here. My flat’s too small—it wouldn’t be fair. Back at home, in the country, I did. I grew up on a farm. There were always two or three dogs around.’ Jess rolled onto her back so he could scratch her stomach.
‘And you moved here for the job, right? Where are you from?’
‘A little place called Tatong,’ said Ben. ‘It’s just four houses and a pub. Not far from Benalla, in the north.’
Skye nodded. ‘I’ve been to Benalla. A school excursion, years ago, on the way to the high country. Weary Dunlop, right?’
Ben laughed, picturing the war hero’s statue outside the art gallery on the road into town. ‘You were paying attention,’ he said.
‘For once,’ smiled Skye. ‘It’s a great story. Do you miss the area?’
Ben thought of Tatong—of the view from the house down to the dam, the fog that rolled across the paddocks in the morning, the kangaroos standing watching on the hillsides at dusk. ‘I miss what it is and how it looks,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s a beautiful place. But there’s nothing for me there, not if I don’t want to be a farmer, and I can’t be a vet. There’s not even a school anymore. It closed down, and now they bus the kids into Benalla.’
‘Let’s run,’ said Skye. Hearing the word, Jess leapt to her feet and bounded ahead. They set off at a fairly quick pace, following the dog. ‘You didn’t want to teach back there?’
‘I didn’t really think about it. I just knew I’d go where I was sent, but I was glad it was Melbourne. Time for a change. What about you?’ he asked. If he had to run at this speed he just wanted to listen, not talk.
‘I was born here, but then my hippy parents dragged my brother and I all over the world when we were kids. Once they stopped I never wanted to move again. I even shifted back home recently.’
‘Saving?’ Ben asked. He was puffing slightly, and hoped she wouldn’t notice.
‘No point saving on what I earn,’ she laughed easily. She was clearly much fitter than he was. ‘No, it was for Mum, to keep her company. My dad died last year. Before that I was living with my boyfriend.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ben.
Boyfriend
, he thought, irrationally needled.
‘Thanks,’ she said in a tone that indicated that that part of the conversation was finished. ‘Do you always run here?’
‘I hardly run anywhere, as I’m sure you can tell.’
Skye smiled. ‘I try to go four or five times a week. Jess needs it, and it keeps me fit for my gym job. Plus Hamish is a fitness freak, so he drags me out too. That’s my boyfriend,’ she added.
‘Is he at the gym as well?’ Ben panted. He could feel a stitch beginning in his lower left side. The girl was a machine.
‘Yeah, that’s where we met. He manages it. Not for much longer, though—just until he finishes his MBA.’
Again, the stab of envy, sharp and unexpected.
Skye stopped running and whistled for Jess, who had disappeared from view. ‘I should probably have her on a leash,’ she said, glancing around. ‘There can be snakes here at this time of year. They like the water.’ She whistled again, the tone slightly shriller. When there was no response, she jogged off towards the creek, calling over her shoulder for Ben to wait there. He flopped forward in relief, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. The sun was breaking through the mist now, warm against his back, but it was still too early in the day for snakes. If he’d been able to speak normally he could have told Skye that.
‘Ben!’
Skye’s shriek was urgent and frightened. He sprinted in the direction she’d headed, heart pounding again. It took him a minute to find her. She was up to her knees in the sluggish brown creek, pulling at Jess. The dog lolled in the water against her, eyes closed.
‘She was trapped under that tree,’ sobbed Skye, pointing to where a sapling had come down, its still-green leaves waving in the current. ‘Her collar was caught on one of the branches. I could see her struggling, but by the time I got to her she’d stopped. I don’t think she’s breathing.’
Ben plunged into the creek, grabbing a handful of the dog’s fur and hauling her towards the bank. Her ears and tail streamed out behind her, limp and lifeless.
‘She’s always jumping in. I think she sees water rats and goes after them, or maybe it’s frogs,’ Skye burbled, distraught. ‘Hamish told me to be careful too, after those thunderstorms a few days ago, to keep her with me.’ She was tugging at Jess’s front legs, trying to shift her onto dry land.
‘Don’t,’ Ben said, ‘she’s too heavy for you.’ He bent over and hooked his arms beneath the dog’s inert body, braced himself and heaved. His knees buckled and the creek soaked his t-shirt, chilling him to the bone. For a second he thought he couldn’t do it . . . but then Jess was on the bank, water streaming from her coat. He flopped down beside her, gasping.
‘Jess!’ Skye cried. The dog shuddered and slowly opened her eyes, coughed a bit, then vomited at Skye’s feet. Looking somewhat embarrassed, she staggered to her feet. Skye began crying in earnest and buried her face in Jess’s wet fur. Ben watched them silently.
Eventually, Skye stood up and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Will she be OK?’ she asked.
‘I’m pretty sure she’ll be fine,’ Ben replied. ‘Just keep an eye on her tonight. And we’ll walk back, so as not to wear her out.’