from the paddock. He wasn't sure what he was going to do about this, but then perhaps, he thought wearily, there was nothing to be done, things being the way they were at the moment.
This was something that Cliff had wanted to discuss. Seeing Gina's car gone from the vicinity of Gordon's house, Cliff asked about her. Not where she was but how she was, the same
"How's our Gina then," that he asked nearly every day. Cliff had been quite taken with Gina from the first.
Gordon had told him the truth. "Gone," was how he put it.
Cliff repeated the word dumbly, as if the term were slow to sink into his head. When it got to his brain, he said, "What? She's left you?"
To which Gordon replied, "That's how it works, Cliff."
This prompted a lengthy discourse from Cliff on the subject of what kind of shelf life - as he put it - girls like Gina generally had. "You got six days or less to get her back, man," Cliff informed him. "You think blokes're going to let a girl like Gina walk round the streets without trying it on? Ring her up, say sorry, get her back. Say sorry even if you didn't do nothing to make her leave. Say anything. Just do something."
"Nothing to be done," Gordon told him.
"You're off your nut," Cliff decided.
So when Gina actually showed up while they were loading reeds into the back of Gordon's pickup, Cliff made himself scarce. From the elevated bed of the truck, he saw her red Mini Cooper coming along the lane, said, "Give you twenty minutes to sort this one, Gordon,"
and then he was gone, heading in the direction of the barn.
Gordon walked towards the end of the driveway, so when Gina drove in, he was in the vicinity of the front garden. At heart, he knew that Cliff was right. She was the kind of woman blokes lined up to have the slightest chance of winning over, and he was a fool if he didn't try to get her back.
She braked when she saw him. The car roof was down, and her hair was windblown from the drive. He wanted to touch it because he knew how it would feel, so soft against his hands.
He approached the car. "Can we talk?"
She was wearing her sunglasses against the brightness of another fine summer day, but she shoved them to the top of her head. Her eyes, he saw, were red rimmed. He was the one who'd brought this on, her crying. It was another burden, yet another failure to be the man he wanted to be.
"Please. Can we talk?" he repeated.
She looked at him warily. She pressed her lips together, and he could see her bite down on them. Not as if she wanted to keep herself from speaking but as if she feared what might happen if she did speak. He reached for the handle of the door, and she flinched slightly.
He said, "Oh, Gina." He took a step back, in order to allow her to decide. When she opened the door, he felt he could breathe again. He said, "C'n we ... ? Let's sit over here."
"Over here" was the garden she'd made so lovely for them, with the table and chairs, the torches and the candles. "Over here" was where they'd had their suppers in the fine weather of the summer amid the flowers she'd planted and painstakingly watered. He walked to the table and waited for her. He watched her but said nothing. She had to make the decision on her own.
He prayed she'd make the one that would give them a future.
She got out of the car. She glanced at his pickup, at the reeds he was loading into it, at the paddock beyond it. He saw her draw her eyebrows together. She said, "What's happened to the horses?"
He said, "They're gone."
When she looked at him, her expression told him she thought he'd done this for her, because she was afraid of the animals. Part of him wanted to tell her the truth: that Rob Hastings had taken them because Gordon hadn't the need - let alone the right - to hang on to them. But the other part of him saw how he could use the moment to win her and he wanted to win her. So he let her believe whatever she wanted to believe about the ponies' removal.
She came to join him in the garden. They were separated from the