in the Henry Lawson story. How would you have coped with a shack full of kids and the drover gone for six months at a time taking sheep up the old Barcoo River?’
‘I would have been fine,’ Nina stoutly replied. She gathered her bowl from the grass and found her chair by the fire. ‘After all, Brad’s gone for most of the year with the football. I’ve done all the things that need doing around the house—I did the guttering and I built the carport. That’s why—sorry I went a bit overboard—I’m so pissed off I forgot the gas.’
‘So you’re saying women need men like . . . ?’ Meredith paused for a little crowd participation.
‘Like this cheesecake needs ice cream,’ Nina mumbled through a mouth full of passionfruit and melted lemon sorbet.
After the bowls and cutlery had been cleared, washed and stowed by Nina, she took another look inside the fridge. Maybe the damage wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought. The spag bol and satays could be refrozen without too much danger to human life; they could eat some of it for breakfast . . . Her inventory was interrupted by Meredith tapping on the flywire and beckoning her to come. They tiptoed back to their chairs in the dark.
Annie pointed to a pair of yellow eyes at the edge of the firelight: ‘It’s a possum. A little brushy by the look of him.’ It was out to scavenge the remains of dinner. Annie found some leftover garlic bread in the ashes, unwrapped the foil and threw the delicacy by her feet. The three women watched, entranced, as one possum, then another, edged closer from the shadows and nibbled daintily at the morsels in their paws and then reached for more.
‘They usually eat native fruits, flowers and leaves. I’d say that one’s got a baby. Yep, there it is,’ Annie whispered as a tiny head popped from a furry pouch to a lullaby of maternal coos.
‘You know so much about the bush—you seem so at home here,’ Nina observed. ‘You ever thought of getting yourself a nice country bloke?’
Meredith winced—another clunker from Nina. Didn’t she ever think before she opened her mouth?
‘I did get myself a “nice country bloke”, don’t you remember?’ said Annie. ‘Cameron was from Quambatook, up our way.’
‘Sorry. I forgot.’
‘Quambatook!’ Meredith leaned closer to the flames. ‘What a fabulous name. Perfect for a paint colour. I’ve done out the sunroom in a gorgeous quambatook.’ She was on a comic roll now, enjoying herself hugely.
She didn’t get a smile from Annie, however. ‘Can’t imagine anyone wanting to paint their sunroom the colour of a muddy puddle at the bottom of an empty dam.’
Annie’s morose statement silenced any further attempts at comedy from Meredith.
‘Cameron and Patrick—that’s his new “life partner”—have gone back, would you believe? They’ve taken over his family farm and are doing some biodynamic organic thingo.’
‘It’s pretty brave, him going back there,’ said Nina. ‘But it must be hard for you. Everyone knowing and everything.’
Once again, Meredith couldn’t believe that Nina could be so matter of fact, but when she saw Annie wasn’t protesting, she joined the interrogation. ‘Do the natives know they’ve got a couple of gay greenies at the bottom of the paddock?’
‘It’s bloody awful,’ Annie replied. ‘Every time I go home to Tongala, I see someone who was at my wedding. I meet my cousins, and I think they probably want their cake forks back. I know Mum and Dad think I’ve made a mess of everything. They always wanted me to marry Lance from the property next door.’ Annie had to smile to herself. She hadn’t thought of creepy Lance, who liked to sleep with a poddy calf on the end of his bed, for many a moon.
‘But you’re doing brilliantly with the real estate,’ said Meredith. ‘Didn’t you say you’ll be able to branch out by yourself next year?’
‘By myself—that’s the thing, isn’t it?’ Annie tossed the last chunk of bread to the possums snuffling through the grass under the picnic table.
‘You couldn’t imagine yourself ever going back to the farm?’ Nina pressed on.
‘Hah! Sitting on the veranda looking out at a dust bowl and starving cattle? Not bloody likely.’
‘But what about if you met some other country bloke? A straight one,’ Nina hastily added. ‘What if he came to live in Melbourne?’
‘Never. You don’t know country boys like I do. You should see my dad when he comes to town. He panics when he can’t see the horizon. There’s