11
MURPHY’S LAW
In the morning, she found Nev in the horse barn filling water buckets. Her boss did not appear surprised to see her.
“This better be a social visit,” Nev said. “You’re on sick leave with that arm.”
“That could all be automated. Timers on faucets are a thing now. You said you had easy faff I could do?”
“Never said ‘easy.’ Said indoors.”
Nev’s office was a disaster. She hadn’t been lying. Now that Ronnie thought about it, the tile floors could use a mop. Not her specialty, but she could figure it out.
“You had a cleaning lady.”
“She retired, by way of death.”
Ronnie swore. “I’m sorry. Was she nice?”
Nev shrugged.
Ronnie didn’t know what else to say. “Want me to hoover?’
Nev looked around. “Yeah. Wash the windows with newspaper if you feel up to it.”
Lunch at the kitchen table, turkey and cheese sandwiches with mustard, baby spinach, and pickled beetroot. They listened tothe game on the radio. Barney, Ric-Rac and Kazi ate esky lunch on the veranda.
Ronnie had been waiting until she was off the clock to show her boss the letter. She took it out of the back pocket of her jeans now, unfolded it, and slid it across the table.
Nev raised an eyebrow, shot her a questioning look, then picked up the letter from the Brisbane Lions. “What’s this?”
She watched her boss skim the letter, saw her inhale in surprise and push out her chair to stand up from the kitchen table.
Ronnie returned the bear hug. “Thanks.” She sat back down at the table after Nev did and picked up the letter again. “Murphy’s Law. This is happening now to test my resolve.”
Nev didn’t disagree. “When do you have to reply?”
“It doesn’t say.” She studied the letter again. “I can ignore this until I find out if I’m getting equal custody of Rainbow.” She couldn’t say out loud the alternative.
“You’ll always have her, one way or another.” Empty words, unusual for Nev. Ronnie’s boss looked down at her sandwich. Reg must have told her how screwed Ronnie was.
“Thanks. I can’t talk about it right now. It bums me out.”
After lunch the lads went back to work on the farm and she washed more windows.
Nev eyed her up on the ladder with the cast elevated on one side and a bucket of water balanced on her knee and frowned. “Come down from there before you break your neck.”
When it was time for her to coach soccer in Atherton, Nev gave her a glass of lavender iced tea. As always, she downed it in one gulp.
On the wall, the framed portrait of the white European mother being evacuated, weeping alone in the back of the United Nations armored van after they forced her to leave her Tutsi husband and children behind. Heartbreaking stuff, violentwithout showing blood. The story was offscreen, hidden in what was missing, what wasn’t in the photo that should have been, like those ‘find the difference’ illustrated worksheets Rainbow brought home from school. Ronnie had always been bollocks at those.
She didn’t love the photo. It felt too intimate, like something she didn’t deserve to see. Give the poor woman some privacy in the worst moment of her life. War photography was a strange profession, making art out of other people’s pain. It was ruthless, in a way, capturing and selling grief.
Nev had won awards for it. One of them lay taped to the back of the portrait. Ronnie had found it one night, snooping around while her boss was asleep.
She handed the empty glass back, kissed Nev on the cheek.
12
