Half an hour later, he parked the ute under the weeping branches of the silver gimlet tree and got out. He looked at the ground and saw the unfamiliar tyre tracks. He was right.
Walking in through the doorway, he put his esky on the bench and reached into the fridge for a beer. ‘Good thing I was just about to knock off, Mari,’ he said quietly. ‘If I’d had to leave before I was finished, I would’ve been really annoyed. Guess I’ll need to make a trip to Oakamanda and phone Spencer. He’ll be wanting to know about this fella.’
Marianne, as always, didn’t answer.
Tim jiggled up and down on his toes. The visitor had sent thrills of agitation though him. He’d never liked unexpected surprises—and he liked them even less since finding the body.
He sighed and picked up the photo of his wedding day and thought about the dream he’d had last night. He always dreamed of Marianne, but recently he’d dreamed of her almost every night in vivid colour and detail and he always woke feeling hollow and empty and dripping in sweat. These were the mornings he asked himself what he had to live for. Like Dee had suggested, he had options. One which would see him live more comfortably than in a tin shed. Maybe he should take up the mining company’s offer. He didn’t have anyone to leave the lease to and he already had more than enough money to see him out to the end of his days. But what would be do with himself? With the endless empty days which would stretch out in front of him if he didn’t have a job?
More importantly, how could he leave if there was even the remotest chance she might come back? She wouldn’t know how to find him if he left…As the years had passed he had begun to assume she was dead but he could never be absolutely sure. His need to know where she was and why she’d left had not dwindled since that first devastating day he’d realised she’d gone. But he had learned to live with the gaping hole in his chest.
Tim hadn’t realised she’d gone at first. Her clothes were untouched and there was dinner ready on the stove when he’d come home late that night. The bed had been empty and he’d called out to her a couple of times without reply. After eating his dinner, he’d gone to look further and found nothing. That was when the apprehension had begun to trickle through him. He’d stumbled back to the hut, calling her name; he’d heard the alarm in his own voice. Ripping open the small jewellery box which was hidden under a false floor, he stared inside. It was empty. And she never would have gone anywhere for a long period of time without the ivory and gold locket her father had made for her before he died. Seeing the box empty, he knew with certainly she’d gone. Left him.
Taking a swig of the beer, he went outside to watch the sun set and think about Marianne. And the body. It kept filtering into his thoughts at the most unexpected times, and every time it did he could smell the stench, hear the flies, and then his stomach would clench and he’d feel sick.
Needing to think about something else, he conjured up an image of Marianne. Exactly two weeks after he’d first heard the music across the dry and dusty road, he’d gone back to town and stood in front of the house again. He’d made sure it was at the exact same time. He didn’t want to miss the beautiful sound again. And there it was, drifting across the street, light and floaty. The notes made him think of clouds hovering in a vivid blue sky. Then the pace picked up and the tone became bouncy. Like butterflies, or wattle birds, flitting through the air.
Sitting on the kerb, Tim listened, spellbound until the music stopped and the front door opened. The girl with the long black hair and silver-blue eyes let out a younger girl, bade her goodbye, then went back inside.
Tim never knew where his courage had come from but he was forever grateful for it. His feet carried him across the road, through the garden and to the front door, where he knocked. Jiggling from foot to foot as he waited for her to open the door, he tried to work out what he was going to say.
‘Yes?’ the girl asked when she opened the door.
‘Um…I heard…’ The words dried up in his throat when he saw how beautiful she was up close.
‘You heard?’ She looked at him seriously, those silver eyes curious.
He swallowed. ‘I heard the music you were playing. It’s beautiful.’
She smiled and he saw she had a dimple in her right cheek. ‘It is the piano. I was playing Chopin to show my student how it should be performed. She likes to bang on the keys rather than skip lightly across them as she should.’
Tim now had no idea what to say.
‘I don’t know anything about music,’ he admitted finally.
‘Then your life will be much poorer than it should be. Come,’ she waved him inside. ‘Come and listen. Everyone should have music in their lives.’
Stuttering, he said he didn’t think he should come in. ‘It wouldn’t look right.’
‘My papa is inside. Come.’
He’d spent an hour listening to her play, watching mesmerised at the way her fingers had flown across the ivory and black keys. He hadn’t known the name for any part of this new thing called a piano, but in that hour he’d decided he wanted to know everything about it and her.
A low grumble shook the ground and brought Tim out of his thoughts. It was dark now and the mozzies were beginning to bite.
Chief growled.
‘Don’t fret, my friend, it’s just the mine blasting again. Though,’ he frowned, ‘usually they sound the siren first.
