Claire drained the last of her tea and stood up. ‘I’m going into town,’ she said. ‘I need to take Scotty’s car back to the clinic and do some Christmas shopping. Want anything?’
Gus pouted and shook her head. ‘Only the truth,’ she said dramatically.
Ha. Claire hardly knew what the truth was any more.
Claire swung Scotty’s four-wheel drive into the car park behind the clinic and killed the engine. There were no signs of life inside the squat brick building. She knew she should have called Scotty and asked what he wanted her to do with the car, but she couldn’t bring herself to dial his number. If he no longer wanted her at his wedding, he probably wasn’t interested in speaking to her either.
She pulled the key from the ignition, climbed out of the car and locked it. Then she wrapped the key in a sheet of Bindallarah Veterinary Hospital letterhead she’d found in the glove box and slid it under the clinic’s back door, watching it skid across the shiny linoleum floor.
Claire pulled her phone from her bag and began composing a text message.
Your car is parked at work. Posted the key thru the clinic door. Please tell Chris I’ll come up this afternoon to check on Autumn.
Her thumb hovered over the ‘send’ button, but she hesitated. She couldn’t just leave it at that. Scotty thought Claire had lied to him. He thought she’d only been pretending to be his friend all this time – that she really wanted him to call off the wedding because she was jealous. And that made her feel sick.
I’m sorry about last night. I wish I hadn’t said anything. I don’t want anything more from you than what you can give, I promise xx
She sent the message. Her heart leapt when three undulating dots appeared inside a bubble on the screen, indicating Scotty was typing. It felt like years passed before he replied.
Thx. Will tell Chris. Autumn doing well.
Claire stared hopelessly at the screen for another minute, waiting for a second message. There had to be more. But the dots disappeared. Scotty had said all he was going to say.
She felt the first fat drops of rain as she walked down a short side road from the clinic’s back entrance to Bindy’s main street. Or were they tears? It hardly made a difference either way. Claire couldn’t remember ever feeling so bleak.
The main street was thronged with people. Though some would work right up until the next Friday, many had finished for the year the day before and had travelled from all over the district to shop for Christmas gifts and entertaining supplies. But the main reason most people had converged on Bindallarah today was to meet friends and gossip.
Claire had forgotten what a big social occasion the weekend before Christmas was in the community. Twenty-first-century Bindy felt less remote than it ever had, but for the older farming families, who lived on outlying properties and rarely visited town for anything more interesting than stock feed or tractor parts, the annual Christmas catch-up was an event. Cars drove by with tinsel wound around their radio antennae and joke reindeer antlers attached to the windows. She watched families promenade up and down the esplanade – the men and boys in freshly laundered shirts and jeans with sharp creases ironed in, the women and girls in pretty summer dresses – and felt warm inside. She wished she’d made more effort with her own attire that morning. She knew she looked glum and washed-out in her floor-sweeping black maxi dress. She had dressed to match her mood, and it was far from merry.
It meant something, this festive ritual. Bindallarah meant something to all these people. For perhaps the first time since she’d arrived a week ago, Claire felt truly glad to be home.
She had to move on. All these people were living their lives, going about their business in a town that was unrecognisable from the one she’d left as a scared fifteen-year-old. They may have stayed in Bindallarah, but they’d grown in a way Claire hadn’t. They’d had families, joined sports teams, bought houses, started businesses, formed book clubs, and forged deep, lasting friendships.
They had built lives, and what had she done? Gone to America, qualified as a horse specialist, returned to Sydney and started working. It looked impressive on paper – she’d built a career she loved and was good at. But she’d forgotten to build a life she loved, because she couldn’t let go of the one that had been snatched away from her.
Scotty had – he’d let go of Claire and embraced Nina, invested his whole heart and soul in their future with the sort of carefree courage Claire envied. Maybe it was time she threw a little caution to the wind, too. She owed it to herself.
‘Who are you spying on?’ came a voice from behind.
Claire let out a startled squeak and jumped what felt like a metre in the air. She whirled around to see Alex Jessop, holding up his hands in a gesture of apology.
‘Whoa! Sorry, Claire. I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he said, looking sheepish.
‘Alex,’ she said breathlessly, clutching at her chest as if it would calm her racing heart. She wondered if a swift kick to his shin would make her feel better. ‘Don’t sneak up on people like that.’
‘You looked like you were pretty deep in thought there. Something on your mind?’
She opened her mouth to tell him to mind his own business, but was stunned instead to hear herself say, ‘I was just thinking about how lovely Bindy
