Fifty Bales of Hay

Stella felt her husband’s hands roam further downwards towards the wetness between her legs. His erection was pressing urgently against her thigh. She wanted to prolong the moment, so she pulled away. This moon, this night, was a gift. She wanted to savour it. To tempt her man. To tease him. So that when he had her, she was the prize he had so longed to win.

‘Wait. I have something for you.’ She passed the gift to him. Tom opened the box and his jaw dropped when he saw what lay within. The buckle reflecting its silver and gold beauty back to the moonlight. She encouraged him to turn it over and as he read the inscription, she saw emotion well in his eyes.

He pulled Stella to him and buried his face into her neck. ‘Oh, thank you, baby. It’s brilliant. I love you. So much. Happy tenth anniversary too, babe.’ He held her hand and turned towards the moon. ‘You know, somewhere out in the future when we are old and grey and have grandkids asking to borrow my belt buckle, drink my beer and use my grandpa car, I’ll be saying to you “Happy fiftieth anniversary, Stella darling”. Because I know right at this moment, I’m goin’ to love you forever. You’re my woman.’

Stella’s expression gave way to tears as she looked into the face of the moon and then looked at the beautiful face of her man. In her heart, she knew what Tom said was true. They would love forever. Eternally.

She kicked off her boots and turned so Tom could unhook the eyelets of her corset. She folded the garment away from her body, dropping it onto the bleached summertime grasses, revealing her naked body to him. Then she turned to her man and put her arms about his neck. He scooped her up and carried her into the dam. The water lapped at their limbs as they tumbled into the wash of cool brown water, the slide of mud between their toes washed clean with each kick. Together they swam to the middle where the moon pooled in a big yellow melted disc at the dam’s heart. There they kissed, like first-time lovers, deeply, gently, lingeringly, until every nerve ending of each other’s body was alive, almost glowing with electric energies. Entwined, limbs sliding over one another, Tom found footing on a long forgotten boulder and also found his place deep within his wife, sliding her body onto his cock. With relief, he simply held her there, conjoined, both of them drinking in the closeness. As they began to gently move in slow, deeply penetrating pulses, Stella kissed the water from her husband’s hot skin. He tasted of soils, rich with life. He tasted of farm life and of love. And there under the wash of the moon, Stella joined the stars as she cried out with the climax of her life clutching her deep within. Her husband, Tom, journeyed with her and together they both drifted into the ether in a love renewed.

The next morning, Stella woke to the sound of Ned burbling, ‘Mum, mum, mum, mum,’ in his cot beside the bed. Tom was nowhere to be found on the rumpled, sweat-sagging sheets that spoke of restless hot harvest nights. He was long gone to work. She dragged herself up, pulling on Tom’s T-shirt, feeling a strange rush of desire merely from the lingering scent of him on the garment. She remembered the moon. Was it all a dream?

Sleepily she stood. ‘I’ll get you a bottle, mate,’ she said to her boy and groggily she made her way out to the kitchen, glancing in on Milly who was still deeply asleep in her little girl’s bed. Still half asleep herself, Stella stood at the kitchen bench and glanced at the picture of Nigella on the fridge.

‘Well? Did I dream it?’

Nigella said nothing, but she seemed to be looking in the direction of the laundry. As the kettle bubbled steam into the already warm morning air, Stella glanced into the laundry. On the floor lay a crumpled pile of clothing, along with Tom’s work shorts, her old bra. Also on the pile was a fine, black lace corset, crusted with dam clay.

Stella smiled to herself. She turned back to the kitchen where she saw the gifted belt buckle propped up in its box, sitting in pride of place in the centre of the table. There was also a note.

No need to cook smoko for me, darling. I’ll be in at ten-thirty to eat you instead, baby! Your loving (sexy) husband of ten happy years, Tom xx

Stella held the note to her heart and turned to face the fridge.

‘You did this, didn’t you, Nigella? You gave us the moon last night.’ She smiled with tears in her eyes and began to laugh at her good fortune, and as she did, she was sure she saw her goddess wink.

The Crutching (#ub425ebbe-3dae-5cc1-9cd6-3f55fb6ffef3)

The handpiece vibrated in Mervyn Crank’s strong grip as he dabbed the last bit of wool from the tail of a ewe and gently let her go. She slid in a stunned stupor with her little cloven feet cast in the air and disappeared down the chute to the count-out pens below the shearing shed. There she joined the other fifty Pine Hills ewes who, because they had the dirtiest tails, had been drafted off to be crutched and wigged a second time before lambing. The early spring flush of lush green grass and no access to dry tucker to bind them up a bit had been giving the ewes grief, and Mervyn Crank was not a man to allow a lamb to come into the world through a veil of sodden dung at a ewe’s rear end. He’d been happy to help Mrs Taylor out with the crutching again.

Mervyn slipped out of the shearer’s backsaver sling that hung from the rafters of the shearing shed. The sling creaked a little on its taut spring as it dangled and bounced in the warm evening air. Sweat had beaded on Mervyn’s lined brow and pooled in his tufted grey eyebrows. He flexed backwards, placing two big hands into the small of his back, and groaned a little as he arched his tired muscles.

‘She was the one I’ve been looking for today,’ Mervyn said, grabbing up his water cooler. ‘The last one!’ He took a swig. ‘Getting too old for this game. I only crutched fifty and look at me!’

Mrs Taylor, who had been watching him in silence for the past fifteen minutes, stepped forward, unhooked his towel hanging from the nail near the shearer’s stand and handed it to him. He took it with an inclination of his head and a glance of gratitude in his vibrant light blue eyes. As he swiped the towel across his face, he winked at Mrs Taylor and said, ‘Thank you, madam.’

She indicated the clock on the wall. ‘Yes, tired you may be, but you completed the task in good time,’ she said in a smooth and gentle voice. ‘You’ll make your first of the season lawn bowls competition with time to spare, of that I am certain.’ Mrs Taylor slipped her elegant hand into the pocket of her black mohair cardigan. ‘How much do I owe you, Mervyn?’

Mervyn looked at the red lipstick applied perfectly to Mrs Taylor’s lined but still full and shapely mouth, then lifted his gaze to her large, hooded brown eyes. Her eyes were clouded with what seemed like a lifetime’s sadness mixing and melting into two pretty dark pools. In her younger days, she’d been a stunner around town, a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn. She still was in a way. Mervyn tapped his fingertips on his lips as he thought, his eyes fixed on hers. She didn’t belong here. Not here in the shed, and not here in this district. She was graceful and nervous, like a deer, but those who knew deer knew that they were also strong and elusive creatures. And like a deer, Mrs Taylor’s line, the shape her body made in the world, was utterly smooth and beautiful, like one of the china figurines his Sheila used to order from the magazines for her cabinet. Mervyn stopped his finger tapping.

‘I reckon fifty bucks oughta do it, Mrs Taylor,’ Mervyn said.

Mrs Taylor shifted her sparrow-like weight in her little red flats on the board and pulled the cardigan of her twin-set about her bony shoulders. She frowned at him, fingering invisible pearls. Mervyn couldn’t help notice a button missing on the cardigan that was pilling under the sleeves a little. He noticed there was a small hole in the shoulder of the garment. The signature pearl necklace parodied by everyone around the district was missing too. He watched as Mrs Taylor tried to swallow her pride, but still she shook her head. ‘No, Mervyn. I owe you more.’ Mrs Taylor held two golden fifty-dollar notes in her slim piano-concerto player’s fingers. She unfolded them and offered them up to Mervyn. Her deerlike eyes were on him, pleading for him to take the money.

He sighed, scratched the back of his head, then with kindness in his eyes, plucked only one note from her.

‘There was just a handful to crutch out of the whole mob. It’s no problem.’ He cast his eyes to the floor where a scattering of dags lay. ‘And it’ll take me no time to tidy up.’

‘I’ll pay you what’s due,’ she said curtly. ‘I don’t want your charity. And I certainly don’t want anybody’s pity.’ Mervyn smiled. It was so like her. The impenetrable veneer of the grazier’s wife. Rural royalty.

Picking up the wool paddle, he began to draw the dags into a pile, glancing at her, his eyes crinkling at the sides.

‘Who says charity and pity are what I’m giving you, Mrs Taylor? Maybe I like coming here,’ Mervyn said quietly. ‘Maybe I’d like to give you something other than that. If you catch my drift.’

Mrs Taylor’s eyes darted to him, one perfectly shaped and pencilled eyebrow arching up at him in surprise. He turned his back and with his strong crutcher’s hands, he grasped two short wooden planks and stooped down, using them to scoop up the dags and toss them into the bin. Then he turned to sort the few crutchings on the wool table, flicking them into two piles of dirty and clean wool. The striped belt that he wore about his waist held his shearer’s dungarees neatly at his waist. He was fit for a man of his age, and Mrs Taylor had spent the afternoon admiring this aspect of him. He had a steady patience with the ewes should any get testy and start beating their hind legs violently against the floor as he crutched. And brawny though he was, he had a gentlemanly quality about him, even when handling the sheep and dogs out in the yards.

Mrs Taylor stood now on the board feeling her pulse flutter in her throat like a butterfly caught against glass. How long had it been? she wondered. How long? She took in his broad shoulders that were stooped a little from age, but his character remained upright. He was a good man, Mervyn. Decent and clean. Kind and mild. Mrs Taylor liked that.

When she had first climbed the steep steps into the shearing shed, the pain from her arthritic knees had dissolved when she had caught sight of Mervyn bent over the sheep, intent on his work, held in a shaft of light from the skylights, more golden and serene than the light that spilled into cathedrals through stained glass, and the buzz of the handpiece delivering up a meditative drone. The peace of the place and the presence of Mervyn working with the animals had soothed Mrs Taylor instantly.

Mrs Taylor had felt a rush through her body at the sight of the quiet man at toil. There was a sense of gratitude within her, but she recognised something else. What she had felt was a rush of desire. And a surge of love for this man. Mervyn had been the one, through thick and thin, who had been there for her, in the background, since her husband had died. He was the reason she had remained here on Pine Hills.

Mrs Taylor had watched Mervyn for a while without his awareness of her presence. She saw that he moved like a dancer. The way he glided the handpiece around the ears of the ewes and across their pretty, startled faces, shearing the tips of the grey wool away to reveal divine white fibres. The way he gently let the creatures down the drop after the wigging and crutching and, unfurling himself from the sling, moved to the catching pen to grab up another one.