Daisies

On and on went the old road, a ribbon of dirty orange to the horizon. A crow caroused with maudlin sorrow above the slim, dark figure as he walked away from the motel.

Low slung jeans, a battered straw hat and no shirt – lucky he’d chosen to leave her on a warm day thought Aggie, watching as Joe looked this way and that in the distance. Perhaps he was keeping a look-out for snakes.

Tides of mosquitos floated through Aggie’s upstairs window and she swatted at them, swearing gently.

Mondays were always dull out here in the Australian outback. The fact today was her 68th birthday made no difference. She’d planned on cooking a nice dinner for her and Joe, and she’d probably get a call from her son later.

Around lunchtime, once the daily coach to Kalgoorlie picked up the weekend tourists where they queued beneath her neon “Motel Open” sign, it’d just be her and the chooks. Just as well she liked her own company.

Short of moving to the big smoke, Aggie was stuck out here with her one gammy leg and now no-one to help her with the bloody breakfasts.

The thing was, Joe had his uses. Apart from chopping wood and collecting water from the well, he was better than a hot water bottle on cold nights.

Joe had come to her out of the blue last Spring. He was looking for work and Aggie – well, Aggie was looking for something rather more, as it turned out...

“I’m a good worker, missus,” Joe told her that clear-skied morning, and Aggie saw something she liked in those dark, wet eyes of his. So she pointed him towards the old barn and there he stayed, sleeping on a swag and working the long days of Summer harvest with her.

And then it was Autumn and Aggie saw how harsh the cold mornings were on the poor old bugger.

“Best you give away the swag and sleep indoors until it warms up, Joe,” she told him one morning as he sat at her kitchen table, pink-nosed and dressed in a woollen beanie. Joe looked up in surprise but didn’t argue.

Aggie made up the little room on the top floor and the arrangement seemed to suit both of them very well throughout what remained of Autumn, and into the coldest Winter they’d seen in those parts for many years.

One evening after supper, they sat together in the darkened lounge room as was their custom, Aggie knitting and Joe doing the Daily News crossword.

“Cuppa, missus?” Joe asked, and Aggie looked up absentmindedly from her knitting to find him standing right there, by her chair.

She saw it then: a look in his eyes, or perhaps she imagined it. Either way, a certain warmth seemed to grow between them and, not long after, they started sharing a bed whenever she gave him the wink. Aggie, who by then hadn’t felt a man’s hand on her for over 10 years, was always surprised at how gentle Joe was at the art of love

Sun up to sun down, Joe had worked alongside her all year and now, just as the heat was returning to her small patch of outback and the wildflowers meant more customers coming to take photographs to share on Instagram and Facebook, he was buggering off.

Finally, she turned from the window. The four tourists who’d arrived the previous day were mewling over their cereal in the dining room downstairs and would be wanting eggs and bacon soon.

Outside, the wind began burrowing into the eucalyptus trees, annoying the hell out of the chooks as they scurried from saltbush to saltbush.

“Comes a time in every woman’s life when the chips are down and you gotta sustain yourself,”, thought Aggie, cursing the tears on her cheeks as she headed downstairs.

Burning bridges was one of Aggie’s particular skills, and she got ready to burn the one that Joe was walking over at that very moment. Perhaps she’d stick a fire cracker up his arse, too.

The familiar sound of the front door opening surprised her. Clear faced and happy, Joe stood there silhouetted in the sunlight, a bunch of daisies in his right hand and a stupid look on his dear old face.

“What the!” Clouds filled Aggie’s eyes.

“...and I was out there, tryin' to find yerz something for yer birthday....” Joe was saying. The flowers were already drooping. “Them tourists told me they'd seen some daisies out on the ridge and they was right...”

Joe fell silent, his look quizzical as he became aware of Aggie’s wet cheeks.

Aggie couldn’t help smiling.

“And where exactly do you want me to put ‘em, old feller?”

Galloping towards her with a twinkle in his eye, Joe put one hand on Aggie’s shoulder.

“Onto that big old table in the dining room, missus. I’m cooking yer a roast tonight.”

The tears on Aggie’s cheeks suddenly seemed okay. She reached up and placed one cool hand over his.

“And after, will you play me one of them didjeridon’t tunes?” she asked with a wink, then turned and walked towards the kitchen with a wiggle to her hips.