Talk to Me Tenderly, Tell Me Lies. John Davis Gordon

With a grim sigh, she slumped down at the kitchen table.

      Not only pathetic, but boring – that’s what she was! That’s why that little jerk had left without even a see-yer … Boring, and so insignificant that it didn’t matter if he was rude to her. A has-been Outback wife who’s so boring he’d wanted to leave yesterday afternoon – she had encouraged him to stay and then got so drunk that he thought it was best if he just folded his tent and pissed off in the dawn to avoid another encounter, another boring entreaty for him to stay yet one more boring day …

      Boring boring boring and useless – that’s what she’d become! Because she hadn’t used her head for years. She wasn’t even physically attractive anymore!

      What’s that got to do with it? she demanded. That’s how boring you’ve got, you mix things up, muddle arguments, bring in irrelevancies! What’s your fat body got to do with this? With that little hippy on his 1000cc Thunderbird or whatever it’s called? God knows – and this is the absolute honest-to-God dinkum truth – God knows she hadn’t the slightest physical interest in him. He was so … little. Besides, she’d never been unfaithful to Clyde in her life – and she’d had a few opportunities – possibly more than most wives out in the boondocks – and it honestly hadn’t crossed her mind to be so with little Ben Hippy Sunninghill. He had made a few remarks that could have been interpreted as a come-on, and there was that moment he tried to hold her – but she’d frozen him right out! And he’d backed right off, hadn’t he? So maybe they weren’t come-ons. So what’s your disgusting body got to do with this?

      But, anyway, it’s true. Look at you!

      She looked down at her naked legs.

      Look at those cellulite-dimpled thighs, your tummy sticking out. Your stretch-marked tummy. Look at your floppy boobs …

      Helen sat up straight, pulled her stomach in, crossed her legs and stuck her chest out a little. She looked down again.

      Now that is how she used to look all the time. That’s how she should look, and could again if she wasn’t such a boring mindless slob!

      She got up impatiently, fetched another can of beer, ripped off the top and took two big swallows.

      Oh, she was impatient with herself … She strode from the kitchen into the hall, and glared at herself in the full-length mirror, her can of Four-X in her hand.

      What a slob! She pulled her shoulders back, tummy in. Stick your tits out! There …

      She looked at herself. Not bad – for forty-two. And four kids. Okay, she was about ten pounds overweight, but then she always was a big girl – ‘well-nourished’, as Clyde said (he’d got that out of some book and loved to raise a laugh with it). She would have preferred ‘Rubenesque’, or better still, ‘statuesque’. But dear old Mother Nature never meant her to be slim, and certainly not flat-chested – she was intended for breeding, that had been clear at Cathy’s age. (As it was clear about Cathy: but at least she wouldn’t be stuck in the Outback – she’d probably end up editing some glossy fashion magazine.) But, my word, she needed to lose those ten pounds …

      ‘Don’t I, Oscar?’

      She froze, staring at herself. Oscar?

      She closed her eyes. ‘Oh God, my Oscar …’ And she gave a deep sigh, and turned and walked slowly back to the kitchen. She sat down heavily at the table, leant on both elbows and dropped her head into her hands.

      She sat there, nursing her light, unreal head, trying fiercely not to think about Oscar. Then she snapped herself up straight, stood up grimly, went to the sink and tipped away the rest of her beer.

      ‘Out, out, damned spot! Damned cellulite!’

      She turned and strode back to her bedroom.

      She had a shower, and washed her hair. She pulled on a fresh shirt and jeans, combed back her wet hair and tied it in a ponytail; she even put on some lipstick. Then she stomped through the house, out the back door, to the Land Rover. She started the engine, rammed the gear lever, and roared off up the track towards Billy’s hut.

      To see if he had sobered up. To give him a few instructions. To bring some order to this neck of the woods!

CHAPTER 7

      It was eleven o’clock when she came grinding back down the track towards the house. She slammed to a stop in the yard, scattering chickens and ducks. She scrambled out, slammed the door, and strode for the kitchen. She was going to radio Clyde right now – haul him up from underground if necessary – and tell him about Billy! She flung back the screen-door and burst into the kitchen, then came to a halt, staring.

      Ben Sunninghill was sitting at the kitchen table, grinning that wide, impish grin, with a six-pack of beer beside him, one opened. A big coil of electric cable and two new door-locks lay beside the beer. And on his knees, with a ribbon round its neck, was a Boxer puppy.

      Helen stared at them. At the puppy, at Ben, back at the puppy. Then her eyes began to moisten. ‘Oh Ben …’ she cried. She dashed to the table, dropped on to her haunches, grabbed the puppy.

      She held it up to her grinning face, shining-eyed. The puppy blinked at her inquisitively, unalarmed. ‘Oh Ben! And a Boxer! Where did you get him?’ She pulled it to her neck joyfully.

      Ben smiled. ‘Burraville Hotel. Jack Goodwin. You told me his bitch had a litter.’

      ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous!’ She clasped the little animal to her joyfully. ‘But I must pay for him! I bet that Jack Goodwin didn’t give him away!’

      Ben smiled. ‘No, my shout. He didn’t cost much, not with your actual Ben Sunninghill of the New York diamond market doing the bargaining. He’s not pure-bred, his mother went to a picnic – even Jack Goodwin finally admitted that under my ruthless cross-examination. His father was a dingo.’

      ‘A dingo!’ Helen held up the grunting puppy and waggled it. ‘I don’t believe it!’

      ‘But that’s what I told Jack Goodwin. Nearly threw me out. Said at worst it was Mrs Johnson’s Labrador, Fred.’

      ‘Oh, Fred’s a beautiful dog!’

      ‘Don’t bank on Fred. I went over to the schoolhouse to check him out. Black as the ace of spades, Fred is, and this guy’ – he indicated the puppy – ‘is nearly all brown. I saw half a dozen likely candidates for fatherhood as I left town.’ He added: ‘He’s not a very likeable man, Jack, is he?’

      ‘Jack? No. Has he got a name, this little feller?’

      ‘Jack called him Biggles, because of that white mark round his neck, like a scarf. Think he was trying to impress me with how well-read he was.’

      ‘Biggles?’ She looked at the grunting face doubtfully.

      ‘I thought of Hogan. After Crocodile Dundee, because he came at me with those sharp little teeth—’

      ‘I know what we’ll call him – Dundee!’

      ‘Dundee? Yeah, that’s better.’

      ‘Dundee!’ She jumped up, held the unworried puppy aloft and waltzed around with him. ‘Oh, you’re much more beautiful than Paul Hogan, even when he’s scrubbed up!’ She turned to Ben, eyes shining. ‘Oh, thank you, Ben …’ She crossed the kitchen impetuously, flung an arm around his narrow shoulders and planted a kiss on his bristly cheeks. ‘Thank you.’ She stood back, beaming at him, her eyes moist.

      Ben grinned up at her happily. ‘I’m glad. Enjoy.’ Then he glanced at his wrist-watch, banged his hands on his knees and stood up. ‘Well, I thought I’d fix those doorlocks and put an extension on to that generator switch for you, then I’d better