Fifty Bales of Hay. Rachael Treasure

      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.