Read Online Anchor Point by Alice Robinson - Free Book Online

rabbit’s – red, wet and rheumy. Twin slugs of snot lay on her upper lip.
    â€˜Ready, Dad,’ Laura said. She forced a smile. The air was sweet with sun-warmed grass and pollen. Vik wheezed. Bruce unfolded a wrinkled grey map from his pocket, smoothed it on the bonnet of the ute. Laura looked at it again. It showed in broken lines where the fences should be built. The design was based, Bruce had said, on the sheep farm his father once owned and lost.
    â€˜Never lived there myself,’ Bruce told Laura. ‘I was born just after they moved up to the “shitty”,’ he said with a little smile. ‘My old man talked about Cairnlea, though. Told me all about it from when I was a young bloke. Talked about it so much I reckon I could draw the place if I wanted to, clear as anything.’
    And he had.
    â€˜Here’s what we’re gonna do,’ Bruce said on the hill, as Vik and Laura climbed into the tray of the ute. He pointed to the image of the farm divided into squares by a neat greylead grid; he pointed down the slope. ‘This paddock’ll run from here to that stump over there. See it?’
    Nodding, Laura squinted at the dead tree, a dot on the opposite ridge.
    â€˜Right,’ Bruce said. ‘So from there, we fence down to the road and along to the drive.’
    â€˜That’s a fair way,’ Laura said mildly.
    Bruce grinned, chewing on a stalk of grass. ‘You remember what to do?’ he said, rubbing his hands together.
    Laura ground her teeth. ‘Yes, Dad,’ she said. ‘’Course.’
    Bruce took the stalk out of his mouth, spat pith and went on to explain the task again. Once the position of the fence had been marked, he would drive along the line while Vik and Laura stood in the tray and dropped posts off the back of the ute. Then there were holes to dig, posts to plant, wires to string and strain. Each paddock they completed was a record of their days: months measured in acres and wires.
    â€˜My eyes hurt,’ Vik whispered. It was hard to tell if the forming tears were of frustration, or if it was the grass.
    Bruce looked up, appraising. Laura hated the expression he wore, horribly devoid of warmth. ‘Who’s complaining?’ He went around to the driver-side door and pulled it open without a backward glance. The ute lurched.
    Vik’s face crumpled. She got to her knees in the tray, groaning up like an old woman resigned to certain death. Sneezing pink mist into her hand, she didn’t look at Laura, whose chest was tight as tape.
    â€˜I’ll see if you can stop,’ Laura said quietly. ‘I’ll ask him.’
    â€˜No,’ Vik said, fearful. ‘Don’t!’
    But Laura banged on the roof of the cab: their signal. Bruce rolled his window down.
    â€˜Vik’s not well, Dad. Her hayfever’s real bad.’
    Sighing, ute idling in neutral, Bruce heaved out of the cab and stood to look at Vik. Laura watched him weighing up. ‘Not fit for work? Best get yourself back to the house.’
    He lifted Vik down as if she were a doll, set her in the grass. The engine coughed. Vik’s eyes, pinched with tears, found Laura’s face and narrowed.
    Sorry , Laura mouthed, stomach sinking. It was a long walk home across paddocks, and while Vik had covered this distance a thousand times, Laura felt bad imagining the little girl trudging home alone and unwell. She hoped Vik would have the sense to put herself to bed when she got back, to brew tea: jobs Laura normally took care of. But there was no time to give instructions before the ute moved off again.
    Laura called urgently, ‘Bye!’ but Vik didn’t respond. She watched her sister recede.
    Warm air whistled across the ridge. Laura thought she heard something, a sound resonating just below the regular range of speech, like a voice carried a great distance; words whipped into tones by wind. She turned, stared down at the house, out along