Read Online Crow Country by Kate Constable - Free Book Online Page B

up?’
    â€˜I met David,’ said Ellie. ‘Craig and I had been together for a couple of years. I was only eighteen. I’d let Craig decide how things were going to be; I’d sort of drifted into it. He was keener on me than I was on him, I suppose. He used to talk about me moving up here for good, living with Nana, getting a job. He’d even talked about us getting married.’ Ellie snorted. ‘At our age! Crazy!’
    â€˜Your Nana Jean was nineteen when she married Clarry Hazzard,’ said Sadie.
    Ellie stared at her. ‘Was she? How do you know that?’
    Sadie opened her mouth and shut it again. ‘I dunno,’ she said feebly. ‘You must have told me.’
    â€˜Did I?’ Ellie frowned. ‘Well, I suppose she must have been pretty young . . . Anyway, as soon as I met David, I knew I didn’t want to marry Craig Mortlock, no matter what a star he was at cricket, or how much land his dad owned.’ Ellie fell silent.
    â€˜So, what happened?’ prompted Sadie.
    â€˜Something awful,’ said Ellie. ‘Now I wish I hadn’t started this story.’
    Sadie waited.
    Ellie sighed. ‘One of David’s mates asked him to go fishing on the lake – Lake Invergarry. But when they got there, it was a trap. Craig and some others were waiting for them. They – they beat David up. He nearly drowned.’
    She was silent for a long time. Sadie stared at the floor.
    At last Ellie said, ‘I let David down, back then. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I loved David, but I knew I’d hurt Craig. I felt guilty. I thought it was all my fault. So I ran away. I never want to be a coward like that again. I’ve got another chance now. I can’t wreck it this time.’
    Ellie reached for Sadie’s hand and squeezed it so hard she crushed Sadie’s fingers.
    â€˜Well,’ said Sadie awkwardly. ‘If you don’t want to wreck it again, shouldn’t you fix things up with David?’
    Ellie laughed, and wiped her eyes. ‘Yes, you’re right. Where’s my phone?’ She stood up, went back into the kitchen and returned with her mobile in her hand, thumbing the keypad.
    â€˜Sadie,’ she said. ‘Better not talk about this. Not to Lachie, or Craig, or David, or Walter. There’s no point stirring it all up again. Just keep it a secret, okay?’
    â€˜Okay,’ agreed Sadie. Then she added, ‘Anyway, I’m not talking to Lachie any more.’
    But Ellie wasn’t listening. She pressed the phone to her ear. ‘Hi, it’s me. Are you home yet? I wasn’t sure you’d pick up—’ She walked out of the room, and Sadie heard her bedroom door click shut.
    Sadie sat on the couch. On the TV, a player was lining up a kick at goal. The umpire’s whistle blew, and the ball soared into the night sky, spinning yellow against black, and the crowd roared as it sliced between the goalposts.
    Sadie aimed the remote at the TV and turned everything to black.
    In bed, she closed her eyes. On the other side of the wall, Ellie’s voice murmured, talking to David, and the sound merged in her mind with the hum of drinkers in the pub, the roar of Lachie’s trail bike, the shouts of the football crowd, the gentle tick-tick of the clock in Clarry and Jean’s kitchen, and rising above them all, the long, mournful lament of the crows. Waah . . . waah . . . waa-aah . . .
    And it was those cries that haunted her as she sank into a troubled sleep.

T he next evening Sadie discovered that she’d lost her gloves.
    â€˜Oh, Sadie .’ Ellie lowered her magazine. ‘Not again .’
    Sadie hovered in the doorway, waiting to see which way Ellie would go. She might say gaily, never mind, we can pick you up another pair next time we go to Bendigo . Or she might insist that Sadie retrace her steps for the past forty-eight hours until she found them.
    â€˜Did you lose