Bella's Run (22 page)

Bella had met Warren at a cocktail party two years after she’d arrived in Melbourne. The public-relations firm she worked for specialised in large rural clients, and she was at the party to attract work and sponsorship from the corporate attendees.

She loved her job but she hated those nights; putting on a front, being nice to wan, spotty-faced city blokes who were more interested in looking down her shirt than listening to what she had to say. Meeting Warren had been the highlight of the evening; he’d made the other men in the room sink into the ludicrous pattern on the papered walls.

With his blond, patrician good looks and English accent, Warren had flattered and flirted and asked her out for a drink after the function. One hand held her coat, the other a large cheque. ‘An investment in the future,’ he’d said to her boss, while looking deep into her eyes. He was a man who knew what he wanted, where he was going and with whom. And she was sucked in.

He had about him an air of reassurance that made her feel safe and secure. After the turmoil her life had been in, she felt like she had finally reached calm waters in Warren’s arms. Here was someone who truly cared. When Warren focused on
her
, it made her feel like she was the only person in the world who was important. And she had desperately needed that, to feel loved, adored and cherished.

She wasn’t sure when it had all changed; couldn’t put her finger on the exact moment when the adoration and cherishing had turned into suffocation. For despite all Warren’s assurances that she helped him kick back and enjoy life, she slowly came to realise that wasn’t true. He wanted her to focus on him and help build his career. And it had only grown worse the higher he climbed the corporate ladder. Although he maintained that their relationship was the priority in his life, Warren’s career came above and before anything else. Including her.

Six years later, she could yell and curse all she wanted, but it wouldn’t vent the anger she felt over Warren’s betrayal. Cocking her head, she caught the faint warbling coming from the CD player. She hit the eject button and snatched Pavarotti from his cosy hole. Jabbing at the electronic buttons near her right hand, she slid the window down.

‘Take that, you morbid bastard,’ she yelled as she threw the disc out the window. The CD bounced once on the road and then into the thick grassy verge.

Grappling one-handed through the CDs at her side, she realised they were all Warren’s. Pavarotti, Carreras, Domingo: the operatic list went on. Bloody hell! She needed some yell-out-loud country music. And she needed it now.

It took a minute for it to come to mind. It had been so long. Swinging the car into the next truck stop, she parked and then bent to scrabble on the floor under the driver’s seat.

‘Got it,’ Bella muttered as she drew out her find. A cheap and dog-eared CD holder. She flicked on the interior light and opened the front of the battered old relic. Inside the cover, barely legible in a flamboyant hand, was inscribed, ‘Dearest Hells Bells, Yell out loud, girlfriend. You rock! Love always, Pat Me Tuffet.’

Oh dear God, could she bear it? Even after all this time? Waves of emotion fought to escape from tight confines of her heart. Bella took a deep breath; forced her feelings to stay under lock and key. She looked closely at the labels imprinted on the disks in her hands, and her walking fingers found what she needed.

She slid the CD into the slot and within seconds the Dixie Chicks bounced from the roof and plush interior. Using both hands, Bella pulled at the sleek chignon that held her hair in check. She released her tumbling ringlets, finger-combing through hairspray to send the honey-coloured locks into wild disarray.

Cranking up the stereo a few more notches, she started the car and took off, stones flying, wheels spinning, back onto Highway Number One, a road that could take you all the way around Australia if you wanted.

Singing hopelessly flat and at the top of her voice, Bella found a release for the anger that had been consuming her for most of the night. The diamond on her hand glinted again. She refused to be attracted, keeping her eyes glued to the road leading her to the Vermaelon family home, and respite.

As the car ate up the miles, the massive and brightly lit bypasses that overhung the highway became more sporadic, and finally disappeared. The luminous full moon shone white and settled itself slap-bang in the middle of the highway, lining up its radiance with the grassy verge between thoroughfares.

She hadn’t been home as much as she’d have liked these last eight years. Warren was never keen to ‘head bush’, as he called it. He always came up with excuses not to visit her family and he sulked if she went by herself. It had been easier to just go along with him. Christmases had come and gone, and another year passed with only the odd visit to the farm, when Warren was working away.

A plane heading east slung a white hazy jet stream out behind. The fluffy residue reflected brightly under the light from the moon. She had missed seeing the night sky undimmed by blazing city lights; missed the quiet of the bush; missed her family.

Thank God she didn’t feel sick anymore. The gastro bug she’d been battling seemed finally to have abated – or maybe her anger had burned it away? The fact she’d been able to attend this evening’s function at all was a feat in itself. A couple of days ago, she would’ve vomited all over Warren’s Italian leather shoes.

She knew she should have gone straight home after the rodeo rather than going onto that bloody cocktail party. But then again, she wouldn’t have finally ripped off the rose-coloured glasses she’d worn these past few years. At last she had acknowledged Warren’s selfishness, and the spinelessness that lurked beneath his self-assurance. Tears pricked her eyes as she sighed. There were so many choices and paths leading alternate ways.

The smaller country towns marched along the road at various intervals, and then they too grew further apart. The Dixie Chicks moved onto ‘Taking the Long Way’ and Bella’s mood gradually slipped into the slow beat and melancholy emotions of the ballad, her anger spent. Was it something everyone went through – this search to find themselves? Her Aunty Maggie had an old birthday card on the wall at Tindarra Cottage, which read, ‘
Sometimes the best way to figure out who you are, is to get to that place where you don’t have to be anything else.
’ She wondered about that.

Was it only yesterday that her boss had handed her two free tickets to the State of Origin International Rodeo? Her job delivered some side-benefits: free tickets to a huge variety of events was one. She hit the elevator button at the lavish Docklands penthouse she shared with Warren beside the Yarra River. She couldn’t wait to go, to see, feel and be a part of a country tradition from her early years, which until now she hadn’t realised she missed so much. It wasn’t until the elevator started its climb to the top floor that reality hit like a fisted hand.

Warren wouldn’t want to go.

Her bubbles of excitement popped in mid-air.

The elevator delivered her into a sleek, minimalist living room suffering mortuary-level temperatures thanks to efficient airconditioning. Bella shivered, goose bumps rising on her arms. The intelligent lighting blinked on and she could hear the pre-programmable convection oven spinning its stuff, a couple of chicken mignons ensconced inside. Bella looked around at her sterile surroundings. What the hell was she doing here? Really?

The only part of the penthouse that was cosy was the mocha-coloured shag-pile rug on the floor and a cherry-red minky blanket she kept on the back of the leather sofa, much to Warren’s disgust. At least she’d snipped off the Target label so he could pretend it came from some fancy designer.

Slipping off her high-heeled shoes, Bella wrapped herself in the blanket and shuffled into the kitchen for something to eat. What wouldn’t she have done for one of her mother’s date scones with lashings of yellow butter, or even a slice of Aunty Maggie’s ginger fluff sponge dripping with homemade cream freshly skimmed from the milk bucket that morning?

‘We can’t go.’ Warren was adamant as he tapped on his BlackBerry an hour or so later. ‘You did say tomorrow night, didn’t you?’

Bella opened her mouth to reply but Warren kept right on talking.

‘It’s a definite no. You know we have that black-tie function at Crown to meet my new CEO.’

Of course, Bella should have known. Oxford, Bride and Associates always took precedence over everything else. Momentarily she wondered whether turning herself into a share portfolio or a multi-million-dollar takeover bid would give her more say over her life.

Warren moved to stand directly in front of her, BlackBerry still in hand, the downlighting casting his shadow over her. She drew the warm minky blanket closer, instinctively seeking its reassurance.

‘We can give the tickets to Caroline and Trinity. It can be their last hurrah before their wedding this weekend, seeing as they’re so set on moving to that God-forsaken place in the mountains. I have no comprehension as to why you people love that place.’

‘Probably because you haven’t been there.’

‘And I have no desire to go there, but I will . . .’ Warren’s patrician face formed a grimace ‘. . . for
you
. Hopefully there’ll be someone there to talk to who isn’t totally preoccupied with the weather. But like I said, give the tickets to Caroline and Trinity.’

‘Warren, we’re
not
giving second-hand tickets to Caro and Trin as a wedding present.’

No, Bella had arranged a few nights at a luxurious retreat for Caro and Trin’s honeymoon, and
that
was going to be her gift, not freebie cast-offs. And the pair deserved it after being there for her all these years, supporting her through all the grief and loneliness. Caro and Trin had slogged for the last eight years to turn old Wes’s Ben Bullen Hills Station into a profitable working property while still holding down jobs in the city to help pay for all the improvements. Now they were going to move back to the mountains and farm full-time. They deserved a few nights’ honeymoon before heading bush.

In the early days of her relationship with Warren, Bella had relished the fact that he was so wonderfully different to the men she had known before. Gone were rough work clothes, elastic-sided boots, the colloquial slang of the bush. Warren was sophisticated, handsome, precise. Nobody would never call Warren a ‘bloke’.

Now she wondered if she’d fallen in love with a smooth veneer – a superficial man whose cold and competitive English boarding-school upbringing was colliding fiercely with her own deep loving family, where values and principles went beyond just thinking about yourself. Their relationship hadn’t started out like this, had it? In the early years, he was so loving and attentive. And surely, Warren hadn’t always only done what
he
wanted to do? She pondered that. Possibly. So had she just aided and abetted him?