Bad ANGELS

By Peter McAra

The angels reached accord.
They must kill St. Dominic.
There were many ways to do this.

Sure, God could strike him with a lightning bolt from heaven in a flash. But the Angels would have to ask God to do the deed, and their relationship with the eternal heavenly father did not automatically allow that.

Humans could pray to God, and on a good day, he might hear their prayers. But humans tend to be unreliable. If one prays for black, another is likely to pray for white.
It has been thus since the days of Adam and Eve.

All things considered, it would be better to go about the task without involving The Lord. The angels should do it using their own limited powers. Angels can fly, so gaining entry to the secure space would not be a problem. There were already angels inside the Garden – members of the angelic host – who could help.
What of the technology? Everyone knew that the boundary fences were festooned with optical-electronic sensors, visible and invisible. Would they detect angels? That stupid old line speculating about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin was not helpful in this day and age.

No, it would be better to pose as humans, tackle the job accordingly.

The guards at the Garden gate, on round the clock duty, would be a problem, but not an insuperable one. Intrinsically, guards are dumb. The longer they work at their boring, mentally crippling job, the dumber they get. When any organism lives without sensory stimulation its senses atrophy. The guards would have endured years of exposure to their brain-numbing routine. They would not be good at picking up the unusual, then asking themselves why, or what, or whom, lay behind it.

The angels should best enter by the front gate, just like humans. Maybe at some time of day when there was some legitimate traffic – deliveries of food, cleaning materials, household bits and pieces, the Airdsdale GP even. Local tradespeople visited often to fix things – the electrician, the plumber, the glazier. Sure, they were under scrutiny while they worked, but most likely their vehicles would not be. With the basic strategy in place, it would be easy enough for the angels to hitch a ride with someone who made these routine visits.
How about the local electrician they called Handy Andy. Everyone in Airdsdale knew Andy – the cops, the Shire staff, the aldermen, even the newly arrived Arcadians. Andy was okay by the Gardeners. He had made hundreds of trips through those threatening gates. The guards trusted him. Lately he spent months working at Arcadia Downs, wiring the houses one by one as they were built.

Andy had a dog called Patch. The dog, an ageing fox terrier, mostly white with a conspicuous black patch on his bottom, came and went with Andy like his shadow. Some locals liked Patch, others did not, but everyone saw the wisdom of being nice to Patch if they wanted to get along with Andy. The doggy connection was an easy way for the angelic host to get into Andy’s soft heart.

Taking human form for a while, they could talk to him...
*****

• Language: English
• Publisher: CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Nov 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301879144

Peter McAra

Born a miner's son in Western Australia, Peter learned about love and life in a string of rural towns across Australia and New Zealand, where he grew up with his mum, dad and three sisters. Over the years, his day jobs ranged from miner and truck-driver to academic positions in Australian and US universities. Along the way, he wrote several academic textbooks. Why the switch to writing romance? The moment eight-year-old Peter read Anne of Green Gables, he was hooked. (He's still in love with Anne, actually, but his understanding wife, a relationship psychologist, handles any conflicts professionally). Now, after a tree-change to green acres in coastal NSW, he farms by day and writes by night - the best time for romance.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

March 2007

First, the sound – soft but purposeful. Then the welling tsunami of fear – a soaring wave that crashes over him as he lies in bed. Heart-thudding, choking, paralysing fear. The sound again – soft but real, moving closer. There’s someone – something in the secure room, dissolved in the treacle-dark of the unexplained electricity failure. A footstep. Another. He’s frozen, disoriented. A silent hand flicks back the sheet. Cold air swirls over his sweating legs. He croaks a fear-filled whisper.

‘Wha... who... ?’

Hard into his chest... the stabber grunting with effort, shoving the blade in deeper, deeper. The pain... obscene. The feel of blade scraping on bone.

In the next twenty seconds St. Dominic the Prophet... Dom Potter, dies. Warm blood oozes from the wound over his heart, congealing on the sheets.

Minutes later, lights flash back on across the lanes and cottages of the Garden of New Eden, ten kilometres out of rural Airdsdale. Across the guard room’s security panel, red and blue lights blink. The system hums back to life.

The bloodied body lies in the darkness of the master bedroom.

It will be morning before anyone ventures into the hallowed space of the castle-like building they call the Prophet’s Chambers. Then in horrified panic, they will call the local police.

*****

Chapter One

February 2005

Airdsdale! Tomorrow morning Bill Baker and his wife Anne will head to the folksy country town for their special weekend. Months before, Bill planned the weekend to celebrate his retirement as chief beancounter for BHD. They would dine at Airdsdale’s fanciest restaurant, then luxuriate in a couple of nights of blissful sleep in a comfortable suite. Then the icing on the cake... when the weekend was over, he would no longer have to struggle out of bed at the crack of dawn and go to work... ever again.

He sighed, pushed his chair back from his desk. He must finish packing his things. Stretching on tiptoe, he lifted down the picture of Fiona and Renée from his office wall. For half his years at BHD, his toddler daughters had smiled down at him from above his desk. Now a square of unfaded green paint, topped with a rusty screw, showed where the picture had hung for most of his kids’ lifetimes. That picture had been a Christmas present from St. Mathews Kindergarten – the annual gesture to the parents paying serious money for their kids’ pre-school education. Bill had hung the picture himself all those years before – driven the screw with a screwdriver he brought from home.

His daughters had long ago flown the nest. Renée, who’d always dreamed of an acting career, now slaved in a coffee shop in the English Midlands while she tried to break into rep theatre. Fiona worked in PR, in a northside building he could see on the skyline as he sat at his desk. Bill looked out at that building often, wondering whether Fiona might sometimes look towards his office, sparing a thought for him as she did.

The arc of the Harbour Bridge dragged his eye to the left, the pointy roof of the Sydney Opera House to the right. For the past twenty-three years, Bill scanned that view each evening as he scooped up his briefcase and left the office. The ritual became his way of telling himself he had made it.

The harbour views, the cluster of high-rise buildings, lay spread in front of him, hard proof of his professional success. He reflected... the timing of his retirement was brilliant. Over the years, those downtown high-rises had grown like a rampant forest, progressively blocking the view. In a year, his office’s harbour view would be all but gone.

Bill slid the picture of his daughters into the packing case, sighed again, opening the top drawer of his desk for a final check. There, among the dead pens, paper clips and rubber bands, he saw the flash of tarnished gold – the tiepin. Anne had given him that tiepin during the romantic dinner for two the night he slipped the engagement ring onto her eager finger. Years before, tiepins had gone the way of pink socks and wide ties, but he kept it in his top drawer. It was a talisman, a token – like an engagement ring for a bloke. Whenever he spotted it, his mind flicked back to the night, the candlelight, the gut-clenching feeling that he was in love – really in love. The gorgeous young woman opposite would be his partner until one of them died. They would buy a house, have kids. The kids would grow up, get jobs, have babies… Each time he spotted the tiepin over the years, he asked himself if he still felt the same about Anne as he had that romantic night. And always, he did.

Over the years, he had become the father of the office – always there, always smoothing the rough edges of the daily tiffs, the misunderstandings, the kiss-and-make-ups. He was the wise old man who gave the office its squirt of oil, got things ticking over again – smoothly, happily, profitably. The office became his life. Since the children had left, his Bay Heights home was not much more than a place to sleep.

What of Anne? Bill knew that each morning she left their empty-nest house and surged into each action-packed day – tennis, gym, St. Mathews Ladies Auxiliary, the charity shop. And for light relief, she made big-day-out expeditions to the city’s upmarket dress shops, buying clothes she might never wear. Whatever, Bill still loved the woman who had called herself Mrs. Baker for the last forty years.

He slid the tiepin into his jacket pocket. It would be cute to show it to Anne during a romantic moment over the weekend, tell her what it had come to mean to him.

He checked his watch. A tad after five. His farewell party at the Ambassador Hotel would start at six. He should leave soon. Taxis could be a challenge at this hour on a Friday night. And being late for your own farewell party was worse than being late for your wedding. He reached for the briefcase he had always tucked between desk and filing cabinet as he stepped into his office each morning. How many times had he done that? His beancounter brain went to work. Twenty three years of fifty weeks of five days each, minus the interstate gigs, plus the too many weekends he slaved in the office – close to six thousand times. No wonder the briefcase showed signs of wear.

He closed his office door, savouring the final click of the latch. A spasm of nostalgia sneaked up on him. That wasn’t a tear moistening his eyelid? No! He swallowed, cleared his throat, sniffed hard. Then he walked to Reception and dropped his office keys on Julie Paterson’s desk. The receptionist had started with BHD the same year as Bill. She smiled up at him.

‘Your last day, Bill.’

‘Yep.’ He grinned as he pointed to his watch. ‘Last minute, actually.’

‘Sad?’ she asked.

‘What do you think, Julie?’

‘Knowing you, Bill, I’d say maybe.’

‘Why?’

‘Remember when we started? Back in the eighties, wasn’t it? That pokey little office above the newsagent in Burkedale... deepest suburbia. Now here we are.’ She waved. ‘High-rise, harbour views, the cedar-lined board room. All thanks to you, Bill.’

‘I... just did my job. Counted the beans.’

‘No, Bill. You created the place. Hung in through half a dozen up-themselves CEOs. Then the takeover, the off-shore moves. Grabbed the wheel whenever the ship rolled a bit. You deserve all the credit.’

‘Not all, Julie.’

‘Ninety-nine percent, then.’

Okay, ninety-seven.’ He grinned, pressed the lift button. ‘See you at the party, Julie?’

‘Herds of wild buffaloes wouldn’t keep me away.’

He stepped into the lift. As it slid down to the carpark, he wondered if he would ever ride that lift again. Then a bigger question invaded his brain. What would he do with the rest of his life?

‘Airdsdale?’ Anne Baker’s crotchety, still-sleepy voice grated as her husband inched his BMW through Sydney’s downtown traffic the following morning. ‘For goodness sake, why Airdsdale?’

‘You’ll love Airdsdale, darling.’ Bill reached across and squeezed his wife’s hand. ‘It’s got all the things you like... country air, peace, cows... shops, even.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of shopping in a place called Airdsdale,’ Anne snorted. Bill sighed. He had planned the Airdsdale weekend for months, but kept the location a secret as a surprise for Anne. The BHD board had topped off its bundle of farewell gifts with a night for Bill and Anne in the Ambassador’s honeymoon suite. Around ten last evening, he walked his wife away from the still-buzzing party, his arm round her waist, and caught the lift to their suite. Bill had planned on sleeping late, but the programming of half a lifetime won. Around eight, he shepherded his tired wife to breakfast, then checked out.

‘Thought I told you, love,’ Bill said as he inched the car through the Saturday morning traffic. ‘We had the BHD planning conference at Airdsdale last year? The management team stayed at Airdsdale Lodge. Five star. We all loved it. That’s why I booked it for our special weekend. Great restaurant, great accommodation. I thought you’d...’

‘Wait! I can’t go anywhere without a hat.’ Anne snapped awake. Bill sighed. His wife had been tetchy since she had woken that morning. It had been happening more often lately. At breakfast in the chandeliered Governor Hunter Room, she sent back the special omelette she had ordered – no onion, lots of pepper, just a touch of salt.

‘It’s all your fault,’ she barked.

Bill winced at the bite in her voice. ‘You were supposed to take me to the city last Monday so I could go to Smith and Fortescue and Buy the things I needed for this stupid weekend. Then you dashed off to work without me.’

Bill took a long breath. It would not help to remind Anne that he told her he had an early meeting that day, that she dawdled her way through shower and breakfast or that he had to abandon her.

‘You could buy a hat in Airdsdale,’ he offered, knowing what the answer would be.

‘Airdsdale? I wouldn’t be seen dead in anything you could buy in a place called Airdsdale.’ She crossed her hands in her lap, looked down, her face a storm cloud. ‘Stop!’ Her shout was a meat cleaver hacking through bone. ‘Smith and Fortescues.’ She pointed. ‘There. On the left. Stop at that traffic light!’ Bill winced. He should not have driven through the city’s classy retail precinct. The window displays in the iconic fashion store were designed to lasso women as they passed.

‘We can’t stop here, sweetie pie.’ Bill waved at the creeping traffic. ‘Let’s drop into a suburban shopping centre on our way out of town. Reservoir Towers?’

‘No! And don’t call me sweetie pie. I’m not some wet-behind-the ears teenager.’

‘Sorry, love. But...’

‘For ages I’ve planned to buy a hat. I need it for the weekend. A nice hat. I have to look after my skin these days. Even you should know that.’

‘But... Smith and Fortescues?’

'I planned it months ago but last Monday, you just... up and left me.’ She paused. Bill hunched against the next blow. ‘Your stupid bean-counting,’ she snapped. ‘It’s always been more important than me.’

‘I’d love to stop, sweetest, but parking’s just impossible.’ Bill waved at the crawling city traffic. ‘It’s Saturday morning.’

‘There’s parking under Smith and Fortescues.’

‘But it costs an arm and a leg. Specially on Saturdays.’

‘Beancounter Bill. You never change. Will you ever understand when some things are important? Very, very important?’

‘But...’

‘If you don’t stop, I’ll... jump out of the car at the next red light. I will!’

Bill clicked into his beancounting approach to the philosophy of life. If he parked at Smith and Fortescues, the debit would be a few dollars, the credit a more pleasant three-hour drive to Airdsdale. The alternative of not stopping and no hat for Anne, was too frightening to contemplate.

‘O…kay, love.’ He pulled into the left lane and headed down the ramp to the customer parking basement. He squeezed the BMW into a tiny spot next to a pillar. Anne slammed the door and stalked to the lift. For the next few minutes, Bill tried to listen to the radio as it struggled to find a signal in the dark well of the underground car park. The crackly sound merely aggravated his hangover headache. He switched the radio off, lay back in his seat. It would be better to think positive thoughts. Hell, he was retired now. He had reached a place that for half his life had seemed an unclimbable mountain peak – his Shangri La. Anne’s mood would pass. She liked a day out, and today would be special.

After an hour, Anne reappeared smiling, clutching a huge pink paper bag in one hand, a bundle on a coathanger in the other. As she climbed into the car, she kissed his cheek. She knew how to make a bloke feel appreciated. Minutes later, as they eased onto the freeway, she turned to him.

‘Darling, I meant to tell you last night. All the time you were making your farewell speech, you had your jacket cuff stuck on a cufflink. It’ll be in all the photos.’ Interesting that she saved that little pinprick until now. When would she get over her mood and let herself enjoy what he planned to be their best weekend in twenty years?

‘All water under the bridge, love,’ Bill murmured. ‘For the rest of this trip, I’m concentrating on enjoying our new life.’

‘But – this Airdsdale... horror?’ she said. ‘Why on earth...?’

Bill sighed. Since they had woken that morning, Anne had not stopped laying into him. He should gently tell her enough was enough.

‘Sweetheart.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You’ve gone on and on about Airdsdale and your hat and your terrible life in Bay Heights and your awful breakfast omelette and Airdsdale and my cufflinks and whatever else since the crack of dawn. I thought we were going to have a lovely weekend. I planned it that way months ago. Then last night we had a pretty good dinner. Even you would concede that... and I may say that I busted my gut for all those years so you and the kids could have a nice life. It looks like you did, all things considered. Good schools for the kids, twenty-odd years in a not-bad house in a reasonably up-market suburb. I'd hoped for a bit of credit in my account for that lot. Over last night’s dinner, and all the speeches and stuff, I did my balance sheet for Anne and Bill Baker Inc.I came to think that I’d done not too badly by my wife and kids. What do you have to say about that? In the cold light of day?’

‘All I can think of is – why Airdsdale?’ Anne snapped.

‘Wait and see, love,’ Bill said. ‘I told you. It’s a pretty little tourist town. Full of shops set up to trap rich people doing their country weekends. People like us.’ Anne sat silent, fingers meshed, lips pursed. It was her way of winning an argument. Bill sighed and drove on.

While he waited a forever-red traffic light, he looked down again at her folded hands. Her silence was out of character. She must be thinking. When they had courted and married, she burned with busy energy, channelled it into fierce love for her children. Imperceptibly, her fire had died with the years. Maybe his retirement had flicked that realisation onto high beam for her, had pitched her into this sour mood. But now he could give himself twenty-four/seven to the wife he had neglected for too long. He would start now.

‘I’ve been dreaming of this weekend for too many years, love,’ he said. ‘The day I actually retired.’ He drew an exaggerated breath. ‘At long bloody last! Half a lifetime of slavery over! Fighting traffic into the city every morning, dragging mountains of files home every weekend. Those bloody all-day meetings that ended at midnight. Missing the children’s birthdays. Missing time with my lovely wife.’

He asked himself if he honestly meant that mouthful, then decided that, yes, he did. He turned to look at her again. She was still attractive. She sat straight in her seat, slender and fit from her years at the Bay Heights gym, her manicured hands still folded in her lap. Her dark hair, tinted for last night’s dinner, framed her still-youthful face. The set of her jaw might intimidate some, but over the years he had come to love it. He reached across and squeezed her hand again.

‘Sweet of you to say so, darling,’ Anne said. The thaw had begun. She squeezed her husband’s hand back. ‘I can’t say it was a picnic for me either. Raising the children pretty much as a single mother. Always starved for time with the man I married – time to share the romantic bits, the fun moments with the children.’

‘This is the first day of the rest of our lives, sweetie pie.’ Bill cleared his throat pretentiously. ‘I, William Stanley Baker, loving husband, do solemnly promise that I will make it all up to Anne Charlotte Baker, neglected wife. Starting... now.’ He smoothed his receding silver hair, straightened his back as he gripped the BMW’s leather-lined wheel. All his adult life, he scored compliments on his posture, the width of his shoulders. A pity he had not grown a few inches taller. Whatever, back in their university days, the gorgeous Anne had settled for him over the mob of eager classmates who lined up to ask her out. Why had she chosen him?

‘Because you really love me, darling,’ she said at the time. ‘I can tell by the way you look at me, hold my hand. Let me pick the movies we go to. Kiss me so... lovingly.’

All through the child-raising years, he had focussed on money. Money for the mortgage, for Fiona and Renée’s private school fees, for the overseas trips the school scheduled way too often. For their computers, cars, university fees, graduations, and all the mandatory expensive outfits girls needed for each step on the path to womanhood. Now Bill and Anne had the Bay Heights house to themselves. It was a place they could be quietly proud of, a suburb with a solid demographic. Not millionaires’ row, but okay. The children had made lifetime friendships with neighbourhood kids – shared classes with them at kindie, St. Kentigern’s, then university. He had grown up in a world where the man’s role was to win the bread, the woman’s to raise the kids.

By those rules, he had done a fair job. Back in his children’s adolescence, Bill had secretly hankered for a move to a suburb higher up the ladder. Then one Christmas holidays, he re-did the ten aayear budget for Anne and Bill Baker Inc. The numbers told him that any further steps up that ladder could not happen. Afterwards, he worked at convincing himself Bay Heights was alright. The Bakers had bought in twenty years before. Their yuppie neighbours would see them as Old Money. Now, as his wife sat quietly beside him, he saw things in perspective, maybe from her point of view. She had been disappointed they stayed stuck on the middle rungs of the social ladder, making a joke of the way he talked up his prospects in their early years together. Now they would be staying put in Bay Heights. Bill would concentrate on loving, and on pampering his long-neglected wife to compensate for her abandoned dreams. As he drove, he sensed her crankiness morphing into tired resignation.

Airdsdale, town of trees.

Pop 3,961

Bill’s eye caught the lichen-covered sign as they crossed a bridge and looked down on a stretch of brown water bordered by riverbank casuarinas. Then the bowling club poster.

Chinese smorgasbord

All you can eat. $9.95

The message shouted by the sign’s subtext drowned the meaning of the printed words. In seconds, Anne would react.

‘Chinese smorgasbord,’ she said on cue. ‘Yuk! How tasteless. All you can eat, nine-ninety five. It sends a great message about Airdsdale.’ Then the square, squat tower of a stone church popped into view. It was set among stately trees, behind a gaggle of lichened gravestones that lurched across its lawns.

‘Look, darling,’ Anne chirped, suddenly cheerful. ‘That beautiful old church. Let’s take a closer look at it.’ Bill pulled over. The sparkle in Anne’s voice was a ray of audible sunshine. Her voice bubbled as she read the sign.

Church of St. George. 1858.

The thaw had definitely begun. ‘I’d love to make morning service on Sunday,’ she said as Bill turned into Airdsdale Lodge’s driveway.

The receptionist beamed as she took Bill’s credit card.

‘Come for a nice relaxing weekend, have we?’ She clicked at her desktop. ‘Oh. You’re Mr. Baker. I’ll put you in the Macquarie Suite,’ she said. ‘Our best. Honeymoons and such. Spa, sun deck – the works.’ She caught Bill’s eyebrow twitch. ‘We’ll make that a complimentary upgrade, Mr. Baker. I remember you booked a conference with us last year. BDH or something, wasn’t it?’

‘BHD, actually.’

‘Sorry, I do hope you enjoy your time with us, Mr. Baker.’

‘Thank you,’ Bill smiled. ‘Actually, we’re celebrating my retirement.’ He watched her smile sag. There’d be no more conference bookings from Mr. Baker. ‘The company gave me the farewell dinner last night,’ Bill smiled. ‘We drove down this morning.’

‘So you won’t have to dash off to work on Monday morning?’

‘Right,’ Bill grinned. ‘I can hardly believe it.’

‘You should stay in Airdsdale for a few days.’ She beamed him a frankly commercial smile. ‘Get to know us; do the shops.’

‘We just might. I’ll get back to you.’ He pocketed his card and headed for the car. As he stood beside it, he let the quiet wash over him. A hidden bird warbled nearby. The moo of a distant cow floated across the rustic landscape. A hedge covered in rampant blue flowers bordered the parking lot. Their seductive perfume wafted by his nostrils. Already he felt calm... even dreamy. He carried the luggage upstairs to the Macquarie Suite, parked it, and headed for the sun deck. It was mid-afternoon, time for a celebratory beer.

‘I’ll check the mini bar, love. Find a beer,’ Bill said as they took in the view of the park and its duck-dotted lake. ‘I’m sure there’ll be the makings of a g and t for you, sweetie pie.’

‘I’d rather take a walk first,’ Anne said. ‘Take a closer look at that lovely church.’

‘The receptionist said the shops are nice.’

‘Shops?’ Anne said. ‘Like that bowling club sign as we drove in, I’d imagine. Chinese smorgasbord, for goodness sake!’

‘Okay, love,’ Bill said. He must nurse Anne’s thaw. He would spoil her, give her needs priority. ‘The beer can wait,’ he said. ‘Let’s do the church.’ They headed downstairs.

‘You know, dear,’ Anne said as they strolled past the shops on their way to the stone tower, ‘I could get to love this place. It so reminds me of Tomah Glen.’

Bill hardly dared to breathe. Airdsdale had redeemed itself by reminding Anne of her home town. In the forty-odd years since she had left the little hamlet on the state’s north coast, she never stopped reminiscing. If it was not Tomah Glen’s perfect climate, it was the wildlife, the forest, the crisp, clear air. And the horses she kept as a child. Airdsdale could be in line for a gold award.

As they reached the first shop, Bill checked their reflection in its window. Anne looked elegant. She had an athletic spring to her step he had not noticed in a while. He watched her shapely legs flash under the floral skirt she changed into for the walk. He pulled in his stomach, straightened his back. That paunch made a guy look old. As they passed a real estate office, Anne stopped to read the ads.

‘Take a look at these, darling,’ she said. She stood close to the window and read aloud, pointing at one ad, then another.

‘Your own little bit of paradise.’

‘Spring-fed dam – fill it with fish.’

‘Tranquillity to die for.’

‘Turn that dream of country life into reality.’

‘Lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle.’

‘Swap city noise for country peace.’

‘Forever views.’

At last she was a happy woman enjoying her country weekend. ‘Just look at that cute little dress shop, love.’ Bill noted that she soon tired of bending to read the ads.

‘I’ll do a quick walk-round,’ she said. ‘Won’t be a minute.’ Bill shot her a smile. A cruise through a dress shop might lock in her mood lift. As he waited outside, he took a leisurely look at those real estate ads. Now that he was retired, there was no technical reason why they could not move to the country. A few of his golfing buddies had done just that when they retired. Making the tree-change, they called it. Bill had thought about it for a moment when Morrie Sanders bought a country block a year before. But then Bill knew he could not live without his weekend golf round, nor their Opera House subscribers’ program, nor the occasional day on the harbour on Archie Smith’s yacht. While Anne shopped, he would check out those real estate prices. He might need ammunition to shoot down any wild ideas that popped into her head.

Bill stooped to read the small print of the ads. In minutes, his accountant’s eye confirmed what he hoped to find. The prices were simply too high. Even the cheapest, a miserable five acre block, was too expensive. And it offered none of the attractions – a creek, a dam, views, rainforest – that Anne would see as essentials. At those prices, they simply could not afford a decent rural block.

As Bill straightened up from reading the small print of the real estate window ads, he heard the sound of a violin – badly played – in the middle distance. He turned to see a boy, maybe eight or nine, sitting on a fold-up chair a couple of shopfronts away manfully scraping bow over strings. The boy smiled at him, waved, then struck up Waltzing Matilda. The switch to country Australia’s national anthem had been targeted directly at Bill. The acoustic bullet hit him directly in the heart. He walked towards the music, noticing that the boy’s smile widened as he drew closer. Bill fished in his pocket. His fingers brushed on the lone note he had on him. He pulled it out. Twenty dollars. Ouch. Whatever, it was all he had. Smiling back at the boy, Bill dropped the note in the bowl anchored between the pair of little jogger-clad feet.

‘Thank you, sir!’ The boy stopped playing, eyes wide at his instant success as a busker.

‘You’re worth it, son. I really like Waltzing Matilda’

‘Thank you, sir. I’ll play it again. I’ll do it better this time.’

‘You were fine. Same again would be perfect.’

‘Okay.’ With a teeth-gritting smile, the boy scraped bow over strings again. Bill walked back to the dress shop where he had left Anne, marching to the stop-start, out-of-tune melody.

As he arrived, Anne exited the shop carrying a shiny black bag decorated with the store’s in-your-face logo.

‘Look, darling.’ She pulled an elegantly-cut black dress from the bag. ‘What do you think?’

‘Just – beautiful, love.’ He beamed. ‘It’s so... you.’ He would zip his lip about her wardrobe full of identical black dresses. This was no time to act the dumb male. Debit: If he did, she might revert to her mood. Credit: Nothing. The money was spent and that was that. ‘You’ve got a fantastic body, darling,’ he said. ‘You might as well flaunt it.’

They walked back to the motel and sat on their sun deck, gin-and-tonics from the mini bar within reach, enjoying the sensual cool of the late afternoon.

‘Those real estate ads,’ Anne said, toying with her glass without actually taking a sip. ‘The more I think about owning land here, the more I love the idea.’ Bill flinched.

‘It all came together for me when we walked past that dear little church.’ Anne nodded towards the brown tower that pierced the nearby treetop canopy. ‘Isn’t it just beautiful? I bet the congregation is right out of Central Casting.’ She giggled. ‘And I’d just love to be one of them. I told you, I’ve been listening for months now. Waiting for The Lord to speak to me.’

Bill sighed. Anne had been a card-carrying churchgoer during their courtship. Over the years, she became a pillar of the Bay Heights congregation. He accepted it as part of the package, choosing to stick to his closet atheism.

‘Waiting for The Lord to speak to you?’ he asked, then braced himself.

‘Well, He just did!’ she bubbled.

‘What did He say?’

‘Can’t you guess, silly? Join the St. George’s congregation, of course.’ She pointed to the spire again.

‘Mmm, I quite like Airdsdale.’ Bill put down his drink. ‘I told you it was a lovely place for a special weekend. But we do have to be realistic. The prices of those rural blocks – they’re way, way beyond us. I checked while you were in the dress shop. So rather than get your hopes up...’

‘Don’t be silly, darling,' Anne said. ‘We’ll sell Bay Heights – we talked about that a few years ago, remember? It’ll fetch squillions. Then we’ll move down here and...’

‘Sorry darling.’ Bill slid his drink away. ‘Those squillions are spoken for... our superannuation. The money we’ll need to live on for the rest of our lives. So please don’t get any ideas.’ He caught the angry glow in her eyes. ‘We’re here for a nice weekend. We’ll come down again once in a while if you like. But those prices, the... upkeep.’ He shook his head. ‘It just can’t happen.’

‘Darling,’ Anne’s smile was forced. ‘Don’t let that silly conservative old beancounter ruin our weekend. You’re