Fifty Bales of Hay Read Online Free Page B

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.
    As he dragged a ewe backwards and again manoeuvred himself into the sling, he had seen Mrs Taylor standing there. He knew he had been caught unguarded. She had witnessed his surprised look, quickly followed by a gentlesmile of genuine gladness that she was before him. She had felt the rush then. She felt the rush now.
    ‘What are you offering to give me other than that, Mervyn?’ Her voice was soft. Informal. Not the voice she used with the farm workers or people of the town. With his back to her, Mervyn stopped sorting the crutchings and stood very still.
    ‘I get lonely too, since Sheila passed,’ he said. ‘I know what it’s like. I was thinking of giving you some company.’
    He turned, and Mrs Taylor saw the look of longing in his eyes.
    ‘I like seeing you. You are very easy on the eye, Mrs Taylor,’ Mervyn said, looking sincerely at her. ‘But it’s not just your beauty. It’s just … you. You. I very much enjoy the company of you.’
    Mrs Taylor sucked in a breath and her hand flew to her throat where the butterfly wings were beating hard, as if in death throes. She felt the absence of the protective string of pearls, which had been pawned in the city. None of the shed staff would ever have talked to her like that in her husband’s day, she thought. Never! Mind you, she would never have ventured to the shed. She would have been more likely to be found in the giant homestead arranging flowers, or typing CWA meeting minutes, or sinking hopelessly into an early glass of brandy and dry before the children arrived home from boarding school.
    In her prime, Mrs Taylor was the most loathed grazier’s wife in the district. She kept the other women on their toes with her perfect clothing, her string of quality Japanesepearls (harvested in the War years) and with her hated dance lessons in the local hall. The classes were executed with regimental strictness for the benefit of the uncultured and often overweight local girls. To top it all off, Mrs Taylor had been a beauty and a homemaker in that unreachable, perfect way.
    Little did the people in the district know that her husband, crafty old Mr Taylor, who had a fetish for young dancing girls, had actually discovered Mrs Taylor in a questionable hotel in Sydney’s Kings Cross. Back then, she was Elsie Morgan.
    Old Mr Taylor had found Elsie during what had been a dark time for her. Elsie had been a showgirl working in scant costumes fashioned from cheap satin and golden tassels. In a room, under the harsh shine of a spotlight, with a backdrop of red velour curtains, Elsie had worked most nights doing her ‘tease and trapeze’ act. The ropes of her trapeze were entwined with faux flowers and the air was woven with the dark thoughts of the desperate men who shuffled in to sit in surly shadows and watch her. There on the stage, in the air, she would contort and writhe in her revealing clothing for the men, for the money for her rent or, occasionally, for an abortion. Her dreams of Broadway