‘Okay, I get it. This is your home and I’m an intruder,’ she told him – perhaps empathy was the best approach. ‘But if you and your um . . . Girlfriends? Lady friends? Wives? Ooh, is this where the phrase birds comes from?’ The rooster cocked his head at her. ‘Anyway, whatever. If you want some food then you need to back off.’ He came closer and pecked menacingly at the mesh. ‘Fine. Let’s try something else.’ Darla walked around the side of the enclosure and flicked a little bit of grain into the top corner. After a moment or so curiosity got the better of one of the hens and she came over and started hoovering it up. The cockerel was there in a flash. Darla dashed back to the entrance, quickly went inside, deposited the food and was about to escape when the rooster looked up. They made eye contact.
‘Bugger it!’ said Darla and she pelted back out with the sound of flapping and screeching close behind her. She slammed the door shut just in time and took a moment to compose herself. Her heart was racing. The cockerel strutted up and down with his feathers extra puffy, looking mightily proud of himself. ‘Yeah, well I made it out alive so who’s the real winner?’ He squawked and flapped triumphantly. ‘And same to you,’ she said before going back inside to clean as much of the house as she could before her shift at the bar.
Darla was cleaning glasses when Cameron arrived. ‘Hiya. I hear tomorrow’s the big day,’ she said, feeling quite sorry that she wasn’t going to be there to witness the encounter with Barry. She was secretly very proud of her bright idea and how far it had come.
‘You know what? I’m kind of looking forward to it.’
‘Really?’ Darla couldn’t hide her surprise.
‘Yeah. I mean I love my folks but what Ros is doing for her dad is something else, and I really want this to work mainly because . . . of how Ros is. She’s kind of . . . unusual. Is she always like that?’
‘Like what exactly?’
‘I don’t want you to think I’m bad-mouthing your best friend . . .’
‘You’re not. Tell me some specifics and I’ll tell you if it’s normal for Ros or if it’s because she’s a bit wound up about my fake-dating idea.’ Darla was keen that nobody should forget the origins of the whole scheme.
‘Okay. Well, for starters she’s not exactly the friendliest person. I mean she’s not rude. At least I don’t think she means to be. She’s obsessed with work and I get the feeling she doesn’t know how to relax. I’d describe her as quite repressed and she has to plan everything to the nth degree. I mean, like, she has lists all over the show. She’s even brought a flip chart stand home from work. Who does that?’
‘That’s her own stand,’ said Darla.
‘Blimey. Didn’t see that one coming.’ Cameron pushed a hand through his hair, making it stick up and stay there. ‘I guess it might be handy for . . . nope, I’ve no idea why you’d buy one.’
‘She got it a while ago so she could apportion chores with her boyfriend at the time,’ explained Darla. ‘Actually the day before they broke up as it turned out. She’s nice when you get to know her.’
Cameron raised an eyebrow.
‘Not warm and fuzzy nice, but what you are struggling with are things I like about her. She’s consistent, never moody and she always has a pen and paper on her. Sometimes even sticky notes,’ she said.
‘You’re right, she has lots of good points and she’s being really generous over how much she’s paying me. Although she did ask if I could get my hair cut and have a shave before tomorrow.’ He widened his eyes.
‘Actually, she does have a point there,’ said Darla.
‘Hey,’ said Cameron, rubbing his hand over his chin. ‘It’s stubble. That’s trendy.’
‘It’s a scraggy beard. That’s lazy. I agree with Ros on that one.’
‘You’re going to tell me everything else is normal for Ros, aren’t you?’ asked Cameron.
‘Pretty much. Watch out tomorrow though because she will be hyper stressed.’
‘What happens then?’ Cameron looked alarmed.
‘It’s best you don’t know in advance,’ said Darla, slapping him manfully on the shoulder.
Chapter Ten
Darla was exhausted by the end of the day. She’d been up extra early, thanks to the noisy cockerel. She’d worked her cleaning job only to come back to The Brambles and clean the kitchen although despite all her efforts it still looked only marginally less grubby. She’d had better results in the bathroom where the bath now gleamed, the taps shone and she no longer needed to hover her bum over the toilet seat. She’d not managed to fix the dripping tap so the constant noise made her feel like she was on Countdown and had to hurry up. She’d vacuumed and dusted throughout. The bedroom windows had been open most of the day and it now looked and felt fresher. She’d endured a long and busy shift at the cocktail bar thanks to a hen night and now she was ready for her bed.
She pulled onto the drive and cut the engine. She let herself in and walked through the house. She went to get herself a glass of water and through the kitchen window she could see a light bouncing around outside. Her breath caught in her throat – she had an intruder.
Darla picked up the nearest thing there was that might pass as a weapon and crept outside with the soup ladle. She clutched her phone in her other hand. She could video the intruder as evidence or perhaps she should go back in and call the police. It dawned on her how vulnerable she was with just a soup ladle to protect her and she froze by the gate. The intruder was bending down on the other side of the bird pens but there was no sign of the animals as they’d probably gone into their little wooden huts to sleep, which was what she’d hoped she’d be doing around about now.
Suddenly the intruder stood up and started to head her way. In her panic to get back inside unnoticed Darla tripped over her own feet, stumbled into the low wall and tipped right over the top of it, landing in a heap on the other side and losing the ladle.
Big thudding footsteps approached her as she felt around for her weaponised utensil and scrambled to her feet without it. ‘Stop! I’ll call the police!’ she yelled.
For a moment she was blinded by torchlight. Her heart was thumping hard and blood was rushing through her system. ‘Is this yours?’ asked a gruff voice, shining the light on the soup ladle lying on the grass. It looked quite menacing as the torchlight glinted off it. She wished she’d kept hold of it now.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, reaching for it.
He stepped in her way. ‘Who are you?’ asked the gruff voice.
‘I live here. More importantly, who are you, creeping about the place in the dead of night?’ she countered, wishing she hadn’t used the word ‘dead’ in case it gave him any ideas. ‘Get that torch out of my face and explain yourself,’ she said, trying to make herself as tall as possible.
The light swung to one side and a face loomed in front of her out of the darkness. ‘Heavens, not you again,’ he said.
Darla was baffled. She didn’t know this bloke, did she? She blinked a number of times but still, all she could see was the bright white blob the torch had left on her vision, but the face in front of her was vaguely familiar. Then it all clicked into place. He was the guy who had stopped the day Spindle had run into the road and if she remembered correctly he’d been quite rude to her. ‘You!’ At that moment she also noticed he was holding the pretty grey cat. ‘Hey! You can’t steal my cat.’ Darla went to take the feline but the man stepped back.
‘Definitely not your cat.’
‘Erm, I think you’ll find it comes with the house.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m confused. There’s no way you’ve bought this already. Horace only died a few days ago and I’m pretty sure he didn’t have any family.’
‘There’s a distant relative in New Zealand apparently. Everything is being dealt with through a solicitor. I’m house-sitting. And I’m looking after all the animals including the cat.’ Darla held her hands out.
‘The cat doesn’t live here. He’s mine but he is a cheeky bugger who would come up here to stare at the chickens and try and cadge some tuna off of Horace.’
