‘What’s wrong with having a beer at the pub?’
‘Nothing. What’s wrong with coming to the farm?’
Pete narrowed his eyes.
‘What?’ said Joey.
‘Daisy was right. You reallyarehiding away, aren’t you?’
It was his turn to narrow his eyes. ‘Daisy? Since when were you and my sister back on speaking terms?’ And since when were his going-out habits a topic of conversation?
‘Don’t change the subject. You haven’t set foot in the pub. You couldn’t get out of the bakery fast enough. You’ve not come to see me, or Hogey, and you’ve been back in town, what, a month?’
‘Mate, I’ve got forty acres of overgrown grass to hack down, and—’
‘A lame excuse, Joey. Is it being back here? Is it’—his voice dropped—‘all the sad memories? Just give it time, mate.’
Joey chucked the last of his pie in a bin and turned to Pete. It wasn’thismemory that was the problem … it was the memory of the well-meaning old biddies of Clarence like Jill, who kept patting his cheeks and sayingpoor Joeylike the whole Natalie saga had been last week and not twenty years ago.
And that wasn’t the only problem, either. ‘Truth be told, Pete …’ Crap. This was going to make him sound nuts. ‘Okay, it’s true. I’ve been avoiding town. Besides the Natalie thing, there’s something weird going on whenever I pop into Clarence.’
‘Weird like how?’
‘Last week I was at the post office and Mrs Adams—you know, eighties perm, a real hugger, one of her kids was a national javelin champion—’
‘I know her.’
‘Uhuh, so she gets all weepy when I’m at the counter tapping my credit card on the machine. Says she’s “keeping a lookout”.’
‘Oh,’ said Pete blandly.
‘A lookout for freaking what? First week I was here, I was bagging bananas at the Farmers’ Markets and the bloke from the hotel motel, Ken, comes up to me. He doesn’t say hello or anything, mind you, just grabs me in a man hug and starts telling me how he met Thelma at an election day sausage sizzle. Like, some decade-old story and I’m supposed to be interested? It wasweird.’
Pete sighed. ‘Look, you know what small towns are like: everyone’s got a role, right? Hogey is the diamond-in-the-rough mechanic like he’s always been, your dad’s the aging hippy who cooks. I used to be the handsome high-school rebel that the chicks couldn’t get enough of—’
Joey rolled his eyes.
‘—and now I’m the evil property developer who everyone loves to hate.’
Huh. He did not like where this was going. ‘So, who am I, then?’
Pete clapped him on the back. ‘You, my friend, are stuck in a time warp from when the locals last knew you. You’re the tragic romantic hero. Everyone wants to see you happy again, that’s all.’
Whatever. Joey slung a leg over his moped and hauled his helmet on. ‘I’m not unhappy.’
‘If you say so.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you don’t look happy.’
Joey revved the engine and tapped the side of his helmet. ‘Sorry, mate, can’t hear you,’ he said, and roared out into the thin trickle of downtown Clarence traffic before Pete could serve up any more unwelcome truths.
That settled it. He was never coming to town again.