“A kick! I felt a kick!”

Vicky pulled Stella down on the couch next to her. She put Stella’s hand on her belly and they waited grinning at each other.

“Who would have thought you could get kicked in a good way” Vicky said when the baby finally did it again.

Stella wondered if many other women had cause to think of kicks like that. Shane still hung over Vicky, he seemed to have taken small pieces of her friend a little at a time.

As Vicky hauled herself off the couch, her dress strained at the seams. She pulled at the fabric. “I wish I could alter this, it’ll take an age by hand.”

Vicky had asked Shane for her sewing machine when they’d met him in the supermarket aisle.

“Come around tonight for it.”

They waited, but he never showed up.

Vicky asked him about the machine again at the Post Office and that time he just said no. It was a little knife he could twist. She stopped asking.

Stella would have suggested she get a new machine but she knew Vicky didn’t have the money.

Driving past Southern Cross Fellowship she saw Shane with his church group, sporting a big smile and handing out flyers. He looked like butter wouldn’t melt on his motorcycle on a hot day. When she drove back later the church people were all gone so she pulled over and read one of the posters on the big community noticeboard. Love of Christ Festival. It was some big gathering and would last for days. People were supposed to bring tents and camp out.

On the day of the festival, Stella watched Shane’s house from the reserve over the road. Shane moved back and forth, bringing out gear, rolling it up and tying it all down. He tinkered with the bike, switching it off and on and finally he left. She waited a while to make sure he’d gone and then went up to Hawkes and picked up a freshly painted Falcon Ute. Nobody in town had one like it.

“Don’t scratch it Stella.”

“If I did, it would probably look less stolen. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

At home she picked up Vicky’s stuff and a couple of empty bags they’d need.

“We’ve got a job to do before we head off,” said Stella.

Vicky looked at the bags and the strange ute and she knew straight away. “He’ll kill me.”

‘He won’t know. We’ll make it look like a burglary.’

They went round the back of the house. Wearing her kiwifruit gloves, Stella prised the glass panels out of the louvered laundry windows and leaned them against a flax bush. She clambered on top of the rubbish bin and climbed through the window onto the washing machine and then down onto the loo. It was nice that he left the seat down, her brothers never did that.

She let Vicky in the back door with the empty bags.

‘Get your machine and anything we can sell.’

‘Like what?’

‘Tools – get tools. Wait a minute – put everything you’re taking in a pile there on the table and I’ll check it first.’

Stella walked around the house. It had two small bedrooms, a kitchen and lounge combined – your typical little bach. What struck Stella most was how tidy he kept it. He’d shut every cupboard, everything was in its place, and he’d made the bed like it was a show home. There was nothing on the walls except a wind catcher Vicky used to have hanging in her car.

In the second bedroom all his tools were lined up by size. At least he’d know what was missing. Stella picked out a few she thought would sell and took them out to the ute, she could hear Vicky in the other bedroom. Back in the lounge she looked at Shane’s record collection. There were a lot of the usuals there: Def Leppard, ACDC, Frank Zappa, and some tapes. She bagged the lot to save time.

On the table Vicky had put her sewing machine and some kid’s toys and clothes she must have started collecting when she lived there.

‘Wait – not the kids’ stuff. Burglars wouldn’t take it. They’d take the machine because they could sell it. Put them back where you got them.’

‘My fingerprints will be everywhere!’ Vicky was rattled.

‘You used to live here – your fingerprints are everywhere silly.’

Stella opened the kitchen drawers; even the cutlery was disturbingly neat. She stirred the teaspoons so they unstacked, that looked better. They took the last of the stuff outside and she shut the door. Vicky was already in the cab.

‘Duck down and I’ll drive out of here.’

They headed into town through the gorge and swapped back to her Holden. Hawke materialised from down the road and got into the ute, nodded and left.

Her Holden had a full tank of gas. The old pack, with a pound of weed inside, was nestled in the boot. Good to kill two birds she thought.

Vicky let the seat belt out a bit to fit more comfortably. She looked over to Stella as they headed toward Paeroa and smiled. “I’ve got my sewing machine back!”

“Yeah but when we sell this gear and your machine you’re going to have an even better one. That way, if Shane ever sees it, it won’t be the one that was stolen from his place.”

“Stella, that’s actually a really good plan.”

 

A few hours down the island they had cheese toasted sandwiches for dinner at a truck stop.  The truck drivers around them leaned over plates of steak and eggs and glistening piles of baked beans. Outside a driver pulled his rig in behind the truck stop. There were overnight spots there, away from the noise of the road. He brought a thermos in with him and started chatting to the woman at the till.

“That could be you,” Vicky said. She found it hilarious that Stella had gone looking for a computer course and ended up getting her HT. “How is it going anyway? Those farting men on the course are just the start you know, if you get a job you’ll have to put up with more of them every day.”

“It’s a bit freaky. Takes me back to when I learnt to drive, you have to manage something much wider then yourself, do you remember?”

“Oh yeah, that was weird.”

“And there’s lots more gears.”

“So is it boring?” Vicky surveyed the drivers at the truck stop. Clearly she was thinking going up and down the island wouldn’t be that interesting. Stella looked at them too, they weren’t poster boys for driving trucks but Vicky wasn’t getting it.

“There’s a lot of different driving jobs in mining. The really interesting stuff, it’s like sculpting really, you’re reforming the land. It takes skill working the wrigglies – that’s those trucks with the two bins on them? And the blokes… I understand them, it’s how they’ve been brought up, man at the head of the household, man’s job, that sort of thing.”

“I reckon you get off on it, beating the blokes.” Vicky finished her sandwich, she’d left all the crusts. Stella picked on up off her plate and bit into it, thinking about the boys on her course.

“Those guys have a wife and kids and they just want a job in a town where there aren’t any. They look at me and they think there’s some moral reason I shouldn’t get the job. That’s all it is.”

There only seemed to be two women on duty and they were cooking, taking orders and clearing. Stella and Vicky took cleared their own plates, on the way out a driver shouted out to Vicky. “Hey love, there’s something wrong with your bloke, he’s a she!”

Vicky stopped and looked at him. She moved her hand up to her belly and said simply, “Yeah but she’ll make a great Daddy.” The driver seemed confused looking between Stella and the pregnancy he’d failed to see before. Outside Vicky laughed and planted a kiss on Stella under the light of the truck stop sign. She looked back at the trucker, still staring at them through the doors.

“Hope he doesn’t turn up at the mine.”

They parted to go to either side of the Holden, Stella was still thinking about the kiss and the daddy line. Was any of that serious?

 

It was a calm night with a moon lighting up the road. Stella liked night trips.  There was less traffic and the road seemed more interesting, you could imagine you were driving anywhere. They stopped in Taihape, played a game of pool and Stella had a few whiskeys before closing time. She picked up a bottle to take with them.

Near Porirua, at 4am, they were nearly there. The last tape Vicky had put on before she fell asleep was Van Morrison, mellow and sweet. Stella was starting to nod off too. She pulled out Van and popped in Led Zep, turning the window down a crack to sharpen her up.  A Whole Lot of Love wound up and up and then there in front of her were three lanes of nothing on the road. Perfect. Stella put her foot down and took the centre lane, feeling the car and the music carrying her along.

Blue lights started flashing behind her just after Tawa. She cursed her lead foot as she slowed, turned the music off and pushed the bottle under the bench seat.

She should have stuck with Van Morrison.