Free At Home With The Templetons by Monica McInerney

play together?’
    Nina had changed the subject then. Yes, it would be handy but it wasn’t going to happen. Introducing Tom to the Templeton boy would mean walking up that long drive again, knocking at the door and then what? Being overwhelmed by that feeling of envy and sadness again? Or being chased away by Hope? She didn’t know which would be worse.
    In the past month or two, however, the distance between their two houses had started narrowing again. From the moment Tom told her he’d met Spencer Templeton at the yabby dam that marked the halfway point between Templeton Hall and their house, Nina had felt uneasy.
    Up until then, Tom had seemed content enough to spend hours playing on his own. It had worried her when they first moved here, that the house was too isolated, that there were no neighbours’ kids for him to meet up with after school. But he’d always been independent, from the time he could walk, happy in his own company. Like his father had been. On weekends, Tom would organise a bag full of supplies for himself - a sandwich or two, a bottle of water, apples, chocolate if she had any in the house - and then set off to have what he’d tell her was ‘an adventure’.
    ‘Don’t go far,’ she’d say. ‘You won’t hurt yourself, will you?’ ‘Not deliberately,’ he said once, smiling at her. ‘Mum, come on. Why would I do that?’
    She’d had to work hard to keep the relaxed smile on her face too, to let him head off on his own without thinking she was home fretting for every minute he was out of her sight. He was a sensible
    kid, she told herself. He won’t do anything stupid. The problem was, she kept imagining the things he could do. She pictured him climbing a big gum tree and not being able to get down. Building a raft in the dam and having it sink moments after launching. Losing his sense of direction and being unable to find his way home, frightened as the sky grew dark, the air grew cold …
    So far, Tom had proved her fears groundless every time. Just as she found herself growing anxious, she’d hear him whistling, or hear the sound of a stick he was carrying being banged against the fence that surrounded their small property. The whistling was what gave her the idea but it took her time to summon up the courage to ask him.
    He hadn’t laughed at her, or got upset. He’d just listened in that gentle, watchful way he had and then repeated what she’d said. ‘You want me to carry a proper whistle and blow it every now and then so you can hear I’m okay?’
    ‘I shouldn’t worry, but, Tom, I just do. Especially when you’re out there on your own.’
    ‘I know my way home. I know every bit of the land around here.’
    ‘I know you do. And I don’t want you to not go out there. It’s just I find it hard to work if I think you might be lost or upset.’ ‘What if I’ve broken my leg in five places, am lying on an anthill being devoured by fire ants while a pack of lizards is chewing my foot, and I blow the whistle. How will you know the difference between an “I’m being attacked” call and a “Don’t worry, Mum, I’m alive and well” call?’
    ‘Can you blow the whistle twice if there are broken legs, fire ants and lizards involved?’
    He grinned then, and took the whistle she’d bought for him. It was an antique one she’d found in a second-hand shop in Castlemaine, an oldfashioned silver cylinder with a ring on top and Acme City: Made in England engraved on the front. She’d felt bad about it the next time he’d gone out, too over-protective, until the faint sound of the whistle, just once an hour or so, soothed her worries completely, and let her relax into her own work. So relaxed, in fact, that it was almost a surprise when the whistle sounded outside her window and she glanced up from her canvas to see he was almost home. He’d guessed too, laughing at her. ‘You forgot all about me, didn’t you?’
    ‘Of course not,’ she’d started to protest, before