Free A Roast on Sunday by Tammy Robinson Page B

laughing and three games of darts with some of the other patrons, all of which she lost, she checked her watch and realised that she’d better be getting home. The sun had started to sink lower in the sky which meant Willow would be making her way home, fish or no fish. She would stay out all night if she could; “the fish always bite better in the dark,” she’d protested once before when Maggie had been forced to go and fetch her back home.
    “Thanks for listening,” she said to Harper, stepping up onto the foot rest that ran around the bar and leaning over the bar to kiss her friend on the cheek, to catcalls and whistles from some of the local men.
    “ Anytime my sweet, you know where I am. Give that gorgeous little girl of yours a big kiss from Aunty Harper.”
    “ I’ll try. Sadly she’s not big on the soppy stuff anymore.”
    Maggie drove home in a much better mood than when she had left. She wound down the window, enjoying the intoxicating mix of smells the world offered at sunset. They swirled throughout her car and tugged at her hair. She felt refreshed and invigorated, as a few hours with a best friend can do for you.
    Pulling into her driveway and getting out of the car, she hesitated; she was reluctant to leave the beauty of the outside world for the confinement of wooden walls and electric lighting. So she wandered over to the big Magnolia tree beside the wire fence that framed the driveway. Next to it stretched acres and acres of empty paddocks, the couple nearest belonging to them but the ones after that belonging to the farmer next door. A ridge in the distance broke the endless fields, and although the sun had sunk behind it, it had only just gone, and its colours were still smeared across the sky like a messy child’s painting.
    Standing near the fence she stretched, like a cat after a nap, arching her back and extending her arms above her head to the sky. She sucked the fresh air deep inside her body and then exhaled in one long breath.
    Life, she thought, doesn’t get any more beautiful than this. There was nothing like a sunset to remind you look up and marvel at the great big world around you. Stars were starting to twinkle in the dusky sky.
    Reluctantly a ccepting that she couldn’t stay out here forever, she turned to go inside the house but then she saw the tyre swing her father had hung from the tree a long time ago, when she was about Willow’s age. The ropes had been worn into the branch from relentless swinging, and the tyre itself had been replaced at least twice after the rubber, exposed to the elements, had become flimsy and cracked. She felt a childish urge come over her and succumbing to it, she climbed onto the swing, wrapping her arms around the ropes and her legs around the tire. Pushing off the ground over and over until she had a good swing going, she leant back and closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of the wind in her hair; whistling softly past her ears.
    She was just starting to wind slowly to a stop when she felt strong hands on her back, pushing her gently off again. She smiled.
    “Thanks,” she said, thinking it was her father and wondering how many times his hands had pushed her on this same swing over the years.
    “You’re welcome.”
    Her eyes flew open and she tried to stop the swing, overbalancing and falling off so she landed on her backside in the grass.
    “You ok?” Jack reached out a hand to help pull her up.
    Ignoring it, she got up and wiped grass off her jeans. “What the hell is wrong with you, sneaking up on me like that?”
    “I’m sorry, I thought you would have heard me. You were lost in your own little world though, I think.”
    “What are you still doing here?” she demanded, “you should be long gone by now.” She looked past him. “And where is your car? Did you hide it or something?” Her tone was accusatory.
    “Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what I did. I hid my car behind a hedge so that I could lull you into a false sense