The Ten-pound Ticket Read Online Free Page B

carelessly abandoned on the porch, she wasn’t sure that the house would be that much of an improvement.
    Slade frowned. ‘No love, no rooms in the house.’
    ‘He does know that I have a small baby?’ Susie refused to believe that anyone with this information would think this was acceptable.
    ‘Oh he knows all right, had one of the boys give it a bit of a sweep for you.’ He made as if to say something else, but he stopped himself. Instead, he nodded once in her direction and strode away.
    Susie took a deep breath and poked her head inside the cabin. She felt around the nearest wall for a light switch, but even before she felt the blank wall she knew that there would be no electricity in the shed. As her eyes adjusted to the dust-filled gloom, she spied a mattress on the floor. Judging by the assortment of unidentifiable stains and the wide indent where springs had collapsed and sagged in the middle, she wasn’t its first occupant. In the corner was a white, hand-painted cot with a vinyl covered sponge base. At least she would be able to scrub and bleach it. A square window, without glass, was covered with green netting. It was her only source of light.
    For the first time in many years, Susie prayed.
    That first night at Mulga Plains would remain indelibly etched in her mind. The cold creep of fear plucked at her muscles and shook her bones. She stripped Nicholas in the diminishing light, trying to keep her tone soothing and reassuring as she struggled to replace his soiled nappy in the darkness. She forced herself to ignore the scuttling sound in the corner of the room, the gnawing hunger in her stomach, and the flat, single note that reverberated inside her skull.
    Susie was too stunned to cry, so instead she tried to sleep. She wouldn’t have thought rest would be possible, but eventually anaesthesia gripped her and, six hours later, she awoke to Nicholas’s stuttered cries. Once she had fed him and rocked him back to sleep, she wiped down her crumpled shirt and trousers, tucked her hair behind her ears, and made her way around the path to the main house. Beyond the garden, the landscape was flat and vast. Acres of red dust and spiky trees stretched in every direction under a big sky that held the vaguest tinge of pink. It might have been beautiful, were she able to study it with different eyes. Slade was already up and sitting at one of the card tables on the terrace, forking fried eggs into his mouth. A cigarette smouldered on the table edge, which he drew on between mouthfuls.
    ‘How was your first night?’ he asked. He had the decency to look abashed as tiny flecks of food flew from his lips and landed on the table.
    ‘I want to see Mr Gunnerslake.’ Susie pulled back her shoulders, trying to feign composure and courage.
    ‘Bit late for Mitch, he’s already up and out. But he asked me you to show you around.’ Slade pushed his oily plate into the middle of the table, and Susie watched as it was instantly descended upon by a gang of flies. As she stepped up onto the veranda she stifled a scream. In the corner, with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest, he was the strangest looking man she had ever seen. He wore a maroon T-shirt with a ripped sleeve, and khaki trousers that had been cut off at his calves. His skin was dark, and he had large, bloodshot eyes beneath hooded lids and a prominent brow. His nose was broad, with flattened nostrils that flared over thick, plum-coloured lips. His hair hung in beautiful, glossy twists, and his feet with their pale, dry soles were bare. He was fascinating. Susie raised her hand in a small wave, but he didn’t respond.
    She followed as Slade strode ahead into the main residence of Mulga Plains.
    ‘Who’s that? On the terrace?’ she enquired.
    ‘That’s Elouera.’
    She had hoped for a bit more. ‘What does he do?’
    Slade grimaced, ‘Anything Gunnerslake tells her to. And for your information, he is a she, we call her