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“Ambrose will understand. We have an understanding, he and I,” Grandad assured Liam, grinning far too widely considering they were standing in the pissing rain in the middle of a thunderstorm, and Liam was reminded anew that Grandad really did love a bit of drama.
Liam hesitated. “Are you sure, Grandad? The Allis will get wet and dirty, and I know how you feel about that.” Grandad normally fussed and fretted over so much as a speck of dust on his precious Allis.
Grandad huffed. “Well now, I think we can make an exception for your one true love. It’ll be grand, like in one of those books your mother likes so much.”
Liam didn’t think anyone in his mum’s bodice rippers had chased after someone on a tractor while riding in a wine bin that would probably smell faintly of fertiliser. Besides. “One true love might be a bit strong, Grandad,” he said, ducking his head shyly.
“One true wants-to-be-more-than-friends, then,” Grandad amended, and his grin widened.
There was another flash of lightning, enough for Liam to catch a glimpse of the distant figure. And maybe he was imagining it, but even at this distance Ambrose looked like he’d curled in on himself, and the thought of him in the pouring rain, barefoot and alone, decided him. “Let’s do it.”
Grandad slapped him on the back hard enough to make droplets of water fly off the surface of his Driza-Bone, and together they splashed over to the shed where the Allis was kept. Grandad drove her out carefully, and between them they hitched a grape bin to the towbar on the back and Liam clambered in, clutching his umbrella and taking a second to ditch the almost-empty manure sack that had been languishing in the corner.
“Tally ho!” Grandad Billy cried enthusiastically, and they set off down the driveway in what was possibly the world’s slowest romantic pursuit. As the tractor trundled along sedately, Liam tried calling Ambrose again, but it went straight to the message bank, so he shoved his phone back in his pocket and gave it up as a bad job.
John Phillip loped along easily alongside the tractor, stopping to piss on any interesting looking posts, and Liam couldn’t help but sigh. They were getting overtaken by a dog. “Are you sure this can’t go any faster, Grandad?” he yelled over the noise of the motor.
“Seven miles is the recommended maximum, and seven miles is as fast as we’ll go,” Grandad said firmly, and Liam hadn’t thought it was possible, but the tractor slowed down as they started to climb the gentle slope of the driveway, heading in the direction of the dam trail. Once they levelled out, it picked up speed again, and John Phillip had to trot to keep up, right until he made a soulful, warbling noise, and Grandad stopped the tractor long enough for them to lift him onto the back, long legs scrabbling awkwardly against the wood as they heaved him over the side. He panted happily and propped his front paws up on the edge of the bin, looking for all the world like he was navigating. Liam found himself thinking that Ambrose would get a kick out of that when he told him about it. At least, he hoped he would. He hoped Ambrose was talking to him at all. After all, he’d hardly leapt to his defence, had he? No, he’d stood there like a spare dick at a wedding, holding a game of Mouse Trap with his mouth hanging open catching flies.
John Phillip, as though sensing Liam’s despondent mood, turned his huge shaggy head and gave him a slobbery kiss up the side of his face.
“Thanks, John Phillip,” Liam said, and he and the dog held on to the edge of the grape bin, water sloshing around their feet, as they chugged very, very slowly up the hill.
Chapter Nineteen
Ambrose
Ambrose splashed through yet another puddle. He was following a dirt track that was becoming increasingly eroded by deep rivulets of running water, but he was pretty sure that it would eventually get him to some sort of main road. The Connellys’ driveway had been a bust. Even a city boy like Ambrose hadn’t been dumb enough to try to walk that way once he’d seen the flooding. But he’d taken in the lay of the land, pretending he knew what he was doing, and in a fit of inspiration, he’d decided that if he just followed this dirt track over the slight rise of the hill, he would undoubtedly meet the curve of the main road at the bottom of the slope, right?
It had made perfect sense twenty minutes ago, when Ambrose had been slightly drier than he was now and completely desperate to get the hell back to Sydney. Okay, so he was still desperate to get back to Sydney, but the edge of that desperation had worn off now that he was slogging through the pissing-down rain through squelchy red mud and puddles that splashed all up around his ankles.
This sucked balls.
He was cold and he was wet, and his feet were fucking freezing, and the pointy bits of gravel scattered over the road’s surface were jabbing into his soles like malevolent Lego, and at some point, he was going to have to admit he had no idea where he was going and trek back to the house. Or he could save his pride and die here among the rows of grapevines. Maybe the Connellys would name a wine after him in remembrance.
The Awful Ambrose. A full-bodied red, slightly bitter, with hints of bullshit.
He wrapped his arms across his torso as he walked, trying to believe that it would somehow keep him drier. Which he knew was bullshit, because he was as dripping wet as if he’d just climbed out of the pool. He was pretty sure that even his underwear was soaked through, which was going to lead to some fun chafing issues in the near future. Jesus. Even if he made it to town—he couldn’t even remember what the town was called. Polka bin? Polka dot? Poker, I hardly even know her?—Would they let him on the train like this?
Oh fuck.
Is there even a train?
No, it was okay. He still had his phone on him, and it was obviously still working from the way it kept buzzing. He’d get to Polka Dot and figure it out. And, if worst came to worst, he’d phone Harry, and Harry could borrow their dodgy mate Shane’s dodgy van and drive up and collect him.
Ha! Suck on that, universe. Ambrose wasn’t going to die surrounded by grape vines after all, because he wasn’t totally friendless and alone after all. He had Harry, and a phone and a plan.
“Holy fuck!” Ambrose leapt backwards as a snake slithered past him trying to escape the water. His heart leapt at least twenty feet further away than he did, and he had to wait for it to find its way back into his ribcage. “Okay, that was not a skink.”
That was what he got for telling the universe to suck it, he guessed.
“Point taken,” he said, squinting up at the low, black clouds. “You could still kill me at any moment. Got it.”
A bolt of lightning lit up the sky in response, which in Ambrose’s opinion was just showing off. A gust of cold wind blew, making his shirt cling wetly to his back and sending shivers up his spine as he splashed along, watching the ground carefully in case the snake had brought its mates. Although, it turned out the real snake had been Marcus all along. Ambrose’s gut churned bitterly at the memory.
He wasn’t even surprised that Marcus had turned out to be the kind of guy who’d make a move like that. Ambrose imagined him now, turning on that smooth charm as he lied about what had happened, pinning the blame on Ambrose. And the Connellys would believe it too, wouldn’t they? After all, Marcus was some sort of financial whiz kid who was engaged to their daughter, and Ambrose was just some unemployed student blow-in that Liam had only known for two minutes, and who’d spent all weekend making the worst possible impression.
The red clay mud was thick and sticky and freezing between his toes, and he thought to himself that if he ever had to audition for ‘miserable Dickensian urchin number six’, if he just channelled this moment, he’d be a shoo-in for the part, because he’d never felt so utterly wretched in his life.
