Claire McNab: Wombat Strategy

A sudden shaft of homesickness closed my throat, and I snuffled as my eyes filled. Bloody hell! I wasn't going to lie here and bawl like a crybaby. I never cried. I turned on my back, annoying Julia Roberts, who clearly considered the bed her territory. Putting my hands behind my head, I took Mum's advice-be positive, not negative-as I considered the situation.

No one in L.A. would give a brass razoo that Raylene and I had split up. Not so at home, where everybody took a keen interest in everybody else's business. And some people would pity me, and I hated that.

Besides, if I stayed in Wollegudgerie, there wasn't much in the career line for me. I'd grown up in the pub, and when I was old enough, helped Mum run the place. It was me who installed an up-to-date computer system to keep track of the business, and me who persuaded Mum to let me organize a Web site to suck in the tourists.

But when Mum told me she was going to marry Jack O'Connell, I knew I couldn't stay. Don't get me wrong, Jack's nice, but he likes to think himself the boss, and after years of being my own boss there was no way I was going to be happy having him tell me, a twenty-eight-year-old sheila, what to do, particularly when I probably know the business a lot better than he does.

Even before the news about Dad's will, I'd been thinking of moving to the big smoke, probably Sydney. So why not Los Angeles instead?

Still, I should have researched what you did to become a private investigator in California. I'd ask Ariana tomorrow. Was there an exam? I'd always been good at them. Or maybe I could take some P.I. course online.

In spite of some bird outside who was running through a set of complicated vocal exercises, I drifted back into a half-sleep, thinking of online courses I'd taken. Mum had got me to take Advanced First Aid. She said it was a good idea to be prepared in case there was a particularly nasty fight in the bar one Saturday, always the worst night of the week for aggro.

Then I researched adult education sites run by various colleges and universities and decided on astronomy. In the Outback the stars are dazzling, because they aren't drowned by city lights. I bought a telescope from a catalog and enrolled in Astronomy I and II. For something different, I'd followed that with Conversational Italian, which I was practicing on Maria in the hairdressing salon. How was I to know she had her eye on Raylene, and worse, that Raylene had her eye on Maria?

I must have thrashed around a bit at this thought, because Julia Roberts started to complain. "Fair crack of the whip, Jules," I said to her. "You've got nothing to whinge about. You've got looks, a home, and people who love you."

That plunged me into further gloomy musings, and I'd almost decided to get up and make myself a cuppa-before I remembered there wasn't any decent tea in the place-when I slid into sleep again. The last thing I thought of was Ariana's blue eyes. And the fact that she wanted me gone-and I wasn't going.

The next thing, I was waking up to the sound of someone moving around outside in the hallway.

It seemed barely daylight, so I shot out of bed ready to confront the intruder. Looking around for a weapon, I spotted the sports stuff in the corner. I settled on a golf club. Julia Roberts was still curled up on the bed but roused herself to give me an odd look as I barefooted it toward the door, nine-iron raised for action.

I wasn't feeling brave, but I had no intention of cowering in the room, so I bounded out into the hallway thinking I'd have the advantage of surprise.

And surprise I did. The little bloke I confronted gave a shriek, dropped the wastepaper basket he'd been holding, and put up his hands to protect his head.

"No! No!" he cried, following that with a stream of words I didn't understand. They sounded vaguely like Italian, and I made a guess and said, "Spanish?"

"Si." He stared at me rather like the cat had a minute before. I had to look like a complete dingbat, standing there in my pajamas with a golf club.

"Sorry," I said, dropping my arm so he could see that I wasn't going to bash his brains in. "You're the cleaner?"

He nodded warily. "The cleaner," he repeated. Without taking his eyes from me, he took a step back.

"G'day," I said in an effort to make him feel I wasn't a threat. "I'm Kylie. Kylie Kendall."

"Kendall." He nodded and took another step backwards. This was embarrassing. I could just see Ariana Creeling's frosty expression when she found out I'd terrorized the cleaner.

"I'll just get dressed," I said, and beat it back to my room.

I kept out of the cleaner's way, and he certainly kept out of mine. I heard the buzz of a vacuum cleaner, but it didn't come near my door, which I'd left wide open to prove I wasn't lurking behind it.

At about eight Ariana appeared in the doorway. "Luis tells me you threatened him with a golf club."

"How was I to know the cleaner came in at dawn? No one told me."

She paused to consider this. "You're right. Someone should have."

"Breakfast?" I said hopefully.

"I picked up a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on my way here."

Yerks! Doughnuts at this time of morning?

"I'm used to eating porridge every morning."

"We might have some instant stuff."

Instant porridge? My stomach rumbled. If I had to, I supposed I could eat it.

I followed Ariana to the kitchen, admiring her loose-hipped stride. All in black again, she wore tight leather pants. I wondered who she went home to. No one as attractive as she was would be alone…although she did seem to be a bit of a cold fish.

Lonnie had coffee on and was already chomping his way through a noxious yellow doughnut. Behind him pictures danced on a TV set, although the sound was muted.

"Put whatever you need on the list," Ariana said, indicating with her coffee mug a magnet notepad stuck to the fridge door. "Fran usually stocks the kitchen once a week, but you can write 'Urgent' next to an item and she'll get it that day."

I carefully printed loose tea (NO flavors) and URGENT. "And I don't suppose you have a teapot, either," I said to Lonnie, who was licking his fingers after swallowing the last of his doughnut.

"Ask Melodie," he said as she breezed into the room.

"Ask me what?"

"Teapot," said Lonnie, selecting another doughnut. "Kylie wants to know if we have one."

"Nope."

"Put it on the list," Ariana said over her shoulder on her way out of the kitchen. "And when you're ready, Kylie, come to my office."

Melodie had her long, blond hair up today, twisted into a sort of knot and skewered by a tortoiseshell comb. It should have looked untidy, or at least as if the whole arrangement was about to come down, but on her it gave a casual, stylish impression.

"Did Julia Roberts behave herself?" she asked.

"She was okay, but she kept on staring into space. Gave me the willies. This place isn't haunted, is it?"

"Haunted?" Lonnie chortled. "Probably rats in the foundation, or maybe a family of skunks. I'll set up sensors, if you like, to catch your ghost."

Melodie sent him a quelling look, then said to me, "Julia Roberts is very sensitive." She gave her perfect teeth an airing. "Or she could have been teasing you."

"We've got a ghost at the Wombat's Retreat," I said. When they both looked blank, I explained, "The pub my mum owns, back in Wollegudgerie."

"What's a wombat?" Lonnie asked.

I was used to explaining this to foreign tourists. "An Aussie marsupial, a tough little animal that digs burrows wherever it takes its fancy. No good trying to stop them-they're like furry steamrollers when they get their minds set on something."

I dug out a key ring from the pocket of my jeans. "This is what a wombat looks like." It had been my idea to have Wombat's Retreat key rings made as publicity for the pub, and it gave me a pang to see it in my hand, so far away from home.