Chapter 5: The Pool Game

Mary had the radio playing softly in the kitchen.

They heard the ‘Whuoart, Whuoart, Whuoart’ sounds that were used for the standard emergency warning signal. Mary got up from their just finished meal, to listen to the broadcast for the cyclone warning. Marty joined her.

The rain had started lashing the house, while he had been in the shower, but he hadn’t realised it was raining until he went to go join Mary in the kitchen. He guessed that they were going to get a lot more rain if Cyclone Pam was moving closer.

The broadcaster told them that Pam had intensified to a category four. She had started moving inland, and the eye was now only sixty klicks off the coast. People to the south were to expect heavy rain and strong winds. Coastal areas to the north were already experiencing severe flooding.

Pam was expected to travel in a south-south-westerly direction and to make land in the next thirty to forty hours. She was projected to cross over the coastline approximately sixty klicks south of Coral Cove.

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” muttered Mary.

Marty looked at her. “So how do you stop a cyclone coming over the top of you?” he asked with interest.

Mary looked at him and wondered how much to tell him. He already knew about her ring and her ageing issue. He had taken it surprisingly well. For some reason, the memory of the other ring she owned popped into her head. She had never found an owner for it.

She cast her eyes over Marty. He was a hunky bloke, and she had enjoyed making small talk with him over dinner. He had a quick wit and was obviously well-read and intelligent. She didn’t like why he was here, but he hadn’t mentioned the subject while they ate. He had seemed more fascinated by her.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Mary said and left him standing in the kitchen. She went downstairs to the basement and placed her hand on the door under the stairs. It swung back and gave her entrance, so she walked over to one of the small chests on the bench and opened it.

Mary lifted out the small rectangular box and then the ring that looked similar to her own. The differences were that a dark red ruby replaced the amethyst a dark green emerald replaced the opal and it had a black diamond. The odd gem was also a darker green than hers was.

Her Granny had told her that her ring was designed for controlling nature and living things; it had a measure of control over the weather. The other ring was for controlling the powers of the earth and the shaping of non-living materials.

Her Granny had said that the rings were bonded together in a manner she didn’t understand. As long as a person was alive and wearing a ring, they wouldn’t be happy in love until they found a bearer for the bonded ring.

The rings didn’t like to be separated from each other for long periods either. If a partner died, the other ring would return to the box. The box would return to the bearer of the other ring if the other partner had it some distance from them when they died.

Mary tied the second ring in one of the ends, where she had tied off her sarong at her hip and went back upstairs. She was in two minds how to proceed. She had a feeling that if the ring accepted Marty, he would be able to help her shift the cyclone if it stayed on its current course even though he was untrained.

The problem was that it would bind him to her, and she didn’t know him well enough to know how he would feel about that fact, or how it would affect her for that matter. She had been on her own for a long time.

If the ring accepted him, he couldn’t give it back, and they would be stuck with each other. ‘Shit’ she thought. ‘Why now and why this bloke? I’m old enough to be his grandmother for Crikey’s sake.’

She arrived in the kitchen to find that Marty had stacked the dishwasher for her. She watched as he grabbed a cloth and sprayed the benches with cleaner before proceeding to wipe them down. He had put the leftover salad away, cleared the table and seemed competent in the kitchen.

He looked up and smiled at her, then went back to his self-appointed task. Mary grabbed her drink off the table where she had left it. She took a long swallow to empty the glass. She needed another, she decided. As she made her drink, she asked if he wanted another beer.

“No thanks, I’ll have what you’re having if it’s okay?” he replied as he rinsed the cloth and hung up it up.

So, Mary made two rum and colas and then handed him his. “Game of pool?” he asked as he accepted it.

Mary grinned and agreed.

When they stepped outside, they stopped to watch the rain pelt down. “We will probably be flooded in by lunchtime, tomorrow,” Mary said.

“How long will we be stuck for?” Marty asked as he opened the other door for her.

Mary replied, “Several days once the rain stops. There is a creek you crossed about two klicks down Lower Bay Road from the highway. That one tends to come up fast and stays up the longest when the storms come from the south.”

“It has a large catchment area, as it is fed from the southern side of my other property before cutting through the Bentleys’ place to the south of me. With the cyclone coming from the north, the other creek is the bigger worry.”

“About twenty klicks north of me is another wider creek. It is also fed from my back property. It is slow to fill, but the rain is coming inland far enough that the area will flood.”

“My great-great-granddad and one of his sons built a higher concrete causeway across it, and it takes a while to really get going,” she replied as she led him over to the table.

“How long ago was that?” Marty asked with interest as he put the pool balls in the diamond on the table.

“Umm about one hundred and fifty years ago, I think. We Mays, have been in this area for a long time,” she told him.

“How old was your great-great-grandfather?” he asked as he selected a cue.