‘You’ve got to listen to the people here,’ Kelly had said. ‘Get to know them before you can judge what’s important,’

Perhaps Jake should work on understanding the people of his new community better. He tuned in to the conversation happening one aisle over, in the dried goods section.

‘… not sure if I should say anything,’ a woman was saying. ‘Sally wants us to go to theirs, but did you see what she looked like at church last week?’

‘Doesn’t she have any shame?’ a second woman said. ‘Letting everyone see her face like that.’

Jake hoped Sally had had a bad make-up day.

‘Those boys of hers will never amount to anything if she doesn’t start reigning them in,’ woman one said.

Did Sally belong to one of the town’s ‘difficult’ families, as Kelly called them?

‘School’s all well and good,’ woman two said, ‘but it’s time to get them started on real work or they won’t be able to handle the farm when they get older.’

Sally’s boys weren’t experiencing the type of difficulties Jake had imagined.

‘Your eldest, Stephanie,’ woman two continued, ‘is she pregnant yet?’

Woman one tsked. ‘I don’t know what they’re waiting for. They’ve been married for a year.’

‘How about you? Do you have a boyfriend yet?’

Woman two’s tone indicated she was speaking to a third person who sat a little lower in Dunton’s pecking order.

‘No.’

Bingo. Delivered with the resentfulness of the much-put-upon younger person.

‘She should really get a wriggle on too, before things start going south,’ woman one said.

‘Mum, I am standing right here. And I’ve told you, I’m not interested.’

‘Just you wait, the right young man will come along and that will all change,’ woman two said.

‘Argh.’

Jake heard the clomp of hard-heeled boots heading down the aisle.

‘I guess we should go,’ woman one said.

‘See you Sunday,’ woman two said.

Paying for his stack of dehydrated noodles wrapped in neon-coloured plastic, Jake wasn’t certain he had gleaned any knowledge of locals from that exercise. Nonetheless, he’d continue to ‘listen to the community’—which definitely included eavesdropping—to see if it helped him orient himself in this new landscape.

Stopping to peer into other shopfronts along the street he found only one other establishment open on the block, an arts and craft store located near three cafés with closed signs. From the thick layer of dust in each window, Jake gathered the cafés had all been closed since summer’s end.

The proprietor of the craft shop had chosen to battle through the winter. Looking at the prices of the items in their gaudily lit window display, they’d only need to make one or two sales a week to make ends meet. Passing tourists were apparently happy to purchase all-natural stick-and-macramé hangings for three hundred dollars as long as they were crafted by local artists. Perhaps he should retire one day to the world of handicrafts, Jake mused as he strolled back to the station, the neck flaps of his jacket clasped tightly together in one hand, his bag of noodles swinging in the other.