Authors: Maris Morton
‘Oh, it wasn’t some horrible crime,’ Mary explained, looking down while she carefully broke a piece off her cake with her fork, ‘though if you believe that war’s a crime then I suppose it was. Roy was a soldier, with the UN Peacekeepers in Afghanistan. He was blown up by a roadside bomb.’ She made a wry face. ‘Soldiers get killed. No use complaining when it happens to you.’ She raised the fork to her mouth. The cake was a classic sponge, light, eggy and not too sweet; luscious with jam and cream.
‘Oh,’ Janet said, ‘you’re very hard.’
‘No, I’m not hard.’ Mary had had enough of people telling her how she ought to be feeling. Surely it was nobody’s business but her own. ‘Of course it was a shock. But I’ve had to get over it. Life goes on.’
Janet hadn’t finished. ‘But doesn’t the Army give you a pension?’
Mary was familiar with this reaction. ‘Yes, they do. But I enjoy working, so I do. Roy didn’t like me having a job, but when he was away on postings I used to do temp work in hotels. When he was at home, I studied.’
Janet was taking this in. ‘Fancy,’ was the best that she could manage, but disapproval was writ large upon her face.
‘So you’re a widow?’ Gloria said, just to be sure.
‘That’s right.’
‘But you’ll be marrying again?’
Mary gave her a smile; she was used to this question, too. ‘I’m in no mad rush. I don’t know anyone I’d think of marrying; and, really, I like my new autonomy too much to want to give it up.’
‘Fancy!’ Janet said again.
Mary wondered if she was one of those married women who was deeply distrustful of any woman who was single — and didn’t have two heads — as if she might conceive a passion for their own husbands and lure them away. Mary glanced at Cec. As if!
‘But don’t you get sick of moving around?’ Gloria said.
‘It’s what I’m used to. My father was in the Army, too, and we lived all over the place.’ She didn’t intend to tell them more than this; Janet was having enough trouble as it was. Mary took one of the muffins: it was apple and cinnamon, probably out of a packet, but none the worse for that, and Gloria had put a streusel topping on it.
‘Where’s Angus?’ Garth asked his wife.
‘I never invited him. He’s in here for dinner every day as it is.’
‘I already met Angus,’ Mary said, glad of the change of direction. ‘We had a chat the other day.’
‘More tea?’ Gloria said. ‘Gay, put the kettle on again, there’s a love.’
Gayleen did as she was asked and sat down again, fixing her gaze on Mary, who she now realised was a much more interesting person than she’d imagined.
The rain was lashing outside, but the room was warm, the windows fogging with condensation.
Garth moved restlessly. ‘If it wasn’t so wet out there I’d take you to see the vegie garden,’ he told Mary. ‘See what you want.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but isn’t it your vegie garden?’
‘We’ve got an arrangement: I grow vegies for the boss, I can garden in work time. Same with the eggs. And the milk. Suits us both.’ His little dark eyes were alight with happiness. ‘Course, with the Missus away they didn’t want any of my vegies, so we got to eat the lot.’ He patted his flat belly.
‘Oh, dear,’ Mary said. ‘I’m afraid those days are over. I shall be making huge demands on your garden. What have you got?’
‘Carrots, celery, onions, silverbeet, cabbage, broccoli and sprouts. Salad greens. Plenty of pumpkins still from summer, and apples and pears. Heaps of pears, love?’ he said to Gloria.
She nodded. ‘They better be eaten up pronto. They go off soon’s you turn your back.’
Garth went on with his catalogue. ‘And there’s still walnuts. Rhubarb. The Missus grows her own herbs and things. Asparagus, strawberries and raspberries, in the spring. There’s fruit trees over there, too.’
The kettle boiled with a shriek, and Gloria motioned to Gayleen to refill the teapot and offer more tea around the table.
Mary turned to Cec. ‘I hear you know a lot about the local wildflowers, Cec?’
He lowered his head modestly. ‘It’s a bit of a hobby of mine.’
‘Is there a reserve near here where they grow?’
‘Just up the road a bit. Nothing on Downe. Too well cleared. You go north a way, there’s a bit of a wetland, too. Plenty of sundews and pitcher plants. It’s not far.’
‘Sorry,’ Mary said, ‘but I’ve got no idea where the road is.’
For a moment there was silence.
‘Of course, you flew down!’ Janet said. ‘So you haven’t got your car here?’
‘Tell you what,’ Garth said. ‘The kids have all got bikes, and while they’re crook they’re not using them. Can you ride a bike?’
‘I used to be able to. Don’t they say it’s something you never forget?’
Garth was pleased with himself for thinking of this. ‘When it stops raining we’ll go and get you sorted.’
There was general laughter, and Mary decided it would be a good moment to bring up her next question. She turned to Gloria. ‘Now, Gloria: shopping. I believe that if I phone an order to the Co-op, you’ll bring it home in the bus. Is that right?’
‘Sure.’
‘The trouble is, I have no idea what the Co-op carries. Do they have meat — chicken or pork, for instance? I don’t want to sound like a total dimwit when I phone them.’
‘You want a chook?’ Garth said. ‘I’m going to be chopping a few CFA hens tomorrow. Tough but tasty.’
‘CFA? What’s that?’
Garth grinned at her. ‘Cast for age. That’s what we call ewes that are too old for anything but cat food.’
Mary considered the offer. It must have been Garth who had dealt with the carcass that had been hanging in the meat room; when she’d come back from one of her walks, she’d found fresh meat stacked in the fridge. Had that sheep been CFA? She imagined a pot of rich chicken stock, the flesh, if it was too tough, minced and made into croquettes. ‘Yes, an old boiler would be excellent. Even two, if they’re going.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘To answer your original question, before I was so rudely interrupted’ — Gloria gave Garth a look of affection — ‘the Co-op has a very good range. And yes, they’ve got a butcher, so Pauline won’t think you’re an idiot if you want meat. Not that you’ll need much of that here.’
‘I’m doing my best to tempt Clio — Mrs Hazlitt — to eat,’ Mary said.
They all looked at her, solemn-faced, and she could sense their surprise at her use of Clio’s first name.
‘And how is Mrs Hazlitt?’ Janet asked. ‘On the mend, I expect?’
‘I think so.’ Mary was itching to ask if any of them knew what Clio’s medical problem was, but no further information seemed to be forthcoming. ‘She’s playing her records now and not sleeping so much.’
Janet nodded wisely. ‘I always thought it was such a pity she gave up her music.’
Mary was mystified, but Janet wasn’t going to say any more. Instead she gathered herself and rose to her feet.
‘Come along, dear, it’s time we left these good people to get on with their day.’ She flashed a smile, a brief baring of the gums, at Gloria. ‘Thank you so much for inviting us.’
‘It was lovely meeting you both,’ Mary said. ‘I expect I’ll see you again.’
‘At shearing, if not before,’ Cec said and trailed out after his wife.
As soon as they’d gone there was a lightening of the atmosphere. Garth and Gloria exchanged smiles as Gloria reached for the last piece of cream sponge.
Gayleen stood up, pushing her chair in and leaning over its back. ‘Can I go now?’ she asked her parents. ‘I want to watch TV.’
‘Okay, lovey,’ Garth said. ‘You’re off-duty now. See if the boys want anything else, will you?’
‘I ought to be going, too,’ Mary offered, but there was still tea in her cup.
‘Won’t hear of it,’ Garth said. ‘Glory’s got a bit of a problem with Her Ladyship, but there’s no need for you to go as well.’
Gloria was busy with her cake, ignoring the fork and eating it with her fingers, licking the cream from them with sensuous delight. She caught Mary’s eye, wary of a disapproving stare. Reassured by Mary’s smile, she said, ‘She gives me a pain.’
Garth flashed her a warning look — one of the little boys was standing just outside the room. ‘What is it, Gary?’
‘Come and watch the TV, Dad. It’s about volcanoes.’ Like Gayleen, the boy had his father’s bright dark eyes; this time they were scanning Mary with interest.
Garth received his wife’s tacit approval and got up from the table, taking his used crockery over to the sink. ‘I’ll leave you two girls to it, then. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t enjoy.’
Mary smiled at him and turned her attention back to Gloria. Her first impression of Janet had made her rule out any thoughts of having a close friendship with the woman, but with Janet working away from the farm five days a week that was never likely anyway. Janet seemed much older than she probably was, with the bossiness you so often found in people accustomed to being obeyed. ‘Cec seems okay,’ Mary said to Gloria, interested in hearing her response to that.
‘He’s okay. Good at his job, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’ Gloria looked thoughtful for a minute. ‘I think one of the problems with me and Janet is that when she was first here, the wife of someone like Garth would’ve been expected to help out in the boss’s house, like a sort of maid. They used to have Married Couples — that’s what they were called, with the capital letters. But I never did any of that — too busy with the kids, then with the bus, my own business. So that’s why you’re here!’ She grinned at Mary. ‘If I was doing the right thing, there’d have been no need to get you here.’
‘I see.’ Mary was pleased that Gloria was being so open with her.
‘We’re trying to make enough money to get the boys a decent education,’ Gloria said. ‘I don’t want Garth slaving here till he’s old and grey. He wants his own business — he’s a qualified mechanic — but if we leave here we’ll need enough cash to set it up, and for a house. Even for a car.’
‘What does Garth actually do here?’ The gardening and butchering wouldn’t be enough to fill his days.
‘Just about everything! This place would grind to a halt without Garth.’ Gloria could see that this hadn’t actually added to Mary’s knowledge and prepared to elaborate. ‘He helps with the sheep work, of course. Cec is boss of that and old Angus is technically the shepherd, but those sheep take a lot of looking after. Then there’s the cropping — Garth takes care of growing the grain and hay for the shedded sheep, and looks after all the machinery — tractor, all that, shearing gear, pumps, cars and utes and bikes, too. Gives a hand with fencing; with this cell system there’s miles of it. He does the butchering, as you know, and grows things to eat.’
‘Phew! That must keep him busy.’ Mary was impressed. ‘You said
cell system
. What’s that?’
‘It’s the way they manage the pasture. Instead of big paddocks where the sheep just roam around eating what they feel like, it’s divided into little cells. The sheep go in, eat everything, poop all over to fertilise the ground, and get moved to the next one. And so on. It makes best use of the pasture and it minimises the chance of parasites.’
‘It must be more work, though. Apart from the extra fencing …’ ‘It’s the way things are done here.’
Mary stored the information away. ‘So there’s Cec, Garth, Angus, Martin and Paul. Anyone else I should know about?’
‘Only Jamie. He’s just a boy, pretty useless, but he’s supposed to be learning to be a proper farm hand. Not a bad lad, but not a lot up top.’
‘Does he live here, too?’
‘Yes and no. There’s an old house on a property the Hazlitts bought a few years back. He camps over there. He uses one of the farm motorbikes to get around. I don’t think he’s got his licence yet. His old man’s yardman at the Eticup pub. His mum took off years ago. Older sister married a cockie out near Lake King.’
‘So he’s pretty much on his own.’
‘Yeah. Don’t know what he does with himself in his spare time. You’ll see him at shearing, though.’
‘Shearing?’ There was that word again. ‘Paul hasn’t said anything to me about shearing?’
Gloria used both hands to push her hair back behind her ears. ‘That’d be right. If we waited for His Lordship to tell us what to do, nothing round here would ever get done. Ask him, next time you see him. Tell him you’ve heard a rumour that there’s something called shearing happening soon.’
Mary was surprised by the bitterness in her voice. ‘Don’t you like Paul?’
‘Like him? What’s to like? He’s there, like death and taxes. That’s when he’s not off in Perth with —’ She stopped herself. ‘Even when he’s here he does bugger all.’
Mary was waiting for more but, perhaps realising that she’d spoken out of turn, Gloria clammed up.
‘I thought farmers worked hard,’ Mary said, in an attempt to get Gloria going again.
The ploy worked. Gloria leant forward across the table. ‘We sat down and worked it out once, how much time Paul actually spends working. Not counting when he’s in Perth — I suppose to be fair he might be doing something useful up there — and it came out to one-and-a-half days a week. That’s over the year. Not exactly slave labour, is it? So it gives me the woops to see him swanning around like Lord Muck, when it’s other people doing all the hard yakka.’
Gloria had hit her stride now. ‘That’s one of the things I can’t stand about Janet. She’s such a snob, brown-nosing like Paul’s some kind of aristocrat; won’t hear a word against him. That’s what I can’t stand.’
Garth reappeared in the doorway. ‘It’s stopped raining. Come on, Mary, I’ll give you the tour of the vegie garden.’
M
ARY MADE HER WAY BACK THROUGH THE WET GRASS
to the Hazlitt house, her arms laden with bounty from Garth’s garden. The afternoon was fading, a strip of yellowy light seeping beneath the clouds to the west. Overhead half-a-dozen crows were slowly wheeling, dull black against the grey sky, their cries a lament for the end of the day.
The kitchen light was on. Mary wiped her shoes and shouldered her way through the door, eager to disburden herself, get out of her wet parka and into dry shoes and socks. Her damp hair was clinging to her cheeks, her hands frozen.
‘
Where
have you been?’
Mary was startled by the rage in Clio’s voice. The woman was standing like a pillar of wrath, her booted feet in a puddle of water. Mary carefully laid her burden of wet vegetables on the table before she spoke. ‘I was at Gloria and Garth’s. I told you I was going.’