Fresh Fields (10 page)

“Currey's a damn fool, you know. He had a good position here and he threw it away. Just threw it away! He's not a young man anymore, and he's getting a reputation in the district as a troublemaker. He won't find it easy to get another job. I think he'll rue the day he cut himself off with me.”

The tussock-chopping was done with a long-handled hoe. You had to chop into the ground at the base of each clump of tussock tendrils, then lift the whole thing out of the ground. You could have the smaller tussocks out of the ground with a single quick chop, but bigger ones might take two or three chops around the base, then some levering before they came up. A big tussock could be as high as your thigh. The idea was to be methodical and have a strategy. You didn't just wander at random, chopping on a whim. You needed to work along a front, gradually whittling away, slowly pushing the line back to a fence and so having the paddock cleared, at least for the time being.

The tussock wasn't uniformly spread. In some places there were just a few here and there, like the first outriders of the horde. In other places they'd be beginning to group themselves enough to start dominating the ground. And in some areas, where they'd met no resistance and there'd been plenty of time to dig in, they were a dense mass completely covering the ground and not allowing a single blade of grass to survive.

You got into a sort of war mentality. Skirmishing with the outriders wasn't so bad. The heavier concentrations were harder work. You could chop all day before you saw much effect. That's when you got the sense of it being like a war. But it was when you gazed across the main body of the tussock hordes, saw them stretching away in a solid mass, felt them advancing on you with the silent intensity of all their straining and reaching, that you got a sort of watery sensation in your stomach. That's when you knew you didn't have the strength to prevail.

All this reminded the youth of something he'd once read about King Harold and the Anglo-Saxons in the year 1066 when enemies were coming at them from all sides. They'd had to march north to fight a great battle against the ferocious Vikings who'd landed there, and then straightaway march south again to face the invading Normans at Hastings. They'd won the great battle in the north, but lost the one in the south. It didn't matter how brave they were: they were just too worn out and the enemies were too many.

There was lots of time to think, out there in the paddocks all day long. The youth began to dwell on the story of King Harold and his people. Up till then he had always thought of loneliness and abandonment and courage and defeat in terms of an individual person. Like Diestl. But now he began to see that a whole people or tribe or army could be lonely and friendless in the world and be gradually going down in despair. One could be
part
of a larger thing and be going down
with
it. There'd be some consolation in that, thought the youth. You would have friends alongside you, sharing the ordeal, like in the shield-wall at Hastings.

He wished he could read more about 1066. He had no books with him, just his precious magazine with Sweetheart in it. He had to get some books to read. Or at least one book, a book about King Harold and his people going down so bravely. Reading about it, learning more of the story, would sustain him somehow. But the bare bulb in his room in the shed wasn't bright enough to read by, not properly. He had to squint just to read the captions to the pictures of Sweetheart. Maybe he could get a bed-lamp, as well as the book. That would set him up nicely. He had to get into Balinga. There'd be a bookshop there, and somewhere to buy a bed-lamp. But Balinga was a long drive away.

And besides, he had no money. He hadn't received any pay and was owed a few weeks by now. That wouldn't add up to very much, but it might be enough for what he needed to buy. He began to yearn for a trip to town and for some pay. He waited for a chance to raise it with Mr. Coles, waited for Mr. Coles to be in a better mood than his usual one. But time passed and the chance didn't present itself. So the youth went on day by day, chopping and hacking at the tussock, doing his feeding chores, then being in his room at night, either gazing blankly in the Diestl mood or sighing in the embraces of his blue-eyed darling until he felt spent enough to sleep. On Sundays he would saddle up the old mare and go for a long ride to the river and to the cliffs where the wedge-tailed eagles lived.

 

MRS. COLES
began to be more visible round the place. The youth would see her hanging clothes on the line, or tending the plants at the front and side of the homestead. She had a sad, resigned look on her face, and would not meet the youth's eyes on the few occasions they came close enough for their glances to cross. The old lady would snap at her that she should be kicking on. But the old lady stayed friendly with the youth and would rattle away to him for five minutes at a time about the news and what a conundrum it all was. The youth only had to nod every so often, or shake his head, or mutter “Ah.” The old lady told him he was a good conversationalist.

“Which is more than I can say about Misery Guts,” she added, gesturing to somewhere in the house. “Won't kick on at all, that woman. I can't fathom a person like that. Can you? No, of course you can't!”

“It's a conundrum,” the youth agreed.

One evening at the usual time he went to the bathroom inside the house to have his shower. He didn't do it every evening, just every second or third one. He always felt very uncomfortable about going into the private part of the house and kept it to the minimum. This time the bathroom door was ajar as he approached. He assumed the bathroom must be empty. He went straight in and found the old lady standing there with nothing on. She looked up at him in surprise. The youth was completely flustered for a few moments, then turned and went quickly out and pulled the door shut behind him. He went back to the shed and sat on his bed with his heart pounding. He half-expected Mr. Coles to come raging across at any moment to confront him. The old lady was probably telling him about it right now. How he'd pushed his way into the bathroom and stood there perving at her. And in a way he
had
perved. He'd been so surprised at seeing someone there that he'd looked straight at her body, at her breasts and the triangle of hair lower down. He thought it had only been for a couple of moments, but maybe he'd given the impression that he was really gawping. And the idea that he'd do that to such an old lady made it worse.

When it was time for him to go across and have his meal, he approached the back door hesitantly and went inside as quietly as he could. The meal was laid out as usual and he began to pick at it, feeling too anxious to want it properly. The house was quiet. Suddenly the old lady entered the kitchen and began to prattle on about the news as usual. It was about the Balkans this time. The youth didn't quite know what the Balkans were. He just kept his eyes on his plate and felt a growing relief that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Maybe the old lady had forgotten what happened. Old people forget things easily. And yet her mind always seemed sharp as a tack. As she continued in full flow about the Balkans, Mr. Coles called from inside to ask where the envelopes were. She called back that they were on the desk where they were supposed to be. He replied that they weren't there. The old lady clicked her tongue with impatience and began to go out of the kitchen. At the door she paused and looked at the youth.

“Don't worry,” she said with a wink. “It's our little secret.”

 

A COUPLE
of days later the youth got his chance to go to a shop, though it was only the general store in Burrawah.

Mr. Coles had to pick up some things and the youth said he needed a few odds and ends himself. “Better come along then,” said Mr. Coles. The youth summoned the courage to mention that he didn't have any money and that he'd like to get a bit of his pay to spend. Mr. Coles seemed surprised, then said he wasn't sure whether there was anything owing to him. The youth went red with embarrassment. Maybe he was demanding something he wasn't entitled to. And yet how could there not be something owing to him after all this time? He screwed up his courage again.

“Um, I just thought there
might
be something due.”

“Well, there could be. I don't know. Mrs. Coles does the books. I'll have to check with her. Remember, though, that you got your coat and boots and hat as an advance on wages.”

The youth had forgotten that. He flushed red again, feeling that he'd put himself completely in the wrong. The thing was, he didn't know what his weekly pay was supposed to be. No-one had ever mentioned it and he'd never felt bold enough to ask. Deep down he found it hard to believe that his services, such as they were, could be worth anything.

Just before they left in the truck for the township, Mr. Coles came from the house and handed the youth some money. There were notes and some coins.

“That brings you till Thursday of last week,” he said gruffly. “Mrs. Coles has totted it all up.”

The youth felt he'd created an unpleasant situation and should apologise. But he didn't know what to say, so he kept silent. Mr. Coles did not speak either on the drive into Burrawah, except to yell at a steer that had escaped from someone's paddock and was standing on the road. “Get out of it, you beggar of a blasted animal! Get the blazes out of it!”

Burrawah was a tiny place. There was just Dawson's general store and a straggle of dwellings along a stretch of dirt road. The general store was interesting, though. It was old-fashioned, with a wide verandah and rusted tin signs for brands of tea and bleach and aspirin. There was a cockatoo on a stand by the door. The bird was attached to the stand by a little chain on its leg, like a convict, and looked very glum.

The inside of the store was dim and the youth had to let his eyes adjust. But after a few weeks away from the world, it seemed like Aladdin's Cave. There was a rack of magazines and the youth scanned their covers eagerly. He was looking for anything about Sweetheart. At first he saw nothing, but then his heart leapt. On the cover of
Home Ideas
was the headline: “A Princess Looks Back: Does Grace Still Yearn for Hollywood?” The youth picked the magazine up with shaking hands and leafed through it. There was a three-page spread with photos of her in various movie roles. What a wonderful find this was! How right he'd been to ask to come to the store and to demand some of his money! He felt upright and brave, like a knight who has won his way to the fair lady by his undauntedness.

The store man was outside with Mr. Coles and the youth could hear them talking about sheep-drench. There were no books for sale and no bed-lamps. They would have to wait till he could get to Balinga. He wanted to buy some food, something that would keep well and that he could have in reserve in his room for those times when he didn't feel filled up by the meals provided.

The storekeeper came inside with Mr. Coles and the youth paid him for two large packets of biscuits, some toothpaste and the magazine. He went outside with his purchases in a brown paper bag and stood by the truck. He resisted the urge to peek at the photos of Sweetheart again. Better to wait till he was back in his room. The sun was out and there was a cool wind blowing the clouds across the sky. He looked at the dwellings that lined the strip of dirt road in both directions. They were more like shacks than proper houses, all broken down and crumby. The Currey place couldn't be any of those. It must be somewhere further along, he figured, or a bit out of sight among trees. If he'd had a moment alone with the storekeeper he'd have asked about it, but hadn't wanted to with Mr. Coles there. The youth had been mulling over an idea for a couple of weeks. Burrawah was a fair way from Dunkeld if you were driving, because you had to go in the other direction first to reach the main gate of the property and get onto the public road. But if you were going across country on horseback it was hardly any distance at all. Maybe, he thought, he could saddle up old Gypsy one Sunday and ride over to the Currey place and drop in on them. He imagined himself arriving and casually hitching the mare to their front fence, then greeting them like a real Horseman who thinks nothing of riding rough country to say g'day to his friends.

Then he saw Clem. He'd appeared from one of the run-down shacks and was standing under a gnarled gum tree at the back. The youth was about to call out and wave, but something made him pause. Then Gladys came out of the shack and said something. Clem made a sharp gesture with his hand and Gladys made the same gesture to him and then turned impatiently away. At the shack door she turned and said something else, and again Clem made the abrupt gesture, and Gladys went in. They weren't in a happy mood, that was obvious. The youth thought Clem might turn his head at any moment and look across to the general store and see him standing there. But Clem was looking at the ground, like a man with the weight of the world on him. The youth stepped out of sight behind the truck, just in case.

The mental picture of the storybook cottage was gone, and the youth knew he wouldn't be riding over to say g'day.

He felt depressed after that, but he got by. He knew he had plenty on his side to keep him going. He had Sweetheart and he had Diestl. And as he waged his war against the tussock hordes out in the paddocks, he had the example of King Harold and the brave Anglo-Saxons always before him.

 

ONE EVENING
the youth was going across to the house for his meal. He saw the light of a torch down near the bottom of the home paddock, near the pig enclosure. Mr. Coles was trying to pull up a length of heavy steel cable that had been lying half-buried in the grass for a long time. The youth had often noticed the length of cable and supposed it was from the days of the bulldozer. He could hear Mr. Coles grumbling at the brute of a thing to “Come up! Come up, blast you!” It was just like Mr. Coles, the youth reflected, to decide that some task had to be done right that minute and then to bluster away at it. The pigs were aroused and were grunting and oinking loudly.