The Vintage and the Gleaning (7 page)

A flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos line the bare branches of an ancient gum. They call their harsh call and flare their crests and take off with a sound of wings and the flock dazzles against the shifting vapours of the sky. I spot a half-dead tortoise struggling through the grass and I pick it up, turning it in the direction of the river.

In one paddock a horse trots cautiously towards me, a big Irish hunter. It dodges and feints as it approaches, sniffing and snorting. Coming close, it rests its head on my shoulder, its great weight against me. I stroke the nose and mane.

You're a big fella, aren't you, I say.

The horse half closes its eyes, occasionally flicking its nose at the flies crawling over it, making gruff sounds. Its nostrils flare and sigh and I feel its hot breath. Muscles twitch under the sheen of the coat and its back legs shuffle from side to side. Sweat prickles against my cheek and neck. I push its head away with both hands. The horse leans back heavy against me.

All right big fella, I say.

I twist away and it follows me to the fence, stopping to graze and making quick retreats, looking back with large, liquid eyes and then trotting after me again. It pushes its flank against me as I climb the gate. When I come down the other side I stroke the chestnut nose again. The fence creaks under the horse's chest and it snorts and whinnies as I leave, before turning and galloping away.

I cut through Boss's old farmyard with its empty dam and broken barley silo, littered with derelict equipment from Boss's father's day and his grandfather's and all the way back. Old winepresses of cast-iron and cracked wood, ploughs and yokes and rusted rims, machines with forgotten purpose. It is overgrown with cactus now, a great sprawling mass of pale leaves spreading out toothed and thick and taller than a man, drooping under their own weight.

Past Boss's father's stables, full of saddles turning to powder, mice nesting in the blankets and uniforms, his dress-sword rusted fast to the scabbard, the old .303 gone to pieces and nothing left of the medals but the medals themselves, scattered among the rodent droppings, tarnished green and black and beyond recognition.

In the paddock behind, the descendants of his thoroughbreds have gone brumby, ribs showing through their mangy coats. They turn and flee as I pass.

I cross the road to the cellar and go looking for Boss in the tasting shed and the cooling shed and among the vats and in the stockroom. I stop to chat with the women but they don't know where he is.

Outside I go around the back to the slumping shanty of the old cellar. It is dim and cool inside, the air heavy with wine and fermentation. I walk through the maze of barrels. Tangled hoses run along the dirt floor. One of the barrels has a ladder against it and I climb it. There is hardly enough light to see inside but I can make out Boss well enough, sitting inside the barrel with his legs stretched out and propped up against the rounded wall, half sunk in the residue and covered in it, his bare arms and legs shiny with the dried sludge, Boss purple all over. He is eating a pie.

Boss looks up at me and scowls.

What the bloody hell are you playing at? he asks.

There is another pie sitting on his lap in a paper bag and a bottle of tomato sauce.

You said Iris needed a hand this arvo, I say.

So what did you come down here for then? he says. Iris is up at the house, isn't she?

Boss takes an angry breath.

I mean, where's your common sense?

He takes a bite of the pie and chews it.

Come poking around here, he says. Poking around the bloody place. I mean, what were you thinking? You expect Iris to be down a barrel? Now come on.

He swallows and grins, his eyes white in the wine-soaked darkness.

I was just looking for Iris, I say.

Well, can you see her here?

He picks up the sauce bottle and shakes it.

For Christ's sake, he says.

I climb down the ladder and start to walk off when Boss calls me back. I cup my hands against the barrel wall and yell into them.

Yeah?

Boss's voice comes out echoing.

No need to tell Iris about the pies, he says.

Righteo, I say and I leave.

Boss's house is in the middle of what we call the house vineyard. Before Iris came along the vines crawled the sides of the house and matted the sunken verandah, climbing the chamfered wood supports and running along the guttering. In late summer bunches of dark ripe grapes would hang from the eaves.

But Iris wanted her garden and it was me and Wallace cleared the rows from out the front and a few acres round the sides. We pull up more of them every winter when the ground is frozen solid and us splitting our fair share of mattocks, Boss standing there watching us with a look on his face like we was pulling teeth, as Wallace says. And Iris got her garden all right and now she grows roses that win prizes at local shows.

I walk along the garden paths. The lines of silver birches planted at the sides of the garden are tall now and gleaming. Underneath the hardwood bower, shaded with new-leaved wisteria, purple blossoms bloom. Soon they will bend their stalks, hanging in bell-shaped masses and they will bloom and die and bloom again all summer long. The jasmine flowers have withered and fallen now, the leaves grown thick over a long trellis bordering the front lawn and pruned like a hedge. In spring the breeze wafts the smell of the jasmine into town. And when those first warm and fragrant nights break through the long chill I know the season has come.

Iris is on her knees, tending roses with secateurs. She is wearing long filthy gloves and a straw hat. She stands up when she sees me coming.

Smithy, she says. I thought they would send up one of the boys.

Well, they sent me, I say.

Iris brushes dirt off her gloves.

It's just weeding the paths today, she says. Nothing exciting.

Makes no difference to me, I say.

Iris looks at me from under her hat.

But what about your knees, Smithy, she says. What about your poor old knees?

My old knees will be fine, I say.

Iris clucks her tongue.

Rubbish, she says. No point playing the tough man with me.

Iris pulls off her gloves and throws them into the wheelbarrow. She takes off her hat with one hand and pats down her hair with the other.

No point trying to impress me, she says.

Iris goes into the house through the sunroom. She comes back with a cushion and hands it to me.

The cushion is corduroy, a burgundy colour and embroidered with a picture of two birds on a branch. The birds are blue with coloured wings and the wings are patterned with gold thread. The branch spreads across the cushion. One of the birds is beginning to fly, but the wind is blowing it back.

You don't want to use this Iris, I say, looking at the cushion.

Iris laughs.

It's old, she says. It's the cat's cushion. The cat sleeps on it. See?

She brushes short hairs from the cushion and hits it with her palm. Dust billows out. Iris laughs.

She gets me a bucket and a trowel. I place the cushion on the gravel and kneel on the birds and the branch and the wind.

Rosebushes run along the fence line fronting the lawn and freestanding roses flank the paths behind box hedging. They are red, white and yellow. The yellow roses are like buds, small and closed, even in the blasting sun. The white roses lay their petals right out, rippled and limp, long stamens sticking out and heavy with pollen. The red roses are the same as red roses always are. The garden smells of roses and I like the yellow ones best of all.

I begin to work. The day moves slowly with the noise of insects.

Iris's niece comes out the front door letting the flyscreen swing free. It slams shut and Iris's voice comes raised from inside. The niece is wrapped in a towel, wearing sunglasses and carrying magazines, a bottle of sunscreen and a walkman. She goes down to the lawn without seeing me and I am about to say hello but she takes off the towel and spreads it out on the lawn and she is hardly wearing a thing underneath. After that I keep my head down.

The sunscreen bottle spurts and whistles and the niece slaps it on. I can smell it. The tinny sound of the walkman starts up and the niece lies unmoving in the sun.

Iris comes out of the door carrying a tray. She hooks the flyscreen door with one foot and lets it close slowly, putting the tray down on an old wrought-iron table sitting on the verandah, topped with fractured whitewashed slats.

Teatime Smithy, she yells out into the garden.

I sit up on my knees and stretch my back.

She'll be right, Iris, I say. We work through the afternoons. Just morning smoko.

Iris looks for me from the verandah, shading her eyes. She comes down the steps and prods the niece with her toe.

The niece takes one of her headphones out.

What? she says.

Iris looks for me again.

I don't care what you lot do out there, she says. At this house we have afternoon tea.

She prods the niece again and the niece looks up through her sunglasses.

Come inside and wash up, Iris says to me.

It's all right, I say. I'm fine with the hose.

Suit yourself, says Iris.

I go and wash my hands at the garden tap and go past the niece to the verandah. The niece stays sprawled out in the sun. The heat brings a faint chemical smell from the verandah, the thick stain sticky under my boots.

Iris has put out a pot of tea and a plate with slices of fruitcake arranged around it, cups, saucers, a sugar bowl and milk jug. It is good china, patterned with blue flowers and all of the china matches. She pours me a cup of tea and puts a slice of cake onto a plate. I put three spoonfuls of sugar into the tea and stir it in. Iris clucks her tongue and offers me the milk jug. I shake my head.

We sit drinking tea. Iris has her chair facing out onto the lawn. She has slipped off her house shoes and is swinging her bare feet. There is something about Iris that reminds me of a little girl. Sometimes there is, anyway. She is wearing a sun frock.

Iris nods out at the niece.

She's in disgrace, Iris says. Her father sent her up here as a punishment.

The niece is lying on her front with her bikini straps undone. She is all brown body out on that lawn.

Oh yeah, I say.

Running with the fast crowd, Iris says. Up till all hours. Getting up to God-knows-what. Her father thought it was about time she saw how real people live.

She shouts out to the niece.

Didn't he? she shouts.

The niece doesn't hear her.

Iris walks down from the verandah onto the lawn and pokes the niece with her toe.

Oi! shouts Iris.

What? says the niece, turning, holding onto her bikini top.

Sent up in disgrace, weren't you? says Iris.

The niece puts her head down between folded arms.

Iris comes back and sits down.

Just you look at her, she says, taking a sip of tea. Getting herself all primped up for the boys.

Oh well, I say. There's worse things in the world.

Still, says Iris. More to life than sunbaking and boys.

Iris pours more tea. I spoon in sugar.

Aren't you going to eat my fruit-cake? she asks me.

Sorry Iris, I say. It's just I'm not used to eating during work hours.

I pick up the cake and bite some of the icing off, letting it dissolve in my mouth before I swallow it. Iris watches.

You don't look like you eat much anytime, says Iris with a snort.

That's just age, I say.

Iris snorts again.

I know what you men do, she says in a singsong voice. I'm nobody's fool. I know where you go after work. You might not eat but you certainly have no problems with the beer.

I try to eat as much of the icing as I can. I take a bite of the cake but it hurts to swallow and it sits like a brick in my stomach. I put it back on the plate.

Suit yourself, says Iris, swinging her feet.

Iris yawns and leans back in her chair, looking at the niece again.

I made her fold sheets with me this morning and now she's sulking, she says. Apparently madam is too good for that. Won't even help with the dishes.

We both look at the niece. She has turned over onto her back and put her sunglasses back on. The headphone wires curl across the grass.

I've never said no to anyone staying with us, says Iris. You know that, you've seen it. And I'm always very pleased to oblige. I enjoy having guests. But I do expect them to pull their weight.

The afternoon sun is starting to come around the side of the house, the wood supports casting shadows across the jarrah boards. A light breeze stirs. I am reminded of other summers.

Iris is still talking about the niece.

Well, you're only young once, I say.

Friday night Roy and Wallace are taking the boys down to The Imperial to teach them how to drink. They say I'm coming even if they have to drag me kicking and screaming.

I walk into town along the railway line. A voice calls my name. I look up and see Charlotte Clayton coming out her back gate. She waves and starts walking carefully down the embankment, tripping in the ditch. I catch her.

Sorry Smithy, she says. It's these heels.

We walk down the line together, me holding onto her shoulder as she stumbles on the railway stones. She is a slim girl with long hair and she is all done up.

So where are you off to tonight? I ask her.

I'm meeting up with some friends at The Imperial, she says. Then we're going clubbing in Albury.

Yeah? I say. They got some good clubs there?

Charlotte laughs.

Not bloody likely, she says. I just had to get out of the house, take my mind off things. You know, with my husband getting out and everything.

That's right, I say. When's that happen?

Monday, she says. This Monday.

Charlotte slips on the stones and swears. She grabs onto me.

I just don't know what I'm going to do, she says. I'll see when the time comes, I suppose.