Farm Kill

by Robert W Fisk

  Greg told the doctor he couldn't take it anymore. The doctor gave him a prescription and urged him to be patient. The Reverend Johnson listened to Greg sympathetically but Sally heard from women friends that she should turn to them if Greg ever hit her again. Greg had a visit from the police, warning him to cease his violent behaviour towards his family.

  Despite the rumours, misunderstandings and frustrations, they loved each other dearly. They felt that as Lance grew and developed, he would become less of a handful. He was behaving like a typical two year old, so what was the problem except for being several years slower than his peers?

  Greg often took Lance with him on the farm to give Sally a break. Lance retreated into his own world, making strange noises and totally ignoring both parents. Lance took no notice of the farm, of hot, or cold, or hunger, it simply went unnoticed. Tractors and earthmoving machines were the exceptions. Lance would spend all day standing or sitting by the paddock gate, just watching Greg plough the river flats. Nothing bothered him, not even the need to go to the toilet. He was still in nappies when he was eight.

  The lack of bonding bothered them both. Mr Weatherall told them to not worry too much. Although he was actually a bright boy, his behaviour patterns were those of a two year old. Nature would mature Lance, who would pass through the same stages every child passes through, but at his own rate.

  Lance was clever in his own ways. These usually involved the painstaking destruction of something of value. Sally often left Lance sitting or lying on the floor, engaged in a repetitive activity which she knew would occupy him for many hours. From when Lance was about six, he would take the keys of the car and hide them. Or he would dismantle something like the cassette player that was seldom used.

  One night, he got out of bed and found the bolt and magazine of Greg's rifle. He managed to find the key and open the gun cabinet. Lance put the parts together and went looking for some ammunition. Greg kept the ammunition separately in his bedside cabinet and woke when Lance opened the drawer. The police somehow found out and as a result, had his firearms confiscated. Greg thought that a bit unfair but agreed it would be safer for everyone, and he surrendered his firearms licence.

  Physically, Lance was strong and able to climb without fear. One day, to give Sally a break, Greg took him to Grantville. Lance loved the vintage car museum. He still wasn't talking even though he was seven. To communicate, Lance pushed and pulled and made aggressive noises. Greg was embarrassed, especially when a woman told him to stop manhandling the child. Greg wondered once more how Sally managed, she being the one who had to spend most time with Lance.

  Greg tried to hold Lance's hand in order to keep him safe while crossing the road. Lance, who could not bear to be touched, pulled away and ran into the road. Greg tried to catch him but the boy was too fast. Greg bore the brunt of the horn blasts and the shouted abuse as he tried to run after Lance.

  Greg had to stop for a truck which Lance managed to slip in front of. He lost sight of Greg. He started by looking along the street. There was no sign of him. He understood now why Sally insisted on toddler reins when she took Lance out.

  "Excuse me, my son's run away. Have you seen him?" he asked passers-by. Nobody had. Greg looked in the shops. Nobody had seen Lance. He walked quite a long way from where he had crossed the road, so he doubled back to try the other direction. Along the road, on the opposite side, the side they had crossed from earlier, stood a war memorial. It had once stood in a square in splendid isolation as the district's focus on the losses of the past. Now, as the population of Grantville grew apace, it was in the way of traffic. Plans had been made to shift the six metre high memorial to a more convenient place. A small crowd had gathered around it, delaying traffic while causing a commotion..

  Greg heard a fire engine approaching. A police car drew up.

  "Someone's hurt," thought Greg with a feeling of dread.

  "What's happened?" he asked as he crossed the street and joined the crowd.

  "Kid's stuck up the top," said an older man. "Too young to be on his own. Kid can't even speak. Some kind of retard, I think."

  The term 'retard' was seldom heard. It was never a popular term in New Zealand and was now used by bullies and rednecks. Greg was about to protest when the truth struck him.

  "Lance!" he cried.

  The little boy waved from the head of the soldier. He was standing on the statue's head, holding the bayonet of the soldier's rifle. People gasped as they thought his waving was a prelude to his falling.

  "You know him, Sir?" asked a police officer.

  "He's my son. He's autistic. He ran off. I've been looking for him."

  "Dad!"

  It was Lance's first word. It was an amazing moment.

  "Perhaps you could talk to him," suggested the officer. "Tell him to stay calm and to stay still. The Brigade is here now. They'll have a net."

  Before the Fire Brigade could do anything, Lance scrambled down the bronze statue. The crowd cheered.

  "Brave boy!" someone cried. Although only just seven, he was big for his age, like his mother. Greg was slim and quite small by comparison with Sally. Lance began walking away. People tried to grab him, making him run away from their hands. He accidentally ran straight to Greg, who had to hold the angry child by his shoulders.

  "Easy mate!" said the police officer. "He's just a kid, man."

  "Can you please hold him," asked Greg. "I'm feeling a bit upset."

  The police officer also struggled, barely able to restrain the wriggling boy.

  A journalist had overheard Greg's remark about autism. Next day a newspaper appeared in the mail box at the farm gate. The Somervilles normally did not get the paper. Greg looked at the front page. There was a photo of him apparently manhandling Lance, who looked to be about five years old. The article detailed how an autistic boy had climbed the ANZAC monument, and become stuck. The father had apparently left the autistic boy unattended. Although six or seven, the boy was so handicapped he couldn't yet speak or understand instructions. When the father returned to find the boy stuck and in danger of falling approximately six metres, enough to kill or maim a child, the father called the boy to him. Half falling, half slipping, the child came down to the ground and ran away to escape his father's wrath, but was diverted by the crowd back to the father, who handed the boy to the police.

  Greg didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The half-truths really were a terrible indictment in a small community. He was pleased Sally hadn't had to face what he had. On the other hand, Lance had said his first word. That pleased both him and Sally when he told her, but it was a long time before he said anything again. There was still no bonding between Lance and his parents..

  TIME PASSED. IT WAS Spring. The sun was quite strong for that time of year and Sally felt hot and sweaty.

  "Perspirationy," she thought. "Ladies don't sweat. They gently perspire." She laughed at the word she had coined.

  There were weeping willows with impossibly green leaves trailing in the water of the stream as the tips of the branches swirled in the currents produced by the Spring rains.

  Philip owned the farm next door. Greg was convinced Philip was trying to run him off the farm. There had been a series of incidents: vandalism of machinery, fences, fuel tanks, killing of stock. That hurt more than anything.

  Philip had changed since his wife Georgina had left him a couple of years before. Although he was still big, strong and darkly handsome, he had lost his carefree look and good humour and seemed quite sinister at times. He often seemed to appear out of nowhere, usually with a dark look on his face, sometimes scaring the heck out of her. He seemed to know when she was in particular places, or was she imagining that?

  She had good reason to avoid him. Well, he wasn't about the place now, she decided. She would have seen him by now. She walked across a field of pasture, the river flats that Philip wanted to turn into a dairy block, down to the dam. Willows were planted around the banks of the pond, giving cool shade in the
summer heat. When the dam had been built, the owners of both farms had made the top wide enough to drive machinery between the two farms. Although neighbouring, the farms were separated by the river and had separate access roads on each side.

  Sally crossed the dam. There was no sign of Philip. She was pleased and disappointed. She came to a grove of weeping willows on Philip's side of the river. It was quite dark under the branches. There was no real path to follow but the footing was firm. The hanging strands fell back like plastic fly screens as she brushed them aside.

  "Hi Doll," said a man's voice.

  Sally jumped in alarm.

  "Don't worry, Babe," said Philip as he emerged from the shadows. "I'm glad you came."

  "No, Philip," said Sally. "I'm not going to do it again. I love my husband."

  "You might love your husband, but he can't move you like I can," said Philip. He put his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. He held Sally firmly but not so firmly that she felt trapped.

  "There," he said as he rubbed her upper back gently. He felt her tension lessen. "You're not alone. You have a friend here."

  Sally pulled away, turning to her left as she did so, out of the circle of his arms. He loosened his grip on her, instead taking her arm and moving her to a horizontal trunk of a fallen tree.

  "I won't force you," he said. "What we had was just two lonely people having a bit of fun. No harm to anyone."

  They sat side by side with their backs against the fallen tree. They were comfortable with each other. Sally felt at peace.

  "What happened to Georgina, Philip?" Sally asked. "You've told me she left you. That you're on your own, but you never told me why she left."

  "Well, who knows the mind of a woman? She felt very lonely here, the same as you do. Only two farms in this part of the valley, only you two for company. Good company, I must say. Got too lonely I guess. One day I came in late from tractor work and she was gone. Left most of her gear behind. She took a ride with a Farm Advisor fella, who left her in Dunedin of all places. Never found out who the advisor guy was, nor where she went after that."

  "So, why not sell up?" asked Sally. "Or get a young housekeeper?"

  "Hard to sell up. The farm is too small and profit even in a good year is marginal. I've talked to Greg about buying you two out and making a dairy conversion but he won't hear of it.?"

  Philip's arm was over her shoulders. He pulled her closer and she snuggled into him. Held like this she felt safe and secure. Philip was interesting and made her laugh. She needed someone to talk to. It was a lonely life for a woman, shut off in an isolated valley, with no female friend to talk to and a husband who had to work all hours to make ends meet. Greg was always knackered, too tired to take the trouble to please her. Wham Bang Thank You Ma'am summed up her love life.

  Philip kissed her on the lips. At first she tried not to respond but her body betrayed her. He really was an attractive man, and he certainly moved her when he had made love.

  She kissed him back with a rising passion. Greg would not be in before dusk. Lance would be fine for another hour or so. He usually spent all afternoon playing with the toy bulldozer, just sitting or lying on the carpet, moving the toy from one side to the other and going Vroom, Vroom. She lay back and relaxed, a warm flood of desire spreading through her body.

  LANCE YELLED "MUM!"

  It still thrilled Sally to hear his voice call her name even if he wanted nothing. Usually 'Mum' was totally out of any context. Greg also knew who Mum was. And Dad. At eight he was becoming socialised enough to bond with them, just a little and not often.

  On her own initiative, Sally attended a course on premature babies who had to be kept in isolation for months. The course was part of a major study that followed a cohort of children from birth. Some of the original subjects were now in their forties.

  The course that she was taking at the Poytechnic in Grantville explored the idea that if the child was withheld from bonding opportunities at a particular stage of development, the opportunity was lost. It was dependent on a developmental sequence not on time. "Use it or lose it," Sally thought. If the kids didn't learn to bond emotionally when Nature said it was time, their bonding was limited, if it happened at all. Had Lance somehow missed his chance? What had she and Greg done or not done to make this happen? Was it too late?

  Mr Weatherall was still in the Psychology Department at the hospital in Grantville. He agreed with the study, saying that because Lance was autistic, he did not follow the normal pattern of bonding to significant others. Mr Weatherall could not offer any advice other than to keep tension to a minimum - that was a joke - and to show affection towards him. That was also a joke: Lance hated being cuddled and he showed no reaction to kind words. Nor to angry words: he was just locked in his own little world.

  Greg had taken Lance with him to check on the heifers. Year old cows were an important part of their income. The Somervilles bought in calves from dairy farmers and raised them for nearly twelve months. When the heifers reached a certain condition, which should be about now, Greg sold them at auction as replacement stock or sent them to the meat works.

  Te Kouka Flats had been a swamp. It was naturally wet from underground springs fed by the surrounding hills. There was still a large bog. To protect the people down the valley from flooding, a large pipe had been laid from the normal level of the bog through a tunnel under the small rise and the main road to take excess water to the larger stream on the other side. Philip was right in one way: if the two farms could amalgamate and get a licence to irrigate, Te Kouka Flats could be good dairy country. "That's where the money is," Philip had told him.

  "Boom and bust," Greg had said to Sally. "That's typical of this country. There's no balance, no regulation. "Everybody has rushed into converting their sheep farms and wheat farms into dairy. They are sucking the life out of the aquifers, poisoning the rivers with effluents and chemical fertilisers. Next will come the bust. The land will be left destroyed, a dry potential desert. Only the banks and stock firms will benefit with their wicked interest rates and low equity loans."

  With Lance and Greg away for the afternoon, Sally could meet up with Philip. She felt a thrill of excitement. Their affair had become a major part of her life, a release from Greg's constant doom and gloom and Lance's emotional tantrums. She had time to go to the willows hanging over the river bank. She somehow knew Philip would be there.

  Philip watched the pathway from Greg's house down to the river. At this time of the day, he made sure he had work that allowed him to view the paddock Sally would have to cross, and the pathway through the grove of cabbage trees to the river.

  Philip was getting closer to his goal of owning both farms. He now had Georgina's money but still faced Greg's obstinacy. If he couldn't win by his constant vandalism, perhaps Philip could break Greg's spirit by taking Sally away.

  He worked hard at pleasing Sally, grooming her for the day when he would ask her to move across the river. He had only to live with her for two years before the Matrimonial Property Act could be used to fleece Greg of half of his farm, which would go as settlement to Sally. Greg would have to sell up to settle Sally, at which time Philip would buy him out. Then if Sally were to have an accident, or die from food poisoning or misuse of farm chemicals, the whole enterprise would be his.

  It was two years since Georgina had disappeared. The gossip surrounding her disappearance had faded as people got on with their lives. It was time to make a move.

  4.

  Greg was on the hillside above the river, mending a fence. Fencing was a never-ending job. The farm had been in a run-down state when he bought it. Bringing it up to a modern standard was like throwing money into the offal pit. Even keeping up with the fences was difficult. He arrived at where the sheep had escaped. It was a standard seven wire fence. Every strand was broken. He stopped the all-terrain four wheeled motorbike. Tricksy was with him, a German Shepherd bitch with a good eye. Eye dogs eyed the sheep and held them with their
gaze and small movements. Huntaway dogs stood at a distance and barked. Farmers often had bot, one to get the sheep moving and the other t steer them where they wanted them to go. Greg would use Tricksy to put them through the fence before he repaired it. He had three other working dogs but Tricksy could do this without their help.

  Like the other fences he had repaired recently, this one had been cut with a pair of fencing pliers. The tension in the wires had made them curl up into tangled coils but the ends that Greg could see were sharp and angled. Who was making his life miserable? Surely it was Philip? The police officer who had come on three occasions told Greg that he had spoken to Philip, who had assured him that he was trying to buy the property, not damage it.

  It was true that Philip had offered to buy him and Sally out. Greg told the constable that when he refused to sell, the problems had started. Wires were cut on the fences that held stock. The troughs that held water for the sheep and the few cattle they ran were holed, or fouled with some form of effluent. Water piping was cut. Machinery was interfered with. Greg was living a nightmare.

  The police officer said that without direct evidence of wrong-doing, he could do little but warn Philip that he was a suspect, and if the vandalism continued there would need to be a full-scale investigation. The officer recommended setting up security cameras, but this was impractical as far as fences, stock and the wider farm were concerned. Greg did buy and fit a portable camera system designed for remote areas. What he feared most was fire, so he set the camera to check the barn and cottage areas.

  At first, as he found each circumstance of damage or vandalism he had come home complaining to Sally. The vandalism happened infrequently but often enough to make him sound paranoid as he explored each situation with Sally.