by JD Nixon
“You have done something wrong. You’ve harmed the fiancee of that man.”
Why did he have to say that? I looked down at the bubbling water, my shame painful inside me.
“And you intend to keep harming her.”
I looked up. “What do you care about her? Don’t pretend that you do.”
“Of course I don’t care about her, Matilda. I care about you. That man will hurt you. He’s not trustworthy.”
“I’m not seeing him again. Not because you told me not to, but because that’s the right thing to do. I should never have slept with him. It was wrong of me.”
“Yes, it was. I only hope that you’ll listen to me next time when I tell you not to do something.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. Not about my personal life.”
His eyes were cold as they rested on my face. “I will tell you what to do if I think you’re making a mistake. If I think you need to be protected from your own bad decisions.”
I sighed with exasperation. “You can’t protect me from life, Heller. I’m twenty-five. I need to be free to make bad decisions. I need to make mistakes and do stupid things. It’s the only way that I’ll learn about myself, that I’ll grow as a person. How will I ever know what’s right and wrong for me if you’re always trying to protect me from my own mistakes?” He remained silent. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
“No. You ought to be grateful that I’m trying to protect you from life.”
“You try to wrap us all in cotton wool and maybe that’s the right thing to do for Niq and Daniel. But I don’t want to be protected from life. I want to live life and experience all of its ups and downs, all its happiness and sadness, its triumphs and failures. Why can’t you understand that?”
“You’re an attractive, trusting, friendly young woman and you have no real knowledge of just how ugly and vicious the world can be. I do. You don’t know how many predators are out there waiting with hunger for someone like you to fall into their hands. I do.”
“You treat me like I’m a helpless idiot.”
“You’re ungrateful, Matilda.”
That was it. Angered, I climbed out of the tub, glaring at him.
“I made the right decision to send you away for a while,” he said, his blue eyes frosty. “It might help you appreciate more what you have.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded angrily.
“Work it out for yourself,” he snapped, and closed his eyes, ignoring me. I flounced back to my flat and spent the rest of the evening fuming.
The next day, aware that we were meeting a new client, I dressed in one of my power suits and plastered on some makeup, aiming for feminine but professional. I hoped it would impress the client. I adjusted my blouse to expose just a touch more cleavage. You’d be surprised what it can achieve with some clients.
As soon as I arrived at work, Heller yelled out for me to come to his office immediately. Uh-oh, I thought, I was in trouble again. He then proceeded to shout at me for entering the restricted surveillance section without his authorisation. I received the full lecture on how there was confidential sensitive data held there, how restricted meant just that, and how it wasn’t up to me to decide where I could go in this office, blah, blah, blah. I tuned out after the first few minutes.
When he paused to take a breath, I quickly jumped in to assure him I’d been too busy worrying about my butt to notice anything confidential, thinking that might make him smile. It didn’t. Instead, he commenced on the second half of the castigation, which mostly involved him pointing out all my many flaws as an employee. Fortunately Daniel rescued me from the volcano by ushering the new client into the office, introducing us all.
I checked out the client with little enthusiasm. His name was Jye Rendell and he looked like a baby-boomer still yearning for the heady days of Woodstock. His long greying hair was plaited neatly but his tie-dyed t-shirt, baggy off-white cotton pants and sandals weren’t the usual business attire Heller’s clients normally sported. He was one of the few clients who came to us at the Warehouse as we normally did outcalls. But he explained that as he was crashing on the lounge at a friend’s house, he didn’t have anywhere suitable for us to meet.
I examined him with curiosity, because he didn’t strike me as someone with the means to pay for Heller’s exorbitant rates, especially for a month-long live-in stint. But I presumed Heller had confirmed his financials before agreeing to take on the assignment. He wasn’t a successful businessman for nothing.
Jye revealed the reason why he was seeking a security presence. He told us that he lived with like-minded individuals in a self-sustaining, collectively-organised, agriculturally-based community known as The Farm. Oh God, its a commune, I thought in horror. Besides their common belief in sustainable organic agricultural practices, the members of The Farm, known as ‘Farmers’, also shared a pantheistic belief of God’s presence in the bountiful harvest, or some rubbish like that. To be honest, I drifted off during Jye’s passionate five minute spiel about their beliefs. Oh God, even worse, a religious commune, I moaned silently in utter despair, casting a meaningful but wretched glance in Heller’s direction. He didn’t respond, keeping his eyes firmly on the client.
“So, yeah, like, we try to live in harmony with our surrounding neighbours, but we’ve been getting some threatening letters lately. Yeah. We want to expand our bountiful harvest and have been in discussion with our nearest neighbour about buying several of his fields that border The Farm. That’s the only thing we can think of that would cause someone to become upset enough to threaten us. We just want a bit of protection, but nothing too heavy, until the deal goes through. Just to have a presence, but nothing obvious. Yeah. The neighbours would notice if a big man suddenly joined us.” He turned his gray eyes to me, lingering on my cleavage.
“I’m sure Matilda will blend in perfectly at your . . . er . . . The Farm,” Heller promised smoothly, careful to avoid any eye contact with me.
“Yeah. Cool. Yeah,” Jye said. “Might be best if I introduce you as a new recruit. Yeah. Don’t want to freak anyone out. Not many people know the real reason I’ve come to the city today. Didn’t want the other Farmers to know how concerned we are about the threats. Yeah. Been trying to laugh them off as harmless.”
I smiled grimly at him – he was giving me the shits already. “So you’re not wanting me in uniform then, Mr Rendell?” I enquired politely.
“No, that would be too heavy. Just jeans, normal clothes. Yeah. We’ll give you some clothes to wear to help you fit in. I’m driving back after this meeting, so you can come with me. Yeah.”
I groaned to myself. It was too soon. It also meant I was going to miss out on personally hearing all about Daniel’s date. Thank the heavens for mobile phones and email though. I forced myself to muster up a charming smile. Heller suggested I pack while he and Jye sorted out the paperwork. I stood and looked at him sadly.
“Quickly please, Matilda. I’m sure Mr Rendell wishes to return home as soon as possible,” he said brusquely, noticing my hesitance.
I reluctantly dragged my feet upstairs and threw some clothes, toiletries and makeup haphazardly into my suitcase. After hesitating, I also pushed my electronic tablet into the zippered compartment at the bottom of my suitcase, then piled the clothes back on top again. I changed into some jeans and a casual t-shirt, exchanging my high heels for a pair of runners, scrubbing off my makeup and tying my hair into a ponytail.
Back in the office, I hugged and kissed Niq and Daniel goodbye, making Niq promise to attend to his schoolwork, wishing Daniel all the best for his upcoming date with Anton, and reminding them to text, ring and email me regularly. That’s all I had time to say before Jye and Heller left his office, Heller handing Daniel the signed paperwork. Jye was keen to depart.
“I’ll be in contact, Matilda,” was all Heller said, not offering me a hug or even a quick peck on my cheek in goodbye. Forlorn, I was about to move to him to kiss him g
oodbye, when he turned on his heel and strode back to his office. I was devastated, hating to go away for so long with Heller still angry with me. I followed Jye down the stairs, lugging my suitcase, Daniel’s and Niq’s farewells ringing in my ear.
Jye’s wheels were parked on the street outside the Warehouse. Hugely embarrassed, I climbed into the front bench seat of his ancient, battered, snot-green Kombi van, decorated with virulent fluorescent flowers. It started in a cloud of black exhaust smoke, the engine sounding weaker than a sewing machine. Jye clashed the gears and pulled out of the parking spot with a couple of kangaroo jumps. I did up my seat belt and clutched the safety strap nervously. Ever since Niq and I had been involved in that terrible car accident, I was exceedingly anxious in a vehicle with a bad driver. It was going to be a nerve-wracking journey for me.
Chapter 12
Instead, it ended up being more of a long, mind-numbingly dull trip for me, as Jye could barely coax the Kombi up to even half the speed limit. I soon lost my nerves about crashing at high speed, although Jye’s attention to his driving was sporadic.
I distracted myself from his erratic driving by enjoying the variety and creativeness of the rain of curses hurled down on us by angry fellow drivers, enraged at their journeys being unfairly disrupted by such a slow moving vehicle. Jye seemed oblivious to all the abuse and happily stayed in the fast lane, blathering on about The Farm and its creed. He gave me an intricate and overly detailed rundown of the types of crops grown by the ‘Farmers’, which I only half-heard. I was too busy laughing in amazement as a sweet-faced, white-haired elderly lady screamed out at Jye to take that “shitbag of a van off the fucking road, you stupid cocksucking hippy”. She screeched past us in her sunflower-coloured Toyota Corolla, flipping us the finger out of her window as we ate her dust.
“What’s her problem?” Jye wondered out loud, as he ground the gears together again, inexplicably attempting to change down just as we approached a steep incline. By the time we reached the top of the winding, no passing road, there were at least ten cars stuck behind us, each of whose driver gave us a special ‘message’ as they overtook us in wild anger when we eventually reached a passing lane. Evidently there is nothing more likely to promote murderous road rage than following a slow Kombi van for ten kilometres. Especially a slow Kombi van with Peace painted onto the rear door, garnished liberally with garish flowers.
Jye pulled into the next petrol station and as he filled up, I visited the facilities and bought myself a diet soft drink from the shop. I checked my phone. No messages. For some reason that made me feel sorry for myself, even though I’d only been gone from home for a couple of hours. Jye looked at my diet soda in disgust.
“Those things will give you cancer,” he proclaimed. “There won’t be anything like that to drink on The Farm. Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to enjoy my last one for a while then, won’t I?” I replied, not caring for his patronising tone, and I deliberately slurped it noisily as we drove off again. After another hour of driving, he turned off the regional highway onto a small side road, driving again for another twenty minutes before turning off again, this time onto a dirt road. A bone-rattling further thirty minutes of driving saw us deep in the countryside and I noted with some alarm that I had no signal on my phone.
“Can’t you get mobile access here?” I asked, concerned.
“No. They wanted to put a tower near here last year, but we fought them off, even though most of our neighbours wanted it. Yeah. Those things give you cancer,” he stated again. I rolled my eyes.
“I need to be able to contact my boss regularly. What are my options?”
“We have a landline in the main office. Yeah. But it’s for emergencies only,” he said.
“What about internet access?”
“No. We don’t use computers. Yeah. They give you –” he started.
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. Cancer,” I interrupted impatiently. “Is there somewhere in town where I can find broadband or even dial-up internet?”
“There is no town near us. The nearest one is over one hundred kilometres away, further down the highway. Yeah.”
“What? How do you stay in touch with the world?” I asked, incredulous.
“Why would we want to? The world is nothing but trouble. We prefer our own small and perfect world that we’ve created here. Yeah.”
I flopped back on my seat. Shit! I had to keep in contact with Heller. It made me nervous thinking of not being able to talk to him on a job, even if he didn’t want to talk to me at the moment.
“I’m going to have to use the landline. I’ll pay for my calls.”
“New recruits aren’t allowed to use the telephone,” he replied.
“I’m not a new recruit though. That’s just a cover, remember? I need to be able to use the phone.”
“I’ll talk to the Head Farmer about it. Yeah,” he promised.
“Thank you. It’s very important that I stay in contact with my boss.”
He turned to look at me. “You know, you should take advantage of visiting us to really listen to what we have to say. Yeah. It might change your life. You might find your mind opening up to new possibilities.” Another look at my boobs.
Like hell I would! I thought, but gave him a noncommittal smile in response. After another bumpy ten minutes, he pulled up at a high metal gate abutting a three-metre tall, iron fence topped with barbed-wire. It had the all the warmth of a gulag.
“That looks welcoming,” I noted sarcastically.
“We get trouble sometimes. Not from locals, but from idiots from the town. Yeah. They get drunk and come out from town to hassle ‘the hippies’. They think it’s funny. Yeah. Not cool.”
He alighted from the driver’s seat and opened the lock on the gate, before driving through, then hopping out to relock it again. We bumped along another dirt road for ten more minutes before spying even a hint of civilisation. He pulled into a compound with a semi-circle cluster of squat, mud-brick buildings, each painted the same dung colour with terracotta tiled roofs. I presumed the Farmers had constructed the buildings themselves, as there was an unmistakeably rough homemade appearance to them.
I stepped out of the vehicle, glad to stretch my muscles. I couldn’t see anyone about, but could sense people watching me from inside the buildings. I turned around looking at all the windows, but didn’t spot any sudden movements.
“Come with me. Yeah.” Jye said, leading me towards the largest of the buildings, planted in the centre of the semi-circle. He opened the main door and I followed him into a surprisingly cool but dark space. “This is the office,” he told me as we walked towards a closed door on the far wall. He knocked deferentially, and received consent to enter. The room had whitewashed walls and ceilings and unpolished broad-planked timber floors. Very rustic.
Sitting behind a desk made from timber slabs, which also looked homemade, was a large woman with thick arms and neck, a plain, square face framed with short iron-grey hair, a thin mouth and shrewd, calculating blue eyes. She was wearing some kind of shapeless, unattractive long shift dress in a dirty white colour, against which her enormous bust strained for freedom.
“Our new recruit. Tilly Chalmers. Yeah,” Jye said, making a one-way introduction. The woman stood up from behind her desk and came out towards me, surprisingly spry for her size.
“Ooh, lovely,” she exclaimed, as she looked me over. “Very pleased to meet you, Tilly.” She took my hands in hers, rubbing the backs of each with her thumbs and gazing at me in a way that made me mentally squirm with unease. “Well done, Jye, well done.” Jye smiled with smug pride.
“And you are . . .?” I asked, finally finding my voice.
“I’m the Head Farmer,” she responded, not shifting her eyes from mine for a moment. I hated it when people did that.
“Excellent,” I continued. “Then you know why I’m here? You’re aware I’m not actually a new recruit.”
“Of course, of course. But we must keep your
cover as a new recruit to allay any suspicion amongst the Farmers. I don’t want anyone being concerned about the letters we’ve been receiving.”
I pulled my hands away from hers. “Would you like to show me the letters, please?”
She gave me a secret smile as if my discomfort amused her and went over to unlock a filing cabinet, rifling through the first drawer before extracting and handing me a bundle of papers. I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t wearing a bra and her huge boobs swung pendulously as she moved. I averted my eyes quickly, wishing instantly that I hadn’t noticed.
I quickly scanned the notes. They were all identically worded: Death to Farmers. You will reap what you sow.
“And you have no idea who is sending these to you?”
“None at all.” That secret smile again.
“But you think it’s connected to your negotiations to purchase your neighbour’s fields?”
“Tilly, some narrow-minded people don’t understand our lifestyle. They feel threatened by our happiness and peace. They’re afraid of any expansion plans we have, that we’ll attract even more satisfied Farmers. Perhaps they’re also afraid that we might convert them.” She turned to Jye. “Let’s get Tilly outfitted and set up before it grows dark. She can join us for her first meal as a new recruit tonight.”
Jye disappeared and returned with a pile of neatly folded clothes. The Head Farmer shook out a shift, similar to hers and offered it to me.
“Go on, put it on. Don’t be shy. We’re all family here now.”
I took the shift and turned my back to them, hurriedly pulling off my t-shirt and wrenching the shift over my neck as they both watched with off-putting avidness. The material was scratchy and coarse, and I later learned that it was homespun from the flock of sheep the Farmers kept. I let it fall to my ankles before I unzipped my jeans and removed them as well. I might have been imagining things, but I sensed some disappointment that I hadn’t provided more of a striptease for their entertainment.
