Love in the Age of Drought

by Fiona Higgins

  ‘Dave,’ I ventured, ‘what’s whitefly?’

  He looked at me blankly.

  ‘Weeelllll,’ Dave exhaled, rearranging the belt holding up his trousers with renewed energy, ‘it’s a very nasty kind of suckin’ pest. Y’see, you’ve got yer chewin’ pests and you’ve got yer suckin’ pests. Yer chewin’ pests just bite chunks out of a plant, but yer suckin’ pests put a proboscis into a plant and suck the sap right out.’ My eyes started to glaze over: what had I started?

  ‘They can do a lot of damage, ’specially on a small plant,’ he continued. ‘But with whitefly, the problem’s not how much sap they suck, it’s the sticky honeydew they spit out of their arse-holes.’

  From family photos to sticky arseholes in less than an hour: I repressed a giggle. No-one else seemed remotely amused. ‘Y’see, whitefly function a bit like chooks,’ Dave resumed. ‘They don’t pee and poo, ’cause they don’t have two orifices. They just have one cloaca instead, and a sticky product comes spurtin’ out of it, a bit like honeydew.’ I considered myself fairly well-read, but I’d never encountered the term ‘cloaca’. The word certainly sounded like an orifice from which a sticky mass might be ejaculated. I glanced at Wilma, my litmus test on propriety. She was happily tucking in to her second helping of chicken casserole.

  Dave continued apace. ‘So, whitefly put out their sticky honeydew all over yer crop, and that’s a concern. It makes yer cotton very difficult to gin.’

  ‘To gin?’ I asked, grappling with the use of this word as a verb.

  Stuart intervened. ‘It’s the first step in processing cotton,’ he explained. ‘Once the crop is harvested off the field, you transport it to the ginning plant, where it’s put through an enormous threshing machine. The fibre gets separated from everything else in the cotton, like seeds, or leaves, or sticks. Then the quality of the fibre is assessed.’

  Dave wrung his hands, itching to continue. ‘When they had a whitefly outbreak in Arizona a decade ago,’ he said, ‘they couldn’t get the cotton through the ginning machines at all, there was so much stickiness. It’s given Arizona cotton a bad name ever since.’ He paused dramatically and rapped the table with his knuckles for emphasis. ‘Ten years on, it still gets docked for quality, even when it’s not sticky. So we’re very nervous about stickiness,’ he concluded. I nodded gravely.

  When the discussion about farm business had run its course and the meal was winding up, the conversation turned to me.

  ‘Won’t you feel sorry for Stu when you go back to Sydney for work?’ asked Wilma pointedly.

  ‘Well, no,’ I smiled. ‘He’s looked after himself pretty well for the last fourteen years. I’m sure he’ll be fine.’

  ‘Dunno about that,’ said Dave. ‘I’ve only been apart from Wilma for four nights in 28 years. And that was when she was in hospital having the kids.’

  Wilma smoothed her apron. ‘What exactly is it that you do again?’ she asked. In Jandowae, it was clear that a woman’s place was not on a plane to Sydney.

  I took a deep breath and replied, ‘I work in philanthropy.’ Wilma looked baffled; she was as unfamiliar with the term ‘philanthropy’ as I was with ‘cloaca’.

  ‘Well,’ she observed, ‘it’ll all have to stop when you get married and have children.’

  I almost gagged on my apple pie. ‘Mmm,’ I replied, in a noncommittal tone. I glanced at Stu, who was studying the bread basket. I suppose that’s what people expect will happen.

  Not long after Stu’s mandatory second helping of dessert, we bade our farewells and lumbered out into the night.

  As we drove home in the ute, I recalled the last dinner party I’d attended prior to my departure from Sydney. It had been an elegant affair, with conversation ranging across topics from indigenous issues to industrial relations. While I’d enjoyed the intellectual repartee, there’d been a certain safety and distance in the abstract analysis of it all. With Wilma and Dave, there was nowhere to hide; they had opened their photo albums and their hearts, without recourse to theory. While I’d felt discomfited at times by Wilma’s personal probing, I respected her candour. In contrast to the affectation of some Sydney soirees, the sincerity of our hosts was unquestionable.

  ‘How was your night, Fi?’ asked Stu, as we pulled into our driveway. ‘Not too tough, I hope? Wilma had a bit of a chop at you.’

  I smiled in the darkness. ‘It was the most unpretentious dinner party I’ve been to in years.’

  After more than a month in my new rural abode, I returned to Sydney for my first work visit. I drank in the harbour view from my office, sniffed the seaside air, relished the countless varieties of coffees available from charming baristas on street corners and slept soundly at night with the reassuring white noise of distant traffic. Friends were variously horrified or amused by my tales of snakes, internet disconnections, power outages and local shindigs. My office colleagues were aghast at the prospect of me spending my entire working day alone in the Danube, which some scoffingly referred to as ‘The Tardis’.

  ‘Makes me feel just a tad dull and boring,’ observed a colleague one day over a sushi lunch. ‘The closest I’ve come to nature lately was waving a blowfly off my vanilla frappaccino outside Starbucks.’

  I laughed and shook my head. ‘It all sounds more exotic and adventurous than it really is,’ I assured him. ‘The reality is, I stick out like dogs’ balls up there.’

  My colleague almost choked on his nori roll.

  ‘Well, you’ve picked up the vernacular already,’ he said. ‘Soon you’ll blend right in.’

  CHAPTER 12

  As the weeks progressed, I settled into an increasingly comfortable rural routine. During office hours I was the picture of efficiency – fielding emails, conducting teleconferences, undertaking research, compiling presentations and analysing funding submissions. I was determined not to let my professionalism slip, and probably overcompensated by doing more than absolutely necessary. Thankfully, my employer seemed satisfied with the quality of my work in the Danube. And surprisingly, my colleagues began to take a real interest in my rural existence. In response, I started circulating weekly emails entitled ‘The Bush Telegraph’.

  Outside of office hours, I felt a little like a character in a Slim Dusty song. I’d perfected the art of using the word ‘ay’ at the end of my sentences; ‘Nice day, ay?’ and ‘Big meal, ay?’ I was getting used to farmers’ hours – up at 4.45 am, yawning by 8.00 pm. I’d even become accustomed to chance encounters with wildlife, which occurred with alarming frequency when I was either naked in the bathroom or vulnerable on the toilet.

  One evening in my second month at Jandowae, I sprinted from the toilet to inform Stu that a large scorpion-like creature had accosted me, fierce tail aloft, pincers poised to skewer. I screamed, hoisted my feet upwards and leaped over the predator. Stuart waited patiently as I breathlessly described the scorpion, then followed me out to the toilet.

  He took the intruder in and, eyeing me dubiously, remarked, ‘It’s an earwig, babe.’

  Jandowae was, apparently, a breeding ground for giant prehistoric earwigs that would not only comfortably devour your ear (or your wig), but would have a good go at any other bodily appendage. I flushed the toilet, carefully avoiding the scorpion-cum-earwig, and withdrew to our newly screened bedroom.

  While I remained jittery about the critters in and around our home, I began to relax in other ways. I started to reassess, for example, my urban takeaway-and-frozen-meals approach to food preparation. Necessity was perhaps the mother of invention; the closest Thai takeaway outlet was some 150 kilometres away. Or maybe it was my sudden proximity to primary production. Watching crops growing in the fields prompted me to reconsider how items I’d previously taken for granted – such as bread, butter and milk – were actually produced.

  Whatever the reason, I slowly became comfortable spending more time in the kitchen. I started with battles I knew I could win and began to dabble in biscuit-making. One Saturday morning with little else to d
o, I slaved over a batch of Anzac biscuits for Stuart’s morning tea. They emerged from the oven slightly overdone, but I was pleased with my effort. (‘Crunchy, but nice,’ Stuart remarked with a smile, washing one down with a glass of milk.) At other times – especially when neighbours planned to visit – my confidence ebbed and I resorted to packet cake mixes. Thus I created date loaves and fudge brownies that I blithely passed off as my own, either by omission (‘Oh no, it wasn’t that much of an effort …’) or outright untruth (‘It’s an old family recipe …’).

  Aside from my newfound experimentation in the kitchen, Jandowae inspired a nascent desire to expand my running horizons. In my former existence, I’d been content with a three-kilometre beach jog at the end of my working day, usually as a prelude to a glass of pinot. In Jandowae, the vast unpopulated expanses impelled me to discover their secrets. There was something about the dark, alluvial plains – stretching for miles under a peacock blue sky – that caused me to abandon all sense of my running limitations.

  My regular run to the windmill and back – an eight-kilometre east–west route – quickly became baseline. Soon I ran to Cronins Road, a ten-kilometre return route, and when that no longer presented a challenge, to Jeitzs Road, a further two kilometres away. And then one weekend, I decided to run to the next property along the Warra–Marnhull Road, making my journey an eighteen-kilometre round trip. The morning after that particularly ambitious run, I woke up as stiff as a plank; my hamstrings, quadriceps and calves had seized up with lactic acid.

  By 3.00 pm, the pain had worsened. I popped several anti-inflammatory pills and telephoned Marie, who lived on a nearby property. The lively wife of one of Stuart’s farmer friends, Marie was one of the first in the district to call in and introduce herself after my arrival in Jandowae. Despite managing her farm’s accounts and keeping busy with four children, Marie somehow found the time to drop by the Danube on a regular basis. Within a matter of weeks, we’d become firm friends.

  ‘Marie,’ I said, as she picked up the receiver.

  ‘Fi, what’s wrong?’ she asked, detecting the edge in my voice.

  ‘I ran too far yesterday,’ I croaked down the telephone, ‘and everything hurts.’

  Marie tut-tutted in sympathy. ‘Come and have a soak in my bath,’ she urged, ‘that’ll loosen your muscles.’ I’d caught sight of Marie’s luxurious bath during my frequent visits to her home for morning tea – it was deeper and wider than the ordinary variety, with strategically placed spa jets for weary backs and shoulders.

  ‘But what about the water, can you spare it?’ I asked. The week before, I’d been standing under the shower at Gebar when the water flow had sputtered suddenly, then dwindled to a trickle. The tank water for our home had simply run out: Stuart was forced to truck across 10,000 litres of precious water from a tank usually reserved for farm activities such as crop spraying. If it didn’t rain soon, we would have to buy water for home use from Dalby, some 50 kilometres away.

  ‘Never mind all that, Fi,’ said Marie. ‘The grey water goes onto the vegie patch. And I haven’t had a bath in months – it’s ’bout time the tub was used again.’

  In Sydney, I’d never have contemplated driving to a friend’s home to ‘borrow’ her bath. But I cast aside all urban protocols and gratefully accepted Marie’s offer. In the age of drought, it was a generous gift.

  Half an hour later I sank into blissful oblivion. I could hear the youngest of Marie’s four children playing with a train set outside the bathroom door. ‘I’ve left fresh towels out here,’ called Marie from beyond the door. ‘And will you stay for a cuppa and some chocolate slice when you’re finished?’ I smiled at Marie’s trademark hospitality. ‘Of course,’ I called back. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  While pushing the limits of my physical endurance on the ground, I had also started to carve out uncharted territory in the air. Since my arrival in Jandowae I’d staunchly avoided Stu’s invitations to join him at regular weekend activities at the Dalby aerodrome. One Sunday morning in autumn, however, as we lay dozing in bed, Stu rolled over and said, ‘Can I take you to morning tea at Jimbour House?’ I clapped my hands with delight and immediately agreed.

  Jimbour House was a nearby property of historical significance, with a gracious homestead and garden, as well as a restaurant and cellar. An oasis of refinement and taste, it hosted arts festivals and opera concerts annually. It was a lifeline back to Sydney Me. There was a catch, however, to Stu’s offer.

  ‘Why don’t we fly there in the Cessna?’ he asked. ‘There’s a landing strip next to the homestead and we can fly from Dalby. It’ll only take ten minutes.’

  My stomach fluttered at the prospect of flying in a small, single-engine aircraft, but I couldn’t resist Stu’s entreaties forever.

  Two hours later, I reluctantly climbed into a tiny aircraft parked on the tarmac of Dalby aerodrome. While mechanically intact and conscientiously maintained, the physical appearance of this 1967 Cessna – known by its call sign VH-DBY – did not instil confidence. With chipped paint and small chunks missing out of what Stu described as ‘non-important parts of the body’, it was a fearful flyer’s Waterloo.

  As I hoisted myself into the co-pilot’s seat, Stu leant over and tugged at the window beside me.

  ‘This has a tendency to fly open at 2,000 feet,’ he said. ‘Just shut it if it does.’ Was it too late to renege? I swallowed hard as Stu assisted me with my seatbelt and handed me a headset.

  ‘This’ll reduce the engine noise,’ he said, fitting the headset over my ears. ‘And it’ll allow us to talk to each other. You’ll be able to hear the other air traffic too.’

  Adjusting his harness, Stu turned to me and said, ‘Now Fi, I’m not trying to scare you, but you need to know what to do in an emergency.’ He proceeded to explain the operation of the exits, the location of something known as an EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon), and the procedure for emergency mustering once outside the aircraft.

  He patted my leg reassuringly and said, ‘But we won’t need it. Are you ready to go?’

  I nodded woodenly.

  Stu turned the key in the engine, opened a small window to his left and called out, ‘Clear Prop!’ Apparently this was a truncated way of advising anyone within earshot to stay clear of the propeller. He then commenced a sequence of pre-takeoff checks, lightly touching the instruments and dials in front of him, confirming their status: ‘Trim, throttle, mixture, primer … fuel, fuses, flaps, instruments, switches … controls, harnesses and hatches, transponder.’

  We taxied to the end of the runway and Stuart announced by radio: ‘Dalby traffic, this is Delta Bravo Yankee, Cessna 172 taxiing to runway 1-3, departing to the north for Jimbour Station 2500. Dalby traffic.’ My shaking knees were conveniently undetectable against the shuddering of the aircraft, poised to fly. Stu increased the throttle to a deafening roar and suddenly we were off, gaining speed along the tarmac. I felt every bump and yaw as we hurtled down the runway, reaching optimum momentum before finally lifting into the air. My shirt clung to my back and chest; I was drenched in sweat.

  Once we were airborne, Stu adjusted his radio frequency, reiterated our position and destination and advised flightwatch of ‘2POB, requesting SAR at 0100 arrival Jimbour’. This was, Stu explained, a shortened method of saying, ‘We have two people on board. If you haven’t heard from me again by 1.00 am Greenwich Mean Time – 11.00 am in Queensland – please send out the Search and Rescue team.’ It was moderately reassuring that someone in Radar Land was watching us.

  We ascended through 2,000 feet and circled above familiar territory. The trucks and cars on the Warrego Highway looked like children’s toys and the patchwork fields seemed so orderly. Only the empty dams, resembling parched volcanic craters when seen from above, bore witness to the devastation occurring for so many farmers below.

  ‘No-one’s got water,’ I said.

  ‘And from the colour of the crops, they’re cactus,’ Stu added.


  The terracotta tones of the fields, so breathtaking from the air, were testament to the gradual decline on earth.

  As we commenced our descent into the Jimbour landing strip, I stared at the fields below, wondering when the drought would break. Could it be possible that it wouldn’t break at all? It was a scenario that some climate change experts considered probable, with their predictions of increasingly extreme weather patterns. Stu guided the Cessna smoothly into land and we came to a halt at the edge of the airfield. As I stepped onto the wing strut and climbed to the ground, I beamed at Stu. It was the first time, in my vexed history of flight, that I’d momentarily forgotten I was airborne.

  After the relentless heat of late summer, autumn brought fresh evenings and a discernible easing of the scorching midday sun. The green tree frogs migrated out of the toilet, seeking warmer climes in our shower recess and linen cupboard. Overcoming my initial revulsion at discovering bulging frogs perched on the soap or huddled among fresh sheets, I slowly developed the necessary skills to evict them. I became increasingly adept at catching these critters with one hand, striding to the door and lobbing them out of the house. ‘Not even a scream,’ called Stu one morning, clapping as I ejected three frogs from the shower with an over-arm bowling action. ‘Alert, but not alarmed. Very impressive.’

  I remained mildly alarmed, however, when it came to navigating the South-East Queensland accent of the Jandowae locals. Although familiar with the broader, sometimes nasal tones of my regular acquaintances, I struggled occasionally with new introductions. This was slammed home to me one morning during a conversation with my local Ford dealer. I’d dropped my Festiva in for its 60,000-kilometre service the day before. Since my relocation to Jandowae, it had clocked up thousands of kilometres of arduous driving on gravel roads.

  ‘Sorry, luv,’ drawled Alan, the mechanic, ‘but yer gonna need new brake pads. They’re worn out ’cause of shitty drivin’.’