Love in the Age of Drought

by Fiona Higgins

  ‘What do you mean?’ I barked defensively down the telephone. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my driving. What’s shitty about it?’

  Alan coughed and repeated his words slowly. ‘CITY drivin’, ma’am,’ he said courteously. ‘Wear and tear caused by CITY drivin’.’

  Humble pie duly consumed, I collected my car from Alan and his team of mechanics the following morning, my cheeks matching the colour of the Festiva.

  Now that the summer mosquitoes had disappeared, Stuart and I took to hitting tennis balls in the grass country at sunset. One cool autumn evening, Stuart turned to me and challenged, ‘Bet you a hundred bucks you can’t catch this.’ He punched the ball into the air with his tennis racquet – impossibly high – and watched with smug satisfaction as I ran after it.

  ‘It’s a bet I can’t lose,’ Stuart goaded as I attempted to position myself beneath the plummeting ball.

  We’d played this game many times before, and I was renowned for my ‘alligator snap’ catching technique, usually resulting in a dropped ball. On this occasion, however, I somehow managed to catch Stuart’s lob. Holding the ball aloft like a trophy, I leapt over a mound of dirt and laughed with glee.

  Stuart narrowed his eyes. ‘Double or nothing,’ he called.

  I gave him the thumbs-up signal. ‘You’re on!’ I yelled.

  This time, Stuart hit the ball higher than ever before. The lob had a tad of top spin and a lateral trajectory – forcing me to run perilously close to a barbed-wire fence. In the final seconds of the ball’s plunge, I desperately stuck out one hand, slid alongside the fence, and miraculously caught the ball.

  Stuart shook his head at me and smiled. ‘I’m not going again,’ he said. ‘That was an impressive catch. Two hundred dollars it is.’

  I whooped and lifted my jersey over my head, veering across the paddock, arms outstretched like a soccer champion.

  After my first return trip to Sydney, which I had embraced with gusto, my subsequent city sojourns began to lose their appeal. I started to notice things about the metropolis that I’d overlooked while living there. The cost of living was considerably higher, for example. Restaurant tabs which had previously left me unfazed now seemed equivalent to the GDP of Ecuador. Compared with a tiny portion of pistachio-glazed tofu on a big white plate for the unseemly Sydney sum of $39, how could I argue with a $6 counter meal in Jandowae, replete with coleslaw, three bread rolls, and all-you-can-eat potatoes?

  Furthermore, I found the public transport experience in Sydney far more claustrophobic than I could previously recall. The empty solitude of Jandowae threw into stark relief the city’s masses of humanity, streaming across motorways in cars, off trains and onto buses. After the vast, unpeopled peace of the Jandowae plains, it seemed untenable to be herded into the bowels of the Manly ferry with several hundred other passengers every morning. The ferry would chug its way across Sydney Harbour, the monotony of the journey interrupted only by pre-recorded safety announcements (‘Life jackets are under your seats’) and irritating mobile phone ringtones. As fellow commuters fielded call after call, I would stare dejectedly out the portside window, resenting my newfound familiarity with Tony’s tour of Europe, Lucy’s squabble with Steve, and Brian’s bucks’ night at Bad Girls. In comparison to this urban jungle, my close encounters with the Jandowae wildlife paled into insignificance.

  All was not bucolic simplicity at Jandowae, however. No autumn rains arrived to deliver the moisture that Stu’s crops so desperately needed. Harvest was fast approaching, and the crop had run out of water.

  One evening, I awoke to an alien noise battering the house.

  I grasped Stuart’s shoulder in the darkness and whispered, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Rain on the roof,’ he slurred.

  I lay awake, thrilled by the sound. Was the drought breaking at long last? But the next morning, the rain gauge indicated a total of just seventeen millimetres had fallen, pooling temporarily in tiny puddles before being sucked into the thirsty earth. As the clouds cleared and the sun’s rays again assaulted his parched crop, Stuart’s mood plummeted.

  ‘Something’s wrong with the cotton,’ Stu announced over breakfast one morning, several weeks before harvest. ‘Remember when you arrived at Gebar, I showed you the cotton down by the Pelican Dam?’ I nodded, recalling my first tour of the farm on Stu’s four-wheeler.

  ‘Well, those plants are even worse now,’ he said. ‘Something’s wrong with them, and it’s more than drought.’

  I hesitated, spoon aloft, unsure of how to respond.

  ‘What do you think it might be?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I’ve racked my brains.’ He slumped onto his elbows, forehead in his hands.

  I frowned; Stuart was always vigilant in monitoring the crops. It was unlike him to fail to detect the source of a problem.

  ‘I contacted the agronomist again to make sure that there are no bugs in there causing damage, and he’s assured me it’s all under control,’ he said. ‘So I’m stumped.’

  Taking in the grim expression on Stuart’s face, I pushed my cereal bowl away. ‘Will you show me?’ I asked, reaching over and grasping his hand.

  I pulled on an anorak as we walked towards the shed. Mounting the four-wheeler, we sped towards the fields in question.

  ‘Look,’ Stuart said, waving a hand at the cotton plants. ‘They’re in distress, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’

  I caught my breath in surprise. The leaves on the cotton plants were fading to a speckled yellow and their growing tips – usually rigid and green – were withered and deformed. They looked like witches’ fingernails; ugly, warped and brittle.

  ‘I’ve got to get to the bottom of it,’ he vowed.

  True to his word, after several days of painstaking research, Stuart identified the source of the problem. A contractor had failed to clean out residual chemical in his spray rig before mistakenly drenching Stuart’s fields with it. The chemical involved – 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid or ‘2,4-D’ – was a selective herbicide, toxic to broad-leafed plants.

  ‘It’s a hormone weedkiller absorbed through the leaves,’ Stu explained stonily, standing in the Danube’s doorway. ‘Even the tiniest amount causes significant damage.’

  I was prepared for pestilence or plague – but human error?

  ‘You mean, the contractor didn’t clean out his machinery properly, then put weedkiller all over your cotton?’ I asked, outraged. Stuart nodded.

  ‘But how much damage has it caused?’ I fumed. Stuart stared out at the paddocks.

  ‘Put it this way, Fi,’ he said, ‘you work for twelve months in Sydney and you’re expecting a year’s worth of wages at the end of it. Then your computer crashes and your files just disappear. So your employer pays you 50 per cent of what you’re due. That’s how much damage is involved.’

  Instinctively I stood up from my desk and walked towards Stuart, reaching out to comfort him. He shrugged me off and turned on his heel. ‘I have to fix something in the shed,’ he muttered.

  I stood, forlorn, as he strode away. His shoulders were rounded, beaten by the burden of his discovery. I resisted the urge to pursue him, recognising his desire to be alone. I knew it was his usual coping mechanism, but it saddened me all the same. Prior to my arrival at Gebar, Stuart had dealt with all manner of crises by himself. Any comfort I could now offer was superfluous: there was nothing I could say or do to salvage the situation. I watched him retreat into the machinery shed. The Bunya Mountains stood sentinel in the distance, austere and shimmering in the midday heat.

  It was a disappointing harvest. With the crop affected by water scarcity and spray damage, both the yield and the quality of the cotton were compromised. When the final truckload of cotton had been ginned, Stuart sat down at his desk to calculate his seasonal return. I hovered in the kitchen, agitated, awaiting the pronouncement. Hearing no sound from within, I peeped around his office door. Stuart was leaning back in his chair, staring out t
he window. ‘Well, we only just broke even, Fi,’ he said. ‘I knew it was coming, but it’s still disappointing.’

  He chewed absently on the end of a pen. ‘Old farmers say you get three good years in every ten,’ he remarked, ‘but you just never know which three it’s going to be.’

  I waited, motionless.

  ‘So, I figure that if I stay in farming until I’m 65 years old, I’ve only got nine decent years remaining in my working life,’ he said. ‘Just nine.’ He raked his hands over his scalp.

  ‘Who’d volunteer for this? You work your guts out and more often than not, through no fault of your own, it’s not rewarded.’ He stood up from the desk and picked up his hat.

  ‘It’s doing my head in. I’m going for a walk.’ He strode through the kitchen and out the back door.

  Once again, I resisted the urge to follow him.

  Later that evening, as we lay in bed, I cradled Stuart’s head in the crook of my arm.

  ‘There’s always next year,’ I whispered. Stuart grunted and rolled away from me.

  After a long silence, he remarked, ‘Maybe there won’t be a next year.’ I pulled myself up onto my elbows, concerned.

  ‘What do you mean? Are you all right?’

  Stuart sighed heavily and replied, ‘I’m just tired, Fi. I’m dog-tired.’ He tugged the sheet over his shoulders. ‘If you weren’t out here with me, I’d go crazy. You make the drought bearable.’

  A few moments later, his breathing changed and his leg twitched as sleep overcame him. I lay awake, staring into the darkness, ruminating on Stuart’s words. His tone unsettled me.

  Something moved in the ceiling above; my eyes turned towards the noise. It was a curious sound, like a cricket ball rolling across wood. Minutes later, the sound came from several directions, as if more than one ball was in motion.

  ‘Stu,’ I whispered, nudging him gently until he stirred. ‘Stu, what’s that noise?’

  ‘Probably a possum,’ he replied, groggy with fatigue, before falling back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  It was an unremarkable Thursday morning in mid-autumn. At a quarter to seven, I groaned with confusion as an alarm clock – a hitherto unused item in our household – blared into life on the bedside table.

  Startled, I slammed the clock into silence. I glanced over at Stuart’s side of the bed, which was empty. He must have set the alarm for some reason and forgotten to turn it off.

  After several minutes of staring at the ceiling, I glanced again at the alarm clock. This time, I noticed a cream-coloured envelope attached to its rear. I opened it and unfolded a typed note:

  Good morning, Fiona. At your leisure, please rise from the bed, get dressed (suggest long pants and boots). Make sure the birds are happy this morning, because today is a very happy day indeed.

  What was Stuart up to? ‘Make sure the birds are happy’? Did he want to show me something interesting on the farm? Birds down by the creek, perhaps? I crawled out of bed and pottered about, washing my face, combing my hair and brushing my teeth. I pulled on a pair of long pants and a shirt, but couldn’t find my boots.

  ‘Must be outside,’ I muttered, heading towards the side door.

  Locating my boots in the outside vestibule, I sat down on a nearby log to pull them on. As I tightened the shoelaces, my eyes fell on the birdbath, a few metres away. A note was attached to its rim, flapping in the breeze. ‘Make sure the birds are happy’… I immediately realised Stu wanted me to fill the birdbath with water and thus discover the note. I made my way over and found another message:

  Your trusty chariot for the day is a white Mazda B2600 Bravo. It is waiting for you in the shed … bravo indeed!

  Smiling, I dutifully made my way to the shed. As I approached the ute, I detected a third note stuck on the driver’s side mirror, which read:

  Fiona, did you know there is a hidden treasure on Gebar watched over by the spirit of Hayley? To call Hayley, all you have to do is: Sit in the ute. Shut the door. Call ‘Get up! Get up!’ (You must do this twice because she never listens the first time). Then check in the rear-vision mirror to see she has jumped in the back. She will not come unless you have checked in the mirror.

  Intent on complying with Stu’s instructions to summon ‘the spirit of Hayley’, I sat down in the ute, closed the driver’s door and, feeling a tad foolish, called ‘Get up! Get up!’ out of the open window. I then looked into the rear-vision mirror, expecting Stu to leap from a hidey hole.

  Goosebumps prickled across my neck at the vision of a beautiful black-and-tan kelpie peering in at me. Startled, I swung around, then realised that the dog was captured in a photograph, stuck to the rear window of the cab and perfectly positioned at eye level. Another note was pinned below the photograph, penned by ‘Hayley’:

  Good morning, Fiona. It is a beautiful day indeed. Sadly, I am only back at Gebar for this very short visit, on this very special day. But before I direct you to the hidden treasure, I’d like to show you a few things I loved doing during my life at Gebar.

  Did Stu ever tell you it was me who found the bore water on the farm all those years ago? I’d love it if we could go back and have a quick look. Drive down to the south end of the farm, to the field with the power pole in it. That’s where the first borehole was drilled – thanks to me. Let’s go and have a look!

  Tears sprang to my eyes as I recalled this story. I smiled at the photo of Hayley and started the engine. Traversing the route to the bore, I pulled over near a plastic drum. I climbed out of the ute and picked my way across the paddock towards the power pole. The dry dirt yielded beneath my boots, and I imagined Stu navigating this path in years gone by with Hayley at his heel. Attached to the bore was a fifth note, reading:

  It doesn’t look like much now, but this is a pretty significant site! How times change.

  One thing that will never change with time is the view of the stars from Gebar. Let’s go back to the spot where you last looked at them with Stu.

  I remembered that evening well – my first night at the ‘Gebar Planetarium’, as Stu called it. I returned to the ute and followed the dirt road, anticipation building within me. On arrival, I found another upturned drum positioned on the head-ditch from which Stuart and I had star-gazed. Another note read:

  There was only one aspect of living at Gebar that I didn’t like, and that was the bloody tiger pear along the creek. Stu and I used to race along there on the bike and ‘Whammo!’, tiger pear straight into my chest and feet. So I’d try and pull it out with my mouth, and ‘Whammo!’ again, straight into my gums.

  So I reckon if you were going to protect a treasure from intruders, you’d hide it among the tiger pear along the creek. I’ll race you there!

  I drove towards the eastern edge of the farm, manoeuvring the ute between the side of a paddock and a barbed-wire fence. Tiger pear plants dotted the landscape, their fleshy protuberances concealing hook-like barbs that, once embedded in flesh, were extremely difficult and painful to remove. I pictured the long-suffering Hayley limping along as she nursed countless barbs in the pads of her paws and in her mouth. Emerging onto a grassy clearway, my attention was drawn to another drum, and a note which read:

  There is an arrow and a number written on the ground in pink paint. Step out the number of paces in the direction indicated. Keep your eyes open for more clues as you go. Remember, I am right with you, guiding you through the field.

  I scoured the area for a hint of pink and found the number ‘100’ painted on a bare patch of dirt. An arrow directed me behind a grassy tussock and towards the creek. I strode forwards, carefully counting out my steps (One, two, three...) and watching for flashes of pink. I imagined Hayley bounding along the path ahead of me, scouting the terrain. The path took me through patches of tiger pear (32, 33, 34…), clambering over a barbed-wire fence (66, 67, 68…) and along the creek’s tree-lined edge (81, 82, 83…).

  The country took on a very familiar feel. In just twenty more steps, I knew that I would en
counter the Hollow Log, the burnt-out tree trunk that had witnessed Stuart’s turmoil after our breakup and, later, our happy reunion. I approached its charred entrance, expecting Stuart to emerge from within. But its shadowy recesses were empty. Attached to the trunk was a final note:

  My time at Gebar is over now, Fiona. I have enjoyed being on the farm for one last time, showing you around. May your life be fulfilling.

  One last thing … to unlock the goodness in the hidden treasure, you must be asked a question. Sit down, look into the Hollow Log, think of the future and wait for that question …

  I crouched down on an old tree stump and peered into the Hollow Log. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I noticed a small, pen-like torch hung from a nail hammered into the trunk. It cast a pale sphere of light inside the fire-blackened hollow. Illuminated within the orb was a solitaire diamond ring, hung upon a second nail, sparkling against the charred background.

  My eyes filled with tears as I sensed Stuart behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and leant over my shoulder.

  ‘Fiona Collins, will you marry me?’ he asked. I whirled around and launched myself at him.

  ‘Yes, I will!’ I exclaimed.

  Holding my left hand, Stuart reached into the Hollow Log and retrieved the ring. He gently slipped it onto my finger, clasped my wet face in his hands and kissed me.

  We quickly decided that a long engagement was unnecessary. We hoped to avoid a prolonged hullabaloo and, in defiance of the expectations of friends and family, resolved to have a winter wedding. The date was set for July, just eleven weeks after our engagement. This development was greeted with pointed questions including, ‘Why the rush?’, ‘Are you pregnant?’ and ‘Don’t you want a spring wedding, at the very least?’ Flouting the convention of being married in the bride’s home town, we settled on a wedding in a country church in the township of Cambooya, population 1,400, about an hour’s drive from Jandowae.