Wattle Creek

by Fiona McCallum

  ‘Oh, I brought that journal thingy,’ he said, thrusting the bundle forward. He thought if Jacqueline was surprised he remembered them or disappointed that he’d avoided her question, she hid it well.

  ‘Great. Let’s go over it then, shall we?’

  Damien was pleased there was something he finally understood. ‘Sorry about that,’ he offered, as Jacqueline struggled to unroll and flatten the sheets.

  Do you even remember what you wrote?

  ‘No problem,’ she said.

  There was silence while she read. He noticed a smile flicker at the corners of her mouth and thought she was actually really nice looking, especially with the light bouncing off the top of her lowered head. It was like one of the polished agate rocks his dad had brought back from the Flinders Ranges in his youth.

  Not a chance. She’s far too good for you.

  ‘So, tell me about you being “Really fucking pissed off” at the sheep last Tuesday.’

  ‘Oh … er … I … that was …’

  ‘Written in a fit of emotion?’ she enquired, grinning.

  ‘Um … yep.’ His gaze was glued to her desk searching for scratches.

  ‘Excellent, that’s the point.’

  Damien wondered if she was just humouring him. He looked up.

  ‘So, come on, tell me about it – and feel free to swear if you want, I won’t be offended. Don’t hold back. I want you to tell me about the sheep,’ she urged.

  When he finished telling her about the hay carting, minus most expletives, Jacqueline leant back in her chair and said, ‘That was great. Now I want us to analyse why you felt the way you did.’

  ‘Easy. I hate sheep,’ Damien found himself jumping in.

  ‘I don’t think that’s all there is to it,’ Jacqueline said.

  Damien wanted to ask if she’d ever actually had to deal with their stupidity day after day and, while at it, tell her she wouldn’t know shit about farming. But he held back, minding his manners. Instead, he carefully looked down his nose with eyebrows raised in a mixed expression of ‘Oh yeah?’ and ‘You think you’re so bloody clever?’ But it was wasted – she was moving right along.

  ‘Perhaps you were more angry at yourself than the sheep?’

  Damien blinked. This was getting very interesting.

  ‘Well,’ she continued in an explanatory tone, ‘they didn’t break the fence down. They were merely wandering along and found the gate that you’d left open …’

  ‘Jeez, you too, thanks a lot, I feel so much better now.’ Shit, he thought, he hadn’t meant to say that. He sounded so defensive.

  ‘This isn’t about punishing yourself, Damien. I’m sure you’ve already spent plenty of time doing that.’

  Well spotted, he thought.

  ‘It’s more about accepting that you let yourself down, taking the learning from the experience and moving on.’

  Damien wondered if his face was showing the complete and utter confusion he felt. He hoped not, because she’d think him an absolute dimwit.

  You are an absolute dimwit. Don’t fight it.

  ‘You see,’ she continued, ‘every decision or choice we make, no matter how significant or trivial, has to be made for ourselves.’

  What the hell is she on about?

  ‘Sometimes we make a choice that turns out to disappoint or upset us.’

  Jesus, it was doing his bloody head in. He wished she’d just give it to him straight, but was too gutless to say. Anyway, it would show him up as stupid and he certainly didn’t need that.

  ‘But in these cases, the thing to remember is that when you made the choice or decision, chances are you believed you were making the right one at the time. Beating yourself up when things go wrong doesn’t help. Instead, we need to accept that perhaps a different approach was needed and that if we listened to our inner self more we might have been spared the disappointment.’

  Damien thought it sounded like a load of bullshit. Taking the learning, accepting disappointment and, for Christ’s sake, listening to one’s inner self. The woman had to be fucking joking. He realised he’d learnt something – that it was a mistake coming here. It was all too bloody weird.

  ‘So, let’s put it into perspective, because all this is probably a bit confusing.’

  He was in agreement on that point.

  ‘I’ve heard that it is considered pretty well law in the country to leave every gate exactly as you found it, right?’

  Not quite the same if you’re actually working in the paddock.

  ‘So, perhaps as you went through that gate to get the hay something tugged inside and you thought, “I should be shutting this gate.” You might have even paused briefly. But then you dismissed it, making the decision to leave it open instead. Of course I’m not a mind reader, so this is pure speculation.’

  Damien had thought briefly about shutting the gate. He knew he should have shut it. Should he tell her?

  ‘So I take it you did feel something?’

  Damien hated not having a poker face and right then knew that two hundred watts of comprehension shone from his eyes. He nodded sheepishly. Jacqueline looked pleased with herself, and he thought she had every right to be.

  ‘Well, that feeling was your unconscious trying to help you make the decision that would have been the better choice. So what you need to do is keep an eye out for these signs by trusting yourself and listening to your inner self more. It’ll take a bit of practice.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, not really having a clue.

  Damien noticed Jacqueline checking her watch. She was definitely wrapping it up, asking if he had any questions, or anything to add.

  He wanted to tell her about the voice in his head, but didn’t want her thinking he was mad.

  Go on, tell her.

  He shook his head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Same time again next week?’

  ‘Yeah, alright.’

  Jacqueline handed him some more sheets and asked him to continue with the journal, putting in as much detail as possible, and also to record what he could remember about his father’s illness. Did she think he sat around all day watching TV and twiddling his thumbs? Damien made a mental note to remind himself to tell her next time.

  As if in afterthought, Jacqueline asked if he’d drop the writing in by Friday so she could make notes before Monday’s session. She didn’t half want much! There was no way he had time for all this.

  ‘Righto.’

  So much for avoiding the peering public in the waiting area, he thought, as he left her office. I still have to walk past them to pay the bill.

  He strode, head down, to the reception desk. He could feel the hot pinpricks of everyone’s stares on his back, and his face reddened in response. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a big city where nobody knew or cared who you were?

  Damien used to think about escaping to the big smoke when he was a kid, especially when the other boys would tease him for being so tall and preferring to read a comic rather than chasing girls around the playground and flicking up their skirts with a ruler. But his parents wouldn’t have been able to afford to help him out. Money was the problem, always the same old story.

  Tell the truth – you were too bloody gutless.

  Damien stood at the counter thinking Louise was taking so long with his card it was like it was being rejected.

  Damien had spent years trying not to think about his father and how different his life might have been. Now, as the trees and white roadside marker posts rushed past in a haze he tried to remember what things had been like before the illness. He couldn’t recall ever being all that close to his dad, but then he’d known the changed man longer than the real one. Fights, that’s right, there were lots of fights. Dad and him, Dad and Lucy, Mum and Dad, Mum and Lucy, Mum and him, Mum, Dad and him, Mum, Dad and Lucy, he and his sister Lucy. Yelling. In their house problems were solved by yelling.

  He shook his head to get rid of the line of memory and went back further into the depths of h
is past. Ah yes, the treehouse. It was only an old wooden dunny door perched between the large sprawling branches of a native pine tree – nothing elaborate, but as kids they spent hours up there watching the adults go about their business. The days before responsibility.

  He remembered how in the old days spotlighting was one of the highlights of being on a farm. The kids would get all excited while they waited for darkness to come. Being allowed to stay up later than usual and doing grown-up stuff was so cool. It had been a regular activity with his dad’s mates turning up for the social event of the month. But, over time, interest had dwindled. Maybe it was because of the onset of his father’s illness, but Damien wasn’t sure. As a little kid, one of his favourite bits had been watching the men organising the guns and ammunition and testing the light. If he was lucky, he’d even get to hold his dad’s unloaded twenty-two rifle.

  Spotlighting nights were always freezing cold and his mum would be there adding layers of clothes right up until they clambered onto the back of the battered old Toyota tray-top. After yells of ‘Hang on tight’, they’d set off on their adventure.

  There were different ways of doing things, depending on the prey. Kangaroos would stop in the light and listen, trying to work out if they were in any danger or not. Generally by the time they had it figured out it was too late. Some farmers had ‘roo dogs’ – huge, lanky greyhound-like animals trained to run a kangaroo down and hold it until reinforcements arrived. His family didn’t have one, and the sheep dogs were kept at home so they weren’t mauled or inadvertently shot in the excitement. But a couple of their neighbours did have roo dogs, and Damien was always fascinated by them. He remembered seeing stubborn dogs badly injured and a couple killed in action. He’d thought it was a pretty brutal sight but the blokes never showed their emotions. Plenty more dogs where they’d come from.

  Damien’s father always took time to carefully check the corpses for living joeys – most farmers didn’t bother – and instead of donging any he found, he’d wrap them up in his jumper and bring them home for hand raising.

  Damien had heard of overseas tourists thinking the kangaroo was a common pet, like dogs and cats were to them, only to be laughed at for being so gullible. But there were heaps of bush families who’d lived with roos and wallabies over the years. He’d never really thought about the irony of how they came to live with them.

  With spotlighting foxes, it was simply a matter of getting them to stop long enough and close enough for a decent aim. A talented bloke could buy more time with a shrill wolf-whistle that sounded like a mating call. The thing was to be quick and get a shot in while they were still working out who was calling to them.

  Hunting rabbits, or bunny bashing, was what Damien liked best. The driver would get the vehicle as close as possible and the spotter would keep the animal stunned with a perfectly still light. Then all the kids would silently – well, in theory – leap from the ute and, staying out of the light, jump the bunny from behind. It was the least reliable way of getting a catch, but the pelt remained intact and ensured that no one got lead poisoning from the stew. Parents loved bunny bashing because it was a way of getting the kids warm and wearing them out before bed.

  Back then there were blokes who could almost make a living from trapping and selling fox and rabbit skins, but it was no longer the case. The arse had fallen out of the industry. Too time-consuming. The traps had to be checked frequently because foxes in particular were quick to gnaw a leg off to get away.

  Damien needed to get a permit these days to cull roos, and it was only granted on the condition that the carcasses were left where they fell – except for the odd leg cut off to feed the dogs. Apparently the authorities checked numbers, but in his experience they never had.

  Every six months or so he’d reluctantly rug up and brave the cold with a neighbour he’d bribed with beer or Bundy to hold the light. He found it frustrating that rabbits were no longer much of a problem thanks to calicivirus, and because of that foxes threatened his livelihood by being forced to prey on newborn lambs and birth-weary ewes for sustenance.

  Thinking of lambs made him remember Elfa (L-for-lamb), a day-old lamb his father had found abandoned in the yards after the ewes had long gone. He hadn’t thought about her for years. Most farmers would have given the animal a bullet or donged it with a tyre lever or something because you can’t be bottle-feeding something every four hours for months when it’s never likely to make more than a hundred dollars. But not his dad. He took a real liking to Elfa, rigged up a little shelter and even filled a box with old towels. When he couldn’t find a teat he took the trouble to patiently teach it to drink straight from a saucepan of warm milk.

  Damien remembered how his mother was not impressed with Elfa but his sister was, and she quickly became Elfa’s new mum. Elfa lived with the family for about a year and became a much-appreciated lawnmower and pet before being sent back to the paddock to have lambs of her own. Farmers told Damien’s dad he was mad to release her: a pet lamb could be such a nuisance during mustering because they’d lost the fear factor. But this one never caused any problems and the only hint there was possibly a pet among two thousand others was the occasional sighting of one sheep standing off on its own watching what was going on.

  Damien drove around the big bend just before his driveway to find a mob of sheep wandering along the road and still more jumping over the corner of the boundary fence.

  ‘Fuck!’ He needed this like …

  The only saving grace was that it was a No Through Road and he was the only one who drove that end of it.

  They’re laughing at you, Damien. Dare you to chase them.

  Damien decided not to do anything about them until he’d got changed and picked up some tools, though God only knew where they’d be by the time he got back. It had been a while since he’d done a proper boundary run – just another of the thousand semi-urgent things he had to do. He blamed his father. If he hadn’t got sick he would have been able to maintain the fences better. Instead, all he managed was the basics, which wasn’t much beyond what contributed directly towards earning money. Right now, Damien could just bloody strangle him for being so damn lazy.

  Damien’s head was tight like a football, blood pounding behind his eyes and ears. Like the feeling that came over him just before the overwhelming desire to beat the living crap out of something. Usually he stopped himself in time and instead just yelled and screamed until his throat burnt. The dogs eyed him before slinking away to the refuge of nearby scrubland – even they couldn’t stand the noise they knew wasn’t far off. But for some reason today the rage didn’t escalate and he remained silent.

  Something weird was happening. He felt all calm and vague – sort of doughy in the head. Shit, he thought, I’ve gotta sit down. It was like he was stoned, in a trance or something, or having some sort of out of body experience. Instead of losing his temper, he was sitting on the open tailgate with his legs hanging over the edge, merely watching the disloyal sheep wandering in the neighbour’s direction.

  Fucked if I care, was all he thought.

  Jesus, was he having a stroke or something? Staring at the opening in the fence where some wire ties had rusted through, instead of being pissed off, he marvelled at his father’s ingenuity.

  He was suddenly aware it was no one’s fault. Yes, he should have seen the wear and tear earlier, but it was too late now. He’d have to just get on and fix it.

  Instead of replacing the section between the two posts, he twisted shiny wire to replace the rusted strands, even going so far as to copy his father’s intricate woven design. It was weird, but he actually felt pretty good, almost relaxed. Was it the antidepressants finally kicking in or was he was learning to listen to himself more like Jacqueline had talked about?

  Three-quarters of an hour later Damien had put the sheep back where they were meant to be, cobbled the broken fence together and was back at the house. He was enjoying a lukewarm cup of Milo and jotting down a few notes on the jo
urnal sheets when he heard the sound of a car door and then the slap of the wooden screen door as it hit the side of the house. One day I’ll get around to fixing those hinges, he thought.

  No prizes for guessing who had just turned up. Leather RM Williams heels thumped across the wooden kitchen floor. He took a deep breath and sighed before looking up. His mother was standing, hands on hips, at the edge of the carpet to the dining area.

  ‘Oh there you are. I’ve been driving all over the place looking for you,’ she screeched, sounding breathless and hysterical. ‘There are sheep out all over the road at our turn-off.’ Damien groaned silently and sighed again. ‘Well, don’t just sit there. Come on, I’ll give you a hand.’ So much for being your own boss, he thought, and held up a silencing hand.

  ‘I know. It’s all sorted, fixed, done.’

  ‘But … how?’ she asked, looking frantically about. ‘You weren’t there when I came in.’ Damien’s mother had a knack for demanding an explanation without actually asking a question. He thought the last thing he wanted to do was tell her where he’d been all morning.

  Think, Damien, think, he prompted.

  ‘I’ve been to town; saw them when I got back. Must have come in after you.’ He waved a dismissive hand and pretended to be engrossed in the papers in front of him, hoping the interrogation was over.

  ‘Oh. Well,’ Tina said, and sat down heavily. ‘So, what’s more important than cleaning this pigsty up, anyway?’ She asked, pointing at the papers.

  Shit, what could he say? How about washing and blow-drying the dogs, pulling prickles one by one out of socks, picking my nose?

  ‘Nothing,’ he answered, ‘just some junk mail.’

  Damien knew the instant the words left his mouth that she hadn’t bought it. He was as transparent as jelly, and looked as guilt-red as the raspberry variety.

  Before he realised what was going on, his mother had stood up and was grabbing at the journal sheets.

  ‘Well we can start our cleaning up with getting rid of these then, can’t we?’