The Backpacker

by John Harris

  Scared out of my wits by now, I decided to stay awake for the few remaining hours before dawn and went outside for a cigarette. The rain had stopped and the sloping field was knee-deep in white fog, as though someone somewhere had flicked a switch and turned on a dry ice machine. Just as the sky was brightening, the shed door was pulled aside and Rick emerged, rubbing sleep from his eyes, a plume of wool sticking out from the top of his sweater like the chest hair of an old man.

  He leaned the door back against the opening, tutting loudly, and walked out into the misty early morning air, standing and looking back at the dramatic effect in the surrounding field. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Beautiful, huh?’ I took in our surroundings. Behind the shed, in the direction we had walked from the previous night, the field sloped downwards for about a hundred metres until it hit what must have been a small stream. I don’t remember having crossed a stream, but what else causes a valley? Perhaps ‘valley’ is a bit misleading because the slope was very gentle, only about ten degrees either side, so maybe it was just a base where two hills touched.

  The opposite field then rose back up the other side for a mile to the road. Either side of the shed were yet more grassy fields, bordered with large trees that were either the start of a forest or just a boundary line; it was hard to tell from where we stood. At the base of the trees, and around various parts of the field, cows lay sleeping, their backs appearing like black and white boulders above the mist.

  At the front of our shed was another hundred yards of field, hemmed-in by a wire fence, beyond which were orchards and the house we’d seen the previous night. Two houses in fact. Nobody seemed to be awake yet so we walked up to the fence and sat on the entrance gate. I didn’t really want to be caught sleeping in someone’s private property, so it seemed like a good place to wait, and Rick agreed... sort of.

  ‘They know we’re here already,’ he said, concentrating on the cigarette he was rolling. ‘Judging by the amount of wood we burned last night I should think that half of Australia knows we’re here.’

  There didn’t seem to be much smoke coming from the chimney, but as he was from a relatively remote part of England where real fires were probably the norm, I didn’t question his logic. ‘Have you ever worked on a farm before?’ I asked. He shook his head without looking up from his task. ‘Do you think it’s hard work?’

  ‘Terrible. You have to get up at the crack of dawn.’

  ‘I don’t mind getting up the crack of Dawn.’

  ‘Get up at the crack of dawn,’ he corrected, ‘milk cows, shovel shit, mend fences, repair tractors... ’ he reeled off a list of labour-intensive jobs and ended by saying, ‘and generally break your back.’

  ‘And how much does one get paid for such Herculean effort?’ I asked, knowing what the reply would be.

  ‘Sweet FA. If you’re lucky.’ He put the finished cigarette between his lips. ‘Aren’t you glad you came?’

  An engine started up and we both turned to see a cloud of white exhaust steam appear beside the house. ‘You’re right about the crack of dawn,’ I said, looking up at the sky. ‘Shit, it can’t be five o’clock. What can he be doing at this time? It’s hardly light enough to see.’

  ‘Fooking farmers!’

  More revving was followed by the crunch of wheels rolling over gravel, and a Land Rover came out from between the trees, free-wheeling slowly towards us. We both jumped down off the gate and watched as the car came down the track and pulled up beside us. The handbrake was put on and the driver got out. Grey-bearded and ruddy-faced, he looked a lot like Bob, only shorter. I was just about to apologise for using his shed when he spoke first.

  ‘Morning,’ he said brusquely. ‘Had a good sleep?’

  ‘Yeah,’ we said in unison, ‘thanks.’

  His eyes shifted and looked over our shoulders, as though checking that we hadn’t burnt down his property. He obviously knew that we had stayed in the shed, so he must know about the fire.

  ‘A bit cold though,’ I added.

  ‘Got any blankets?’ His voice was soft, matching his small build.

  Shocked by his seeming benevolence, I hesitated. ‘Um, no. We just used some of the wool that was inside the shed.’

  He chuckled. ‘You know that’s fanny wool don’t you?’

  Rick and I looked at each other. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘From around the sheep’s hole, hee-hee. When the rams are in season we shave the holes of all the sheep for easy penetration, yeahh.’ His tobacco-stained teeth stuck out like yellow talons from his uncontrolled facial hair every time he laughed, and he said ‘yeahh’ in all the wrong places, even when asking a question, making everything sound like a statement of fact. His Aussie drawl made the word sound like a car engine being switched off; starting high and ending low, or like gas escaping.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continued, rolling his small shoulders, ‘it won’t do you any harm. So, you boys need work do you? Well, I’ll need more pickers now that the season’s coming up, yeahh. Got a few of your lot already started but they’re next to fucking useless, yeahh.’

  His eyes wobbled in their sockets as though he was watching from a train window as the countryside flashed by, trying to focus on something steady. It was very unsettling to talk to someone whose eyes constantly moved so rapidly, but eventually we got the hang of it and said that we’d do whatever was required.

  ‘What about food, yeahh, and money?’

  We shook our heads.

  ‘You got a tent? Most of our pickers are living in tents in the top field.’ He pointed over towards the orchard. ‘Got a toilet and shower block there, yeahh. Washing machine too.’

  He reminded me of a leprechaun with his soft squeaky voice and small build. His grey eyebrows were arched and bushy through years of frowning, and the ends were twiddled slightly as though pointing and saying, ‘they went thataway’. We shook our heads to the tent question.

  ‘Well listen,’ he said, ‘you two blokes can use the shed; we’ve finished shearing. Just don’t burn the fucking thing down, yeahh. As for food, I can give you some bread for today, and I suggest that you start picking with the others at seven,’ he looked at his watch. ‘That’s one hour from now, yeahh. My wife will show you what to do and how the payment system works. We usually pay at the end of the week, but I’ll pay you for what you pick today and then one of the blokes’ll run you into town to get a stove and food. Get sorted out. OK?’

  I nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Yeahh.’

  FOUR

  That first week in the orchard was the worst. The worst week in the orchard and probably the worst week of my life. After our initial meeting with Jack, the owner who’d met us that first morning, we were each given a big leather satchel and a ladder and directed to the rows of trees where we were to start picking.

  To begin with, Jack’s wife, Joan, gave us a demonstration of how to, and how not to pick apples and pears. She showed us how each fruit had to be carefully pinched at the top of its stalk, where it joined the branch, so that it remained attached to the fruit, which enabled them to get a better price at market. Apparently, the Japanese who bought the fruit liked to see the stalk still in it. Each one had to be carefully placed into the satchel so as not to bruise it against the others, and when the satchel was full it could be emptied into a bin.

  ‘Bins’ were in fact huge wooden crates, four feet long by three feet wide and four feet deep. Once Joan had filled her bag she climbed back down the ladder and, leaning over the ledge of the bin at a back-breaking angle, gently rolled the fruit into the bottom.

  ‘Right,’ she said airily to everyone standing around watching, ‘no time to waste, let’s get picking!’ She turned to me. ‘You can have this bin, I’ve already started it for you.’

  I leaned over and looked in at the precious few apples huddled in one corner, lost against the cavernous walls of the crate, and said, ‘How much money do we get for each bin?’ I knew that everyone else was th
inking the same thing so I thought I might as well ask.

  As well as Rick and me, a few other backpackers had arrived from Sydney over the weekend and were also present at the demo. One of them was a Swede called Noel who immediately snatched a satchel and flew off into the orchard with a ladder before he’d even been told how much we would be paid.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ Joan enthused. ‘Let’s hope everyone’s as keen as him. Now, what did you say?’ She took the satchel from around her neck and hung it on the tree, as though any questions should come second to our love of working for her.

  ‘How much per bin?’ I repeated.

  ‘Now, you can choose any row you want, but you must start at that end and work your way down, otherwise the guy laying out the bins’ll get confused.’ She took a ripe apple from the tree and began to polish it. ‘The tractor driver brings out the bins and lays them at even spaces, as you see, so unless there’re more apples on a tree than normal, there should be enough bins. If there isn’t, just give me a shout and I’ll get one down to you. Seventeendollarsabin. Any questions?’

  As mumbled as the answer was, I extracted the relevant piece of information and was about to ask how long it would take to fill one bin, when she went on the defensive.

  ‘But a good picker can fill a bin an hour, easy.’ She reflected, gazing up lovingly at her trees. ‘Huh, we’ve had professional pickers here that have done fifteen bins in a day, no worries. So you see, you really can earn quite a lot of money if you work hard.’ She picked up her jacket, putting the polished apple into the pocket. ‘I’ll be walking around most of the day to see how you’re getting on. Ladders are there, satchels in that bin. Good luck.’ And she was gone.

  That first day Rick and I, and the other newcomers, managed one bin each after four hours of work. We couldn’t manage a full day, and gave up by lunchtime. Constantly climbing up and down a ten-foot ladder that often toppled sideways, throwing the picker painfully against the sharp branches, left my arms and legs torn to pieces, and my legs shaking from the exertion. And the weight of a bag full of apples hanging around my neck, pulling my head forward at such an unnatural angle for so many hours, and then having to bend over at right angles to empty them into the bin was back-breaking.

  By one o’clock neither of us could walk, and we just went back to the shed and lay on the floor, silently wondering if we’d done something wrong in a past life to deserve such punishment. I had so many cuts and bruises I couldn’t count them all. My legs and arms looked like a hundred cats had used them as a scratching post; a mass of thin red lines, each terminating in a tiny bead of blood. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, we were both covered in a thick layer of dust and grime that neither of us had the energy to get up and wash off. Instead, when it started to rain again that evening, we just stood outside and had a shower in the run-off from the corrugated iron roof.

  We’d been given some bread and blankets as promised by Jack, and had re-lit the fire using wood that was scattered all over the surrounding fields and forest, so at least we were warm. We were offered a lift into town by one of the locals to spend our hard-earned seventeen dollars, but both of us were too tired to take him up on it and just fell asleep.

  The rest of the week improved gradually, and by the weekend we were flat out at two bins each a day, though we were putting in six hours by that time. If anyone ever tells me that slavery was abolished at the turn of the century, I’d tell them to go to the orchards of Australia and see it for themselves. They should send school kids down as a sort of living history lesson.

  The weather had also improved by the end of the first week, though that didn’t help much, and instead of being cold at night and reasonably comfortable during the day, it was cold at night and hot and dusty during the day. The mornings were freezing cold, but by nine o’clock the sweaters would come off and we’d change among the trees into shorts and flip-flops for the day’s slog under the burning sun.

  One drawback to wearing shorts in the orchard, though, was the constant attack from March flies. These insects have the same anatomy as a normal house fly but are the size of a thumbnail, and on the end of their head they have a long stiff tube that they push through to break the victim’s skin and suck out the blood. It’s impossible to be vigilant while picking fruit, so the first you know of an attack is when you feel a sharp sting. Trying to shake them off doesn’t deter them, and you have to actually flick them off, usually leaving a blob of blood behind, and sometimes the snapped-off proboscis with it.

  Rick thought my fear of these flies bordered on paranoia, and taunted me cruelly, hiding in trees and flicking twigs at me, making me twitch and flinch all morning like someone with a nervous shake. He kept this up for a few days, skulking and sniggering among the trees, until one of them crawled up the leg of his shorts while he was picking and bit him on the scrotum.

  The weird thing about the March flies was that they only appeared in the morning, and by the time the dew had dried on the grass at around ten o’clock they were gone. They were gone, but by half past ten they’d been replaced by clouds of normal flies and wasps that swarmed all over us, attracted by the sweet juice from the busted fruit that had been trampled underfoot. The best way around this problem was to get as close to the tree’s trunk as possible, surrounding oneself in leaves.

  On the home front, by the end of the first week we had secured the sheep shed and tried to make it a bit more liveable. All of the windows were now boarded up to stop the cold night wind from howling through, and we even managed to screw the front door back on its hinges. We found some old carpet in one of the rooms, another table, and some planks of wood that we balanced on piles of bricks and used as beds, to keep us off the ground and away from spiders.

  We also now had a camping-style, single ring gas stove and two pots for cooking that we’d bought second-hand in Batlow’s Oxfam shop. Our cheques from Jack were issued at the end of the week, and we went on a spending spree, buying, among other things: warm clothes, shoes, a pillow each, cups and anything else that we considered essential, but cheap. Toothpaste and razors were a luxury that we thought we could afford, and I even bought an air freshener for the sheep shed.

  We celebrated that Friday night by going into town to the RSL club with two of the Aussie pickers from the orchard. One of them, Albert, who was a helpless alcoholic but had a beaten up old car that broke down every mile, managed to get us to the pub before closing time, and what we hadn’t spent on food and clothes earlier was spent on drink. By the time we got back to the shed at midnight we’d forgotten all about fruit picking for the time being, and drifted happily to sleep by the fireside, imagining that we were lying on a beautiful tropical beach once again.

  FIVE

  A month or so after our arrival, Rick got the most sought-after job on the orchard (outside of Jack and Joan’s); the job of driving the tractor that collected the bins. He was in heaven. Not only was it the only way of getting paid on the orchard without doing physical work, but he also got an hourly rate, which meant he could skive. The rest of us were sick with envy.

  ‘How the fuck did you manage to get that job?’ I shouted as he walked down between my row of trees, grinning and waving the keys to the tractor. I climbed down the ladder, already perspiring heavily in the mid-morning heat, wiping the sweat and dust from my face. ‘It’s not possible.’

  He sat on the edge of my half-filled bin and looked in at the apples, taking one out to eat. ‘Is that all you’ve done so far this morning? Tut tut tut.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. You? The cushiest job of all?’ I took the satchel off my neck and threw it, apples and all, into the trees.

  ‘Don’t sulk.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ I picked up an apple and pelted it against one of the other bins, exploding it into tiny, juicy segments. ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers. I can’t do this job any more, not knowing that you’ve got it so easy.’

  ‘Who says I’ve got it easy? Driving that tractor’s hard work
.’ He rolled two cigarettes and handed one to me. ‘It’s a bit early for smoke, but seeing as how I’m in charge an’ all... Only kidding.’

  I took the cigarette and sat down. ‘What happened to the other guy?’

  ‘Had to go back to Sydney. His daughter’s still here, though, but she can’t drive. Reckon I might be in there.’

  ‘Rather you than me.’

  ‘Got a nice tent. All mod cons: TV, video, fridge. She makes a wicked dinner too, better than that stuff we’ve been living off. I’m pig sick of tinned stew.’

  The cigarette tasted horrid so I flicked it away. ‘What’s the money like?’

  ‘Hourly. Works out about the same as picking.’

  ‘Yeah, except all you have to do is sit on a fucking tractor and smoke all day.’ I leaned forward and rubbed my aching back. ‘Just think how much pleasure you’re going to get watching us suffer.’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind,’ he said, turning the apple around in his hand.

  ‘You’ve got the best job here and you’re going to be shagging the only decent bird in the place. Bastard.’ I brought my knees up to my chest and sighed. ‘When d’you start?’

  ‘Now. All I’ve got to do is take myself up to the top and pick up the tractor. I’ll give you my bin, it’s half full.’

  I thanked him with appropriate sarcasm, and we finished another cigarette before he left. It didn’t taste any better than the first so I stubbed it out on an apple and buried it under the rest in the bin. ‘Rick,’ I shouted after him as he walked back up the row, ‘try to find out if there’s any way of fiddling these bin tickets, so I can get the money without doing the work.’