Spring Clean for the Peach Queen

by Sasha Wasley

  Angus scratched his ear. ‘Aunty Pris is always getting ready for something. She lives in a constant state of preparation.’

  It was an accurate assessment and I repressed the urge to laugh. ‘No, it’s something about Brooker’s or your mum. Or you.’ Angus knew. He knew exactly what I meant – I could see that even in the darkness. ‘I’m spending a bit of time with her and maybe I should know if there’s an issue with her. Any health issues or whatever.’

  ‘She’s over seventy and can be forgetful.’ He effected a blunt change of topic. ‘Your list – what else is on it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said you’re doing a personal declutter. That you have a list of things you’re getting rid of.’

  ‘Oh.’ I took a breath. ‘My phone, my job, my looks—’

  ‘Your looks?’ Angus laughed.

  ‘Maintenance. Hairdresser, makeup – waxing,’ I added, trying to embarrass him.

  He didn’t react. ‘And?’

  ‘Social media, my acting work, my stuff.’

  He made a bemused noise. ‘Okay. Why did you decide to get rid of all that?’

  ‘I – I’m trying to live more authentically.’ Christ, did I actually just say that to a farmer?

  Predictably, he was incredulous. ‘More authentically?’

  ‘Yeah. You should try it.’

  He straightened. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You lie and hide stuff – more than anyone I’ve ever met. And I worked in show business, so that’s saying something.’

  He seemed astonished. ‘What do I lie about and hide?’

  ‘Whatever’s wrong with your mum. The reason you refuse to wear a veil. The reason you went from an optimistic kid to a silent hermit mountain-man who hates the world.’

  He dropped his eyes again and stared at the final logs glowing through casings of white ash. ‘I answered your question about the bees.’

  ‘Hah – you trust your bees? This is an instinctual creature we’re talking about. If you turn your head the wrong way while one’s sitting on your neck, it will sting you in self-defence. Then your windpipe will constrict and your membranes will swell and you won’t be able to breathe. And you’ll run out of oxygen and pass out and die right there among the hives.’

  He didn’t speak.

  ‘Don’t you care if you live or die, Angus?’ I paused but he still didn’t answer. ‘What about your mum?’ Nothing. No response. ‘Angus! What about Brooker’s?’ Silence. ‘What about me?’

  He whipped his head up and gave me a long, hard stare. ‘You?’

  ‘I’ve already found one dead guy this year. You want me to go through that again?’

  Angus held my gaze for so long, my skin started to prickle. At last he reached for his empty beer bottle and got to his feet. Blue bounded up and Bundy lifted his head to check whether it was worth it.

  ‘Time to pull up the nets.’

  I sighed. Angus fetched a torch and bucket from the back of the ute and I followed him down to the dam.

  ‘Pull one in,’ he said, tucking the torch under his arm and getting ready with the bucket.

  I found the end of the rope where it was secured under a rock, and started hauling the net in.

  ‘Do it quicker,’ Angus said. ‘They can crawl out if you give them enough time.’

  I did as he said, a thrill running through me when the net bumped up the muddy bank and I caught sight of slithering, scuttling movement. Angus crouched down and extracted yabbies, untangling each one before dropping it into a plastic bucket. I pulled up the second net then took the torch to shine it into the bucket. The crustaceans blew bubbles, clambering over the top of each other and making little clicking noises. Angus tossed the smallest ones back.

  ‘Look at that big guy,’ I said. It was double the size of the next largest and coated in a fringe of furry green algae. ‘He must be the patriarch. The grand-daddy of the whole population.’

  Angus directed the torch into the bucket. ‘Yeah. He’s huge.’

  ‘Should we put him back?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘He deserves our respect,’ I said. ‘He’s obviously reached a ripe old age. He’s even hairy, just like you, Angus. Save a fellow hairy.’

  Angus reached in, but the big guy was too quick and latched onto his thumb. ‘Fuck!’ Angus hissed. It let him go an instant later and Angus tossed it back into the water. I couldn’t help laughing. He extracted the bone from the net, its remaining shreds of meat all white from being in the water. He threw it in after Grandpa Yabby. ‘Feast on that, you ungrateful old bastard.’ He was chuckling, too, just a little.

  We doused the fire. The ride back was silent, except for Bundy’s snoring from the back seat.

  Angus stopped the ute at the front of the house.

  ‘Good night,’ I said, setting off for the side gate.

  ‘Come for a feed tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘Mum’ll cook these up for us.’

  I paused. ‘Thanks, but I’m helping at the quiz night.’

  ‘We’ll have them for lunch, then.’

  ‘Aren’t you out working all day?’

  Angus shrugged. ‘I can come back for lunch. You helped catch them, you should get some, too.’ He gave me a quick look. I had no idea what it meant.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘See you then.’

  Pris arrived at Brooker’s on Saturday morning. She was fuming. Her anger was somehow in the sound of her park brake, and definitely in the pound of her footsteps as she came up the verandah steps. I was helping Mrs Brooker make apricot jam, and we were midway through pouring the burnished orange goo into clean jars.

  ‘Knock-knock,’ came Pris’s voice at the door.

  Mrs Brooker looked at me, eyebrows raised. ‘Oh, dear. Something’s the matter, I suspect.’

  Pris stomped down the hall. ‘That jolly Hilary Cotton.’ Jolly? She was almost swearing. ‘I told you I couldn’t trust her, didn’t I, Lottie? It’s the gunfire breakfast all over again.’ She plumped down in a chair.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I rested a lid loosely on top of a jar, letting the jam cool.

  ‘She forgot to ask Colin Dalgety to be the quizmaster, didn’t she? Forgot! And he’s calling a machinery auction in Dinningup today and can’t be back in time – and in any case, his voice won’t be up to it after calling an auction. So now we have no quizmaster, and the quiz night’s tonight!’

  ‘Oh, crap. Can you do it?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve got too many things to do behind the scenes. And none of the other ladies want to be in the spotlight. They want me to find someone who’s used to public speaking.’ She waited, eyes locked on my face.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ I said.

  Pris huffed a furious sigh. ‘I understand.’ Clearly, she didn’t.

  Mrs Brooker scraped jam out of the pot. ‘What about Angus? He’s wonderful at that sort of thing. Remember when he used to call bingo for us when it was held in Bonnievale all those years ago, Pris? Since he was fourteen, he did that!’

  Pris frowned. ‘That was a long time ago. Angus isn’t the cheerful boy he once was. He won’t agree to do it.’

  Mrs Brooker’s soft blue eyes wandered my way. ‘Would you ask him, love? He likes you.’

  ‘Me?’ I laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Yes, he does.’ Mrs Brooker nodded and resumed scraping.

  ‘Well, he certainly won’t do it if I ask.’ Pris was sour. ‘If you won’t be quizmaster for us, Lottie, the least you can do is ask Angus.’

  I directed a pleading look at Mrs Brooker. ‘Can’t you do that thing you do when he’s being difficult? The Angus Edward Brooker thing?’

  ‘One mustn’t abuse one’s power, love. You ask him. I think he’d do it for you.’

  God, was she imagining there was a thing between me and her son? Maybe thinking back to when Angus and I played together as toddlers, or something? I clenched my jaw and went back to the jam.

  ‘Are these the first apricots, Car
oline?’ Pris inspected a jar. ‘Smells very nice.’

  ‘We’re having yabbies for lunch,’ Mrs Brooker said. ‘Stay, won’t you?’

  Pris’s eyes lit up, but she looked at the clock and heaved a regretful sigh. ‘I’ve got far too much to do. I probably won’t get a minute to stop for lunch today, not if I’m to make this quiz night happen after the dog’s breakfast Hilary’s made of everything.’ She seemed grimly pleased that she had to make such a sacrifice. ‘I’ve placed you on a table with your parents tonight, Lottie,’ she added.

  Fuck.

  ‘I was just going to come along to help, not be on a table,’ I protested.

  She gave me a grudging nod of approval. ‘Thank you, but no need. We have enough of us to run the night and there’s nothing worse than too many cooks in the kitchen. You can relax for this one.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said miserably.

  Pris stood. ‘All right, I’ll be off. Can you get to work on that press statement about the ball, Lottie? We need to start promoting quick-smart. Tell Angus I’ll meet him at six sharp at the RSL to check the PA works properly and go through the run sheet.’

  ‘I’m really not sure I can convince him …’

  But Pris had already clumped off down the hall and the screen door banged behind her.

  ‘It will be good to see Angus getting involved in a community event,’ Mrs Brooker said, resting a lid gently on top of a jar of warm jam.

  Double fuck.

  Blue danced ahead on the track, keen to reach Angus. Bundy trailed behind us in the shade of the nectarine trees. Although Blue was a sweetheart, Bundy made my heart swell: the soft-eyed old blue heeler wandering under fruit-laden branches. Angus was repairing an irrigation-looking thing in the shade of the big shed when Blue snuffled his leg, alerting him to our presence. He looked up and spotted me, straightening in surprise.

  ‘Hi,’ I called.

  He twitched his shirt and brushed hair off his sweaty face. ‘Is Mum okay?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s fine.’

  ‘Is it lunch time?’ He fished in a pocket. ‘I haven’t checked my phone for a bit.’

  ‘No – well, it probably is nearly lunch time, but I came to ask you something.’

  Wariness came over his face. ‘Is this about—?’

  ‘No, it’s not about your stubborn refusal to acknowledge the risk of anaphylaxis. Pris is in a gigantic tizz. Old Dalgety can’t do the quizmaster thing. Could you do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tonight. The quiz night. Would you read out the questions?’ I tried to look nonchalant, kicking at a sack of lime.

  Angus’s face creased into amusement. ‘Not a fucking chance.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘I knew it,’ I said. ‘Thanks a load.’

  ‘Did you really think I’d say yes?’

  ‘No. I knew I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting you to do it, but I thought I’d ask anyway because if you don’t do it, I have to. And that means everyone at the quiz night gets to stare at Lottie Bentz, monumental fuck-up, for two hours.’ I gave a bitter laugh. ‘Hey, maybe it’s for the best. Now I don’t have to sit at a table with my mum, who’s insanely angry with me.’

  Angus was gazing at me with concern and I realised I sounded emotional. I turned back towards the house. ‘Lottie,’ he said. I kept walking. ‘Lottie!’

  I kept walking until Blue danced past me, laughing doggily at this wonderful game, and I heard running footsteps behind me. I stopped and so did he, but there was no way I was turning around so Angus could see my stupid tears.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Gratitude just about knocked the breath out of me but I held myself rigid. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I took a big breath. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Are – are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Angus stayed where he was standing behind me and I stayed still too, not at all sure what to do next.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about your personal declutter,’ he said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The stuff you’ve cut from your life. Lying. Faking. Maybe I need to do something like that, too.’

  I turned back to him. ‘Okay …’

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll be much good at it,’ he added, like he needed to warn me.

  I shrugged. ‘It’s a learned thing. I’m not much good at it myself.’

  ‘You’re doing okay.’

  He turned away, loping back towards the shed. Bundy preferred to stay with Angus but Blue trotted ahead of me, full of her mission to return me safely to the Brookers’ backyard.

  The yabbies, cooked in salted water, sautéed in garlic and served with bread and butter, tasted amazing. However, they could not eclipse my apprehension about sitting at my mother’s table for the quiz night.

  I worried about it in my caravan after lunch, watching Chooky peck at her food. From time to time, her orange-brown eye peered at me through the gaps in the wooden box. I reached for my happy cat notebook and reviewed my list. What exactly was I aspiring to become by stripping these things from my life? I glimpsed it for an instant, then it was gone. Hell, I didn’t even know what the goal was, and now I’d burned Charlize and I wasn’t sure if there was enough left to make a whole human.

  Angus’s tubs of donated honey sat on the caravan table. I put the cat notebook aside and decided to design him some labels. I had a flair for lettering – probably from all that signing practice when I’d thought I would become famous enough to give a lot of autographs. I asked Mrs Brooker for a couple of blank labels and coloured markers, then created a blue swirly affair of words with some little happy bees buzzing around. First, I wrote Brooker’s Natural Honey, then changed my mind and redid the label with Bonnie Brook Natural Honey. Angus might get weird about his name being on there.

  I stuck the labels on the tubs and showed Chooky. We sat together for a while, the black hen wrapped in her towel on my lap, dozing while I stroked her soft head. The quiz night drew nearer and nearer until I had no option but to get dressed for it.

  I stuck my head into the house and offered Angus a lift to town. We sat in my car in silence for the trip there. Angus had cleaned himself up: he’d trimmed the beard and pulled his hair back into a ponytail. He’d also abandoned the worn flannelette and donned a clean white T-shirt. I sneaked a few looks sidewards because he looked so different. His cheekbones were rather startlingly angled, and he was rocking that white shirt. Hmm. So, it appeared Angus was still a little bit hot. Pity he was also a grumpy hermit with an anaphylactic death wish.

  We went our separate ways when we got to the RSL. Angus had to help with the PA, and I joined the committee in laying out sponsor brochures, table quizzes, pens and raffle tickets. Hilary Cotton, oblivious to Pris’s sour looks, was organising prizes on a trestle table, moving them around to display them to their best effect. She had already bundled up some things into grand prizes, but there were individual spot prizes for games and raffles: a birdfeeder, a bathroom heater light, horse worming treatment and a fondue kit.

  ‘It’s an eclectic mix,’ I remarked.

  Hilary nodded. ‘Lots of useful things, though. Something for everyone.’

  Pris got me to draw up a lucky number chart on a portable whiteboard. Angus paused at the prize table, inspecting the labels I’d stuck on his honey tubs. I couldn’t see his expression. People began arriving and it wasn’t long before my parents walked in. To my relief, my sister Elizabeth was with them, on early leave from her nursing job for the Christmas period. Elizabeth was always a good buffer between me and Mum. She treated our passive-aggressive barbs or defensive retorts as jokes, and somehow that served to lighten their intent.

  But my mother’s stony face soon brought me back to the pure, undiluted discomfort of the situation. ‘How are you getting on at Brooker’s, Lottie?’ she asked when we were seated at table six.

  ‘Goo
d, really good,’ I babbled, looking at the bar. I needed a drink in the same way a kid with chickenpox needs to scratch.

  Elizabeth got to her feet. ‘Wine, Lottie?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘White.’

  ‘Have you done any work to earn your board?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Yes. I’ve been helping Mrs Brooker sort through the clutter in her spare room and doing a few farm jobs. And I’m looking after a chicken.’

  Dad laughed. ‘Well, well. I didn’t expect that.’

  Karen Wilde and her daughter Hayley joined us and there were greetings all round. Elizabeth brought us drinks just as Liv arrived with her husband and mother. They were on our table, too.

  ‘Hi, Haylz.’ Liv hugged Hayley and blew a kiss to my sister before sitting down. ‘Hi, everyone. Hi, Lottie.’

  ‘Hi, Lottie,’ Paul echoed. ‘How’s the hen coming along?’

  ‘Good. Doing well. I haven’t forgotten the bill – I’ll pay it soon.’

  He didn’t seem worried. ‘No more swelling in the abdomen?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Hayley caught the tail end of this question. ‘Lottie’s got a swollen abdomen?’ She moved to get a better view of my stomach.

  ‘Not me. The chicken.’

  Liv laughed. ‘Way to start the next rumour about Lottie, Paul.’

  Then everyone was laughing. Except me. And Mum.

  Angus kicked off the quiz night. I worked on achieving a balance between not faking it, not revealing that I was hating every moment of this, and not getting drunk too quickly. I had felt sorry for Angus – our reluctant quizmaster – but he settled into the role as though he’d been born to hold a microphone at an RSL. Someone had put a fedora on his head and Angus became another person: dazzling, charming and funny. Hell, with his strong shoulders, white T-shirt, trimmed beard and blue jeans, Angus was even sexy. That bloody fedora. He wore it like a crown – Angus Brooker was Peach King all over again, and I was mesmerised.

  ‘Angus looks hot tonight,’ Hayley said, confirming my suspicions. Elizabeth and Liv agreed.

  We were a pretty strong team. My mother and Liv’s mum, a teacher, had vast general knowledge and therefore dominated. Paul was okay on the science questions, although not as good as I would have expected for a vet; Elizabeth was much better. Liv and Hayley shared a solid knowledge of geography and my dad knew some of the sports and history questions. Karen was good at making sure the answer sheet was handed to the judges in time and replenishing the table snacks. Every time a question about actors or celebrities came up, my table looked at me. Sadly, I generally knew the answers, with Hayley for back up. Eight rounds in, we were in the lead.