by Sasha Wasley
I slipped into the chair beside Angus and he passed me a fresh drink. ‘You missed your calling,’ he murmured. ‘Improv.’
‘Hey, that’s awesome about the Ambassador thing,’ Jo was saying. ‘I gotta be honest with you, I’ve always hated that beauty queen contest shit, no offence, mate.’
‘None taken.’ I was quite heartfelt.
Pris was clearly fuming but too dignified to make a scene, so I was safe from her wrath for now. The night eased on. Mass-produced crème brulees were devoured and the music started in earnest. I located Rebecca Batich and congratulated her again, taking the opportunity to whisper a warning about Nathan Dalgety’s wager.
‘He’s got fucking Buckley’s,’ she said with a loud, scornful laugh. ‘Hey, it’s a pity the Peach Ambassador award doesn’t start till next year. I could’ve put that on my CV. I can’t exactly put Peach Queen on it, but Mum insisted on nominating me.’
The dance floor filled and more people came for selfies with me. Jo and I had a shouted conversation about the music selection and then she told Toby and Angus they had to dance with us. We headed onto the dance floor, where things were getting messy. The parquetry was sticky and broken glass crunched under our shoes. Girls were stagger-dancing and guys were getting increasingly confident that their old breakdancing skills would naturally come back to them. We danced on the outskirts, nervous of the scrum in the middle. A slow song started and Jo seized Toby, much to his chagrin, for a replay of their wedding dance. I thought Angus would head back to our table, but he stayed where he was and opened his arms, inviting me in.
‘People will talk,’ I warned him, stepping forward nevertheless.
He put his arms around my waist. ‘People will talk no matter what we do.’
I put mine around his neck. ‘Just warn me if Gemma di Bortoli comes near us with a camera.’
Angus glanced around. ‘No sign of her.’ He brought his gaze back to me. ‘You look incredible tonight.’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t say it. I’m trying really hard not to care what I look like any more.’
He tipped his head. ‘I know that, but I don’t really understand why you would care. You always look pretty. It’s not like you have to try.’
‘I always tried too hard. Cared too much what people thought. And I mostly don’t care so much any more but—’ I hesitated, then blurted it out. ‘But I care what you think. And I’d rather not.’
Angus’s eyebrows pulled inwards as he contemplated me. ‘How you look isn’t important. Being pretty isn’t why I think so much of you, or think about you so much.’
The warmth and closeness of him was damn distracting. My mind danced ahead to after the ball when we would go back to Brooker’s and Mrs Brooker was away for the whole night.
He’s got a policy, I reminded myself sternly.
‘Thank you,’ I said, my tone careful. ‘I don’t know how I would have got through the last few weeks without your mother – and you.’ Bugger, my tight voice totally undermined my attempt to be aloof.
‘Ditto,’ he said.
We wasted a few moments looking at each other’s mouths in the chaos of music, lights and people around us on the dance floor.
‘Don’t go anywhere in a hurry, okay?’ he said softly.
‘You mean, away from Bonnievale?’
‘Bonnievale. Brooker’s.’
I looked at his lips again. ‘I’m not in any rush.’
He smiled and it looked like real happiness. It was warm and somehow sexy, and I wished we were alone. Policy, a voice called frantically from a very long way away.
Angus scanned the dance floor for a few seconds. I felt a sigh.
He brought his gaze back to mine. ‘If anything was to go wrong, would you look after her?’ he said. ‘For a few days or – or even a few weeks?’
I stopped moving. ‘What?’
‘Just, if I got caught up with something and needed you to watch over her for a few days, would you?’
‘Are you planning a trip to Bali or something?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Not planning anything. I just wouldn’t want her to be alone if I got, like, urgently called away for whatever reason.’
‘What are you talking about, Angus?’
‘Nothing. I just—’ He stopped. ‘Nothing. I’m talking shit.’
I waited. Angus gave me a startling smile and dropped me backwards in a sudden dip, making me squeak with shock. People looked around at us and a couple of blokes cheered. When we were dancing again, I shook my head at him.
‘Way to change the subject,’ I said, eyebrows raised.
Angus grinned. The song changed. ‘I’m getting a drink.’
Jo seized me for more party dancing and Angus and Toby disappeared back out into dim tableland.
‘Did you guys have a pash?’ she shouted in my ear.
‘No,’ I said, laughing. ‘Just wanted to.’
She grinned. ‘He can’t take his eyes offa ya! I’m so stoked. He deserves someone like you.’
I could have taken that a few ways but I trusted Jo was being kind. We danced together for a few more songs until Hilary Cotton came to flap at me from the edge of the dance floor. I broke from Jo.
Hilary’s face was full of glee. ‘We love the Ambassador idea. We’re all very excited about it, going forward.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Obviously Pris is going to take some convincing, but she must know it’s got to happen now.’
‘But will people support it?’
Hilary nodded until her glasses were slipping down her nose. ‘The girls and I have been asking around the room. A lot of people like it. Some hate it, but more of them like it. Will you be on the committee and help us again next year?’
‘Um, maybe.’
‘Think about it,’ she said, giving my arm a squeeze.
Jo wanted a drink, so she led the way back to our table. Angus was missing from his seat. I sat down and searched the dance floor for him. Nathan Dalgety was throwing his arms around in a drunken semblance of dancing, girls glaring whenever he bashed into one of them. Angus wasn’t there.
‘Where’s Angus?’ I asked Toby.
Toby’s eyes were glazed. ‘Dunno. Oh, hang on, he said he was going to the dunny.’
I scoured the room and caught sight of Angus near the exit, walking fast, head down. He slipped out of the door. I sat and thought back over what he’d said to me while we danced, then a jolt went through me, making me jump up and race after him as fast as my heels would allow.
A dozen or so people were smoking in the carpark, immersed in their own conversations. Angus was already inside the ute. He switched on the lights and started rolling towards the road, so I sprinted across the carpark and leaped into the vehicle’s path, forcing him to brake hard. I ran around and scrambled into the passenger seat.
‘Lottie, get out.’
‘I know what you’re doing,’ I panted. ‘You can’t do it, Angus. You’ll get arrested!’
‘I’ve got to do it. It’s started on the other trees. It’s the only way to save the orchards.’
‘The Dalgetys will hurt you!’
‘They’re busy tonight. That’s why I’m going now. It’s the first time they haven’t been watching the tree.’
‘You’ll get in trouble!’ I grabbed his arm. ‘Big trouble. People are angry.’
‘I know. I know. But I can’t worry about that.’
‘Please,’ I said, close to tears.
‘I have to do it, Lottie.’
I took in his dark eyes, glittering with purpose. It was true. I reached for my seatbelt.
‘I’m coming with you.’
He nodded and drove on.
All the light and noise of the ball faded as we turned onto the road out of town.
‘What are you going to do, specifically?’ I asked Angus. ‘I’ve got the chainsaw in the back. I’ll take the whole tree down and set it alight, then treat the stump with herbicide to stop it growing back.’
His plan was so breathtakingly final.
‘What can I do to help?’ I said.
‘Keep a lookout for me. Let me know if you see any cars.’
The rest of the trip was silent. I sat there, my fear growing, checking his face in the light from the dashboard every so often. Angus’s expression never wavered.
It was almost ten minutes before we pulled into the clearing. He flicked off the ignition but left the lights on, trained on the Olde Peach Tree.
‘Turn them off if you see a car coming.’ He climbed out.
Angus worked fast. He undid the straps criss-crossing the ute’s tray and heaved the chainsaw out from beneath the tarp. When he pulled the cord, the motor caught immediately, roaring into the silence of the old orchard. I checked the road, my teeth chattering with the adrenaline. Angus revved the chainsaw a few times, ducked into the centre of the tree and took off three giant branches without a pause. They crashed to the ground, one after the other. God, so loud. I was sure someone would come running to see what was going on at any moment.
Angus had moved on to his next branch when the appearance of a light in the distance made my heart jump. I scrambled to flick off the headlights. Angus spotted the approaching car, turned off the chainsaw and stepped behind the trunk. With its crooked, hunched shape and those low, thick branches jutting out on either side, the tree looked like an outraged old man trying to get out of his chair.
The light resolved into two headlights coming towards us. The Dalgetys? I ducked down and held my breath until the car was upon us. Its lights illuminated the clearing and the Olde Peach Tree, if only for a microsecond, but it didn’t slow. Not the Dalgetys. Angus barely waited for it to pass before he started his chainsaw once again, and as soon as the car was out of sight, I turned the ute’s headlights back on.
I got out of the cab, my heels immediately sinking into the soft soil. I struggled through the dirt to the tray and found myself a pair of workboots. When I pulled them out, Angus’s old Peach King sash came too, caught on the toe of one boot. I tossed it into the cab with my heels, hitched up my dress and yanked on the boots. Angus was working methodically around the tree, switching sides every now and then, so I dragged the fallen branches into a rough pile. At last the lower boughs were clear and all that remained were a few spindly branches sprouting from the top of the trunk. The Olde Peach Tree looked small and pathetic now that the massive lower branches were gone.
Angus stood back and observed it. At first I thought he was holding a moment’s silence, but he was just looking for the best place to make a cut. He revved the chainsaw, bent down, and sawed part way through the thick trunk, then pulled his chainsaw free and made another cut to form a great notch. Going around the other side, he guided the chainsaw all the way through the trunk and, abruptly, it tumbled to the ground.
Angus killed the chainsaw and stared at his work. He glanced at me and strode back to the ute to dump the chainsaw in the tray.
‘I’ll get the other branches. Can you grab me the fuel can?’ Angus’s voice was low and steady.
I went for the fuel can. Angus dragged the bigger branches and rolled the trunk into my bonfire pile. He turned his attention to the stump, smashing at it with an axe, gouging wounds into its surface while I tossed petrol over the dismembered body of the peach tree. Angus fetched a white container labelled Glyphosate Concentrate from the ute. He used a paintbrush to dab it onto the stump with an unexpectedly delicate touch, focusing on the gouges from the axe blade and the outer edges of the stump nearest the bark. He looked up at me where I waited nervously by the pile of cut branches.
‘There’s a lighter in the glove box.’
I got the lighter and Angus finished up with the stump. I lit a dry twig and gazed at the massacred tree, momentarily confounded. Angus took the twig out of my hand and dropped it gently into the pile. The flames found some fumes and caught, running across the stack of branches, forming pathways, finding wood to consume. Within seconds, smoke poured from the pile, burning our eyes. Angus pulled me back and the flames rose, crackling and puffing embers into the dark sky. We watched it burn, calculating the enormity of our actions.
He grabbed the container of herbicide. ‘Let’s go.’
For a couple of minutes on the drive home, we were silent, then my jitters turned into nervous giggling. Angus whooped and thumped the horn in long blasts.
‘You’re insane!’ I cried through my laughter. ‘The Dalgetys are going to want your balls on a plate.’
He was chuckling. ‘They can come get ’em. I don’t care. The tree’s gone. I’ll be able to sleep at night again.’
He turned into Brooker Road and wound down the hill to the farm driveway. I jumped out to open the gate, still wearing the old workboots, and Blue and Bundy barked at us with delight.
‘I’m going to wait here until someone notices and the shit hits the fan,’ he said as he got out of the ute. ‘Get your car and go, Lottie. Go back to the ball, or to your parents’ place.’
‘No way.’
‘You could be implicated. People will notice you’re missing.’ Angus came closer. ‘Thank you for helping. I don’t want you to get in trouble, so please go.’
‘Not happening.’ I latched the gate. ‘What do you think will happen to you?’
‘I’ll probably get a conviction and a huge fucking fine. I doubt they’ll put me in jail for it, but I guess it depends how close Dalgety is to the magistrate.’ Angus led the way through the side gate, the kitchen light shining from the window.
‘You saved the orchards for Bonnievale,’ I said. ‘Who cares if it was illegal? It was bloody brave.’
‘I’m not sure Aunty Pris is going to see it that way. Or Mum.’
‘Maybe not at first. I think your dad would be proud of you, though.’
‘My dad …’ Angus slowed.
‘Yeah. You said he got it. He understood how the spot needs to be treated. He’d be proud of you.’ He stopped walking altogether and turned to look at me. ‘He might have even done the same thing himself.’
Angus gave a snort. ‘No, he wouldn’t. He would have run the other way – turned his back on the problem.’
This didn’t sound like what I knew of Ted Brooker. Angus resumed walking, then stopped again unexpectedly before we got to the steps. He dropped into an outdoor chair. I followed suit.
‘My father,’ he said. I waited, apprehension coming over me. ‘He didn’t solve problems. He just took himself out of them.’
I took a sharp breath. ‘What do you …?’
Angus tilted his head back and stared at the sky. ‘The day Mum discovered him, after he took the wrong dose of heart pills, I was out early, clearing trees. The spot was everywhere. We’d borrowed a bulldozer to take out one of our peach orchards. Dad and I were working in shifts – I’d do a few hours’ clearing, then him, then we’d burn. It was winter and when I started the dozer’s engine every morning, the windscreen steamed up for a few minutes as the cabin got warm. That morning, words appeared on the window as it steamed up, written with a finger on the glass. Entrust. Clean this properly.
‘It didn’t make sense, but I assumed Dad wanted me to give the windscreen a good clean down before he took his turn in the dozer, so I did what he asked. A little while later, Mum called me in hysterics, saying she thought Dad might be dead.
‘We had the funeral, a few weeks passed, and we were in the deepest financial shit of our lives. I was trying to work out how to break the news to Mum about having to sell up, when I found it. I was hunting for some paperwork – a land surveyor’s report on the property boundaries – and came across a schedule from an insurance company called Entrust.’ Angus dropped his face to stare at the ground, his hand moving automatically to scratch Bundy’s ear. ‘That was when I realised what Dad’s message on the windscreen meant. He took the wrong dose on purpose, to get the life insurance money and keep the farm. Because I’d lost us so much in the divorce.’
I caught my
breath.
That yellow envelope with the word Policy on it leaped into my mind: life insurance documents, divorce certificate, mortgage papers – all in together. Angus’s guilt, all in one place; the things that formed his policy. ‘Angus, I’m so – so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I hate the fucker.’ Angus looked into my eyes. ‘Please don’t tell anyone. Nobody else knows. The insurance – Mum …’
I dived out of my chair and fumbled Angus into my arms. ‘Of course I won’t tell anyone. God, I’m so sorry.’
He pulled me onto his lap and held on tight. His voice came deep and ragged in my ear. ‘It broke Mum when he died. I just wished I could tell the insurance company the truth. I didn’t even want the fucking money. I would rather have sold up. But if I told them, his death would have been even more pointless, and Mum would have been even more hurt.’
Tears ran down my face. ‘Angus, he must have been unwell. Depressed. He wouldn’t have done it if he was well – in his mind.’
‘And what made him unwell? I did. What I did, losing us all that money, made him like that.’
‘No—’
‘Yes. He was fine until that happened.’
I couldn’t speak. I wanted to say that the financial stuff was just a hook for Ted Brooker to hang his depression on – but maybe the man’s identity was so tangled up in Brooker’s Farm that he did kill himself because Angus’s divorce lost them all that money. It wouldn’t be the first time a man had decided his ability to provide for his family was his singular duty in life. And it wouldn’t be the first time a man had taken his own life because he thought he’d failed in that duty.
‘It’s not your fault,’ was all I managed.
Angus pulled away and looked at me long enough to show me he believed, deep in his being, that it was. He touched my cheek with a rough thumb. ‘This is God’s honest truth – at last. This is why I have my policy, even though it’s killing me, because – because …’ He gestured helplessly. ‘You.’ My heart seemed to stop for a moment and Angus shook his head. ‘Because you.’
