She also saw changes in her mother. If she had to find something positive in losing Tom, Rebecca could see it emerging in her parents. Frankie now drove up regularly from the city with Peter. She had become Rebecca’s ally in the stock enterprises. During lambing and calving, Rebecca and her mother had tended to the animals night and day. Each creature was so precious. Rebecca had invested most of the money Frankie gave her into restocking with good quality merino ewes for fine wool production, and composite bred ewes for prime lamb production. Every breeding ewe or cow counted so much towards the future. They had to boost numbers fast, so as to boost returns.
In the city, Frankie had at last found a partner to join her in the running of the surgery. It meant she had more time for her daughter. She would drive into Waters Meeting with her car packed full of discounted vaccines and drenches, dog food and stock feed. She even brought with her canisters filled with dry ice, containing straws of semen bought from the best bulls and rams they could find. She helped Rebecca with the breeding program, turning her hand again to embryo transfer and artificial insemination in livestock, an area she’d been fascinated with during her years as a country vet. Frankie again revelled in the work with large animals and she took on the research of stock genetics with a passion, emailing Rebecca each day with newfound statistics or research programs for increased production in stock.
‘Every little bit of help counts,’ she’d said to Rebecca as she handed her new collars for her dogs and began to unpack the car, revealing Peter sitting beneath an armload of bags.
‘Peter!’ laughed Rebecca. ‘Didn’t see you there.’
Peter, too, enjoyed the trips to Waters Meeting. He spent his time on the riverbank flicking his fly rod, or climbing the lower mountainsides looking for fossils. Harry would sometimes venture up to the big house when Frankie and Peter were there and duck his head in the kitchen door to say hello. If there was any bitterness, Harry hid it well as he chatted easily to Peter about rivers and the rock types that the waters slowly carved away each year. He was civil to Frankie, but kept his distance. Rebecca knew he was still hurt by her mother’s absence and had times of incredible loneliness. But she also knew there were single older women in the district who saved up their special smile for Harry at Landcare meetings.
‘Watch out for the widows,’ Rebecca would teasingly call out to him as he drove off towards town for yet another Landcare gathering. He’d pull a terrified face at her and then smile before driving away.
For the past two years, thankfully, rain had come to the mountains at mostly the right times and the valley flats had responded well. It had buoyed the spirits of Rebecca and Harry.
Sometimes, as Rebecca looked at the rain clouds gathering silently above her head, she’d say to Harry, ‘Tom is looking after us up there.’ She loved the rain. She’d sit on the verandah, Dags lying at her feet, and watch it fall down on the leafy garden. Pounding on tin, forming miniature rivers on the drive. Sheets of water moving silently towards the river. Since she’d been home, the river had flooded twice and soaked the soil on the lowlands with sweet, life-giving water, pressing debris against the wire of fences and trunks of trees. When the water had seeped away, Harry had spent hours on the tractor for Rebecca, sowing new pastures made up of clover, cocksfoot and rye, and sowing down lucerne on the river flats. She’d help him fill the seeder and he’d drive away in the tractor, changing gears with one hand while steering with his knee. The seeds had shot almost instantly in the bed of warm rich soil and the paddocks were now nearly back to full production. The lucerne was growing madly and brought a luminous swathe of green to the river’s edge.
Their efforts were at last paying off thought Rebecca, as she tore open an envelope, still sitting astride the mare. In between the bills, now cheques began to arrive in the mail – payment for her produce. Today was a deposit for a pup and payment for a hundred and fifty early lambs they’d sold at the start of the month.
‘Wow!’ she said when she saw the cheque. The agent had said the Waters Meeting lambs had made top price at the sale and she knew that, in the industry, prices were on a high. Holding the fat cheque in her hand thrilled her.
After she’d torn open all the envelopes she thought might contain more cheques, Rebecca rebundled the bills and put them in her saddlebag. She again reached for the mailbag. There had been something else at the bottom of it, weighing it down. She reached in and pulled out a copy of Landscape, a glossy national magazine.
‘Ahhh! Mossy!’ she said. ‘It’s finally come.’ The dog opened her eyes, stopped panting for a second and looked at Rebecca with her head cocked to one side.
Rebecca excitedly flipped open the magazine and then laughed when she saw the photographs of herself. She raised a hand to her mouth.
‘Oh my God! What a dag!’
Covering both pages was a picture of her sitting up on Ink Jet, with black cattle, fat as mud, grazing on the lucerne. On the next page, set amidst the text of the story, Rebecca sat with her dogs on the small square bales of lucerne hay – their first crop of export-quality hay, destined for Japanese racing stables. Dags was licking her face and Rebecca was screwing up her nose, knowing he’d just been chewing on a rotten sheep’s skull.
When she read the first line and saw her age set in type, twenty-seven, she sat back in her saddle. Twenty-seven! She couldn’t believe it. It looked so old in print like that. She wondered where the time had gone.
She began to read the article, and the words of the journalist brought goosebumps to her skin. The headline read, MUSTERING A BRIGHT FUTURE IN FARMING.
Rebecca sighed. She could be proud of what she and her family, including Sally, had achieved in such a short space of time. She read about the producer cooperative she and Sally had formed in the region. It had started out as a beef cattle producer group. Now they had a machinery ring and were supplying high-quality lucerne hay to racing stables in Asia. Rebecca’s business plan had come to life, and was not only slowly dragging Waters Meeting out of debt, but helping other farm businesses in the region as well. She read the article, amazed at how professional she sounded.
‘In just two years we’ve not only secured payment for our hides, but also forward contracts for our beef. We regularly tour the abattoir to see what our customers in Japan are demanding – at the moment it’s black cattle, so we buy in and breed predominantly Angus and finish them here on the river flats.’
Traditionally Hereford country, Rebecca has retained her family’s line of cattle and still runs cows on the high country surrounding Waters Meeting.
‘There’s a demand for organic grass-fed beef, so we sell our red cattle on domestic markets to specialist butchers who supply city restaurants with specially branded high country beef. We even had a busload of restaurateurs visit the property to see first-hand just how environmentally conscious we are and how much importance we place on being gentle and kind to our stock.
‘We have regular meetings on each farm with all the members of our producer group to give each other support. The directions we take in the business are also guided by our Department of Agriculture beef officer, Nick Hammond, and rural financial counsellor, Sally Carter.’
Rebecca smiled seeing Nick’s name in print. She recalled the first producer meeting at Dirty’s pub. She and Sally had sent invitations to all of the farmers Tom had put on his list. In the pub the farmers sat on chairs, their arms folded sceptically across their stomachs. She, Sally and Nick had looked across a sea of blank faces while they gave their presentation. At the time they’d known Nick just a month. Sally had met him in the Department of Ag head office one morning and had promptly whisked him off to the pub by the time five o’clock came. By eight o’clock she had him in her bed. He was a big, solid, good-looking guy. Not fat but beefy, like a beef officer should be. He wasn’t the type to wear suits, and instead ambled about in jeans and boots. Sally panted after him – and his dark hair, healthy cheeks and massive shoulders.
At the meeting, as
Rebecca stood between them, fielding curly questions from the stern-looking farmers about the beef scheme, she could feel the sexual tension running between Sally and Nick. She had known then and there, in the squash of the pub’s meeting room, that the two of them would become a permanent item. An unlikely item, she thought, but a permanent and happy one.
Rebecca looked at her watch now as she put her letters to be posted in the mailbag, did up the leather strap and sat it back in the mailbox for tonight’s collection. Sally and Nick were heading up to Waters Meeting for the weekend. They’d be here soon, she thought. She bundled the magazine into her saddlebag and buckled the straps.
Mossy scratched behind her ear, making her collar jangle, and stood up to go. Inky lifted her head and swished her tail at a fly.
‘Come on, girl.’ Rebecca shifted her weight in the saddle and they rode off in the direction of the homestead.
Sally, Nick and Rebecca chinked their glasses of rum and coke together around the kitchen table.
‘Here’s to the new pivot irrigator!’ said Nick.
‘… and the fullness of the dam,’ said Sally.
They all drank. As they stood for a moment in silence, Rebecca looked out the window to the pile of silver pipes lying in the paddock, which, when assembled, would become the new irrigator.
‘How the flock am I going to put that thing together?’
‘We’ll give you a hand,’ Nick said, waving the assembly booklet at her.
‘Plus we mentioned to Dirty on the way through that you had a new fifty-span irrigator. The first of its kind in the district. He’s rounding up a few fellas tonight at the pub … they’ll all be busting their guts to come and have a look at it. They’ll give you a hand. It’ll be up and running in no time and you’ll have crops galore to sow and reap,’ said Nick as he reached for a corn chip and crunched it between his teeth.
Rebecca stood at the end of the table and began to slice some tomatoes.
‘Thanks guys. So much for you having a weekend off. I always put you to work when you come and stay.’
‘It does us office-types good,’ said Sally, patting Nick on his backside.
‘Oh bugger,’ said Rebecca suddenly.
‘What?’ asked Sal.
‘Forgot to feed the dogs.’
Nick put down his glass and stood up. ‘I’ll go.’
‘Thanks.’ Bec smiled after him as he went out of the kitchen. She called after him, ‘Make sure you feed Dags first … top of the pack and all that.’
‘Yeah, yeah. I know the drill,’ he said, popping his head back around the door.
‘And make sure you make them sit and wait before they touch their food.’
‘Yes, Miss Dog Psychologist.’
After he shut the door behind him Rebecca said, ‘He’s a good one that one. I’m so glad you’ve stuck to him, Sal.’
Sally crunched on some corn chips. ‘Love him to bits.’ Rebecca felt a stab of sadness. Sally and Nick were so in love. When they skylarked together and kissed each other warmly in front of her, Rebecca couldn’t help but feel the loss of Charlie. She wondered if she’d ever find a passion so intense again, or a lover who was so comfortable with her.
Sally sensed her thoughts and moved over to Bec, putting an arm around her.
‘And what about you? Still no action on the man front?’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘Plenty of creepy offers down at Dirty’s pub, and there’s been this late-thirties bachelor farmer who dresses in St Vinnies dead-old-men shirts.’
‘Ew,’ said Sally, wrinkling her nose.
‘And he’s got copious quantities of dandruff – he’s been on my tail whenever I go to the store or a farmer meeting, but other than that, zilch. I’ve lost interest.’
‘Bec! Your virginity will grow back! Seriously. You need a break from this place. Things are looking good on paper and in the paddocks. Now’s the perfect time to get away.’
Sally poked her friend in the ribs. ‘Just look at you. You’re bloody skinny! You’re working too hard. How about that trip to Asia? Why don’t you come with Nick and I – it’d do you good to meet your racing clients face to face.’
‘Come on, Sal! We’ve got the irrigation coming on, we’ve got crops to get in and then –’
‘Harvest, and shearing, and lamb marking and drenching and mustering the plains … I know all that. God. What have I started here? You’re going to turn into bush woman and be barren and lonely and baby-less. For godsakes, Bec, at least get yourself a nearby bonk.’
‘Did I hear someone say bonk?’ Nick came in, bringing with him a waft of fresh air into the warm kitchen.
Sally slung her arms about his neck and kissed him lovingly. ‘I was just saying that Bec here needs a bonk.’
‘More like she needs a cropping manager so she’d have time to have a bonk,’ Nick joked.
Sally chewed on a chip and thought for a moment. ‘You know,’ she said slowly, ‘that’s a great idea, Nick!’
‘Yeah. As if we could afford that,’ said Bec heavily. ‘Besides, Dad can help me.’
‘Come off it, Bec. You know your old man’s not up to it any more. He’s happy being headman in the Landcare and Riverwatch groups. He’s never been so non-grumpy. Leave the poor old bugger alone. You’ll work him to death.’
‘Huh!’ said Bec in disgust.
Nick reached for the rum bottle and filled up their glasses. ‘We all know your strengths lie in livestock management, Bec, but most of the money will come from specialist cropping on this place once the pivot is built. You need someone who’s in the know.’
‘Don’t give me that beef officer rhetoric – you bloody people from the department!’ She downed her full glass in a series of gulps and slammed it on the table.
‘Don’t you start sounding like a cranky old farmer, Rebecca Saunders. You know Nick’s got a point here.’ Sally put her hands on her hips.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Rebecca warily.
‘Do what?’
‘Do that. That thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘That thing you’re doing now – with your hands on your hips. I know you, Sally … I know that look you get. You’re not letting this one go, are you? You’re going to hound me until I put on a manager and then you’re going to stuff me on a plane to Asia.’
‘You’re dead right I’m not letting this one go – this is something we should draw up a plan for. A cropping and irrigation manager – it’s perfect. Of course I’ll have to rearrange the budget.’
‘You and that bloody budget, Farter! I’ll rearrange you in a minute. I thought the whole point of getting a pivot irrigator, with a bloody expensive computer to drive it, was so the whole thing managed itself.’
‘See, I told you she had no idea about cropping,’ Nick said to Sally teasingly.
Rebecca hid her head in the fridge for a few moments while Nick and Sally continued their spiel. Eventually she emerged brandishing a bunch of celery.
‘Will you two shut up. Or else!’
‘Whoah! Settle down, Bec,’ said Nick, taking a step back and putting up his hands. ‘It’s not that serious.’
Rebecca waved the celery closer at them and Sally and Nick stepped back into a corner of the kitchen, clinging fearfully to each other.
‘Are you going to shut up?’
‘Take it steady,’ cautioned Nick. ‘Now put the celery down … or else someone might get hurt.’
‘Or worse,’ said Sally in mock horror.
‘Well? Are you going to shut up about it?’
Sally and Nick nodded solemnly, glancing nervously at the celery which Bec waved menacingly near their throats.
‘Good. Now get me another rum.’
‘I’m on the job,’ said Nick, who dived under her arm, wrenching the celery from her grasp and throwing it out the window.
CHAPTER 48
Charlie kicked off his boots and sauntered in through the flywire door. He stood in his socks in the kitchen, his black h
air sticking out at all angles, his square jawline dark with stubble. His face was tanned, highlighting his green eyes. His shirt was rumpled and jeans grimy with machinery oil and red dust. Glen was at the kitchen table reading a copy of Machinery Deals, wearing a neatly ironed work shirt. His mother was in a powder-blue dressing-gown, carefully dishing out eggs onto two bits of toast. It was a sunny Saturday morning. Saturday was the day that Mrs Lewis allowed herself to rise an hour later and to get dressed after breakfast. She shuffled about in pink towelling slides on the lino.
‘Would you like some breakfast, dear?’ she asked, not looking up. ‘I’ve just made some eggs for your brother.’
‘No thanks, Mum,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m on my way to town. Just called in to see if you needed anything.’
Mrs Lewis’s mouth formed a thin line. She knew her son was headed for the pub again, that he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, when he would arrive with smoke and alcohol reeking from his skin. He would then shut himself away in his cottage, to sleep or watch sport, instead of coming with them to church.
‘No, thanks dear, I think we’re right for milk. I’m doing a big shop on Monday anyway.’
‘Righto, see you later then.’
‘You’re not going to town like that, are you?’ Mrs Lewis had her back to Charlie as she ran water into the frypan to soak it. Charlie looked down at his clothes wondering how she knew what he was wearing if she hadn’t even looked up at him.
‘I’ll iron some trousers and a shirt for you.’
‘No Mum. I’ll be right,’ he said almost angrily. She turned, looking hurt. Glen tipped sauce on his eggs and began to chew on his toast.
‘You don’t want to come too, Glen?’ asked Charlie, knowing the answer already.
‘No thanks,’ Glen said after he’d finished chewing. ‘I want to service my bike, then give it a run out the back paddocks.’
‘Righto. Have fun. See you.’ Charlie turned, almost running into his father who had just come in from his weekly ritual of reading for half an hour on the toilet before his cooked Saturday breakfast.
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