Demons

by Wayne Macauley

  A little cog went clunk in Gus’s brain as he listened to Dale and thought back on nearly two months of Sunday visits from this sweet but strange city couple. They’d been massaging him, getting him ready, for this. No, he said, stepping back, not daring to look up. I’m sorry, this is my life, I’m a farmer, it’s my family’s land, I’m staying, no offence, thanks, but no.

  All three went quiet. The cows mooed and clattered, the machinery hummed and clicked.

  Sorry, said Gus.

  Undeterred by the farmer’s rejection of their offer, Cass and Dale came back the following Sunday and offered more. This time Gus really was creeped out, not least by the fact that in order to sweeten things Cass had brought as a gift a freshly baked carrot cake in a tin with a red ribbon around it. Gus took it from her—he even ate a slice that evening after dinner—but again shook his head. When Dale—something white-hot brewing in him—upped the offer on the spot by another hundred thousand, Gus backed away. Please, he said, I told you, I don’t want to sell.

  The following Sunday Gus retreated into the milking shed when he saw the car coming up the drive. He wasn’t well. He’d woken the previous Monday feeling awful, struggled to get the milking done, vomited all day, then struggled again through the evening milking and had gone to bed early, pale and sweating. It was the same on Tuesday too. When the car pulled up in the yard he came out of the milking shed waving his arms and shouting: No, no, not today, not any more, I can’t do it, please! Cass stayed in the passenger seat; Dale stood behind the driver’s door. We’ve had a think, he shouted back, we’re going to raise the offer by a third! We will give you three million dollars for the property which is twice its market value! Gus waved his arms again and violently shook his head. It was almost like he was trying to dislodge the three million dollar offer, the couple, and the last two months of Sundays from it. No, please! he said, and he walked back inside.

  I suppose I don’t need to tell you, said Adam, that Cass and Dale were the kind of people who were used to getting what they wanted. They’d already tried to poison Gus. There was arsenic in the carrot cake, Cass had bought it over the net, but now that he’d refused their three million dollar offer they would need to take further steps. Later that Sunday, after dark, they drove back out to the farm and parked on the verge. Cass kept lookout; Dale approached on foot. When the dog came towards him, ears up, he called quietly to it and took the little plastic container of meat from his jacket. The dog wolfed it down. Dale continued on up to the house. The back door was unlocked. Gus was snoring. Dale checked all the windows were closed then turned the taps on the gas stove up full. He crept back down the driveway in the moonlight. The dog followed him for a while, sniffing, hoping for more food, and Dale had to shoo it away. It stood at the gate and watched the Chevrolet, lights out, drive slowly back to the main road.

  Gus woke up feeling awful, but very much alive. He threw open all the windows and doors. It seemed nothing could kill him. When Cass and Dale pulled up on the side of the road at the bottom of the hill (they’d both taken the day off work), they watched what should have been a dead body backing the tractor out of the shed and driving it around the other side of the hill to work on the fences there. They watched, too, when the tractor returned and Gus walked up to the house for lunch. Later he backed his ute out and drove it down the driveway past them, then off along the road into town. Of course he knew they were watching, they knew he knew, but neither of them flinched. That night Dale poured a can of petrol onto the bushes below Gus’s bedroom window. When the dog came to greet him it got poisoned meat. But Gus was awake. Very awake. He got the extinguisher to the fire before it had even scorched the paint. He found his dog next morning, white froth around its mouth, and buried it under the persimmon tree down the side.

  On Wednesday Dale, without Cass, drove the Chevrolet brazenly up the drive. Gus was in the milking shed with his shotgun. Dale called out: Gus, please, we’re sorry! Gus, are you there? Listen, please, we need to talk! Gus stood at the door with the weapon ready. It was strange, thought Dale, with no dog around to sniff your ankles. Gus, please, he said, that’s not necessary, I’m here to talk, I need to explain. Please. Gus lowered the gun, but kept his finger ready.

  I don’t want to talk to you, he said, I’ve got nothing to say; I’m not selling the farm, I’ve made that clear, you’ll need to kill me, I know you’ve tried. No-one has the right to make me go. I don’t care about your money, you can wave it around all you like. It might work for your city friends but it doesn’t work for me.

  Dale could hear the cows mooing in the shed. He thought about Bess, his hands on her teats, and felt a hot, anxious sensation. He thought about Cass and how much he loved her. Please Gus, he said, you’ve got no idea, I know what all this means to you—he gestured to the rolling green hills—but you’ve got to understand what we’ve been through. We’re not here because we want to annoy you, or upset you, or even hurt you. We’re here because we’re lost, we’re desperate, Gus, we’re bereft. We had a kid, a beautiful little child, but he had stuff wrong with him, everything was wrong with him for God’s sake, he choked on his own tongue. We tried to have another—we tried and tried and tried—but it didn’t work. Our lives were wrong—while everything looked right on the surface, there was a great river of wrongness underneath. Then we came here. A moment of chance. We never planned to own a farm, to be farmers, to milk cows, make cheese, grow vegetables, fruit. But we’ve realised there is nothing else that will heal the deep wound. We want to live a simple life, like you. We believe simplicity will save us.

  Gus looked at him almost condescendingly, took his finger off the trigger and let the shotgun hang. You people think you’re so important, don’t you? he said—like your problems are the only problems anybody ever had. Did you ever stop to ask did I have problems? Did I have a wife? A kid? Was I happy? Yes, all three. Once.

  I don’t give a fuck, said Dale. My life is worse than yours—look! Dale gestured again to the rolling green hills so Gus would not mistake what he meant. Yes, said Gus, and when I die it will go to my daughter-in-law and her kids, not you. Dale felt that anxious sensation under his skin again but this time it was cold, not hot. Gus must have sensed it, and he raised the gun a little. There was a huge, tortured bellow from one of the cows in the shed. Instinctively, Gus turned towards it. Dale moved fast to the clutter of junk and put his hand on a piece of pipe. Gus still had the shotgun hanging. Dale flew at him from behind and bashed him across the head. Gus fell, moaned, and struggled for a moment to get up. But Dale bashed him again. He bashed him twenty, maybe thirty times. When he was sure he wasn’t moving he dragged the body around the side and hid it under a sheet of iron. Then he went back and hosed down the blood.

  It was not until a week later when a local farmer was driving past and saw Gus’s cows bustling and moaning outside the milking shed that the alarm was raised. The farmer went up for a look and Dale came out to greet him. He was dressed in new gumboots, workpants and a checked flannel shirt. He explained to the farmer how Gus had retired—Dale and his wife, Cass, owned the farm now. They were still learning the ropes, of course, said Dale, smiling, but they’d be on top of it soon. He looked flushed. The farmer went away.

  The next day a local cop, Senior Constable Matthews, came to visit and found Dale dragging a dead cow with a tractor and chain to a spot over on the far paddock where four other corpses already lay
. They died, said Dale, without further explanation. Matthews started asking questions—way too many questions for Dale’s liking—and then wondered aloud if he might perhaps see the contract of sale? I didn’t know it was on the market, he said. Cass was watching from up at the house. Dale tried to look Matthews in the eye but it didn’t really work. He said he didn’t have the contract of sale on him right now but would have a look for it this evening and was happy for him to come back tomorrow.

  Senior Constable Matthews went away, but he didn’t come back the next day, he came back later that afternoon with another cop, a big guy called Stone. Cass came to the door in her apron and pointed to where Dale was dragging another cow onto the pile. The two cops picked their way across the paddock and asked him to turn off the engine. I haven’t found the contract yet, said Dale. Matthews said this was not surprising since according to his enquiries the house had never been for sale. Would he like to explain? Dale put his arms on the steering wheel and rested his forehead on them. Cass turned back inside.

  Later that afternoon more cops in blue overalls and white masks set to work, dragging the cows off the pile with the tractor and making another pile about twenty metres away. The stench was awful. When they got to the cow on the bottom they saw how her swollen stomach had been sewn up with bailing twine. They cut the twine and pulled. Gus’s hog-tied body, stiff, bluish-white, slipped out from Bess’s belly onto the mushy earth.

  Ew! said Hannah. You’re kidding me? said Marshall. That’s fucked up, said Evan. Adam smiled. I’m a happy ending kind of guy, said Evan, you know that. I’m sensitive—a farmer getting hog-tied and hidden in a dead cow? I mean, come on, really.

  So what happened, said Hannah, in the end? They were charged, said Adam, and jailed. The farm was sold, replanted; it’s all vineyards now. That’s really sad, said Lauren. Megan, who was sitting next to her, leaned over and touched her arm. It’s the deep, deep yearning, isn’t it, said Lauren, we’ve all got it, the need to fill the vacuum, with kids, a house, furniture, gadgets, lifestyle. But what happens when you take all that away? It’s a dirty great gaping hole. And you’re in freefall. Everything we do is part of this mad rush to fill the hole, plug it up, jump up and down on it just to make sure. We can’t imagine what it would be like to have our lifestyles, our houses, our kids taken away—or we can imagine, that’s the trouble, but we do everything we can to not imagine. Or—and here’s the thing—because of the echo coming up out of that black hole every time we shout down into it we throw it all away, hurl it down there.

  Adam looked at her. That’s funny, said Marshall. They all waited, not knowing what to say. It’s like this story I heard. Can I tell it? He took the stick off Adam.

  Are we doing two? asked Evan.

  Once upon a time, said Marshall—What? said Evan, looking around—there was this ex-County Court judge, an old soak, loaded to the gunwales with money, and this widow who lived on a farm. She would have been eighty, at least. So one day, the story goes (Marshall was already enjoying himself), the judge knocks on her door and offers to buy a portion of the farm, specifically the paddock with the low hill over the back. The judge has done some research and figured it might work for grapes. The old woman says sure, she’s too old to do anything with it anyway. The judge plants a vineyard. Years pass. The old woman gets older. The judge gets a viticulturist to look after his vineyard and this viticulturist divides it into seven parts so when the first grapes are picked and crushed he can compare the results. All the wines are good but one batch in particular stands out. In fact, it’s spectacular—deep fruit, complex structure, lingering finish—and it soon becomes known in all the top wine circles as an absolutely stellar vintage. Even though the viticulturist is unsure exactly why this small patch of dirt is producing such extraordinary wine, he now puts all his energies into it and the wine becomes internationally famous. The widow is now very old, and she can no longer go out on the evening strolls she used so much to enjoy but sits by the window knitting or crocheting and thinking about the years gone by. (I’m enjoying telling this.) The judge comes to visit. He’s brought his viticulturist with him. The viticulturist asks the woman why this particular patch might produce grapes of such superior quality? She seems reluctant to answer. The judge makes an offer—a very generous offer—for the rest of the farm. The viticulturist has figured out through the law of averages that there must be at least one more similarly stunning patch of terroir somewhere there. The woman goes silent, then launches into a diatribe: she has no time for the judge and his type, what would he know of the unspeakable suffering she has had to endure trying to make a living out of this heartless land? She raves on about her husband, her precious husband, and the cause of his death and how every evening after, crippled as she is, she would walk to that spot in the far paddock where their happy life came to an end. Barely four metres square. Yes, that’s right, says the viticulturist. The size of an overturned tractor, says the woman, and underneath it my husband’s mangled body. And there, says the woman, I would piss. The viticulturist looks shocked. Like a man, says the woman, proudly, spraying it all over the soil.

  Everything went quiet again.

  You get it? said Marshall. The woman’s piss is what made that wine taste so good. All the geniuses in the world couldn’t figure it out.

  It’s late, said Megan.

  Everything influences what you end up with in the glass, said Evan, animated again: soil, climate, aspect. What affects the grape affects the wine. Well that may be true, said Leon, but even on my worst days I wouldn’t drink something I knew had traces of old woman piss in it. Me neither, said Hannah. I’m going to bed, said Megan.

  Doesn’t matter, said Evan, waving an arm around: what’s important is the flavour, the structure, the lingering on the tongue. It’s old woman’s piss! said Leon. Goodnight everyone, said Megan.

  A while ago, said Evan, oblivious, there was this shiraz from Rockbank—ever been to Rockbank? I did a few jobs out that way once—which won this big wine competition. Rockbank! Dead paddocks, a few rocks, you wouldn’t walk your dog there. Best shiraz in the world!

  Balzac was married in Berdichev, said Adam.

  But that’s it, though, isn’t it, said Marshall, on his own track, this notion of perfection, that we all have to be perfect. Aren’t we all made of flesh, shitting, bleeding, puking flesh? That’s the lie at the heart of it all, isn’t it? Did that viticulturist tell his customers the main ingredient of his world-beating wine was piss. No, of course he didn’t. He put it in the cellar, made it scarce, then five years later he released it at two hundred bucks a bottle.

  The rain had stopped. Everything was quiet, save for the dripping in the pipes, out of the gutters, off the leaves. Marshall’s car was still in the ditch, mud and bluemetal around its wheels. Clouds ran past the moon and out over the sea. A few stars were showing. The waves below curled and scurried, folding the moonlight in. Out at the skyline a ship passed—it had come from the far side of the world.

  For fuck’s sake, people, said Evan. Everyone’s out there jumping off balconies and throwing themselves under trains, but we’re good, aren’t we? We’re good. We’ve had a great day, a great night, we’ve got a great life. And I love you all. Which is why, he said, reaching awkwardly under the couch, I am going to share this bottle I found in the top cupboard and not keep it to myself!

  He he
ld a bottle of Cointreau aloft. Fuck, said Megan. She sat down again. Evan pulled the cork out with a squeak, reached across and offered it to Marshall. The Honourable Member, he said. Marshall drank, and handed it to Lauren. The bottle went round: only Leon refused. It ended up back with Evan.

  Greatest country on earth, he said, sticking the bottle between his legs. Twenty-one years of growth. Australians all own ostriches! Twenty-one-fucking-years of growth. What other good-rocking country on this big mother of an earth can boast twenty-one years of growth? It’s true, said Marshall. I buy it yesterday, said Evan, I sell it today. Tomorrow I’m rich. It’s true, said Marshall. I should be happy, said Evan. That’s true too, said Marshall. So why aren’t I? Meg? Why aren’t I happy? Marshall took the bottle back. Evan sang: Twenty-one today! Twenty-one today! He laughed at his own joke. Oh when the Saints! Go marching in! Oh when the Saints go marching in! My guitar never comes out of the spare room. I don’t go out eating, drinking, socialising, or when I do it’s only because the money’s burning a hole in my pocket and I need to prove that I can spend it on any damn fucking thing I like, throw it all off the tallest building, watch it flutter onto the peasants below. Aria’s flown the coop. She loves me, I know that, she’ll love me till I’m dead, but it was too much, living with us, with Megan’s kids I mean, and all that competitive stuff going on. Sam’s done well though, hasn’t he? Meg? Sam’s done well. But he’s a pretentious arse. And now, today, this evening, my beloved Saints—excuse me, I’m going to cry—get walloped. And the whole fuckin’ season’s down the chute. By whom you ask? By whom? The Melbourne-fucking-Football-Club, that’s whom. The Melbourne-fucking-four-wheel-drive-Mercedes-club, that’s whoom. A sixty-nine-point shellacking.