Love in the Age of Drought

by Fiona Higgins

  I soon discovered that as low-key as one might attempt to make a wedding in rural Australia, matrimonial fervour was easily ignited. As the bush telegraph got wind of our engagement, we were inundated with attention. People I hadn’t met developed an intense interest in our impending nuptials, offering advice and assistance on everything from stationery – ‘You must match your envelopes to your invitations’, to honeymoons – ‘Noumea is nice, much nicer than Fiji’, to wedding gowns – ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t have a train, I’ve regretted it all my life’.

  Unexpected gifts with explanatory notes were routinely left on our doorstep, including a delicately crocheted yellow coathanger; To hang your gown on; the yellow won’t mark the white fabric; large mixing bowls, You’ll need them once you’re married, believe me; and an embroidered blue box, For storing your garter in after you’ve thrown it to the crowd. There was no way in Hades that I’d be wearing a garter – let alone throwing it to anyone – on my wedding day. I doubted, too, that matrimony would reveal any latent culinary aptitude in me. And as for white weddings, I didn’t have the heart to impart the news that my dress was the subtlest shade of blue. But I wasn’t going to let any of this dampen the flames of friendship in the district.

  A more overt rocking of the traditional boat occurred, however, with our choice of minister for the church ceremony. I was thrilled when my friend and mentor from the ethics program, The Reverend Dorothy McRae-McMahon, offered to fly up to country Queensland to officiate at the ceremony. A retired minister of the Uniting Church in Australia, Dorothy was well known for her advocacy on human rights issues. Before my move to Queensland, we’d spent countless hours in coffee shops discussing sex discrimination, the rights of impoverished Third World workers and the needs of the homeless on Sydney’s streets. While Stuart and I thought it made perfect sense that we should be married by someone we loved and respected, we first had to seek the blessing of the congregation of the Uniting Church of Cambooya.

  ‘I’m from Sydney,’ I explained to a member of the church council over the telephone. ‘I’m sure that your minister would do a wonderful job. But it would mean the world to us if we could be married by our friend who is a retired minister in the Uniting Church. She’ll fly up for the day and, with your permission, conduct the ceremony. Would that be possible?’ The councillor paused.

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem at all,’ came the gracious response. ‘Understandable really. And it’s nice to have our church used for weddings. Doesn’t happen very often ’round here. Who’s the minister you have in mind?’

  I cleared my throat. ‘The Reverend Dorothy McRae-McMahon.’ A telling silence ensued.

  ‘Well,’ came the cooler response, ‘I think you’ll have to write a letter to Council about that . Not everyone will agree, you know.’

  Aside from Dorothy’s vocal activism on social justice issues, she had come out as a lesbian in the 1990s. It turned out that the Uniting Church of Cambooya, like many other churches, wasn’t at all united on the issue of homosexuals in the ministry. Our request prompted prolonged and vexatious debate within the congregation. I could only imagine the polarising conversations taking place over morning tea after Sunday service.

  Finally, after several letters, telephone conversations, visits to the church and a meeting with the resident minister for the greater Drayton parish, the congregation agreed to our request. I was relieved that broad-mindedness had prevailed and sent an effusive letter of thanks and an invitation to the ceremony to all members of the congregation.

  In the weeks that followed, we spent hours with Dorothy weighing up the nature of our marriage ceremony and the language of our vows.

  ‘Fi and I have come a long way,’ said Stu during one of these sessions. ‘Things were really fragile at the beginning. It was bloody hard; a farmer in one place and a city girl thousands of kilometres away.’ He shook his head, remembering the challenges. ‘It was like trying to cultivate a tiny plant in a glasshouse – it took a while for the roots to take.’ I smiled at the metaphor. ‘But our relationship’s grown into something really solid,’ he continued, ‘despite a few attempts to chop it down.’

  Dorothy nodded, recognising Stuart’s reference to our breakup. She’d seen me regularly during those painful months of separation, offering comfort and counsel as I dealt with the loss.

  ‘Our relationship’s evolved through all of that,’ I added, ‘and we’re ready for the next step. Of course, it’s a risk and it won’t be perfect. But no-one has a perfect relationship.’

  Stuart looked at me with hopeful eyes.

  ‘But maybe we’ll get close to perfect imperfection,’ he said, smiling. ‘That’s my aspiration for our marriage.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Winter loomed and the season turned, delivering sub-zero nights and morning frosts. Three weeks before our Big Day, Stuart was offered a short-term agricultural consultancy contract in Mozambique.

  ‘I’d really like to do it, Fi, if that’s okay with you,’ he said. The project involved assessing the irrigation efficiency of rice farms across several provinces in Mozambique.

  ‘Rice isn’t my crop of choice, of course. In fact, I know bugger all about it,’ he laughed. ‘But I could make a big difference on the irrigation side, improving systems and getting a better return for small growers. Don’t worry, I’ll be back for the wedding.’

  I saw the light in his eyes and naturally agreed – here was another opportunity for him to contribute to the developing world, while diversifying his income. I wasn’t about to morph into Bridezilla and refuse to let him go.

  Almost no rain had fallen for more than six months. But on the morning of Stuart’s return from Mozambique, just two days before our wedding, the heavens opened and the first substantial rain fell since my arrival in Jandowae. I was already in Toowoomba, welcoming wedding guests arriving from Sydney, when Stuart telephoned. ‘I’m on my way from the airport, but I can’t stop to see you. I’ve got to get out to Gebar to start pumping,’ he said, urgency in his voice. ‘It’s Murphy’s Law of Drought, Fi. It doesn’t rain properly for a year, then two days before our wedding, when I have to be somewhere else, it starts bucketing down.’

  The unexpected deluge was of biblical proportions. The creek had risen, burst its banks and the farm was awash. When Stuart called again a few hours later, I could hear the distant throbbing of a motor driving a pump, sucking millions of litres of water from the overflowing creek. Stuart couldn’t neglect such a rare opportunity to harvest water, even for his own wedding.

  ‘I’ll make it to the ceremony, I promise,’ he assured me. ‘Bloody hell, it’s like the farm’s the Other Woman. Whatever she demands, she gets,’ he laughed.

  And indeed I was jealous – not of Stuart’s focus on Gebar, but of his freedom to be there and to relish the soaking rain. I knew where I’d rather be.

  Later that day, Stuart emailed me some photographs of Gebar taken after the rain. The transformation was incomprehensible. A small lake encircled the Danube and all manner of creatures – including a rat and a wallaby – were swimming around the property. Stuart had positioned walls of sandbags around my office, to prevent it from floating away. The bush telegraph was running hot with tales of who had received the most rain, whose head-ditches had blown out, and whose machinery was bogged.

  ‘You and Stu should get married more often,’ Marie gushed down the telephone, ‘because that’s what I reckon caused it.’ Her excitement was contagious.

  ‘Well, whatever caused it,’ I said, ‘I’m so glad the drought’s broken.’

  ‘I wish,’ Marie replied, with characteristic directness. ‘It’s not that easy, Fi. To break a drought, you need soaking rain over a season.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, deflated, ‘I thought maybe …’

  ‘I’m not trying to be negative,’ Marie interjected, ‘but it was a freak storm. A lot of it just washed away. And some people hardly got any, poor buggers. You’re either under it, or you’re not.’<
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  I sighed at my naivety.

  ‘But don’t get me wrong, any rain’s better than none,’ she continued. ‘And I reckon it’s a great sign for your wedding.’

  I smiled to myself. In Sydney and cities everywhere, brides prayed for sunshine on their wedding day. In rural Australia, a wet wedding was a propitious omen for a lifetime of happiness.

  Despite the rain and mist preceding it, our wedding day was bathed in gentle winter sunlight. A light breeze played at my hair as I stepped out of the car, lifting the edges of my silk gown above the damp earth. I climbed the rickety stairs of Cambooya Uniting Church and paused to embrace my mother, on whose arm I had chosen to walk down the aisle. She stood erect, her head approaching my shoulders, a purple fascinator dangling in her hair. She stood in the place where my father should have been, just as she had done all of my life.

  I squeezed her hand and we stepped together onto the strip of well-worn red carpet. The happy faces of family and friends lined the pews, each casting an invisible, emotional imprint upon me as I passed. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I approached the altar. Dorothy McRae-McMahon, in ruby-and-white ministerial robes, smiled at me, encouraging me on. Stuart towered next to her, eyes glistening.

  Together at the altar, we lit candles in honour of those who could not be present. The first candle was for my father, alone in his bed, thousands of kilometres away. The second was for my grandmother, who had heard about Stuart just days before she died. The third was for Stuart’s grandmother, who continued to endure powerfully in his memory although she had passed away years earlier. The candles radiated the warmth of those whom we had loved and lost. The late afternoon light danced through the rustic stained glass windows as Dorothy announced our hopes for our marriage:

  Marriage is a daring adventure, a lifelong commitment between two people, and a grand statement of hope in the face of human realities.

  Marriage is the celebration of the ordinary: day by day, moment by moment, moving in authentic life together and honouring the raw truth in each other.

  Marriage is a step in a journey already begun: a different, bolder walking together, built on the rock of its vows, moving secure in daily kindnesses, binding in its love, yet freeing for passionate life, calling each other on in ways beyond imagining, towards an ending not yet formed.

  Marriage is a relationship in which neither takes life from the other, but through love and grace, a new life is formed between them which is deeper and more creative than each living alone.

  In the place of a traditional sermon, Dorothy delivered a personal reflection on our nuptials.

  ‘I have known Fiona for several years and I have watched the beginnings of love develop between her and Stuart, like a tiny seed that begins to break open and bloom into growth,’ she began.

  ‘A seed that started to grow, I suspect, almost in spite of Fiona, in the centre of other agendas and assumed priorities,’ Dorothy smiled knowingly at me.

  ‘But there it was, in both its vulnerability and its promise – such a mixture of frailty and strength as it grew.’

  ‘Over the years as a member of the clergy,’ she observed, ‘I’ve watched many people fall in love and marry. So I found it very interesting to see that the love between these two people, whose capacity to reflect on the nature of life and love is so well developed, could have such fragile beginnings. There were so many things that needed to be explored, examined and discussed.’

  Laughter rippled through our guests; they knew us too well.

  ‘In other words,’ continued Dorothy, ‘this love was tested at every point, before it could decide whether it really lived or died. I watched this love; I watched it begin to grow like a bud, ready for opening.’ She gazed around the room.

  ‘The only way to see if this love would live and blossom was in fact to move into it, to determine whether or not the future could be seen.’ Dorothy looked at me directly, acknowledging the leap of faith I had taken in moving to country Queensland.

  ‘One of the reasons why marriage is important,’ she continued, ‘is that it is the moment when you decide not whether you will stay together, but how you will stay together, in what manner you will stay together. You resolve that the decision is made and the commitment is there – no more discussion.’ I squeezed Stuart’s hand.

  ‘For Stuart and Fiona, their relationship has been carefully cultivated over the past few years, like a precious plant within a glasshouse. By taking this step of marriage, they are choosing to take their relationship outside the protection of the glasshouse.’ Stuart nodded, his face sober, perhaps imagining tempests ahead.

  ‘Some people, of course, stay inside the glasshouse throughout their marriage,’ Dorothy continued. ‘They sit there, and externally it all looks very beautiful, sometimes perfect, but something’s lacking.’ She smiled at the assembled guests.

  ‘When you decide to step outside the glasshouse into life, something very important happens. You live with the sort of freedom and passion which produces a very hard-won joy in a relationship, rather than something that just sits there within its own boundaries, fences protecting it.’ Dorothy’s words reverberated within the weatherboard walls of the church.

  ‘You let your love live. You let it live. In ways that may be quite unpredictable, even if it costs you. Fiona and Stuart know it’s a risk. To love someone else in a way that is truly open and giving and adult, is to risk the path of pain.’

  At that moment in our country church, every fibre of my being hummed with a deep, visceral comprehension of what it meant for one person to deeply love another. Lifting my veil, Stuart kissed me and then raised my left hand to the cheering applause of family and friends. I floated down the aisle and out onto the yellowed lawn, to be showered in rose petals and the good wishes of those closest to me. The soft petals fell into my bodice, down my back and onto the wilted lawn, their colours making a vibrant statement of hope and fecundity in the face of drought and despair.

  Later that evening, as the last of our wedding guests retired, Stuart and I drove to a nearby bed and breakfast to spend our first night together as a married couple.

  ‘I’m not really sure what it’s like,’ confessed Stu, as I rested my head on his shoulder, ‘but it comes with good local recommendations. They have a special honeymoon package. I’ve already got the key.’

  We opened the door to a bungalow overlooking undulating pastoral land. A handwritten note stood against a bouquet of flowers cut from the owners’ garden: ‘Congratulations, Fiona and Stuart. Champagne is next to the spa. Best wishes, Yvonne and Gary.’ The prospect of a soothing soak in the spa appealed. It had been a long, emotional day, and we were blissfully fatigued.

  I filled the tub to its brim and we derobed, sinking with relief into the warm water. Stuart pushed the spa button and jets of air spurted from below. As I basked in the depths, I suddenly noticed something dark swirling among the bubbles. I sat up and peered at these black clumps, which were increasing at an alarming rate.

  ‘Oh my God!’ yelled Stu, slamming off the spa, grabbing my hands and yanking me out of the water. We stood, naked and shivering at the edge of the bath, as hundreds of tufts of human hair floated to the surface.

  ‘I’m so sorry. That’s disgusting,’ said Stu, repulsed. I stared, speechless, at the hairy maelstrom. ‘That hair must’ve been collecting in the spa mechanism for months,’ he said. ‘It’s obviously been a slow year for this establishment.’

  The following morning, having barely recovered from the spa incident, we were awoken by an imperious rap on the door at seven-thirty. I stumbled out of bed and opened the door to Gary, a 50-something farmer and co-owner of the B&B.

  ‘Yvonne’s been cooking you two breakfast,’ Gary said sternly. ‘She wants to know when you’re comin’ over to the house.’

  I blinked in disbelief. For crying out loud, Gary, we’re newlyweds. Do you think Yvonne’s breakfast is on our minds right now? I politely responded that we’d be over in
half an hour.

  I returned to the bedroom and pulled a face at Stu, who had overheard the interaction.

  ‘Hair in the spa, and people barking at you the morning after your wedding,’ he despaired. ‘Bloody rural Queensland.’

  CHAPTER 15

  The post-nuptial dust settled and life at Gebar returned to its predictable seasonal routine. Taking advantage of the pre-wedding rain, Stuart planted a small crop of late-season wheat. It was an opportunistic winter sideline that he hoped would generate some much-needed cash flow. In so doing, he had taken a punt on receiving follow-up winter rain, conserving the dam water for a potentially more profitable summer crop. I watched with interest from the Danube window as the wheat’s green tips began to spear skywards.

  My interest quickly turned to concern, however, as these tender shoots began to attract an unhealthy level of interest from raucous flocks of pink galahs. I took to running out of the Danube intermittently during my workday, a human scarecrow dedicated to deterring their persistent advances. I figured that such irregular physical activity was roughly equivalent to walking to the photocopier in the Sydney office, minus all the arm-flapping.

  Soon I altered my after-work jogging schedule in the name of wheat security. Instead of my usual jog to the windmill and back, I took to running to the north-eastern perimeter of the property, where I would do my best to fluster a mob of kangaroos enjoying sunset canapés care of Stu’s wheat crop. It was too much for the roos to resist the succulent strips of green, rippling in the field. My guerrilla tactics involved dropping to the ground and crawling on my belly, advancing as close as possible without attracting the mob’s attention. When the roos inevitably sensed my presence, temporarily pausing from their smorgasbord to sniff the air inquisitively, I leapt from behind a head-ditch with a loud ‘Yaaaaaaaaaaahhh!’ This spectacle put the roos off their wheat for no more than ten minutes, but it was the principle of the matter. It was my small contribution to the integrated pest management of Stu’s crop.