The Farmer's Wife

by Rachael Treasure

  ‘Go!’ Sol roared back as the flak from the encounter began to smart in Rebecca’s mind.

  Sol put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Are you all right, my princess? Did she hurt you? Come, let me see in the light. There is blood where she has scratched you. Oh, princess.’

  But Rebecca was shaking now. Princess? her mind roared. Just that word seemed to make her hackles rise in an instant. What was she to him? Another conquest on his world tour of women? After all she had been through on her own on Waters Meeting? After surviving all that she had? She felt herself stiffen. She wasn’t any man’s princess. She pushed his arm away from her, fury rising again from somewhere deep within. ‘Princess? You call me a princess,’ she said, the shock of Janine’s ambush tumbling inside her. She shook her head in confusion, as if trying to shake all the pieces of what was going on here into place. Defiantly she chose to ignore the look of compassion on Sol’s face. Instead the memory of being trodden down by the men in her life surfaced. Angrily the words came up unconsciously. ‘I don’t need you to protect me. And I certainly don’t need you to call me princess. The last thing I want or need is a man. Now leave me alone. This can’t work, Sol. Not now. Not ever.’

  And in her silver dress, that echoed the cold distance of the stars, Rebecca began to jog away into the night, barefoot across the showgrounds towards Evie’s house, the straps of her high heels hooked on her index finger, tears of anger swelling in her eyes. Berating herself for dropping her guard with Sol. Beating herself up for allowing herself to be sucked back into the complexity of that frightening world of relationships with men. All she wanted to do was to hold her Archie and Ben, and leave this mess of a night behind her. She should have known better.

  Thirty-three

  Smoke from the various fires in the pub car park rose into the clear evening sky. Charlie squatted before his own smoky fire, tongs in one hand, beer in another. He loved the annual Bush Tucker Cooking Competition that the town held every year out the back of the pub. He took a swig from his can, poked at the aluminium-foil package that was nestled in the coals and looked up. ‘Reckon we should turn her yet?’

  He was referring to the dead wood pigeon that Grunter Davies had hit with a thunk on his way to work yesterday. Knowing it was the eve of the Bush Tucker Cooking Comp, Grunter had gleefully placed the bird in his smoko Esky, along with his lamingtons and chicken loaf sandwiches. He had set the Esky in the ute cab, then, after he had parked his substantial arse on his tractor, promptly phoned around to see who wanted to be on his cook-up team.

  Charlie Lewis was an obvious choice. He never said no to a beer. But Grunter knew they needed a woman on the team. Grunter couldn’t cook. He left that to the missus. And he knew old Mrs ‘Pantyhose Pedantic’ Lewis had done everything for Charlie out on their property, bar wipe her husband and sons’ arses, so chances were Charlie couldn’t cook much either.

  Grunter had wracked his brain for a local woman who might know how to make a dead wood pigeon taste reasonable. A couple of rounds of the wheat field on the tractor with the spray rig and Grunter had suddenly thought of Chatelle Frost. Chatelle had moved back to town, freshly divorced, and was living in the old rectory with three rug rats under six. He’d put the calls in straight away and both Charlie and Chatelle had been keen.

  Now here they were, Grunter, Charlie and Chatelle, all clustered round the fire, hoping the judges would like the taste of their ‘double-smoked (roadkill) wood pigeon, wrapped in smoky prosciutto with a native pepperberry sauce’.

  ‘Yeah, sure, Basil, toss her over,’ said Grunter, scratching at his bald head under his CAT cap and draining his stubby.

  ‘No! Not yet!’ said Chatelle as she glanced at her watch. ‘It needs another ten.’

  ‘Great! That’s another beer’s worth.’ Charlie grinned as he lobbed his empty into a nearby forty-four that was already filled to overflowing with the drinking efforts of the other master chefs of the district. ‘Another beer, Grunter?’

  ‘A man’s not a camel, mate. Of course another beer.’

  ‘And another Cougar?’ Charlie asked Chatelle. She nodded, flicking a wisp of thin fair hair out of her dark brown eyes and smiling at him. She stood before him in dogger boots, skinny jeans and a padded flannelette jacket of blue check with a black scarf cast about her neck. Charlie thought again how little she had changed since primary school. She was still pretty in a local kind of way. The sleeves of her jacket were too long and her small hands looked delicate as she rattled her nearly empty can. For a moment Charlie thought of Rebecca crumpled on the floor of the Waters Meeting kitchen, blood and snot smeared across her face, her hair sticking out wild like a shrew’s. He shut out the sight of her in his mind’s eye and swigged his beer. All that surliness for all those years. She’d asked for it.

  This Chatelle, though, she was all right. She had less of a brain in her head than Rebecca. She’d be easier to handle, less complicated.

  And with three kids to keep her occupied, she’d be less of a worry than Janine, who had nothing better to do than send him irritating ‘come back to me’ texts. He blocked the women of his past out of his mind. Time for another beer, he thought, and one for the little lady. She was a bit of a tiger, this one, he suspected. He felt his mood lift as he connected with Chatelle’s inviting stare.

  ‘I never say no to another drink. Thanks, Basil.’ Her voice was as light as a bell. Very girlie, he thought. Nicely girlie. His childhood sweetheart was back in his sights after all these years. He remembered the kiss in the bag room in grade six after the Nativity Play … he a Wise King, she one of the sheep.

  As he sauntered to the makeshift bar set-up under the fire-escape steps of the large old wooden pub, Charlie took time to stop in at the other competitors’ fires. The teams of three were busy with an array of bush tucker, while bystanders stood about chatting with them and drinking.

  One team was slow-roasting wombat in wine in a giant heavy black camp oven. Another was doing a wallaby fricassee on a bed of wild rice.

  Most of the recipes took many hours of slow cooking, so the drinking and culinary supervision had begun early that morning as campfires were built, onions chopped, garlic crushed and coals coaxed to the right temperatures. The last team to arrive to join the comp was the Farnell family, who was cooking yabbies in a wild herb sauce. They were rather churchy non-drinkers, but didn’t seem to mind the ribbing they got from the well-oiled cooking crews at their late arrival.

  By dinnertime, the dishes would be laid out on trestle tables under the gleam of spotlights in the pub car park for the entire town to taste-test and vote on. They would gingerly pick at the possum and wombat, devour the roast duck and sniff at the camel and wild pig steaks.

  Then most would baulk at the snake pie that Skegsie Wilson had cooked. Skegsie had shot the giant King Brown in his kitchen, blasting a hole through the floor, the sudden boom of the shotgun scaring the kids and wife more than the snake had. There was still some shot in the pie, so the dish came with a warning.

  Charlie hadn’t been to the boozy bush tucker event in years, but he was relishing his time back at home. Even though his mum got on his nerves, it felt so good to be back eating three square meals a day, with the flashest smoko in the district thrown in. Plus everything was in order at his mum’s house. It made him feel … more settled? More cared for? More at home? What was it about Bec and her lack of ability to keep a house? It had always grated on him. Sure she could move a mob, but she was crap at vacuuming.

  Even though his mum fussed, he knew she meant well. Bec, on the other hand, hadn’t given a fat rats about him. Especially since the boys had arrived. Had he merely been the sperm donor? She’d got what she’d wanted, then nagged him to turn his sperm taps off for good. Charlie sighed. It was such a relief to be home. Sure there were times when he missed the kids, a missing that on some nights caused a hollow ache in his belly. But during the day, he mostly felt anger. He wished Bec would stop sending their paintings and their scribbled
letters to him. Opening them only opened up wounds he didn’t even know how to begin to heal. But each time he missed them, he’d down a beer and reason with himself that he’d never seen the boys much anyway. They were Bec’s domain. They didn’t really need him, so it was best he came home.

  His mum wasn’t the only one pleased to see him. Even though his dad said little, Charlie could tell he was excited to have him back. He had laid out all the plans for the place on the kitchen table the second night when Charlie announced he was staying, possibly for good. Maps, notes, paddock plans. Mr Lewis had shown Charlie the next paddock rotation for ploughing, spraying and cropping for the cereals. It was a relief for Charlie to settle back into the comfort of the old system. It was one his dad worked like clockwork from year to year on the farm.

  Even though his parents were utter squares and rarely mixed with the locals, Charlie loved the fact that the town was so near to their place. He could have Friday-night drinks with ease. Unlike the isolation of Waters Meeting, where there was only the cricket club and the Fur Trapper within a reasonable drink-driving distance. Here there was a social life on tap, whether it be golf-club functions, the RSL bar, the pub, the sports ground or pissy barbecues on other farms.

  His party persona was being well received tonight and he was enjoying chatting to many of his fellow chefs en route to the bar, people he hadn’t seen in years. As he did, he felt his phone in his pocket vibrate and he excused himself from the Johnsons, who were turning a hare on a spit. He fished the phone out and leaned on the steel upright of the fire escape. It was a message from Muzz. A photo was attached.

  A picture of Rebecca. He recognised the place as Bendoorin Show, as he could see flowers and cakes in the background with show ribbons. In the photo, Sol Stanton was leaning into Rebecca, looking as if he was about to kiss her. It was an innocent enough shot. There were other people around them and he could see the tops of the boys’ heads, standing near Sol, but what hit him hard in the stomach was the look in Rebecca’s eyes. It was a look he hadn’t seen in years. In her eyes, there was love. Desire.

  He read Muzz’s text: Private Investigator Murray at your service. Your ex-missus playing the field here!

  Charlie cleared his throat and shut his eyes as he absorbed the image of his ex-wife gazing up at another man. Ex-wife? He wondered at what point he had started thinking of her as an ex-wife? The photo had hurt. He flinched a little, then stood up tall. Resolutely he flicked Murray a text back: Thanks for that, mate. Keep an eye on her. She tarts about. The more dirt the better for the lawyers. He hated himself as he pressed the send button, but at the same time he felt a fury rise within. So Sol was the father of the baby? Rich bastard. If that was the case, Charlie vowed bitterly, he would take her for all she was worth. With determination, he strode to the bar, ordered, then, with the drinks in hand, made a beeline back to Chatelle and passed her the can of Cougar. Tonight, he promised himself, there was no backing down.

  By three am the campfires were almost cold and the party at the pub had moved from the car park to the bar. Not content with the jukebox, Charlie wanted to drive the party harder. He knew he had Chatelle on a string, but she could wait. He was tanked to the eyeballs and having fun. When he had wavered outside to the pub verandah to take a piss, he found just the party prop he was looking for. With drunken determination, he grabbed the lawn mower, lugged it through the back doors and up the rickety stairs to the first floor of the hotel, where he knew the rankest orange shag-pile carpet lay. It drooped with dust and was crusted with god-only-knew what. It could do with a tidy-up, he thought wickedly, knowing his audience would follow. When the drinkers had seen Charlie Lewis was up to his tricks, when he passed the bar pushing a lawn mower, they let out a cheer.

  By the time he had dragged the mower up the stairs and reefed the starter cord a few times, the people in the bar were loping up the stairs too, laughing, egging him on. As two-stroke fumes filled the upstairs pub hallway, Charlie gave a whoop and began to mow the shag pile down the length of the corridor.

  ‘Lookin’ a bit long,’ he called over his shoulder, through the choking fug of dust, fumes and fibre. By the time the publican had made it upstairs to put an end to the whole scene, half the corridor had been mown.

  ‘Basil effing Lewis!’ he yelled, then shook his head. ‘Cut it out!’

  ‘Huh?’ said Charlie over the droning engine.

  ‘I said cut it!’

  Charlie pointed to the carpet. ‘But I am cutting it!’

  The publican drew a line across his throat. ‘Cut it!’

  Charlie turned off the mower. ‘I was doing you a favour, mate,’ he said, leaning on the mower handle. ‘Your carpet was getting way out of hand. I can do the edges if you like? Bit of a trim up here. Bit there.’

  The publican rolled his eyes and flicked his head in the direction of the bar. ‘Everyone, downstairs. Now! Otherwise we’re shut and you’re all out. Bloody oath, Charlie Lewis, who let you back in town?’

  Like schoolkids, the drunken punters stomped back down the stairs, still chuckling. Except for Charlie, who stayed, leaning on the mower, his eyes locked on Chatelle. Chatelle, who had her back pressed against the crooked hallway wall, did not look away. She remained there, her eyes just as devilish as Charlie’s. Both wore soft seductive smiles. Charlie moved over to one of the hotel-room doors and tried the loose brass knob, his eyes never once leaving hers. The door swung open. He glanced in and nodded.

  ‘Yep,’ he said, ‘I knew it. It’s a double.’ He entered the room, knowing that Chatelle Frost would certainly follow.

  Thirty-four

  Rebecca held up a bedraggled threadbare sock and looked down to the pile of missing pairs that lay scattered on the couch like an unsolved riddle. She couldn’t help but think resentfully that Charlie’s mother would be at home pairing socks for him, so he was free to play.

  ‘What gets me is that no matter what, they always go missing,’ she said to Ben and Archie, who were scoffing toast at the kitchen table and playing with two Vegemite-smeared plastic dinosaurs.

  ‘Maybe there’s a sock monster,’ Ben suggested.

  ‘And the sock monster eats them,’ added Archie.

  ‘Maybe he does,’ said Bec. She threw down the sock. ‘Oh, I give up. They look so sad and lonely on their own. I think I’ll just start all over again.’

  She gathered up the worst-looking of the single socks, stepping over the purple plastic vacuum cleaner where it lay like a sleeping Doctor Who beast on the floor. She made her way to the woodstove in the kitchen, thinking that the awful vacuum cleaner had been a Mother’s Day present from Charlie and the boys. When she had opened it, she couldn’t help but take offence from the gift.

  Number one, it seemed to be another message from Charlie that she was not keeping the house to his liking, and number two, she hated housework. Not so much because of the work, but because of the catalogue of lack that stomped about her head when she did it. How the old house was falling down around her. How there were never enough hours in the day. What Charlie had or hadn’t done out on the farm. How she was stuck inside the house in a constant round of mess that was not only created by the boys, but by them all. There was always a scattering of clutter, complete with an assortment of mismatching items like bale twine, old Icy Pole wrappers, rubber bands and cast-off dirty clothes. She knew she used the children as an excuse, but in truth, after talking at length with Evie and Yazzie about it, she realised she had a mental block. The more she focused on the mess, the more the mess came. The more negativity she allowed in, the more it came.

  The women had asked Doreen Groggan to come and clean for Rebecca. Then, most importantly, Evie suggested getting Bec to think differently about the house. Bec had at first baulked at spending the money on Doreen, but was now mindful of how negative she had been. As she reefed open the old woodstove and threw the tumble of single socks into the flames as a symbolic defiant gesture, she realised she was blocking the flow of her life again. What w
as fifty bucks a fortnight? And what was wrong with spending money on some new socks for the kids? The agent was coming out today to finalise the value and photograph all the machinery for sale in a traders’ magazine and on the net. After next week, she’d have some cash coming in.

  To top it off, the weather was starting to warm and if the rains came, the rested pastures were sure to take off better than if they had been subjected to the old grazing regime. As she clunked the woodstove shut, she swore, then rolled her eyes wryly at herself. There she went again with another grumble to add to her catalogue of complaints. The fire door was still unhinged. Each and every time she opened it, she thought of Charlie.

  ‘Please would you fix this?’ she’d asked him over and over. But he never did. The old girl’s door seals had gone and she chewed through far too much wood as a result, trickling bright orange coals occasionally out onto the hearth that would slowly blacken and eventually die out, leaving more mess for Rebecca to sweep up. To top it all off, Charlie was not at all good at getting wood. He would bring it in in dribs and drabs, not like Gabs’s Frank, who cut walls of the stuff and stacked it around the house in a sweeping towering bend as if a king’s army was coming to raid them.

  ‘C’mon,’ she muttered to herself. ‘You’re not fucking Cinderella stuck in a rut.’ If things weren’t right here at Waters Meeting, she no longer had Charlie to blame. She only had herself to move and shake. She reached up for a dusty old pillar candle and set it on a plate. Just then the baby kicked inside her and her hand flew to the area beneath her navel. She smiled.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, stroking the taut skin of her belly. She felt she was struggling this morning. Tears had been coming easily and she felt utterly exhausted. She wondered how on earth she would cope.