The Farm at Peppertree Crossing

by Léonie Kelsall

  The sheep groaned and shook his head.

  ‘Speak people, do you? At least I won’t be all alone out here, then. Come on, out of the way.’ She pushed the sheep with her knees as she advanced toward two raised beds bordered by railway sleepers. Like a laden shopping trolley shoved sideways, Goat shifted reluctantly.

  ‘Are these supposed to be vegetable gardens?’ One plot buried beneath a jungle of weeds, the other had been invaded by the thick stems of a single species. She snapped a knee-high, purple-blotched shoot and watched rank green juice dribble onto her hands. ‘Does everything out here have to reek?’ she muttered, wiping her hands on her jeans. ‘No offence, Goat. Just saying.’

  The sheep jumped onto one of the beds, head down and snorting a challenge. Feet close together, he turned a couple of circles, then leaped directly into the air. Landed, and watched her intently.

  She would almost swear he was grinning.

  Great. One morning in solitary confinement and she’d already lost her marbles.

  She moved away, but he darted to cut her off. Roni hesitated, then changed direction. Again, Goat lunged, then froze, studying her. Turned a couple of circles on the spot. Grounded his feet and stared, like a puppy waiting to snatch at a stick he was being teased with.

  ‘You’re playing?’ She’d never realised that sheep were just like dogs. Roni feinted left, but then corrected and darted toward him. Goat reared on his hind legs, tossed his head, and then thundered away across the yard. He pulled to a dusty halt. Snorted. Stomped the ground. Then charged toward her wild-eyed, his nostrils flaring.

  Hell, his behaviour wasn’t playful, it was an exercise in domination. The ground shook and she squealed, throwing up an arm to fend off the ton of woolly lamb chops barrelling toward her.

  The sheep halted centimetres short of crushing her and stretched his neck, velvet lips kissing at the inch of skin exposed above the waistband of her jeans.

  Heart fluttering wildly, Roni risked a peek from beneath her arm. ‘It’s definitely a game, right?’ She shakily fondled his head, then tugged on his ears, the way Scritches liked. Goat leaned in with a trembling snicker of his lips, practically purring at the contact. ‘Aw, you poor thing. Are you lonely, with Marian gone?’

  He pushed closer, positively vibrating with happiness, and she snatched her hand back. ‘Oh no, don’t you go getting too attached, pal. I’m only passing through.’

  With a farewell pat, she darted toward the gate set between the orchard and the walled kitchen garden, Goat’s breath panting hard against her back. She fiddled with the latch and scurried out, dragging the gate closed. Goat reared up, resting his front hooves on the mesh so he was level with her face. He bleated piteously.

  She pulled the shirt from her chest, trying to billow cool air down her front. Without a filtering layer of smog, the clear blue sky—and a dose of fear—had her soaked with sweat. ‘Sorry, Goat. I’ve got stuff to do. You can help me in the veggie patch later.’ Shame the sheep hadn’t taken it upon himself to clear out the weeds, like he’d mowed the rest of the orchard. She would need to get some plants in if she was to earn her escape from here in a week or so.

  Week. There. She had allowed herself to think it. There was no way she could accomplish Marian’s tasks in a couple of days, particularly with Krueger overseeing and judging them. Walking back to the house, she keyed a list into her phone and jiggled it around until she was happy with the order.

  Make bread

  Weed veg garden/fence/plant

  Check irrigation

  Feed chickens

  Poddy???

  Tick those five boxes and Marian’s little odyssey into self-sufficiency would be near enough complete. Then Roni could sell up and find a place for her, Scritches and the baby.

  The cat thundered down the hall as she wandered into the kitchen. She opened a can of tuna and fed him a chunk, then threw herself together a tuna sandwich and sat to re-read the growing collection of Marian’s missives.

  Her aunt claimed to have desperately wanted her yet hadn’t cared enough to rescue her, back when she’d needed rescuing. But at least it seemed Marian was determined to do right by her now. Mostly to spite Denise, but the reason didn’t matter. Much.

  She passed another chunk of tuna to Scritches, enthroned on the yellow-cushioned chair he had claimed as his own. ‘You all right there, buddy? Mumma’s got to go and earn us some money.’

  Mumma. She liked the sound of that. One hand strayed to her belly, as it had frequently over the past few days. With the sale of this property, almost all her fears would be erased. She would have money to raise her child, the safety to provide all the love she had been denied. To cherish and protect it.

  Especially protect.

  She used her foot to fend Scritches from the back door as she headed outside. ‘Not yet, Scritch. I’ll take you for a walk tonight. You can come and meet the crazy goat-sheep thing.’

  The fish schooled at the top of the pond as her shadow swept the water. Did they need feeding, like everything else she suddenly had responsibility for? She grinned; it would be ironic to discover Krueger had forgotten to give her instructions.

  The contents of the glass jar she collected from the outdoor cellar didn’t look any less toxic than earlier, the occasional bubble oozing through the festering primordial swamp. Hot, buttery fresh bread, huh? As both her taskmaster and judge, maybe Krueger should be forced to eat what she created. Then again, maybe not: she needed him alive to vouch that she had fulfilled her tasks.

  Back in the kitchen, Scritches jumped onto the bench as she set the jar down. He sniffed at it, tip of his tail twitching, then made a leap for his chair but misjudged the distance and had to claw his way up.

  ‘Smart move, Scritch. Even Rafe wouldn’t serve this up.’

  She flattened the instructions on the countertop with a sigh. Nothing like a three-step packet-cake mix, which was about the limit of her culinary ability. Apparently, she was supposed to ‘feed’ the starter and leave it a day before she made bread, but that couldn’t happen. She had to stick to her plan of accomplishing one of the tasks each day or she’d be stuck here forever.

  With the fabric top removed from the jar, the starter looked even less appealing. She scooped out the worst of the growth, the rancid disk splattering in the sink, and then stirred flour and water into the remaining mixture. Pretty much how she’d made glue when she was a kid, but already the batter looked better.

  She elbowed Scritches away from the recipe. ‘Move, you. Cat hair’s not going to improve this.’ She mumbled parts of the recipe aloud, just to kill the silence. ‘Place flour in bowl. Create a well. Add a palmful of starter and water. Bring together.’

  Dough caked her fingers, hanging in great globs, and she grunted, then laughed at Scritches’ expression. He had a knack of raising eyebrows he didn’t possess. ‘Next, tip onto a floured board and knead ten minutes.’

  Knead? Without the help of Google, maybe she could channel the baking she’d seen on TV.

  She tentatively squeezed the sticky goop a couple of times, but then stopped; she had every research resource she could need, right here in this house.

  Hands scraped and washed, she crossed the hall, the vast cavern far less terrifying in daylight. The library shelves lacked any obvious organisation, but she eventually found a row dedicated to gardening advice, cookbooks and small-animal husbandry. Huddled on the floor she pulled out books, unable to resist the wealth of choice, the mountain alongside her growing higher. It was impossible not to be distracted from her search for basic directions by the photographs of braided breads and knotty rolls. Maybe someday she would try something like that.

  Someday soon, that was. She’d better be a quick learner.

  Armed with information gleaned from a yellow-paged, dog-eared book that looked like it had seen a lot of love, she headed back into the kitchen. She tipped more flour onto the board, squeezed the gummy mixture together and punched her fist into the centre. As the d
ough spread out, she formed it back into a ball. Punch. Tug. Fold. Punch.

  Her knuckles smacked the board, and her bicep ached. She swapped arms. This was getting old quickly. Surely five minutes would do? No, better make it seven; she had to pass the test. Serving pies and sausage rolls out of Rafe’s warmer was a darn sight easier than this. Her wrists and shoulders jarred with each impact, the dough slowly yielding, homogenising from a lumpy, floury mass to a smooth, elastic ball that stretched silkily between her hands. It smelled better now, warm and yeasty instead of like the week-old dregs of Greg’s beer. Still, she would go gluten-free for life rather than repeat this workout.

  Cover with damp towel and leave in warm place to rise. Six hours min.

  ‘Six hours?’ She looked at Scritches. ‘Misprint?’ Did no one out here realise that bread was only ninety-nine cents a loaf at Woolies? Even calculated at Rafe’s minimum-wage hourly rate, this loaf cost well over that.

  Scritches wandered into the sunroom behind her, eyeing the towel-covered bowl she balanced on the windowsill. She waggled a finger at him. ‘Don’t you touch it. I’m not repeating all that messing around, so we’ve only got one go at impressing Krueger. You want to get out of here, right?’

  She gave the cat a stroke, then slipped out the back door.

  Like bread-making, weeding took forever, the novelty of the activity soon wearing off. Maybe it wasn’t so much that time moved slower in the country as everything took longer. And a darn sight more effort. The sun had disappeared over the hill behind the house by the time she’d yanked what had to be at least an acre of weeds. Not that she knew how much an acre was, but the more her back ached, and the more the wiry strands of grass wrapped around her hands, slicing her knuckles open, the larger the veggie patch grew. She’d have to look up just how much exercise was healthy for the baby. That and what she should be eating, whether she should buy some vitamins.

  She sat back on her heels, her gaze ranging the farmyard. Ominous puddles of darkness gathered beneath trees that had seemed to offer a shady oasis during the afternoon, and the zip of nervous adrenaline chased away her fatigue. The chickens crowded the closed barn door and she groaned. Krueger would be all over her if she forgot to pen them, inking a gleeful black mark on his score sheet.

  As she reached the coop, the fowls crowded her feet, squawking and squabbling. Some were kind of cute, especially the fluffy white one who had dogged Krueger’s footsteps. She ushered them through the door and threw scoops of feed into the musty-smelling gloom. It didn’t look much for the number of birds who flocked inside, so she added a few extra. And a few more.

  Mixed with something that smelled inexplicably like honey, the pungent fragrance of eucalyptus intensified as both the temperature and the sun dropped. The chirping of wild birds filled the air, and a kookaburra whooped in the nearby wilderness. She shivered. Just her and critters out here. The sky behind the house coloured in great pastel swoops, the unfamiliarity of a sunset chased her up the yard. This time she would make sure she had the curtains closed and lights on before the dark crept in.

  She shucked her shoes at the back door, wincing as thorns embedded in the soles gouged her hands. When she saw that the towel over the bowl of dough had tented into a mountain, she grinned smugly. Then scowled at the instructions: Punch the dough back to its original size.

  Somewhat counter-intuitive, she felt, but the next step was even more ridiculous. Cover until doubled in size (6–8 hours).

  Seriously? No wonder Jesus or Moses or whichever biblical character it’d been made a couple of loaves go so far—he hadn’t time to make more. But, damn, she couldn’t afford to get this wrong so, although it meant she didn’t get to tick the task off her list, tomorrow would be soon enough to bake the bread.

  She yawned, and Scritches lifted his head to squint at her. She probably couldn’t stay awake long enough to bake tonight, anyway. All that fresh-country-air crap had exhausted her.

  Or pregnancy had.

  The now-familiar bubble of excitement fizzed inside. She would skip dinner, tuck the three of them into bed, and have hot bread for breakfast. ‘Okay, Scritch. Shower. You coming?’

  The cat reluctantly plopped off the chair.

  With one hand on the deep green floral border of the cream wall tiles, Roni groaned as she clambered over the high side of the elegant tub. ‘Are you getting in, then?’

  Scritches eyed the water swirling in the base of the bath but stayed on his ledge as Roni slowly caressed a soapy hand over her belly.

  Now she had her plan firmly in place, everything was moving swiftly. She would have her baby’s security assured in no time.

  Financial security, anyway.

  Emotional, though? She knew what it was to grow up with no history. How she had invented parents and siblings when the other kids drew family portraits in primary school. How she lied to doctors about family medical history, because admitting she didn’t know made her feel incomplete.

  But now, thanks to Marian, she could provide so much more for her baby. Even if she decided against meeting her mother, she had her name; she needed only her father’s to create a history for this baby, a sense of belonging and continuity that she had never known.

  She caressed her belly again. ‘You will have a family,’ she whispered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stomach temporarily full after breakfast, Scritches settled onto his cushion as Roni retrieved the bowl of dough from the sunroom. She frowned. Unlike last night, it lay grey and heavy, landing on the board with a solid thunk. Following the instructions, she patted it into a disappointingly flat loaf on a metal tray she found inside the antique Aga. At least she didn’t have to cut wood to feed that monster, she thought as she shoved the loaf into the surprisingly modern electric oven, then rubbed her floury hands on her grey T-shirt.

  The chickens evacuated the coop in a flurry of feathers, squawks and honks as she pushed open the door to check for eggs. ‘What the hell?’ Last night the shed had been dry and dusty, maybe a tad organic-smelling, but nothing too repulsive. Now, however, the floor was awash with … she didn’t really want to think about the ‘what’ part. No wonder the chickens were in a hurry to escape. Surely the extra grain she’d tossed them couldn’t have caused this? She swallowed convulsively, her sneakers slipping in the slime as she picked across to the layer boxes. According to Krueger, the local CWA collected the excess eggs for their fundraising. Well, they could have the lot of these organic monstrosities. She would stick with spotless, uniformly sized eggs presented in a pristine carton decorated with pictures of cute, clean birds.

  She folded the bottom of her flour-covered shirt to create a pouch and carefully loaded the eggs. One slipped from her hand and plopped into the mud-that-wasn’t-mud. It didn’t break, but if the CWA wanted that one, they could come and dig.

  She blew out a terse breath. This had to be the most ridiculous path to inheritance ever, but she had to keep her eyes on the prize. Surely the property was worth enough that she would be able to buy somewhere small? Not in Sydney, no one could afford that, but somewhere she could pick up work at a supermarket or deli, and put down roots for her little family. If collecting shit-smeared eggs and pretending to fathom some life lessons her aunt imparted was the price of her financial freedom, she was in. For a week.

  As she stepped from the shed she froze, clutching the eggs tighter. Across the dam filled with noisy ducks sat three kangaroos. Kangaroos in her yard. The tallest rocked back on his haunches, ears twitching as he kept watch, while two smaller ones lapped at the muddy water. No, wait; there were four animals. A joey tumbled from its mother’s pouch and pushed its nose in the water. Then it scrambled back in a tangle of ludicrously long legs and tail, as the mother patiently waited for it to rearrange its limbs.

  Other than Jim’s bundle of road-kill fur, the only kangaroos Roni had seen were mangy, lethargic specimens in a tourist park. But these animals, with their thick silver-and-grey pelts glistening with crystalline de
w-droplet reflections of the rising sun, seemed alert but unafraid. Though she had petted the drab, captive beasts, she would not dare approach these muscular creatures. Instead, she stood still, watching them as the chickens fluffed and rolled at her feet, scratching cascades of dust over their backs.

  Eventually, the kangaroos bounded away, clearing the wire fences without breaking stride, then disappearing through the fields of crop into the smudge of scrub blurring the skyline.

  Roni made her way back to the house, unable to shake the feeling she had witnessed something unique, unspoiled and glorious. As she entered the walled garden, her mouth salivated madly at the scent of hot bread. She tumbled the eggs into a pot plant near the back door, then headed to the kitchen. The disappointment of her screwed-up face reflected in the oven window: the loaf still resembled a blob. But perhaps there was magic in the fifteen minutes remaining on the timer.

  She scrubbed her hands in the kitchen sink, watching soil and … stuff … swirl down the drain as she planned the rest of the day. After she finished the weeding, she’d take a look at the fences. By mid-afternoon she would head into town and buy some seedlings, rather than wait on Krueger’s condescending promise to provide plants after she had obeyed his instructions. She assumed he would report her successes back to Derek Prescott, and a photograph of a fully established vegetable garden would have to tick the box on their task sheet.

  She shook her hands as if she could flick away the surge of nerves along with the drops of water. Because there was that other thing in town: the one she had been trying not to think about.

  For years she’d sublimated the desire to know her parents, using the hurt of their desertion to cauterise her yearning for connection. But could she ignore her mother’s existence when she was only kilometres away? Her lips trembled as she blew a breath out. ‘She should come to us, right, Scritch? If she knows we’re here, that is.’

  She was being a coward, but what point was there in seeking rejection? Except now … she rubbed her belly. Now she had a responsibility to her baby, a duty to provide, at the very least, a history. Names, stories, maybe even photos.