by John Harris
‘As far as I know Joan keeps the ticket book and stubs, but I’ll check it out. See you back at the shed for lunch.’
I stood transfixed, watching as he swaggered down to the end of the trees and turned past the last, before screaming at the top of my lungs and punching the apples with anger.
When I started picking again, instead of pinching the apples at the stalk and removing them one by one, I just ripped off whole branches and chucked them into the bin, leaves and all, I was so angry. No longer caring about whether or not the fruit was bruised, and checking quickly that Joan wasn’t spying on me, I gripped two of the largest branches on the tree and shook. A hundred apples fell to the ground. Astonished, I repeated the motion on a different side of the tree and got the same result. ‘Fuck it,’ I mumbled, and walked around the tree shaking until there wasn’t a single fruit left hanging.
The whole lot was scooped up and the bin filled. Cleverly, or so I thought at the time, I spread a layer of the best apples over the top of the others to hide the bruised and unripe ones that weren’t supposed to go in, and started on the next tree in the line.
Gossip is rife among the pickers of Australia, and what goes on in one orchard today is tomorrow’s news in another orchard of New South Wales, and next week’s news in a Northern Territory banana orchard. The gossip usually revolves around how easy it is to pick grapes compared to mangoes, and how much one can earn picking peaches as opposed to pears, and so on. If the discussion is based upon practices within the same region, say NSW, the comparisons are usually about the size of a particular fruit. This is a picker’s bread and butter, because the bigger the apple, for example, the quicker he or she can fill each bin and the more they can make. Picking a bin full of small, tennis ball-sized Granny Smiths may require three hours hard slog, while working on large Red Delicious which are twice the size of the Grannies takes half that time.
In short it’s vital to know which orchards have the biggest fruit, and whether the orchard you’re working on has any large stuff at all. Most places grow different varieties to maximise profit, and it was this that formed the topic of conversation with the other pickers a few weeks later at the pub.
‘You see,’ Ted said, taking a sip of his bitter, ‘you’ve got your Red Delicious on all the orchards around these parts, and I say we-mmm-fuck off to another grower.’ When Ted spoke he emitted a high-pitched hum, mid-sentence, higher than a bee and not unlike a mosquito. It was normally accompanied by him breaking wind.
Albert, who returned to Jack and Joan’s every season, was on friendlier terms with them than the rest of us. He looked sceptical and took a sip from his beer. I listened intently. Rick sat and drank, never saying a word but listening nervously. He was in an awkward position now that he’d got the tractor job. He was still one of us, but his new line of work had brought him into greater contact with the management of the orchard, and some pickers had stopped talking to him. He was doing his best to stay neutral in any argument, but I think that just made people a little unsure, perhaps wondering whether what they said would get back to Jack.
Ted had no such doubts. ‘I’ve picked fruit all over this country,’ he continued, stabbing a forefinger on the table, ‘from bananas to bloody oranges, and I’ve never earned so little as I’m getting now, and that’s a fact. Jesus, I’ve never seen apples so-mmm-fucking small.’
I nodded.
‘Look,’ said Albert pleadingly, ‘we’ve got Red Delicious on our orchard, they’re just not ripe yet. When they are, we’ll pick them.’ He started to roll a cigarette. ‘Every orchard’s the same, they can’t pick the fruit until it’s ready, you should know that.’
‘They’ve been telling us that for over two months now, Al.’ I took up where Ted had left off. ‘When I first came here Joan told me not to worry; the first week or so we’ll be picking small fruit, waiting for the other stuff to ripen, and then we’ll all be quids-in. It’s just her bullshit.’
Albert looked embarrassed, suddenly realising that he sounded just like Joan, and hid behind his beer.
‘I have to say, Al,’ Rick said evenly, ‘I think they’re stringing it out a bit too far this time. Two months and they’re still not ripe?’
‘It takes time.’
‘Then why did she tell me two weeks, max?’ I took a sip of beer. ‘I’ve got no intention of going to another orchard, but from what Ted’s told me no one gets as little as seventeen dollars a bin for fruit that small.’
Albert looked dismissively at Ted. He went to take another sip of beer but Ted put his hand out, resting it in the crook of Albert’s drinking arm.
‘Matey, matey, matey, don’t give me that "don’t rock the fucking boat" mmm-cock and bullshit, please! You know as well as I do that you, me and every other fucking Aussie on that orchard is drawing dole money once a fortnight.’ Albert’s beer spilt so Ted took his hand away. ‘It don’t matter to us one way or the other if you pick reds, greens or fucking multi-coloureds. These blokes,’ he stabbed a finger at me, ‘these-mmm-backpackers are the ones who’re being exploited.’
‘He’s right,’ I said nodding. ‘We’ve got no dole money and we’ve got no rights either. We’re all working illegally. Every foreigner on that orchard, except those two Scottish girls, is working illegally. No one’s got a work permit and Jack knows it. That’s why he tells us to hide every time a car pulls up, in case it’s the immigration doing a sweep, you know that Al. We all fill out tax forms with false names and addresses just as he tells us to so that he can claim the tax back, while us poor sods put in eight-hour days for a few measly dollars. It’s bullshit!’ I slammed a hand down on the table. ‘I don’t mind putting in the hours, but he’s got to pay the going rate for the fruit, and from what I’ve heard he’s not doing that. Seventeen bucks a bin for that fruit is too low, and I’m going to do something about it.’ I gulped down my beer.
‘I don’t see what you can do,’ Albert said nervously, ‘there’s no union for fruit pickers, least not illegal foreign ones.’ He looked at Ted to see if it was worth chancing a drink before lifting the glass.
Ted put his hand out, stopping him again. ‘That’s exactly the kind of fucking attitude that’s fucked this-mmm-country up. That’s the reason I left here once before.’
‘Can I drink my beer please, Ted?’
He released Albert’s arm but put his hand back immediately as he thought of something else to say. ‘No, you’re right, there is no union, but we can-mmm-sure as hell start one.’ He sat back triumphantly and farted, wafting his hand in front of his face. ‘Fuck me, been eating too many apples.’
Albert quickly seized the opportunity and gulped down the beer, emptying the glass. It was his round and he went up to the bar. A minute or two later he came back with the drinks and about twenty packets of crisps.
We tried to change the subject away from the slavery of the orchards onto something lighter, but the atmosphere was set. Whatever we talked about we either came back to the subject of wage rates and the rights of workers, or we thought about it. I could see by the look on everyone’s face that their minds were elsewhere.
Unusually for a Friday night we left the RSL club at nine o’clock to make our way back to the orchard. Outside in the car park, a simple but very important split occurred that was subtle, yet as fundamental as anything that had been said in the bar. Rick and I had been driven into town, as usual, by Albert, but when we got outside I went over to Ted’s car. I wasn’t thinking, it just happened automatically.
‘See you back at base,’ I called over to the others.
Rick put a hand up and got into Albert’s car.
Back at the orchard Ted asked me to go up to the main field with him for a night-cap, but I could see Rick waiting for me in the sheep shed field so I declined his offer, saying that the beer had made me feel tired. He dropped me off and I walked down to the shed.
When I got inside Rick was lighting the fire. I went over to the table to boil some water for tea. ‘Hungry?’ I as
ked.
‘I’ve thrown the sausages away,’ Rick called, reading my mind. ‘They were fly-blown.’
‘Fuck, nothing lasts in this place. Black and Gold tinned stew it is then.’
‘None for me,’ he said without looking away from the fire. Rick seemed uncharacteristically pensive, and was tearing off little strips of a cardboard box to get the wood started rather than putting the whole thing on as we usually did.
Rick lit the fire and sat on his bed. ‘It’s Ted you want to watch out for, John. He’s a nice old bloke and all that, but I know what Jack’s like; if anyone rocks the boat he’ll give them the boot.’
I tutted. ‘Oh leave it out, you’re scaring me. You sound just like Joan. That job’s gone to your fucking head.’
He looked at the fire. ‘Do you want stay here, John? I don’t. All I want to do is get enough money together so that we can get back into Asia again, or South America, that’s all.’ He looked around. ‘Don’t forget that. Don’t start fighting for the rights of fruit pickers in Australia. Fook ’em. Fook ’em all. You and me have got our own dreams, and it’s not living in this fooking shithole. If you get chucked out of here, then what?’ I didn’t reply. ‘No, just keep your head down, save the money and let’s get going. In two months the season’ll be finished and we’ll have enough for a flight out. One of the only things you saved from the boat was your pocket atlas, so I know you don’t want to stay in one place.’
I slumped on the bed. ‘They’re taking the piss though, Rick. We can’t earn any money. At this rate it’ll take me forever just to get the price of a train ticket to Sydney, let alone a plane ticket!’
He sighed. ‘Just steer clear of Ted, that’s all I’m saying. He may sound very brave in the bar, but when Jack shows him the door on Monday he won’t think it’s so funny.’
‘Gate,’ I corrected.
‘Whatever. He won’t look so clever then. Albert’s well in with Jack, and you can bet your bottom dollar that he’s up at his house now telling him what was said in the pub.’
We didn’t say much more that night, and after the gas bottle ran out I went straight to bed, hungry. At least I think it was hunger, I was still so angry about being cheated over the price of bins it was hard to tell.
As usual I dreamt a lot that night. I dreamt about beaches and girls, and I dreamt about being home in England, which was very unusual. But more than anything else, I dreamt about revolution.
SIX
The straw that broke the camel’s back – salt sprinkled on already painful hand blisters – is what came at the end of that week when, instead of being moved on to pick the Red Delicious as promised, we were all told to pick another variety. Far from going on to that huge, mythical fruit (where one apple could fill a whole bin!), we were guided, with our ladders, to an area of the orchard that none of us even knew existed. In this section of the field, the trees hadn’t been pruned, making it harder to pick, and the fruits on those trees were not much bigger than walnuts.
There was a collective sigh from the dozen or so assembled pickers as we trudged off to our different row of trees (even the Swedish guy only jogged), each person’s head hanging down at the prospect of having to work twice as hard for the same amount of peanuts. Jack and Joan didn’t hang about. They knew they weren’t flavour of the month and zoomed off on the bike before the inevitable griping started.
The noise of an engine sounded in the distance and slowly grew louder. Rick appeared beneath my tree, looking left and right, unable to see me in amongst the high branches. I picked an apple and dropped it squarely onto the top of his head, making him jump and bang his knee against the dashboard.
‘Didn’t see me did you?’ I said, well satisfied at his shocked expression.
He switched off the engine. ‘Come down.’
Using a thick branch as a swing, I dropped and propelled myself forward, landing in my empty bin.
‘Haven’t you picked any yet?’ Rick said, rubbing his bruised knee.
‘No. Why, what time is it?’
‘Nine.’
That meant that I’d been daydreaming up the tree for well over an hour. I climbed out of the bin and slumped against the tree trunk, pointing up at the branches and sneering. Rick looked up and shook his head. ‘They must be joking.’
‘Seventeen bucks a bin still. No more, no less.’
He sighed. ‘What do you think?’
‘I can’t do it, Rick, it’s as simple as that. I’ve lost my momentum; putting us onto these trees after everything they said isn’t funny. It’ll take three or four hours just to fill one bin. Do you realise that works out to around five dollars an hour for working like a dog, under this sun? Christ, road sweepers get more than that.’ I paused and threw an apple against the tractor wheel, ducking down as it rebounded and flew past me. ‘No, either she raises the price or I’m off. It’s an insult.’
‘It’s not left to Joan, it’s Jack’s decision how much you get per bin.’
I shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
Rick got off the tractor and rolled us both a cigarette. ‘How much money have you got saved?’
‘Just enough for an airline ticket out.’ Although the money we were earning was pathetic by any standard of the civilised world, our out-going expenses were minimal. Apart from the cost of food and tobacco there was little else to spend money on. We had no means of getting into town, except on a Friday when Albert took us in to get the week’s supplies, and were therefore saved from ourselves as far as drinking was concerned.
One thing that did aggravate me though, was the ten dollars per week that all pickers had to pay back to Jack, supposedly for the use of electricity. Apart from one shower a day to wash off the dust, and the occasional use of the camp washing machine, there was no other use of electricity on the site. Everyone cooked on their own personal gas stoves. Ten Australian dollars may seem a petty amount to moan about, but to me it represented two hours of back-breaking work, and the more I thought about it, the more I boiled inside.
I stood up and took the satchel off, flinging it into the bin. ‘I’m going to get the price raised,’ I said firmly.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To talk to the others, see if they’re as pissed off as I am.’
Rick took his hat off. ‘John, he’ll kick you out, you know he will. We’re almost there, we’ve both got enough for a ticket, and in a few more weeks we’ll have some spending money as well. Don’t fuck it up!’ he shouted.
‘He can’t kick everyone out. I’m going to start a union.’ I began to walk down between the rows of trees. Behind me Rick switched on the engine and followed in the tractor.
‘John, he won’t give in, I know him, I know what he’s like.’ He trundled past and turned, blocking my path. ‘Jack’ll go into town and immediately find twenty other pickers to replace you. Where will it get you?’
‘Pride,’ I said, turning and ducking through the trees so he couldn’t follow. ‘I may need the money, but fair’s fair.’
I spent the rest of the morning going from picker to picker in order to gauge their level of dissatisfaction, and to determine whether I had enough, if any, back-up in asking for the price per bin to be raised. It was all very well my going up to Jack and complaining, but unless he saw broad support he’d just give me the boot.
Out of the twenty or so pickers at the orchard, all of them complained bitterly about how difficult it was to fill a bin with such small fruit but only about half said they’d back me in any stand-off with the management. I tried to rally the others but they were vague, saying they needed time to think about it, which basically meant no.
I didn’t even bother talking to some of them because I knew they were a completely lost cause so I decided to concentrate on the ‘maybes’. With the help of the two Scots, who said that they could persuade people they were friendly with, we agreed to meet in our shed that night for a pow-wow, instead of going to the pub. Even those who didn’t have the balls to stand up for th
emselves were welcome to come along if they wanted to, and were told to spread the word. We were to meet after dinner, and I made sure that Jack and Joan knew what was going on.
‘Just ask him to raise the price per bin, that’s all.’ I stood beside the blazing fireplace and studied the assembled faces, all flickering and glowing orange from the flames, going through the same speech that I’d given Rick; the same one that Ted and I had gone over with Albert in the pub. Everyone asked the same questions and voiced the same concerns as before, and I went through the likely scenario as I saw it, dismissing their worries out of hand. I was getting good at this union stuff, and enjoying it too, ending as usual with my favourite line: ‘They can’t sack us all, there’d be no one left to pick the fucking fruit!’
To my utter astonishment Albert had come along with the others, and, although I thought he was nothing more than a spy for Jack, I let him sit in, pretending to welcome his presence. He, like Rick, sat on the periphery of the gathering, both physically and metaphorically. If Rick had been a picker he would have been standing where I was standing, but he had a cushy job and didn’t want to lose it before he had earned enough money to get out of Australia. I didn’t hold it against him, but wondered if I’d have behaved the same way in his position.
The upshot of the gathering was that I, as the representative, would ask Jack for the price per bin to be raised by three dollars. I was to approach him first thing Monday morning, while everyone else would stay in their tents and refuse to go to work. He would either bend under pressure or sack the lot of us.
As the gathering dispersed and people began to leave the shed, an old Sham 69 song came into my head. I’d only been a kid during the punk movement, but my elder brother had played this particular song non-stop. I used to sit in the bedroom with him, quietly inconspicuous in the corner, trying to understand the lyrics. Suddenly they all came flooding back to me now, and before the first person had left the shed I put up one fist and said, ‘Remember, if the pickers are united they will never be divided!’