The Year of the Farmer

by Rosalie Ham

  Bennett’s taut-faced, hard-lipped wife Megan came to the front door. ‘Kevin! Jasey! Come see my new couch.’

  ‘Can’t, sis,’ Kevin said.

  Jasey explained that they were there in their capacity as the enemy.

  ‘Oh,’ Megan said, nodding in an understanding way. Megan, unlike her brother and his girlfriend Jasey, moved with the smart set. The women of the smart set, waterskiers all, were slim, marvellous cooks and belonged to the Rural Women’s Club. Their husbands played golf and cycled all over the back roads in colourful synthetic suits on unnecessarily expensive pushbikes.

  ‘So, old friend,’ said Bennett, ‘I’m actually not your enemy –’

  ‘We’re concerned that you might just be paying lip service to the idea of conservation while actually working with Gravedigger and your friend Cyril.’ Kev tried to see beyond Bennett into the house where Cyril hid.

  ‘It’s not true, but have it your way if that’s what pleases you.’

  Kevin and Jasey turned to go.

  ‘Come back and see my new couch sometime, Jase,’ Megan called.

  ‘Love to.’

  The Mocketts watched their neighbours walk down the drive, Kevin one step behind his girlfriend.

  Bennett shook his head. ‘We’re just trying to help them.’

  ‘Depends how you look at it, Benny.’

  They returned to their guests by the barbecue on the roof terrace.

  o0o

  When his phone sang the opening bars of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, Paul was coming to terms with the fact that he had less room at the newsagency than he’d had at Jasey’s IGA. He looked at his phone screen. It was Mandy. ‘I’m running a bit late, Pauly, you’d better let anyone in who’s waiting, they get a bit shitty. Thanks. Sorry.’ She hung up.

  He went to his phone’s settings and selected ‘Blister in the Sun’ for Mandy’s personalised phone alert. Then he opened the front door and beckoned to the waiting customers, saying, ‘Help yourselves,’ and went back to the mail.

  When Mandy eventually arrived, she found a pile of coins on the bench and her stack of newspapers raided and sloping across the floor.

  ‘Thanks, Paul,’ she said. ‘Real good work.’

  Larry Purfeat left his greyhounds stretched across the door and bought a magazine titled Internet for Beginners. As she handed him his change she said casually, ‘We open up earlier these days.’

  ‘Oh yeah? How early?’

  ‘Seven-thirty.’

  ‘Still too late.’

  Then Morton Campininni came in, carrying his football-shaped Chihuahua, and she told him she’d be opening up early. He waved his newspaper at her. ‘I’m going to start with the online newspapers soon as I figure it out.’ So she short-changed him five cents.

  A stroll by revealed nothing of interest at the pub, though there were fresh tracks at the back gate, so she wandered back to her shop to find Debbie there with her two kids. She and Paul stopped chatting when Mandy opened the door. She paid for a colouring book and pencils and asked if Mandy did gift-wrapping and Mandy asked if she knew anything about the pub owners. ‘Nah,’ she said, ‘but I saw a van out the front the other day. “Hospitality Industry Specialist”, it said.’

  ‘I can read,’ Mandy snapped. ‘What we need to know is who bought the pub and when it opens for business.’

  But no one could tell Mandy anything more. It was beginning to irk her.

  Then a tradie, a short man covered in grey cement dust and flecks of old plaster, came in to buy a magazine on lead-lighting. When questioned, all he said was ‘I don’t care who owns the joint – I’m just doing me job quick as I can so I can fuck off out of this shithole.’

  Paul was sitting behind his computer, absorbed in a game of solitaire, and there was no movement on the street, so Mandy researched holiday flats in Noosa Heads then moved her search to public house licensees. She’d decided to pop down to the pub to see if anything had happened when a late-model Ford Falcon with a lean, red-and-green racing bike crouched in its roof rack swung in to the kerb. The postie and the newsagent watched the car door open, showing them the Water Authority logo, and a young man get out. The cyclist was clean-cut and of medium height. He was focused on the smartphone in one hand while, on the other, two fingers searched for coins in his pocket. His blue shirt was untucked at the back and his thighs were thick and pressed against his white jeans, which were ruched from hours of sitting behind a steering wheel. He didn’t bother shutting the car door, so he wasn’t a city boy. Mandy squared her shoulders, yanked her top down at the front and leaned on the counter to maximise her depleted cleavage. ‘Hi.’

  He walked towards the newspaper stand, his boots heavy on the timber flooring, didn’t even notice Paul at his counter. ‘Got The Australian?’

  ‘Have to be early for that one,’ she said, because she only ever ordered just enough to go around. ‘Nice bike.’

  ‘Not fast enough,’ he said, and she laughed a little too forcefully.

  ‘Believe it or not, I did triathlons,’ Mandy said.

  ‘State champion?’

  ‘How’d you know?’

  Every school had at least one state champion of something. ‘Takes one to know one, I guess.’ He looked at her. The newsagent had her tits on show and her grin was smug – she was definitely sending messages, but her outfit, though designed to seduce, made her come across a bit used, more like a salvage job. There would be better in this small town, but he’d have to establish who was married to whom first. Couldn’t risk offending a potential client before he’d even started trading water. ‘What about the Financial Times?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said cheerfully. She tapped the computer keyboard. ‘I’ll make sure I get plenty.’

  ‘Keep me an Australian tomorrow, will ya?’

  ‘You’re staying around, then?’

  He dropped some coins onto the counter. ‘What’s the internet reception like in these parts?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Not good, but there’s a hot spot on the corner opposite Kev’s service station, and I know for a fact that the pub balcony’s reliable . . . and the mantelpiece at my house is good.’

  But he was reading the front page of the regional paper. ‘I’ll get you to keep The Land and the Weekly Times.’

  ‘Every day,’ she said, then remembered they were weekly papers. ‘Or every week,’ she added, ‘depending on, you know . . .’ But he was walking away, opening the paper as he went, so she called, ‘What’s your name, so I can reserve the paper for you?’

  ‘Stacey.’

  She held the coins he’d left on the counter. They were warm from his pocket. ‘I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Stacey.’

  He started his car and reversed out, not bothering to check for traffic. Paul went back to his game of cards and Mandy grabbed a local paper to see what had captivated Stacey so much. A photo of Glenys Dingle, commissioner of the Water Authority, headed a fragment declaring: Local task force agrees to release 300 gigalitres of water entitlements to the latest round of government buybacks, and on-farm efficiency improvements . . .

  Mandy liked taking bad news home to Mitch and Callum but, even better, she would see this Mr Stacey every morning. She phoned Kelli, two doors down. ‘I want my toenails done the same as my fingernail art.’ Then she erased her previous searches – coastal resorts and pub sales – and began a new search. The Water Authority website told her only that Stacey Masterson was a recent employee and that he was born in a large coastal city. Irrigation was his stated speciality. Research told Mandy that the government was committed to water-saving through improving the current irrigation system, over a hundred years old, by lasering, installing reuse systems, automation of bay outlets, farm channel decommissioning and much more, but the most captivating thing she discovered was the cost of water, per megalitre. A quick calculation told her t
hat her husband, or rather his water, was worth over a million dollars. Mitch was rich! But they would be worth much more money if Mitch could use all of his allocation, not just the twenty percent, to grow lots of food. And they’d be worth even more if they installed a new irrigation system. Suddenly Mandy understood how water conservation and irrigation affected her. Rows of linear move sprinklers straddling Bishops Corner, like so many West Gate Bridges, equated to paddocks and paddocks of thick green crops. She’d be rich!

  Reading on, Mandy was dismayed to learn that the conservation program required water savings. This will require the irrigators to obtain approvals from their financier . . . Mitch would have to sell water to implement the new system.

  Shit. Water was the most valuable asset they had. They would be poor, deeper in debt.

  She would have to be the breadwinner.

  She would spend the rest of her life right here in the newsagency. With no holidays.

  But she was entitled to some of his farm, maybe even half, and half of its water allocation, and the more water it had, the more money it was worth. Maybe she should leave – take her half of the farm and move to Bali. Do it now, before Mitch forfeited water. Or wait and sue for divorce when the property and its water were worth more? No. That would take years, and he might never pay off any debt. The dream she’d lived for those few short minutes was ruined and she was still at her counter in her shitty shop in shitsville.

  The front door and the world outside drew her. She looked towards Bennett Mockett’s office, now Stacey’s office too.

  o0o

  Kelli was also watching the new boy drive the twenty-five metres from the newsagency to Jasey’s IGA. She noted the bike on the roof but it was his hair that captivated her. It wasn’t necessary for a man to use product way out here.

  The women in the IGA noticed the new car and its flash bike – the type to join the smart set.

  Stacey got out of the car and strode into the shop, picking up a shopping basket as he passed the cash register. ‘How are youse?’ he asked, without looking at the watching women.

  Via the convex security mirrors they studied him searching for and finding bananas, bread, butter, Vegemite, coffee, sugar, a packet of biscuits and a roll of toilet paper. While Jasey scanned and packed his groceries, the others stared. Someone memorised the name on the credit card he was holding and they all checked out his shirt, trousers and boots, and if his ears were clean.

  ‘I sell postage stamps here too, if you like,’ Jasey said.

  ‘Good onya.’

  He strode out to his car, chucked his shopping onto the back seat and made his way across to Bennett Mockett’s deserted stock and station agent’s office, also home to Cyril Horrick and his Water Authority renewal project. He opened the door with a key, went in, came out less than ten seconds later, and crossed the street to his car. He chucked a U-ey, parked outside the Billabong Hotel and vanished through the beer garden gate, carrying his groceries and an overnight bag. The women were still watching when he came out, unstrapped his bike and disappeared into the beer garden again, carrying the flash red and green contraption in one hand. Upstairs, a window over the balcony opened and they saw him briefly. ‘He’s in room nine,’ Jasey said.

  The women went home to google him and do a Facebook search, and Jasey went to the back office, picked up the phone, dialled the shire offices and said to Lana, ‘Want to go for a countery one night this week, just us?’

  o0o

  Stacey had studied the Water Authority maps, specifically the outdated supply channels that ran from the river to service farms. He would show them just how good he was at this water-saving game. Glenys Dingle herself had hand-picked him for this important posting, a position whose responsibilities would garner a promotion and a fat pay rise. He would do Glenys Gravedigger Dingle proud. And he would buy himself a new Ford 290 HP 3.5-litre V6 and possibly a new bike, a Giant Defy Advanced for a cool two grand.

  He spread the map over his bed and put a red sticker on the eastern supply channel and the one farm it still fed, Bishops Corner. Then he turned his attention to the river. The river missed Bishops Corner entirely, and there was no way the property could feed from it. That was a couple of million dollars’ worth of upgrade, right there. And then there was Miss E. Shugg, owner of the very last property on Bishops Road. Miss Shugg’s was the first property the river encountered on its slow meander westwards from the mountain, the river forming the eastern boundary of her property. Stacey ran his finger around the sharp bend where the river headed north after Miss E. Shugg’s property, missing Bishops Corner entirely. Then it turned again and fed water to the Bergens, and to the Jeongs’ many plots and, finally, before it was lost completely to the west, the river embraced the town in its helix.

  Stacey folded his map and descended the pub stairs three at a time, rushing past the renovations and out the door, where he jumped in his nice new company car and, wheels skidding, took off into the sunset, every eye along the main street watching.

  o0o

  Mrs Horrick arrived at the newsagency and purchased a copy card from Mandy, who made a point of not complimenting her on her new fingernails – sky blue with tiny handguns. Mrs Horrick inserted the USB, programmed the printer and stood back with her fingers in the back pockets of her skinny jeans. Mandy called, ‘Need a hand?’ and Mrs Horrick said, ‘No, thank you,’ so she turned her attention to her web search again.

  Mrs Horrick wordlessly printed many pages of something, then purchased a packet of plastic A4 sleeves, said, ‘See you at the water meeting,’ and marched up to the Water Authority office, two busy tan puppies flopping along at her Cuban heels. Mandy went to the computer, took the master copies forgotten in the paper exit tray and studied them, smiling.

  international accreditation certificate

  Mr/Ms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . is hereby instructed and accredited in

  Submersible and Surface Solar Irrigation Pump and Meter Installation

  by Southern Water Supply and the State Water Authority.

  Mrs Horrick had printed off twenty certificates. The water meter installer – once deemed accredited – had only to write his or her name on the certificates. She had saved herself two dollars by printing the instructions for the installation of solar-powered meters and pumps on the back of the certificates.

  Also in the exit tray was a C. & P. Water Pty Ltd invoice made out to the Water Authority for $500 for ‘administrative services and consultation’.

  o0o

  The sound, like a falling log, told them that Papa had toppled again. Lana and Mati stood at the top of the back steps looking down at him, lying stiffly in the damp dirt, a smooth-skinned man with a body like bluestone. It was the cloudburst – water on dry, greasy steps – that caused the old man’s fall. He extended his hand but Lana decided he’d fallen on purpose, that he knew it was Monday, the first day of her computer classes, and had decided to ruin it for her. When they didn’t come down to help him, he let his arm fall to his breast and looked wounded and pained. She thought of the home he had not seen for decades, the terrible civil war he’d fled, the siblings he’d left behind, all dead now, and because she wanted her mother’s night to be as peaceful as it could be, she came down the steps and nudged him across to the bannister. Papa reached for the sturdy post and she helped him pull himself onto his feet. Then the old bugger raised his fist and swung, but these days Lana had plenty of time to duck. When he swung a second time she gently shoved him and watched him topple to the dust again. ‘You can’t hurt us anymore, Papa.’

  ‘Jebena kučka.’

  Mati came and they pulled him up again, brushed him off and helped him to the table, where he ate dinner sullenly.

  As she got ready to go out, Mati came to her, ‘Find nice boy, have baby. You haf to go.’

  But Lana didn’t have to leave to do any of that. Leaving meant you just did the
same thing somewhere else. She fluffed up her dark hair, sprayed another mist of eau de parfum and walked through it to kiss her mother. As she brushed the seeds and leaves from her Commodore, she lit a cigarette and drove away, music thrumming through the car doors.

  The computer lesson got off to a good start. Mrs Goldsack found her way to a chair at the front, where she could best feel movement and body heat as the locals arrived. They came clutching iPads and laptops and sat facing Lana and the screen behind her. Morton Campininni brought his fat Chihuahua, Spot, and Mrs Goldsack requested that the animal be removed, please. Spot waited patiently outside with Larry Purfeat’s greyhounds. Next to join the group were two farmers and their wives, then Denise and Kelli and Kelli’s round, colourful mother. Cyril Horrick’s wife Pam clomped in, wearing a red cowboy shirt with black piping and pearl snaps, then Paul arrived with the regulars – the much-loved barflies and pub philosophers. The regulars brought no electronic devices but they supported all community occasions . . . mostly for the free supper or the party after, but also to swell numbers. Mrs Goldsack read a list of those who had overdue library books, and Lana pressed something on her laptop. An image appeared on the screen. ‘I’ll email this presentation to you all, so you can look at it again later, but for now, find the button to switch on.’

  ‘Where do I find the email and how do I get one and send one?’

  ‘You’ve got to turn it on first.’

  ‘Yes, but once it’s turned on –’

  ‘The button . . . just find it.’

  ‘Mine hasn’t got one.’

  ‘Yes, it has.’ She pointed to the screen, which showed clearly all buttons on a variety of devices. Most of the group turned their devices over, searching for the switch. Lana waited, then went around the room showing them how to open them and turn them on, and was then compelled to pause to explain why iPads didn’t have a keyboard and why some laptops did nothing if you tapped the screen. She waited while they all wrote it down on notepads. (‘Is keyboard one word or two?’)