The Year of the Farmer

by Rosalie Ham

  ‘I heard. Sounded bad.’

  They flung back the covers, still dopey from their post-root afternoon snooze, and tottered on swollen, sleepy feet to the window. The sky was wet and the driveway shiny with water. They went to stand on the back verandah, put their hands out to let the steady rain splash onto their palms and smiled at each other. At the river’s edge the ducks preened. Mr Fox was nowhere to be seen. ‘He knows I’m watching him,’ Jasey said.

  ‘He doesn’t want to get wet, but he’ll get hungry again.’

  It was still raining an hour later when Jasey and Lana faced each other over the rumpled bed in the master bedroom of Jasey’s ancestral riverbank cottage.

  ‘You’ll look stupid prancing about in high heels with your tits hanging out at a meeting full of farmers. Let Glenys Dingle be the one who looks stupid. Alluring, remember. Alluring.’

  Lana buttoned her shirt, then they dashed through the rain and climbed into Kev’s van. Kevin was whistling.

  ‘This might be an obvious question,’ Lana said to him, ‘but I’ll ask anyway: why are you so friggin’ happy?’

  ‘Because tonight is a perfect opportunity to air grievances, and that fills me with rare . . . um, bonhomie.’

  ‘False bonhomie,’ Jasey said. ‘No one can pay you, Kevvy, no one’s got any money.’

  Kevin pointed at the sky. ‘It’s raining.’

  They drove the short distance to the hall and Jasey and Kevin helped Lana set up. They lined up chairs and tested the PA and checked the restrooms had toilet paper. Cyril strode into the hall with Stacey, whom Lana acknowledged with a professional nod. Close up, he was not as handsome as she’d thought; his hair was receding at the temples and he had the kind of build that would thicken after forty, but he was a young man in full command of himself and he was standing in front of her wearing a nice shirt, and a yearning swelled inside her. Then Cyril was in her face. He waved at the PA microphone and whiteboard. ‘You want some help to work all those hurdy-gurdies?’

  Lana looked at the man in charge of the Water Authority and said, ‘Want me to tell you how to move papers around on a desk, Cyril?’

  Cyril shrugged. He was only trying to help the girl.

  o0o

  At the pub, Neralie farewelled her mother and said, ‘You can’t say anything, they’ll say you’re taking sides.’

  ‘Your father’s staying home,’ Elsie said. ‘I’m about to be the cook at the one and only pub. No one’ll say anything to upset me.’

  Neralie went to the balcony to watch the passing utes. They were mostly the same utes, though sun-bleached and rattly. She imagined all those people in the hall, the yadda-yadda and blah-blah, and thought she might sneak into the old projection room to hear the arguments unfold, see her old mates. But then Mandy’s little white wagon rolled past and she leaned back into the shadows behind the falling rain.

  o0o

  A chair scraped, and the five people in the hall turned to see Elsie McIntosh rearranging her chair so that she could view the entire audience as well as the presenters.

  ‘Good to see you, Mrs McIntosh,’ Cyril said, and wondered why she never bothered to put a ribbon in her hair or something.

  Elsie replied, ‘Get to the point tonight, Cyril, and speak up so the people up the back can hear.’

  The population of the town and surrounds began to filter into the hundred-year-old hall. The farmers came early, slapping the drips from their hats against their jeans. They sat together at the back with their arms crossed, the women chatting like happy cousins. The townies – residents, businesspeople and shopkeepers – came in next, their shoulders rain-streaked, and walked past the farmers, pretending they hadn’t noticed them. Then Mrs Maloney led the other riparians, Mati and Papa Jovetic. They claimed the middle seats around Elsie and assumed a determined air. The ferals, grubby, rope-haired ring-ins, Centrelink avoiders all, leaned along the walls around the exit, wary and ready to flee. The regulars swelled at the door and retreated, but dribbled back in and relocated chairs into the shadows cast by the old projection box. Then the women from Single Mothers Street arrived and the single girls, always in pairs, left their umbrellas dripping at the door and made their entrance, conspicuously rather than grandly. They sat in the front row, positioned their hair and smiled directly at Stacey. Lana appraised them and felt confident Stacey Masterson would be hers before the end of the week.

  The air was damp, condensation already dripping down the windows, and the sound of rain swelled, filling the hall with a tinny din. Mandy Bishop appeared and boldly led her husband and father-in-law up the centre aisle, Callum leaning on his stick, his tam-o’-shanter beaded with rain. Callum and Mitch peeled off to sit with the farmers, but Mandy continued on and took a vacant seat next to Denise, who immediately turned to speak to a townie across the aisle. Mandy pretended there was something to see on her phone.

  A glance around the hall told Mitch that all eyes were on him. His wife was sitting with the townies . . . and they knew, they all knew Neralie was back, had probably known for weeks, perhaps months, that the McIntosh family and their Sydney partners had bought the pub.

  Dread settled in his heart and he shivered, conscious of the clammy atmosphere. Someone turned the ceiling fans on.

  At the back of the hall, Glenys Dingle extended her hand and Stacey placed her hat in it. She positioned the pristine Akubra on her carefully constructed golden curls and walked importantly up the centre aisle with the new boy in town following. Glenys looked out at the ‘task force’ around her – just petals floating above a bed of colourful grasses really, since Glenys always wore reading glasses to blur the hostile faces. Lana stood at the lectern and blew into the PA and the din ceased. She introduced Mr Cyril Horrick and Mr Stacey Masterson, and said that the first address of the evening would come from the head of the State Water Authority, Ms Glenys Dingle.

  No one clapped.

  Glenys ran her manicured fingers over her plaited stockman’s kangaroo-skin belt and the women in the audience decided she was too old to wear jeans that tight. She smiled and thanked the audience for attending, and said that it was ‘greatly amusing that they could hear rain on the roof at a meeting about water!’ Then she told them how bright the future looked and that she was proud of her long association with the area and that she adored the landscape and the aroma of irrigated crops at sunset and the sound of frogs and crickets that irrigation produced and that she had fond memories of the town when it was a thriving place and she was ‘just a girl’. Some smart-arse called out, ‘It’s good you can remember back to 1898.’

  Glenys pressed on, reading from a government brochure titled ‘Our Farmers. Our Future’.

  ‘This year is your year,’ she declared sweetly. ‘The farmers are appreciated and all water authorities aim to celebrate and support the farmers and the vital role they play in feeding, clothing and sheltering us all.’

  Esther said, ‘Well, why don’t you allow us to get on with it, then?’

  And Elsie added, ‘We need you to get to the point, Glenys.’

  At the sound of Elsie’s voice Mitch’s heart quickened.

  Glenys dropped the fake smile. ‘A key benefit of our Water Authority renewal project will be that all of you who use the river – the irrigators who use the water for rural business, the town folk, and those of you who choose to live along the river and to be part of its natural fluctuations – will achieve long-term sustainability via the procedures we are forced to put in place to rectify the accumulated problems. Going forward there will be water and economic security.’

  She paused so that the subtext – We’re in this mess because of you – filled the room.

  ‘Our campaign publicity is clear about the new efficient infrastructure we are in the process of installing throughout the region.’

  And it was true, the brochures showed acres and acres of irrigation ditches and
thick green crops with metal constructions dotting their peripheries, and horizontal sprinklers spraying clean water, and smiling happy models dressed as farmers holding iPads.

  ‘We need your help to put more water into the river system and this in turn means you can get more water whenever you want, even if there’s a drought, because we’ll have some put aside for you, your water, which you will have accumulated through efficient savings. And there’ll be more water for recreation and the environment as well, and so with more water running your rivers will be healthier . . .’ She flung her arm out in an embracing way, gathering in her flock, but inadvertently toppled her pristine hat from her perfect curls. She continued, as though she was used to wearing an Akubra with a wide brim and that it often fell from her head. ‘Everyone will benefit.’ Cyril picked up the hat and put it on her head, giving it a bit of a tap, then gave a thumbs-up to the audience.

  ‘You’ll need to get to a point quite soon,’ Esther said, ‘or I’ll either wet my pants or die of old age.’

  Glenys identified those with urban clothing and less seared complexions and addressed that group, knowing they’d be townies. ‘We’ll be able to regulate flow and get rid of weirs and some remaining levee banks upstream so your water quality will improve through less silting, and fewer silt nutrients means fewer weeds.’

  One of the ferals called, ‘At last! Liberation for the fish!’ and the audience shifted impatiently in their chairs.

  ‘There’ll be job creation, so all communities along the river system will benefit. I know Cyril Horrick, and your local stock agent, Bernard Mockett –’

  ‘It’s Bennett. Bennett Mockett, not Bernard,’ Esther said.

  ‘– agree that the wetlands and river communities, both natural and manmade, through increased water flow will see a boost in wetland plant and animal species.’

  A farmer cried, ‘Like mosquitoes and Ross River fever!’ Mrs Maloney muttered something about her cow and Elsie and Papa Jovetic murmured about their orchard and vegetable garden respectively.

  Glenys Dingle folded the piece of paper on the lectern, looked defiantly at the crowd and used her hard, flat voice. ‘It is a well-known fact that clearing land for farming means soil gets swept away and builds up in the channels, and that means fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides build up in the waterways. And there is also more salinity because there are no more trees left and the water table rises, bringing salt, and then there’s stock eating everything, more erosion, and tonnes of stock effluent washed into the waterways.’

  The farmer yelled, ‘You gunna blame us for the melting ice caps as well?’ And a feral yelled out that it was in fact true that too many animals was a contributing factor to climate change.

  Glenys called, ‘The water saved for improved reliability will benefit the towns, their productivity and profit.’

  There was a crack of lightning and the rain dumped its load on the roof so that Jasey had to raise her voice. ‘But I’ll lose my profit because I’ll have to pay more for my water because of the irrigators and their bloody upgrades.’

  Mitch spoke up above the dark noise. ‘Just put your prices up again. We’ve got no choice, we have to go on being the primary producers making more and more cuts to meet everyone else’s demands. We sell wholesale but pay retail.’

  ‘Well, Mitchell, someone’s gotta be a retailer, isn’t that right, Vorbach?’ That’s when everyone knew for sure that Vorbach and Gottlob Bergen had sold their water to the Jeongs and had council approval for their cafe. They had defected to the townies to survive.

  That same voice from the ferals’ camp screamed, ‘If you all sacrificed a bit of water there’d be more in the river for long-term health!’

  ‘Yes.’ Glenys tapped the lectern with the microphone.

  Mitch pointed to the ferals. ‘If youse relinquish one percent of your water, you lose one dope bush, but if I relinquish one percent I’ve lost the income that pays my fuel costs.’

  Stacey, surprised by the division in the community, realised again that he hadn’t thought through the other sides of the story. Beside him, Cyril was actually perspiring.

  Sam Jeong called out, ‘We lose water allocation, it hard on us how to plan for the future as demand for our produce get bigger but we have less water.’

  The feral responded, ‘You’re growing cotton, man, lots of water and poison.’

  ‘I growing what market want and what water allocation will let me.’

  A farmer called, ‘What’s the water delivery plan and how much are the townies sacrificing for your objectives?’

  A townie bellowed, ‘Every megalitre that leaves the area takes jobs and people. And we’re still broke from the bloody drought.’

  A backpacker with matted hair and a nose ring said, ‘Consider the waterbirds and wildlife. It’s their water you’re taking too.’

  Sam Jeong called again, ‘If no water regulation for irrigation the river dry up.’

  The crowd swayed, like long grass buffeted in a breeze. An angler bellowed that weirs prevented spawning and chemical runoffs contaminated waterways. The farmers retaliated by telling him to take his shit and his discarded fishing lines with him so they wouldn’t kill birds and then the townies copped it for their polluting industries and what about the fluoride they put in the water? Lana lifted the whistle to her mouth but Stacey, thinking of the Ford 290 HP 3.5-litre V6 and Giant Defy Advanced bicycle, motioned for her not to intervene. ‘It’s good to hear what they’re saying – ammunition.’

  She felt the close mingling presence of aftershave and warm male and fought a need to pull his tie back into place given he was the general enemy.

  Then Mandy stood up and looked directly at Stacey. ‘It’s obvious we all have to sacrifice for the benefit of the whole system otherwise it won’t work.’ She saw that people were looking at her. Since when did Mandy know anything about anything? ‘The one we’ve got was built a hundred years ago, we need a new one.’ She looked at Lana. Bet you didn’t know that!

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Glenys.

  Mitch turned to Glenys. ‘But thing is, you lot are making me pay for it. You’re taking my water and making me pay for it. You’re asking me to work for nothing to feed everyone.’

  Glenys stamped her foot. ‘You’re not listening to me.’

  ‘No, you’re not listening to me. I’m just telling you my side of the story, our side of the story. We’re your customers, the source, you were elected to hear us, so you need to help us, not just take our water and let us die. We are the reason you are standing there.’

  Mitch had seen the expression Glenys wore. It was the look of someone being affronted, of someone being found out, exposed. ‘I did not come here to be treated like this.’

  The room fell silent, but gradually a disgruntled rumble rose and amplified, moving along the rows of dissatisfied constituents. For Glenys it was time to take off her silly hat and sit down with a bottle of chardonnay and a slab of double brie and seedless crackers and watch the sun set over her empty lake. She handed the microphone to Cyril, who suddenly found he had to step up with just the lectern between him and the fierce crowd. Everyone knew where he lived; he had to see these people every day.

  Nurse Leonie Bergen, sitting with Gottlob and her brother-in-law, decided Cyril’s actions would see him rewarded, but as she watched Glenys duck into the wings she thought it would have been better all those years ago to ignore baby Glenys’s chest infection, dismiss it as a cold and put her aside to fight it out, or not. Before the stage door had clicked shut behind her, Glenys was in her big black Ford Territory speeding towards her new Riverglen apartment. Beside her, back in its box, the Akubra waited for the next meeting with rural types.

  Elsie stood up and cried, ‘She snuck out. I knew all along that would happen.’

  Cyril held the microphone too close and boomed, ‘A bit of shush, please,’ but the argume
nt resumed. Mitchell kept raising points and could hear himself getting louder to be heard above the sparring factions, so he stopped. It was an argument he had been waging for years, a situation he’d been living with forever, and it felt pointless to persist. On top of that his marriage was shit, his wife took the side of the water traders in a publicly defiant act and his girlfriend was just down the road, totally out of reach. He stood amid the yabbering crowd and understood his insignificance. Not only was it all his own fault, but whatever happened next would be played out in the full glare of town scrutiny, and opinion.

  Just then, Mandy made her way to the front of the hall and stood next to Stacey. ‘As you know, Stacey, I don’t belong to any club or faction here.’

  It was a statement no one disagreed with.

  ‘I think that because everyone uses water, everyone’s rates should go up. I run a business in town and I don’t actually see why my taxes should fund the irrigators, but I live with it. Everyone should proportionally pay their fair share. So, my point is, the farmers use the most water so they should pay the most, and it should be strictly monitored because my husband once told me it’d be easy to put a pump in the reeds and suck up a bit of free water.’

  The crowd roared. The ladies from the Rural Women’s Club were affirmed in their decision to reject this woman’s membership application. The rest of the town knew Mandy to be always objectionable, but this was treason. And Mitch could not believe what he was witnessing. His wife was standing in the middle of a meeting about water accusing him of theft, or intention to thieve, and exposing herself as a supporter of the Water Authority – everyone’s enemy. He was almost happy about it. How could anyone possibly imagine he could maintain a relationship with her?

  ‘But it’s not fair,’ he shouted. ‘That’s my point!’

  Isobel Prestwich’s distinctive voice, a voice that advanced the cause for good elocution, came from the back of the hall. ‘And water shouldn’t be used to fill a recreational lake – not now, anyway.’ She was leaning on the doorjamb, arms crossed, still windswept and damp from the dash from her ute.