Hope Farm

by Peggy Frew

  Miller went off with Dawn in the car quite a few times, and I heard one of the women report to Val that she’d seen them at the bank in town, and both women made knowing faces at each other.

  Then one Saturday afternoon there was a low, meaty engine sound from the direction of the dirt road and someone gave a yell, and then everyone rushed out onto the porch in time to see Miller come trundling down the driveway on a blue tractor that blazed with newness, every bit of chrome dazzling, the paintwork spotless, even the zig-zagged treads of its giant tyres twinkling, black and fresh in the sun. From high in the seat he waved, jouncing and grinning, then reached to honk the horn.

  Jindi shrieked and squirmed with excitement, and had to be held back from running down the steps and into the path of the huge contraption, which Miller guided, elbows wide, round the side of the house. Once released, Jindi ran after him, followed by Val and a small group of others. Ishtar, who had been one of the last to come out onto the porch, went back inside.

  I was left with two women — Rita, Jez’s girlfriend, and Sue, who often helped Val in the kitchen and who I’d once heard say about Ishtar that, ‘she thinks she’s the bee’s fucken knees.’ It had been Rita who’d reported on Miller and Dawn’s activities in town. Now the two exchanged glances, and Rita said, ‘So that’s what they were doing at the bank.’

  Sue grinned. She had a tooth missing on one side. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘And now we know what he sees in her, miserable little scrubber that she is.’

  ‘Oh she’s loaded,’ said Rita. ‘Rolling in it. You can tell just by the look of her. And did you see the suitcases? I saw when he was carrying them in. All matching, and they’ve got her initials on them in little gold letters.’

  I never got my licence. I hadnt realised there was a written test for it. I didnt bother trying, it cost money and I knew I would fail. I went to the pension office to ask about the single mothers pension and they said I had to be living alone not with a man. I tried to explain there were men at the ashram but I wasnt with any of them but they said Who pays for things where you live? I tried to explain. They said Are you the sole provider in the household? No I said, But — You need to be the sole provider they said. At the big bus terminal while I was waiting for mine I saw the bus for Toowoomba again. I decided to walk, my own bus wasnt coming and I had to get back I needed to get Silver from school.

  I met some people at the markets. They were heading north they said, they were going to set up a commune and run a farm to support themselves. I should have known it would come to nothing the way they talked all these ideas but no real plan. Still I gave them my money put it in the pool for farming equipment for supplies, I guess I just wanted to get away. They came to pick me up, it wasnt early morning this time and I didnt have to sneak out I just said I needed to go and thanks. They came around lunchtime they had two cars and a van travelling in convoy. There was a nice house mother at that time, Kharna she was called. I liked her she was the only one I was sad to leave. She waved from the doorway, it was just her, everyone else was at work. She was an Indian woman she was a teacher as well as house mother so she wore the robes they were bright against her dark skin her palm pink when she waved. Silver cried and that surprised me she hardly ever cried she must have realy liked Kharna too. Dont cry I whispered, We are going to a new place some where good youll be happy. She twisted away her face close to the window looking back. We drove through the streets we drove along the highway and Silver fell asleep. Someone passed a joint and flying down the road with the sun through the trees I felt like my body was disintegrating in to particles to join with the world. I was released from work from the ashram all damp and quiet from the city from buses to Toowoomba it was a new start a new beginning it was like every one before and all the ones that would come after. I ignored the crawling pit of doubts, I leapt across and went rushing in to the light.

  I woke to footsteps outside my door.

  ‘What’s going on?’ came a voice, and there was an indistinct reply. Then I registered properly the other sound, which was already there, writhing faintly in the black of my sleep, and had now increased in volume. Someone was screaming, a dreadful, thin sound, breaking off every now and then into speech, which was stabbing, accusatory. There was a second voice too, lower, lapping in long, deep, soothing strokes — Miller’s.

  The space beside me on the mattress was empty. I got up and went out into the hallway.

  The screaming was coming from the front room — Val and Gav and Sue were clustered at the doorway, looking in, Val and Sue both in shapeless men’s pyjamas, Gav’s hairy white calves poking from the bottom of a robe. The purplish-blue blanket that hung in the doorway had been torn down and lay in a puddle between the feet of the onlookers, and Miller, Dawn, and Ishtar.

  ‘Let go of me!’ Dawn was shrieking. Her thin arms were raised, bare and shockingly pale, her tiny fists clenched. She had some kind of nightdress on, flimsy and short — her legs thrashing as she struggled against Miller’s grip. ‘Let go!’

  ‘Dawn, Dawn.’ Miller drew her to his chest, which I saw now was bare, furred with a shorter layer of the same coppery fuzz that grew from his head. I glimpsed also his muscled thighs — he was either naked or very close to it.

  ‘Let go of me,’ sobbed Dawn. Then she sagged in his arms. Her breaths were loud and rough.

  ‘Dawn, darling, it’s all right, you’ve had a bad dream.’

  ‘What dream?’ Dawn threw herself sideways. ‘I wasn’t dreaming! I saw!’

  ‘Dawn, please, you mustn’t get upset.’

  Dawn made another effort to get out of his grasp, lunging towards Ishtar. When she spoke again the words crackled like water in a hot pan: ‘You bitch, you slut, you get away from here and don’t come back. Worming your way in while I was lying there ill.’

  Ishtar had her back to me, the glimmering flesh of her shoulders visible each side of the veil of long hair. She had something wrapped round her — it looked like a man’s shirt; I could see one of the sleeves dangling — and her legs were also bare below it.

  ‘No, no, darling,’ Miller was saying. ‘Nothing happened, you imagined it, you were dreaming.’

  Dawn’s fingers raked in Ishtar’s direction. ‘Come here,’ she said, ‘just let me get my hands on you, let me have another go at that face. You think just because you’re beautiful you can get anything you want? You think you can have my husband, right in front of me?’ She fell back again, sobbing, and when Miller — who, I saw before I had a chance to look away, was completely naked — began to guide her towards the doorway, she let him. Gav, Sue, and Val made room for them to pass, and I crept quickly back to the dark safety of the Joni Mitchell room and into bed. I left the door open though, and watched — through slitted eyes, to protect myself from the full sight of Miller nude — as they passed.

  ‘I couldn’t find you,’ Dawn was saying. ‘I woke up, and —’

  ‘Shh, shh.’

  ‘Don’t you shush me!’ She resisted for a moment, pushing back against him. ‘I know what I saw. Don’t think I —’

  ‘Come on now, let’s get you back into bed. You shouldn’t be out in this cold.’

  He got her moving again and they passed out of sight and hearing. Soon afterwards there were more footsteps, and Gav and Sue appeared. ‘Wow,’ said Gav. ‘Heavy shit.’

  Sue giggled, a rising, frothing sound.

  ‘Oh shut up, you two,’ came Val’s voice. ‘Come on, show’s over. I’m going back to bed.’

  There was a bit more shuffling back and forth, and then all went quiet.

  I lay awake for a while, waiting, but Ishtar didn’t come in. She must have gone to sleep in the front room, on the mattress there.

  The next morning she was in the kitchen as usual, putting out plates and bowls while Val stirred the porridge. She had her hair pulled round to hang over one shoulder, and
I saw that under it there were two long scratches down the side of her face, a dark crumb of dried blood near the top of one of them.

  Sue and Gav, sleep-bleared, made no mention of what had happened. I saw glances sliding round though, and Val, leaning at her station against the sink, had the look of a teacher keeping order.

  Eventually the room cleared, leaving me, watchful over my bowl of cold porridge, Ishtar, and Val. Ishtar ran the tap, pushing back the sleeves of her jumper.

  Val seemed to be about to say something, but then the door opened and Miller stepped in. Val looked over at me, shrugged, tucked her chin under in a disapproving kind of way, and left the room. A moment later a protesting squawk came from the hallway — Jindi — and then Val’s growl: ‘No, you can’t go in there.’

  Ishtar glanced over her shoulder. ‘You’ll miss the bus, Silver.’

  I stayed where I was, staring down at my porridge, half expecting her to follow up, to order me to leave. It didn’t happen though, and then I was stuck, wondering if I wanted to hear what they were going to say after all.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ began Miller. ‘Poor Dawn, she gets confused. Her moods are very fragile. And sometimes she misunderstands and then she gets herself in such a state —’

  ‘You said she was all right with it.’ Ishtar’s voice was barely audible above the slosh of water — she hadn’t stopped washing the dishes. ‘With us.’

  Miller moved closer, put a hand low on her back. ‘She’s like a child. One day she understands something, the next day she doesn’t, she’s forgotten, it’s gone.’ The hand moved up, the fingers in her hair. ‘But it doesn’t matter what she knows or thinks. What matters is us. We’ve got the tractor now, just think what we can get done with this place. There’s still time to get crops in for this season.’

  Ishtar scrubbed and rinsed, and put the dishes in the rack. Her reddened hands shone under frills of bubbles.

  Miller’s voice dropped. His fingers moved in her hair like baby rats in a nest. ‘She won’t always be here, you know. She’ll manage a bit longer under my care, but then eventually she always needs to go back. Last year she was in hospital five months.’

  Ishtar’s elbows kept up their in-and-out gliding and the pile of dishes rose.

  ‘Ishtar?’

  I wished I had left the room when I had the chance. Now everything was so quiet I didn’t dare move.

  ‘Ishtar?’ Miller’s woolly head nuzzled at her. ‘If it’s about the money, I can get it for you.’

  ‘When?’ Her voice was like something dragging over gravel.

  ‘In a month.’

  ‘All of it?’

  He pushed her hair aside, kissed her neck. ‘Of course.’

  She stopped doing the dishes and turned towards him, her wet hands held out from her sides. She kept them there as he crawled his kisses up along her jaw and to her mouth. Her body stayed stiff, but when he got to her mouth her eyes closed and her head went back, yielding.

  I slipped out of my chair and crept away.

  So there was that try at a commune and then a different one and another man and then some one else and then back to the ashram again for a while. On and on. Maybe you could say at first I was young and silly but by the time Miller came along I should have been old enough to know better. You would think I would have learnt some thing over all those years but now here I was at Hope and in a worse situation than ever before you could almost laugh it was so predictable. Some times I could just about hear my mothers voice saying I knew youd end up coming to nothing having no pride being taken advantage of there was always some thing wrong with you. Nothing to laugh about there. And nothing to do but keep going.

  One morning I was hanging up washing and I felt someone standing behind me. It was her, Dawn. It had been a week but she remembered, maybe she wasnt as crazy as Miller said. Why are you still here? she said in a whispery voice, I told you to leave. I didnt turn around I kept doing the clothes but my heart started thumping. Youll leave if you know whats good for you she said, I dont know what hes promised but I can tell you absolutely right now you wont get it. Her voice was so soft I wondered if I was imagining it but I looked quickly while I was bending to the basket and she was there like a skinny stick swaying in the wind. Hes wilful she said. I expect it I expect him to be led by his passions. He has all these silly ideas and some times he gets other people involved. And I let him go. But only so far. She came closer she was right behind me. I turned around and stepped back. She had her hand up and I thought she was going to go for me again but she had it curled like she was holding a leash. He will always come back to me she said in that whispery voice. He is my husband, mine. I was watching that hand so I hadnt seen what was in the other one and it was only when Miller ran over and grabbed her and picked her up and carried her away that I saw it there fallen in to the long grass, one of the kitchen knives. He took her to there room and I got the knife and went and put it away. My hands were shaking and I had to walk to my room and sit down but it wasnt because of Dawn and the knife it was because I needed to think. It was hard to get my mind properly working because I felt so sick and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep but that was nothing to do with what just happened either. I knew the real reason, the signs had been there for days now but I just couldnt believe it could be true. And for it to happen then when I was so stuck all that money gone and Miller promising and promising, and staying not because I believed him but because I just couldnt face starting again with nothing.

  Later he came and found me. Im so sorry he said. Shes never been like this before. Shes asleep now. I dont think shes been taking the right pills. He sighed and sat down beside me. Poor Dawn he said, and his voice sounded all choked. There was hope for us once, long ago. There was going to be a baby. But then she lost it and … He wiped his face and sat there for a minute blowing like a horse. Then he cleared his throat and rubbed his hands slowly together. Hed remembered what he came for now he was doing that thing where he acted like he was my father a wise old man who knows best. Ishtar he said, I think you need to be some where safe until the coast is clear again. He touched my cheek. I am going to have to hide you away my precious jewel. He was whispering even though there wasnt anybody else around. It was so funny now to see the tricks he used making me feel special, well it would have been funny if I didnt feel so stupid for falling for it all this time. He held up one finger. I have an idea. And remember its just till shes gone again. Can I show you? We went to his car he drove out the drive and then partway up the dirt road and turned off. Id seen that entrance before, it was just a gap in the bush no gate or any thing. I hadnt realised it was a little track. The car hardly fit, branches scratched down its sides. We bumped along around some bends and then he stopped again. There was a house there, a shack hardly standing up. We got out and went over to it. Everything was so quiet just birds and that sound trees make like breathing. Its an old miners cottage said Miller. There are a few of them round here mostly derelict. This ones not too bad, looks to have been inhabited until quite recently. He pushed open the door. It was a wreck, there was some furniture but it was all broken and covered in dust there was rubbish everywhere it stank like possums holes in the floor there was just one main room and another tiny one no kitchen no bathroom. I saw myself through my mothers eyes then how low Id fallen and taken poor Silver with me. Miller lifted up a chair that was on its side and tried to bang the dust off it. I will fix it up for you he said. He knelt down and took my hands. I will make it lovely for you my queen. I knew he wouldnt. It was strange to think how it used to be me always looking up to him how he was like the sun dazzling me filling everything how just the sound of his voice made me feel like all my joints had come undone. And now here I was the one looking down on him kneeling. He pushed his face against the backs of my hands he licked my knuckles. Please he said, It wont be for long. All right I said. Just until you pay me b
ack. One month. He grinned up at me then he started undoing my jeans. Full of secret power thats how I should have felt but I didnt. Or angry that he thought I believed him that I was so dumb such a sucker. But I was so tired and even though under the fog there was an idea coming for a way out I felt scared I felt like I was seventeen again and suddenly just like a voice said it in my ear I heard my old name. Miller pushed me onto the filthy chair and my breasts hurt when he sucked at them, I looked up at the cobwebs strung like ropes I swallowed down on my sick fear and waited for him to finish.

  ‘We’re moving,’ was all Ishtar said.

  I was horrified when I first saw the place. Cold, stale air. Thin light from a small, dirty window. A low roof, close walls, all made of the same dark timber. Broken-off floorboards leaving long holes. Rubbish in drifts — newspapers, old beer cans with the colour gone. Rusted springs leering from the torn seat of a chair.

  ‘We won’t be here long,’ she said, dropping her bags on the floor. ‘A month.’

  ‘And then will we go back to Hope?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  But she had moved away, gone into the other, tiny, room, where the rasping of a broom started up.

  Miller, who had brought us there in the car, stayed — much to my relief — for only a minute or two. He strode around tapping on the walls. ‘Beautiful timber,’ he said. ‘Local hardwood, last a thousand years. And see this craftsmanship?’ He ran a hand along the place where the mantel, which had names and swear words gouged into it and was scattered with empty cans, joined the wall. ‘Absolutely superb. You won’t see skill like that these days.’