Spring Clean for the Peach Queen

by Sasha Wasley

  ‘I can work with these. I’ll do some editing, and send the best ones through to Hayley, okay?’ She directed this at Pris.

  ‘That would be appreciated.’

  Pris’s manner still seemed cool. I knew she didn’t approve of smut in any of its incarnations, but Liv’s comment hadn’t been over-the-top lewd; it was just a painful slap of memory.

  One magazine headline had really cut deep. A play on Charlize Beste – Charlie’s Breast – Just Days After Jai’s Death. Like I’d gone straight to Jack the Lad and begged for the topless shoot after finishing up at the police station. I pulled my dress higher and glanced around at Angus. He was much nearer than I’d realised, watching me with unreadable eyes.

  ‘Come on, girls, you can ride in the tray,’ Liv said to her daughters. They ran to clamber up on the bumper, squealing with competitive delight. Angus lifted Minnie over the side since she was too small to climb up by herself. Liv slipped into the front passenger seat, oblivious to Pris’s look of outrage.

  Back at the house, Liv buckled her kids into a late model four-wheel drive.

  ‘Hey, do you want to catch up for a coffee or something?’ I asked.

  She took a moment to adjust Minerva’s seatbelt. ‘Sure. This week’s crazy but I’ll give you a buzz next week, okay?’

  She was so offhanded I didn’t even bother to explain that I had no phone or social media any more. I nodded and she edged out of the driveway.

  ‘I don’t particularly like that girl,’ Pris burst out as soon as it was safe. ‘She’s thoughtless.’

  ‘She’s doing the photos for free for us, though,’ I said.

  ‘And well she should. We’re all doing our bit.’ Pris huffed an irritated sigh. ‘I’d better go. I need to sort out all manner of things for the quiz night. Hilary’s done a shocking job of the arrangements. I should have learned my lesson with that woman when we did the gunfire breakfast five years ago.’ Still grumbling, she made for her car.

  Safe at last, Angus shot me a look of mirth. ‘Don’t know how you managed that.’

  ‘Managed what?’ The laughter in his eyes really suited him.

  ‘Well, when Pris can abuse you, but she won’t let anyone else do it, you’re family.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Pris has been okay to me, considering.’

  ‘Considering your history?’

  I tensed. ‘Considering my inability to crochet.’

  He studied me. ‘This personal declutter you’re doing – is there anything else you’ve sworn off that I should know about? Wheat products? Wearing purple on Thursdays?’

  ‘Nothing that affects you.’

  Angus continued to observe me for a few moments, leaning against his car door. ‘I’ve got a fire permit for tomorrow night. Got a load of stuff to burn off down at the dam. Mum wants me to net a few yabbies while I’m there, too. You still got that bag of stuff to burn?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Want to tag along?’

  ‘Okay.’ He turned for the house. ‘Angus,’ I said. ‘About the bee veil—’

  ‘None of your business,’ he reminded me.

  ‘But Angus—’

  He turned back. ‘Why did you make a promise not to lie?’

  I fell silent.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Exactly. We’ve both got our reasons. Respect that.’

  At our next declutter session, Mrs Brooker and I tackled Angus’s old sporting equipment. The guy had done almost every sport on offer in Bonnievale.

  ‘Why doesn’t he do sports any more?’ I asked, placing cricket pads in the donations bag.

  ‘I’m not too sure,’ Mrs Brooker said. ‘I suppose he’s too busy with the orchards.’

  ‘He’s worked almost every daylight hour since I’ve been here,’ I said. ‘Was it during the peach spot that he stopped playing so much sport?’

  She thought about it. ‘Yes, I think it was. We couldn’t afford to hire people and there was so much to be done. He was bone-tired at the end of each day – both Angus and Ted were, actually. I doubt we’d have been able to pay the team fees anyway, even if he’d wanted to play.’

  ‘The peach spot must have been horrible,’ I said. ‘The worst thing that’s ever happened to Bonnievale.’

  ‘It was certainly difficult.’

  I thought back. ‘I saw the changes every time I came home, but that was only once or twice a year. Mum and Dad just scraped by.’

  ‘I was glad to see Penny and Richard’s shop survive.’

  ‘But there were lots that didn’t, right? I remember cafés closing, shops failing, farmers selling their land and leaving town.’

  ‘Some sold up,’ Mrs Brooker corrected. ‘Some simply walked away. They couldn’t find buyers so they left and got jobs in other towns. Colin Dalgety bought some people out. I suppose he had enough money to weather the storm and saw an opportunity. He owns considerably more orchards than any other Bonnievale farmer now. Some sold to Chinese investors but Colin made sure he had more than them. He didn’t want the whole region to be owned by the Chinese. He was very vocal about that.’

  ‘Did the farmers who didn’t sell come back?’

  ‘Some did,’ she said. ‘Not many.’

  Whenever I’d visited during the peach spot, I’d noted with dismay how the town was falling away, crumbling like an unstable dune until there was just a huddle of banks, the co-op, the medical clinic and frightened people at its very centre.

  ‘I feel bad that I wasn’t around during the peach spot,’ I said.

  ‘Why’s that, love?’

  ‘You know, to help. My parents or the town. Maybe I could have used what I had – my little bit of influence – to lobby government or fundraise, or whatever. I was the last Peach Queen, after all.’

  Mrs Brooker was smiling. ‘That’s a lovely thought.’

  I grimaced. ‘About a decade too late.’

  ‘Often, people don’t realise how great a disaster is upon them until they’re right in the middle of it,’ she said. ‘Or even at the end of it. And people on the outside might not see it at all. Perhaps you didn’t realise how bad it was.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘But that’s not much of an excuse. Trouble was, I was too self-absorbed to even think of helping. I decided when I was twelve that I’d accidentally been born into the wrong life. I was supposed to be living in New York City, seeing shows, meeting people and having all the best fashion, makeup and shoes at my fingertips. Set to become a Broadway star. I found old photos of Mum when she lived in the city and went to uni. I was so jealous. I resented her for relocating to Bonnievale before I was even born, as if she did it to keep me small and insignificant, when I was clearly meant for much more.’

  Mrs Brooker was quiet, considering my words. ‘What happened when you were twelve to make you think all this?’

  I shrugged. ‘Nothing specific. I started to grow up, become a teenager – get an attitude. Dad let me start working for money at the newsagency and after a while he put me in charge of magazine ordering. I got into magazines in a huge way. Before that Mum had me reading books, but I gravitated naturally to magazines. They showed me the life I thought I was meant for. Social media did, too. I suddenly had access to the shop computer during quiet times and I joined all the social networks I could find. Books didn’t interest me any more – I felt like they were sort of static and old fashioned. Like grassy paddocks. But magazines, social media, they were like skyscrapers and streets – changing, exciting, dangerous.’

  My mother probably would have burst a blood vessel at me calling books ‘static’, but Mrs Brooker was nodding as though she totally understood. Gratitude gushed through me, warm and comforting.

  I looked around. ‘That’s all the sports gear done. Should we sort some clothes now, Mrs B? All these bags are full of old clothes, right?’

  I pulled an old drawstring sack towards me and eased its mouth open. Mrs Brooker watched as I pulled out the first item. It was a pink polo shirt with the name of the local
equestrian club on it. It didn’t look like something Mrs Brooker would wear. I gave her a questioning look.

  ‘That belongs to Angus’s ex-wife,’ she said.

  ‘Ah. Should we send them on to her?’

  ‘No, Bianca left those things when she left Angus, years ago now. She didn’t want them. Angus put them all in that sack and dumped it in here.’

  ‘What should we do with it?’

  ‘Donate, I suppose,’ she said without interest.

  Perhaps she didn’t want to think about Angus’s failed marriage. I pulled the string to close the sack again and pushed it over to the donations bag.

  ‘Let’s sort those two bags of Ted’s old things,’ Mrs Brooker said, pointing.

  Ted’s clothes were so worn from farm work that most of them had to be thrown away. There were still burrs stuck in the thick work socks. Right at the bottom was a flat box.

  ‘His wedding suit,’ Mrs Brooker said.

  I opened the box and held up the trousers. They were brown and flared. ‘Ted was a pretty snappy dresser, then?’

  Mrs Brooker chuckled. ‘He wore that with a green paisley tie and brown patent shoes. Hair combed within an inch of its life and his horn-rimmed glasses on.’

  I stared. ‘Really? You’ve got an amazing memory, Mrs B.’

  ‘A girl notices what her young man wears on special occasions.’

  ‘What about your dress?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s wrapped up in tissue paper, right there.’ She pointed to another flat box. ‘Satin, and a cloak lined with white fur.’ She gave me a little smile.

  I reached for the box and opened the lid. There it was, pure white and elegant. The fur on the satin cloak was just beginning to disintegrate.

  ‘It’s stunning,’ I said.

  ‘I offered it to Bianca but she said it didn’t fit. I suspect it wasn’t really her thing, although I said she was welcome to alter it if she didn’t like the pattern. I’d always wanted to wear my mother’s wedding dress, so I was surprised that she said no, but everyone’s different, aren’t they?’

  ‘Did she wear her own mother’s?’ I was trying to think kindly of Bianca but didn’t know how she could have treated Mrs Brooker that way.

  ‘No, her mother’s had been cut up for christening gowns.’

  ‘Did you get to wear your mother’s dress?’ I asked.

  ‘No. The moths got to it.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘Would you wear your mother’s wedding dress?’ Mrs Brooker asked. ‘When you get married?’

  ‘You know my mum. She didn’t wear a traditional white dress. I think she said it was navy blue taffeta – like an evening gown – and she got rid of it years ago. She had an unconventional wedding. She didn’t even walk down the aisle on her father’s arm like women generally do. She and Dad walked down the aisle together. Mum didn’t want people thinking she was something to be given from her father to her husband, like a piece of property.’

  Mrs Brooker nodded. ‘I can see her point. My old dad would have been dreadfully hurt if I did that. He wouldn’t have understood at all.’

  ‘I don’t know how her dad took it, but Grandma still complains about it now,’ I said.

  ‘Your mother has some excellent insights,’ Mrs Brooker remarked.

  ‘Like?’ I asked warily.

  ‘She would often be the one who brought it to my attention when I was being taken advantage of. If I was feeling badly about something that had gone amiss between me and Ted or his parents, Penny had a very clever way of putting it in a new light, so it made sense.’

  I tried to imagine Mum and Mrs Brooker as good friends, sharing a cuppa and discussing their marriage problems.

  Mrs Brooker smoothed her husband’s wedding jacket. ‘For instance, Ted had a habit of getting very cross when he had no socks to wear. He would come home in the afternoon and often roll them in a ball and toss them behind the door, and our bedroom door was rarely closed so I didn’t always see them. Then suddenly he would have run out and he’d be stomping around the house complaining that he had to wear dirty ones, and his old mum would be saying he couldn’t wear dirty socks because he’d get tinea, and I would be feeling very small and ashamed but also that it was all very unjust. I complained about it to Penny and she said that the reason there are so many great men in history and so few great women was that the world had been structured to keep women washing socks so that men could go and do important things. And she said, just imagine if every woman everywhere stopped washing men’s socks. Imagine the uproar, and all the great men with tinea, and the terrible, sinking realisation that women’s work was important. And imagine women realising that life would go on if they stopped washing men’s socks, and how many other important and great things they would have time to do. She said it was all a delicate system – Ted getting outraged, his mother’s recriminations, me feeling guilty. Penny called it an unbreakable web that kept men doing important public work and women caught up with trivial, private tasks.’

  I stared. Mrs Brooker stretched and got to her feet, giving a little wheeze. ‘I think I’ve had enough for the day. Do you like custard, love? I thought we might have stewed apricots and custard for dessert. Angus said he’ll bring in the first apricots this afternoon.’

  ‘He said I could help with a burn off near the dam tonight, so I was just going to grab a quick meal in the caravan,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, is that right?’ She regarded me brightly. ‘Well then, we’ll have the apricots tomorrow.’

  ‘Please, Mrs B, don’t go to the trouble of cooking for me. I have my own food and it makes me feel like a freeloader to eat with you guys.’ Her face changed and I hastened to explain. ‘Don’t get me wrong – the food’s amazing and I really appreciate it. I just feel sort of guilty.’

  ‘You have nothing to feel guilty for.’

  ‘You’re way too good to me.’ For a weird second, I thought I might cry.

  She smiled. ‘It’s nice to have another face at the table, especially with Angus always so quiet and serious. Sometimes I invite Pris around, even though they bicker, just so I can hear a voice other than my own.’

  ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’

  Mrs Brooker chuckled. ‘Yes, indeed. And yet I am fond of Pris, for all her difficult little ways.’ She nodded at me. ‘Tell Angus to net a few yabbies while you’re at the dam. I’ve been craving a good feed of yabbies.’

  At sunset, Angus came by the caravan and checked if I was ready for the bonfire.

  ‘Hey, look what I found yesterday when I was helping Pris,’ I said.

  I passed him the Peach King sash. He stared at it blankly.

  ‘It’s yours,’ I said. ‘It got packed up with some Harvest Ball gear. Peach King, remember?’

  Comprehension dawned. He took it and snorted. ‘Bloody hell. I got ragged on for years about that.’

  He turned the sash over in his hand while I collected my bag of burnables and closed the caravan door. I followed Angus to the ute as he let the dogs in the back, tossing the sash into the tray with my bag.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I asked.

  ‘Burn it,’ he said.

  Bundy and Blue panted in unison, flat-out stoked they’d been permitted to come along. We drove along the orchard track and past the big shed up to the dam. I sneaked a look at Angus in his dark flannelette shirt. He seemed all beard and hair, like he was hiding under a fur cloak.

  The dam was a shallow waterhole in the dying sunlight. Not far away, there was a great pile of farm rubbish that was set to become tonight’s bonfire: prunings and grass slashings. I retrieved my bag and dropped it near the pile, then joined Angus by the dam. Bundy sniffed around a clump of reeds for a good spot to pee and Blue stood in the shallows. It was muddy as hell – pale clay – and when I glanced at Angus’s black thongs beside my giant green boots, I felt smug.

  ‘You forgot your boots.’ He looked at me, raised his eyebrows, and said nothing. I compreh
ended. ‘I’m wearing your boots?’

  ‘Lucky it’s December,’ he said. ‘I’d be stuffed if you’d come to stay during winter.’

  I laughed weakly. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise.’

  Angus finished untangling the rope attached to a net and dug in his pocket, pulling out a parcel wrapped in foil. It contained our bait: two chop bones. He twisted a little piece of wire on the bottom of each net around the bones, then handed one to me. Giving his net a gentle swing to build momentum, he tossed it several metres out into the dam, then looked at me expectantly. ‘Chuck it in,’ he said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just chuck it.’

  I chucked, but the rope was caught under my foot, so the net splatted unceremoniously in the water around three feet away. Blue shook off the water spray and inched towards the net with its chop bone, her nose working. Angus waited, his mouth quirked in one corner.

  ‘Shut up,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t say a word.’

  I towed the net back in, untangled the rope and tossed it out. It flew a respectable number of metres and landed with a plish, before sinking into the murky depths.

  ‘How long do we need to wait?’ I asked.

  ‘An hour or two,’ he said. ‘When the fire’s burned down, we’ll pull them up.’

  We picked our way through the mud to the bonfire pile. I sat on a stump and Angus went to the back of the ute, returning with a can of petrol and two beers.

  He held them up. ‘You want one? I didn’t bring wine.’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’

  He handed me a bottle, then tossed petrol out of the can here and there around the pile. I twisted the top off my beer and Angus used a lighter to ignite a dry twig, throwing it into a pile of leaves. It caught instantly and flames roared into the dim evening sky, so fierce I had to scamper away from my stump. For a few moments, I was frightened of the inferno’s violent hissing and geyser of sparks. Then the leafy tinder was gone and the fire settled down, wandering over the more substantial logs in search of a main course. Angus found himself a stump and I reclaimed my own.