Spring Clean for the Peach Queen

by Sasha Wasley

  ‘I haven’t found it in the rest of the old orchard yet,’ Angus said in a low voice. ‘If we destroy this tree, we might be able to stop it in its tracks.’

  ‘Destroy this tree?’ Colin’s flabby cheeks held two bright spots of pink. ‘This tree?’

  Nathan jumped in, taking his cue from his father. ‘This is the Olde Peach Tree, dickhead. We can’t destroy this tree.’

  Angus regarded both of them with incredulity. ‘It’s riddled with bacterial spot. It’s a fucking miracle the rest of the trees in the vicinity aren’t infected. Yet.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Colin appeared to be struggling in the heat – or maybe under the emotional strain. ‘Everyone’s planted resistant stock—’

  Angus made a strangled noise. ‘Resistant trees aren’t a failsafe. We don’t even know if this is the same strain we dealt with before! You want to risk every orchard in the district on the hope that our trees are protected? You know there are different mutations of bacterial spot, don’t you, Colin? Every farmer in Bonnievale had to rip out their peach trees and plant new ones. You want that to happen all over again?’

  ‘This is an overreaction.’ Colin brought all his imposing community elder authority to bear. ‘We can treat this tree. Intensively. We’re not trying to sell its fruit, after all. But it’s got historical significance. No one in Bonnievale would want to see this tree go. It’s a symbol.’

  Nathan nodded. ‘You can’t just fuckin’ cut down the Olde Peach Tree, man,’ he said. ‘Everyone’d be gutted.’

  ‘They’ll be more gutted when they lose years’ worth of crop sales because the spot has infected their orchards again.’ Angus stood with his boots planted firmly in the dirt, arms crossed, waiting for them to buckle.

  But the Dalgetys were just as stubborn. ‘There’s no need to scare everyone, young Angus,’ Colin said, sweat glistening on his big red cheeks again. ‘We can make a decision between the two of us.’ Nathan glanced at his father, possibly startled that he’d been excluded. ‘You’re a Brooker, so you’ve got a say. It’s on the edge of my farm, so I’ve got a say. I propose we quarantine the tree and treat it.’

  Angus groaned. ‘This is a big old bastard of a tree, Colin. It’s not like we can surround it with a plastic sleeve and spray a bit of copper solution on it. It’s five metres high and a good eight across. As for keeping it quiet, you don’t think people will notice the Olde Peach Tree’s suddenly pruned within an inch of its life, surrounded with quarantine signs and coated with chemicals? We should cut the fucking thing down, burn it, and issue a warning to every orchardist in the district that spot’s been found again.’

  Colin lost his temper. ‘And what will that do for the town’s morale, Brooker? They’re celebrating the end of the spot. There’s a bloody festival happening – a bloody Harvest Ball! The visitors’ centre’s involved. They’ve got people staying in the hotel and the B&Bs, coming into town to eat our fruit and buy our produce. This tree’s a tourist attraction. If we go cutting it down now, what do you reckon’s going to happen to all that effort? What do you reckon the media’ll make of it? They’ll have a bloody field day.’

  ‘Jesus, Colin. This is Bonnievale, not Los Angeles. The media won’t give a shit.’

  ‘They will if it means the return of the Harvest Festival’s a joke. It’ll put a big fucking damper on the whole thing, let me tell you. And this town could do without that, after the decade we’ve had.’

  Colin probably had that right; the media would love this miserable story. It would get coverage in the Wallabah papers – maybe even beyond. Gemma di Bortoli would probably find some way to drag my own story in: the fallen Peach Queen brings her curse back to Bonnievale.

  ‘You know what the media would be more interested in?’ Angus’s eyes had gone hard. ‘President of the Orchardist Association conceals the discovery of bacterial spot.’

  Despite the heat, Colin blanched slightly. ‘Don’t you talk that way to me, you little bastard.’ Nathan took his cue and stepped towards Angus in a threatening manner. I jumped up in case I had to dive in to stop a fight, but Colin ignored his son and kept talking. ‘This tree’s all but on my land. I can see it from my fucking house. I decide what happens and I say it’s treatable. This is one tree: one heritage-listed tree. There’s been no spread of the disease. We’ve all got resistant trees now. The situation is under control.’

  Angus didn’t move. ‘The matter ought to be discussed in the association. Everyone should get a say, since their orchards – their livelihoods – are also at stake.’

  Colin narrowed his eyes. ‘They’ll say what I’m saying: treat the damn tree and get on with things.’ He looked up at the leaves above his head. ‘I’ll take responsibility for the treatment, since it’s pretty well on my land.’ He looked back at Angus. ‘You’ll show some goddamned maturity and not wreck the Harvest Festival. The Bonnievale farming community has been to hell and back – it deserves a celebration. You keep your mouth shut, Brooker.’

  He clumped back to his vehicle and Nathan followed, pausing only to give Angus a pointed look. Angus stood for a while after they’d left the clearing. The red Hilux rolled a short way along the road before turning into the Dalgety driveway. When they parked, we could still see them in the distance. Colin went inside but Nathan stood by the ute and gazed at us for several minutes.

  ‘Come on, Angus,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  We were silent all the way to Batich’s Orchard Supplies. Angus selected ground-stakes and quassia chips, and hovered in front of the bactericides and herbicides shelf.

  ‘You need anything else, Angus?’ Pauly Batich asked. ‘Got a disease problem?’

  Angus turned away sharply. ‘Nah, mate. This’ll do me.’

  I waited until we were on the road again before I spoke.

  ‘What are you going to do, Angus?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He stared across the valley, streaked with rows of trees on both sides of the road. ‘What do you think I should do?’

  I thought about it. Oversized letterboxes flashed past: a keg, painted fire-engine red. A miniature ceramic cottage, a scaled-down copy of the farmhouse at the other end of the long driveway. A blue plastic barrel with a slot carved in one end.

  ‘I’m with you,’ I said at last. ‘I think it would be best to tell the other farmers. They have the right to know.’

  ‘It will wreck the buzz around town,’ he reminded me. ‘People will be pissed off. They might even call off the ball.’ Angus looked at me sideways.

  ‘Oh, I’d be devastated,’ I said with a short laugh. ‘It wasn’t me who thought of bringing back the ball, you know.’

  He half smiled but his eyes were remote as we wound along the road back to Brooker’s.

  ‘Maybe you can frame the message a certain way, to reduce panic,’ I said as we drew close to home. ‘Say that spot’s been found on the tree and people should be vigilant, but it’s under control.’

  Angus rubbed his beard. ‘That’s not true though. It’s not under control. I don’t want to cause a storm but that tree needs to be removed right away if we want to prevent any spread.’

  ‘Could you ask Toby’s advice?’ I said. ‘Get a second opinion?’

  He braked as we reached the farm gate. ‘Yeah,’ he said, gazing at the steering wheel. ‘I will. Hey, don’t mention anything to Mum, okay? I don’t want to stress her out.’

  ‘Pris will take care of that as soon as she hears,’ I said with a grimace.

  ‘True.’ Angus sighed. ‘I’ll have a word to her.’

  Angus had a lengthy conversation with Pris at her car window before she left. I hunted Mrs Brooker down in the kitchen.

  ‘What should we do this arvo, Mrs B? I can help with some washing or do the floors, if you want. Or do you fancy a little rest?’

  ‘A cup of tea would be nice, I think.’

  I flicked on the kettle and put the lunch scraps into the old yoghurt container for the chickens. Mrs Brooker stared at a point on the clean
kitchen table, her face tired and absent. I made the tea and joined her at the table, but as soon as she took a sip, she started to choke. She coughed violently, slopping liquid from the cup in her hand onto the table. I took the cup from her and watched anxiously while she recovered from her coughing fit.

  ‘Went down the wrong way,’ she managed at last.

  ‘Okay now?’

  Mrs Brooker nodded, wiping her eyes. She reclaimed her cup but paused before drinking and put it back down. ‘I might have a little lie-down.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She took herself off to her room, so I cleaned up the spilt tea and washed our cups. After a few minutes, I sneaked over to her bedroom door and peered through the crack. Mrs Brooker was lying on the bed, eyes closed.

  I went down to the chicken yard to collect the eggs. The hens fought over the pieces of cheese and ham I scattered, running around with their booty, chasing each other for the best bits. One of them – a black hen – was unusually confident around me. Perhaps it was Chooky. She squatted for me to pat her, so I picked her up and checked her tummy. She flapped a little but allowed me to make my inexpert examination with good grace. Her abdomen felt normal. I grinned at her. If this was Chooky, she was doing great. I sang to her – a brief snatch of Christina Aguilera’s ‘Fighter’. She sat quietly in my arms as I sang, peering up at me with intense concentration.

  Back in the house, I picked up my book and parked on the couch. The Virginia Woolf was clearly a text my mother had used for her university studies; it was dog-eared and marked up with pencil. I flicked through, reading the passages my mother had commented on.

  The news of my legacy reached me one night about the same time that the act was passed that gave the vote to women. A solicitor’s letter fell into the postbox and when I opened it I found that she had left me five hundred pounds a year forever. Of the two – the vote and the money – the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important.

  My mother had underlined two sentences: I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.

  ‘Independence, both in concrete and abstract terms, from male ownership,’ she had scrawled in the margin.

  Something poked into my backside. I wriggled over and dug between the cushions, pulling out a tangle of pink wool and a sharp little stick: Mrs Brooker’s crocheting. Oh hell, I must have wrecked it by pulling it out so roughly. I attempted to untangle the mess of strands and grey plastic hook.

  Actually, no. I hadn’t ruined it – it was already ruined. I was no handicrafter, but even I could tell that this was not crochet. It was a disastrous muddle of knots, loops, holes and confusion. Mrs Brooker must have been sitting here, attempting to crochet for the yarnbombing, and made the terrible discovery that she had forgotten how. Caroline Brooker, the town’s best crocheter, could no longer crochet.

  I freed the plastic hook and tucked it into the wool bag in the hall cupboard. The failed attempt at a crocheted square I wrapped in newspaper and placed in the outside rubbish bin. Then I sat down to read until she woke up.

  If the number of phone calls Angus took that evening was anything to go by, it seemed he had contacted all the other orchardists in town about the peach spot. A vehicle arrived at Brooker’s just after eight and Angus went outside to meet it, leaving his mother gazing obliviously at the TV. I heard the unmistakable sound of Colin Dalgety’s bluster and surreptitiously increased the television volume.

  ‘Your father was a reasonable man,’ Colin growled through his puffing. ‘Pity that didn’t rub off on you.’

  ‘You’re a fucking dickhead, Brooker.’ That was Nathan.

  I sat frozen beside Mrs Brooker, pretending with all my might to watch her favourite bake-off show while I listened to what was happening out the front.

  ‘Look, it’s not up to you to decide the future of this community, Colin,’ Angus said. ‘If it’s agreed the tree needs to go, then it needs to go.’

  ‘It’s heritage listed,’ Colin snapped. ‘We can’t just cut the bloody thing down, even if we wanted to.’

  I turned up the volume slightly more. Mrs Brooker was taking long, slow blinks, starting to drift off.

  ‘Just making a cuppa,’ I murmured, and slipped out of the lounge room, closing the door softly behind me.

  ‘It’d be insanity to leave it,’ Angus said as I reached the front door. Moths circled wildly under the verandah light. ‘We’ll end up in exactly the same boat we were in before. I’ve spoken to Allan Lake, the Bongiornos, the Humboldts, Jack McCurdy, Sue Ludwig and a few more tonight – they all agree with me. I know it’s a landmark, but we need to take the tree out, Colin. We don’t have a choice.’

  ‘We have got a choice.’ Colin raised his voice and I worried about Mrs Brooker. ‘We’ve already been out there to prune this afternoon. Tomorrow we’ll paint the whole bloody thing with bactericide and it’ll be sorted in no time.’

  ‘Jesus. You know that didn’t work last time. Why would this be any different?’

  ‘It’s an old tree. Hardy as all hell.’

  Angus took a breath as though trying to give himself strength. ‘I’ve called a meeting tomorrow night. We’ll discuss this as an association.’

  ‘You don’t get to call meetings, you arrogant little prick.’ Colin’s voice was angrier than I’d ever heard it.

  ‘It’s already done,’ Angus returned. ‘RSL, six pm. When we’ve voted, I’ll go and remove the tree.’

  ‘You touch that tree and I’ll make sure the cops are on you like stink on shit,’ Colin promised.

  Angus made the mistake of shaking his head with a bitter laugh and suddenly Nathan was in his face, his stocky body up close, cold eyes staring into Angus’s. I bumped out through the screen door.

  ‘Hey!’

  Nathan glanced at me but didn’t move. Angus’s body was tense, ready to retaliate.

  ‘Hey!’ I said again, grabbing Angus’s arm. He could have resisted but he let me pull him away from Nathan. ‘Colin, Nathan, I think you should get going now before you give Mrs Brooker a fright.’

  Colin barely glanced at me. ‘I mean it, Angus. You touch so much as a leaf on that tree, you’ll be in the biggest trouble of your life. I’ll be watching. There’s a good clear view from my place, as you know.’

  The Dalgetys headed for the Hilux and crawled out of the driveway, Bundy and Blue barking from the backyard to send them off.

  ‘Jesus,’ I whispered.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yeah. Just getting a little tired of watching you put yourself in immense danger.’

  He scratched his chin. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘This could get really nasty, Angus. Dalgety’s determined to save that tree.’

  ‘The tree can’t be saved. We’ve been through it all before. The only thing that worked was removal. If we get the big tree out now, we might save the surrounding orchards.’ He sat on a verandah chair and I sat next to him, watching his face anxiously. ‘The minute everyone votes for removal, I’ll go straight out there and take it down. Dalgety’s just going to have to deal with it.’

  ‘He might try to call the cops,’ I said. ‘Because of the heritage listing thing.’

  ‘I’d better do it quick then.’ He shot me a crooked smile. ‘Toby’s my back-up plan. He’ll take it down if I get held up.’

  ‘Dalgety’s got guns,’ I said. ‘Everyone’s got guns.’ He gave me an unexpected grin and I punched his arm. ‘Do you have to be so bloody fearless, Angus?’

  ‘I’m not fearless.’ His smile fell away. ‘I’m fucking terrified right now. Just not of Dalgety.’

  I was digging in my washbag for my toothbrush when I discovered four fifty-dollar notes slipped in alongside the Colgate. Angus had already taken the dogs up to the orchards for the day, so I crept into his bedroom and looked around for somewhere to conceal the money. It was surprisingly neat for a bloke’s room. Navy blue quilt cover, a wicker chair, jarrah wardrobe and an angular floor lamp. It
smelled quite pleasant in there, too: like Angus’s aftershave on the night he’d been quizmaster. I tucked the fifties into the pocket of his good jeans.

  Mrs Brooker and I spent the morning making chutney from some unripe nectarines Angus had brought down.

  ‘Chupney, I called it for many years,’ she confessed when the diced onions were frying in a pot.

  ‘Chupney?’ I couldn’t help laughing.

  She smiled. ‘Nobody corrected me for ever such a long time! My mother taught me how to make it and I’m still not sure if she simply never noticed I was saying it wrong, or if she thought it was funny and let me be. I was still saying it as an adult, you know. I would make it with my mother-in-law. She never said a word about my pronunciation either. It was Pris who broke it to me, in the end.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

  Mrs Brooker tinkled a laugh. ‘I was writing up the labels and she looked at one and said, “What on earth have you done? You’ve spelled chutney wrong!” I was confused until she told me in no uncertain terms it was a t, not a p. I didn’t believe her at first, but I took a stealthy look at my old CWA cookbook and my heart sank when I realised she was right. What a blessed fool I must have made of myself for all those years, down at a school fête or in the Progress Association meetings. Why did no one ever tell me?’ She shook her head.

  ‘They probably thought it was adorable,’ I said. ‘When Elizabeth was a kid, she used to call her forehead her porridge. “I bumped my porridge,” she would say – or “I have a hot porridge.” We humoured her for years until she stormed home from school when she was about eight and demanded to know why we’d lied about the word “forehead” for her whole life. She’d said the word in front of her class and everyone laughed at her. I admitted that Mum and Dad and I had thought it was so cute, none of us could bring ourselves to tell her. Poor Lizzy was fuming. She threw a marine life diorama at me.’

  Mrs Brooker was laughing gaily now. ‘Poor little thing! I was a thirty-five-year-old woman, so I couldn’t exactly throw something at Pris, although I must admit I wanted to for a few moments.’