‘I’ll do my best,’ Dimple said, and Ruthie knew that meant he’d do it when he felt like it. Getting rid of the last of their cows would be very painful.
‘But, you know, if you want to stay here for a while and work for us, we’d be happy with that. The knowledge you have of this country would be useful. Of course, we wouldn’t be paying you a full wage — you’re not as qualified as my men are — but,’ he looked at Ken, ‘I’m sure we could come up with something.’
Ken was nodding.
‘I’ll give it some thought,’ Dimple replied, not rattled.
The visitors stood, and thanked Ruthie for the tea and biscuits. Ken said it was nice doing business with them, and then they went out the front door, followed by Dimple. Ruthie let them go. She stayed in the kitchen. Being nice was no longer possible. She heard the ute-truck leave, showing off its horsepower, and she sighed like there had been a funeral announcement. She emptied the teapot, and washed the plates and cups. Dimple did not come back, and she wondered if he’d gone straight back out into the paddock.
She put the remaining biscuits back in the tin and sauntered down the hall to the front door, where she could see Dimple’s shoulder through the gauze. He was standing on the verandah, looking out into the garden. She wondered what he was doing, still there after maybe fifteen minutes. Deep in thought, perhaps. She took a few steps forward, and could just make out that his shoulder might have been shaking. She walked to the door as quietly as she could. There was stifled whimpering coming from somewhere near him. She had never seen Dimple cry. It was not possible that he could be. There must be somebody else with him. But who? She pushed through the front door and out onto the verandah, and stood just behind her husband. He was crying — she was sure of it. And then he realised she was there, and quickly wiped his face with his sleeve and stepped down onto the lawn.
‘That was shit, wasn’t it? God, he’s a fuckwit,’ Dimple said, his head turned away from her as he strode off towards his ute.
Ruthie watched him go, a disbelieving witness. She had seen him moist-eyed over Finnie, and slowed up by a lump in his throat at other times, but never anything like this. She was almost embarrassed for him. She turned back to the kitchen without calling out to him. The tears began to stream down her face, but she did not sob or make a sound. Only her eyes betrayed her.
Who could possibly cry when they had just become ‘comfortable’, even wealthy, in some sense. It was only she and Dimple who could find a way to be unhappy about such a thing. They had traded something they loved for a more secure life and a new start. That was all they had done, and it wasn’t worth crying over. It was as much a first-world problem as any you could think of. But still her eyes weren’t dry. It felt like they had given in to their own worst impulses and to the worst possible people. Sold everything and everyone out. What would Finnie and J say? Nothing, of course. But what would they think? They would know their parents had gone mad. And now they would have to suffer for that with money they probably wouldn’t want to touch. She could not bear to think of what her mother’s opinion would have been. She would have argued caustically against it, long before it got to this point. And Dimple’s father? He would probably have said he expected it of them. Mercenary people did mercenary things. That would have been his point of view, and he would have been right. She walked out the back door into the garden. It was essential to keep busy.
She stood amongst the swathes of flowering agapanthus and said, ‘It’s not my garden. He said he’d knock the house down, which means the garden will be trashed. So what’s the point of gardening?’
There was no point and no answer, but she knelt and began pulling out milk thistles that had taken advantage of a damp gap between the plants. There was no point, except she liked to do it and was proud of her garden. When she and Dimple finally drove away, she needed to be able to look back and know it was as good as she could have made it.
Dimple started the ute and turned up the radio. He did not want to hear his own weakness. He did not want to think about what he had just done. He already hated himself, and knew he might feel that hate for the rest of his life.
Facing up to selling the cows was the first big task. When he had sold the bulk of the mob, first in small truckloads and then in big numbers, the hurt was only reduced by the fact he knew he was retaining the very best of what they owned. The genetics that he and Ruthie prized were still on the farm. The cattle he had got rid of included poor milkers and intermittent breeders, bad-tempered old cows and fence-jumpers, bad-doers and instant runners. At least, that’s what he’d told himself. But now the best he could breed from the top cows his father and grandfather had bred — three generations worth — would be gone. If he ever owned cows again, they would be the sum of someone else’s lifetime of decisions.
As he drove past their paddock, only a few of the cows lifted their heads at the sound of his machine. It was a good sign. They were well fed. They were no longer desperate for the next load of hay, knowing that without his offerings there was nothing else to eat. If it didn’t rain, though, their calm would not last long. They would go back to calling out to him, leaning over the fence and tracking his every move. But that wouldn’t happen, because they would be sold by then, turned into hamburgers, or taken to a place where there was good grass.
There were lots of things he knew he should be doing, but he just kept driving. He took the track down to the cropping country and then drove out into the middle of the paddock across the perfect lines of soft furrows — something he would never have done before. He only ever drove over the cropping country when he had to: in a spray rig, a planting rig, or a header, and every time he kept to the tram lines to keep the compaction down. Most of the time he never let cows into these paddocks, because protecting the soil from hard hooves was important. It mattered little now. Now he was a wealthy man, if only in money terms.
As he sat in the middle of the paddock and looked out across the broad plain, he wondered about the people who had come before: shepherds, squatters, fencers, bushrangers, selectors on unviable blocks, women with children living as isolated a life as if they had established a settlement on Mars.
The idea of his own ‘three generations’ came back to him. Three generations that he was so deeply proud of. How many generations had existed here before his people? Two thousand? Three thousand? More? Almost all of them unrecognised. It dwarfed his sense of loss, but did not diminish it.
He got out and walked across the soil, appreciating its softness. It was a game of winners and losers, and he thought he’d been a winner. He’d thought the answer was to be clinical and ruthless. You only made money when you focused solely on money, he’d heard people say. They were right, and he was right. It was what Ruthie wanted, at the start anyway. You could not walk away from that sort of offer. Except he should have.
He should have done something else, maybe offer to buy Ruthie out over time, or borrow money so she could live that life she wanted, if she still wanted it. Or called his sons in and asked them if they saw a life for themselves on the farm, even if he couldn’t for himself.
He lay down on his back, and spread his arms and legs out on the topsoil. The sky held nothing but blue and a few light thoughts of cloud in the east. ‘You fucken idiot,’ he said aloud. ‘What have you done?’
Thirteen
A week went past, and as far as she knew, Dimple had not talked to the boys. Neither had she. It was terrible. But she dreaded telling them almost as much as she dreaded the day when she and Dimple drove away from the place forever. She knew Finnie had talked to Dimple about selling up. He had been supportive, Dimple had said. But, as they both knew, saying supportive things was the easy part. J would be sad, but Finnie would be heartbroken. They would have to come home to say their goodbyes. The family would need a ceremony of some sort — maybe a picnic with a bonfire in one of their favourite places. There would be community farewell
s, too. The thought made her heart a weight in her chest. Even though they probably wouldn’t be moving far away — still close enough to see their friends — she knew that once you left a community, you lost your place in people’s minds. You became someone they saw on special or arranged events. She guessed you took your place in another group somewhere, but it would not be the same.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had been involved in something dirty or underhanded. It felt like they had got together to steal something or cheat someone, and that she had not been duped into doing it. She had gone in with her eyes wide open. She was as guilty as anyone of whatever crime it was they had committed.
And then the euphoria of knowing she wasn’t dying would return and lift her. The problems were small ones, she insisted to herself. The world was full of possibilities for a woman her age. She had spent her life ignoring opportunities for herself. It was no time to lose courage. And there would be enough money to do interesting things. Who could say no to that? Her ambitions were modest, except perhaps for a few overseas trips. She might even take Dimple.
At first she had believed the sale of the farm was a difficult and painful thing, but their only sensible option. It would have been ridiculous to reject an offer as good as Wally’s, especially after all they had been through and what they still faced. To stay as they were, doing what they had been doing for so long, would have been a mistake. And change was always hard. Everybody knew that. You had to undergo a certain amount of pain to get to a better place. And so on.
But her resolve was thinning. In the garden, the house, and at the chookyard, she had to argue harder and harder to keep herself believing. But deciding to sell was starting to feel like they had acted against their better natures. Over the years, they had done their best to make the business work, to provide for the boys and have a good life themselves. Profitability had always been essential to keeping the farm, but they had never put making money above everything else. Now they had.
She rang Philippa Holden, who lived a few farms away, and asked her if she would like some chooks. Philippa had a problem with her husband’s dogs and their liking for chooks, so she was always on the lookout for more fowls.
‘Don’t you want them anymore?’
Ruthie had thought about this question and how she would answer it. A lie would make her feel bad, but it was too soon for the truth. Nobody would be surprised by a couple selling up. The dry had gone on so long that everyone was looking at each other, wondering who would crack first.
‘I do, but we’re going to make some changes around here, and that includes the chooks.’
Philippa was too a nice person to probe about the changes. ‘Well, then, I’ll take them. But if you ever want them back, and if they’re still alive, you can have them.’
Ruthie was too thankful. Philippa said her husband, George, would come over in the next few days to pick them up. Ruthie wondered how much the local grapevine knew about what was happening. It would be naïve to think they didn’t have an inkling, which made Philippa’s gesture even kinder.
While Ruthie organised to get rid of the chooks, Dimple drove around the farm, checking the water, the cows, and the landscape. Before, when things were quiet, he liked to look and think about what needed to be done, what improvements he could make, what new practices he might incorporate. Now, as he scanned the paddocks, he realised that world of imagining and the pleasure he took in it had been taken away from him. The farm would always be as it was now. The changes that were coming would be Wally’s changes, and he would have nothing to do with them. All he could do was take mental pictures to be savoured in the future.
Now the best he could do was try to avoid the remorse that called out to him from every paddock and every tree. It was pathetic, and he knew it.
At least there were the dogs. They kept him company, watchful and not a little bit knowing. Their life was more boring than it used to be before he started selling off cows, but it was still a good life and they had him, which was all that really mattered. He hadn’t discussed with Ruthie what they were going to do with Ringer and One-eye. Because they weren’t going to do anything. Wherever he went, they would come with him. He was firm on that. They would hate town, but he wasn’t going to live there, so it was all right.
He felt empty, and even the fresh beauty of spring couldn’t lift his spirits. The recent rain hadn’t provided much moisture, but enough to allow the trees and grasses that were so accustomed to feast and famine to make the most of an opportunity. They sprouted and shot and grew as if they had never had it so good. He admired the optimism, but couldn’t help thinking that a few hot, dry weeks would put the country back to where it was before the rain. Did nature somehow know there would never be another spring? They’d better make the most of this one.
In the ute, he shook his head violently to stop himself thinking stupid things. Tough times came and went. There was no point in catastrophising. He might not even be a farmer anymore. He might never own a farm again. It was not his worry.
As he drove, a smooth-skinned cow with a robust calf calmly watched him go past. It was 3027. Her hide had almost repaired, and she looked good. Strong, if not fat. She was putting everything into her calf. He turned and drove away quickly. It was time to sell the cows. Putting it off was just going to increase the pain, and there was enough of that.
When he told Ruthie he was anxious for the cattle to go, she said, ‘Couldn’t we see if someone could take the cows on for us, send them on agistment somewhere? We’ll have money. Someone must have feed for them.’
He had considered this, but had told himself it was folly. Agistment was almost impossible to find when the whole state was in drought. How far would he have to send them to find this good feed? Five hundred kilometres? One thousand kilometres? At that distance, they would just become an idea, too far away to manage properly or maybe even care about.
‘Okay. I’ll have a ring around.’
At lunch and in the evenings, he rang agents and old friends, friends of friends, people he once knew, and some he’d never heard of. There were websites on the internet, but they were overloaded with people like him, desperate for a chance. The responses were all the same: apologetic but no-go. He kept at it because at least it occupied him.
He rang Russell Miller, his agent and a long-time friend, again and told him he needed the cattle to be gone within the next month.
He told Ruthie at smoko. She turned away from him and didn’t say anything. She put her hands on the sink and leant on her arms. He watched as she bowed her head and let her shoulders slump.
‘It’ll be all right,’ he said.
‘I know.’
She straightened. ‘It’s suddenly real. That’s all.’
He drank his tea, but it tasted sour. The place would soon be empty, like the relationship. He felt like a fake: a fake farmer; a fake husband; a fake man. It would be better when the cows were gone.
‘When do we tell the boys?’
‘Before the cows go. That’s for sure.’
‘I can’t do this conversation right now.’ She wiped her hands and walked out the door into the garden. He let her go. There was no rush. But they had to be fair to J and Finnie. He could take the coward’s way and send them a message, telling them they were needed. If they rang, they would most likely get Ruthie, and then she would have to explain. He wouldn’t do that. He would call them and tell them that he and their mum had important news they would only share face-to-face. But not yet.
Russell came to look over the cattle. Dimple told him he wasn’t going to feed them again. He needed to place them with good people.
Russell was a messy man whose clothes never quite fitted his bulk, and hair that refused direction even as it thinned. But he had a big heart, and Dimple was sure that heart would have been burdened with stories of woe from the many people whose cattle he had sold. A livestock
agent could be as close to a counsellor as many farmers ever got.
They took Dimple’s ute to meander around the cattle. Every now and then, Russell got out to have better look.
‘They’re in good shape. You’ve done a good job.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Tell me again why you’re getting rid of them. I mean, the pasture seems to be coming on all right.’
‘For how long? If we don’t get follow-up, I’ll be back to hand-feeding them before I know it.’
‘Fair enough. Everyone’s sick of feeding.’ Russell was leaning on the window, his elbow sticking out into the warm air. ‘But most didn’t get the rain you did. A lot of people are offloading stock right now. You’d be selling in a falling market. It would be better to wait, if you could.’
‘I can’t wait.’
Russell nodded and put too much effort into studying the cows. Dimple knew he had guessed something else was going on. Let him guess.
‘I’ll see if anyone down south will take them. Can you give me a week or so?’
‘No problem.’
J rang while only Ruthie was in the house.
‘You guys have been very quiet. I haven’t had a call or anything,’ he said. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Of course — we’ve just been a bit busy.’ She moved quickly to ask him how his life was going. J had always been a talker, so phone conversations were easy. She was thankful for it. Listening to him, she could not believe that they had not been able to tell him or his brother. They had sold the farm, and their own children didn’t even know. Their childhood home. Their mental good place.
‘There’s something we’ve got to tell you,’ she said, interrupting him.
‘Is it serious?’
‘Yes.’ And then her conviction deserted her. ‘No. Actually, it can wait. Just something silly.’
Small Mercies Page 15