Hope Farm (4 page)

My mother guessed in the end. She kept asking if I had any thing for the incinerator and when I said no she stared at me. Then she said Where have you been putting them? You know you cant leave them lying around some where even wrapped up, theyll start to smell. And I said I havent got any. Then she went to the bathroom and checked the cabinet and said You havent used any, did you buy them for yourself? I didnt answer because of course I couldnt buy them for myself what would I buy them with? She came back in to my room then and knelt down in front of me where I was sitting on the bed. She stared at me at my face and then at my breasts sticking out all swollen under my dress. She got that voice. What have you been doing? she said.

Miller arrived, and Ishtar helped him unload the car. They carried clinking bundles of tools to one of the falling-down sheds at the back — spades and long-handled gardening forks, and then some boxes that gave off a shimmying rustle.

‘Look, girls,' said Miller, sliding a pile of boxes to the ground and squatting. He opened the top one and took out a small paper packet. Jindi rushed forward. Miller ripped off the end of the packet and shook something into his hand. ‘Look,' he said again. ‘Seeds. The stuff of life.'

‘Wow,' breathed Jindi.

‘Can you believe that from these tiny things will burst whole plants? Bearing fruit?'

The girl bent closer, her face almost in his palm. ‘What kind of fruit?'

Miller didn't answer. Swivelling, he raised his hand to his own face and blew, sending the seeds rushing out in a disintegrating cloud.

Jindi gasped, grabbing at the drifting particles. ‘But what kind of fruit will they make?'

Miller, seeming not to hear, was gathering up the boxes again, slinging them haphazardly into the shed. Then he strode away towards the mud-brick building, where Ishtar had taken another load of cartons and bags.

After making a few more grabs at the air Jindi ran to me, fists clenched. ‘Silver!' she panted. ‘There's going to be fruit!' She opened her fingers but the minuscule seeds had vanished into the grime of her palms. She held her hands nearer to her eyes, then shook them before staring up at me in confusion. ‘There were seeds,' she said. ‘I had them.'

I could see some of them, a constellation of dark flecks trapped in the yellowy green globule of snot that was descending from one of her nostrils.

Miller and Ishtar didn't come back out of the mud-brick building. I had a pretty good idea what they were doing in there. While Jindi was busy pawing through the dirt, I took off.

The other side of the hill ran down to a belt of scrub and past that was a creek, which swung in a wide curve around the back of Hope's cleared paddocks. Directly behind Hope and off to the right, the scrub, while only a narrow strip, was choked with blackberry and almost impenetrable, but in the other direction it widened and was much easier going, with a faint path that ran a few metres up from the water, parallel. Quite soon this came out at the dirt road, just a bit further along from Hope's gateway and weathered, pathetic sign, where a small timber bridge straddled the water. The almost-path continued on the other side of the road, where there were no more paddocks or houses, only bush, and I was able to walk along there for probably fifteen or twenty minutes without coming across any other sign of human life. It was a delicious feeling, to leave Hope behind.

It was loose bush, easy to move through — a combination of tall gums, ti-tree with their ragged, papery branches, and the occasional explosion of bright-baubled wattle. There were places where the creek's bank opened out into miniature meadows of patchy pale grass that steamed under the winter sun.

That creek! The lightness of the flow of water; the warm, brown look of it — even though, when I put my hand in, it was so cold my fingers turned white and numb — the wet fissures in the big rocks that sat half submerged; the refractions of amber light deep down, and the mossy-looking spotted fish that lazed there. Birds seemed to burst with pleasure out of the canopy of bush, hurtling their calls around, landing with an extra flourish to dip their heads and then lift and shake them, brash drops flying from their beaks.

I went there often. I took a book and read, hunkered at the base of a tree, folded in on myself against the cold. My feet would go to sleep and I'd have to ease my legs out slowly in order to stand up, the electric tingle of pins and needles jagging in pure, enlivening streaks.

It was down by the creek I met Ian.

I'd had the feeling that there was someone else around. Once, huddled in the lee of my enormous, silvered hillside log, something had made me turn and stare up at where the wind-raked grass met the sky, and I thought I saw a flicker of movement. In the bush there were always noises — stirrings, rustlings — but sometimes I thought I heard the swish of a branch, as if someone had pushed through it, or the weight of footfalls. I put it down to wallabies, which I saw occasionally, if I stayed out late enough, nosing down to the water, stopping to pull at grass clumps or put their heads up to twitch their ears. Sometimes one would stop very close and fix me with a trembling gaze, and I would stare right back, and the moment seemed to go on forever.

Then one time I was down there in the afternoon. All day it had been raining, but the sky had cleared and there were splashes of sun on the wet ground and little ribbons of light moving in the brownish water. I was squatting, keeping as still as I could, watching out for one of the fish that moved almost invisibly in and out of the shadowy depths. The creek was rushing faster than I'd seen it, with bits of bark and twigs and leaves being carried along, and swirls of water frothing at the places where the bank made a curve, or where rocks stuck up above the surface. I had seen a fish, and was watching it dart in and out as if excited by the creek's new energy, when something appeared at the edge of my vision, and came floating along near to my side of the bank.

At first I thought it was a big, funny-coloured bubble. But then it got closer, and didn't burst but swung with the current in a quick, clean arc, coming neatly to rest like a docking boat in the shelter of a big tuft of reedy grass that hung out from the bank right next to me.

It was a ball of some sort, greyish white. I was about to reach for it when another one appeared, the same size and colour, and whisked itself in to halt beside the first. Side by side they jiggled there, surrounded by floating leaves and yellow wattle blooms.

I stood up. I took hold of one of the branches of a nearby ti-tree — a low, strong one — and leaned out to see upstream.

Down they came, twirling and bobbing, one by one. Two more small, greyish balls — and then a tennis one, waterlogged green. A short break and then another grey and another tennis ball, and at last, like the main attraction in a parade, lower in the water and right out in the middle, a cricket ball, bright cherry red, turning slowly in the current.

The grey balls came shooting in to bob with the others in a little cluster, hemmed by the mat of floating leaves, and the two tennis balls stopped slightly further out. The cricket ball, though, was too far away and too heavy to be sucked in close like the others. It was on a different course, and unless I did something it would just keep going past. I reached for a long stick, gripped the ti-tree branch harder, and leaned further out. The ball was almost level with me now, and I swung with the stick, missed, then swung again and just connected — and in it cruised, still turning its lazy shining somersaults, to join the bobbling jostle of grey and green.

No more balls came, and after a while I pulled myself close to the ti-tree and let go of its branch, and dropped the stick. It made a dull
thunk
on the grass. At the same time, I heard another noise and turned, and there he was, pushing his way through low wattle branches.

He was gangly and pale, with colourless eyelashes and brows, which gave his eyes an unprotected, dazzled look. There were bright blobs of wattle on his shoulders and in his hair, which was almost more green than blond, like the tennis balls. He was wearing a blue jumper and brown pants, and desert boots that made his feet appear big and clumping below the skinny legs — and he had a stick, too, held upright like a staff. He was breathing fast, as if he'd been hurrying, and he stepped forward and peered past me.

‘Did they stop here?' he said, his voice breathy and impatient.

I moved aside to show the balls floating in their little pocket of calm.

He went over and knelt, letting his stick drop. ‘Even the cricket ball?' He reached down and grabbed it.

‘Well …' I indicated my own stick. Shyness made my voice come out strangely. ‘I sort of … tapped it in.'

‘Yeah, you have to. It's heavier — it doesn't go with the current as much.'

There was a long pause. He sat back on his haunches, the ball clasped between his knees. He tilted his head, half shut one eye, and aimed the other at me. ‘So …' he said. ‘New digs?'

I didn't answer. I didn't understand what he meant; it was not a term I'd come across before, even with all my reading. He waited a moment and then, with the air of someone accustomed to having to rephrase his sentences, said, ‘You've moved house, have you?'

‘Yeah.' I wasn't going to offer any more information.

‘Oh, I know where you're from.' He gestured downstream. ‘Hope Farm. With all the hippies.'

Before I could help it, my voice leapt out, quick and defensive: ‘Well, we don't live there. We're just … staying for a while.'

‘Ah.' The boy opened both eyes properly. I became acutely aware of my ill-fitting, unlaundered clothes, the tangle of my hair. ‘But you
are
a hippie, aren't you?'

The blood rose to my face. ‘I'm …'

‘I don't actually
care
.' He waved a hand. ‘I really don't. I am not,' he got to his feet, ‘in a position to
judge
.'

I smiled — I couldn't help it. There was an old-man quality to him I found comical: the frail body, the stalk-like legs, the desert boots planted in the grass. My suspicion ebbed. There was just something so — harmless — about him. I looked at the dripping ball in his hand. ‘Doesn't the water ruin it?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘The cricket ball. Doesn't the water get inside it?'

He held it up as if he'd forgotten he had it. He gave it a little toss but then failed to catch it, and it fell and rolled towards the creek. He threw himself after it, grabbed it, and sat up. ‘I don't know,' he said. Then he put it down carefully on the grass and began to take the others from the water, one by one.

‘But if it gets wet it's probably no good.'

‘No good for what?' He had his back to me.

‘Well, for cricket.'

He turned and stared. ‘Why should I care,' he said, ‘if it's any good for
cricket
?' He spat the word out like it was poison. Then after a few moments he grinned. ‘Oh, I see,' he said. ‘You think these balls are
mine
.'

I waited, confused.

‘Yes, yes, of course you would,' he said, as if to himself, clambering to his feet. ‘But I am afraid you are
labouring
under a
false assumption
.' He bent and picked up the cricket ball again, and passed it to me. ‘See that?'

I turned the glistening red surface to follow the trail of black letters. The writing was tall and reached almost all the way around.
DEAN PRICE
, it read, in aggressive capitals,
HANDS OFF!
I raised my eyes to meet the boy's. He lifted an eyebrow.

‘Dean Price?' I said, hesitantly.

‘Is not me.'

There was a pause while I waited for whatever it was that he was so clearly looking forward to revealing.

‘My name.' He spread his wet hands. ‘Is Ian Munro. And I stole that ball from Dean Price. All these balls.' He indicated the pile at his feet. ‘And that is because Dean Price is my
nemesis
.'

It wasnt our usual doctor it was a different one in a different part of town. He didnt look at me he pointed at the high bed and said Take off your underwear and hop up there. I took them off and then I didnt know what to do with them. I looked at my mother but she had her head down like she was praying so I just bunched them up and kept them in my hand. He put a sheet over me and said Knees up, then he went round to the end of the bed. I looked at the ceiling. Knees apart he said and put his hand in under the sheet and his fingers were cold. He felt the out side too, pressed around my belly. Yes he said to my mother. About four months. In the car my mother said Who was it? What do you mean I said. I mean who is responsible she said. I only knew his last name so I said it. She stared at me. Who lives at number fourteen? she said. Yes. She hit me on the ear. That man is married she said. I didnt answer, I put my hand over my ear. I had seen a woman of course, going in and out of the house but she never seemed to have any thing to do with him. My mother was quiet for a long time then she said Theres a place youll have to go in Brisbane, theyll look after you until its over and then you can come home, it will be like it never happened. It was hot and she took out a hanky and wiped under her nose. She put her hands on the big white steering wheel. Nobody needs to know she said but I couldnt tell if she was talking to me or to herself. I thought about Evie Dyers mother and her sorry smile her teacup shaking in her hands. Back at home my mother made dinner and I set the table. Linda was there in her room studying like always, she didnt have to do as many jobs round the house as me. When my father came home we had dinner like there was nothing different but afterwards when I was in my room I heard him shouting. Who did it? Who did it? Whats his name? he shouted. Wait wait my mother said, She doesnt know his name and any way hes gone now, hes left town. Its all right she said, It can all be dealt with nobody needs to know. He stopped shouting then. Quietly he said Of course theyll know, everyone always knows, her life is ruined now dont think it will be the same again because it wont. Shh said my mother, She will hear you.