Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 25 November 1975
Opinion polls continue to show a massive swing to the Labor Party after their controversial dismissal, and demonstrations continue across the nation . . .
JED
Halfway to Eternity was quiet as Jed parked Boadicea in the shade of a well-fed apricot tree, five years old now and heavy with fruit. It seemed decades since she had seen the place first, Sam and Carol with muddy hands and bodies, JohnandAnnie up on the deck with Sunshine, giving her the peace sign.
The dome had been replaced with two round, rammed-earth cottages and a stone house, all linked by a long breezeway that technically made them only one house for the Gibber’s Creek building inspector. Carol’s cottage was surrounded by grevilleas and had a vast climbing rose over the doorway, a mass of flesh-pink flowers. Sam was selling his cottage to one of the bearded engineers and his new love, also found in Gibber’s Creek.
The other beard had moved into one of the Drinkwater cottages — farms needed far less labour in these days of tractors and fencing contractors. Mack had purchased a block of land next to the factory. As soon as the council approved the plans, there’d be another roof-raising and floor-pouring, as many hands created the shell of a house in a few days.
The circus tent had also been retired once more. A giant shed stood where it had been, while an octagonal gazebo guarded the open fireplace and mud-brick oven and a variety of seats, from stone benches topped with smooth concrete to chairs of crooked bush timber.
Down in the garden Broccoli Bill and Susan moved along the rows of tomatoes, two figures in what would be an artist’s canvas of vegetable bliss, tying the vines to stakes. Jed waved, then walked down to meet them. ‘How are the tomatoes?’
‘Excellent,’ said Susan, wiping a filthy hand across her forehead. ‘We’ve put in climbing yellow pear tomatoes too, and some of the big Italian meaty ones. We’ve got peas, asparagus, artichokes and basil picked, if you’ve come vegetable hunting, and some lovely caulies.’
‘Caulies need eating,’ said Broccoli Bill. ‘They’ll be gone to seed next week.’
‘That would be great. All of them, please, about twenty dollars’ worth, with emphasis on the asparagus and peas.’ Sam loved asparagus. Jed and Scarlett adored peas, though Jed suspected part of Scarlett’s delight was having steady-enough hands these days to eat them. ‘But I’ve really come canvassing for votes.’
‘For Malcolm Fraser, of course,’ said Susan, deadpan.
‘Of course,’ agreed Jed.
Broccoli Bill grinned. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get everyone to the polling booth. Do you need a hand handing out how-to-vote cards?’
‘I think this election everyone will know exactly who they are voting for,’ said Jed. ‘But yes, it’s always useful. Do you mind doing the first shift?’
‘No worries,’ said Broccoli Bill easily. ‘You got time for smoko?’
Jed shook her head regretfully. Broccoli Bill didn’t just make bread and pizzas in the wood-fired oven, but a Dutch loaf almost solid with fruit. She had suggested to Leafsong she could add it to the café menu, but Leafsong had gestured to her own new big wood-fired oven behind the café and shaken her head.
Jed smiled. Leafsong seemed to be deeply happy, and Mark too, slightly drowsy from his new medication, proud of his new prowess with deep-fried baby artichokes, stuffed zucchini flowers and tartare sauce — a bit too new for the tastes of most of the residents of Gibber’s Creek, who had only just accustomed themselves to zucchinis and quiche.
‘What are you smiling about?’ asked Susan.
‘What? Sorry. I’m just happy.’ Happy that Sam and Scarlett were home. Ecstatic that Gavin had said ‘Mumma’ twenty-eight times, according to last report, was able to hold Moira’s finger with both his hands, and even wiggle his toes in the bathtub. Delighted that every single person she had spoken to as she had gone door to door around Gibber’s Creek had expressed outrage at the dismissal.
This election would be a triumph.
She finished her allotted canvassing by mid-afternoon. She headed home gratefully. She needed a sandwich or, with any luck, asparagus quiche and a hunk of strawberry shortcake, if Sam had collected them from the café. And a swim, and to change into something other than conservative jeans and a Shame, Fraser, shame T-shirt. One of Matilda’s silk slips, perhaps, perfect for a hot day.
She also needed a hug. Somehow she had managed for seventeen years without hugs, but these days — and especially after the events of two weeks earlier — she now needed a regular ration of them.
The ute was parked in the carport as she drove in. Good. Sam and Scarlett were back too then.
She opened the back door. ‘Hello?’
‘In the kitchen!’ yelled Scarlett. ‘It’s Hungarian chicken pie and salad.’
Which might just be better than a quiche. ‘I’ve got peas and asparagus, basil and cauliflower.’
Sam appeared from the kitchen. ‘And we hard-working canvassers for the deposed Labor government have been presented with a walnut cake, a box of almond crescents, two bottles of Dusty Jim’s home brew . . . don’t worry, they’re wrapped in newspaper in the garbage bin in case they explode . . . and a painting by Melinda Sampson, aged four, of Sir John Kerr being eaten by a crocodile.’
Jed grinned and leaned into his hug. ‘We should give the painting to Nicholas. They could put it up in the office window.’
‘Good idea.’
‘How did you go today?’
‘Brilliant,’ said Scarlett, looking up from tossing the salad. ‘Every single person we asked is going to vote for Nicholas.’ She grinned. ‘I gave them the sad, helpless waif look, and they melted.’
‘And I was strong, handsome, commanding and they all know my mum and dad,’ said Sam. ‘Sit and eat.’
It was deeply, profoundly good to sit with them again. Jed looked up from her pie to see Sam grinning at her and Scarlett. ‘What’s so funny, ape face?’
‘Call me that once more and I’ll shave my beard off.’
‘I love your beard. Why were you grinning?’
‘At you and Scarlett. You’ve discovered that families yell at each other sometimes.’
Jed shared a look with Scarlett. ‘Well, how were we to know?’ demanded Scarlett. ‘We’re new at this family stuff.’
Which finally gave Jed the confidence to say as Sam put the kettle on, ‘I got a letter from Mrs Taylor yesterday.’
‘Oh.’ Scarlett set her knife and fork neatly on her plate. ‘I . . . I forgot to tell you that I told her to write to you. She wants money . . .’
‘My first reaction was to tell her to shove the letter and a few other choice expressions Matilda wouldn’t approve of at all. But, Scarlett,’ Jed wasn’t calling her ‘brat’, just for now, ‘the Taylors are your birth family. I don’t want to think they will be homeless.’
‘They can rent something.’ Scarlett’s voice was carefully neutral.
‘Not much on what she earns at a supermarket.’
‘You don’t mean you are going to pay their mortgage, do you?’ asked Scarlett incredulously.
‘I’m not going to do anything unless you want me to,’ said Jed carefully. ‘And if I paid the mortgage, the chances are that your . . . that Mr Taylor would just remortgage the house again. I thought . . . what do you think about offering to buy the house in your name, but giving Mrs Taylor life tenancy? They should be okay financially if they don’t need to pay rent or a mortgage. I discussed it with Carol . . . I didn’t tell her the hypothetical case had anything to do with you,’ she added hurriedly.
She waited, grateful for the hand that Sam had slipped into hers. What she was offering was far more, financially, than she had offered Scarlett before. But surely it hadn’t been the money that was the problem, but the way she’d tried to use it.
Now she’d find out.
‘What would happen if Mrs Taylor wanted to move out?’ asked Scarlett slowly.
‘She’d lose her life tenancy.’
‘And if she died and . . . her husband . . . was living there?’
‘It would be your house. Your choice whether to leave him there, charge him rent.’
‘All right. Thank you.’ Scarlett took a deep breath. ‘That would be perfect.’
She didn’t ask how much it would cost. For it wasn’t money at stake, but compassion, forgiveness and an acknowledgement, at last, that money mattered not at all, except for what it might be used for.
Jed felt her heart slow down. They hadn’t discussed where Scarlett would live next year either. Perhaps Scarlett herself had not yet decided, or was waiting for her exam results and scholarship news. But whatever her sister chose, she knew the girl who had faced Ra Zacharia — who was still in a critical condition in hospital in Sydney — was capable of making her own choices. And her inevitable mistakes, as each human being had a right to do.
Sam stood. ‘I’d better be off. We’re interviewing this afternoon. Thompson’s manager and accountant have applied for jobs, but there are some other applicants too.’
Jed felt Scarlett’s glance. She kept her face showing nothing but the-person-who-loved-Sam type of interest. She had hoped — assumed — that the Thompson’s workers would be given priority. But she must back out of that project now too, just as she had to stop directing Scarlett’s life.
Money was like water, she thought. Good to swim in, bathe in. Money was wonderful only if it flowed around you. If you let it stick to you, you drowned.
Which reminded her: she needed a swim. She’d ring Drinkwater, and see if Matilda would like to join them, one hand on Scarlett’s chair and the other on her stick. And check that Michael didn’t need a hand with the sheep instead, because summer’s fly strike paid no attention to election schedules.
She glanced out at the glinting river. Her world was coming back into shape again. Scarlett home, Sam happy, Matilda admitting that the Gibber’s Creek Gazette was doing Gough Whitlam proud even without her urging, Mark miraculously happy with Leafsong.
And on 13 December Australia would have its elected government back again.
She woke, Sam snoring softly beside her, and glanced out at the moon, the Southern Cross just turning over to tell her the time.
She lay back, listening to the night, the river’s song louder in darkness, or possibly it was just that the cicadas were silent; the scents of rocks and sheep and starlight.
What had woken her? No sound, for the house was still. Worry? But there was nothing to worry about. Everything was . . .
Not that simple, she realised. Nor was it perfect. And she should stop pretending to herself. Sam was beside her but hadn’t raised the subject of marriage again, had not even hinted at it. Why?
And Scarlett. Impossible not to worry about Scarlett, and the thousand challenges the young woman didn’t even know she would face. This must be what it was like for parents, pretending to let go, but always the undercurrent of ‘what if’.
The election next month too. The election result seemed inevitable in daylight. EVERYONE, as Scarlett would say, condemned Fraser’s and Kerr’s actions.
And yet what of the loss of Blue McAlpine’s squished flies for Australia, Thompson’s Industries heading overseas, Mrs Anderson’s tears in the Blue Belle? What of Whitlam’s refusal, against the wishes of his advisers, to campaign on Kerr’s treachery, but instead to defend his economic record, as if voters cared for graphs or would be bothered analysing inflation and GNP and GDP figures? And the slogan that gave his opponent publicity: ‘Shame, Fraser, shame.’ Every time it was used it implied Fraser was the man in control. As indeed, he was. Had Whitlam’s refusal to see others’ viewpoints led, somehow, to this?
The powerful owl hooted beyond the river. Jed smiled, and Sam’s snoring ceased for a second as he turned and, still sleeping, reached for her.
No. These were four am worries, the kind that evaporated with daylight, a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge with stewed rhubarb. All would be well.
Jed slept.