Chapter 5

Beth

The Monday after lunch with my family I had a rostered day off, which meant I was able to accompany Gran on a field trip to survey orchids in a nature reserve next to Woodside Ridge – the farm where she grew up. I enjoyed tagging along as a volunteer on these visits. It was an opportunity to get out in the bush, without the responsibility of leading the project. I enjoyed having something planned for my time off; I hated squandering it. And any day I got to spend with Gran was a good one.

Gran had been involved in a project to re-establish a population of the species Caleana fallax, or warty swan orchid as it’s commonly known, for several years. Each plant grows to about 30 centimetres tall and develops two to three smooth dark-purple flowers in spring. Two fleshy, tear-shaped petals grow out from the stem and curve to meet each other at their tips to create a swan-body-like shape. They are covered in a soft fuzz, made up by thousands of tiny hair-like fibres, while a central petal bends 90 degrees at its tip to create what looks like a head at the end of a long, elegant neck. The result: a swan-shaped flower; hence the name.

Gran had been involved in a survey of the species about twenty years ago, when they found there was only a handful of plants left in existence. So, as an insurance policy against something terrible (such as a fire) wiping them all out, Gran and a group of volunteers collected seed to store for safekeeping at the state herbarium and in the Kew Gardens Millennium Seed Bank in Sussex – a kind of global Noah’s ark for plants.

And it was lucky they did.

Two years ago, a fire had torn through the reserve, burnt through three of the four remaining populations of warty swan orchids and caused the native wasp, their pollinator, to disappear.

Fortunately, Gran and her team were able to cultivate some plants from the surviving population and grow new ones from the seed they had stored. But, still, the wasps were nowhere to be found.

Knowing that Mother Nature needed a helping hand, Gran visited the plants several times a week. She tenderly collected pollen grains on a tiny paintbrush from one plant and then delicately brushed them onto another. I think she enjoyed the work as much as she enjoyed being able to describe herself as a botanical sex therapist. Whatever her title, one thing was for certain: without her, the entire species would have become extinct.

‘I never get tired of coming out here,’ Gran said as we slowed to a stop at the edge of the nature reserve under a giant marri covered in blossoms that were teeming with bees. My car had vibrated violently when we turned off the sealed road and onto the track that ran parallel to the nature reserve, so I was glad to give it a break.

‘Did you ever think you might end up taking over the farm?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ she replied, looking towards the timber ‘Woodside Ridge’ sign that her father had erected when he was still working the land. ‘My parents were determined that we would be educated and that my brother, Henry, sister, Daisy, and I all explored a life beyond these fences.

‘In fact,’ she continued, ‘we were the first family of three with more than one girl to all graduate from the university. They even published a story about us in the university magazine. Mummy kept that clipping in a frame on the mantelpiece until she died.’

‘They must have been proud,’ I said. While they told me they were proud, I don’t think my parents ever thought much about me being university educated.

‘They were. But, unfortunately, it spelled the end for the farm that had been in our family for four generations.’

A cow in a nearby paddock mooed loudly, as if confirming her account.

‘And it was a risk. Daisy and I didn’t know what our careers would look like, especially after we got married,’ she added. ‘Nowadays it’s assumed that you girls will have long and productive careers, even if you choose to have a family too. But it wasn’t until the mid-60s that married women could work in the public service. I remember two girls I went to boarding school with – Mary Thomas and Edith What’s-Her-Name – got married in secret, so they didn’t have to quit their jobs. But that just bought them time; they had no choice but to quit when they got pregnant.’

Gran scanned the horizon and breathed deeply.

‘Even though I left this place, it always feels like home,’ she said, as much to me as to the landscape.

A trail of dust appeared on the horizon, and the farm dogs in a distant paddock were whipped into a barking frenzy. Emily Lim and Jack Walker, who had arrived from the state’s herbarium to oversee the survey, waved from inside the car as they slowed to a stop.

Emily was a botanist in her forties who was capable, diligent, thorough and organised, with little interest in small talk. Gran insisted that Emily reminded her of me, which I took as a compliment.

Jack – a proud Noongar man – more than made up for Emily’s reservedness. He spoke at a million miles an hour and radiated warmth.

‘Elise!’ he bellowed as he strode towards Gran with his arms outstretched. ‘How are you going? You keeping well?’

He hugged Gran tightly. They had worked together on and off for the past forty years and enjoyed a productive professional history and a genuine fondness for each other.

‘Great to see you again, Beth,’ he said, turning to shake my hand.

Once we’d unloaded our equipment from the car, the four of us made our way through the open eucalypt woodland towards the population of warty swan orchids. Emily took deliberate, purposeful strides, while Jack stopped regularly to point out a lizard he’d spotted or to listen for a bird call. Gran seemed to be walking more slowly than usual, especially up the inclines. Admittedly, the small pea-sized rocks underfoot did make it slippery.

The undulating terrain of this patch of bushland was why it was still there; my great-great-grandfather chose to clear the flatter land to the east. It was the easier option by comparison, and now this patch of bush was one of only a handful of natural areas left in the district. The landscape was dotted with powderbark wandoos; their slender creamy, skin-coloured trunks were covered in pockmarks and blemishes. The deepest indents were tinged with a deep red-brown colour, as if blood had coagulated in the wounds.

After about fifteen minutes, we reached the population of warty swan orchids, which was marked out by purple tape and protected under a sheet of fine netting.

‘Hello, my little darlings,’ Gran cooed.

Jack laughed.

‘What?’ Gran feigned ignorance. ‘Plants that know they are loved grow better, you know.’

Emily rolled her eyes good-naturedly. As a scientist myself, I assumed it was because she disapproved of Gran’s anthropomorphising of the plants.

‘Well, it seems to have worked,’ Jack gushed. ‘Look at them all!’

We got to work counting and measuring the plants. The original plants looked healthy, and there were seven new ones. The wasps were still missing in action, but the group was confident in its ‘build it, and they will come’ approach. It would just take time. And a bit more sexual healing.

By the time we tallied our findings and gathered up our equipment, the sun was directly overhead, which shortened the shadows and hazed the horizon. The hum of the insects had become louder and more shrill.

‘Are you okay, Gran?’ I asked, noticing she’d stopped to catch her breath as we walked back towards the cars.

‘Of course I am,’ she replied, slightly breathlessly. ‘Any fitter and I’d be dangerous.’

Gran looked to Emily as if to check whether she was making a mental note about her diminished capacity to carry the equipment bags. I knew she feared the day they would deem her an occupational health and safety risk and no longer let her participate in the surveys.

About halfway up the last incline she stopped abruptly.

‘Ohhhh! Look what I’ve found,’ she exclaimed, pointing to a long red-and-black feather laying against a rock. ‘A red-tailed black cockatoo feather’.

‘That’s a beauty, Elise,’ Jack said. ‘We call those cockies “Kaarak”, which means “black feather”. They were my mother’s totem.’

Gran picked up the feather, and rotated it between two fingers. The incandescent orange-red hues of the barbs glowed with the sun behind them.

‘When I was young, these birds used to descend on this farm in their thousands, you know,’ Gran said. ‘You’d hear them well before you’d see them, and then they’d flock to the eucalypts around the place.’

Gran removed her wide-brimmed hat and slid the quill of the feather into the band.

‘Their favourite tree was the old marri next to the outhouse. They’d pry open the honkey nuts with their beaks, eat the seed and then drop the shell. It made the ground really slippery. The challenge of getting to the loo without falling over or copping a nut to the head was enough to make you shit yourself. And that was before you checked the underside of the seat for redbacks and the long-drop for snakes.’

We all laughed.

After we said our farewells and Emily and Jack drove off, Gran lingered with the car door open and scanned the landscape, as if adding additional colour and detail to her mind’s eye picture of the place she’d known her whole life.

‘What a good day at the office,’ she beamed.

I couldn’t have agreed more.