A Place Like This Read online

  Anyway, I’ll see ya.

  My sister’s name is Beck; she’s seven.

  She don’t talk much.

  Not like me.

  See ya.

  This quiet land

  It’s nothing more than an irrigation channel

  dug across the plains,

  but George, despite his eye on the harvest

  and its price,

  years before built a hardwood landing

  to dive off into the cool water.

  Annabel and I spend every afternoon

  after picking

  lying on the wet timber,

  listening to the frogs

  and watching the dragonflies skim across the surface.

  What can I say?

  When we know George is in town

  or too busy hosing down the tractor,

  we strip naked and worship the late breeze

  blowing ripples across the channel.

  A beer or two and I’m set for life.

  A beer or two and Annabel’s lips

  and her arm resting on my stomach,

  and I hope to never leave

  the late afternoon

  of tired muscles, channel water

  and this quiet land.

  The shed

  Me and Annabel are sitting against the shed.

  In the sun.

  Sunday. No work.

  I’m dreaming of a month of Sundays.

  We’ve been working for two weeks.

  Our hands are starting to heal

  from the first week of learning

  to snap the stem of each apple

  as we plucked it.

  Yes, ‘pluck’, that’s what George says.

  George loves his apples so much

  he can’t bear to just pick them.

  He plucks them quick, yet soft,

  places them in his bag

  and when it’s full

  leans over the bin and releases the latch.

  He fills four, sometimes five bins a day.

  That first week Annabel and I averaged three together,

  from 7am to 5pm. Climbing ladders with the bag

  half-full,

  swinging in front, pulling your neck forward.

  I cursed my luck for running out of petrol.

  The second week was easier.

  George gave us the heavy trees, loaded down

  until the weight broke the branches.

  We filled four bins a day. By Friday, it was five.

  Twenty dollars a bin.

  George says we’re alright.

  So alright, last night he came into the shed

  with a dozen bottles of beer.

  I like the sun when I’m tired.

  I lay down,

  close my eyes and think of

  anything but apples.

  Craig on his mum

  Mum ran away from us

  the night Beck vomited all over the dinner.

  She didn’t take much

  except the blind cat and all our money.

  Well, that’s what Dad said.

  Beck vomited all over everyone’s dinner.

  It was unreal. I don’t know if that’s why Mum left,

  but she left,

  and for weeks I kept thinking she was hiding

  somewhere on the farm –

  in the shed,

  or camping down by the channel –

  and I kept hoping she’d just

  come walking back into the kitchen;

  but that hasn’t happened.

  I’m learning to cook now.

  So is Beck.

  We get our own breakfast and lunch,

  and sometimes we cook dinner –

  you know, spaghetti and some sauce

  from a jar.

  Emma can cook, pretty good too.

  I miss Mum sometimes,

  and I know Beck does too,

  but Beck hasn’t vomited since.

  Not at the dinner table or anywhere,

  and Mum might come back one day.

  Dad says she won’t.

  He doesn’t say much about her,

  which is funny because they

  must have been pretty friendly,

  don’t you reckon,

  to get married and all.

  I’m not getting married.

  I’m not having kids who vomit all over the dinner.

  But I might run away from here

  when I’m older.

  I might even go look for Mum.

  My dad says ...

  My dad says you’re good workers.

  He says you’re the best he’s had in years.

  He says he doesn’t care what you do in our shed,

  as long as you keep working the same.

  He said that last night at dinner.

  I asked him what you do in our shed

  and Emma laughed.

  She hasn’t laughed in a while

  and then she says,

  ‘Yeah, Dad, tell Craig what they’re doing.’

  But Dad doesn’t.

  He tells Beck not to eat so fast,

  probably scared of her vomiting again.

  He tells me to mind my own business,

  but Dad tells me that at least once a day,

  so it’s nothing new.

  And that’s why I’m here now.

  So you tell me, okay?

  What do you do in our shed here?

  Beck talks

  My brother Craig,

  he thinks he knows everything,

  but

  he doesn’t know who let the dog

  wee in his football boots …

  I know.

  Screwed

  I got screwed.

  That’s how I got pregnant.

  Screwed.

  If you want to know, I’ll tell you.

  The truth.

  Not what I told Dad:

  My boyfriend, Dad.

  The one I made up.

  The one who had to leave town with his parents

  on account of his father’s work.

  What a load of bull.

  What boyfriend?

  We live twenty kilometres from town.

  The school bus is our only link.

  School buses don’t take you anywhere after 3pm.

  So one Friday I arrange to stay

  at my friend Jenny’s place –

  the Friday her parents are away –

  and we have a party.

  All of Year 10.

  A big party. A loud party.

  And I drink too much,

  even dance a bit, just to show myself I can.

  I’m drinking away

  the twenty kilometres of loneliness out here.

  I’m drinking away

  the exam results that don’t take me anywhere.

  I’m drinking away

  my clothes that smell of this farm.

  I’m drinking away

  apples, apple pie, baked apples, apple juice,

  apple jam, for God’s sake.

  Then I pass out,

  feeling pretty good really.

  I pass out on Jenny’s lounge.

  In the morning I wake on her parents’ bed,

  with no clothes on.

  I got screwed.

  I got pregnant.

  And I didn’t even get to enjoy

  becoming this big and ugly.

  And nobody in Year 10 knows a thing.

  Nobody, that is,

  except one person.

  School photos

  I’ve been going through my school photos.

  Every one since Year 5.

  I’m making a list of each boy’s features:

  big nose, blond hair, freckles, ears that stick out.

  I’ve got twenty-one boys from Year 10

  going back for years.

  What a bunch of uglies.

  And watching them get uglier every year

  are all my girlfrien
ds –

  the girls who didn’t see anything at Jenny’s party.

  None of them wear glasses,

  so maybe they were just blind drunk.

  Blind drunk. Or too scared to remember anything.

  Twenty-one boys. Twenty-one prospective fathers.

  Ten with blond hair.

  Ten with dark hair.

  And nerdy Phillip Montain with

  red hair, freckles and … surely not!

  It may take years of comparing their features

  with that of my baby,

  but when I do

  and I know,

  well,

  someone’s going to get screwed

  and, this time,

  it won’t be me.

  Colours

  It’s the sky I love.

  Annabel and I sunbathe

  on the hardwood landing of the channel.

  I spend hours lost

  in the deep summer blue

  that goes forever.

  I remember being a kid,

  me and Dad climbing

  onto our roof and looking up.

  I’d dream we were flying

  and all summer

  I’d never want to land.

  Annabel and I imagine

  animals in the clouds, like kids do,

  as a distant jet

  writes across the sky

  longer than history

  and I lay back,

  remember being a kid again,

  lost in the innocent colours

  of childhood.

  Annabel and babies

  I think about babies:

  my baby, when and if;

  Emma’s baby, twenty kilometres from town,

  no dad, but lots of apple mush for food;

  Jack and me with a baby.

  I’m not serious,

  I’m just thinking,

  passing this Saturday while Jack works

  on our car that goes nowhere, but goes nowhere well.

  When I left school and got into uni

  I thought my life was made.

  Uni, job, money, Jack, travel, house,

  Jack, more travel

  and still Jack.

  Jack was the constant.

  Then one weekend he says

  he’s quitting.

  He wants to drive, anywhere,

  as long as it’s away from uni and home.

  He wants me to come.

  That night my room seemed so small,

  like a kid’s room full of toys and stuff,

  and none of it meant anything.

  I picked up my textbooks

  and tried reading them

  and I realised for five years

  I’d been reading books that didn’t make sense,

  and now, I had four more years of it.

  I went downstairs and told Mum and Dad.

  It’s one Sunday they won’t forget.

  Dad raved, Mum cried.

  Then Dad asked, Why?

  And all I could answer was:

  because I’m too young to decorate a home;

  because textbooks have really bad covers;

  because I don’t want to wear neat clothes

  and wake every morning at 7.30am;

  because Jack and I have never been wrong yet;

  and because I want a year for myself, not my future.

  So, late Sunday, we did a deal.

  My dad, the solicitor, bargained

  a year off, a deferment,

  then back to the books.

  I agreed. What else could I do?

  And now

  I’m thinking about babies –

  Emma’s baby,

  Jack and my baby.

  Growing in my mind, if not in my womb.

  The dew-wet grass

  The best time is early morning

  with the dew-wet grass,

  the hills shouldered in mist,

  everything quiet.

  Annabel and I climb each ladder,

  pick a cold apple

  and crunch away.

  The juice so sharp and tart

  it hurts my teeth.

  We sit like this,

  watching the crows in the fir trees,

  the silver-eyes darting among the fruit,

  listening for George’s tractor

  with the empty bins rattling,

  calling to be filled.

  Annabel, the mist, a farm apple, the birds

  and an orchard waking up.

  Lucky Emma

  Sometimes

  I feel like someone

  who’s won the smallest prize in the lottery,

  but lost the ticket.

  I think of all the Year 10 boys.

  Mark Spencer with his long hair,

  black Silverchair T-shirt,

  leaning back in his chair

  playing air-guitar all through Maths.

  Peter Borovski and his love affair with himself.

  ‘Hey, Peter, who you sleeping with tonight?

  You’re kidding. Yourself again?

  What I’d give for your luck.

  And confidence. And stupidity.’

  Luke Banfield, who once this year talked to a girl,

  yeah, once. He asked her if she’d seen his basketball.

  I was that lucky girl.

  Or maybe, just maybe,

  Steve Dimitri, one of the few fifteen-year-olds I know

  who can eat with his mouth closed,

  who doesn’t know how to play basketball,

  who doesn’t look at the ground when talking to a girl

  and who doesn’t vomit after three drinks.

  He vomits after five drinks …

  Actually, I take back what I said.

  I feel like someone

  who’s won the smallest prize in the lottery,

  found the ticket

  and has to collect the winnings,

  even though

  she doesn’t want them.

  Emma

  I wish I had a boyfriend like you.

  Someone who wanted to be with me

  all the time.

  It’s true.

  I watch you two in the orchard.

  Every ten minutes he stops picking

  to look where you are.

  Sometimes you see him, sometimes not,

  but he’s there, checking you out.

  He’s not my physical type, mind,

  but

  I’d love to have someone like that.

  And someone to sleep with.

  What’s that like?

  Every night. Does he hold you?

  Does he snore?

  Does he kiss you before sleep?

  God! I’ve been watching too many soap operas,

  but I’d like to know.

  The only person I’ve slept with

  is bloody Craig when he was scared one night.

  He spent all night dropping silent bombers

  under the blankets. What a brother!

  Yeah, I’d like a boyfriend,

  but I don’t like my chances at the moment.

  You’re a lucky girl,

  you know that?

  Annabel

  It hurt,

  listening to Emma talk like that.

  It’s like some bad dream:

  pregnant

  and she didn’t even have sex.

  Well, not really.

  It’s not the Immaculate Conception though.

  I like her.

  She’s up-front.

  She’s taking it better than I would.

  I’d buy a gun and shoot all twenty-one boys, on suspicion.

  And then Jack and I come along,

  making love every night in her shed,

  and she notices stuff about Jack

  I’ve stopped noticing.

  She makes me grateful.

  I’m going to drive into town later

  and buy Jack something:

  a CD, o
r a new shirt maybe.

  I might buy Emma

  a dress, normal-size,

  for after the baby.

  A new dress to show the world

  on her one trip to town every month.

  Her one trip to town, for groceries.

  Emma and her mum

  Mum and I were cooking

  the Sunday before she left.

  She stopped blending and sifting,

  she looked out the window

  at the day

  and I remember it was hot

  with not a breath of wind.

  Craig and Beck were outside

  fighting over whose turn it was

  to ride the bike.

  Mum looked out, past them,

  past the sagging fence

  and the tree line,

  and she said,

  ‘A farm takes a lot out of you,

  sometimes too much.’

  I thought she was just complaining,

  or dreaming,

  so I didn’t question her.

  And that night

  Beck vomited all over the Sunday dinner.

  That was our last meal together.

  When I think of Mum and what she did

  I get stiff in this chair.

  And I look out the same window,

  past the same fence, over the same tree line,

  and I touch my stomach

  and I whisper,

  ‘I won’t ever leave you.

  I won’t ever …’

  Lucky

  George thinks we’re mad.

  Emma thinks we’re mad.

  Craig and Beck think it’s cool,

  sleeping on a bed of hay bales

  five metres from the ground,

  a thin foam mattress

  to cover the hay

  and blankets, lots of them,

  piled up high.

  Annabel and I climb

  the hay-bale stairs

  and feel like King and Queen.

  Sometimes we hear the possums

  scurrying across the roof

  and the birds nesting

  in the rusted gutters,

  and late at night

  when the farm sleeps

  I hear Annabel’s breathing,

  a distant owl, and the

  slow rhythm of the

  windvane on the farmhouse roof.

  George and Emma are wrong.

  We’re not mad, we’re lucky.

  George

  George talks about the weather,

  he talks about apples;

  sometimes, when he’s in a good mood,

  he talks about his kids.

  This is one of those times:

  lunch in the orchard,

  packed sandwiches and a thermos of tea,

  Annabel and I sit against the tractor,

  George squats in the shade of a tree

  and talks.

  ‘Good kids, all of them.

  Sure, Craig never shuts up,

  but what ten-year-old does?

  And he’s strong.

  He helps out around the place.

  He’ll try and lift anything.

  Poor kid will have a hernia before he’s a teenager!

  And Beck’s sweet. She always calls me Dadda.

  And I feel like a real dad when I read to her at night.