Charlie Lewis took a swig of his stubby, then set it down in the drink holder beside him, belching out a puff of beer-soaked breath. He adjusted the revs on the tractor, feeling smugly satisfied with his choice. Why should he settle for a 224-horsepower tractor when he could go all the way to the top with a 300-horsepower one? Plus, as he’d told Rebecca several times, he could get a bonus diesel voucher from the dealer if he bought it before the end of January. And it came with not just one but two free iPhones!
‘One for the missus,’ the dealer had said brightly.
Charlie checked his phone to see if he was in range. It’d be good to call Murray to have a bit of a skite about the new Deere.
There was better mobile service at the top of the riverside block so he’d have to wait another round to make the call. The digital clock in the tractor was glowing 8.36 pm, exactly matching the time on his phone. He patted the tractor dash.
‘Legend,’ he said to it.
Murray, who had finished shearing at Clarksons’ today, would by now be taking the cut-out party of his rouseabouts and shed hands to the Dingo Trapper Hotel. Charlie wished he was going too, but he thought back to this afternoon and identified a foreboding conviction not to push his wife on the issue. She was still snaky with him for coming home at two in the morning after cricket training on Thursday.
Charlie recalled the sight of Rebecca’s jean-clad backside, which looked surprisingly broad from his angle, as she rummaged around in a kitchen cupboard.
‘Why can’t I find any fucking lids?’ Rebecca had said, jumbling through the clutter. ‘No matter what I do, there are never any complete sets of containers. And why is every bloody party organised round here “bring a plate”? I don’t know how many of my effing containers are scattered about the district! And now they want me to buy more at a bloody Tupperware party tonight! It does my head in.’
Charlie wanted to say, ‘Everything does your head in these days.’ Instead he bit his tongue.
In her exasperation, Rebecca began to crash things about a little too roughly for Charlie’s liking. He knew the plastic container cupboard was dangerous territory. It was the place where he had seen his wife lose her shit the worst. Particularly when it was school-bus time and Ben’s lunch wasn’t quite packed and ready to go. Best not to offer help at this stage, he thought, just in case. Charlie leaned on the bench, hands thrust deep in his pockets, looking down to the front of his blue checked flannelette shirt, where the buttons strained. He tried not to look at Bec, who was now kneeling on the floor holding a blue ice-cream container in her lap, staring at its lidless form. Her shoulders were hunched forwards, shaking.
Oh shit, Charlie thought, is she crying? Over lidless containers? Or is she laughing? He bit his lip and rolled his eyes, sauntering forwards, knowing he’d have to do something now.
‘C’mon, Bec, it’ll do you good to go to Doreen’s. You could get a new set of containers. Get a bit more organised. It’ll help you spend less on groceries.’
Bec swivelled around and delivered him a flash of fury so strong it was like a kick to the head. Charlie held up his hands as if surrendering to a firing squad. ‘I was only trying to help.’
Bec got to her sock-clad feet. ‘Help? You reckon help? Patronise me more like.’
‘I … I …’ he stammered.
‘When the fuck did my life become all about Tupperware and messy cupboards, Charlie?’ Tears welled in her sky-blue eyes, her face scrunched with emotional pain. She thrust the container violently at him and he received it like a mid-field rugby pass, clutching it to his stomach.
Charlie stared blankly at her, his mouth open. ‘What do I deserve that for? I work my arse off on your farm for you.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’
‘What’s there to get, Bec? You’re always mad. You’re always sad. Not much I can do about it.’
‘Do you ever wonder why?’
Charlie shrugged.
‘Maybe it could be something to do with a two-hundred-thousand-dollar tractor we can’t afford,’ Bec said. ‘Geez, Charlie! A tractor we didn’t need. And then you went and got a brand-new fucking plough. And the fact that I’m stuck here! Stuck in this fucking house!’
‘Someone’s gotta do the house stuff. And you might think we don’t need the machinery, but I do!’
‘Why does the house stuff have to be done by me? That was never the deal! And you know how I feel about ploughing. Have you not listened to a word I’ve said on soils and no-till cropping? Since learning Andrew’s stuff, I never wanted to plough a patch of dirt again on this place!’
Charlie, who had tolerated her surly mood till now, turned his head to one side and shut his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, glaring at her. The anger rose. ‘Oh yes! That’s right! Andrew, Andrew, Andrew … your god of agricultural change!’ he said sarcastically. ‘Just because I’m not into your bloody New Age farming guff, don’t take it out on me! You’re just upping me because you like bollocking the crap out of me over nothing.’
‘That’s not true!’
Charlie thrust the ice-cream container back at her. ‘Put a lid on it, Rebecca,’ he spat. ‘Find another babysitter for the boys. I’m going ploughing.’ As he pushed past her, he made sure his shoulder collided solidly with hers. Then he walked out, slamming the door.
Now, in the dying light of the evening, crows with wings like vampire cloaks were haunting the plough, trawling the clods of earth for grubs and arguing with the white cockatoos, who screeched and flapped with indignation at their dark companions. Charlie sighed and glanced at his green eyes in the rear-vision mirror, noticing the lines around the edges of them and the way his once thick brown hair was now thinning on either side of his forehead. Where had the years gone?
And why did his time feel so wasted here? Here on a farm that had never been his. Waters Meeting. Rebecca’s place.
He ran his grease-stained fingertips over his rotund belly and scratched it through the fabric of his bluey singlet. So what if he had a bit of a gut? What was the harm in a few beers? He thought of Rebecca and the way she constantly badgered him on his diet too, while she dished up salad for the kids that she had grown in her vegetable garden. He would glower at her and defiantly toss shoestring chips from a plastic bag into the deep-fryer, along with a handful of dim sims.
‘What’s wrong with only wanting to eat peas, corn, carrots and spuds?’ he asked one night as he pushed aside her dish of cauliflower cheese.
‘The boys,’ she said. ‘Eating all types of good food is the most important thing for them to learn at this stage.’
He twisted the lid off a Coke bottle, relishing the loud fizzing sound, and eyed her as he gulped straight from the bottle.
She rolled her eyes in anger and turned away. She was so easy to bait like that. But bugger her, he thought. She could be so fucking self-righteous about everything.
For the first few years of their marriage it had been fun, and it was never about the fact that he ate mostly meat and spuds with a small side of peas, corn and carrot. She’d not minded then. She’d been a good chick and their days at Agricultural College had cemented their relationship into one of deep friendship. When he first moved to Waters Meeting, he’d felt a sense of relief that he’d escaped his own family tangles on their farm out west.
After Bec and he were married, Bec’s father, Harry, had been an all-right sort of fella to share the space of the farm with. One-armed since a posthole-digger