Down a Country Lane. Gary Blinco
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any material shortcomings. But basic things like crisp white linen; warm pyjamas and fancy bedspreads were unknown to her. The calico sheets she had were worn and tired, and rough army surplus blankets augmented by a few ‘woggas’, (blankets made from opened out hessian bags) kept them warm. Only the baby received favoured treatment, making the mousy haired imp happy with his lot, excited by life on the farm and comfortable in his new surroundings.
They had no electricity or power generation plant at the farm. They could not afford such a luxury although generators were common on the neighbouring farms, their dull throb could be heard through the bush in the evenings. Kerosene lamps provided a dim light in the kitchen and an old kerosene lantern showed the way if anyone needed to go outside at night. Someone always did because the ‘lavatory’, as Norm called it, a title inherited from his rather prim and proper mother, was thirty yards from the house, and Grace had no tolerance for chamber pots under the beds.
Most of their neighbours possessed a radio, but that was also out of the question for now. Grace would have liked the contact with the world and the company of a radio, or ‘wireless’ as they were commonly called. There always seemed to be one playing somewhere when they lived at the reserve and she missed it here in the bush. She set a wireless as one of her early goals, but for now they relied on their own company and Norm’s trusty mouth organ to wile away the long evenings.
Norm had quickly taken to visiting the nearby creek with the children most nights, to fish and to teach them about the bush. Grace did not complain but was often afraid as she sat in the quiet, dimly lit house with the baby. To ward off the fear she baked or preserved whatever fruit or vegetables she had, talking and singing to the gurgling child as she worked. She was always grateful when she heard the excited fishing party return, often late at night, with the invariable catch of fish for their breakfast.
The bitter cold that had greeted them on their arrival continued, with heavy frosts every morning that covered the landscape in a white cape and caused a film of condensation to form on the inside of the corrugated iron roof. As the morning sun warmed the roof the condensation dripped into the house and stirred the occupants from their beds.
Norm soon learned to fill the kettle and a few other containers from the rainwater tank before going to bed at night. He knew the pipes and the taps would freeze overnight and remain so until mid-morning, sometimes later, thus denying them access to water for tea. A few cold trips down to the creek at dawn to bale water soon provided the education he needed to be better prepared. The nights became so cold that even the water around the fringe of the creek froze; leaving an icy apron along the banks that reflected the treetops and the endless sky like a broken mirror.
So began their new lives in the bush. With no septic or sewerage system, no electricity, no refrigeration, no hot or cold running water inside the house and, in particular, no school. The latter ensured that the school-aged children were happy and they found endless ways of amusing themselves in the freedom of the bush. Norm and Grace had not even given the question of school a second thought. It was one of those things that did not rank high on Norm’s list of priorities.
CHAPTER THREE
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst,
For I have lived today.
John Dryden
The small boy played contentedly on the bare, splintery floor with his collection of jam jar lids, seemingly oblivious to the flies that circled his head or the mud wasps that scooted around the house looking for suitable nest sites. Toys were scarce and the children learned to improvise early in their lives. Tin lids, hock-bones and knots of wood provided a readily available and inexpensive alternative to the toys the family could not afford to buy.
Norm came quietly into the house for his morning ‘smoko’ looking dark and perplexed with some secret thought. His face was a sheen of sweat and his shirt clung wetly to his back and shoulders. The little muscle in his temple pulsed and Grace took in his mood with practised ease. As he sat at the old table the child crawled over and pulled himself up on tiny unsteady legs against his father’s dirty trouser leg. Norm never wore short pants, even in the hottest weather. Grace could never remember seeing his bare legs, apart from in the bedroom. He ruffled the small boy’s uncombed locks in an absent- minded way. ‘What’s your name lad?’ He asked. He often asked one or other of his offspring the same question. Grace was never sure if he was joking or that he felt he had so many kids that he could not remember their names. Draped as usual in an apron and with her hands covered in flour as she made scones for morning tea, she smiled from the other end of the small kitchen. The house creaked and groaned as a passing cloud cast a shadow over the roof – cooling the iron and bringing a sudden rush of relief into the building.
‘What’s wrong love?’ Grace asked. ‘You look a bit down in the dumps.’ Norm swore as he cleared his throat. He brushed his long damp black hair from his eyes with his fingers and stubbed out his ever-present cigarette. He had been working from dawn until after dark for weeks without a break and his temper was wearing thin. ‘I’m startin’ to wonder if I’m ever gunna get anything useful to grow on this bloody place’, he complained. ‘And even if I do get a crop out, how the hell are we gunna get rid of it?’
Grace poured his tea thoughtfully. The first signs of his discontent had taken longer than she expected to appear, new projects usually died quickly with him. They had been through these questions before, when they were planning the purchase of the farm, and she was surprised to hear him bring them up again so far into the venture. ‘But I thought it was working out all right,’ she said. ‘That front patch looks ready to plant right now.’ She frowned; she had a more positive attitude than her husband did. He tended to dream a lot but not chase the dreams with any real effort, and then to blame the world for his lack of good fortune when his life remained fixed in the same rut for year after year.
Norm pounded the table with his hand as he often did when he was mad or frustrated. ‘It is ready to plant, but that’s not the bloody point, planting a crop is piss-easy.’ He said testily, his face a mask of hurt injustice like a chastened dog. ‘In fact I’m gunna plant it with beans and tomarters this arvo, I’ve got the seed. But I’m worried about afterwards. How will I irrigate it? I can’t risk losing the crop because I don’t have any more seed, and we can’t afford to buy any more. We need an engine of some kind to drive the pump.’ His long black hair fell forward into his eyes and he brushed it back again with his fingers.
He scratched his moist sweaty head anxiously, the good humour and positive dreams with which he had arrived a few weeks before momentarily forgotten as he glanced around the room like a man about to fight invaders from all sides. The boy sat quietly on the floor, looking from one parent to the other, his small brow creased with concern. The rest of the offspring’s were supposedly out working the farm, but were more likely wandering about in the scrub, feral now in familiar surroundings.
‘That bloody old horse is rooted,’ Norm went on. ‘It couldn’t pull the skin off one of your rice puddin’s, let alone a plough. That’s if I had a bloody plough, which I don’t by the way. And those kids of yours…’ He shook his head sadly.
‘They wouldn’t work in an iron lung with a bee up their arses, they keep pissin’ orf down the bloody creek after crabs.’
He took a breath at last to eat a scone and sip his tea. The kids always became ‘your kids’ when he was mad at them. He had a convenient gift of detaching himself from any problem when it suited him. Grace stifled a laugh and thought of how much she loved him in spite of his strange ways at times. None of these revelations were new to either of them, they came with the turf, but she decided this was not the best time to remind him of that. She let the silence soothe him and after a few minutes he continued, speaking through a mouthful of scone.
‘And in a coupla munce, if we ain’t all starved to death by then, when the stuff is