The Farmer's Wife Read online

  Dedication

  For Luella Meaburn, my true earth angel

  and Colin Seis, a quiet grassroots revolutionary

  and my children and my guides,

  Rosie and Charlie Treasure

  and in memory of Dreams,

  now in the clouds with Pegasus

  Epigraph

  An environmentalist once asked a wise guru,

  ‘What use is your praying and meditating when you

  are not really doing anything to stop the destruction all

  around us?’

  The guru replied calmly, ‘Even if you managed

  to clean up the rivers, oceans, soils and the sky,

  the pollution will all come back, unless you cleanse the

  human heart.’

  Retold by Bhavani Prakash

  What we are today comes from our thoughts of

  yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of

  tomorrow; our life is the creation of our mind.

  Buddha

  The eternal feminine draws us upward.

  Goethe

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books by Rachael Treasure

  Copyright

  Part One

  One

  ‘You told me it was a Tupperware party!’

  Rebecca Lewis folded her arms across her chest as best she could with two shaggy terriers sitting on her lap. She scowled at Gabs, who was swinging on the wheel of the Cruiser like an army commando. Gabs aimed cigarette smoke towards the Landy’s window and puffed out a cloud, then delivered a wide, wry smile from her unusually lip-glossed lips.

  ‘Get over it.’

  The women were lumping their way over the wheel-scarred track, once a quagmire during a severely wet winter, but now a summer-baked road of deep jolting ruts. As they wound over shallow creek crossings and valley-side rises, Rebecca shifted under the weight of Gabs’s dogs and hunched her shoulders. She looked out at the dry bushland around them that ticked with insects in the evening heat.

  ‘I thought it would cheer you up,’ Gabs offered.

  ‘Cheer me up? Do I look like I need cheering up?’ Rebecca frowned at her own reflection in the dusty side mirror. There were deep worry lines on her forehead. Her blonde hair, dry and brittle on the ends, was carelessly caught up in a knot as if she was about to take a shower. Hair that looks as coarse as the terriers’ fur, she thought. Bags of puffy skin sat beneath her blue eyes like tiny pillows. She prodded them with her cracked fingertips. Her mouth was turned down at the corners.

  Could she actually be a bitter old woman at thirty-eight? She closed her eyes and told herself to breathe.

  ‘How can you not be cheered up by that?’ asked Gabs, thrusting an invitation at her. Bec looked down to the silhouette of a woman naked save for her towering stilettos. The woman sported a tail and tiny horns like a weaner lamb. Horny Little Devils, the text read. Making the World a Hornier Place. Australia’s Number One Party Plan.

  ‘Tupperware party, my arse,’ Rebecca said, rolling her eyes. The tiniest smirk found its way to her lips. She looked ahead on the road to Doreen and Dennis’s farmhouse, tucked into the next valley. Maybe this party could be a turning point for me and Charlie, she thought hopefully. Ten years of marriage, two baby boys, the death of her father and a farm that failed to function. Charlie blaming the weather; Rebecca knowing different. Then there was her family, distant in the city. Her mother, Frankie, who seemed to not notice her, and big brother Mick, still treating her as if she was ten. And always, always, there was the memory of Tom. She sighed and pushed Amber and Muppet off her lap onto the floor and grabbed for Gabs’s cigarettes.

  Gabs glanced over with concern as Bec fumbled with the slim rolls of tobacco. Hands shaking, she put the smoke to her lips and swore as her thumb ineffectively ran over the coarse metal cog of the lighter, creating feeble sparks but no flame. She hadn’t felt this down for years. Not since the years soon after her brother Tom’s death.

  ‘Oh, for god’s sake!’ she said, throwing the lighter on the dash and stuffing the cigarette back in the packet.

  ‘Are you right? Since when did you take up smoking?’

  Bec shrugged.

  ‘Here,’ said Gabs, passing her a bottle of Bundy, ‘forget the ciggies, forget the Coke. Just cut to the chase.’

  ‘But we’ve got crutching and jetting tomorrow. And I’ve got to get the boys to the Saturday bush-nurse clinic. It’s Dental Day,’ she said, still taking the square bottle of rum from Gabs.

  ‘Dental Day! Again? Thank god Ted doesn’t have teeth yet and Kylie had hers checked last month when we were in the city. C’mon, ya bloody sook! Listen to you!’ Gabs made whining noises — a parody of the complaints that Rebecca repeatedly made, about Charlie, about the farm, about the weather.

  ‘For god’s sake, Bec, go have your period and jump in a shark tank! You need to make the best of your lot so suck it up, princess.’

  Rebecca looked out through the heat-wilted wattles towards a stand of white-trunked gums and cracked the yellow top off the bottle. From where she sat, Amber sniffed at the rum and wagged her feathery terrier tail.

  ‘None for you,’ Rebecca said gently. She swigged deeply and grimaced at the rawness of the alcohol on the back of her throat.

  Gabs looked across at her, softening now. ‘I know it’s been tough, with the mixed-up seasons and … you know … but build a bridge! You’ll have fun tonight. And I didn’t suck my tits dry with a pump for Ted’s bottle just for you to pike out on me.’

  Her friend’s tone was humorous, but Bec wished it was harsh. She wanted a kick up the arse. She was used to harshness. She thought of Charlie again and the sight of his broad back as he’d slammed the door of the kitchen that afternoon, taking his fury with him into the yellow-and-green cab of the dual-wheel John Deere. She pictured him going round and round now in the dying light of the hot day, the big wheels crushing a track through the dust of the paddock. A paddock she’d begged him not to plough.

  Once Rebecca had liked tractors, loved them i
n fact. And had loved Charlie within them. During the early summers of their marriage at Waters Meeting, she remembered the sweet smell of freshly baled hay. The big roundies bouncing out the back of the New Holland and rolling to a stop on the green meadows. The way the cab door would open and Charlie would appear like a Bullrush-clothing-catalogue, sun-kissed god. His boots landing solidly on the steps of the cab, socks covered by canvas gaiters, the golden hair on his tanned legs covered in a fine film of dust. His teeth glistening white in the sun as he smiled, stooping to kiss her. She remembered him taking the smoko basket from her and dropping it into the fresh-cut pasture, and how he’d pressed her back up against the giant tractor wheel, kissing her harder, putting his strong hand up under her shirt, the smell of the hot sun on the rubber tyre making the moment even sexier. His hands urging between her legs, which were smooth and honey brown in ripped denim shorts. Summer love. Newlywed love. Tractor love.

  Rebecca shook away the memory. Long gone now. The farm and the river that had run through it and fed her soul had dried up — and so had that magic between her and Charlie. Nothing seemed to lift her out of a stupor that had only deepened when her second son had arrived. Nothing, except for meeting Andrew Travis. After that her whole world had begun to shift. Everything felt changed. She crushed her back teeth together till her jaw ached. ‘Maybe I should go on anti-depressants.’

  Gabs butted out her cigarette in an already overflowing ashtray. ‘Or maybe you should go on a ten-inch dildo!’

  With the Bundy now starting to warm her, Rebecca couldn’t stop a sudden jolt of laughter spluttering up, just as Muppet and Amber nosed their way back onto the seat and sat like a pair of Ugg boots on her lap. Reaching over the dogs, she picked up the hot pink Horny Little Devils catalogue from the dash and flicked through it. ‘So what is a jelly butt plug and a Gliterous-G anyway?’ she asked, her head tilted quizzically to one side, her freckled nose wrinkled.

  Gabs shrugged. ‘Dunno, but I’m sure we’re about to find out!’ And with that she floored the LandCruiser, setting it sailing over a culvert drain. They shrieked as the wheels spun mid-air. The Cruiser landed with a bone-jarring thud, tyres hitting the rims, smokes falling from the dash, dogs’ claws digging into Bec’s thighs, two-way radio handpiece falling down. Then on the women drove, their laughter drifting up to the sky along with the dust.

  ‘Fuckerware party, here we come!’ Rebecca yelled.

  Two

  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 accident, the old man had mostly kept out of Charlie’s way, badgering Rebecca about what should or shouldn’t happen on the farm. For the last few years Harry’d been too sick to do much anyway and stuck to himself in his log cabin. But since he’d died, Charlie had noticed a shift in Rebecca. A restless frustration. Some days her moods were too much to bear.