Excerpts

The day was a scorcher. Dry and hard. Untidy mallee trees gleamed with heat extruded oils. The glare of the limestone assaulted my eyes. The summer of ’sixty-nine had come early.

We had driven that morning from home in the verdant Barossa Valley to the grey-green melange of the Murray Mallee.

Warren had been working here, not constantly but as the seasons required. He was now considering converting a small limestone hut on the property into a home where he could bring his young wife and our soon-to-be-born first child, albeit periodically. He wanted the place to be fit for us.

Chattels of former owners had been left piled high in four shabby rooms – old four-poster beds, chairs, cupboards, boxes of trappings. Hessian hung at unglazed windows offering at least some darkness and relief from the heat.

Lagging with full blown pregnancy, I was tired when we arrived and flopped backwards onto a saggy bed. A cloud of dust filled the air.

Rammed earth floors had been good enough for settlers gone. Concrete would be nice, I said, pretty much to myself.

For hours we carried stuff out of the house and onto the truck, leaving only the things I considered necessary for the household – primitive as it would be.

Three years earlier I’d been invited on a day trip to inspect the property, which had then been for sale. Driving around the four thousand acres of mostly virgin scrub, my normally exuberant fiancé seemed tense with wondering what I’d think of the place.

If I was to be his wife, how would I fare out here? I’d loved farm holidays as a child and most of my ancestors had been on the land. I told him and saw the tension dissipate.

His parents bought the spread for a pound an acre. It would be their asset but their son’s proving ground.

Warren’s dad was a Barossa winegrower – enterprising, deemed successful by the community. Drive of a rhinoceros. But Warren could find no heart for the vines, despite his father’s hopes for him. His love lay in sheep farming and his passionate dream, even at the tender age of twenty-four, was to own three thousand acres of productive grazing land in one parcel. I knew he pictured it – himself at the helm, raising prime, contented stock – a lifestyle that would give him all he could imagine. He
was now at the beginning of his endeavours towards that dream – a rich life out of an unknown landscape.

When the hut was all but emptied, Warren, his father and an assortment of mates with various building skills made trips to the property.

Warren had sown wheat here soon after his parents bought the block – the first time this land had been turned. Now with our son barely five weeks old, we packed ourselves and a couple of weeks’ supplies into the ute and drove to the farm for a promising barley harvest. Before seatbelts, I carried my babe on my lap, filled to overflowing with love for him.

This pioneering lifestyle was new to me, but I was eager for it. Concrete floors had been poured, windows set in, walls white-washed. A kerosene fridge – till now a shelter for mice and spiders – was restored to working order. A thumping great water heater that set up a tribal drumming each time it was lit, was installed in the lean-to bathroom outside. My mother, who had experienced a rudimentary way of life as a child, came with us this time.

With my husband out all day, it was my job to collect mallee stumps for the wood stove. Normally a confident driver, I felt intimidated by the large Bedford truck I was given for the task. “A slip of a girl behind my wheel? A baby in a basket on my seat?” it seemed to ask in this tough country for hard men. Lincoln was oblivious as his wee form rocked with the impact of rocks beneath the wheels.

The white, stony yard needed softening so my mum and I planted pelargoniums along the sun-washed northern wall of the hut. We rigged a clothes line between two trees and fashioned a strong pronged branch to lift it from the middle. I learned to manage the wood oven – how to know when it was hot enough and how to keep it that way. I discovered that gravy beef needs cooking for three hours, until it gives in.

From time to time there’d be the smell of kerosene burning – a warning that it was time to tweak the wick of the fridge. As night came in we’d fill and light the lanterns, with small reward. The flickering flames merely translated our shapes into looming shadows on the walls. The darkness outside was vast, the hush of the universe unnerving, the old-house smell evoked a time of others more adept than myself.

When Warren came in he’d light the hurricane lamp – a delicate task needing skill not to shatter the fragile mantle. As this proper lamp hissed into life, the room would expand with light and the ghosts retreat. After tea, I’d wash the dishes in a chipped enamel bowl that had been left by others, and then wonderful rest. In the absence of armchairs, we’d sit at the worn country table – chins in hands, listening to the radio, while kettles chirped over the dying fire. On nights Warren was out rabbit-shooting, Mum and I would sit like this, talking till our words grew weary. We’d had our differences, but they were behind us now. I appreciated having her with me this time.

Warren had cut down an old Chevrolet and converted it into a ute. When one of the farm implements broke down, I was asked to drive it the fifteen kilometres into town to pick up the parts needed for repairs. With baby in basket I stood beside the car, loath to get in. There were no seats, no back window. I kicked aside spanners, wrenches, farmer’s tools, and placed Lincoln on the floor. I climbed in behind the wheel and sat on the seat – a kerosene drum – the fuel tank actually, ingeniously connected to the engine. I didn’t know I’d signed up for this.

Before I got to the first gate we were unrecognisable with dust. I was terrified at the responsibility of being out in this labyrinth of scrub with my baby. There was a maze of tracks and I couldn’t be sure I was on the right one. With several difficult gates to open and shut along the way, it was more than half an hour before I found my way out of the property and onto the road to town.

I introduced myself to the storekeeper. He’d met Warren and seemed happy now to slot us, as a couple, into the right compartment. People of the bush need to know where everyone fits. With so few of us in such a vast area, there’s a sense of security in it. He had the parts Warren needed and after the five minute transaction I headed for home. I had never been so dirty.

My upbringing in town had been sheltered – predictable and secure with loving parents and siblings, and clean, pretty frocks. This isolation was a far cry. I’d begun to realise that to spend my life with this man, I’d have to find strength and courage unimagined.

Returning home to the Barossa after these stints in the bush was restorative. The comfort. The familiarity. I could breathe. I’d make a beeline for the stereogram and play the music of the hit artists of the time – Little Richard, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly.

There was a party somewhere nearly every Saturday night. I’d put on some make-up, a stunning mini-dress would replace jeans and shirt, and Warren and I would dance without restraint. Music nurtured me – my love of it kindled in earliest childhood.
~
Jazz and Swing had brought my parents together. It had been wartime. My mother had gone out dancing with her brother and his mates – one of whom was my father, who asked her to dance. In the enchantingly lit hall rustling with gorgeous gowns, they fell for each other as they stepped to the romantic big band music. A year later they were married. Within months Dad was offered a job in an engineering business in Tanunda – one of the Barossa Valley’s main towns and the town of my birth. In those early days after the end of the war, there was an atmosphere of euphoria in my world – laughter, gaiety and renewed love amongst families and friends. How people must have appreciated the simple pleasures of life again after the scarcities, terror and grief of war.

In the evenings before my bedtime, I would snuggle between my parents on a moquette-covered club lounge while Dad played the saxophone and Mum sang jazz standards. During winter, a constant fire burned in the open fireplace of this small, charming room, which was both my parents’ bedroom and our sitting room.

‘I’m in the mood for love
Simply because you’re near me…’

My mother’s lilting voice made me drowsy-eyed as I watched the fire spray spit and fizz. Even then, the music like sweet syrup to me.
~
With opening rains, it was time to begin sowing crops at the farm. Workers had been employed – their meals my responsibility.

Each morning I’d turn a loaf of bread into hearty sandwiches and pack them into a Tupperware container. Before lunch Warren would return to pick them up, sparing me the risk of getting lost out there. Having run out of bread one day, I cooked a curry. By now I had some idea of where the men were ploughing, and after loading baby and food into the Chevy I set out, leaving the warmth and security of my kitchen behind. A blizzard of wind snapped at my face as we bounced over the scant, rocky track.

On reaching the place of industry, I marvelled at the huge area of work already completed and drew in the rich smell of freshly turned earth. I placed Lincoln in a cluster of bushes and lit a fire. On stones I’d laid around the edge, I heated my pan full of beef and vegetables. The men came in. It was so cold even lunch couldn’t coax them out of their great coats.

In the shelter of the bushes round the fire we squatted four work-browned men and I too cold to talk and eating from enamel plates in a pioneering way.

We’d kept three iron beds with flock mattresses that were now lined up dormitory style in the back room – the workmen’s quarters. Beside each bed lay a jute bag mat. An iron washstand with bowl stood neatly in the corner. Before the men came in each evening, I’d light a kerosene heater to warm their room.

I was thankful for the one in our room too – a priceless luxury through the cold Mallee nights.

There were shooting expeditions. I’d lie in bed alone, listening to the crack of rifle shots in the distance, the creaking of mallee branches rubbing together, the shrieking bark of a vixen calling her cubs. Only the gentle breathing of my sleeping baby comforted me. He lay in his basket on two chairs beside me, a net over him – not to protect him from mosquitoes but mice.

The spoils of the night – to be used for dog food – were brought back to the hut where, right beside our bedroom window, the gutting and skinning took place. With adrenalin still pumping, the hunters re-lived the night’s action in high, excited tones while I lay wide-eyed and rattled until the telling was done.

Each night before bed, I’d set the table for breakfast and fling a net over all. At first light, the men, having washed and sometimes shaved in a basin of water from the still warm kettles, would, with respectful and now sober quietness, stoke the fire. Thick slices of bread would be toasted over coals set aside while eggs and bacon spat and sizzled on the stove top. Being in my small kitchen with three or four rugged workmen was daunting for me, so I was pleased with the morning arrangement of having them fend for themselves. I feared any attempt I might make at conversation about their work would fail dismally. Thankfully, they seemed to understand that my knowledge of farming was still in its infancy.

I grew accustomed to the squeeching sound of corks being prised from flagons of wine as, in their quarters, the workmen primed themselves for days of lashing winter. Hard-working, saltof-the-earth blokes, they were from the wine-growing Barossa Valley and the sweet fortified bracer like mother’s milk to them.

With Warren, then, they’d set out for work and I’d get up to deal with the aftermath. I’d restore my kitchen and have breakfast. Later, in the enamel bowl, in a shaft of morning sunlight on the table, I’d splash warm water over my beautiful baby boy. I was breastfeeding and grateful to have him so content. In this man’s world, I took this thin corner of motherhood delightfully for myself.

Preparing food for all was a constant task – sandwiches, cakes fresh from my wood-fired oven, and in the evenings, roasts or great pots of hearty stew or soup.

At the end of one of our stints there, I was travelling home with one of the workmen. Warren and the others had a little more to do and were coming later. Lincoln was asleep on my lap. Allan shouldn’t have been driving. He’d had more than a couple of sherries. Fortunately, I knew this dirt road well and realised we were travelling much too fast to take a sharp bend just before coming into a small settlement on the River Murray. ‘Allan, there’s a bend,’ I yelled.

He hit the brakes and yanked the steering wheel. The ute went into a slide as we took the corner two feet from the edge of a sheer thirty metre cliff with no guard rail. Faint with the knowledge of how close we’d come to death, I quietly thanked God for our lives.

The harvest of ’seventy was a good one for the area and the proceeds were used to reduce the overdraft that had been incurred in paying for seed, fertiliser, labour, sheep and some second-hand equipment – namely two quite elderly tractors.

These weren’t easily started, especially the Field Marshall. A cartridge filled with gunpowder would do the trick but at a dollar a pop it was expensive, so towing it until it swung over was the preferred option. If there were no other men in camp, this was my job. My husband would hook the obstinate brute up to the Chevy and I’d take up the slack of the towing chain. He’d climb aboard the tractor, give me the signal to go and I’d give the Chevy heaps. If after several attempts he still hadn’t got the thing going, there’d be hell to pay. I hadn’t driven fast enough and the barrage of expletives to follow would pepper my still young and fragile ego. I believed the farmer had some calming down to do, but in hindsight I equally had some toughening up to do.

From our earliest days together, there’d been times when Warren had been dispirited and withdrawn – a far cry from his usual exuberant self. These moods confused me. It would feel as though he was angry with me but I had no idea what I’d done to upset him. When I asked, he’d tell me he didn’t know and just needed to be left alone. I knew nothing of depression then but was aware of some traumatic events that had struck him in his childhood. Two days before his eleventh birthday, he’d been excited about the air gun he hoped to receive.