Authors: Jackie French
When the hurlyburly’s done…
(
Macbeth
, Act I, Scene 1, line 3)
It was good spending a few hours pruning. Doing real work, not like most of what he did at school. It was something he really missed at home now. Of course, it was great that Mum had Mr T to do all the hard work these days. But it meant that she didn’t really need Luke’s help at all.
It was different at the Fishers’. The Fishers took it for granted he’d help with whatever was going on. Just like they’d helped him and Mum after Dad died.
Snip, snip…
It took years to learn to prune a peach tree properly. If you didn’t prune off enough the fruit would be too small to sell, and there wouldn’t be much fruit next year either. But if you cut too much away there’d be no fruit at all.
Snip, snip…
Luke glanced over at the others. Mr Fisher worked like a machine,
snip, snip, snip
, and Patrick looked just like him only younger. But Megan kept staring into the distance like she wasn’t thinking of peach trees at all.
Luke grinned to himself. Knowing Meg she was probably miles away. Maybe reliving the last book she’d read…He liked the way her hair still hung down her back in that ponytail. When he was small he used to pull it. He wished he still could…
The sun was high above the valley by the time they’d finished the orchard. Mr Fisher shoved the secateurs into the pouch at his belt. ‘Well, that’s that done,’ he said, nodding a thanks to Luke. ‘See you up at the house, kids.’
The tractor muttered behind them as he took the prunings off to be burned.
‘Hey, did you finish reading
Macbeth
?’ Megan asked Luke as they all walked up the road to the house.
‘Nope,’ said Luke.
‘Me neither,’ said Patrick. ‘You’re going to have to help me with my talk, Meg,’ he added.
Megan fished a bit of peach bark out of her hair and threw it at him. ‘No way!’
‘Swap you the washing up for a week.’
Megan considered. ‘Well, maybe…’
‘What did Mrs Easson say you had to give your talk on?’ asked Luke.
‘“
Macbeth
’s Comic Elements”,’ said Patrick gloomily, kicking a rock off the road. ‘What comic elements? There’s nothing funny about
Macbeth
.’
‘The porter,’ suggested Megan. ‘He’s drunk.’
‘Drunk’s not enough to be funny,’ said Patrick. ‘I mean, everyone isn’t outside the pub every Saturday night going “Ha, ha, ha, look at them all”, are they?’
‘They probably didn’t have much to laugh about back in Shakespeare’s time,’ said Megan. ‘I mean, like
no TV or anything, just a play or a dancing bear if you were lucky. All those diseases, and most of your kids dying.’
‘How do you know all that stuff?’ asked Luke.
‘’Cause she’s a nerd,’ said Patrick, even more gloomily. ‘Now my best mate’s won a scholarship and he’s turning into a nerd too. I’m surrounded by nerds. Meg’ll be doing crosswords at lunch next.’
‘Nah. Just a few maths problems before I go to bed. They’re, like, so relaxing—hey, joke!’ Megan added, when Luke stared at her. ‘What’s your topic?’
‘“Macbeth’s Slide into Villainy”,’ quoted Luke. ‘I’ve got to show how Macbeth’s just an okay guy at first, then the witches tell him he’ll be king and he gets ambitious and kills everyone off and goes mad.’
‘Jingo had the right idea,’ said Patrick enviously. ‘His brother was in Mrs Easson’s class last year so he knew what to expect. He asked if he could do Macbeth’s weapons. You know, swords and stuff.’
‘Cool,’ said Luke.
‘You should have chosen Shakespeare’s rude words,’ said Megan helpfully.
‘Rude words?’
‘Yeah. Like, all sorts of words in Shakespeare’s plays were really rude back then. But their meanings have changed so we don’t realise how rude they were. Like “will”.’
‘What did “will” mean?’ asked Luke curiously.
Megan blushed. ‘Er, can’t remember…Hey, Mum’s back from town,’ she added, noticing the car out the front of the house.
The kitchen was stuffy from the big fuel stove and too hot after the work outside. Mrs Fisher was
unpacking groceries on the old blue-painted table. ‘Hi, Luke,’ she said. ‘Megan, open a couple of cans of soup, will you? You must all be starved. Pat, stick some wood on the fire. George,’ as Mr Fisher came in behind them, ‘mail’s on the table.’
Luke began to set the table. He knew the Fishers’ kitchen as well as his own. Better, probably, because it was Mrs T’s kitchen these days as much as it was Mum’s. Mum liked cooking, as long as Mrs T did the washing up. They never had canned soup these days at home. He supposed Mum had more time to cook than Mrs Fisher.
Mr Fisher plonked himself down on a kitchen chair and began to open the letters. ‘Postcard from Auntie Ted,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘What’s this from the Council?’ He opened it and began to read.
Suddenly he stiffened. ‘Holy hell!’ he muttered.
Megan stared at him, the soup forgotten. ‘Dad, what’s wrong?’
Mr Fisher shook his head. He handed the letter to his wife. It was only a paragraph, Luke noticed. What could be so bad in a paragraph?
‘Mum? What’s going on?’ demanded Megan.
Mrs Fisher passed the letter to Megan. ‘They’re going to build a resort up on Paterson’s old place,’ she said dazedly.
‘A resort!’ Patrick said the word like he’d never heard it before.
‘But that’s next door!’ said Luke. ‘Why on earth would they want to build there?’
‘Why not?’ Megan looked up from the letter. ‘It’s got the river, and the view’s incredible, right down the valley. You can even glimpse the sea
up there. It says there’s going to be a golf course and everything…’
‘Water,’ said Mr Fisher flatly.
‘What?’
‘Golf courses need water. All that grass. More water even than orchards. Then there’s water for the swimming pool…’
‘Spas,’ said Mrs Fisher helplessly. ‘Those places have those spa baths, don’t they?’
‘But they can’t!’ cried Patrick. ‘That’s our water!’
‘Not till it gets here, it isn’t,’ said Mr Fisher. He looked stunned, as though someone had hit him on the head. ‘We only just scraped through with enough water last summer. This is going to ruin us. The Stevensons too, maybe.’ The Stevensons farmed further downstream.
‘What about the animals?’ said Megan. ‘The platypuses in the creek?’
‘Platypuses?’ said Patrick scornfully.
‘Well, they have a right to be here too!’ returned Megan. ‘And what’s the town going to be like with all those tourists? And the road…it’s not made for lots of cars. And—’
‘Who cares?’ Patrick cut in. ‘Roads, platypuses…it’s going to destroy our farm. You can’t grow fruit without water.
That’s
what matters.’
‘But…but they can’t just do something like that, can they?’ asked Luke. ‘Just move in and take your water?’ He felt stunned.
Megan thrust the letter back at her mother. ‘We’ll have to stop it!’
‘But how? How can people like us stop that sort of thing?’
‘It’s just a proposal, isn’t it?’ said Megan. ‘The Council have to agree to let them do it.’
‘Those bastards,’ muttered Mr Fisher. ‘They wouldn’t stop a nuclear power plant if it brought them money.’
‘If the Council lets them do it then we can appeal!’ said Megan fiercely.
Luke stared at her. He’d never seen her like this, taking charge. It was almost as though she’d been half hidden behind a…a tree or something, and he were really seeing her for the first time.
‘Appeal to who?’ asked Patrick.
‘To the—what’s it called?—the Land and Environment Court. We did it in Studies in Society last term.’
‘Did we?’ asked Patrick.
‘Of course we did! Don’t you ever listen?’ Megan crossed to her mother and hugged her hard. ‘We can win this, Mum! I know we can!’
The soup boiled over. Luke pulled the saucepan off the stove. Suddenly he felt like an intruder.
‘I…I’d better go,’ he said awkwardly.
‘What?’ Mr Fisher looked as though he’d forgotten Luke was there. ‘Thanks for your help this morning, son,’ he said vaguely.
‘No worries,’ said Luke. ‘I…I hope it all works out.’
He had just grabbed his jacket from the old sofa on the verandah when he heard someone behind him.
‘Luke!’
Luke turned. It was Megan. She brushed the hair out of her eyes awkwardly.
‘What’s wrong?’
Duh! Luke thought. How dumb can you get? Her family’s farm is threatened and you ask what’s wrong.
But Megan just bit her lip.
‘They…they wouldn’t have a clue how to fight this thing,’ she said bleakly. ‘Mum and Dad don’t think about things outside the farm. Pat either. They don’t know how things work.’
But you do, thought Luke. Patrick was a born farmer, but Megan? Megan would soar above the world.
Where had that thought come from? He stared at her. How come he’d never noticed what she was really like before? Had she changed, or had he? The idea shocked him so much he hardly heard her next words. ‘Sorry?’
‘I said…Luke, please could you help us? You’re different. I mean, you like farming like Pat, but you think about things too. Hell, I’m saying this all wrong—’
‘Of course I’ll help,’ Luke broke in. ‘I don’t know what I can do, though,’ he added honestly.
Megan took a deep breath. ‘Could you ask Sam?’
‘Ask him what?’
‘To do something about us on his show? Explain why the resort would be such a bad thing. Please? It’d really make the Council stop and think if there was something on TV. It’s not just us,’ she added hurriedly. ‘I mean, it’s happening in lots of other places too—resorts or golf courses or silly trivial things taking resources, using up water. Did you know that one hectare of a golf course uses ten times more herbicide and pesticide than our orchard?’
‘No, I didn’t know,’ said Luke, impressed.
Megan looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry. Of course you wouldn’t. There was a documentary on TV. My brain just seems to remember stuff like that.’
‘I like it,’ said Luke, then felt even stupider than before.
‘Luke, if Sam says the resort’s a bad idea the Council will listen to him. You know they will.’
Luke nodded. ‘I’ll ask him. He’ll be back today.’
‘Thanks, Luke. You’re a real friend.’
‘I’ll do anything I can to help,’ said Luke. He was surprised how much he meant it, not just for the Fishers, but for Megan especially.
He watched her as she went back inside.
In thunder, lightning, or in rain
(
Macbeth
, Act I, Scene 1, line 2)
The cows stared at Luke as he walked back down the hill, still hoping that he’d magically produce a bale of hay from his pockets, then bent down to the cold grass again. He hardly noticed them.
How could things change so fast? The Fishers’ place was the one thing that never changed, no matter what else happened in his life. And now this…But maybe Megan was right. If Sam just spoke up for them on the show, the Council would be forced to stop the resort…
The four-wheel drive was parked in the courtyard when he reached home.
Mum’s voice floated out of the kitchen window.
‘
Mountains hiii…iiighhhhh…
Something something
coming home, Mountains hiii…ighh…
’
Luke grinned. Mum’s singing sounded like one of the cows in trouble. But at least it was easy to know when she was happy.
The house smelled of roast beef. ‘Our own meat,’
Sam boasted whenever they had anyone to dinner. ‘You won’t find better beef in the world.’
‘Is that you, darling?’ Mum came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her jeans. They’d been new the week before, but Luke noticed there were already stains at the knees.
‘Yeah, it’s me,’ he replied. ‘How was Sydney?’
‘Okay,’ said Mum vaguely, ‘except I forgot to change my shoes when I got out of the car at the airport. So there I was with my gumboots under my dress at the TV station!’ She eyed him more closely. ‘Hell’s bells, you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’ She picked a twig out of his hair.
‘I’ve been pruning. Over at the Fishers’.’
Mum’d had her hair done again in Sydney. The colour was different somehow. Luke squinted then worked it out: red streaks among the brown and blonde. But she’d managed to make a mess of it already.
He bent down and kissed her cheek while she hugged him. It felt strange to bend down to Mum, when only last year he’d still had to reach up.
‘How are they? It’s been donkey’s years since I’ve been over there…’
‘Mum, they’re really upset. Someone’s going to build a—’
‘A resort? Yes, I know.’ Mum ran her hands through her hair. They were interesting hands, scarred and marked from her work with the cows. Mum might have streaks in her hair these days, but her hands never changed.
‘Someone down in Sydney was saying something about a new resort up here.’
‘You
knew
! Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘There wasn’t anything to say. Not really. Just rumours. You know how things get about.’
‘But…but aren’t you worried? All those people…’
Mum went back to the kitchen and started to stir something on the stove. ‘It won’t affect us much, not on this side of the mountain. We might even get a regular air service from it.’
‘But what about the Fishers? Mr Fisher says it’ll ruin them.’
‘What? Don’t be silly, darling. You’re exaggerating. It won’t be that bad.’
‘But what about the water?’
‘What water?’
Luke sighed. How could Mum be so dense? ‘The water the resort will use! They’re going to have a golf course and…and everything. Their water will come from the Fishers’ creek.’
Mum stopped stirring and stared at him. ‘Hell’s bells and buckets of blood! I didn’t realise!’
‘Of course it’ll probably be okay,’ said Luke hurriedly. The last thing he wanted to do was worry Mum. He suddenly remembered the day Anderson’s in town had told her it’d take a thousand dollars to fix the car and she’d had to leave it there; he’d never forget that look on her face as they’d hitched back home together…
They’d been through a lot together, he and Mum.
‘Megan’s got an idea,’ he added. ‘She thinks if Sam can put something on his show the Council won’t approve the development.’
‘Maybe.’ Mum looked uncertain. ‘But lobbying the Council is a good idea. I’ll give the Fishers a ring after
dinner. The more people who can start ringing up and writing letters the better. We can do a ring-around…’
‘Mum, there’s no need to get worked up about it. I’m sure it’ll be fine. What’s for dinner?’ he asked, to change the subject. It was always a formal dinner in the dining room on Sam’s first night home.
‘Chocolate mouse,’ said Mum. Mouse, mousse. It was a family joke.
‘Good,’ said Luke. ‘Where’s Sam?’ he added. ‘I’ll ask him about the Fishers now.’
‘On the verandah.’ Mum glanced at her watch. ‘I’m just going to check the calves. Sometimes I think they could turn into beetles and Mr T wouldn’t notice. Like to run down with me?’
Luke shook his head. ‘I’d better talk to Sam. Then you can tell the Fishers it’s all fixed.’
‘Yes.’ Mum still had that strange look of uncertainty. But then she nodded. ‘You talk to Sam!’ The door shut behind her as she went out to check the cows.
Sam was sitting watching the rosellas clamber about the bird feeder that hung on the verandah post. A magazine sat on the table next to him, with half a cold cup of coffee, but Luke doubted that he’d been reading. Sam always spent the first few hours at home just sitting. ‘Letting Sydney slide away,’ he put it.
He glanced up at Luke and smiled. It was his ‘being friendly to the public’ smile, the one that looked so good on camera. Sometimes, thought Luke, it was as though it took a while for the real Sam to take over from the public one. ‘Hi, mate. Take a seat.’
Luke sat down.
‘Sam…can I ask you something?’
‘Of course,’ said Sam. He looked surprised at the seriousness in Luke’s voice. But his forehead didn’t wrinkle. Was that Botox? wondered Luke.
You read about TV stars having their lines Botoxed and collagen-injected these days. But it wasn’t the sort of thing you could ask your stepfather about.
‘I’ve been over at the Fishers’. This development company, they’re going to—’
‘Riverland Developments. I know all about it. Bloke I know told me down in Sydney,’ said Sam easily. ‘It’ll change the town a bit. Pity. But these things happen.’
‘Mr Fisher says it will ruin them! The resort will take all their water!’
‘And they want me to put their case on TV,’ Sam finished. ‘Look, mate, do you know how many requests like that I get each day? I’d need to have a show four hours long to do even half of them.’
‘But this is different!’
‘Is it?’ Sam took a gulp of cold coffee, pulled a face then put it down again.
‘They’re our neighbours! Our friends! If…if there was a fire or something they’d help us.’
‘I’d help if there was a fire too.’ (If you were here, thought Luke.) ‘But this isn’t the same thing.’
‘Why not?’ demanded Luke.
‘It just isn’t. Take my word for it, will you?’
‘No! We’ve…’ Luke struggled to find the words and discovered he was almost shouting. ‘We’ve got to help the Fishers! I’ve known them all my life! They’re good people, and they’ve done so much for Mum and
me! This is our country! We can’t let strangers take it just to play golf on.’
For a moment he thought Sam was going to yell back, or tell him why the resort would be a good thing. Sam shut his eyes for a moment instead. ‘Luke, just shut up a moment, will you? I need to tell you something. Something about the real world.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t help the Fishers. I’d like to. But I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can! You can—’
‘Do you know who sponsors my show?’
‘What do you mean?’
Sam sighed. ‘Shows don’t pay for themselves. Advertisers pay for them. Riverland Developments are owned by United Holdings. United Holdings own Fruit Bubbles cereal…’
‘And Fruit Bubbles advertises on your show,’ Luke said slowly. ‘But does that mean…does it mean they won’t let you say anything bad about their companies? But that’s censorship!’
‘It doesn’t work like that, Luke. Of course they don’t tell me what I can and can’t say on air.’
‘You just…don’t say things they won’t like.’
‘More or less,’ said Sam matter-of-factly.
‘But…but that’s lying.’
‘Of course it isn’t. I just stay away from certain topics. Sometimes you have to make compromises, mate. My show is good stuff. I’m telling people about things that matter. But if I want to get that stuff to air there are some things I can’t talk about.’
‘But stopping the developers is important!’
‘Everyone’s problems are important. But you can’t help everyone.’
Luke felt the anger burn through him, then erupt. It was more than fury about the Fishers. It was everything that Sam had done—taking Dad’s place, trying to make Luke into something he wasn’t. And it was everything Sam hadn’t done, the longing for the stepfather that might have been. The hero. The invincible…
‘That’s just a cop-out! Don’t you even have the guts to—’
‘I have as much guts as anyone in the industry! I’m just not going to risk everything I’ve achieved for—’
‘You’re a fraud!’ yelled Luke. ‘And I’m going to tell everybody! Wonderful Sam Mackenzie, who doesn’t even have the guts to criticise the people who advertise on his show! I wonder what they’ll think when—’
‘Really? And what do you think people would say if they knew all about you? You’re in no position to call
me
a fraud…’
Sam stopped suddenly. The silence seemed to echo across the verandah. The feeding rosellas chattered suddenly, as though to fill it up.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Luke carefully.
Sam shrugged. He lifted up his coffee again, then remembered it was cold and put it down. ‘Nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘But you did,’ insisted Luke. He’d never known Sam to be as uncomfortable as this. As though he were ashamed. But all he’d said was—
‘Do you mean I’m a fraud too?’ asked Luke. It came out before he could stop himself.
Sam didn’t respond.
‘Answer me! I’m not a kid any more!’ shouted Luke.
‘Aren’t you? Then act like it.’ Sam stood up. ‘I’m going for a walk before dinner.’
‘The exam?’ said Luke suddenly. ‘That’s what you mean, isn’t it? St Ilf’s?’
‘Yes,’ said Sam reluctantly. ‘Look, mate,’ he added hurriedly, ‘it’s not what you’re thinking.’
‘Did you pay someone?’
‘Of course I didn’t pay anyone. I just rang up one of the masters there, a bloke I was at school with. I mentioned you’d had a hard time, lost a lot of school when your dad was sick—’
‘You leave my dad out of it!’
‘I just said you might need some help and could they give you some idea of what you might need to study for the exam.’
‘So they sent me the exam paper to get Sam Mackenzie’s stepson into St Ilf’s?’
Sam stared. ‘You mean they sent you the whole exam paper? I just thought…I meant just a question or two, to help you along…’
‘You made me a cheat,’ said Luke hoarsely. ‘Just like you.’
‘Luke, I didn’t mean…’ began Sam.
Did Luke believe him? Had Sam arranged for him to see the whole exam paper or just a few questions?
It didn’t matter. Luke stumbled to his room.