Marshall and Hazel sat across from Phillip at the table the next morning and buttered and ate the toast that Beth kept flowing out of the kitchen. Phillip sipped at his too-hot tea and skimmed through the latest edition of the Countryman. Conversation was kept at a minimum as they each took their time waking up and adjusting to the day. The radio muttered along in the background filling the silence with news and political opinion.
“So what are you two going to get up to today?”
“Dunno.” Marshall stretched his arms above his head, leant back and cracked his shoulders and fingers. “Maybe go for a walk around the lake. Show Hazel the sights.”
“Not gonna go into town?”
“Nah. Came to get away from that sort of thing.”
Phillip smiled a wizened smile.
Hazel, then Marshall, showered and dressed in jeans, long-sleeved shirts and comfortable shoes, Hazel tied a light scarf around her head and they were soon setting off down the track through the paddock through which they had arrived, strolling down to the causeway over the wall of the dam. An aviary of ducks, herons, spoonbills and black swans watched their momentum past their nests hidden amongst the paperbark and tea-trees at the edges and foot of the weir.
Hazel stopped from time to time to capture the scenery in a box- the lake, the marshes, the orbiting paddocks, the waterbirds that had taken over. Marshall stood tall and proud soaking in the serenity of space and stillness, like a plant tilting its leaves towards the sun to capture all of the energy of the sun.
“How’s the serenity?”
Hazel laughed.
They crossed the wall and continued around along the gravelled track that led around the edge of the scrub in and around the water, before turning on up a slow ridge up the hill. Sheep grazed on new shoots and lambs butted against their mothers in search of milk. Here and there a small yellowing mass rotted into the grass waiting for the crows to pick them apart. They looked upon them and quickly turned away as they bowed their heads and let the track raise them above the reflective stillness.
The track wound along the ridge towards a clump of bush backing onto the back fence of the farm and merging into the wilderness beyond. Rocks, broken trees and branches had been carried into mounds within the thicket and allowed to settle, clearing them out of the way of the machines. They perched upon the carapace of a fallen Jarrah and looked out down the green slope of the hill, over the shimmering water and across to the far hill, the sheds, the house. A hawk or eagle of some kind slowly spiralled down towards its nest high in the crooked fingers of a dying tree on the waters edge. The bleat of a sheep broke for an instant and then it was silent once more.
As they adjusted to the stillness of the bush and as their ears became adjusted to the silence, sounds that usually pass undetected below the white noise of life slowly emerged- the wing beats and footfalls of wrens, the mutterings of the trees in the breeze, the passage of insects beneath the litter. They watched and listened as the world marked out its own peculiar time.
The rumble of the diesel pump as it shook itself awake and started sucking cold water from the depths of the reservoir and throwing it through zinced pipes up the far slope and out of excited sprinkler heads onto the tender leaves of freshly planted cauliflowers blew out across the clear air and broke their reverie.
Hazel glanced across at Marshall stretching and yawning as if just awoken from a dreamless sleep. She smiled at him and did the same.
“You want to get moving?”
“Mmmm, sure. It’s so nice out here.”
“Isn’t it.”
They sat for another moment just staring out into the ether before them, summoning the will to recommence. Hazel eventually leant her weight forward and slipped off the course and decaying log and onto the soft ground. Fibres of brown and pink bark clung to the back of her jeans and to the bottom of her shirt. Turning to stand directly in front of Marshall she leaned in towards him and he took her head in his arms and held her against his solar plexus. She sighed and burrowed into his embrace. He closed his eyes and shielded her from the world. His face sat heavily and the crevices that had run across his forehead only 24 hours before had shallowed, however the lines still etched their story into his face. The weight of thought expressed itself; he could only relax so far.
As they separated and stretched and yawned they stepped out of the fringes of the thicket and into the low grass that lay out before them. Ambling back down to the track hand-in-hand Marshall pointed out landmarks real and imaginary- a tree he had accidently bumped into with the trailer behind the tractor stacked high with irrigation pipes, the thin parallel corrugations running in lines straight up and down the slope that had once been thick with luscious heads of cauliflower. He regaled her with stories of marching up and down the rows with Piers first laying out the grid of piping amongst the grey dust, then sitting aboard the planter hitched to the back of the tractor funnelling seedlings from trays towering above him down the chutes as they rotated around in front of him until he was sea-sick with the constant motion, the hypnotic patterns and the thick swirl of dust thrown up by the tyres stinging his eyes and caking his nose, then weeding, then spraying, all the while making sure they were properly irrigated, then protecting the heads of the cauliflowers by folding their long leaves over the top, then following the conveyor belt up the rows wearing waterproof overalls and gumboots with a heavy, long, curved knife in hand harvesting the mature heads.
“So what do you really want to talk about?”
Marshall looked up and away, then down into Hazel’s face; the eyes that met him were filled with empathy and understanding. He looked down at his feet, gliding thoughtlessly across the gravel.
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Is it work? Are you still stressed about it? Are you feeling guilty about leaving?”
“No, no. It’s not that. It’s, I don’t know. It’s Phillip.”
“His cancer?”
“Yeah. I guess.” Marshall looked up and blew out his cheeks. “I had a chat with him yesterday evening. The doctors don’t hold out any hope.”
She turned to look at him, to try to see what he was thinking, what he was looking for. She refocussed on the spot on the road two meters in front. “That’s really awful.”
“He’s being really philosophical about it. He’s always been a fighter- someone who has always given that extra bit of energy that has made all the difference. But now- it’s not quite like he’s given up, he’s not wallowing in grief or anything like that- it’s more like he’s downed tools and is prepared to let it do what it what it wants with him. He’s not trying to force it like he usually does with any problem. It’s changed him somehow.” He wiped away the tears that had started to well on his bottom eyelids with his forearm.
“I guess something like that would change everybody.”
“Probably. But I just didn’t expect it.”
They kept walking, unconsciously in-step, matching each other stride for stride.
“There’s something else though, isn’t there?” Hazel’s voice quavered, as though this question marked a turning point between them somehow. She weighed up the consequences. They sat in her stomach like a lead weight, dragging her deeper and deeper. Did she really want to know?
Marshall sighed heavily, an unspoken ‘yes’.
“Do I want to know?”
“I don’t know if you want to, but I think you should.”
“Oh god, you aren’t breaking up with me are you?” Hazel meant this as a joke, but her delivery was flat and scared, as though this was what she was actually thinking. ‘God, he must think I’m an egotistical bitch,’ she thought.
Marshall understood her attempt at black humour and took it in the spirit it was intended, if not the tone in which it was delivered. “No, no. Nothing like that.” He forced a smile at her, and took her hand. “I told you I love you this morning. I don’t lie about things like that.”
“Oh really? What do you lie about, then?”
He laughed. “OK, OK. I don’t lie, full stop.”
“I should hope not.”
They shook off the dark mass that was burdening them and approached each other with a new level of trust and empathy. They were overwhelmed with a feeling of lightness towards the world and each other, as though they could face up to anything together.
“So what was it that was on your mind?”
Well, it’s Phillip. We had a talk yesterday and he wants me to help him- well how do I say this? There is no good way- he wants me to help him kill himself.”
“Euthanasia?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit!”
“I know.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I told him I’d think about it.”
“Has he told Beth?”
“Yes. I asked that too. She knows and understands.”
“That’s so full on!”
“I know.”
The trail meandered around the hill and closer to the lake. Gravel had been banked up into an ugly yet causeway across the wet marshland, before rising again up the slope of the next hill. A pile of broken and buckled pipes, sprinklers and couplings lay semi-ordered alongside the fence of ringlock and barbed wire fence. Marshall untangled the wire that tethered the gate from its post and closed it again behind them.
“Well, I’m glad you told me.”
“Mmmm. Me too. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest.”
Hazel glowed up at him, and he leant down and kissed her as they walked.
“Will you help me decide?”
“I don’t think I can do that. It’s your choice. He wanted you to decide. Of course, I’ll always be here if you need to talk about it or whatever.”
“I know. Thanks.”
Now that life was running exactly how they would have wished it had they been given the chance, Albert and Sarah slowly began to get restless. They had all this land, their crops were consistently successful, their animals routinely achieved top price at the stock markets, and their personal lives were going gangbusters- Sarah was secretary of the local branch of the Country Women’s Association (or as Dad and Albert referred to it, the Chin-Waggers Association) and a jams and preserves judge at the Manjimup Show, and Albert, despite his natural shyness, was an influential member of the State Farmers Federation and a district football umpire. While he didn’t talk much people, knowing his reputation, would sit up and pay attention whenever he did have something to say, and would carefully consider his words because he had evidently considered his own.
But they started to grow concerned that things were perhaps going a little too well, or grew bored. So they decided that, since their cottage was one of the original group settlement houses- just basic timber, weatherboard and rusting corrugated iron- that they would begin building a new house just for them, with room enough for two middle-aged farmers and perhaps the occasional visitor or grandchild or niece or nephew, and Phillip would take ownership of the old cottage. They began preparations in earnest, enlisting the services of an architect and surveyor. They chose a spot on top of the ridge just around a fold in the hill from the cottage and with views across the lake to the front, the bush to the back, and to the parents’ house to the left. The house would be dug into the crest of the ridge, with the excavated earth to be compacted and transformed into the walls. Ceiling to floor glass windows would provide the spectacular views of their domain and of approaching summer storms. The framework would be of exposed jarrah wood salvaged from the farm, and the roof would be a gently sloping vegetable patch. The northwest facing aspect would capture the best of the winter sun through the giant windows, and the verandah would shield them during the burning months.
Sarah would take charge of the project while Albert saw to his farming duties, allowing her to make the most of her organisational and managerial skills. She was in contact with the architect every couple of days with new tweaks and changes to the design, and when the builders were on-site she rolled up her sleeves and pitched in with her own hands to build the bricks and erect the pillars and pour the concrete and put up the tank and guttering. She really came into her own when coordinating multiple tasks. She knew what had to be done at each step along the way.
*****
It took them three hours to walk around the lake, stopping here and there on an old rotting log or tussock or pile of rocks to ponder the scenery and the world. Marshall showed Hazel around the old shacks and sheds littered around the farm, explaining to her their stories and mythologies and their roles in the formation of the valley into what was before them now. A couple had been bulldozed completely, wiping away all but the smallest skerrick of their former selves- the lives they sheltered and the memories stored within the struts and paint- while others stood as tilted shrines slowly tumbling into themselves. Grass and wildflowers sprung from the dirt accumulated in the gutters and weedy saplings struggled for life amongst the vines clinging to the weathering walls as nature reclaimed its inheritance.
They took shelter amongst the ruins of the old Monroe house as light but persistent drizzle rolled up the valley. One of the interior walls had fallen in, exposing its spare skeleton to the chill. Hazel pulled her jumper tight up to her neck as she shivered along to the muted percussion of the rain against the rusting iron roof. Within the wall space they found a couple of small whiskey bottles, a yellowing copy of a service station porno perhaps stashed away by a backpacker and buried amongst the dust a small black and white photograph of a young man barely out of school at the time but now smudged with age holding an axe nonchalantly over his left shoulder while he leant against the buttress of an ancient smooth-skinned tree. A cigarette hung carelessly from a mouth that barely concealed the smile dancing across his bright and piercing eyes. There was no inscription on the back, but given its squirreled location and the white fold lines hashing back and forth its surface they surmised that this photograph was a cherished and secret memento of someone lost in time. Hazel slipped it into her jeans pocket to show to Phillip and Beth later.
