after the baby,
and for the first time in a while
Dad looks straight at me
and I’m scared to look back
because I’m not sure what it means,
so I keep talking.
I tell him I rang childcare in town
and I rang the Department
and I know it’ll be hard,
but it won’t cost much
for the baby to be looked after
while I’m in school
and I know I can manage it.
Maybe even Beck and Craig can help.
I know I can do it
and I keep talking,
afraid to look at Dad,
and I say
Jack and Annabel should go,
go to their beach,
before the baby who’s taking his own good time.
I’ll tell them thanks
and I’ll promise an invitation
to the christening.
I look straight at Dad now,
knowing I have to,
and he’s still looking back.
I tell him when Jack goes
I’ll need help with birth classes
and maybe he could come along
and he smiles.
I think it’s a dad smile.
He leans over
and takes another slice of cake
and he keeps smiling
and he says,
calm as you please,
‘You make a good cake, Emma,
a good cake.’
And I know everything will be fine,
just fine.
So I reach for a slice
to feed my baby
and myself.
I take a big slice.
Me and Beck,
we’re gunna miss you two.
We reckon you’re lucky,
leaving here to spend all your time
on some beach.
Maybe we can visit
on school holidays or something?
You let us know, okay?
I’m gunna miss you two.
I like the way you get drunk
every Saturday night
when you think the farm’s asleep.
I like the way
you sleep late on Sunday
and stumble out of the shed
like two old drunks.
But most of all I like
the way you spend your nights
up there, on the hay bales.
Yeah, that’s right,
one night I couldn’t sleep
and I came out here, real quiet,
so yeah,
now I know what you do in our shed!
It’s time
We’ve packed the car,
Annabel and me.
I’ve filled the tank with petrol.
This time we won’t stop.
I wander into the orchard alone.
I’m looking for the first tree I stripped,
two months back.
I’m sure I’ll remember which one.
It was on the end of a line,
the highest on the farm.
The view looked over the valley and the hills
and all the way to Broken Lookout.
I climb the tree
and sit for a while.
The rotting fruit covers the grass
and the leaves are starting to drop.
I hear a crow up in the fir trees,
and a semitrailer on the distant highway.
And I can hear my dad’s voice
I hear Annabel’s footsteps
coming through the grove
and I know
that my world echoes with her sound
and that I should follow it,
the way Emma will follow her baby,
hopeful and sure,
and tied to this farm
and these people.
I know
that today,
with a full tank,
and with Annabel,
that it’s time to go.
Annabel and the orchard
Jack’s up some tree.
Dreaming.
I hope the branch breaks
and he lands on his head.
That’s how I feel sometimes.
But I’m glad we argued over leaving.
Sometimes you need to make a choice.
Like giving up uni.
Like coming to this farm to work.
Like Emma getting drunk one night,
waking up pregnant
and still saying yes to the baby
after all that.
Like me and Jack now, together,
going.
Starting now.
Starting today.
When we leave this orchard.
That is, if I can get my love, the mad bastard,
out of the tree.
For the sun
It’s the first rain of the season.
I think of Jack and Annabel
on some beach. I hope the sun shines there.
I can hear Dad chopping wood,
ready for a long cold spell
with frost on the orchard,
cracking under our feet.
The clouds have covered the hills
I touch my stomach, gently,
feel such power and weight,
but if I get any bigger
they’ll need a wheelbarrow
to get me to hospital.
I love my baby.
I don’t care how it happened.
I don’t care how cold this winter gets.
I stand on the veranda
and feel warmer than I’ve ever felt.
The wind rattles the shed door
to remind me of Jack and Annabel.
I hope they’re swimming naked
in clear, salty water.
I’m glad they came.
I can see Craig and Beck
walking home from the highway.
Craig’s swinging his lunatic schoolbag
and Beck’s wandering slow, in no hurry.
I sit on the squatter’s chair,
put my feet up on the veranda railing,
lean back, close my eyes
and wait for the sun.
First published 1998 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Reprinted 1999, 2013
This edition published 2017
www.uqp.com.au
uqp@uqp.uq.edu.au
© Steven Herrick 1998
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cover design and illustration by Jo Hunt
Typeset in Adobe Garamond 12/13.5 pt by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 0 7022 2984 8 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5895 4 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5896 1 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5897 8 (kindle)
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