January, 2008
all rights reserved
by
Wendy Morrow
The drought was approaching its eighth year. They said that droughts went in seven year cycles.
Everyone was looking forward to the rain.
Each night after the men had come home from the pub, they would stand on their verandahs with their thumbs in their belt loops and look to the west.On the horizon the clouds banks would build up after sunset and every evening the farmers would say, “Looks like rain tomorrow.” In the morning the red dust storms would gather higher in the sky than the day before and still come carrying no rain.
The women had worked all day and had little time for pubs and verandahs and speculation. They had carried water in buckets to the garden; water that had made the tea then boiled the potatoes then washed the dishes then washed the clothes then washed the floors and bent their backs. They poured it over the soil and watched the thirsty red dust suck up the recycled water and disappear before the garden seeds could come to life.
They all looked towards the horizon. They cupped their hands on their browned and furrowed foreheads shading their gaze from the relentless sun.
“Just a day’s rain is all it would take,” they say, just enough to get things started. ”
“That would never be enough.” the old ones said. “You need a good two weeks to soak the soil”.
The people’s lined and wrinkled faces were cracked by the heat and the arid wind. The grit had found its way into their hair and their noses and they spat the dry red soil out of their mouths when they spoke.
The men drove the trucks filled with hay to the waiting livestock at the gate. The bleating sheep argued like members in the house of commons imploring the men to work faster and spread the food. The farmers wiped the sweat from their foreheads in the crooks of their elbows and counted another loss as the sheep ate up another expensive bale of hay.
The only relief was in the cool draft beer in the pub which was overflowing with men. There were no good tales of green crops and record prices, only jokes of a land as dry as their wit.
“Did you hear the MacKay’s paddock crossed the road today?” they laughed. Whose shout was it now? And the golden lager would go another round slaking the thirst for company.
The red dust banks rose high on the horizon and the washing on the line blew wet and waiting. The women washed their faces and put on their hats and their white gloves and drove to town to the country women's tea.
They shared their cakes and gossip and the sweet sound of other women’s laughter. They told stories of children, husbands and homes. Their voices rose like the chatter of cockatoos and then suddenly like birds in a flock they were gone. Rushing home to get the wash off the lines before the red winds blew everything to pink.
