Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Picador 40th) Page 13

  ‘It’s blowy out. You’ll be needing your hat,’ Lola called after him as she wrapped a tea towel around her hand. She knew it was necessary to keep the commercials on side, even ones with questionable personal habits.

  The merchant walked up the street to the garage where the Hispano had been fuelled and polished, the dog mincing along behind him. The wind was brisk; he felt it cruelly against his neck. The wind lifted a strip of dust along the railway line dividing the two sides of the main street with a dirty haze. He took a tartan travelling rug from the luggage rack and spread it out on the seat. When the wind died off for a minute he stood against the door letting the weak winter sunshine warm his cheeks. The Hispano fired up nicely. He crossed the railway line and took the Boort Road out of town, double declutching through the gears until he was running smoothly along in top. The Pomeranian sat staring out of the passenger window, the wind whipping its lips into a wolfish smile. The merchant was looking forward to signing up the last of the Wycheproof farms then driving over to Quambatook for a beer and some paperwork before tea.

  The paddocks on either side of the road were fallow – a stubbly patchwork of browns and reds. The merchant crossed a culvert at speed, feeling the force of the wind drag at the car for the instant it was in the air. The wind entered the car’s gaps and crevices in chilly thrusts. He cursed the fine leather soft-top that he had paraded so proudly last summer at Bondi. The dog whimpered and lay down on the seat, folding its head under its belly for warmth. The merchant noticed the sky was pinking up very prettily on the horizon. The wind calmed for a minute and in the sudden quiet he felt a little panicky. He thought about how the car must look from the outside, the sleek black box hurtling through a vast stretch of dead, empty paddock.

  The wind buffeted the car again with a jolt and he gripped the wheel hard, relieved to be concentrating on his driving. The solid colour of the horizon gave way to a softer, wispier pink. Suddenly the pink cloud was no longer just in front of the car but all around it. The merchant strained into the windshield; it was difficult to make out the road. He turned on the wipers. The blades dragged jerkily in front of his face – they weren’t moving rain but a torrent of dirt. He could barely see the road in front of him. God forbid if someone was coming in the other direction. He considered turning around, heading back to town, but the road was terribly narrow and the thought of another evening holed up at the hotel, Mrs Sprake looking daggers at the dog, convinced him to push on. The map showed the Avoca River wasn’t far ahead. He fixed on getting there, taking respite in the trees along the bank and waiting it out.

  The dog sneezed and shook its head. The merchant ran his tongue over his teeth; the dirt tasted like iron filings, like old blood. Five miles per hour . . .the speedometer needle rose and fell in small arcs. It was taking forever. The merchant thought of his beautiful Sydney; of warm summers; of cicadas thrumming in his garden; of the saltwater spray over the Harbour Bridge and the smell of frangipani blossoms crushed beneath his tyres. His foot grew heavier on the accelerator. Ten miles per hour, twenty, forty . . .

  The Hispano hurtled through the dirt, the merchant held the wheel dreamily, loosely. Only when the wooden posts of the bridge were coming up too fast and too close to the passenger side of the car did he snap back into the present with a sudden evasive swerve. Smooth road became rough paddock. The merchant was thrown violently off his seat; the dog became entangled in the gear stick and snapped wildly in alarm and pain. The merchant could just make out the dark shapes of trees in the near distance. He stamped so urgently on the brake his foot slipped off the pedal and caught under the plate.

  ‘Plurry hell. Plurry, plurry hell.’

  As he cursed, the front wheels of the car hit Robert’s new levee bank. It was a perfect take-off. The bank launched the car acrobatically, gracefully, through the air. A few seconds of silence then a thunderous splash.

  A Hispano Suiza is a luxury car, made well and made heavy; the merchant struggled to release the roof clasps as it sank. The dog, the man and the tartan rug floated up out of the car into the river. The alligator-skin notebook bumped the merchant’s elbow as he performed some rusty breast-stroke, then quickly, caught by the current, the notebook took off downstream towards the sea, towards the strange and foreign addresses contained within. The dog was a surprisingly good swimmer for one so short of leg. It made straight for the bank, hauled itself out and took off across a paddock, its wet tail dragging through the soil like a broom.

  No serious injury was done but the car could not be recovered. The merchant was forced to return to Sydney by train and the dog was never seen again.

  It was Robert’s river control intervention – the levee bank – that prevented the merchant from spinning his spiel at our farm. Robert who would no doubt have double-tested the dodgy merchant’s calculations and insisted on checking the bona fides of the names in the alligator-skin book. Robert who may have been able to get McKettering and some of the others out of their hastily signed contracts, before it was too late.

  Results from the

  1939 Harvest

  This year’s bushel weight of 45 lbs is once again lower than last year’s, confirming a strong and continuing downward trend. The sand drift in the Mallee has devastated grain growing and raises the question whether this area is in fact suitable for any form of cultivation.

  In accordance with standard sampling procedure a portion of FAQ (fair-average-quality) wheat was critically examined and subjected to analysis and a milling test in the experimental flourmill.

  The sample is small and poorly filled out with a dull orange (often due to rust) colour. The percentage of screenings is considerably higher than usual, due mainly to a high content of broken grain. The amount of weed seeds (especially thistle) is high as are native grass heads. The moisture and protein content is low.

  Test Baking

  Purpose: To measure the quality of wheats grown by Mr R.L. Pettergree of Wycheproof in regard to high yields of good-coloured flour with superior baking quality.

  Quality Tests: The Pelshenke figure, which indicates gluten quality (time taken for dough ball to expand under water at temperature; time divided by protein content = quality), is average-poor. Mechanical testing of the physical properties of the dough using Brabender’s Farinograph and Fermentograph shows poor-average flour quality with acceptable gas-producing power.

  Loaf nine was my error, but the rest are the result of poor flour. These are loaves grown in bedrock and it shows.

  Robert was repairing the caravan when I took him the results. He reached inside, placed the piece of paper on the bed and went back to hammering.

  — 21 —

  SEWING FOR THE FULLER FIGURE

  The early morning wind sucks the curtains against the bedroom window. Two flies skitter about on the bedspread. I curl around a pudding bowl sour-mouthed from dry retching. Sister Crock’s morning sickness cure was a mixture of gin and honey – the thought of it is enough to make me heave. I roll over and notice the Bible on my night table. A folded flap of paper sticks out:

  The word bread occurs 264 times, wheat 40 times and loaves 17 times according to the standard edition. In the miracle of feeding the multitude of 5000 people with five loaves and two small fishes I believe the loaves were unleavened barley cakes – hardly bread. I can’t account for the fish.

  I can’t account also, for why I have been unable to provide for you in the ways that you want or need. I have work in Wethers. Robert.

  There is a blotch of ink after the word fish. He has held the pen too long in thought, allowing the ink to pool and bleed. He often leaves me an article or journal to read, something technical and edifying, but I have never seen him pick up the Bible.

  I should be starting on a layette for the baby but first I must finish Doris McKettering’s going-away clothes. I sit at Ollie Bowd’s sewing machine with a cup of weak black tea and the pudding bowl nearby. The bridge dress is nearly ready. We are having problems with the draped belt
inasmuch as it doesn’t drape, but encircles her middle. The day dresses need finishing first so Doris can give them a showing here, before they go. The other clothes can wait. I could even post them down, she says, but it would be nice to arrive with everything just so.

  The McKetterings’ new after-the-farm life will be at the three-storey boarding house of Ern’s aunt at Moonee Ponds. Doris likes the idea of stairs and living layer upon layer, not like here where everything is so wide and dusty and spread out. Ern and Doris will have the ground floor with the aunt. Above them, four women boarders – shopgirls and typists – and on the top floor four men, two of them ‘older’. I imagine one of the men will have a car and they will all go for drives on the weekend, Doris in the back seat with the shopgirls, Ern in the front smoking a pipe . . .

  The Bible rests on the bodice of Doris’s peach satin sundress. Ern could only spare a pound for her new city clothes and the clearing sale didn’t bring much so he was being generous at that. I have cobbled things together, used my samples from the train and unpicked my own clothes for her. The table is a landscape of cloth. Grey linen folds over white lawn over yellow bouclé. Midnight blue satin drips to the floor. Each piece of cloth is pinned to its newspaper pattern. The newspapers are several years old – Ern brought them over after clearing out his shed. I scan each line across to where my scissors have cut through the sentences following Doris’s curves:

  Overall poor and disappointing results Wheat Crop Championships compete H.E. Bath of Donald for a Ghurka weeds, mice, rust and preventable A meeting of the sand drift relief the Mallee area. Requests for assist The committee reported on the activit A bicycle is to be raffled by the Wychepro guttering. Although if current drought condi be required. Raffle tickets can be purchased at

  At the time each of these problems seemed separate and surmountable: drought, mice, sand drift, poor yields. But to read it all together, as the one big picture, it makes us look naïve.

  The newspapers are thinner these days. The Mallee is emptying out – less people, less news. Perhaps we’ll be the only ones left – me and Robert and the baby.

  The Doris dummy hangs slack-armed on the back of the bedroom door. She’s a homemade concoction of brown paper and pillows tied to a coathanger with string. I miss the modern mannequin from the train with its wind-out bust and hips. I measured Doris thoroughly and tried to classify her figure type as I was taught. When I tied the piece of elastic around her middle and waited for it to roll down to find her natural waist, it stuck fast and I had to cut it free. She has sloping shoulders, a large low bust, full abdomen and an average seat. According to the chart of special figure types I should avoid empire waistlines, midriff inserts, chemise dresses and overblouses.

  Doris spent her pound on a flat-busk Lady Ruth advertised with a coupon in Woman’s World. It is designed to coax the abdomen type of figure into more interesting lines and is specially reinforced over the thighs with wide elastic straps. Doris wears the Lady Ruth for fittings. It holds her so firmly her torso feels like a drum. It is only when I measure or pin her arms or the tops of her legs that I can feel the true warm weight of her.

  I imagine her taking tea in the boarding-house parlour wearing the afternoon dress with interchangeable collars and cuffs; cleaning the grates in the peach satin sundress; carrying breakfast trays up the stairs in the Hungarian cardigan. But mostly I imagine her in the kitchen of the farmhouse, a kaleidoscope of coloured biscuit tins like bright wheels above her head. I imagine her looking out of the window at the sleepout where Ern slept as a boy and where, on windy nights, his mother knelt and blew the dust from his eye sockets with her warm breath, and I feel immeasurably sad.

  There is only the hemming to finish. Doris is due in the morning to collect her clothes and have a final cup of tea. I sit on a cushion on the back step and sew until the light starts to fade. Then I walk over to the shed and look for some wheat snagged in the hessian of the empty bags. I slide one ear into the hem of each of Doris’s dresses and sew a few tiny stitches to keep them in place. Sweet Doris. Let her take the Mallee with her.

  Robert’s parting gift to Ern McKettering is a copy of his article from the Agriculture Journal: ‘EVERYMAN’S RULES FOR SCIENTIFIC LIVING’. It came with a warning. Robert feared for Ern. He considered the practice of scientific living a much more straightforward affair in the country than in the city. At our parting Robert warned Ern that the city’s many uncontrollable social factors – politics, fashions, unions, plays – could distract a man from his purpose: ‘The city, McKettering, is a laboratory. The darndest social laboratory. You’ll need your wits about you.’

  We hugged and kissed them, Doris wept a little, then we waved them goodbye – albeit in a back to front sort of way, as Ern’s car had a broken gearbox and was stuck in reverse. They drove to the train station, all of ten miles away, backwards. Doris held her vanity mirror on the dashboard for Ern to steer by. The broken gearbox was Ern’s last triumph. When the bank manager collected the car from the train station (a final contribution to the McKettering debt) he backed it straight into the bulk silo. The rear end crumpled like paper.

  I fetch the journal Robert gave me in the paddock at Jeparit. It is in a drawer of the sewing machine with the thimble and my measuring tape. I lie on the bed and re-read the Rules for Scientific Living and rub my belly where the skin is sore and stretched.

  THE ONLY TRUE FOUNDATION IS A FACT.

  This rule makes me think of Sister Crock’s lecturette on Health and the Expectant Mother: ‘At three months of age the human foetus is the size of a large cooking onion. There is a surprising uniformity in the size of the foetus. It appears to remain constant throughout the vastly different physiques and races of the world. The pygmy foetus being of much the same size as the rather tall Norwegian.’ Or something like that.

  AVOID MAWKISH CONSIDERATION OF HISTORY AND RELIGION.

  I think of the days I spent in the soil and cropping wagon helping Robert in the narrow aisle between the plants. How we threw shadows on each other as we worked, watering, measuring, mixing additives, taking notes. When I cut my hands on the wheat Robert took them in his own, examining them intently then, slipping the canteen from his belt, he dribbled water into my palms; it ran like quicksilver. The heat of his hands surged up my arms and into my body. I felt compelled to say something provocative. Something that would be important to us.

  ‘Robert, do you believe in God?’

  ‘This is my religion, Jean, I believe in this,’ and he cocked his head to signal everything around us. At that time it was exactly the right answer. ‘This’ was the sun streaming through the glass roof, dazzling us with white light, ‘this’ was the mealy smell of the wheat, the pleasing pattern of the stems swaying against each other in their plots. ‘This’ was surely also me.

  KEEP THE MIND FLEXIBLE THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF NEW HYPOTHESES.

  Although Robert’s scientific interests are primarily in soils and cropping he has stretched his mind to other areas. Within the journal is a cutting of an article he had published in the Graziers’ Gazette:

  Deal Lightly with the Lamb

  It is in the best interests of producers that animals intended for export or local trade should arrive at their destination in peak condition. Yet many thousands of carcasses are rejected for export annually due to blemishes, bruises and wound marks.

  With this problem in mind I made an informal study of local graziers and have formed the following hypotheses: much unnecessary knocking about takes place when loading or unloading sheep and lambs or when they are being driven on the hoof. This damage, although not obvious on the live animal, will show up plainly after slaughter.

  Dogging, prodding with sticks, whacking, flogging and lifting by the wool all bring about carcass deterioration.

  Livestock buyers are keen to notice any outward signs of damage, due to heavy punishment or knocking about, but are frequently disagreeably surprised to find that they have been deceived by outwar
d appearances. The grazier would do well to deal lightly with the lamb lest he find a heavy loss in his bank balance.

  And what of the lamb, Robert? What of its pain and trauma? Is it not enough that we should treat the lamb kindly because kindness is simply good?

  BRING SCIENCE INTO THE HOME.

  Robert says science brings the potential for infinite human progress, that once the big questions have been solved the scientist will focus in on the small, smaller, smallest things. He predicts the invention of microscopes so powerful they can analyse the very atoms of our being. He says the true attitude of the scientist is to seize hold of things, to permit no ideals or sentimentality but to consider directly, without attachment, each fact he is given.

  Four months ago, when I told him about the baby, that was exactly what he did. He took his hat and notebook and went out to examine the Nabawa to see how it was standing up to the rust.

  — 22 —

  AT WAR AGAIN

  My birthday. Mary sends me a novel and a photograph of her eldest – a sturdy blonde toddler who, she says, isn’t the least bit shy. Doris sends me a parcel from the city – two crocheted baby’s bonnets and some old issues of Woman’s World. She doesn’t say if she’s happy at the boarding house and she doesn’t mention Ern. The magazines are well-thumbed and several years old. She recommends the ‘Modern Mother’ pages to me.

  Good News for the Modern Mother

  This is the age of science and wonderful are the things done for poor humanity in its name. The tiny wee brain of a two-month-old baby was penetrated by a tamping pin in a railway yard explosion recently without fatal result. The infant victim remained conscious throughout the harrowing operation that followed and has fully recovered with no ill effects. This astonishing instance of the wonders of modern surgery takes the breath away.