Across the street, he saw Joelle arranging her slabs of expensive meat in the window display. She looked up and met his eye. He gave the peace sign and she scurried to the back of her shop.
* * *
Gatenby’s Poultry Farm
His youngest son, Cooper, needed some information for a school project. Appreciative of the boy’s company, Cliff took his time explaining the afternoon’s job. He was setting up rodent eradication units in the sheds. Cooper watched and wrote everything down.
First, Cliff mixed a small amount of vegetable oil into a portion of feed grain. Next, he put on gloves and carefully measured in the poison. It was a gray-black powder that smelled like garlic.
“I’m using two percent zinc phosphide with ninety-eight percent feed grain.”
“Yep.”
“There are other poisons you could use, but this is single use.” Cliff read off the container, “‘An acute toxicity rodenticide.’ It turns to phosphine gas in their stomach. It’ll kill them after one feed.”
Earlier, he had cut two rat-sized holes in a twenty-liter drum. In a corner of the chicken shed he placed the bait and a water bowl. He turned the drum upside down and covered them.
“I’ve seen six rats during daylight. That’s just the ones I’ve seen. There are a shitload more at night.”
“Is it expensive?”
“The pellets are cheaper.” He considered the question further. “The powder works better for me. Nothing comes for free. Something might come for free; you’ll pay a price on it later. Don’t forget it.” He inspected his work and nodded with satisfaction. “Every time the rats soil a bag of feed it’s a costly kick in the guts. We can’t afford to have even one rat in the chicken shed.”
“Is that the only poison you use?”
“What are you talking about? You know I fumigate the silos to get rid of insect vermin.”
Seeing Cooper’s face fall, Cliff regretted his gruff tone.
“There’s no such thing as a stupid question. Write this down: aluminum phosphide fumigation tablets get rid of any beetles, weevils, and moths that could threaten the bulk stock feed. Forty tablets are required per twenty-seven cubic meters. It’s also used to control rabbits. You dog the field first, make sure the rabbits are in the warren, then drop the fumigant in and seal the burrow. Voila. I know some people think I’m a dumb chicken farmer, but there is a fine science to managing these pesticides. You need to be smart to do this job.”
“I know, Dad.”
If he wasn’t wearing contaminated gloves, he would have patted his son on the head. “I’m telling you, son, ask questions. As many as you have to. It’s only stupid people who don’t ask questions because they can’t think what to ask.”
“Yes, sir.” Cooper finished writing something down and gave Cliff a cheeky grin. “There’s a teacher at school . . .”
“Yeah.”
“Mrs. Bugwhistle, the PE teacher. She always says, ‘Stupid question,’ no matter what the question is.”
“Mrs. Bugwhistle?”
They both started laughing. It felt good to share a joke with his boy.
“That’s her name, Dad.”
“You couldn’t make it up.”
* * *
Miss Gwen
Calendar House
The front columns of the enormous house cast cold shadows. Miss Gwen pulled her cardigan around her as she waited for her knock to be answered. Across the lawn were the familiar rosebushes and the birdbath. Even the branches of the poplar trees beside the lake swayed in the breeze as she remembered: blissfully out of time, like children dancing. It was more than fifty years since she had stood on this doorstep, and nothing had changed except the modern car sitting in the driveway.
Celia Lily appeared, looking disheveled. Behind her a small girl with long yellow plaits rode down the hallway on a scooter. She rang the scooter’s bell as a younger girl dashed in front of her. Celia welcomed Miss Gwen with a quick embrace.
“I’ve been going through all the boxes,” she said. “Come into the library, please.”
The library, too, was unchanged. It smelled waxy and Miss Gwen wondered if they still used the same lemon-oil furniture polish. She had an odd sense of déjà vu as she looked around at the walls clothed in a familiar white-and-gold antique paper, the marble mantel above the fireplace, and the dog and irons in the grate. It had once been her task to clean those.
Celia introduced her to her two eldest daughters, who were sitting at the table, Frannie and Josephine. They were sorting old newspaper clippings into piles.
“They’ve been very helpful getting everything ready for the Apple Queen Tribute Evening. Jack’s mother kept every newspaper article, every photograph,” Celia said. “Here is one of you both on the float.”
“Oh, we were so beautiful,” Miss Gwen exclaimed. “These are lovely.”
The photo showed a group of young women waving from the back of the decorated truck. It was a black-and-white photo, but in Miss Gwen’s mind she could see the pastel yellow, sherbet pink, and cornflower blue of their dresses, and the apple blossoms hanging in festoons all over the float.
“What was Granny like back then?” Frannie asked. “It’s hard to imagine her being young. She’s so . . . formal.”
Miss Gwen cast her mind back. Victoria Lily was a confident girl, organizing picnics and bushwalks for large groups of young people, practicing dressage on her pony, dancing to Elvis Presley and Nat King Cole records. Victoria was generous too; she spent hours trying to teach Miss Gwen to ride a horse.
“She was jolly,” Miss Gwen said. “Always ready for an adventure. I worked for her mother-in-law, yet she always treated me like I was a friend. She was kind.”
She was wonderful as long as everyone did what she wanted, Miss Gwen thought. Celia reminded her of Victoria, in some ways.
“She never won the crown, did she?” Celia said mischievously. “I imagine she never forgave you!”
“I was crowned Apple Queen in 1958,” Miss Gwen admitted. She added diplomatically, “The prize was a trip to Coffs Harbour. I think they wanted to give it to one of the village girls, rather than someone like Victoria. She was disappointed. The next year she said we were both too old to nominate ourselves for such a silly competition.”
They spent the next hour sorting through boxes and albums, finding the memorabilia they could use for the upcoming celebration evening. There was a lovely pile of photos—black-and-white and color—and even a postcard Miss Gwen had mailed Victoria from Coffs Harbour, when she was doing her tour to promote the Apple Isle.
They had almost finished when Josephine pulled out a series of early photos taken of people picnicking around the Vanishing Falls water hole. Celia checked to see if they were related to the Apple Queen history and, deciding they were not, placed them out of the way. Miss Gwen was curious. She arranged them on the table in front of her. The photos captured the water rushing down into the deep swirling pool. The bushwalkers leaned back, enjoying the wild splendor of the secluded rain forest waterfall. They were close enough to the falling water that spray would have coated their faces. The namesake of the town was a tragic and ominous place, Miss Gwen thought. It always seemed odd to her that tourists and locals alike experienced such carefree pleasure in a place that was haunted by nameless people from the past.