Closing Balance

Endings and beginnings — a Marg Jansen story (8)

Sunday morning starts cool and overcast. For the first time this year, it really feels like autumn. Day doesn’t break: it just arrives, sullen and reluctant. Kookaburra sits quietly in the grey nondescript dawn.

I’m sitting on my porch wrapped in a blanket, cradling a coffee, wondering how the trapping is going. The answer comes soon enough.

The crack of the .303 makes me jump. Choughs flap off in noisy black-and-white alarm.

Rosa joins me on the porch steps, gives me a nudge with her shoulder and an encouraging smile. ‘It will soon be over, hun. Then we can get back to life as normal.’

I nod, mute for once.

Four more rifle shots at irregular intervals over the ensuing minutes. Then shotgun blasts that seem to go on and on, echoing around the hills. I lose count at ten. Shiver and pull my blanket closer.

After breakfast, I decline Aaron’s invitation to go and inspect the corpses. Three sows, five half-grown young pigs, seven month-old piglets, he tells me. He thinks there may be three young adult pigs from the sounder which evaded the box traps. ‘They’ll be trap-shy now and difficult to catch … but we may never see ’em again, anyhow.’

The Two Dans use the backhoe to dig a two-metre deep trench near the lower fence of the orchard. They’ll shovel the bodies in, then spread hydrated lime and bury them. Quick and neat, no handling.

For the first time since Aaron’s arrival, I take myself off to see Glenda.

She receives me at the back door with a hug, puts the kettle on. I don’t really feel like tea, but I let her bustle anyway, while I give my — or rather Aaron’s — progress report.

‘Good, love,’ she nods vigorously. ‘That boy’s a hard worker. It’s been nice, having him here this week. Did you see he fixed up the front veranda? Patched the tin roof where I had rain coming in, and replaced those two broken boards.’

She glances at me. ‘He’s not much of a talker, as a rule … Had a lot to say about you, though.’

‘Oh, yes?’

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