Flying the Coop (20 page)

‘That's excellent, love. You won't regret it.'

‘I don't know about that,' Chris sighed, and then looked at her children seriously. ‘And this is
only
till Christmas. If we're not turning a viable profit by Christmas, then it's going on the market. Understood?'

As everybody voiced approval of this plan, Chris took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. This wasn't the result she had been expecting when she first sat down, and she wasn't sure whether she was glad or sorry at what had eventuated. But she supposed that at least this way nobody could say that she wasn't giving it her best shot. And perhaps even more importantly,
she
could leave knowing that she'd done her best.

‘
Mum
! Are you listening?' Zoe waited for her mother to focus before continuing. ‘We need a name. So
my
idea was “Beggs Eggs”. What do you think?'

‘Beggs Eggs,' repeated Chris slowly. ‘That's quite clever. I like it.'

Zoe grinned triumphantly and went back to plotting the immediate future of Beggs Eggs with Dot and Michael. Chris repeated it to herself several times under her breath – Beggs Eggs, Beggs Eggs, Beggs Eggs. She
did
like it – it actually made her feel successful before she'd even lifted a finger. And, she had to admit, the business plan did sound feasible, because if she could sell even a third of the produce at the door, then that would raise the farm's income considerably. This
could
be the difference between success and failure. Between penury and security. And between Garth being able to look at her with condescension, or with an envy that would eat away at his insides until he fell writhing to the floor in agony. Well, Chris smiled slowly, perhaps not quite
that
far, but close enough would be good enough.

From:
Christin Beggs

Date:
Monday, 23rd October 2006. 9.36PM

To:
Jenny Parker

Subject:
Back on track!

Ignore that sookie email I sent you last night – I was just feeling really down. Not that you bothered to answer me anyway! So how's life up there? Sorted everything out with Stuart? Better go now as have masses to do.

Love, Chris

PS Do you know which animal it is that makes a ‘tut, tut, tut' noise?

PPS Be honest – do you think I give up on things too easily?

T
he next few days were filled with a strange mix of emerging routine and entrepreneurial capitalism gone mad. The mornings were spent following Mac around collecting eggs, processing them and then performing the multitude of other tasks required to run the farm. Like filling the grain drums, catering for the half-grown chicks, repairing various pieces of equipment, and delivering the eggs to the wholesalers. At about one o'clock, Mac would call it quits and they would head for the house where they shared lunch. After eating in silence – Mac because he seemed to prefer it that way and Chris because, by then, she simply lacked the energy to talk
and
eat – she would make them both a cup of tea, dig out her latest list of questions and spend the next hour trying to fill the gaps in her knowledge.

Over the week, in the interests of self-preservation, she had come up with various ways of streamlining the routine, like the purchase of a pre-timed coffee percolator, a tape-recorder to record their question and answer sessions, two pairs of crisp khaki bib and brace overalls, and even gumboots for each member of the family. And within a few days, she also had her morning routine reduced from one hour to eight minutes flat.
On Tuesday morning, after a deliciously uninterrupted sleep, she had risen before six to shower, blow-dry her hair, get dressed and then have a leisurely coffee before meeting Mac by the barn. Within days, though, she was setting the alarm for 6:52 precisely, pulling her bib and brace overalls straight over her Carlton t-shirt, tugging an old ski beanie on to cover her bed-hair, and heading down to the kitchen to the smell of freshly percolated coffee. Then, with mug in hand, she was through the screen door and ready – more or less – for work.

After answering all of her after-lunch questions, Mac would disappear for the day and Chris would finally have her shower. Then, feeling relatively refreshed, it was another cup of coffee and an hour or so in the office overhauling the system. The decision to start this as soon as possible had been made because (a) they were about to begin a new venture that, in itself, required more paperwork, and (b) she had confirmed that Mac didn't do his own paperwork anyway. Apparently this job had been performed for the past fifteen years by a Mrs Elsie De Bries, who arrived at 9 am each Saturday morning, spent a few hours in the office and then departed with the paperwork she intended to complete during the week. And was paid a decent wage for her efforts.

It hadn't taken Chris long – in fact, less than a minute – to decide that this was an area ripe for a bit of economising. With her background, it would have been ridiculous not to take over the office side of things in her spare time – of which she was hoping to have some sooner or later. Besides, having examined Mrs De Bries's version of an efficient system, she had very little faith in the woman's abilities anyway.

The most annoying problem that was emerging with the paperwork was not keeping up, or even overhauling the present system, but the fact that the office was obviously situated on top of a portal to another dimension. Chris seemed to
spend most of her time looking for things she had only just put away the day before – like stationery, and notepads, and the brand-new packet of manilla envelopes – that had totally disappeared. She had now resorted to placing PROPERTY OF BEGGS EGGS stickers on all her latest purchases, but even this didn't seem to be making much difference.

At a quarter past three, Chris would give up searching for stationery and head off to collect Michael. Life, as far as school transport went, had been made a lot easier by Dot, who had taken over Michael's morning run. Apparently she spent each morning volunteering at a community advisory centre in Healesville and was ‘going right past the school, just about' and wouldn't take no for an answer. Not that Chris had objected that hard.

Then it was time for after-school snacks, after-school bickering and afternoon egg collection. Which was made more interesting by the fact that, whenever Mac was not around, Ergo had developed the unpleasant habit of waiting outside whatever pen she happened to be in, and then chasing her as she hurtled from that one to the next. And whenever he caught her, which was often, he would snort clouds of noxious fumes down over her head and then spit a viscous substance into her hair that congealed rapidly in the afternoon sun. Then, when she finally pulled the barn doors closed, her hair now stiffened into deep-red spikes, Ergo would stand just outside and smirk victoriously at her.

The simple solution had seemed to be to wear a hat, but when she tried this, Ergo simply nabbed it off her head and ate it. After two beanies and one cap had disappeared into his stomach, Chris turned to more drastic measures. And she finally found one that worked a treat. It had entailed concocting an imaginative mixture of harmless ingredients, like garlic and lemon-juice, and placing it inside a plastic spray bottle.
This she hung from a belt loop on her overalls and, feeling a bit like Annie Oakley, she would quickly draw the bottle whenever she heard the distinctive sounds of the alpaca approaching and adopt a threatening stance. Thus far, this hadn't been enough to stop the alpaca, who simply bared his teeth and continued onwards. So then she would simply spray him full in the face and, while he was shaking his head and blinking his now watery eyes, she could make her escape. A side benefit of this treatment was that the small cloud of flies that usually followed Ergo around had totally disappeared, but despite this, it was quite obvious that Ergo hated her. And the feeling was mutual.

Fortunately – or maybe not – there were never as many eggs in the afternoon as the morning, and processing them only took half the time. Then it was inside for a hastily thrown together evening meal, housework, homework, more paperwork, and draft two, or three, or four, of Zoe's Beggs Eggs flyer design.

Wednesday afternoon was the only break she had from this routine. Taking advantage of the fact that Michael had already been invited to a friend's house after school, she headed for the city as soon as Mac had left. Once there, she first registered the new business name, and then dropped in at her old firm where she caught up with everybody and fibbed fluently about how marvellous everything was. Even this visit had been as much business as pleasure, because Virginia helped her finalise the steps required for her to take on the enterprise overall. Then, on the way home, she stopped off in Lilydale to buy some paint and order – post haste – a quantity of egg carton stickers that they had spent the previous evening designing. Everybody provided some input. Dot chose the colour scheme – yellow and white – while Chris came up with the slogan: ‘Beggs Eggs –
genuine
free-range eggs straight from the farm to you!' And
Michael printed them with their address and phone number, his childish handwriting giving it an appealing simplicity. Zoe's contribution was the cartoon depiction of a chook with ruffled feathers and huge googly eyes that she claimed looked cheerful, but which Chris privately thought looked seriously disturbed.

Fortunately, there had been no repetition of the ruckus that had almost given her a heart attack in the early hours of Monday morning. Nor had she asked either Dot or Mac what might have caused the noise – mainly because she didn't want to emphasise her ignorance any more than was strictly necessary. But the absence of her nocturnal visitor meant a full eight hours' sleep each night, which had also made the world of difference to her overall state of mind. And even though she was still not terribly confident that they were doing the right thing, she was more than willing to give it her best shot.

So, by Saturday morning, everything appeared to be on track. About the only thing that she had not undertaken in the past four days was to tell Mac what they were planning. Each morning she had left the house determined to break the news, but each morning his quite patent lack of belief in her abilities – no matter
how
early she woke, or
how
hard she worked, or
how
nice a lunch she made – had dissuaded her. But today, she had told herself firmly just before going to sleep last night, today would be the day.

However Mac's willingness to assist – or not – was the last thing on Chris's mind when the alarm went off stridently at 6.52 am. She fought off her first impulse, which was to pull the doona over her head and go back to sleep, and her second impulse, which was suicide, and struggled out of bed to stumble clumsily around the room hoping to trip over her overalls. After a few minutes with no success, she gave up and just pulled on the unworn pair, their starchiness chafing against the
early-morning tenderness of her skin. Walking stiff-legged across the room, she fastened the braces awkwardly over the top of her t-shirt. One immediately popped straight open again so she ignored it, letting it dangle hillbilly style while she found some socks and pulled on her last remaining beanie, a red ski number with a multi-coloured pom-pom. Then, with her eyes only semi-open, she staggered stiffly down the passageway and into the kitchen. And straight into Zoe, who was standing just inside the doorway with a cup of coffee in her hand.

‘Mu-
um
!'

‘What the hell are you doing?' said Chris irritably, as she wiped coffee off her bib. ‘Are you
trying
to give me a heart attack?'

‘Of course not!' Zoe placed the now half-full mug down on the bench and refilled it from the percolator. ‘I was
doing
you a favour!'

‘Yep.' Chris did her invisible rolling of the eyes trick as she washed her hands.

‘You think I can't see that,' commented Zoe, holding out the refilled mug, ‘but actually your eyelids go all bumpy. It's a dead giveaway.'

‘Oh.' Chris took the coffee. ‘Thanks.'

‘So, shall we get going?'

Chris blinked. ‘Pardon? You want to help? Voluntarily?'

‘Of course.' Zoe walked to the office doorway and then looked at her mother over her shoulder. ‘I'm dead serious about this, you know. It's
going
to work.'

‘Okay,' Chris watched her daughter leave the room and shrugged philosophically. If there was one thing that would open her eyes about life on a farm, it would be a morning spent with Mac who, although he never seemed to rush, nevertheless set a pace that was pretty impressive. As she drank
her coffee, Chris reflected that on a Saturday like this only a few weeks ago, she would still have been in bed at this time. Then, after a leisurely breakfast, she would have waved goodbye to her offspring for the day and pottered around happily for a few hours. Followed by getting dressed up and then sitting on a balcony in Southbank for the afternoon. Eating delicious food, drinking delectable wine, breathing in good old city fumes, having stimulating conversation. Leaning back and just – relaxing. With a heartfelt sigh, Chris resolutely shoved this recollection into a dark cerebral corner as it did nothing to improve her overall equilibrium.

With her mind a suitable blank, Chris finished off her coffee and, leaving the mug on the counter, went out onto the veranda to pull her gumboots on. The air was quite fresh, especially on the damp patch across her chest area, so she rubbed her arms briskly as she clomped stiff-legged across the yard towards the barn. Mac was already there, smoking his customary hand-rolled cigarette, with Geraldine sitting next to him and being patted by Zoe. The dog's beautiful plumed tail swept the dirt with pleasure but, every so often, she would glance up at Mac as if to check that this pleasure was acceptable whilst on duty. For the first time – mainly because her eyes were now fully open – Chris noticed that Zoe was wearing a pair of bib and brace overalls identical to her own, except rather more snug.

‘Where'd you get those overalls?'

‘Your floor.'

‘What! You mean you –'

‘C'mon, ladies,' interrupted Mac, grinding his cigarette out on his heel. ‘Time for a chat later.'

Chris glared at Zoe as she followed Mac into the barn and collected her buckets, an action which immediately earned her Mac's standard look of amusement. This was because he
himself loaded the eggs straight onto trays, carrying a stack as he walked from pen to pen. But Chris knew her limitations and, for the time being at least, she was sticking to her buckets.

Chris was always pleased to have Geraldine along during egg collection because this meant that Ergo would keep his distance. Not that the dog paid the least attention to the alpaca, rather she operated as if Ergo simply didn't exist. Chris wished fervently she could do the same. However, what with not having to run the Ergo gauntlet
and
an extra pair of hands, the egg collection was finished well before eight o'clock. Then it was into the cool room for processing. Mac turned on the washer and Zoe, who was becoming quite adept at this from her afternoon assistance, started loading eggs one by one onto the rack leading down into it.

‘Looks like you ladies 'ave this covered,' said Mac, who had fished out his tobacco pouch and was rolling himself another cigarette. ‘So I'll be back in a tick.'

He lit the cigarette as he left, sending puffs of pungent smoke over his shoulder. Geraldine, who always sat by the cool room door well out of the way, followed. After a few convulsive splutters, the washer settled down with a steady whooshing noise that sounded much like an ordinary washing machine, except louder. Together with the sound of the air-conditioner, it created a raucous but rhythmic background noise. Chris took a position at the opposite end from Zoe, and waited for the first eggs to appear on the rollers and be pushed onto the large circular tray, already spinning slowly in anticipation.

‘What makes you think you can help yourself to my clothes?'

‘Then why didn't you get
me
a pair as well?'

‘Because –' Chris paused, trying to think why this hadn't occurred to her. Maybe because she had never known the girl to willingly perform any sort of labour? Besides, it came as a
bit of a surprise that Zoe would even consider donning a pair of bib and brace overalls.