The Tip Of The Iceberg

By Greg Jacques

John slams the door as if the door should take responsibility for the situation. He leans forward onto it and curses. Sarah and her family have packed their bags and are now gone. John is left alone to his thoughts, and they are not being very kind to him. “If only I had been at home”

Sarah’s family are itinerant pickers and had moved on to the next crop. They have worked here on Johns family farm in all the past years that he could remember, part of a team of pickers who followed the fruit and vegetable crops across the country. John had almost grown up with Sarah, her being there at the farm for six or eight weeks at a time. Sometimes twice a year. Years ago Sarah had even spent some short periods attending Johns local primary school. Over the years the two had spent many hours sweating together in the fields, no matter what the weather. Children who work for family enterprises know what it is to work.

Johns Mum with some displeasure had long seen the close working relationship enjoyed between her son and Sarah as they grew up. Sensing Johns annoyance over Sarah leaving she carelessly engaged in the wrong conversation for the moment

“I am glad that the Mertens have moved on”                                                                               “Keep a distance John, no good can come from getting too close.”

John just shook his head and left the room. He knew his mum held unfathomable beliefs against the workers and often made her thoughts known. Sarah’s family were pickers no more, dowdy folk of indeterminate politics she would say. His family were more akin to a country gentry with land and local power.

Even so John was always happy to be back at home in the dirt, his heart anchored in his country where he felt contented with the world. This farm had been his playground and his teacher. Here John had not wanted for anything. His father inherited the farm and the knowledge on how to run it from his father, and John was comfortable in the expectation that he would do the same. His family had been in the district more than one hundred years and now carried some influence. His Dad served on the local council some years back and his mum seemed to run every committee in town.

In the last few years except for harvest seasons John has spent long periods away, first at boarding school and then at university. Unknown to his mother university life had imbued more into Johns understanding of the world than his studies dictated. He had quickly realised that when it came to the living of a life in this economy not all citizens were lifted equally. The sandstone private school students were somehow buoyed higher than the squatter kids, and the HECS students were hanging on by a fingernail, working at night and studying by day. John concluded it was the dispensation his father talked about, the divine ordering of the affairs of people above and below you. The children of tradesfolk became tradesfolk, and the offspring of managers tended to find themselves in the professions. That no one questioned this societal order had long seemed illogical to John.

At home again he noticed the divide was visibly wider and deeper than he had remembered, or was it that he just had not noticed it so much in earlier years. He pondered, what happened to egalitarian society. His mother’s opinion aligned with the many folk who now believed “people get what they deserve”, “Have a go and you will get a go” being the current mantra. He now understood that it was not so simple, a person or an entire division of people will always struggle, dependent on political will.

John sought out his father, he needed to make sense out of his mother’s prejudiced position. They met by the shed where he let his frustration out. His father heard his son in a absent sort of way before he spurted out in the middle of Johns rants,

“John it’s not your mother’s decision, nor mine who you see, if you feel confused you should test your feelings for Sarah by going to see her, you will soon know by your own thoughts and by her response if there is something between you”

“But what about Mum?”

“As I said it’s your life not ours, your decision to make”

“Well, I could do as you suggest, but I don’t know where her family have gone?”

“I can help you there Son, the Mertens normally go to Merch from here. They take up work on the farm owned by the Carters, that should give you a starting point, you take it from there”

“Thanks dad”

John believed that Sarah’s family had come from Europe many years earlier, maybe after the war, hard to say, but there was an accent of some kind to her family. Over the years there had been hundreds of hours in which to explore Sarah’s family ancestry with her, but it never occurred to him before. The two of them just worked, and he thought no more of it until recently.  One thing had long stuck out to him when she was there. John was always acutely aware of how protective her father was with his daughter. One eye on the work and one on her. Maybe this is how a good father should be with his children.

Later that evening, in a quiet moment John reflected on a recent comment Sarah had made on her own life, talking as if she offered a gift to the wind expecting her words to be carried away.  Overhearing her he had retorted,

“I don’t accept that Sarah, you are as good as anybody here”

“You think so John, I may be as you say, as good as any person here in the fields, but in all other settings, unless my life changes dramatically I will always have a boss, whereas you will most likely always be the boss.”

“Freedom of choice is the key John, an indicator of class dividing us. For some, like you choices are conferred by birth, for others, wrought through hard work, constantly tenuous”.

Was she being ironic, or had she expected John to rail against her casual reference to class and them? He concluded, “I never imaged us that way Sarah”.

After a restless night John decides that his dad is right, he should go to Sarah as it may help him with his own mind. In a way he goes to confront Sarah, but unknown to him at this point, in doing so he will also be forced to reconcile his own upbringing, confront his own baggage when it comes to learned beliefs and prejudice’s.

Sarah is visibly surprised, even a little uneasy with John arriving to see her. She at first tries to fob him off with “why did you come here”, and “it’s not right to treat me this way”

“Not right, the only thing I’m asking is if you like me enough to see me as a little more than a work colleague.”

“John, I told you at your place, maybe you did not understand, the joy of your birth brought you into privilege, not so for me”

“You may ask, how does this affect me in the here and now”

“whilst It is quite acceptable for you to come here to see me, at the very worst you would be seen as being a little silly, you have impunity, but if I was to turn up at your place everyone would condemn my impudence, her shameless boldness. She is only a gold digger or who does she think she is,”

“Please don’t talk this way Sarah, I don’t see the world in that way”

“John by your own hand you constantly perpetrate the frontiers between us. No person in town has ever denied you because of your family, but I don’t see you are so aware of this. In your world you just accept the status quo. As I think I said, power and money give the ability for choice, choice you have”

Are Sarah’s words an invitation that john misinterprets or just misses. Does she misrepresent her own position, if so, for what reason? Does she truly mean to put him off? He is not going to get a chance to get across these thoughts with her as her father approaches in determined stride.

“What on earth are you doing here John? You should not be here” Sarah goes to defend John “john just came to speak with me, no more” but her father digs in at this.

“Get it into your mind, there is no way that my daughter is going to take up with the bastard son, she is a hard-working girl, she is above you in every way”

John is unsure on how to defend himself, and in the moment does not believe he has any reason to do so, but her father is in no mood to talk so John tail between his leg’s heads for the car. He is about to leave when Sarah comes over “I do like you, I like you a lot but it is not to be” “Why do you think we left your place when we did?  You know there was still at least two weeks work to be done. Your mother told my father that your family would take it from here, that you would finish up the work and we can leave early.”

A little battered in the heart and cranky that he was so summarily ejected he hits the road again. As he drive’s he hears her father’s words in his mind, “she is above you in every way” It may be that he was just using strong language to put me off. But why would he do so, and what makes his outrage against me so strongly felt.

Back at home and still he has found no plausible resolution to what happened.  He confides the events to his dad.

“I don’t know what is going on with him Dad. What is wrong with me” “how could Mum treat the Mertens as she has?” “Do you know that she got them to leave early with no real explanation, I imagine that this is at the core of Mr Mertens bad mood Dad, but this does not explain his referring to me as being the bastard son”

“It does John, I know the Mertens well, their family came to Australia from a remote rural setting in Europe, from my understanding a community that codified the dignity of labour, where the individual was valued and the collective aspirations of ordinary people honoured, but also caught up in very strict value beliefs”

“Stemming from language limitations, once here in Australia their curtailed educations effectively constrained opportunity in their adult lives. I believe the circumstances of prejudice and history on both sides have conspired to relegate Sarah’s family. With no reference to character, they are the outcomes of class at work to divide our worlds. They can now only stay true to their origin beliefs. Don’t be cranky with them john, they are good people. But I do believe that you will have some trouble with her father”

“You need to know, It is you son; you are at the heart of Mr Mertens disquiet with our family. It goes back some way before you were born. Back then I had hoped that I would never again have to confront this issue. I never contemplated the possibility of you taking a fancy to Mertens daughter.

“This issue! Dad what do you mean”

“I think we need to sit for a bit son. Me telling you this reflects directly onto your mother, but she does not deserve any ill will from it. It started a bit after your sister was born, your mum suffered at her birth and your sister was weak and soon succumbed. You know this already, but this is where our families become entangled.  The Mertens were here working and had brought another man from their homeland to work. I think that Mr Mertens may have sponsored him out here, not sure. He was a good worker, but he took a shine to your mother, and in her despondent state she responded to him having a short affair. She soon reconciled with me, and I dismissed the man. I have not seen him since”

” Sometime later a letter addressed to your mother arrived which I intercepted, and for whatever reason I kept. The man was asking your mum to run away with him. I never told your mother of the letter. She suffered enough with shame and regret. I loved her before all this and still loved her, understanding the circumstances I forgave her, and we have been happy ever since”

“It was not long after we became aware that she was pregnant, I did not know whose child she was carrying and I believer that she did not know either”

“Are you saying that you may not be my father”

” I don’t know John; I was just so happy to have you arrive”. “I see that this revelation will be a little bit more than you were expecting”

Johns’ dilemma, if he continues to press on with Sarah it could bring about the possibility of the affair coming to light through Sarah’s dad. When known this could affect his whole family as well as him. If he walks away from Sarah then he could give up his future happiness, Not be with someone you have come to love.

“So, he is right Dad, I may be the bastard son, my very existence in question, my position in life, I think of myself as the squatter’s son and yet I may be the workers spawn, I am now the oxymoron child. I need time to think this through Dad, my options seem unacceptable”

“I think you should read that letter John; I doubt Mr Mertens ever forgave me or his friend”

Some days later John sought out his dad. “I have been thinking on my situation and now have a clear mind. I have been the lucky one in life, never denied opportunity, I was gifted education and guidance, good health and because of money no reason to fear my life ahead.  Like you I do not want to know my paternity. You and mum have always loved me as your son and that is all I need to know”

“Dad, I am going away for a few days”

” Where will you go to”

“I am going to confront prejudice head on, I’m going back to see Sarah’s dad”

 

© Greg Jacques 4^th Sept 2022