Free Just Business by Ber Carroll Page A

brought dead animals, parched paddocks and hard times. The flood cycle brought grazing stock, healthy crops and celebratory drinks with the neighbouring farms. Winter or summer, the sun shone for over three hundred days a year and celebratory drinks were a rare occurrence.
    Helen’s first years of education were under her mother’s supervision and the crackling of the radio. The Distance Education Centre ran three lessons a week over the radio and imparted homework that Helen devoured. There were no brothers, sisters or neighbouring children to distract her from her schoolwork. When she was twelve-years-old she left the farm for boarding school. Shy from only her mother and father’s company, she soaked in the sense of community in the school. It took someyears before the shyness faded to be replaced by a quiet confidence. The clever farm girl was well liked and made some lifelong friends from her time at the school. She and her friends applied to Macquarie University and her parents almost burst with pride when she was accepted to do a Bachelor of Commerce. After her degree she secured a graduate position in a big company in Sydney and gradually, as the years passed, her trips back to Bourke became less frequent.
    Losing her job had topped off a bad year for Helen. Her father had died in January. There was a huge turnout at the funeral despite the mercury hovering around forty-seven degrees. He was buried in the town where he had been born, educated and married: where he belonged. Helen knew less than half the people who shook her hand and offered their condolences.
    Following the funeral, Helen’s mother became suddenly petrified about living on the seventy thousand acres she had previously managed and co-owned. She wanted to sell and there was nothing that Helen could do to change her mind. The farm was put on the market. Within days a neighbouring farmer put in a decent offer and it was sold. It left a gaping hole in both Helen’s and her mother’s lives. It also left her mother homeless.
    Of course her mother didn’t want to live in Sydney. It would be too noisy, cluttered up with people and cars. And she didn’t want to live in a retirement home. Those places were for people without any families, people who were queuing up to die. It took Helen a number of weeks to get through to her that it had to be one or the other. Sydney or a retirement home in Bourke. There were only two options. The day before she was due to move out of the farm her mother agreed, with great trepidation, to live in Sydney. With Helen.
    Her mother had been living in the boxlike apartment for nine months now. Helen felt an increasing sense of failure with every passing month. She was in her early thirties and single. In fact, there had been no serious relationship in her life at all. She wasn’t the flirtatious type and her sheer aptitude scared off many men. Now, with her mother as a flatmate, she felt even less likely to meet someone and settle down.
    Old Mrs Barnes was conscious of the fact that her presence in the apartment was all the more uncomfortable now that Helen was at home all day. It really wasn’t big enough for two people. The apartment had a tiny balcony and Helen spent a lot of time out there after she lost her job. She said she needed space to think. Some days dinner was the only time they talked. Mrs Barnes would cook and be inevitably disappointed when Helen would only pick at the food.
    â€˜You need to eat. There’s no point in starving yourself.’
    â€˜I’m not hungry, Mum.’
    Then there would be silence and Mrs Barnes would try to spark more conversation. ‘Have you talked to anyone at the company today?’ she asked this evening.
    â€˜No, not since last week.’ Helen’s features were tight with tension.
    â€˜Right.’ Mrs Barnes chewed a mouthful before saying, ‘When do you think they’ll let you know what’s happening?’
    Helen