When The Pie Was Opened

"For though one may sing a song for sixpence, it is the very being of songs that they may be sung for nothing and are so sung when there are singers and no sixpences. The Lord is a singer; the work of creation is a song -the morning stars sang together. And in a song all things must sing. The very words must be musical, the mere syllables. For all is music that is bound. To be free, in the sense of 'being on the loose', is alone ugly -deprived of being- like a jellyfish coming undone, disintegrating."
Eric Gill ~f rom "In a Strange Land"



When The Pie Was Opened


Peter stood off from the patch of strawberries. It was a blue spring afternoon. He stretched. Arched his back, sore from bending to hoe. He propped against the hoe. He turned his back to the low sun. His face set away from the close hump of Mount Dandenong. Melbourne was west behind it. Peter gazed east to the freedom of the mountains.

He looked down. Across his acres of young chestnuts. He sought out the new shoots on the permaculture plantations with his hopeful eye. One day he would break his dependance on the city. He believed the trees would enable subsistence.

A shot! Like cannonfire! The hailguns at Sucklings, the wholesale nurserymen out the back, misfired over the valley. The volley went quiet. But his ears had tuned into the battle. Peter heard the distant boom of a scare gun from Carassi's berry paddocks. He looked across his own patch of strawberries. The two acre patch was his struggle to provide his family with some income for the next four months. Battling yes, but Peter was proud of his husbandry.

The plants had thrown up vigorous growth. The glossy black plastic mulch in which the plants grew shimmered as each gust tousled loose billows. The strawberry plants were covered by a profusion of white flowers with honeyed centres like promises of harvest. The leaves were triple-formed, like clover, and Peter hoped their season would be rich and satisfying. Even bonus, like the lacy scalloped crenations around the edge of the leaves. The luxuriant leaves sheltered sprays of young fruit at various stages of ripeness. Tiny wizened hardgreen things with seeds jammed across the skin. Marblesize white knobs. And juicy white berries with pink blooms on the most-sunned side.

Peter expected a bumper crop. The signs were all there. Soon the first fruits: fat, red 'Specials' would hang from each bush. There was a profound pleasure to be had just looking at the way the huge berries would fill out, leaving the golden seeds indented in lustrous dimples over the pregnant belly of the berry. The firstfruits were a treat. Fresh. Like a flash of sweet memory. Flavoursome and delicious. Aha! Grower's privilege! Peter had eaten the first few red already. And he had savoured the lustre of summering light as it glazed red around each rim of those berry seed dimples, as if each one was his whole patch.

Peter loved to garden. He knew he could coax nature to produce. The skill he enjoyed was tuning in to the life of things and reading the lines of the land so it joined in with what he hoped to grow.

Peter's hope, what he dreamed of, was abundant life. Cornucopia. He had seen a full colour picture entitled 'Cornucopia' on the cover of an old copy of 'Back To Eden' magazine. A curved goat's horn was turned on its side, spilling out an array of ripe fruit and grains: yellow corncobs, peaches, ears of wheat, apples, figs, blackspike barley, pears, rye heads, berries, walnuts, grapes, filberts, cumquats and cherries.

Peter thought he would make the land into an ample provision. He would work in harmony with the land to produce plenty. He wanted to tolerate all of life. He had planted fifty different sorts of fruit trees, nuts and berries on his land. He strove to make it an idyllic place so he could raise his children in natural abundance.

Peter kicked at the hoed-off weeds. Prince- of-Wales feather and wild radish. Good stuff for compost. He still hadn't worked out a way to make broadacre compost.

Anicia, five, and Theo, three, Peter's two oldest, played along between the rows of strawberries. They had piled up the weeds Peter had just hoed. Anicia stood on top of the heap singing out:
I'm the King of the Castle!
And you're the Dirdy Wraskul!"

But Theo was too busy making 'roads' in the fresh-hoed chocolate soil.

Peter went close to the children. He enjoyed being with them. Believing in their innocence. He wished he had been able to live as fantastically when he was a kid.

As he looked down Theo's 'roads' towards the other end of the strawberry patch Peter saw blackbirds flitting about between the rows. The birds kept down among the bushes. Peter's heart filled up then. He sang for the kids:

"Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye
Four & twenty blackbirds baked in a pie;
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing
Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king..."

Anicia sat listening. "Sing more, Daddy," she said.

"Not till you shoo the blackbirds off, Honey!"

But Peter was mindful of his yoke. Always yearning to be free. He resented all the little kings in suburban 'cwastles'.

"What blackbirds?" Anicia said.

"Look!" Peter said, pointing. "See them. Looking for ripe strawberries,
wanting them red ripe so they can peck, peck, and gobble them up."

"Will they?" Anicia said.

"Sure Nici! Now run down and shoo them away. Maybe they'll learn."

Anicia ran down singing out: "Be off blackbirds! Be off!"

Theo ran after her, mimicking the chant. The blackbirds scatted into the lucerne hedge. Peter watched them unconcerned.

He went back to hoeing. He was his own scarecrow. He was his own weedicide as well. Flatweed chop. Capeweed chop. Thistle chop. Dock...

Hoeing was hard work. But honest! Far more laborious than using a spray. But he wanted his integrity. He was growing the strawberries for organic sale. He was glad he did it by hand. The caring touch. And he could watch the patch.

Peter loved birds. Especially the wild birds. Maybe it was the idea of flight. Wings. But the damn introduced blackbirds did nuisance his hopes. He worked out there each morning from dawn on. He was a living scarecrow to habituate the birds to other feeding grounds. He thought it was working. Three weeks thus far. Seven days a week.

He knew the blackbirds had got a bit thick. They bred in the hedges and undergrowth, and in a place of rampant plants what would you expect? Peter had reafforested the farm since he'd taken over. The shrubs meant more blackbirds than ever when he'd hoped for more native birds. He was committed to planting. Blackbirds don't like deep native forests, but the woodlots and windbreaks were too thin.

Actually, blackbirds were plague.

Back when Peter's Dad had the farm, outright war was declared against blackbirds. Trees where blackbirds nested were checked each week and the nests ripped down. The children were encouraged in the pillage.

"Blackbirds! Bloomin' Pommie imports!" his father used to say, as he wrung the fledgling necks. "Poms takin' over th' countree!"

True. Like rabbits. Like blackberries. Blackbirds were brought in by the Acclimatization Societies to make this country like home.They soon became noxious pests. As boys, Peter and his brothers had often pulled down the rough cups of mud, drygrass and bark, and smashed the speckled aqua eggs. But now no-one violated the blackbirds from their breeding.

Peter had not done it since he was fifteen. The memory was a pain.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He had been picking raspberries with a whole gang of pickers. During the morning Peter pulled a blackbird's nest from Shelley and Jan's row. He had broken the eggs. The smashed eggs had foetal babies in them. A whole lot of teenage pickers hoyed along to take a look. Three of the girls went off in disgust, as if to be sick. Shelley said that Peter was a murderer.

At mug'n'billy time Peter's Dad had explained his rules about blackbird control. Most pickers kept a distance from him. 'Clean-Hands' Horry, the old plonko farm help, had growled about "Bleedin' Hearts who doan 'ave a clue about th' 'Bloodin' what life's gotta 'ave ta keep strivin'."

None of the young pickers from town had an inkling of what he was talking about. They rabbit-twitched noses as if sniffing something beneath them. It left Peter feeling guilty for reasons he couldn't fathom. He left quick smart to bury the foetal birds out of sight. And mind, he hoped.

During that afternoon, two pickers, Otto and Stephen, found another blackbird's nest in their row. The boys pulled the nest down and three nudepink nestlings fell on the cultivation. They turned to a cruel game. Tossing the fat chicks high up into the air for the other to catch. Stephen called out "Fly Birdie! Fly!" and it became a chant to attract the girls.

"Fly Birdie! Fly before Peter gets you!" Otto said.

Peter felt like wringing their necks. He hated sadism. The taunt got under his skin.

"Don't!" he said. "It's cruel!"

That only made them go harder. Juggling two nestlings catch to catch at once. Otto tossed one at Peter as he pushed through the next row-wall of the six-foot-high raspberry canes. Peter fumbled, but caught the farflung bladder of bird in his left hand.

The nestling's fat stomach burst. Blood and gore spilt over his hand.

"No crueller than you. Look at what you do!" Otto said. "Only these ones have hatched."

The barb hooked in Peter. He wanted to clear himself of the cruelty. A disgust churned his belly. He wanted never to pull out blackbirds' nests again. It only allowed for cruelty.

He dropped the gasping pink blob and crushed all life out of it under his boot. He ran over and grabbed the other two throating pink blobs. They were mottled with blue thumbprints and pricked with red weepholes.

Peter was sobbing tears as he pulverized the hatch into the cultivation. He shuddered with scarce-controlled passion.

"You could've killed them instantly!" Peter's voice was breaking as his contempt struck out.

"What are ya?" Otto sneered. "Lily-livered sook!"

Peter shut up. He went down on his knees to gouge his hands into the soft cultivation. A grave opened under his doggedness. He buried all three pancakes of spilt flesh deep. He wrung the gore off his hands by washing them in soil.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Peter had heard so many easy fixes to the blackbird problem. He had a sad tolerance of other people's choices. Rick Luckmold who grew ten acres of strawberries had the fascist solution.

"No garden. No shrubs. No trees. No blackbirds" Luckmold said.

"No shade. No song. No windbreak. No flight" Peter said.

Jimmy Premussi, who Peter knew since primary school, told Peter to: "Put some wheat inta neat Phosdrin ta soak overnight. Then shake a few grains on toppa each fence post, like. All ya 'aff ta do is stan' back an' watch. One peck an dey drop dead."

Peter imagined kids dying of curiosity for a taste of wheat. Wild native parrots, finches, thrushes, honeyeaters and maggies would turn up their claws. He hated innocents being victims. But Jimmy's wife's brother Nicko, fresh out from Italy, had a peasant recipe which Peter half admired.

"I pot merli! Uccelletti!" Nicko said, patting his rifle.

How they could bear to pluck and gut such mites Peter hadn't an iota. At least it had an ecological flavour to it. The idea made him wonder what blackbird tasted like. Even Cara's cat wouldn't eat them.

Most bigger farmers used the gas-fired scare guns to startle the birds off. Every Silvan spring was pocked with gunfire like a war zone, as if there was a half-baked invasion of foreigners at war with equally foreign rebels. Peter imagined Napoleon in Russia and the 1812 Overture.

Strawberry fields forever! Peter had always been puzzled by that Beatles song. The booms of scareguns moved the birds about every quarterhour to the next quarter. Blase' birds respected no man's land.

He believed blackbirds did more good than harm. They polished off earwigs, leafhoppers, wireworms, cockshafers and grubs. And they took bugs all year, while the damage to strawberries was only for a month or two. And Peter loved the blackbird's late-winter warble. He could forgive them some depradations as he listened to their evening calls. He twigged to sing that other Beatles song.

"Blackbird singing at break of day
Spread your tiny wings and fly away
All my love."

He'd hate for that song to be silenced.

So he was religiously up from his bed each daybreak to scarecrow around the strawberry patch. Though weary, he had his integrity. Jimmy nicknamed him 'Birdfeather Friend'. Cara, Peter's wife, proudly told women friends that he was a 'growaholic'. But Peter was stoic.

He hoed on. The weeds wilted behind the labourer. Pimpernel chop. Chickweed chop. Sorrel chop. Damn soursob. Then Peter had finished the row. He'd reached the other end where Anicia and Theo were playing.

"Daddy! You said you'd sing more" Anicia said.

"The king was in his counting house, counting out his money
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey;
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes
When along came a blackbird and pecked off her nose."

"Now you go over to the house with Theo" Peter said. "Mummy'll want you to set the table for tea."

Another week went by Peter the living scarecrow. Hoeing, irrigating, and cutting runners away from the plants. Then heaps of strawberries were red. A flush freckled the rows. The big day loomed. The next day would be the first picking. Peter expected scarcity prices. Probably the highest he would get for the season. He needed the money to pay back-tax.

That night Cara wanted to watch the movie on TV. 'The Captains and The Kings'.

"Peter, don't go to bed early for once" Cara said. "Stay up with me and watch the movie.

"Oh I don't know" Peter said, thinking Cara wanting company meant a good lovemaking after.

"Don't be so conscientious. Enjoy yourself." Cara patted the couch beside where she was curled up.

Peter stayed up and watched TV.

It was a Yank show. Peter was bored by the billionaire always on the phone talking about money. His wife unsatisfied in the lap of luxury. Dinner parties with caviar and exotic fruits. Servants to do all the work in the mansion. The wayward son seduces the new cook. She is sacked when she shows pregnant.

Peter wished for something less glitzy. The glamour was lost on him. Why couldn't they tell stories of simple humanity? He wished he hadn't stayed up, but then he enjoyed the time with Cara.

He overslept. He woke angry with a start. He flashed out of bed dressing as went. Outside, dozens of blackbirds snickered out of the strawberries. Cackling derisions. Some birds snuck in among the leaves at the other end of the patch.

Peter ran amok, a bootless terror down the rows, waving his arms and yelling:
"We're taking over! Sing! We're taking over! Sing!
Peck-a little! Peck-a-little! Peck-Off Ya Bastards !"

White slashes gaped in all the red berries Peter could see. He flapped down along the hedge shaking his fist at the air. He'd gouge beak holes in them. Blackbirds gloated in at the garden end of the patch as soon as he was off.

Furious! Peter went pale with purpose. He thumbnailed the largest pecked strawberries off the stalks like they were necks. He hit both berried handfuls on the kitchen table in a ruinous break of wild billiards.

"Breakfast? Peck the lot!" Peter said. "Now it's my shot!"

Cara watched Peter's back as he turned his arm behind the washhouse door. The gun came out to attention in his left hand. His other hand rifled the top shelf for hollowpoints. The door hinge squeaked as the slugs grooved into the magazine.

Peter reverted along the hedges. He'd show them instinct! Crack! Feathers puffed out into the gentle air. Sweet harmony!

He was listening for blackbird song. Crack! A warm pillow flopped through the twigs. Gentle tolerance! Crack! A winged orangebeak squeaked into the litter. Soft light dreamed the morning alive. Crack! Down floated like vapour. Peter kept the silence. Crack! A body danced through the branches. He blended into the foliage. Crack! His limbs hugged the trees from which he stalked life.

Peter decided his property was a decisive charge. His gun meant control of vermin. He hated to maim, a marksman in his being. Let every shot be death! Crack! Missing only made quarry gunshy and that prolonged the heartache. Crack! The introduced pests made muffled bumps in the plantations. Peter didn't need to be naturalized.

He mouthed his toast as if he'd choke. Cara wrote a list for shopping.

"Why I ever put up with 'em I doan know. Fancy lettin' B'blackbirds control me life!"

"It was listening to your heart, Peter" Cara said.

"False heart! It'd never let ya make a livin'."

Peter worked the morning sowing beans. He took the gun with him. He shot six more blackbirds by lunch. He picked the ruined strawberries, stalks off, for jam. He'd brew it that night after dark. He wasn't going to let blackbirds send his work to waste. You had t' be tough to survive.

Peter snatched up the goodies the way he'd decided the world was. He took them to the scales. The gun on Peter's shoulder made Cara uneasy with him.

"Twelv'nahalf kilograms!" he announced. "A black lot a' jam!"

Cara went to the gaping swingdoor of the shed and squinted out for the children.

"Oh well! You let them ripen" she said.

Peter pushed by her, intent on getting the buckets of strawberries to the house. Cara shaded her eyes to see down the earth track beside the hedge of cherry-laurel.

"What have you got?" she called out.

Peter stopped and put both buckets on the gravel. He squinted to see Anicia and Theo coming out of the thicket carrying the old enamel milking bucket between them. The kids ran as Peter stepped to meet them.

"Wook Daddy!" Theo said. "Pick birdies!"

Theo tripped and fell. Anicia stumbled. The upset bucket spilt out a heap of blackbird corpses. Dozens. Bloody feathers, skewed wings, stiff claws and dull eyes greeted him.

Peter went down on his knees. He sobbed tears. Anicia tried to comfort him with a hug. Theo nestled his head against Peter's shoulder.

What a cornucopia! The travesty took Peter in a fit of loathing.

He bucked up to a stand, arm-wristing the kids back. He swung the rifle off his back and clicked the magazine loose. Slugs thumbed off the magazine-ram. Bullets plopped to the ground, sowing dying puffs in pocks of dust. He upended the rifle, gripped it by the barrel end. As he lunged towards the farm implements he clubbed it back to strike. It came down on the plough in an almighty blow. The stock splintered and flew. The barrel looped in unlikely planes. The lock sprung to a crumple of metal feathers. He heaved the twisted neck of iron into the hedge.

"The killing's done!" Peter said.

He sat down with the weeping kids. He handed the bird corpses back to the bucket. Peter touched Theo on the head. He gave Anicia his hankie.

"Come Anicia, Theo" Peter said. "Let's bury the birds. We'll dig holes for fig trees and put the birds deep. They'll make the trees grow better."

"Then we'll get figs as well" Anicia said.

"We have to break the blackbird eggs from now on" Peter said.

Cara looked at him. She touched his shoulder as she went towards the house with the strawberries.

Three figures shaped digging and planting silhouettes in the fading light.

Peter sat on the ground at the top of the paddock and looked at the sky. An orange glow haloed the clouds as the sun set behind Mount Dandenong. The mountaintop TV towers were aglow in golden light.

Melbourne bred the buyers for his strawberries. What did they know about living with nature? They were polluted with idiot box dreams.

Peter yearned for a radiance where freedom might hatch. The mountains east and opposite hung above low clouds in the sunset-glowing mirror-image of dawn.

Little Theo toddled off towards the house.

"Tell Mummy we'll be in in a minute" Peter said.

Anicia sat out with Peter. She funnelled the dust through her cupped hand to build little conical pyramids on the track. Peter ran his fingers through her hair.

"Sing the song of sixpence, Daddy."

And Peter sang.





1988 © Wayne David Knoll