Thirty Thousand Bottles of Wine and a Pig Called Helga Read online

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Prologue Missing in Action: One Pig

   1 The Holiday Home from Hell1

   2 Desperately Seeking: Cushions and Cookbooks

   3 Maybe Jeff Needs a Change, Too

   4 I Want to Go to Here

   5 Olives and Grapes and Dams, Oh My!

   6 How Hard Can It Be?

   7 Our Baptism of Fire

   8 What’s That in the Dam?

   9 Girls (and Boys) Just Want to Have Fun

  10 Getting My Maggie On

  11 Crop It Sweet

  12 Building for Our Future

  13 The First Sip

  14 Welcome to Unemployment

  15 The Arrival of Rodney and Boulogne

  16 I Shall Name You Winston

  17 Massaging a Chicken in a Warm Water Bath

  18 When a Father Calls

  19 Tales of the Unexpected: A Farmer’s Life

  20 Helga Hagatha Van Hoggett

  21 A Reality Self-check

  22 Our Little Army

  Epilogue Missing in Action: One Pig

  Easy Recipes

  Photographs

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Mel and Jesus (no, not that Jesus)

  ‘Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.’ Dame Edna Everage

  Missing in Action: One Pig

  April, 2018

  As we trudged up to the vineyard, I wiped sweat out of my eyes. It had been the hottest April on record and even though it was late afternoon it was ridiculously warm. The sky overhead was a blue so crisp you’d swear we were still in summer.

  The vines were nearly at the end of their growing season. The grapes had been harvested weeks ago and the branches were clinging onto the last of their leaves to store precious energy before winter arrived. They wouldn’t normally require watering in April but they were confused with the unseasonal heat, continuing to burst into spring-like greenery. Without a cloud in the sky and wide cracks showing in our clay land, it had seemed a great idea to water them while I spent a few hours mowing the dying grass between the rows – but I forgot to turn the water off afterwards so back I went. The irrigation had become manual since the kangaroos kicked out the wiring for the automated system, which we couldn’t afford to replace.

  Never do one job at a time, I’d reminded myself, so I had company: the animals needed some exercise.

  I ran as fast as I could past the villas and the house because it was the only way to keep my posse by my side. If I didn’t distract them like this at the start they had a tendency to stray, and our paying guests would be likely to find an inquisitive hairy face peering in at their villa windows, or worse: an uninvited guest on their couch if they’d left a door open. Winston the goat is the worst culprit, and once Helga the pig reached adolescence she started to display a mind of her own, too. (Wesley, our youngest goat, is more or less a perfect angel.)

  Once clear of the danger zone, I slackened to a walk and we slowly climbed the hill.

  If you’d said to me ten years ago that one day I’d be taking two goats and a hefty, headstrong sow for a walk, I would have told you to stop smoking crack.

  *

  In the distance I could hear the rasp of Jeff’s dropsaw. The wine room on the edge of the dam was coming together nicely. The floor and walls were in place; the roof was on but the windows and doors were only empty spaces. Until we could afford to install them, we promoted it as Enjoy an al fresco wine-tasting overlooking our vast lake. I took a photo of its progress and hoped we could have it finished by the end of winter when my job as part-time labourer would finally come to an end (and without a single argument on site, mind you – after thirteen years together I rarely question Jeff’s wisdom . . . out loud).

  I trekked on with my hairy companions. After ten minutes or so we reached the centre of the vineyard and the water taps. As I made my way from tap to tap, Helga ran off to explore. Winston and Wesley couldn’t believe their luck that fresh green leaves were there for the taking, as many as their barrel guts could fit in. They’re not usually allowed there for this very reason but I didn’t mind them nibbling a few so close to the vines becoming dormant. As I turned off the third and final tap I felt a sprinkle on my arm and it was only then that I looked up and saw, off in the distance, a clump of dark clouds. They’d descended from nowhere and were beginning to fill the sky in the west, but it’s rare we ever get rain on our property so I was confident the brewing storm would pass us by.

  Tap job done, we made our way down to the dam to inspect Jeff’s handiwork. Winston and Wesley leaned out from the deck to munch on water reeds; Helga had found the carcass of a snake and was chomping on the bones in its tail. My brother Glen is always quick to remind me that a pig will eat you whole and only leave your dentures behind, but I’m the kind of farmer who believes his ‘children’ are faultless and would save my life given half the chance.

  ‘You’ve done heaps today,’ I said to Jeff, wishing I’d thought to bring us some beers.

  ‘I didn’t get to do the strapping of the roof yet, but it’s the first thing I’ll do in the morning,’ he said, but to me it hardly seemed important enough to mention.

  The rain went from sprinkle to heavier droplets and since it isn’t Wesley and Winston’s favourite thing in the world, they took shelter with us in the rudimentary wine room. Seconds later those heavy black clouds opened, releasing bucketloads of rain and hail, then the wind whipped up, blowing it in through the gaps. As the rain pelted down against the aluminium roof Jeff and I built with our bare hands, Helga galloped up the steps and the five of us moved further inside. The wind was stronger than I’d ever felt before – the rain was being swept in horizontally and, even six metres in where we were cowering against the back wall, we were getting soaked. The rain and cloud was so thick we could no longer see the dam just ten metres away. The animals were scared, edgy. Jeff and I couldn’t believe how quickly things had turned.

  ‘Woo-hoo!’ I screamed, always partial to a little drama.

  ‘Where the hell did this come from?’ Jeff shouted over the ferocious noise.

  ‘Thank god we got the roof on!’ I yelled back.

  At my words, there was an almighty gust and the six-metre-square roof peeled back like a Band-Aid and simply disappeared.

  What the fuck? Jeff and I exchanged incredulous looks but we were too shocked to speak. Thunder crashed overhead. Lightning forked. The deafening sound was too much for Helga and she bolted toward the bush, disappearing into the grey blur of wind and rain.

  ‘I’d better go find her!’ I screamed at Jeff. ‘You stay with the boys!’

  I ran out and immediately went from wet to drenched – and I don’t mean that in a sexy Mr Darcy kind of way; more like a fallen loser on Australian Ninja Warrior. All I could think was Helga will be lost to me forever; I must find my little piggy! I charged toward the bush. The trees were blowing at ridiculous angles; lightning illuminated the greyness and splinters of electricity struck dangerously close to struggling tree limbs.

  ‘Helga! Helga!’ I yelled desperately into the chaos.

  I heard a faint sound and turned around. Winston had come running after me and, some metres behind, a very wet, very unhappy and very scared Wesley followed. I waited for them to catch up to me and reassured them as best I could.

  ‘Helga!’ I yelled again, but who was I kidding? I could barely hear my own voice and she was nowhere to be seen.

  I decided to get the boys out of harm’s way. It
made no sense to put all three of their lives in danger. I ran them back to their pen, all the while keeping my eyes desperately peeled for little Helga, frantically calling her name, my heart breaking at the thought of her being lost and terrified.

  Just a few years earlier I had been a high-flying marketing executive in Sydney. My career at eBay was going gangbusters and I was living the classic city lifestyle of hard work and even harder play.

  One of my ‘executive decisions’ once saved the billion-dollar company from disaster and I had been the poster boy for corporate success. Now I was crashing through the bush in a storm in search of a missing pig.

  How the hell did I end up here?

  The Holiday Home from Hell

  Net curtains. That’s where our tree-change story really begins. According to Jeff, if you had net curtains on your windows, really, you didn’t deserve to live. And our dingy excuse for a B&B was positively swarming with them. (What’s the collective noun for net curtains, I wonder? A disappointment? A gasp of net curtains?)

  It was February 2010 and we were staying in the Barossa Valley in South Australia with our best friends, Melanie and Jesus. (Jesus is Bolivian so when you read his name, imagine it with a Spanish accent – hey-Zeus – otherwise you’ll think I’m talking about the son of God.)

  Jesus had organised the weekend away as a surprise for Mel’s birthday. And we came along too, of course. Jeff and I are the guys who crashed the hotel room after midnight on their wedding night to order champagne and pizza, so it shouldn’t have come as a shock to Mel when we showed up at the airport bar back in Sydney. I guess she was so out of her in-control comfort zone that the sight of us rocking up out of the blue made the poor girl burst into tears.

  ‘Jeez, Mellie, we can head back home if the thought of spending a weekend with us is that depressing . . .’

  ‘Oh my god you guys, I can’t believe you’re here too,’ she said, wiping away tears.

  ‘Let’s face it, you weren’t going to be having any fun with just him!’ I pointed to Jesus. ‘Whoop whoop,’ I sounded, and in an instant he was up at the bar ordering us drinks. I’d trained him well.

  Poor Mel still had no idea where we were going but that’s the kind of crazy shit you do to make great friendships so memorable, and Mel’s is the kind of friendship that just keeps on giving – after all, she was the reason Jeff and I met.

  *

  Jeff stalked me. That’s how he got this glittering prize. He and Mel worked together for a cancer charity and Mel often raved about her best friend (i.e. me) at work, which was fair enough. Old sleuth-ball Jeff managed to work out where I lived when Mel mentioned my apartment was in a curved building in Elizabeth Bay (but there aren’t exactly thousands of those, so he isn’t as clever as he makes out). It might amaze you to learn that he and I lived on the same street – but that’s where all the single gays lived in the early 2000s so that wasn’t exactly a miracle either. With minimal further detective work, he gazed up into the windows of that curved building, trying to deduce which apartment was mine. It turned out that a suggestively shaped cactus backlit in the living room window sent a beacon to the world: HERE LIVES MEL’S GAY BEST FRIEND. Who knew?

  Jeff didn’t like to socialise with his workmates, but he went to Mel’s thirtieth birthday party in February 2005 because he knew I was to be the MC.

  ‘What do you think of that guy over there?’ I asked my friend Kirsti at the party.

  ‘Not really my type,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Really? I was just talking to him and he seems really nice. You should go and have a chat to him; I reckon he’d be great for you.’

  ‘Um . . . he’s gay.’

  ‘No, he’s not. Trust me. I would know.’

  ‘I think we both know your gaydar has been on the blink for years, my dear. Trust me: he’s gay.’

  Next, I sent my friend Andy over to suss Jeff out. Andy’s is the truest, longest male friendship I’ve ever had. He even made sure I wasn’t ripped to shreds the night I decided it was a great idea to visit a death metal club . . . while wearing swimming goggles (for no particular reason).

  ‘You want me to guess if he’s gay? Oh Toddy, you know I’m shit at that sort of stuff.’ A few minutes later he came back to report his findings. ‘I’m with Kirsti,’ he said, but I was still unconvinced because Jeff just talked and moved and held himself like a straight guy.

  At the Iguana Bar later I put Jeff through my never-fail straight-detector. You’re welcome to play this one at home whenever you please.

  ‘So, Jeff, if you could choose to go home with anyone in this nightclub tonight, who would it be?’ (Clever of me, right?)

  ‘I don’t get what you mean . . .?’ (Dammit, he was out-testing me!)

  ‘I mean,’ – time for less subtlety – ‘if you could choose any one of those girls on the dance floor to take home tonight, which one would it be?’

  Give her half a second and Kirsti will tell you that she is always right. Well, on this particular occasion it turned out she actually was.

  ‘I bet you live in that one up there,’ Jeff pointed to my window a bit later that evening, after we’d placed an unsubtle bet about who had the best view. From that night on I couldn’t get rid of him – and trust me, I wasn’t about to make it easy to be in love with the likes of me. Despite stalking me, he did fail the first hurdle of remembering my name the next day, but I decided to give him another chance.

  ‘What are you doing this morning?’ he asked before heading off.

  ‘Just reading the papers,’ I said with a shrug. It was dangerous territory, I certainly wasn’t about to suggest doing something together.

  ‘Why don’t you grab them and bring them over to mine? I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears: he’d asked me on a second date the Morning After, only unlike the movie of the same name I wasn’t as glamorous as Jane Fonda, nor was there a corpse in my bed (far from it). But that’s just how it was with us from the outset – no games, no second-guessing.

  ‘I’ve been invited to a wedding in two weeks,’ I mentioned in passing.

  ‘I’ll come as your plus-one,’ he said without flinching or waiting to be asked.

  ‘I invited my friends over for dinner next week,’ he said. ‘You should come.’

  And I’ll be honest, being the disastrous dater that I was, I wanted to grab a hold of him and shake him! ‘Jeff! That’s ten whole days away! Ten more days of . . . this . . . and you’re still committing to seeing me!’ But of course that was all kept internalised and on the surface I was the supremely confident sex god he clearly thought I was.

  ‘Shyness is no aphrodisiac,’ he said to me one night, and he’s been suffering for it ever since.

  Four months into our relationship I had to go to the US for work for a couple of weeks and I felt sure this would be the time Jeff chose to stray.

  ‘Great!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I’ll move into your flat and renovate it!’

  Because I was in a rental and hadn’t seen any of Jeff’s handiwork I flew out to the US fearing I’d be evicted and return both homeless and single. He assured me he had lots of experience and two weeks later I returned to a fresh and lovely makeover, and a new flatmate. It was the middle of 2005 and less than six months later we’d purchased our first apartment together overlooking Rushcutters Bay – so then we both had the same view.

  Mel, Jeff and I made a nice little threesome for a year or two, hanging out together in Elizabeth Bay. Somehow I knew Mel was about to meet the right guy.

  The Athena Starwoman in me got it right.

  When you love someone as much as I love that beautiful woman, you want her to be loved by someone special too. I was always nervous about meeting any boyfriend of Mel’s because there wasn’t a hope in hell anyone would be good enough for her, in my humble opinion. And there was also a bit of me that was scared some boofhead was going to come along and queer-bash me behind my back. But that was underestimating Mel
; she isn’t into meatheads.

  The night Jeff and I met Jesus mid-2007, he said, ‘I bet you didn’t think I was going to be so black.’

  ‘I bet you didn’t think I was going to be so straight,’ I replied, and from that moment our fate was sealed. In marrying Mel, Jesus adopted two more brothers – only I was suddenly the best-looking in his family, if not the most modest.

  Jeff has seven sisters back in England (Well, yes, but seven!) and at the time my brothers were either overseas or off procreating in suburbia, so Jesus became like a big brother (a much, much older big brother) to both of us. He is always taking the piss out of us and saying and doing inappropriate things. I really couldn’t have chosen a more perfect guy to come into my life. I suppose he’s a pretty good catch for Mel too.

  *

  It wasn’t until the plane landed that Mel realised where she was.

  ‘Adelaide? You brought me to bloody Adelaide for my birthday?’

  ‘Ease up on the gratitude, Mellie,’ I reassured her. ‘Don’t worry, we’re off to the Barossa!’

  Dammit if that wasn’t one of the nicest weekends of our lives. It was real Hollywood stuff: a sophisticated foursome exploring beautiful vineyards and great restaurants without a worry in the world. I’m sure I heard a bit of Enya on the soundtrack, and an incredibly handsome and muscular leading man was playing the role of Todd.

  The sun was shining as we drove along winding country roads. Clear blue skies overhead, beautifully manicured gardens wherever we turned – you get the picture. And the rigid uniformity of vineyards really appealed to the Rain Man in Jeff. It was such a shame we’d only thought to book two nights, because we all wanted to stay longer in that little bubble of happiness and relaxation where no one seemed to have a worry in the world and everyone we met looked so bloody content. Maybe it was all just a show, part of that Hollywood film, but I didn’t care – I was hooked and never wanted it to end.

  I have all of Maggie Beer’s cookbooks, love her warm, gentle personality and am incredibly inspired by her story, so one of the must-sees on my list was Maggie’s farm in Nuriootpa. There’s just something familiar and welcoming from the moment you arrive – beautifully kept groves and orchards, hundreds of pheasant fattening up for harvest, a quaint little shop where you can buy anything Maggie’s ever made (it seems) and a lovely large dam at the centre teeming with ducks and other birds. It’s all a million miles from anywhere in a haze of peaceful perfection. We had a picnic lunch by the dam watching ducks frolic to more Enya songs in my head.