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

  As a child, one of my favourite books was Helen Palmer’s A Fish Out of Water. In it, a boy fails to follow advice and overfeeds his fish until it grows to an enormous, comical size. Since bringing Rodney and Billy back to the property, we’d conducted hours of research on how best to raise pigs and one thing was certain across all of the articles – a pig will grow according to the amount of food you feed it. I kept track of the calories being pumped into their little-but-growing bodies and knew I was not overfeeding them, but still the boys were growing so fast I could see them expanding week by week. The way they chased the chickens had become a little rough so within a few weeks we built them a pen of their own next door to the chooks with a waist-high fence so I could easily climb in to be with them or lean over it to scratch them on their bellies.

  We encouraged the pigs to climb all over us, jumping up for face-to-face nuzzles, climbing on our backs to play-wrestle on the grass. Charlie and Lucy loved them and enjoyed getting down and dirty with them. Each school holidays when they visited from Brisbane, the kids became fixtures on the daily walk and the pigs gravitated toward them, Charlie in particular. The pigs even became stars of the kids’ holiday short films, most notably the one titled Pignapped. In the movie there was a scene of the pigs running in slow motion to the song ‘Born Free’ and to this day it makes me smile. I played an evil pig-napper with a limp who wanted the pigs because of their superpowers, which made them worth two million dollars. We were one big happy human–swine family.

  Rodney had learned to sit and I used this less as a demonstration of his intelligence and more to remind him that I was the farmer and therefore the boss. While he could dominate Billy, he should think twice about trying to take top-dog position from me.

  We got the local vet to come out and give them their shots and treat them for mites (a common swine affliction and ours probably caught them from their neighbours, the chooks). Hearing Rodney’s squeal as the vet held him in place to give him his injections sent adrenaline pumping through my body – I hated every minute of it and was visibly trembling.

  ‘Are you okay?’ the vet asked sweetly.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, I’m okay,’ I said.

  ‘I was talking to the pig,’ she said. Clearly I didn’t learn my lesson from the nurse looking after Jeff after his marathon.

  I finally let Rodney go, his squeals still ringing in my ears.

  ‘Do you think we should get them neutered?’ I asked the vet.

  ‘Hmm, that depends,’ she said putting away the needles. ‘Do you want to eat them?’

  ‘Definitely not!’

  ‘Because after about three months their testosterone will taint the flavour of the meat and you won’t be able to eat it. Are they aggressive at all?’

  ‘Not in the slightest.’

  ‘Then there’s no real need to have it done. Besides, you’d need to build a crush cage for them, one that restricts their movement completely and we’d need to make sure everything was just so . . . in order to do the job properly.’

  ‘Okay, sounds fair enough. I think we’ll leave it for now.’

  And that was the most significant mistake of all.

  Just like the fish in the Palmer book, the boys grew and grew and grew. Now they could jump up and rest on the edge of their fence and the sight of the two of them side by side greeting guests and expecting scratches or food was quite adorable. We had the team from the Rivers clothing company come onto the property to shoot a catalogue and Rodney even featured in it, covered in mud and looking right into the lens with a brand-new pair of boots slung over the gate to their pen. We even chose a hand-drawn portrait of Rodney to grace our first ever Rosé, a deliciously dry and fruity wine we made out of our Shiraz grapes in 2015.

  They proved to be very popular with the guests, who loved getting up close and scratching the boys’ rough hair. Some guests wanted to climb in with them, one even asked if he could bring his wetsuit so he could play with them in the dam (a daily treat they absolutely loved). But as they grew, so too did their independence, and it wasn’t uncommon for the boys to trot off on their own, disappear in the vineyard to eat grapes and vine leaves to their heart’s content and only when they were good and ready, trot back down the road to their pen and put themselves to bed, bellies stuffed full of goodness – just as Jeff and I had once strolled down the hill from the North Annandale Hotel arm in arm, brimming full of merriment and beer.

  Every morning the pigs greeted me with great excitement, their eyes so easy to connect with, their joy in anticipation of food also filled me with happiness. Rodney would be made to sit. (No matter how hard I tried, Billy just wasn’t ever close to mastering it. At first I thought it was because he was a bit stupid but in the end I decided that he was the smarter one – why sit for food like a dumb dog when you know that farmer guy is just going to end up giving it to us anyway?)

  As they grew in size, so did their determination to wrestle with each other. They were adolescent males, after all. It wasn’t uncommon to see their long spiralling penises touch the ground and once they were of age, they both worked out how to pleasure themselves. Having a shoe covered in semen was not an uncommon occurrence, commonly known as cumboots.

  One day I was busy cleaning the guesthouse and Jeff agreed to take the pigs for a walk with his visiting friends, Cameron and Maggie.

  A few minutes later he came running into the kitchen, one eye closed.

  ‘Oh my god! Your bloody pig!’ he cried out.

  ‘What? What is it?’ I was ready to run out and give one of them mouth to mouth, if required.

  ‘It’s so disgusting,’ he said, leaning over the sink to wash something from his face. ‘Billy got his penis out and was rubbing it on the grass and then when he ran towards me it flicked up and I got cum in my eye.’

  ‘Did you get the money shot?’

  I have dined out on that story many, many times and think it will be in my repertoire until the day I die.

  With the pigs’ adolescence also came the belief that obeying the farmer wasn’t a necessity. Increasingly when I took them for walks, the boys would wrestle each other and, in pig language, that meant bashing their necks against each other very hard, using the strength of their muscles to try and push the opponent further and further away. Turning your back on a male pig means you have surrendered and he is the dominant male. You are labelled submissive unless you challenge him in another wrestle and win. On occasion Rodney would wrestle with me, but not in a serious or threatening kind of way, more for fun. I was able to push him away and he knew that I wasn’t easy to beat, at least not as easy as his brother. But the wrestles between the two of them were beginning to get more regular, and more aggressive, and I became increasingly conscious of their mood when I took them for walks. Eventually I decided that I would not let them out of their pen if any guests were on the property.

  Another school holiday and the kids were down swimming in the dam while the pigs frolicked at its edge. Rodney was getting increasingly excited and swam right out into the middle to be near the kids, grunting animatedly to be a part of their fun. Finally he grew tired and made his way out and then headed straight for me.

  It started as a rub against my leg, as the pigs frequently did when they were wet (water without mud makes them itchy so they will usually rub against anything for relief). But the rubbing then turned to wrestling and that soon became something more than just a game. It was the day Rodney decided to send a big fat ‘fuck you’ to Farmer Todd.

  Every time he slammed his neck towards my knees, I pushed him with all the strength I could muster. I never felt in danger of being eaten alive or anything, but I knew if I gave in to him I would never ever be able to control him again. In the least, if he knocked me to the ground and trod on me he could easily have broken a few bones. He must have been over a hundred kilos.

  I yelled at the kids, ‘Stay in the dam! Do not get out of the dam!’ They were both good swimmers and I knew it was the safest place for them.
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  On and on my struggle with Rodney went, both of us refusing to back down. The kids could see just how panicked I was and my fear sent my legs into melt down, not convenient when you’re trying to push off a very determined beast. When Charlie decided to get out of the dam (everyone was disobeying me!) Lucy started crying and all I cared about at that point was making sure the kids were safe.

  Mid-gladiatorial battle I managed to work out a strategy. Slowly I would coax Rodney back towards his pen without him realising it but that was about two hundred metres away and I was only gaining about a metre per neck to knee smash. I would have to push his hundred kilos with all my strength over two hundred times and I was already stuffed. I didn’t know where Billy was but he was the least of my troubles – he had always been the pig that seemed more or less uninterested in people. Lucy was still crying and also screaming at Charlie for disobeying me, and meanwhile Charlie was confused and coming closer to Rodney. But in the end, Charlie’s decision to get out of the dam gave me a better idea than trying to tame old Razorback on my own.

  ‘Charlie run! Run to get Jeff! Be as fast as you can!’

  It felt like ten minutes before Jeff arrived when in reality it must have been less than two. Rodney was not backing down and the more I pushed him, the more determined he was to win. Jeff provided enough of a distraction to get Rodney to abandon his struggle for domination. We got him into the pen, locked it securely and went to retrieve Billy, and a cold and shivering Lucy.

  I was a complete wreck, emotionally and physically exhausted. I tried my best to laugh it off with the kids.

  ‘Gee, I bet you thought things were serious there for a bit!’ Please excuse daddy while he changes his undies. ‘I had him under control the whole time, I was just worried about you kids.’ Vicky, Jane, it’s Todd. I’m sorry, but the kids have been eaten alive by my pet pig. Would you like me to send you their thongs? That’s all we have left of them, I’m afraid.

  Sadly, it was the last time I ever took Rodney and Billy for a walk. As loveable as they were, I wasn’t a fucking idiot. I had to keep people safe from a Jekyll and Hyde cat, and now from a wild boar high on the scent of human fear.

  After that day whenever I got in the pen with them we still bonded – there was more excitement from the boys than anything resembling anger or domination. I still felt close to them but I wasn’t about to crawl around on all fours with them as I once had, and those tusks of Rodney’s had taken on more sinister undertones.

  The following school holidays Lucy came running into the latest villa we were building and yelled, ‘Dad! The pigs are fighting and it’s serious!’

  Sure enough when we approached the pen we could see the pigs were in the middle of a major barney. Billy was bleeding on the side of his head (no doubt caused by one of Rodney’s long bottom tusks) and Jeff was brave enough to get in there to separate them. Now he was not only the resident corpse handler, but also the wild beast tamer. The situation seemed to have calmed when Jeff climbed back out but something in Rodney snapped. Suddenly he jumped up onto the fence, reached his front trotters a long way over, and was instantly three quarters of the way out of his pen, all the while barking at me in an I’m coming to get you, sucker way I’d never heard from him before. Rodney was angry and he wanted a piece of me! Instinct kicked in and I pushed his snout as hard as I could, forcing him back into the pen, with the fall back onto his trotters taking the wind out of his sails a bit.

  I ordered the kids to stay inside while Jeff, Vicky and my friend Scott scrambled around the property for materials to raise the height of the pig’s fence. In just over an hour we were done and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  But the boys fought more and more over the following weeks and their hormone-laden urine stank up the property. Semen-shined shoes were becoming the norm. When we came up with a solution to move the chickens to a fancy new pen and separate the boys, calm was restored to the property for many months . . . until the day Rodney decided to break through into Billy’s pen.

  If there is one thing you need to know about pigs, it’s that their home is sacred ground. We didn’t know how long their standoff lasted but by the time Jeff investigated the banging coming from the pen, there was a lot of blood, and teeth and tusks littered the ground. Can you imagine the force it takes to yank a three-inch tusk out of a pig’s jaw? Imagine applying the same force to a wooden fence built to hold in chickens. Again, it was Jeff who went in there with them and somehow managed to coax Rodney back into his own pen, both poor pigs utterly exhausted by their tussle. Rodney’s mud bath turned a bloody pink as he slid down into the cool wetness for relief and he breathed heavily in defeat. My heart sank for him.

  Jeff boarded up the hole in the fence but we knew this could not go on – it was only a matter of time before they broke through into each other’s side again or worse, broke out. Our business was our sole income and if a rampaging pig hurt someone we’d have our arses sued and everything we’d worked so hard for would be lost. As much as I loved my boys, the situation just couldn’t continue.

  It was too late to chop their balls off. While it might take away some of the pigs’ aggression there was no guarantee it would remove it entirely. Besides, by then they were at 150 kilograms so any operation would require major infrastructure and we didn’t have the money for that, nor for expensive operations or a fence that could guarantee peoples’ safety. No animal sanctuary was going to take intact boars with a history of aggression either. We thought about offering them up for sale but with their strong personalities I feared the boys would be used for only one thing – the object of a hunt by drunken rednecks. The thought of their fear in that situation, in being taken advantage of, filled me with sorrow.

  I never told Jeff but at night tears rolled silently down my cheeks. As we also couldn’t afford what was required to have them put down by a vet, in order to save our livelihood it looked like the only option I had was to get a guy with a gun to do it for us. If watching The Yearling when I was five wasn’t bad enough, now thirty-odd years later I was doing the same thing to my own pets. Our builder Pete found someone who was willing to do it – all we had to do was make the call. The gunman wouldn’t take their bodies away, we would have to take care of that. And by we, I meant Jeff.

  I hesitated for weeks, each morning as I looked into their eyes I sensed them pleading with me. As I scratched their heads and beneath their chins I pictured those same bodies being ripped apart by foxes and goannas, crows and ants. I spoke to them often, went to visit them several times a day. I gave them all the extra food I could find and they feasted on ice cream, chocolate, biscuits and milk. I had failed my boys on every level, I was a failure as a farmer and now they would suffer because of my stupidity and incompetence. Any time I thought of the sound of those gunshots, I cried. But the longer I agonised over making that call, the longer I played Russian roulette with the future of our business.

  ‘Oh Rodney,’ I said to him one morning as he grunted excitedly, waiting for his pellets. ‘What have I done to you? How stupid am I to have put you through this? I’m sorry. I’m just so, so sorry, my little Rodders.’

  But then luck gave the boys and me an incredible lifeline. Pete was working at a property down the road when a pig farmer came to deliver a boar to impregnate the resident sow. He overheard the farmer complain that he didn’t have enough boars and how impossible it was to find any that still had their balls.

  ‘You need a few studly pigs, eh? I think I might know of two,’ Pete said, and I will never forget how Pete saved my boys.

  I couldn’t go out on the day they came to take my pigs away. I said my goodbyes that morning, locking eyes with each of them, thanking them for being such a special part of our lives. And I said sorry. Over and over again I apologised to Rodney and Billy and asked them to forgive me.

  ‘Remember that time you knocked Vicky over?’ I reminded them. ‘How we laughed so much she couldn’t get up again? Remember that video we made with the kids? Hey Rodney
, you make sure you tell those girls about being on a wine label and in a fashion catalogue. And Billy? Sit for your new farmer like I know you can. He’ll treat you better if you do, I promise he will. We had some good times, didn’t we boys? Enough good times?’

  I had to lock myself away in the office on the mezzanine of the shed when the pig farmers came. To begin with, I sat watching through the window until it hurt my heart too much to continue. Billy refused to come out of his pen and was clearly scared and that’s all I could take. I put some music on through my headphones and shut my eyes and waited for Jeff to come and tell me that it was all over.

  After an hour of trying to coax Billy out of his pen, the farmers gave up and went to Rodney instead. It came as no surprise to me that one sniff of the Tim Tams and fruit laid out to lure him onto the trailer was all Rodney needed, he waltzed onto it like he was a king on a chariot and then he was off on his big adventure. Gidday, the name’s Rodney or Rodders for short if you please, he’d introduce himself to the ladies. You might remember me from such wine labels as Block Eight’s 2015 Shiraz Rosé? No? How about the Rivers catalogue . . .

  But Billy was another story. He’d always lived in his brother’s shadow and after a year confined to his pen he wasn’t coming out for anyone. Hadn’t he been the pig that’d only ever fought back against the aggressor? He’d never shown me aggression, had he?

  ‘It’s not too late to keep him,’ Jeff said as he came to find me while waiting for the farmers to return.

  ‘I know, but we have to let him go too,’ I said with a sigh. ‘We have no choice. There’s just no way of knowing how he’ll behave. With Rodders not here maybe he’ll want to become more dominant. I can’t . . . Please go outside, Jeffy. I can’t talk about it any more; please stop giving me false hope.’