by Sue Orr
The cobwebs were stuck to Eugene’s fingers. He tried to scrape them off.
‘Well yes, that’s true. Generally. But I’m just thinking of you, that’s all. The both of you.’
Nickie had a feeling that her father was also thinking about himself. About what people would say if they turned up for the breeding section with bobby calves. Every year, when the ribbons and the cups were handed out, the parents of the winners were as proud as the kids. They came into the ring and shook hands with the judges as though they had done all the hard work.
Joy appeared at the truck door. She was wearing an orange dress, too, though hers was faded and too tight across her stomach. Her arms had saggy bits that wobbled when she reached up to lean against the cab doorway.
‘Twins.’ Gabrielle grinned. Joy said Humph. Nickie could feel the fist curling in her stomach. Why did Joy make it so hard for Nickie to like her?
‘I just suggested,’ said Eugene, ‘that the girls not bother with the breeding section. Seeing as … What do you think, Joy?’
Joy pulled at her dress. Her eyes flicked towards Gabrielle’s outfit; Nickie knew she was comparing the loveliness of it to her own drab look. Her lips puckered and twitched which meant something mean was coming, and it did.
‘Forget the breeding competition,’ she said. ‘You’ll make fools of yourselves out there. You and us, too.’
The fist in Nickie’s stomach bounced. ‘Come on, Gabrielle,’ she said, nudging her with her elbow. ‘Let’s go. We can stand together, on our own. In our own division. The bobby calf section.’
This time, no nice Mrs Fish and Chip Lady. The judge was someone who actually knew about cows, Kelvin the AI man. AI stood for Artificial Insemination. Kelvin was more halfway between a teenager and a man; Nickie thought he was about twenty. His job was to come to the farm in his truck and make the cows pregnant, the ones that didn’t get pregnant with the bull. He used tubes and a little machine with something in it. Nickie wasn’t sure how it all worked.
When Kelvin got to Nickie and Gabrielle, he stepped back and shook his head. His eyebrows turned into one black caterpillar under the brim of his hat. Finally he said something. ‘What have we got here?’
‘Presenting Laurence and Vincent,’ said Gabrielle. She was tucking her hair back behind her ears with one hand, and pulling on Vincent’s lead with the other. They were both struggling to keep the calves on their feet; you had to keep the lead tight otherwise the calf took advantage and tried to collapse for another lie down.
Kelvin was smiling at Gabrielle. Gabrielle blew at her fringe and shook her hair like the lady on the Blue Clinic shampoo ad.
‘Bobby calves. At least they should have been,’ said Kelvin. ‘What’s the story, ladies?’ He meant Lady Gabrielle. Nickie didn’t care. She could see the other kids with their big pedigree calves were getting hot and bothered and sick of waiting for the judging. This was brilliant.
‘The story is this,’ said Gabrielle. ‘You’ve got your Jersey breed over there, and your Friesians over that side. And this year, there’s a third category, which is rescued bobby calves. That’s us.’
Kelvin smiled a little bit, then the smile turned into a big chuckle. Nickie thought it was a Good on you type of laugh, but she saw Gabrielle’s face change, her charming look dissolve.
‘Kelvin, you’re a man,’ Nickie said.
Kelvin turned his attention to Nickie for the first time. He slipped his sunglasses down his nose and had a good look at her.
‘Nickie Walker. Eugene’s my dad. 12943 on Potter Road.’
His face lit up. Nickie remembered Eugene saying that Kelvin Harper was not much good with names, but he could recite the AI number of every farm in Fenward.
‘You’re a man, which means you were once a boy,’ Nickie carried on. ‘Imagine if you were born a calf. A boy calf. Just because of that, you’d be thrown on the bobby calf truck. You’d be a sacrifice.’
‘So?’ Kelvin wasn’t following the logic after all.
Gabrielle stepped in again. ‘Kelvin,’ she purred. ‘Think of it this way. We are the protest category. We are protesting against the killing of newborn calves, just because they’re boys. Or sick and weak.’
Kelvin nodded slowly and Gabrielle beamed at him. It wouldn’t have mattered what she’d said, or what animal had been on the end of her lead. Kelvin was all hers.
‘Hey, Kelvin,’ someone shouted. It was the father of one of the other boys in the ring. The man was standing behind his son with his arms crossed. ‘Any chance of you coming over and judging the proper entries in this competition?’ The man started pacing along the edge of the judging ring. ‘It’s too bloody hot to be standing here much longer.’
‘Shit,’ muttered Kelvin. He gave the girls one last grin, then went to look at the other calves.
Larry and Vincent sank to the ground. Gabrielle fished more sugar for them out of her pockets. She said glucose was important in fighting dehydration. The girls sat down with the calves. Nickie closed her eyes and thought about the cool water in the swimming pool.
Gabrielle nudged her. ‘Stand up,’ she said. Kelvin was back, and six other calves and their owners had crossed over to join them. Three of them were Jerseys and three Friesians.
Kelvin awarded first, second and third places to the Friesians. They were all huge calves and he said they had great breeding potential. He did the same to the Jerseys, this time mentioning milk production. There were two ribbons left in his hand when he got to the end of the line, to Nickie and Gabrielle.
‘First place in the protest section goes to Nickie Walker,’ he announced. ‘And a very close second to …’
‘Gabrielle. My name is Gabrielle Baxter,’ said Gabrielle softly.
‘Gabrielle Baxter,’ shouted Kelvin. His chest was puffed out and his shoulders back and he looked as though he had awarded a ribbon to himself. ‘It would have been first equal, but poor Vincent here’s got a dose of the scours.’
Kelvin left the ring. Straight away, some of the parents came over. They didn’t look happy, pointing and shaking their heads. Kelvin held his hand up to them; Nickie guessed he was reminding them that the judge’s decision was final and no further discussion would be entered into.
Everyone left the ring one by one. Julie, who’d been glaring at Nickie, waited off to the side for her.
‘You guys don’t deserve those ribbons,’ she said. She was pretending to pull a biddybid off her calf’s coat.
‘Why not?’
‘There’s no protest section in Calf Club.’
‘So? New sections can come along. There’s no rule against it.’
‘Well, there should be. It should be in the rules that some new kid can’t just come along and make up new sections and then flirt with the AI guy to get ribbons.’
‘It wasn’t just her idea,’ Nickie said. ‘It was both of ours.’
‘If you say so,’ said Julie.
‘I do say so.’
‘Sew your pants up.’ With that stupid comment, she gave her calf a tug and they walked off. She went a few steps, then turned around towards Nickie again.
‘Gabrielle Baxter’s trouble. She’s got a Reputation. That’s what all the parents say.’
At two o’clock it was so hot that the little kids had stopped running around everywhere and gone to sleep in the shade of the trees. Gabrielle and Nickie went to look at the inside competitions. Wherever they went, no one talked to them.
The final competition, leading. They’d worked out a way to make Larry and Vincent walk: simple in the end, just a matter of coating sugar on their thumbs then holding them so that the smell of the sugar was always just in front of the calves’ noses. If they didn’t let them lick, the sugar would last long enough for the competition. Nickie and Gabrielle headed for the ring. Nickie waited for someone to notice the sugar and shout Cheats!
The whispering started like a little whirlwind. Jason and Erin and Julie whispered and stared at Larry and Vincent, looked back ov
er their shoulders at their mothers and fathers. Then the parents were talking softly to each other and all of them looking and the whispers were saying Bobby calves and Pathetic and Eugene and Joy what were they thinking and no one was mentioning Ian Baxter, maybe because he was just a sharemilker and not even there or maybe because of what Gabrielle was doing.
She was as tall and straight as the flagpole and, even though the judge hadn’t even arrived yet, she led Vincent to the centre of the ring, to the place where only prize winners stand. That’s what everyone was whispering about, the cheek of that Baxter kid. Then the whispering stopped, there was just the staring, the staring of everyone; the kids and their mothers and fathers and even the calves were staring at Gabrielle Baxter and Vincent.
Nickie imagined, for a strange second, that she was a sparrow flying overhead, looking down at the glorious sparkling brown-skinned Gabrielle Baxter in her bright orange dress in the middle of the Calf Club Day judging ring in the middle of the school field in the middle of Fenward in the middle of the Hauraki Plains in the middle of the North Island. Nickie got a sudden sick feeling that whatever happened next would be bad for everyone.
Gabrielle dropped Vincent’s lead on the ground and stretched both her arms out from her sides, the palms of her hands facing upwards. She turned slowly on the spot. Vincent moved with her, his nose following the sugar. When Gabrielle got back to where she started, she dropped her arms. All this felt like it was happening in slow motion, but really, it was over in a flash. She reached behind her and pulled down the zip on her dress. It fell to the ground around her feet. Gabrielle picked it up and draped it over her free arm. As though it was a towel and she was off to the beach. She picked up Vincent’s lead and, finally, did the pose they had practised so many times in the calf pen at home. One hand on her hip, the other resting on Vincent’s neck.
She looked at Nickie. ‘Come on. Bring Laurence. You’ve got to, for us to get the comprehensive effect.’ There was no shyness in her voice; it was chirpy-bird singsong.
Nickie’s eyes hopscotched across the faces — mouths open like the clowns in the sideshow at the A and P Show, heads turning slowly left to right, checking with each other to see if they were really seeing what they were seeing. Down that line, then back again but behind it, mother after father after mother and there she was. Come on, Mum. Stop me. Please. But Joy stared as though Nickie was a stranger.
There was no noise, but there was something else. A magnet made of Gabrielle. As Nickie was pulled towards her, she waited for the tugging at her back, the pull of another magnet who was her mother, who any second now would call out, forbid her to take her clothes off and stand in the middle of the judging ring in a skimpy knitted bikini belonging to dead Bridie Baxter.
Nickie understood that Gabrielle couldn’t see the beginning of what happened next because he came from behind her. A white coat and a straw hat, the sort that men wear to bowls on Sunday, and gumboots. The judge nudged his way through the people on the other side of the ring — the people getting the back view of Gabrielle’s holistic performance — and he stepped over the baling-twine fence. His head was down, he was making sure he didn’t trip.
Gabrielle turned around. The judge lifted his head and stopped. He had a clipboard in his hand and it dangled at his side, his pen swinging off it on a thin blue ribbon. The judge was Mr Gilbert.
He took off his hat. His forehead was shiny with sweat. He ran the back of his hand across his eyes, then put the hat back on. His eyes travelled from the top to the bottom of Gabrielle. Nickie was close enough behind her to see that he was being a judge. But not a calf judge, a girl judge. He was taking his time to look over the pedigree and grooming of Gabrielle Baxter.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked. He lifted his clipboard and read the paper on it.
Gabrielle grinned at him. Nickie’s heart skipped another beat and the sick feeling grew to a dangerous puke level.
‘You know who I am, Mr Gilbert,’ she said, laughing. ‘Gabrielle. Ian’s daughter.’
Mr Gilbert looked up at her again, but this time his look didn’t drift away from her eyes. ‘Put your clothes on,’ he said. ‘Get dressed and leave the ring.’
‘Why?’
‘This is not a beauty contest. You’re making a fool of yourself. And your father. Put that dress on right now and get out.’
Gabrielle’s dress was still over her arm. Nickie waited for her to put it on. There were no human sounds, just birds chirping and calves chewing on the long grass. There was a gurgle and a splosh as one of them pooed. Somewhere further away, a lamb bleated. A lamb, or maybe a goat.
‘Show me,’ said Gabrielle. She spoke louder than before and Nickie knew Gabrielle was making sure everyone could hear her.
Mr Gilbert was tapping his pen on his clipboard. His legs were apart and his stare was on Gabrielle. What he was doing was looking at Gabrielle again: up and down, up and down.
‘Show you what, Gabrielle?’ He said it slowly; it was coming not from his mouth but from somewhere deep inside him. Like a dog lying low, getting ready to attack something little and hopeless. ‘What is it you want to see?’
‘The rules,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Show me where it says you have to wear certain clothes on Calf Club Day. Where it says that togs are banned.’
Mr Gilbert read his clipboard again, as though he knew it was written somewhere. Gabrielle giggled and looked around at everyone watching. Her eyes were wide and she was laughing and rearranging her pose. Nickie took another sneak look at the crowd and it was as though they were all watching something amazing on the telly, for example the episode of Coronation Street from just a while ago when the viaduct collapsed and everyone had to wait and see whether David Barlow would get Ena Sharples out alive.
Mr Gilbert’s hands were shaking, he was having trouble holding the clipboard steady. He had something to say to Gabrielle that he didn’t want anyone else to hear. He stepped towards her, coming so close that Nickie wondered whether one of those gnarly, shaky hands was going to reach out and touch Gabrielle’s brown skin.
‘Get dressed, you little slut.’
Only two people heard it. Gabrielle and Nickie. Mr Gilbert walked back towards the crowd, in the direction he’d come from.
‘Hey, Mr Gilbert,’ Gabrielle said. Not said, shouted. ‘Could you please come back for a minute?’
Mr Gilbert’s steps slowed down, but they didn’t stop and he didn’t look back.
‘Hey, Mr Gilbert,’ Gabrielle called out again, louder this time. ‘Please?’
There was something in her voice that made him turn around. Then she was marching towards him, in her little black bikini, the orange dress thrown on the ground beside Vincent. She went right up to him before she spoke, but her words were loud enough for everyone to hear.
‘Have you bashed up Mrs Gilbert today, Mr Gilbert?’ Soft as butter, but clear and loud. My name is Gabrielle Baxter. We’re on the Gilbert farm.
Silence. Nickie watched as Gabrielle’s gaze travelled across the faces around the ring. Gabrielle’s chin was high and her smile proud yet kind — as if she was sorry indeed to be ruining Calf Club Day but relieved to finally get everything sorted out.
Mr Gilbert pulled away from Gabrielle’s grip and climbed over the twine fence to the outside of the ring. His clipboard was tucked under his arm. Nickie held her breath, waiting for him to come back for revenge. The picture was as clear as a movie in her head. His hand swinging, crunching into Mrs Gilbert’s stomach, but it was not Mrs Gilbert’s stomach, it was Gabrielle’s tiny brown tummy and she fell to the ground and Vincent nuzzled her for more sugar, and the second punch came in hard to the side of Gabrielle’s head. And then.
That didn’t happen. None of it. He didn’t come back. He walked through the crowd of puzzled adults saying What the hell’s going on and he didn’t stop to talk to anyone. He went into the school and didn’t come out again.
Gabrielle picked up her dress and held it up to the sun to see if there w
ere any wet stains on it, then she gave it a shake to get rid of the grass.
One by one, parents came through the little opening into the ring, whispered to their kids, and quietly led them and their calves away.
Something touched Nickie’s shoulder. Her mother’s hand, resting there. For some stupid reason it made Nickie cry. A few tears then uncontrollable sobbing, the sort that makes your body shake and your breath go all rubbery.
Gabrielle moved close and put her arm around Nickie. ‘It’s okay, Nickie,’ she said. ‘It’s better now. It’s better that everyone knows. We can help Mrs Gilbert now.’
Joy took her hand away. ‘Nickie. Stop it. Pull yourself together and take your calf back to the truck.’ She gave Nickie a little push. ‘Go on,’ she said. Nickie tried unsuccessfully to pull Larry away as Joy turned to Gabrielle.
‘What’s going on, Gabrielle? What did you say to Mr Gilbert?’
Gabrielle patted Vincent and looked at Nickie. The look said Help but Nickie couldn’t help. She couldn’t do anything.
‘Gabrielle,’ Joy said. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
Gabrielle looked Joy straight in the eye. ‘Do you really want to know, Mrs Walker? I’ll tell you, if you like. If you’re sure you want to know?’
Larry’s legs had crumpled under him again, he was having another rest. Nickie crouched down beside him. She could feel the heaviness of the air between them, words hovering above, inside fat black thought bubbles. Nickie knew the bubbles wouldn’t pop; the thoughts would stay right where they were, unspoken. Her mother must have guessed what Gabrielle had said to Mr Gilbert — not the exact words, maybe, but she knew what it was about. If she wasn’t kind enough to help Nickie cope, she was never going to talk about it with Gabrielle.
If you’re sure you want to know? Nickie didn’t need to look back over her shoulder to know that Gabrielle would be standing tall, looking good, staring Joy down with a smile. Daring Joy to say Yes, tell me. Tell me, so I can help.