Once, she remembered, Uncle Angus had taken her and George to the Port Lake lighthouse. It was as white as a cloud. A white horse grazed loose on the steep green hill in front. The lighthouse looked like a shed painted white with a church on top.
‘You know this photo of me and your father?’ Her mother’s hand moved over the familiar tin. ‘Well, in my pocket I was carrying your father’s good luck. Wasn’t I, Rol? He lent me the foal’s bread he had.’
The secret look he cast her way said that he remembered she’d had no pocket. That she’d slipped it in over her own heart. When she were no more than a fourteen-year-old filly. To cover up the intensity of his memory he plied his egg with the Worcester.
‘I got a real good name,’ said Ralda, nibbling her toast.
‘Me too,’ said Min in a voice that signalled hers was the one.
‘And me.’ His wife’s fingers kneaded the sides of her cup in just the way the cat sitting in George’s lap was doing to his belly, because cold hands, warm heart—his Noey always suffered the worst from winter chilblains.
‘Well,’ said Roley, ‘what we’ll do is pull straws,’ because the last thing they wanted at this hour was a fight.
‘Let’s put all the names in your hat, Rol,’ suggested Ralda. ‘Have Elaine pull one out.’
And Lainey, half in horror, half in delight, squirmed at the way her aunty did that sometimes. Called her that.
Ralda tore some paper into strips, then handed it around with her grocery pencil.
Roley tossed his hat into the middle of the table. ‘Remember, we want a lucky name. Cos this Chalcey foal—’ in the pause even his ears seemed to stretch bigger with the weight of the words he wanted to impart, ‘—he’s gunna go seven easy. And maybe over eight if you can imagine that.’ Then, without a moment’s consideration, he wrote something fast and placed the folded-over paper into his hat. ‘What about you and George, Lainey? You pair of villains thought up a good name to go with Seabreeze?’
‘Ffff. . . F-F-F-Foalie!’ shouted George.
‘We always just call him Foalie,’ said Lainey, and felt a momentary pang that this was about to change.
‘Well, Laine, you’re gunna be the one to pick the name out of the hat.’
‘And George!’ said Lainey, hefting him onto a hip.
‘Mind you pick good,’ said her Ninna, putting her bit of paper in last after Ralda and Noah.
Not breathing, and George so heavy it was a wonder he didn’t topple her, Lainey looked into the hat.
‘No, darl. Gotta shut yer eyes. Scramble em up a bit. Here.’ Roley took his hat and, holding it high, used one hand to stir the papers round.
Noah chewed her toast and tried unsuccessfully to appear nonchalant.
‘Righteo,’ instructed Roley. ‘Now you hand your pick to Ral and she’ll read it out for us.’
‘What if she’s picked stupid?’ Noah could hardly bear the suspense.
‘Won’t matter. Just get used to it.’
Ralda was unfolding the paper. ‘Landwind,’ she read.
A surge of triumph washed over Noah—‘That was mine!’—and the gloating quality inside her voice was like a sour glaze to her mother-in-law’s morning.
‘Well, what could be better than that?’ said Roley. ‘Seabreeze and Landwind. Well done, Noey. Now give me back me hat, Ral, and I’ll read out the rest of them. Great Dividing Range, that was mine. And we’ve got, let’s see, Ocean Poem. Fair dinkum. Was that you, Mum?’
‘Foam,’ said Minna. ‘Ocean Foam.’
‘Oh, well that would’ve been a goody too,’ said Noah, who could afford magnanimity now. ‘More toast, anyone?’ She pronged another bit of bread onto the fork and opened up the firebox. With her name the chosen one she felt as straight and tall and true as that lighthouse embossed there on the stove front. She thought she would never again have to ask Thelly at the Wirri Hotel to slip her a few drinks with which she could prime herself against life’s hardships.
‘And lucky last is . . . Flea? Ralda!’
‘Well,’ said his sister, ‘cos those kittens are covered. And boy can they jump!’
‘Well,’ said Roley, giving his sly little smile so loved by them all but by none more so than Noah, ‘would’ve been a helluva thing having to jump a Flea. What do you think of Landwind then?’
They all agreed that it was a good name, only Minna scowling at Noah for once again triumphing in the endless fight for Roley’s attention.
‘No matter, Mum. Yours can be for next foal down the track,’ said Roley tactfully.
Elaine—inwardly his daughter giggled. Nope, that wouldn’t do: Lainey Nancarrow riding Landwind—the girl tried that out in her mind. She cast George a secret smile and knew that her mother’s name for their Foalie was definitely the best.
It was the first day in November of the following year when, after fetching in the eggs, Lainey and George wandered back over to the chook house to play the favourite aunties game that they instinctively knew would be banned if anyone found out. The jacaranda was in soft miraculous blossom rising up over the roofline.
They looked up guiltily when their mother came riding over. ‘Hoy, you two, Happy Month! And now it’s warm enough we’re going to go down to the creek. All just gunna pile on this pony of Pearson’s for today. Help quieten him down.
‘Gurlie has bin and got herself so old. Feedin Foalie last year. No more than a rack of ribs. Rol reckons all the lumps on her belly can mean only one thing. That’s why she’s so bloomin thin, even with Landy weaned off her early. So we’re gunna practise with George at the swimming hole at Oakey Flat.’
‘George a jumping lesson?’ Lainey looked at her brother with dubious delight.
‘No, you duffer. Swimming lesson.’
‘What about our swimming hole?’
‘’Fraid we’ve got to be further away than that.’
Then George did such a good imitation of Ralda in trouble with wind that Noah was momentarily stopped. In real life Ralda could be like a carthorse given too much bran. Just as George had imitated, Ralda never faltered, except to give a small kick in the air as if her noise was a botfly.
‘Don’t you let your Aunty Ral see that. She’ll have you on toast.’
But sensing a winning streak when he’d hit on it, George followed up with an impression of his Nin, waving his fingers in a fan shape over his backside, gently back and forth, in a way that so resembled Minna in life Noah allowed them their explosive giggles.
‘Think you’re the bee’s knees, don’t you, George? What I came over to tell you was that your father’s said you can both come down with me to say goodbye to Gurl.’ Now Noah frowned. She thought it was a mistake. Why not just say old mare has gone off somewhere to make weaning Landy that much easier? Why upset them with the truth? He had the mare in the yard off the bails now and had spent almost the whole of Sunday with the help of the Cousinses and eggboat man digging Gurlie’s grave.
At the gate to the bails Noah slipped off the pony and lifted George down. ‘C’mon then, Laine.’
The girl, also hopping down, shook her head. Now she was seven all of a sudden she was old enough to feel terribly shocked. Still not fully comprehending, she knew that a betrayal was about to take place. To think she and George had played in that interesting big hole non-stop. She’d had some old baling-twine reins on her brother and had sent him around at a canter, then bobbed him up and down into the hole.
She put out her hand at George and whoomp, let him crack her one in a game of left-handed knuckles.
Lainey watched their mother going over to Gurlie. Next their mother was giving the old mare a kiss to each eyelid and Gurl’s head was drooping lower in great contentment at the feel of lips vibrating against the delicate skin. The sun had warmed right into the deep hollows above each eye and Noah rested a thumb there just one moment, thinking, goodbye, goodbye.
‘We thought it best she go at home,’ she said, coming back to the pony. Again she addressed her daughter. �
��A squeaky kiss. That’s always special. Best way of saying goodbye, you know. Well what about you, George? Want to come over with me and I’ll show you?’
But the boy, so in tune with his sister you’d swear they were Siamese twins joined at the head and the heart, only cringed away as if he’d been hit. Lainey shielded him with one arm. To think they’d thought that big hole had been made just for them.
‘Well then. We’ll put you back up and better get going. Your dad’s gunna wait a good half-hour after he sees us reach road.’
Lainey felt her tears coming so thick it was as if they were spurting up through the skin of her cheeks like that spring in the moss above Bitter Ground Creek.
‘Now hush up, Laine, or you’ll upset George.’ Noah clicked the pony into a canter.
If she could see her mother’s face, might it also be crying? the girl wondered. She didn’t think so. In town, at Aunty Mil and Mad’s, when her Mum got going there was no mistaking it.
Not a trace of a tear, Lainey could tell. ‘Dad’s gunna get a lock of her mane,’ said Noah. ‘Maybe get a bit of her tail and make a nice pair of reins. Cos Gurlie always had that good long tail. What about that, George? Can you hear me, Lainey?’
They’d reached the cream-can shelter that was such a lovely shape. With its pitched roof more waterproof than their old hut’s, Lainey liked to imagine living inside there, her own miniature house, her own cream-can kitten that George could choose for her. Usually she imagined sitting in a comfy chair in there, commenting on the weather to whoever it might be going by.
They were turning left onto the Dundalla road. The sky was so blue that the jacaranda tree was just a blur of mauve by the house. ‘Well, here’s what you do. As we go along the road to the swimming hole, you’ve got to remember the last ride we took on old Gurl. Remember, Laine? Before she dropped the foal?’
Lainey, holding George on behind their mother’s back, did remember. The mare that pregnant that her legs could hardly accommodate the stretch.
‘If you can’t kiss the eyelids then that’s the next best way to say goodbye,’ said Noah. ‘Alright, Laine? Got to remember something really happy that you did together.’
The thought of Uncle Nipper came next. Him it was who’d told her that. When her old cat was dying that day. His rheumy old eyes as if filled with tears in sympathy for her own. The hot washer he’d fetched for her face.
Only for one fleeting second did Roley, lining the sights up just in the middle of Gurlie’s head above the line of her eye, think maybe this would be the best solution for himself too. He couldn’t believe he’d even had such a thought, for any day now, he was still sure, that famous balance of his would be back. And he should be counting his lucky stars not to be aiming at any bloody German or Italian who might shoot him first. Just you, old Gurl, got too thin to live you have. But I’m not mad Milton McLeish about to blow out my brains in my own paddock. Jeez. Imagine. He let the rifle dangle in one hand.
Next a thought came to mind of his favourite cousin, Stan. Never coming back from wherever it was in the Middle East. Damascus, that’s right. Dead in Damascus. Poor bloody Stanley. So clumsy all through school that once Roley had even crept up and tied him to the legs of his school desk with his shoelaces. Damascus. What kind of a place was that to never be coming home from? A good name for a horse. Roley had ridden a stallion of that name once, a jaunty chestnut, game for anything. Who’d owned him? Hirrips? That was right. Damascus. Good for the thirteen-stone hunts but not a place to get blown apart in. Not if you were Stanny Sweetland.
Old Gurlie had spilt most of her last feed out the side of her mouth. Teeth too pointy to handle anything other than pollard but even then most of it lost. Again Roley lowered the rifle. He’d known for some time this day had been coming, yet even so he wondered how he’d bring himself to pull the trigger. No choice now. Len and eggboat man organised to come help move her into the hole. Ralda and his mother had gone into Wirri. And now it would be exactly half an hour since he’d seen Noh taking the children along the road to the swimming hole at Oakey Flat.
Stan as a soldier. Stan who could never ride real well let alone shoot a rabbit or finish off a dingo in a trap. ‘I’ll do a better job than Stanley, old Gurl, that much I can promise,’ and put the moment off no longer.
The sound of the shot came just as George did another belly flop into the water. Lainey, pretending not to hear, also jumped in.
Anxious, Noah waited. She cast her eyes upward to where there were still some dark ripe mulberries right at the top of a tree. No, she would not think of that Little Mister. Not right now.
Just the one shot. And Noah felt the relief sweeping through that no matter what else might be going so slow and steady and mysteriously wrong with her husband, his eye was still in. Her love for him welled huge. That hole he’d asked Len to help with? No ordinary hole for a horse. With fencing crowbar and spade they’d dug out a special shape for Gurlie’s hips. Even made her a head rest.
That night Roley told her that nor had there been any need for any rolling and shoving of old Gurlie. He’d dropped her close enough for that. With the other two men, one on each hind leg, himself at the front, they’d just eased old Gurlie into her place. ‘Would’ve been that proud of em, Noh. Even Acky the eggboat man. Handled her as carefully as if that cancer might still be paining. Made sure each leg was pulled out straight. Then Len said a few words after soil were on.’ And Roley, after Len and Ack had gone, had taken his hat off and spoken the Lord’s Prayer. Down on his knees, because why couldn’t a nice bit of pasture be as good as a church, within sight of an almighty big practice jump and the sun on the back of his neck emphasising the urgency of his prayer?
Noah was never more smooth in her chores as when she felt she could resist not a moment more unburying some of her winnings. Even with the protection of the glass jar and biscuit tin the notes in their hiding place in the ground had quickly taken on the smell of the earth. Somehow they seemed thinner, too, as if they were little bit by little bit turning into leaves.
Thel Cochrane at the hotel knew them to be good though, and had stopped holding them up to the light as if they might have been eaten into nothing by moths. On the cream day after Roley turned thirty-nine, Thelma gave Noah a meaningful grin and poured her a bit of a wine in the empty ladies’ lounge of the Wirri Hotel.
‘Where’s the children then?’
‘Laine’s at school now.’ Noah couldn’t help but see that Thel had poured herself a much larger glass. ‘Georgie’s in with his aunties.’
‘Coming in for the Cup again?’
Noah shook her head.
‘Why ever not? Gawd, if I had half your luck.’
‘Nup,’ and Noah took another mouthful of wine. ‘Don’t think I could ever be so lucky again. It’s how come I stayed right away last year. Wouldn’t risk it. If Rol ever knew . . .’ She didn’t finish. She tilted her head to see herself in the mirror over one of the tables. No doubt about it, the mirror told her when the alcohol had only just begun to flow, but I’m a looker after all. That bit of Aunty Mil’s blusher? She liked it now. How it gave her cheekbones that extra sheen.
What couldn’t I have been, where couldn’t I have gone if things had been different, ran her thoughts.
When Thelma disappeared to serve someone at the front bar Noah sat in such a way that her bust appeared to best advantage. She unbuttoned her collar, stroked her work-hardened hands and again consulted the mirror for reassurance. ‘You’ll be trouble one day, darl,’ Uncle Nipper used to tell her. ‘There’ll be fights over who wants to dance with our Noey.’
She finished the drink and moved closer still to the mirror. In the absence of a husband she wanted to kiss herself. She shifted one side of her curling hair behind her ears and tilted her head. She lifted her shoulders. Put one higher than the other, then down. At a memory of Rol, the feel of his horse rider’s hands, the hard muscles of his belly over her own, an agony of longing arrived.
‘Leave
off me, Rol. I won’t do it again.’ Noah, back from Wirri, stared with resentment at her husband.
‘Exactly what you said last time. Gawd. You smell terrible.’
‘Don’t get all savage with me now. Please.’ Her tone of voice said it was his entire fault anyway.
‘Well why go see your aunties when you know by now what’s going to happen?’
‘I was fixing up a shoe for them on their little cart-pony. Put in a couple of nails.’
‘Fixing on how to get more grog off them on tick more likely. They’re an embarrassment, Noey. And you know it.’
‘My mother’s sisters and all.’
‘And you’re fast following in their footsteps.’
‘An embarrassment, am I?’
‘What kind of wife,’ said Minna, appearing to add her two bobs’ worth with ill-concealed relish, ‘what kind of mother ties up her son in the garden until he has sun fever? What kind of a person could do that to George? Lucky Reen is away or she’d have a piece of your hide.’
‘I didn’t tie him up.’
‘Well why did he come home as red as a bloomin boiled lobster?’
‘That was Aunty Mil, cos she had accounts to do.’
‘And where were you?’ Minna wanted to pick up her daughter-in-law and give her a shaking.
‘Oh, this and that. A few errands.’ Seeing Lainey’s chook going past, Noah leant down and scooped it into her hands. Only last week Little Darkie Eyes had killed a snake.
‘That’s not what Grace Wingfield said.’
‘What would that silly cow know?’
‘Leave off, Noh. Leave off, Mum.’ Roley grew weary of the constancy of their bickering. He knew it was wearing One Tree down more than any other kind of rationing. He knew that if his wife had had one or two she became frightening. She had needs and hopes. But it was like some kind of terrible unexpected weather really. The way she’d haul and tug at him even though that miracle appeared to have been for one night only. He rolled himself a smoke and looked over at Noah, the wistfulness causing him to nearly choke.
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