Foal's Bread

by Gillian Mears

  ‘She’s right,’ said Noah, putting down her piece of cake. ‘George won’t stand to have Lainey that far off, will ya, George? Want to be awake all night with the caterwaulin that I can guarantee will go on?’

  ‘Well, Noh,’ said Ralda, gentle as the cake’s bit of cream filling but strategic. ‘He could go into Rol’s sleepout, we was thinking. Good for a young boy to see the stars. Now you’re both getting older you should have your own rooms. Aunty Reenie’s even organised a new bed.’

  Minna, as if summoning in the new order, was nodding her head in agreement like a chook with skin scale.

  ‘You’ve ’bandoned me,’ Noah joked with a kind of sad vehemence to her daughter. In the new emptiness of the once-full hut Noah moved around like the ruined Chinese gardener in his ruined garden. Never say die was all very well but might as well catch at a straw as take on Minna.

  Noah moved with the feeling that the waters of change had swept just about everything away. But not Roley. Only in the most temporary of ways had the flood eclipsed his absence. The dreadful yet paradoxically comforting realisation arrived one chance afternoon over in Main House: that her husband’s eyes would be forever shining out to her from above Min’s stroke-wrecked cheeks. His eyes in Lainey’s face too. Or even blinking out at her in miniature when she picked up one of the new kittens down at the bails. The purring little thing no heavier than a hankie but that deep blue like beautiful living glass gazing up.

  Sometimes she had to take a slug of this or that to make it through. She was getting the grog on tick from Thelma Cochrane. Paying it back in dribs and drabs from her shoeing money. This became the season that when anyone in Main House saw a horse tied up in some ridiculous place they knew that Noah must’ve secreted home a flagon and gone in search of another sip.

  This was the spring when the first full-moon westerly blew most of the tiny leaves off the jacaranda early. The leaves lay against the sleepout’s louvres in little yellow drifts that looked golden to the girl lying inside. There’d been no choice but to swap rooms with George ever since by terrible mischance his favourite old cat Blackie hadn’t got out of the second oven in time. Then he’d broke his arm, coming off Fly, going at a gallop round his circle in home paddock with Blackie’s remains in a sugarbag on the front of the saddle.

  But would he keep that arm elevated? Ralda asked Reenie when she next came over. No, so that George’s wrist swelled and juices began to run out of the plaster at the hand and be licked away by one of his grey cats.

  At night the girl listened in the sleepout to the crushed notes of an owl in the scrub up on top of the highest ridge. Uncle Owen had fixed her up a beautiful fat lamp in a syrup can for her to read by. Hung it on a nail by her pillow and all. He’d even cut up one of his old hats to use the felt as the wick. But full-moon nights were not for reading.

  My God, my god, went the owl in the south-west. My god, as if only a wild bird coming down off the timbered ridges for mice scampering in home paddock for the shed could fully describe how profoundly the farm had been altered. My god, my god, like it knew that on One Tree Farm had lived a man who’d starved himself to death because from holding his daughter’s hand he’d realised that another man wanted to do more than just dance with his wife.

  Oh my god, my god. Noah, taking another swig from her stash, heard the owl too.

  Without needing to put it into words, she knew Min had truly trumped her this time. In taking away Lainey and George. That moment Minna had decided to have the Wizard Lighting installed into Main House. The rat cunning of it, for now when Noah looked across to Main House after dark the windows were all soft and golden again. No sooner had Lainey got to be the wizard at getting that Wizard going, than Minna had declared it all a dangerous failure, and was seeking somehow to get her money back. Gone back to kero lanterns.

  One Tree was unsettled, the land weakened by inappropriate desires which in the state of trembling that follows any change had to be fought off. Noah took another mouthful. Oh, they all met at mealtimes and rode together, milked together, but when half drunk, the rupture felt as complete as the land lost from the flats in the flood.

  Roley, thought Noah, simply because the topmost branch of the jacaranda tree had burst into blossom like a parrot’s crest, two months ahead of the rest. But he was dead so how could the shape of Angus not come into her mind instead? And could it really be true that he’d shut up shop in Port Lake and gone to Sydney with never so much as a hooroo or goodbye? So that all she could do was fall asleep sucking her own thumb, relieved if she could keep that one she’d let go in the river from riding up to her on top of its upturned boat like the baby captain of all nightmares.

  My god, my god. Down in his own hut again Uncle Owen strove to keep busy. After dealing with the flood mud in his hut, he oiled up his sister’s old side-saddle and later was ashamed that, unable to put a halt to his needs, had dropped his trousers to grease up that which still lived sometimes between his skinny old legs.

  My god, god, god. Ralda, surer than ever that the terrible smell of George’s cat was still getting into her baking, chomped into another old scone. For goodness’ sake, she thought, but then had a victory the next day when her new Russian stickjaw ripped out two of George’s teeth. And everyone applauded because they were going rotten anyway and it saved having to get him to the dentist.

  Only the foal’s bread still dangled unchanged from where Roley had hung it over their hut’s door. No rats had ever chosen to chew it and from the oiling Noah had given it to stop the mould, a sheen had come into its surface. That which had been flesh had turned now to what a stranger would surely think was polished wood. It was so light that if floodwaters high enough to take on the hill ever came it would float free of all the shouting and shame; a tiny boat, a little heart of an ark upon which could lie piled every noble high-jump hope left.

  CHAPTER 18

  By three o’clock in the morning of Wirri Show day, two years on from Roley’s death, Noah Nancarrow had drunk herself into oblivion. After lodging the entries the week before, unable to know when she’d next be back in town, Noah had nipped into the hotel. Thelma Cochrane had had a flagon wrapped in readiness. When Ralda asked suspiciously where she had been, Noah was able to truthfully say that she’d picked up a sack of staleys from the bake-house for the horses. The flagon was invisible down in its paper bag, in amongst the hard old high-tops.

  Now, on show day, the tot she’d poured at midnight to help her sleep had led to a couple more. With that amount flowing in her blood she could feel the nature of her victory fast approaching. On Magpie, what might not be possible? And to toast the horse as much as anything else she let herself have a fourth. Since her wins at Port Lake and Wirri last year the mare had only grown bolder, willing to face whatever Noah turned her for. If only there’d been someone else left in the competition, who knows how high Mag would’ve gone. As it was, six foot for Wirri then six-nine at Port and the prize money had been hers. Bloody Minna gloating. Taking half off her. And Noah never a leg to stand on when it came down to money.

  A fierce kind of love for the ugly misfit of a horse filled her. She could feel that at last she was going to wrest back not only some kind of respect from mean ol Minna but her daughter too.

  Suddenly she remembered that this year Lainey would also be in the high jump. That keen to try again, game as her mum, after being eliminated first off on Breezy last year. After the show, thought Noah, taking another slug, she’d get Lainey back to the hut with her. George too. Another few sips led to the loneliness of no husband. How sad that Roley wasn’t here to see the Magpie jump the Nancarrow name back to glory. Or his children out to do their best. To cope with the flood of sorrow she took a whole glass.

  As with any spree, once half the bottle was gone the son she’d let go in the river appeared. There he was, Uncle Nipper’s baby with little red spots on the whites of its eyes. Under lashes as long as a doll’s. And then, oh no, its tiny pound-o’-butter body overtoppling th
e boat after all so that it drowned, if not by her hands then by her decision. She saw the electric-green river weed of that section of the Flaggy streaming alongside his struggle to live. Oh, the terrible look of the weed over its little body as it first went down.

  When George had finally learnt to tie a bow last year, he’d kept putting one of Lainey’s green hair ribbons around a new black kitten’s neck. Although she and Laine had sworn to find all of the kittens homes, it didn’t stop Minna doing what she always did. Drowning even that one. With the ribbon still around its morsel of a throat Noah knew, because she’d accidentally found the sack when checking down at the creek on the irrigation pipes. Minna had denied it but the evidence was there, awful and surreal in Noah’s hand that day. ‘You call yourself Christian. Yet you drowned George’s kitten.’

  Oh, the long-ago pile of little bones her own Little Mister would be. Never buried. Bleached in the sun. Little bits and pieces of him all over the place. Bones made of Uncle Nipper’s love for her.

  Dimly, through the alcohol, she said, ‘You’ve blown it now, Nella bloody Nancarrow,’ and reeled outside as if the stars might save her. ‘Bloody foolish.’ And with that thought all her confidence of a few hours before drained away.

  Bloody Thelma for selling her the stuff with that downturned know-it-all grin. The night sky was reeling too and when the stars started screaming at her, she screamed back.

  It was a night cold enough for George to have both his cats in his bed. Each grey cat was lying outstretched to be almost as long as a twelve-year-old fat boy. At the sound of another shout, George moved uneasily once, twice, then, finding himself pinned either side by the silvery pair, slept again.

  Surely not, Lainey thought, waking to the sound of her mother’s slurred shout. Not on this day that they had been training for since forever. Fair dinkum, she thought, and sensed that in the other rooms her Nin and Aunty Ral were also alert and listening.

  The four horses, Seabreeze and Landy, Magpie and Fly, all washed and ready for their big day, also heard Noah’s voice coming out into the night. The piebald mare, knowing that particular tone best of all, wheeled away to the far gate.

  ‘Don’t go out to her, Ral,’ Lainey heard her Nin say in a sharp voice. ‘She’ll be asleep now any minute.’ And as if on command from Nin, her mother fell silent.

  Moving quietly, Lainey hopped out of bed and through the window. ‘Bloomin hell,’ she whispered. Under the half-moon she could see the grey shapes of the horses looking over from home paddock. Gliding like a cat, she went into the hut, past where her mother lay out blind to it on the old sofa. She found the last inch in the flagon and, baring her teeth at the Royal Reserve smell and all that it meant, tipped it into the bushes.

  Once, when Lainey was no more than three or four years old, she’d got into Aunty Ral’s cooking vanilla. It had become part of the family folklore. How she’d slept it off and woke up smelling like a milkshake.

  ‘Don’t look like you’ll be jumpin nuthin,’ the girl said and bit her lip. Her mother smelt like nothing no one would ever want to sip. For all their preparation to have come to this. Who would she pair with now in the hunts?

  Lainey’s head tilted forward off its neck as if one small tap would see it fall onto the ground. Her unbrushed hair was either side of her face in the way of Magpie’s mane that never could make up its mind just which way to fall.

  In one sense Lainey was so sad she didn’t think she’d be going anywhere either and wished she could fall down beside her mother and also spend show day in bed. But another part spat, ‘Pah!’ The involuntary noise came unchecked and made the morning air acid with disappointment. ‘Now you’ll see what I can do without you anywhere nearby. Bloody Hopeless, that should be the name of a horse for you, Mum.’

  Before daybreak she mixed the horses some feed. ‘Give em a bit of corn,’ she could hear her father say. Whichever’s high jumpin. Not a bellyful. Just something that’ll liven em for that leap.

  ‘You’re lucky, you are,’ she told the horses, still undecided about who should get the corn. They nickered hopefully then scattered when Magpie came high-trotting their way, ears pinned back and neck snaking like a stallion.

  ‘Here,’ said the girl, catching the mare and tying her up. ‘Can’t have you kicking them now.’ Coming closer to a decision she gave both the greys a double handful of cracked corn each. ‘And just a bit of hay for you,’ she told Fly. ‘Cos last thing we want is for you to be mad as a swivel in the bend and flag.’

  Then, feeling sorry for her mother’s mare, the only one without feed, she walked across to the shed to the molasses drum. She went back to the piebald with her hand dripping with the shiny blackness as her offering. The mare’s tongue was warm and huge in the dark. As the mare cleaned up her fingers again she pondered the dilemma of who she could go in the hunts with. Only for one moment did she have the disloyal wish that her brother was normal. Then instead of Mum could’ve been George.

  Aunty Ral and Nin would be coming to the show later, bringing George, with Uncle Owen to get a lift in with Doss Cousins after milking.

  When Lainey went back inside Main House it was to find her Nin already up and getting her a cuppa. The girl put her hands out in front of the Lighthouse. Just as she knew had been her father’s rule on high-jump day for any show, she salted her tea.

  ‘Atta girl,’ said her Nin approvingly, and before either could mention Noah there came the sound of Mr Cousins’ truck turning into One Tree and beginning the climb up the hill.

  ‘Morning, Lainey. Gunna turn into a beautiful day I think,’ Mr Cousins said, hopping down from the cab. With his hands in his pockets, he kicked a few pebbles on the ground as if he was still a boy. ‘Didn’t I say it was going to be good weather for the show?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Where’s your mother?’

  Lainey shook her head. Nin, coming out at that moment with a lamp, imitated a bottle’s contents gurgling down her throat. The sound was the exact opposite of the first early-morning magpie letting its pure and silvery notes spill into the dark sky. ‘Forget bloody Noah, you can,’ Ninna said.

  For the first time Lainey felt a flicker of despair. Because now daylight was not far off she felt lost at the thought of Wirri Show minus her mum. What about last year? Coming home with all those ribbons between them? Mrs Nancarrow and her daughter Lainey from just west of Wirri. How the announcer loved to put that out over the showground. And yesterday, the laugh on her mum as she’d washed Magpie’s white socks; washed and washed them using some blue Rinso she’d nicked (shh, don’t tell your aunty!) until the line of pigment stood out underneath the hair like marks on a map. Laughing at herself because, ‘Sure as my name’s Noah you’ll see, Laine, she’ll get it dirty in the night. Somehow! Even if we had her standing on white sheets all night she’d find a way.’

  Lainey, blacking up four sets of hooves, had smiled in happiness at her mother’s mood. There was the aroma of hoof black, rich and wonderful in line with everyone’s good spirits. George coming over to them and singing his moaniest happiness tune as they’d even plaited Maggie’s forelock. Her mum standing on a little stool with Lainey handing up water and comb to tame the hair. Then the rubber bands. Her mum so excited, making that bushy forelock as neat as possible.

  Now this.

  ‘Oh Lainey,’ said Mr Cousins, his voice full of exasperation. ‘Didn’t I tell you to seek it out if she come home with any?’

  Minna began to lug the gear over to the truck. ‘Oh, we kept an eye open alright. Ral was with her all the time in town. She must have some new hiding place.’

  ‘I tipped a bit out,’ said Lainey, ‘but too late cos she was a goner.’

  Just at that minute, as if to prove her daughter completely wrong, Noah appeared from around the other side of the house, riding Tadpole, saddled and all.

  ‘What are you up to, Noah?’ began Mr Cousins. ‘Show today.’

  Next thing Noah had half got off, half fallen from Tadpole.
‘I’m alright, you’ll see,’ she said and kneeling, holding the stirrup, looked up to the ancient pony.

  ‘A bit late for prayin, Noah,’ said Minna. ‘It’d take more than a prayer to fix you.’

  Her mother, saw Lainey, looked like a shrunken-away corpse in a trap.

  ‘Oh, Laine,’ said Noah, and gave a series of painful small moans. ‘Haven’t we been waiting for this day the whole year and now this had to happen.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Mr Cousins, hooking the reins over a fence. ‘We’ll get you back inside.’

  ‘Those bloody calves,’ said Noah. ‘Reckon I’ve gone and got the vomitin brucellosis off em.’

  Mr Cousins’ voice was so kind Lainey wished for a moment that she had found some vanilla essence to incapacitate herself with in the night. Sometimes she couldn’t help but wish that she was one of Mr Cousins’ cows or dogs. Or, like the girl of Inglises’ who’d lived in the back hills with her mother and sisters, that she’d also be snatched off One Tree by one of the Marlowe brothers on a horse.

  Airly Inglis, so Uncle Owe reckoned, was looking out through a crack in the door when Errol Marlowe took off with her one Sunday after church. ‘That’s her I reckon.’ Uncle Owe had dug Lainey in the ribs outside the Wirri butcher’s one day. Lainey had turned to see a woman walking along like a skinny chook with its chicks, at least four daughters stringing out behind. And smudges around Airly Inglis’s eyes as if Errol had pressed her face into a cold fire.

  ‘Your Aunty Ral’s gittin yer mum some tea,’ said Mr Cousins, coming back out from the hut, ‘but truth is I doubt she’ll be ready for show even by the time Dossie and Owe go in. Still want to go?’

  ‘Too right she does,’ said Ninna. ‘Rol’s daughter through and through. We’ll be right,’ and went to help get the horses ready for loading. ‘Come on, Mr Seabreeze, Landy,’ she said, putting headstalls on. ‘Your big day.’