Foal's Bread (21 page)

Bit by bit the bread that had come with their foal dried in a corner of the hut in its tray of salt. For a while they even forgot it was there except every now and then looking to see that the moisture draining out turned the salt as thick as sea sand. Beneath its white counterpane, unwatched, almost forgotten, the bread faded from purple-black to jacaranda violet before turning a shade of pale lilac.

The tiny pieces of hoof Roley called slippers that had fallen off when the foal was five days old, now sitting up on the windowsill, seemed more amazing. Then money spiders set up their webs across them until they became such a part of the hut as to invite no comment.

It was Roley who noticed what was happening with the bread.

At first he thought, how impossible. He held the tray in both hands and, as if sifting for some strange kind of gold, exposed the bread to the air. He'd never seen anything like it. If only he'd known that was what had been happening under the layer of salt. Had he been able to watch, he felt that understanding would've come at last about the war, the world and why it was his legs were turning him into a creeping bloody Jesus almost unable to jump bloody anything at all on practice day Sundays.

That their foal's bread had shrunk and dried itself right into the shape of a little fat heart was news that he conveyed first to his wife.

‘Like it knew, darl, what symbol we chose for the Nancarrow jumping colours, hey? Just incredible.'

‘Phew,' she agreed; it was like double luck had landed, and she would've liked to squeeze him to herself the way Ralda did George.

Ralda, who'd sewn up the colours, the gold hearts on the turkey red silk, shook her head like an old chook in the wonderment of it all. ‘Well hope on, hope ever,' she uttered.

‘Hope on, hope ever,' repeated Noah as Roley carefully hammered two tiny holes into the top of each side of the foal's-bread heart and hung it by some string on a nail on the door of their hut.

Staring at it there made the thin winter One Tree air go all smooth and creamy. ‘Where's the scones, Ral?' he felt like shouting, for surely a celebration was in order; with cream kept back from the factory so that just for once they could dollop on as many spoonfuls as they liked.

‘Now listen here,' said Roley the next day over breakfast. ‘Can't just keep calling him Foalie, can we? What'll be a good grey name to go with Seabreeze, for when your mum and me are in the pair of hunts again? And you too, Lainey. You won't just be that foal's 'tainment. You'll be his rider. My word you will. Might even make you his 'ficial owner.'

Lainey, making the toast, felt the honour—'ficial—and she felt awe, because he was their Chalcedite colt. She also thought of the Lighthouse stove as hers. Whether the firebox was open for toast or shut, she loved it with the same passion her father had back when he was a boy. The light beams, like the tower itself, were black iron. Even though they were black, the light beams flooded out from the top of the tower, all six of them. Just so beautiful, like Aunty Ral loved to say.
Beacon
, said the letters.

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.