Foal's Bread (45 page)

Maybe as well as the lollipops long eaten, Uncle Owe had brought toffees down for her and George. Maybe there was going to be that surprise . . . But what she could feel was hard and rude like the word on the toilet wall, and when she opened her eyes she snatched her hand away and leapt up to go.

She didn't understand that ugly-looking bit of Uncle Owe or that suddenly he'd tipped her to the ground and was trying to pull down her bloomers. ‘Now then. Now then,' he was saying when she began to fight him off.

Life is like a river. Never runs the same way twice, Uncle Nip used to say, but Noah, meandering Magpie alongside the dappled creek, knew exactly what she was seeing. She felt vials of wrath exploding in her blood so that before a moment more went by she'd uncoiled her whip and sent it out as if to crack the old uncle's hose right off. In order to ensure maximum damage to errant bullocks there was no cracker on the whip, but something, some fear of hurting her daughter, made her stop short of putting open Uncle Owen's face.

‘Get off her, ya filthy fucking mongrel.'

There was that word again, thought Lainey as Uncle Owen was up and away, running, still unbuttoned, into the bush like a dog.

‘He didn't get in did he? The rotten mongrel bastard.'

In? In? What could her mother be talking about? Lainey began to cry.

‘Did he hurt you? Don't worry, love.' At the unusual word in her mother's mouth they both startled. ‘Tell you what, Lainey, just to be on safe side gunna give you a wash out in creek. Ral mainly washed you when you was a baby but I did sometimes. I can do it again. Did he hurt you?'

Lainey shook her head.

‘Sure?'

Her daughter nodded.

‘Still got your duds on?'

Again Lainey nodded.

Noah slipped off her horse and, without thinking, took a quick look under Lainey's dress.

‘Well, good girl! For once we landed on the side of luck. Hey? To think I should be coming along just at the right minute. Before that old mongrel got any further with his dirty plan. I'll be having a word to yer Nin. Tell her it's time her bloody little brother packed his bags. Now come on! You hop up first, Laine. And what's happened to George?'

Lainey wriggled off the saddle to sit behind on the mare's back.

Remembering that Lainey was fourteen, Noah thought how fast the life was going and, losing concentration, tripped and fell in such a way that she landed heavily on her front on top of a branch.

‘Mum!'

‘Not to worry, I'll be right,' and she swung up into the saddle. Only last year it seemed since Mil and Mad had garbled out the facts of life to her as her father finished driving that great big herd of pigs alone to the Wirri wharf. Only a whisker of time since that first little one she'd birthed had to go on his merry way down the Flaggy. When she'd been Lainey's age exactly.

Now she couldn't help but remember the baby, so tiny and puckered. A huge old pair of eyes that knew exactly the waters that lay ahead. Just for one minute, settled in its boat, it had tried to put its whole fist into its tiny mouth. Not thumb-sucking. Not like Lainey and George. As if to acknowledge the vast journey ahead, it had strained to swallow up the whole of its little hand. In moonlight on a creek. As if eating itself was maybe the only answer.

How on earth had it happened, Noah also wondered, that before she's even reached thirty-seven, her hair is more grizzled with grey than the Magpie's itchy tail?

‘Notice what bloomin Mag's done to her tail?'

Lainey swung round to see it poking all up every which way from where the mare had rubbed it on a fence post.

‘Looks like a lunatic from Lassiter lives in there.'

Lainey laughed with delight at the image.

‘I got to get some of that yellow sulfur onto it. Start to rug her, too, come the autumn.'

‘Ready for the shows?' Although it wasn't necessary, Lainey kept an arm looped round her mother's waist. Lainey recollecting the
good girl!
, the genuine moment of praise from her mother, wished this ride could go on forever. That they'd never reach George on his rope by the old yellabelly pool. She tipped herself in a bit closer to hear what her mother was saying for her.

Noah's jealousy had shrivelled away like a yesterday, today and tomorrow in one of Ralda's flower saucers. She felt herself stepping out of the great big mare's nest that jealousy always weaves. She let Magpie have a long rein and the mare walked as good as any walk, trot and lead pony.

‘I'm just a cranky old bitch, Lainey. Me and me long tongue. But you know, how about this for an idea? Once you leave school, let's you and me set up as Nancarrow Team. I'm gunna speak to me dad. See if he might help us out. Before I married your father it was me and my dad. Had the team registered not only in his name but mine as well. A real father–daughter partnership we was. So, well, why not us? How does that grab ya?' The sense of mediocrity that had plagued her ever since her daughter's triumph had melted away as if by magic; as if from near disaster, triumph can always spring.

‘Reckon yes!'

Unable to know or not wanting to believe that around the whole of the state and beyond, the days of the high jumper were drawing to a close. That even if Roley had never turned numb, even if he had lived, the heyday, the great era of the show-ring high jump was just about over. The thing was that teams had never regrouped since the war. Old champions turned out to grass were never going to come back. Following in the lead of Port Lake, some of the bigger northern country town shows were rumoured to be scrapping the high jump from their programs too, with the Royals maybe not far behind.

Lainey, perched behind her mum, looked down to the piebald's markings on the left-hand side. Then down to the right. ‘Something special, Mum.'

‘What'd that be?' Noah drank in the lemon green of wattle trees, the blue and dark dappled creek. Of Uncle Owen there was still no sign.

‘Nancarrow's team symbol. On Maggie.'

‘You're joking me.'

‘No. Tiny little black heart. Perfect one. Wouldn't never have seen it but for sitting up here.'

It was as if the mare's coat held a jigsaw puzzle and the girl had found the perfect piece for a space long empty. And suddenly they were at George's spot and Lainey had slipped off to unsnap her brother before going across to her mum and Magpie to show the heart's exact location. All three then crowded round the mare, amazed that their lucky shape had been there all along.

Because now life could only be good, Noah was thinking. She saw the kink in her daughter's hair that resembled her own at that age. Although Lainey's was that much finer, it still looked as if wind and water had put in that curl, before letting the sun ripple and burnish it to brassy gold.

Somehow soon, resolved Noah, if they were going to be on the high-jump circuit, she'd better tell her daughter the facts of life. She would tell her better than she herself had ever been told by poor old Aunty Mil and Mad. Maybe even go to church, take George and Lainey herself Christmas morning and say a little prayer.

Come the New Year who knew what wouldn't be possible with their pair of greys and the Magpie with the secret heart. Maybe Ral could sew a little one on their saddlecloths since women weren't allowed in the silk colours.

‘And Lainey, we'll just start keeping eyes peeled for another piebald we will. A pair for our Maggie. A beautiful hunter. A gelding her height. Not another mare and no itch. That'll make our team complete.'

‘And what'll we call him, Mum?'

‘Some real good black and white name. How does Break O Day Boy grab ya? That was me Uncle Nipper's name for the butcherbirds, you know. Or if we did find a good little filly after all, Wagtail could go real nice, don't you reckon?'

‘Peewee,' tried out Lainey.

‘C'mon, George, give us your boot.' Noah legged her son into the saddle. ‘Next you, Laine. And you sit behind.' To her children's amusement Noah hopped on by leapfrogging up the mare's rump.

‘Or Little Lark?'

‘Reckon they're all good names, Lainey, and that we'll know as soon as we see the horse. Might be looking a little while. Might go to January sale just in case.' Right at that moment the intense deep song of a solitary magpie in a tree above them made mother and daughter know that much was still possible; the intensity of their hope only able to be captured by such a limpid song.

Holding the reins allowed Noah to if not exactly hug the children, then encircle them between her thin but strong, long and ever-so-lonely arms. From over at Christys' floated the gobble of the few turkeys that had missed the oven for now. It was a gentle funny sound. In recognition of this chance for change, even with the big bruise beginning under her shirt, Noah hugged her daughter even harder.

‘Would you look at that,' said Ralda to Min. ‘What on earth?' Because, just as the pump for her vegetable garden began to run rough, the apparition of three people on the black and white mare didn't look real. It looked like something from the circus was coming up the hill. ‘Pump's gone and got the hiccoughs. Did you tell Noh already then?'

‘Not on my life. Maybe she must be a mind reader,' said Minna.

‘I don't reckon she'll be none too happy.' Ralda put a small sweet finger into her mouth and sighed. ‘There's a lovely bit of breeze,' she said, and turned her fat face hopefully in its direction.

Minna, who'd sold Magpie yesterday to Stan Hanley, swigged her tea. ‘I dunno. Got a good price and that's the main thing.'

‘Maybe,' said Ralda and, losing concentration, sifted flour all over the front of her yellow dress and pinny. The heat of this day before Christmas was making her pant. It was hard to feel anything, let alone the usual pity Noah inspired. ‘Might as well eat me as bake that bit of Christmas pork.'

‘Hey? Come again?'

‘Me skin's that crackled.'

Minna, shifting her weight from foot to foot, watched Noah dismount down the black and white rump as if off a slippery dip. She heard the laughter of Lainey and George as they did the same. One thing that was for sure was letting George rear black swan chicks hadn't been a mistake. The poultry was roaming outside Ralda's withering vegetable garden. ‘Look at George's swans, eh,' she said as a fully grown pair, their necks as proud as the finest show horse, stepped in front of the chooks. ‘Regal, Ral. That's the only word for them.'

Money makes some men walk as if they are dancing. This afternoon the step-glide-step was all in Minna.

At first when Min began to speak after lunch, Noah refused to hear what it was that was being conveyed. ‘Are you saying you've sold Magpie from under me? That's not fair.'

‘Well I was the one bought the horse.'

‘Who done all the work? Who turned her from the wild sneaky bitch into the high jumper she is today?'

‘Got it on paper. Off eggboat man. Farm can't run itself. There's bills mounting. New separator not paid off. Wouldn't have even thought of that Magpie as being worth so much. At first,' lied Minna, ‘when Stan come up to see me about it I said, “Nup, not on yer nelly. Mare's not for sale.” Then he went higher. And just can't go knocking back an offer like that.'