The Party Line (8 page)

The women, leaning against the long bench down the middle of the room, greeted Joy, then Audrey. Joy was pleased to see Josephine Janssen had made her own way to the hall — they often shared a ride, but Joy had forgotten to call her. The Zip reached its highest pitch and faded to a half-hearted whistle.

‘Lovely to see you, Audrey, what a surprise.’ Evelyn Maxwell reached over for a milk bottle. ‘It’s been ages, hasn’t it?’

The sunlight beamed in through the high windows down one side of the kitchen. It shone on two or three of the women and left the others in the cool shadow. Evelyn was being shone upon and she interpreted this as an endorsement to keep talking.

‘What’s that you’ve brought, Audrey? It’s a jolly big basket …’

Joy swallowed as Evelyn glanced around the room. All eyes were on the hamper. The women thought they’d smelled fear on Audrey. Joy
knew they were wrong; fear was not a feeling Audrey was capable of. That made her even more vulnerable.

‘Audrey’s brought us a cake,’ Joy said.

The silence lasted just a few seconds.

‘I can’t say no to cake, never,’ said Josephine kindly. ‘Let’s have a look, Audrey … let’s see what you’ve made for us.’

‘The cookbook’s more or less finished, unfortunately.’ Evelyn glared at Joy, as though Audrey’s bake-off was somehow her fault. ‘We’re taking recipes out, not putting new ones in.’

Audrey lifted the hamper onto the bench. She flipped the lid back and gently reached inside. Josephine helped, moving the basket away.

‘Oh Audrey. She’s a beauty. Isn’t it, ladies?’ Josephine smiled broadly and clasped Audrey’s hand in her own. Josephine touched people without a moment’s hesitation — Joy imagined this was a Dutch thing and felt a swell of worldliness that Fenward people had got used to it in a matter of mere years.

The platter seemed bigger than Audrey. On top were two large cakes, dressed with white icing.

‘It’s a carrot cake,’ said Audrey.

‘For goodness’ sake …’ The mutter came from behind Joy, then a whisper in her ear. ‘What are you doing, encouraging her …?’

Audrey took a long, sharp knife from the drawer under the Zip. She slipped the knife through one of the cakes, cutting a triangle. She handed the first piece to Josephine, then the second to Evelyn.

Evelyn sniffed at the cake. It occurred to Joy, for the first time ever, that her friend was ratlike. ‘What’s the icing? What icing do you put on a
carrot
cake?’ Evelyn bit into it.

‘Lemon goes well,’ said Audrey proudly.

There was silence, but for the eating of cake. Audrey waited and smiled at the crumbs on the plate before her. Josephine groaned in delight and Joy grinned at her.

‘This cake,’ said Josephine, ‘has gotta be in the book. No question about it ladies.’

Evelyn opened her mouth, her face pained.

‘I know, I know what you’re going to say. There’s no more room,’
said Josephine. ‘But hey, guess what? You can take my recipe out and put this one in. Audrey’s Carrot Cake. Yes.’

It was, in Joy’s view, a fair cake, and a fair decision.

Her frozen fingers searched inside her school bag and found what they were looking for — the velvet of her old ballet shoe bag. Gabrielle’s mother’s scarf was inside.

Nickie had left home wearing a woolly hat. When she was out of sight of the house, she stopped on the side of the road and pulled it off.

Sooner or later, she’d have to give the scarf back to Gabrielle. But once — just once — she wanted to wear it to school. To let Erin and Julie and everyone else see the beauty of it. To let everyone know that she and Gabrielle were best friends.

Erin and Julie were there already, putting their bikes in the rack. Nickie didn’t call out. She wanted to see how long it would take them to recognise her. She arranged the scarf across her shoulders, the sequins spitting in the sunshine.

Nickie never heard the person approach her from behind. She sensed nothing, until she felt the pressure of a hand settling on her shoulder. She turned slowly around.

She knew who he was, although she’d not seen him before. Her heart hiccupped. The warmth of his fingers seeped through her shirt and cardigan and raincoat.

Soon the fingers would start squeezing her shoulder hard, harder, harder, or move to her neck. Or maybe lift that scarf off her head, grabbing her hair as well, pulling it right out of its roots.

The hand didn’t move. She looked at Mr Baxter trying not to cry. His eyes were watery and he was frowning, as though he was trying to figure something out.

His hand lifted off her shoulder.
Here it comes
. She closed her eyes, waiting for pain. Instead, his big fingers ran slowly down her shoulders, following the path of the peacock tail. Very softly, like a gentle giant’s fingers. The cold wind touched her neck. Nickie swallowed, her eyes still closed. He caressed her again, and again.

Finally, she had to look. A single teardrop slipped down his face. He
turned from Nickie and walked away, without saying a thing.

Gabrielle was in the ute. Her father got in beside her. Nickie could tell they were talking; she wondered exactly how much trouble she and Gabrielle were in.

Julie and Erin had seen.

‘Nickie?’ Erin said, squinting, her chin poked forward like a chicken. ‘Is that
you
?’

‘Of course it’s her,’ said Gabrielle, who had waved her father off and joined the girls. Nickie looked at her closely, there was no sign she was upset.

‘She looks so
neat
,’ said Julie, touching the scarf. ‘You look so
neat
, Nickie. Could I have a—’

‘Sorry, Gabrielle gave it to
me
,’ Nickie said, stepping backward. ‘In the weekend when I was at her place.’ She couldn’t help but add that.

‘Well, can I just touch it then?’ asked Julie.

‘Okay,’ Nickie said. ‘Gently though.’

While Julie patted her on one side, and Erin on the other, Nickie tried to work out what had happened between Gabrielle and her father. Mr Baxter should have been angry, yet Gabrielle was calm and happy, smiling at the fussing. Nickie had to wait until the bell went before the others moved away.

‘What happened? Was he angry?’

‘I thought he would be but … he was more sad. I told him I’d loved that scarf, that’s why I sneaked it out of the box. I said it was my favourite thing of hers.’

Nickie lifted the scarf off her head and handed it to Gabrielle. ‘You’ve got to take it back. Tell your dad I’m sorry I made him cry.’

Her favourite job on the farm was feeding calves, and, now, her parents were going to pay her to do it. It didn’t take her long to work out why — if she was being paid, she couldn’t miss a feed. And if she couldn’t miss a feed, she’d have hardly any time to spend with Gabrielle. She looked at her smirking mother and said
Fine
and thought
I’ll fix you
.

On the first morning, Gabrielle rode up the driveway on a bike,
swerving around the puddles. Her white Beatle boots were whizzing round fast, she wore really bright green tights. It was hard to see what else she had on because of her raincoat. It was the mysterious purple colour of oil spilled in a puddle of rainwater.

‘I wasn’t sure what to wear,’ Gabrielle said, getting off the bike.

Nickie wanted to say that she had just the right outfit on for feeding calves. But those boots would be wrecked in seconds and the calves would try to suck at the beautiful jacket and Gabrielle would never want to come back and help, who could blame her, and Nickie’d be feeding calves on her own.

‘Um,’ Nickie said. ‘Wait there.’

They walked over to the shed, Gabrielle in Nickie’s clothes. Nickie explained how you had to put your fingers in the mouths of the smallest, skinniest calves and lead them, sucking, to the teats on the feeding machine. You had to make sure the shyest calves didn’t miss out on the milk. Nickie asked why Gabrielle hadn’t fed calves before. Gabrielle just shrugged her shoulders.

When they were nearly finished Mr Janssen came out of the shed. He said something to Mrs Janssen in Dutch; they were both looking at the calves. Mr Janssen grabbed one of the smallest calves and picked it up. He carried it like a baby out through the gate and along the tanker track to the calf pen on the side of the road. Mrs Janssen picked up another skinny calf and followed him.

‘Where are they going?’ Gabrielle asked.

‘To the bobby calf pen,’ Nickie said.

‘What’s that?’

‘They get picked up by the bobby calf truck.’

‘Where do they go?’

‘I don’t know, to some guy called Bobby, maybe.’

They cleaned out the calf feeder and helped Mrs Janssen put the calves in the paddock next to the yard, then headed home. Nickie said hot chocolate was a good idea. She hoped that if her parents saw Gabrielle while she was in farm clothes and not one of her usual outfits, they might get over their weirdness about her.

There were good smells coming from the kitchen.

‘Mum, this is Gabrielle,’ Nickie said.
Please don’t be embarrassing. Please.

‘We’ve already met, haven’t we, Gabrielle?’ Joy was smiling. ‘Remember?’ When you first arrived? The night we brought the food round?’

Gabrielle laughed and Nickie held her breath. One of her mother’s best tricks — being really nice to get information. It was like watching a cat sneak up on a whole lot of sparrows. One of them would die, you just couldn’t tell until the last minute which one it would be.

‘Oh yeah. That’s right, thanks for the food. It was yum. And very much appreciated.’

Nickie looked closely at her mother. Joy smiled and nodded and said that Evelyn was a great cook.

‘Can I ask you something, Mrs Walker? About the calves?’ Gabrielle said.

‘Of course.’

‘Who’s Bobby?’

‘Bobby?’

‘Bobby who gets the calves from the side of the road. In the little tin house.’

Joy laughed. ‘Oh, the
bobby
calves.’ She was dishing two big plates of eggs and bacon and toast. ‘Bobby’s not a person. I don’t know why they’re called bobby calves, actually. But the calves go to the works. Sit down you two, eat while it’s hot.’

The cutest, smallest of the calves got killed. Nickie had, her whole farming life, never known. She even helped carry them out to the pen. She’d been carrying them off to be murdered.

‘Why?’ she asked Joy. ‘They’re the littlest ones. Why pick on them?’

‘We’ve just got no use for them. They’re mostly the boy calves. They can’t produce milk, and they can’t have calves. We get rid of them so we don’t waste money on milk and feed for them.’

Nickie blinked down at her breakfast.

‘Aren’t you hungry, Gabrielle?’ said Joy.

‘I’m a vegetarian. Actually.’ Gabrielle picked up a piece of toast
from her plate and carefully, with her knife, scraped away the eggs. She bit into it. ‘Very good toast, Mrs Walker. Thanks.’

Joy leaned back in her chair, folded her arms and stared at Gabrielle. ‘
Vegetarian?
’ She said it as though it was a disease. ‘The chicken isn’t killed when it lays an egg. Why on earth wouldn’t you eat eggs?’

‘Their cages.’ Gabrielle reached across the table for the jam. She smeared it across her other piece of toast. ‘If they’re kept in tiny little cages, with no room to move or walk around, then I won’t eat their eggs.’

Joy started clearing up. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life,’ she said. ‘They’re brainless bloody birds.’

‘I can see Gabrielle’s point of view,’ Nickie said. It was safe to say something, now that she’d finished her breakfast. Her last ever meal of bacon and eggs, possibly. ‘You’ve got to agree, Mum, that our chooks don’t have much of a life.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Joy.

‘Kept in a wire cage. Watching their unborn babies roll away from them, no arms to stop the eggs going down into the collection tray. How awful would that be?’

Nickie and Gabrielle fed the calves, before school and afterwards, but they didn’t talk about the bobby calves again. Nickie was too scared to bring it up, it was hard to talk about death with someone whose mother had just died. And Gabrielle never mentioned it. They did talk about being a vegetarian, though. Gabrielle said Nickie should feel no pressure to be one, too. It was personal choice, she said. Sacrifice for the greater good wasn’t for everyone.

Sacrifice for the greater good
. The words rolled round Nickie’s head every time she biked past paddocks full of cows. It felt as though those eyes, big and brown like puddles, were accusing her of murder. She told Gabrielle that she was probably going to become a vegetarian very soon. She didn’t say that she’d prefer to wait until the ham in the fridge was all gone. Ham was a treat, only when it was on special. Usually it was luncheon sausage. Luncheon would be easier to sacrifice than ham.

The weeks went by, then it was religious instruction Friday again. They did the usual Our Father to start with and waited to see if Father Brindle fell asleep, which he did. Gabrielle stood up. She stepped over everyone’s legs, reached out to grab him by his sleeve and shook it hard.

‘Father. Wake up.’

Everyone else went quiet. Father Brindle twitched awake.

‘You fell asleep,’ said Gabrielle softly. ‘Before we got to the end of Our Father.’ She stepped through the bodies and legs, back to her place on the mat. A few kids were giving her dirty looks. She gave them dirty looks back.

‘Father Brindle,’ said Gabrielle. She had her legs crossed, and was leaning forward with her hands clasped in her lap. ‘Do you do requests?’

‘What do you mean?’ He squinted at her. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You know, can one of us request a story from the Bible? Like on the radio on Sunday mornings, they have requests for stories. I thought that if you had nothing special planned for this morning, I’d make a request.’

Never, in the whole seven and a half years that Nickie had been at Fenward Primary, had anyone asked for a request during religious instruction.

‘What exactly is it that you want to know about?’ He looked a bit frightened, nervous that her question would be one he couldn’t answer.