While I Live (12 page)

I’d hardly stopped rolling before I was up and running back to the bike. Between my chronically bad knee and the ache in my calf from a bullet wound during the war, plus all the new pains I’d now added, I wasn’t running too fast.

Despite that I picked up the bike and got it going and was away again inside thirty seconds. But in the next few minutes I started to really hurt. I felt jarred and bruised and shaken and I had dust all down my left-hand side. I pulled up outside the house and staggered in, with only my right-hand side working properly.

Gavin was watching TV but his radar was in good working order. One look at me and he was out of his seat and following me to the shed.

In the machinery shed, as we threw a winch and ropes and chains into the back of the ute, I told him the situation. ‘The cattle got out of the paddock and some of them are bogged in the lagoon.’

Marmie was leaping around barking with excitement so I chucked her in the cab of the ute as well. Gavin got in from the other side and away we went.

This time I drove a bit more carefully, but not much. I was relieved to see when we got there that the cattle had spread out and were grazing peacefully again. But there were four bogged, two of them cows. Their calves were running backwards and forwards along the edge of the lagoon making that pitiful yearning noise that calves are so good at doing.

Trying not to stir up the other cattle we moved as many as we could back into the paddock. I did use Marmie for this. Once she was in the right place she did OK. In other words if I put her behind the mob and encouraged her to fetch them up and to let out a nice little bark once in a while she was quite effective. They say a good dog is worth three men. Ignoring how sexist that is, I’d say Marmie was worth as much as Gavin and me, this time anyway.

There were other times when she was as useful as a stuffed olive.

I left Gavin to put the fence back up as well as he could. I told him to tie Marmie to it when he was done; she would bark her little head off at any cattle who came within twenty-five metres. While he was doing that I ran down to the lagoon.

It was a cold afternoon and already the light wasn’t good. I dreaded going into the water but I didn’t have a choice. I screwed up my face and waded in with the rope. I thought I’d deal with the cows first, but I realised as I got closer that one of them was in deep mud and was stuck more firmly than the other three. So I thought I’d try to get the other cow, and the two steers, and then worry about the worst cow.

I ploughed my way through the mud and water, making nice encouraging noises as the first cow eyed me suspiciously. You say such ridiculous things in situations like that, because you know no-one’s listening. ‘Who’s a pretty girl then? Having a mudpack to make you look even lovelier? Hey, have I got a bull in the next paddock who’d be hot for you. Yeah, baby.’

I think it must have been the promise of the blind date with the bull that did it, because she stayed quiet and let me slip the rope around her. Then I reversed out, up the hill to the ute. I would have preferred the tractor but there hadn’t been time to get it. The ute was a four wheel drive with a limited slip diff so I figured it’d be up to a job like this.

I looped the rope round the towbar and took off at eighty k’s an hour. No, just kidding. But I was thinking of the ad on TV where the farmer pulls the cow’s head off. I eased the ute up the hill, checking the rear vision mirror and wishing Gavin was back already so he could give me a few signals. But everything went OK. The cow popped out and started dragging her weary body to the edge of the lagoon. Her calf came towards her at the gallop.

I got the rope off her and left them to it. I would have liked to put them back in the paddock but there wasn’t time. I had to hope she’d have the good sense not to bog herself again, although using ‘cow’ and ‘good sense’ in the same sentence is probably a bad idea.

I knew it’d be dark soon so I splashed in and roped up the first of the steers. As I sloshed back to the ute Gavin reappeared. I was extremely pleased to see him. Now all I had to do was watch his signals as I got the ute into gear and inched it forwards. Again we didn’t have any problems. Gavin gave me the thumbs-up, with a big grin, and I was able to leave the ute and go back to the lagoon.

On one side of me was the calf frantically guzzling at the mother we’d pulled out, on the other side was a muddy steer shaking himself and looking pissed. But already he was grabbing huge mouthfuls of grass, tearing it off as fast as he could chew. That was a good sight: food can work miracles for animals in poor condition, giving them new energy. And these beasts could have been in the swamp all day while I was at school. In the cold water, weakened by their struggles to get free, they would have used up energy fast.

The second steer was not so easy. I knew this guy: he was a bad-tempered evil-minded mongrel. I had names for some of the cattle, even though they say you should never give names to animals you’re going to sell for slaughter, because you bond with them too much. This one I’d called Major Harvey, after a man who’d tried to kill me during the war, so I was never going to bond with him.

As soon as I got close he started. Tossing his head and showing the whites of his eyes, snorting. If he could have he would have pawed the ground and taken a few steps towards me, in the charming friendly way that he had. Reminding myself that even if he was unpleasant and bad-mannered he was still worth at least a thousand dollars, I tried to get the rope on him. Soon though I was wishing he had less energy, were weaker, because I realised it was just too dangerous. I had to think of another strategy.

I backed off and used a bit of mime and a bit of lip-reading to ask Gavin to get me some hay. In the meantime I headed over to the last cow.

She at least wasn’t interested in attacking me. She was rapidly losing interest in everything, even life. The trouble with her was that she was deep in mud, so deep I knew I could never get the rope under her and a rope around her head wouldn’t be enough. I had to be careful I didn’t get caught too. Fifty years ago an old lady on a farm in the Holloway Valley had died when she got bogged doing this.

The cow was shivering, with cold and distress. I was starting to shiver myself. As the sun sunk away and the shadows fell across the lagoon the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees in a moment. I got out of the water again and waited for Gavin. I jumped around and did a bit of jogging and waved my arms and then had the bright idea of running the two beasts I’d got out, with the calf, up the hill to get them further out of the way and closer to their paddock. It helped warm me up a bit and achieved something as well.

I was almost sorry when Gavin came back because I knew it meant I had to go in the water again. The only consolation was that it meant Gavin had to go in too. He didn’t even blink though when I told him what I wanted, just marched down to the water’s edge and started on in. ‘By God,’ I thought, following him, ‘you’re not bad sometimes.’

Being so short he had a problem getting to Major Harvey and at the same time keeping the hay dry. He was virtually swimming when he was only halfway there. I could see that wasn’t going to work. I got him to come out again and went up to the ute and got the smaller tarp and we put the hay on that. Then with Gavin pulling it and me following and pushing, we set off again.

We had the steer’s interest now. It never fails to amaze me how cattle love hay. They’ll do anything for it. To them, hay is like Neapolitan ice-cream, mangoes, Cherry Ripes, all of the above.

Major Harvey eyed it greedily, at the same time as he eyed me suspiciously. ‘Meals on wheels,’ I said to him as we approached. ‘Hay to take away. What about a tip? Don’t fool in the pool? I can’t believe we have to go to all this trouble just to save your miserable life.’

He took a greedy grab at the hay as soon as Gavin got close enough to swing it around in front of him. I waited till he was on his second mouthful, then, just as he was finishing, got the rope onto him.

After that it was easy but we’d wasted another half an hour and it was getting seriously dark and seriously cold. I was shivering like crazy but there was nothing else for it but to go in again.

The blackness of the water made it look evil. I took half a biscuit of hay with me, to see if she was interested. Although her head wasn’t far out of the water she wrenched a good bunch of it from my hand and munched it down. That was encouraging. But I had the feeling she was there for the night. I couldn’t see any way to get her out. The hay should give her a bit of strength but I was worried she would get too tired to keep her head out of the water, and she’d drown.

I waded back to the bank. I started thinking almost longingly of the rifles in the ute. A swift flash in her brain, no time even to feel anything, and then the darkness. It would be kinder to finish her off, and most farmers would have been reaching for a gun by now. We’d done all we could. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours the mud was going to seep into her mouth as her head dropped, and her mouth would fill with water, and then her lungs, and she’d disappear forever. The rifle was the way to go.

Instead we made yet another trip to the house. Squelching into the ute we drove back and got the old table from the shearing shed kitchen. At the same time I filled a few five-gallon buckets with hot water.

When Gavin realised I was going into the lagoon again he suddenly starting bossing me around. I’d seen him do it with other people before, but never with me. It’s true I was shivering uncontrollably. He told me to go in and dry off and change clothes. ‘It’s a waste of time,’ I said. ‘More laundry, and for no good reason.’

‘You do it,’ he said, using both his arms to push me away from the ute.

‘But we’ve got to get back.’

‘The cow can wait.’

Honestly, it was like having a mother again. But I did feel a bit better when I came back out dry and warmer.

I floated the table out to the cow and jammed it in the mud and got it under her head while Gavin shone a spotlight from the bank. It looked like it might work but I still didn’t know if she’d die of hypothermia during the night. Poor thing. I gave her a hug then went and got the first bucket and poured that around her, to give her a few minutes warmth. Then backwards and forwards with the other two buckets.

I did the same routine with the buckets three more times during the night, without waking Gavin. Pulling on wet clothes is absolutely and totally my worst favourite thing in the world, but I knew if I wore dry stuff every time, I’d break all records for laundry.

I took her down a biscuit of hay each time, but I still didn’t see a way to get her out. I tried to think laterally. Get a bulldozer and dig a trench to her? Get a front-end loader and lift her up in it? Wiggle my nose and say a magic spell?

The last time I went out, at three in the morning, under a clear cold sky, she was sinking, and not just literally. They say that three in the morning is when a lot of creatures, including humans, are at their lowest ebb. It’s when hospitals have the most deaths. But there wasn’t anything else I could do for her.

Or was there? I had set the alarm for six o’clock, because I thought our best chance would be at first light. Gavin, yawning and grumbling and about a quarter awake, came with me. I had a plan but it wasn’t much of one. I chucked another biscuit of hay into the back of the ute, got in, started it up and drove forward, towards the first gate that would take us to the lagoon.

And suddenly, to Gavin’s shock, I turned hard left. Because now I did have an idea. I don’t know where it came from and even as we reached the road I was trying to figure out how it might work, but, totally stupid though it was, I sensed it might give us a chance.

Only ten minutes down the road were the Anlezarks. Jamie went to Wirrawee High School. Each morning he caught the same bus as Gavin and me. He was older than me. He was one of the best cricketers in the district. He had a girlfriend called Natalie. He had the personality of a cane toad out of mating season. And he had more drugs than the rest of Wirrawee put together.

Mr Anlezark just about swallowed his toothbrush when he opened the door and found it was me.

‘Ellie, what’s wrong?’ he asked, but it was hard to understand him with his mouth full of Colgate.

‘Is Jamie home?’

‘Well, yes, but it’s so . . . I think he’s still in bed.’

‘Do you mind if I see him? It’s only for a second. Project for school. It’s important, otherwise I wouldn’t bother you at such an early time.’

I was already going up the stairs, hopeful that if I kept talking I wouldn’t give him a chance to stop me.

Jamie’s room smelt like he’d drenched it in cologne that he’d picked up for $1.99 a litre. I hadn’t met Natalie but I don’t think she had a lot of class.

If he hadn’t been awake before I burst in he was wide awake a moment later.

‘Ellie? What the hell is this?’

The shock sent his voice so high that it was like puberty had never happened.

I got down close to his ear, though it wasn’t pleasant. I still hadn’t had breakfast. I could feel my stomach going murky.

‘Jamie, I want a truckload of those little pills you’ve been telling me about for so long.’

‘Are you crazy?’ His voice had gone hoarse and husky now. ‘You come here at six thirty . . . my parents are right downstairs. What did you tell them?’

‘Nothing to what I’ll tell them if you don’t give me a couple of dozen tabbies.’

‘You are crazy. I don’t even have anything. You are just plain crazy. Get the hell out of here.’

‘Not without something very stimulating. Something wild.’

There was a knocking on the door. I heard Mrs Anlezark’s nervous voice. ‘Ellie! Are you OK? Can I help you?’

‘I’ll only be a couple of mo’s, Mrs Anlezark. I just need a bit of help with something.’

Jamie got out of bed, kicking the doona aside, muttering and cursing and glaring, then stumbling over his cricket bag. He threw open his wardrobe and groped around at the back of the top shelf. He chucked a small plastic bag at me, but because it was so light I had to go halfway towards him to pick it up. There seemed to be about twenty green pills in it.