Foal's Bread (10 page)

‘And what day did she come?'

‘Friday before last.'

‘Is that right?' he marvelled. ‘Reckon there'll be a clipping of what I jumped on her birthday then. One of the luckiest days on a little pony I'd never rid before.'

‘And me and Mum was pickin up car in Grafton.' His father waited hopefully for the talk to move from the baby to the car, to his hope of a little tractor, but the number of women to men in the car meant that the story of Lainey's arrival wasn't over yet.

‘Guess where Noey ended up havin her?' said his mother with a triumphant note. ‘Same place I had Ral. But come faster. Ralda took three days and there was nowhere for Dad to get his dinner.'

Roley felt their happiness flowing through him, thicker and of more substance than the winter light.

‘It was up on the bloomin kitchen table for me.' At last Noah had got a word in. ‘No flamin time to get to Hinley's lyin-in home. No sirree. This little Lainey. She'd picked her day! She was coming, ready or no.'

‘Just so lucky I was home for weekend,' said Reenie. ‘Ral was all for still making the try. I said, “Don't be ridiculous. What,” I said, “do you want Noey to give birth in the cart going across the Flagstaff?”'

What would you know about it? Noah had wanted to flare at both her sisters-in-law when the pains began, because at first Ralda and Reenie had fussed around looking like they wouldn't be able to hatch a nest of eggs between them.

‘Lucky alright,' added Ralda. ‘Cos later I had to go over in a dead faint. But after, when it got real cold, I was the one that thought to make baby a bed out of a shoebox. Warmed up the bottom of it with rocks left in stove. The look of bliss on its little face.'

‘The cat what got the cream.' Reenie put one of her fingers into the baby's hand. ‘Have you seen her thumbs? Like a little doll is this Lainey. And she's a knockout, Rol. Compared to all the babies I've ever seen born.'

Squashed in the back between Roley and his sisters, briefly Noah remembered other things. Lying up on that big table with the river of pain opening into a flood inside, how could thoughts not have come of the other one she'd already birthed on Flaggy Creek alone?

Cantering Flat, Tin Kettle Crossing, Oakey, Breakfast and Heron Creek—listing in her mind all the places the butter box baby must've floated past. Still alive or sometimes dead. The possibilities shifting around in the glow of pain. But she never, not once, screamed out. Just in case Ral or Reen ever did get a bloke. Just in case she wouldn't ever be able to stop the scream.

Lucky alright too, remembered Noah, that none of the sootiness she thought she'd seen in that first set of tiny hands and feet had gotten onto Lainey. Him what she called in secret That Little Mister. Or Mister Littlie. Its arms. All blacky-blue under the moon. What happened to them as in her rush she'd squashed him in. How in her imaginings its arms always lifting up anyway in a useless attempt to flap away the big black crow picking out its little Uncle Nipper eyes.

With Lainey, once Noah's love began to rush out like her out-of-control milk, she'd even wished she had a pair of ears that she could've pinned back at Reenie and Ral. Tell them to leave off. So that for a moment she could be alone with her girl.

‘Thought we might come back to Wirri tomorrow, Rol,' said his father, pulling the celebratory mood into another, more serious topic. ‘Bit of news that's really gunna interest you. Just found out then that Withrows are sellin not only all their workhorses—got emselves a tractor—but also the old Chalcedite mare.'

‘What, not Chalcey Girl?' asked Roley.

‘That's the one. Old Gurlie. If you're still thinkin about gettin our own Nancarrow team happenin, could do a lot worse. Even if only got a few foals left in her.'

‘I hear that in her time she'd fly at anything and usually get over it.'

‘Oh,' said his father, ‘I remember her at Grafton when she was in her prime. She was a dashing, big bold jumper.'

‘Sure she's not gunna be too old to breed?'

‘They say it's only bad luck she's not in foal now. Took her to a young colt that hadn't quite worked out what's what.'

Roley looked out to Mr Wingfield's farm and to the old white carthorse which seemed to have been standing right there against the blue sky since he was a boy. He saw the bright green peep of their own barley paddocks coming through up ahead. Now that he was coming home a father, the green looked brighter, luckier than anyone else's barley. We're like that, he was thinking. All teeming and green with the golden grain getting ready to come.

‘Also said they might let go of Seabreeze, 'ventually.'

‘More mouths to feed,' butted in Min. ‘Can see One Tree's gunna fast turn into one of them dairies with five cows and forty-four horses if we don't watch out.'

Now Noah entered the conversation. ‘Your dad's right, you know.' In Roley's absence she had struck up a good friendship with Sept. ‘Chance will never come again.'

‘And, Mum, listen to this,' said Roley. ‘At that last Cairns Show? A big announcement for this new open high-jump prize. Worth winning. Two hundred pound it is, and another hundred if you set an Australian record. Oh, that brilliant grey pony—what was his name again, Noh? That one from Nimmitabel?'

‘Lucky Luke?'

‘Lucky Luke, that's him. Well, you know that old pony's had thirty-four wins already. Seventeen-year-old that one is, Mum.'

Roley's hand holding Noah's tightened with the excitement of the news that his father wanted to get Gurlie. Get her in foal. That was good, he was thinking. That was the type of time it was. Another hungry mouth. The more the better. Foals and babies of the future.

At that exact moment the baby gave a little snort and woke up again.

‘This is yer dadda, darling,' said Ralda, fishing around for a bottle.

‘Only be fully prepared for ugly,' said Sept, swinging in to One Tree. ‘Always end up with a big Roman nose. But at least they usually born with that big blaze. Be they chestnut, bay or brown.'

‘Like someone's splashed milk down their noses,' Noah said.

That gave Roley the surprising thought of his own Nella in milk. It was an incredible thought he didn't dare pursue. For now he squeezed her hand again.

A line of mist still hung in the hills way above the homes of One Tree. Silently but together they were both imagining the hill paddocks of the future, full of big-boned blazey-faced foals they would train up themselves.

‘Rainbow Chalice, Dance of Delight, There's a Girl, High Flight,' listed Septimus. ‘They're all her foals, you know. Good the lot of them.'

As the car climbed the hill of One Tree it rocked all the Nancarrows together in dreams of high jump. The rhythm in the names went in time with the rhythm of the littlest mouth lying as if on a huge yellow bed there in Ralda's lap.

His father's inexperience with the gears was also rocking Roley's leg closer against Noah's so that right there came the memories of the jacaranda-tree summer. Of bliss rolling out green as the winter oats, fresher than new hay. NN! Like double whips simultaneously cracking, Roley wanted to shout her initials. And RNN!—the brand they would use to stamp the foals. The initials that he'd carved into trees in at least four showgrounds before he'd raked up courage to ask her to marry him. Having these feelings right in the middle of everyone, not being able to shout, made the thoughts even stronger.

Noah, meanwhile, was secretly hugging the knowledge that their little Lainey had already been over a few jumps with her mum. Even the most unusual jump of them all—putting Tadpole over the grave of John Nancarrow, Roley's grandfather who'd first settled the block. The railings four foot if they were an inch and the spread almost as wide. Just to keep her eye in, pregnant and all. Just to fulfil her own dare.

Roley was more quietly reviewing in his own mind how, on a daredevil little taffy mare known as Lightning, he'd broken the Toowoomba Show's record, by a full two feet. Everyone saying afterwards that what! Did he think he was at Cairns? On Lainey's birthday. Quiet too with the thought of the other children to come, boys and girls, the more the merrier. His hand crept to Noey's thigh. Felt it through the frock she'd worn to meet the train. Felt the horse-riding muscles. Then looking at her to see how beneath that mauve cardigan the deeper yearning was coming out to meet that same longing in his own heart.

It would have been about four months later, almost the last day of spring, when Roley came up from checking on the old mare they had indeed ended up buying from the Withrows to say that she was on, and that he was going to lead her across to Kennedy's.

‘Ooh, for sure she's one of those quick-witted babies,' exclaimed Noah as Lainey put out her arms. ‘Knows her dadda. Reckon she'd be going right along with you if she could. Think old Gurlie will jack up at bridge?'

‘We'll be right.' Then Roley took his daughter into both hands and whooshed her this way and that. When a bit of milk came up, he grabbed up an apron and handed her back.

‘Just like a man,' said Noah. ‘Make a mess and leave the room.'

Roley grinned. ‘If I'm not back by four, Noey, you might have to tack a few shoes on for the Kellys. Bert might be bringing a couple of ponies over. Just wants the fronts done. I should be back in time.'

Noah just nodded. Normally she would've been unfazed, for as her father used to say it was as if she was born on an anvil; there wasn't any hoof too tricky for her to get a shoe on. Today, though, was different. Maybe she was wrong, but she didn't think so. Not going on the watery feeling of wanting to sick up her guts every time Ral or Min fried an egg after milking. Number two was on the way. Still, at least with any Kelly horse you could be sure of placid. Maybe she'd just have to hammer and puke, hammer and puke, and pretend to the boy holding them that she'd et something bad for breakfast.

At about five, as the pigs came squealing and galloping up to the bails early for their slops, Noah heard the first sound of thunder. Ooh those clouds coming up over the back hill looked mean alright, she thought, bonking the boar on the nose with a bit of paling because she hadn't finished emptying the buckets into the trough. Well, at least Kellys wouldn't be coming over. Her legs ached and still a million other little jobs to get finished.

By the time she'd got from the bails back up the hill, the storm felt much closer. Ralda, bringing Lainey across from Main House, said she didn't much like the sound of it. The storm was far off though, Noah said. Those first forks of lightning were so distant they must be like pony dapples coming through the baby's eyelids. For a moment she paused to look at the spectacular light and colour on the hills and ridges to the west. She felt that she could see the earth deep beneath the trees and felt it as part of her gladness.

Roley was about halfway home, leading the contented old mare, when he heard the thunder. In his mind's eye he'd been jumping every gate and fence he passed. Now, in a fanciful way, and partly to tame his fear, he lined up the storm front; estimated the distance of run-up required and the nature of a horse that would have a go at a thunderhead. The sound of a rainbird came preternaturally loud.

In almost no time at all the deep purple cloud had grown to resemble a steep black cliff amassing in the north-west. A light sprinkle of rain was followed by a wind so cold and clean it was stronger than a team of six horses.

Because he'd been struck by lightning twice as a child he had two responses. One was cocky, as if no lightning would ever touch him again. The other feeling was terror. ‘Gee back, Ol Gurl,' he said to the horse. ‘This is not lookin that good, tell you the truth, no it ain't. Nothin we want to jump in that, and it better have the same thought about us. I'm a father now.' He thought about praying. No time to stop though. They were nearly at the suspension bridge.