Foal's Bread (19 page)

‘But jeepers!' said her mother at the sudden flurry of movement. ‘It's like we've got a little boxing man inside there. If he jumps as good as he kicks he'll be a champion for sure!'

‘Champion,' echoed Lainey.

‘Amp'n,' attempted George.

‘Her hooves need another trimming soon. Be good when you grow up a bit, Laine. What won't I be teaching you I wouldn't like to know. Tell you two what, how 'bout you come and help me down on flats? Might as well do a bit of flaming blady today.'

Shivering down along the creek pastures still frosty after noon, Noah chucked a lit match into each circle of old grass they came upon. But wasn't there a hopeful quality to this simple task too? Noah, holding George on a cushion in front of her on the pommel of the saddle, couldn't help but think so. The rolls of fat on it under his jumper! And Lainey already such a good and thoughtful little worker following behind on old Tad. The quality of frost had brought a quickening that made it possible to fully believe in the words that circled Ralda's favourite cake plate which had come out from England with Sept's mother.

‘Hope on, hope ever,' Noah said.

‘Hope on, hope ever,' chorused the children.

Roley, on the other hand, was full of a dread best captured by the sound his mother made when fighting with his wife. ‘Listen to them, would you?' he said to his sister out in the vegetable garden that afternoon as their mother went off. ‘Worse than your hens with fleas. They're that quarrelsome and restless.'

‘Screechin like a pair of ol birds,' agreed Ralda. ‘No wonder Mum always gets the worst sore throat.'

‘Then afterward they'll both be gittin round like something dead on legs. It's a hell of a thing they like each other so bad.' For a moment he wished he could just douse his mother in some Persian insect powder.

‘Should tell them go to Tobruk.'

‘Send the enemy running you reckon, Ral?' He watched her gathering in the last of the tomatoes. Then he hauled up an old carrot, grown in a fork that so resembled a pair of human legs that once again he directed a few thoughts to God. If you can make a bit of vegetable grow like that how about doing something with these ones? Although by now he'd totally stopped going to church he kept his prayers well mannered. His own legs were not getting better, they were getting worse. What was he meant to do if they stopped going for him altogether? What was the bloody thing happening to the left side of his tongue? How much more of his work could Noey take on?

Keeping watch on Gurlie that night he thought that if the mare didn't drop the foal soon maybe they would be better off taking her back down to her old paddock on the creek. This would have to be their sixth night of taking it in turns on foal watch. He yawned. Better the risk of wire or water than foal getting so big Old Gurl wouldn't be able to get him out. Be a hell of a thing then. She'd haemorrhage and die, nothing surer.

So lucky he was here, wasn't it? Even with the shame? Wasn't it better to be home at One Tree waiting for their foal than being blown to smithereens in some country or another where you couldn't even speak the language? Maybe dead and gone like Dunc before he'd had so much as a chance?

But this thought never worked for him. The very phrase most associated with Dunc had such power. ‘Lost in France.' Hadn't he grown up watching his mother and father and sisters on Anzac Day, his own eyes watering up at the trumpet call?

Five of his cousins had joined up. Noah's brother Chippy the same. And more Cousinses than could be kept up with so that, as Min was fond of saying, soon they'd be forming their own Cousins platoon.

Just when it seemed certain Roley was about to drift off into a light sleep, he heard the sound he'd been waiting these past nights for. When the waters of the old mare finally broke, they came with an almighty whoosh, just as Noh had predicted they would, as if just for a minute the river had risen in the ranges to catapult past One Tree
.

He felt the relief releasing some of the tension stored in his jaw. As with many full-moon nights on One Tree a wild sou'-westerly had begun to scud down from the timber-topped ridges. ‘Jeez, Gurl. Really picked it this time.'

He took a look out the window. There she was, seeking shelter in front of the shed, but maybe not for much longer. The wind was making the shed doors slam against the chain in the way his wife slammed a horse in the mouth if it wasn't listening. Noah had made him promise to wake her but now he wondered if that was wise. His mother had offered to have George and Lainey sleep over in Reen's old room all this past week, but for reasons Roley couldn't fathom Noah wouldn't have a bar of that.

‘No need for you to bloomin be there too is there?' his mother had said to Noey. ‘Mare might be better off. Less fuss the better.'

‘Yeah,' Noah had snapped back, ‘and what if Rol's legs give up on him? What then?' Which silenced all of them for a minute. For mentioning the unmentionable out loud.

‘Well for heaven's sake why not let George and Lainey sleep over with us?'

Round and round in Roley's head went the recent arguments.

‘It's her time, isn't it?' Noah was so quiet in her boots he hadn't even heard her come from the bedroom into the kitchen.

‘Did you hear her waters go too, darl?'

‘Something in me just knew. Woke me. And I already give Lainey and George hot milk before I put them down. That'll keep em as good as gold till morning—but if not, Ral said she'll whip across.'

‘First time I ever hear that whoosh you know.'

‘I only did cos of this pony of me dad's. That tame she was like a dog!'

In the moonlight Roley saw that his wife's face looked younger again, all pointy with hope and somehow less her own. ‘Reckon,' he said, ‘best if we just sit here a time. See how she does for herself. She's been rolling. Pawing up the corner. Might have to get her into a different place. Don't want her to have it right against the fence.'

When it seemed that Gurlie was getting nowhere at all they headed outside. Though their shadows by moonlight looked like dwarves stomping along in a bad mood, elation as sharp and clear as the freezing night air quickened in them both. With a Chalcedite foal what wouldn't be possible?

Although theoretically the mare was too old to be having a late-autumn foal, by the time they got closer they could see that though she wasn't yet down, the foal was coming.

‘She's forgetting she has to lie down.'

‘That eager for him.'

‘Oh now there,' as the mare's legs folded and she was down.

‘Well,' breathed Roley, for as more of the foal appeared, Gurlie had turned to nicker a welcome. Then she gave a little whinny and the whole foal slipped out.

Roley made a bit of an opening in the tissues. ‘Watch this, Noey. Ever seen this?'

Of course she'd seen foals or calves fresh born but never this moment. Never this way up and out of its birth bag, with the sac just sort of peeling down and away.

‘Where are his wings then, Rol?' Noah wanted to ask. For both at once they saw how the foal resembled nothing so much as the hatching of a long-legged butterfly.

‘This bit's magic too,' said Roley. ‘Cord just breaks. No need of a knife or nothing. But since old girl's not going to be able to do it for him, we gotta dry him down. She's all tuckered out.'

‘But gunna make it?'

‘Surely is. Go fetch us those rags, Noh. The tar. And George is in the money and Lainey's lost—we got ourselves a little colt!'

The big triangle of a paddock looked lapped by silver water with the moon itself a faraway eye burnt into a sheet of black paper.

‘A colt, is it?' Noah felt momentarily disappointed. ‘Although we would've liked a little filly,' she said, ‘colt means he'll be jumpin bigger sooner.'

‘Maybe, darl, maybe. You just hold him there.' As Noah cradled the foal, Roley crouched underneath it to dip the cord into the Stockholm tar before tying it with a peg. ‘D'you see his little foal's slippers?'

Noah looked down at the foal's front hooves and saw that he was indeed wearing what looked like a pair of tiny grey slippers. ‘What are they doing on? Next it'll be off to emporium in Port for a pair of pyjamas!'

‘So he didn't rip her when he come out.'

And at least this story has a happy ending, Noah was thinking. The mare hadn't wanted to be served. Sept, in what must have been one of his last outbursts, had switched the old mare across the face to make her stand for Kennedy's stallion. Noah, only there in case Gurlie proved difficult to reload, waiting in the cab of Len's truck, had heard it all. ‘Wee up,' Sept had ended up shouting. ‘Ya frigid bloody bitch.'

‘Now then,' said Roley. ‘If she don't get up soon, have to work out how to get this little fella some milk pretty quick.'

But just then the old mare was on her feet.

‘Will you look at that?' marvelled Noah, seeing their foal bright as brass find his own way to his first drink.

She thought back to that pony mare in trouble at Dundalla. Her father and Uncle Nip were there with ropes and what-have-you. Then her father up to his armpit inside, trying to work out what leg was where. Hauling the foal out.

They'd called for her then. To bring over a jug from the house. Mare weren't going to make it. Even though back on its feet, haemorrhaging real bad. Had to get the first milk from her.

Uncle Nipper had knelt at the mare's flank, making the milk flow into that little kookaburra-shaped jug using one expert hand. Next they'd carried the foal inside to warm it up by the stove. She'd been given the foal's milk to carry. Then it was a raw egg, castor oil and the new milk beaten up and put into a big bottle.

And all the next day she'd had to be its 'tainment. So that it decided to live not die. And her uncle telling her that mare's milk was the sweetest of all but that they'd make do by mixing up the baldy house heifer's milk with a bit of sugar.

Her uncle telling her she was the best girl in all the world for keeping him alive too. ‘Our secret,' his whiskery old delight. So that in no time she'd felt proud of that too. Being able to make that old teapot between his legs spring to life again.

‘Membranes coming now,' said Roley.

‘He reminds me of George.' Noah grinned. ‘That greedy! Listen to him go!'

‘That George,' said Roley, the love intensified by his longing to find the luckiest thing of all.

‘What are you up to now, Rol?' For her husband was hunting around in the afterbirth.

‘Go get the lantern, darlin. See if there's any lucky bread come.'

By the time she was back he'd already found it, gleaming there under the light of the moon. Quickly he'd wrapped it in his handkerchief. Feigning disappointment for Noah, making every show of searching in the afterbirth, he could feel the foal's bread there in his pocket already. Surprisingly heavy for something less than half the size of his hand.

‘No go?' Noah felt a momentary faltering.

‘Doesn't seem so,' as inside he felt glee at the thought of unveiling it for her. When they got back to their hut. When they were warm with a cuppa. That would be the moment.

In the moonlight the foal's head was like a little block of wood. Like he was carved. Milk all over the soft whiskers of his muzzle. The moon making it shine.

Next moment, the foal folded down.

‘Ready for his first sleep on One Tree, ain't ya,' said Noah. ‘Find out what colour he is for sure in the morning.'

‘Righteo,' said Roley. ‘We should get a couple of hours ourselves. Get Old Gurl some feed first thing in morning.'

‘If Minna'll bloody release any.'

‘Now, now. Mum'll be happy as us, Noey. You should know. One of Dad's last wishes, weren't it?'

Heading back to the hut, not even thoughts of Minna could alter Noah's sense that this night had a blessed feel, a fragrance made up of more than horsehair, blood, sweat. Everything about the future felt possible. Their dread, shared but never uttered, had been that they'd lose Gurlie and have to rear the foal by hand.

‘Withrows reckon that she was always such a heavy milker she'll be nothing but a rack of ribs,' offered Noah, stooping to go through the gap Roley made holding down the lower wire rung with his boot.

‘Not this time she won't be. We're gunna get her all the extra rations she need. Lennie says he'll give us some of last year's oats real cheap. Just whenever we need them.' Generous offers like this, from Len Cousins and others in the district, were to do with expectations that had grown around the arrival of this foal. The unspoken longing was that the birth of a new Chalcey foal would surely lead to all the peace and purpose of the Wirri showground being restored. All the boys home from the war. Jam and neenish tarts and best-decorated iced biscuit taking their colourful march back into the pavilion show cabinets. Boiled fruit cakes and plum puddings too, impeccable and round.