Foal's Bread (22 page)

Not a trace of a tear, Lainey could tell. ‘Dad's gunna get a lock of her mane,' said Noah. ‘Maybe get a bit of her tail and make a nice pair of reins. Cos Gurlie always had that good long tail. What about that, George? Can you hear me, Lainey?'

They'd reached the cream-can shelter that was such a lovely shape. With its pitched roof more waterproof than their old hut's, Lainey liked to imagine living inside there, her own miniature house, her own cream-can kitten that George could choose for her. Usually she imagined sitting in a comfy chair in there, commenting on the weather to whoever it might be going by.

They were turning left onto the Dundalla road. The sky was so blue that the jacaranda tree was just a blur of mauve by the house. ‘Well, here's what you do. As we go along the road to the swimming hole, you've got to remember the last ride we took on old Gurl. Remember, Laine? Before she dropped the foal?'

Lainey, holding George on behind their mother's back, did remember. The mare that pregnant that her legs could hardly accommodate the stretch.

‘If you can't kiss the eyelids then that's the next best way to say goodbye,' said Noah. ‘Alright, Laine? Got to remember something really happy that you did together.'

The thought of Uncle Nipper came next. Him it was who'd told her that. When her old cat was dying that day. His rheumy old eyes as if filled with tears in sympathy for her own. The hot washer he'd fetched for her face.

Only for one fleeting second did Roley, lining the sights up just in the middle of Gurlie's head above the line of her eye, think maybe this would be the best solution for himself too. He couldn't believe he'd even had such a thought, for any day now, he was still sure, that famous balance of his would be back. And he should be counting his lucky stars not to be aiming at any bloody German or Italian who might shoot him first. Just you, old Gurl, got too thin to live you have. But I'm not mad Milton McLeish about to blow out my brains in my own paddock. Jeez. Imagine. He let the rifle dangle in one hand.

Next a thought came to mind of his favourite cousin, Stan. Never coming back from wherever it was in the Middle East. Damascus, that's right. Dead in Damascus. Poor bloody Stanley. So clumsy all through school that once Roley had even crept up and tied him to the legs of his school desk with his shoelaces. Damascus. What kind of a place was that to never be coming home from? A good name for a horse. Roley had ridden a stallion of that name once, a jaunty chestnut, game for anything. Who'd owned him? Hirrips? That was right. Damascus. Good for the thirteen-stone hunts but not a place to get blown apart in. Not if you were Stanny Sweetland.

Old Gurlie had spilt most of her last feed out the side of her mouth. Teeth too pointy to handle anything other than pollard but even then most of it lost. Again Roley lowered the rifle. He'd known for some time this day had been coming, yet even so he wondered how he'd bring himself to pull the trigger. No choice now. Len and eggboat man organised to come help move her into the hole. Ralda and his mother had gone into Wirri. And now it would be exactly half an hour since he'd seen Noh taking the children along the road to the swimming hole at Oakey Flat.

Stan as a soldier. Stan who could never ride real well let alone shoot a rabbit or finish off a dingo in a trap. ‘I'll do a better job than Stanley, old Gurl, that much I can promise,' and put the moment off no longer.

The sound of the shot came just as George did another belly flop into the water. Lainey, pretending not to hear, also jumped in.

Anxious, Noah waited. She cast her eyes upward to where there were still some dark ripe mulberries right at the top of a tree. No, she would not think of that Little Mister. Not right now.

Just the one shot. And Noah felt the relief sweeping through that no matter what else might be going so slow and steady and mysteriously wrong with her husband, his eye was still in. Her love for him welled huge. That hole he'd asked Len to help with? No ordinary hole for a horse. With fencing crowbar and spade they'd dug out a special shape for Gurlie's hips. Even made her a head rest.

That night Roley told her that nor had there been any need for any rolling and shoving of old Gurlie. He'd dropped her close enough for that. With the other two men, one on each hind leg, himself at the front, they'd just eased old Gurlie into her place. ‘Would've been that proud of em, Noh. Even Acky the eggboat man. Handled her as carefully as if that cancer might still be paining. Made sure each leg was pulled out straight. Then Len said a few words after soil were on.' And Roley, after Len and Ack had gone, had taken his hat off and spoken the Lord's Prayer. Down on his knees, because why couldn't a nice bit of pasture be as good as a church, within sight of an almighty big practice jump and the sun on the back of his neck emphasising the urgency of his prayer?

Noah was never more smooth in her chores as when she felt she could resist not a moment more unburying some of her winnings. Even with the protection of the glass jar and biscuit tin the notes in their hiding place in the ground had quickly taken on the smell of the earth. Somehow they seemed thinner, too, as if they were little bit by little bit turning into leaves.

Thel Cochrane at the hotel knew them to be good though, and had stopped holding them up to the light as if they might have been eaten into nothing by moths. On the cream day after Roley turned thirty-nine, Thelma gave Noah a meaningful grin and poured her a bit of a wine in the empty ladies' lounge of the Wirri Hotel.

‘Where's the children then?'

‘Laine's at school now.' Noah couldn't help but see that Thel had poured herself a much larger glass. ‘Georgie's in with his aunties.'

‘Coming in for the Cup again?'

Noah shook her head.

‘Why ever not? Gawd, if I had half your luck.'

‘Nup,' and Noah took another mouthful of wine. ‘Don't think I could ever be so lucky again. It's how come I stayed right away last year. Wouldn't risk it. If Rol ever knew . . .' She didn't finish. She tilted her head to see herself in the mirror over one of the tables. No doubt about it, the mirror told her when the alcohol had only just begun to flow, but I'm a looker after all. That bit of Aunty Mil's blusher? She liked it now. How it gave her cheekbones that extra sheen.

What couldn't I have been, where couldn't I have gone if things had been different, ran her thoughts.

When Thelma disappeared to serve someone at the front bar Noah sat in such a way that her bust appeared to best advantage. She unbuttoned her collar, stroked her work-hardened hands and again consulted the mirror for reassurance. ‘You'll be trouble one day, darl,' Uncle Nipper used to tell her. ‘There'll be fights over who wants to dance with our Noey.'

She finished the drink and moved closer still to the mirror. In the absence of a husband she wanted to kiss herself. She shifted one side of her curling hair behind her ears and tilted her head. She lifted her shoulders. Put one higher than the other, then down. At a memory of Rol, the feel of his horse rider's hands, the hard muscles of his belly over her own, an agony of longing arrived.

‘Leave off me, Rol. I won't do it again.' Noah, back from Wirri, stared with resentment at her husband.

‘Exactly what you said last time. Gawd. You smell terrible.'

‘Don't get all savage with me now. Please.' Her tone of voice said it was his entire fault anyway.

‘Well why go see your aunties when you know by now what's going to happen?'

‘I was fixing up a shoe for them on their little cart-pony. Put in a couple of nails.'

‘Fixing on how to get more grog off them on tick more likely. They're an embarrassment, Noey. And you know it.'

‘My mother's sisters and all.'

‘And you're fast following in their footsteps.'

‘An embarrassment, am I?'

‘What kind of wife,' said Minna, appearing to add her two bobs' worth with ill-concealed relish, ‘what kind of mother ties up her son in the garden until he has sun fever? What kind of a person could do that to George? Lucky Reen is away or she'd have a piece of your hide.'

‘I didn't tie him up.'

‘Well why did he come home as red as a bloomin boiled lobster?'

‘That was Aunty Mil, cos she had accounts to do.'

‘And where were you?' Minna wanted to pick up her daughter-in-law and give her a shaking.

‘Oh, this and that. A few errands.' Seeing Lainey's chook going past, Noah leant down and scooped it into her hands. Only last week Little Darkie Eyes had killed a snake.

‘That's not what Grace Wingfield said.'

‘What would that silly cow know?'

‘Leave off, Noh. Leave off, Mum.' Roley grew weary of the constancy of their bickering. He knew it was wearing One Tree down more than any other kind of rationing. He knew that if his wife had had one or two she became frightening. She had needs and hopes. But it was like some kind of terrible unexpected weather really. The way she'd haul and tug at him even though that miracle appeared to have been for one night only. He rolled himself a smoke and looked over at Noah, the wistfulness causing him to nearly choke.