Foal's Bread (27 page)

‘Oh, for crying out loud,' Aunty Ralda would sometimes exclaim, but whether the tiny tears springing down the fat of her cheeks were for her failures with confectionery in the kitchen or the sight of her brother's tormented walk, it was not clear. Now that the sugar rationing was over, she was practising this and that recipe. Anything that didn't quite make the grade went into Lainey's special tin.

Lainey loved the tin more than any lolly Aunty Ral could think to put inside it, because on its lid, under the golden writing
Celebration Biscuits
, was a picture of her parents jumping in the pair of hunters the first year they met. Her mother's hair was still in pigtails, flying out either side of her helmet. Her father's face looked to be turned just slightly to her mother's and wore one of those grins she knew so well. No photo entranced her so much. The pair of grey horses were fairly flying over a post-and-rail fence, both in plain snaffles.

‘It's a wonder that picture's still there, you look at it that often.' But she hardly even heard her aunties' banter. ‘Worn away by admiration it'll be,' said Aunty Reen.

But look, here was something never before noticed. In tiny black print on the back of the tin was the name of the photographer. Angus A. Cousins. This was worth studying too, because that was none other than Uncle Angus.

‘Don't you swear that Lainey's settin out to be a mirror image of her mum?' Lainey heard Aunty Reenie comment the day it had been confirmed that their little Wirri was to be one of the first shows back in action. Ahead even of some of the Royals.

‘Well maybe better than being mirror image of her dad,' Aunty Ral said, nearly choking on whatever it was she was slurping.

‘Mean thing to say!'

‘But true enough. True enough. To think that doctor could offer not one single thing. No reason. No help. Rol would've been better off consulting Fabey Lavers.'

‘They're just like a pair of old cows, aren't they?' whispered Lainey to George, putting her finger to her lips conspiratorially. Because the aunts were chewing whatever was in their mouths in the same slow rhythm.

It was Aunty Reen, living back at One Tree again, who said that Lainey was experiencing nightmares on account of being so tired—having to get up that much earlier to accomplish so many chores before milking each morning.

But it was Minna who waded in with a direct attack. What did Noh bloomin well think she was up to, keeping those two ponies she was handling for Lockyers way over in the paddock that needed the water bucketed? ‘Your daughter's not strong enough and Roley sure as hell isn't.'

‘Well,' shot back Noah, ‘Ral and all her lollies means Lainey's probably milking one whole extra cow just to keep up with all her 'speriments and failures. Where's it all going to stop? I say we need to hire a hand.'

‘Steady on, Noh,' Ralda chipped in bravely. ‘I'm working out what's what. For the show. All coming together now. You should ask Reenie for her opinion. Reckons Laine's not just exhausted but iron deficient and that all she's really needing is liver on toast for a week and she'll be right. She could even pick some up herself from meatworks one day after school. Reen said she seen it work miracles in children in her time at the training hospital, didn't you, Reen?'

Lainey just waved her hand at all the theories and fighting. ‘I'm not tired,' she said, pushing the calf muscles in her legs as far back as possible in the hope that they'd get as good a bow in them as her mother's. ‘Those horses need that paddock, cos it's got the most feed in it.'

‘'Zactly, Laine,' said her mother, who was doing the opposite thing with her legs so that her knees didn't hurt.

‘Well when your father kills a fowl for Sunday, Laine, you're to eat the liver,' said Aunty Reen.

To escape from all the orders and opinions, Lainey picked up her father's old stockwhip and went outside. Swirling it round her head she gave it a crack and grinned. When her mother came out, Lainey, filling with cheekiness, told her mother to hold out a daisy in her fingers and promptly cracked the flower off.

‘Whoa,' said her mother. ‘Wild West show for you if you get any better at that.'

In the lead-up to Wirri, Lainey was to see her father's temper flare for the first time ever. It would happen twice, and on the same day. Even though the high jump wasn't going to resume until next year, Mr Cousins and Uncle Angus had been organised to come over to help lift the top rail to see what the horses would make of some real height.

With Uncle Angus present, with his new Plymouth gleaming outside the paddock, the feeling was all different. Would he have his camera? Would he know how to be natural with her father, who most of the time had to sit in the old rusty Arnott's chair on practice jump days? It seemed alright so far, with Uncle Angus half down on one knee to be at her dad's level, and there came her mother now, leading the horses.

Because Lainey still wasn't quite tall enough, she was glad of her father's leg-up onto ol Seabreeze. She put her left ankle into her father's cupped hand and he gave her such a lift she nearly landed on the other side of the old horse.

‘Now we've put you in my old pad because we reckon it's going to be the best for you once you grow a bit. How does it seem? Stand up in stirrups for a moment.'

Obediently, Lainey stood up. ‘Maybe up a couple of notches?' She lifted one leg over the pommel of the saddle, allowing her father to make the adjustment, proud that he was the one helping.

Noah was already warming up Landwind and, with happiness in her heart, Lainey joined her mother. Compared to riding Fly or Tad, the old grey high jumper was like riding a river—this surge of power as she picked up the reins. The feeling that he'd carry you safely to the end of time if need be. She loved how you could tilt your hand into his neck to make him really bow his head. She loved the feel of her knuckles under his soft flyaway mane. The sound of the creaky old rings of his favourite bit.

‘When you're ready, Lainey,' said Roley after Landwind had jumped. ‘Just go steady.'

It was a clean, clear early autumn afternoon and as if the very air was glad, something in her just knew that they were in perfect stride for the jump.

‘He's flying today,' she said, pulling up next to her father.

‘Went so high I reckon you must nearly have seen the lighthouse at lake,' joked Uncle Angus, thinking, who was a damned fool not to have brought his camera? He watched the bright gaze that passed between mother and daughter and felt he couldn't keep his eyes off them. ‘No doubt about it,' he exclaimed, ‘but you Nancarrow girls can surely jump.'

‘Runs in the blood,' agreed Lainey's father. And unable to utter it knew they were like a call-and-answer bird. Noh the call, their girl the answer. ‘Now, Laine, that jump weren't too bad. Not at all. 'Cept for one thing, darlin. Do it like that too many times and you'll have to hit trouble. Won't she, Noh?'

Her mother nodded.

‘How come?' Uncle Angus seemed genuinely curious.

‘Well, just give him another go before we put it up.' Knowing already what the old horse was going to do but also that it was a lesson his daughter could learn better no other way.

Although the air in front of the jump felt just as smooth and good and glad, at the last possible moment the old horse dug in his toes and stopped so dead in his tracks that the only one to go flying over the fence was Lainey. She landed hard but straight away, embarrassed, was on her feet.

‘What did ya get off for?' laughed her dad. ‘Breezy, you old flea. But good. That's real good that happened.'

Lainey looked over at her mother.

‘Your dad'll say. He had to tell me too, when I was just a few years older than you.'

‘Real glad that happened,' he said, limping over to give her another leg-up. ‘Because that was your fault. You took away his safety.'

‘What?'

‘Chucked your reins away before take-off. See, though you had a real nice bridge in your reins, you didn't keep any contact with his mouth. So poor old Breezy had no choice but to teach you the most valuable lesson of all. No horse will jump for anyone long if that contact ain't there. That's when they'll swerve out on you. Take him round again. Just keep that in mind and you'll see.'

Sure enough, this time the horse curved over the jump.

‘Have to change his name to Seagull if he flies any higher than that,' said Mr Cousins.

‘Reckon our foal might want to be a bird too, eh Noey?' said her father when Landwind also thought nothing of jumping at least four foot ten.

At the recognition coming that it was going to be his wife and daughter comprising the Nancarrow team, Roley sat down again. So what? It'd be alright, he reckoned. He'd be their trainer. He'd teach his girl all he knew. He'd be at Wirri with them even if Reenie had to push him into the ring in Ralda's wheelbarrow. There'd always be things to see. Ways to help.

‘Pity you couldn't have a jump, Rol,' said Uncle Angus as Noah began to warm up the piebald.

‘I'm pretty well certain I'll be right soon. If not, I'll learn to live with it like I always do.'

‘I want to try her over six today,' called out Noah, cantering past. The mare, once so wild and sour when first bought off the eggboat man, had come along in leaps and bounds. Roley felt the pride in him get a bit bigger. His wife had done all the work. He'd barely even had a ride of the mare.

Mr Cousins and Uncle Angus lifted the height. Magpie was jerky on the approach but gee, couldn't she jump. It was a miracle to see. As Noah cantered past, Mr Cousins hooted and Uncle Angus gave a whistle of admiring disbelief. ‘Now I know I was an idiot to forget my camera. And what a shame no high jump at Wirri till next year.'

What even Lainey was aware of was that with an audience, her mother was behaving differently. Never had she felt her mother in such a mood. Her mum was laughing differently. Her mum came over and, staying on the horse, let Magpie stand on a long rein. Then she rolled one sleeve up high in order that she could kind of stroke the muscles of her own arm. One shoulder was being held higher than the other.

At first Roley, who'd noticed too, thought surely he was mistaken. But when he saw his wife accidentally on purpose undo an extra button at the V of her shirt there was no doubting it. Right in front of him, she was carrying on. Not for him, he knew, and not for Len, but for Angus Cousins, who even Ral pointed out had come back from war with the film-star look of Nelson Eddy himself in
Knickerbocker Holiday
.

Roley, who hadn't anticipated it, felt alarmed first, next sad. Maybe his mother was right, he thought. Maybe it was in the blood. Milda and Madolin. Maybe it was true about them pair too. That as well as board in one of their flea-infested rooms, you could have either one of them for little more than the price of a rum and a pint of milk.

Now Roley's mind shot back to when he'd just begun to go with Noey. How Angus Cousins had angled to get a dance and how Roley had outsmarted him every time just about, effortlessly, because in those days that look in Noah's hazel-flecked eyes had only ever been for him.

As her mother's strange behaviour kept on, Lainey wished that the Cousinses would go now. However, Uncle Angus, responding in kind, was saying had any of them ever felt shrapnel? And her mum the one! Having first turn with her hands on the back of Uncle Angus's bowed-down neck. By the time Lainey got to feel the strange little bumps, her mother was saying just one more jump.

Plain as day Roley saw that the flirt had entered into the horse too. The piebald half bucked with high spirits then cavorted on the spot before jumping six foot six clean.