Foal's Bread (8 page)

The word hung in front of the Lighthouse, shocking everyone, but Minna wasn't going to stop now. ‘A bullocky's mouth. Like mother like daughter and I'll tell you this for a fact, Nesta Avery's mother was a drunk. As are her sisters, who run the boarding house by the hotel.'

‘That pair of old tarts?' Septimus looked interested for a moment. Hadn't one of them even been in a sideshow? Rumoured to have hair on, you know, the tit. Like a dog. And the thought seemed to make one big toe throb even more painfully.

‘Them. They're Averys. Where is she, any rate, Roley? Your girl? How come you didn't bring her over for everyone to meet?'

‘Just as well I didn't, the way you've been talking. She was cooking up Christmas lunch for her dad and any stray bloomin boarders too. At her aunties'. Lunch with the works, and it'd be a good one too.'

‘Wouldn't be surprised if they all leave the table hopping. Or slithering.'

‘What's that meant to mean?'

‘Sure it wasn't roast snake or goanna? That'd explain some of them oily Avery turned-up noses.' Minna eyed her son, measuring how much more she'd be able to give out. ‘Let's just hope she takes after the side of her family what knows how to hold a hoe. Because, Roley, you can call me a Sao biscuit but if they aren't touched with the tar . . .'

‘Says who?'

Now his mother's face resembled an anvil with a surface so pitted and wrecked you wouldn't dare use it to straighten a shoe. ‘No words necessary. Only have to look at some of her brothers.' Minna's mouth sagged open even wider from the rage building in her. ‘Black as our Lighthouse, only shiny.'

‘Listen here, Mum,' shot back Roley, roused at last. ‘On a day like this we should be more like the blacks. Keep on the move. It's a hundred and seven out on the veranda, you know. And if ever I seen a man who can handle the trickiest of horses it's that Sully O'Neill. Sooty maybe. The higher that jump goes the calmer he gets. Which is more than I can say for your company. I'll talk to anyone. Any colour. No difference to me. Noey's eldest brother, I'll have you know, was also lost in France.'

‘What we doing in this kitchen is what I want to know.' A more helpless, plaintive tone entered her voice. ‘The thing is, Rol, that just because the two of you ended up on this chocolate biscuit tin doesn't mean she's meant to be your wife.'

‘Thought it'd be the best surprise.' Roley looked over at the Christmas present he'd given his mother. ‘It was to us. Imagine, just seeing it up on the shelf in the Railway Cafe at Lismore. Horses were loaded but train was late in setting out so we thought time for a cuppa. Noh was the one spotted it. Like I say, not much Noey doesn't see. Thought it'd be a very special present. Her dad bought a box too.'

‘I just never imagined having a daughter-in-law called Noah.' Minna used the kitchen cloth to wipe up the sweat beaded like so many gleaming insect eggs under her nose. There were that many girls Roley had won with over the years in the pair and section hunters.

‘Where's the ark? Where's the ark?!' Sept Nancarrow, a bit carried away by his own wit, had to stuff another piece of pudding into his mouth to stem the fit of coughing. ‘You might be needin it, too, if you was idiot enough to choose hut on creek. Yer Pop mustn't have bin thinkin straight when that was built. If you'd seen us in the flood when I was no more than five. Nearly died, only that Dad tied me to pony what swum me to safety. You'd soon come to your senses after a flood. Why do you think he put the next hut way up here? And why I built the better bridge eventually?

‘Oh, you'd be much better off. Makes more sense. Share cookin and copper wood and that. No point of makin two of everything. Jeez but it's hot in here.' Septimus just wanted to go to sleep, because before you knew it cows would need milking. No such thing as Christmas for a cow. Never time to rest on One Tree. Never had been and never would be.

Sadly, Minna opened the lid of her present. Flora Marsh or that neat girl of Kentmans', or even Ava Ackerman. Why couldn't Rol have chosen any one of them, if he needed to have a wife that could fly over jumps? She looked down at the biscuits, which had melted into one long indeterminate shape.

‘Pity about the biscuits,' said Roley ruefully. ‘Choc caramel wafers I think they was.'

‘And strawberry.' His mother dipped a thickened little finger in and put it to her mouth. ‘Definitely strawberry somewhere in the mix, which is refreshing on a day like this.'

‘The tin. That's what we really got for you, Mum.' To increase the feeling of appeasement, Roley chose this moment to hand over some show clippings that she hadn't seen yet.

‘But, Rol . . .' Now it was his father's turn. ‘Mum's right. Ya can't marry a girl just because you somehow ended up on biscuit box. Don't get us wrong. It's a beautiful picture. One of the best, my word. But to be honest, we'd prefer it if you married a Catholic—wouldn't we, Mum?—to marrying Cec Childs' daughter.'

‘Your father's got a point,' said Uncle Lovell, wandering in still so stupefied by food that he was barely coherent. ‘A few years ago now but Cecil Childs killed a horse of mine. Putting a pair of fronts on and mare ends up dead!'

‘Is that a fact, Love?' Minna sat down with a thump. ‘What happened?'

‘He said he'd be right. Wouldn't need me there holdin her. I said, well, horse had a habit of pullin back sometimes. He said not with me she won't. I told him well just don't tie her up short. Not a moment later he's layin inta her with rasp and boot, not enough lead left to back up an ant, he had tied her up that tight. Before I could stop him she's gone over edge of gully and broke her neck tryin to git away from him.'

‘And yeah.' Now Uncle Owen had come in to add his two bobs' worth.

Roley shut the tin's lid and concentrated on the shot Angus Cousins had captured at that first Port Lake Show. No doubt about it but it was a good one. Noah jumping on old Smokey Quartz. Her beautiful position on that old grey horse. No wonder Arnott's had selected the photo. He loved how close her face was to his. Close enough that they could've kissed mid-air. Now there'd be a first. ‘And her not even fifteen at the time,' he offered to anyone who might still be listening.

‘He's love struck. He's not listening to us. But Roley, you'd better,' continued Uncle Owen. ‘They should've bin shot for what they done to that little pony of Highton's. Cecil Childs. Wouldn't know offhand how many horses he's killed by so-called accident. It's the temper in him, the good-for-nuthin mongrel.'

‘If you're talking about Hector Highton—' Ralda put her hands on her hips, ‘—well what could you expect but that nothing would stand still for even best farrier? Spoil a horse? Hector can do it in a day.

‘He went into doing farming,' she continued. ‘Failed at that. Then pigs, and failed again.'

‘Ralda's right,' said Roley.

‘Yes.' His father yawned. ‘None of the Hightons of that generation much good at anything.'

‘And Noey ain't her father.' Sensing victory, Roley's voice grew firm. ‘She's really something else. She does good getting their horses going in spite of having Cecil around waving his bloomin great stockwhip. And I'm bringing her across tomorrow so you'd all better make her welcome. She'll be feeling that shy. Imagine. But ask her about jumping and she'll be right. Cec got hold of two bloody good fourteen-two hunters what can high jump too. She went on and won the open high jump at Kempsey, you know. Beat her dad and me!'

‘Did she really?' his father groaned. ‘No doubt you'll be thinkin you can fill One Tree up with useless high-jump hopefuls.' But maybe, his thoughts were running, it would be something, a Nancarrow team travelling around, winning up big. Some of the high jumps were paying one hundred pounds first prize. Lots of milk got to be separated before you'd ever see a cheque like that from the Wirri cream factory.

Roley could feel the opposition collapsing like the last of the trifle's red jelly in the heat.

‘But her name, Rol,' his mother tried again, but weaker, her voice as soft as one of Ralda's chins. ‘What kind of a name is it?'

‘It's from the Bible, matter of fact.'

‘We know that.'

‘No, there's this girl Noah. Fifth daughter of—' Roley paused, not only for effect but to make sure he'd got all the syllables, ‘—Zelophahad.'

At the utterance of such a foreign and faraway-sounding name, the gathering in the airless kitchen, after a collective burst of derisive mirth, began to disperse.

‘Now there's a jumper's name,' shot out Sept, standing up and looking for his hat. ‘But hope on and hope ever and we'll be glad to meet her tomorra. Could have a Boxing Day picnic down by creek. How 'bout that, Mum?'

‘Couldn't we at least call her Nora?' suggested Minna, her sarcasm suddenly gone fuzzy in the almost unbearable currents of heat the movement of people seemed to have stirred up in her old wooden kitchen. ‘Or Nella?' She stoked up the Lighthouse, knowing that if she wanted a cuppa she'd have to make it herself.

‘Aw, not that, Mum.' For secretly, in the private world of their own making, he would always call her Nella, bringing back the first time he had set eyes on her. When he'd misheard the man with the megaphone.

It had happened bit by bit, the shift from thinking of her as being just like his little sister. When she'd joined the circuit with her father, they were rarely at the same shows because Cecil favoured the south, Roley the north. However, Port Lake always saw them in the same ring. Last Port Lake it was when she'd dislocated her shoulder. It was Roley who'd found her.

‘Just jam her back in,' she'd said, even with her face white with pain. ‘The faster the better. Not the first time it's been out and won't be the last.

‘Can happen getting on a horse too slow or falling off too fast. Ever since it dislocated at Bendigo. Had a crash off this mare of Cunningham's that had a bit of age on her. Gracious Song.'

‘Not sure I've come across that one.'

In touching the young woman she'd grown into, in bringing her out of the terrible pain, he'd become aware of the rest of her body. When he'd got the shoulder to pop back into its socket he'd wanted to make something delicate be next. Gee she was brave. He'd wanted to push those tendrils of hair away from her forehead. Never let her go.

Next came the dance.

He'd been so nervous that there were nicks on both sides of his chin still bleeding from his second shave of the day. She had really dressed up. There was a small bag off her shoulder. A little bit of lipstick and perfume. He felt dumbstruck.

By the time he went over to get her for the first foxtrot he knew his feelings for her had irrevocably shifted.

The way she came into his arms for that last Jolly Miller Waltz he was pretty sure she felt the same. And every time she'd laughed, a few more bits of hair had escaped from where her curls had been pulled back and tamed into a neat knot.

Then came their first kiss under the camphor laurel tree behind the hall. Not that she was the first girl he'd kissed. But in the years since their first Port Lake he'd never even thought of going steady with anyone. As if something in him knew that Noah Childs was going to be the one.

Same feeling of certainty that if ever they went in a hunt as a pair at Port, they'd usually be in the money, even if she was on that ugly old Ironpot and he on something neat and groomed of Sandersons' or Plunkett's.

As a pair they mesmerised the judge. It seemed as simple as that.

Holding her, leaning into the tree, he'd felt the pride in him that although half the hall that night had been eager to get her for a dance, it was only to him she kept on saying yes. Their bodies moving across that floor like they were one. Not even Angus Cousins or any of his brothers able to get more than a single dance.

With kissing, though, her mouth was so shy he knew he must be the first. The friendly taste of jam tarts and tea from the supper table. But the mystery of it all as well. How secretly exultant he was when she put her hand on his heart and said it felt like a racehorse in there about to take a run. He took the opportunity to brush that spot where her heart was hammering away too.

Then another kiss and all those hard muscles, their horse rider's sinews, tendons as tough as bone, melting into the softness that can happen when two such bodies touch.

How he loved that even then, her body tucking in against his own, the snort of laughter could arrive in its little throat. He knew he was hers and she was his. That from here on in they were officially set to go with each other.

‘What's so funny?'

‘The smell of you, Rol!'

‘Don't you like it?' He had been full of laughter too. ‘If you must know, I got myself so nervous I spilt half a bottle of cologne over me.' And it all seemed like a kind of perfection that, neither one being good with words, only the luck of that old photo suddenly appearing with them on the biscuit tin together seemed able to fully catch.