Foal's Bread (13 page)

Thus, bit by bit, like the slow-to-ripen fruit of the two little yellow and red jam trees next to the vegetable garden, with George's arrival a new colour was coming to One Tree. The colour was made up of many things.

It was the jaca's seed pods, green still but slowly darkening. The sound of the magpies too. Such a handsome bird. Such a haunting song in the middle of the nights of this spring time of year.

It was Roley, down on his knees in the old wooden church at the edge of Wirri, layering his prayers like he was putting out blood and bone in a paddock; getting ready to head with the Sanderson brothers' team for the spring circuit just beginning. Giving thanks for George, who strangely enough had brought about some kind of truce between his mother and wife. Hard to put into words, but it was similar to feeding a pig molasses. That blackness somehow giving a pig the cleanest stomach to put into brawn. A triumph from tragedy, he prayed, in front of his own lightning-strike pew at the back of the church.

In these different colours of One Tree was also Ralda, making something new, frying them up on the Lighthouse, things more pancake than pikelet, as round and placid as George's face. And there was Lainey too, heaving herself up on the baby's cradle to put a finger coated in batter in its mouth, somehow protective already of her baby brother.

These are the golden days, here is the golden year, hurry-hurry-hurry
, the air of One Tree seemed to be singing each morning to the whirr of the new separator.
These are the hallowed ones, do take your chances
, gurgled the stomachs of hungry horses when Noah went past with a bucket of pollard and bran mixed with slops for the pigs.
We do not always know but I'm a pretty cow
, Ralda thought she heard her own belly rumble, cracking the twentieth guinea-hen egg open in the hope of a sponge while the oven was still hot enough from breakfast.

Even Minna's feelings of revulsion for the baby bit by bit changed into something else. This was nothing to do with any words, biblical or otherwise. It came from holding George when she had to mind him in Main House sometimes.

Such a feeling of peace could come. Like God must lay in his heavier than normal limbs; like his milky little snorts and gasps were a kind of language his Nin was just going to have to learn. God purring, or something like that. You only had to stroke the fat bald altar that was the back of his head and whisper
George
, to feel the blessing.

She knew when Grace Wingfield came over she thought herself to be better than them. Too good to have a proper look, let alone a cuddle of George. Well, Minna thought, she would never know what she'd missed. Never know nothing about seeing that slow smile beginning to uncurl or even the way fat tears could plop as heavy as flood rain down his cheeks like a kind of Eucharist for the holder alone.

When all the colours come together you get the white of that half-jersey heifer's milk, half cream and as sweet as if sugar has already been sprinkled in and stirred. Dolloping a scone for Mrs Wingfield with such a spoonful Minna knew this without having the words. Swallowing that kind of whiteness you got this feeling of purity, of perfection. Same as caring for George.

Waste of good cream, she thought, watching her neighbour eat it down.

The birds were more able.

‘
Golden year
,' sang out a butcherbird in the top of the jacaranda.

‘
Here, here, here
,' answered its mate down in a tree by the Flaggy.

‘We love him however he turns out,' Minna said, deciding those words were best, for forgotten already was the fact that her first response to George had fully resembled Mrs Wingfield's fascinated, thinly disguised horror. ‘Minus his marbles and all, he's still our grandson.'

‘Always be plenty of room in our truck for George,' was Roley's standard explanation. ‘No matter how big he grows.'

‘
Ah, sweet mystery of life
.' Ralda baked, singing her favourite song.

‘Ah, George!' They chucked him up in the air like a full-to-bursting half-bushel bag of wheat; then onto a horse before he was even walking and, unless in the company of people who didn't know him, almost forgot altogether that he wasn't ever going to make the full quid.

CHAPTER 6

R
oley had worked out a plan and they were sticking to this. While the children were still small, he went away on the circuit alone but was home for winter to cut timber, shoe horses or whatever. Noah helped in whatever way she could, working her guts out to build up the savings required if their dream for the truck was going to come true.

What he hadn't planned on was the numbness. As George grew older, Roley noticed that the strange sensations of the lightning-affected foot were creeping higher. Last year, on George's third birthday, Roley had burnt his hand, not knowing he'd picked up a hot pot. The burn was so bad that the scar was still there on the side of his thumb. At the Christmas fundraiser dance at Oakey Flat he'd felt like a puppet with a lunatic in charge of the strings, jerking him so much here, there and everywhere that Noey hadn't a chance.

‘So are you going to tell us how come you're home early?' asked Noah, because it was a bit of a mystery, local shows not set to start for another ten days.

‘Oh darl, you tell us your news first. You're the important ones, isn't that right, George?'

‘Well . . .' Noah began. ‘You wouldn't read about it but this time last week, cos of the sun and from guzzling down that sweet jersey milk before we'd hardly begun, Lainey there grew dozier and dozier. We were out with your father, going looking for any stray weaners before the last sale. I had George up in front of me and he was already snoring. Next time I looked back Lainey was also out like a light. But good ol Tad just going along, following that little horse I'd bin sorting out.'

‘Whose pony was that?'

‘Harold Cousins brung him across soon after you left. Anyway, I pull up, cos suddenly he seemed a bit lame. Lost a shoe we had.'

Lainey sat on her father's knee, slowly eating the lollipop he'd bought her from Sydney's Easter Show; relishing it almost as much as being the centre of the story.

‘Next,' continued Noah, ‘Lainey pipes up and says, “Pop! Bloody shoe fell off. I saw it goin down road like a cartwheel.” Then takes another slug of milk from bottle slung around neck and was fast asleep again.'

‘No doubt about it.' Roley smoothed his daughter's hair off her face. ‘You and George. A pair of characters you are.'

When it came to her brother, Lainey didn't notice what other people did: that his face was kind of oblong and fat. Or that his tongue, which often poked out, was full of cracks. He'd always been her little brother. If he was nice and clean he smelt like Ralda's rice pud and was good to cuddle, especially if you were crying. If she ever cried, George always began to cry too, so that in no time, in order to cheer him up, she'd start up a game which ended in their tears turning into laughter.

To keep her father's attention, Lainey leapt off his knee and up onto the rocking horse Mr and Mrs Harras had brought over, their boys having been too old for it for years. When ordinary rocking didn't seem to be achieving her aim she fetched out the small willow switch under the saddle. Crouching up like a jockey she began to use it down the shoulder at first.

‘Hey, darling.' Her father was all eyes now.

In response she flogged the horse harder, whirling the whip in circles down the rocking horse's flank.

‘Hey, Lainey! What ya bloomin well up to? Gunna upset George.' Noah bent down to plonk George into Roley's lap. ‘She's worse than a flying fox. Can't keep still a moment.'

‘This one has bin playin up!' shouted Lainey.

‘Has he now?' said Roley.

‘Yes he has too!'

‘So what ya gunna do?'

‘Well if the friggin bitch don't settle in a minute it's over to Kennedy's to see stallion.'

Roley's eyes met his wife's.

Although on some other night it might well have led to tears, Lainey's mouth being washed out with soap and water, the girl's triumph was complete when, swinging round, she caught the shock of laughter coming up out of all of them. Even George, waving his own bright lollipop, like he knew exactly.

‘Get the rocking horse pregnant if it doesn't behave. Oh, the things they come out with!'

‘Getting her mother's mouth I'm afraid.' Noah couldn't take her eyes off Roley. ‘It's me what needs her mouth washed out.'

‘Might just be we have to do that, Nella,' he said, because every time he came back it was as if they were married again for the first time. Everything stayed fresh. Everything sprang with hope, even her hair.

‘By jeez,' he said. ‘Reckon we could stuff a few saddles with that.' He put a finger to her curls.

She could tell that he must've just had a haircut for the homecoming by the way his ears were standing out. His eyelashes were so thick they were like black ferns over bright water.

Roley, so glad to be home, couldn't pretend to be angry. ‘We'll let it go this once, Laine, but that ain't no language for anyone, let alone a little girl. Lucky yer Nin was over in Main House and weren't listening or it'd be trouble for you.'

Although in one way these would be the best years, it was also the start of the worried years. This was nothing to do with either the drought, or the beginning of that pretend war getting going on the other side of the world, or even the decision they'd reached that if Gurlie the old Chalcey mare hadn't fallen this time then that was that. Have to cut their losses. To sale yard she'd have to go.

The worry was to do with what Roley began to tell Noah once George and Lainey, their mouths still sticky, had fallen asleep, curled up in bed around their hot rocks like a little pair of pups.

‘Well the thing is this, darlin—somethin in me legs. In a bit of strife. I might seem spruiky but they're not. To tell you the truth they've bin givin me jip. Nearly can't move that left foot when it gets a bit hot. It's the strangest thing. Ever since that hit of lightning before George come.' He struggled to find the words. ‘'Bout two year ago it'd be that I realised it was getting into me right side as well. And when it comes, the feeling goes.'

‘What do you mean, “it”?'

‘This damned numbness. Any rate, up until Sydney I managed. But at the Royal, even in the hunts—I'm pretty sure me balance is goin.' He felt the bewilderment in him opening out like country that couldn't be fenced.

Noah, unwilling to comprehend the little Roley had divulged, responded abruptly. ‘Hope you haven't forgotten it's Wirri on weekend after next and me and Min got you entered in everything. Prize money's all gone up, you know.'

As if there was a choice. ‘Darlin, I'm that itchy-footed to get our truck and that happenin. Just had to let you know. Alright? Course I haven't forgot Wirri. What you take me for? Me memory wasn't struck now, was it? Let's say I'll give it a try. Put me best in . . .'

‘But look!' Noah picked up the clippings he'd brought home. ‘Correct me if I'm wrong, or if someone else has taken to copying Rowley Nancarrow and fooled even the newspapers, but this here is you flying that old Albert over seven less than a month ago, ain't it?'

‘It was a fluke, Noey.' Roley kept his voice low and reassuring as if talking to a spooked horse. ‘That ol horse knows me so well he decided to take pity. Easter and all. The crowds in Sydney had never been bigger. On Good Friday close to one hundred and fifty thousand. Thought it best to mention that things 're not 'zactly right. It's why I was out of the money at Maitland, then Newcastle. Why do you reckon Athol got someone else to ride for him at Bathurst?'

Seeing that Noah had shut her mind to the information, he didn't go on to tell how he'd nearly flown sideways off the horse at the peak of that jump pictured in the bit of newspaper she was still holding. In her consternation she'd picked up what was left of George's lollipop off the floor and was gnawing at it like some bloody windsucker of a racehorse.