Dirty Chick (22 page)

“I think he's trying to say ‘bus,'” Peter reasoned. “But it's falling apart in his mouth.”

“Mama?” Miranda asked again. Her chin started to tremble.

“What, Magnolia?” I looked down at her. She was still rumpled from sleep, in her pink nightie with rabbits. In one hand, she held her gold beaded evening purse. She opened it up and pulled out a rock to show me.

“Sometimes I throw a rock at my face.”

“You do?”

“She's worried about her brother, I'll bet.” Peter finished his coffee. “That's what the rock's about.”

Silas seized an empty coffee cup and tipped it in his mouth, smacking his lips at the sugary dregs. “I know,” I said softly. “We're all worried.”

The phone rang. I went to pick it up, and when I heard the mellow Ghanaian accent on the other end, I put my hand over the receiver and hissed to Peter, “Silas's doctor.”

I went out to the laundry room so I could talk without being disturbed. “We have the results of the EEG,” Dr. Osei announced, without any preliminaries. “The neurologists and I have had a chance to review them, and there is evidence of seizure activity.”

I waited. “Yes?”

“The EEG shows that Silas is having seizures.”

“But we already knew that.”

“At this stage, there's no other useful information on the report. We don't know what is causing the seizures, and we don't know where they're coming from.”

I thanked the doctor and hung up, trying hard to control my temper. Peter opened the door behind me. “What did he say?”

“That Silas is having seizures.”

“Well, he sure as shit wasn't tap-dancing. That's all?”

“Yep, that's all. I'm going out to feed the animals.”

I went out through the winery, noting with mild despair that the strawberry wine had back-filled the airlock with a lurid red pulp, so the wine seemed topped with boiling guts. I checked my latest cheeses in the pantry, four rounds of chèvre with a blossoming white rind on them, already sporting a five o'clock shadow of cat hair. But none of it really mattered. We'd have to leave this house anyway, right after Christmas. Rebecca would go back to the States, and we'd be selling or giving away all the animals. We'd be living in a tent soon enough, or else back in town, with one kid stumbling and groaning like a drunk and the other one hitting herself in the face with a rock.

I heaved a self-pitying sigh. Inside the house, the phone started ringing again. Peter picked it up and said something, then he rolled back the sliding glass door and handed me the receiver. “It's Fiona.”

“Fiona? I don't know anyone named Fiona. Tell her I'm not here.” I just wanted to hang out with my goats, scratch their heads, and apologize for giving them away.

Peter listened for a minute, then put his hand on the receiver. “I think you might want to talk to her. She says she's selling her house.”

NO CROCODILES HERE

I
hung up the phone. “Four bedrooms!” I squealed to Peter. “Twelve acres! It's just down the road! There're trees! And a greenhouse! And there's room for the goats!”

“Sugar, Honey, Ice, and Tea!” Rebecca squealed. “That's amazing!”

“Settle down,” Peter cautioned. He was always more careful than I, especially when it came to money.

We showed up at Fiona's house that Saturday, bringing one drunken boy on epilepsy medication and a little girl in a rainbow bathing suit with a blue feather handbag. The driveway twisted back from the road, lined with puriri, totara, and other native trees. Peter and I sat up straight in our seats, both leaning slightly to the left to catch the first glimpse of the house.

“Maybe it'll be a farmhouse,” I speculated. “One of the really old ones, made with kauri wood, with those beefy floorboards and the old-fashioned windows with the wavy glass.” It wasn't impossible.
Out in the country, there were still a few of those nineteenth-century farmhouses left. “Maybe it'll be—oh.”

At first I hated it.

Rising up from the gravel driveway was a split-level home with dark gray weatherboards and concrete facing on the brickwork to make it resemble stone. It seemed so conventional, like somewhere you'd live if you moved to the suburbs.

But, then again, a low rock wall curved around the house, rippled with moss and young ferns. Fiona and her husband, Dave, stood awkwardly in their driveway, waiting to greet us. We got out and introduced ourselves.

“No! No! No!” Silas protested. New faces made him nervous.

“That's all right,” I soothed, handing him his Dart. “You can stay in the car.”

Miranda walked up to Fiona, a fine-boned woman in a gauzy summer blouse, and demanded, “Are there crocodiles here?”

“No,” Fiona said, taken aback. “I don't think there are any crocodiles in New Zealand, actually.”

“That's good.” Miranda turned to me. “We can buy this house, Mama. Because there are no crocodiles.”

“Right, then,” Dave interjected. “Now we've sorted that bit, let us show you around.”

They walked us through established vegetable gardens bursting with tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, and chard, up a winding stone passage to the flower gardens, which Fiona had planted with an array of colorful blooms. A porch wrapped around two sides of the house, looking out over stands of gum trees and distant hills.

“Five paddocks,” Dave told Peter. “All with electric fencing. We run beef now, but you could keep sheep, goats, what's that you've got? Camels?”

“Alpacas,” Peter clarified.

“Right, that. They'll be happy here.”

“And a henhouse,” Fiona pointed out.

“Do you have running water?” I asked tentatively. “Cold
and
hot?”

Dave turned around and looked at me inquiringly. “Yep, 'course. And separate water from the creek for the animals.”

“What about power?” Peter wanted to know. “Like electricity, that comes out of the walls?”

Fiona and Dave exchanged a look. “Why wouldn't we?” Fiona asked. “We are in New Zealand. It's not the bloody third world.”

“I know.” Peter breathed a sigh of relief. “It's just . . . we've seen a few rough places.”

“Come on.” Dave grinned. “Let's show you the rest of the property.”

I went out back to check on Silas, who seemed content with his Dart and his books. I made sure the windows were open and he had enough shade, then I strolled back inside. Dave was showing Peter and Rebecca the garage, an open space with a broad, sturdy workbench in the back.

“Perfect!” I crooned. “My lair!”

“Pardon?” Fiona asked.

“She's into making wine and cheese,” Peter explained, looking slightly embarrassed.

“Right here,” I announced, looking around with satisfaction. “In my fermentation lair.”

“But you'll keep a car in here, too,” Dave clarified.

“No way,” I told him. “Just wine and cheese. Also, I might start making sausages.”

Dave looked as if he wanted to ask more questions but then seemed to think it best to move on. They guided us outside and brought us through the orchard, where peach, plum, and apple trees grew among lemon and mandarin orange trees. There was a wide, well-fenced chicken run, with a solid henhouse, draped in bright green passion fruit vines. We walked to the top of the hill, past massive maples and oaks, and down the other side, to a small creek and an area they'd fenced off for native bush.

By this point, I was entirely captivated. Every time Fiona turned her back, I gesticulated wildly at Peter, mouthing, “Yes.
Yes
. Let's
get it
.
Yes
.”

Peter drew me close and hissed in my ear, “
Shut up.
Don't act happy.”

“Pardon?” Dave turned around.

“Nothing,” Peter said, covering.

As they walked us back to our car, I pointed to a tall tree with round, glossy leaves and dark pink blooms. “What's that?” I asked Fiona. “It's stunning.”

“That's my magnolia,” she told me, smiling. “I'll miss it when I go.”

“See?” I squeezed Miranda's hand. “There's a magnolia here already.”

“Yep.” Fiona nodded. “I love that one. It's probably my favorite. That and the kowhai.”

By the end of that day, we had a deal. Fortified with three glasses of strawberry wine, Peter called Fiona and hammered out a price, getting her to throw in the greenhouse, the spa pool, the ride-on lawn mower, and their Land Rover with the deal.

“What can I say?” Peter said modestly, hanging up the phone. “I'm just a fantastic businessman.”

Suddenly, we had three weeks to move into our new house. The days became a blur of paperwork and bank appointments, as we maneuvered through the bureaucracy that comes with buying land. Packing our boxes was easy enough, especially since Rebecca was there to help out. Still, even though Katya and Derek were reclaiming their cat and dog, we were still faced with the challenge of moving nineteen farm animals down the road to a new place.

“I guess I could hire an animal transport,” I moaned to Amanda one night. “But that seems so expensive and silly. Our new house is just three kilometers away.”

I'd brought several bottles of strawberry wine. This drink looked like Kool-Aid and tasted like jam, but when you swirled it, you saw it had legs like a Cognac. Amanda was on her third glass.

“Just walk them,” she told me recklessly. “There's no need for a truck.”

“
Walk them?
”
I repeated. “Three alpacas, two cows, two sheep, three goats, six chickens, one rooster, a dog, and a cat? What, do I bring a net?”

“It'll be fun,” she insisted. “We'll get the whole community involved.”

More strawberry wine flowed, and this began to seem like a clever idea. We'd put all the animals on halters, and the children could help us lead them. Becca could help us weave flower garlands for their necks, and we'd paint their horns in shimmering gold.

“Renaissance minstrels!” I insisted, toward the end of the third bottle. “We need recorders, tambourines, and a lute!”

“What's a lute?”

“It's a harpy thing. With strings. You can't do an animal parade without a lute.”

So that night, when we got home, Rebecca and I tapped out an e-mail to the Auckland Philharmonic:

Dear sirs,

We are seeking a small group of musicians familiar with Renaissance ballads to accompany us on a Parade of the Animals in Purua next month. Recorder and lute required; trumpet, viola and guitar optional. Must be a fan of goats.

Please let me know if your musicians are free.

Kind regards,

Antonia Murphy

The next morning, I woke up in my bed still wearing my clothes and uncertain where my children were. “Oh, no,” I groaned, grabbing a pillow and pressing it over my face.

“Headache?” Peter asked, amused.

“I think I drunk e-mailed the Auckland Philharmonic last night.”

“Ah.” Peter grinned. “Yes, I think you did. But don't worry. I'd be shocked if you heard anything back.”

And, curiously, we didn't.

So we decided to go with plan B, which was asking local farmers for assistance. Maria's husband, John, came round a week before we moved, to check out our animals and tell us if he could help.

“Yep, the alpacas and goats are no problem,” he assured us, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his shorts. “I've got my trailer, with a cage on top. We can ride 'em in there.” He rocked back and forth on his gumboots, thinking. “But your lambs have got flystrike.”

“What?” Becca stepped in to scratch her sheep between his horns. “Not Ba. He's perfect.”

“Yep.” John peered at the sheep's backside. “See how he's holding his head down? And he's real daggy there in the back? You'll have to crutch him.”

“I can't do that,” I said, feeling ill. “I don't do sheep butt.”

“There was a time—” Peter interjected, but I stepped on his foot to shut him up.

“What's wrong with Ba?” Miranda asked John, her eyes wide with worry.

“Nothing, Magnolia,” I told her. “He just has worms in his bottom. It's nothing.”

“Cool,” Miranda said. “Do they suck the blood?”

“Nah,” John corrected her. “They eat the meat, more like. You let it go too long, they'll eat yer sheep all up.”

“Wow.” Miranda breathed, impressed.

“It's no worries,” John told me, peering over the top of his sunglasses. “I'll do it when I move him. It's a two-second job. Not a problem.”

“Really? Thank you.” John scowled when I spoke, and I realized there was a time when I would have thought he was angry at me. But this was a man who'd offered to shave a sheep's ass for free. What's a better indication of friendship than that?

We moved on a bright, clear day in January, and the process went smoothly, despite our lack of lutes. In just a few days, we were settled at home. The children shared a bunk bed in one bedroom, with Rebecca in her own room across the hall. Peter and I took over the master bedroom. We all had lush, leafy treetops visible from each of our windows. Each group of animals had their very own paddock, with fencing that actually worked. Peter built a little house for the goats, and on quiet mornings we could hear them clattering happily on the metal roof. The alpacas had plenty of grass and shade,
and the cows and sheep kept one another company in the lower paddock, where they could rest easy without danger of attack. Kowhai didn't have a bed, so she dug a hole in the flower garden and flopped gratefully on the cool dirt inside.

A week after we moved in, it was time for Rebecca to say good-bye. “I can't believe this!” I moaned. “Who's going to help take care of the animals? Who's going to teach me how to weave?”

“Who's going to hand you tissues when you need to take a shit in Ruatangata?” Peter chimed in.

“I could just stay. Drop out of school. I don't even want to go back,” Rebecca offered.

“
No way.
”
Peter went for his car keys. “Your mother would kill me. I'm driving you to the airport right now.”

That evening, we sat out on our wraparound deck. We were sipping a strawberry-rhubarb wine, a special blend I'd concocted that looked like a sunset and tasted like pie. “I didn't think it would be so important,” I said to Peter, “having a house of our own, in Purua. It feels like we're finally home.”

“Yeah.” Peter reached for my hand. “Now we just have to get on top of that garden.”

It seems odd, looking back, that after a year in the country, I hadn't really done any gardening. Now we didn't have a choice. Fiona had left us her late-summer vegetable garden: six beds overflowing with tangled tomato vines, eight-foot sunflowers, and tall, woody stalks of red chard.

As usual when confronted with the impossible, I called in Autumn for help. “I kind of like it wild-looking,” I confided, admiring the looming sunflowers, their blossoms the size of satellite dishes.

But Autumn rolled her eyes. “You've got noxious weeds here.
You can't just let them go. They'll take out your garden, kill all your vegetables.”

“Wait a minute,” I countered. “What's noxious?”

“Creeping oxalis. Deadly nightshade. Ladder fern.”

“Ha!” I crowed triumphantly. “I grant you that deadly nightshade doesn't sound like something I'd eat, but what's wrong with ladder ferns? They sound kind of cute.”

“They'll get in that pretty rock wall you've got and pull out the rocks till the whole thing falls down.”

Her argument was persuasive, and I agreed that I might need some help.

Autumn had some free time the following weekend, and she promised to help me get my garden under control. For the next few days I could have been unpacking boxes and starting the weeding, but instead, I pondered my gardening outfit. I imagined myself in flowing linens, perhaps with a kerchief, backlit in a sunflower glow. I'd be just like a Van Gogh peasant, except not so ass-heavy, and minus the freaky yellow sky.

But no sooner had I tied my kerchief that Saturday than Autumn stuck a tool in my hand. “Here,” she told me, “dig.” I examined the implement. Long stick, sharp metal bit at the end. Not a shovel, so . . . a scimitar? Quarterstaff? Mace?

“It's a hoe,” Autumn informed me. “You turn the soil and dig out the weeds with it.”

I considered telling her that where I come from, a ho is a loose woman, sometimes also known as a “cheap ho” or a “skanky-ass ho,” but that just seemed rude. Instead, I started to dig.

While we were working, I tried being chatty. “So,” I started brightly, wiping the sweat from my eyes, “are there, like, shortcuts in the garden? Ways to not work so hard, maybe? Staff we could hire?”