Muck (8 page)

Instead I say, “Where I come from we don’t bother with
these
,” meaning cow udders. “That’s someone else’s job.”

A Friesian keeps fending my hands away. It paws my forearm, scratching me with the blunt pincers of its pigeon toes. Still, I have done it. I have attached all four cups without having to look down and witness myself in the act of doing so.

But Norman coughs into speech that I crossed them up, the cups. The far-rear one is milking the near-rear. The near-rear one is hanging loose milking only air. He leans over to correct the crosses but I smile past him that this is my cross, thank you, and therefore mine to uncross. He crackles that I would be better off standing straighter to the side of the beast, not in line with its back leg and too near its backend: “Unless you want to be kicked, or worse, get a shit shower for your trouble.”

He shares laugh-banter with his son about me. He says we’ll be here all day with my cross-ups and not-lookings. He says I should learn to use my wrist when I work. I should hook it into the crook of the cow’s hind leg and force it from the ground so the cow knows I’m the stronger. “Put muscle into it,” he crackles. Then without my requesting it he steps in front of me, shoulders me out of the way and cat’s-cradles the cups himself. He then walks along the pit to cat’s-cradle others.

I follow him determined to prove that
my
method of cat’s-cradling, the not-looking method which is the only way I can tolerate the whole activity, is as good as his. I choose a Jersey, those better-natured eye-lashes. Jerseys’ penis-teats are boy- small, half hidden in a thatch of fawn hair. I apologise to the cow for what I am about to do, and then begin the cat’s-cradle with my eyes winced closed.

But the apology means nothing to her. And despite guiding the suction to her milk-pizzle with the gentlest fingertip stroking, the Jersey flinches and kicks and catches the claw of the cups between her toes. She stamps the cups to the concrete and I instantly give her my own kind of kick, a reflex flick with the back of my closed hand on her thigh. A reflex but with enough calculation to make sure I kept the flick contained to just a flick so it will go unnoticed by Norman and son.

Now it is me I apologise to. For losing my composure. This cow has no thought for my feelings, no thought for the sympathy and respect I showed her with my not looking. And if this boy-teated creature kicks me again there’s no telling what I’ll do. I might give her another flick, a firmer one. I might let myself make it a wild, hard fist-hit that Norman and son can see for themselves for all I care. Let them see that I can stoop to their level if I need to, if provoked, if not treated the way you should treat someone in my position at Tudor Park. I may have thin white fingers but my hand is strong enough to wrench any bony stump of a tail and bow a cow’s back down.

“You wouldn’t need to do that if you looked at what you were doing,” says Norman with a wheeze and a victorious tone, a smug monotone.

“Do what?” I reply, staring at him with all the puzzlement I can pretend.

“The cow leg.” He slaps his hand across the air to demonstrate my secret flick.

I smile past him that he is mistaken. “Where I come from you work around them, not through them.”

“And where exactly is it you come from?” Norman is now speaking an octave lower, as if speaking down to me.

“I come from Sydney.”

“Oh do we,” he crackles to his William, his Bill who mumbles “Sydney” back as if there is something wrong with coming from Sydney.

Norman points to my forearm where blood trickles from a scratch I had not felt the pain of. “Where I come from you dip that sort of thing in iodophor,” he says.

If I was to report on Norman and son I would say they’re a snobbish people. Not as docile as I first thought.

Norman particularly has a tendency to speak his mind. Someone like him, a disappointed man with no education to speak of, milking cows at his age, and his son doing the same, should be grateful for a job at Tudor Park.

If Norman has trouble cat’s-cradling a cow, his Bill will step in and, risking a hoof-kick, lift a penis-tail to help. His father does the same for him. Did they step in to lift for me? Not once. And now I have an embarrassing wound.

I was right about cows—deformed men and women, that’s what they are. Mean with men and women hearts.

A
BELL RINGS
, out the side of my sleep. A dull clanking ring. Not a real ringing now that I wake, but the grating chafe of pots and pans, plates and cutlery.

There is the smell of burning—of cooking, and cooking gone wrong.

With waking, the sting begins in my forearm. I have no intention of treating the wound with anything more than spit from my mouth.
This
will be my first farm scar. How could I think it embarrassing, this O shape on me. It might only be as deep as a wrinkle but I’m confident it will leave a purple crust that festers nicely, and underneath the crust a paler purple signature of hard work to show forever.

If I worry that it is healing over without leaving a mark, I will pick and scratch until the skin re-opens and infection worsens the weeping.

Then from the Normans and sons of this world to the skinny Citys at The Mansions, the wound will be noticed and the noticer will think: here’s a man who not only can work with his head, here’s a man who can work with his hands. The scar says
Strong
and
Vigour
to the world
.
It says
Brave
and
Dangerous
. It has a story with it of cow hooves and kicks.

I must get more of these scars on my hands, perhaps my face. One across my cheek would say
Daring.
I must also let dirt pack under my nails.

Feet is splashed with white powder—her hands, her forehead. No, she has not had an accident with her make-up, she assures me. “This is flour,” she says.

She pats her hands onto her apron. The first time I’ve seen her wear such a thing. A blue and red check one with frilly edges. The apron is called Nanna’s. So are the piles of letters she is reading. “These are your Nanna’s recipes,” she says in a soft, reverent voice. “Haven’t looked at these for years.”

She begins to sing, “Just a closer walk with thee.” She sings those six words only and hums the rest of the tune.

The recipes are written in a curly feminine hand. Some are typed in blue print with oversized full-stops, club-foot commas.

“Cream of Tartar,
2
level teaspoons,” Feet reads.

“It’s after midnight,” I complain.

“I’m aware of that. You should learn to sleep like your father. Minus the snoring. One teaspoon of sugar.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m working on my welcome.”

Brown, misshapen rocks of flour with burnt bases fill the rubbish bin.

“Flour sifted. Done that,” says Feet. “Now roll on a floured board.” She snaps her fingers. “That’s what I did wrong. Didn’t flour the board.”

By next morning-tea time she has a mound of scones she is satisfied with—clay coloured and a chef’s-hat shape. Diced dates evenly studded through. She stacks a small pile on each of three plates, her Wedgwood serving plates, the ones with gold leaf edges. She covers them in tassel-fringed muslin and is ready for trip number one.

A quick examination of her appearance in the mirror first: is her hair sprayed high enough? Her face powder thick enough to blot out her cheeks’ blemishing veins? Her frock, the yellow silk knee-length with peach and purple stripes and slashes. Two bracelets, one of rubies, the other her favourite, the chain of gold sovereigns that should give the ladies something to admire, she says, and keep the conversation going should it fizzle.

Trip number one will be to the neighbour immediately to the right of us, the one whose mailbox is so badly spattered in tyre mud there’s hardly any name at all.

“Who knows what I’m in for?” she says with a festive squeal and a sing-songing, “Welcome to me. It’s welcome to me.”

She settles the three plates of scones on the car passenger seat and reminds herself how carefully she will have to drive to prevent them tipping. Not so easy given she is not too keen on driving, especially this Monaro tank of a thing The Duke brought from Sydney. While it may be ideal for pulling trailers and horse-floats, it’s as heavy as a tug of war to work the steering. If you touch the accelerator with the merest toe-push, the damn thing takes off like a jet plane.

The colour is more to her liking. “You can certainly see us coming, I’ll pay that,” she chuckles. Silver with orange bonnet and boot, a combination The Duke calls sporty and Feet calls original.

As for that thump-thump grumble of the motor, she calls it a racket for all his calling it a V
8
.

She crosses the zebra-crossing of shadows and gives two goodbye hoots on the horn.

She gives no
I’m home
toots on her return a half hour later.

Trip number one came to nothing. “Not a soul at the next door’s,” she purses, pulling number one’s scones from the seat, not caring that the top layer topples to the upholstery, to the car floor, to the grass. She snatches each back onto the plate and squashes them to “stay” as if punishing a pet. Squashes them harder as if hoping to hurt them though she can only make them crumble.

It is herself she means to punish. “That will teach you,” she mutters, hardly parting her lips. “If you’re so stupid to bother with bloody peasants like these, it’s your own fault. No-one to blame but yourself.”

Then it’s The Duke’s turn to be punished. He is standing behind her smiling to receive the news of her outing, though his smile flags because Feet says as if accusing him, “If we’re so stupid as to bother with peasants like these, it’s our own fault.”

Then to me, “That’s the only word for it—stupid.”

In the kitchen she empties the plate into the rubbish bin with a “Stupid. Stupid” as if berating the scones.

The Duke insists on being told what on earth has happened to put her in this foul mood. Feet breathes deeply that she does not want to talk about it. The Duke knows this means she does want to talk about it. She wants to talk about it very much, desperately. It’s
all
she wants to talk about. But she intends to delay talking until he stops asking and she becomes resentful of not being asked. “Thanks for nothing,” she will then say, bitterly. “Thanks for your interest. Or lack of it,” she will add, sarcastically.

He has stopped asking and turned away from her towards the back door.

There’s her “Thanks for nothing.” Now her “Thanks for your interest. Or lack of it.” Now her explanation for her foul mood can begin.

Trip number one may have been a non-event, but never mind, she simply moved on to number two—the Dutch mailbox called Van der something. She knocked and knocked. No answer. “But do they think I’m a complete dill? I could see someone moving behind the curtain.”

She’s damned if she’s going to be standing at someone’s door, knocking and knocking to give scones to people who haven’t the common decency to open a door. “I made
that
clear to them, I can promise you that. I tore out of their drive like Stirling Moss.” Feet nods a self-congratulatory smile and declares that she couldn’t care less about types like that. Types who lurk behind curtains. “To hell with them,” she says, snapping her fingers like a spell that sends people hellward.

The Duke puts his hand on her shoulder, kisses her temple and says it’s not the end of the world. She pushes his hand away and tells him that if he’s not interested in listening to her, if he has better things to do, then he should go and do them. “I wouldn’t want to
keep
you,” she says, sniffling and putting her knuckle to her bottom eyelid as if about to lose mascara with crying.

The Duke apologises if he misunderstood her. He thought she had reached the end of her story.

Feet’s eyes widen angrily. “Did I say it was the end? Did I? What made you think it was the end?” Her voice has gone hoarse with containing herself.

“You snapped your fingers and I thought that’s the end of the story.”

“I haven’t told you about trip number three.”