The Cowgirl Read online

  She glanced at him, and observed his handsome profile, his deep blue eyes shadowed by the night, his large body draped carelessly by the warmth of the fire. She took a breath.

  ‘Well, one day, when I was about five or six, he found me “driving” the old tractor in the machinery graveyard, and he climbed up next to me. We pretended to go around the paddock a couple of times. The tractor had died in the sixties, but it was still sitting there, red with rust, the wheels disintegrating into the dirt.

  We must harvest the wheat, he said, because it holds real gold within its grains and we need the gold to save a princess!

  A princess! I said. Princesses were my favourite.

  Oh yes, he said. A princess who has been turned into a crone!

  What’s a crone?

  An old woman, wise maybe, a bit grumpy perhaps, probably ugly.

  Will the gold save the princess?

  Oh, yes, my dad said. It’s magical gold and it will make her whole again.

  But who turned her into a crone? How?

  Well, said my dad, as he reached around me to turn the rusty steering wheel. It was a prince.

  Dad! Princes are the good guys.

  Not this one. He was a bad prince, and he stole the princess’s golden heart and he watched her turn into a crone in front of his eyes.

  That’s terrible! I said, and he hugged me.

  I know. Terrible and sad.

  Who told you about this princess?

  The crone herself! he whispered.

  Let’s go! I shouted. And off we went, singing and harvesting gold.’

  Will looked asleep, his eyes were almost closed and his head was resting on the edge of the ute behind him, his long legs stretched out to the fire, the mandolin held loosely in his hand.

  ‘Did you find the gold?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course we did. It was very heavy, as I recall. And shiny.’

  ‘And what about the princess? Did you save her?’

  Teddy reached out uncomfortably with her boot and pushed a log further into the fire.

  ‘Nah, we went back to Grandma’s for fruit cake,’ she said. ‘He told me lots of stories like that: the day that Thor came to the co-op, the dog that grew rabbit ears, the ghost that haunted the back of the school bus.

  ‘When Dad died, he took his stories with him. Maybe that’s why Mum left too. And now, all I talk about is arthritis and herbicide. And sometimes at night I lie in bed and listen for him to come home and tell me a story again.’

  ‘Did you ever write them down?’

  ‘No, he changed them all the time. Sometimes I retell the stories that I remember but I change them a bit, too, to make them mine.’

  ‘Who do you tell them to?’

  She stared at the fire. Swallowed. ‘Dad.’

  ‘I like your voice,’ he murmured sleepily. He rolled his head lazily towards her; his eyes drifted across her face and she felt him, physically, as if he had touched her.

  ‘Of course you know your story, don’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cinderella.’

  Teddy rolled her eyes. ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have a helpful fish, either.’

  ‘A fish?’

  ‘Yeah – an early version of Cinderella was a Chinese tale. The girl is called Ye Xian and the fairy godmother is a magical fish.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It’s true. A Frenchman, Charles someone, wrote Cinderella down around 1700, but he changed the shoes from gold to glass, and added the fairy. I think in Nepal it was a goat.’ He leaned forward. ‘That’s kind of why it makes me think of you.’ He inclined his head. ‘Good-looking chick working her arse off, maybe being taken for granted.’

  ‘So Grandma is my evil stepmother?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I’d rather think she was my fairy godmother.’

  ‘I’m sure you would,’ he said. ‘But is she?’ He took a sip of wine. ‘Anyway, like your dad’s stories, Cinders evolved as she travelled the world. There’s another version out of Norway.’

  ‘Why is it different?’

  ‘The tellers changed as the story moved along the Silk Road – they adjusted the stories to their audience: what sorts of shoes, what sorts of helpers. It’s one of the great things about the stories we tell ourselves. I like that yours are always changing, too.’

  Whatever time it was, it was getting late. Teddy stood up. ‘I’d better get going,’ she announced. ‘Milking in the morning.’

  Will picked up the mandolin and began to strum absent-mindedly again. He looked up at her. ‘Goodnight, Teddy,’ he said softly.

  ‘Goodnight, Will.’

  She felt him turn and watch her walk away through the night and into the warm yellow light of her little house.

  ‘Hey, Teddy.’

  She turned around.

  ‘What did Thor want at the co-op?’

  She smiled. ‘He was out of cheese,’ she said, and went inside to the sound of a softly chiming mandolin.

  Teddy woke the next day thinking about Will. He was unlike anyone she’d met before. She couldn’t imagine him living in any one place. He was a nomad, a mandolin-playing, storytelling nomad, and he wasn’t for her.

  She avoided him all morning, burying herself in the kitchen first thing and then rushing to the ute and taking off to George and Hamish’s place to clear out the shed at Maylors Gate. Hamish ran a fairly scattered shed as a rule and he tended to collect tools from Stretton as well, so she would use the activity as an opportunity to take some stuff back.

  She dropped in on Georgina for lunch and gave her a lasagne and a fresh batch of apple and raspberry muffins – to keep Hamish fed when George couldn’t bear to drag her massive belly around the kitchen – as well as an itemised account of the interesting artefacts they had excavated from Deirdre’s house so far. It didn’t take long. Then she headed home, head down, parked and dashed back inside to vacuum the walls and dust under the fridge. She was busy.

  The sun was setting when Teddy ducked outside to take in Deirdre’s washing from the line and she heard the bobcat engine cut.

  ‘Hey, Teddy!’ Will called to her. ‘I’m going to the pub. You coming?’

  Teddy looked around. ‘I don’t think so, I have to milk Cow.’

  ‘Get Deirdre to do it.’

  ‘It’s my turn.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘No, I’m not – it’s my turn.’

  The sun had deepened to red and was slowly falling behind the home dam, where the geese were gently honking at each other as they huddled out of the cold breeze.

  Will regarded her in the pale glow and she glared back at him to let him know that she was being entirely reasonable, that people did have responsibilities and they weren’t easily cast aside. He came across the yard to speak to her, his workboots crunching on the gravel.

  ‘Get Deirdre to do it. It’s her cow.’

  ‘It’s my turn.’

  ‘Is she going to the pub, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Teddy —’

  ‘I’m milking,’ she said stoutly. She watched him assess her like she was a new specimen he had dug up and now he needed to work out what she was.

  ‘Grow a set and come to the pub with me.’

  Teddy turned away from him.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘don’t use the cow as an excuse.’

  ‘I said I’m milking,’ she growled.

  ‘That’s an excuse and we both know it.’

  ‘An excuse for what?’

  ‘I don’t know – why are you trying to avoid me?’

  Teddy rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘Please. You’re digging a big pointless hole outside my house, I can hardly avoid you.’ She stared at him. ‘And why would I want to avoid you anyway?’

  He tilted his head to one side. ‘I dunno,’ he decided. ‘But I’m going to give it a lot of thought.’

  She was leaving. ‘You do that,’ she
said over her shoulder. ‘I’ll be busy. Milking.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he repeated. ‘Milking.’

  Cow was early; maybe she’d heard their conversation and was worried she was going to be forgotten. She chewed thoughtfully on her oats and lazily flicked her tail as Teddy sat down on her stool and set to her task, head bent forward and forehead gently resting on the cow’s warm stomach. In the silence, she heard the squeaky door of the shearers quarters open and slam shut, then the gritty sound of shoes across sand and a car door shutting. Will was going to the pub. She looked out to the horizon and saw the sun leave her behind again, carried away on the sky’s tide to Africa. She listened to the car start up and the tyres spin in the gravel as Will accelerated down the front drive, and then she didn’t think about him at all. She had milking to do.

  Milking took her longer than it usually did. The milk flowed as fast and warm as ever but her hands moved more slowly – even though she told them to hurry it along. She didn’t really go to the pub, anyway. Occasionally she’d have a reason to go, maybe if Hamish needed picking up or if the church committee was borrowing glasses for an event. Mostly she kept to herself. And even she wasn’t sure why any more.

  When the cow had wandered off into the gloom of the evening, Teddy went into the workshop to tidy up. Why not tackle two sheds in one day? Her father had always said you could tell a good farmer by the state of his shed. And his fences. He’d handed out more than one piece of advice in his time.

  The workshop was still a good one. Concrete floor, packed with tools neatly arranged for any job Teddy could imagine that had presented itself in the past fifty years. There were some empty glyphosate drums that had been left near the spare tyres, so she took them out to the pile behind the old concrete water tank, and went back to return the tools to their rightful place on the tool board her father had erected over the workbench years ago. The biggest pipe shifter had disappeared a few months back and it hadn’t been in Hamish’s shed, so she was sure it would be in the back of his ute. She’d have to check later. Along the huge shelves were large bottles of oil and degreaser, along with clamps and a collection of greasy nuts and bolts. She took the latter to the shelving unit on the bench and tossed them inside.

  It was dark now and there was no moon yet. The farm was silent. Dog had come to see what she was up to and he stretched out on the cold concrete floor. When Teddy flicked on the light it was instantly too bright. Her father used to spend hours in the shed under this unforgiving light often late into the night, fixing machinery for seeding or harvest. Sometimes he’d take something from the house to fix and he’d be in the shed till almost midnight – measuring, welding, grinding back – so that they had a new stand for the frypan or a new gate for the vegie patch at Deirdre’s. She glanced over to the corner of the shed where her high jump poles were lying; her father had engineered them so she could practise before the school sports carnival years ago.

  She took out the stiff broom and began sweeping the floor, moving carefully around Dog so she didn’t disturb him. She was too busy to go out. The broom’s scratching was the only sound in the silence, until a cold wind picked up from the shearers quarters, flew along the guttering of the workshop and lifted a piece of corrugated iron on the roof, squeaking noisily. Dog rolled to his other side.

  The wind was buffeting against the old ute as it pressed pale yellow light out onto the road, too soft to startle a roo or scare a fox away from the hunt. The dance had ended too soon; Deirdre and Viv could have stayed all night talking to Ida, swapping recipes with Val. There was nothing for them to rush back to at home – except for their father, who wouldn’t be waiting up for them anyway. They listened to the hiss of air pushing through the driver’s side window as Viv drove them through the gloom. Deirdre’s feet were sore. Her shoes were a bit tight even though she’d had them for years, and her toes had been crushed into the sharp points until they looked like spear tips.

  They had been chatting happily as they left the hall, but as they got closer to the farm the girls fell silent. The lights were on at home, which was never a good sign. They both looked grimly at the glow through the dark, wondering what was waiting for them this time. They pulled in and Viv turned off the engine. The house was quiet.

  ‘Well, it’s only for a few more years,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll be off and married soon.’

  Deirdre laughed bitterly. ‘Then who’ll look after him?’ she asked and pushed open the car door, which squeaked and complained because no one had seen fit to grease the hinges.

  The front door swung open as they stepped tentatively onto the verandah.

  ‘Well!’ a voice boomed. ‘Look who’s home from making a spectacle of themselves!’

  Their father appeared in the doorway, his face red and eyes glassy and unfocussed. He’d been at it for a while. Nearly thirty years. The drink hadn’t been kind: the skin around his face had sagged and, since shaving had become too much of a chore, he wore a white, straggly beard. His hair in general was unkempt, pushed in all directions from falling asleep where he drank most nights, usually on the lounge or on the floor. His teeth were yellow with neglect and tonight his hands shook as they held the bottle.

  Viv hesitated at the top of the verandah steps but Deirdre pressed past him, marched in to the house. She could hear the cricket on the wireless, coming to their little farmhouse from Lord’s in London.

  ‘We came home to make you a nice cup of tea, Dad,’ she announced. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I bloody wouldn’t!’ her father screamed in her ear. She fell back slightly, then straightened again.

  ‘Then how about some of the shepherd’s pie from yesterday? Have you eaten?’ She opened the fridge.

  ‘Don’t you patronise me,’ he growled. ‘I can look after myself.’ He reached for a half-empty bottle of beer from the kitchen table, finished it and then cracked open another.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ she repeated.

  ‘No! I haven’t eaten!’ he snapped. ‘My two good-for-nothing girls were off chasing every farmer in town.’ A pause while he took a drink. ‘No shame!’ he declared. Viv edged in the front door and slowly, gingerly, was making her way to the hallway which led to their bedrooms. ‘That’s right, crawl away into the dark like the shameful bitch you are. Just like your mother.’

  ‘Dad! Stop it!’ Deirdre reached for the kettle as the back of his hand smashed into her cheek. Bright white light exploded across her eyes, but the pain of the blow still couldn’t match her shame. Deirdre stood frozen to the spot. Her father was leaning on the kitchen table, as if beating her had exhausted him. His gaze cast about for another bottle of beer, another slug of brandy, of cooking sherry, of whatever he could find.

  ‘It’s gone,’ she said bitterly. ‘You drank it all.’

  He glared up at her, his red eyes wild with fury and surprise as if he had forgotten she was even there. ‘Then we’ll need some more,’ he snarled, and descended loosely to the kitchen floor.

  Deirdre stepped over his feet and went about her business. She tidied the kitchen, swept broken glass from around her father, fed the dog, and set the kitchen stove ready for the next day. Then she made tea and reheated the shepherd’s pie and and left it all on the kitchen table.

  As she went about her work he muttered and cursed, watching her with barely supressed resentment and rage. He stank. He had been wearing the same shirt for days and she wished she could wash it, but part of her was glad he probably wouldn’t let her. He deserved to sit in his own filth. He had spent years of his life pulling filth and disgrace about after him until Deirdre wasn’t sure she would recognise him without it any more.

  Later that night Deirdre lay in her bed thinking about her sister sleeping in the next room. They were trapped. Vivian was right to be afraid of their father. She was too gentle and easily hurt. Deirdre wondered how she could get her out, how she could get them both away from him, with no schooling and no one to take them in if they made the dash to Perth. And
she wished again what she had wished a hundred times before she found that magic wasn’t real: Deirdre wished her father would die.

  Will had unearthed Deirdre’s old bedroom by Friday afternoon and was dragging a rusty metal bed frame out of the hole in the ground. Teddy was carrying some Tupperware containers, but she stopped for a look on her way to the car. It didn’t look particularly inspiring.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘A bed. How many years did you study this stuff at uni?’ Will ignored her. He was chipping around something he’d spotted under the bed. She leaned in for a better look despite herself. The old mattress had provided some form of protection – he was digging around a metal trunk.

  ‘Your grandma have a toy box?’ he asked.

  ‘Dunno. She doesn’t seem like the toy type.’

  ‘She was young once,’ he said, tapping on the metal.

  ‘Well, maybe she was shorter, anyway,’ Teddy allowed, turning to the car. She began to load the containers into the back.

  ‘What are you up to?’ Will asked, looking from her to the metal box again.

  ‘Afternoon tea. I’m on with your aunt.’

  ‘Oh, crap, that’s today, isn’t it. She told me to come in and say hi.’

  ‘And you lied and said you would.’

  He shrugged. ‘I figured I’d bullshit about not being able to get away,’ he said.

  ‘No worries,’ she told him, ‘but just so you know, I’ll be telling her you’re coming.’

  He groaned. ‘You got me,’ he said.

  ‘You on arvo tea today, Teddy?’ Kath from the co-op was pricing crackers at the front counter.

  ‘Yeah, is Audrey in yet?’

  Kath nodded. ‘Yep, just take a couple of extra litres of milk from the fridge if you like,’ she added.

  ‘Would you like me to bring you out a plate?’ Teddy asked, and Kath smiled.

  ‘Of course! If Deirdre sent in her lemon cake, I’d love a piece.’

  ‘No worries,’ Teddy assured her, and went to find Audrey.

  It wasn’t long before they were talking cake in the tearoom kitchens at the back of the co-op. Deirdre’s lemon cake was under close inspection and Teddy had to admit, it was pretty good.