Gillian Mears - Foals Bread (Extract)

8/16/2019 Gillian Mears - Foals Bread (Extract)

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F O A L ’ S B READ

GILLIAN

MEARS

‘When a horse jumps, the sparks of love are born; when lightning strikes, it can take the legs from right out under you.

A blessing of a novel from one of Australia’s finest writers.’DRUSILLA MODJESKA

‘Glorious. A bold and brilliant song of praise.’HELEN GARNER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2012 MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD

Cover design: Sandy Cull, gogoGingkoCover photograph: Connie Fore

F I C T I O N

‘Original, moving and tragic, Foal’s Bread is a book that cries out to be read.’Te Herald , Scotland

‘ Foal’s Bread is a grand, bittersweet romantic saga, at once laconic and mystical,tragic and optimistic. It is filled with an understanding of horses and country life

not just researched but deeply internalised, like the Australian vernacular thatMears so effortlessly reproduces.’ Australian Book Review

‘… a powerful, intricate novel of true originality. We must take such an individual

voice as it comes, and be grateful for it.’ Te Monthly‘ Foal’s Bread is a truly heroic effort; not only a great book about horses, but anexceptional one about paralysis … you are unlikely to read a more courageous

novel this year.’ Te Guardian

F O A L ’ S B R E A D

G I L L I A N M E

A R S

WINNER OF THE 2012 PRIME MINISTER’S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION


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GILLIAN

MEARS


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Te lines on page 353 are taken from the poem ‘An Exequy’, by Peter Porter. Tispoem, dedicated to his first wife after her death, was published in his book Te Costof Seriousness in 1978. Reproduced by permission of the Estate of Peter Porter.

Te lines on page 361 are taken from the poem ‘Silver Wind’, by Geoff Page.Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tis edition published in 2012First published in 2011

Copyright © Gillian Mears 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted inany form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without priorpermission in writing from the publisher. Te Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever isthe greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational

purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) hasgiven a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Tis project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts

funding and advisory body

Some parts of Foal’s Bread were written with the assistance of a New WorkEstablished Writers grant from the Literature Board.

Allen & UnwinSydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander StreetCrows Nest NSW 2065 Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com

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ISBN 978 1 74331 185 1

Cover design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingkoInternal design by Yolande Gray, Sandy Cull

Set in Garamond by Midland ypesetters, Australia Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

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PREAMBLE

The sound of horses’ hooves turns hollow on the farms west

of Wirri. If a man can still ride, if he hasn’t totally lost the

use of his legs, if he hasn’t died to the part of his heart that

understands such things, then he should go for a gallop. At the very

least he should stand at the road by the river imagining that he’s

pushing a horse up the steep hill that leads to the house on the farm

once known as One ree.

In April the land will already seem yellow. Only further away,along the ridges, on slopes too steep to have been cleared, will

the brush be either dark or bright, depending on whether or not

a fire has torn along up there in summer. But it would be wrong

to conclude that in the years before the second war and imme-

diately afterwards, bushfires, not milk and cream, did best along

One ree Farm’s hills and thin ridges. Tis would be to forgetthe Flag River flats, and the paddocks flanking Flaggy and Bitter

Ground Creek; the land never ruined or sour for long because

of the floods. Most importantly of all, that would be forgetting


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G i l l i a n M e a r s

the kind of horses that mixed kind of country like One ree can

breed.

Don’t fall off. Don’t put the horse in those yards held up byvarious bits of twine and wire. Go for a gallop. Get off the horse’s

kidneys. Lean forward. Don’t hold the reins up like that. Get them

into a decent bridge.

Trough the stirrup irons might come the voices of the dead.

Trough the stirrup irons will come a hammering from the earth

itself as if all the high-jump dreams of all the men and all the women who’ve worked this land have somehow turned the subsoil

into stone.

When that horse pulls up half dead from the exertion, the sweat

frothy under the reins, the rider should listen even more carefully.

Listen and there will be the sound of sobbing in there too. At One

ree. Of dreams turned inside out the way the half dingo-cross

wild dogs eat out the fetlocks on fresh-born calves before melting

back into the uncleared land, the calf still bellowing.

If the rider is a woman or a girl, she should maybe never venture

up those hills of One ree Farm. If the horse that she’s on has

already bolted and is hard in the mouth to boot, then she could

spin it. Forgetting pretty, she could whirl it around and around

using her heels and her hands and the reins as her whip. If in herfourteen-year-old womb a dead uncle’s baby grows, this One ree

Farm might just be steep enough to see that it begins to slip.

Te tree is an old jacaranda, a moment of almost antique-

seeming grace next to a wooden house painted cream, built in front

of an original hut. Every summer a thorn vine in flower is a burst of

red over the long streaks of roof rust.Only once the One ree house is reached comes the feeling

that the land is sliding in steep folds towards it; as if paddocks are

to flow right over first the jacaranda, then the hut and house; as if


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the verandas of hardwood milled from the farm will gradually be

pinched into pieces by the pressure of the land’s pitch.

A way away, visible from the front veranda, is even steeper land,more mountain than hill, that some madman long ago tried to

clear by hand. Tat such a reckless attempt isn’t seen as mad, not

at all, is proof that for people around Wirri good land is clean land,

is cleared. Te bright green slash going fair up the middle of that

small mountain means anything is possible, even if whoever it was

making the attempt died abruptly under a log. Or mistiming it with a dingo in a trap (because clubbing the bastards with a stick

saved bullets) lost his own life instead.

Man, woman, boy or girl, when you arrive at the jacaranda tree,

take a lick of your horse’s salty neck. Watch out your horse doesn’t

throw its head and hit your nose with the bridle buckles. Lick that

salt and see what story it tells. Under the mane the salt is best.

Watch out you don’t cry.


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CHAPTER 1

It was an early afternoon in 1926 when Cecil Childs and his

only daughter first came onto One ree Farm.

Leaving Baffy

and Brian to keep a mob of about one hundred pigs moving

slowly along down the road, the man and the girl turned in at the

cream shelter without a thought. Unheeding, happy that the drive

had gone so well, this was what they’d been doing for close on

two weeks for the buyer in Sydney. Picking up pigs from one farm

then the next. Cecil knew they were a day early for loading ontothe boat at Wirri that would take the pigs down to Port Lake and

then to the bacon factory in Sydney, and this knowledge had also

brightened his mood.

‘You be quick, Noey,’ said Cecil, sending his daughter up the

hill to the house which was maybe half a mile away but fully visible

because the paddocks were without so much as a sucker. ‘ell em we’re in a bit of a hurry.’ Te hill was full of cows and weaners of

all colours. A few bullocks. Te pigs had already been put into the

yard by the bales at the bottom of the hill. Tree different types of


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pigs, saw Cecil, including a few spotty old Berkies. He licked his

lips. Counted them up once and then again.

Because they had made such good time and because he knewthe Flaggy wine shanty was still in operation, he was thirsty now

for something other than river water turned into tea.

‘Mind you go steady. Never seen fences like it. Looks like

whoever put that up run away with itself into the hills.’

‘Nice but, isn’t it, Dad?’

‘She’d be wild in flood. Reckon hut over there would’ve had togo under more than a few times. Stupid place to have built. No

wonder they had to put in that better bridge but even so.

‘Pity we got the pigs or you could’ve popped pony over those.’

Her father pointed to a paddock near the bales where a couple of

jumps had been built. ‘Got a bit of a hop in her I warrant. Well

don’t dally, Noey! Go let em know we’re here. Mr Nancarra it is.

I’ll stay down with pigs. Least they got em all ready. Well go on,

Noah! Git up that hill and mind you don’t fall off it.’

Te girl pushed the pony into a canter. Tat’s when the feeling

of the land first began to be known to her; its hollow quality.

Jumping horses. Tat thoroughbred-looking thing in the other

paddock might be one hopeful, fed only on wild air and wild water

by the looks of its ribs.If there had ever been a time when she hadn’t had the jumping

dream she couldn’t remember it, and without thinking she hopped

her pony over a log lying by the side of the road.

Maybe it was this, the heave of a horse rising between her legs,

that made the baby first begin to lose anchor? Or was it that final

sprint up to the house that disturbed it irrevocably? Or deeper in,the fear for what was happening under her shirt? At them what her

Uncle Nipper had to begin with given her a whole ha’penny for,

just for a look.


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If she were to unbutton her shirt for him now, if he hadn’t

had his big heart attack and died with his boots on, she’d be

even more afraid. Cos they were ripening. Tey hurt as her horsetackled the hill.

Tat Uncle Nip, she thought fondly, pretending he wasn’t dead.

‘You love me don’t yer? Yer old unc?’

And last Christmas Day, when she found him asleep on her

bed, she reckoned that she did. His hat was off and when she put

out her hand to feel his hair it was just as fine as the old grey workmare’s mane and tail.

At the memory of her uncle she went all tingly with a hope she

couldn’t understand. She felt the way you do lining a horse up for

something impossibly big. Te chance of victory inside the likeli-

hood of an almighty fall.

Pulling up outside the house she could look down to see the

pigs, toy-sized from this distance, with Baffy and Brian, the Neville

brothers, smaller specks on the road.

Slipping off and parting the pony’s mane, she leant close to

take a little taste of the salty neck. Tat’s when the horse, thirsting

for a drink, gave her a butt in her belly so rough that she punched

the horse’s nose straight back before looking up to greet the two

women who were coming out of the house.‘Here. Here!’ shouted a woman at a pair of over-eager dogs.

‘What, just you and your father is it?’

‘No. Pair of brothers are getting em into shade. So no over-

heating, no deaths. Dad’s waiting down ready with your pigs.’ One

of the dogs was a curly back, the other a bushy tail, but both, saw

the girl, had one eye strangely blue, strangely human.Half of the lady’s face was slipped sideways from a stroke. Every

few minutes she had to use her sleeve to wipe away at the left-hand

side of her mouth as if a spring that never ran dry was located there.


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Te numb cheek had something of the steep crooked look of the

land, as if it too had been pounded into immobility by the pressure

of over-grazing and the hooves of many a high-jump dream.Noey looked past the house to the higher slopes where the hill

appeared to be moving in the breeze on account of all the ring-

barked trees yet to fall or be pushed over. Te giant jacaranda

moved differently, all its little leaves quivering to create the feeling

of a big-bosomed woman wanting to waltz.

‘Looks like a big drive you got,’ the old lady said.‘Big alright,’ said the girl. ‘And they’re all still fat. We’ve moved

them that slow.’ A bubble of pride surfaced and was gone. ‘With

yours there’ll be over a hundred and fifty. Started picking them up

Sundale and then all the farms between Dundalla and the ranges.’

Tinking, you could walk more gullies in that Mrs Nancarra’s face

than all the washouts on the hill.

‘No doubt about it then,’ said the younger woman, with the

figure of a long slabby pig herself, moving closer. ‘Bet you wouldn’t

say no to a cup of tea with a piece of cake, made today?’ Her apron

was the same yellow as her eyes.

Te girl could smell cake and it would’ve been good. ‘But me

dad’s down there and he’s in a real hurry.’

‘Cut em some slices then Ralda,’ said the first lady. ‘And giveher a drink while I put saddle on that adpole. I’ll come down

with you. Mr Nancarrow wasn’t expecting you here till tomorrow

you know, so he’s over other side of hill fixing a few fences. But I’ll

be able to point out a good camp and that for tonight.’

Te girl rode steadier going back down the long hill. Even with

the tight feeling in her belly, she could only feel great happinessthat slung in a flour bag in front of her saddle was cake, a whole

half-slab, a real yellowy one it was and as fat as that Ralda who’d

baked it.


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Late afternoon, Noah and the men ate the cake at the camp onFlaggy Creek. Te pigs guzzled down water, their trotters disap-

pearing between the fair-sized rocks that formed the creek bed.

Starving hungry, the girl even dug out the remaining butter from

the farm before last, gone runny but not all that rancid.

‘Arghh,’ went her father and the men.

‘Dunno, Noh,’ said the one called Baffy, ‘but sometimes can’thelp but think you remind me of a dog. Is there anything you

couldn’t eat? Here, take the rest of mine if you’re that famished.’

‘I’m gunna go with the boys tonight to shanty,’ her father was

saying, given in totally to his need for a drink. ‘See if we can’t

organise something for homeward direction. Give you a chance

to be in charge for a night. Ten we’ll drive em in the first thing

tomorra. Feed pigs half the corn on dark. Tey’re that dozy now

it’ll settle em good for the night. Give em a bit more than usual.

Keep em sleepy. Get an early night yerself. I’ll leave dogs with you.

Just in case.’

Her father and the men had barely disappeared from sight

when the first wave of the agonies came inside her guts. It was

worse than being kicked in the knee by that bitch of a pony with the seedy toe Uncle Nip had needed a hand with. Worse

than being food poisoned last New Year off her aunties’ mouldy

Christmas meat.

Te sound of the girl with the boy’s name beginning to slip the

baby was a scream not uttered. Te cake came up first. Somehow

she just knew it was nothing to do with butter gone a bit badbut she still put her fingers down her throat to bring it all up.

Noah moved down along the creek’s beach. At first, under

a sky the pale damaged blue of the wall-eye of Uncle Nipper’s


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workhorse, she was sure she must be dying. Because she didn’t

want to bring the pair of women from One ree, instead of

screaming she bit her wrist. Her own steep little face grewsteeper. Ten, as if in tune to pain, the chatty birds began to go

off in the trees behind her.

‘Shut up!’ she shouted, but neither as fiercely or loudly as she

might’ve an hour before. For something in her did after all know

what was happening.

Noah Childs could see the knowledge in the eyes of the oldestof the sows, watching what was beginning. See that they knew and

also remembered. Te youngest work dog, that’d had a first lot of

pups last winter, keenly alert where it was tied underneath the corn

cart? Noah could tell that it knew too.

When water began to stream out from between her legs she took

off all her bottom-half clothes. ook off her duds. Sat down in creek

and knew all about the shit and blood coming. Fixed her eyes on

hills that looked in the failing light like old lips with the darkness

running through. Moved her gaze to the fences. Wondered if that

were Nancarrows’ place across there too.

When the wind picked up it seemed to go wild on that smell

of blood. Bits of her sun-faded hair whipped free of its plait. In

between the steep sides of pain, following her father’s instructions,she put out the corn. She put her mind away, took one of the cobs

still in its husk and bit down on that; kept it jammed in her mouth

just the way she’d had to do with a block of wood when helping

her father and uncle de-tusk the old boar.

Tat old boar had got into a fight with the draught stallion and,

playing dirty, got up under the horse’s belly. Noah had seen theguts sliding out of that poor old Nugget. No more black foals to

hope for ever again. No more mixing up that special teaspoon of

yellow sulfur in his feed to keep his coat black. Ten her father,


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who’d been the one who left the gate open, roaring at her for his

rifle and putting a bullet fair between poor old Nugget’s eyes.

Having to shoot again because that was too low.Te minute her dad had roped the pig, tipped that bloody

cunning boar over, Uncle Nipper had the hacksaw at work on

the tusks. Her block of wood had been so that the hacksaw didn’t

break its jaw.

‘Reckon by the time Dad and men git back I’m gunna be gawn.’

She spoke to the creek, she spoke to the darkening sky and to theold girls, soup bones by next week, that had left their share of corn

to follow Noah back down to the grassy hollow she’d chosen.

She was sure of that now because it felt like her whole body was

vomiting itself up. ‘Just like me mum. Gunna go that way too.’

And wished her father, bad eyesight and all, would appear with his

rifle at the ready to put her out of her suffering too.

‘olley! olley!’ Noah heard a man calling in his lead milker.

‘olley! olley!’

Te night was becoming everything in reverse. Instead of her

watching for piglets it was pigs watching what was coming out

from between her own legs. Something, something as big as the

moon rising up above the oaks, felt like it was being born and that

it was going to split her in two.‘olley! olley!’

Would that man’s cows never come in? Did he milk by moon-

light or what?

Standing up, still connected to that which all of a sudden

had slithered out, wild with relief and panic, she could see the

cord glinting white and blue. She cursed for her knife. Search-ing with her fingers found a piece of quartz with an edge that

felt sharp enough. Sawed it back and forth, then, because that

clearly wasn’t going to work, picked up the baby and walked


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wide-legged, hunting away that young boar coming in too

close. Found her belt with its knife. Cut cord with a flick of

her wrist.‘Stick you in snout with this if you come a step closer,’ she

warned another pig.

Tat’s when what she held in her hands let out a first noise.

‘’Fraid mewing’s not gunna help ya.’ As she spoke, her fingers

that had helped with foals were already on automatic, tying up a

neat enough knot in the cord.

Some fourteen-year-old mothers kill their firstborn with a stone.

Or dig a hole in the sand and bury it alive. Leave it in a forest or

park or under a lonely bridge.

Noah did none of those things. In the moonlight the shadows

of pigs were looming and lengthening. She could hear the water

golloping downstream like an old man drinking.

‘Better if you’d have bin born dead. Save me havin to be one to

do job.’ She laid it on a corn sack. ‘Garn! Git out of it,’ switching

the next over-curious porker on the nose. ‘Leave off. Not gunna

feed him to you!‘So little,’ she marvelled. ‘Well you come on just the right

night, little mister. Yeah. You did. But ’fraid it makes no differ-

ence.’ Knowing and not knowing like hundreds of child mothers

of history what she’d have to do next.

Just as before drowning kittens, she commenced a conversation

with the condemned. ‘Way too little any rate to live.’ And picked itback up. ‘And aren’t you that lucky that I didn’t lay down? A cow

that lays down for a calf never gits up again. No. Cos the wild pigs

would eat ya and yer mother.’


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Te wrinkly little old face reminded her of something. What

could it be? Again she held it up in the moonlight.

Not kittens. Its eyes and ears were wide open. Oh, of course.‘You know what you look like? Rag doll what Aunty Lala

sewed up for me. When she was nursing little Billy.’ And at this

memory, for no more than a moment, the way she would with

that Billy rag doll, she put the baby up to her shirt just like she

was her Aunty Lal. Fondled it and held it close. She could never

be sure but she thought later that she’d felt its little old mouthtrying to get a hold. ‘You’re that small you nearly could be kitten.

No bigger than bloody pound of butter.’ Which was what gave

her the idea.

‘Not gunna cry but am gunna risk me skin givin you butter box.

Gunna set you in that, down creek. After.’

After she’d held him under she meant, but when it was time

to get the job done, she found herself only washing it, sensing

more than actually seeing the creek water turning milky and then

running clear. Careful to keep its head above the water. Aware so

much of each little joint she could’ve been a butcher’s boy. Next

she used her knife to tear a bit of sack off to line the box with before

popping him into there alive.

‘In. In. We put ya in,’ so that for a moment came the feelingthat she had set a miniature rider up on a jumping pad. ‘Gunna

give you a chance, little fella.’ It wriggled in her hands but the

moment she laid it in the box everything, including him, went all

peaceful, like he wasn’t alive after all but only a toy fashioned out

of that darker kind of beeswax. Te deeper creek water sparkled

and ran with the bluey-black light, just like what she saw shone inhis eyes.

At the next little noise from its mouth she felt the new pains.

‘Wait a while.’ She felt the after-mess slither out onto the beach.


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Felt then she wanted to bid him goodbye properly. Didn’t see or

hear the dogs cleaning it up. oo intent on her explanation.

‘You’re that little ya couldn’t bloomin well’ve lived anyhow,see? And at least I haven’t put you in that Mr Oswald’s dray.’ By

now she was sure it could not only listen but understand as well.

‘Mr Oswald. Him what rears his pigs to be cannibals. Fetches in

the sick and broken-legged horses and calves from all around. And

all the piglets not born right. Tat’s the truth. Not just a story.

Bloody boils em down to feed to his porkers. And at least I’ve keptthese ones off ya.

‘Got a few Oswald ammies with us and I wouldn’t bank on

it that they mightn’t be a bit hungry. Least not gunna be burnt in

the pit by no nun.’

Tough she had no memory of her own mother, who’d died

soon after Noah came into the world, or of any kiss with the excep-

tion of Uncle Nipper’s after he’d tanked up on rum, she found

herself crouching down. Keeping it in the box, she held the morsel

of a baby up to her face.

Allowing her mouth, her eyes, to fill with a feeling hitherto only

bestowed on the eyelids of foals, she gave him a soft and squeaky

kiss. A full-moon wind, this time blowing from the north, seemed

to be springing up in acknowledgement that he must soon be on his way. Like its face, even the stars seemed to wrinkle at the parting.

‘Go on then.’ She waded out into the deeper water. Found the

current. ‘Be good! Don’t fall out!’

In the moonlight the butter box went like a crazy toy, pulled

quickly into the faster water of the Flaggy by the weight of its

miniature boatman. But even as the boat and the baby disappearedaround the creek’s bend, his forehead holding all the softness of her

farewell, Noah’s face changed shape forever.

In kissing instead of killing, she had set a mark upon her mouth


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that men everywhere were going to recognise for the rest of her life.

Something about the tenderness underlying the toughness.

A kind of triumphant relief was sweeping through her that it was done, the baby gone. She couldn’t realise that for the rest of

her life she’d be watching Flaggy Creek spinning that baby away

from her, the fast waters making it disappear like a little bend-and-

flag pony that’s forgotten to take the final turn.

‘Oh yes,’ her father, well away on his early spree, had begun to

boast to whoever was left listening in the shanty. ‘Pigs wouldn’t

be safer than with Noey. My daughter. She’s like a good dog she

is! What she can’t do I wouldn’t know. Only has to watch me

do somefin once. Nuthin Noah can’t turn her hand to. Musterin,

milkin, cuttin a calf. But then comin into kitchen to prepare a nice

bit of vegetable to go with yer chop of a night.

‘She’ll be my right-hand man getting those horses back over

range. As good as Baffy and Brian here.’

‘What else, Cecil? What else will that girl of yours with the

stupid Bible name be good at?’

But if he caught the unspoken thoughts, the hunger of at least adozen drunk men dreaming of his daughter out alone with the pigs

on Flaggy Creek, he wasn’t letting on. He could see a ring around

the moon outside and, turning the talk to weather, said he hoped

that the rain was going to hold off. Just then, a gin, not too old

or ugly, came into the shanty to ask would any of them be feeling

like a bit.‘What! You gunna cut it up and hand it round are you?’ shot

back Noah’s father, his eyes quivering.

‘Not on your nelly,’ she chiacked, and gave him a look that


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meant for a swill of rum he could be the first to follow her outside

to the bit of a sack humpy where she did her business.

rue to her father’s words, no flies on Noah, she was cleaning up.

First, to halt the blood, she sat out in the cold deep channel of the

creek. I’m like a bloody good heifer as well, she was thinking. A

heifer with no complications, not overly fussed about its first calf. Washing everything clean in the creek. Ten stuffi ng her duds

with her torn-up undershirt to catch any clots. Her heart beating

hard but steady to have it all done. Biting her nails down about the

butter box. Building up that fire and finding comfort enough in its

warmth to make some tea.

Under stars made milky and unclear by the moon she got ready

to sleep. A real moist ring was forming round the moon. Means rain,

darlin, she could hear her Uncle Nip’s voice inside her head, always

relaying to her the little wisdoms. Number of stars is days ter rain.

And everything was going to be alright, she fell asleep thinking,

until in the morning her father woke with a roar because that Brian

and Baffy and the butter box had melted off into the night.

‘Never trust pair of friggin Neville brothers again I won’t, Noh,’her father’s fury broke through the air. ‘Can’t say I wasn’t warned.

Who knows what they’ve taken off with apart from the fresh butter.

Got it last night for our sandwiches. A lovely bit of farm butter and

a loaf of bread. Nicked the butter and our box they have.’

Noah looked down.

‘Nuthin to do with you, Noey. Gawn off on some other man’sdrove cos like the idiot I was, I paid bloody Baffy out last night.’

But she knew it wasn’t that. Tat the bit of black in them Neville

brothers must’ve sensed what had happened. Smelt it somehow, if


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not the blood, maybe the death coming for the baby in its boat.

‘We’ll be right I reckon, Dad. With these quieties. You’ll see. Leave

off!’ she shouted to the pair of unchained dogs that had gone all wild and eager at her the moment she was up.

‘Oh pigs, no worries! But we’d worked out at shanty to take

eighty head of horses back over range. And how’re we meant to do

that minus that pair of unreliable bastards?’

‘We’ll find a way, Dad.’ And after Port Lake Show, they would

too, using a leather punch to put a hole in the ear of each horse inthe race before stringing them all together with twine.

‘Tose pigs of Nancarrow’s are fat as butter, aren’t they?’

‘Don’t talk about butter,’ said her father sorrowfully. ‘Speakin

of quieties, you’re a bit of a one this morning. Still mournin yer

uncle, is that it? He had a good life. Died in his boots, just the way

he would’ve wanted to you know? What happened to your wrist

then?’ Her own teeth marks were turning black and blue. ‘Don’t

tell me one of them old boars have a go at you?’

‘Nup.’ She tugged her sleeve down. ‘’Nother nightmare.’

‘Glad I wasn’t there. Must’ve bin a scary one.’ Her father tousled

her hair and peered over. ‘Well here’s something to cheer you up

’t any rate—I got you a few rides for show.’

‘What, Wirri?’‘Just missed that. But Port Lake starts Fridee week. Hold on

and I’ll stop flies getting in that wrist.’ He got out some Settling

Day and whooshed it over the marks. ‘Yep. Got the rides for ya

in the hunts on some of Lance Oldfield’s ponies. When I told

him there wasn’t no horse too tricky that my daughter couldn’t

git over a jump he said if you’re game you can even ride his bigbay, Rainbird. In ladies’ high jump. I told him to enter your

name in. Can always cancel. So how about that? Once we git to

Wirri we’ll load pigs on boat. Have a bit of a rest. Wash off smell


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of pig! I once had a horse not used to smell of pig go berserk

on me.’

‘What, threw you?’‘Oh, rearing up. Carryin on it was, but gee it ended up winning

some prize money for Errol Haines.’

As her father waded into high-jump talk, Noah felt a surge of

confidence. Butter box’s disappearance easy now to blame on that

Brian and Baffy pissing off. Nearly a whole week to recover. Tat

Rainbird to ride, maybe. All around them were pigs beginning to look restless. About a

dozen of the little red porkers lined the beach of last night, taking

a drink.

Father and daughter sat in silence then, munching up corn meat

sandwiches without butter. Having been crucified in the night by

that which already she was thinking of as Little Mister made Noah

hungry with amazement. She choked on the mustard and smiled

over at her father.

‘You’re very spruiky,’ he said, smiling back.

Te autumn morning was fresh and beautiful, the water sparkling

all blue and silvery as it rushed away east. Uncle Nipper reckoned

a fox was like a woman what had lost her mind, she remembered,

seeing a small red shape disappear at the corner of her eye.‘Bet if Uncle Nip were here he’d have caught at least one yella-

belly by now,’ offered the girl. ‘See that one glinting?’ With a

memory arriving of her uncle, of the golden quality of a few of

the hairs in amongst the snowy ones on his huge forearms, for a

moment her eyes grew watery.

Her father slapped her on the knee. ‘Looks like the weather’sgoing to hold real good for the show.’

‘Get some rides for yourself too, Dad?’

‘Why would I when you’re the champ? But yeah, I’ll have a go


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in men’s open high jump. Probably on Rainbird too, after you’ve

got him sorted.’

Te youngest porkers grunted and sparred under the oaks. Onlythat old long Large White, its little intelligent eyes as black as the

frypan, still watched the girl. ‘Ya ol’ backfatter,’ said the girl as her

father went to hitch up the carthorse. ‘At any rate, ya slabby bitch,

youse’ll be bacon bones in Homebush in no time.’

Uneasy then in that gaze still coming at her from the end of a

body that must’ve had as many as one hundred and fifty piglets in itslife, Noah also made herself busy, packing, getting the horses ready.

Seeing the butter in the crook of a tree where her father must’ve

placed it and forgot, she kept as quiet as anything, but just as her

uncle had sometimes let her, slugged down the last little shot left

in the bottle fallen over in the sand. Already the breeze was picking

up. It blew pure and cold into her new face and onto her bare

throat that now felt so warm.

Te rum hit her blood. Flushed her cheeks as pretty as wild

creek pomegranates, curled her hair; made her want to sing. Te

knowledge of the river of blood that had so recently flowed could

be left behind, she thought, slapping her pony down the shoulder

with the reins.

Only as they set off down the road did she wonder how far thebutter box boat would’ve reached. What if somehow her father

should sight it? What if somehow the bubba was still alive, its

eyes all full of red dots from the biting flies? What if, just as they

reached the bridge over the river at Wirri, it was gliding along

underneath, screaming?

By the time her father noticed dabs of blood coming throughon his daughter’s saddle they were almost at Wirri. Mistaking it for

the ending of her girlhood, unable to stop himself, as fathers since

the beginning of time have been unable to stop themselves, he


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glanced to confirm what he had already known: that she was no

longer his flat-chested right-hand man.

Te noise he made was a mixture of satisfaction and resigna-tion. If it had to come, then Noey couldn’t have timed it more

perfect, because her aunties ran the boarding house just by the

Wirri Hotel.

Which is how it was that as her father fed one hundred and

fifty-eight pigs the last of the corn in husk to keep them quiet

for loading, Noah Childs heard from her mother’s sisters, AuntyMilda and Aunty Madolin, the sketchy facts of life.

Tey’d already had a tot or two she could tell. Aunty Mil’s chin

looked hairier, like the plonk was blood and bone for bristles alone.

Te main thing seemed to not be one of them bad girls and never

was she to talk to boys about it.

‘Every month now,’ repeated Aunty Mad with evil certainty.

‘Blood in bloomers. Pain in yer guts. Just gotta get used to it.’

But Noah was barely paying attention to the old belt and pins

they were ferreting out. Her thoughts were with the baby. Some-

times he tipped over and was gobbled by catfish. Maybe an owl or

eagle the next day, or maybe not? Maybe an eggboat man or eel

trapper, seeing that baby floating by, had grabbed him up and,

even as Aunty Mil and Aunty Mad got back to their euchre, wasfeeding it flour and sugar mixed up with pony mare’s milk? On

and on, under night and under day until in her imagination it

even reached the ocean at Port Lake where she had been once.

Where the Flagstaff River’s mouth met the sea, the baby’s

bluey-black eyes, not pecked out after all by the crows, stared up

ever in search of her. Ten the lighthouse beam, failing to detectanything that small making its way out to sea over the bar, arced

off in totally the other direction and left the tiny box to face the

waves alone.


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CHAPTER 2

It was a fine April afternoon, the middle day of Port Lake Show,

when Rowley Nancarrow, universally known as Roley, first saw

the girl having her second try at putting Rainbird over six foot.

Who could that be? he wondered. Didn’t seem familiar to him at

all, but gee she was handling a diffi cult horse with courage. Tat

Rainbird. Renowned for its rubbish behaviour.

Te young man draped his lean body over the railings, enjoying

the sun on his back. Enjoying her determination. What’s that they were calling her? It sounded like Nella. Nella Childs. Tough she

was a bit rough with her hands, whoever had taught her had done

it good. Even as the horse plunged and spun, how quietly she sat.

Nella Childs? He scanned his memory. Never heard of her.

Even though Roley had ridden for the Sanderson brothers at all

the Royals, he sometimes thought that the Port Lake showground would have to be his favourite. Te sky today was the blue of the

breast of one of those champion budgies over under the caged

birds’ roof. Just a few drifting fairy floss clouds up in the sky, that


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looked washed as clean and bright as the white socks of that shiny

hack cantering past.

Tere was a glittery, crisp quality to the air. And what a picturethe ring looked. Not too churned. Te main effect was still of a

large green circle full of the smaller circles formed by all the hooves

of the ring events travelling the same track, as the judges narrowed

their eyes and tried to be impartial.

Built small she was, he saw. Just like himself she was a high

jumper who, without a great long pair of legs to wrap around thehorse, relied entirely on a sense of balance. Roley’s was legendary.

Tere wasn’t a bareback hunt in the last ten years that he hadn’t

won at the Easter Show in Sydney and once, just for the hell of it,

egged on by George Welburn hopping a horse bareback over five

foot, Roley had taken the bridle and saddle off his own and done

the same over six.

Te high jump was set up as usual right in front of the grand-

stand that already was fairly packed with people. Either side of

the stand the canvas roofs of this or that attraction moved in the

breeze. Even though he was meant to be somewhere else, Roley

kept standing with his back in the sun, watching her get ready for

her next go over the jump which had been put up half a foot. Te

guts of her was adding to his enjoyment of the day.

Noah felt a pride and thrill as big as the jump itself as she

manoeuvred the big bay gelding beneath her into the best

position for the run-up. At the sight of her father, who’dstationed himself strategically enough for the horse to remember

the stockwhip of a few days before, the horse plunged forward.

Floated sideways. ‘Don’t you bloomin well rear on me,’ and made


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23

her hand into a fist, ready to clock him one between the ears if

he did.

In her eagerness to work this Rainbird out, Noah forgot allabout pain and blood. She forgot the baby, the little look it had

shot her in the dark.

It seemed it was just she and the horse, finding the way to best

reach that jump. Te white lather of sweat he’d worked up was

making it hard to keep a hold of the reins. He took another leap

forward and for a moment she lost her grip.Te horse boiled beneath her. ‘Come on.’ She touched his

shoulder with her hand. ‘Not going to get out of it so might as well

cooperate now. Stormy might’ve been a better name for you. Or

Sneaky,’ as now she had a firm hold again on the reins he tried to

reef her out of the saddle.

Ten at last, his dancing fight over, they were cantering for the

jump. Even this far back she could tell that he was either going to

have to stand off or put in a short one. But he was good. No doubt

about it. She felt him reassembling his own stride in order to soar

over six feet as easy as if it was a falling branch. Only at the last

possible moment did the horse kick both heels back in a defiant

flick, so that even as he landed with his ears pricked, the rail was

falling down behind them.‘Tat was bad luck for Noah Childs,’ called the offi cial. ‘Elimin-

ated. But a name to watch in the future. Noah Childs and that’s

what she is. Just fourteen years old I’m told, ladies and gentlemen.

Tis is her first Port Lake Show. And her first ladies’ high jump.

She was riding Lance Oldfield’s Rainbird. How about a round of

applause for her as she leaves the ring.’


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Te sound of horses’ hooves turns hollow on the farms west of Wirri.

If a man can still ride, if he hasn’t totally lost the use of his legs, if he

hasn’t died to the part of his heart that understands such things, then

he should go for a gallop. At the very least he should stand at the road

by the river imagining that he’s pushing a horse up the steep hill that

leads to the house on the farm once known as One ree.Set in hardscrabble farming country, and the high-jumping

circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to the

Second World War, Foal’s Bread tells the story of two generations

of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by fate and

the vicissitudes of the land.

It is a love story of impossible beauty and sadness, a chronicle

of dreams ‘turned inside out’, and miracles that never last, framed

against a world both heartbreakingly tender and unspeakably

hard.

With luminous prose and an aching affi nity for the landscape,

Foal’s Bread is the work of a born writer at the height of her consid-

erable powers. It is a novel of remarkable originality and virtuosity,

which confirms Gillian Mears’ reputation as one of Australia’s mostexciting and acclaimed authors.


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‘Dappled with fast-moving light and shade, occasionally swelling withromance, Foal’s Bread is too bubblingly vibrant to grow sentimental, thetangy vernacular of its cast a delight, the blood, sweat and saddle soappungently rendered.’ HE O BSERVER

‘Mears writes with such minute appreciation of the landscape of the mid-north coast and with such love for her flawed creations that we are smittenalongside her . . . It is a rare fiction, too, that lavishes such attention andcare on the depiction of animals. Te horses of Foal’s Bread are so distinctin personality, talent and physicality that when, as occasionally happens,a human mistreats one, the reader aches to come to their defence. Onlya writer of Mears’ talent could so enlarge the circle of our sympathy bymeans of style alone.’ G W, HE AUSRALIAN

‘. . . the personal is raised triumphantly to the universal by the poeticpower of her knotty, idiomatic prose and her acute perception of boththe inner world of the soul and a sensuously recreated rural outer

world.’ K E, ADELAIDE ADVERISER

‘Tis spellbinding tale never lets us forget the transfiguring effect thatleaping into the sky on the back of one of these noble beasts has on Noahand Roley, and their lives, nor the comfort they derive from the presenceand smell of anything connected with them.’ HE H ERALD , S

‘Tis story squeezed my heart with a tight fist and didn’t let go until

the last page . . . memorable for its subtle rendering of the marriage; amarriage shot through with pathos and rapture . . . also memorable forits acute observation of nature, and the Nancarrows’ relationship withtheir horses . . . Some episodes of this story are so wretched they mademe weep. But there is great beauty in the telling. Verdict: Powerful story-telling.’ H ERALD S UN

‘. . . this book about winning and losing—and luck both good andbad—is a harrowing story dotted with moments of outstanding

beauty . . . endurance is only a part of this engrossing, epic story. Mears writes with a bleak, precise poeticism, conveying both the tenderness andpassion between Noah and Roley and the challenges and complicationsthat strip away their chances of happiness.’ M ERO


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‘. . . poignant and beautiful with stunning description of the landscapeas well as lovingly crafted characters whose journeys the reader followseagerly to the end.’ B ELLARINE IMES

‘Mears does for horse high-jumping what Winton did for surfing. Shemade me feel the joy and beauty of the jump, of pushing oneself to achieve

just that little bit more in a risky sport, of having a dream that keeps yougoing, of doing “the impossible”. Mears, like Winton, knows her subjectinside out, and you feel it in her writing.’ W HISPERING G UMS

‘. . . a story about love, sex, joy, sadness, jealousy and ambition. It’s aboutcomplicated families and the ways in which history often repeats itself

within those families. It’s about the hardship of living on the land in theyears between the wars, of milking cows and breeding horses, despitefloods, drought and raging bush fires. But above all it’s about aspiringto better things—and chasing dreams . . . the novel is completely free ofsentiment, but somehow, in giving her narrative such a strong sense oftime and place, you get so caught up in the mood of Foal’s Bread that it’shard not to care for the people she writes about.’ R EADING M AERS

‘Mears writes like an angel.’ K V, HE AGE

‘She has depth and insight and lyrical skill worthy of unmitigatedenvy.’ M W, HE AUSRALIAN

‘In noticing her world, she has also learnt to write with a memorablelove of people. Mears has that rare ability to move both to tears and tolaughter in what seems to be the same gesture, the same vision of the

world.’ J H, HE AUSRALIAN

‘Mears continues to nudge us back to what we suspect about ourselvesand remind us of what we’d prefer to forget.’ HE AGE

‘It is impossible to read Mears’ work and not see the world suddenly,

obsessively, magnified into tiny, balletic gestures of light and dust.’ HE AUSRALIAN W OMEN ’ S B OOK R EVIEW


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ALSO BY GILLIAN MEARS

A Map of the Gardens

Collected Stories

Paradise is a Place

he Grass Sister

he Mint Lawn

Fineflour

Ride a Cock Horse

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Gillian Mears - Foals Bread (Extract)

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