THE FARRIER’S WIFE

I don’t know when I started to hate her, it just crept up on me until one day it was there, full blown and ready to eat my heart out. It was the poem that did it, hidden in that damn book he’d stashed in the shed. Fading ink on paper, strong downstrokes talking of love, desire, passion. I wish I’d never found it.

That first summer we spent golden Sunday afternoons under a ghost gum down by the creek. I’d wait; a quiver of excitement would catch my breath at the sight of his ute billowing yellow dust behind it. Closer. Closer. His hair was burnished by the sun, his arms rippled from hard work, his eyes blue, I swear the bluest blue I’ve ever seen, even bluer than the fairy wren that sings outside my window. It was so easy to fall in love with him.

When I took along a book of poems, he laughed. What did a farrier want with poetry? I read sweet sonnets of love and longing, the words reaching out to seize my throat and my heart. He snatched the book and turned to epics of wild bush horses, galloping over sweeping plains. And we’d make love the same way, sensuous and wild. Lying on the blanket, afterwards, we’d make plans — young lovers’ grand dreams of travel, home, children. But not yet.

I’d pick a dandelion and blow the feathery white puffs to talk with the spirits and make a wish. It was always the same; days of wonder together. Nights of love and tenderness under the stars, looking up at the Milky Way so vibrant in the night sky I could reach out to catch a falling star. First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish, I wish tonight.

He said we could get engaged for my birthday next year. Mum said I couldn’t possibly know my mind so young but he said I was very grown up. I tried to impress Mum, he’s 20 and he has his own job and he has a ute. I wanted to invite him over for dinner but he said his mother needed him at home to do chores. He said if he wasn’t called up he’d get his own place closer to town next year. It all depended on how the war progressed and who was lucky or unlucky enough to avoid the 1965 conscription ballot. Young men’s lives determined by the toss of the dice and their day of birth. Two years of service for more than forty thousand young men who weren’t old enough to vote but old enough to die in a foreign country so very far from home. I shivered when he told me he was safe.

My belly grew.

So did expectations. My brother was the most vocal. ‘Of course he’ll marry her, not nice to have a snotty little bastard around the place Mum’. Dad knocked his pipe against his boot, the dry ash falling off the verandah in the breeze, ‘he should do the right thing love.’ Mum wept that night, I could hear her through the thin ply walls whispering to Dad, ‘she’s only 17, same age as I was, remember?’

He was a good farrier, popular with the local farmers. Dad said he couldn’t see what I saw in him. But my brother thought he was alright and punched him on the arm the day he came over to ask Dad if he could marry me. Mum made me try on her dress but it was too small. And a bit yellowish. I thought she might cry again.

He’d hold me in his arms and stroke my belly. The bump only just visible. I was in a daze, so much happening, caught in a whirlwind of dress fittings and helping Mum with the cake. Did I want the little happy couple figurines on top or a good luck horseshoe? Too much to think about between bouts of nausea and actually running to the bathroom. My brother laughed and told me served me right for being easy. Mum explained that whether the babe is born in or out of wedlock the morning sickness is just the same. He laughed.

_____

The church looked a sight decked out in a rainbow of gladioli and ladder fern, and bows on the pews, some a little ragged from use, all arranged by the Ladies Guild. They knew. Town gossip said I was just damn lucky he hadn’t been conscripted for the war in Vietnam, some of the Ladies Guild said maybe I hadn’t been so lucky after all. Mum did cry. I felt sick. Please God, don’t let me throw up during the ceremony. The minister had hair growing out of his nose. If I concentrate on that I could hold on until it was over.

I couldn’t look at the sandwiches that the Ladies Guild had made and covered with damp tea towels to keep them fresh and the flies off. The ginger beer punch with bits of orange and lemon floating on top was tepid. The Guild had forbidden alcohol in the hall since the convenor had taken the pledge.

Dad was grumpy. Mum wiped her tears. I vomited in the ladies toilet.

We were happy. It was like playing house. Saturdays we’d go into town. I felt so proud walking down the main street with my husband, my wedding ring flashing in the sunlight as I stroked my belly. Funny, no one ever asked what I’d wanted to do with my life. I was the farrier’s wife, a woman’s place is in the home, and that should be enough. No time for poetry now.

The two mothers knitted beanies and matinee jackets in lemon and pale green, each convinced that hers was the prettier. Whiter than white nappies were bought by the dozen and stacked in the make-shift nursery in the sleepout. A surprise baby shower brought more tiny clothes and bunny rugs. All this stuff for one little person who was coming into our lives. Unplanned but now dearly anticipated with the dates marked off the calendar in a count –down of love and joy.

Unwanted pains timed themselves with my breathing, slow, then fast. We left by the south gate, we never use the south gate, it’s the long way round but not as bumpy as the other way. We didn’t say a word the whole half hour into town, he drove too fast, I caught my breath at each pothole.

It’s too soon.

The church looked dreary. No flowers today, no Ladies Guild. No sandwiches or ginger beer. He sat beside me. I could feel his body. Tense. Silent. The little coffin, white as my hankie, balanced on a stool before the altar. I have no idea what the minister said, empty words of comfort and God’s plan. Dad wiped a fleck of dust from his eye, he’d insisted on a burial much to the minister’s dismay. He’d said that his first hadn’t been laid to rest proper and he wouldn’t stand for it again. My brother shuffled his feet, boots scraping the wooden floor. Both Mums wept.

They said I was too young, it happens often, best to keep it a secret, get on with life, there will be more chances. I make them uncomfortable.

What is this pain that I cannot speak? Am I the only person ever to feel this broken? Where is the comfort that I need now more than the day he died? Why is it all too hard for them to face? To speak is taboo..

My silence. His silence. My tears went missing in action. Just get on with life

______

Everything changed.

Now he’d drive for jobs up to a day away sometimes overnight. He’d take his camp bed along with a wide assortment of horseshoes, tacks and nails, clinch pliers, nippers and rasps, leaving before daybreak, home long after sunset. Long days. Days marked by ordinariness, lives lived like a wind-up toy, expended and exhausted at the end of the day, speaking only those words that breached the routine. Long nights of too much thinking and not enough tears, my despair spinning like the willy-willy whipped up by the southerly in the far paddock last summer, turning and twisting all my emotions, only to settle them back in the same place. But they wouldn’t settle for long.

We had no words. No explanations. Birth. Death. Loss. Life goes on. Mornings filled with feeding the chooks and tending the vegetable patch. Afternoons spent filing the invoices and adding up the outstanding monthly accounts. No nappies on the line fluttering in the breeze. No tiptoeing into the make-shift nursery to peek at the crib my father had made in his shed. It was all emptiness with nothing to justify the endless sorrow or the pain of the unknown. We’d make love in silence, no laughter, no golden afternoons under the ghost gum, no poems of love and longing, or brumbies.

______

One night in the darkness he said he was going south to work for a bit and maybe I should go home. Mum said to come home, ‘get your life back in order love. You’ve had a hard time of it pet.’ But this is my home now. My clothes are in the wardrobe, my toothbrush is on the sink.

His ute spewed yellow dust into a cloudy trail until it disappeared, out of the south gate towards the escarpment. He must know someone down there.

With only the dogs for company I’d run down to the creek. Like kids they’d splash about and chase each other. At dusk I’d sit under the ghost gum, the sky gathering a cloak of darkness around me. I’d bury my face into Rusty and Billy’s necks and let them lick my face.

Dreams came back, slowly, timidly; the ache subsiding for moments at a time, until I could go a full hour without thinking of him or my little one or my life with no purpose. I could breathe.

Days went by, last days of autumn, soon the wind will blow up from the south, will it bring him home? Dr Thomas had said the test was positive — new life, a new beginning. Come home now. Come home now. I’ll leave the south gate open.

_____

I wished I hadn’t found the poem. I didn’t mean to find it. I was looking for some cup hooks for the kitchen. The shed was dark. Too dark by the end of the day. Why was there a book in the shed? Why was it hidden at the back of the shelf?

The poem was in his writing, strong cursive script the same as on his invoices. The paper was folded neatly and bookmarked South of My Days, the first poem he’d read as we lay under the ghost gum when I was seventeen.

No-one is listening

South of my days’ circle

I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country

full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep

He often spoke of the land, high lean country, old cottages lurching for shelter from endless winter frosts, dark nights with stars, and stories told of escarpments just south of here.

But his poem speaks of love. Of a woman who wraps her arms around him and fills him with joy. A woman who listens to him by lamplight. A woman who makes his life complete. Is that where he’s gone? To joy, to lamplight, to arms wrapped around him. I wished I hadn’t found the poem in his strong cursive script that spoke of love and joy and dreams. I wanted to hate her.

______

Then he came back, looking tanned and fit, older, different. He’d changed. He didn’t say where he’d been and I couldn’t ask.

The poem would lure me to the shed. I’d look to see if the book was still there, its pages spotted with age, its orange spine splitting. I’d hold my breath. Had it been moved since I last took it down? Had he looked at it again? Was he still yearning for her touch, the lamplight? He’d written of love but I wanted only to hate. I’d gently take the book down from the shelf, turn to the marked page and unfold the paper, scared that my tears would blot the ink.

‘What are you doing with that?’ I jumped. He’d followed me into the shed, caught me with the book open, my hand trembling, the poem shaking, the paper crackling.

‘Who is she?’ was I all could muster, my voice unsteady. I had no words of demand or accusation.

He looked at me, I swear for the first time since the funeral.

Fearing the answer I turned away from his gaze. Who is she, I’d asked. Do I really want to know her name, where she lives? Did I want to know about the lamplight that lit his heart?

‘She? What are you talking about?’ he said, grabbing the book, looking at it as if he had never seen it before.

‘The one you love so passionately, the one you went south to see, the one you’ve written about and hidden in this book.’

He turned away.

I started to walk out of the shed, out of the cool dark cave into the late afternoon sunshine, blinding in its intensity, bleaching me of life. There was nothing more to say.

He followed me, his voice soft, ‘it’s you,’ he whispered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, ‘I wrote it for you before we were married. I forgot it was there.’

‘So how come you came home so different? Don’t tell me you haven’t been with another woman.’

‘You’re right. I have been with another woman. Joe’s mum. I came home because I love you. I want to make a go of it. I’m new to all this marriage stuff I don’t understand when you go quiet. But Joe’s mum told me that I had to give you some space, you’d need time to grieve and that everything would be alright if I was patient enough and loved you enough, and listened to you and shared my hopes and fears.’

______

We had never shared our deepest feelings of sadness. If they’re left unsaid we would be safe, they couldn’t touch us. We had never spoken of our love, or our sorrow, or how we might mend our broken hearts, we didn’t know how. No one taught us how to love or how to grieve as if it could be learned like arithmetic or Latin. We’d thought we could simply go back to our lives once we Iost the baby, ‘get on with it’ Dad had said in his no-nonsense way. Mum wept. Maybe we should have wept together. But no one taught us. We were both new to all this marriage stuff.

I moved closer to him, a wave of relief flooded my body as I eased into his arms.

A gust of wind from the south billowed leaves up into the afternoon sky as we lay together, close, under the ghost gum down by the creek. His hand ranged over my belly and I looked into those blue, blue eyes and felt that old quiver of excitement. It was so easy to love him.

*South of my Days: Judith Wright (The Moving Image 1946)