‘Margaret?’
She glanced at the clock: the men would be in shortly for lunch. She walked to the coathooks by the back door and pulled off an old stockman’s jacket, wincing at the smell of tar and wet dog that, she knew, would linger on her clothes.
The rain was now so heavy that in places around the yard it ran in rivers; the drains gurgled a protest, and the chickens huddled in ruffled groups under the shrubs. Letty cursed herself for not having brought her gumboots but ran from the back door of the house to the yard and round to the back of the barn. There, as she had half expected, she made out what looked like a brown oil-proofed lump on a horse, circling the paddock, no face visible under the wide-brimmed hat that fell down to the collar, almost mirrored with slick channels of rainwater.
‘Margaret!’ Letty stood under the eaves of the barn and shouted to be heard over the rain, waving half-heartedly.
The horse was plainly fed up: its tail clamped to its soaking hindquarters, it was tiptoeing sideways round the fence, occasionally cowkicking in frustration while its rider patiently turned it to begin each painstaking manoeuvre again.
‘Maggie!’
At one point it bucked. Letty’s heart lurched and her hand flew to her mouth. But the rider was neither unseated nor concerned, and merely booted the animal forwards, muttering something that might or might not have been an admonishment.
‘For God’s sake, Maggie, will you get over here!’
The brim of the hat lifted and a hand was raised in greeting. The horse was steered round and walked towards the gate, its head low. ‘Been there long, Letty?’ she called.
‘Are you insane, girl? What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ She could see her niece’s broad grin under the brim of the hat.
‘Just a bit of schooling. Dad’s too big to ride her and the boys are useless with her, so there’s only me. Moody old girl, isn’t she?’
Letty shook her head, exasperated, and motioned for Margaret to dismount. ‘For goodness’ sake, child. Do you want a hand getting off?’
‘Hah! No, I’m fine. Is it lunchtime yet? I put some stew on earlier, but I don’t know what time they’ll be in. They’re moving the calves down to Yarrawa Creek, and they can be all day down there.’
‘They’ll not be all day in this weather,’ Letty responded, as Margaret clambered down inelegantly from the horse and landed heavily on her feet. ‘Unless they’re as insane as you are.’
‘Ah, don’t fuss. She looks worse than she is.’
‘You’re soaked. Look at you! I can’t believe you’d even consider riding out in this weather. Good gracious, Maggie, I don’t know what you think you’re doing . . . What your dear mother would say, God only knows.’
There was a brief pause.
‘I know . . .’ Margaret wrinkled her nose as she reached up to undo the girth.
Letty wondered if she had said too much. She hesitated, then bit back the awkward apology that had sprung to her lips. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Forget it. You’re right, Letty,’ said the girl, as she swung the saddle easily under her arm. ‘She wouldn’t have had this mare doing circles to balance her up. She’d have put her in a pair of side reins and be done with it.’
The men returned shortly before one o’clock, arriving in a thunderous cluster of wet overshoes and dripping hats, shedding their coats at the door. Margaret had set the table and was dishing up steaming bowls of beef stew.
‘Colm, you’ve still got mud all the way up the back of your heels,’ said Letty, and the young man obligingly kicked off his boots on the mat rather than waste time trying to clean them.
‘Got any bread with that?’
‘Give us a chance, boys. I’m going as fast as I can.’
‘Maggie, your dog’s asleep in Dad’s old hat,’ said Daniel, grinning. ‘Dad says if he gets fleas off it he’ll shoot her.’
‘I said no such thing, eejit child. How are you, Letty? Did you get up to town yesterday?’ Murray Donleavy, a towering, angular man whose freckles and pale eyes signalled his Celtic origins, sat down at the head of the table and, without comment, began to work his way through a hunk of bread that his sister-in-law had sliced for him.
‘I did, Murray.’
‘Any post for us?’
‘I’ll bring it out after you’ve eaten.’ Otherwise, the way these men sat at a table, the letters would be splashed with gravy and fingered with greasemarks. Noreen had never seemed to mind.
Margaret had had her lunch already, and was sitting on the easy chair by the larder, her socked feet on a footstool. Letty watched the men settle, with private satisfaction, as they lowered their heads to eat. Not many families, these days, could boast five men round a table with three of them having been in the services. As Murray muttered to Daniel, his youngest, to pass more bread, Letty could still detect a hint of the Irish accent with which he had arrived in the country. Her sister had occasionally mocked it good-humouredly. ‘That one!’ she’d say, her accent curled round a poor approximation of his own. ‘He’s got more fight in him than a Dundalk wedding.’
No, this table lacked someone else entirely. She sighed, pushing Noreen from her thoughts, as she did countless times every day. Then she said brightly, ‘Alf Pettit’s wife has bought one of those new Defender refrigerators. It’s got four drawers and an icemaker, and doesn’t make a sound.’
‘Unlike Alf Pettit’s wife,’ said Murray. He had pulled over the latest copy of the Bulletin, and was deep in ‘The Man on the Land’, its farming column. ‘Hmph. Says here that dairy yards are getting dirtier because all the women are quitting.’
‘They’ve obviously never seen the state of Maggie’s room.’
‘You make this?’ Murray lifted his head from his newspaper and jerked a thumb at his bowl, which was nearly empty.
‘Maggie did,’ said Letty.
‘Nice. Better than the last one.’
‘I don’t know why,’ said Margaret, her hand held out in front of her the better to examine a splinter. ‘I didn’t do anything any different.’
‘There’s a new picture starting at the Odeon,’ Letty said, changing the subject. That got their attention. She knew the men pretended not to be interested in the snippets of gossip she brought to the farm twice a week, gossip being the stuff of women, but every now and then the mask of indifference slipped. She rested against the sink, arms crossed over her chest.
‘Well?’
‘It’s a war film. Greer Garson and Tyrone Power. I forget the name. Something with Forever in it?’
‘I hope it’s got lots of fighter planes. American ones.’ Daniel glanced at his brothers, apparently searching for agreement, but their heads were down as they shovelled food into their mouths.
‘How are you going to get to Woodside, short-arse? Your bike’s broke, if you remember.’ Liam shoved him.
‘He’s not cycling all that way by himself, whatever,’ said Murray.
‘One of youse can take me in the truck. Ah, go on. I’ll pay for your ices.’
‘How many rabbits you sell this week?’
Daniel had been raising extra cash by skinning rabbits and selling the pelts. The price of good ones had risen inexplicably from a penny each to several shillings, which had left his brothers mildly envious of his sudden wealth.