Leave Taking Page 2

  from her first preschool drawing

  right through to the last,

  when even her fingers

  wouldn’t hold a pencil properly.

  The rest we placed in a big cardboard box

  and made sure it was in the heart of the bonfire.

  The tractor is parked nearby

  with the front-end loader attached.

  Dad has pushed up the rubbish,

  making the bonfire higher,

  more compact.

  I’ll help him later

  with the hessian bags.

  But now, I want to go

  to the hayshed, remember

  the times we made cubbies,

  tunnels, our own private castles.

  I wonder if the cubby Leah made

  is still there or if the rain and winter

  have knocked it away, or maybe Dad took

  the bales to feed the cows. I don’t know

  but I’ll check.

  Trigger comes and nuzzles my hand.

  Funny how my dog knows when I feel

  sad.

  Then I open the hayshed paddock gate.

  Close it again. I remember once Leah

  left the gate open and all the cows raced in

  and ran round and round the hayshed

  all night long.

  Rubbing, knocking and nibbling,

  snatching at hay in wild mouthfuls,

  pooing everywhere and running in

  an unstoppable flow of legs, swishing tails

  and belching moos.

  It was both funny and sad.

  Dad was angry and Leah

  was sorry.

  My sister …

  I brush the words away,

  look at the old bales of hay

  thrown on the ground,

  too mouldy for the cows to eat.

  Cows are fussy eaters,

  or they might get sick.

  This haystack area

  is sometimes used to nurse a sick animal,

  like a calf, or a cow, back to health.

  Hard work.

  I remember one time, one special calf.

  I’d bring a bucket

  of warm milk, a tube and rubber teat.

  Try so hard to get it to drink,

  rub its legs, make it stand,

  but after a while it died.

  I cried

  so much.

  ‘You tried hard son,’

  Dad had said, ‘but the calf needed to be

  able to stand for longer, to drink more milk.

  A sick calf takes a lot of attention and care.’

  And Dad had ruffled my hair.

  Farms are for new life

  and new death.

  We know.

  Trigger is bounding up the bales,

  they are wide, thick steps

  but tricky steps.

  A bale could be soft, broken,

  and Trigger could fall down to the next layer.

  Trigger is always full of energy;

  brown kelpies are like that. He loves

  chasing, running, exploring.

  All these things he can do all day

  if he wants to,

  on a farm.

  He’s sniffing again.

  How many mice live

  in this hayshed, I wonder?

  I follow, I want to see over

  the farm, the land is flat.

  Trigger sits with me,

  wanting me to scratch his ears.

  I remember Leah climbing

  these hay bales, looking for the right layer

  to change and switch the small bales

  until they made a house shape.

  ‘Don’t move too many bales,’

  Dad had warned,

  ‘they could cave in,

  smother you.’

  So Leah had climbed back down

  to the bottom two layers,

  and I’d helped push, shove,

  pull those bales to where Leah directed.

  Jaxon had been over that day,

  and we’d each made a little room

  and played pirates racing from

  top to bottom of the hay bales.

  Our arms and legs were scratchy afterwards

  and Leah’s little arms had been bleeding,

  so Mum had quietly said, ‘No more moving

  the bales, Leah. Take a rug for your house

  next time.’ But there had been no next

  time for Leah and our cubby

  had been knocked down

  by the front-end loader, by the weather.

  Luckily Leah had taken a photo that day

  of our cubby, and each time I see the photo

  it makes me smile.

  Trigger nudges me.

  I see a wedge-tailed eagle

  soaring up above;

  maybe it sees mice too,

  or a hare.

  I hear Dad’s motorbike rev again;

  he’s out to check on the cows,

  see if they got to the day paddock

  alright.

  Then I see a small spiral cloud

  coming down

  the dirt road beside our farm.

  A ute passing,

  dust tracking its

  progress like a light flashing.

  The blue wrens dart for insects

  several bales away.

  I am quiet,

  steady, watching.

  The wind makes little scurries

  in the loose straw

  right down below

  at the base of the haystack,

  and I sigh.

  I don’t understand how we can leave

  this farm. I don’t.

  But I’m trying.

  Funny, suddenly there are lots

  of things I don’t understand.

  At least here, leaning on the highest hay bales

  with Trigger, looking, feeling

  the softness of summers past,

  imagining Leah with me,

  I can try.

  The blue wrens dart

  away.

  Trigger looks at me with mournful eyes.

  Does Trigger know we are leaving too?

  ‘Come on back to the machinery shed,

  we’ve got some sorting to do,’

  I tell him.

  In the machinery shed

  I like this sorting,

  well, that’s one

  good thing that comes from selling,

  getting ready for the clearing sale.

  Dad has boxes of useful nails, bolts,

  screws, all jumbled together,

  and I love to sort them

  into the same sizes, new or old.

  I find other trays,

  heavy cardboard boxes,

  keep sorting, try not to think

  too much.

  Mum comes and peers in;

  she’s looking for Dad

  and says, ‘Wish you were able to sort

  them out years ago …

  but you would have been too young.’

  She looks at me, then smiles.

  ‘You probably would have done

  a good job then as well.

  Lucky it’s school holidays, Toby.

  You’ve missed so much school this year …’

  And there is a catch in Mum’s voice.

  She stops, wipes her eyes

  and says,

  ‘Tell Dad I’m looking

  for him, if you see h
im before I do.’

  Mum gives me a small hug.

  Lately she wants to hug me every time

  she sees me.

  A hug good morning

  and a hug goodnight are enough really.

  But then I look at Trigger

  and I know I hug him a lot more lately.

  And he doesn’t mind at all.

  So perhaps I’d better like hugs more.

  For Mum.

  My fingers are getting greasy

  and my tummy is rumbling.

  ‘Morning tea surely,’ I say to Trigger.

  He wags his tail.

  Anything I say

  is good tail-wagging material,

  except if I growl and that’s not often,

  well, not much anymore now

  he’s no longer a puppy.

  I remember a time when he chewed

  everybody’s boots at the back door,

  and he chased the chooks

  when they were let out of a morning.

  Chooks are not hunted on our farm,

  except by foxes and if a fox comes

  close to the house at night-time,

  Trigger howls.

  I run back to the house.

  Rush inside, grab an apple,

  some biscuits, water and maybe

  some grapes if there are any left.

  I think of how much Leah liked grapes

  and stop right on the spot.

  It hurts to remember special things

  about Leah.

  Now I have a tummy ache.

  How can I stop these thoughts?

  Is that wrong?

  I don’t know.

  Wish my pa still lived here,

  I could ask him.

  Dad is inside again and making coffee.

  Mum and Dad are talking,

  I hear snatches:

  ‘They will come for a look tomorrow.

  See if more fencing needs to be done

  in the bull paddock. They have prize bulls now.

  Look at the pumps, look at some of the machinery

  we are selling. They might make an offer before

  the clearing sale.’

  I don’t want to hear any more.

  I find a bag to put my food in

  and jog outside again.

  ‘They are coming,’ I chant,

  ‘I don’t have much time left,’ I chant.

  I run back to the machinery shed,

  my morning tea bumping along.

  Trigger is jogging also. He waits while

  I find the biscuits. Sits when I show him one,

  then wolfs it down before I’ve even

  found one for myself.

  I sit on an upturned crate

  and drink water, munch an apple,

  look at the sorting I’ve already done

  and the pile of broken bits and pieces

  that probably need to be thrown out,

  but I’ll have to ask Dad first.

  I tidy away my morning tea and slowly begin

  to sort again, and that’s when I find the project

  Leah and I did last year. Hammering nails

  into wood and then looping thread around

  the nails to make a picture.

  Leah was clever at this. Her picture is a heart

  and I can’t help it, tears just come.

  I put Leah’s picture up on Dad’s wide bench.

  ‘We’ll take this with us,’ I tell Trigger.

  He wags his tail. It’s good having a friend

  who approves of everything you say.

  I want to go outside,

  I’ve had enough of sorting.

  I have the chooks to feed.

  And the silky bantam

  to watch;

  she might have hatched more chickens.

  I take the apple core;

  chooks are always hungry.

  I have to check their water

  and their pellets.

  Later, I’ll go back and collect the eggs.

  We don’t need so many eggs now.

  I think we can take the bantams to our new place.

  Leah would have liked that.

  Trigger knows where we’re heading.

  It’s like he smells feathers and dust

  and the scrap bucket as soon as we

  take the short cut past the bonfire

  and the sugar gums to the chook house.

  Or maybe he can hear them scratching

  and the contented way they sing and mutter

  when they’re hunting in the grass.

  I say, ‘Steady now,

  don’t frighten the chooks.’

  Trigger pants and slobbers.

  I know that I can’t completely trust him;

  he wants to chase them.

  The hens are chortling, the dust flying

  as they enjoy their day.

  They always race out when I prop open the door

  first thing in the morning.

  I remember making this chook house from

  old fencing wire, mesh, an old door, tin.

  Dad helped.

  It was fun.

  We haven’t done anything like that for …

  I shut my eyes, will my mind

  not to think.

  Then I remember how we scratched

  our initials in the concrete

  of the machinery shed.

  And now I want to paint my initials on the beam

  of the chook house door.

  To make some history of my own.

  There are some half-empty tins

  of paint I found when I was sorting.

  ‘Come on Trigger,’ I call. Can’t leave him

  here alone.

  We run back to the machinery shed.

  I grab the red paint, a small tin

  of yellow paint, a tiny brush.

  ‘Come on Trigger,’ I yell again

  as I head back to the chook house.

  He thinks it’s a game; his pink tongue

  hanging out, ears back, he runs, runs

  and tries to chase the big black rooster.

  ‘No,’ I shout.

  ‘Stop,’ I shout.

  And Trigger pulls up, sits down

  panting, looking back at me. Waiting.

  ‘Ah Trigger, don’t chase the chooks,’ I growl.

  I pull over a stump of wood,

  open the red can, stir the paint with a stick,

  dip in the brush, stand on the log

  and reach to write my initials.

  Then I wipe the brush on the grass

  and dip it in the yellow paint.

  I write Leah’s initials and a curve for a smile.

  There, it’s done.

  Time to check on the silky bantam.

  I’ve made a little nesting room

  for her (with Dad’s help)

  by putting up mesh and a frame

  on the back of the old outside toilet.

  There’s plenty of straw to make

  a warm nest.

  Two days ago, I counted six eggs.

  I remember Mum answering Leah’s questions.

  ‘Clucky bantams,’ Mum had called them,

  ‘always wanting to go broody.’

  ‘What’s broody?’ Leah had asked.

  ‘When a hen wants to sit and hatch eggs,

  not lay them each day.

  Count how many days that bantam sits

  on the nest, then watch for a surprise,’

  Mum had said.

&nbs
p; I look at a spot lower than me

  on the door post and I can just faintly see

  the marks Leah wrote as she

  counted twenty-one days.

  Leah had squealed with joy

  at the chicks.

  Will I see chicks today?

  Yes, I hear the peep, peep of chickens

  and there I see a tiny puffball of gold,

  then another and another peering from under

  the thick feathers of the mother bantam.

  ‘Yay!’ I shout. ‘Six chicks!’

  Leah would love to hold one chick, in her tiny

  thin hand, like she did the last time

  a bantam went broody.

  I check on the water, the feed for the bantam

  in her nesting pen,

  then go back to the main pen.

  I know we will take some chooks with us

  and leave others.

  ‘Goodbye chook house,’ I whisper.

  I have time to visit the deep well site.

  See if our big rock is still there,

  the one we helped Pa put in place

  to mark the site of the long-ago

  freshwater well.

  I take the two paint cans with me

  and a broken piece of wood from

  a crate as a marker, of sorts.

  I sit on the big rock, stir the red paint

  and write ‘Deep Well’ on the wood,

  and alongside it draw

  a yellow smile.

  Then I push it into the moist soil.

  There! Another piece of my and Leah’s

  farm history.

  ‘Goodbye hidden deep well,’ I say.

  I’m not really brave alone in the machinery shed

  for the night. Mum comes to check on me

  just as the sky turns into darkest blue with its

  own thousands of pinpricks of starlight.

  ‘Dad told me about the snake,’ she said.

  ‘I know you’ll be fine with Trigger.

  But the back door will be left unlocked

  if you change your mind.’

  Mum hugs me and somehow

  I know she also knows about

  my goodbyes.

  Trigger wags his tail.

  He wants a hug too.

  ‘The two cats are coming to share the shed

  with you. Good to keep mice away,

  good to keep snakes away as well,’ says Mum.

  I nod and yawn.

  Saying goodbye is tiring work.

  Next to Pa’s old truck

  It’s so early, but I feel as if I’ve had a good sleep,

  even though concrete

  is harder on my back than the earth.

  The two cats are

  rolled up next to me, warm, soft.

  One purrs as if she knows I am now awake.

  ‘Shelley,’ I whisper.

  That’s the name Leah gave to her cat.

  Tilly stretches and her claws