From the Memóirs of Mathildé Morgenson, For Exhibition only. All comments welcome. Options

[pixordia]

This is a short story about young girl.
From the Memóirs of Mathildé Morgenson



Mathildé referred to it as, the pony ERA of her childhood, circa 1959. The setting was the Australian bush, somewhere on the Burdekin River, near Macrossan. After a traumatic suicide attempt by her mother in Tasmania, she had been flown to her father's custody in Queensland. She reflected, " I think my childhood was left behind there with my big walking doll and books." There, in the tropics, was a whole, new, raw world with a pregnant stepmother and a horde of new brothers and sisters. Gone were the bland days of playing at making mud cakes with just one sister in a sub-tropical garden. Here, were poisonous spiders living underground, and tropical fruits that tasted like a slice of heaven; a father who delivered a live pony - complete with an old saddle, purchased for the paltry sum of two rolls of barbed wire . He had arrived home with it, late from the pub one night. A man from a neighbouring property sold it to him, because his children had long been gone, to boarding school.

There was only one hitch. One of her step-brothers was as besotted with horseflesh as she - two horse - crazy children after the same pony. But, she and Denny had developed a quick liking for one another, so they agreed to take turns in sharing this long dreamed of windfall. At first, her father rode the bedraggled but feisty little horse to tone him down. He baulked at the man's weight on him, and after a good go around in the ploughed paddock, this pony who had seemed, as fresh as any pony from a long spell can seem, stood in a lather of foamy sweat.

The first few tentative rides were filled with a mixture of fear and pride. Her father called instructions from the ground about reins and control, and when she finally let go, the sense of freedom surged through both girl and pony. For weeks both she and Denny rode close to the home complex but slowly felt ready to venture further.

The home complex consisted of a caravan under a big old Burdekin plum tree, a shed with a dirt floor and push-up tin shutters; a copper for doing the laundry, and an outdoor stove. "We could have been fodder for material in Joliffe's Outback," she told some of her city friends, later on. She also told of the memory of her first ride to the neighbour's farm. A widower lived there with his teenage son, ten years her senior. She spoke, of the felt abandonment of the mother figure. How it seeped from the walls. How the touches of lace stuck to the furniture from years of nodusting, and how sadness hung in the corners like shadows. Not long after her ride there, the son went West, to become a ringer on a cattle station further out. All that was heard from him then, were the long letters that his father craved, like food. She watched his lonely forays to his roadside rmb (rural mailbox) from her favorite perch high in a gum tree. A 'wild child' was she.

She and Denny had come to an amicable agreement about when the pony was to be theirs. They would take turnabout on the weekends. Every other Saturday she could ride wherever she wished. Of course, Denny took first turn. On the school bus home she plotted with Angie, (one of her friends) about how she would ride to her place, on the following Saturday. Angie pointed out her house as the bus pulled up to it, on the lonely country bus route. The house was set back off the road amongst a motley grove of stunted orange trees and chiney apple bushes.

All week long Mathilé was in -a frisšon of anticipation. The day arrived, and with a burst of activity, she got her jobs done in the morning and then to the task of catching Tony. He never came willingly. Often there were no apples for the job so she tricked him with a red cricket ball. She always said, she was not proud of that trick .

Denny, being much stronger than her, always helped with the saddling up. He threw on the old saddle blanket, then the tattered old stock saddle and began to tighten the girth. After Mathildé mounted, he adjusted the stirrups to her level and pulled down to tighten the buckle. Without warning he fell backwards in the dirt while the pony jumped back with a fright. In Denny's hand was the frayed stirrup strap and her shattered dreams of a big ride to Angie's place.

Oh! No! Can it be repaired? Denny was just her age and no saddler, but he knew her hopes had been dashed, so he picked up the stirrup iron, removed the strap and took off to the work-shed. After much searching and slaving and tapping it was back together- but like a Frankenstien-ien aberration, with a bolt through the two pieces to hold it together. They had no extra leather to make a complete repair. He pushed it under the iron crescent that holds on the stirrup straps and she mounted again. The bolt was directly where the stirrup leather turned back onto her shin.

After half an hour of riding she was wincing with pain. Her shin was already rubbed raw but she was determined to continue, this being the least of the perils of the ride. There was still the bridge, a wonky but long 'bush piano.'

Thinking ahead of the possibility of traffic, she dismounted to walk Tony across. He was flighty and un-accustomed to traffic, and the added din of the loose bridge planks was double anathema. They met a few cars, and as they rattled across, she just froze turning the pony's head to the centre in case he jumped. he crouched and trembled but as she held her breath. It was a long way down to the rocks below, and no railing. She told me she had no idea if her Dad knew of the extent of their rides but kept hush about it not wanting to be restricted, to their side of the anabranch.

Finally, feeling exhilarated she reached Angie's place but with very little time to stay and play. They sat under the orange trees and sucked the stunted fruit which tasted of freedom....a little bittersweet on this occasion.

Her leg was stinging as Angie's mother had insisted on cleaning it with Dettol and had wrapped it in a clean handkerchief. With all the way to go back, still ahead, she mounted up at three o'clock, not wanting her father to be sending out search parties to look for her.

When at last, she galloped up the old dirt track that led to the home camp, it was dusk and the lanterns had been lit. The smell of meat cooking made her forget her sore shin. The dogs sniffed at it in the half dark but she brushed their inquisitive noses away and sat down at the table, tired but full of relief at making it home.

Mathildé still bears the scar on her leg from the ulceration the long ride caused her.

Somehow, it pales into insignificance when she gets that gleam in her eye and starts to tell about the sense of freedom such experiences, branded on her spirit.

© Suzanne Delaney

[vessq]

Hello Pixadoria,

I love this piece. I am not much inclined to do nits and such. I will leave that to others but I will make a few comments later when I have had time to study your piece a bit.

This is a delight to read.

Thank you.

I have always enjoyed the poems of both Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson. I expect you will know who they both are.

Vess

[Guest_Ishmael_*]

Great stuff pix. There's nothing quite like the Australian bush. Is it something you have personal experience of?

The only suggestion I'd have would be to solidify the picture of her father's place. In the first couple of paragraphs I got the distinct impression it was a large property and so had to totally reconfigure when it got to the part that said it was a caravan. I would imagine that the setting of caravan and shed would have been a powerful first image and I'd like to to not only bring it in earlier but make it more prominent. Just a personal preference thing though. Nice work regardless.