jmgoyder

I started coming to the farm earlier every morning because Inna began to rely on me to get the breakfast routine going and, as I became more competent, my confidence grew. And so did my compassion for this inviolable, immensely strong older woman who fought her increasing frailty with ferocity.

The only trouble with letting Inna sleep in was that, when Husband and the men arrived for breakfast, I would be alone in the kitchen and, without the anchorage of Inna’s instructions, I would flounder and get flustered because the two cowhands would watch me expectantly from the kitchen table, and Husband would often grin or wink at me on his way to the bathroom, or to check on his mother, or to the dining room where he and I would eat breakfast alone together and awkwardly.

My big love for him was something I desperately tried to hide, but every time he said “Jules!” in his booming voice, I would blush from the neck up.

One morning he bounded into the kitchen after milking, grabbed my hand and pulled me outside to see the moonflowers. “They only bloom once a year,” he said, still holding my hand. I was amazed by the beautiful flower, but I was more amazed by his huge hand holding my little one. His hand was rough and dirty and sort of gravelly in texture, whereas mine was tiny and soft and pale and scared.

It was just four words but the effect was, and has been, long-lasting.

You see, I would set off on my gearless bicycle from the country town where I lived to make the journey to Inna and Husband’s dairy farm outside the next town – every morning, rain or shine. It was a good 15 kilometres but, even when my dad and mother offered me a lift, I would usually refuse as I was rather fiercely independent. Sometimes it was a ghastly journey of being rained on, attacked by magpies, or belted with 40 degree heat, but my pedalling was fuelled by such wonderful anticipation that I became very fast and, most mornings, I arrived within the hour right in time to start the breakfast ritual with Inna.

I was a very unselfconscious teenager and had never worn makeup, and I had absolutely no fashion sense, so I would arrive unembarrassed at my dishevelment and, if Inna said I were late, I would answer her ferocity with a huge grin and set to work. I never took charge; I always deferred to her instructions so, mostly, breakfast was a smooth exercise.

But sometimes she would say little hinty things to me like, “You’d be quite pretty if you wore appropriate clothes.” She would point at my Indian skirt and thongs with distaste. Or, “Perhaps you could freshen up in the bathroom before the men come in – comb your hair?” Sometimes she would be at a loss and occasionally I would hear her on the phone to someone saying, “Oh dear me, the girl is hopeless!”

So it wasn’t until Husband grabbed a bit of bacon from the frypan one morning, his shoulder brushing mine unintentionally, then, as he was heading to the dining room, said, over his shoulder, “You should wear lipstick” that I began to alter myself. I began to wear lipstick, much to my younger brothers’ derision.

My parents were nonplussed.

Inna was impressed.

Husband didn’t appear to notice.

The first time she cried in front of me, I didn’t see it coming and I wasn’t prepared. Inna was in her 80s, she had broken her hip before I met her, she suffered bouts of pneumonia and had to be hospitalized on occasion and she was sometimes a tiny bit confused.

It was after her shower which I had learned how to help her with. She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror with a towel around her, staring at her reflection and frowning at what she saw. I was used to her frown, to her sternness, to her abrupt frankness, so my teenage heart did a somersault when she began to weep. “I am so old and so ugly,” she said through her tears and I gave her the first of many hugs. “No, you are beautiful, Inna – you are beautiful,” I said.

Almost immediately, she broke free of my embrace, wiped her eyes and ordered me to get her clothes. I did so immediately, my heartbeat fluttering in a way it never had before.

I adored her. I admired her stoicism. I wanted to be like her.