‘First off, the sky goes dark.’
‘Of course it does.’
‘Then they come out the ground and, if you’re a certain type of
person, drag you under, where your body is consumed.’
They got to the gate of the pen and Kate opened it, letting her
brother through first.
‘And I’m guessing you are that type of person,’ he said.
She slid the bolt back across while he ran ahead, his boots squelching
in the mud. Walking on, she watched him duck under the low
roof, slapping the wooden joist with his free hand as he went inside
the shelter. At eleven years old, her brother awoke every day buzzing.
Everything he saw in these first few hours – the gravestones of
pets, log piles, frost – deserved a high five.
‘I’m gonna milk the face off you,’ Albert told the goats. ‘I’m going
to milk you to death.’
He did resemble a trainee grim reaper, she thought, in his deephooded
navy poncho, carrying a bucket to collect fresh souls.
Following him into the shelter, she sat on a low stool next to Belona –
her favourite goat, a four-year-old Alpine with white legs and a black
comma-shaped beard – who was against the back wall with her
neck tied. She stamped her hooves as she ate from her feed pan.
Belona was notoriously difficult in the mornings; this was part of
her and Kate’s affinity.
Albert was talking as he milked. ‘. . . so she has this massive picture
of what’s at the centre of the universe and it’s basically a pair
of eyes – two huge evil eyes . . .’
Kate tried not to listen. She squeezed, tugged, closed her fingers
from index to pinkie and focused on the noise of milk on metal; the
sound slowly deadened as the bucket filled. She put her ear against
Belona’s side and listened to the gurgling innards. The swell and
slump of the goat’s breathing.
‘. . . and research shows, you’ll have to wave bye-bye to gravity
and time and university and . . .’
‘Albert.’
He stopped talking but she knew his speech continued, unbroken,
inside his head. She started to get a rhythm going, two-handed, fingers
finally warming. Her brother, meanwhile, played his goat like
an arcade machine.
‘One nil,’ he said, as he picked up his bucket and stool, and moved
to the other side of the divider. He put a feed pan in front of Babette
and she immediately dug in.
Belona started battling a little, her legs jerking, clanging against
the bucket. With her knuckles, Kate stroked the tassels that hung
from the goat’s jaw and, leaning over, whispered to her.
‘What are you saying?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you in love with Belona? That’s okay if you are. Mum and
Dad won’t mind. They’re totally easy with whatever. They just want
you to be in a loving relationship.’
Belona kicked and the bucket tipped – spilling half the milk on to
the mud and straw. Kate’s jaw tightened.
Her brother, through years of collecting words from international
visitors to the community, had compiled an armoury of exotic
insults. He tutted and proceeded to call her something bad in Bengali.
It was just getting light. There was the smell of hay and shit.
Hooves skittered on the stones. Outside the gloomy hut she could
see the rain still coming down in the pen, filling the holes left by
their boots.