The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal Page 39
"Have you ever told Aunt Roberta that when you've seen her?"
Pippa didn't meet my gaze.
"Aunt Roberta is Mommy's best friend. Whenever I try to tell her Mommy hurts my feelings, she makes excuses for her, just like Daddy used to do."
"Did you tell her you want to live with Daddy?"
"Yes," Pippa said. "But Aunt Roberta said she's afraid Mommy might do something to make it so Daddy can't see me anymore, so I should tell the court I want to see Mommy, just not live with her every day."
My blood grew hot as I clenched my fist. I didn't know all that much about court investigators, but I was pretty darned sure they weren't supposed to pressure kids to lie about how they really felt.
"Let's not talk about your mother anymore, okay?" I said. "When you turn thirteen, you get a lot more say about how often you have to see her. If you still feel the same way then, maybe you can get the judge to let you see her less?"
"How do you know so much about the court, Rosie?"
It felt like I was talking to a teenager, not a precocious ten-year-old.
"When my mother and father got divorced," I said, "I wanted to live with my father, so my mother went to court to make the judge give her Harvey. She knew I wanted to live where my horse lived, so she tricked me into telling the judge I wanted to live with her."
Pippa's lip trembled. Tears welled in her silver eyes.
"Then maybe it's a good thing Mommy didn't give me Flying Dutchman for Christmas?"
"Maybe it is," I said. "Your father loves you dearly, but he can't afford that much of a horse for you right now and, even if he did, your mother might try to take it away."
"Just like she's trying to do with Grandma's station?"
It surprised me that Pippa was aware of this fact as I knew darned well Adam hadn't told her. Either she'd overheard us speaking late at night, or her mother had bragged. Probably the latter.
"If you buy a horse with all your own money," I said, "it will be your horse, not your mother's or father's. That means your mother can't trick the judge into giving it to her."
Pippa threw herself into my arms. She wept, but it was not the hysterical weeping she'd done after her mother had cut her heart out over Christmas, but a cleaner, more frustrated kind of weeping, the kind you do when you realize you've been played and oh, silly you, you should have seen it coming.
"Will I ever get a horse, Rosie?" Pippa asked.
"You will, sweetheart," I said. "I'll make sure your Daddy keeps his word."
Pippa broke away and resumed banging nails back into the wall. After a while she turned back, her face too old for her slender frame.
"Emily told me the horse auction is held the first Saturday of the month. Since Daddy can't come home this weekend, do you think we can go and see what kind of horse I might buy?"
"You only have $30, nipper," I said. "You're not going to get a horse for $30."
"I know," Pippa said. "But maybe we could make a day trip out of it?"
I calculated the mileage back and forth to Lockyer, maybe an hour and a half drive each way. Ever since I'd gotten out here, I'd been thinking of how long it might be until I could afford a horse myself, one I could train and maybe re-enter the show circuit with Sienna and her friends.
"Okay," I said. "But we're not bringing anything home. Your father would have my head on a platter."
We gave each other the BFF pinkie-lock, and then went into the house to make ourselves some supper. When Mr. Maggio came back and announced he was finished, I wrote the amount into the blank check Adam left for that purpose and thanked him for his time. I hoped it would make the girl on the white pony happy the next time I dreamed of her.
I laughed at my own silly made-up mother-figure. It was just as absurd as Pippa's fairy queen.
"What's so funny?" Pippa asked.
"Nothing," I said. "I was just remembering the time I dressed Harvey up as a unicorn for a costume party."
"A unicorn?"
"Yeah," I grinned. "If you think Thunderlane is fun to dress up, just wait until you see what you can do when you have a horse."
Chapter 41
The dog days of December were nothing compared to the blistering temperature of Queensland caught in a January heat wave. The Falcon's cooling gauge teetered just beneath the red line as a wavy mirage wafted off the highway ahead of the car. I considered turning around and going home, but the last thing I wanted was to sit at the station and remember that, had I stayed with Gregory, today would have been my wedding day.
The fields whipped past us in a mindless blur; beige, gold, beige, brown, and then every few kilometers we'd pass a field that was lush and green, the lucky recipient of a reliable irrigation system. Most of the fields had wilted into desiccated grass, victims of the drought which was the topic of endless worry on the news.
A muffled chime sounded from somewhere on the seat beside me.
"I think your phone is ringing," Pippa said.
Aha! We were back in range to access service! I rummaged one-handed through my purse and glanced at my touch screen to see who it was. My mother? Ugh! I threw the phone back down onto the seat. I clenched the steering wheel as it rang, and rang, and rang, and then almost wilted with relief when it finally went to voicemail.
"Aren't you going to answer it?" Pippa asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
"It's nobody I want to talk to."
With one hand on the steering while, I scrolled through the messages, dozens and dozens of phone calls which had all gone straight to voicemail. Without even looking at them all, one by one I pressed delete. Delete, delete, delete. When would she take a hint and acknowledge I would never speak to her again?
At last we passed a big green sign that said 'Lockyer, ten kilometers."
"Oh! Is that it?" Pippa pointed to a smaller red sign staked beneath the highway sign.
"That's it," I said. "Perhaps another fifteen minutes."
We pulled off the exit and I stopped at the same servo I'd stopped at before to fill the Falcon up with fuel. A tractor trailer pulling an empty double-decker livestock carrier sat in front of us. It was the kind of trailer that could carry sixty cattle.
"Do you think they're going to the auction to buy a horse?" Pippa asked, wriggling out of her seat belt.
I glanced at the door of the tractor trailer. A chill ran up my spine as I saw the name Trunganina Abattoir painted on the door. I remembered what the old woman had said the last time I'd stopped here.
"Yes," I said softly, "they are here to buy some horses."
The opposite side of the pump opened up, so I turned the Falcon around and backed it in. The scent of petrol weighed heavily in the air, but this time I had Adam's credit card and didn't need to go inside. It felt positively luxurious to fill up my petrol tank without worrying about the cost, but I'd brought $50 of my own money, just in case of cash-only expenditures. I stared at the two slaughterhouse employees who scurried around the truck like rats surveying a restaurant dumpster.
The taller one was tall and gangly, with stringy hair and pockmarked skin filled with enormous blackheads that erupted out of his face like craters. His tongue darted around his lips like a brown snake tasting the air for prey as he unabashedly stared at my breasts and adjusted his crotch. He reminded me of the two-headed troll in the movie Willow.
"G'day, Miss," he said.
I gave him a cold, hard stare.
The second slaughterhouse employee was short and sturdy, with pig-like blue eyes and arms so long it was a wonder his knuckles didn't drag on the ground.
"What she glaring at you for, Sam?"
The trollish one's maw split open to reveal three missing front teeth.
"Dunno," the trollish one said. "Maybe she be one of them tall poppy bitches come lookin' for something to put underneath her saddle?"
"She don't like you 'cause you keep staring at her bubbies, dipstick," the short one said. He gave me a lascivious grin. "G'day, miss. Don
't you mind my mate. The boss, he don't let him out much with the public."
"Whadaya mean, he don't let me out?" the Troll-Knacker said. "He bring me 'cause I got a way with the mares." He grabbed his crotch. "Man like me, I could be real useful helping a sweet little Sheila like you pick out a mount you can really ride."
Pig-Knacker one let out an oink-like guffaw.
"Piss off!" I hissed at the both of them.
Pig-Knacker elbowed Troll-Knacker in the ribs. "She's too good for you, she thinks she is, matey."
"She just ain't seen a real man before," the Troll-Knacker said.
I ignored them both and pretended to be acutely interested in how many liters were going into my petrol tank. The two men lost interest and began to chatter about the commission they expected to make for every horse they bought. As the petrol pump slowly counted up the numbers, I could feel the Troll-Knackers snakelike gaze staring at my crotch until it almost burned.
A third slaughterhouse employee came ambling out of the petrol station, counting an enormous wad of cash. He was tall and corpulent, wearing much better clothing than the other two, with slicked-back hair and a triple chin which overhung his collar. He reminded me of those pictures you saw on the television of an oil baron, and in my mind, I pegged the man as Maynor Jackson.
"We all paid up, boss?" Troll-Knacker said.
"Yeah," the fat-man said. "Let's get going before the do-gooders start bidding up the cost."
It felt as though a dark shadow suddenly lifted when the knackers got back into their truck and pulled away. I finished filling up the Falcon and screwed on the petrol cap. As I did, a second livestock carrier rumbled by and made the turn onto the road with the sign that advertised the Lockyer Horse Auction.
Pippa wriggled with excitement as I got back into the car.
"We almost there?" she asked, her silver eyes radiant with excitement.
I glanced down the road and scowled.
"Yeah," I said, wishing fervently I'd never agreed to this cockamamie idea.
The road did a funny little dootsie-do where it split off in the center of town, but after that there was no missing the auction. Utes with horse trailers lined the street, narrowing the road down to a single lane. The auction yard was fairly inconspicuous, but we drove another kilometer before I found a place to park. I held Pippa's hand as we wound our way back through the cars.
The scent of horse hit us long before the auction house came back into view. The odor contained an anxious edge typical of the racetrack or high-stakes events where overzealous owners schlepped their horses to a day-competition without giving them a day to settle in.
The facility was little more than a series of red, open-air barns, like the indoor riding ring at the stable where I'd boarded Harvey. The front yard was littered with horse trailers, while to the left and rear were dozens of square wooden pens overflowing with horses in every size, shape and breed. I vacillated at the entrance, not certain whether I wished to watch the bidding first to crush Pippa's daydream of bringing a horse home today, or to walk through the pens to let her first see the horses. I decided it would be kinder to make it clear that Pippa wouldn't pick up a horse for $30.
I stared at the sign at the entrance of the auction.
--Admission: $20 apiece. Cash only.--
I fingered the cash in my pocket.
"Don't you accept credit cards?"
"No," the man at the entrance said. "All transactions are conducted in cash."
I handed him $40 and asked for a receipt. Adam would reimburse me so long as this trip was related to Pippa's entertainment. I caressed my last remaining $10 bill, thankful I'd kept some spending money out of my paycheck.
"Will you be bidding today?" the gatekeeper asked.
"No," I said.
"Yes," Pippa contradicted me.
"Which is it?" the gatekeeper asked. "Only an adult is allowed to bid."
"Bid," I said on a whim. Why not? If it cost $40 to get in, I might as well make the most of it. What harm would it do to let Pippa make the opening bid?
"Name?" the man asked. He didn't even look up at me, but stared, with his pen poised over a paper list.
"Rosamond Xalbadora," I said.
S-a-l-v-a-t-o-r-e the man misspelled. I didn't bother correcting him. I was in no mood to explain it was the Gitano spelling. He asked for my address. I gave him the one at the station.
"Here you go, Little Miss." The man handed Pippa a number on a stick, and then he made eye contact with me. "The terms of the auction are that all bids must be paid up in full at the end of the auction. All horses must be removed from the premises by the end of the day or we send them off to the doggers. If you make special arrangements, for an extra fee, we can feed and water them overnight while you arrange for third-party transport, but we are not responsible if the horse becomes injured or keels over the minute you make your bid."
I nodded my agreement.
"Sign here," the man pointed to the piece of paper which had printed on it in large, block letters 'this is a legally binding contract.'
I signed away my life on the dotted line.
"Good luck, Little Miss, in finding yourself a pony today," the man winked at Pippa.
"I will," Pippa gave him a radiant grin. "I'm here to buy a unicorn."
The man gave Pippa an indulgent smile. She yanked my hand like a Great Dane on a leash into the crowd of people piled up around the central ring. Strategically placed loudspeakers amplified the auctioneer's barking voice as he rumbled in a fast sing-song voice the attributes of whatever horse was up for bid. Any reservations I had about the truck driven by the abattoirs quickly evaporated as I saw many of those in attendance were women wearing equestrian gear and families like me and Pippa. We found a spot around the ring and Pippa climbed up onto the fence.
A small Standardbred mare was led in and circled around the ring wearing her saddle. She was a pretty mare, docile and obedient. Pippa reached towards her as the handler led her in circles.
"Okay ladies and gentlemen," the auctioneer began. "We have a Standardbred-Quarterhorse mix palomino mare, sixteen years old, comes off a station as a working cow-pony. Let's open the bid at seventy-five dollars. Who wants to bid on this little palomino mare for seventy-five dollars?"
The crowd was silent.
"How 'bout fifty, then," the auctioneer said. "Fifty dollars for this nice little mare. Look at how friendly she is. She just wants to crawl into your pocket and follow you home. Who'll bid fifty dollars?"
Any moment now I expected Pippa to leap into the ring and run up to the mare and give her a hug. I tugged on the back waistband of her shorts.
"Can I buy her?" Pippa begged.
"You only have thirty dollars," I whispered to her. "But go ahead and make the opening bid."
"Thirty dollars!" Pippa shouted with her high, child-like voice. She waved her number out into the ring so the auctioneer could see it and record which participant made the bid."
"We have thirty dollars, bid by the little lady," the auctioneer said. "Thirty dollars. Who will give me fifty for this little palomino mare? Thirty, thirty, who will give me fifty? Take a look at her, guys. She comes from a station where she used to earn her keep."
"I'll give you thirty-five dollars for the saddle," somebody shouted in the audience.
"We have thirty-five dollars," the auctioneer said. "Who'll bid forty dollars for this nice little mare? Thirty-five, thirty-five, thirty-five, who'll give me forty dollars for this nice little mare? Nothing wrong with her people, she's just looking for a new home. Who will give me forty dollars?"
"Darn!" Pippa whispered. But she leaned excitedly into the pen.
"Forty!" somebody shouted.
"We got forty dollars," the auctioneer said. "Who will give me forty-five? Forty dollars, forty dollars, forty dollars. Who will give me forty-five for this nice little mare? Go ahead and lean on her, Ben," he said to the handler. "Look at that, see? She don't mind being handled. Pick up her ho
oves. Touch her tail. Look at that, she's a good little mare. Who wants to give her a chance at a new home?"
Pippa's face fell as the bids climbed up the more the handler touched the horse and demonstrated she possessed a tolerant disposition. The final bid came from a man with a teenage girl perhaps fourteen years old, two-hundred-fifty dollars. The father took his number and headed over to the cashier.
"Think of it this way," I told Pippa. "Not only did that girl get a horse for $250, but she got her saddle and bridle, too. Just like Emily did."
"But that's ten times more than I have!" Pippa said.
"Don't worry, nipper," I said. "There's lots of other horses. And look at how cheaply she went? At $250, if your father kicks in half, it means you'll only need to save money for nineteen more weeks."
"Not if I figure out a way to earn more!"
"That's right. A deal's a deal." I gave her a high-five. "The only string is it has to be fairly-paid work. Not pity money or a disguised gift."
Pippa prattled on about knocking on the neighbor's doors to find out if they needed help doing chores and ways she might work as a mother's helper for one of the kids she'd met as a library volunteer. I smiled inwardly. It would do Pippa good to earn money for herself.
As the auction droned onto the next several horses, the more the handler could manhandle a horse without it spooking, the higher the auctioneer was able to drive up the bid. After a while the horses they brought in were far more highly strung and the families looking for saddle horses left, leaving us surrounded by rough-looking men. The winning bids grew lower, most of them directly proportional to the horse's size.
Pippa grew hungry, so I spent my last ten dollars on a couple of hotdogs and a fizzy drink. As we bit into the not-too-terrible sausages, my mobile rang again and I saw it was my mother. I hid a scowl as I slipped it back into my purse. I hadn't realized how much stress not answering her calls had always caused me until I'd moved to Nutyoon and suddenly been without mobile service. As soon as my current mobile contract was up, I would get a brand new number and not tell anyone how to reach me.
"Ooh, look!" Pippa tugged my arm. "Isn't that a Clydesdale?"