Carrot And Fish Souffle...

Two days after I found out I was pregnant with my eldest Son I got a phone call from a Swedish lady offering me a job. I had tried out for it about a month before- but had initially been rejected for not being experienced enough for the position; not that this was the first time I got the job after coming second in the interview- but that's another story for another day...

I hadn't told my Parent's- or anybody else for that matter- that I was pregnant yet; and hadn't really decided what I was even going to do about it- so I felt like I didn't have much option but to accept the job and figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my Life afterwards- and so I packed up a few bags of my belongings and moved into the caravan out the back of Her twenty five acre weed field.

There was a double bed that was concealed behind the wall- but I never bothered to put it back up except for the day that I packed up and left. There was a seperate ensuite where there was an itty-bitty shower and Port-a-loo that I was to empty myself- no problem; I wouldn't have had it any other way, actually. I cook my evening meal on the little gas stove that I use while sitting on my bed- and while I am waiting for my can of soup to heat while I play Patience on the bread board I wish I hadn't come here to live at all. And it's only day one. Why was I here, away from my family, and my Hubby, remembering though- he was't even my boyfriend then, just someone that I fucked from time to time. Why am I getting up every morning at a quarter to five just so that She can lay in bed for a few more hours while I get her four horses fed and ready for Her to ride?

That's my job; and while I mix the feeds and muck out the stables and groom and saddle Gem and Sheba and Taffy, and put Ruby the Warmblood filly out to graze in the front paddock with her biscuit of hay She's probably still i her warm bed dreaming about her life in South Africa when she owned slaves. She really did. She tells me about these happy memories of hers at lunchtimes, over fish souffle which I can not eat, and plates of rare Swedish beef that is still capable of crawling off the plate and mooing it's way back to the paddock it's so alive and uncooked- Her mashed potato has turned a weak pink colour after soaking up the bloody juices...

And for sixty dollars pay in my packet, a caravan and a hot lunch that I will never eat seven days a week she thinks she has bought herself a new slave. And I suppose She has. I have to dig the trench that buries the chicken wire beneath the ground, so that her orange Bulldog- aptly called Carrot- can't dig his way out of his new dog-run. He likes to run away and chases the chickens. He and Zig Zag, the Dalmation with a crooked tail, are the only company I have that New Year's Eve. The Swedish lady- and her rich South African husband who spoils her- have gone to a big party for the night and left me alone. They have, thoughtfully I suppose, left me behind four cold VB's in the esky and egg salad for my dinner- but I am panicking at the thought of being left behind.

I know that all of my friends are at the night club we go to celebrating- and here I am, with no vehicle or phone, and I'm all alone except for the dogs and the horses. After I finished the beers and picked the eggs from the salad I go back to my caravan and begin packing my clothes. I drape my quilt over my shoulders and figure I can manage carrying the rest- at least if I get to the highway I can flag down a passing car, anything to just get me out of here. Please- let me grow wings like a monkey and let me fly, fly, fly my little Pretties...

But I don't leave, of course. Instead I stand with tears streaking down my face in the small mirror, there in the itty-bitty ensuite, wondering why I am so weak that I want to run away all the time- just like when I was a kid and ran away from Gay's house and how I wanted to run away to the Wild West with Egghead when I was nine- but also knowing that I couldn't stay working for much longer there anyway, even if I had wanted to- because I missed everybody too much, and couldn't handle feeling isolated and alone with My thoughts any longer. And then there was the whole pregnancy thing to consider, and knowing that because I can't sit properly on a horse, and that all that bouncing up and down over jumps isn't going to do the foetus any good. That's how I thought of It at first...

I also knew I was going to have to come home and tell Them All that I had fucked up yet again- and couldn't even keeep my new job that I hated because I was eighteen and up the duff and would need to live at home if I wasn't going to neglect the child to death. That is what They think will happen- that I'm wasting my Life and that I won't cope with having a child; but I still didn't expect my Mother to tell me it would be better to have an abortion or adopt it out. She was too late, though, because by the time she found out I had already made up my mind to have the baby- with or without my Hubby by my side- and besides, if I'd already decided that I wasn't going to have the baby she would have never known anything about it.

The day I definitly decided to keep Him growing inside me was the day I was riding the Swedish lady's horse- Taffy- along the dirt road that leads to the creaky wooden bridge- when I spotted three twenty dollar notes on the side of the road in a rut. They had been there for a while-and through the rain as well by the look of it- judging by the condition of the old paper notes that were still in circulation back those days. I jumped out of the saddle and picked them up and , after making sure that no one had seen me taking them, carefully put them inside my pocket- feeling happy that I could buy something new to wear to my Cousin's wedding.

I defy the Swedish lady's orders and go faster than a trot. She has the horse in training, you see, and I have to 'ride him up the road until I come to the bridge, and then come back- alternating between a fast walk and a medium trot for the length of the road'- which I later judged was around ten kilometres for the journey. I'd never been down the road before, so even though it took me a LONG time to go up and back and I came back sweaty and with a massive stitch from all that trotting- she knows I have broken her 'rules' and cantered or galloped in places- because I have returned quicker than expected.

It wasn't my fault the horse wanted to go fast as well. We had heaps more fun than if we had just walked or trotted the whole way- but She wasn't impressed with me and decided to teach me a lesson...

She's cranky with me and thinks up a cunning plan. At first I think she is just being eccentric and weird, but then she asks me to pull out all of the yellow Fire weeds that are growing on her property. So that every morning while she is out riding, firstly on her Dressage horse, then her Showjumper, and then on her Hunter, she sets me to work with the wheel barrow and gloves- clearing the paddocks. I wonder if I went back now- if my efforts would have been worthwhile- or if the Fire weeds just kept growing back like I thought they would have.

After she taught me how to drive the tractor I thought she might just let me cut the weeds.

Nup.

Why didn't she just buy a house like the one next door- one that didn't have any of these stupid weeds if she hated them so much?

But I could live with doing it- mostly because once she was out of earshot I could mutter bad shit about her under my breath and hold pretend conversations that She even participated in without her knowledge- and know she wasn't going to bust me doing it while I was in the middle of the paddock; but it wasn't until two hours after She had asked me to cut the front lawn with a pair of scissors that the Camel finally had his little back broken by the straw.

I asked her why, suspiciously, why she wanted me to do that- and she said so I wouldn't bruise the green grass and so it could be given to the horses as a Treat. I asked if I could use the scythe that was hanging up in the shed, because by now my fingers were covered in blisters- I know; I don't know why I cut the grass with a pair of scissors for two hours now either- but a scythe was going to bruise the grass too, apparently, so the answer was a resounding 'no'.

Can I hold the horse there for an hour while he eats it himself, then? Another no.

And then after I finish cutting the grass with scissors She wants me to go out into the paddock and cut more fucking Fire weed...

Well- can I just make a quick phone call to my Mother, then, before you serve me up another Swedish fish souffle, so she can come and take me away from here you Crazy Swedish Bitch? I can? Why thank you. She'll be here in an hour to come and get me and my stuff that is still packed after the worst New Year's Eve in living history.

So thanks for the memories- and I've already been paid my sixty dollars this week-and if She ever reads this I just want her to know that it didn't take me very long to get rid of the scabies that I managed to catch from her infested nest of a caravan. It seems the girl who worked there before I did wasn't as nice as She thought she was...