Dried
Tough shoulders. There was flaked skin at the back of his neck, leading down beneath the red shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tiny hairs of red tinged with grey. I made a motion to move near the chickens, and saw beads of sweat fall across his face, like a veil a woman wears on her wedding day.
‘Ain’t no good you just standing there Georgia’ he said not looking up. He held the wood tightly in his hands, red blotted with strained white. The sawing back and forth of the wood was dizzying to watch.
‘And it isn’t any good for you to stand there in the boiling sun’ I pointed out. He stopped what he was doing and looked up. He smiled and wiped his wrists across his eyebrows, catching the sweat. His red hair was short, but bright, and his eyes were a piercing blue.
‘You’ve got you mother’s tongue in you’ he said smiling.
‘Ay father, and I’ve got your eyes, and hands. It’s the beauty of nature’ I said. He threw back his head and gave a short bark, too hot and tired to offer any more. I put a hand out and waved him closer.
‘Come on, mother will have lunch ready’ I said.
‘This wood won’t cut itself’ he said.
‘And this lunch won’t eat itself’ I said.
‘Always have something don’t you? Come on then’ he said and placed a sweaty and dirty hand around my shoulders. I breathed in the deep mellow smell of sweat and oak, dirt and passion. We went inside.
The next day, father set himself to work again. I sat milking the cows, cherishing the cool shade of the oak roof. The cow kicked quietly, but settled down when I held her close. He took his shirt off today, the sun being too hot that even I, cold Georgia, cold and heartless Georgia, had to remove my cardigan and hat. The warm wind whistled through the buildings. Then, mother came out. Despite the heat, I inherited her coldness, and she wore a drape over her long sleeved dress and tight boots. She merely looked up at the sun, as though she was separate from it, as though it couldn’t touch her. Not if it tried.
‘How long does it take to milk a cow?’ she snapped, squinting her eyelids and throwing her head back to catch my eye. I looked to father. He pushed up from the sawing and placed the tool down. He placed his large hands behind his back and stretched.
‘Surely you can’t want coffee right now?’ he said.
‘I don’t want coffee’ she said, reluctantly pulling her eyes to him. I sat near the cow and tried to become as small as possible.
‘Then what the devil do you want?’ he said.
‘I want it for the baby, he hasn’t had a drink for an hour now’ she said. My mother was only a little smaller then my father, but here, they looked equal height.
‘Can’t you give him your own?’ he said. She turned slowly, as though shy, when really she was staring at me.
‘I’m all dried up’ she said, her eyes cursing mine.
There was ragged breathing. As though cut up with scissors, as though the air we breathed was fragile and made of fabric and nothing, and no one else. It was the dead of night, no sound, not a whisper could be heard apart from us.
‘Turn around’ my father said. I turned and lifted up my dress. The moon broke across the stable, and the cows watched us, bored, and chewing over what they were seeing.
My father was with some boys from the next farm. He looked like an aged oak next to the saplings of others. He had kept his shirt on, but had a line of dirt across his forehead which he just couldn’t seem to touch. He turned his head and caught me looking. He smiled, waved his hand a little, then turned away. I remember the tough skin. I remember it far too well.
Justine Knight is a young writer who stereotypically is obsessed with coffee and books. Has been published by Momaya Press, The Pygmy Giant, and small poetry festivals. She is going on to study creative writing at university and dark is her forte.