It was a nice ride down Cowpat Road, and Audrey enjoyed waving to the neighbours en route, if there were any about. It was rare for anyone to be up early enough to catch the rather regal wave. Except for Henry, the old man who was always pottering around his small property and planting trees to block out the intrusive new neighbours who would soon be arriving from the suburbs to build a house right next door. If Henry happened to be facing the wrong direction, when Audrey passed, he would miss the royal wave, for he always had a Walkman firmly fixed in his ears and he was also deaf, suffered from tunnel vision and usually had a bit of a cold.

Audrey was quite excited this morning, because soon it would be show time again. It had been her ambition for many years to win a prize with Splendor at the 'Scudley Downs Country Show'. As she took her daily ride down Cowpat Road she imagined herself, after winning a particularly arduous event against some very solid opposition, being photographed with Splendor by the local newspaper the 'Kookabora Times'. She expected she would be standing beside him and he would have a blue ribbon and rosette around his long neck. He would look an extremely proud equine animal, standing very tall and a touch haughty. A group of admirers would be patting his neck and stroking his aristocratic nose, and Audrey would be murmuring with the largesse of the winner of an important horse event to her devotees, 'Steady now, he's very highly strung', which of course wasn't true. Splendor had not batted one of his deliciously long eyelashes, not even one little bit, when Audrey's son Tom had let off a firework called Golden Rain, if not right under his nose, quite close to the stall where Splendor was eating a tasty lunch of oats one day. Nor did the resulting small fire in the stables and a much larger blaze to the kitchen (which, by the way, cost $2500 to put right) to which two appliances from the Country Fire Service were called out, alarm the horse, even though the fire trucks had all their sirens on, and the birds for miles around fled in a great panic. Splendor, being a very well adjusted horse, continued eating his a la carte lunch and ignored the cacophony.

Audrey was really looking forward to the 'Scudley Downs Country Show' and this time it would be even more thrilling, for reasons that we will go into in a moment. Audrey usually went to the 'show' with her family. It was quite a family operation. Dressage must be worked out and attended to and be of a very professional standard. The horse trailer had to be hitched on to the truck; this usually took at least four persons. And accommodation had to be prearranged at the 'Ye Olde Scudley Downs Motor Inn'. The motel wasn't 'Olde' at all except for the tatty sign hanging on two rusty chains pointing up its crumbling brick veneer structure. It could be said that the inside of the motel was a bit olde, particularly in the rooms where Audrey's boisterous children, when they were younger, had put there riding boots through the gyprock walls. The walls had never been repaired, but in no way added to the ambiance of being olde, just tacky.

Audrey's children used to get quite keyed up as the weekend of the 'show' got nearer and the year's pent up emotion and anger at being made to care for and ride horses against their will could be got rid of by kicking in a few walls. But this year it was different. For the first time since they had moved into Cowpat Road from the city suburbs, Audrey was going to the show on her own. This year all of her family would be otherwise engaged during this epic annual country event that she enjoyed so much. This wasn't a problem though, because Audrey's family was a middle class, democratic, new age family, and all the family members' rights and preference were considered, whatever age. Well, in theory anyway.

Audrey's husband Brian was a tall, lean, somewhat pretty, yet haggard, new age English teacher. He was passionately involved in his work and did a lot of overtime, writing sonnets and that. He couldn't go to the show as he had to attend an interstate educational conference to discuss 'The Poetry of Middle England and its Impact on the Current World Monetary Crisis'. So to attend the Scudley Downs Show was not possible. Brian, a somewhat sad man, had problems concerning his latent homosexuality. His homosexuality was very latent indeed, as he had only just discovered it. He had wondered about his sexual preferences on and off for years, but was now certain which way he leaned. He had oscillated between joy and despair for some weeks, but had finally decided that he was gay and that was that. Not that there's any wrong with that. He was, he thought, desperately in love with the PE teacher at school, a young man of dyed golden locks, tight shorts and a gym vest that was all nearly all strap. His chest was wonderful, Brian thought, and he wondered sometimes how he had ever tolerated the large busty jelly like substances that he was subjected to at home. Brian's sweetheart's name was Jason; that's neither here nor there, but it is nice to gossip. None of this mattered, Brian hoped, because his family was new age, democratic, middle class, and each had their own way in life to consider. Still, he worried constantly whether the family philosophy, and Audrey in particular, would stand up to the revelation that he had a boyfriend.

Tom, the son, had liked horses last year, but was more interested in motorbikes this year. He was overheard to say with firm conviction, 'My motorbike doesn't make manure. And she can stay outside in the rain without catching cold. And she doesn't need an expensive vet.' Not that Tom had ever seen a vet, except on TV, and certainly wouldn't know what a vet bill looked like if he fell over a bunch of them in the hall. So, he declared that this year he was not going to the show, he was going to ride his motorbike up and down Cowpat Road all weekend. He made these remarks knowing that he wouldn't be challenged by his parents, because his family was a committed new age, middle class, etc etc. Like many teenagers, he was aware of his rights and regularly insisted on them, but was completely unaware of the rights of others. For instance, the fact that his predilection to run his motorbike, without benefit of a muffler, regularly back and forth down Cowpat Road was sending the old man Henry and Burt the butcher further down the road into daily spasms of rage, had never occurred to him. The old man was earnestly debating with himself whether to shoot Tom with his 22 rifle, or Tom's motorbike tires. He would, he reasoned, if caught by the fuzz, claim senile dementia if he happened to kill Tom.

Nell, the daughter, was nearly fifteen and below the neck resembled her mother. Nell had a big chest and it had great potential to be even bigger and more dangerous. She was very pretty and like her father, was extremely feminine and very attractive. She liked horses, but not as much as her mother did, and complained that riding made her bottom ache and that it would get even bigger with constant riding, if she was not careful. This was a pointed remark to her mother and rather unkind, for Audrey had, as they say in the horse world, a good seat. Nell constantly said that she would rather play netball with her girlfriend, whose real name was Allan, than ride daily. But pressured by her mother, she rode every day, although she was determined that this year she was not going to the show. Nell had arranged to stay over the show weekend with her girlfriend whose real name was Allan, and on that point she was adamant. Allan liked Nell very much, particularly her big chest, and having met Nell's mother, could see the potential for a bigger chest and watched it grow with fascination. So Nell, like her farther and because of other duties, was not available to attend the 'show' with her family.

Audrey worked at the local equestrian shop, The Fettered Donkey, in Mount Puddin, which wasn't too far away from her eighty-eight acres of property. She worked the afternoon shift, which suited her well, as she could attend to her horses and go for her daily ride in the morning. Aria, the other assistant at The Fettered Donkey, worked the morning shift. Aria was not interested in horses at all, and only worked at the shop for the money. She was currently interested in what she imagined were things 'Gothic'; this was not an attachment to a style of German architecture of the twelfth century, or to a literary style characterized by gloom, although gloom was a predominant feature of her personality. It was more in the application of black and white cosmetics to her face and hands, the wearing of black and white clothes, body piercing, striking poses, and generally making the general public feel a little uneasy.

She was a young woman who might be in her early twenties. It was difficult to estimate Aria's age because her real face was hidden under a mask of 'gothic' makeup, which was a startling white, except for her lips that were painted black. She had long limp milky hands, on the end of which were talons with black fingernails that looked dirty at a casual glance. Aria had shiny bottle-dyed jet black hair, wore black blouses, long black skirts, and high black boots with club heels, the kind of orthopedic footwear that the disabled wear to even up odd legs. Trade had decreased substantially since the appointment of Aria, due to her overbearing manner and the tendency for potential customers to be put off by a salesperson who just might be looking for a blood transfusion from them.

Audrey and Aria did not get on, and the half an hour changeover every day was filled with tension. Peter, the store manager, a tall diffident man, hardly knew what to do on these occasions of female internecine warfare. So he did what he had done all his life in times of discomfort and stress; he did nothing, and either hid in his office or in the storeroom. If the arguments were particularly offensive, he would award himself an early lunch, and go for a walk to wait for the shift changeover.

Although horses, or rather the sale of equestrian impedimenta, brought all these actors of our epic story together, they did not all share the same passion for our equine friends, as we have mentioned. Peter was the manager of the emporium The Fettered Donkey because his wife owned it. They had met and married in New York when Peter was on holiday. Joyce had fallen in love with his upper crust Anglican accent, the product of St Adrian's Collegiate, an expensive school for the advantaged, or the sons of the Anglican clergy, which was not necessarily the same. This selective advantage could mean that the student was not always the brightest entrant and could flounder in a pool of cosseted pupils. Extensive elocution lessons had followed Peter's entry into this citadel of learning, followed by an unusually useless degree in these modern times of a third class pass in Modern Greek Philosophy at the University of Boolaparinga. It was during a brief spell at Oxford that it was discovered that despite very correct vowels, with not a hint of unstability, he couldn't, as his wife was later to say, 'cut the mustard'. The smitten American female remained besotted for a very short time, in fact four months. It became clear to her that an upper crust accent is no match for a woman's normal physical urges, of which Joyce had abundance. She also suspected that he was more interested in his chums from his St Adrian's collegiate days than herself. Joyce was a Senior Lecturer in Business Management Studies at the university, and was frequently away for long weekends on extra-curricular activities, she said, and often came back quite exhausted.

Audrey, for as long as she could remember, had been involved with horses, and in some ways her family was her hobby and her horses were her real reason for being. She had been born in an industrial British city and her family had migrated to Australia when she was seven. It might be imagined, because of her somewhat upper crust horsy English accent, that she came from one of the 'Home Counties' such as Surrey or Kent or one of those other rather special counties that the people from the south of England delight in coming from. It is odd, isn't it, that southerners rarely come from Basingstoke. But no, Audrey came from West Bromwich in the Midlands. It is therefore somewhat of a small miracle that she dropped the flat vowels and the whine of the smoky Midlands, but did not replace them with the even flatter vowels of working class Australia.

Audrey's father was an administrative officer, who in no way could be described as a clerk, especially by himself. He doted on Audrey and bought her her first horse for her tenth birthday, inadvertently embarking on an endless cycle of debts for riding clothes, dressage lessons, fodder, agistment, and vets bills that eventually became a financial brick around his neck. It was therefore something of a relief to him when Audrey married Brian, a schoolteacher with prospects and money to pay for Audrey's obsession. We all know that teachers are never short of money, and if they are, it's the government's fault, and they go on strike. So this marriage would solve Audrey's father's problem.

Anyway, to get back to unstable vowels, a posh accent and horses seemed to be in some way related, and Audrey hardly ever relapsed into flat vowels, except when angry or in the heights of sexual passion. Neither happened on a regular basis, which may or may not have been Brian's fault. But we must get back to the point of the story. Peter loved horses, although he didn't own one. Joyce, his wife, who was a Senior Lecturer and often came home exhausted, could not see the point of owning a horse. Horses require lots of care, cost a lot of money to keep, poop everywhere and in any event, one could get about much more quickly by car. And she would say, 'Don't you have enough release for your equine passion at the shop, with all that leather and stuff?' So it was only natural that Peter shared his interest in horses with Audrey, and talked about equestrian matters with her all the time.

One lunchtime, she and Peter were discussing the 'Scudley Downs Country Show'. Peter said he would be going to the show this year, and was very excited because it would be his first time. His wife had to go to a probably exhausting University conference in Melbourne that weekend, the subject of which was 'Towards Further Profiteering of Multinational Companies by the Use of Slave Labour in the Third World' or something like that. This of course left Peter on his own during the show weekend. Joyce, he said, had never been interested in horses and she would be gone for maybe a week, or even more, it was difficult to tell. It was hard to predict what was going down at these conferences. But he was certain that she would return home exhausted. As they would both be going to the show, Audrey and Peter agreed that they would probably bump into each other there.

Well, the bump came sooner than either of them expected. Aria had gone home in a huff after a particularly long battle of wills and words with Audrey concerning some genuine authentic Australian jodhpurs made in India that had just come into the store. It seemed that Aria thought the genuine etc jodhpurs were too tight for the average female figure and in her view they should also be black, not khaki. She went on to say that if they were put on sale, the store should be boycotted. Audrey thought otherwise, noting that Aria's predilections to social control were beginning to run into the arena of the feminist Mafia. So Aria decided that she would stand outside the shop after her morning shift, with a placard denouncing the product. She would enroll some of her Gothic anarchist friends, or it may have been some of her feminist 'save just about every thing' Gothic friends, it is difficult to say, as some of her philosophies overlap and can be quite confusing. What we can be sure of is that most of her friends would not have jobs and would therefore be available to challenge the capitalist imperialist pigs ad nausea, as long as the protest was not on a Wednesday, which is pension day.

Audrey said that the protest was ridiculous, and anyway they would be lucky to sell any of the authentic Australian jodhpurs made in India, black or khaki. She then went off on a tangent and personalised the row by saying that she couldn't understand why Aria came to work every day looking like a living corpse and that it would be better for everybody if she was put down by a vet. Peter, not having the energy to deal with two irate females, was hiding in his office, as was his usual stratagem on such occasions. Aria left in a huff, mumbling something about taking the matter to the local Gothic chapter, if she only had the time. The pile of inappropriate, politically incorrect, gender specific unsuitably coloured jodhpurs lay in a heap and had to be put away, gender specific or not. So Peter and Audrey set to it with less than a will.

We will now mention Audrey's mother. There are some who will wonder why Audrey's mother has been brought into the story at this juncture, and we admit that this is a genuine concern and not to be trivialised. However it is necessary to comment on the physical stature of our intrepid horsewoman, and who better to do this than her mother? Audrey's widowed mother is an English lady, by the name of Gertrude. One of her favourite jokes is 'Call me Gert, and forget the rude bit, ha ha', which was not even funny the first dozen times. She used to look after Audrey's children when they were younger, but as the children grew older and could care for themselves, she took up with Bert, an English migrant who had a penchant for jellied eels 'like his mother used to make'. They got on famously and were well known in the retirement village for having 'knees up mother brown' parties at the drop of a hat. The retirement village folk looked forward to each knees up with great anticipation, but the village's vinegary Social Worker, Geraldine, dreaded these riotous occasions. She was expected to put the drunken old ladies and gentlemen to bed after the partys, sometimes together in the same bed if they were married, and she hated doing that even more than bedding down the single 'wrinklies'. She complained that sex over fifty was even more disgusting than sex before fifty and should be prohibited bylaw. She was often heard to say that this was not what she had trained for at University for four years, to look after people and their disgusting problems. But this is neither here nor there; the point is that Gertrude has always described her rather large daughter as a 'strapping wench', and she is too, especially when seen in her Myers knickers and specially fitted reinforced bra.

Anyway, they, that is Audrey and Peter, were putting away the authentic Australian jodhpurs made in India, when completely by accident, Audrey tripped over a pile of harnesses made by convict labour in China, which were quite reasonably priced. She fell into Peter's outstretched arms, which he had instinctively put up to protect himself. Peter is quite tall, but not very weighty, in fact much less weighty than Audrey, and he fell over backwards onto the pile of authentic Australian jodhpurs etc., with the 'strapping wench' on top of him. The weight of Audrey knocked all the breath out of him. He immediately started to gasp for air and his fair skin went very red, accentuated by his fair hair, which we must admit is now more white than blonde and is going very thin on top, a bit like a tonsured monk. Hair has started to grow out of his ears, as though to make up for the lack of hair on the top of his head. One tries not to look at his untidy ears but they have a kind of morbid attraction that compels one to pretend that one is looking into the middle distance, but really is really starring the hideous hairiness of the ear in question. No one, to my knowledge, has ever told him of his unfortunate ears, as this could be most embarrassing to the informer and to the informed, one feels.

But we must get back to the accident. Peter's arms quite naturally had encircled Audrey's robust figure as he was falling backwards, to achieve some kind of balance, or out of fear, or whatever. Audrey misinterpreted Peter's flaming countenance and gasps for breath as torrid passion, and started kissing him with some vigor, round and round his face in circles. On reflection, Audrey remembered once reading this technique in a sex manual, having some concerns about Brian's lack of ardour, and had hoped to try it out one day, with someone. Unfortunately, her attentions made Peter hyperventilate. He gasped and gurgled in what Audrey misinterpreted as the murmuring of lusty intentions. And so the cycle of delusion continued, until a customer popped in and Peter was able to escape to his office.

Riding down Cowpat Road the next day, Audrey hoped they wouldn't spend too much time in bed. I would like to take a few ribbons home from the show, if only for Splendor's sake, she mused. She jogged down the hill with Splendor's hooves skidding on the dry dirt and gravel that the Council had just graded. I wonder if there'll be anyone we know at the show. Perhaps we should have separate rooms at 'Yea Olde Scudley Downs Motor Inn' just in case. We really didn't discuss it in detail. As this was her first 'affair' as she mentally classified the fall over the harnesses, she really was at a loss about the rules. She particularly wondered why Peter spent all of the previous afternoon in his office with a hastily scribbled 'must not be disturbed' sign on the door, but thought it must be just that he was overwhelmed with passion and didn't dare come out til the shop closed. Silly boy, she mused with a smile.

Snake had disappeared into the distance. She called to him and turned her big bay around to head home. At the top of the hill she saw the old man Henry working on his acreage. I can't imagine having a property so small as two and a half acres, Audrey reflected. Henry was in his ex army overalls that were too big for him and had his feet thrust into his wife's green Wellington boots, which really hurt. He hadn't noticed that they were on the wrong feet. On his head was a baseball cap with a military logo inscribed on it. White wiry hair like a Brillo pad stuck out around his large ears, which helped to keep his hat from falling over his eyes. Audrey hoped he wouldn't see her, for he loved to talk, and moan, mostly about his bad heart and his latest operation. It was rumoured that he stopped people in the township to tell them about his operations. It was a fact that he had been banned from the chemist shop and his wife had to pick up his many prescriptions.

'Damn', she whispered to herself, 'he's seen me', and she pulled her reins to the right, and looked over Henry's barbed wire fence to say hello, for Audrey was kind at heart.

'How many trees have you planted now, Henry', she shouted. It was very quiet in Cowpat Road, in fact only one car an hour passed by on average, but Henry was going deaf, and sometimes he forgot that he had a radio attached to his ears. He ambled to the fence, coughing, wheezing, and scratching his crotch.

'Hello Audrey,' he shouted, 'what did you say?' Splendor, the horse who was impervious to fireworks, small blazes and screaming fire appliances, shied as the little man came to the fence and suddenly shot out a hand to pat the horse's nose.

Audrey pulled in the reins to calm the anxious animal and said, 'How many trees have you planted now?' she repeated, pointing to the radio attached to Henry's enormous, but less than adequate ears. He pulled the earphones out and placed them around his neck

'I've been planting trees! A hundred and forty eight trees of them, Audrey! There are neighbours moving in next door soon, from the suburbs, and you can't be too careful,' he shouted. He then removed his facemask and safety glasses, preparing for a good 'bit of a chat'.

'That's nice Henry, she said, 'the garden looks very nice, well I have to be going now,' she said loudly, and kneed an indignant Splendor in the ribs. The horse snorted in his aristocratic nostrils, Audrey pulled the reins to the left, and off they jogged, Snake bringing up the rear.

'I don't know why those damn townies can't stay where they belong', Henry answered, turned round, tripped over his post hole digger, recovered, and went back to planting his trees.

Audrey continued her slow ride back home, pondering on her torrid affair with Peter. 'If Brian finds out he'll kill Peter, or me, or both of us. Oh well'. She said quietly and smiled contentedly to herself.

So dear reader, we must reluctantly leave Audrey happily daydreaming as she trots off home. But all is never what it seems; we are all victims of our own fantasies and egocentrism. Audrey thinks she is having an affair with Peter? But is she? It takes two to tango, we always thought. Will Peter continue to hide in his office? Will Audrey discover that Brian is harbouring enthusiastic lusts for Jason the blonde Adonis of the tight shorts and skimpy vest? What will happen to young Nell when she spends the night with her girlfriend Allan; will she ever be the same again? Will Tom get shot in the back by Henry for continually riding his noisy motorbike past Henry's property? Will Henry get taken away by the fuzz screaming 'It's a fit up'? We are not certain and have no clear answers to these difficult problems. All we know for sure is that the world will keep turning and life will go on as we all wait for our turn to fall off the edge.

TO BE CONTINUED …

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Copyright AG Stack-Hawkley 2000