Read Online Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Picador 40th) by Carrie Tiffany - Free Book Online

but I can’t see him. He must be slow about his goodbyes. Finally Mary tugs the right side door open, jumps down and turns to help me.
    â€˜Quick. I have something for you. Don’t worry about your bags, the guard will get them.’
    I want to tell Mary to slow down. I don’t want to leave like this – it feels too sudden. I’m not sure anymore if I want to leave at all, but Mary is dragging me by the hand along the side of the train and we are running through a cloud of steam. The steam has settled on my face or maybe I am crying. We are in front of the cattle trucks. The train is hugely tall without a station platform in front of it. Mary calls through the slats to a stock hand and a ramp crashes down. Before the dust has settled the youngest stock hand leads out a cow. Not any cow, our cow – the folly cow. She shifts her weight from leg to leg, blinking in the dust and light and steam.
    Mary takes her halter from the stock hand and gives it to me. She is grinning from ear to ear. ‘For you, Jean. I arranged it all with Mr Plattfuss. She’ll be better off with you. She would just have ended up in a paddock somewhere. She can remind you of me. And she’ll be, you know, something to love . . .’
    I hold Mary tight. The ramp is pulled up and the train sounds a deep chuff – it is about to leave. Folly’s halter is stiff in my hand. It is new; Mary has plaited it from baling twine. She pulls away from me and runs back to our compartment, blowing me kisses over her shoulder.
    â€˜Write,’ she calls out. ‘Write to me with all of your results!’
    The door slams. I step back and look up into the windows of the train. The men wave at me from the windows of the dairy car. Mr Baker whistles through his orange whiskers. Mr Plattfuss wags a mocking finger at Folly, the startling silk of Mr Ohno’s tie concertinas as he bows. Then a jolt and they all tumble sideways into each other as the train lurches off.
    A rumble of steam, and the final carriage glides past. It slips away like a curtain and reveals the other side of the street where Robert is standing with his bags and cases. He is wearing a blue suit I have never seen before and squinting into the sun.
    The folly cow won’t budge. She watches the rear of the train snaking off up the street and lets out a long wet moo. Robert strides across the tracks. There is the sound of flyscreen doors banging shut as people go back about their business.
    â€˜You got out of the other side.’
    â€˜Yes. I got out of the other side.’ He reaches for Folly’s halter.
    â€˜You should have told me about the cow, Jean. What am I going to do with an old scrub cow?’
    â€˜She’s not for you. She’s for me – from Mary.’
    Robert’s face is red. Droplets of sweat glisten in his eyebrows. The suit must be hot.
    Robert ties Folly to a fence behind the hardware store and carries our bags inside. I wait for him on the verandah – trying to breathe slowly and drain the heat that has risen to my face. My grey suit feels too tight and too showy. Women come and go from shop to shop, many tailed by little children. A group has gathered in front of the pharmacy several doors down. The women make a loose circle of nodding heads. They laugh loudly. I look away. A small child tumbles from the footpath onto the street. The women gather around him cooing and scolding.
    The church is on a side street and the ceremony is quick. The priest’s collar is too tight and he switches the Bible from hand to hand as he tugs at it. He aims his words into the hot air above our heads; I feel almost as if I can see them, coasting over the empty pews and floating down to the floor. Robert takes my hand – for the ring – but the priest pulls him up.
    â€˜Don’t bother, Mr Pettergree, on a day like today she’ll have fingers like sausages. Do it later, when it cools down.’
    Stan