The plastic horse

She remembers a sunny Saturday morning when trees were green and birds were singing. The breadman had arrived with the weekly delivery. The scent of fresh baking filled the kitchen. He filled the table with two dozen loaves. They were uniform in shape, some white loaves and others wholemeal. Of course back then there weren’t different breads or flours. There was no emphasis on special diets or spoken knowledge of allergies. This was a bread delivery from town, pure and simple. Country shops were a thing then too. Literally in the middle of nowhere, you’d find one as part of a farmhouse, usually signposted with a cigarette sign in the window. Inside, there was a room off the kitchen, with shelving, typically painted brown and a counter in front. These were stocked with basic foodstuffs like bread, raisins, baking soda, firelighters, biscuits and sweets. The fridge held the butter and the freezer had frozen chickens and ice-cream. The cabin outside stored flour and cattle feed. These came in four and eight stone bags, which meant women typically baked daily. The bread delivery served an often male community: men who lived without a woman in the house and didn't take on the task of bread making themselves. She remembers one such household, where two brothers lived together. One would arrive on a Saturday, fill an empty meal bag with loves of bread, firelighters, butter, maybe jam and 200 woodbine cigarettes. His hands were caked from the tasks of the farm. little time or energy was spent washing. Clothes were worn without changing. Funny, she never recalled them being dirty. There was no memory of a smell, just a lingering scent of turf. He'd sit for a while, share the news of the week before heading back down the road toward the woods and home. Sometimes, he stopped in next door. One Saturday after one such stop, he left with the wrong bag. Instead of the week's grocery supply, he picked up a bag of turf lying beside his bag and headed for home. Later, they discovered what happened. They figured he'd be back when he missed his smokes. And he was.

On this Saturday, her mother asked her to bring a loaf up the road to Willie. He was her elderly neighbour, now living alone. She loved this. With the bread under her arm she took her sister's plastic horse and headed up the road. She thinks the horse was white with a pink saddle. He also had a white tail of plastic hair. She doesn't remember the mane. It may well have been plastic too. His eyes were two moving black pupils. He had roller wheels under his hooves and a rope in front for pulling him along. He was at most, a foot tall. He was just class. Wheeling along the road, she felt like she was in the movies and that he was Black Beauty. She made the clip clop sound as they moved toward Willie’s house. She wanted for nothing more: the horse, the road and the reason for being out alone, in charge of her destiny.

That memory stayed with her forever. She was never quite sure why. There was an uncomplicated sense to it all. There were complications too of course. The breadman was a bit creepy. She never stayed in the shop unless his son was with him. The men from the woods were often creepy too. One in particular stole a knickers from the line one Saturday. Her mother said the sisters imagined it but they knew better, after all they'd seen him. Willie was safe though. He'd make tea, cut the loaf, leave it on the table with butter and marmalade and she could eat as much as she wanted of the fresh soft dough with the warm smell of yeast and the lovely chewy brown crust. By the end of a few days, the crust would have hardened and the white inside gone stiff and often a bit mouldy. Willie didn't seem to notice much. Sometimes, they'd toast it on the open fire. Then it was nice again and ready for eating. Her mother used to bring him the dinner in the end. She never remembers him cooking too much. He often had sausages and kippers on a friday. He didn't have a fridge. The sausages were kept in a brown larder. If they were left too long, they'd go sour. She wonders did they sell sausages in the shop. Probably not, they'd have eaten them all! Sausages were a luxury in a big family. They sold baked beans though. She loved those with the baker's bread and butter on top. They didn't ask for much. They ate what was there, nothing more, nothing less. They reminisced on this recently. One chicken fed a household of twelve. The men definitely got the meat. The women got lesser pieces, cabbage and of course spuds. Butter was a luxury too, especially when her father was at the table. He hated waste. She loved to sneak a big dollop of Kerrygold onto the hot potato and to this minute, savours the taste, the smell and the melting creamy sensation. With a bit of salt, it was a meal in itself. Her auntie Teresa used to say, you'll never go hungry with butter, milk, eggs and flour in a house. And they didn't. The house is almost empty now. Her brother lives there. The shop went with progress or possibly unpaid debts. The old ledgers upstairs showed the legacies of families. They were lucky. They were educated and left. Yes, they left the simple tranquility of sunny Saturday mornings, with basic bread choices, green trees and birdsong. They lost the old men in the woods and Willie up the road. Her parents too slipped away quietly. The bread became complicated. Suddenly allergies appeared. Suddenly it caused all sorts of ailments when you ate it too often. Suddenly other, better breads arrived and replaced the bread she knew. The new breads didn't go hard or mouldy for weeks maybe even months. Elderly people no longer lived alone in woods or in old houses by the side of the road. People stopped dropping by with loaves of bread. It just wasn't considered safe to live alone in the country. It wasn't considered safe to drop by with loaves of bread, not knowing but someone might be allergic or it might injure, burn or choke them if they weren't supervised eating, cutting and toasting it. And this was all called “progress”. She wondered what happened to the plastic horse.