Georgina M Byrne
I've never been very good at dates. I'm chronically bad at birthdays. In spite of a love of history at school, my inability to get those darned numbers right meant the difference between a pass and a distinction. I'm also totally unable to be sure of the PIN number on my bankcard, having had my confidence shattered by the machine swallowing up my card. There are, however, a few dates, seared into my memory, which will remain, at least until senile dementia kicks in. These have to do with disasters (Martin Luther King was assassinated on my birthday), most of them family affairs (and we seem to have had more than our share in the past few years). I certainly won't forget the date, or the day, on which one of the worst Byrne disasters occurred.
Sunday, November the thirtieth, 1997, was a warm, bright sunny day... the last day of spring. We were pretty cheery, as it marked the beginning of Michael's annual holidays. Three weeks until Christmas, with plenty of time to finish our dog kennels and move some of our furniture so that we could finally be relieved of the burden of running two houses, gardens and animal enterprises at two different locations.
The llamas were pretty relaxed too, with most of the girls parked under the trees in the bottom paddocks and our two stud males, Willie and UP, sitting peacefully in their corners, as close as possible to the girls' yard. Only Violetta was restless. Fifteen months old, and mad keen to be mated, she was sitting midway between the "big boys". Part of her restlessness was due to the five-month old, and due to be weaned alpaca male, Atawallpa. Sensing her urges, he was stuck to her like glue, alternately mounting her when she sat and trying to nurse when she stood up. Try as she might, she seemed unable to shake him off. "It's time to take him out of there", I said to Michael, but, busy with other things, we did nothing about him.
Michael was busy in the dog-yard and I was watering my roses, when our of the corner of my eye I saw sudden movement down by the bathtub which serves as a water-trough for the bottom paddocks. Violetta, accompanied by the woolly bot-fly had wandered down for a drink. He must have bumped her from behind and startled, annoyed, (who knows?) she'd leapt away from him. When I looked properly she was standing, hunched over in a most peculiar fashion at the end of the bath.
I called Michael, "I think Violetta's leg is caught in the fence". He replied "Wait for me. It might be broken".
We walked, then ran, the several hundred metres down the hill. I reached her first, but Michael was close behind. It wasn't her leg. All four were firmly on the ground. She couldn't move, because the steel fence-post to which the float and tap were attached, was embedded in her chest. "We'll never get her off", he said, but we did.
It was only when we heard the ghastly sound of her breathing and saw how long that bloodied length of rusty metal was, that we realised the enormity of the problem. Amazingly, there wasn't much blood, and she stood in utter calm, with my arms wrapped around her neck. The noise from the gaping hole in her chest was the noise of nightmares. Michael had a closer look. He took my place. "You'd better call Duncan," and, as I ran up the hill "I don't think she's going to make it. She has a flail chest".
I didn't know what a flail chest was, but I had to try to help her. I called Duncan's home and Ann, his wife, promised to try to find him. He rang back in a few minutes and said he'd come straight away. I ran back to Michael and Violetta. They were much the same. Still she stood, his arms around her neck with that awful grating sound surrounding him. We changed places. He ran to fetch the van and there we stood. I touched her knees and she sat, as she'd been trained to do, her head still up and cradled in my arms. What does one think about in such a situation? How did we miss that stake (we'd been so very careful, preparing the place for our precious llamas)? How could it have happened (the stake was three feet high)? Why her, of all our animals, why did it have to be her? Almost an hour had passed.
Our van and Duncan's jeep arrived together. They examined the wound. I just held her. She was so good. No complaints, no thrashing about. Shock, I suppose, but then it was my beloved Violetta, always so compliant, always so sweet. Together, we wrapped an enormous bandage around her and somehow, between us, we managed to lift her, folded, into the van. Duncan gave her pain-killers and antibiotics. And still she sat, head up, my arms around her neck At least the bandage muffled that dreadful sound. The men consulted. An anaesthetic would certainly kill her. Perhaps he could repair her under local. Wait four hours and see.
We parked the van, in the shade of the carport and left her there. At four o'clock we drove her to the surgery. If it hadn't been for the bandage you'd have thought she was quite OK. Bright eyed and calmly she sat, watching the passing scene.
Getting her out of the van was easier than getting her in. Duncan gave her a sedative, and just as it was taking effect, she nibbled my cheek. It was a pretty feeble nibble, but unmistakably, a Violetta kiss. I remembered the four of us sitting together, on the rug in front of the fire, Michael and Duncan taking turns to hold up the drip-bag; Violetta cradled in my arms, a scrawny little mite just a day or so old, desperately ill from dehydration. Then again, we did it, a few days later. The miracle of her survival then, just might be duplicated now.
The operation was harrowing and protracted. I cradled her in my arms, Michael knelt, with her body propped against his legs and Duncan struggled with the wound. We all willed her to survive. There was another hole. She'd fallen on it twice. Duncan managed to close that one. The other hole was simply too large to close and she was starting to fade away, so we bound her up again and placed her, propped against hay-bales, in a stable. Maybe in a few days we could take her to Murdoch Uni and complete the repair-job. Meanwhile, it was just a matter of wait and see. He promised to check her in the night and let us know, and so we left her there.
The next morning, they said, she was standing, had drunk some water and nibbled a little muesli. The afternoon's report was less encouraging. In the early evening, my lovely Violetta died.
What do you say, when such a fate befalls such a beloved animal? We all loved Violetta, for her beauty and her grace but most of all, for her gentle and loving nature. It was she who had come into milk and mothered Wulfie, it was she who had won me the Junior Champion ribbon, it was she who came galloping, just for a hug, whenever I gave her a call. Next to Balalaika, it was she I loved the most.
When he first saw what had happened and at intervals throughout that dreadful day, Michael kept saying "what a terrible thing". And so it was.
PS. My friend Mary Jane, bless her, found me a "Reine de Violette" rose, to plant by the llama girls' yard. It was a poor sad thing, just a bundle of twigs and a scatter of yellowish leaves, but it was the only one, and Mary Jane assured the embarrassed nursery owner that it would receive a lot of love, as of course it has. Six weeks later, after tons of TLC, including lashings of llama poo and not a few tears, it not only sported a new crop of leaves but a single bloom. It's not really my colour and it clashes badly with the nearby Satchmos, but perhaps that's a good thing too. It stands out, that rose, just as its namesake did.
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