by Erina Reddan
Our heads jerked up like we were all connected. Philly jumped to a crouch on her seat. ‘Mum’s coming home!’ she yelled, relief big through her.
‘Few days yet,’ he said, waving her down. He dipped his knife into the cream. He was all about getting the cream evenly to the crust.
Why wasn’t he saying? No matter how much sorry I had for him, he shouldn’t be making us wait. The red started beating at the inside of me. Getting a hold. And still he said nothing, all business with the jam jar now. Finally I’d had enough. I leaned forwards, smashing a hammer smack hard against his no talking. ‘Where is she then?’
He looked up, long and level, holding his rolled-up jam-and-cream bread like a wall between us. ‘Aunty Peg’s.’
I shot back against the chair like he’d smacked me one, shaking my head. ‘But you never let er.’
‘She didn’t stop to ask.’
‘Why didn’t she ring to tell us yesterday?’ Philly asked in a small voice, hunched over, her knees tucked into her armpits.
‘She thought she’d left a note, see.’ Dad cleared his throat. ‘She was in a hell of a hurry when she left. Peg had a turn, and your mother couldn’t be missing the train to Melbourne otherwise it would have been another day before she made it to Peg’s place. As soon as your mother found the note in her handbag this morning, after you buggers had gone to school, she rang. Said she was sorry she worried us.’
He looked at me from under his eyebrows, like he was daring me to say something else. But he was right: if Aunty Peg needed Mum, Mum wouldn’t stop to ask Dad if she could go. Only that red was still knocking from one side of my gut to the other.
He pushed my plate towards me. ‘Eat up.’ Gave me a wink. ‘All good, then, after all.’
I looked at my bread with one slash of red across the middle. I waded my knife into the jam and got the strawberry all over.
‘I was home, but,’ I said, all quiet, as I cut my slice into tiny, tiny pieces. ‘Why didn’t she say goodbye?’
He jerked his eyes in my direction. He’d forgotten, see.
‘Maybe she tried.’ He shoved down the other half of his roll-up so he couldn’t speak for a bit.
‘She probably looked in on you,’ Tessa jumped in, like she was Mum. ‘Saw you were out like a light and didn’t want to wake you.’ But then she added, back to her normal self: ‘Knew you’d go wild if she told you.’
I grunted, saying maybe could be, maybe not.
‘Why’d ya tell us yesterday that she’d gone gone, then?’ I said, looking straight at Dad.
He scratched his head and dropped his hand on the table like it was a great sack of spuds. I studied the forever lines on his face but they didn’t make anything come clear. ‘Didn’t know any different till she called,’ he said. ‘No note, see?’ He pushed the cream bottle and the jam jar away.
‘Why didn’t you call the police, then?’
Philly gasped and Tim went into a coughing fit to cover his splutter.
Not a sound from Dad, though. He drummed the table beside his plate with his thick finger. Finally he cleared his throat. ‘We did blue the night before. Thought she might have just needed a bit of time.’
‘Must have been a real bad one,’ I knifed back, quick as lick.
‘None of your bloody business.’ He was back on his cream and jam. He looked up to see my eyes all narrow on him. ‘What?’ Like there was an axe in his voice and he was about to swing it.
‘Mum blued with you, not us. Why didn’t she ring to tell us goodnight?’
Tessa kicked me under the table. Tim grinned right at me but just so Dad couldn’t see. He gave his grin a bit of sauce by slicing his finger across his throat.
Dad’s stare was on me. I kept mine on my plate. But Dad surprised us by not going off his nut. His voice, when it did make it out, was full of calm. ‘That mad old biddy Peg had one of her worst turns yet. Your mum’s had her hands full to overflow.’ His axe all packed away in the shed. ‘So that’s why she couldn’t ring to say goodnight to you little buggers. She would of if she could of. Yous all know that.’ He rolled another slice up. Looked dead on me. ‘Your mother and I blue all the time. Nothin out of the ordinary in that. She’s got more important things to worry about now.’ He loaded his roll-up into his mouth. ‘Any of yous seen your mother’s address book?’
‘It’s in the drawer by her bed,’ Tessa said.
Dad grunted, chewing hard and stabbing at his plate to pick up a crumb or two.
‘So how long do you think it’ll be till she can come home, Dad?’ Tessa asked.
Dad tapped the table once more, and then twice. The others all took this to mean not long.
Not me.
I reckon he didn’t know one way or the other. But I didn’t say anything. Because then they’d know that maybe it was a bigger thing keeping Mum away than Peg’s turn and that I knew more than I was letting on.
I looked down at the little ribbons of blood bread on my plate.
After we stacked the dishes, I got out into it just like Mum told me. The first time she done it, she shoved me ahead of her, digging me in between my shoulder blades, out of the kitchen, past the cowshed and into the top paddock, and straight away I saw she was right. All that soft: the pale of the blue in the sky, the brush of the gold in the paddocks and the clear of the air in between, and all of it going on and on until it reached the end of the world. Melted away the red in me like butter.
This time I had to get myself down in among the grass, below the teeth of the wind, smell the cool of the dirt. After a good bit of sucking the sweetness out of a blade or two, I could see that everything Dad said made good sense. It had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t glad Aunty Peg had a bad turn but I was glad as that Peg was the reason Mum’d gone. Now maybe nobody had to know what I did.
I spat out the last of the grass. It was just… those never-sitting-still eyes of Dad’s, sneaking little looks out the window like there was something he wasn’t saying. But maybe he was just all rolled up in missing Mum. Tomorrow was Saturday, though, so she’d definitely be calling us then and she could tell us everything herself.
It wasn’t the same out here without Mum, but it was something. Winter safe. Snakes all holed up, sleeping out the cold.
Turned out we were just like snakes. Only they got rid of their skin every summer and we did it every seven years. And not just the skin like the book at school said. Every cell and every bit of us. All newed up every seven years. She’d better get back soon, before I changed up every cell and she wouldn’t know me.
‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ Dad said that night as he loaded the shotguns into the back of the ute after tea, along with two packets of cartridges. Philly stood at the end of the path, not coming one jot closer. Tessa chafed Philly’s hand between hers, backing Dad up like always. ‘Mum’ll be back in a day or two,’ she leaned over Philly to say. ‘Wouldn’t be right to cancel when Mr Kennedy and Pete are already here.’ She pulled Philly forwards a step.
Pete walked over to ruffle her head, his flannel shirt flapping wide despite the edge of cold in the air. ‘You’ll be right, little puss. Just a bit of shooting fun. Same as every Friday night.’ He looked over at Dad just like always. Pete had lost his dad a good few years back in his last year of school so every weekend he came over to help with a bit of fencing or feeding out the cows, making sure us kids knew what a giant of a man our dad was.
Philly sharp nodded, like she was trying to be as brave as Pete thought she should be.
‘I’ll sit in the front seat with you,’ promised Tessa.
‘That’s not fair for you,’ said Philly. ‘It’s your turn in the back.’
‘It’s what Mum would do,’ said Tessa, her lips all folded firm, like that was the end of the matter.
I jumped into the tray of the ute quick smart so nobody’d be thinking I should stay with Philly too. I’d only just got old enough to get out of all that sliding and slapping into windows in the cabin as the ute sla
mmed around the paddocks. As if that was safer.
I got myself nice and tight into the corner under the driver’s side and got hold of the rope tied all around the inside of the ute. Tim leaped up beside me, and Dad and Mr Kennedy grunted their way in behind.
Pete was at the wheel, beeping and skylarking. He put it into gear and nudged the ute backwards, then spun it around, taking off in a great spray of gravel. Mr Kennedy dived for the rope before he was turfed out sideways. Dad banged the roof of the ute.
‘Give us a chance to pop a tinnie,’ he complained, but laughing, like something was loosening in him.
Tim and I laughed too, letting his loose curl around us. When we got to the back gate, Tim jumped down to open and close it without a whine, all run through with the excitement of things.
It was in me, too. There’s magic in spotlighting. I liked the way the grown-ups’ voices sounded in the dark. I liked the way they worked together, laughing and joking, making something different from what they did in the day.
Pete careered the ute off down the hill, hurtling over rocks.
Dad hit the back window again. ‘Kids,’ he growled, but eyes dead on his tinnie where the beer was frothing out.
Pete turned the ute on to the flat, skidded right so we were facing Jean’s Corner, then gunned the motor before cutting it.
‘Bloody idiot,’ said Mr Kennedy.
‘Gimme a beer, ya bastard,’ called Pete. Dad nodded at Tim, who pulled the ring of a can and angled over to pass it through the window to Pete.
The moon wasn’t up to much tonight, so I could only just make out the little stone bench under the apple tree in the elbow of the creek. Mum said there used to be a cottage a long time ago. A lady called Jean lived in it after she had a baby without a husband. The baby wasn’t right in the head and it didn’t live long. But that Jean never went back to her family. I guessed she liked it in her corner because it was pretty with the gums leaning long across the creek and the water rushing by all day long like a friend. Nothing left now except the little stone cross getting all overgrown by long grass. I wished I knew the name of that not-right-in-the-head baby so I could scratch it back into the cross. Mum said naming a thing meant you knew it, and knowing a thing made it easier to get a hold of. I reckoned every baby needed knowing.
I chewed my nail and made myself look into the dark of another direction because Jean’s Corner made me think of Mum again. She came down here for a bit of peace and quiet when she was fed up to the back teeth with the lot of us. Sometimes I snuck down after her. Picked all kinds of different wildflowers. Mum and I would sit on the bench and figure out what they were saying when you put them all together. She always carried them home in her apron, put them in a jar, put them on the table for dinner. ‘Make it special,’ she said. She shushed Philly right up one night when Philly asked what a bunch of dead weeds sitting on the table was for. Wished now I left Mum alone on that bench sometimes. Let her have that bit of peace and quiet. Maybe she wouldn’t have gone.
I looked over to Tim but he was doing his best not to look at Jean’s Corner, either. It was in the huddle of him.
‘You seen it yet?’ Mr Kennedy asked Dad in a low voice like there was a chance Tim and I mightn’t hear. He hissed the top of his second tinnie open.
‘I’ll not look at it, even if you hold it under my nose,’ Dad said, all decision and purpose, telling Mr Kennedy what was what. ‘And nobody else should either. It’s a bad business. Brian and Mary can’t hold their heads up.’ Dad spat out the side of the ute. ‘They don’t deserve even a bit of this. That girl ought to be horsewhipped for what she’s done to her parents.’
Tim raised an eyebrow in my direction, jerked his head towards Mr Kennedy. But if Tim wanted to know he could do his own dirty work this time. I already had it from Mrs Nolan and Mum that somebody had seen a picture that might have been Colleen, who’d left for the city two years ago, in a dirty magazine. In the nuddy. Or maybe mostly nuddy.
‘Yep, horsewhipped,’ Mr Kennedy echoed. ‘Got your head screwed on right there, Jack. Like always.’
I scrunched my face up into the terrible of it, because a girl shouldn’t be doing that. But Dad would never horsewhip a horse, so why would he want to do that to a girl even if she did do a bad thing to her parents? I hunched tighter. That wind was picking up.
Dad tossed Tim his shotgun easy and Tim loaded it, perking up.
Dad and Mr Kennedy did some weather and crop talk until Pete wanted to know if we’d be getting going anytime before Christmas.
That Pete. He might always be trying to get into Dad’s good books, but he was still a character.
Dad looked at me all curled up and tight in the corner. ‘You can have a shot this time.’
‘Nah, I’ll be right.’
Dad clutched his heart, pretended to stagger. I grinned.
‘She’s just a little girl, after all,’ said Tim, grinning too.
‘Am not,’ I flicked back. But maybe I was because I was always on at Dad to give me a go, but tonight, with the joey dying and Mum being gone—it didn’t feel good.
‘You leave her alone,’ said Dad, scuffing him on the shoulder. ‘She’s ya sister. Should look after er.’
‘Yeah, Tim,’ I said, grinning wider.
‘When I’m not around, it’s up to you to be the man, mate,’ Dad said, all serious.
Tim cut me a look, guilty, hunched over his gun, because he let Mother Gabriel light into me instead of him. But I shook my head at him behind Dad’s back, letting him know it wasn’t like that.
‘Let’s get on with things,’ said Mr Kennedy, turning on the spotlight. ‘Or they’ll hear us coming for bloody miles.’ He banged on the roof of the cabin, and Pete let out a whoop and took off.
He belted us in a straight line for the creek at the other end of the paddock. I squatted back low, holding real tight.
‘What’s got into ya?’ Dad yelled at me.
‘Stayin out of the wind,’ I yelled back. It wasn’t the wind. But it was something. I was usually jumping up and down with the different of it.
Pete pulled up sharp at the far end of the paddock and wheeled about, heading up towards the bridge.
‘There,’ Tim and Mr Kennedy yelled, one voice.
Pete skidded to a stop. Mr Kennedy manned the spotlight. I hopped up to see. Mr Kennedy scudded the light about till it found the target. A small grey body scooting this way and that in ever-smaller dodges until it was nailed to a quiver-still stop. Up on its hind legs, two black eyes, shiny with the thing it knew was about to happen.
Then the shot.
The rabbit’s body jerked high and somersaulted backwards.
Shouts of victory.
Tim leaped out. Came back with the prize, and tossed it in the box. Dad rubbed Tim’s head. ‘First shot too, boyo.’
‘Bet you can’t do better,’ said Tim. Even in the dark I could tell they were both grinning.
Then Mr Kennedy’s voice. ‘I’ll give ya a run for ya money, but.’
There was a quick knocking from inside the cabin. ‘Philly’s crying,’ said Tessa, getting her head out the window.
‘Bloody hell,’ Dad swore. Then everybody waited for him to say more.
‘Phils.’ Dad raised his voice so she could hear. ‘Never bothered you before.’
‘I don’t want you to kill,’ came Philly’s small voice, all soaked up with tears.
‘There’ll be no dinner tomorra.’
She didn’t say anything. I didn’t either, kept my head right down, but Philly was nothing but right.
‘How about another few goes and then we call it quits?’
More silence.
‘She nodded,’ called out Tessa finally.
‘Righto. Let’s get this show on the road.’ He banged on the roof and Pete took off again. But slow, like something had come out of the thing.
Next morning we were all jangled up listening out for the phone. Philly picked up the receiver a couple of times to make
sure it worked. Tim and I fought over the Milo tin and Dad didn’t even notice, just kept his eyes long and low out the window. In the end I convinced Philly to take her mind off things by making pot plants out of old fruit tins to surprise Mum when she came home. She agreed if we did it beside the tanks where we could still hear the phone, which was fine by me cause I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.
After breakfast, Tessa snatched the tea towel from me and spread it over the dish drainer, all filled up angry. Philly and I took off for the door.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Tessa asked.
‘Help Dad,’ I lied, quick as quick.
‘Not before the school shoes.’
Philly looked stricken and changed direction.
‘They get a good shine up every bloody Saturday. Reckon they could do with one week off,’ I said, still facing the laundry and freedom.
‘Don’t be so selfish, JJ. Break Mum’s heart if she got back and our shoes were in a state.’
I scratched my ear. ‘Reckon it would take a bit more than that to break her heart.’
‘How would you know?’ Tessa smoothed Mum’s apron over her stomach. ‘Tim,’ she yelled. ‘Shoes.’
We heard movement from Tim’s room coming our way, so if he was doing it there was no getting out of it for me. I went over to the kitchen hearth.
‘Shove over,’ Tim said when he got there. He pushed me and I fell, getting polish on the lino. I roared and flicked him with my cloth. He caught it with a grin and then held my fighting fists out at arm’s length.
‘You take up a lot of room for a little girl.’
‘You can’t talk. You’re not even a teenager yet.’
Tim flicked the cloth this time and got me right in the face. I ignored him. I bunched my hand inside my shoe and slammed it down to the hearth. I slapped my cloth at the outside, back and forwards, big and long.
‘Settle down,’ Tessa said.
‘I don’t reckon she’s at Aunty Peg’s,’ I said.
Philly dropped the polish tin and it skidded across the kitchen, colliding with the stove. We all stopped to watch it circle and circle, then topple.