The Serpent's Skin

by Erina Reddan

  ‘But Aunty Peg’s calendar is never wrong.’

  She nodded, all serious, caught between the two true things— Dad would never lie and Aunty Peg’s calendar was as reliable as the sun—and now there was one true thing less in the world.

  I caught Tessa’s hands to stop them flying about and putting little knives into me.

  Dad was curved over the steering wheel, like he’d been yarding up cattle for a month, one foot in the car and one foot out.

  ‘Don’t move the curtain, Monkey,’ said Tessa.

  Philly rolled her eyes. I’m not a baby, she was saying. I didn’t reckon Dad was going to notice a bit of lace fluttering, ten yards away inside the house. He wasn’t even paying attention to Doll, who was dancing about the car door and barking her head off.

  Dad fell himself out of the car and we didn’t need binoculars to read him up. He was as slow as Old Mr McKenzie, who barely got to Mass once a month. He put on some speed for us though as he came through the laundry and threw the mail on the kitchen bench, all pretend energy, hiding all that sad in him. He sent a quick look around the room where Philly was lining up sauce bottles in the cupboard, I had the end of the broom and Tim was brushing down the hearth. Tessa didn’t need a cover to be in the kitchen.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ we chorused, as if we’d been rehearsing.

  He grunted. Tessa pulled him out a chair, then took his dinner off the stove with a tea towel.

  ‘Dad?’ gasped Tessa, letting the plate clatter to the table. There was a red shape like Tasmania beside his left temple that was starting to bruise up. We all swooped in to investigate.

  ‘Just a scratch.’ He pushed us away, straightened the plate, picked up his fork, daring us. ‘Rosary Tuesd’y night, funeral Thursd’y.’

  Tessa ran to the freezer. Philly dropped to the ground and crawled under the table. She squeeshed herself up into Dad’s lap as Tessa got back with ice wrapped in the tea towel. He waved it away. ‘Knocked my head on the car door. It’s nothin.’

  Looked something to us.

  He made way for Philly. She laid her cheek against his chest. Despite the extra trouble getting his arms around her, Dad shoved in a mouthful of meat.

  ‘Going to be a shiner,’ I said. That damned car door. It was better than somebody socking him one, though. Which was a stupid idea because nobody would have a reason to hit him when he was just visiting hospitals and funeral parlours and stuff.

  He grunted, threw in another mouthful.

  We watched as he drank his food back like it was a bottle of beer. When he was done, he shoved his plate away and sat back, an arm around Philly. She hadn’t moved an inch.

  ‘Did you speak to the hospital, Dad?’ asked Tim.

  ‘Yep.’ He slid Philly off and went to the fridge, hunching over the opened door, his back to us. He clenched up his fists and pumped them open and shut. Tessa and Tim’s eyes widened, but they didn’t look at each other. I looked at everyone.

  ‘What about Aunt Peg? How did she take it?’ I asked, my breath not coming out.

  He reached in for a tinny and came back to the table, pulled the ring right off in one go. ‘Dropped around.’ He tipped back his head to take a long gulping swallow. It was like the beer was alive in his throat.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Said she’d known since they were kids that Sarah wasn’t going to make old bones.’

  I was nearest, so I took Philly’s hand.

  ‘She’ll be up on the train Sund’y and stay for the funeral.’

  ‘Isn’t she supposed to be having an episode?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s better,’ Dad said. ‘Been on her feet since yesterday, when your mum—she was out when your mother had the attack. Didn’t know anything about it. Thought your mother had come home.’

  Tessa refused to catch my eyes.

  ‘Your aunt took it bad. Thinks it was her fault. Like her having a turn made your mother die. Mad talk.’ He flicked a crumb from the table. It shot right by my arm, soared into the air and landed on my sock. ‘She’s got it in her head there was no episode and she never saw ya mother.’

  Tessa gave me a triumphant look, which she squashed quick smart before somebody caught her.

  ‘So I don’t want none of you buggers buggin her about it.’

  A DEFINITE LIE

  Dad was in a right stink. Sal had picked that moment to get down to the business of birthing. No manners. I felt the empty Mum-space scrubbing at my insides. Not even the sight of the heavy old sow swinging low and full of piglets from one side of the pen to the other made a difference.

  ‘Git around her on the other side,’ Dad said.

  I chased the other pigs away and gave Sal a slap towards the birthing pen.

  ‘Watch it,’ said Dad as a couple of the others nosed at my bum. ‘Come behind, come behind.’

  Doll set up a bark from the fence, busting to get in with us and get at the herding.

  ‘Away with ya,’ Dad yelled, flicking his hand towards the milk shed. Doll backed off a couple of steps then came back sharp as Sal shoved past me, stumbling me and then pinning me against the wall.

  Dad waved his arms, roaring at the top of his lungs, giving Doll, who was barking like mad, a run for her money.

  Me pinned and petrified, a bunny in a spotlight. Sal was squashing the breath out of my lungs and didn’t even know it. Dad came in fast. He leaped over the other pigs, pulling his belt off as he came. He whacked into Sal, then got his shoulder to the back of her and heaved her off me. She squealed like we’d stuck her with a knife and took off. I ran to the fence and rolled under quick smart.

  Dad fell against the wall, catching his breath, then flicked his belt at the nearest pig. He stood up and threaded the belt back through his trousers, tilted his head to me to get back in there. ‘Keep ya eyes open this time.’

  ‘You keep your dog away, then.’

  ‘Cut the back chat.’ He grinned, reaching out a hand to scruff up my head. Normally I’d lean right into it, and I wanted to because he’d just saved me from Sal, but I didn’t know what to do with all those lies between us, so this time I pretended I hadn’t seen and ducked away.

  We yarded up Sal, and Dad swung the lights up, going into the big shed to switch them on. I got busy settling Sal.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, coming back.

  ‘Makin her comfy.’ I pushed hay in around Sal as she lay on her side.

  He shook his head. ‘She’s just a pig.’

  ‘It’s what Mum always did,’ I said. ‘Reckon she’d know a bit more about birthing than you.’

  ‘I’ll leave ya to it, then,’ he said. ‘Mrs Tyler’ll be here before you know it.’

  I sunk down into the hay beside Sal and curled up along her back now that she and all her blubber were resting. I liked her big and slow, and the way her belly went on and on. I jumped away, though, when Mrs Tyler darted into the pig-pen in case the newness stirred up Sal. But she didn’t even look up. Mrs Tyler settled in the corner on a hay bale, putting her crochet bag beside her. It was for Mrs Tyler’s cousin’s firstborn; having a baby, she told me, the first of the new generation. She was using real nice wool, all soft and lemony. Reckon that baby would feel real good wrapped all the way up in it.

  I got my book, and sat in the corner on the ground, looking up from Heidi and Peter’s goats every time Sal grunted. After a while, Mrs Tyler stuffed her wool back in the bag and kneeled beside Sal the way Mum did, pushing at her side and listening, ear to belly.

  ‘She’s gone off the boil,’ she said, blinking in the gloom. ‘I’ll just pop down to the house and get a cuppa.’ She gave me an encouraging smile. I wondered if she remembered that she’d told me Mum would be home soon. ‘Sal will be a while yet. Off you go, too.’

  I found Tim and Tessa by the woodpile. Tim was up on blocks with an axe in his hands.

  ‘Go,’ yelled Tessa. She clicked the stopwatch.

  Tim bought down the axe, hard and clean, slanting in one way and then the
other. Three chops each way. I dodged as a chip soared straight for my eye. Tim jumped around on the blocks, fast like the champion woodchoppers did it at the Show and started in on the other side. Chop chop chop. The axe bit deep into the wood. But still the log didn’t break in two. He jumped around again and did the same on the other side. Still not getting through. Tim threw the axe to the ground, collapsed, panting on the woodpile.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Tessa. ‘I messed up the timing anyway.’

  He grunted, then noticed me. ‘You keep ya mouth shut.’

  ‘About what?’ I grinned. ‘Bout that log needing a man to get into it?’ I muscled up my arms above my shoulders.

  Philly raced towards us, panting. ‘Dad’s saying stuff to Mrs Tyler,’ she said as soon as she was within reach.

  We took off. Tim left the axe right where it had fallen. Dad would be plenty mad, but I didn’t stop to put it away, either. We pelted in under the kitchen window, colliding with the wall and each other like a pack of puppies.

  ‘… change her spots, Kathy. And you know what a handful Peg is, and that’s when she’s not having a stark-raving-mad-as-a-snake attack. Night before she had her attack, Sare told Peg she had a gut ache—that was it.’

  Tessa refused to look at me.

  Mrs Tyler’s voice murmured something.

  ‘Peg’s been a blasted nuisance from start to finish,’ said Dad.

  ‘Not entirely her fault, Jack.’ We heard this time because Mrs Tyler’s voice had gone up sharp-like. ‘She was never the same after she went to live in that house without Sarah’s steadying hand, so far away except for the odd cuppa if any of us happened to be in town needing the hospital.’

  ‘Wasn’t my problem. This is a good Catholic household and no place for a woman with loose morals.’

  ‘It’s me you’re talking to, Jack. Peg had those same loose morals all along, as we all well knew, and they hadn’t bothered you before. It’s a wonder Sarah even let you send her away.’

  ‘The kids were growing up. We’d had to put them first,’ Dad mumbled. ‘Anyway.’ He put some grit into his voice. ‘Can’t afford to have Peg goin off like a two-bob watch right now. She’s all agitated and on edge because she’s got it into her head it was her fault. Her havin a turn and then Sarah getting appendicitis and Peg having to make the call to the ambulance. I asked the doctor to give her something to calm her down. Doc said best nobody brings up how Sarah died with her so as not to set her off.’

  Tessa ignored my pinch at this string of lies, pretending she was hard at listening.

  We didn’t hear Mrs Tyler’s reply again.

  ‘Appreciate that, Kathy. If you would put the word around.’

  We listened longer, but it was all pigs and scones and tea and casseroles. Philly started pulling my hair, not in a hurty way, but like she had nothing better to do. I slapped her hand away. Tessa put her finger to her lips. Tim got the next idea, which was to take off for our trees out the front of the house. Getting snug into the umbrella of them was like something warm in the cold. Tessa’s was the easiest tree for Philly to climb so we all squashed onto the wooden platform Dad had made for us in that one. Tessa laid out the biscuits she kept there for ‘guests’. One butternut snap each.

  Philly bit in. Took it out of her mouth and tried to break it in half with her hands. She stood up and smashed the heel of her boot on it. We all looked at the biscuit, still intact.

  ‘Coulda broke a toof,’ said Philly.

  ‘Won’t break in half,’ I said. ‘Must be somethin in the air today.’

  Tim punched me.

  ‘I’ll just suck it,’ Philly said.

  Which is what we all ended up doing.

  Tessa stayed right out of it, having a different conversation with her eyes telling me to keep my mouth shut. Which I did, but only because it was all mud and cloud in my head. Why did he tell us Aunty Peg didn’t know about Mum’s appendicitis but he told Mrs Tyler it was Aunty Peg who called the ambulance? That red was building right up. A while later, Dad came around the corner of the house. ‘JJ, where the bloody hell are you, you little bugger?’ We all froze. He stood with his hands on his hips. Face wild. ‘I’ll skin yer alive when I get my hands on you.’

  ‘What’d ya do this time?’ Tim grinned. I ignored him and scrambled off the platform and slithered down the trunk on the far side so Dad couldn’t see me. As soon as he disappeared back around the side of the house, I ran up the other. Met him at the kitchen door.

  ‘Want something, Dad?’

  ‘That sow is birthing right this second.’

  ‘But Mrs Tyler—’

  ‘You know better than that. Your mother never abandoned the post. Not once. I thought you were still up there. What gets into you, JJ? Bloody rocks for brains. I swear sometimes there’s a bit of Peg in you.’

  In an instant the red steamed up from the volcano in my belly. ‘Why did ya tell Mrs Tyler that Aunty Peg phoned the ambulance when you told us Aunty Peg didn’t even know about Mum’s attack?’

  ‘Listening at the door?’ He snarled and turned to spit. ‘What I tell Mrs Tyler is my business.’

  ‘And what I tell Mrs Tyler is my business.’

  He started. I’d done a lot of things before, but I’d never threatened him. He thrust a finger in my face. ‘You say nothin.’

  I was pumping red and I could feel my eyes all narrow and slitty. I just kept my stare on full beam.

  He leaned into me. ‘I told that to Kathy so she wouldn’t be bothering Peg and givin her more grief and distressing her— Peg’s recovering from a turn and twisted up enough already. Satisfied?’

  I was big sorry. But my mouth hadn’t caught up. ‘With all this lying you’re doing you’re going straight to hell when the devil gets his hands on you.’

  I marched off before he could thump me. After a couple of steps, I looked back ready to run in case he was coming after me. But he wasn’t. He was all crumpled on the ground. The red whooshed away and I ran back. ‘Sorry, Dad. Sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘Git. If we lose any of them piglets it’ll be on your head.’

  I walked backwards, eyes plastered to his bowed head, just hoping. I got even with the toilet and still there was no sign of soft in him. I turned and raced to the pigsty.

  Mrs Tyler’s crocheting hadn’t been touched and she was down on her knees in the straw beside Sal. ‘Not long now.’ When I didn’t say anything, she looked up. She was up on her feet and had me gathered in an instant. She drew me back onto the straw and into her lap. It wasn’t like Mum’s lap, but it was something. I was filled up and over with no more Mum. It was all around me.

  Mrs Tyler clucked her tongue like I was a chicken. She gripped me strong and rubbed my back, hard enough to stop me headbutting into her stomach.

  ‘Look!’ she said after a bit, like she was changing the subject.

  I wiped my eyes.

  ‘You want to be the first to welcome it into the world?’

  I scooted in quick before the next piglet landed. I scooped up the first little scrap, just bigger than my hand. I held it up to my face and stroked its soft pale skin along its side. Brand new and not knowing the world and all that was coming at it. I put it in front of its mother’s teats.

  The others came fast. Little blind things, feeling their way over each other to the milk. When we had them all, I said, ‘No runt.’

  ‘See, love, everything’ll be all right.’ Mrs Tyler brushed back my hair from my face. ‘It’ll all be right in the end.’

  We only lost one of them twelve piglets. And that wasn’t on my watch. Sal squashed it the next night when Steve, one of Mrs Nolan’s workers, was there and should have known better. ‘Bloody fool,’ as Dad said.

  Still. Losing just the one was pretty good.

  Maybe Mrs Tyler was right, but the end was a long way off to wait for everything to be all right.

  WHAT JJ OWES JACK

  Philly had a good idea. We wer
e going to pick one thing each to put in the ground with Mum. We had to be ready by the rosary in a couple of days. Philly was putting in a runner she did for Mum last Christmas. It had hollyhocks on it and sat on the table beside Mum’s bed under the alarm clock. Philly chose hollyhocks because they were big and white and looked real nice. Reckon Mum never told Philly what hollyhocks were really about, but I read it in Mum’s book. Ambition, women’s ambition, and you just had to take one look at Philly to know she was full of determination to get things right her way. I didn’t like that it was going under the ground and getting buried with Mum, but on the other hand Mum would like a bit of Phillyness in there with her.

  Tim hadn’t made up his mind, but Tessa was putting in a cushion she and Mum made together. It was black and white for Collingwood, which was our team. I knew what I was doing, but I wasn’t telling anyone in case they tried to stop me. I was putting in Mum’s special brooch that she brought out when we needed a bit of magic. I reckoned she needed a bit of that under the ground with her. Only thing was, I didn’t know where she kept that brooch.

  Dad was out doing the morning milking so I had a bit of clear. Before I could stop myself, I knocked on Mum’s bedroom door and thought about how funny it would have been if I heard Mum’s voice. Something tingled at my neck. I believed in ghosts, just like Mum. She once told us she saw her mum and dad after their car accident. Great Aunt Dot, who brought her and Aunty Peg up after, didn’t believe her because Mum was only nine when they died. Told Mum it was just the shock of losing them like that. Aunty Peg believed her, though. That was the good thing about Aunty Peg. She was a believer.

  I didn’t know where to start in Mum’s room. The drawers were all shut up closed. I poked about in Mum’s jewellery box. Nothing. So I fell on my knees and started going through the shoeboxes.

  ‘Dad’s going to be sooo mad,’ said Philly, walking in a good while later. She dropped the pile of clean clothes on the chest of drawers.

  ‘You get out of here,’ I said. ‘He asked me to clean up.’