The Serpent's Skin

by Erina Reddan

  ‘What?’

  I told Tim about Dad having her scarf in the ute and how it had ended up down at Jean’s Corner. ‘She didn’t need her scarf because she wasn’t going to Mass. But she did need the book because she wanted that address.’

  The ferrets were banging away in the bucket.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Didn’t know it was anything special until he burned it.’

  ‘What are you two buggers up to?’

  We jumped. Dad blocked the light through the door.

  ‘Ferrets,’ Tim said, quick as a flash. ‘Longtail looked a bit crook.’

  Dad grunted. He had his back to us, sorting through his tools on the bench. ‘Seen the shifter?’

  Tim scratched his neck again. I was full sorry for him, with this thing that was too big and him not used to things like that—not like me. But I was beginning to feel itchy, too.

  ‘What was the address in Mum’s missal for?’ I asked Dad before I could stop myself.

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ Dad’s voice was all dirty.

  ‘You know, her Mass book.’

  He threw down the hammer with a great bang. Turned. ‘Not again, JJ. You’re always making trouble where there’s none to begin with. How’d ya know about the address?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just do.’

  He gave me a long stare then turned back, throwing tools about, making a hell of a racket, like he was all about the shifter.

  ‘Maybe she was bored, looking after Aunty Peg,’ I said, trying to find a way out for him. ‘Got doodling.’ Even though I knew Mum would never go writing over her Mass book for nothing.

  He turned back to us, using the bench to hold him up like he had no stuffing in him. ‘Just stop it, or you’ll end up like your mother.’

  I blinked with the knife of it. I buttoned my lips up good and tight, not letting one more word escape. But out of nowhere, for the first time I ever knew, Tim didn’t back off.

  ‘JJ being like Mum wouldn’t be so bad seeing as how Mum was so good,’ said Tim.

  I blinked with the surprise of it.

  Dad stared too. ‘You’re not wrong there, son.’ He paused. ‘But sometimes she had a mind of her own and it didn’t do her any good. She should have been here where she belonged instead of gallivanting about.’

  ‘Or looking after Aunty Peg, like you said she was,’ Tim corrected.

  Dad blinked twice, redded over. Turned his back like he had business he’d better get back to.

  But Tim still hadn’t finished. ‘Reckon that address must have been important,’ he said. ‘To write it in her book and never let any of us know about it.’

  I wanted to give him one of those kicks Tessa was always giving me.

  ‘Could be, son. We’ll never know now I’ve burned it.’

  ‘Why’d ya do that, Dad?’ Tim asked. He was crouching still, like he was all casual, but his neck was ridged up.

  Dad scrubbed his face with his knuckles. ‘Had to say my goodbye before the rosary, my own way.’

  Something started prickling at me on the inside of my skin.

  ‘And you’ve been ringing around after we’ve gone to bed, haven’t you?’ asked Tim. ‘All those phone numbers in her address book. She wasn’t at Peg’s, was she?’

  We were on the far side of ordinary now and I was as scared as scared. Dad definitely wouldn’t keep me if Tim kept this up.

  Dad said nothing.

  ‘Did you go to it?’ Tim asked. ‘The address in her Mass book?’ He was on his feet now, feet planted wide, hands on his hips, staring straight at Dad’s back.

  I pushed at the bucket. It was lighter than I thought, so over it went. I yelped and raced for the bench, Tim yelped and dived for the bucket. He got to it in time to shove the first ferret out back in and right them all.

  Dad didn’t move even one muscle. Just watched while Tim and I tipped the ferrets back into their fresh-straw cage, Longtail back to nipping at Bandi like nothing had ever been wrong. But once we locked the cage door tight, Dad was all muscle. He slammed down the mallet he’d been holding. The other tools jolted in the air. ‘Expect more from you, boy.’ He kicked at the ferret bucket and sent it flying. ‘They’re your bloody ferrets, so you should be a bloody sight more careful. They’re dangerous bastards, especially with your little sister right here. Bloody shit for brains!’

  Dad wheeled off out the door, hands full of empty.

  Tim stared after him, white-faced with shock. Dad had never spoken to him like that in his life. I kept my head down, torn in a dozen different ways.

  Philly had finished the poem. Tessa told her how great it was, but I thought it was dumb—which rhymed with Mum so maybe she should have put that in her stupid poem. It was all ‘trees are green, but without Mum they’ll just seem mean’. How would that help anything? I was hoping Dad would put a stop to it. I was so mad I left Philly and Tessa to it, and went into the kitchen where Mrs Tyler and Aunty Peg were.

  ‘How are the piglets, JJ?’

  ‘Real good, Mrs Tyler.’

  ‘Got any names?’

  ‘Got them all named up.’

  ‘I hope you’ve called the one with the funny tail Poppy.’

  ‘Just like you wanted. Poppy’s real strong, pushes all the others away for dinner.’

  Aunty Peg interrupted. ‘So I’ve packed up two of the blackberry and one of the plum.’

  Mrs Tyler nodded. ‘We’ll miss Sarah’s jams.’

  ‘Do you think four dozen scones will do it?’

  Mrs Tyler and Aunty Peg went over who was bringing what. Aunty Peg marked it all down on a sheet of paper. She bit at the end of the pen. I slipped under the table when they weren’t looking, where I could pull the dark in nice and close around me.

  Aunty Peg poured another cuppa for them both. She was all business with Mrs Tyler. So Mum must have been right and Aunty Peg was stacking on her maddy around Dad, but then I remembered the pills. Maybe she was back on them just like Dad told her.

  ‘Sad business, this,’ said Mrs Tyler.

  Aunty Peg clicked her tongue. ‘Couldn’t get any sadder if you paid it.’ She slurped at her tea. ‘But Tessa’s very capable,’ she said. ‘Tim, too. JJ’s smart as a whip and that Philly’s got all of them wrapped around her little finger. They’ll be fine in the end. Just got to get this funeral over with.’ She scratched on the paper. ‘Think we’ll need another urn for the top table.’

  ‘Nothing you could have done about it, Pegs.’

  The surprise of it lit up the dark around me under the table. Mrs Tyler had broken her promise to Dad that she wasn’t going to say anything about the way Mum died to Aunty Peg.

  ‘The peritonitis would have got her even if she was right here in her own kitchen,’ Mrs Tyler went on.

  Aunty Peg tsked and tsked, but didn’t seem to get any upset the way Dad said she would.

  ‘You know,’ said Mrs Tyler, who must have been thinking the same as me, ‘you really shouldn’t bang it on with Jack. He’s convinced you’re mostly mad.’

  Aunty Peg sighed. ‘Just playing to the peanut gallery, Kathy; giving him what he wants.’

  ‘It’s a dangerous game, Peg. Jack’s a powerful man in the Church. One word from him and he’d have you up The Hill.’

  Aunty Peg laughed. ‘And one word from me would see him burning in hell.’

  ‘Give it a break, Peg. No one in authority will believe a word you say if he’s got you up The Hill.’

  Aunty Peg’s sigh was all surrender. ‘True enough. He did enough damage between Sare and me.’

  Now it was Mrs Tyler’s turn to sigh and it didn’t sound a bit like surrender. ‘To be fair,’ she said, sharp, ‘as I’ve just pointed out, I hardly think he was on his Pat Malone there, Peg. How did you expect to get back in his good books with all your carry-on? You know he’s fond of his moral reputation.’

  ‘What I do is my business,’ Peg hit back fast.

  I wrap
ped my arms around my legs and pulled my knees tight to my chest, trying to fit all these new things in my brain. Then Mrs Tyler spoke up again with this real even voice like she was deadset on letting bygones be bygones.

  ‘Has your phone been out of order?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ But Aunty Peg thought a bit more. ‘Although it could have been. I don’t use it much.’

  ‘It’s just that I would have thought Sarah would have called the kids while she was up the road with you. Lucky it was working when you rang the ambulance.’

  Aunty Peg made a noise that if you were Mrs Tyler you might take for agreement.

  ‘Good to see you back on your feet so fast at any rate,’ said Mrs Tyler.

  ‘Amazing what something like this can give you strength for.’

  Now it was Mrs Tyler making a noise that might or might not have been agreement.

  I held my hands over my ears to stop it all coming at me: Dad saying Mum had been with Aunty Peg, but Aunty Peg at first saying she wasn’t, then changing her mind to agree with Dad; Aunty Peg saying she hadn’t had a turn but telling Mrs Tyler now she had. Like different kind of bells ringing all at the same time.

  And now this new clanging. The phone was plenty working so if Mum had been there she would have called us.

  There was one thing for sure. Aunty Peg and Mrs Tyler weren’t quite as matey as they were when they first started counting scones together.

  ‘Sarah’s better off out of it, anyway,’ said Aunty Peg.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Peg. Sarah was fine. Happy.’ There was a big full stop in Mrs Tyler words.

  ‘Are you Catholic at all, Kathy? Of course she wasn’t happy.’ Aunty Peg practically spat the last word. ‘I’m the last one to say a word against Jack.’

  Which was news to me since that was all she’d done since she got to our place.

  ‘He never left her alone. Always mad for it.’

  I heard the clatter of a teacup against the saucer and saw Mrs Tyler rise. I flattened to the wall under the table so she couldn’t see me.

  ‘I don’t know what gets into you at times, Peg. You have no idea what went on between them. The rhythm method only works if you have plenty of backbone and discipline. Besides I hardly think this is any of our business.’

  It was all quick on the packing up and stiff-cardboard goodbyes and the door closing. That shocked me the most because the leaving at our place wasn’t at the front door. You walked people out, watched them into the car and waved them down the track. Then they’d gone.

  ‘You can get out from under there, JJ,’ said Aunty Peg.

  I pressed my back into the wall. Aunty Peg’s face looked straight at me as she angled over. ‘You’ve got a black streak in your soul, miss.’

  I blinked with big eyes. That made two of us.

  IT’S GOT TO END

  The next day, without Mum, I did my own pigtails ready for her funeral. I put knots in big white ribbons around each one. They weren’t perfect, even I could see that, but they weren’t not perfect. I was feeling so good about it that I got Philly sorted out before me in the mirror and started in on her hair. I pulled it all back into a ponytail. She had real smooth hair and one little piece out of place made a bump, so I couldn’t get it right right. My hands got sore, so I got her to kneel. The best part of the kneeling was that I didn’t have to see her little screwed-up face in the mirror at every lump I made.

  When I got something close to almost perfect, I let her up. She took one look and pulled it out. Grabbed the brush and ran off. I’d have liked to be like her. All action and no words. It was all burn and scald with me.

  After the ferrets and everything, Tim had been quiet last night until Dad asked him whether he thought it’d rain in time for the crops to come up before the summer hot. By the time they’d finished with the ins and outs, Tim was almost back to himself. It was like he’d decided that Dad burning Mum’s Mass book didn’t mean anything after all. Didn’t look at me once, though.

  This morning, Tim was Brylcreemed up and ready, although with the crew cut I couldn’t see that it made a scrap of difference. Dad gave him a cuff of approval as he dashed into the bathroom with his comb. There was no looking at me from him, either.

  None of us needed reminding to be right on time. We were all sitting in the car when Dad charged from the house and leaped in. Tessa sat beside us in the back seat, hands folded over Mum’s other handbag.

  I ran into the church before anybody else to put Mum’s brooch in with her. I stopped short just inside the front door, though. Mum’s coffin took up all the air in the church. It was big and shiny, sitting in the aisle at the bottom of the altar. Mum was in that thing. In that long, shiny thing that didn’t look a bit like her. It was covered in dark crimson roses. I hadn’t wanted the roses too much because they reminded me of the ones Mrs Nolan’d had up on the altar that first Sunday after Mum’d gone. But since the roses were from Mrs Tyler’s garden and Mrs Tyler was Mum’s friend and that crimson deep was darker than Mrs Nolan’s and was right for funerals and all the sad sorry, I kept my mouth shut.

  But nothing about Mum’s coffin was right.

  I bit my lip.

  Then I saw it. The something much worse. Mum was still all locked away, the lid closed tight down. My heart took off at a gallop. How was I going to get Mum’s brooch in there? My eyes filled up full because I didn’t have one idea left. I should have put it inside Ted and then it’d be in there already. I fixed my eyes on Jesus on the cross until I cleared the blur. Tessa came into the church and shoved me forwards. I let the others pass and followed them up the aisle and into our pew.

  I closed my face tight tight to work out how to get her cameo in there with her. I just needed to think.

  Philly dug into me with her elbow. ‘Stop breathing so loud.’

  I had to lock my eyes open because that was the only way I could hear my breath. But things were all thick and coming at me. I made myself stare at the roses, hanging on to a bit of their steady.

  Father McGinty was saying how dependable Mum was and always there and stuff. Then things whirled and the sitting, standing and kneeling all got caught up together. Mrs Tyler read out Philly’s poem and dabbed her handkerchief at her eyes. I kept opening and closing my fists because I’d finally worked out a plan to get Mum’s brooch where it had to be, and I was dead scared that somebody would catch me.

  At Communion, Dad swung out of the pew, us following, Aunty Peg last. Which suited me because nobody would believe a word she said, even if she did open her big mouth. The McMahons hung back out of respect. So all eyes on us. Dad and the others shuffled at the side of Mum’s coffin, heads down, hands glued together. I had a great interest in the wood, trailing my hand along the top. A hundred eyes stabbing into my back.

  I only had a second between Tim stepping forwards to get his Communion and my turn, but I shoved the brooch in among the roses. It seemed to go in nice and good. Only a couple of thorns on the way. I didn’t dare suck the pin pricks. It didn’t feel exactly right because I hadn’t got the cameo into the coffin to where Mum was. But I had to find a way to be okay with the not-rightness.

  I stepped forwards and opened my mouth for Jesus. When I turned I felt all the stabbing eyes on the front of me this time. I kept my own on the floor like I was praying real hard. And I was. Just not about what people might be thinking.

  I followed Dad, Tessa and Tim back into the pew, past Philly’s turned knees. She hadn’t done her First Holy Communion so she’d had to wait for us all by herself.

  I kneeled and gripped my hands together hard, offering up the pain for Mum. After a bit I slid back onto the seat and stared at everybody going past her coffin. Job was done, so things were slowing down to normal, but I had to keep on my toes to see if anybody was suspicious.

  I narrowed my eyes on Mrs Nolan as she went past the coffin. She’d be the one to do the looking if anyone would. My eyes were right on her and hers were on the altar, all holy. But that wasn’t
a good idea because she tripped on the step getting up to Father McGinty. She flung her arm out to save herself and grabbed on to Father McGinty’s lacy dress. He stepped back quick smart before she got a real hold, but that upset the apple cart even more. She crashed to her knees, skirt flying. Mr Nolan turned to right her despite having just had Jesus put in his mouth and being in a Holy State, but she was already back on her feet with the help of Mrs McMahon, who was behind her. Father McGinty stepped forwards to give her the Communion.

  I didn’t know what was on her face when she headed back to her seat, because Philly, Tim and I had our heads buried deep. We were praying all right—praying that we kept all the laughing pushed down. We’d been in just the right spot to see it all, and see it all we did. She hadn’t been wearing the kind of big no-colour underpants Mum did. Mrs Nolan’s were big all right, but red and shiny and fierce like a traffic light.

  Tessa leaned right across Tim and me and clamped her hand over Philly’s mouth. Tessa was so mad she looked set to thump Philly, but she couldn’t because we were at Mass. Philly’s little eyes, bulging above Tessa’s hand, were too much for Tim, and he fell to the kneeler as if he was looking for something. I plastered my praying hands tight against my eyes and filled my chest with big, slow air to stop the giggles getting out.

  Tessa dragged Philly over the back of my knees and positioned her handy to her elbow. That was enough to shut Philly up.

  But while Tim was looking for that thing he dropped, he dug into my leg and grinned up. I grabbed his finger and squashed it under my knee. I grinned down.

  We got all serious, though, when we saw we were on the home stretch of Mum’s funeral.

  It was like we never saw those red underpants on Mrs Nolan’s big bum on the altar.

  It was like we’d never forgot for a minute that Mum was dead and we were burying her.

  I was looking at Dad because I knew what was next. He pursed his lips and I could see he was gathering things up in himself.

  Father McGinty came down the stairs with his incense thing and swung it high over Mum. He nodded and Dad stood. The two Mr McMahons got up, and Pete and Mr Kennedy, as well as young Dave Dillion. Although he sure didn’t look young. He did everybody’s funeral, though, because he’d fought in the war.