The Serpent's Skin

by Erina Reddan

  The footsteps coming down the hall were all in my direction.

  ‘Phone, JJ.’ Rat-Tail knocked on my door.

  I dropped my head into my hands.

  ‘I know you’re in there, JJ. Been watchin. Your brother says it’s real important.’

  Tim had never called. So I pulled myself upright and followed Rat-Tail back down to the phone. I pointed my finger at him until he’d closed his door and then I said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Old man went and got himself gored,’ Tim said.

  ‘Oh fuck.’ Guilt lasered through me.

  ‘He’ll live. Stupid bugger. Was out in the storm last night feeding that mongrel, Max. He’s pretty banged up. He’s in the Royal.’

  I put the phone down so gently I could hardly hear that final click, as if I didn’t want to cause one more terrible thing to happen.

  THE MOP UP

  It took a while for me to find a park at the hospital. The last time I’d come from work on the tram, direct to the records department. Shame heated through me at the memory. How the hell did I get so off track as to end up with the police? What was I even thinking?

  I kneaded my palm all the way to the entrance. Digging in as if I could get right to the bone.

  Philly saw me before I saw her.

  ‘Why didn’t you phone?’ she called out. ‘We could have come together.’

  ‘Last time I saw you it was all doors slamming.’

  She winced. Folded her arms and looked down to watch her high heel shift on the concrete. I touched her arm. ‘It was me. Sorry.’

  ‘You were a bitch, but…’

  ‘… it’s in the past,’ I said, finishing her sentence.

  She called up a ghost of a smile. ‘Something like that. See, it’s in your favour this time. Tim says Dad’s lost a lot of blood.’

  What I had to tell her about Dad, about Peg, that could wait. In the meantime, I slipped Mum’s cameo into her hand. ‘Mrs Tyler kept it for us.’ I folded her fingers closed around it and squeezed. ‘Though you might like it for a while.’

  The sweet Alice smile she bathed me in was worth the parting with Mum’s cameo for now.

  We turned at Tim’s voice. He was running across the car park. He pecked Philly and then me and folded his arms, legs apart—all serious-man stance.

  ‘Stupid bastard,’ he said. ‘Don’t know what got into him. Should have sent that bastard bull to the knackers years ago.’

  ‘He loved Max,’ said Philly.

  ‘Loved that he was as cunning as a shithouse rat,’ said Tim. ‘Same as him.’

  ‘Hard to send yourself to the knackers, I suppose,’ said Philly. ‘Wonder what made Max go off like that?’

  I groaned. Screwed up my face.

  ‘Fuck me, JJ,’ said Tim. ‘Out with it.’

  I dug into my palm, feeling for the next step. Tim and Philly were all eyes on me.

  ‘Dad and I had a fight last night.’

  ‘You rang him?’ Tim’s voice was all lit up.

  ‘I was out there.’

  ‘Again? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, JJ. I thought you told Tessa you were going to leave Dad out of it.’

  Philly stepped between us. ‘Are you saying you left him to bleed to de…’

  I stepped back like I’d been punched, put my hand up to ward something off. ‘Course not.’ I winced. ‘I left before. Actually, he told me everything. It was… good.’

  Philly shook her hands in front of my face. ‘Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.’

  ‘I bloody do,’ said Tim. ‘What did the old man say? And what did you say back that sent him out to Max in the middle of a bloody great storm?’

  I folded my arms, just like Tim. ‘We both said plenty.’ I wondered if my voice gave away my guilt. I should have gone out to tell him that I understood everything. Made sure he knew that. Even that I was sorry. Big bloody sorry. Sure, he did the wrong thing, past a month of Sundays, but it wasn’t worse than what most of us did in a lifetime. Mum was right. It was just that he wanted to look good in front of the priest, his friends, us. Was that such a bad thing? Especially when the alternative was admitting you had sex with your wife’s sister.

  ‘You said plenty about what?’ insisted Tim.

  ‘If you think you can blame me for bloody Max—’

  Philly stepped in again. ‘No one’s blaming you for Dad’s pigheadedness, JJ.’ She herded us forwards. ‘Let’s just bloody get in there.’

  Tim dropped his arms. Shook his head and clipped me around the ear, before turning away to walk in with Philly. There was no bloody way I was telling him about everything until I was good and ready.

  ‘Tessa up to coming in?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably already up there,’ Philly said.

  ‘Where’s Shelley?’ I asked, bringing up the rear.

  ‘Told her not to come.’

  Philly clicked her tongue.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Tim asked, his voice full of battle.

  ‘She’s part of the family,’ Philly said. ‘You know she loves Dad.’

  ‘Where’s Ahmed, then?’

  ‘Shut up, Tim. It’s completely different.’

  ‘Cause he’s a wog?’

  She punched Tim on the arm. He staggered back and crashed into the wall, gripping his arm and wincing as if he’d never play another match.

  ‘And the Oscar goes to…’ she said.

  Tim straightened up. ‘Careful, Philly. That kind of childish behaviour undermines your I’m-the-adult-in-charge image.’

  ‘Shut up, Tim. Dad’s lying up there seriously wounded,’ she slapped back.

  ‘What’s with all white, anyway?’ He swept his arm over her white pants suit. ‘Somebody will be taking you for a nurse.’

  ‘Doctor,’ she set him right.

  Last time we were sitting around like this was after Mum died. Now, it felt—not good—but something, that all that was behind me. A flash of the Timeline and Map of Mum all squashed up and sticking out of the top of the rubbish bin in my room came to me. I shuddered about how close I’d been to the edge.

  Dad’s right arm was bandaged up along with the top part of his chest. The grey of the floor matched the grey of the walls, the grey blinds, the steel beds and the metal machinery. Only Shelley’s roses made a difference up there on the shelf above the bed where Dad could see them if he could get his eyes open. Yellow for peace. I didn’t know about peace. But surrender I could come at.

  ‘If the horn had gone in a couple more inches to the left…’ said Tessa.

  ‘Lucky bastard,’ said Tim.

  ‘We’re coming apart,’ said Tessa, eyes darting from one to the other of us.

  ‘How’d ya reckon?’ said Tim.

  ‘Aunty Peg dies, Ahmed leaves Philly, Max attacks Dad,’ she said.

  ‘You get off your tits and drive into a ditch in the middle of the night,’ he said.

  She screwed up her face. ‘Not to forget, thanks Tim.’

  They all looked at me.

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘In the pink.’

  Tessa rolled her eyes. ‘That’d be right. You just got the ball rolling.’

  I lifted my eyebrows, but left it at that. I was glad I’d met Tim and Philly first, glad I’d admitted being with Dad when she wasn’t there.

  ‘Bloody drama queen,’ said Tim. ‘You’re fine. Dad’ll be fine. Ahmed hasn’t actually left, and by JJ’s own account she’s in the pink.’ He winked at me. ‘I’ll grant you Aunty Peg, though. She’s still dead.’

  ‘Dad’s not fine,’ said Tessa. ‘Look at him.’ He was drugged up and out of it, his face grey and mouth open. ‘What the hell was he doing out there at that time of night? He’s not a bloody idiot.’

  Nobody said a word. I kept my eyes on my shoes. Counting. One, two—

  Philly reached for Dad’s right hand. I stopped counting. I caught Tim’s eye. He gave one short shake of his head, just out of Tessa’s range. I agreed entirely. I would not say one word about anything. Tessa’s hea
d swivelled to me, anyway.

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ she said.

  Tim jumped in. ‘Steady on, Tess.’

  ‘The only thing saving you, JJ, is no smoking gun,’ said Tessa.

  I volunteered to stay longer so it was me there when Jack opened an eye.

  ‘Hello, love,’ he said, his voice all croaked up.

  ‘Feeling better?’ I put the straw to his mouth. He sipped and wiped his mouth with the back of his good hand.

  ‘Fair to middling.’

  I helped him up on his pillows. He closed his eyes and rested his head with the effort for a moment.

  ‘Brought you some chocolates for when you’re up to it.’

  He nodded; a pale wisp of a smile was all he could manage.

  ‘Dad.’ I covered his gnarled hand with mine. ‘I should have stopped you. It was dark, raining, we’d just had that fight. I should have told you I understood.’

  He waved my words away. ‘I was the bloody idiot.’ He sipped from the straw for a while, then looked up. ‘Told the others?’

  I stared at him a moment, trying to figure out what he was asking.

  ‘About me and Peg.’

  ‘Hasn’t been time.’

  ‘You keep your mouth shut.’

  Words stuttered on my tongue, but none of them made it into the world.

  ‘My business.’

  ‘So that’s why you didn’t mention me being there to Tim,’ I said.

  He stared out the window just like at home. But red roofs patched across to the horizon here, not burned yellow paddocks.

  ‘They need to know as much as me, Dad.’

  ‘You can tell them when I’m dead.’

  ‘That could be years.’

  ‘Not a chance with you around.’

  I winced. He was nothing but right.

  Tim rang to say he was on his way up again, so I pulled the blankets up to Dad’s chin and said goodbye. I was pretty sure there was relief in his eyes. Didn’t blame him.

  At the lift doors, Tim came out with a cup of coffee.

  ‘JJ.’

  ‘Tim.’ I mimicked his business-associate tone. ‘Back so soon.’

  ‘Had a few things to pick up in the city before I headed home. I won’t get back for a day or two, so thought it was worth dropping in again.’

  ‘I went to that address,’ I said.

  He stilled. Waiting.

  I shook my head. ‘Knew nothing. Just another dead end.’

  ‘Shit.’

  I was sorry for him.

  ‘And Nancy?’

  I punched him. ‘You sicced her on me.’

  ‘It’s just…’ He screwed up his face in between apology and acknowledgement. ‘You’re better at that shit than me.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘You’re just daddy’s little boy and no rockee the boat for you.’

  He saluted me with his coffee cup. ‘So?’ he asked, taking a sip. ‘What next?’

  ‘Ummm.’

  ‘What?’ he barked.

  I blew air out between my lips. I didn’t know what was the right thing any more. I was between the principle of telling the truth and the effect that truth would have—on Dad from me telling, and on Tim from him knowing. For all Tim had been pushing for me to follow the clues, he was hoping like hell the trail wouldn’t lead to anything bad about Dad.

  ‘She said.’ I went slowly, almost as if I wasn’t sure what would come out of my own mouth. ‘That Dad and Peg.’ I screwed up my face. ‘You know. Had relations,’ I ended limply.

  He reared back. ‘Why would she say a thing like that?’

  ‘Dad admitted it. Just now.’ I pointed up. ‘Up there.’

  ‘That bastard.’ He punched the elevator button to go up.

  I pulled at his sleeve.

  He looked down at my hand. ‘What?’

  ‘Just… don’t.’ I looked away searching for the thing to say.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ he spat at me.

  ‘He asked me not to tell you. Any of you. He thinks you won’t forgive him. And…’ I paused again. ‘He’s suffered so much already.’

  ‘Daddy’s little girl is finally putting down the knife?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘So what? That’s it?’ he said.

  I shrugged again.

  ‘You gone all chickenshit?’

  ‘What the hell, Tim? You all let him lie to you over and over, right to your face. I was the only one.’

  ‘So why you giving up now?’

  ‘Because that’s the big secret he’s been covering up. It was one time before Philly. And he’s paid for the crime a million times over.’

  ‘That was it, then.’ His voice broke. ‘Mum found out and she left?’

  I fell against the wall. I told Tim what I knew about how it all happened.

  ‘It just doesn’t feel enough. Not after all this time,’ he said when I finished.

  I knew exactly what he meant.

  AN UNEXPECTED CLUE

  Ijumped at the sudden knocking on the other side of my door. ‘Come on. You don’t stay in bed all day unless you’ve got someone hot in it with you,’ yelled Rocco. He banged on the door again.

  ‘How do you know I don’t?’ I pulled the doona over my head. ‘Go away.’

  The thing was, nothing but staying in bed made any sense. Hard to believe you could be skun by a tiny, banal truth. But maybe this paralysis was more because of the massive ocean of guilt that I nearly fatally wounded my father over a concocted mystery I’d blown too much oxygen into.

  ‘We’re taking you out,’ Roco called.

  I burrowed deeper into my bed. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘If I can gird my loins…’ came Marge’s voice.

  I swore.

  Rocco smashed the door open.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Rocco,’ I said, poking my face out.

  ‘Have some pride, woman.’ He picked up a dress from the back of a chair and threw it at me. ‘Get dressed.’

  ‘Tye’s coming over,’ I said.

  ‘So he said on the phone just now,’ said Rocco. ‘He’s meeting us at the pub.’

  ‘Then that’s what I’ll do, too. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Marge. ‘Make sure you take the time to run a comb through that nest.’

  ‘Nah.’ Rocco crossed his arms. ‘We’ll wait right here for you.’

  Rocco bumped a schooner of beer down in front of Marge. Rat-Tail leaned forwards to wipe the foam that spilled over the edge.

  ‘Get your own,’ said Marge, getting the glass into her hands fast.

  ‘Yours is still at the bar, mate.’ Rocco put another before me and took his own chair.

  ‘Yeah. Cheers,’ said Rat-Tail. He sat there staring at me.

  ‘If you want that beer, Rat-Tail,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He stood up. ‘Your eyes are a real nice blue.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling a microscopic point of colour in all the blah.

  ‘Be better when you get rid of those bags underneath, but,’ he said and took off.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Rocco, laughing. ‘Told him to be nice to you.’

  ‘Good job,’ I said.

  ‘Have you heard from the council?’ I asked Marge, making an effort.

  ‘They ruled against me,’ she said. ‘Said the boarding house isn’t fit for a person with specific needs like me. I told them it wasn’t fit for any of you lot either, then, seeing as you’re all a bit special too.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Rocco.

  ‘They’re just waiting for a place in a lovely, boring nursing home to come up before they move me out.’

  ‘How long will it take, do you think?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘The longer, the better.’

  ‘It’s not a prison,’ I said.

  ‘Good as: they lock the doors to keep the loony ones in.’

  I grimaced and took a sip off the head of my beer.

  ‘But we’re here about you, not me. I’m
a lost cause, being old and all, but you’ve got your whole life before you. What’s got into you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, although I didn’t even have the energy for putting on much faux innocence.

  She pursed her lips and gave me a long, disapproving look.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ I dropped my head, like it weighed a tonne, onto my knuckles, elbows on the table.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘We’ve convened the Inquisition, now you just answer the questions.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘How’s your father?’ she asked.

  ‘Still alive, no thanks to me.’

  ‘Hey.’ Tye appeared, smiling his dancing smile and leaning over to kiss Marge, high-five Rocco and pull me into him. ‘Has it started, then?’

  ‘So you’re in on this, too?’ I asked, pushing away.

  ‘Course.’ He laughed, pulling me back. ‘You need a bit of sense talked into you. All this detective business,’ he tapped my head, ‘disturbs your brain.’

  ‘You and your father on speaking terms again?’ asked Marge.

  I shrugged. Told them there wasn’t much to tell after all these dark years.

  ‘So he’s a saint now?’ asked Marge.

  I put my head on the side and gave her a questioning look about how hard she was going.

  ‘We’re cutting you off,’ Rocco said, sliding Marge’s beer away from her into the middle of the table.

  Marge wiped the table with her hanky. ‘It’s just that I know your father—’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘What I’m saying, if you let me finish…’ She folded her handkerchief to trap the wet inside. She snapped her bag open and placed it in the inside pocket. All precise.

  ‘No need to build suspense,’ I said.

  ‘I know your father because all men are the same.’

  ‘Steady on,’ said Rocco.

  I squeezed Tye’s hand.

  ‘Back in my day,’ she went on, tipping her head to acknowledge Rocco and Tye, ‘they thought they were living gods.’ She clicked her tongue.