The Serpent's Skin

by Erina Reddan

‘I don’t—’

  ‘Sit down.’ I used all my big sister on her and she stayed put.

  ‘You’ve got nothin.’ Dad’s finger stabbed holes in the air. ‘You listen to me, JJ. You were a little shit as a kid and you’re a little shit now.’ His voice slithered out of him low and hissy.

  ‘Don’t even try,’ I said, the words snarling over each other to get out. ‘All those lies tying us in knots so we thought we were going mad ends now. It’s truth time.’

  He set down his knife and fork, careful on his plate. He pointed his stubby finger. ‘Your mother couldn’t stomach you another second. She wouldn’t have cared about me and Peg. One time a million years before. But she’d had enough all right. You were the thing we fought about the night before. You were why she had that suitcase ready behind the door.’

  I gasped, gut punched. A single swing of a machete and the red was felled. Just me left, body panting, eyes wide, rabbit in the headlights trapped.

  Dad’s face twisted, hate uglying it up. ‘Your mother had had a bellyful of your—’ He clawed for the word with his curled fingers.

  I felt something against the back of my wrist on the table. I jerked away from the burn. Too late I saw it had been Georgie’s hand over mine. He went moon eyed. I reached out to him in sorry, but he ricocheted away, all distrust and fear.

  ‘Get that kid out of here.’ Dad flung his arm to the door.

  ‘Dad,’ snapped Tessa as Geoff stood and threw down his serviette.

  ‘Come on, mate.’ He held out his hand to Georgie, who couldn’t get his round eyes off his grandfather, or me. ‘See if the poddies need feeding’

  ‘Feed in the dairy,’ said Dad in a normal voice, looking at Georgie as if he’d never snarled. Tye, Shelley and Ahmed stayed just were they were.

  ‘Now that’s down to you, Tessa,’ Dad said, fork stabbing at her. ‘You shouldn’t be letting a little bloke hear any of this.’

  Tessa’s mouth fell open, but Dad turned back, all prongs shooting at me now. ‘Your fault. Your mother was right! All trouble. You should get out of here right now and leave the rest of us to it.’

  Air panted in and out and still I couldn’t get any of it into me. Tye’s eyes were wild. He was caught between doing and not doing. I doubled over, my fists pressing into my solar plexus, red and black and everything else pulsing hard. In the end, Tye got me a glass of water, a protective hand on my back, rubbing circles.

  ‘Stop it, Dad,’ said Tessa.

  The sound of Tim’s chair screeching lifted my face. He stood, all six feet of tall and hands on hips, staring at Dad. A quiet mantling over him. Some of it even reached out to me. ‘What are you saying?’ he said to Dad, every word measured.

  ‘Sit down.’ Dad hunched over his plate again, shovelling peas into his mouth. ‘Said my piece.’

  ‘I won’t be sitting,’ said Tim.

  ‘Making a fool of yourself, boy.’

  ‘That so?’ He was trigger still.

  Tessa’s eyes darted one to the other and snagged on nothing in between. Philly sat soldier straight, eyes dead ahead, taking in the world beyond the window, as if while her body must be here the rest of her had got away. Ahmed’s calm hand on her knee.

  ‘Our mother,’ Tim said, face rock hard. ‘Your. Wife. Loved JJ.’ His voice caught. ‘Took the time to see behind all that red shit to where JJ really was.’ He leaned across the table towards Dad, loading menace up into his voice. ‘And in that place there’s nothing but courage. She’s been the brave one. The only one of us willing to push hard at the truth for Mum. And all the while you fed her bullshit, fed all of us bullshit, telling us black is white and white is a brown cow. JJ took all your shit because she loved you, Dad. Believed in you. Just like we all did. You threw it all back in our faces. But now the hour is here. So you tell us, Jack. What really happened?’

  ‘Calling me a liar, boy?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘A boy who didn’t even have the guts to see his own mother buried,’ said Dad.

  Shelley hissed. Tessa crashed her chair back. ‘Have you mixed your meds?’ she yelled at Dad.

  ‘What did our mother die of?’ said Tim, low and dangerous, not a muscle moved.

  Dad pushed back from the table, stood too, legs apart. ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

  ‘Perito-bloody-nitus,’ said Tim. ‘Why would we believe the word of a man who slept with his wife’s sister?’

  Tessa’s gasp was loud as she knocked her empty glass over. For the first time, Philly moved. She rotated her head so her stare moved from beyond the window to Tim. As if this thing could not quite make sense to her. Then, all at once, her head shook from side to side as it hit her. Her palm to her chest, she turned to me, mouthing ‘sorry’ while her eyes swam. I reached my hand across the table, shaking my head back, saying there was nothing for her to be sorry about.

  Dad got his hands on the back of the chair and sent me an accusing look from underneath it all.

  ‘What kind of upstanding, Church-going, God-fearing man does that?’ said Tim.

  ‘I’ll grant you that,’ Dad said, his voice hushed. ‘And I’ll carry the stain to my dying day. I’m—’

  ‘Park that sanctimonious bullshit,’ Tim spat.

  ‘Your mother is in every breath I take, day and night.’ Dad’s voice was high and windy. ‘So don’t you—’

  Tessa was at his side, a hand on his back. ‘Breathe,’ she said.

  He shoved her off.

  ‘Perito-fucking-nitus.’ Tim pointed an accusing finger. ‘Why don’t you tell us, Jack? Why don’t you tell us all about what a stand-tall kind of bloke you been?’

  Dad straightened, pulled his chair back and lowered in it. ‘I’m your father. Leave it at that. Let’s put this behind us and get back to Tessa’s delicious meal she spent hours about.’

  ‘What killed her?’ Tim asked, legs still apart.

  ‘Read the bloody death certificate.’ Dad stared up at Tim. ‘I know you stole it. So you know as much as I do.’

  Tim shook his head, one eyebrow raised, challenging Dad, waiting. We all waited. And the quiet settled in around the waiting. So quiet I could hear inside me again. I closed my eyes and reached in for Mum. The ground cracked open and her absence pussed out, scalding along my skin. I shook my head and widened my eyes as if I were coming up from the dark. I brought my hand up to scratch my palm, but the shake in my hand stopped me. I had to do this thing. Couldn’t let it keep blistering up the skin of our lives.

  I pressed both palms to the table and stood. ‘Why did Mum keep the address of an abortionist in her missal, locked up tight and secret?’

  ‘Abortion?’ Tessa spat out the word. Philly shook her hands in front of her like a shield.

  Dad angled his chair to get a good look out the window at what was coming. Steel hardened up his face as if he’d just seen the lemony curtains for the first time. ‘You and I talked about this.’

  ‘Yep, you told me she’d taken Peg for an abortion, years before.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, relief in the wash of the words.

  ‘What you forgot to tell me was that it was your baby Peg aborted,’ I said. ‘Mum didn’t just find out about you and Peg that day. She found out a whole lot more. That was the day she figured out you were the father of Peg’s baby.’ I put up my hand to stop his spluttering from interrupting me. ‘That’s what Mum figured out when Mrs Nolan told her about you and Peg. That’s what drove her away without saying goodbye to me and leaving her wedding ring behind.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ he roared. ‘Get her out of here.’ This time looking directly at Tessa. ‘Make sure she never comes near me again.’

  Tessa jerked her head in a no. ‘Not this time, Dad.’

  ‘You can all bloody get out, then.’

  ‘You didn’t chuck Peg out for being a bad influence,’ I galloped on. ‘You chucked Peg out because she was pregnant with your kid and you didn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut if she stayed living w
ith us. That’s why you banned Mum from seeing her.’

  Dad pounded the table with his fist, bouncing the cutlery. ‘Happy now?’ He glared at me. ‘You’ve got this table spilling over with blood and guts.’

  I narrowed my eyes and stared him down. He looked away and got his knife and fork working again.

  I couldn’t be stopped. ‘And what Mum was wild about was that despite all your great Catholicness, you wanted Peg to have that abortion. Wanted it so much you even paid for it.’ I slammed my fist into my hand. ‘Because where else could they have got the money from? But you wouldn’t let Mum have an abortion. That’s what you fought about that night. That’s what Philly heard.’

  His mouth dropped open. Then he closed it and shoved a forkful in. There was something niggling at the back of me that was full of sorry for this hollow man. But I wasn’t finished yet.

  ‘Man up, Jack.’ Tim said. ‘Is JJ right?’

  There was just the sound of Dad chewing.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Philly bolted up, swiping at her eyes. ‘She is. Mum was pregnant when she left.’ She spun to Dad. ‘She said she wanted the money to have what Peg had. You told her you were the man and you wouldn’t let her do it. She’d end up in hell and you didn’t need that on your conscience.’

  We all looked at Philly, then back at Dad.

  He laid his knife and fork on the table. He pushed at them to get them positioned just right as we watched. He cleared his throat. He went to say something but coughed. All our eyes on him as he swallowed back beer.

  ‘Not the kind of thing you tell the world,’ Dad said into the echo of the empty. ‘They wouldn’t have let her be buried in sacred ground if they knew she murdered the baby. And that would have killed her. Not being with her people.’

  ‘Would have killed you, you mean,’ said Tim. ‘It’s you who couldn’t have lived with a stain like that on your lily-white Catholic reputation.’

  ‘Your mother—’

  ‘The thing I don’t get is the death certificate,’ said Tim. ‘You got some fancy doctor to protect you? How did that happen, do you reckon? Cause it’s right here, see.’ Shelley passed it from her handbag. Tim flashed it at all of us. ‘Says just here.’

  I started to speak, but Tessa came over the top of me.

  ‘There were no presents that year.’ The handle of the bread knife in her fist stabbing into the table cloth. ‘Under the Christmas tree. I thought it was because you’d forgotten, with Mum and everything. But there was no money—you’d used it to buy all them mongrels off.’

  ‘How dare you?’ he said, whipping around to Tessa.

  But she didn’t flinch.

  None of us did.

  ‘You’ve got your truth, then,’ he said, defeated. ‘Now all of yous get out.’

  ‘You good as held the knife to her belly yourself,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t talk rot. It was me who tried to stop her.’

  ‘Tried to stop her by not giving her the money.’

  He nodded, wary in his eyes.

  ‘And she couldn’t have taken Peg’s money, not after finding out about you and her.’ I drummed the table with my fingers.

  ‘What?’ said Tim, in his seat again.

  ‘She didn’t have enough money for a half-decent abortion, did she, Dad?’

  His hand shook as it reached out for his glass. He saw it too and grabbed it with his other hand to steady it. He felt me looking at him, but there was no meeting of eyes. He went under the currents to duck around the corner before I could catch him, same as he’d done all his life. But everyone else was looking at me, quivering with wait.

  ‘You saying she didn’t get that abortion after all?’ said Tim.

  I kept my eyes, glue tight on Dad. ‘It was that address. In her Mass Book.’

  ‘Dead end, you said.’ Tim’s voice strained at the seam.

  ‘Thought that for a bit. But something kept at me. Couldn’t figure it out.’ I nodded at Dad. ‘You clicked it into place.’

  ‘I told you nothing,’ he said.

  I coughed out a dry laugh. ‘You gave that a run for its money all right. But instead you told me you’d talked to a doctor there the day after we found out Mum had died.’ I picked up the death certificate from the table. Pointed to the squiggle signature of the doctor. ‘Too bad for you that Dr Steven Bridgton still lives there, Dad. I found his number in the Yellow Pages, easy. I rang when I thought his wife might be home alone. Only took me a few goes and she picked up. She didn’t seem to understand me at first, but the facts of how it worked came out of her in the end. She told me women cancelled appointments all the time, some changed their mind, others “didn’t have the money”.’

  The tick of the clock was the only thing that breathed in the room. I felt Tye beside me, thigh long against thigh.

  ‘She said backyard abortionists hung around outside the clinic and they’d take whatever money a woman did have and get the thing done.’

  Tim collapsed into his chair.

  ‘Is that how it happened, Dad?’ I pushed on into whatever was coming at us. ‘She ended up in some grubby room with a coat hanger?’

  Dad hung his head like some mongrel dog.

  ‘And that’s the real reason you came home that day with the black eye,’ put in Tessa. ‘You got into it with him.’

  ‘He as good as killed your—’ Dad tried to say.

  But Tessa wasn’t having any more of it. ‘That didn’t stop you giving him our Christmas money to change the cause of death on the certificate, did it?’

  He deflated again.

  ‘Did she even die in the care of a hospital or did she bleed out in some dark alleyway?’ Fury strained Tessa’s voice. ‘Because how come an abortionist was the one to sign her certificate?’

  ‘Hospital,’ Dad jumped in. ‘He worked at the hospital, too. When the backyarder rang him to say Sarah was in a bad way, he took her in himself. He already had the police in his pocket, but I threatened him with going to the newspaper. Gave him enough to pay a couple of nurses to keep their mouths shut.’

  I let some time snake by, then said quietly, ‘But that coat hanger didn’t kill just her, Dad, it killed us all.’

  ‘Rot as usual,’ he said, trying a last rally. ‘You’re all fine. Tessa’s got her family, Tim’s running the most successful farm in the district and Philly’s got a good paying job.’ He pointed his thick, callused finger at me again. ‘You!’ His flicked his wrist towards me. ‘You’re the only write-off.’

  ‘Dad!’ said Tessa.

  ‘She is!’ He glared at me. ‘See, I know a thing or two about you, too.’

  I backed away, the air whooshed out of my tyres.

  ‘That poncy bloke, Maurice.’ He mimicked a drag queen’s voice full of venom. ‘See, he called again. Said I should talk to you. So you and I both got secrets.’

  I shook my head like I didn’t know how to stop it going, and pressed back and back through the air until my shoulders hit the back of the chair. How much did Maurice tell him?

  ‘You’ve skinned me raw here today. You’re no daughter of mine.’ He stood up, getting power back in him. ‘Your mother would be ashamed of you.’

  I licked my lips, tasting something new on them.

  My father stabbed his finger at me. ‘You and me. We’re not so different.’

  Philly leaped from her chair. ‘Stop being a bastard, Dad.’

  ‘No, he’s right, Philly,’ I said, all slow, still, behind the veil of this something new. ‘I tried to steal Mum’s records from the hospital and I ended up with the police.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Tye, breaking in. ‘You weren’t charged. You’re nothing like your father.’

  I turned slowly to him, half drowning. ‘I’m not?’

  He shook his head hard.

  ‘You’re not,’ Philly said, her voice heated in my defence.

  ‘You’re right there,’ said Dad. ‘She’s more like Peg. Maurice told me you weren’t even living with her when you said you
were. Sleeping on a park bench until he sorted you a job and you got into that boarding dump you’re in now. Lying to us, all those years.’

  ‘Shut up, Dad,’ said Philly. ‘Hardly your league. Nobody could live in Peg’s nightmare house except Peg.’ She looked at me. ‘Do you get up every morning? Clean your room? Granted, it’s a shithole. Talk to those crazies you live with, look after Marge? Get to work mostly? Win cases?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’re not fucking Peg-mad, then.’

  ‘But you are nuts,’ said Tessa. She looked around the table. ‘Everyone in this family is, in one way or another.’ With her eyes dead on me, she said, ‘JJ’s right, Dad. Mum was the thing holding us together.’

  A twisted, tight spring in me released.

  Tessa wasn’t Mum, but she was doing the thing Mum used to do for me. I gathered all the loose up before it could pour out. We weren’t at the end yet.

  Dad angled towards the window again. ‘At least your mother’s not here to see this.’

  ‘There wouldn’t have been a this,’ said Tim. ‘It was you, Jack. You and your lies made all this.’

  I plucked at the petals in the white chrysanthemum napkin ring. Pulled at each one and crushed them under my nails, making them bleed white on to my skin.

  Dad’s body jerked up, his face ravaged deep. ‘How could I have told you any of that?’

  ‘Dunno, Dad,’ I said.

  ‘You think I don’t know what I done? You think I don’t already feel the heat from the blazing fires of hell on my skin? It was my job to keep her safe. I will not take absolution, I will not clear myself of this sin, because I will not leave your mother in that place for all eternity on her own.’

  His face twisted up ugly again. ‘You sit there, all powered up on things being as clear as black and white.’ He gripped the table edge. ‘None of yous know what it’s been like for me to keep all of this locked tight, keeping it from yous and the world, keeping your mother’s reputation pure and white.’

  ‘None of that shit mattered to Mum,’ said Tim.

  ‘Your mother,’ said Dad, his voice rising thin, ‘was a good, upstanding Catholic woman.’

  ‘Who kept the address of an abortion clinic in her Mass book just in case she’d be wanting it one day,’ I said.