I had that same feeling I was getting more and more as I grew older, a feeling like I was trying to see through a fog or reach for something my fingers could touch but not wrap around. I didn’t know it then, but I was starting to realise the world is not one place, but two, and that you move from one to the other only with the years. I was living mostly in the first world, but I had a toe dipped in the second. The tip of a toe doesn’t tell you much, however, so I believed what Audrey said to me. Through autumn and into winter I waited impatiently for her and Izzy to get married and if Audrey looked at me sideways when the three of us were walking, I hastened to hurry away.
Devon rode Champion to and from school that year and when he was in a good mood he would double-dink me and the saddle would dent into my legs, but I didn’t mind. The weather growing cold showed up the faults in the new house: boards in the floor warped, the shutters swelled and let the moths in when they wouldn’t close properly, and my bed squeaked when I rolled. Da tended the cattle and walked them on long forages for food; for us he went on snaring rabbits until he came home from town one day and Mam looked at the money and said, ‘Where’s the rest of it, Court?’
‘That’s all I got.’
‘You drank it, didn’t you?’
‘No, Thora.’ Da sat at the table and his thumbs circled his temples. ‘That’s all I was given, I swear. They’re saying skins are fetching nothing now, it’s not worth the trapping. The fellow was decent in giving me that; he said not to bother coming back again.’
Mam picked up the coins one by one, and studied them in her palm. She said, ‘We’ve still the children to feed. It’s still worth the trapping.’
‘I know it.’
‘And when the taste of rabbit chokes me, we’ll be eating beef.’
Da looked dour and said nothing and I shrank into a corner with my sponge and bucket, sudding the floor distractedly. I had that peculiar feeling again, that reaching, foggy feeling. Da loved the heifers, and Mam knew it. Her heart was getting hard.
During winter we had strangers come to the house, two or three of them every week, who would brave the growling dogs and knock timidly on the wall. These were shabby men who had travelled miles and were often dripping and drooped. They would apologise for the nuisance and drag off their hats and they never came inside if there was mud on their shoes. They had small things they were selling, notepaper or ribbons, boot blacker or pocket Bibles. Some of them would smile tenderly and say they had a son Caffy’s age or a daughter of mine, left home in the city with its mother. Mam never bought from the men but she would give them a plate of soup or a handful of boiled eggs. If they were drinking men Da would pour a glass of the liquor he stored in the keg, and if they were soldiers he’d sit and reminisce with them on the step. Devon once muttered that he didn’t like these travellers, being beggars with trinkets as they were, and Da clipped him so swiftly that Devon hit the wall.
We never saw Tin, though I kept my eyes open everywhere. I had wished him to the end of the dirt when the shanty fell down, and I started to fear he might have heard. I put my lips to the earth and whispered that I hadn’t meant it, that that terrible day had passed as all of them do, but it didn’t bring him home. I stood and stared at the golden house and wondered what he’d thought when he’d seen it was built on rock, that he had no choice except keeping away.
And then one night there was hammering at the door and Da opened it to Vandery Cable looking liverish, his hand at the scruff of Tin’s slender neck. ‘I caught this thieving from my beehives,’ he said, and shoved Tin into the room. Tin stumbled forward and stopped where the fire stained his flesh orange and made his eyes squint and look stung. He was wearing a coat of scrappy rabbit that had gaps where the pelts didn’t meet. They were not skins from our own racks, for they were peppered with shot holes. Being a thief he was destined to be caught but you could see that Cable hadn’t done the catching. Where rabbit paws dangled at his thighs Tin had the bleeding wounds of dog teeth.
‘I’ve done a fair amount for this family,’ said Cable, his glare scouring each of us in turn. ‘I didn’t expect to have my hives raided as thanks. If that boy eats what’s left of the honey, what are the bees expected to live off until spring? Can you answer me that? Can you?’
We could not; Da said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m very sorry, Mr Cable.’
‘If I lose my swarm then God help you, Flute!’
‘I know – I’m sorry – the boy goes where he pleases, he does as he likes, he won’t hear a word from anyone. He’s no respect for his mother, he’s got no family feeling. I know you’ve done plenty for us and we’re grateful, Mr Cable. No one can say we aren’t grateful. Tin – now Tin, say you’re sorry.’
Tin considered the pig farmer; then he shut his eyes and yawned.
‘Tin!’ Da screeched. ‘Do as you’re told!’
And the strange feeling came to me, like sucking cold air. I knew that although Tin had been Da’s pet and favourite, Da would flog Tin to his knees if he thought it would please Vandery Cable.
‘He’s sorry,’ I said hotly. ‘Tin is sorry.’
‘Sell him to a circus,’ said Cable. ‘You’ll get a good price for him.’
He turned then, and left, and we heard the whip strike the rump of the jinker horse and the animal’s shrill whinnying.
Having Tin in the room was like hosting someone you’ve heard about, but never met: I was delighted to see him, but I couldn’t think what to say. None of us crowded him, because you never crowd something whose next move you cannot guess. His gaze prowled the room without pausing, not restless, I thought, and not curious either, but as if watching were his habit. He was clasping and twinning his fingers, the stickiness of the honey bothering him, and flecks of beeswax were clinging to his rabbit skins. ‘If you were hungry, Tin,’ said Mam, ‘why didn’t you come here? I would have given you something to eat.’
She filled the basin with water and, though he did not seem to feel the bites, Tin let her patch them up; he wouldn’t let her brush his pelts, despite their crust of dirt. ‘Stay with us,’ she begged him, ‘just for the night. Wouldn’t you like a warm bath? Don’t you want to sleep somewhere soft? Let me wash your hair and clean your face, oh Tin, why won’t you?’
‘Leave him, Mam,’ said Devon quietly.
Mam wrung her hands, defeated; Tin was standing by the door with a look of studied patience, like a dog when it wants to go. So Da let him out, and in a glint he was gone.
‘Tin!’ I cried, startling myself. Without a thought I jumped up and ran into the darkness, and almost ran into him, for he’d stopped and waited for me. He stood still, only fiddling and clenching his fingers, his chin tilted to look at me. He was tiny, and I had grown.
‘Tin,’ I said, ‘don’t go. Don’t go so far away. Don’t go to Mr Cable’s – how will I find you, if you dig so far away?’
He scuffed the dirt and smiled quickly, meaning nothing by it. He wasn’t listening, he didn’t care. ‘Tin,’ I beseeched, ‘bring your digging here. Come home – come closer to home. I look for you everywhere and I never see you any more.’
I hung my head, because I couldn’t say things the way I wanted to. Tin was watching me, but he was only waiting. I turned and went back to the house. Mam was standing at the door. She called to him to keep his leg clean, to rinse it in the creek daily, but he had vanished in the pitch and she said to herself, ‘I don’t suppose he heard.’ He didn’t hear, I reckoned.
But a few weeks later I found the rags she’d wrapped around his wounds, lank strips of cloth snagged in the grass quite close to home. It made my blood thump and I sniffed about like a hound. I couldn’t see anything to prove it but I knew I was right, inside. A tree sprouts a branch and ants add corridors to their nest and Tin was carving a new tunnel because I’d asked him to come home. He was coming as near to the house as the rocks would let him. I shouted, and carried the rags in triumph to Mam. There was no blood on them and they signified Tin was close: I thought she woul
d be happy, but she didn’t look that way.
She didn’t burn the rags, as she would have done if they had been mine. She folded them into a little case and over the next few years she added to the case any remnants of Tin that she could find. His baby clothes didn’t go in, for they had been worn by Caffy – what went into the case had to be Tin’s and his alone. She cut a lock of his hair once and that went in, with a ribbon tied around it. Besides that, hardly nothing.
MAM WAS BOILING THE laundry, that’s why she wanted us to take Caffy. He was a nuggetty, friendly and talkative little boy, but he had a splash of Old Nick in him. If he wasn’t allowed to do a thing, he’d go frantic needing to do it. If the clothes-washing water was so hot that Mam had to use a stick to stir it, Caffy’s sole purpose in living became the dipping of his fingers into it. If there was something breakable sitting on the table, Caffy would find the means to crack it over his head. Already that morning he had caught his curls in the wringer and scalped bald a patch the size of a penny. ‘He’s doing my head in with his pestering, take him off with yourself and Audrey,’ said Mam, and it was me who heaved a sigh. I knew that, as soon as we were clear of the house, Audrey would send me packing with the baby under tow.
It happened as I predicted, so I was ready to refuse. Caffy was swinging from the crook of Audrey’s elbow and I said, ‘He wants to stay with you.’
‘Harper!’ she whined. Izzy was mooching in the distance, inspecting some lump in the ground – he didn’t like to get involved in these wranglings. ‘Harper, please, just do as I say!
‘You’ll go away and leave me dragging him around all day.’
‘We won’t go away, I promise. When Izzy and I finish talking, I’ll call you and you can come back. Then I’ll watch Caffy for the rest of the day.’
I didn’t believe her, and shook my head stubbornly. Audrey gave a strangled cry. She bent, and wrenched my ear close to her. ‘Harper,’ she breathed, ‘this will be the last time. If you go away today, I’ll never ask you to go away again. I mean it, I promise. But it’s important you go away today.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Izzy might ask me to marry him today. I think he’s going to.’
I narrowed my eyes. She had been saying something similar for almost a year and I was beginning to suspect that either Izzy had never heard of the idea of marriage or that he didn’t like Audrey as much as she supposed. I was hardened to her fancy now, and could be, in the face of it, as obstinate as a mule. And yet, I had never abandoned all hope, just as Audrey herself had not. I had a conviction that, if there ever were a wedding, there would be something in it for me.
Regardless, my bribery price was high. ‘Will you give me your hairclip?’
‘But I only have one!’
‘I only want one.’
She showed her teeth and hesitated. I waited. ‘All right,’ she hissed.
I took Caffy’s hand and pulled him away from her; he squawked and shouted but couldn’t wrestle himself free. I dragged him thrashing through the grass while smugly contemplating my new prize. I had long coveted the hairclip but if things went on like this much longer, Audrey would own nothing more to give me. That would be a sorry day, and one rather quickly coming, but I was loath to lower my fee. I put this quandary from my mind and turned my energy to my task.
It was important, when Audrey sent me off, to stay beyond sight of Mam and Da, for a spy is not meant to lose her quarry. I coaxed Caffy along, murmuring so he had to pipe down to hear me, keeping a sharp eye on the house. Da was safely out in the paddock but Mam would soon step into the yard to hang out the washing. I did a broad half-loop and settled in the dust behind the animal shelter, where we couldn’t be seen from the clothes line. From here I could see the rear of the house, glimmering away. Caffy could see it too and wanted to go home, so I twitched a stalk in his face until he was distracted and laughing. ‘Want to play a game?’ I asked.
‘What game?’
‘You hide, and I’ll hunt for you.’
‘Don’t look, and count.’
I turned my head to the shelter and began to count. There wasn’t anywhere challenging he could hide, what with just the long patchy grass around and some weedy eucalypts in the distance, but Caffy was too young to know that, being just three and a half. I peeked past the shelter and studied the house, watching for sign of Mam. Away in the paddock I could see Devon riding Champion. They were cantering in circles. I droned through the numbers, wondered if Izzy had finally asked the question. It surely wouldn’t take long to say the words. Marry me. Oh, would you marry me? Will you marry me, Audrey, and let Harper live with us so I might see her every day?
Devon was yelling now, and pointing at the ground. He was yelling there was a snake, and I huddled nervously. Snakes gave me the shudders. Mam always said, ‘Just leave them, they’ll go their way,’ but Da was more for hacking off their heads. He was bound to come running any moment, shovel in hand for the deed. Suddenly and to my horror I saw Mam, ducking through the fence and calling to Devon to quit his raucous bellowing and leave the poor snake be. I scanned about and couldn’t see Izzy and Audrey. If they were out of sight, so must I be. I glanced over my shoulder and Caffy, too, was out of sight. Da had arrived at the snake now, and he and Mam were staring down intently. I chewed my nails, jittery. I was pinned here, behind the shed, for as long as Mam and Da were standing where they would see any move I made. Caffy, being three and a half, had not an ounce of patience, and if I didn’t come searching for him soon he would get bored and peevish, and that would spell disaster.
‘Caffy?’ I whispered. ‘Where are you?’
He thought I was trying to trick him, I reckoned, and didn’t answer me. I squirmed about uncomfortably, my legs dimpled by sticks and stones. I wished Da would get on with the hacking. I could hear Mam distantly, arguing over the reptile’s fate. The sun grew suddenly hotter, you could feel it like a scald on your skin. I eased backward to where the shelter’s shadow lay, taking the weight from my smarting knees. I heard a faint groaning and knew Caffy was getting irritable. ‘Hush,’ I crooned, ‘hush, hush.’ Finally, the thunk. I looked and Mam was marching to the house, swishing her skirts angrily. Da held high the decapitated snake and it was spilling blood into the ground. Caffy moaned miserably and I scurried forward on all-fours. ‘Here I come,’ I warned him. ‘I’m coming to find you, Caffy.’
The grass spiked me in the ribcage as I scanned for his chubby face. He wouldn’t have gone far and the noise he made had sounded close; between the shelter and the weedy trees was only a spread of balding silver grass with no rocks or hollows that might hide him. He was wearing dusk-blue overalls and curled up in the grass he should have been easy to see, yet I was having difficulty. ‘Caffy?’ I queried, and propped upon my haunches. I was careful not to sound cross or worried, which would simply encourage him. I shaded my eyes, baffled. I looked at the trees but he was only little, he couldn’t get up there.
‘Caffy!’ I said, louder. ‘Mamma wants you to come home.’
Then I heard him, and whirled. He should have been behind me, but he wasn’t. I waved my hands lest I wasn’t seeing something and my fingers cut through empty air. I heard a gurgle and it came from my feet, making me spring sideways with a squeak of alarm, but it was just grass there. For a second I was going mad, I thought he must have shrunk to the size of a gnat and was perched on a blade. I dipped a hand in the grass and my hand kept dipping until my arm had disappeared into the earth. I slashed aside the grass and stared, aghast. In the ground before me was one of the holes dug by the well-sinker. After all this time it gaped still, its ragged black mouth snarling open. It was dry inside, but it was deep and narrow. Caffy had fallen down it.
I staggered, I swear. I almost hit the dirt. I reached my arm into the depths and grappled for him desperately, knocking loose clods of hard, ochre dirt that dropped into the darkness. I couldn’t reach him and stood, reeling queasily. Mam would have a conniption about this, and I bit my lip agains
t a burning threat of tears. If I could manage to get him out, I might never have to tell her. I darted into the shelter and searched for a rope, finding only the lead clipped to Champion’s halter. It was short, shorter than me, but it was better than nothing. Outside, I put my face to the mouth of the well and called, ‘Hold on to Champy’s halter, Caffy, so I can pull you out.’
I dribbled the halter down the well and kept dribbling it, its buckles clinking against the walls. When I was holding hardly any rope I gave it a tug and the halter flung up lightly into my hands. I chirped distraughtly and fed it down again, wailing, ‘Get hold of the halter, Caffy!’
But he didn’t get hold. I thought he must be playing. Then it came to me that maybe he couldn’t get hold even if he wanted, because the halter didn’t reach him. Gagging, I threw the rope aside and plunged my head in the hole, crashing my ribs against the earth and shearing skin from my chin. I couldn’t see him but I could hear him mewling and I knew how he looked when he grizzled that way. His hands would be tugging at his lips, there’d be water pooling in his eyes. The well stank and was airless and I had to wrench, spluttering, away. ‘Caffy!’ I barked, as if shouting would wake me up from this, or stop him teasing me. It simply made him cry, and in anguish I began clawing the dirt.
The dirt was hard. Not a drop of rain had fallen for months. The grass was needle-sharp and leathery, its wiry roots meshed with jagged stones; the hot red earth was cracked and compacted and grazed bloody the tips of my fingers. Bull-ants ran in frantic circles and flies dithered before my sweating face; the heat was pressing me to the ground and sapping away my strength. A grass seed drove beneath my nail and then I was rocking on my rump, coddling the pain and whimpering. Mam was going to murder me and all my trying was useless, just as it had been when Tin was smothered in the mud.
Thursday's Child Page 9