Hare's Fur

by Trevor Shearston

  ‘Ah. I think last time we spoke it was a month.’

  Once he’d have felt the need to apologise.

  ‘Still gets them to you in time, Geoffrey.’ A spasm of crossness, though, at manipulations earlier in their dealings, made him mischievous. ‘Barring mishap.’

  Geoffrey didn’t rise to the bait. The glaze kiln was now almost an extension of Russell’s hands and brain. The teapots would come from it if not perfect then near.

  ‘Will you need the courier, or …?’

  ‘Hugh’ll bring them.’

  ‘I’ll very much look forward to seeing them.’ And saving on the freight, Russell added silently. ‘Can you email me description and prices.’

  The three had put a dent in his schedule. A few early starts and long days would put him back on track. He refused anymore to work at night. He cleaned the blackboard and took inventory of the racks, chalking on the board what was still needed and their quantities. Always needed, and always left so late they went in dubiously dry and risked exploding, were the fillers. He would be good and make them now.

  He threw fingerbowls off the hump, gave them feet he moulded immediately with his thumbs. The kiln ate them up, and he threw and moulded without bothering to count. The wistful thought came, though, that if the littlies were here he’d have done as the Chinese did and given them the feet to do. When he’d thrown and footed the last, the first could be handled. He dashed iron onto each with a brush, dipped it in shino. Next day he threw the vertical fillers. These short narrow cylinders he didn’t name — vases, pencilholders, he didn’t care what use they found. They, too, got a slash of iron, would get, when they were dryer, the limestone that gave a pale celadon. Lastly, again off the hump, he threw thirty eggcups — his nod now in every firing to Adele — to be stamped with the sun orchid he’d carved, then glazed with ash.

  Conscience cleared, he turned his mind and hands to what he still found an exhilarating challenge, tea bowls. And — when the state of concentration necessary to them waned — to readying the kiln — cleaning shelves, patching saggars, filling cracks in the roof arch and, at day’s end, more mindless barrowing of wood to the firebox door. In this way he passed five solitary days, speaking to no one but himself and the idiots on the television news, and devising meals from the four-person stockpile in the fridge and pantry.

  He’d finished throwing. Ahead of him was a long day of glazing — the blossom jars, the open bowls, the fillers, the teapots. The day after, turn the tea bowls and give each its first coat. And that day he could take his time, work until dark, because, hallelujah!, he didn’t have to cook, it was fortnight Thursday, Hugh and Delys’s and the breaking of his fast on human contact.

  The sky when he woke was low and grey and stayed that way. The annexe was freezing, too cold for wet fingers. He carried his glaze buckets and ladles into the workshop, arrayed them in a semi-circle before the heater, and set the low wooden stool within arm’s reach of each bucket.

  By midafternoon he was on the teapots. They always posed complications — another reason he’d stopped making them — their mouths narrow, the strainer holes needing to be unblocked, lids and rims requiring waxing where they met to keep them free of glaze. He’d melted and brushed the wax, had poured the insides with the thin shino which complemented the guan. He swapped buckets, stirred the guan yet again to combat its liking for settling out, and started once more along the row of eight, two fingers hooked inside the rim of each while he ladled the thick cream, barely liquid, onto its outer walls and spout.

  He’d done five, was reaching for the sixth, when the phone rang, startling him from his work trance. Always now when it rang here he was returned to the morning of the hospital. He breathed in, held it, out, then hooked the ladle and stood, swiped his hands down his trousers. He made himself not hurry, it would be Hugh, or an Indian woman in a call centre wanting to sell him a better plan.

  ‘Russell speaking.’

  ‘You’re there, good! It’s Kayla. Toddy’s sick, chuckin up and shittin. We’re bringin him. In an hour. Don’t tell no one.’

  ‘What?’

  The handpiece burred in his ear.

  An hour! Chucking and shitting? He needed to go to emergency! That’s what he’d say — not even let them in the door, drive them straight there. He dropped the handpiece in the cradle, spun to face the quiet semicircle of buckets, the stool awaiting his return. First, lid the buckets, you don’t want to be kicking any over. He snatched up the stool and plonked it down out of his way, then, barely letting them drain, gathered up the ladles and dumped them in the sponge bucket and placed and clipped lids. He glared around him — clean sheeting, clean sheeting! He found some, flicked it open, and covered the teapots, tucking each into its own cell. God only knew when he’d be back! He looked at the window — it was already getting dark — at the dusty clock face — half-four. She wouldn’t care that she’d said an hour, they could be here any minute. He spun closed the heater, took a last wild look around the workshop — nothing — dashed for the door.

  He stripped on the landing, strode in underpants to the shower. He kept it short, on his naked way to the bedroom ducking into the study and switching on the computer.

  Dressed, he googled ‘child — vomiting and diarrhoea’. The boy had gastroenteritis. It was common, could be viral or bacterial. He looked at the photo gallery on the wall and found his favourite, he holding a well Michael and Adele hugging them both. He had no memory of dealing with gastro. Anyway, whatever had been the practice then would be years out of date. He returned his eyes to the page. The parent shouldn’t panic, in most healthy children the immune system controlled both the vomiting and diarrhoea within twenty-four hours. The parent should, however, be alert to the risk of dehydration. Mild symptoms were dry mouth, sunken eyes, weakness. More severe were lethargy and confusion, pale or mottled skin, fast shallow breathing, fever. In such cases rehydration drinks containing salt and sugar, and available in sachet form, should be given. The parent should, however, be aware that severe dehydration was a medical emergency and hospitalisation generally advised. Parent, parent, the page kept repeating. The word assumed experiential knowledge he no longer possessed. He jumped up and hurried to the kitchen, found the number on the list on the wall.

  Lucy answered. No, mum was at work. ‘Do you want her mobile?’

  He glanced at the list. ‘Thanks, I have it.’

  Helen answered on the second ring. ‘Yes, Russell?’

  He’d never rung her mobile. He heard she was alarmed but trying to not sound so. He apologised for ringing her at work.

  ‘I’m not, I’m walking to the car. What’s happened?’

  ‘Ah … in a minute … I just wanted to ask first if Lucy or Jerome have ever had gastroenteritis.’

  ‘Both. Name me a school-age child who hasn’t. Why are you asking?’

  He told her.

  She was silent. He could hear her breathing, and the rhythmic tap of what might have been an earring.

  ‘Russell, I’m at the car, just let me get in.’ The phone bumped on metal. There was a mysterious pause, and she came back on. ‘Okay. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Can you be on call? If I can put it that way? I really don’t think I’ll be able to persuade them to let me take him to hospital if that’s what he needs, or even call my doctor. If I try to insist I really do think, on past experience, they’ll just bundle him up again and go.’

  ‘You’ve been on Google, I take it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lucy was touch-and-go whether she went to hospital, but didn’t. I’m pretty sure I’ve still got the proper rehydration stuff. I doubt it dates. So. Still don’t know what they’ll say, though, do we? To involving me. But yes, I’m happy to be on call. I’ll be home in ten.’

  Out of respect for Jade’s paranoia he didn’t turn on the porch light. He got a blaze going in the heat
er, then closed off rooms to channel the warm air into the guest room and bathroom. He made up the double bed and carried in two armchairs. But they would be for later. He had a strong memory of a hideous night in Hangzhou when he’d lain on towels on the tiles of the hotel’s bathroom alternately throwing up and shitting, and his wonder of a wife, ignoring his pleas to leave him in his foulness, had gently hosed and sponged his arse and thighs. The memory took him to the linen press. At the very bottom he found the cache from which she’d drawn the seemingly endless supply of cheap towels she’d used when painting. He counted out six and carried the stack to the bathroom, placed it on the floor. Then he went to the laundry and fetched the plastic basin and left it, too, on the bathroom floor. He couldn’t even contemplate eating. He made a full plunger.

  He was on his second mug when he heard footfalls on grass. A hoarse whisper — Emma! — floated up to him, ‘I can smell coffee, he’s in the kitchen.’ Your senses are extraordinary, little girl, he said silently as he rose and darted for the door. She had been sent ahead to knock, was on the top step. She gave him a shy pleased smile, quickly muted to the seriousness of the visit. ‘Hi, Russell.’

  ‘Hello, Emma.’

  Jade was behind her, in her arms the boy swaddled in an opened sleeping bag. She nodded. He stepped out of her way. ‘The bathroom, it’s ready.’ Emma had stopped to take off her joggers. ‘Leave them, just come in.’ He looked down the steps. ‘Where’s Kayla?’

  ‘Comin.’

  And as she spoke Kayla appeared in the light falling onto the grass. He looked behind her for the shadow boyfriend, but she was alone. She was in the same black studded jacket. She bounded up the steps like an animal.

  ‘Thanks, yeah.’

  ‘The bathroom. Emma, show her.’

  While waiting he’d spooned honey into a mug and stood the spoon. He poured in warm water from the jug, stirring as he hurried along the hallway. The door was pushed to, not to exclude him, he discovered when he pushed it open, but because she’d remembered the bar heater mounted on the wall. He contracted his nostrils, but the smell entered his mouth. She and Kayla were kneeling each side of the spread bag and stripping him. The room was already warm, and she’d removed her windcheater, and Kayla the leather jacket. The boy’s trackpants and underpants and the blue nylon of the bag were wet with shit, his windcheater streaked with vomit. His eyelids were fluttering, and he was moaning at being jostled. His face was even more pinched than Russell remembered, and white as the tiles. He snapped from his stare when he saw Kayla glancing round for where to put the fouled clothes. He handed Emma the mug and picked up the top towel from the stack and opened it between the boy’s feet. ‘Drop everything on here, I’ll get rid of it. And the bag when he’s off it.’

  ‘We’re puttin him in the shower, yeah,’ Jade said, not looking up from trying to draw one leg of the trackpants over the foot without smearing it too with shit. ‘Can you start it, please.’

  Emma shuffled out of his way, the mug cradled in both hands. He nodded down at the floor, ‘I don’t think it’s needed right now, maybe put it in that corner.’ He leaned into the cubicle and turned on the hot, waited for it to come through, then the cold, and balanced them at a little above warm. When he turned the boy was naked and they had a hand under each armpit and were lifting him. Russell’s mind flew to his youth, skinned rabbits. The boy hung limp, head down, his greasy hair flat to his scalp. Kayla seemed awkward. He stepped to slide his own hand into the armpit she was holding, and she snapped, ‘I got him, move!’ He retreated, offended despite himself. Emma caught his eye, just let her. Jade said mildly, ‘Take this arm. I’ll wash him.’

  She had finished, asked Emma to pass a towel from the pile, when the boy groaned and tried to lift both feet and a pale brown stream squirted down the backs of his legs and swirled on the tiles of the cubicle. He began to cry. ‘Sorry, Jadey.’

  ‘It’s all right, we know you can’t help it.’ She was already reaching again to the flannel and soap.

  Russell couldn’t tell whether the boy even knew where he was, that the male voice he was hearing was his.

  ‘Todd, it’s Russell. I’ve had the sickness you’ve got, everyone has. It’s horrible, I know, and it’s scary, but it’ll stop, okay, I promise.’

  They were able to lift him clean from the cubicle, stand him on a folded towel. Jade began to dry him. She gave a light cough, didn’t look up. ‘We left our bags. Have you got any clothes from … you know …?’

  ‘No. I’ll get him a tee-shirt of mine. And a sloppy joe — you can roll the sleeves.’

  She looked up, gave a flicker of grin. ‘Better be old ones, yeah.’

  ‘I think for the moment it’s best you sit him on the toilet with a towel round him. And … then we need to discuss what we’re going to do.’

  Kayla changed grip on the boy and spun. ‘Ain’t doin nothin! He’s stayin here!’

  ‘Which is what I thought you’d say. But you know as well as I do, Kayla, where he should be.’

  ‘No fuckin way! Can’t give em a bullshit name, they run it through the computer. His real one’s on there, he’s been in before. They’ll go straight to the fuckin cops!’

  ‘Well I’ve never treated gastroenteritis before, which is the name for what this is, and neither have you. But living just across the road is someone who has.’ From the corner of his eye he saw Jade’s movements stop, her face tilt up to look at him. He glanced to include her. ‘She knows who you are, because I had to tell her, and you know why. You took off before we could tell you she had no intention of going to the police. She still doesn’t.’ He let that sink in. ‘How long has he been sick?’

  Jade spoke at the floor. ‘Two, three days. Around that.’

  ‘And has he drunk anything?’

  ‘Yeah, but he spewed it up.’

  ‘Well he’s dehydrated, Jade. Please, Kayla, at his age it’s serious. I’m going to the bedroom and get those shirts, and you have a talk.’ He lifted a finger towards the switch on the wall. ‘That other button’s the exhaust fan if you want it.’ He crouched and bundled up the towel with the befouled clothing. Quickly Jade rolled the sleeping bag on itself, offered him clean fabric to grip it by. He carried both bundles to the door, which Emma opened for him, but without meeting his eye.

  He gave them plenty of time. He went first to the laundry and shook both bundles down into the empty machine and poured in two buckets of water. Coming back through the kitchen he drank off as if it were a shot glass the half-mug of tepid coffee. He fed the heater by the light of its flames, then walked to the windows and with two fingers made a slit in the curtains. The roadway was the portrait of emptiness he saw every night. No boyfriend standing sentry. He flicked the curtain closed.

  He searched in his work-clothes drawer and found a tee-shirt without holes, and a flannel shirt with most of its buttons. With them in his hands he walked, placing his feet softly, along the hallway towards the closed door. It was heavy timber, was perhaps muffling whatever discussion was still going on. But from behind it came silence. Something had been decided. He knocked, and it was opened immediately. Emma had been waiting. Swathed from hips to chin in towels, the boy was seated on the toilet. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be drowsing. Jade sat on the rim of the bath supporting him, the mug of honeywater balanced on her thigh. Arms folded, Kayla leaned against the stub wall separating bath and shower cubicle. She didn’t look at him. Jade nodded.

  ‘Yeah, ring her.’

  ‘Okay.’ He swallowed the temptation to say more, held out the shirts to Emma.

  Helen stayed till one. The boy was in the bed and sleeping. Jade, eyes half-slitted, was sitting wrapped in a blanket in one of the armchairs. Her sisters were asleep under a shared doona on cushions on the lounge room floor. Russell walked Helen out to the road.

  ‘I hope you don’t have to work tomorrow.’

  ‘No.�
�

  ‘He seems a bit better for having kept the fluids down.’

  ‘It could all still come back. Are you going to sit with him, too? She looks knackered — Jade.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll try to get her to lie down. Tending kilns makes you good at sitting up all night.’

  They’d stopped at the bridge over the ditch gutter.

  ‘Our friend Kayla’s a bit fierce.’

  ‘She’s been out in the world for longer. I still don’t know where she lives. According to Jade, they break into weekenders, she and the boyfriend.’

  ‘They can’t do that every night. They must have a roof somewhere.’

  ‘“Crashing at Flynnies” was the last I heard. Overheard. Emma didn’t approve.’

  ‘She’s a sweetie.’

  ‘Yes. She is.’

  Helen made no move to go. She knew he hadn’t walked her to the road solely out of politeness.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s cold. This could wait till tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, obviously it couldn’t.’

  He made the cough that custom dictated presage the slightly mad or dangerous. ‘In order of succession, the fathers are “a prick”, dead, and in gaol for dealing. Where, as you know, their mother also is, and will be, almost certainly, for quite some time, most likely years. There’s been no mention of any other relative apart from a mother’s cousin who’s left where she was and they can’t trace her. Under the circumstances — would you think it foolish … to be contemplating, at least — making enquiries about … fostering them? Not Kayla, Jade and the other two.’

  Breath exploded from her mouth in a white cloud, ‘Fostering?’ She flicked her head as if to shake the word from her ears. ‘Russell, “foolish” doesn’t come near. I think, yes, this conversation would be better had tomorrow.’

  ‘I haven’t mentioned it to them, of course.’

  She took a step away. ‘I need to go. Wash your hands a lot. I’ll say just this, though — you’d be getting their histories as well — all those you’ve just listed, plus Kayla and her friends — and there could be some real doozies there … It’s a step into the proverbial quicksand, Russell. Goodnight. I’ll pop over in the morning.’