Tree Palace (13 page)

Moira grabbed her frock from being blown over her hips and put a skip in her walk to get across the intersection. Once you got under the verandahs in the old part of town you at least had the sun out of your eyes. Barleyville’s old part was only eight buildings long but they were the taller places—the council offices and two hotels. The new part had the supermarket, the service station and farm supplies. Shops like Alfie’s and the land agent. The laundromat and takeaway. But the old part had the bull-nose verandahs. It had the stately guise you think of as history. Shane wished he could pinch it all, brick by brick, but you’d need a fleet of Kenworths.

Behind the council offices the brown lawn sloped to the public library. Along from that the disabled ramp curved up to the op-shop. It was a meeting hall but the Salvos used it these days—a dozen clothes racks and boxes of CDs and paperbacks. Kettles and toys. Brogue shoes with the heels worn away. Coils of belts creased along the holes. The place smelled musty and of old people. Like a wardrobe not opened for years.

Moira liked being here. She called the smell ‘homely’. She could imagine the calibre of women who once wore the dresses. Scoff at the types who’d wear an orange muumuu that could fit two people. Envy the hips of anyone who slid into a long, skinny evening dress without splitting it. The sequins were like ice hair to the touch.

Shane and Midge let her have her fun. They walked down for a smoke under the peppercorn at the bottom of the lawn. Rory went to the toy box and started pulling the trigger of a cap gun over and over so it clacked with dream bullets. The noise made Zara flinch and step away from him in between clothes racks.

Jewellery hung from coat hangers. If you could call it jewellery after seeing Alfie’s cabinet. This was tin and plastic and hardly rated as second best. More fifth or sixth best, Moira thought. The paint designs were chipped. The chain links were roughly pliered together where they’d broken.

‘Come here, sweetie,’ she said.

She held necklaces against Zara’s neck and none of them suited. Their metal could have been cut from aluminium cans. And they were long and would need to be looped like rope to fit. Moira had Zara read out the prices and they were so cheap—one dollar, two—you wouldn’t let a dog wear them. The ten-dollar coat hanger had a better class of chains but they had crucifixes attached and Moira didn’t know if Indians had a snitcher on anything Christian.

On another hanger there was necklace of red stones that Moira admired and made Zara try on and it sat snugly against her collarbones. A matching bangle fitted her wrist if you gave a good push. But they had to be hung back up and forgotten about. At thirty dollars for the necklace and ten for the bangle the purchase was out of the question.

The lady behind the counter had a ball of wool in her lap, knitting. Moira calculated she was seventy at least going by her wavy mauve hair, the arthritic knobs of her knuckles. There was a radio playing clarinets and trumpets. If Moira was thinking of thieving she’d have the benefit of that lulling radio and an elderly lady in charge with her head down knitting.

There was another customer fingering through the racks. Fat as females get, Moira mumbled. Zara agreed and sniggered. Why fatties wear tight leggings, Moira could never understand. She called the look the ‘porridge bottom’. This particular porridge bottom was too engrossed in the clothing to be a witness.

Moira whispered for Zara to take the necklace and bangle and in one casual movement slip them into the pram. Then pretend to be hanging them on the hanger and say, ‘I don’t like these. They don’t work on me.’

As Zara did that Moira nonchalantly covered them with a blanket. She took a chain from the one-dollar hanger and said, ‘I think this is the one. Let’s buy this.’

She went to the counter and handed over a dollar. ‘What are you knitting?’

‘My grandson’s jumper. You like it? It’s Angora.’

‘Oh, I do. I think it’s lovely. It’s beautiful and very clever of you.’

As she turned the pram towards the door she told Rory to put the gun back in the box and said, ‘Good boy’ as he did, pitched loudly so the old dear would think they were respectable.

She was so pleased with herself she didn’t stop striding when her problem left thong slid loose again. She flicked it from her toes to her fingers and kept pushing the pram down the main street to get to the wag. Moira had never had the burning inside her that the normal world called ambition. She was having it now for the sake of her daughter’s cause.

14

Here was the plan for the next four days: the Tuesday interview was the same day their new generator would be ready for carting. Shane decided that he, Midge and Rory would set off in the wag for Mortlake tomorrow, Saturday, and be back by Sunday lunchtime. They would then load up Alfie’s vehicle and head to Melbourne on Monday afternoon with the gettings. Midge would not go to Melbourne with him. He should stay home and use the wag for driving Moira around, getting Zara to her interview and fetching the generator home. Rory would accompany Shane to Melbourne. It was about time the boy saw the city.

Moira packed a biscuit tin with three meals for them. Sandwiches more than meals—cheese and onion because they wouldn’t go off in the heat. Three Coke bottles of water and three bags of Twisties. They’d get burgers on the road if they needed. She kissed Shane goodbye on the lips and he returned it. She kissed Rory on the forehead and he didn’t return it. She tried giving him an extra kiss and sustained hug but he slid away and her kiss grazed his hair.

As she waved them off, and Limpy barked them off, she wished she’d grabbed Rory and made him hug her back. This was the boy’s big moment, his first work trip with the men and she hadn’t said much, hadn’t made enough fuss. Boys don’t like affection once they’re no longer babies. But they need to learn a sense of occasion. She’d make the most of hugging Mathew while he was prone to it.

There were times when Moira was glad to be away from Shane. Not because she was tired of him—she loved him. Love needs its rest, though. Aloneness freshens you. Makes you listen and look at the world properly without distraction. The wind sounds louder. Sometimes the sky has a moon all day and you remember to notice it. It can scare you, aloneness. If you start looking inside yourself for company you may not like the companion you find. Moira was glad she wasn’t a drinker. Drink turned aloneness into a curse. Everyone knew that. Makes you feel like the centre of the world and demand it answers to you. There are better measures you can take if aloneness got too much.

Moira’s favourite measure was talking to herself. It had been so long since it rained she couldn’t remember if it rained clear or white, she would say, and saunter along the roadside dreaming up a curtain of rain ahead. She would step into it and shiver. When Barleyville was prosperous all those years ago there must have been sheep on all the pastures and rose gardens around the homesteads. Gentry rode horses and well-bred ladies wore lace dresses down to their feet. People like her were housemaid material or less. Bowing and scraping. The gentry were all gone now and this was her home, she muttered to the breezes. ‘I’m the lady of the land here, so good riddance to them.’

She didn’t need to talk to herself with Mathew under her watch. She had him for an audience. And though babies can’t understand things she gave him a lesson in the family history. How there was the good side and the bad side. The bad side was her mother’s side. They all had tempers and held up milk bars and servos. It’s said Uncle Reggie sold a daughter to a rich couple in Sydney. That was the kind of people on the female line. They had no scruples to them. No ounce of decency. She worried this had come out in Zara.

The good side was her father’s. He died young of lung cancer and that was that. Moira went from stepfather to stepfather, none of whom smiled much or said a kind word. She promised to smile and make Mathew belong. ‘We’re not bad people,’ she said. ‘We’ve got the shine off us, that’s all.’

Besides, there were World War soldiers on her father’s side, which was as high as you get. ‘If someone ever puts you down you look them straight in the eye and you say, I had family die for this country, and that shuts people up. I hope your daddy came from the good side in his family. I hope that comes out in you, whoever he was.’

The job cause meant she did not want to upset Zara. She was still scared of the girl and kept bolting the front door at bedtime. They didn’t eat together—Zara was too absorbed in herself. Moira served her in the tent. Toast, noodles and tin of stockpot. A glass of Coke and a ginger nut. She put these on an even section of the plastic floor. They had one brief exchange about the complexities of gluing heels. The rubber had come off Zara’s good black shoes and wouldn’t stay on with super-gluing. Moira found two nails, a thin variety used for chair legs. She hammered and hammered and got the heels stable.

The other topic of conversation was the problem of sunbathing and freckles. Did Moira know how to sunbathe so your shoulders stay one colour? Freckles came out everywhere on Zara at the slightest sunray. Moira said no, she didn’t know a solution. They were the curse of having Irish in you, freckles. Then she did remember a method with baby oil and vinegar. They make a mixture that helps turn your skin brown. It might have the benefit of looking more coloured for the Indians.

Moira stirred some into a rinsed-out noodle tub. She applied it to Zara’s shoulders. The girl smeared it over the rest of her body and went off to lie under the sky. She took the small transistor Midge kept by his bed for listening to races. The batteries were fading and the station she found for music distorted but she didn’t care. It would do to fill her aloneness.

Moira told Mathew that the bad side of the family also thought they were God’s gift. Aunty Dot had two wobbly chins and she clipped you if you mentioned them. And wore a beanie to cover her balding head, as if that looked better. Zara had the vain strand coming through in her. ‘I don’t see a single thing wrong with freckles,’ Moira said. ‘They’re quite pretty things, freckles.’

When the air went still and dust sifted downward from the blown heights the baby bottle took on a meaty smell as it bobbled in the pot. The smell hung in the air while the bottle dried and then blended with the powder’s potatoness. Like a grown-up meal had been cooking on the gas. Maybe that was the problem getting Mathew to feed—he disliked the grown-up smell. He hated being cradled and having the teat pointed at him while you walked around. He preferred Moira reclined on her bed with her dress down and him lying between her breasts, regardless of the heat from them both. Their skins stuck together and Moira used a length of cardboard as a fan. Mathew cried and wriggled hungrily and sucked on her.

Her nipples were sunken flat in the folds of themselves but as he pressed into them they rose out and went into his mouth. He was satisfied with that for a second and then cried at sucking and getting nothing. She pushed the bottle into her breast as if part of it and he was tricked and sucked on the teat without crying. He fed that way without stopping.

15

When the men reached Mortlake the evening was red with low sun and their mouths had dried out from car wind on the sides of their faces. They felt their cheeks were cracking. Rory had never seen this part of the state. It was humpy with smooth hills and windbreak hedges, willows for trees instead of ratty gums. There were fences made of stacked stones and the fields had a green tinge to them as if rain paid visits here it wouldn’t bother paying to Barleyville. Dams actually had water in them. Houses were set further back from the road than in Barleyville. You couldn’t see a roof or wall half the time—trees surrounded them as if bunched in a vase.

They avoided driving through town—there was no point in making themselves obvious. They skirted around it by minor roads and found the turnoff that led to the Bonham Estate. It was a skinny tarsealed road with potholes. Shane was driving with Midge in the front and Rory behind. He put both hands on the steering wheel and made Rory sit up straight and listen to wisdom: ‘You can’t drive too slow on these back roads. It’s a giveaway. You look like you’re trouble. Keep a steady speed. And we don’t ever stop outside the place we’ve targeted. Just drive right by it like we’re about to do now. This is basic stuff, Rory. Remember it.’

The estate’s drive was not as grand as expected. The entrance was shaded by huge elms. The fence railings were white but the paint was dirty and peeling. The gate was made of curly iron bars and had peeled down to the rust.

It was Midge’s responsibility, as they passed by, to make a note if the letterbox had mail sticking from it. There was no sign of rolled-up newspapers or any other evidence of life. But the mail looked fresh. Not yellowy or stuffed in the box as if uncollected for days.

‘We need to find a hill or something to check it out,’ said Shane.

The road was flat and any hills were behind the paddock fences.

They came to an intersection with gravel roads running off each way. The left road rose up towards a hill where black cattle grazed behind wire. Shane decided to take that road and drive at speed as if too busy going from A to B to be anyone suspicious. Midge hung his elbows out the window so his binoculars would stay steady enough to scan the property. Wheel dust blew across his line of vision but he saw no washing on the line. No vehicle. No people.

Shane turned the car around and headed back to the tarseal past the estate entrance.

This time Midge assessed the condition of the driveway. Small branches and leaves had blown across it. No tyre ruts in the gravel to indicate recent traffic. And there! A padlocked chain around the bottom of the gate.

‘Padlocked chains are perfect for us, Rory. Have a think and tell me why.’

‘Dunno.’

‘Think.’

‘Dunno.’

‘The place is empty, that’s why it’s padlocked. It’s a dead giveaway.’

They ate their sandwiches as they drove and headed south for half an hour looking for a clearing by the road to sleep the night. They found one beside a narrow bridge that had a thread of water trickling under it. They were screened from the road by a stand of willows.