Tree Palace (2 page)

Moira called him again and took two bags of groceries from the car and put them on the ground. She went to Zara’s side of the vehicle and said, ‘Come on, out you come, sweetie.’ She clapped her hands softly in a bossy fashion. Bossy but smiling and enjoying herself. She reached to the back seat and said, ‘All right there, baby?’ She unbuckled a baby capsule, slid it onto her thigh and lifted it out. ‘Not too hot, little man?’

She puckered her lips and blew air into the capsule, which to her sounded an inhuman name for a baby thing. She preferred ‘the little bed’. ‘Zara, sweetie, I think you should carry the wee man and say to him, Here we are home. He’s sleeping but he’ll feel your voice.’

Rory tucked his knives into the drawstring of his trackie pants and scuffed up to the car. His runners trapped little stones in their tread and always made his scuffing louder. Moira nodded at the bags of groceries. ‘Use your muscles on those.’

Saying something like that—‘Use your muscles’—to Rory would normally make Zara snigger. He saw she wasn’t sniggering. She was staying in the car, staring directly ahead as if still travelling.

Moira nudged him. ‘Go on. Carry the groceries.’

He took a bag in each hand and groaned about them being too heavy. Moira said not to be a sook and just carry them. ‘When you’ve done that there’s a pram in the back. Take it out and put it in the tent.’

Rory groaned again. He shuffled past Zara making a heaving noise, hoisting the bags up like barbells for her amusement. She usually shook her head in mockery at him but didn’t bother this time, which made him shuffle faster to be funnier.

Moira lifted the baby from the little bed and held it so its head nestled her jaw and her fingers could keep its neck straight. She backed away from the car and rocked on each foot, saying, ‘There’s the boy.’ A spinning top of dust swept by in a gust and she held the baby closer till it passed. The smell of smoke was in the gust. It was bushfire season, but this smelled far enough off. She rocked slowly towards Zara. ‘Can’t just sit there, sweetie. Out you come. Come on, out.’

Zara did as she was told—she got out and closed the car door. She put her thumbs in her belt loops above her hind pockets, looked down at the ground and fidgeted her toes in her thongs to stop the tiny stones from catching under them.

Moira cradled the baby’s furry skull in her palm. She smelled it and said, ‘So milky and clean, eh, Zara? About as clean as anyone ever gets.’ She leant forward and held out her elbows, directing Zara to take the baby.

Rory bustled past them to the back of the car. He manoeuvred a green pram, like a mini tent with wheels, out onto the ground. It was folded up and he couldn’t get it to wheel without unfolding it. Unfolding it was like trying to unclench pincers, so he dragged it as it was.

‘Don’t drag it,’ Moira said. ‘You’ll rip it. Here, leave it. You’re as useless…I’ll do it.’ She wanted to yell at him but not near the baby. She yanked the pram upright into position and told Rory to wheel it gently to the tent. ‘I said, gently.’

The boy scuffed his feet with extra slowness which to him equated to gently and he decided that Zara looked like she always did, not any older for having a baby. Moira had her hand on Zara’s shoulder, telling her to walk towards the porch to avoid the heat. ‘Don’t keep his face covered,’ she said, fingering the rug the baby was swaddled in. ‘Got to let him breathe.’

She was trying to get Zara to smile but instead it looked like she might cry again. She’d cried in the car and her eyes had the runs from make-up. Moira reached under and around the baby and took the weight and Zara let go.

‘Ho, ho, what a load, aren’t you, wee man? A nice big boy.’

She kissed the baby on the face which was puffed and pouted in sleep. ‘So, sweetie, we’ve decided on the Mathew name once and for all, no going back?’

Zara nodded.

‘Good. No going back. You know I like Mathew. It’s got a touch of the old-fashioned and everyone’s making up names now… Saxxon, Braython, you know?’

Zara nodded.

‘Mathew, say hello to your uncle Rory. Rory, come here and say hello to your wee nephew. And don’t shorten it to Mat. Mat’s a thing you wipe your feet on. It’s
Mathew
. Rory, come here and say hello.’

Rory peeped into the swaddling and said hello and how you doing. He started laughing at the bald amount of hair on the skull.

‘I’m going to put him out of the sun,’ Moira said.

She went towards the tent and stopped and made a flicking motion with her head to signal for Zara to follow. ‘You coming, Zara?’

Zara nodded that she was but not this second. In a minute she’d come. Moira took a slow breath and let it out as a sigh.

‘Moody mums, eh, Mathew? I’m going to put you down in the tent. It’s hot but not too hot in there, wee man. Come with Nana.’

The tent’s flap was tied open like a triangular door. It was dark inside but not blinding dark because the plastic side window was open.

Rory said, ‘You going back to school when it starts up, Zar?’

‘What?’

‘Only a few weeks off. You’ll probably get out of going back. You wanted to leave anyway?’

‘Hadn’t decided.’

‘Soon as you could, you said. School could go fuck itself. Fuck waiting till you’re seventeen.’

He started speaking in that way he did with no commas and no thoughts in a clear order. An excitable jumble about an idea he had: If he did so bad at school they’d have to kick him out, wouldn’t they? ‘Do they kick you out, Zara? I want to do bad so they got to kick me out.’

He celebrated getting kicked out by pretending to throw his knives at her. She flinched and swore at him. He complained that he was joking and didn’t deserve swearing.

Moira came out of the tent and told him to stop being a pest.

‘I wasn’t.’

She asked him where Shane was.

Rory said he was off somewhere and Midge was off somewhere with him. He said they were making a storage shed in the bush for their business instead of leaving it under a tarp. Ten minutes’ walk over the rise.

‘Zara, sweetie. It’s nice and comfy in there. You can go in. I’m going to get Shane’s dry-cleaning from the car. You go in, lie down.’

She walked over to the car and fiddled getting the coat hanger off the hook above the back seat. Zara sat under the porch and lit a cigarette.

‘Was hospital good?’ asked Rory. ‘Getting waitered on and stuff?’

Zara dragged on her cigarette and didn’t reply.

Moira came back with the dry-cleaning in cellophane. Shane’s coat from Shepparton when they got him for those Masonic Hall doors. Coats work in courtrooms—coat, tie and a shave. Moira cut his hair and he looked perfect and got his sentence suspended and no fine. He spilt beer over the coat during celebrations. Always got to have a clean coat and tie ready, that was Shane’s motto.

‘Zara, go lay down will you while Mathew’s sleeping. Might as well while he’s quiet.’

‘Is she going back to school?’ Rory asked.

‘Forget about that now.’

‘Reckon she’d cop some shit.’

‘I said forget it. And watch your mouth.’

‘Well she would. And some of those chicks at school gave her shit when she swelled up.’

Moira took a few steps his way with her hand out like she’d belt him. ‘Go away, Rory.’

‘I didn’t mean nothing.’

‘Find something to do. Go ask Shane for something to do.’

He did as she ordered, scuffing and mumbling down the side of the house. Then he turned around and stood with his hands on his head like Simon Says. ‘Is she going back to school? I only mean it’s better if she don’t. Let me handle the shit alone. I can handle it better if she’s not there. People expect you to stand up for your sister.’

Moira had her back to him and kept it that way. She knew he was pretending to throw a knife at her or giving the finger but she didn’t react. She ignored him, which was the best way with Rory. She took a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. The pockets were big in this dress—the one with flowers patterns, her favourite—and the lighter always got lost down the bottom. She dug around for it and lit up and sat on the deckchair next to Zara.

‘You’ve fed Mathew, haven’t you? Of course you’ve fed him or he’d be crying. He’ll be awake soon and bawling so you better keep your liquids up. You want a cup of something?’

Zara stubbed out her cigarette in the dirt beside her feet. ‘I want another ciggie.’ She pushed her hand down her jean pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack.

‘How many you had today?’

‘Not many.’

‘Well, keep count.’

Zara opened the crumpled lid but the only cigarette left was broken at the filter. She said shit to it and threw it to the ground. Moira bent over and picked it up and placed it in the ashtray on the stump. It was really an old chipped dinner plate but it was good for butts.

‘You know what I think?’ said Moira. ‘I think Mathew is the best name in the world. Not too different and not too ordinary. You know what I felt when I was picking you up? I felt excited.’

‘Can I bludge a smoke?’

‘I’ve got used to the idea of having a little Mathew around. Shane’s settling down to the idea too. I say to him, You’ll be a sort of granddad, Shane. He don’t flare up. He don’t go all gooey either. But he don’t flare up. Good sign.’

Zara held out her hand and snapped her fingers impatiently for a cigarette. Moira reached into her pocket.

‘How many you had today?’

‘Not many.’

‘Your limit’s meant to be five. Nurse said not at all, but if you have to, five.’

She took one from her pack and lit it for her.

‘That’s number two. Nurse said I got to mother the mother.’

Zara crossed an arm over her knees and rested her head there.

‘You all right in the heat, sweetie?’

‘Just tired.’

‘That nurse woman. She didn’t ask too many questions, did she?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What questions?’

‘You know, how we were set up. Money and stuff.’

‘Asked me the same. I’m only thinking of the baby’s welfare, she said. Know what I said? I said, Oh, can the baby go on welfare too? That shut her up quick smart. You know what I told her? I told her we’d just absorb little Mathew into the family. They can sneer all they like, her type, but that’s what we are, close enough anyway. Family.’

She leant over and rubbed Zara’s back. ‘You’re home now. We take care of our own.’

She kissed Zara’s hair, which had the mint smell of hospital soap. ‘You sure you don’t need some liquids?’

‘I need sleep,’ Zara mumbled into her knees. ‘I’m dizzy.’

‘Probably the smokes.’

‘I got to sleep off this sickness.’

‘You’re not sick—you’re a mum.’

‘It’s a sickness.’

‘It’s not a sickness. Don’t talk sickness.’

Moira stood up and squashed her smoke into the ashtray plate. ‘You better eat plenty, that’s the secret. You’re starting to thin back to normal and you need your energy. You don’t want to end up too thin. Not with Mathew needing you to feed from. I’m going to get you some liquids.’

The house had the blue look that floated inside when the falling sun spread out along the horizon like a blast of light. It caught the edge of the caravan and shone up under the porch and in the windows. It was a buckled blue nearest the kitchen section because Shane had not yet found glass to fit that window. He’d got glass for the other one and puttied it in place himself but the kitchen window made do with two layers of glad wrap taped together in patchwork style. If the wind came up the layers blew out and Moira fastened the shutter Shane had made from slats of wood left over from building the tank stand. In calm weather the caravan’s blue was reflected inside as now. It bent and rippled in the patchwork and made watery patterns on the wall. It was so blue on clear days that the flame from the camp cooker mingled with it and couldn’t be seen. You could forget it was on and waste a whole gas cylinder.

The jerry cans were translucent plastic but the blueness coloured them as well, darkening the water within and making it look pleasantly cooler. They didn’t keep ice so that had to do them—imagining coolness as they pushed the rubber tap top and poured. Moira poured a glass for Zara, mixed with orange cordial to hide any plastic taste. She cocked her head in the direction of the door but didn’t take her eyes off the pouring in case she spilt a drop.

She took a biscuit from the stack of tins on the bench that served as cupboards. A ginger nut and a sticky one with lemon cream. One of the flies buzzing around the tins flew up and hit her lip. She puffed it aside and waved others from the biscuits, then ignored them when they settled straight back. She was used to flies till they weren’t flies anymore, just part of the air.

She came out the door and there was Zara doubled over and retching. Moira put the glass on the doorstep but rotten dips in the timber made it tip over. The biscuits got crushed in the effort to catch it.

‘What’s wrong? You want something to be sick in?’

Zara shook her head. ‘I need to sleep.’

She held the cigarette out for Moira to take and get rid of. Moira stubbed it and knelt and rubbed Zara’s back, up and down the knobby ridge the girl’s spine made from bending so far forward. ‘I did a session at the laundromat with your sheets. They’re nice and ready for you.’

‘Don’t rub my back. Don’t want to be touched.’

‘Let’s go and get you in the tent.’

‘No.’

‘If you want sleep then that’s the place for you.’

‘No.’

‘It’s nice and ready.’

‘I mean by myself. Somewhere to sleep by myself.’

‘There’s only Mathew in there with you.’

‘By myself.’

There was guttural force in her tone. She jabbed her elbow up to make Moira’s hand stop rubbing.

‘I’ve arranged things in there for you, Zara. It’s clean and comfy.’

‘It’s all over now. My body’s back to normal like it never happened.’

‘Never happened? That’s silly talk.’

There was a bulge showing under Zara’s blouse, a loose bit of skin from her stomach that was obvious when she didn’t sit up straight. Up straight it couldn’t be noticed. Zara sat very straight and patted her stomach and put her fingers under the blouse to test the looseness. She made a face, a disgusted look, when she felt the spongy texture of herself. She smiled when she took her fingers out of her blouse and patted her stomach and pushed it smooth.