Tree Palace (21 page)

He showed her a nail where she could hang her dressing gown and went on tap duty for her. She moaned about the water being cold, but she stayed in a long time. She was using so much scented soap and fruity shampoo Midge could sniff it wafting in the breeze.

When she finally got out and clip-clopped to her tent in thongs, she didn’t say thank you, yet she didn’t complain either, which Midge considered as good as a compliment. He smiled to himself and sat under the porch rolling a cigarette, waiting for her to be ready to drive to work.

She took an hour to get made up. So many layers of tan tint for her skin and black pencil around the eyes that she looked plastic in complexion. Not aged fifteen but twenty or more. He didn’t like the look but didn’t tell her so.

As they walked to the wag Moira called after them, ‘We’re coming too. Midge, carry the little bed, please.’

The day had misted up. The sky was no longer visible. A light drizzle fell, glazing the bitumen. The night’s rain lay in strips by the side of the road and already a greenish tinge had appeared among the grey grasses. It was too cold now to have the windows down. Midge turned the heater on. Only the two front vents worked.

In the back Moira put her cardigan over Mathew and tucked it around him. He coughed and looked feverish again. Moira reprimanded him in silence. You could do that to a loved one, she reckoned, speak in silence and the other person heard.
Don’t you get sick on me, young fella. Are you saying I don’t look after you? I think I look after you perfect.

He coughed and spluttered.

Zara reached up and turned the rear-vision mirror to see him. ‘He all right?’

‘Yip.’

‘Sure?’

Here we go again, Moira said to herself. The baby hater’s asking questions. ‘He needs some warm clothes, that’s all.’

Zara turned the mirror back.

When they got into Barleyville, Midge dropped Zara off. She told him not to bother collecting her later. Brent and her were going driving. She’d probably stay the night in town with him and had a change of dress in her shoulder bag. She would not need Midge till further notice.

She got out of the wag before he had a chance to argue.

He turned to Moira—‘Zara shouldn’t be staying out with this Brent.’

Moira shrugged. ‘You going to stop her? Take me to the Salvos.’

He pulled the gear stick into first with an angry action. The wag spun its wheels on the slippery road and screeched. He said sorry to Moira and made sure he went slowly down the main street. You could smell the rain, a sewer smell through the town. Not the clean cotton water of home. More the colour of port wine someone was quitting under sufferance, bottle after bottle being emptied out upstream.

He waited in the car park while Moira took Mathew in, but it was too much for him, sitting there thinking about Zara, so he got out and walked around for a smoke. Then went up the ramp for Moira’s company.

She’d put Mathew on his back on the floor and was holding jumpsuits along his body to get the right fit. Two were already chosen though she was uncertain about a pink one. The baby clothes pile smelled faintly of bleach and sick. Some clothes were too off-smelling to consider. She found a cap and mittens. Green booties and blankets faded to the point of having no colour.

There was a time she’d have stolen some of it and paid only for a little. She worried that may be bad luck for a baby. Wearing stolen clothing might taint his innocence, even affect his health. Midge’s rotation money didn’t go into the bank till next week but she had cash left over from the food kitty because of no Shane to feed and Zara hardly around.

She gave Midge the clothes to carry and went to the counter. There was a different attendant from the last time. This lady was younger and thin with black hair tied in a bob. She wore a sling-type arrangement across her body, like you do for broken arms. It was long and wide. An infant was hunkered down in the pod of the material.

‘I like that thingummy you got on.’

‘This? Oh yes, it’s very practical.’

‘Can I look?’

Moira leaned across and liked how the sling wrapped the infant without shutting it away.

‘I just knot it behind my neck here and my hands are free to do things and still carry my Tess.’

Moira had to have one. Was there a piece of cloth in the shop that could do? The lady left the counter and she and Moira picked through old rugs and sheets. The best option was a sarong-style length of cloth, silken in texture and patterned with white circle shapes and gold squiggles. It fitted her well enough if knotted high to have the sling hang over her belly. Like a pouch between her arms. She had the lady hold the ends open and lifted Mathew and tested him in the pouch.

She walked around the shop. It cradled him just fine. A baby hammock that was snug against her and gave the sense of being pregnant on the outside of her body. There was no way a cough or fever could withstand that connection. He was looking better already. His cough rate had fallen to hardly any coughs for several minutes. Better than medicines and doctors—a simple sling.

28

When they got home they could hear Limpy going crazy long before they reached the garage’s branches. He was spinning himself around in a barking frenzy. It was the mail van backing off the road so the mailman could get his arm within reach of the letterbox. With that done he beeped the horn to tell Limpy to clear away so he could leave. He gave a wave as they moved to the road edge to let him by. Midge eased up to the box and got two letters out.

‘One from Shane.’

‘Let me look,’ said Moira. ‘Give it. Give it.’

She took the letter and attempted to read the envelope’s handwriting. She could tell it was Shane’s writing—the way the words sloped to the right and had an awkward buckle in the middle because he wrote so slow and with his tongue out. She knew what her name looked like and it was only third on the top line. Midge was number one and Rory second. She only made third and that caused her heart to miss a beat in disappointment. Third, not first. She muttered this to Mathew and closed her eyes, squeezing the lids tight to rid the hurt. She ripped the letter open and her name wasn’t there at the start either. She put her finger on the first word and used her sound-and-shape method to decipher
Dear All
. She handed Midge the letter. Correct? Correct.

He offered to sit with her and have her go through the whole two pages but she was too impatient to know what the letter said. This was no time for lessons. ‘Read it to me.’

He turned the ignition off and cleared his throat. ‘It says, “Dear All. How are you? I am fine. Midge, how is your hip? There is a bloke here with bad hips. He takes fish oil. I am not much of a letter writer. Rory, how are you? I hope you are well. Are you keeping your nose clean? I am trying, ha ha. There is a nice bloke in here who is a Rory. He does the garden. The garden here is good as there is water. They let us do gardening. It is a nice garden and there is lots to do. I wear a green tracksuit. I was a deputy cook in the kitchen yesterday. It was bad but good fun. They pay us! There is pay of $30 a week if you are lucky! We can buy cigarettes and Mars bars. There is games and TV. Some say they don’t want to go home, ha ha. They say it is a good holiday. I reckon I will put on a few pounds. Three meals a day!”’

Moira ground her teeth. ‘Well, that’s just lovely. Here we are and there he is on holiday.’

‘He probably don’t mean it,’ said Midge. ‘You know, he’s just trying to have us not worry. You know Shane. All talk.’

‘He hasn’t said a word to me. No
Hello, Moira
. No nothing.’

Midge turned to page two and read: ‘There are clever sorts in here. I met a bank manager. He cleans. The floors are very clean. I hope this letter finds you all well. Midge, say hello to Moira for me. Shane.’

‘That’s it?’

‘No. He says we can visit.’

‘But that’s it.’

He looked again at the pages. ‘Yeah. But it’s good he’s well.’

‘I hardly rate a mention?’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘Like he tacked it on.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Read that bit again. Where it says me.’

‘Midge, say hello to Moira—’

‘
Midge, say hello to Moira.
Can’t even say it to me straight. It’s through you.’

‘He knows I’d read it to you.’

‘Tacked on the end. And no
Love, Shane
. Just plain
Shane
.’

Midge opened the second letter. It was from the prison people advising of visiting times. ‘They say we don’t need an appointment. They’ve put us on the visitor list and we just turn up and they go get Shane. Saturdays, Sundays or Mondays.’

Moira lifted Mathew from the little bed and put him in the sling. She slid from the wag and headed for the house, muttering to the baby about being tacked on the end. Even if she gave Shane the benefit of the doubt, even if he was trying to ease their worry, what he’d done for her was the very opposite. He’d tacked her on the end like she was nothing to him. She’d never forced herself to feel strongly about Shane. She simply felt strong and it came natural. Was
he
forcing himself to feel strong about her? Was he done with her and using the letter as a sign, tacking her on the end as polite duty?

‘I’m going to ask him straight,’ she said to Mathew. She nodded as if he’d answered and was egging her on. ‘Treating me like that. Tacking me on the end.’

She slapped a piece of paper on the kitchen table and took a pen in her right hand. It must be possible to will the words to come. When you really need them to say how you feel the pen surely can make them happen. There!
Dear
was no bother.
Dear Shane.
Shakily printed but legible.

It was as far as she got. No amount of will could get her past the opening. She threw the pen down and it bounced off the table. She swept the paper to the ground. She had a better idea than stupid writing. ‘He said for us to visit? Well, Mathew, I’ll visit all right. I’ll visit with my face done up, and my hair done up as well. I’ll let him see what he’s missing.’

Her eyes welled. She didn’t want Mathew to sense her sniffling. She turned to face the wall and sobbed to it. The mattress was leaning there, the rain stains on it lighter in colour. She patted them and they’d dried, except at their darker, dirty edges. She took a hold and lifted the spongy thing upright. Dragged it. Aimed it at the bedsprings and let it fall. She gave it a shove into place with her knees and picked Mathew up and lay with him on top of her. He rose up and down on the tide of her breathing. They breathed in time, slow and deep.

Moira slipped into sleep. Just a moment’s doze, but full of dreams: of her breasts making a dripping sound as if filling, and hurting from the process.

She woke. She’d had these same dreams for four sleeps now and the hurting stayed with her on waking. This was the worst episode. She bent forward to get relief, let her breasts hang. She rubbed them with her palms and could feel they had a bulging shape. A prickle of heat stung her forehead. Fear that the bulge might be growths. Who would look after Mathew if there were growths in her? She tilted him so he slid off her belly. She stood and braced herself. She got Shane’s shaving mirror and closed her eyes and unzipped her dress.

She opened her eyes. Both breasts were definitely bigger. Especially her left. It was bulging and heavier than normal. Much heavier. But it did not feel hard as a growth might feel hard. Her nipples were darker and thicker and tingled. She squeezed them and a tearing sensation rippled through her breastbone and into her nipples. On the tip of her left breast a creamy droplet had formed. She put her finger on it. The droplet stuck to her touch. She licked it. It tasted sugary and watery. She squeezed again and another droplet came. A bead of them fell into her hand. Milk of herself. ‘Look what we done, Mathew.’ The beads became a trickle. ‘Look what we done. Look what we done.’

She lifted him, cradled him. ‘Wanna try some? Wanna try?’ She held him closer until he was milk to mouth. He gave a suck. He stopped sucking and Moira felt a shiver go through his body. He took the nipple again and sucked. He fed and the trickle became a flow.

29

When Mathew finished feeding Moira was so hungry she filled up on bread and honey. A gleam was in her eyes like two spots of light on the mirror’s glass. Her skin shone; she had rosy cheeks and smoothness where usually there were sun cracks and blotches.

She thought the milk would go away as quick as it happened but it stayed all day. And the next day. Should she go to a doctor? She decided not to. Why involve doctors if she felt so good? Mathew got diarrhoea, yellow and rank and squirting everywhere, but that only lasted a day and his insides adjusted.

She intended to see Shane and show him that she had become a special woman. We all think ourselves special but not everyone can be miraculous and have the proof beneath their clothing. ‘Me, boneheaded Moira, has the proof on her.’

She did worry, though. Shane might think she was a freak. It might frighten him off. Be too much for him, too weird. She swung between showing him and keeping it secret. She did not know what to do.

Midge wanted to know if he should ready the wag, get the ball rolling on visiting Shane. She kept the door locked on him, protecting her secret. She served up meals but was unsocial, which he couldn’t understand. ‘Shouldn’t we be getting the ball rolling?’ he kept saying, annoyed. ‘Don’t you want to visit Shane?’

Her first reaction was to say yes. Then the swinging took over and she changed her mind. Not just because she was worried about weirdness. She was not above playing a game with Shane: why not make
him
feel tacked on the end? Why not make him wait a while before she visits?

She was jealous of Midge for being mentioned in the letter first, and there was pleasure in seeing him frustrated by her swinging. ‘Don’t you want to see Shane?’ he asked again, bewildered. He had a downcast look on his face, which she enjoyed. He was being hurt on Shane’s behalf, which was as good as hurting Shane, and Shane deserved it.

She was bursting to tell her secret to Midge. See his old jaw drop. But if she did then the pleasure of having a secret would be gone. And he might think her a freak too, so what would she gain? Instead she allowed herself to gleam. ‘Do you see anything different about me?’