Tree Palace (29 page)

Midge wanted to glimpse through the gap in the door. ‘How’s she doing, Moira?’

‘She’s doing perfect. Don’t peep and pry.’

She put her hand on his chest and with a light push moved him back a step and gave him the card. ‘That law Shane was going on about. You know, where you get land for nothing.’

‘The adverse one?’

‘Let’s see if Shane’s really on to something.’

43

Next day Midge drove them to town. Zara with Mathew in the back in his little bed. Moira beside her saying, ‘I’m not interfering, sweetie, but put another blanket on him. When he wakes up shove that bottle in his mouth. He’ll get skinny if he don’t feed better.’ Rory was in the front—Moira had let him off school again. ‘Shane would want you to learn the tricks to it, this law,’ she said. He could stay off school till further notice. This was a law Rory liked.

They parked at the phone box near the lawn-bowls corner. Midge put the coins in and dialled and gave the receiver to Moira.

‘I’m sorry, who am I speaking to?’ asked the receptionist.

‘Moira. Moira Duggan.’

‘Who?’

‘Shane Whittaker’s de facto. I need to speak to Miss Kay about adverse possession.’

There was silence on the line. Then: ‘Hello. Elisha Kay speaking.’

‘It’s Moira from Tree Palace. You visited us. You dealt with Shane. Remember? Barleyville. You gave us your card? We’re hoping you’ll help us with this thing called adverse possession.’

The money ran out and the phone clicked off. They scratched around for more coins and called and called. The receptionist said Elisha Kay was busy.

They drove to the supermarket and Midge went in to buy supplies. It upset Zara and angered Moira to be so near the supermarket but Mathew needed formula. Midge took an empty can with him so he got the right brand. They tried ringing Elisha again later in the day but even Moira’s crying act got her nowhere.

It took two more days of calling to speak to her again. Elisha Kay was irritable when she answered, sharp in the voice and crude: ‘You’re giving the receptionist the shits, all your calling. Anyway, adverse possession, you reckon. I’ve never done any adverse possession. I’ll give it to you people, you’re a crafty lot.’ She said she’d be in Barleyville next week on Wednesday. Meet her at the council offices at 11 a.m.

A crafty lot. Moira wanted that to go in a letter to Shane. It was a compliment: crafty means you use your brains. This business would probably come to nothing but at least they had a compliment out of it. And from a smart person like a lawyer. She made Midge write that in the opening lines. ‘Tell Shane I said I think he’s very, very clever.’

Rory said, ‘Tell him I’m toughening up my hands for heavy lifting. I’m using Limpy’s tennis ball. I’m squeezing it.’

Midge was more interested in boasting about his dealing with Tubbsy. ‘I think Shane’ll want to know
that
instead of tennis balls.’

The letter took a few days to write because Moira kept wanting to add things and have Midge rewrite it so there was the right amount of missing Shane in it and the right amount of
we’re doing fine
. She wanted him to know that Zara was trying hard at mothering. A bit quiet and withdrawn but you couldn’t fault her otherwise. She hoped that might warm him towards the girl and they might get along better when he was out.

On the final day of rewriting there was wonderful news involving Zara to tell him. ‘You know how I didn’t have points enough to say I was me at the prison? Well, I got enough points now,’ she dictated to Midge. ‘Zara and me was going through all my years of stuff, old bags and bundles, little boxes of photos and rubbish, and Zara said, “What’s this?” And I said, “I don’t know. Just a piece of paper.” She said, “No, it’s not. It’s your birth certificate, Mum.” What about that! I got points enough now to have identity. Thanks to Zara I can waltz into prison like I belong.’

They posted the letter on the way to the Wednesday meeting. Or as Moira preferred to put it, ‘The meeting with our lawyer.’ She’d dressed in her cherry-blossom purchase, washed her hair and put on a dignified dab or two of make-up. Zara was in her best jeans and white lacy blouse. The tattoo on her arm had healed into a cheap-looking scrawl. Moira made her wear a cardigan to hide it. Midge wore Shane’s coat and tie. Rory wanted to wear them but had to settle for his cleanest board shorts.

Moira was pleased they’d made the effort because Elisha turned up in a red tartan skirt and red stockings. A cream top with black leather waistcoat. She had a red band across her hair and those red fancy boots on her feet. ‘Now
that’s
what I call class,’ Moira said with a flourish of her hand.

Elisha didn’t respond, didn’t want to waste time with chitchat, going by her bossy manner. She was carrying a silvery metal briefcase and put it on the council office’s counter and flicked it open. She took her business card from a pocket in the case and gave it to the woman who served her. ‘These are my clients,’ she said.

Moira lifted herself on her toes and smiled and nodded to Midge. ‘Clients. Like the sound of that.’

‘We want to check a land-registry title. If you bring a local map, we’ll show you the place we mean.’

The woman hesitated and mumbled something about not being authorised and not having those records at hand. Elisha interrupted her and told her to fetch someone who
was
authorised. ‘These are public records which you can access electronically and we want to see them.’ She spoke as if in a filthy bad temper but it was more professional than real, Moira realised—at one stage Elisha winked at her and said, ‘Bureaucrats! You’ve got to hassle them or they fuck you about.’

Such a classy girl, such a foul mouth. Moira decided it must be a trick to sound tough and not too classy.

It took half an hour to organise but a local map was eventually spread on the counter and the location of Tree Palace was circled in black ink. An office assistant was sent to search for the title on a backroom computer.

‘And neighbouring titles too,’ Elisha called out. ‘In case a neighbour owns the place.’

Rory wandered off down the corridor and into the library and poked around. Elisha Kay went outside for a cigarette and to check her phone messages. When she came back in she impatiently tapped her fingernail on the wood counter, saying, ‘They’re taking their time. I got a divorce to sign off on at 12.30. A client’s, not mine.’ She said at 1 p.m. she had a drunk-and-disorderly. At 1.30 a dispute over child support.

The title information arrived. Five pages. Elisha Kay studied them a minute. ‘Parish of Barleyville, Loop Road, Lot 902.’ She put her elbows on the counter and studied the pages again, flicking them back and forth. ‘Shit.’

‘What’s wrong?’ said Moira.

‘Nothing’s wrong. Your bloke Shane might be on to something. There’s been no movement on this title for fifty-seven years. Nearest neighbours don’t own it. No rates paid for yonks by the looks of it. To all intents and purposes, dormant and up for grabs.’

Moira gripped Midge’s arm and jigged on the spot. Midge almost cried from pride in Shane.

Elisha Kay asked for the title to be photocopied so she and Moira could have one. She said it was up to them now—if they wanted to live there for fifteen years they might well become the owners. ‘What I’ll need to do is organise a statutory declaration from you all to say you squat there, or whatever you call it. We’ll have to survey the land at some stage. Get its measurements done. There’ll be a small cost to that. Make sure you put a decent fence up around the boundary.’

‘We’ll take a drive and we’ll get some posts and rails somewhere,’ said Midge.

Elisha advised them to put money down as a gesture towards paying rates. Not much money. ‘Rates on a place like that? We’re talking small.’

Midge reached into his pocket and produced a crumpled twenty-dollar bill and some coins. ‘That’s all I got until rotation on Thursday. How much we got to pay you?’

‘Nothing. Pro bono. I’m amused they’ve got this law.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘You crafty bastards. Good luck with it.’

Zara stepped beside Midge and said, ‘I got money. I got a hundred and sixty. I got it buried in my tent. I saved it.’

44

They paid twenty dollars and planned to top that up with some of Zara’s funds next time they were in town. When asked what name to put on the receipt for the twenty dollars, Moira said, ‘Everyone.’ She told Midge to oversee that everyone was written down. Shane’s name at the top, because it was all Shane’s idea, this adverse business. Her name second. ‘Make sure they spell me right, Midge.’

He leant over the counter to watch the office assistant tap their names into the computer. He pointed, ‘Shane Whittaker. With two
t
s. That’s right. Moira’s got two
g
s in Duggan.’

He nodded, satisfied. ‘Who goes third on the list?’

Moira said, ‘You go.’

He smiled and said, ‘Midge Flynn has two
n
s.’

Fourth should be Zara because of her putting in money for rates. Mathew should go next, right under Zara. Midge scratched his chin. ‘What’s Mathew’s last name?’

‘Um. Ah. I think,’ said Moira. ‘I think it should be the same as Zara’s.’

Midge nodded. So did Zara.

‘That’s Bunce with a
c
, not an
s
.’

Last of all, Rory. ‘That’s Rory Spinks. With a
k
in it.’

‘We’re all there?’ said Moira.

‘All there.’

The office assistant swivelled the screen so they could see. ‘Come here, Zara. Have a look. Rory, come have a look. Where’s Rory? Rory!’

Midge skipped into a slow jog to find the boy in case he was off being trouble. He found him coming out of the library, shoving open the heavy glass door.

‘What you been up to?’

‘Nothin’.’

‘Rory.’

‘Nothin’.’

‘Come and see your name. Come on.’

Moira had a feeling of floating instead of walking. It blurred her eyes and made her think she was missing a step every second stride. Getting in the wag, sliding in beside Zara, she worried she might miss the seat and land in the gutter. Everything was different now. Driving out of town—past the silos, the pigeons, the brown flat plains speckled with green—was driving to a real home. The sky was like water, blue and foamy.
That
wasn’t different. How many times had she yelled at the sky for being too hot or too wild with its wind. She could still yell at it and still it wouldn’t listen. She could yell for fifteen years and it wouldn’t. Fifteen years. She hadn’t lived anywhere that long. Not even five years. Not even one. It was frightening to be that connected suddenly. She wasn’t sure she liked it. A responsibility you didn’t have to take on. Not like people where you can kiss them and hold them or give them a wash and they listen to you. The land won’t even know it’s owned. It’ll hear Midge saying, ‘
Our
Tree Palace’—he was saying it now as he drove—and it wouldn’t even listen. More selfish than people.

But she couldn’t wait to tell Shane. She held a copy of the title on her knees and folded it carefully. ‘I want to see his face when we tell him. I want to show him this title and see his face.’

Rory turned and said to her, ‘Look at this.’ It was a book, a hardback with a picture of chandeliers on the front. ‘Pinched it from the library. I don’t have to go back to school ever, I reckon. This is what I should be learning. Antiques. There’s pages and pages of antiques in here and I should be learning them.’

As they reached the crossroads and turned onto the Tree Palace road Moira told Midge to slow down and enjoy the moment. ‘Stop here. I want to walk up to
our
front door.’

She got out and invited Zara to do the same. The girl accepted, though she said she was feeling funny—must be carsick or the excitement of the day. She was glad to be walking along, the breeze on her face, carrying Mathew who was waking and gurgling.

The wag shuddered over a ridge in the dirt, making magpies flap up from the road onto the leafless limbs of a dead gum. Magpies and every other bird would be like guests now. If they were flying on our land, Moira joked, they’d have to ask for permission to fly.

Too right, said Midge. And people better ask permission to visit. ‘We can put up a sign,’ he said. ‘No trespassers.’ He chuckled. ‘That’s a laugh coming from us.’

Moira and Zara walked ahead. Midge followed them in first gear. He was nodding but not really listening to Rory read out bits of his book. ‘
Mahogany is a des
…
desi
…What’s that word?’

‘Desirable.’

‘
Desirable wood bec
…
because
…
of its
…What’s that word?’

‘Hue.’

‘What’s a hue?’

Just then, Zara appeared to lose her balance and almost fell. Moira held her up. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Feel funny.’

‘What kind of funny?’

‘Sort of sore?’

‘Where?’

‘Here.’

‘Breasts?’

‘Yeah.’

‘They feel funny?’

‘Yeah. Different. An ache.’

‘Kind of a full feeling?’

‘Yeah.’

She told the girl to sit down on a clump of rye grass. She waved to Midge. ‘You and Rory drive on. We’ll see you later.’

‘Something wrong, Moira?’

‘No. Do as I say. Go. We want to be private for a while.’

‘Sure?’

‘I said, we want it private.’

Midge drove past them and changed into second gear. Rory said, ‘What’s a hue?’

‘I don’t know. A hue is a hue.’

Mathew was awake and crying. Zara put her hand across her front. ‘You think it’s happening?’

‘I don’t know.’

Moira told her to loosen her top.

‘Let me look.’

‘You think it’s happening?’

Her right breast, small and white, had a larger look.

Moira touched it. ‘I think it might be.’

‘You think?’

‘I think it’s happening.’

She touched Zara’s face. She saw it in her face. Eyes gleaming. Skin gleaming.

The bloom.