Tree Palace (6 page)

‘Shut up about TV screens. He’s saying my Shane and my daughter, and all you think about is TV screens.’

‘Sorry, Moira. Tubbsy’s not a bad sort. It’ll blow over, that’s all I mean.’

She could have cuffed Midge, the fool. She walked off instead. Into the house to get her smokes. It looked like only half the amount in the pack was there that should be. Rory—he must have stolen a fistful this time. He tears a strip from the flint side of the matchbox to light his matches and sneaks off smoking like he’s the master thief of Barleyville. She’d deal with him later.

Midge was wary to go near her but wanted to let her know he meant no insult.

‘No sense in being bitter, that’s all I’m saying,’ he said, stepping into the house. ‘You’re right, Tubbsy’s a pig. But no sense in being bitter.’

He thought he’d try steering her away from the subject of Tubbsy. ‘Moira, you and me is step-relations, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And that means Zara is too. And now Mathew.’

‘Yip.’

‘Family. Close as you can get. So I was wondering. Can I watch Zara feed the baby?’

‘What?’

‘Not now. I mean sometime. When she’s settled back home.’

‘No. What kind of question’s that? It’s a private time.’

‘I’m just interested because I never seen people do it. Seen heaps of animals—foals, lambs. Not people.’

‘What are you, a perv?’

‘No, no, course not.’

‘You will not watch Zara feeding Mathew.’

He said he was sorry for asking and that she didn’t have to use a word like ‘perv’. He waited for her to say she was sorry.

Midge sat at the kitchen table. It was a table meant for classrooms—Shane took it from a school near Avoca that was closed up. You could lift the top and put your valuables there. Only Midge did. He kept an envelope of photos from his jockey days. And the write-up he’d got in the Swan Hill press when he won by three lengths on Horsequake. It was his only write-up and his only winner but more than Moira had ever done, he brooded. You think you’re true family with someone and they won’t even say they’re sorry for calling you a perv.

Then he noticed Mathew through the bedroom door. A miniature bed beside the big bed. Which made him laugh, as if the little bed was the bigger bed’s young. And he saw Mathew was in it and he said sorry to Moira for laughing too loudly. He whispered sorry twice more and asked if he could go take a look. Moira nodded and led him into the bedroom. ‘This is Midge,’ she said, smoothing a wisp of silk hair on the baby’s crown. ‘Midge is part of the family too.’

Midge’s face crinkled with smiling. His whiskered skin folded upwards and inwards in deep rows. His brown buckled teeth were all on show. Moira’s introduction had taken the wind from him. He needed his puffer. His puffer was in the caravan and he wasn’t about to go and get it. He grinned, short of breath and pink in the eyes from happiness. He was sorry he’d ever had a brooding thought about Moira.

‘Tell you what, you can have a hold. You want a hold?’ she said.

Midge shook his head. ‘No, no. He looks too—peaceful. I might drop him.’ He was wheezing and coughed into his sleeve.

Moira slid her fingers under Mathew and lifted him to be against her neck. She took a step towards Midge and he stepped away, then he stepped forward as Moira reassured him that he wouldn’t drop the baby. All he had to do was make a cradle of his arms and be gentle. He made the cradle and whispered that he would. He took the baby’s weight and said, ‘I’ve got him. I’m holding him. Am I doing it right?’

‘Yip,’ Moira nodded. ‘How’s he feel?’

There were no words in him to make a sentence. This kind of holding was beyond language. He stood as if connected to the world’s holy scheme.

‘Tubbsy? You took on Tubbsy?’ Rory said, walking backwards in front of Shane while Shane was walking from the toilet. Rory had wanted to sit on the toilet and was waiting for Shane to finish but that urge disappeared on seeing Shane’s face. The boy’s mouth was wide open with awe and Shane slowed his pace so Rory didn’t trip and stop talking. He was enjoying the admiration. Just a boy’s admiration, but that was the best kind, he thought, because boys don’t hide it. When they made you a hero they made it obvious.

‘Hey, Mum, Shane took on Tubbsy.’

‘I know, I know,’ she said, with her eyes closed, and a shake of her head. The anger was false, for Rory’s sake, so that he didn’t think she praised fighting. She really wanted to kiss Shane for this fight, a fight for family honour. A fight that told Jim Tubbs and anyone else that they may not be angels but they had standards.

Then she did kiss him. She took his hand as he walked past her and lightly kissed his knuckles, their sticky wounds. She pulled a deckchair into a strip of shade shaped like a long trapdoor in the ground by the side of the caravan. The trapdoor was getting shorter by the minute but it would last for breakfast, then twist into other shapes around the back of the caravan, branch-fingers by the dozens, twig-toes.

She told Rory to come into the house with her and get some corn flakes. He complained about the long-life milk not tasting like proper milk, as he did every morning. On this morning Moira asked him to consider Mathew and not wake him with whining complaints. She told him to be more generous with the sugar to sweeten the milk flavour and go outside, quietly.

She prepared corn flakes for Shane and put on some extra sugar for him. He never complained about the milk, but Moira wanted to spoil him. She took the bowl out and stood looking at his face before she handed it over. His left cheek looked so painful she felt an urge to kneel close and spoon the corn flakes up to his mouth. Instead she said, ‘I’m going to clean you up.’

She asked Midge to go to the barbeque and light the cooker. He was still in a dreamy state and she had to ask him twice before he jolted himself into stride. She went into the house for a saucepan of water. The jerry-can water was tepid but Moira wanted it hotter. And wanted something to put in it for those wounds. All they had was the methylated spirits they used for cleaning the glass in leadlight windows. That would be good enough, she decided. The smell would be awful, and the stinging too, but Shane would pride himself on not wincing, especially with Rory watching.

When the water had boiled she dipped a metal mixing bowl in and filled it to half, and into that she poured the metho, two splashes of it. She stirred the metho around with a rag, the water burning her fingers. She carried this to Shane and began dabbing and wiping his face in between his mouthfuls. He sucked air through his teeth when the metho stung, but did so grinning at Rory as if performing pain rather than feeling it. When Rory asked what the fight was about Shane said it was over nothing. ‘Just piss-talk.’

Saying ‘piss-talk’ made him wince as if truly suffering the metho. He said, ‘Sorry, Moira,’ and winked at Rory. She hated swearing. If someone swore around her they’d given up caring about her, that was her view. She wasn’t worth respectful language to them. She was too low a person to be bothered with. ‘Piss-talk’ was down the rung on the scale of swearing but she said thanks for the apology as if it were higher.

Shane held up his hand for her to stop dabbing. He watched Zara walk from the tent and stand in the blaring sun. She rubbed her waking face and yawned. She had on her T-shirt and knickers. Her thin white legs still had sleep in them and were slow and shaky in making steps. Rory said to her, ‘A fight,’ to explain Shane’s face. Midge was at the barbeque stirring a teabag in a cup of water. He wished he’d put his helmet on this morning. He’d been so dreamy he’d forgotten about his greyness. He used his fingers for a comb and said, ‘Morning, Zara. I seen Mathew. I went in and held him. He’s a fine fellow, that one. How you doing?’

Moira told him not to rush at her with so much chatter. She put down her rag and bowl. ‘Put on your dressing gown, Zara.’

The girl yawned, rubbed her eyes and didn’t move. Moira went into the tent and got the dressing gown from the broken suitcase at the end of the bed that did for a set of drawers.

She put the gown over Zara’s shoulders. It was Moira’s old one, pale blue and fraying flannel, too big for Zara and more like a blanket hanging from her. Moira told her to put her arms in the sleeves but didn’t help her do it. She was fussing around Zara but not looking in her eyes. She made herself smile but only so Shane could see it and not start asking if something was wrong. She told Zara to pull a deckchair into the piece of shade near Shane and she would get her breakfast.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You must be.’

‘I’m not.’

‘If you’re not hungry, fine, forget breakfast.’

It was difficult keeping smiling. Moira remarked on the sun being strong today. Sun-talk was preferable to trying to smile and communicate with Zara. She asked what the men had planned this morning.

Refining the shed design, Shane said. Rory could make himself useful by helping to cart stones from around the place to weigh down the shed’s tin roof. With Alfie scared of moving a load to Melbourne they might have to store goods for a few weeks. It never rained. But just say it did. There could be water damage that hurt value.

‘Car’s free then? I’d like to go into town,’ Moira said.

Car was free, Shane nodded.

Midge chimed in. There was the fan-belt problem. He had to use his trouser belt to stop the engine cooking last night. ‘Belts don’t work too well. They slip,’ he said. ‘If you can lend me a strip of stretchy material I can rig something better up, just temporary, but it’s still risky driving with it.’

‘I need to go into town. What kind of stretchy material?’

Midge shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

‘Bra strap?’ Moira said.

‘Bra strap?’ Shane laughed.

Rory mimicked Shane. ‘Bra strap?’

‘I don’t think a bra strap would work,’ said Midge.

‘Well, I need to go into town. What about pantyhose, the legs of them? Nice and stretchy.’

He considered it a moment. ‘Pantyhose. They’d work good.’

She held her palms out, inviting Zara to offer those tatty Christmas stockings. ‘Zara? The Christmas stockings? Sweetie, you want to get them, please? I need to drive into town. Come on.’

‘The stockings? They’re mine.’

‘They’re not for wearing, sweetie.’

‘I’m going to fix them up.’

‘You can’t wear those.’

‘I’ll fix them.’

Shane laughed, a low note in his belly. ‘Fix Christmas stockings? What for? Next Christmas? Might not be a next Christmas. World might blow up. That’d stuff Santa Claus up.’

‘I want to wear them,’ said Zara, her mouth clenched, determined.

‘Wear them?’ said Shane. ‘What, over your head? You going to rob a bank? I was going to rob a bank once. Till I found out the fuckers didn’t hide the key under the doormat. Whoops, sorry, Moira.’

Rory giggled and Midge had to chew his lip to stop giggling with him.

‘I’ll put nail polish on them. I’m using them. They’re mine.’

Her voice went up high, almost yelling when she said, ‘They’re mine.’ She gripped the dressing gown tight to her throat as if cold and jog-walked to the tent and flicked the flap down behind herself as she went in.

‘What’s the story with her?’ said Shane.

‘You shouldn’t have mocked her,’ Moira replied.

‘That wasn’t mocking.’ He stood up and went over to the tent. ‘Hey, Zara. That wasn’t mocking.’

He waited for a response, bent forward, his ear against the flap.

‘I said, that wasn’t mocking.’

Moira pulled on his sleeve to make him come away but he wouldn’t.

‘Listen, girl. If you’re under my roof you pull your weight. Share things. If the car needs a stocking you hand it over.’ He waited. ‘You hear me? Don’t bloody well ignore me.’

‘Leave her,’ said Moira, tugging on him.

‘Okay. Okay. But I’ll say one last thing. If you’re old enough to have babies you’re old enough to pull your weight.’

After taking a wheezy cough Midge said, ‘I’ll buy her a new lot. Zara, I’ll buy new pantyhose to replace them.’

He took a fold of notes from his back pocket. Flicked off the rubber band that bound it and counted out twenty dollars in five-dollar bills. ‘That enough, Moira?’

‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘That’s very decent.’

‘Here’s some more. If you go to Brogan’s garage and ask for a fan belt I’ll fit it when you get home. Don’t let Brogan do it. He’ll slug you twenty dollars.’

‘You’re a gem.’

The compliment must have made Shane jealous for one. Moira saw him hang his head down then jerk it up with an idea. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘We get the fan-belt issue sorted out and maybe we can go on an outing somewhere. What do you say, Zara?’

‘You serious?’ said Moira.

‘Yeah, I’m serious.’

‘All of us go, you mean? Like a proper family?’

‘Yeah.’

She smiled at him and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘What you reckon, Zara? Shane says we’ll go on an outing.’

‘As a family, Zara,’ Midge said.

Zara pushed aside the door flap. ‘Where?’

She’d taken off the dressing gown and put on the pantyhose legs. They concertinaed over her knees like shedding skin. Shane was about to mock but Moira fixed him with a fierce gaze. It demanded his silence, then it weakened into pleading for him to behave.

‘Ask Shane,’ she said. ‘It was his idea.’

‘Can we go to the pool?’

Shane shook his head. ‘They don’t want us at the pool.’

‘He’s right. I don’t know about the pool, sweetie.’

‘Please. The pool.’

The pool was somewhere they were not welcome anymore. A wristwatch and money stuffed down a shoe in the change room had been stolen while Rory was there. He said he didn’t do it and Moira was inclined to believe him. Shane was as well. It was the way the boy protested, so genuine, with real tears and loud crying, so unlike his usual lying. Then he switched and claimed he
had
done the stealing, which they figured was just Rory trying to impress.

That was two months ago and the pool had been off limits since. They’d used the horse pool at the trotting track a few times. Trainers were finished with it by five each evening and the brick wall was low enough to scale if you took a ladder. Zara hated the thought of swimming where animals swam. Moira was on her side because who knows what germs might get up inside you when you’re pregnant. Midge explained that horses were cleaner than humans, but he failed to convince her.