Tree Palace (23 page)

Midge was crossing the road to meet her. He hopped to get his hip working faster. He was sneering. ‘Why you speaking to him?’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘I saw.’

‘Just drive.’

He pointed at her wet front. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Drive.’

‘I saw you talking.’

‘So?’

‘Has things blown over with Tubbsy?’

‘No.’

‘Then why the talking?’

‘Just drive.’

‘Things shouldn’t blow over till Shane has the say. I’ll ask
him
if things are officially blown over. If you want to go visit with me or not, that’s your business.’

32

The new dress needed soaking and the sling had milk on it. She was resentful of Midge judging her and it made her more determined to choose
her
time to visit prison. Not be dictated to, nor scolded. Imagine, standing there on the street and having milk come out! ‘Don’t you think that’s funny, Mathew? A bit creepy getting perved at by Jim Tubbs. But funny.’

She had him feeding in any position now. She could be standing up, sitting or lying down—he suckled. Doing it sitting in the kitchen she had to be careful where the chair was positioned in relation to the windows. Closing the front door was one thing, but the windows weren’t exactly private. She pulled the chair to where she thought was a blind spot. She sat in her underpants, and no top on. There was a shuffling outside. A crunching upon the gritty ground at the windows. Mathew’s suction was tight but she eased him off her breast and placed him on the table to cry while she got her dress and covered herself. A shadow moved across the glad-wrap pane.

She unbolted the door and opened it. Midge jumped from the bottom rung of the ladder, got off balance because of his hip and stumbled about. He thought momentarily of saying he’d put the ladder there for a maintenance purpose. But he didn’t bother. He was spying and didn’t care that Moira knew it.

‘You was feeding him. I knew you was up to something. I didn’t know what. Maybe hitting the grog, with the door always locked on us. You was feeding him off yourself.’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s not right, is it?’

‘It happened natural.’

‘Sucking on you, that’s all wrong. Zara know you doing this?’

‘She dried up ages ago. Hardly been near him since she came home from hospital. I’m his mother now. Don’t you look at me like that.’

‘You’re not his mother. You gone silly in the head? Shane’d know what to do. He’d say this is all arse-about and he’d know what to do.’

‘When Shane gets home he’ll have to say: Well, look what’s happened here, that’s nature.’

‘And Zara don’t know?’

‘She can stay away from Mathew. She tried to hurt him once. ’

Moira went inside and Midge followed. She picked the baby up. He was crying and wanting more milk and would have to wait.

‘It’s like he was an orphan. Ain’t that right, Mathew? Your bad mother didn’t want you but you got yourself a new one, didn’t you?’

‘He’s no orphan. His mum’s Zara.’

‘His mum’s me.’

‘What you mean Zara tried to hurt him?’

‘You go ask her.’

‘Ah, nonsense.’

‘You ask.’

‘That’s crazy-woman talk. No mother would do that.’

‘Ask her.’

‘If she was home I might just do that. Just to show you up.’

His breath became lodged deep in his lungs. He had to cough and wheeze to get air going. ‘Let’s not have cross words, Moira, please.’

She put the baby in the sling and ignored Midge.

‘You should pay more attention to Zara, that’s what you should be doing. I think she’s in with a bad crowd. I don’t trust this Brent lover boy. You listening? I went into town last night, followed her and him. They ended up at the old railway station, you know, the old passenger shed. Music going and bonfire blazing. Whole mob of them yelling and drinking and dancing. There was this girl stretched out. Not Zara, thank Christ not Zara. This girl was stretched right out and she was letting boys take turns on her. Laughing and calling them onto herself. I didn’t know what to do, Moira. Kids doing that. If they was forcing her I would have helped her, I swear, I would of helped somehow. And then Zara stumbled out of the shed, arms around lover boy and I think they saw me and I got spooked and I took off. I sat up all night in the car and made this bracelet for her.’

He took a bracelet of tan and white stones from his pocket. ‘Those little quartz stones round here. I got a bunch of them and I put holes through them with my littlest drill bit, and I thread some string through them, and there you go.’

Moira looked at the bracelet and made a grunting, dismissive sound. ‘You know what I think? I think the best thing she can do is take her things and go away and not come back. That’s what she’s always wanted. That’s what she should do. Leave us alone and never set eyes on Mathew again.’

‘Now Moira, come on. Zara’s family.’

‘She shouldn’t be around you no more either.’

‘Me?’

‘You jealous of that Brent boy? You take a lot of interest in Zara. She lead you on?’

‘No. What you saying?’

‘Zara this. Zara that. You fancy your chances?’

‘No.’

‘Making bracelets.’

‘That’s to say sorry for following her.’

‘Fancying your chances.’

‘No. I got no children in the world. That’s what Zara is to me, as close as I got to having my own. I just want to take care of her.’

Midge worried Shane would think it was his fault: he should have spotted Moira was being abnormal and intervened. Long before she started behaving disloyal. Way before being a little too friendly with Jim Tubbs. Something joyful like visiting Shane was now something he was dreading. Something he decided he best delay until he sorted matters out.

He would start with Zara. What was she was doing mixing with a bad crowd? You don’t just have a child and forget it. If you had time for a bad crowd then you had time to do the right thing by your baby.

He drove to the supermarket and loitered outside the sliding doors. Zara wasn’t there—he watched for half an hour and there was no sign of her. He drove to the railway shed. Not all the way up to it: he kept a distance. He used his binoculars to see if the party was still going. The bonfire was smouldering but there was no one.

He drove around Barleyville’s backstreets. There were only a couple of dozen streets and he was looking for lover boy’s ute. Just what he’d do if he saw it he had no idea. He had a speech he was refining to say to Zara. He acted it out as though she were sitting beside him. I hope no one sees me, he thought—a man talking to himself. He might get arrested.

Midge went back to the supermarket and parked on the opposite side of the road under a half-dead peppercorn with ivy growing through it. He would give her two hours, he decided. If she didn’t appear he would go home and check there. If she wasn’t there he would return to this spot and keep a vigil.

33

She arrived for work half an hour into the wait. The Romano Cartage truck dropped her at the entrance. The sun was in Midge’s eyes but he could see it was lover boy’s tattooed arm resting out the window. He saw Zara kiss him goodbye on the cheek. There was no return kiss. Just a jerk of the shoulders and nonchalant finger-combing of his hair as he put the truck in gear and spun the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. Zara waved and the ignorant bastard didn’t wave back. If Zara waved to Midge like that he’d wave until his arm ached. He gave her ten minutes to get settled into her shift, then made his way over.

He came right out and said it rather than give her time to perform her act of treating him like a customer instead of family. ‘There’s an emergency. We need you at home.’

‘What emergency?’

‘I can’t tell you here. When’s your shift over?’

‘Four hours. Tell me now.’

‘No. I’ll pick you up in four hours.’

‘Brent’s expecting me.’

‘Too bad. Ring him.’

‘What emergency?’

‘I’ll pick you up.’

‘Shit.’

She pretended to be fiddling with the receipt cartridge in the register, getting the paper unjammed. He pretended to be counting change in his hand. ‘See you in four hours.’

He turned and walked away before she could argue. He was pleased with himself, his assertive tone. He’d kept his nerve and spoken without losing breath and coughing. Even his hip felt solid enough to stride to the car without needing a hop. He put his chest out and nodded his satisfaction. The trick would be to keep that attitude going and ready for using again in four hours.

He sat in the car rehearsing the speech he wanted Zara to hear. About bad crowds being no good for her. About his fatherly affection and Moira and her orphan nonsense. It was easy talking about those things to himself but as the deadline loomed he wasn’t so confident. He put his hand across his mouth so passers-by didn’t see his one-man conversation.

He kept starting the wag and edging it forward to stay under tree shade. When all the shade went he drove in search of more but the sun was too high for shadow casting. It needed more angle to work with. He stood in the supermarket car park under a ledge and picked up the cool air when the rear doors opened for a shopper.

When Zara’s shift was due to end he made sure she couldn’t slip past him. He went in and strolled around the aisles, making her eye catch his eye.

As soon as she got in the wag she said, ‘What’s the emergency?’

‘Let me start the car first. Let’s get out of town a bit.’

‘Fuck.’ She slid down in the seat, shook her head and puffed her cheeks. ‘Bet this is bullshit.’

At the silo turnoff she said it again, ‘All bullshit,’ and Midge worried she might jump out when he stopped at the give-way sign. He better start explaining himself. He pulled off the road through slushy wheel ruts and halted. Out the corner of his eye he saw Zara turn to face him, arms folded and head to one side.

He was shaking and unclipped his seatbelt. He took his puffer from the gutter of the dashboard, sucked in a long breath of it and held the breath.

Zara snatched the inhaler. ‘You get a buzz from this?’ She gave herself a puff and grimaced.

The rehearsed speech was gone from his memory. ‘Oh, darling,’ he said, and he reached across and hugged Zara. ‘Oh, darling.’

‘Fuck off. What the fuck you doing! You smell. Get off.’

She opened the door and fell out backwards, giving Midge a kick as she went.

‘Zara, come back, please. I was trying to say something. I’m trying to help you.’

Her palm was stinging from landing on gravel. She blew on it and swore at Midge and started walking towards town. He scrambled from the wag, saying, ‘Don’t run off, Zara. Don’t go.’

He caught up with her and she yelled for him to keep away.

‘Come back, please.’

‘Don’t fucking come near me.’

‘You got it wrong. I was just hugging.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘I won’t touch you.’

‘When Shane comes back I’ll tell him.’

‘I wasn’t doing nothing. I wanted to give you this.’

He took the bracelet of stones from his trouser pocket.

‘I made it last night. To say sorry for snooping.’

‘Brent said he’ll bash you next time.’

‘If he said that, you shouldn’t bother with him. Bash-talk shows he’s got meanness in him.’

‘I like him.’

‘You don’t love him or anything?’

‘I like him. Yeah, I love him.’

‘You don’t love him.’

He shuffled behind her, being sure not to get too close. He noticed blood on her arm. A smudge of it above her elbow, poking from under her smock’s sleeve. She hurdled mud to get to the road edge. Midge told her not to walk on the road in case of vehicles.

‘What vehicles?’ she said. There were no vehicles, only crows that flapped like black cloaks into flight as she neared.

Then there was a vehicle. A sheep truck, its cages and chains rattling. It swayed past with a blast of wheel-wind and left the reek of sheep shit in the air. Zara turned her head away and pinched her nose. She jumped back across the mud onto grass.

‘What’s that on your arm there?’ said Midge.

Zara wiped the blood with her finger. ‘Tattoo. I crashed out last night and one of the boys did it, fancies himself, like, an artist. He had a bottle of ink and a pen or something. I don’t know what.’

‘That’s terrible. Doing that while you’re sleeping.’

‘Brent was too wasted to stop him. It’s supposed to be a rose. Lots of girls have roses.’

‘That could go septic. I’ll put some metho on it when we get home. Come on home.’

She lifted her sleeve and the rough rose was more scab-looking than flower. Weeping watery blood.

Midge shook his head and said, ‘Oh, Zara.’ He made a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘That’s ugly and sore. Might need a bandage.’

He took a step nearer. She let him cradle her arm while he shook his head more.

‘Try the bracelet on. It’s them stones you pick up around here. I can shorten it if it’s too big.’

‘Looks all right.’

‘Good.’

He stood back and admired his handiwork on her thin wrist.

‘You know I’ve always cared for you, Zara. That’s the feeling I have for you. Not any other kind of feeling. But that’s a big feeling. That’s the biggest. I want nothing bad happening to you because I think of you as my daughter. Shane’s got Rory, and they’re like kin. And I want you in that kin way. Because when I die no one would ever think of me again. It’s like I never existed. But a daughter would have to think of me once and a while. Just a little snippet of remembering that I was here and I was alive once.’

She didn’t laugh at him and that made him smile. That sealed it for him: her silence was a kind of acceptance of him.

Then she said, ‘Okay,
Dad
.’

He wanted her say that again, and almost asked her to. He said it to himself:
Dad
.

‘How much money you got?’ she said.

‘Eh?’

‘How much money you got?’

‘What? On me?’

‘No. Altogether. How much?’

‘Why?’

‘Just tell me how much.’

‘I don’t know. Not much.’

‘A few hundred?’