Tree Palace (28 page)

‘Still gutsing himself,’ Midge said.

‘Get his food and take it in to the caravan and you go sit there with him. I need the house. I need it private.’

He nodded. He starting walking to the house, calling to Rory. He rubbed his hands together assertively. ‘Pick your plate up and head in to the caravan. Come on. Move.’

Dew was falling. You couldn’t see it but you could feel it on your skin. It was in Zara’s hair when Moira touched it, damp and soft. ‘I got something to show you. Come to the house with me. Stand up. I want to show you something.’

Zara shook her head that she wasn’t going anywhere. Took her knees in her arms and would not stand, would not talk.

‘Don’t, then,’ said Moira. ‘I got something very special to show you, that’s all. But if you want to sit there in the dirty road and not be shown, then sit there.’

They both sat in the road. The dirt was sticky-wet and slippery and Moira lifted the bottoms of her dress into her lap to keep it cleaner, though so she wasn’t too fussy as it wasn’t her good dress.

‘We’ll have to wash our hands first before I show you. You think that Brent boy means a thing to you? In a week, he’ll mean nothin’. What I’ll show you—it’ll mean something all your life.’

She stood and cradled Zara’s elbows and gently raised her. ‘Come on. Get up. Come on, sweetie.’

41

Zara hung her head and walked, letting Moira usher her by the elbows. When they got to the house Moira told her to sit on the step while she filled a bucket from the hose. She put a cake of soap in the bucket and had Zara wash her hands and arms and knees. She got the girl’s dressing gown from the tent and had her get out of the muddy smock and put the gown on. Then Moira washed herself, took off her dress and they both used that for a towel and then for a mat to wipe their feet on.

They went into the house and Moira positioned a lamp on the kitchen table close to the edge so it spread a brighter glow where she told Zara to sit.

‘Let’s put things right, girl,’ she said. ‘You might not want to just now. You might not care about it at the moment. But you will care one day, I bet you that. You’ll care and Mathew’ll care and I’ll care. Because if things don’t get set right between you and him, and you and me, then it’s like we done wrong by nature. We don’t fit into the world right.’

She went into the bedroom and lifted Mathew. He gurgled and wriggled. She sniffed him and his nappy was not clean but not bad. She folded a blanket around him and brought him out into the glow. ‘When you pick him up, you don’t pick him up like he’s a bag of shopping. See how I got a hand behind his neck and I’m holding him with my fingers spread. All gentle but not too gentle. He’s got to feel he’s against you but can still move and breathe and be natural around you.’

She lowered the baby for Zara to take. The girl didn’t lift her hands. Moira kept holding him there. ‘Take him and feel him against you like it’s for the first time. The very first. Like you’re starting from the very first day. Close your eyes and do it. Close your eyes. Take him.’

Zara did.

‘Lay him down along your arm. That’s good. That’s perfect. See? You’re doing it perfect.’

They stayed like that for a while, till Zara’s arm became tired and Moira helped shift Mathew to the other one. She heated up some stockpot but the girl wasn’t interested.

‘You got to eat.’ She held a spoonful up and made her sip it. ‘That’s a start.’ Another spoonful. Another. Moira helped switch the baby back to the other arm.

She said they’d keep doing that until Mathew woke.

When he did wake, bawling hungry, Moira said, ‘Take him into my bedroom and lie down on your back and let him lie on you and cry.’

Zara was tired and was glad to go to bed, but this was no ordinary lying down. Moira told her to place Mathew stomach down between her breasts. Such small breasts—but Moira said leave him there anyway, crying. She lifted Zara’s hand and had it rest on the baby’s back and stroke. Don’t worry about him crying, just leave him there.

Moira sat on the bed and watched Zara’s stroking. As the crying went on she said, ‘Move him closer onto you. On a nipple. That’s the way. Let him have a suck.’ She explained that this was what she herself had done. It might take weeks but milk would surely come. ‘If I can do it, you can. I can pass the bloom on to you.’

When they finally fed him that night Moira boiled the baby bottle clean and mixed milk powder. She had milk in herself but she would not feed him—it was no longer for her to do. She gave the bottle to Zara and showed her the nipple-to-bottle system.

Mathew cried and would not take the bottle’s teat. Moira craved to give in and place him on her own breast and have him drink what he could. She did not give in. If it was cruel to him, then cruel she had to be.
Suck on Zara. She’s your mumma, go on. Now suck on the bottle. Don’t spit it out. Go back and suck mumma. Now back to the bottle. Come on, little man. That’s the way.

He stopped crying and hunger made him drink from the bottle. The change of milk might make him ill, she thought. She had to trust in his trant constitution.

In the morning she passed the sling on to Zara. The material was too long for the girl and needed the knot made shorter. The baby’s weight caused her to tip forward. Moira tied the sling higher and that helped her balance. ‘Talk to him,’ she said. ‘Let him hear your voice real close. I talked to him about our family. Tell him about you. Anything you like. Tell him about yourself. I won’t listen. Let’s go outside and you walk around with him and I’ll hang back and not listen. It’s a nice clear day and not too hot so take him up the road and I’ll hang back.’

She hung back and couldn’t tell if Zara was talking to Mathew or not. The girl was cradling him correctly, and that was something. She had her left hand against his back and was joggling him in the sling.

Rory wanted to bound up and make conversation but Moira said not to disturb his sister until further notice. He had another day off school because of the Tubbsy threat. Until the Tubbsy business was settled he was to stay out of town. ‘Midge, if you don’t do your job and get this trouble settled, I’ll do it myself,’ Moira said. She did not know how she would do it herself, but she said she’d try.

Midge vowed he would do it. He was so happy watching Zara walking the baby that he was angry to have Tubbsy in his thoughts, dirtying the moment. Resentful of Moira for presuming he would shirk his duty. And he was angry at himself that he wanted to shirk it.

‘I’ll do it today,’ he said.

‘We’ll see.’

‘I will.’

‘Good. Off you go, then.’

‘In a while.’

She refused to say another word to him until he did his duty. ‘That’s the last word from me.’

He followed her as she followed Zara and said there was no need to give him the cold shoulder.

Moira called for Zara to come wash Mathew and put some talc on him and a fresh change. ‘Why you following us like a lost sheep?’ she said to Midge.

‘Could you pass out Shane’s coat and tie, please?’ he said. ‘I’d like a lend of Shane’s coat and tie.’

42

Wearing Shane’s clothes gave Midge more heart, or so he imagined, as if taking on extra power. Mimicking his brother’s pose, arms away from his sides, feet apart and springy on the spot. Head back in readiness for argument. The knot of the tie went tight up to his throat. It helped him speak with Shane’s raspy temper.

He stepped down from the caravan with a forthright jump and jarred his hip. That was the end of his Shane-act. He was just plain Midge and hobbled to the wag, flicking his leg out to loosen it.

Rory got on his bike to ride with him to the crossroads. Moira whistled for him to stay on Tree Palace land, where she could see him. She wanted to whistle for Midge to come back too. One of Shane’s crackpot notions—sending a half-cripple to settle their scores! She realised she should never have gone along with it. Should have gone to the police. Or put her cunning hat on and rung a radio or newspaper. No, that’s not the trant way. Too late now. She wished she’d told Midge she loved him like a brother.

She told Zara to use the word ‘love’ to Mathew, to tell him over and over that she loved him. She went outside to leave them alone. Sat on the porch couch, where she could keep one ear on Zara’s mothering.

The girl did as she was told and said she loved him. Said it loud, as if for Moira’s benefit. As long as the girl was saying it, loud or soft, forcing love to come, it didn’t matter to Moira. The sound of the word around the baby was better than not having it in his earshot.

Midge drove slowly and acted being Shane. ‘Well, Mr Jim Tubbs. Got your comeuppance from a fourteen-year-old boy. Ha ha ha. Well, I’ll tell you this, Mr Jim fucking Tubbs. You try payback on us and it’ll go hard on you. Won’t be a single town won’t know it: Jim Tubbs got his comeuppance from a fourteen-year-old boy. Ha ha.’ He experimented with threats but they all sounded lame: ‘You’ll have me to answer to, Midge Flynn. I’ll…I’ll…’ His voice trailed away. ‘I’ll write on the hotel chalkboard what you tried to do to Moira.’

He put his asthma puffer in his mouth and bit on it and took a breath. It steadied his nerves. He drove slower the closer he got to town, putting off the inevitable.

The place to go was the Barleyville Arms. He could be bleeding to death, Tubbsy, but wouldn’t miss happy hour. There’d be people there too, witnesses—safer. Yes, there was his green truck parked in a paperbark’s shade. There were two other vehicles and a van with a trailer of beer kegs.

Midge found some shade cast by the bottle-shop sign and sat there trying to whip up a temper and get a snarl about him. All fake and unconvincing. His natural approach, politeness and a smile, kept coming out in his voice.

He rolled a cigarette to give his hands an activity and didn’t smoke it. He stood beside the wag, did up the coat at the middle button and said, ‘Get it over with, Midge,’ and off he went.

Tubbsy was at the tall table by the window by himself. A half-empty pot of beer sat on a coaster. There were a few regulars watching the TV wall but Tubbsy had his back to them. He wasn’t sitting on a stool. He was standing and leaning on a wooden crutch. When Midge said hello he twisted awkwardly on the spot, his teeth gritted in pain and brow sweaty. He was wearing shorts. His thighs were bandaged and his legs were swollen above the knee.

This gave Midge confidence to move up closer, say his speech and not fear Tubbsy being too physical. ‘I’ll keep this simple. A message from Shane. You hurt us and—’ He snapped his fingers. ‘You’ll be a laughing stock by the time we’ve finished with you. Got your comeuppance from a fourteen-year-old boy. Ha!’

Tubbsy didn’t look him in the face and that made Midge bolder. He got carried away. He started bouncing on his toes, Rory-style. ‘Moira spits on the ground when she thinks of you.’ Midge pretended to spit on the carpet. ‘What trant tries interfering with another’s missus? You’re no friend of Shane’s, mine or anyone decent. We don’t want you in this town around us. Piss off and find another town.’

He pretended to spit again and looked around and saw drinkers were watching. He knew he’d gone too far, too loudly. But Tubbsy didn’t argue with Midge. His eyes were downcast, glassy from drink, and sunken. You’d have thought life’s spark had gone out in him. It made Midge back away and think, Tubbsy’s got that curse men have when their meanness turns on them. You see them in pubs, the cursed men of meanness
.
When they’ve screwed up so bad, betrayed all they can around them, the only thing left to do was to drink themselves down into lesser men.

It made Midge shiver to see it. He was scared of Tubbsy all right, but not the old Tubbsy. He was scared of this new shrunken one: half man, half dead. He went out of the hotel as fast as his hip could go. He didn’t believe in ghosts but he’d just left one behind.

He didn’t tell about this ghost-Tubbsy when he got home. He enjoyed the accolades for having done his duty.

Rory couldn’t believe it. ‘
You
took on
the
Tubbsy?’ The boy didn’t feel so brave anymore.

Moira sat Midge down under the porch and poured him bourbon in celebration. She topped it up with Coke as he drank. And as he drank he exaggerated the story. ‘I stood toe to toe and he was ready to hit me.’

‘Thought you said he was on a crutch.’ Moira grinned.

‘Well, yeah, but a crutch is a weapon in the hands of a Tubbsy. I poked my finger in his chest and I said—’

‘Thought you said he had his back to you.’

‘The point is, I dealt with the threat.’

He wanted Zara to come out and listen to him but Moira said the girl had duties of her own. The house door was ajar and he could see her wiping Mathew’s naked bum. The baby was on his back on the kitchen table and gurgling and flicking his legs. Zara was talking to him but Midge couldn’t read her lips.

Moira told him not to spy.

‘I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are. Let her be private.’

‘I am letting her.’

‘You saw more than you bargained for when you spied on me.’

His eyes went wide. ‘Is she doing it now, feeding him off herself?’

‘No. We’re trying. Now come away from the window. Tell us the story again.’

He put down his drink and buttoned Shane’s coat. ‘I wasn’t going to be bullied. That’s what I promised myself. I looked him in eye and I spat in his eye.’

Moira wasn’t really listening. She nodded as if taking in every word but her ear was cocked for any sound in the house. That’s the way trust works, she figured. You trust someone but you keep an ear cocked. The girl was past harming Mathew now. Have faith. Have faith. Keep your ear cocked.

She stood and congratulated Midge. Like a man congratulates: handshake, tight-gripped, arm shuddery. ‘You did your duty. Good on you. Tomorrow we start our duty to Shane.’

‘What duty?’

‘Business.’

She knocked on the door with a soft knuckle, pushed it further open and went inside. ‘Just getting something,’ she said. She lifted the kitchen table top and took out Elisha Kay’s business card.

Zara had tied Mathew’s nappy too loose. Moira saw it was going to ride down when he was lifted. She said, ‘I’d take that off and go tighter next time. You’re doing good, though. Let him nuzzle you and put his hands under your top. That’s the way. That’s the girl.’