The Serpent's Skin

by Erina Reddan

  Philly put her hands on her hips and bared her teeth at me. I gave up and let her stay. We turned to the office, screwing up our eyes like it would help us see through the wall. I snuck around to the door to look through the keyhole. Philly was just about inside my shoes, she was that close behind.

  The door sprung open and we startled back. Mother Gabriel was as wide as the doorway, what with her habit sticking out all stiff, on top of her being fat. Philly’s little fingers bit into the back of me and I put my arms by my sides to make myself so big Mother Gabriel couldn’t see her.

  ‘You.’ Her stubby finger was pointing straight at me. ‘Get the Strap.’

  I knew where the Strap was.

  I took a step back as if to leave, but I was trying to get a look around her into the office to see if maybe there still was a chance Mum was in there.

  ‘You’ll have that Strap on the back of your own legs in a minute,’ Mother Gabriel warned.

  I had to get going then. I motored Philly behind me fast so she couldn’t be seen until we got around the corner. When I let her go Philly scuffed my head with the back of her hand. ‘Should have asked if Mum was in there.’

  I didn’t answer, just got hold of her jumper at the elbow and towed her back to my classroom. Philly was too scared to come in cause kids weren’t allowed into classrooms at lunchtime. I raced up to the glass cabinet at the front where Sister Peter hung the Strap on a nail where it could keep an eye on us.

  Philly gave me a ‘what took you so long’ look when I got back outside. I thought about taking a detour to the toilet block so she could get it out of her but, one: Mother Gabriel was waiting, and I didn’t want to make her any madder; and two: even though I knew what I knew, there was still a chance Mum could be with her.

  Mother Gabriel was right where we’d left her on the step outside her office. She took the Strap and tested it against her hand.

  ‘Has Tim McBride arrived yet, Mother?’ I asked, brave as brave, thinking it was one of the Farrell brothers about to be on the business end of that Strap and still wondering what she wanted with Tim.

  ‘Elizabeth Jane and Philomena Anne McBride, get back to your own playgrounds or it’ll be you two next.’ She cracked the Strap against the door of her office. ‘And do that ribbon up properly, Elizabeth. You’re a disgrace to St Francis Xavier’s.’

  We stumbled over each other backing away from her and getting around the corner. We leaned against the wall, Philly shaking, me pretending not to.

  ‘She knew my name,’ said Philly, all moon eyes again. I didn’t answer, and it took Philly a few seconds to catch on that whatever Tim was called for it had nothing to do with Mum.

  ‘Toilet. Now.’ I yanked at her jumper and pulled her upright from the wall.

  But we heard Mother Gabriel’s grunt and the whack of the Strap. In the distraction Philly twisted away. I got back hold of her again.

  Then we stopped. It was Tim.

  We knew the sound of him trying not to cry.

  I let go of Philly’s jumper and charged around to the office door. I jumped that step and raised my fist to bang on that door. Tim must be feeling real bad about Mum leaving if he’d let himself get caught at something.

  Philly flew at my back to stop me, her arms swung around my neck, but I shoved her off and sent her spinning into the dirt. I banged that door right open. Mother Gabriel’s backside and all the layers of her habit filled the room. She was hunched over, thrashing the Strap onto Tim’s bum. She swung her arm back to lay into him again. Bent over a chair, Tim lifted the back of his arm to swipe at his eyes. All the sorry for him balled up in me and I launched myself dead at her. The shock of the extra weight on her arm turned her right around. She shook me off, her face all red and animal.

  I stumbled back, hit the statue of Mother Mary holding baby Jesus and sent it smashing to the ground, and went down after it. Mother Gabriel stood over me, panting like she’d been out after the cows.

  ‘You,’ she had that finger stabbing at me again, ‘I’m not surprised at.’ She swung her veil back from her shoulders with a great heave, pushed her sleeves further up her arms. ‘Tim McBride.’ She was speaking to him but her eyes were square on me, not blinking. ‘I’m done with you. It’s your sister Elizabeth’s turn.’

  Tim looked from me to Mother Gabriel. I scooted on my bum away from her boot.

  But she got to the door before I could get anywhere near it. ‘Get up off the floor,’ Mother Gabriel said to me. She flung the door wide for Tim. Yanking her head to Philly outside. ‘Get your sister to the sick bay,’ she told him. ‘Change of underwear.’

  Tim didn’t move an inch. Nothing but his eyes: at me, at Mother Gabriel, at the door.

  ‘The shame this one is to your father.’ Mother Gabriel whacked the Strap on the filing cabinet, still panting. ‘Elizabeth’s got the devil in her. Now go away while I get him out of her.’

  Tim threw me a sorry with his eyes before he took off out the door. Mother Gabriel slammed it closed after he’d gone. She scratched her neck, keeping her eyes right on me.

  ‘Clean up the broken mess you’ve made of our Sacred Mother,’ she said to me.

  I gathered some of the biggest bits, got to my knees and on to my feet, the back of my neck prickling up under her spidery stare.

  Once I clattered the pieces into the bin, Mother Gabriel finally peeled her eyes from me, giving me her back.

  Then came the sound of the door locking.

  THE THING SHE LEFT BEHIND

  Iwas first in the bus line after school when Philly came pounding across the asphalt, making a beeline for me, her face all scrunched up concerned. I shook my head and she stopped, half tripping over with the sudden of it. I turned exactly away to stare at the rocks in the fence. Still she tucked in behind me and the thing was, Mary McCarthy and Joanne Tyler kicked their schoolbags and shuffled back to let her, sending big blazes of sorry my way. I knew Philly would be picking up those blazes and giving a tight half smile back.

  Not me. I had my arms folded and my socks pulled right up to my knees. I didn’t even look up when I saw Tommy’s scuffed shoes hesitating before me. He and I always stood together, but after a few seconds he peeled away down the back of the line.

  When we were all loaded up, Mr O’Brien was about to yank the bus door shut, but Tim just made it, pounding up the steps, with only a whisker to spare. In the window I saw him ruffle Philly’s hair beside me as he passed us. Saw her reach up. Saw her hand touch his. Their eyes burning into my back. I squeezed mine shut to stop all that seeing. Tim threw his bag on to the rack above the seat behind Philly’s and mine and grunted at Marty McMahon to git out. Marty did.

  Only Tessa was where she normally was, up the front of the bus. Bet her lips were pursed tight up, though.

  After our stop, the bus roared away with a gear grind and a spurt of black exhaust cloud and we all tore off up the track to see if Mum had come home yet. Philly got left behind pretty quick and set up a siren wail. Tessa clicked her tongue and fell back to wait for her to catch up. Tim let me take the lead easy, pretending he was slowing down for the others. He didn’t like to be the first one knowing a thing if the knowing wasn’t going to be much good to him.

  ‘Mum. Mum,’ I called as I slammed the door behind me, the whole house shuddering.

  No answer. Not that I was expecting one because I already felt the house was full of empty.

  I raced into my bedroom, tugging my uniform over my head on the way. I stuck my legs into a pair of trousers and pulled a jumper over my head. My thumb got caught in the hole at the elbow and I yanked it free. I hung up my uniform as if Mum had been there.

  I was so quick that when I got back outside, the others still hadn’t turned up. I took off down the back to find Dad. Get to him before the others did so I could ask about Mum and answer his standard question about school without them putting in their two cents’ worth about me and Mother Gabriel. He wasn’t with the pigs, wasn’t in the cowshed, but the ute
was parked in the drive, so he was here somewhere all right.

  And he better tell me if Mum called, too.

  The thing was, I was home in bed sick yesterday, so she would have told me where she was going if she was going somewhere. But maybe I was asleep and she didn’t want to wake me.

  I’m not much of a sleeper, though, not in the day anyway. And she would have left me a note. Unless she was just going down the paddock, or taking Dad his lunch, or wild to the west wind with me.

  All I remember is reading and reading about that Alice. But maybe I did fall asleep because I didn’t even hear Mum drive off with Mrs Nolan who’d been around helping Mum stake up the tomatoes. And that’s what she must have done because how else did Mum get to the station?

  I climbed to the top rung of the cowshed fence to get away from all this scratching in my brain. Squinted and stared.

  ‘Dad.’

  I put my ear to the wind. Nothing came riding back on it.

  ‘Daaaaaaaaaaaddd.’

  Just the mourn of the crow. Nothin sadder. Up there in the gum tree beyond the fence, all by itself, black against the grey of the sky.

  Where was Dad? Was he gone too now?

  A hand in my gut was starting to fist up. I pressed my forearm into it, but it did no good. I ran to the other side of the fence and jumped up there to get a good look in the other direction. Pins and needles started buzzing in my wrists. Soon they were numbing me up, moving like a wall right through me. I stayed there looking and looking.

  Then I saw it.

  Something dark down by the lip of the dam where it shouldn’t have been. I leaned all the way forwards. A gumboot—adult big and flopped over.

  The fist turned into a knife and my guts knew it.

  What was it doing all on its own?

  ‘Get down from there.’ Tessa came into the shed, all changed and ready to set up for the milking later, as if Mum being gone was nothing out of the everyday of things.

  My hands gripped the rail and no words got out of me.

  ‘Would have thought you’d be on your best behaviour after today’s performance. Get the hay into the bales.’

  I turned and stared.

  ‘That look might work on Mum.’

  ‘Dad,’ I got out.

  ‘No, I haven’t told him about you attacking Mother Gabriel yet. But if you don’t get down this minute, I will.’

  ‘Dad’s gone too.’ My voice ribboned up with cut and blood. ‘Drowned in the dam.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. He’s in the training yard.’

  Breath hiccupped back into me. I jumped down and doubled over with it, clinging hard to the rail as if I couldn’t trust my bones to stand me up. Tessa rolled her eyes, hand on jutted out hip, waiting. ‘Finished?’ she asked.

  The crow took off in a great burst of black. It circled once above the pointy white of the gum’s twisty finger branches. I wheeled out of the shed, ignoring Tessa’s shouts at my back, and ran to the training yard, heart knocking at my insides. I saw the grey brumby through the scrub first. She was straining and kicking, wild to be back where she’d come from. Dad was hanging on to the rope around her neck, weighting her down. He kept up his murmuring, eyes never shifting, steady on the brumby as if it might break the spell if he looked anywhere else.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me callin ya, Dad?’

  ‘Pipe down,’ he worked into his run of smooth to the Grey.

  ‘Did ya?’

  ‘I heard you bellyaching.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘I can’t be bellyaching back. You can see I’m in the middle here.’

  I folded my arms and planted my feet.

  He didn’t look over. He was right inside himself, like it was all calm and peaceful in there. The Grey bucked high against the sky, cutting the clouds in half. Dad kept his voice soft and low, like a slow-running creek. Moving forwards to let her buck but holding steady so she couldn’t get too far. Like dancing. And then the mare started listening with one ear. Like she wanted to get some of that slow and soft in Dad’s voice inside her. I’d seen him do the same with Mum once or twice, when Mum had been upset. Dad could tame the wild out of anything. He was a marvel; everybody said it.

  The Grey stopped hiking back against the sky. Stood, quiver still. So Dad didn’t move either, just kept eye on eye, murmuring how it was all good. Better to be off out of the wild, be here where it was safe, where she’d be looked after. The Grey twitched. Flicked her tail. Dad with his lullaby words. The brumby breathing easier. Dad leaning in, unwinding the rope from his wrist and taking it in his palm where she could see it. Her not backing away.

  It looked dead easy. But it was the hardest thing, getting inside yourself enough to tame a wild horse. I couldn’t do it. I would be all out there, filled up with the brumby, and feeling all its terror and panic, and in the end we’d both want to take off back to the mountains she’d come from.

  Dad rubbed the rope against her neck. She strained away, but let him too.

  ‘Good girl, good girl,’ he crooned. ‘Done for today, girl.’ He backed away, taking her with him, one careful step and then another. Anchored her rope to the peg beside the water trough and slipped through the fence. I came around to his side. Stuck my hand through the fence to pat the Grey. She reared back and whinnied.

  ‘Git.’ Dad slapped my hand away. ‘That horse has had enough, losing everything and coming to a new place and having to learn new things without you rilin her up.’ He tipped his hat to shoot me a quick grin. ‘She’ll need a bit more time to get used to little savages like you.’

  I rubbed my hand where he’d got me, grinned back.

  He poured oats into the food trough, shaking the bag empty.

  ‘How was school?’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ I said, just like every day.

  He grunted just like every day, back to the business of getting on and turning off the hose to the drinking trough. The Grey thirsted at the water, snuffling it up.

  My shoulders lost most of their tense. I jumped them up and down, circled my neck. So now, if those others didn’t dob me in about Mother Gabriel, I’d be right.

  ‘Get up to the shed and help your sister set up for the milkin.’

  ‘Mum call?’

  He grunted again. This time with an edge, warning me.

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Get off with ya.’

  Which I took for It’s none of your business what your mother did or didn’t do.

  ‘If she called, you should tell me right now.’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’m good and ready.’

  I put my hand up to my forehead to shield my eyes from a sun that wasn’t there. Squinted him a good look as he wound the rope around his arms in a circle, nice and neat. He sent me back a look that was all flat-out warning now, nothing but edge, but it was too late: I smelt the spit of guilt on him and I had to know if maybe it wasn’t my fault Mum took off.

  ‘Did you blue with her? That why she left without saying goodbye?’ I asked.

  He stopped sharp in the winding, stabbed eyes all over me like he knew what I did and that it was all me in Mum’s going away so sudden. I went inside myself, tighter and tighter.

  He dumped the rope over the tall of a post and slapped at the rail with his thick palm in a rhythm like there was a bit of music playing somewhere. I was stuck between the hoping it wasn’t all me and the not wanting him to be so twisted up. He angled slow away. Good as forgot I was there. But he hadn’t. His voice came low out of the hunch of him. ‘I love your mother. She’s my moon and my stars.’

  ‘I know, Dad,’ I said, my heart bursting with a sudden sorry, cause I did know.

  ‘I’d do anything to protect her. Anything. Your mother’s a saint.’

  I took a step and my hand was on his arm, full of question.

  He looked up, nodded. ‘I’m all right, love.’ He sandpapered his whiskers with the crook of his hand. Straightened. ‘Listen, love, you have to be the big girl now with your mo
ther gone. I’ll tell you all at the one time as much as I know when I come in.’ He collected up the oat bag. Gave it a shake. ‘Off and get the kettle on. Tell the others I’ll be in soon.’

  Max gave me the stink eye as I passed. We weren’t on speaking terms, like there’d been some betrayal and I was in on it. I wasn’t letting him get away with that today, though. I stopped, planting my legs wide.

  ‘How’s it going, you old bull?’

  The weight of his chest pulled him down as if nothing could go right in his world, while the mucus around his nose-ring shone in the afternoon grey. He finally rumbled out air in my direction and I took that for something and moved on. I was almost up to the chook shed when I heard Philly. I went towards the sound of her sniffles. She wasn’t in the shed. She was tucked into the bushes behind it.

  ‘What is it, little duck?’ I asked.

  She had her arms over her head and her head tucked between.

  ‘I’m the one who should be crying.’ I tried a laugh. ‘Mother Gabriel lit into me, not you.’

  She scratched her nose with the back of her wrist. Pushed back further into the bushes.

  ‘Get any further in there and you’ll fall down Alice’s hole,’ which she was reading now.

  ‘It’s the joey.’ Her voice all small and wrapped up tight.

  The air whooshed right out of me and I stood there like I was stoned up. Then I found something to do and I got in there beside her. Sat in the hush with her, saying nothing. My head down between my arms like hers. Feeling everything close in around us.

  ‘Where is she now, then?’ I finally got out.

  ‘Tim put her in the ute for Dad to take down the gully.’

  ‘Should we do a funeral?’

  The top of her head shook from side to side. I didn’t much feel like it either. One thing I did know, though. You couldn’t fool a joey. It knew when its mother was gone.

  At afternoon tea the air was that heavy that it kept our eyes low on the table.

  Dad jammed up his slice of white bread, slow and steady, and started. ‘Your mother called.’