The Serpent's Skin

by Erina Reddan

  The stillness in him shivered like it was the black of night and there was a spotlight dead on him.

  ‘She went to Peg’s all right, but she didn’t stay. She was there for exactly twenty-five-and-a-half minutes,’ I said. ‘Where did she get to after that, Dad?’

  ‘Not this again, JJ.’ He ramrodded straight. ‘How the hell did you come up with twenty-five minutes?’

  I worked hard not to react. ‘The calendar.’

  ‘You can’t rely on that bloody thing.’

  ‘I’m not relying, that’s why I’m here. I’m asking you.’

  ‘Asking what?’

  ‘Why did you tell us she was staying at Peg’s?’

  ‘Because it’s a cold, hard fact.’

  I gathered all my nerves and leaned them forwards. ‘The calendar says your so-called fact is a LIE. Mum—was—missing—for—six—days before she died.’ Each word was an island in a sea of meaning.

  He blinked. ‘Peg was off her nut. That was why your mother was there in the first place. She’d had a turn. Peg was probably too far gone to write anything sensible down. Peg told you herself, clear as day, when she came to stay for the funeral.’

  I thumped the table with all the force I had. ‘You know as well as I do that Peg was lying for you. What did you have on her to make her do that?’

  ‘What’s this bullshit?’ He blustered and looked around as if somebody might spring to his defence.

  I leaned all of me further forwards. ‘Tessa and I phoned Peg before you visited her that day. She told us “clear as day”,’ I put my head on the side to emphasise his words, ‘that she hadn’t seen Mum for ages.’

  His eyes lit up. ‘So she either lied to you on the phone or she lied to you in person later.’ He leaned over the table, too, forcing me to retreat. ‘You just picked the truth that suits you.’

  ‘I’m sticking to the calendar—not being a relative, it can be trusted.’

  ‘For God’s sake, JJ. It’s never enough for you, is it?’ He stood up and flung his arm towards the door. ‘You’ve got my word and now written proof that your mother was there and still—’

  Out of nowhere he dropped his arm, went to the fridge and pulled the ring top back from a can. With the door of the fridge still ajar, he tipped the beer straight down his throat. I wanted a drink myself.

  ‘Dad.’ I made my voice go soft. ‘I know you didn’t kill her so how bad can it be? Where did Mum go after she left Peg’s? What about that address in Mum’s missal?’

  He kicked the fridge shut with his foot. ‘Kill her? The bullshit that comes out of your mouth.’

  ‘Where, Dad?’

  ‘Nowhere. She was with Peg. Look,’ he said, sitting, ‘I loved your mother.’ He pointed an accusing finger. ‘She was my moon and my stars. I’d have done anything to protect her, anything.’ His voice rose to a whine. ‘Your mother was a saint.’

  ‘Philly heard Mum threaten she’d leave you the night before.’

  ‘Bullshit. It was a normal blue, Philly was just a baby, what, six or seven? She’s not remembering straight.’

  ‘Nine.’

  He nodded as if it proved his point. ‘They don’t understand stuff, twist it around. Baby stuff.’

  He held my eye, all battle ready, but then dropped his, pushed back from the table to give his beer gut more room. ‘When you get older, you’ll understand not everything’s black and white.’

  I sank my head onto my arms on the table, tired through. A fly landed on a crumb on my plate. It rubbed its hind legs together and turned to face me, rubbing again. Dad waved his hand and it took off.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have let Mrs Tyler’s conspiracy set me off. Maybe I should have gone to the beach with Philly and Ahmed today instead of coming here after all. Maybe those big black words on Peg’s calendar were just mad scribble and not a sign from Mum. Or, just maybe, I was getting Peg obsessed. I shivered. Definitely I shouldn’t have taken advice from Tye, a guy who’d never seen a rat close-range in his life. I sighed and put my head back. ‘I want to know, Dad. That’s all. It’s just a small thing.’

  ‘She was at Peg’s.’

  I sighed, giving up. ‘Was she happy?’

  ‘Happy? What a question.’

  ‘Did she love you?’

  He looked up, surprised. ‘Reckon she did. Had all you buggers, didn’t we?’

  WHAT TESSA KNOWS

  It was too hot to sleep that night, so around midnight I wandered up to the roof to see if I could catch a breeze. There was already the orange burn of a cigarette end in the far corner. I headed in that direction. Rocco gave a soft, deep-of-the-night laugh when I collapsed into the sixties retro sun lounger beside him. He reached over to offer me a swig out of his home-labelled bottle.

  I screwed up my face. ‘Not feeling brave enough right now.’

  He laughed out loud this time, sucked on his rollie so the end flared up again in the dark. ‘Only the wicked can’t sleep, JJ. What’ve you been up to?’

  It was my turn to laugh. ‘I’d curl your ears just in the telling, Rocco.’

  He gestured with his bare big toe at his tobacco pouch. I leaned over to pick it up. Spent a deal of time getting the roll of it right. He lit it for me. I sucked on the end and took the hit. That tiny, satisfying rush to the brain. I sank back into the plastic weave.

  ‘Marge got her date,’ he said.

  ‘Oh shit.’ I straightened back up. ‘When?’

  He gave me the details.

  I sunk back. ‘That’s the wicked thing I’ve been up to, then. There’s a special place in hell for people who don’t watch a friend’s back. I should’ve checked in on Friday night.’

  ‘She’s a tough old bird,’ he said. ‘Been expecting it.’

  ‘It’s not her I’m worried about. She can’t leave me here with you lot.’

  ‘You could always move out yourself, you know.’ He turned to look at me directly. ‘A big fancy lawyer doesn’t need to live in a dive like this.’

  ‘When I get paid like a big fancy lawyer, I’ll keep that in mind.’

  We smoked some more, although truth was, I let the air smoke down most of mine.

  ‘There has to be another way for her,’ I finally said.

  ‘You’d think.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, wrangled the back of his lounger so it flattened out and lay fully down, the plastic under his weight squeaking in protest. I did the same and we lay there dozing on and off till dawn.

  I hadn’t returned any of Tye’s phone calls since I’d seen Dad. Rat-Tail, our self-appointed message taker, was pulling at his thin, scraggy Rasta-tail at the stream of unanswered messages. Tye and I were always the first in to the office, so he was waiting in the lobby downstairs already when I made it through the revolving doors the next day.

  ‘So my relationship with Rat-Tail has gone to a new level,’ he opened with.

  I put my arms around his neck. Breathed him in. Wondered how long we might have for this ease once I’d told him. I couldn’t see it as anything but a one-way ticket down Resentment Road. If I wanted it and he didn’t? If he wanted it and I didn’t… I turned my brain off. I’d been around and around these computations too many times already. I had no idea what he would think. Hell, I had no idea what I thought.

  ‘He says to tell you how he likes how polite you are,’ I said.

  ‘And?’ He waited.

  I leaned away to grin. ‘Only he can’t understand your accent, but!’

  Tye threw his hands in the air.

  I laughed.

  Tye didn’t have an accent, but Rat-Tail heard through his eyes, and the brown skin and brown eyes Tye inherited from his Japanese mother confused him.

  I used the distraction to make peace with Tye. I grabbed his hands in mine and told him the nothing I discovered at Dad’s.

  ‘Okay.’ He nodded in his measured way. ‘What next?’

  ‘Next I get real busy on my Stintini case.’

  Before he could say much, Maurice was there,
sweeping us into the lift in his take-no-prisoners way.

  He clipped his way through a number of questions to Tye, who’d spent his Sunday working on their case, before turning to me. ‘Got the Stintini brief ready, JJ?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep, yep,’ I said. ‘Almost. Just a final polish to go.’

  ‘So barely started, then?’ He shook his head, seeing straight through me.

  The lift doors opened. ‘You know where I am if you need me,’ he said before sweeping away again like some minor king leaving his minions.

  I’d met Maurice the first day of uni. I was early and sat in the very top seat nearest the door to the lecture theatre. He told me later it was his ritual to arrive early for the first lecture of the academic year. I watched this guy, who was supposed to be a God of Law and was the actual Head of the Law School, place his papers on the lectern and stride up and down the platform. He wouldn’t have even known I was there but for the noise my pen made when it dropped to the ground and rolled down the next stair. He shaded his hand against his forehead and found me in the gloom of the back of the theatre. He didn’t ask me to go down to him. Instead he took the stairs two at a time to get to me. I had no idea that the flowing black gown was not de rigueur. That was another part of his first-lecture ritual. Full academic gear. ‘What school did you go to?’ was his first question. Which I didn’t appreciate, coming from a down-in-the-mouth, library-what-library, but-boy-can-we-put-on-a-mean-mass kind of school. But instead of disapproving, a smile cracked through the seriousness on his face. ‘Good. Good,’ he said. ‘Too many students are spoonfed into this place from nurseries wallpapered with money and schools dripping with gold.’ He had a clipped, decisive way of speaking. It was like he knew who he was. I let go of the breath I’d been holding ever since I passed through the mighty sandstone gates of the university.

  Turns out he came from a school just like mine. Not Catholic. But the down-and-out part. So when I nearly gave up a few years later, there was enough between us that he offered me a part-time job at his Chambers. That became Articles when I finished. He was a hand on my shoulder, and that has been a good and bad thing. Right now, bad. I had to confront him about ringing my dad. But… opening another front right now? It would have to wait.

  I sat down at my desk and pulled the Stintini files out. Flipped open the first manila folder. The words on the page pulsed at me, refusing to stay in their straight rows. Flipped it closed. I pushed back in my chair. Bit my lip, dug into my palms, rubbed at the jackhammers pounding away on my arms. Really useful things. I plucked a pen from the re-purposed jam jar, opened the file again. I could ask Suze to do some of the basic work. I’d never done that. Always did my own work. I put my hand to my belly. Felt the quease of it. I really should have tried to get more sleep. I bundled up my files, scribbled out a note and did my own gratitude smiling as I dropped the lot with Suze. I scribbled out another note and left it for Tye. Took a tram home and got straight into the Austin without going inside to run Rat-Tail’s gauntlet. I angled the wide bus steering wheel away from the curb and headed for the freeway.

  Tessa pulled into her driveway just after me, so I had a moment to gauge her mood in the sliver of rear-vision mirror. There was nothing there but business as she parked beside the front door. I rubbed my palms together and got out, hands to hips, watching. Georgie rocketed out of the car first.

  ‘Hey batboy,’ I said.

  He flew into my arms. I squeezed my eyes tight to get more of his little body hug, taking the edge off something a few layers down in me. ‘You had twins, you smart little guy. How’s that going?’

  ‘They don’t do much.’ He stood back and put his head on the side like a pigeon, his hands behind his back. He shrugged. ‘Mum says they’ll get better.’

  Tessa kicked the door of the Holden, her arms full with bags of groceries. ‘Let them sleep,’ she called to Georgie, who’d dragged me over to have a look at the twins. ‘Leave the back door open.’

  ‘Your mum’s spot on,’ I said. ‘They’re like two curled-up grubs who’ll grow into butterflies for you to run around and catch.’

  I tickled him, lifting him high and soaring him towards the front door. I dive-bombed him to the ground and he took off inside. I got hold of a bag out of Tessa’s hand. How the hell do you do the shopping with newborn twins and a toddler? A spit of respect shot out of the tightness I kept around Tessa. All her capable wasn’t just a criticism of me. It had a job to do in the world.

  There was the ring of a bell deep in my gut. Truth was, I came to her first because of this capable. If anybody had worked out more than me, it was her. I’d found what looked like proof that things were fucked up in our house, but Dad denied it and it was all brick walls and dead ends, so I needed Tessa on my side. But her face was all closed up with the effort of living, and I wondered if I could get past it, back down to when we were kids on the other end of a phone to Aunty Peg.

  I didn’t have her kind of capable. Maybe you couldn’t have a kid without it. I had to think of what would be best for the kid growing inside me. Pretty sure that wasn’t me, and yet what do you do with the sadness of letting it go?

  The blue-and-green-flecked carpet down the corridor was something good. Tessa was like Mum in this. She needed the ease that Geoff’s bank job gave her. Georgie charged straight into the lounge and punched the telly on, full of karate-chopping energy. He settled himself on a beanbag as Tessa and I went past to the kitchen island, dropping bags on benches. Georgie’s little face was soft in the curve of his hand as he watched the screen, unblinking as he took in the deliberate and slow instructions of the Play School presenter who was cutting shapes into coloured paper. I caught Tessa watching him too, the same softness in her face. She turned back to the shopping, face shuttered up again, and she opened the pantry door. She refilled the flour and rice canisters.

  ‘Georgie,’ she called. ‘Where’s the cereal tin?’

  He came zooming over, arms out to the side like an aeroplane, flattened himself to the ground, put his hand behind the back leg of the table closest to the wall and pulled out the canister.

  ‘Why, Georgie, just why?’

  ‘Didn’t want the twins to eat it before me,’ he said and zoomed off.

  ‘Cuppa?’ I asked, happy to be able to laugh.

  Tessa fell into a chair. ‘Look, JJ, I’m too tired for whatever this is—can we just skip it?’

  I put the kettle on. ‘Just came to see the twins.’

  ‘You were round at Dad’s yesterday. So alarm bells are ringing,’ she said, exasperation tightening her mouth up.

  I didn’t have time for shame about my visiting-the-twins lie. ‘He tell you why I was there?’

  She shook her head. ‘But the last time I saw you, you were flying out of Aunty Peg’s like a cat with a scalded tail, and the next thing you turn up on Dad’s doorstep. Putting two and two together…’ She raised her eyebrows and tapped a finger on the table.

  I picked up a pillowcase from the pile of clothes on the table and folded it. She tipped forwards and picked up a tea towel. I put the folded case on the table and started in on a pile of baby things.

  ‘Just fold them,’ she said. ‘I don’t iron any more.’

  ‘That’s progress.’

  She screwed up the tired in her face at me and I wished I could pluck the barb back out of the air so I wouldn’t have caused her that pain. We worked our way through the clothes and I wondered if she still thought getting married at nineteen had been a good idea. At least Geoff was a good guy. ‘We’re going back over to Peg’s tomorrow,’ said Tessa. She rubbed her nose with her sleeve. ‘Dad and Tim are bringing the truck.’

  ‘When did Dad tell you that?’

  ‘He rang this morning.’

  ‘Weird. First he says he’ll have nothing to do with Peg’s madhouse, then suddenly, after I told him you were sorting through everything not just chucking it, he’s changed his tune?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, JJ. He was just letting
off steam when he said he wouldn’t be there. He always helps.’ She folded a tiny romper. ‘Why don’t you stay out of his way? You’ve got work anyway. Those law firms aren’t charities. You can help with the clean-up on the weekend.’

  I turned my head away to hide the eye roll. I got up from the table and picked up a toy car crashed against the windowsill. I took it over to Georgie and put it with a pile of others he had in a box by the beanbag. He looked up and winked.

  ‘When did you learn to do that?’

  He winked again five more times, like it was Morse Code. ‘Mum taught me yesterday when the twins were having a drink.’

  I laughed and winked back. That gave me enough good vibes to get back to the table. I picked up the last of the towels. ‘So have you found anything yet over at Peg’s?’

  ‘Bit.’ She scratched her hair and her hand dropped with a thud to the table. ‘Some pearls, a ring, lots of twenty dollar bills everywhere.’

  ‘How much all together?’

  ‘A couple of grand.’

  I whistled. ‘That’s worth it. Actually I’ve got a day off tomorrow. I’ll definitely be there to give you a hand.’

  Tessa heaved off her chair towards the kettle and came back with the tea in mugs. ‘Listen.’ She put them on the table. ‘It’s better if you don’t.’

  I smacked my hands open full of the indignant question.

  She sighed. ‘It’s just not… calm when you’re around.’

  ‘Calm?’ I spat the word as if it were all scratched up.

  She put up her palms like stoplights. ‘Life’s hard enough without the drama.’

  ‘It’s not me. Life’s muddy.’

  ‘Just let us put it all behind us.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Dad wants.’

  ‘We all want it. He deserves a bit of peace. He’s never been the same since Mum died.’

  ‘Why are you always on Dad’s side? What about Mum?’ My hand fell to my trouser pocket for comfort, feeling the shape of Mum’s brooch.

  ‘We all lost her—not just you,’ Tessa said.

  ‘She wasn’t just our mother, she was a woman who lived and breathed, and she deserves to be remembered for who she was and what she strived for.’