There she was: seven years old and skinny as a stick, long dark plaits, grey overalls and red jumper. She was clomping along in pink, muddy gumboots through the winter orchard, carrying a pan of softened beeswax as she followed her father down a row of apple trees. He put down his toolbox and kicked a bare patch in the soft soil with the toe of his boot. Then he set the stove on it, turning on the gas and lighting the flame, adjusting it low. Miki placed the pan over the flame before trailing her father to a tree.
He flicked his secateurs from his pocket and got to work, snipping off twigs from last year’s late shoots, cutting them into pencil-lengths. When he’d gathered a handful, he passed them to her and she clutched them in her sticky palm. She liked it when he let her help in the orchard, because most days she was in the kitchen doing lessons. She was old enough to go to school, but her parents were giving her an education in God, which was best done at home. These lessons were delivered at the kitchen table from the large old Bible with its black leather cover, worn by use. There were many dog-eared pages to mark the important bits, and that made the Bible even thicker because every page was important.
Little Miki learned about God while she sat in the house, but he was outside too, she knew this. Mother said God was everywhere, a presence inside her, closer than her breath. But Miki didn’t feel God inside her; she simply felt herself. She was sure God hated the stuffy kitchen as much as she did and preferred to be outdoors where a soul could rise into the sky. She suspected God was in the trees and the wind, in the flowers, in the birds that flew overhead. He would be happier outside than he would be living between the dog-eared pages of a heavy old book full of hard words.
Miki loved being out among the gnarly old-man trees, and she loved to watch her father with his knife, the precise way he performed his cuts. He pulled a handsaw from his toolbox and hacked a branch from the tree and let it drop to the ground. With his stone-sharpened work knife, he made a notch in the fresh-cut stump. Miki passed him a twig, which he whittled to a sharp point and inserted into the notch then wrapped the join with tape. As he sawed off another branch, she handed over her last two twigs.
It was time to fetch the pan of molten beeswax so Father could paint the grafts to keep the water out. Miki turned off the gas knob and picked up the pan, making sure she didn’t spill any wax while she carried it to her father. As she walked, the wax swirled in the pan, making pretty patterns. She held the handle with both hands and tried to stay steady as Father dipped his brush in. He dipped and painted, dipped and painted, making neat white collars around the grafts. Miki struggled to be strong, but the pan grew heavy and her hands began to tremble. She asked God for help because Mother always said he helped those who were weak and in need. In her mind Miki was yelling, God, make me strong.
Then Kurt yodelled to let them know he was near. She didn’t mean to be distracted, but her head jerked up when she heard his call. At the same time she dropped the pan, spraying hot wax onto Father just as he had his knife out and was about to make a new cut. She heard his raw cry and saw a ruby spurt of blood pumping from his hand like a fountain. One of his fingers was dangling. Another was on the ground, a stumpy white thing, and the blood kept coming from his hand. She watched him fumbling at his loose finger, trying to put it back on as if forcing it in place would make it regrow. The blood was shooting in an arc. She saw Father’s grimace, heard his yowl, the rough grunt of his breathing superimposed over the airy patter of her own puffy breaths.
The world became woozy and the grass was rippling. She looked again at the finger on the ground, nestled in a bed of grass. It was weird and white and lonely. Wrong. Meaty. A dark blanket spread over her, and time swelled and became no time at all.
What she saw next were the gangly branches of dormant apple trees reaching into the sky. She was in Kurt’s arms, the rough wool of his jumper rubbing her cheek. He held her tight against his chest as he strode along the row of trees. She felt tired, but if she closed her eyes Father’s detached finger was there—she couldn’t shut it out—so she kept her eyes open and watched the branches jolting by.
At the house, Father was sitting on a chair in the driveway beside the big old pine tree, his face as grey as the clouds. Mother was bent over him, wrapping his hand in a tea towel, a red stain radiating through it like spreading ink. Kurt set Miki on the gravel, and she stood there watching silently. But the congealed strands of blood on Father’s overalls made the world shimmer again. Kurt pressed her to the ground, and there she remained while the others had a discussion. Father’s face was pale and tight. Kurt was standing alongside, listening intently. They were trying to work out how to get to hospital. With his finger cut off Father couldn’t drive, and Mother had never learned, because driving was a man’s job. Kurt was too young to have his permit, but he’d driven the paddock bomb and tractor around the orchard for years. He would have to drive the car. It was a long way to Hobart, but there was no other solution.
They had all clambered into the old brown Commodore: Father and Kurt in the front, Miki and Mother in the back. On her lap, Mother carried an esky with the finger inside. Miki was still reeling from the smell of blood, so she leaned against Mother while Father sat in the passenger seat and held up his hand, covered by the towel which was dark red and saturated. Mother reached forward with another towel and rolled it over the first, saying quietly, ‘Put some pressure on it.’ Miki wondered why God couldn’t make the bleeding stop. Weren’t her parents praying hard enough? Mother’s lips were clamped in a flat line, and Miki knew she was angry—Miki felt a hot stab of guilt because she knew it was her fault. She was the one responsible for this disaster, as if she had cut off those fingers herself. But despite her shame, she felt excitement rising, because this was the first time she had ever left the farm.
In the driver’s seat Kurt started the car and clunked it into gear, taking off jerkily and bouncing down the driveway through puddles and potholes and ruts. Father groaned with every bump, every clumsy gear change. Then they were through the gate onto the gravel road, entering territory Miki had never seen before, driving past paddocks and orchards, half-hidden houses with letterboxes and driveways, gates and sheds.
They came to an intersection where Father barked instructions, and Kurt slowed the car and turned onto another road that was smooth and black with no bumps. The car went so fast Miki thought they might take off and fly. It was scary but exhilarating.
They took another turn and already she was lost. They came to a place with many houses and buildings close together lining the street, cars parked nose-out on an angle, people, signs, rubbish bins, footpaths, children on bicycles. ‘What is this place?’ Miki asked. ‘Town,’ Mother said. This was where Miki’s parents came shopping; she had always wondered what it looked like. She wished she could see inside all the shop windows. She knew her parents bought flour and sugar, broomsticks, soap, clothes, wool for knitting jumpers. But there must be other things too. She leaned forward, trying to see out, but Mother snapped at her to sit back and be still. Miki knew she should focus on her guilt and the chopped-off fingers and ask God for forgiveness, but it was hard. There were so many new things, and everything was rushing past: a school, a park, children playing on swings, a lady walking a dog. Her heart was beating quickly because she had to remember it all. She had to seal it in her hungry mind. The world was bigger than she’d ever imagined, full of fields and farms, fences, cars, people, buildings. She used to think everything was made up of apple trees and forest because that was all she could see from the top of the tallest apple tree on the highest hill on the farm.
They passed out of town and drove over hills, and the road widened. All was quiet in the car. Mother was still as stone, and Father was silent in the front seat with the blood-red towel wrapped over his hand. Kurt was concentrating on driving, and Miki stared through the window, taking it all in. Soon there were cars going in both directions. Big noisy trucks. Tourist buses heading up to the hills. They passed an enormous wooden a
pple shed. Poplar trees with brown leaves lining the road. Purple mountains in the distance. Green signs with white writing.
It was a long drive, nearly an hour, and Miki was exhausted from looking and seeing and storing things in her memory. Her brain was like a pot of hot water boiling over, hissing and fizzing on the stove.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, they drove around the shady side of a dark mountain, and craziness exploded all around: rushing cars close and noisy, crisscrossing roads, crowds of houses, tall buildings, red-and-green-eyed lights, people on paths, women in smart suits and high-heeled boots, men in black coats. Rain started to tumble and umbrellas appeared like mushrooms popping skywards.
The shadow of the mountain reared above everything, clouds low on its stern black brow.
At the hospital, they went through magic glass doors that slid open without you touching them. Mother talked to a lady behind a white desk, then Father was taken into another room to be seen by a nurse. He came back, closed-faced and quiet, and they went into a room full of people sitting in plastic chairs. The people were blank and stiff. Children rolled restlessly on the floor. Miki wondered how long they had all been there, waiting for who knows what. She hadn’t seen other children before, only the boy who came every few months with the wood-delivery truck, sitting high on the front seat and staring down at her. Here in the hospital waiting room the children were fidgety and wild, and they argued with each other and moaned at their parents. A small boy tugged his mother to a large-windowed metal box in the corner; she plugged coins into it and pressed buttons, then something dropped down. The boy put his arm through a flap-door, pulled out a crackly packet and opened it, releasing the smell of salt and oil. ‘What has he got?’ Miki asked Kurt.
‘Chips.’
‘Are they good? They smell good.’
‘Shh.’
Miki kept looking around. On the wall, a screen shifted with constantly changing pictures. She was transfixed by it; she clutched Kurt’s hand and ogled. She wondered who made the pictures, and how they moved on the screen. She was so busy looking, she almost forgot the esky on Kurt’s lap containing Father’s finger.
A man in a green uniform called Father’s name, and they followed him through a door into a wide room lined with white beds and people with grey faces and sagging eyes. They were shown to an empty bed on which her father sat, and a blue curtain was pulled around. The man in uniform had a weird thing made of black tubes hanging round his neck. He said he was a doctor, and Father explained what had happened to his fingers. The doctor opened the esky and peered in, then he unwrapped the tea towel on Father’s hand and his face tightened. He reached towards Father’s bloodied hand with a pair of scissors—and then, in the palm of his hand was another finger.
Miki felt floaty again. The room was swaying. She heard the clickety sound of shoes and wheels on lino floors, felt darkness descending. But there was no time for dizziness. The doctor barked for assistance, and another man in uniform came through the curtain and wheeled Father away.
They sat again in the waiting room. For a long time, Miki was alert: looking at everything, thinking about what had happened. What if Father’s fingers couldn’t be fixed? Would she get in trouble? Was it her fault? And what about everything around her right now? How could she make sense of it all?
Despite her fluttering mind, she must have fallen asleep with her head on Kurt’s lap, because later Mother shook her awake. The doctor had come back to talk to them. Miki was so tired she barely heard him say the operation to save Father’s fingers had failed. While Mother cried and Kurt sat in silence, Miki looked around at the new people who had arrived. A fat man who smelled of cigarettes and looked like a frog. A little girl with a snotty nose and a doll like a real baby. A boy with a noisy toy that jingled and talked.
Miki knew she should feel guilty and sad because those fingers were gone. She should be asking forgiveness from God. Instead, she was caught up in the world.
Her senses in overdrive. A disaster unfolding in front of her. Opportunity riding on the crest of that disaster. Her mind tingling with thoughts of what might lie ahead.
There she was: then and now. A young person waiting for the world.
PART III
Growth
21
Max didn’t know how the kids at school found out about the pups, but at the start of the week it was all they could talk about.
‘What happened? Did your dad kill them?’
‘Lily Moon says your dad drowned them.’
‘Why is your dad living at Mooney’s?’
‘Why is he sleeping on Lily Moon’s couch?’
‘Because Mum wants to kill him,’ Max yelled. ‘And I want to kill him too.’
He made himself sound tough on the outside, but inside he was crying. He didn’t want to think about the pups. He didn’t want to think of their little faces and how they must have looked when Dad was pushing them under the water.
Max knew now that Rosie had never been a bad mum. Dad must have drowned her other pups too, when they were just born. That was why Max never saw them. In the school toilets, he cried his eyes out. He hoped Dad stayed living at Mooney’s forever, because Max would never forgive him.
Everyone was sad for Max—except Jaden, who had a big smirk on his face as if he’d been hoping the pups would die all along. ‘Poor Maxie. Can’t stop blubbering over the little puppies. Big pussy cry-baby. Now they’re all dead.’
Not all of them, Max thought.
He didn’t want Jaden to know about Bonnie. She was living with Leon, and that was the next best thing to Max keeping her himself. Every day before school, he went over to see how she was going. In the afternoons he fed her and played with her till Leon came home. Her training wasn’t going too well, but Mum said he had to keep working at it. Bonnie was as good at concentrating as Max in the classroom. He figured they were almost the same.
Home was quiet without Dad. No yelling. No arguments. Max heard Mum talking on the phone to Trudi. ‘How can Liz stand it? … Can you imagine Shane and Mooney in the same house? … You’re right. Poor Liz doesn’t have a choice … Imagine all the beer those men are going through. All that drinking and bloke talk … What? He asked to stay at your place? What a nerve … No, I don’t want him back. Let him stew.’
But Max could see Mum was wearing herself out without Dad. Max had more jobs to do, like chopping the wood and carrying it in, and putting out the rubbish.
Sunday night, when he got up to pee he noticed Suzie’s room was empty. He went searching for her with his torch and found her in bed with Mum. There wouldn’t be room for Dad when he came back, so maybe he would have to sleep out in the shed with Rosie—Mum had said that to Trudi a few times.
Max wouldn’t mind sleeping with Rosie. He would take his sleeping-bag and pillow and, if it wasn’t raining, they could lie out under the stars. Rosie was better than a hot water bottle, and it was nice outside at night. When there were no clouds, the whole sky was dusted with stars and you could look up at the universe which went on forever, and all the sadness would slowly dissolve and you could be nothing and nobody, and problems melted away. Thinking about this helped Max manage at school. And it helped him to forget Jaden, who was still his biggest issue. The pups were gone, so Max didn’t need to worry about Jaden hurting them, but he was still scared. Jaden was strong and kept threatening to bash him.
At recess and lunch, he tried to avoid Jaden by keeping his head down, but the bigger boy always found him. Thursday, Max spent lunchtime sitting on the loo hoping Jaden would get sick of hanging round and go away. Eventually he did. Then, when the bell went at home time, Max tried to get out of class fast and run for his bag.
But Jaden was waiting for him. He poked Max in the ribs. ‘Did you get more cigarettes?’
‘No. Dad caught me. That’s why he killed the pups.’ Max wanted Jaden to feel guilty, but his eyes showed that he didn’t care.
‘You still have to get cigaret
tes.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Come behind the loos then.’
Max had to follow, and Callum came too.
‘If you can’t get smokes you have to steal something else,’ Jaden said. ‘Smokes are too easy anyway.’
Max’s skin went cold.
‘Like what?’ Callum was all excited, the stupid idiot. He was supposed to be Max’s friend.
‘Something from the shops,’ Jaden said. ‘A bag of chips.’
‘No way,’ Max said. ‘Too noisy. It’ll be a dead giveaway.’
‘Chocolate, then. Or lollies.’
Callum stared at Max with big eyes, scared for him. Max was scared too. ‘I’ll nick it from the supermarket,’ he said, relieved to think of this. It wouldn’t be too hard. Almost a cinch.
But Jaden’s eyes were sly. ‘No, you have to get it from the takeaway.’
Max felt sick. If Kurt caught him, he’d be dead. And he didn’t want to steal things from Miki because she always smiled at him and asked how things were going. ‘The supermarket,’ he said again. But he was stuck—he’d have to do it. ‘Next weekend.’ He was trying to buy time.
Jaden spat on the ground and clicked his knuckles menacingly. ‘No. Do it now at the takeaway or I’ll smash you.’
There was no way out.
They picked up their bags and walked to the shops. Max dawdled and made excuses to stop, like tying his shoelaces, but Jaden kicked him to make him keep going.
Then they were across the road from the takeaway, and Max was feeling terrible. How could he do this and not get caught? If he had money he could buy lollies then steal something while the cash was going into the till. ‘Have you got fifty cents?’ he said. ‘If I don’t have any money they’ll guess straight off.’
Callum nodded. ‘He’s right. Kurt’ll kill him. Like really kill him.’
Jaden sniggered. ‘Bad luck.’ He pushed Max onto the road. ‘You’ll think of something.’
The Orchardist's Daughter Page 19
