The Last Summer of Ada Bloom

by Martine Murray

  Tilly said goodbye and hurried out. She pushed her bike up the driveway. Raff’s voice came after her.

  ‘Tilly,’ he called. He had her hat in his hand and walked towards her, bare feet and still half undressed. He stopped to flick a prickle from his foot, and then looked at her. ‘You forgot your hat.’ He passed it to her and smiled softly, as if everything that had been so hard and glamorous inside was no longer there, and there was just the dappled sun on the driveway and the two of them beneath it.

  17

  When Ada woke up, she went looking for Tilly. Ben was the only one in the kitchen, hunched over a bowl, shovelling in mouthfuls of Weetbix.

  ‘Slept in?’ he asked.

  Ada frowned. She didn’t like sleeping in. She didn’t like getting up and finding the world already underway. She stuck a finger in her ear, as if to unplug it properly from sleep.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ she demanded.

  Ben eyed her over his cereal bowl.

  ‘Dad’s at work. Mum’s watering. And I’ve got no idea where Tilly is. Gone on her bike somewhere.’

  Ada stood still, her mouth open, her gaze shifting slowly between Ben and the garden. Did she want food first or did she need to go outside and check everything? But what did she need to check? Something could have happened. She should go and see what it was. Because she had slept in, life had shifted without her being able to take account of it and there would now be a stumbling gap in time, which turned things dream-like and baffling.

  It was her job to let the chickens out—and they must think they’d been forgotten. She ran to the door and tumbled outside. The heat made the air heavy. The grass prickled. She skipped, in defiance of it, to the chook pen and clambered up on the woodblock to pull the catch. Even before the gate opened, Ada sensed that, just as she had suspected, something was different. It was the quietness. There was no clucking or rushing towards the gate. She slowly pushed it open.

  Peachie was there, or what remained of her; her head was gone and instead there was a bloodied hole in the centre of a collapsed puff of body. Ada’s heart jumped; her eyes jammed shut and then opened again. The fox had come. Peachie was dead. There she was, without a head and dead as anything and squished right up against the corner of the gate. There was a whirlpool of feathers inside the coop and Bolshie still standing, but with her head bent down, and she didn’t move at all. It was eerie and wrong. Usually Bolshie rushed towards her.

  Ada burst into tears and ran to her mother in the vegetable garden. She yelled, ‘Mama, a fox, there’s been a fox. Peachie’s dead. The fox bit off her head.’

  Martha was at the tap, turning off the hose. She wore a man’s shirt over her dress and a straw hat, which was how she always dressed in the garden. To Ada she looked like a scarecrow. ‘Are they all dead?’ Martha asked. She began dragging off her gardening gloves.

  ‘Bolshie is still alive, but she can’t walk. Peachie has no head. I didn’t see the others.’

  ‘Oh God, but how did it get in?’ Martha gasped. She didn’t cope well with these situations. It upset her to look at something that had died. Once Ada had been playing with Louis and May in the garden and they’d found a dead rat. Ada had held it by the tail and run inside with it, just so they could laugh at Martha’s reaction. She’d screamed and turned away and told Ada it wasn’t funny. ‘Ada, run and get Ben. I can’t go in there. What about the Outsider? Can you see her?’

  The Outsider had survived all the previous fox attacks. She was a small grey Aracana who laid blue eggs and was impossible to catch, even for Ada. She was also the last one to go in at night and for a while she was known as the Teenager. But a fox had never got inside the coop before.

  Ada dashed to the house to get Ben. But Ben had left too.

  There was no one but Ada and her mother.

  Martha paced. She looked as if she were cornered and could not go past the chicken coop, as if she’d have to stay in the vegetable garden all day. Ada began to fret. She stood by the silverbeet, squinting into the sun.

  ‘Ada,’ Martha pleaded, ‘Can you go in and tell me? Is Bolshie the only one alive, and is she bleeding? Can you look for me?’

  Ada crept back to have another look. Part of her was scared, but the other part wanted to see. Bolshie stood completely still, exactly as she was before, with her head unnaturally bent. There was the lifeless body of Esmeralda lying sideways, like a lady in a long dress who had fainted, but also without a head. The Outsider’s grey feathers were everywhere and so were the Famous Friends’ but there were no bodies. Ada didn’t go close to Esmeralda, but she squatted down next to Bolshie, and cooed at her, ‘It’s all right Bolshie.’

  Bolshie was their favourite chicken. She was an Isa Brown and she always came to the front doorstep when she was hungry. She laid her eggs in Ada and Tilly’s washing basket, pecking at the window for them to let her in. For a chicken, she was happy in your arms. Ada was afraid to pick her up. She patted her on the back a few times then ran to deliver the news to her mother, who was still pacing in the vegetable garden. She felt proud to be the grown up.

  ‘Ada, I think I’m going to call the Laytons and see if Toby’s dad is there, and ask him to come and deal with this.’

  ‘Why don’t you ring Dad?’ said Ada.

  ‘Because he’s half an hour’s drive away.’ She rubbed at her head as if she was getting a headache.

  Ada patted her, reassuringly. ‘Don’t be sad,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, but I am sad. Poor Bolshie, poor Peachie. I can’t bear to think how it must have been for them.’

  Ada was puzzled. How had it been? She remembered how Peachie had been cornered against the gate. Then she shook this out of her mind. Why did her mother think about that? It made Ada feel awfully sad, too. She began to cry again.

  Martha marched towards the coop; she put her hat in front of her eyes, so she couldn’t see, and then she bent her head to the ground and went straight past and into the house.

  When Ada got inside, her mother was already on the phone. Ada wiped her tears. She hadn’t had breakfast. But she didn’t feel like eating—she kept seeing Peachie’s bloodied neck. It was confusing, as she knew she would enjoy a piece of honey toast if only she could stop thinking about the hole where Peachie’s head had been.

  Mr Layton arrived a few minutes later. Martha thanked him for coming. She told him she was too sensitive for this. He laughed. Ada had always liked Mr Layton, because he had a gentle manner and once he’d bought her an ice cream at the pictures and another time had shown her a blue-tongue lizard lying in the sun by the step. That was when she was smaller.

  Ada’s mother had found a cardboard box, which she thrust towards Mr Layton, asking him to put Bolshie in the box so she could take her to the vet. Mr Layton smiled at her as if she were a child too. He didn’t take the box.

  ‘You know what we say in the country?’

  ‘What?’ said Martha, a note of desperation heightened her voice.

  ‘A sick chook is a dead chook.’

  Martha shook her head against this. ‘Well, you know, Joe, I don’t come from the country and where I come from a sick animal goes to the vet. Please don’t tell Mike though. He’ll think I’m wasting money.’ She pushed the box towards him and stood firm. Ada was glad for her mother’s good instincts.

  Mr Layton smiled again. ‘All right, Martha. She’s your chook. But sounds to me like a broken neck.’

  ‘But Bolshie is still standing up!’ Ada protested. ‘And she’s our favourite chicken,’ she said, as if the fact of this alone should make her live.

  Mr Layton nodded at her as he took the box under his arm. Ada followed him to the coop. He stood and surveyed what Ada would now call the chicken massacre, and then picked Bolshie up and put her in the box, closing the lid slightly and telling Ada to take it to Martha while he dug a hole for the others.

  Martha took Bolshie in the box straight to the car.

  ‘Ada, do you want to come with me to the vet or would you r
ather stay here with Mr Layton.’ Her mother’s voice was urgent. She moved too quickly, sweeping everything up in a terrible hurricane around her. Ada wanted to go with Bolshie, but she wanted to see the burial too. She was perplexed; she couldn’t move as fast as her mother.

  ‘I think you should stay here.’ Her mother decided for her. ‘Go and see what Louis and May are doing. And get dressed—you’re still in your pyjamas.’ She was already getting in the car. She slammed the door and leaned her head out the window.

  ‘You need to tidy that bedroom today, too.’

  Ada nodded but she had no intention of tidying her room, not after the chicken massacre. She turned back. The garden shimmered in front of her eyes, as if it were a pretend garden, a garden that had died and been painted on instead. The chickens should be pecking in a group together, on the grass or scratching the mulch from around the fruit trees. Usually this drove her mother mad. Now the garden looked unnaturally still. The thuds of the shovel rang out with a dogged, dull persistence. Ada crept closer. Mr Layton’s elbows jerked up and down. He was digging a hole beneath the old pine tree. Ada felt afraid of it all. Death. The bodies. The hole. Even Mr Layton, because of what she knew about Mrs Layton, which now came back to her, as if it and all the other horrors had now joined with the thudding shovel. She knelt down and crept into the speckled shade under the plum tree. She stabbed at the dry old ground with a stick. PJ lumbered over and Ada put her nose close to his ears and smelled the familiar smell of him.

  ‘The fox killed the chickens, PJ. Didn’t you hear it?’ She knew PJ was too old to hear things anymore. But she felt he ought to know. He had failed the chickens too, it wasn’t just her. This was the terrible thing that Ada was feeling. She didn’t protect the chickens properly from the fox. The chickens were so silly and helpless and dependent. Ada had failed them. Everything around her took on a grim, mournful air. Even the garden had succumbed to death. Hardly a leaf trembled in the windless air. Louis and May hadn’t come out, Ben had disappeared and so had Tilly. Even her mother had driven away, and the only one left was Mr Layton, who was digging a hole, and who didn’t know the awful thing his wife had done in the living room. Ada felt the familiar, stalking premonition of the trapped heat of summer, as if it now had tightened its hold on her. She wrapped her arms around PJ and he plonked onto his bottom and let her hold on.

  ‘What’s going on, Snug?’ Tilly leaned her bike against the fence. ‘Where is everyone?’

  Ada jumped. But the appearance of Tilly broke the spell of doom, and Ada rushed to tell her. ‘A fox killed the chickens. Mum has taken Bolshie to the vet, and Mr Layton is burying the others.’ Tilly didn’t like it either. Was she too sensitive, like their mother?

  ‘All the others dead. Even the Outsider?’ Tilly whispered.

  Ada nodded. ‘Peachie had her head bitten off. I saw it.’

  Tilly winced. ‘Did Mum call Mr Layton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ada knew what Tilly was thinking, but Tilly said nothing. She looked towards Mr Layton who was now transporting bodies on the end of the shovel. ‘Come on, let’s get something to mark it with. Some sticks and flowers.’

  Why did it feel better when there was something to be done? Ada raced around but she only found some lavender and ruby salt-bush, and Tilly found a smooth stone for writing Rest in Peace: Captain George, Peachie, Esmeralda, The Outsider and Famous Friends, even though the last three couldn’t be buried because they’d been eaten.

  In the end it was just Ada and Mr Layton at the burial. Ada placed the stone and the flowers on the dirt. Mr Layton watched.

  ‘It’s nature, you know, Ada. Everything eats everything in nature. We eat chickens too. The fox was just getting dinner for her family, probably,’ Mr Layton said.

  He was trying to be comforting. He put the spade down and squatted down next to Ada.

  ‘But why did the fox have to kill them all if it was just for dinner? They couldn’t eat them all for dinner.’

  ‘They kill them all, so they can come back for more for the next dinner. It’s tough, when you think about it, being born as a chicken,’ he said.

  ‘Better to be a fox, then,’ said Ada. She knew what he meant.

  ‘But as far as chickens go, yours had a pretty nice life. They walked around. They got to eat worms.’

  ‘Poor worms,’ said Ada.

  Mr Layton laughed. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Even worse to be a worm. Worms can’t even see.’

  ‘Some people can’t see either. Or dogs. I know a dog that has no eyes.’ Ada felt even sadder when she thought of Elmer.

  ‘Well, I bet his ears are very good to compensate. I bet he can hear things other dogs can’t hear.’

  Ada nodded. Mr Layton didn’t yet know what he had to endure either. Suddenly she wanted to pat him on the back, but she didn’t know him well enough, and anyway he had stood up again and was too tall now. Martha came home after Mr Layton had left. She had been crying again. She said Mr Layton was right; Bolshie had to be put down.

  Ada put more rocks over the top and rearranged the wilted flowers. She felt the fox watching her. She gazed into the dark folds of the cypress hedge that ran along their fence. She was sure it was in there, in the early evening shadows, lurking, like everything else, getting ready…

  Ada aimed a deep and threatening frown at the hedge and ran inside for honey toast.

  18

  Ben Bloom arrived home, just after the chicken burial. He’d spied Ada still in the garden with PJ, Louis and May, solemnly showing them the chicken grave. Ben went over and heard the grim news. He said, ‘Poor old chickens!’

  Ada cocked her head at him, squinting queerly, as if checking that he spoke sincerely. He shook off her gaze and headed inside. He did feel a fleeting moment of pity for the chickens, but not enough for Ada. He certainly wasn’t going to let it darken his day. He’d snuck out earlier with twenty-five bucks in his back pocket and a handful of coins he’d nicked from Martha’s purse and gone to Jimmy’s house to score a gram of pot. He then went to the shop and bought some milk, and walked into the kitchen, planning to put it in the fridge in front of Martha so that not only would he have a cover for where he’d been, but she would even thank him for being so thoughtful. But no one was in the kitchen to witness his good deed and this was a shame. Now he’d have to explain it instead, which was trickier to pull off. It would have to to slip out casually. He could hear voices coming from the bedroom, and he tiptoed down the hall to listen.

  Martha was in there with Tilly. Tilly was copping it. Ben listened eagerly.

  ‘Well if you’ve got money to buy yourself a new dress,’ Martha said, ‘then you can start paying for your own shampoo too. It’s about time you made a contribution and stopped just thinking about yourself. Where did you go anyway? I’ve told you, you’re not to leave the house without telling me where you are going.’

  Tilly didn’t reply straightaway. There was a long sigh, then, ‘Mum, the dress cost two bucks. It’s from the Salvos.’

  ‘Well that’s two dollars that could have gone into something else.’

  ‘Okay,’ Tilly shouted.

  Again it was quiet. Ben began to tiptoe back, but Martha started again, her voice still tense. She hadn’t finished yet. ‘Where were you this morning?’

  Old Sherlock, thought Ben. Martha had to know everything.

  ‘I went for a piano lesson, with Daisy Cavallo.’ Tilly didn’t hesitate this time. She would have known this would upset Martha.

  ‘Piano.’ Martha sounded disconcerted but made a quick comeback. ‘Well, how on earth are you going to pay for that? I hope you’re not expecting us to pay?’

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I work.’ Tilly’s voice was full of accusation.

  Ben chuckled to himself. There was a pause before Martha gathered herself again.

  ‘Well, I didn’t even know she taught piano.’

  ‘She does, and she says I’ve got a good ear.’r />
  ‘Of course, she says that. She wants you to think that so you’ll come for lessons. She wants the money. She would say that to any potential student.’ Martha said it as if she was trying to be kind, to save Tilly from humiliation. ‘You’ll be wasting your hard-earned money in my opinion. But you never listen to me anyway.’ She was angry again. But Ben could tell she was winding up. Self-pity was her favourite note to end on.

  He crept back up the hall and then reapproached the room, knocking as he entered.

  ‘Hi.’ He breezed in. Tilly sat petulantly on her bed, with a notebook on her knees. She hardly returned his smile, but just made a weary face at the fact of his entry. Ben examined the dress she was wearing. She looked nice in it. Why had Martha made such a fuss about it? It wasn’t even short.

  Martha stood at the window. Her smile radiated back at him. ‘Hello, darling. Did Ada tell you about the chooks?’

  ‘They were all killed,’ said Tilly flatly.

  Martha looked at Ben gently. ‘A fox got into the coop last night. I’ve had an awful morning. It’s been so upsetting. I took Bolshie to the vet but he had to put her down. Don’t tell your father. He won’t like me wasting the money.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Tilly demanded.

  ‘Just went down the shops for milk,’

  Martha’s face broke into a smile.

  Sometimes it was too easy. Ben rolled along without even a creak. Poor Tilly always went in the wrong direction. She slammed right up against Martha.

  ‘Where’s Bolshie? I’ll bury her,’ he said, just to add one final stroke to the image of perfection he’d created. Martha looked at him with such aching gratitude. Ben knew this pattern well. Taking out the rubbish got him in the good books for a whole week, whereas Tilly could do the dishes every night and still not get close. Ben thanked himself for his own good luck. He felt sorry for Tilly sometimes, but it was just bad luck to be born a girl, really. But they made up for it. By holding out. That was how they got even. They wouldn’t let themselves be touched unless you acted just like they wanted you to. You had to show an interest in their feelings. Tilly would do that to some guy one day. She would make him take out her rubbish and talk to her about love.