Hare's Fur

by Trevor Shearston

He saw her face close. ‘I’m still lookin.’

  ‘All right. Yes. Tell her they can come. I can invent a story.’

  Her thanks was a terse nod. ‘The little ones won’t be no trouble, they do what she says, ay.’

  ‘I saw, yes.’

  ‘Did she say about our mother?’

  It was a relenting of sorts.

  ‘She told me she’d been arrested, her and Todd’s father.’

  ‘She rung me. I fuckin hung up!’

  ‘From … gaol.’

  ‘Dunno. Didn’t give her time, ay.’ She reached to the table with the mug.

  ‘Might she be given bail? Because of … the littlies?’ He was, he knew, speaking from a profound ignorance.

  ‘Dealin? Wouldn’t reckon. And who’d pay it? And DoCS’ll be straight round sniffin her out! No way Toddy and Em are goin in care. Me and Jade been there! Bastards split us. Anyhow, there’s no house, realos took it. They owed rent, yeah.’

  ‘I see.’

  Her eyes flashed — ‘see’? — the contempt quickly hidden. He felt his face prickle. He pointed towards the other doorway.

  ‘Would you like to have a look? I’ve got a guest room and a study. Jade can use the study if she wants a bit of privacy and the littlies in the other.’

  ‘Nah, they’ll go in one.’

  ‘Well, you might still take a look, eh. So you can at least give them some idea.’

  She followed, he thought to humour him. He switched on the light and stepped aside to allow her to enter. She stopped in the doorway. ‘Yeah, here’s good. She and Em can go in the double and Toddy on the floor.’

  ‘You don’t want to look at the study?’

  ‘Nah, in here’s good.’ She stepped away, waited for him to turn off the light. They walked back to the kitchen. Time, he sensed, was up. Too long in a strange house or she wanted to join the young man. Or did she simply have what she wanted? Whatever it was, her manner had changed.

  ‘So — tomorrow okay? To bring em?’

  ‘Oh, that soon? Ah — all right. But do you have any idea what time? It’s just I’ll need to do some shopping.’

  ‘About same as now? I can ring you.’

  ‘Yes, that’d be good. I’d suggest an hour before. I very rarely have visitors, but you never know. I wasn’t expecting you, for example.’

  He’d hoped for a flicker of smile at least, but was given nothing, deepening what he’d begun to suspect, that she was without humour. But why should she find humour in any of this?

  He walked her to the front door. He hesitated before offering his hand, not sure she’d respond. She did, but her grip, like her sister’s, quick and weightless. The young man turned his face towards them when the door opened, but stayed where he was. Russell didn’t ask how they’d got here.

  He closed the door and went into the dark lounge room and stood where he could look through the window and the white of his face not be seen. She’d joined the young man in the gap. They stood face to face and close, talking. Then he threw an arm across her shoulder and they walked towards the road. He scampered to the bedroom, to the window bay, and a minute later saw them emerge from behind the living fence, a bulky darkness moving not on the easier walking of the bitumen, but on the ill-defined track that did for a footpath and which ran along the shadow-line of the trees.

  He returned to the kitchen and sat at the table. The only real possibility of an unannounced visitor was Helen Kent. Hugh had been yesterday, would be back Thursday night. He and Delys he would have to tell the truth, ask them to stay away from the house till they’d gone. ‘They’ll think you’re mad.’ He grinned. ‘Well you are. The cops are after them.’ He couldn’t, though, repress another grin. Now that he’d agreed, he was excited. It was only for a few days, no one but him would see them. They’d have to stay inside. That might be difficult, especially for the boy.

  He needed to decide in advance what to tell Helen, in case she or one of her two got a glimpse of them. Hugh and Delys wouldn’t be silly about Jade. Helen, he couldn’t say, even if he told her the truth. A fifteen-year-old girl, dependent on him to hide her and her brother and sister. He could threaten her with turning the little ones over. He thought of Helen moving about in her kitchen. She was essentially a stranger. Probably he was traducing her, but he would feel safer with a story. The most innocent and logical identity to give them was relatives. Not grandchildren, obviously — she knew about Michael. A niece’s, then? His non-existent sister’s youngest daughter. And from where? ‘Don’t get too clever. Sydney somewhere, even a suburb down there they might already know.’ Jade had mentioned Blacktown, where the real or fictional aunt lived. She wouldn’t have just plucked the name from the air. Blacktown, then. It didn’t matter that he’d never been there himself except from a train window. Why would one visit a niece? But her children might visit him, their semi-grandfather up in the Mountains. It wasn’t school holidays, though. That he’d have to think through, find something plausible.

  His hand strayed to the shino mug. She’d drunk only half. How old was she? If Jade was fifteen. Seventeen? Like Jade she looked older than she probably was. Neither was a girl, they’d left girlhood behind, they were women. He stood and walked to the sink and poured out the tea and rinsed the mug, inverted it in the drainer. He was hungry! Of course, when she knocked he’d been standing at the fridge. He was sick of eggs. He pulled out the dairy tray and found the stick of kangaroo salami Hugh had insisted he try. Roo pasta, then. With garlic and parmesan.

  After dinner he stripped the guest room double bed and draped its doona over the back of the lounge. He was getting miles ahead of himself, but knew he wouldn’t be able to watch television or read. He went into her study, to the divan, and rolled its thin mattress and lugged it into the guest room and leaned it in the corner. Moving around had raised dust and a mustiness. He couldn’t face vacuuming at night, that was too much. He opened a window and closed the door so cold air wouldn’t seep through the whole house.

  There were books, and there had been board games. He remembered ludo and Chinese checkers. He had no idea where she might have put them, or even if they’d been kept. He looked in the logical place, the built-in press in his study. The room had been Michael’s. There were no mysterious cartons. They would have to settle for books, then. He wasn’t sure anymore what was there. He wheeled the chair to the low bookshelf standing by itself. Prominent in the top row was the illustrated Treasure Island he’d been given by his own parents. Michael hadn’t wanted the story, complaining that the words were too old. They had, though, looked at the captioned plates, he explaining who Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver were in an effort to enthuse him. Russell slid the book out but didn’t open to the beginning, knowing what would happen, he would read the first sentence and be hooked. He opened instead to the first plate, then wished he hadn’t, having forgotten what it was, the roadway outside the inn, Blind Pew with his bony fingers in a vice grip on Jim’s shoulder and nose in the air like a dog. Russell stared at the boy’s terrified face.

  They wouldn’t arrive till night but his mind couldn’t settle to the work, too full of the conversations he needed to have, firstly with Hugh and Delys and then with Helen. The only sensible thing to do was to have them. He covered the bowls, closed down the heater and walked back to the house.

  He changed his clothes and pocketed his wallet, then returned to the kitchen and sat with pad and pen. The list grew to a page. He was startled. He retracted the pen and sat trying to think when had been the last time a child or children had stayed in the house. Visited, yes, John Farley and his sparky twins, already making pots, on their way through from Mudgee some four months ago. But stayed, slept? Years. He couldn’t think who they would even have been. Not family. Adele had been an only child. His brother had never married. It bothered him that his mind was a blank. He stood and peeled the sheet from the pad and folded it, pushed it
into the pocket with his wallet, and went into the pantry to fetch shopping bags, taking down from the hook his usual two and two more.

  He was in Coles nearly an hour, searching up and down aisles he never entered. He rang from the old Civic carpark. Hugh answered. They were both at home.

  It was a cool enough morning that most everything could stay in the car, but not the ice cream. He’d had the foresight to ask the girl to put it in a separate plastic bag. It was only when he lifted the bag from the zipped insulated bag that he realised how thin its plastic was, the tub’s label visible. If they hadn’t heard the car he could slip into the kitchen and get to the freezer before he halloed. But when he rounded the corner of the house he saw both of them through the windows, Hugh at the sink. Hugh lifted his hand from the tap and gave him a wave. No escape, then. By all means, Delys would say, move things around if there isn’t room. But since when was he buying ice cream? And they’d be straight into what he’d come for. Well, so be it. He wasn’t going to be apologetic.

  She was seated at the bench with her knife, peeling an orange. She glanced a smile and looked back down. Hugh it was who said, ‘Sure,’ adding when the door sucked shut, ‘You having guests?’

  ‘Yes. To stay, actually. Which might get a bit tricky. So what I’m here to ask is — could we give tomorrow night a miss, please.’

  Hugh turned from the machine, Delys lowered the orange. Russell pointed to the row of cups. ‘Maybe do the brews, and we’ll sit out on the deck.’

  Delys interrupted only once, to enquire whether ‘they’ had a surname. It was such an obvious question he was dumbfounded that it hadn’t occurred to him. He hadn’t, he said — till Kayla — needed to know, and she’d left him with a lot more to think about than surnames. Anyway, from the bit of history he’d gleaned, they were quite likely all three different.

  When he was leaving Delys hugged him, then looked hard into his eyes. ‘Be careful, please. I’m not saying the sense you’ve formed of her and the sister is wrong. Just … careful.’

  Hugh walked him out to the car. He waited till Russell was behind the wheel, then leaned to the open window. ‘That goes double, eh — what Del said.’

  Russell quelled a surge of irritation, but not entirely, as he heard when he began to speak. ‘Look, I really don’t think I’m being played for some sort of mug, Hugh. I think it’s genuine they don’t have anywhere else to go. Not immediately.’

  ‘Okay.’ He took a step back. Then he bent again to where he could see Russell’s face. ‘Have you … given some thought to where they’re going to be all day? I mean, are you planning to be in the workshop, leave them in the house?’

  ‘God’s sake, there’s nothing there to steal, you know that as well as I do. So yes, I’m going over the workshop! I might even suggest they come too, give them some clay. Just need to keep them out of sight coming and going.’

  Hugh pursed his lips, nodded. ‘Ring if there’s a problem, eh.’

  He started the engine. ‘Watch your feet.’

  ‘I am, might need them to kick you with.’

  Russell grinned. Hugh didn’t.

  If Helen had ever told him which days she worked, he’d forgotten. No, he was flattering himself, he never properly listened. He glanced up her driveway as he passed. No car, but equally it might be in the garage.

  He put away the shopping. The freezer had never looked so full. He walked automatically to the grinder, then reminded himself he’d just come from a coffee. ‘So have another one!’

  When it was poured he brought the handpiece to the table and sat. The lying would dry his mouth. After three rings the machine cut in. ‘Hallelujah,’ he breathed and waited for her voice to finish.

  He told her not to worry if she saw children in the yard, they weren’t trespassers, he was minding his niece’s three, up from Sydney. They had a few days’ dispensation from school while their parents flew to Perth to move their father’s mother out of her house and into a nursing home. They’d been here before, and he’d lined up plenty for them to do. He would pop over for a cuppa when they’d gone and see how the work was progressing, but trusted it was going well. He ended the call, then almost hit redial, worried that he hadn’t been plain enough. But surely she would take the hint.

  He changed into work clothes and went to the annexe. After a search he found under a pile of folded sacks the second of the two blocks of Walkers red earthenware he’d bought years ago to demonstrate to a weekend class the relative properties of earthenware and stoneware. The plastic, he was delighted to see, was still intact, just one corner chewed. The clay, when pressed, took his thumb. He lifted the block onto the wedging table and removed its twist, then stood it upright and peeled down the plastic and took up the cutting wire.

  He quartered it and wedged and balled the quarters, then found a bucket with a lid to keep the balls moist. It would be perfect to hand-build with, dogs or dolphins, pinch pots. Hopefully, they wouldn’t want them fired. Or he could do a small bonfiring with them. That, though — the glow of a fire with kids around it — might attract Helen’s two. ‘Leave it at the modelling.’ He dropped the balls into the bucket, hesitated with the lid. He’d forgotten the feel and smell of a fine-grained earthenware. He lifted the top ball back onto the table and cut slices and made three bowl-size balls. He dropped the cut clay into the bucket and lidded it, then carried the balls into the workshop and sat at the wheel.

  For old times’ sake he threw three of Seth Bligh’s ‘oatmeal’ bowls, with their high sides and strong heavy bases thrown down to the foot. Seth hadn’t believed in wasting time on turning. Cut the base level next day, and give it a foot ring, and that was all the finishing a bowl got. He leaned away and studied the three standing side by side, mirrors of one another. Fifty-plus years and he hadn’t lost the form. He heard the man’s voice, those’re keepers, lad. Except they weren’t, because they wouldn’t ever be fired. He slapped the bowls together into a brutal lump, which he carried back to the annexe and dropped in the bucket.

  The rest of the afternoon he filled with ‘drudge’, making up fresh wadding, cleaning props, barrowing wood from the stacks to the kiln shed. At five he returned to the house and lit the heater. Then he made up the double bed and the mattress on the floor, fetching an extra blanket for both and leaving it folded on each doona.

  When it was dark he walked out and stood in the middle of the road. Curtains glowed at the Kents’, blue smoke curled from their flue. The air was cold enough that he hoped not only them but all the neighbours were in for the night. Kayla hadn’t said how they might arrive. It was quite possibly on foot — and lugging conspicuous bags and bundles. He asked himself again, should he have offered to go in the car to wherever they proposed to come up from the valley? It wasn’t too late, he could ask when she rang. But he heard what she’d say. We’re good. And they almost certainly were, or would be. So standing out here looking up the empty street was achieving little. The phone might even be ringing. He was a fool, he’d forgotten even to leave it on message! He spun and broke into a jog.

  The phone was silent. He fed the heater, washed his hands, separated sausages and filled the griller tray. Then he scrubbed and diced potatoes and set the steamer over an unlit burner. He took down the big-bellied ash-glazed pitcher they’d used for barbecues and poured in a long measure of lime cordial, added ice cubes and tank water, and stood the pitcher on a mat in the centre of the table. Then he made a simple salad of lettuce, tomato and cucumber, without dressing.

  His fingers were lifting from setting the bowl on the table when he heard a car. There’d been no call. He listened for the slew of gravel which would tell him the driver was lost and making a circle. What reached him was the low continuing throb of its motor. A door opened and slammed, another. He darted to the stove and sparked the burner under the potatoes, then ran to the lounge room windows and opened a slit in the curtains. The back half of the car, da
rk blue or green, not a taxi, was visible in the gap. They were standing at the roadside sorting out and shouldering bags. The car slid away, the driver giving the horn a soft bip.

  He turned on the hall light, but left the porch light off. Jade came first, carrying a bulging sports bag and a rolled sleeping bag tied with a belt. She nodded to him, then backed against the wall to hurry the young ones past. The girl and boy carried their rolled and tied sleeping bags, and Emma a pair of grubby yellow rubber boots. Kayla came at the tail with the other sports bag. The young ones stopped dead in the hallway, causing a jam. ‘Move!’ Jade commanded and they took two steps and propped again, staring towards the lit doorway. It was, he realised, a fortnight since they’d last been in a house, let alone a strange one.

  ‘That’s the kitchen,’ he said, unsure of what tone to use to overcome their shyness. ‘You hungry?’ They looked down, nodded. The girl’s eyelid was still inflamed. ‘Well leave your things here and go through, eh.’

  Still unable to look at him, they bent at the knees and deposited the sleeping bags and boots on the carpet, then stood with backs pressed to the wall as if they’d not heard the second part of the instruction. Kayla had closed the door. He knew better than to ask about the young man. Jade dumped the heavy bag against the wall and dropped the sleeping bag on top and blew a relieved gust of breath. He opened his hand in readiness but hers stayed at her side. ‘Thanks for this.’

  ‘You’re very welcome. I feel better about you being here than down there.’ He smiled, not sure but hoping she had more humour than her sister. ‘You made me feel a bit guilty about being in a warm bed.’

  Her grin was quick and nervy. ‘Yeah, well you weren’t supposed to come there.’

  ‘I was, but not when I did.’ He pointed along the hallway. ‘I’ve started dinner, come through and I’ll put the rest on, then I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.’

  Kayla had paid the kitchen no mind the first time, and didn’t now. The little ones, though, took two steps inside and stopped, their mouths falling open, heads slowly swivelling. He was on his way to the stove but halted — what was the matter? — then realised that from the height of a child they were looking up at cliffs of pots on every side, row above row of mugs and teapots, stacks of bowls, plates, and platters, and on every benchtop, and crowding every flat surface, even the top of the fridge, spice caddies, storage jars, and crocks. Jade’s inspection, he saw, was more discreet but no less amazed. He ducked his head, weirdly embarrassed, and went to the stove and sparked the griller, heard the soft whoosh. She said as he turned, ‘Did you … make all these?’