He didn’t know how long he was there looking at the glow-worms or the stars. Time breathed around him, his feet bare in the juicy grass, until the savoury smell of cooking made him realise he was cold and hungry. A small light led him to the cookhouse, which he arrived at more quickly than he expected, surprised that home was so close to the wilderness. Through the doorway he could see his mother at the coal range stirring a pan, the frying onions maybe the best thing he had ever smelled, and he wanted to put his arms around her gentle body.
‘Lee,’ he said, his voice breaking, but then Rena appeared beside Lee, a hand on her shoulder. ‘Come in, Mike,’ she said. ‘You must be starving. You can help me set the table.’
Inside, the battery-powered overhead light made him blink. Rena poured him a drink of water, cold and sweet. He had another, and another, facing the sink so as not to have to look at her. His bladder was bursting but he didn’t know how to leave. A plate of onions and cheese was a hundred miles away on the table. Rena was staring at him so intensely she may as well have been shouting ‘aaaaahhhh’ in his face. Slowly he raised his head looking for his mother. Where was she? And Daniel bounded in, shook off the night air like a dog, snapped the room back into one piece and low-fived him. ‘Hey man, there you are. Lee, can we take dinner to our cabin? We’re in the middle of a card game.’
‘OK,’ she said, ladling stir-fry into two wonky pottery bowls. ‘Remember you can’t put these down or they’ll fall over. Hold them in your lap.’
Michael watched them talking, beings from another planet. His eyelids itched.
‘Cool,’ said Daniel, ‘I’ll send the girls in for some too.’
‘Bring the bowls back and wash them.’ Lee no longer came at bedtime to make sure the candles were extinguished and the children tucked in. She scraped vegetable peelings into the compost bucket and said, ‘Night, boys.’
‘Goodnight,’ said Rena from the doorway. She brushed her hand along Mike’s leg as he squeezed past. He hurried to catch up with Daniel, help him carry the food.
Between two pine trees, Eve watched Daniel, not far away, looking at something in his hands. The ground beneath the pines was white and sandy, and the pine needles smelled sweet, and the bark beneath Evelyn’s palm was thick, spongy. She peeled off a crust. Daniel held his hands towards her and Evelyn saw the rabbit, not much bigger than a tennis ball, its ears laid flat against its shoulders, the bark-grey fur soft even to look at, like a layer of mist. The rabbit was very still, eyes black and wet, small river stones, and the space between the trees was full of its quick heart beating. Daniel held the creature lightly, one hand cupped over its hindquarters. Evelyn reached out a finger and stroked its back.
‘Do you want a hold?’ he said.
‘OK.’ She thought it would be claws and scrabbling but the animal plopped unresistingly into her hands, and Daniel drew his away and she felt vaguely stuck, feet rooted to the earth and the small warm body nestled against hers. It was very light, belonging only to itself.
‘Don’t tell your mum,’ Daniel said. ‘They’ve got a shotgun. Rena keeps talking about rabbit stew.’
‘Do you want it back?’ Once he took it, Evelyn was free to move. She followed him out of the pines to the long grass, the feathery tips brushing their knees, and he squatted down and opened his hands just enough and the rabbit disappeared, but Daniel kept the steadiness it seemed to have given him. He rose and looked calmly at the field, and smiled at the distance, and together they walked down the dip and over the rise towards the mudflats, where the other kids were playing.
Dressed in a singlet, shorts and work boots, braless, Rena squatted in the catcher position behind Michael, who was at bat. If you walked past her you could see down her top, her melony breasts. Michael swung the bat and missed the ball and Rena lobbed it over his head to Evelyn, the pitcher. ‘Foul ball,’ she called.
‘But he tried to hit it.’
‘Yeah, well he shouldn’t have.’
Michael called, ‘Just pitch again.’
‘Yeah but strike one, OK?’ and Evelyn pitched and he thwacked the ball and flung the bat aside