Mateship With Birds - By Carrie Tiffany Page 0,13

despite her tiny burnt hands. Nervous Vera goes off to the shops in her lunch hour to look longingly at tennis dresses. It was never going to end well; Vera dragging her monstrous foot up the office stairs day after day; Vera feeding little Eva soup in the evenings as they listen to music on the wireless. Vera with the melted foot; Eva with the melted hands. Only together do the two sisters make a whole person. What man will take them? the story asks.

Harry gets up to make himself a Milo. He shakes the kettle to check the water level. Sykes’s Bag Balm is very good for burns; he has some in the dairy. Vera is so small he could easily carry her if the paddocks are too rough underfoot. And he can cut up Eva’s food with the knife from the pouch on his belt. He sees picnics in the shade and perhaps swimming in the irrigation channel in the evenings – Harry floating like a log in the middle of the channel for Vera and her sister to hold on to if they lose their grip on the bank – if they become frightened in the deeper water. The water would cause the girls’ blouses to cling to them, outlining the curves of their chests. Harry picks up his mug and goes to stand by the window in the front room. He can’t see any lights coming from Betty’s house, or from Mues’s. He sucks the scum from the top of his drink and turns off the light.

Harry is riding down Saleyards Road on the Waratah when he sees Betty driving towards him. She’s coming home from work. They pull up, shoulder to shoulder on the bitumen, and she winds her window down. She’s wearing a spearmint-coloured cardigan he hasn’t seen before.

‘How’s the herd?’ Harry says.

Betty has to shout so her voice can be heard over the chug of the motorcycle. ‘Same as always. It’s hard being old. They live in their memories.’

Harry nods.

‘You must have the odd memory yourself?’ Betty says teasingly. ‘Even a young chap like you must have a memory or two?’

They don’t come with active remembering. But every so often one pushes through. Harry saves it up for her, a little awkward, a little shy in the retelling.

‘Slipping into a pit of muddy water near the dam wearing a new yellow jumper …’

‘My grandfather standing at the window and waving us goodbye. Up close I didn’t like how his beard grew around his lips. I didn’t want to sit on his knee. They laughed at me when I put my hand over his mouth. I didn’t want anyone to see his lips. But through the window he looked fine and tall. He looked like God …’

‘A horse with a white stripe running along its nostril. It put its head down to me and sniffed my face and hair. It seemed to be showing me where the milk went – that it drank milk up its nose. I thought if I was ever on my own, if my mother and father were dead, I should go to that horse …’

‘Standing in the bedroom of a house – maybe an uncle or aunt’s house. The beds were pushed together to make a double. The bedspread was too small to cover both beds and I could see the sheets poking out underneath. The sheets were yellow. I chundered on the floor …’

‘Winning on a daily double at the Bendigo races then losing the betting ticket in the gents …’

‘My wife on the day we got married. Edna on our wedding day …’

Every night after tea – always an early tea – Edna asked Harry if he’d had enough to eat.

‘I’m full up to Dolly’s wax,’ Harry would say, patting his neck.

She warmed her hands on his belly in winter. She squeezed the pimples on his back. He fell asleep with his hand in her bush. Sometimes, just as he was getting out of the bath, she took his cock in her mouth.

There was no baby, month after month. And then she didn’t like the farm. She said it wasn’t the farm she didn’t like, it was the shit. They were surrounded by shit. She could see it splattered across the paddocks out of every window of the house.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday: honey on toast. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday: jam on toast. Sunday: eggs. Harry tried to be nice. It made things worse. He yelled at her; she called