Mateship With Birds - By Carrie Tiffany Page 0,9

by gander, warts, skewered with fork, constipation, infected splinters, ball-bearing lodged in ear, sticky eye, fevers, boils.

Little Hazel: Colic, croup, nappy rash, fever, runny stools, earache.

1947/48

Michael: Stood on by sheep, wasp stings, chickenpox, swallowed petrol, nits, carbuncles, trampled by cow, pecked on eyelid by bird, tonsillitis, constipation, warts, chilblains, swallowed coin.

Little Hazel: Croup, chickenpox, tummy upset, scalds hand on teapot, hives.

At five Michael steals a penny from Betty’s purse. Not to spend – he likes the feel of the coin in his pocket, likes to run his fingers over the big buck kangaroo. Betty doesn’t have the heart to pull his pants down so she smacks him with the wooden spoon through his shorts and shirt-tails and underpants so she isn’t really hitting him at all, just whacking at the layers of clothing and the air trapped between them. He’s never been smacked before. As soon as she releases him he turns on her. He looks about the kitchen in fury and waves his small fist at her. ‘How dare you? You pan, you rug, you – you – you … spoon.’

She gasps. She covers her face with her hands. He’s right, she isn’t a bitch or a slut; she is a pan, a rug, a spoon. She is a woman without a man – a utensil inside a house.

1949/50

Michael: Bitten by bull ants, fish hook stuck in thumb, infected scratch from goanna, constipation, fever, bronchitis, warts, boils, chilblains, corns.

Little Hazel: German measles, carbuncles, sticky eyes, chilblains, wandering off.

At three and a half Little Hazel gets a lift into town on the milk truck not wearing her underpants. Betty is in the co-op buying bacon when Mervyn Plimeroll brings her in. Mervyn tells Betty he found her sitting on the road sniffing and asking to be taken to the lolly shops. Mervyn looks embarrassed. He’s holding the little girl’s hand, but standing as far away from her as possible. He transfers the small hot hand to Betty. Betty apologises and thanks him. She shakes her head at Little Hazel and lines up for the cash register. Little Hazel is tired. She picks up the hem of her cotton smock and puts it in her mouth to suck. There are her legs, the strong thighs swagged with baby fat. And there, between her legs, is her plump white purse. The slit is a mere smudge and wouldn’t draw the eye, but for the lips which are the same pink – the same pure, baby’s pink – as the lips of her rosy mouth.

1951/52

Michael: Concussion from bicycle accident, infected toe from spider bite (?), kicked by cow, v. bad cough, pecked by gander, eye infection, warts on feet, skewered with fork, burnt foot, constipation, infected splinters, nits.

Little Hazel: Tummy upset, headaches, chilblains, pecked by gander, warts, cough, scratched by cat, diarrhoea, nits.

Michael asks Betty about his father just as he is starting school. He has been plaguing her with questions – what is our last name, do we have a nice house, will my shorts be the same as the other boys’ shorts? Betty gets him a kitten. Within a year the cat has her own kittens and is immediately sick of the sight of them. She takes off into the paddocks for days, returning to slump down exhausted on one of the kittens, crushing its eye into the socket. Betty and Michael keep the injured kitten in a biscuit tin and watch as its recessed eye turns chalky and dies. Michael doesn’t want to look at the kitten then, he tries to close the lid on it, but Betty holds his hand and makes him stroke its back. When Michael is asleep Betty takes the kitten and wraps it in a tea towel with its tiny head exposed. She grips the bundle between her knees and sews the kitten’s eyelid closed with thread. She sews at the kitchen table, under the electric light, with the sound of the wind rattling the back door in its frame. In the morning Michael slips into his mother’s bed with the one-eyed kitten in the pocket of his dressing gown. This is the one they keep. Louie. Black and white Louie with cobwebs in her whiskers. Louie the mouser. Just like her mother Louie goes off into the paddocks for days and they love her even more when she comes home.

1953

Michael: Constipation, cough, infected hand, wasp sting, skin troubles, cut foot with axe, concussion in fall from railway bridge, boys’ troubles.

Little Hazel: Bitten by Foot