‘This is civilisation.’ Another grin, though the weariness was so embedded that his grin was a bit lopsided. ‘Actually…’ he motioned round the room ‘…this is amazingly civilised. How did you do it? How did you stop the dust getting in?’
‘Newspapers,’ Karli volunteered between mouthfuls. ‘Lots and lots of newspapers.’
‘Newspapers?’
‘It was all we could find,’ Jenna told him. ‘If you want to stop the dust permanently you’ll have to do some carpentry. But meanwhile we’ve used newspaper to stuff chinks in the weatherboards and fill the cracks. We attacked one of the falling-down sheds for spare boards. We nailed boards over broken windows. We stuffed the gaps with more newspapers. I hope you’ve finished with last week’s news,’ she told him. ‘If you haven’t, it’s a bit of a traipse around the house from page to page.’
He managed to smile again, but he looked dumbfounded. ‘There wasn’t much in the newspapers,’ he managed. ‘We lost the cricket.’
There was a long pause while he concentrated on eating for a bit, and then he stared across at her again. He looked down to Karli, who was tracing the cracks on her ancient china plate with her fork, and then he looked back to Jenna.
‘I can’t believe you’ve worked so hard.’
‘I believe you’ve worked hard yourself,’ she told him. She shouldn’t worry, she thought. But she worried. He looked so exhausted.
‘But I’m not Nicole Razor’s child,’ Riley said and she stilled. Sympathy did a fast exit, stage left.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Your parents are Nicole Razor and Charles Svenson. There’s money to burn in those circles. I can’t imagine that you’ve ever needed to do a day’s work in your life.’
Here it was again. The prejudice that followed her everywhere.
‘I work,’ she snapped.
‘You don’t need to.’
‘Of course I need to. How else can I live?’
‘But you’re wealthy. You offered to pay for a plane ride to Adelaide.’
‘That’s because I was desperate,’ she told him. ‘I’d have paid with plastic and then spent years paying it off.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You spend a whole bunch of time not believing me,’ she snapped, rising and carrying the plates to the sink. Carefully turning her back on him. ‘It’s getting to be a habit.’
Let it go, she told him under her breath. Leave it.
But he wasn’t leaving it.
‘If your father doesn’t support you, what do you do for a living?’
‘Is that any of your business?’
‘No, but-’
‘How do you support this place?’ she demanded, trying desperately to turn the conversation. ‘Have you got a marijuana crop on the side?’
He grinned at that. ‘Sure. A whole green paddock of marijuana nodding gently in the breeze. Just step out through the manicured gardens, walk on down the avenue of oaks, smile at the farmhands tending the sheep and you’ll see the first of my cultivated crops on the right.’
‘See, you won’t tell me,’ she said, still with her back to him. ‘So why should I tell you what I do for a living?’
‘Jenna’s a nurse,’ Karli volunteered.
Silence. Then: ‘Thank you, Karli,’ Riley said gravely. ‘What sort of a nurse?’
‘She helps the doctors when they operate,’ Karli told him. ‘She works a lot and a lot. She keeps wanting to come and see me, but she can’t ’cos it’s too far and she doesn’t get any days off in a row.’
‘And where does Jenna live?’ Riley asked and Jenna wheeled to face him.
‘Butt out, Jackson. This is none of your business.’
But the conversation had her excluded.
‘Jenna lives in a really cute little room,’ Karli told him. ‘It’s up really high. We climb all these stairs and her window looks over roofs and chimneypots and there’s a cat who comes in the window and purrs, only he’s not Jenna’s. He belongs to the landlady, but we like him. His name’s Pudding. And Jenna has a bed with purple cushions all over it that we sewed together. Her sofa’s next to the bed and that’s where I sleep. It’s really comfy and I like being next to Jenna. We make toast and we drink cocoa and we let Pudding the cat in and I like it.’ Her voice was suddenly defiant, and the look that she gave Riley suggested that he might almost be threatening it.
‘You like going there?’
‘The lady at the school keeps asking that, ’cos Nicole says I should stay all the time at school, but the school lady asked me a lot of questions and then she said she can’t see any need to ask Nicole’s permission when Jenna’s my sister.’
Riley’s eyes flashed to Jenna. ‘So you’re not supposed to have Karli.’
‘Of course I am,’ Jenna snapped, thoroughly disconcerted. He was finding out too much about her for comfort. Somehow she had to put a stopper on Karli’s tongue-but the fact that Karli was talking was a joy in itself.
‘We have a birthday cake to eat,’ she reminded them, moving right on. ‘Mr Jackson, will you light the candles?’
He cast her a doubtful glance, as if there were more questions he wanted to ask. But the cake was waiting. He lit the candles. He snuffed out the lantern and the only light was the ridiculously big candles on the cake.
‘Sing “Happy Birthday”,’ Jenna ordered, and to her astonishment Riley stood and sang. He had a lovely voice, deep and rumbly and warm. He smiled across the cake at Karli as he sang and Jenna found it really hard to keep singing herself.
What was it with this man?
With ‘Happy Birthday’ finished, they solemnly clapped-five and three-quarter times (a sort of muffled thump for the three quarters) with an extra clap to make her grow-and then Karli blew her candles out in four big breaths.
‘Every extra blow more than one means you have a boyfriend,’ Jenna told her sister. ‘That means you have three boyfriends.’
‘Silly.’ Karli chuckled in the dark, watching the last glow from the blown-out wicks disappear into darkness. ‘The only boy here is Mr Jackson and he’s too big for me. He can be your boyfriend,’ she said generously and Jenna found herself blushing.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
She moved towards the lantern, guessing where it was in the dark, but Riley was before her. They reached the lantern at the same time and their hands touched.
And stayed touching.
‘I’ll light it,’ Riley said, and was his voice just a trifle unsteady? ‘I have the matches.’
‘Good. Great.’ Somehow she made herself draw back until the light flickered on and the room became normal again. Almost normal.
But Karli was staring at her sad excuse for a chocolate cake, made under the most primitive of conditions, and she was beaming as if she’d been given the world. ‘This is the bestest birthday,’ she whispered.
‘I have a present for you,’ Riley told her and he smiled and left the room.
‘Jenna told me you couldn’t get me a present because there aren’t any shops,’ Karli called as Jenna leaned back against the sink and tried to get her bearings.
‘I don’t need to go to the shops to get my present,’ he called back, his voice muffled through the wall. There was the sound of much foraging and Karli started to look excited.
‘What do you think it will be?’
‘Maybe he’s got you a cow,’ Jenna suggested, intrigued herself. ‘That’ll put Pudding’s nose out of joint.’
‘Pudding wouldn’t like a cow.’
‘And a cow wouldn’t fit in our suitcase on the way home.’ She smiled and called out: ‘Karli says she doesn’t want a cow, Mr Jackson.’
