But in Jerusalem it never occurred to him that snakes should be killed. He looked for old Peter and found him carrying a cut-down kerosene tin. Peering inside, into what seemed a heaving mass of oil, he could see snakes slithering and slipping over, under and between each other like viscous fluid constantly stirred and erupting. They looked wet but he knew from experience when old Peter had held one for him to touch that their scales were dry like the back of an old man’s hand. He was glad they felt dry. It was a clean feeling and made him like them more. If they had been moist and sticky, leaving snail-like trails on his hand, he might have found them disgusting.
Creatures should contain what they were. They should not leave disgusting evidence of their presence behind them. Things that died and decayed did that. His father was dying. Often he saw his mother or grandmother carrying a covered bowl to the toilet, or heard his father coughing and spitting, choking, coughing, spitting. Snakes did not spit up a ghastly residue from inside them. Even when they shed their skin it lay neatly, clean and dry and perfect where they had left it.
He followed old Peter to a newly fenced area and watched him tip the snakes on the warm sand. They untangled themselves, like the yabbies, their heads making little darting movements and their tongues flicking silver in the sunlight.
‘Why do you call this place Jerusalem?’
‘I don’t. Others do.’
‘But you put the name on the gate.’
‘Why disturb people? Whatever I name it they’ll still call it Jerusalem.’
‘Then why do other people call it Jerusalem?’
‘Probably because Jerusalem is the home of the Jews and they don’t like snakes any more than they like Jews.’
‘Who are the Jews?’
‘A tribe other tribes don’t much care for.’
‘Gran says there are people who hate Edward.’
‘That’d be right. People are always hating someone.’
‘I think it has something to do with politics.’
‘It usually has. The Greeks should be cursed for inventing it.’
‘The Greeks had snakes in their stories, too. Edward read me a story about the Medusa and she had coils of snakes for hair and was beautiful except for the snakes and they made her ugly. Perseus slew her.’
‘He would. Those old legends. Those Gods of Homer were roistering buccaneers who paid you immediately and in kind for wrongdoing.’
‘Do you know about them?’
‘I read a bit once. Personally I call this place “The Garden of the Hesperides”.’
‘But that was where the maidens danced around the tree of golden apples.’
‘They were night and day, weren’t they?’
‘Were they?’
‘Of course. And who appreciates night and day more than my little creatures?’
‘And the golden apples?’
‘Oranges, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’ Matthew was doubtful. ‘It doesn’t seem …’ He hesitated.
‘Right?’
He nodded.
‘Well, it’s as right as Jerusalem and I prefer it.’
Old Peter said nothing more during Matthew’s visit. He only spoke when he felt like it.
When Gran discovered that he was not going to school he had to tell her what had happened. Although he only offered her twigs and leaves and odd bits of grass of the story she pieced the landscape together. When she told him they would need to visit school to see the principal he cried. She hugged him and soothed him but remained firm.
‘Didn’t I tell you that I’ll be there to share decisions?’
Matthew sobbed louder. Evasion, not sharing, was safer.
‘Matthew, didn’t I tell you?’
He shook his head at her insistence.
‘Matthew, bullies triumph because their victims are weak. Miss Loyal Empire Woman can’t hurt you while I’m there. Come now, be brave.’ She shook him a little. ‘Be brave.’
He didn’t feel brave. His grandmother was so small. One of the little people, he was certain. What if she had to crawl on the floor?
‘Edward could come. Can we take Edward?’
‘No!’ His Grandmother’s voice was hard. ‘I don’t need a man to help me look after my grandson.’
‘But Edward’s big. She couldn’t make him creep around and push the chariot wheels.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but nobody is going to push any chariot wheels, although I would like the chance to run over some people. Come on. We’ll tidy ourselves.’
Gran cleaned his shoes, ironed him a fresh shirt, wetted and combed his hair. She changed her own blouse to a pale-pink silk and put on a black straw hat, a single pink rose on its brim.
‘People respect clothes. And the way you speak. Drop your aitches, fail to finish your words—say comin’ and not coming—and you’re fighting from the back line. That’s why you need to go to school. We may not have much money but I won’t see you deprived of education.’
Matthew held her hand as far as the school gates. He planned to let go of her once they entered the school grounds. He was divided by his need for her protection and his horror of being seen clinging to her. But as the school battlements loomed over him he clasped her tighter.
‘What a dismal place,’ Gran sniffed.
She mounted the steps unhesitatingly and marched along the corridor.
‘It’s like a wooden coffin and as stuffy. No wonder children hate school.’
Halfway down the corridor the door to Matthew’s classroom opened and his teacher stepped out. She halted. An ingratiating smile reserved for adults began to shape her face at the sight of Gran. It froze into the mask of a comic character when she saw Matthew. Her hand went directly to her cheek where a thin red line still remained, a stain faintly visible through the white powder. Matthew tugged Gran’s hand but she had no intention of scuttling past.
‘We are here to see the principal. Please direct me to him.’
Matthew waited for the face to thrust into Gran’s. What would he do? Gran was so
