‘What was happening?’ Horace asks.
‘The turning,’ Molly says. ‘The heart doesn’t turn to stone right away. It takes time to take hold because the heart is warm and it keeps beating and it keeps fighting against all that cold stone. But, soon enough, it all turns and then you feel nuthin’. All you got inside is cold rock. Like Uncle Aubrey.’
Horace stares at his daughter and he realises how deeply she’s lost in a trance of her own thinking. He worries for her. He cares for her. Molly looks at her father.
‘And you’re turning, too, Dad,’ Molly says.
‘That’s enough now, Molly,’ Horace says.
‘I can tell, Dad. I can see it happening to you. Kin means husbands, Dad.’
‘Let’s just have some breakfast.’
‘Kin means brothers, Dad. It means uncles and aunties and cousins, everything.’
And Horace slams his fist on the kitchen table.
‘Keep goin’, Molly,’ he barks.
His eyes. That horrifying warning men like Horace give to children like Molly with their eyes, in kitchens like this one. Danger. Do anything but keep going.
So Molly picks up a cutting knife and runs it six times, both sides, along the black leather razor strop hanging from a nail by the gas stove. She cuts three neat slices from a warm slab of six-day-old corned beef and fries them beside two halves of a ripe tomato in a thick black square iron skillet on the stove top.
Horace sips the tea quietly, sits the mug down on the table. His fingers reach for the red tin thimble in the centre of the table. ‘You see this thimble?’ he asks.
Molly nods at it, turning the tomatoes on the pan.
‘This thimble belonged to your mother,’ Horace says. ‘In the good years . . . when she was clear-headed, I mean, she would sit in the corner over there hand-sewing clothes for you. Pinafores and all that. And I’d be where you are right there. I’d fry up a feed of red emperor I’d caught on the rocks at Frances Bay, and I’d fry some potatoes up with it and we’d boil some muddies, too. And she was happy.’
Horace slips his forefinger into the thimble. Molly plates the corned beef and fried tomato, places the breakfast down for her father. He cuts into the beef, chews it along with the tomato that he’s sprinkled with too much salt and pepper.
He rests back in his chair. ‘The Japs are comin’,’ he says.
‘Who’s comin’?’
‘The Japanese. Three hundred and fifty Jap aircraft just blew the arse out of Hawaii. They’ll be comin’ for us next. These idiots who run this town will take a while to wake up and smell the fiery death fleet heading our way, but you can take it from me, Mol’, the war’s comin’ to Darwin.’
He sips his tea.
‘I reckon there’s some high-up Jap right now stickin’ a big fat red sun marker over Darwin on his map.’
‘Why would they wanna come all the way here?’
‘They’re rat-fucking the Yanks and we’re helpin’ the Yanks. You’ve seen all them navy boats in Darwin Harbour. We’ve got giant fuel tanks fillin’ Allied ships. We’ve got oil tanks and army bases and aerodromes, and all we got protectin’ ’em is a few big guns and a couple of barefoot kids with slingshots. Why wouldn’t they come to Darwin?’
‘So when do we leave?’ Molly asks.
Horace places his cup down again on the table. ‘We’re not going anywhere,’ he replies. ‘Our ship is about to come in, Molly. War is a goldmine for the gravedigger. Those Japs are comin’ and anyone stupid enough to stick around to greet them will be dead within a day.’
‘Including us,’ Molly says.
‘We’re not in the firing line. They’ll go for the town and the port, mostly. And when the dust settles the Federal War Cabinet will be more than grateful to pay up handsomely to anyone who can give all them sorry bodies a proper burial.’
Horace gets up from the table, ambles into the living room. He returns with a large wooden box filled with bottles of disinfectant and sugar soap and scrubbing brushes. He places the box in the centre of the kitchen.
It’s the curse, Molly tells herself. It’s the curse that’s made him hard. Kin means fathers. Kin means husbands, too. Longcoat Bob turned his good heart to stone.
‘I need this place cleaned,’ Horace says. ‘I need you to dust, wash and disinfect every last corner, every last crack in this godforsaken shithole.’
Horace picks up the red tin thimble, holds it up to Molly. ‘I’m goin’ in to town and I won’t be home until tonight,’ he says. ‘Before I leave, I’ll be hiding this thimble somewhere in the house. To find it, you will need to inspect and clean every nook and cranny. If you have not found the thimble by the time I return, I will know you have not cleaned the house properly and you will be punished. Do you understand?’
Molly nods. It’s the curse, she tells herself again. The curse of Longcoat Bob.
‘Say it,’ he says.
‘I understand,’ Molly says.
‘You understand who?’ her father asks, placing the red tin thimble in the pocket of his pants.
‘I understand you, Dad.’
And her mind rattles with two words. The turning. The turning. The turning.
*
Cupboard doors opening. Cupboard doors slamming shut. Wipe, scrape, rub, dust. Breathless gravedigger girl on her hands and knees with an old toothbrush scrubbing bloodstains off the hallway floor. ‘Out damned spot,’ says Lady Macbeth in her mind. ‘Out! Out, I say.’ But some spots can’t be removed.
The girl spreading wax on the floor and rubbing and polishing the old wood. Her kneecaps get so red and sore she ties her father’s
