Then I got to the knowing that if she hadn’t taken off she would have been with us when her appendix burst. And we could have said stuff, told her how big she was for us. Even made her get better. And then I remembered the next thing: if I hadn’t eaten that cake, or gone to that toilet, or heard that stuff, or got red mad and called her a bum. If I hadn’t tired her clean out every day of my life, she wouldn’t have gone at all. I pinched myself until it cut deep but it didn’t help.
That night I got Ted out of the box in the corner for the first time since forever. I got him up into my arms and into bed with me without Philly seeing. The soft of his belly against my cheek was something.
Once the word got out, a lot of people came over and that made Dad pull something over his singlet to make himself decent. The men milked the cows and the women brought casseroles. I went up my tree, sat on the plough seat Dad had nailed there for us a long time ago and watched.
Tommy came around after school and I went down to the dam with him. He worried a stick into the mud until he saw I didn’t want to talk about Mum. We skidded some stones for a bit, then headed down to the creek to catch frogs. On the way back there was something in the distance that didn’t sit right. I told Tommy to go on back without me. He took off his glasses and polished them up. He stumbled when I pushed him in the house direction, but I didn’t say sorry.
I watched him go until he couldn’t look back and see me, then I ran across the paddock over to Jean’s Corner. I was right. Mum’s Mass scarf wasn’t in the ute any more: it was tied around the bottom of the not-right-in-the-head baby’s cross. It was twisted and twisted so you wouldn’t know there were even hyacinths all over it. If it hadn’t been for the wind moving the grass about when I’d been with Tommy I wouldn’t have even seen it. How did it end up down here?
I took off my shoes and peeled off my socks and shoved them hard into the toes of the shoes, pushing until they were tiny balls and I couldn’t see them any more. I put my feet into the rush of the creek and felt the ice of it right into my brain. I didn’t want to think about Mum’s scarf. I didn’t want to think about how I couldn’t say ‘Mum says’ any more. What she said was in the past because that was where she was. All those things were coming from behind me now. And in all before me there was no Mum.
THE WORLD WITHOUT HER
‘This one?’ Tessa held up Mum’s navy dress.
Philly shook her head.
‘She wore it to Mass,’ Tessa said, pushing it further towards Philly, as if shoving it in her face would change her mind.
Philly backed away and screwed up her nose, all brussels sprouts.
I swung my legs, kicking them back under the bed. ‘It’s gotta have flowers.’
‘Don’t be stupid, she doesn’t have one with flowers.’ Tessa hung the dress back in the wardrobe and slid to the ground. Philly slumped with her.
‘Maybe there’s something in the sewing,’ I said. ‘Mrs Tyler could finish it.’
Philly jumped up, hope running wild across her little face, but when we all got to the sewing room the basket was empty. She puddled to the floor again.
‘We’ll sort it out with Dad tonight,’ I said.
‘Who knows what mood Dad’ll be in after all that talking to the hospital and Father McGinty and stuff,’ said Philly.
‘Reckon he might feel a bit better after talking with Father,’ I said.
Tessa and Philly nodded like they hoped like hell, too.
The dogs were going mad so I knew Pete must be coming up the track with the petrol for Dad to drive to the city. I had a thing to say to Dad before he took off, so I left Tessa and Philly to it. By the time I got out there, Pete had taken off to the cowshed to see to the poddies and Dad was siphoning the petrol from Pete’s car to ours. Dad was all face screwed up sucking at the hose to get at the liquid. I waited until it gurgled up and he got it swirling down the funnel into the Holden.
‘Do you reckon you should take Mum’s Mass scarf to her?’
He tore his eyes away from the petrol and locked them on me. Then his face went all soft and collapsy and he turned away to get a good look at the horizon. I knew the taste of sorry again, all dried up bitter. Now Mum was gone gone I had to stop and think more, just like she always said. After a bit, his back went up and down and I got real worried about that petrol. I grabbed the hose from him and held it up so Pete would have enough left in the tank to get him home. Doll came sniffing around and rubbed up against Dad’s leg. Dad dropped a hand on autopilot to Doll’s head. I pulled out the hose and the funnel and tiptoed off, not wanting to get in the way of the thing Doll was giving Dad.
Once Dad was packed off down the track to the city and Pete had gone back to his own farm, Tessa said Mum was sure to be in heaven, but just in case she had to go to purgatory for a little while we should say a rosary. Philly and I got the beads out from under everybody’s pillows and we placed the chairs in a
