‘I’m no letter writer. You don’t get mushy in letters.’
Moira shook her head: of course you don’t get mushy in letters. ‘Forget I said it.’
‘Don’t think I’m pissing away my days in here. Sorry, Moira.’
She nodded acceptance of the apology.
He lowered his voice and waved her to come closer. Midge and Rory too.
‘Me, I’m making contacts here. One bloke, he’s from South Australia and he pinches sheep and cattle. He says there’s abandoned homesteads as far as the eye can see. He says there’s more antique dealers in Adelaide than dog turds in the street. A whole new territory opening up for us.’
Midge rubbed his hands together and Rory went to do the same but it hurt him.
‘And I tell you this. I’m moving up from just being a trant. One bloke here used to be a lawyer. He tells me about a law called adverse possession. Moira, this’ll be of interest to you. This is a law that works in our favour.’
Midge lifted his head and considered. ‘Adverse. Adverse. I thought that word means bad things.’
‘No, no, no. Listen to me. This law says if there’s a property and this property has what’s called a dormant title—if no one’s lived there for a really long time because they died or something, and no one inherited it or cared about it and no rates have been paid and someone like us moves in and lives there and starts paying rates—then you know what?’
They all shook their heads.
‘That property becomes ours after fifteen years. That’s the law. It’s like something for nothing. You own a property without buying it. Except a few rates. And I don’t reckon the rates on our place would be more than a tank of fucking petrol. Sorry, Moira. Just think, you could be the queen of Tree Palace and us boys can go strip homesteads in South Australia and then come home and then back to South Australia for a load and then home again. Zara can do her thing at the supermarket.’
Shane didn’t get the congratulations he expected. Moira didn’t reach over to kiss him or pat him. Midge narrowed his eyes in thought. Rory shrugged, scratched his nose with a bandaged finger and asked, ‘What’s a title?’
After a moment Midge said, ‘How do you know no one owns Tree Palace?’
‘Look at the place. Been rotting there for years till we came by. That’s a job for you. Go check.’
‘How?’
‘This lawyer guy says start at the shire council or the land registry. Get that girl-lawyer to help. The one that worked for me. Whatsaname. Elisha Kay. Ring her. Get the ball rolling.’
‘Someone probably owns it,’ said Moira.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. If they do we find another Tree Palace. This could be the future, I tell you. A new business venture for us. Maybe we search all the towns we can for dormant titles and make claims for them…I thought you’d be thrilled. Instead you’re down in the mouth.’
He and Moira stared at each other and she forced a smile. He smiled at Midge and at Rory. They didn’t smile widely in return.
‘What’s wrong?’
Midge bit his fingernails. ‘Nothing’s wrong, Shane. Not wrong so much as, there are things going on that aren’t, you know, perfect.’
‘What things?’
‘Things, you know.’
‘No, I don’t know.’
Moira took a deep breath. ‘Um, where do I start. You see, well, it goes back to when Zara had the baby.’
She set it out for him, straight and honest. About how the girl tried to smother wee Mathew and how she, herself, had become his mother and was breastfeeding him. The breastfeeding had made her bloom and be very happy. But Shane’s letter had set her off and she went into town and (another deep breath) flirted with Jim Tubbs. (Shane’s bottom lip flopped again.) It was stupid, meaningless flirting, but that mongrel scum got ideas in his head and he arrived at the house and was all over her and Rory stabbed him.
Shane lurched backwards in his chair, stood up suddenly and made a wounded sound. The guard walked up and asked what the problem was. Shane mumbled that there was no problem. The guard said sit down or he’d end the visit.
‘I didn’t mean nothing with the flirting. I was blooming and you wasn’t there to see it and I was feeling good and at the same time bad about your letter. I’m sorry. It was all a stupid accident.’
He eased slowly down into his seat. ‘You’re not hurt?’
‘No.’
‘Did he get far?’
‘You mean—’
‘Yeah. Did he—?’
‘No, Rory got him.’
‘Good boy.’
Rory beamed. ‘You’re not mad?’
‘Course not. Sometimes it’s the right thing.’
‘I stuck him good.’
‘In the leg and bum region,’ said Midge.
Shane laughed. ‘In the bum region? He got more than one hole down there now?’ He looked at Moira and said softly, ‘You’re not hurt? Promise?’
‘No.’
‘I want to hurt him, bad,’ he said.
‘Where would that get us? He said he’s coming for payback,’ Moira said. ‘I’m scared.’
‘What do we do?’ Midge said. ‘You reckon he’s bluffing?’
Shane shrugged. He squeezed his chin in his fist. ‘No. That’d be Tubbsy. He’d be wanting to give Rory a hiding.’
‘Let him try it,’ said Rory, bobbing in his chair.
Shane said shoosh. He crooked his finger for Midge to crane closer and listen. ‘You got to go bluff him. A bloke like Jim Tubbs don’t want a soul ever hearing he got stabbed in the clacker by a fourteen-year-old. You got to go to him and say, Here’s a message from Shane. He tries payback and what’s left of the trant grape-vine’ll go ape-shit with the news—a
boy
got the better of Jim Tubbs. I’ll put a sign up in the hotel and write it in white paint on the main road. He’ll be the laughing stock of Barleyville.’
Midge squirmed. ‘You sure, Shane?’
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t think I’m the one to do that.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Rory said, bobbing in his chair.
‘You will not,’ Moira said.
Midge shook his head. ‘Normally I’d jump at it, but I think it’d be better coming from you.’
‘I’m in prison.’
‘We can wait till you get out. Only two months off.’
‘He won’t wait two months,’ Shane said. ‘You stand in for me. Soon as you get home you go say that to him, that you’re standing in for me. And you tell him this. If he goes anywhere near Moira again I’ll finish the job Rory started.’
The Zara problem didn’t get further mention. Moira was about to ask, What do I do? How do I stop her taking Mathew? But it suddenly didn’t seem his business. It was hers, between mother and daughter. Shane had never been to Zara what he was to Rory and this was no time to include him.
He looked down at her breasts and said, ‘You really got milk or just joking?’
Midge said, ‘No joke, Shane. She’s got milk all right.’
‘Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.’ Her teeth were clenched ready to hiss him into silence. Shane had a quizzical look as if about to laugh at her. She said, ‘So what if I got milk? You think someone like me can’t work miracles?’ She reached over her neck as though to unzip her dress. ‘I can work miracles. I’ll show you.’
‘Jesus, Moira. Stop,’ whispered Shane.
‘You want me to go into all the ins and outs of it with you? All the women’s bit and pieces of how these things happen?’
‘No.’
‘Sure? I can just flop everything out and give the run-down?’
‘No, no, no.’
He looked at the wall clock. The half-hour was nearly gone and the guard had given a nod to finish their session.
Shane’s eyes went narrow and he sighed as if in pain. ‘You’ll come again, won’t you?’
‘They want me to have more points than I’ve got.’
‘Get more points.’
‘I’ll come, I promise. I’ll find a way.’
Midge and Rory promised they’d see him again too.
‘You do as I said, Midge. Walk right up to Tubbsy and say what I told you.’
Midge nodded. He shook Shane’s hand and hugged him. Then it was Rory’s turn for a hug. Then Moira’s. The guard said she and Shane could kiss and hug longer. They could keep going till the big hand got to twelve.
‘How could you think I didn’t miss you?’ Shane whispered.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll tell you something. I think about how you go on about having a baby with me. I know I always ducked it. I’ve been doing some serious thinking. I like being a dad to Rory a lot. It feels good. If you still want to, let’s you and me make a little Rory of our own. No joking. Let’s do that.’
‘You mean it this time?’
‘I mean it.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘Not carried away?’
‘No.’
‘You might change your mind when you get out.’
‘I’m not changing my mind.’
They kissed and the guard said that’ll do.
40
The Barleyville wind greeted them in the usual way—pushed the wag from side to side, whistled through the open windows. Paddocks threw bits of dead grass at the windscreen. The sky had two clouds but they drifted off without rain. The wag reached home with only one downpour to manage, near the town silos, which was just as well because Midge had forgotten to get new wiper rubbers.
Limpy gave them his jumping welcome and looked like he’d rolled in mud, though it was a carcass going by the smell of him. Moira told Rory to tempt him to the water tank for a hose down.
Zara hadn’t been home. No dirty clothes on the tent floor or bed slept in. The house was as they’d left it—note on the table, weighted down by a stone. Food was still in its packaging.
It was late afternoon and getting cold. They lit the lamps and ate and Moira got Mathew to sleep. She let him cry himself to exhaustion: she thought his wailing might trigger extra milk stimulation. Perhaps it did—she had enough in her to keep him happy. Only just. Tomorrow was no certainty.
Midge ate one mouthful of canned stockpot and no more. He was nervous about facing Tubbsy and had no appetite. The fork shook in his hands. He passed his portion to Rory and the boy lined it up behind his own plate. Zara was also on his mind. His instinct was to go into town and find her. Yet if she was going to set up house with lover boy he’d have to stop doing that—following her, being her protective father figure. Might as well start now, he thought.
But you can’t turn feelings off like you can the tank hose. He wished he’d never let Zara into his bloodstream. He felt jealousy. He felt pain in his stomach from no food and fear of Jim Tubbs. The jealousy caused an even sharper pain: an icy ache higher up near his heart.
He began rehearsing his Tubbsy speech: ‘I’m standing in for Shane and I got a thing or two to say to you.’ He rolled a cigarette. His shaking tore two papers. He paced around the chandelier tree to perfect his lines.
Moira asked, ‘When you going to do it, Midge?’
He muttered, ‘Tomorrow maybe. Or the next day.’
The wind dropped and the sun went red and fell away. The moonlight and the stars when they came were like a spare world to go on with. Strong enough to cast shadows. It was so quiet that Limpy let out a bark and it echoed. He kept barking and the echoes ricocheted.
There was a vehicle coming. The headlights were on dim and Midge could see clear as day that it was Brent Romano’s. It was going fast and had rock music blaring. ‘It’s lover boy, Moira.’
She came out of the house.
If you’re going to take him let me train you first, girl. Please.
She curled her fists for fighting.
The vehicle stopped near the sugar-gum garage. The passenger side door opened and Zara got out as if pushed—fell on her knees, stood up and tried getting back in. She was begging to be let in.
The door was pulled shut. She banged on it and tried running around the front to the driver’s side but the ute went into reverse and sped backwards down the road, the reverse gear whining on high rev.
Zara threw her bag down and knelt, swearing and sobbing. The ute used some width in the roadside to turn around.
She crossed her legs and sat in the dirt. When Midge went to touch her shoulder she elbowed his arm away and hung her head. He was puffing from the effort of running to her and had to step back and cough.
Moira moved close and knelt down. Zara was wearing her work smock and there was mud on it from sitting there. ‘You’ll get this all filthy for work.’
‘I don’t give a shit. I don’t work no more. They sacked me.’
The girl punched the ground and put her hand under her armpit to quell the pain of the punch.
‘What’d you do that they sacked you?’ said Moira.
‘Nothing. I didn’t do nothing. It was Brent’s dad. He said to Mr Dixchit, I don’t want that girl hanging round my son. Get rid of her or I’ll call the tax department and say you got two sets of books, whatever that means.’
She was shivering from the cold and the crying and Moira tried standing her up but she was not about to move. ‘Midge, get a jumper or something. Go on, don’t fidget and gawk.’
Zara sniffed and wiped her nose with her finger. Moira didn’t have a handkerchief, so she used her frock instead. Lifted the hem and told Zara to blow into it. The ute had reached bitumen by the sound of it: in the acoustics of the night the engine grabbed a low gear and the tyres yelped.
Zara looked down the road and said, ‘Brent dumped me. Laughed about me moving in. He said, “Have your kid move in? You’re joking.” His dad said to him if he gets tied up with a trant he’s out of the family business. An underage trant. His old man went mental.’
Moira spat on the ground. ‘Family business? That’s what I think of their family business. I’ll tell you about family business. Shane says he’s got ideas in South Australia. He’s met people inside and they told him about adver-something possession and how you get houses for nothing. We’ll be looking down on the Brents of this world one day, not the other way round.’
Midge arrived with a jumper. It was one of his because going through Zara’s things to find one still didn’t seem right. The jumper smelled of mould.
‘It’ll have to do,’ said Moira, giving it a shake.
She put it over Zara’s shoulders and the girl thanked her. Midge asked her if he could get her something else. She said no thanks, and no thanks again when he said she only had to ask and he’d get something.
Moira snapped at him and told him to leave them be, they had things they had to talk about, just her and Zara. ‘Where’s Rory?’