P. O’Reilly - The Fine Colour of Rust

‘They said so.’

‘Who said so?’ Anger starts to rise inside me. I remember I started thinking about bush pigs after Melissa and Jake began joking about them. ‘Where did this come from, anyway?’

He doesn’t answer. His steady breathing makes my hand rise and fall as he drifts back to sleep.

Next morning I’m waiting for them at the breakfast table with a pile of bacon on a plate and the spatula jutting from my hand. Melissa and Jake both sit down at the table without speaking, without looking at the bacon. I dish the crispy strips onto buttered toast, slop on scrambled eggs from the frying pan and hand them a plate each.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask. ‘What’s this bush pig business?’

‘Nothing.’ Melissa has her stubborn face on.

Jake’s eyes begin to redden. The circles under his eyes are even darker today. The heat went on and on all night until even the bugs got exhausted and stopped making noise at about four in the morning. There was an occasional crack as the tin roof shucked off the heat of the day and the house settled and sighed. Not only did no one sleep properly, I’m also feeling the effects of my romantic night with Johnny Walker, and I’m in no mood to be messed with.

‘I don’t want silence or sulking or tantrums. Tell me what it’s about. Who called you a bush pig, Jake?’

Silence. My throbbing head. Jake and Melissa stare at their plates. The crispy bacon is wilting, the eggs are getting cold, the toast is going soggy. The urge to shout is rising in me and I want to smother it – I must not become a shrieking single mother.

‘So…’ I lighten my tone of voice. My back is still to the children. ‘I’m not cross. I want to know, that’s all.’

‘I had a project on bush pigs,’ Melissa says.

‘Then why would Jake be upset?’ I turn around to face them, my expression a mask of control and calm.

‘I called him a bush pig.’ Melissa shoves a blackened curl of bacon into her mouth as if that will stop me asking her questions.

‘Is that it, Jake? Did your sister call you a bush pig?’

Melissa’s staring so hard at Jake he’ll start sending off smoke in a minute. He crosses his hands over his lap.

‘I need to go to the toilet,’ he says. Little liar.

‘It’s true! It is, Mum. I did call him a bush pig. I’m sorry.’

Something smells here. I’m sure she’s lying. But she’s as stubborn as her father. I turn to Jake.

‘Lies come back to bite you on the bum. You know that, don’t you, Jake?’

‘I want to go to school now,’ he says for the first and probably last time in his life. ‘Did you put a banana in my lunch?’

The boy is obsessive. I take the banana out of his lunch box and open Melissa’s.

‘I’m not having it!’ she yelps.

‘What is it with bananas and this family?’ I say. ‘They’re good nutritious food and they’re cheap.’

‘They stink!’ Jake and Melissa say together.

By the time I’ve finished the washing-up, Melissa and Jake are ready to head off. I drop them at school and drive on to the Neighbourhood House, sweating in the hot morning sun.

At ten thirty my sister Tammy calls to let me know Mum’s in hospital in Melbourne.

‘What’s that noise?’ Jake has an unerring knack for asking awkward questions.

He leans down and peers under the seat between his legs, sits up and cranes his neck, looking around the corridor. I reach over and poke him to be quiet.

‘Mum, your bra is creaking again,’ Melissa whispers crossly.

‘Sshh,’ I tell her.

‘It’s creepy, Mum. You should throw it out.’

‘I’m sure you’d be very happy to have me arriving at school to pick you up with my breasts flopping around.’

‘Oh, disgusting.’ Melissa looks as if she’s about to faint.

‘You’ll have these troubles soon enough, my girl.’

‘No, I won’t, because I’m never buying underwear at the two-dollar shop.’

I was sure I’d never told anyone about buying that bra at the two-dollar shop. It seemed such a bargain until the creaking started. Even with that, I thought it was a waste to throw it away.

‘You can go in now, she’s decent,’ the nurse calls from the doorway of Mum’s room.

Jake runs in first, calling out, ‘Hi Nanna!’ Melissa and I follow more slowly. Jake stops as soon as he gets in the doorway and sees his nanna tiny and yellowish in the big hospital bed. He backs up and presses against me. Melissa stands rigid at our side. Their nanna’s bed is one of four in the room. Two are empty. An ancient man with a liver-spotted head is snoring in the one diagonally opposite.

‘Hi Mum. How are you feeling?’

She turns her gaunt sallow face to me and frowns. ‘Did you bring me a Milk Tray?’

I produce the box of chocolates with a flourish from my handbag and pass it to Melissa. ‘Give these to your grandmother, sweetie.’

‘My name is Melissa,’ my gracious daughter answers.

‘Give me the chocolates, girl,’ my even more gracious mother says. ‘I’ve been waiting for them since eleven o’clock.’

‘Are you sure you can eat those, with your liver?’

My mother reaches for the nurse alarm button.

‘OK,’ I say, taking the box from Melissa and tossing it on to the bed. ‘So how are you feeling?’

I send Jake to the vending machine next to the ward for a packet of chips while Mum tells me about my sisters, Tammy and Patsy. Tammy visited yesterday with her three immaculate children. Tammy brought a hand-knitted bedjacket, five novels, a basket of fruit and best wishes from her husband Rob, who is smarter than Einstein and a better businessman than Bill Gates – apparently Bill could learn a thing or two from Rob about point-of-sale software. One of the children had written a poem for her nanna.

‘Melissa, do you want to read your cousin’s poem?’ I ask sweetly.

Melissa smirks into the magazine she’s picked up.

My other sister, Patsy, visited with her friend. Mum thinks that Patsy’s friend would look so much nicer if she lost some weight and started wearing more feminine clothing. And took care of that facial hair, for God’s sake. Then she might be able to get a man.

‘Speaking of which, have you heard from thingo?’ she asks.

‘Nope,’ I say. ‘So when do you get out of here?’

‘Where are you staying?’

‘We’re in a motel.’

‘It’s horrible,’ Melissa says. ‘The bedspreads smell of cigarettes. And they’re baby-shit yellow.’

‘Melissa!’ I protest, but she gives me the as-if-you’ve-never-said-it-yourself look.

‘You could always stay with Tammy. They have a six-bedroom house.’

They do have plenty of room at the house and we did try staying once, but Tammy and I discovered that these days we can only tolerate two hours of each other’s company before sisterly love turns sour. It became clear that she thinks her wealthy lifestyle exemplifies cultured good taste and mine has degenerated into hillbilly destitution, while I think Tammy is living a nouveau riche nightmare while I represent a dignified insufficiency.

Tammy’s husband rarely comes home because he’s so busy being successful. When he does arrive he’s late, and Tammy’s favourite nickname for him is ‘my late husband’. ‘Allow me to introduce “my late husband”,’ she announces to startled guests. Her husband smiles distantly and gives her a shoulder squeeze like she’s an athlete. Last time the kids and I came down we ate luncheon – not the meat but the meal – at their place on the Sunday. Jake swallowed a mouthful of the smoked trout and dill pasta and before it even reached his stomach he had puked it back into the plate. It looked much the same as before he had chewed it, but the sight of the regurgitation had Tammy’s delicate children heaving and shrieking. ‘Haven’t they ever seen anyone chunder before?’ Melissa remarked scornfully on the way home.