The Serpent's Skin Erina Reddan (affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📖

the other. ‘Drainage,’ she said to the air. ‘That was the trouble with your mother, no drainage from the brain.’

I stepped back out of Aunty Peg’s line of sight and crossed my eyes. Philly giggled.

‘Giggling’s for babies,’ said Aunty Peg.

Philly stepped back beside me to poke her tongue at Aunty Peg’s back.

‘That’s why she married your father.’

Tessa sat opposite Aunty Peg; Philly and I pulled out two other chairs. This was getting interesting.

‘Could have had James Ryan, the one with the hardware place in town. Mad for her, he was.’ She looked straight at me. ‘Get me a glass of water, will you, Philly?’

I nudged Philly.

‘She meant you,’ said Philly, elbowing me back.

‘She said you.’

Tessa sighed and got up from the table.

‘Philly a bit lazy?’ asked Aunty Peg to Tessa, meaning me. She turned back to me. ‘Give us your hand.’

I held one out, but only got it halfway before she tipped forwards and yanked it towards her. She bought it almost to her nose and stared hard into it and ran one cold finger across the middle of my palm, then she nodded like she found what she’d expected and flung back my hand. She started to ferret about in her handbag as if she’d moved on to the next thing.

‘What did you see in Philly’s hand, Aunty Peg?’ asked Philly, grinning.

‘Hasn’t got enough layers of skin between her and the world. She’s all trouble that one.’

‘Philly always is,’ I chimed in, grinning myself. Philly crossed her arms and shook her face in mine.

‘James Ryan?’ I prompted Aunty Peg.

‘Had prospects. Instead your mother chose love and dirt. Where’d that get her?’ Aunty Peg looked from one side of the room to the other. ‘Eating dirt for breakfast, lunch and tea.’

Tessa swung around from the sink, a brewing storm. I stepped into the gap. ‘But Mr Ryan hasn’t got any hair.’

‘Bald as an egg then too, but at least she would have known what she was getting into.’

‘She didn’t get into it, though, did she?’ I said. Seeing as I was Philly for the minute I was using up my free ticket.

‘So she ended up with you lot. Half killed her, you did. Especially you, Philly. Nearly did for her. Poisoned her from the inside.’

Tessa dumped the glass in front of Aunty Peg on the table and said she had to go check on Dad and those cows.

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘JJ will stay with you, Aunty Peg. She’s really sweet.’ I skipped away.

Tessa came marching back and yanked Philly from her chair. ‘JJ’s not sweet at all. I need this one to collect the eggs.’ The words could hardly get through her tight-together teeth.

It wasn’t until Philly and I got to the chook shed that I saw Philly’s hands were shaking. I nudged her. ‘I was just kidding back there with Aunty Peg. You’re not any kind of trouble.’

She pursed her lips up like they’d been button closed. I nudged her again. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

I took the collecting tin away from her. ‘It’s not nothing, little duck.’ The chooks clucked around us. ‘Missing Mum?’

She nodded. I narrowed my eyes, but she turned her back on me, clucking at the chooks. They followed her to the wheat bucket. Mum said Philly was our queen of the chooks.

‘Move over, Baby Beak,’ she murmured.

The chook stretched its neck into its breast and let Philly take two eggs from under her. If I was trying to get under that chook, she’d be pecking me with that beak of hers, which was a lot sharper than a baby’s. Philly got the wheat out to them, but not in her usual arch of rain. Instead, she puddled it out of her bucket onto the ground.

‘Let’s go, Philly,’ I said. I couldn’t breathe through the sad. Was it because this was what Mum and Philly used to have together? Like Mum and I had flowers? Like Tessa and Mum had baking?

‘Your father told you I’m mad yet?’ asked Aunty Peg, biting into the chicken. She was eating both the drumsticks when usually Philly and I got one each. Dad’s eyes stayed pointed on his plate, just where they’d been since he sat down.

‘Are you?’ Philly asked Aunty Peg.

‘Eat,’ Dad said.

‘Been mad with grief since I was five,’ said Aunty Peg. ‘You never get over a thing like that, your parents dying when you’re young.’ She looked around the table.

Dad belted the table with his fist. The salt and pepper headed for the ceiling. ‘That’s enough, Peg.’

She waved her chicken leg. ‘Not you lot.’ She looked around at all of us. ‘You’re all too old to be affected. You don’t have the gift, anyway. Besides, Sarah wasn’t good at painting, was she?’

Dad put his palms in the air. ‘Don’t ask.’ His voice weary with the weight of it.

But I did. ‘What’s painting got to do with the price of fish?’

Aunty Peg looked at me. ‘Which one are you again?’

I shrugged.

‘Sassy, aren’t you?’ She picked up her knife and fork and headed for the roast potatoes on her plate. ‘Sarah was like that.’

I sat up straight.

‘Sarah would tell you the blue sky was yellow and you’d believe her.’

I sagged. Nobody ever believed me.

‘Why didn’t you have kids, Aunty Peg?’ I asked.

‘Bleed you dry. Look at Sarah. Went into the ring eight times.’

Philly plucked at the neckline of her T-shirt. Tessa and I frowned at each other.

‘Less talk, more eat,’ said Dad.

‘It was so, Jack bloody McBride,’ said Aunty Peg. She sniffed. ‘Not so handsome any more, are you? Where’s all that charm now?’

While everybody else was gasping at a lady swearing, at the kitchen table and in front of children, I asked, ‘Where are the rest of us?’

Aunty Peg bent down with a groan to look under the table. ‘Not there.’ Then she laughed as if she’d told us a great joke. ‘Eight pregnancies. Every one made her sick as a dog. But this one,’ she gestured with her knife towards Dad, ‘wouldn’t let