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

when I had way too much else I should be telling him. I put my hand to my belly and felt about its flatness experimentally. Hard to believe there was so much going on under the skin. But tests don’t lie. I just wasn’t sure what I was going to do about this awkward truth.

In my head I’d planned to be the last one through the church doors, but the tram had charged along and then stopped dead outside St Mary’s. So instead I was the first by a long shot. I stood at the entrance to the church grounds filled up with numb until I let myself fall into the wrought-iron gates, headfirst. I found some breath in among things and got my eyes open, weighing possibilities.

I didn’t like the immediate ones. The church bluestone shot up into a spire and laid a long shadow back down along the ground. It was dark and solid and sharp edged. My ciggies found their way into the cradle of my palm and then I knew what I could do next. I unpeeled from the gates, went into the churchyard and hid around the corner, because I’m good at hiding. I lit one and chugged on the end, and watched the smoke carve a slow spiral heavenwards. I’d need to make a decision pretty damn soon about whether smoking was going to stay on the agenda or not. But not today.

‘You turned up?’

Tessa’s voice sliced through the quiet. I recovered enough to wave my hand over myself as if to say it was self-evident. ‘Honouring the dead.’

Tessa’s eyes swept over my jeans as if I wasn’t honouring anything. ‘A little more help with the living wouldn’t go astray.’

‘Wouldn’t want to take your spot in heaven.’

‘Still a bloody idiot.’

‘Dad coming?’

She shook her head. ‘Relieved?’ she asked, eyes narrowed, thoughts ticking.

I gave the clouds a good going over. There was something, but I wasn’t sure it was relief. I flipped open the lid of the cigarette packet and held them out towards her. She looked at the line-up of filters, packed in shoulder to shoulder like soldiers, and for a moment I thought she’d go for one, but the hearse nosed between the gates and she tore off, back straight and equal to any task, just like always.

I dragged at the end of my cigarette for a bit of comfort. Out of nowhere an ache snaked down my arms for Tessa’s little boy, Georgie, because it had been a while since I’d seen him. He’d be going on four now. A half laugh coughed into my throat as I thought about the way his eyes gulped in the world, mouth going like a fish. I hadn’t even met Tessa’s twins who’d already clocked up a few months.

I stubbed the butt of my smoke out under my Docs and rubbed a sheen of sweat from my hands down my jeans. The wooden fence slats separating the church from the high rise listed towards me like they’d had too much to drink. I drifted further away along the side of the church and got myself behind a buttress in the wall where I couldn’t be seen at all from the front.

‘JJ,’ Tessa called. ‘We’re starting.’

I didn’t answer.

‘For Godsake, JJ.’

The clouds billowed big like parachutes, full of far-off questions. I shook my head free of them, closed my eyes and counted to ten, going at a good slow jog. Then I pushed off the wall but stayed close enough so I still couldn’t be spotted. At the corner I hovered, scanning ahead to see whether the coast was clear. I raised my wrist. The funeral was just about to start, so I reckoned everybody who was coming must be in there, but I took the stairs two at a time anyway. At the top I congratulated myself that there was still nobody in sight who might have a query or two about what I’d been up to in the last many odd years.

It took a few goes to heave the massive wooden door open. Inside, the chill of the marble coated me up close like a shroud. I grabbed a cardi out of my shoulder bag. There was a scatter of people right up the front. I dug a knuckle into my palm as I headed towards them, every step against the tide.

Aunty Peg’s coffin was a lighter wood than Mum’s had been, but it took up just as much space in the aisle, all final and finished like a full stop. I patted the pocket of my bag where I kept my smokes, then went back to knuckling my palm.

I turned into an empty pew behind the others and kneeled, my elbows on the seat in front of me, head tucked in. It was like slipping into old pyjamas. I studied the women from up home. Funny how none of the men had bothered to turn up to Mad Peg’s funeral. But the sisterhood was there. That arrowed a zing of warmth through me. The quiet resistance of women with deep-lined, farm-hard faces gathering to honour one of the tribe, even if Peg was an outsider. Mrs Tyler’s face had softened and splayed since I’d seen her last, but still she was trim and bird sharp. I had to look twice at Mrs Nolan. She wasn’t just comfortable now, she was more than well cushioned, and her hair greyed over. The years were racing her to death’s door. I wanted to reassure myself that she was not just old, but also harmless. I couldn’t though, not unless I was going to lie. She’d taken to leaving messages at the boarding house for me since Peg’s death a week back. I knew Dad didn’t have my number so it had to be either Tessa or Tim who’d given it to her. Whatever she wanted with me, I wanted no part of it. I hadn’t seen her since that day. One funeral always made you think of another.

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