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

couldn’t stomach you another second. She wouldn’t have cared about me and Peg. One time a million years before. But she’d had enough all right. You were the thing we fought about the night before. You were why she had that suitcase ready behind the door.’

I gasped, gut punched. A single swing of a machete and the red was felled. Just me left, body panting, eyes wide, rabbit in the headlights trapped.

Dad’s face twisted, hate uglying it up. ‘Your mother had had a bellyful of your—’ He clawed for the word with his curled fingers.

I felt something against the back of my wrist on the table. I jerked away from the burn. Too late I saw it had been Georgie’s hand over mine. He went moon eyed. I reached out to him in sorry, but he ricocheted away, all distrust and fear.

‘Get that kid out of here.’ Dad flung his arm to the door.

‘Dad,’ snapped Tessa as Geoff stood and threw down his serviette.

‘Come on, mate.’ He held out his hand to Georgie, who couldn’t get his round eyes off his grandfather, or me. ‘See if the poddies need feeding’

‘Feed in the dairy,’ said Dad in a normal voice, looking at Georgie as if he’d never snarled. Tye, Shelley and Ahmed stayed just were they were.

‘Now that’s down to you, Tessa,’ Dad said, fork stabbing at her. ‘You shouldn’t be letting a little bloke hear any of this.’

Tessa’s mouth fell open, but Dad turned back, all prongs shooting at me now. ‘Your fault. Your mother was right! All trouble. You should get out of here right now and leave the rest of us to it.’

Air panted in and out and still I couldn’t get any of it into me. Tye’s eyes were wild. He was caught between doing and not doing. I doubled over, my fists pressing into my solar plexus, red and black and everything else pulsing hard. In the end, Tye got me a glass of water, a protective hand on my back, rubbing circles.

‘Stop it, Dad,’ said Tessa.

The sound of Tim’s chair screeching lifted my face. He stood, all six feet of tall and hands on hips, staring at Dad. A quiet mantling over him. Some of it even reached out to me. ‘What are you saying?’ he said to Dad, every word measured.

‘Sit down.’ Dad hunched over his plate again, shovelling peas into his mouth. ‘Said my piece.’

‘I won’t be sitting,’ said Tim.

‘Making a fool of yourself, boy.’

‘That so?’ He was trigger still.

Tessa’s eyes darted one to the other and snagged on nothing in between. Philly sat soldier straight, eyes dead ahead, taking in the world beyond the window, as if while her body must be here the rest of her had got away. Ahmed’s calm hand on her knee.

‘Our mother,’ Tim said, face rock hard. ‘Your. Wife. Loved JJ.’ His voice caught. ‘Took the time to see behind all that red shit to where JJ really was.’ He leaned across the table towards Dad, loading menace up into his voice. ‘And in that place there’s nothing but courage. She’s been the brave one. The only one of us willing to push hard at the truth for Mum. And all the while you fed her bullshit, fed all of us bullshit, telling us black is white and white is a brown cow. JJ took all your shit because she loved you, Dad. Believed in you. Just like we all did. You threw it all back in our faces. But now the hour is here. So you tell us, Jack. What really happened?’

‘Calling me a liar, boy?’

‘Am I?’

‘A boy who didn’t even have the guts to see his own mother buried,’ said Dad.

Shelley hissed. Tessa crashed her chair back. ‘Have you mixed your meds?’ she yelled at Dad.

‘What did our mother die of?’ said Tim, low and dangerous, not a muscle moved.

Dad pushed back from the table, stood too, legs apart. ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

‘Perito-bloody-nitus,’ said Tim. ‘Why would we believe the word of a man who slept with his wife’s sister?’

Tessa’s gasp was loud as she knocked her empty glass over. For the first time, Philly moved. She rotated her head so her stare moved from beyond the window to Tim. As if this thing could not quite make sense to her. Then, all at once, her head shook from side to side as it hit her. Her palm to her chest, she turned to me, mouthing ‘sorry’ while her eyes swam. I reached my hand across the table, shaking my head back, saying there was nothing for her to be sorry about.

Dad got his hands on the back of the chair and sent me an accusing look from underneath it all.

‘What kind of upstanding, Church-going, God-fearing man does that?’ said Tim.

‘I’ll grant you that,’ Dad said, his voice hushed. ‘And I’ll carry the stain to my dying day. I’m—’

‘Park that sanctimonious bullshit,’ Tim spat.

‘Your mother is in every breath I take, day and night.’ Dad’s voice was high and windy. ‘So don’t you—’

Tessa was at his side, a hand on his back. ‘Breathe,’ she said.

He shoved her off.

‘Perito-fucking-nitus.’ Tim pointed an accusing finger. ‘Why don’t you tell us, Jack? Why don’t you tell us all about what a stand-tall kind of bloke you been?’

Dad straightened, pulled his chair back and lowered in it. ‘I’m your father. Leave it at that. Let’s put this behind us and get back to Tessa’s delicious meal she spent hours about.’

‘What killed her?’ Tim asked, legs still apart.

‘Read the bloody death certificate.’ Dad stared up at Tim. ‘I know you stole it. So you know as much as I do.’

Tim shook his head, one eyebrow raised, challenging Dad, waiting. We all waited. And the quiet settled in around the waiting. So quiet I could hear inside me again. I closed my eyes and reached in for Mum. The ground cracked open and her absence pussed out, scalding along my skin. I shook my head and widened