The Serpent's Skin by Erina Reddan (top 5 books to read .txt) 📕

‘Pack of sanctimonious, holier-than-thou men,’ I heard her say one time to him.

Dad didn’t care. He slapped her on the bum, grinning, because he was excited to be off. ‘They’re good, God-fearing men, love. Church’d fall down without us pillars.’

She swiped him back. ‘It’s like a little boy’s club for grown men. You’re scared of each other’s shadows. You’d sacrifice your own mother not to look bad in their eyes.’

Once we were through the Knights, Aunty Peg poked me from behind to keep me going forwards until we were well away so everybody else could file out behind us. Faces all closed up serious. Women and men knotted together giving half nods to each other and scuffing their feet in the dirt: ‘Lovely service’, ‘Didn’t Father McGinty speak well’, ‘The flowers.’

I wanted to stand beside Mrs Nolan to make up for laughing at her. Red undies at a funeral. I could see she was worried everybody was thinking about it because that smile of hers was all stiff and straight. But then I saw something else.

In the long car that they put Mum’s coffin in were the roses. And then I knew. Those roses weren’t going into the ground with Mum.

I charged over. Banged my knee getting into the back of the car but I didn’t reach them. There were hands around my waist dragging me out. I kicked out, but they had me good and proper. They belonged to Mrs Nolan. I couldn’t hear what she was yelling for the loud in my ears. But I saw. Everybody was looking, rushing to her side.

I squirmed and kicked out some more. I couldn’t get her big filthy red underwear hands off me. And then the noise broke through and there was a scream, sharp and loud, and it was me doing the screaming.

Dad put his big shouty face in mine. He had a good grip on me too, trying to yank me away from Mrs Nolan. I thrashed. Dad ripped me free and clamped me to his side. I saw Tessa’s face through the crowd. Her face all squashed and wet.

‘It’s what I’ve been saying,’ Mrs Nolan shouted, rubbing her elbow. ‘You all saw.’

We were in the middle of everybody, and everybody was seeing everything.

‘Completely out of control,’ she yelled.

‘Fat liar,’ I said, matching her loudness.

‘You can’t bring her up, Jack.’ Her face wild.

Dad breathing hard. He jerked me closer. ‘I’ll have you mind your own business.’ He was all low and clear.

Then my head clouded up because it wasn’t just me any more. There was red underwear and Dad by the fireplace burning Mum’s missal, and so much swirl in the air.

But then Mrs Nolan said something and Dad took his arm from my shoulders. He stepped forwards. His hand sliced through the air and he slapped her, hard, right across her mouth. The slap cut through the crowd sharp.

‘You shut your mouth about my daughter.’

We never went back. Every Sunday Dad found enough petrol for us to go all the way into St Francis Xavier’s in Chilton for Mass. Tessa said we didn’t go to our Mass any more because they were all busybodies. But not all of them, I didn’t reckon. A lot of them had still come to the cemetery to put Mum in the ground. Not Tim, though. He wouldn’t get in the car. Tears screwing up his eyes. Everybody stood around watching Tessa try to get him in, waiting for Dad to blow again. In the end, somebody took Tim away to the hall where we were having the spread to wait for us there.

It was true that some people went off with Mrs Nolan, but not as many as you’d think. I think they knew she was trying to put a bigger thing in their minds so they’d stop thinking about her trip-up on the altar.

She went too far.

That’s what Dad said.

Dad went too far, too, but I reckoned people thought he was just mad with grief. I heard somebody saying that, anyway. After that, everybody left us alone.

Mrs Nolan was right about one thing, though. I was too much trouble. Dad was real good to stand up for me like he did. I was going to be just like Tessa from now on. No more feeling. Either a thing was a thing or it wasn’t. So no more questions about Mum. I wasn’t going to give him one reason to send me off to Mrs Kelly, near saint that she may well be. Mrs Nolan could be right about that other thing, too. The thing that made Dad smack her one. Maybe there was the devil in me.

PART 2

UNBURIED

1982

The truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.

Nadine Gordimer

ANOTHER BEGINNING?

Some days I don’t do life. I let it kick on by itself and sometimes those days turn into a week. And knives twist into my mind and grey things up. So on the day of Aunty Peg’s funeral it was a matter of forcing myself up and out of bed and forcing myself to go through all the motions to get dressed and ready.

I’d done it, though. And there I was, facing the world outside the gates of St Mary’s. And there was the world facing me back, all hooded eyes and watching and hand in hand with silence that licked at all the cracks. The heat was in on it too, eating up the air so there was no breathing, and me in the middle of it, pulling in enough of something to keep me on my feet. For a second I wished I’d said yes to Tye when he’d wanted to come with me. He’d be an extra layer of skin holding me together. I straightened my shoulders. He didn’t need to see me taking a trip through the mud of memory lane, especially