‘No,’ said Helena. ‘We’ll go, I think.’
‘Come on, now,’ Mum said. ‘Don’t be a party-pooper.’ She reached for the wine and topped up Helena’s glass.
‘Tilly’s had a big day.’
‘She can have a kip in Cub’s bed.’
‘Just let them leave, Mum,’ said Cassie. ‘She doesn’t want to stay.’
‘Watch how you talk to your mother, hey,’ Dad said, ruffling Cassie’s hair even though his eyes were sharp.
Cassie got up and took his glass to the couch, turned on the TV.
‘Thanks for dinner,’ Helena said, running her hands down her dress. ‘Haven’t had a roast in ages.’
‘Could at least wait until after dessert,’ Mum said. ‘Seeing as I went to the trouble. You’ve hardly been here an hour.’
Helena had already grabbed her keys off the table, but paused, turned back to Mum and Dad. ‘Can I have a word, actually?’ she said. ‘In private.’ She looked at Tilly. ‘Go wait outside,’ she said.
‘Why?’ Tilly asked.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’
Tilly got out of her chair. She went outside, didn’t say goodbye.
Helena stood there for a moment. She looked at Wally and me. ‘Maybe you two can go to your rooms,’ she said.
‘Right,’ Dad said, standing up. ‘Off to your room.’
‘But I’m not finished,’ said Wally.
‘Do as you’re told,’ Dad said.
Wally and I peeled up from our chairs, trudged into the hallway.
‘Just going to the loo,’ I said, once Wally was on his bed. I nipped back towards the kitchen, stood against the wall and peered around the corner. They were still gathered around the table, Dad and Helena standing, Mum in her chair.
‘I’ve already told you Tilly knows nothing about what went on here,’ Helena said. ‘And if your kids can’t stop bringing it up then she won’t be able to come over here anymore.’
‘That’s just kids being kids,’ Dad said. ‘They’ve heard rumours, but nothing more. They’re just not interested.’
‘I’d say they’re bloody interested,’ Helena said. ‘Les is one thing, but I don’t want Tilly to find out what her father did. What he was trying to do.’
‘It was an accident, for God’s sake,’ Mum said. ‘I thought you would’ve seen sense by now.’
‘You weren’t in the car, were you?’
‘I don’t mean to upset you, love,’ Mum said. ‘But he was my brother, and I know he wouldn’t do something like that. It was an accident. A terrible accident.’
Helena took a deep breath, pinched her fingers to the bridge of her nose. ‘Well, how about you just teach your kids some manners, then.’
Helena looked my way and I darted around the corner. I heard the rattling of keys, the flyscreen opening, clacking shut. I peered around the corner again. Mum opened the fridge, took out a tin of fruit salad and a carton of custard and set them on the table. She came into the hall and went into her room, didn’t even seem to see me. I didn’t understand what they were talking about. All I knew was that there was no way I was going to tell Tilly about Les. She’d never want to play with us again if she knew what we were really like, who we had inside of us. What kind of person our bones were made from.
I crept back into the kitchen, stood next to Dad and climbed onto the bench. He’d flicked on the porch light and we watched Helena and Tilly cross the grass. The kitchen seemed peaceful. I was glad everyone was gone. ‘Does she have a bung leg?’ I asked. ‘Is that why she hobbles like that?’
‘She was in an accident,’ Dad said. ‘The one that killed your uncle.’ He took a swig of beer, swallowed it down. ‘The kids at school haven’t said anything to you, have they?’
‘About what?’
‘About your granddad,’ Dad said. ‘Anything like that?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘What about Wally? He said anything? You know how much he fibs.’
I shook my head.
‘A lot of rumours fly around here,’ Dad said. ‘Best to ignore them.’
‘Okay,’ I said. I made my face go blank, like he was talking about something boring and I didn’t care.
‘People around here like a bit of a chinwag about all sorts of thing. A lot of things get said.’
I nodded. It made me feel like a grown-up, telling a half-lie like that. Telling a lie without even saying anything. Telling a lie by just nodding my head.
For as long as I could remember, once or twice a year strange people with licence plates from Victoria or New South Wales would drive up to the yellow house. Even though Dad had taken the street sign down, the cars would pull onto the side of the road and the people would poke around the yellow house for a while, rattling the doorhandle and pressing their faces up to the windows. They’d traipse across the grass like they owned the place, peel under the barbed wire and disappear into the paddock.
‘Bloody pests,’ Dad would say. He’d stand by their car waiting for them to come back, with a shovel or spade over his shoulder and a heat glowing off him that was thick as stew. When they trudged back in, they always slowed down when they saw him leaning against their boot, their walks going stiff just a bit. Dad would follow them onto the road, watch until they pulled back onto the highway, until they were gone. Whenever I asked Dad who they were, what they were doing here, he’d say they were just dropkicks mooching about, but then he’d be in a bad mood all night.
The last time I heard a car turn off the highway was right before Helena and Tilly moved in. I’d just had a bath and was in my nightie, but I raced to the driveway. I stood at the side of the road as the car revved towards me, mousy fumes spooling from the exhaust.
The car slowed as it passed me, and then rolled to a stop outside the chewed-up gate at the front of the yellow house. Though the sun was close to setting, the road cooked my feet as I walked towards the car. When I reached the letterbox the door clicked open and the driver stuck his head out, turned to face me.
‘This it?’ he asked. He was only a few years older than Cassie, his hair black as crow feathers. He had a piercing in his eyebrow and his cheeks were rubbly with dents.
I didn’t say anything.
‘Hey, you deaf?’ he said. ‘This the farm? The knackery? We’ve been driving for hours.’
I heard a giggle come from inside the car. A girl.
‘It’s not a farm,’ I said.
‘What?’ he said.
‘There’s no animals.’
He stuck his head back in the car and the door slammed shut. I stayed where I was, and after a minute the engine choked and the car crawled forward, screeched into a U-turn and sped off back towards the highway.
I went inside, told Dad what had happened. ‘Why would they want to go to the knackery?’ I said.
He was watching TV, didn’t look away from the screen.
I hopped up and down, repeated the question.
Dad turned to me. ‘Because it was your grandfather’s, and your grandfather was a well-known man.’
‘Well known for what?’ I said. ‘The paintings?’
‘What paintings?’
‘There’s all these paintings on the walls at the yellow house, with his name on the bottom.’
Dad took a sip of beer, rubbed his nose. ‘It’s like with the Queen of England,’ he said. ‘People travel from all over to see where she lives, even if she’s not there.’
‘Why, though?’ I asked.
‘Why?’ Dad repeated. He took another sip. ‘Because people are idiots.’
It wasn’t until the day after the dinner that I realised why those people were really coming to the yellow house.
Even though it was a school day Tilly and Helena had gone somewhere early and it definitely wasn’t school. They had carried bags and towels and plastic bags of food out to the car and were dressed in bright, summery clothes, so I knew they were going somewhere special. I was jealous that they could just hoon off somewhere for a different life. No one would ever take me away on a special trip. I waved to Tilly from the fence but she mustn’t have seen me. Even though I knew Tilly had a secret bad spot in her as well, I needed something to distract me, needed something good to focus my mind on. Needed some of her good to rub off on me.