‘Why doesn’t Cassie have to come then?’ said Wally. ‘Why doesn’t Dad have to come?’
As we crossed the yard I could tell Mum was nervous. She kept tugging her skirt to her knees, and when I looked at her face she was smiling at nothing, with too much gums, as though she was just practising. I was nervous too. I knew that when we went through the gate it would be the start of something. Wally was my best friend, but sometimes I thought it would be nice to have a second friend, someone new and different to play with, a girl. The kids at school were strange; Wally and I played by ourselves at lunchtime, always paired up when we did partner work. But with Tilly it would be different because we were related and had parts of the same person in us. I knew that would make things much easier.
We went up the verandah steps. There were cobwebs hatched under the roof gutters, cocooned flies glued to the web like sultanas. ‘You got muck on your teeth,’ Wally said to Mum, just as she knocked.
‘Shit,’ Mum said. She peered at her reflection in the window, wiped the bricky lipstick off her teeth with her finger.
When Helena opened the door, she leaned in and kissed Mum on the cheek. She held on to Mum’s elbow, which I knew would embarrass Mum because her elbows were dry as scones.
Cassie was right; she did look different from the girls with babies you see in town, the teachers at school and the lady at the tuckshop with chicken skin around her neck. Helena had silver rings all up her ears, and her eyelashes were clumped together. After staring at her across the yard, imagining what she looked like up close, it was like seeing someone I’d only ever seen on a video or the TV. But I didn’t care so much about Helena. I peered behind her, looking for Tilly.
Helena held the flyscreen open and told us to come in. ‘It’s a bit of a mess still,’ she said. Her voice was deep, and crinkly like aluminium.
They hadn’t even been there a week but it was like a completely different house.
Dad’d had the window glass replaced a few weeks earlier, hosed down the outside of the house and sprayed the lantana that crept from the edge of the paddock. He didn’t go inside, but he gave me and Wally some Ratsak and a bucket of eucalyptus water, told us to go over and clean the place until it sparkled. We scrubbed the mould off the walls and scooped smoke butts out of the toilet water with a frog net, swept up the ash sprinkled onto the tubes of rolled-up carpet. The house was almost empty: a couple of skivvies folded in the chest of drawers, ugly oil paintings of galahs and ghost gums hanging from the walls—Les’s name signed in cursive at the bottom corners. There was a windcheater dangling from a crocheted coat-hanger in the wardrobe and in the pocket Wally found a red Bic lighter that flicked into a clear blue flame.
But now the air seemed cleaner, with a flowery smell I’d never smelled before. The paintings from the walls were gone, dark patches in their places. And there was Tilly up close, belly down on a rug in the lounge, painting her nails. Freckles all up her arms. Her hair was almost the colour of Cheezels, the exact same as Helena’s.
‘Not on the carpet,’ Helena said, glancing towards Tilly. Tilly capped the lid and stood up, loped over to us.
‘Hello, Matilda,’ Mum said, and placed the biscuits on the bench. ‘You were a tiny thing the last time I saw you. You probably don’t remember me.’
She scrunched her nose. ‘It’s Tilly.’
‘These are your cousins, Tilly,’ Helena said, nodding in our direction.
Tilly looked over at us, first at Wally and then at me. I raised my hand and waved, felt like a dummy as soon as I’d done it. We stood around as Helena filled the kettle. As she got out tea things from the cupboards, Mum’s eyes kept flickering over everything. ‘Haven’t been in here in years,’ said Mum, picking up a candle, setting it down again.
Wally wandered into the lounge room. He stopped at a small table with photos scattered on the surface. They weren’t in frames yet and were propped against the wall or lying flat. Wally went through each photo one by one, touching Helena and Tilly’s faces with his fingertip. I could feel Tilly watching Wally too, but when I looked at her she’d hunched back over the benchtop, slowly swiping the red polish onto her nails.
‘Must be a bit different from the big smoke,’ Mum said.
‘Bit of a sea change, I suppose.’
‘Might get a bit dull,’ Mum said. ‘No nightclubs or bars or anything like that. Except for the pub, I suppose. And the Chinese. They do bring-your-own grog.’
The kettle boiled and Helena poured water into the cups. ‘Thanks for letting me stay, Christine,’ Helena said.
‘Well, it is your house,’ Mum said. ‘By the book, I mean.’
‘I know I should’ve got it taken care of years ago. It must have been a pain for you and Colin to have to deal with. All the upkeep and that.’
‘It’s worked out well,’ Mum said. ‘With you needing a place to stay. Just a shame it’s taken so long. Would’ve been nice for the twins to know their cousin. Would’ve been nice to get to know you as well. Dermott was so young when he moved away. I feel like there’s a big chunk of his life I just knew nothing about.’
I knew Dermott had died when Tilly was a baby, but nothing else. No one ever told me anything.
Helena smiled, took a sip of tea. ‘Well, all my family was in Brisbane,’ she said. ‘And we had the flat. Not a lot of jobs out here either, I’d imagine.’
Mum’s lips went thin. She took a sip as well.
‘This place is a dump,’ Tilly said under her breath.
‘What’d you say, missy?’ Helena said. She grabbed the bottle from Tilly’s hands and screwed on the lid. She turned to me. ‘Why don’t you take Tilly outside,’ she said. ‘Show her around the place.’
It was the first time she’d spoken to me, first time she’d even looked at me properly. I didn’t know what to say. I looked over at Wally, who’d picked up the stereo remote and was pretending to zap it at Tilly’s head.
‘Go on,’ Mum said, smiling too big again.
I could feel my heart throbbing as I followed Wally down the stairs. He walked towards the tea-tree by the paddock fence, sat down in the grass. I sat down beside him.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be showing me around?’ Tilly asked, still standing.
‘No,’ Wally said.
‘There’s not really anything to show you,’ I added.
Tilly scanned the grass for ant nests, sat down.
‘I like your fingers,’ I said. Tilly looked down at her nails and shrugged. I waited for her to say something back, but she didn’t. ‘How old are you then?’ I asked.
‘Eleven and a half,’ she said.
‘We’re almost eleven,’ I said. ‘I’m older, though, by three minutes. We’re twins.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
I looked over to the shed, to the two birds skittering on the tin roof. I tried to think of something less boring to say, something that would make her think we were interesting, not just boring bumpkins.
‘You know this house is haunted?’ Wally said to Tilly, before I had a chance to think of something good. As soon as he said it I felt a little spasm of panic in my fingertips.
‘Yeah, right,’ Tilly said.
‘It is,’ Wally said. ‘That’s why no one wanted to live here all this time. Because of the ghosts.’
‘No one lived here because it’s our house. Mine and Mum’s. Dad left it to us.’
‘There’s still ghosts, though.’
‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Tilly. ‘Everyone knows that’s just kid stuff.’
‘I’ve seen them.’
‘You’re just trying to scare me,’ Tilly said. ‘My mum said you were probably going to try and tell me lies.’
‘I don’t give a toss if you don’t believe me,’ Wally said. ‘But it’s true though, isn’t it, Cub?’