Henry’s Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

months after the twins. He got born old, got born knowing that no onewas going to pick him up if he cried so he didn’t bother crying, and due to all the talk in the house still being about if the twins were going to live or die, Jamesy pretty much grew himself up until one day he climbed out of the pram and squatted under the kitchen table. That’s where he stayed too, sort of grinning at the stupid world with his lopsided mouth.
    Something must have happened then,though Lori can’t remember what it was – maybe Mavis had a dog or something – anyway, there is a huge space of no babies between Jamesy, who is eight, and Neil, who is four, and a pure little redheaded, face-pulling bugger of a kid. Timmy came next, he’ll be two in June. He’s not a redhead and he’s not dark yet, but he will be. And now there’s the new one, the bald-headed bawler who hasn’t shutup for more than five minutes since he stuck his head out and saw Mavis, and who’d blame him? That’s what Martin said.
    â€˜When are you going to learn to iron, Splint?’
    â€˜Oh, yeah, cool,’ Lori replies. She’s found a space between the television and the fridge, where she’s leaning, smearing more Vicks up her nose, watching the iron work hard. Martin is better at laying bricks. He and Donny alwayscall her Splint or Splinter, like, chip off the old block. And she’s not like Mavis. She’s not a bit like her.
    The television is on an angle, positioned for Mavis’s couch, which is against the east wall. She’s smoking and answering the quiz questions before the contestant. Mostly she gets them right too, and when she does, she wriggles, and each wriggle makes her couch dig a deeper hole throughthe plaster wall, like it’s trying to burrow its way into Martin and Donny’s bedroom. It’s a double-seater couch that seats only one, and lucky for it, its frame is all metal. It used to have a brown and green pattern on the material, which you can still see in places though it’s mostly worn away.
    â€˜Get some more wood, please, Vincent,’ Henry says.
    â€˜Can’t you let the stove go out tonight, Henry?’Vinnie moans, sort of slow. He does everything slow – except pinch your food; he does that fast. He and Greg and Mick sleep in the west bedroom, and the kitchen chimney, a double one, has its other half in their room, which might be good in winter but it’s not good in summer because the heat from the stove goes through that chimney and turns the middle-sized boys’ room into a sweatbox.
    No onelistens to Vinnie – just looking at him is sort of overpowering lately. Henry is pretty much scared to look at him, in case he’s grown out of his shoes or his trousers again. Anyway, that stove never goes out, due to it being one of those combustion things you can close up so they just keep licking at wood and heating up water that crawls through pipes from the stove to the hot water service inthe roof. This house needs plenty of hot water.
    Vinnie gets the wood then takes the hair-cutting chair. Greg, who went out with him to help get wood, doesn’t come back. He’s not going to get an old-fashioned Henry haircut; Mavis will end up giving him money to have a proper one like she did the last time, which isn’t fair.
    Nothing is really fair in this house. Like, Henry works all day thencomes home and works half the night. Mavis can’t do anything except have babies. She used to be a good cook but he’s a rotten cook. He boils rice to a gluey glug, turns green cabbage into grey rag, boils beans watery, and mince stews greasy; they all taste the same, of onions and carrots and curry, and he forgets to put salt in it half the time. He uses a lot of onions and carrots because he growshis own. He grows pumpkins too, and broad beans that taste like chaff and look like kidneys that died of some terrible disease. His silverbeet is