The Serpent's Skin

this kind of behaviour from,’ Tessa said to me as she pulled Philly over to the fireplace to rip her shiny black patent-leather shoes off.
School shoes on, we all got in the car. I patted Philly’s hand behind Tessa’s back.
At least Tessa didn’t have the nerve to get Mum’s Mass book and Mass scarf out of the glove box. I would have had something to say about that. Nobody touched Mum’s missal. She kept it tied nice and tight in her Mass scarf. She always swiped our hands away when we tried to help her with the knots. ‘Nothing wrong with my own fingers thank you very much.’
We were the last car to pull into the church paddock, just like always. Mum would have been putting her scarf around her neck, making the blue blue of the flower sit right at her throat. Mum and I loved hyacinths. ‘Things staying the same,’ she said. ‘Consistency.’ I liked all the ‘sssssss’ sounds in the way she said consssisstensssy.
I rubbed my tummy.
‘You sick?’ asked Philly.
‘Nah, just funny.’
‘Cause Mum?’
I nodded.
The church even smelled different. We were in our usual pew, right up the front, but there was something dark in the air.
I had a good look around. It was the flowers that made the difference. Big, fat night-red roses from Mrs Nolan’s garden. There were a lot of them: regret and sorrow. Not the promise of spring lilacs Mum’d been bucketing the bath water on for weeks. Not that Mrs Nolan would have ever read Mum’s flower book to know what’s what. I saw Tessa’s eyes burning into the flowers, too. She’d forgotten it was Mum’s turn for the altar, otherwise she would have made sure Mum’s lilacs were up there all right. Tessa tore at a fingernail. She’d missed another Mum beat now and I was glad.
All the mothers were face front to the altar but murmuring to their husbands and swapping side looks at one another. Only an emergency would mean Sarah McBride would let Nancy Nolan do her flowers, that’s what they were all thinking. The secret language of flowers. Flowers had a language all right: we spoke it loud and clear at Our Lady of the Rosary.
The altar boys shuffled in from the vestry, frilled up in their white dresses, with Father McGinty and his big beer gut bringing up the rear. Mrs Tyler squidged in behind us on her high-heeled toes, late like usual, all the way to the front pew where the rest of her mob were. She snuck in right as Father McGinty finished his bowing to the altar and turned to face us, staring right over our heads so he didn’t have to actually look any of us in the eye. Dad always shook his head at Mrs Tyler being late, but Mum hushed him up, saying it was because she had to iron the boys’ good shirts, do the girls’ hair, get the roast on, pile the wood on the fire and a million other things before she could get herself dressed, like women had to do everywhere. But since they only lived across the road she could send the rest of them on ahead so it was only her who was ever late.
At the end of Mass, the mothers pegged Dad down on the church porch. He could have got past them down the steps easy if he wanted to escape because no woman ever went into the men’s circle. But Dad was in no hurry at all. Only too happy to stop and coat all the mothers up in what Mum called his Big Church Man smile, all serious and holier than thou. Mum hated that look. Dad stood there taking all questions, explaining the last-minute emergency. They knew what Peg was like. They all grew up together around Nulla, went to the same school, same dances, same church; all thick as thieves until Dad threw Aunty Peg out of our house just before Philly was born, and she took herself off to the city to live. There were nods and tsks all around. Tessa stood at Dad’s elbow, Tim to the other side, and Philly and me behind, scuffing our feet against the wall, but soft so we could still hear what he was saying. Dad said a neighbour had found Aunty Peg raving in the street and had called Mum. Nobody said boo, cause like Mum said, they all treated Dad like he was some kind of god.
Dad served it all up and then got out free into the open air. He punched one hand into the other as if he’d done something hard but done was done. I elbowed Philly to show her, but she’d been looking the other way. Her eyes were all on Mrs Nolan heading in our direction. I backed away fast, sliding along the wall, but didn’t get far cause Philly was in the way and then it was too late.
‘How are you, pets?’ Mrs Nolan asked, head to the side, her mouth like a small pinched button, even though it was all lipsticked up fire-engine red.
I squashed down the quick lick of flame at the cheek of her saying ‘pet’ after what she said about me to Mum when they were doing the tomatoes the morning Mum took off. But I had to keep shut about it in case she asked any of her nosy questions in front of Philly. Besides, what if Mum told her one or two things after I did what I did?
So I kept my head down, and Philly and I scuffed and grunted like we always did talking to adults. Philly had one sock up and one down. I was torn between wanting to pull one up because I didn’t want Mrs Nolan saying anything terrible about Philly being a little savage, and pushing the other down cause then Philly’d have two relaxed socks. Philly had her eyes on the ground, too, so it didn’t take long