Deeper Water by Jessie Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

looked at him and shrugged.
    ‘An axe,’ he answered, and then he asked me out to dinner.
    Sophie said he was just nervous and that’s why he told the joke, but I said no anyway, though I liked him well enough before that.
    ‘Billy is …’ I was thinking of the way Hamish rubbed the place just at the base of his neck, that it was the only sign he ever gave of feeling stuff.
    ‘Alright, for your first time round.’
    ‘I hardly ever see him anymore. He avoids me.’
    ‘Hell hath no fury …’
    My sister was sounding more like her old self with every passing minute. She reached down and broke the suction of the baby’s lips on her breast with her little finger, lifting Lila upright so she could burp. The baby looked disorientated, and I guess it would feel strange to be always moving unpredictably through space.
    ‘I hope she doesn’t poo. Bath and baby poo right now is not my idea of fun.’
    We’d seen this before, a few times. It basically meant starting the whole bath process again.
    ‘Do you want me to take her and get her dressed?’
    ‘Just let me wipe her quickly with a washer,’ Sophie answered.
    I handed my sister the wash cloth, and she smoothed it across her baby’s skin, swiping it over all the creases, gently prising up her arms and neck to clean all her delicate baby crevices.
    ‘She’s wonderful, Soph,’ I said.
    ‘I know.’ Sophie’s voice was soft, like she was mesmerised. ‘She’s perfect.’
    When she finished cleaning Lila, I bundled her up in a towel and took her out to find her some clothes.

6.
    Half of my mother’s pottery shed was filled with unglazed, unfired pots. They were majestic things, large and curved and white. She didn’t make just pots, but huge plates and platters too. When they were fired they’d come out deep, dark colours, but I liked them just as much this fragile white. It was the same with most things in flux—I liked the caterpillar just as much as the butterfly.
    Mum would disappear for days at a time, throwing pots almost bigger than her arms could span. Watching her at the wheel was like glimpsing the world at creation, like she held a whole universe in her arms. She taught me to use the wheel when I was small, and I can throw a pot as well as the next person, but throwing pots like Mum requires a strength and stamina that most people don’t have. It’s a gift, or that’s what the gallery man says when he comes on his buying trips.
    When the next day came out sunny, Mum headed to her shed straight after breakfast. Sophie bundled the babies up and took them back to her own cabin, so it was only me and Hamish left in the house. I’d been up early to check on the calf and let the chooks out. The water over the bridge was still too high to cross, but it wouldn’t be long now. We’d be able to get out tomorrow.
    With the sunshine out, Hamish was restless. I sat at the kitchen table, the old dog at my feet, but Hamish paced around, patting his empty pockets. Endlessly checking the time.
    ‘I can’t believe you don’t have internet.’
    It was the second time he’d said it that morning. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I guess I didn’t know what I was missing.
    ‘Why’s it so important?’
    ‘You know, emails and stuff.’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘You don’t know what an email is?’
    ‘Yeah—I mean, it’s a message sent on a computer.’ I knew that much. ‘But I’ve never sent one.’
    ‘You’ve never sent an email?’
    ‘No.’
    Hamish stopped moving and stared at me.
    ‘Come on, you must have sent one once … somewhere along the line?’ He sounded disbelieving. ‘What about at school?’
    Because we didn’t have a working computer, I’d done all my school correspondence via plain old mail, but I didn’t want to tell him that.
    ‘Nup.’ I leaned down and gave the dog a scratch behind her ears. She was a scraggly old thing, smelly but familiar. These days she didn’t ask for much—a pat here and there and a bowl of food. She