Jessica Read Free

trouble with her old man at tea that night.
    All of them were sitting at the table, she and Joe glaring at each other, Meg proud as punch at having just spilled the beans, Hester looking on, her nerves on edge.
    â€˜But I seen it!’ young Jessica protests, turning to Joe for confirmation. ‘You done it! I seen it, remember?’
    â€˜Bullshit. That were a bloody carpet snake and you know it,’ Joe replies. ‘Big harmless buggers.’
    â€˜Well how was I supposed to know it was harmless?’
    Jessica shouts at her sister. ‘He picked it up, didn’t he?
    He kissed it! That’s all I said to the government man!’ ‘Who’s “he”, the cat’s father?’ Hester chides in her tired and exasperated voice.
    â€˜Father!’ Jessica points to Joe at the head of the table.
    â€˜I seen Father do it!’
    Joe’s voice cuts in quietly. ‘You did know it was harmless, girlie. ‘Cause I told both of yiz meself.’ He turns to Meg. ‘What’s a carpet snake look like, Meg?’ Meg smiles. ‘Black and brown mottled patches against a sort of creamy background, Father. They can get to be nine feet long,’ she adds gratuitously.
    â€˜Good.’ Joe faces Jessica again. ‘You bragging to that bloke from the government has made a bloody fool outa me, girlie,’ he says.
    Jessica flushes deeply, biting her bottom lip, looking down into her lap. Meg is a real bitch. But worse, she, Jessica, has made Joe look stupid and that is more than she can bear to think about.
    â€˜Country folk don’t get cocky with snakes, ya hear?
    They fear ‘em something terrible,’ Joe continues, still in a low voice. ‘City folk think snakes are evil, it’s something that they’ve taken out of the Bible.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘But we know different, don’t we? Snakes is just another sort of vermin. Crows, rats, mice and feral cats, dingoes and foxes, they’re vermin too, all of them meateaters. They’ll have a go at chooks and take a newborn lamb once in a while, but they won’t go humans, they don’t kill people. Snakes do. Snakes kill. Nobody fools around with Joe Blakes, girlie. Bloke who fools around with snakes is a flamin’ idiot.’
    Suddenly he swings his arm across the table and backhands Jessica hard across the cheek, his knuckles making her skull ring and the teeth rattle in her head. ‘You knew it were a carpet. Don’t ever brag about me to no bastard, you hear? I don’t want no flamin’ school inspector from Sydney thinking your old man’s a bloody fool! Some sort of Injun snake charmer!’
    It feels as though she’s been hit by a rock. Jessica gasps, shocked by the unexpected attack and the sudden, fearful pain. The blow almost knocks her from her stool and she has to grab hold of the table’s edge in order to retain her balance. Joe never hits her indoors, the house is Hester’s territory and her head is ringing as she looks to her mother for help.
    Hester jumps up from the table, her chair skidding backwards in her haste. Jessica thinks she is going to have a go at her father for hitting her, but Hester only looks down at her, wiping her mouth with the back of her puffy hand. Jessica can see from her mother’s expression that she isn’t going to come to her rescue. Hester, she realises, wants no part of what’s going on between her and Joe. All this has happened in a few moments — it is as if the blow to her head has given Jessica a sudden clarity of vision, an insight into her mother’s heart where there is no longer any room for her younger daughter. Jessica knows her mother thinks she’s becoming a handful, too headstrong. ‘Can’t tell you anything you don’t already know and you’ve got no manners, just like your father.’ She says it often enough and there it is again in her eyes as she turns and