Rose Leopard Read Free Page B

muscle-shirts with Outback Pub slogans and a NASA-sanctioned telescope. He is so pretentious that it is difficult not to like him.
    The air is crisp and the day has a certain promise; already it smells clean and expectant. I wander into our barn, a ramshackle building full of old bits of machinery, boxes, rusting tools, fat contented spiders, crumpled biscuit tins half-filled with oils and screws. We have never worried too much about the barn — it just exists, in the same way that shells and stars and germs exist. But Milo and Otis have taken to playing in here, so Kaz decided that we should spend this weekend cleaning it out, discarding the rubbish, scrubbing then maybe even painting the walls.
    â€˜Sanitise the barn?’ I asked. ‘Why?’
    â€˜They play in it,’ she told me patiently. ‘We should make it safe.’
    â€˜They play in it because it’s not safe. That’s the attraction.’
    â€˜Your point being?’
    â€˜Make it safe and they won’t play in it. It’s self-defeating.’
    â€˜So, your solution is to leave it unsafe so they’ll keep playing there?’
    â€˜Yes. Yes, exactly.’
    â€˜Vince, that’s ridiculous. They might hurt themselves.’
    â€˜Okay, Kaz, listen to this. If a kid bashes their head against a wall, does it matter that the wall is painted?’
    â€˜Now you’re being stupid —’
    â€˜Come on, Kaz, answer me. Does a painted wall hurt less than an unpainted wall? Is it more dangerous to fall onto a dirty floor than a clean floor?’
    â€˜Yes, if you happen to cut yourself …’
    â€˜Is the gash made by an old nail more painful than the gash made by a new nail?’
    â€˜Why do you have to turn everything into a stupid word game? Honestly, Vince —’
    â€˜Is it?’ I insisted. ‘Is it?’
    â€˜Yes!’ she exploded. ‘Yes, it is! A rusty nail is worse than a new nail! Don’t you know anything about hygiene?’
    â€˜Kaz, I’m not talking about hygiene here —’
    â€˜Well, you should be! Because that’s the issue, Vince — that’s the reality! Now be useful for once in your life and find a broom!’
    â€˜Kaz?’
    â€˜A broom, Vince!’
    We began cleaning the barn early yesterday morning. Impressed by her energy, I took a photograph of Kaz as she picked up, threw out, re-ordered and re-organised. Ironically it was she, not the children, who hurt herself, stumbling forward, tripping, falling hard and slashing the palm of her hand on the open blade of an ancient pair of shears.
    â€˜Nasty,’ I told her. ‘Those things were used for crutching sheep, weren’t they?’
    â€˜Shut up and get me a bandage,’ she said irritably. I took a closer look. There was blood seeping into the creases of her wrist.
    â€˜When was your last tetanus shot?’ I asked.
    â€˜Recent.’ She grimaced and held her arm at an angle to slow the blood. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’
    We stopped cleaning then, wrapped a bandage, drank some coffee, went to the supermarket, lived a more logical, ordered life.
    There is a bird trapped inside the barn, a wagtail, swooping madly through the trusses and beams, cheeping distress signals. I pull the main doors open, watch as the rush of light draws the bird like a magnet. When it flutters through and lifts to the sky, I silently applaud its freedom.
    Good start to the day, I am thinking. Symbolically promising; the ascent of nature. Maybe today … maybe there’ll be something for me to write. Perhaps a nice little description or two, a couple of couplets, dialogue that is shot through with satire, clauses to joust with. Maybe today I will finally create prose that will make people’s vertebrae click and clatter, or verse that will shatter their world. I hope so, because it’s been a while now, nothing coming, no clever phrases or silver sentences