Hare's Fur by Trevor Shearston

Author:Trevor Shearston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2019-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

A bit before seven he came past their closed door and imagined them asleep in an unaccustomed snugness, nothing of each head visible but the hair.

They were in the kitchen, the little ones at the table with glasses of milk and eating white-bread toast and honey, Jade standing at the trembling jug, a mug on the bench with the tag of a teabag hanging over its side. They said hello, gave him shy smiles. He hid his surprise and returned the greetings, suppressing the urge to know why they were up so early and asking only whether they’d had a good sleep. Already, though, he was wondering about the rhythmic clicking coming from the landing, the laundry. Jade saw the direction of his eyes. ‘That’s zippers. I put your machine on. I hope that’s all right.’

‘You beat me, I was going to suggest it.’

The boy came and stood at the stove with his toast and watched him make porridge. He didn’t know its name. Russell asked did he want a small bowl to try and he wrinkled his nose.

He told them he was going to his workshop, he had pots he needed to finish. They could come too, if they wanted, he would give them clay to make something. The boy turned on Jade an anguished look.

‘He was wantin to watch Pokémon.’

‘On the television?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, he can if he wants.’

She turned to the boy. ‘You’re here on your own, but, right. Em and me are goin with Russell.’

When twenty minutes later they started along the path the boy trudged in their wake.

He set a fire, gave the boy the matches. He’d cheered up by the time they closed the door on bright flames. Russell sponged clean a space on the benchtop and set out batts to build on and a selection of gravers and old bamboo turning tools, then carried in from the annexe the bucket of balled earthenware and dumped a ball on the bench. Jade had stood with folded arms observing the preparations. When he turned to her, arched his eyebrows, she said she didn’t want to make anything. If he didn’t mind she wanted to watch him work. He didn’t mind, he said. It was just that what he’d be doing might not be very interesting, he wasn’t throwing fresh pots, he was finishing some bottles. It didn’t matter, she said. He pointed to the stool, then to a spot by the wheel.

He got the two started, tearing off a chunk of clay and quickly fashioning his party-piece, a smiling owl. They grinned and clapped, then went silent, calculating, he saw, how to emulate and surpass. They hadn’t ever built with clay, but had used playdough. A legacy of the creek perhaps, they weren’t finicky about getting their fingers sticky. They clawed from the ball the raw makings and announced what the lump was going to be, Todd’s a predictable dog, Emma’s a crocodile.

He unwrapped the bottle chuck of hard unfired clay from its plastic and stood it

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