Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath

Author:Tom Baragwanath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2022-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

IN THE MORNING, the last straggling clouds slide away, leaving everything lush and full. I’m up early, the crutch left by the front door, digging carefully for the first of my potatoes. The radio plays low through the open window of the kitchen, the easy listening station. Everything’s easier with a project. Sheena, Bradley, the meeting with Ambrose: every lump brought out of the soil pushes it further away.

‘All right, girl.’ Patty appears behind me. ‘I’m off. You all set?’

‘Yep.’ I don’t need to turn around to see her. She’ll be wearing her work blouse with the blue stripes tucked into her jeans, a thin cardigan across her shoulders, hair carefully in place. She’s had the streaks touched up again, little veins of bronze and gold swept through. ‘See you tonight.’

She nods, watching me. ‘I can always help out, you know.’

‘With the spuds?’

She grins. ‘With a lawyer. There’s no way it’s above board, what he’s doing. You’ve been there thirtyfive years, love. You should at least have access to the files while they’re doing the audit.’ Her eyes are hard. ‘I’ve got an old uni friend who does employment stuff. She’ll give you a rate. Hell, I could cover it myself. It’s the principle of the thing, Lorraine. That bastard can’t just…’

‘Take it easy.’ A sharp ache rolls through my knee; it’ll take another hour to earn back some ease. ‘I’m sitting tight for now.’

She folds her arms across her chest, gentle with the blister on the inside of her wrist. It’s mostly healed, leaving behind a pink bar of new skin.

‘Think about it, at least.’

I wave her away. ‘You’ll be late.’

The Fiesta sputters, then recedes into the mouth of Rickett’s Circle and out into the main road. A poky little car, a divorce brewing, and she’s offering to cover my legal bills.

I push the fork into the soil with my good foot. Patty’s been telling me to wear gloves so the handle doesn’t rub, but I like to feel my work. This is Frank’s old vegetable patch: a neat square of earth marked off with some sleepers from the old railyard, two trips across town with the Morris so the roof didn’t buckle. He was never much for flowers, Frank, but vegetables—he even managed to coax basil out of the ground, despite the hiding it took in the windy months. Whole evenings he’d spend out in his patch, a smoke hanging from the corner of his mouth, those big knobbly hands touching the plants, speaking their language.

I met Frank on horseback, down by the river on the old farm. Things like that used to happen when I was a girl, before Dad sold up and moved us to town. It was a Sunday—my mother always gave me and Debs an hour to ourselves between the morning cleaning and lunch. Sometimes Debs would come with me on my rides, but not this time.

Frank had his dog with him, an old huntaway, her eyes gone rheumy, always barking at shadows and strange sounds.

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