‘Indeed, Father,’ Robert smiled, ‘so you remind us all.’ At his side, Sophie giggled some more.

  Ern swallowed his laughter and was able to return his glass to the table. ‘Rob,’ he gestured to his friend, ‘such talk makes me wonder, what shall you do once young Alex here is finished with his studies?’

  Alexander looked up from his plate and pulled a quizzical face.

  Robert laughed. ‘On the subject of being old, Ern? Be careful what you are insinuating — you and I were infants together.’ The other man cut himself a wedge of potato and chuckled. ‘Well,’ Robert continued, ‘it may not be for a few years yet, but I suppose it is a valid question.’ He turned to his son, who was sitting beside him, and, grinning, asked, ‘So, what do you think? Shall you displace your old father when you’re done with university?’

  Robert Senior whooped with laughter and his fork clattered onto his plate. ‘The lad couldn’t displace an ant, let alone a stubborn bugger like you!’ At the old man’s side, Ern once again began shaking with laughter.

  Sophie shook her head and leant across the table to touch Alexander’s hand. ‘Let him speak, Robert,’ she chastised her father-in-law. The old man continued laughing, retrieved his fork from his plate and impaled a brussel sprout on its tines.

  ‘I have no intention of displacing you,’ Alexander said to his father. ‘Besides, as you say, it will be a few years before I’m finished.’

  ‘A dedicated scholar. Very proper,’ Ern nodded and then nudged Robert Senior. ‘It’s not all brawn, old man.’

  The adults at the table considered the hobbling and aged figure of Robert Senior and all — the old man included — erupted into laughter.

  ‘Brawn? You really do need those glasses, don’t you?’ Robert Senior boomed.

  The laughter was ravenous now. Ern crushed a napkin in his fist and swallowed, red-faced, jovial, and trying not to choke on his food.

  ‘Take a drink, Daddy.’

  Also laughing, Mary pushed a glass of water into Ern’s hand, and, between shuddering chuckles, he just about managed to wash the food down. At the other end of the table, Sophie dabbed her eyes with a tissue and Robert smiled, teeth large and white.

  ‘It’s well that Ern is such a jolly soul,’ Robert chuckled over the food at his father. ‘Others might not take your remarks in equal good spirit.’

  ‘Pish,’ the old man responded, cutting himself another chunk of meat. ‘I shan’t waste the time I have left concerning myself with the feelings of cissies, Robert.’

  ‘Can’t change an old habit can you now, old man?’ Ern beamed. Robert Senior, chewing, clapped him on the back enthusiastically and smirked. His son, still smiling, simply shook his head.

  Changing the subject, Sophie looked to Mary. ‘You did a lovely job with these chops, dear.’

  The young woman raised a napkin to her mouth and swallowed. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Robert agreed, ‘a good portion. Generous, but not overwide.’

  Ern took his daughter’s right hand and raised it up off the table. The snowy pallor of her skin glistened against the gold and green of her mother’s ring. ‘The hands of a butcher,’ Ern teased. Mary wriggled her hand from his grasp and shook her head.

  ‘Shall we benefit from your skill again on New Year’s, Mary?’ Robert asked.

  She looked from him to Sophie, who smiled and nodded her head. ‘Certainly,’ Mary said. ‘Although, I imagine a lot has already been prepared.’

  Sophie nodded and addressed her husband. ‘Yes, dear,’ she explained, ‘most simply needs to be defrosted.’

  ‘I don’t know how you manage it each year, my darling.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Ern said, ‘it’s always a wonderful occasion. It is a true skill that you have, to arrange it as you do.’

  ‘Thank you, Ern,’ Sophie smiled. ‘I have plenty of help. And, let’s not forget the work that goes into it over the course of the year.’ She turned to her right and touched her husband’s cheek. Robert matched her smile. ‘Hard work. Work that, too often, goes unthanked,’ she said, holding his gaze.

  ‘You do work very hard, Rob,’ Ern said. ‘Harder than I. Harder than most.’

  ‘Thank you, old friend.’

  Robert Senior nodded. ‘It is true, my boy.’ All looked at the old man. ‘What?’ he laughed, ‘Even I am not such an old fart to raise a quarrel there.’ He met the younger Robert’s eyes. ‘You do a good job, son.’

  Unsure, Robert smiled strangely. ‘Thank you, Father,’ he said with genuine tenderness. ‘It means a lot.’

  ‘Well,’ the old man snorted, ‘it’s bloody Christmas, isn’t it? I’m obligated to say something nice to you, aren’t I?’

  Laughter and more head shaking. Ern straightened his plate and chuckled, ‘Thank goodness for that. For a moment, I thought the wine was making me hear things!’

  At the other end of the table Robert smoothed the cuffs of his jumper. ‘Thick skin and a healthy breathing technique — that’s what you need living in this house.’

  The old man snorted for a second time. ‘Not to mention a healthy amount of substance abuse.’ With a flourish, he held up his glass and drained the last of his wine. ‘Isn’t that right, lad?’ Robert Senior turned his old, devilish eyes to Alexander, who was taking a sip of his own wine. The old man guffawed when the younger man’s cheeks turned red. Sophie tutted and once again chastised her father-in-law for picking on her son. At Alexander’s side, Mary narrowed her eyes, wondering what secrets the old man knew that she didn’t.

  Twenty-Seven

  ‘Cannibal.’

  It was a rudimentary word. Not an obvious option for success, its impressive breadth did little to detract from a relatively low base value. Strategy was what made it effective. Well positioned on the board — spread across a double letter and two triple words — it was an exceptional play. In short, a winning move.

  ‘One hundred and seventeen, I believe.’

  Robert reached for the bag and pulled out seven new letter tiles. Careful not to allow the others a chance to glimpse them, he arranged them on his letter rack before clasping his hands together in front of him, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

  ‘You never said you were so good at this game, Robert,’ Mary remarked from the other side of the Scrabble board. At her side, Robert’s daughter, Guinevere, pulled a face, disgruntled that her thirteen-year-old wit wasn’t great enough to best her father. Robert straightened his back and laughed. Guinevere stuck out her tongue and so Robert did too.

  Sophie caught her husband’s eye and fiddled with the letter tiles on her rack. ‘You should give the children more of a chance, dear,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Father, you should give the children more of a chance,’ Alexander teased. After pulling two ‘Z’s and a ‘Q’ with no ‘U’ out the bag early on in the game, he had consistently scored low.

  They were arranged about the coffee table in the sitting room, huddled around Alexander’s Christmas gift to Mary. Guinevere and Mary shared the pouffe, whilst Alexander sat on the rug, his back against the side of his grandfather’s armchair. Robert was on the sofa, next to Ern, who was napping. Sophie had the other sofa, young Aurélie fidgeting between the cushions and her lap.

  The golden-haired girl clambered on top of her mother and draped her short arms around her neck. ‘What does it mean, Mummy?’ she asked.

  Sophie wrangled her child into a more comfortable position, moving her pink-socked foot from where it had dug into her thigh. ‘My angel,’ Sophie said, ‘you are heavier than you think.’ Aurélie giggled and rolled off her lap back onto the cushions.

  ‘But, what does it mean, Mummy?’ the girl asked again. ‘Cannibal?’

  Sophie arranged herself. ‘Well,’ she considered, ‘it’s when someone, an animal or a person, eats their own kind.’

  ‘Eats?’ the child responded.

  ‘Yes, when an animal eats an animal that is the same as it.’

  Aurélie pulled herself upright and looked at her mother. ‘What about the animals outside?’ she asked. ‘Is that cannibal?’

  Sophie giggled and tweaked her daughter’s nose. ‘No, my angel. That is not the same — they are not the same.’

  The girl looked confused.

  ‘Well,’ Sophie continued, her voice light and playful, ‘how about this—’ she leant closer to her daughter, ‘if I were to eat you,’ she tweaked the child’s nose again, ‘that would make me a cannibal.’

  All of a sudden, she grabbed the little girl and began tickling her, pretending to nibble her little arms and little legs. Aurélie shrieked with laughter, kicking her feet away from her smiling mother. Meanwhile, it was Alexander’s turn and he sat eyeing his letter tiles, a pained expression on his face. Bridging off his father’s ‘C’ and onto a double letter square for a score of eleven, ‘cable’ was the best he could manage.

  ‘And with that, I shall retire,’ he said, pulling himself up from the floor. The other players groaned in unison.

  ‘Don’t go, Alex. We haven’t finished yet,’ Robert said from the sofa.

  His son laughed. ‘I think you mean you haven’t finished yet. Besides,’ he looked at his watch, ‘I need to head down to B Building.’

  Robert nodded. ‘When you check her fluids, her bag might need changing.’

  ‘Sure,’ Alexander said and returned his remaining letter tiles to the bag.

  ‘We’ll have cake when you’re back,’ Sophie smiled.

  Next to Robert on the sofa, Ern stirred. ‘More food, Sophie?’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Not yet, Daddy,’ Mary said, shaking her head. ‘Later.’ He mumbled something, readjusted his head on the pillow, and seemed to fall back asleep. Mary turned to Sophie. ‘Your cooking is the highlight of his Christmas.’

  ‘I think it’s the highlight of mine, too,’ Robert smiled, reaching to touch his wife’s hand.

  She patted his fingers and looked at Alexander. ‘You’d best be quick, my strawberry. I’m not sure these gluttons will wait if you take too long!’

  Alexander smiled and said he would be as quick as he could, stopping to tickle his youngest sister under the chin as she dangled over the arm of the sofa, trying to grab him as he went to leave the room. In the hallway, boots, coat and keys, and he was out the door.

  Outside, it was already starting to get dark. It was a creeping sort of darkness. Having been dull all day, the impending night seemed little different from the daytime, everything draped in grey, cold and heavy, indifferent to time. He had to be careful on the hill. A layer of frost had coated the ground like icing sugar. The last thing he wanted to do was spin the tyres and have to call his father to tow the buggy out of the bramble asphyxiated verge. The decline negotiated, he increased pressure on the pedal and turned left onto the track that coiled through the trees to where most of the homestead’s buildings were located.

  It was warm inside the grey cladded building. He hung his coat in his father’s office, exchanging it for the white laboratory coat that they always wore when working. It was their uniform — a clear delineation between who they were up at the house and who they were down here, interacting with the livestock. Standing in front of the mirror that hung over the sink in the bathroom adjacent to the office, Alexander wondered just how different he felt wearing that coat. A little boy playing dress-up in his father’s clothes. He tugged on the cuffs that didn’t quite meet his wrists, flattened a stubborn kink in his hair, turned off the light and left the room.

  Pandora was awake when he unlocked the door. Her blue eyes were big when she saw him. He slipped into the room, the door automatically locking as it closed behind him.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Alexander asked as he moved to her bedside. Her intravenous fluid bag was almost empty.

  ‘Hot,’ the young woman said. ‘Cold, too.’ She smiled. It was weak and yet still somehow bright.

  Alexander walked to the sink and washed his hands before pulling a new fluid bag out of the fridge that sat under the worktop. It would need time to warm up before being changed. When he turned around, Pandora was trying to pull herself upright. He went to help her.

  ‘Careful,’ he said, slipping his arm around her back to move her. She placed her hand on his shoulder and used it to support herself. ‘I don’t want you tearing your stitches again.’ She nodded and allowed him to arrange her on the bed. When she was upright, Alexander walked back to the sink and washed a glass he had left there earlier in the day.

  ‘I imagine you’re hungry.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pandora replied.

  ‘After you’ve taken these I’ll get you some food.’

  He held the glass, now full with water, out to her and placed two blue-coated pills on the blanket that covered her legs. With slight, shaking arms, she took the drink from him and raised it to her lips. He watched as she took the pills, her eyes looking right back at him as she swallowed.

  ‘You’re looking better than you did earlier today.’

  The woman on the bed didn’t say anything.

  ‘You were sleeping,’ Alexander explained.

  Pandora nodded as if she understood.

  In the small room that they used as a kitchen, Alexander spooned three heaps of a special blend of milled oats, nuts and vitamin supplements that they fed the women into a bowl. The electric kettle clicked when it rolled into a boil. He poured the water and stirred. It was watery, so he added an extra spoonful. Back in the room, he placed the food on a tray on the bed in front of Pandora. She took the spoon from him with grateful eyes.

  ‘Can you manage?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘I need to feed your baby,’ he said, moving back to the door.

  Pandora said something that he didn’t quite hear. He turned around and asked her to repeat what she had said. The spoon was in the food, abandoned and resting against the plastic edge of the bowl. In front of her, raised above the blanket, the woman’s hands were clasped together, her face soft and pleading.

  ‘My baby,’ she said to Alexander. ‘Please, let me see her.’

  Alexander sighed and ran his hand over his stubble. ‘We’ve spoken about this before. You can’t feed her. Not whilst you’re taking those pills.’

  ‘No,’ Pandora shook her head, ‘I know. I know I can’t feed her. I just want to see her. Please.’

  She looked woefully pathetic, weak and feeble, hair unwashed and matted, brow moistened with fever, her smock, sweat drenched and loose, clinging to her body. Alexander thought back to the woman he had watched deliver her first baby only a few days before. Popping, agonised circles of blue. Her eyes stared at him with the same intensity that they had done then.

  ‘Please,’ Pandora said again.

  At least try to show some charity.

  ‘Okay,’ Alexander relented. ‘But not for long. And no feeding.’

  On the bed, the young woman seemed to swell with happiness, her physicality, which had been stolen from her in the days after delivery, returned to her, and, momentarily, made her appear stronger and more able. His teeth digging into his bottom lip, Alexander exited the room, wishing his father had not thought to burden him with this responsibility.

  The infant was pleased to see him, as she always was. Alexander meant milk and Pandora’s baby adored the stuff. The child’s hair was thick and brown, and she already bore a resemblance to her mother. Stuffing a fist into her mouth, she made a smacking sound with her lips. Alexander took a breath, swaddled the baby in a blanket and lifted her from the crib.

  Pandora cried when he carried the infant through the door. The sound of her mother’s tears must have startled the baby, as she began crying too, her little arms fighting to be free of the blanket. Of course she’s crying, Alexander chastised himself, you’re tormenting her — tormenting them both.

  The baby’s mother held out her arms for her child. Alexander could see her chest heaving beneath her smock, oxygen being syphoned from her lungs to feed her tears. He resisted her sobbing and sat, cradling the child to his chest, a short distance from her on the bed.

  ‘Pandora,’ he said, his voice stern, ‘you need to calm down if I’m going to let you see her. You’re scaring her.’

  A short sob and a sudden cessation. She drew the back of her hand across her nose and swallowed. ‘Okay,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Alexander rocked the child and tried to soothe her. Pandora watched on, enchanted, captivated by the breathing, living, tiny version of herself that he held in his arms. She was yet to touch her, yet to smell her, yet to know the warmth of her fresh, new skin. Pandora had dreamt about how it might feel to hold her, of how big and blue and beautiful her baby’s eyes might be. As the infant’s cries softened, her dreams were about to become reality.

  Alexander shuffled along the bed, closer to the young woman. ‘You can hold her whilst I mix her formula,’ he said, his voice low so as not to disturb the child. As he transferred the little body into her arms, he stopped and looked at Pandora. ‘Please don’t make me regret this.’

  The young woman drew the child to her bosom. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered to Alexander, and then again, to no one in particular, ‘Thank you.’

  When he had mixed the formula, he took the baby back from her and started feeding her. Pandora watched, wide-eyed.

  ‘She likes it when you hold her chin,’ Alexander said, supporting the baby on his knee. ‘Like this.’

  Pandora didn’t say anything, only watched, beguiled.

  A silence enveloped the room. The only sound to be heard was that of the infant sucking on the teat, hungry as ever. Before she could drain the bottle too quickly, Alexander took the milk away and rubbed the child’s back. ‘You have to burp her,’ he explained. ‘Otherwise she’ll be sick.’

  He could tell that Pandora wanted to feed her daughter, if not from her own breast, then as he was, using the bottle. Despite her fragility, she had strained away from the headboard, moving closer to him and the child. When she was close enough that he could smell the stale sweetness of her breath, he adjusted the infant on his lap and offered her to Pandora.