Snake by Kate Jennings Page A

from boree trees like grotesque Christmas ornaments. From time to time she slowed down to avoid hitting the galahs that had gathered to eat grain spilled on the verges of the road. In the distance, a thunder-storm quickstepped across the Hay plain.
    The route to the lake took them through the middle of Progress, deserted except for a car doing desultory laps on the main street. The couple in the car were sitting so close they would both fall out if you opened the driver’s door.
    â€˜Bodgies,’ said Irene.
    Girlie knew the girl in the car. Her name was Christine, and she was a classmate of Girlie’s. She was envied for having a steady boyfriend.
    â€˜She’ll be married at eighteen, a hag by the time she’s thirty,’ continued Irene. ‘Don’t let it happen to you.’ Privately, she believed that the likelihood of Girlie – shy, gawky, homely Girlie – marrying early was low, but a warning never hurt. Boy was another matter.
    Girlie glanced across at her mother and noticed that Irene was wearing the coral necklace. She turned away, studied the war memorial. Irene caught the look, saw her daughter’s face grow puffy with suppressed emotion, and thought, not for the first time, what a starchy little miss her daughter was. And so unforgiving.
    At the lake, they parked and wound down the windows, letting in air that smelled of exhaust from speedboats. The lake, dirty green in color, was artificial, filled with run-off water from the farms. The town council had installed picnic benches on its foreshores; saplings guarded with netting struggled to survive. Cumbungi grew just under the surface of the lake, a forest of it, thick and slimy. Weed was forever fouling the propellers of boats and grabbing at the legs of skiers. Still, there wasn’t another stretch of recreational water within a hundred miles.
    As they watched, a swan glided from the bulrushes, splashed into the air, swooped on a water-skier. At first Irene and Girlie thought it was attacking the skier; swans are territorial, quarrelsome. The skier must have thought so, too, because she put up an arm to shield her face. But that wasn’t the case; the swan was flying next to the skier, keeping her company. They did several laps together before the swan tired of the game and returned to the bulrushes.
    Irene told Girlie about some dolphins she had seen catching waves at the beach. ‘For the sheer hell of it,’ she said. She turned to Girlie, her face lit with enthusiasm. Had Girlie ever seen crows playing? Lined up on a fence, swinging from it? She mimed their movements. Girlie hadn’t.
    They were only a mile away from home, passing through an intersection, when a utility driven by a workman from a nearby farm clipped the back mudguards of their car and caused it to become airborne. Girlie saw black, felt a rushing of wind. When she opened her eyes, she was still in her seat, but the car was balanced on the shoulder of a drainage ditch. She pushed at the door, scrambled down.
    Irene was lying under the car, her head and torso protruding. She was unconscious, covered with blood and dust. The vehicle that had hit them was turned around in the road, facing the direction from which it had come. Its driver had a gash on his forehead; blood veiled his face. He stayed where he was and wailed.
    Girlie walked in small circles in the middle of the road. Someone must have heard the collision. Then, unable to bear doing nothing, she dragged Irene from under the car. She squatted next to her mother, clearing clods of earth from under her head, making soothing noises, instructing her to wake up, tomorrow she had to meet the Queen.
    The sun was setting. The injured man kept up his wailing, a thin, high sound such as a whistling kettle makes. Girlie was annoyed by it. Then she noticed that the coral necklace was biting into her mother’s throat. She attempted to loosen the necklace by undoing the catch. It wouldn’t