outright but also that her sisters, the Ugly Sisters as she calls them, are bitter about that. They want the house and its up-market postcode. Admittedly, Mother Little drank champagne with the best of them when she could and smoked her reedy voice down to a baritone; she voted for the Coalition whenever called upon, even if she had forgotten why. Something about her sort should be in charge, that lawyers and smiling smarmy born-to-rule faces, were the barrier between herself and the sheer stupidity of the mob. Which too many Australians fall back on.
So talk of money is exotic. Erotic. Even sad. Like talking of holidays. Holidays! This lot donât have them. Money that is not debt money, as if the word meant your own free money, moneyinthebank and lucky and easy and a sufficiency of. Even if Little is also scared a little (Big says that is only appropriate). The Sheriff cannot fathom this fear, heâd like a fear of this sort himself. Nothinâ to it, he says, if you invest it briefly and inspect the market which is, and he even agrees with Tom on this, not very bloody illuminating at present.
As if heâd know.
Later that night Big is staring at the calendar with its big red ring around the date of the solicitor. And he says the unexpected.
I do hope, says Big, I do hope she means it, and dies soon. Better for everyone if she does. This time. All this waitingâ¦
What are you talking about?
Waiting, for your mother toâ¦
My mother!
It is nerve-wracking.
How dare he. Itâs her mother he is talking about. But she leans over:
waiting for her to to d⦠to d⦠(Oh, Jesus, her old stutter).
Die?
Die.
Mens rea, says Big. A guilty mind. Hers. All the help your mother couldnât be bothered giving when you needed it wonât allay the guilt of having her dosh. Her house. Well, she isnât eating is she, itâs not hospital cuisine thatâs holding her back. Bloody-minded delay is what it is. Trust her to. Still, quite understandable.
It is the look on his face. His cheeks are puffy, owly, unshaven, nothing unusual there, no, it is the frown of wanting it done. Wanting it over. She is really worried now.
Anyone would think he knows first-hand the kind of sorrow in the body this is.
Perhaps he does.
In his own way.
The Ugly Sisters
On the other side of the country, or half-way to be exact, a new morning means an old grudge for Littleâs family. The older and slower Littleâs mother has been getting, the more her aunts have waited for her to slow to a⦠standstill. Without its implications of sitting for longer near a window, of recollection, and tranquillity (even some kind of grace?), then death.
The aunts like things faster: they wish for the demise of two-at-once, the mother and the irrelevant daughter, that weak girl lost somewhere in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, alone and gone. They, after all, are the lost girlâs aunts.
It is quite simple, they out-rank Little. They growl because they know when it concerns the money issue there is another issue, the only issue; the next of kin. Little is the only issue. Literally. Single child. Inside the grudge rooms the worm is turning, and Little is the grit in the wormâs intestinal tract, there being no teeth. Dentures perhaps. This acute indigestion has been increasing quite without Littleâs knowledge, and if she were to meet her aunts she would make an obvious fool of herself by deferring to them, playing not courteous (she lacks standing enough for that) but over-respectful, subservient.
Precisely what they want, and resent. They want to fight.
Mrs Little has thought of Little training all those years ago for the unlikely task of teaching primary children, the first weeks following painfully into months, and the finality of her crash. Fear is something Little still feels, and it was put to the test back then. Teaching small children is pretty easy but they rise to twelve years old and they were
So talk of money is exotic. Erotic. Even sad. Like talking of holidays. Holidays! This lot donât have them. Money that is not debt money, as if the word meant your own free money, moneyinthebank and lucky and easy and a sufficiency of. Even if Little is also scared a little (Big says that is only appropriate). The Sheriff cannot fathom this fear, heâd like a fear of this sort himself. Nothinâ to it, he says, if you invest it briefly and inspect the market which is, and he even agrees with Tom on this, not very bloody illuminating at present.
As if heâd know.
Later that night Big is staring at the calendar with its big red ring around the date of the solicitor. And he says the unexpected.
I do hope, says Big, I do hope she means it, and dies soon. Better for everyone if she does. This time. All this waitingâ¦
What are you talking about?
Waiting, for your mother toâ¦
My mother!
It is nerve-wracking.
How dare he. Itâs her mother he is talking about. But she leans over:
waiting for her to to d⦠to d⦠(Oh, Jesus, her old stutter).
Die?
Die.
Mens rea, says Big. A guilty mind. Hers. All the help your mother couldnât be bothered giving when you needed it wonât allay the guilt of having her dosh. Her house. Well, she isnât eating is she, itâs not hospital cuisine thatâs holding her back. Bloody-minded delay is what it is. Trust her to. Still, quite understandable.
It is the look on his face. His cheeks are puffy, owly, unshaven, nothing unusual there, no, it is the frown of wanting it done. Wanting it over. She is really worried now.
Anyone would think he knows first-hand the kind of sorrow in the body this is.
Perhaps he does.
In his own way.
The Ugly Sisters
On the other side of the country, or half-way to be exact, a new morning means an old grudge for Littleâs family. The older and slower Littleâs mother has been getting, the more her aunts have waited for her to slow to a⦠standstill. Without its implications of sitting for longer near a window, of recollection, and tranquillity (even some kind of grace?), then death.
The aunts like things faster: they wish for the demise of two-at-once, the mother and the irrelevant daughter, that weak girl lost somewhere in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, alone and gone. They, after all, are the lost girlâs aunts.
It is quite simple, they out-rank Little. They growl because they know when it concerns the money issue there is another issue, the only issue; the next of kin. Little is the only issue. Literally. Single child. Inside the grudge rooms the worm is turning, and Little is the grit in the wormâs intestinal tract, there being no teeth. Dentures perhaps. This acute indigestion has been increasing quite without Littleâs knowledge, and if she were to meet her aunts she would make an obvious fool of herself by deferring to them, playing not courteous (she lacks standing enough for that) but over-respectful, subservient.
Precisely what they want, and resent. They want to fight.
Mrs Little has thought of Little training all those years ago for the unlikely task of teaching primary children, the first weeks following painfully into months, and the finality of her crash. Fear is something Little still feels, and it was put to the test back then. Teaching small children is pretty easy but they rise to twelve years old and they were
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