Playing Beatie Bow Read Online Free Page B

teensy bits of fish goo on decarbohydrated crackers. They were always on diets, the Bridge ladies, though not one of them had a soul in the world to care a spit if she turned into a porker or not.
    She went around the unit saying, ‘Norway!’ She saw it as a kind of iceberg with houses on it. And Lapps, weren’t there Lapps, with funny knitted hats with tops like two horns? Penguins? Polar bears, then. Norway, a million kilometres away from Sydney and the life she and Mum had made for themselves without Dad’s help.
    Alternatively she raged and sulked, and then reassured herself with little bursts of optimism. ‘Of course she didn’t mean it, that crazy lady. She’ll think it over and see it doesn’t make sense.’
    And then she imagined Dad dancing up and down the stairs instead of Gene Kelly; but instead of laughing she cried, because even though she hated what he had done all those years ago she knew she still loved him and was afraid that if they lived together she’d come to love him still more and so could be hurt worse.
    In this way the day went past dreadfully and speedily, and when the Bridge began to bellow with the home-going traffic she stirred herself, washed her face and, taking her shawl, she went next door.
    ‘I’m bored, Justine. Like me to take the kids to the playground for a while?’
    The young woman, who usually looked like a starved cat, now looked like a sleepless starved cat. She seemed at the end of her tether.
    ‘If you could just take Natty off my hands. Goodness, how super! Vincent has been moaning all day, and I’ve just pried open his trap to look at his throat, and it’s like a beetroot. I was just about to hustle him and Natalie along to the doctor. But if you could look after Nat –’ She threw her arms thankfully about the girl. ‘You’re a pet, Abigail, bless you. Good heavens, is that the family tatting you have on your dress? I can’t believe it.’
    ‘Abigail has big Dracula teeth dripping with blood,’ croaked Vincent.
    ‘Oh, shut up, you,’ she snapped. Justine looked pained and Abigail felt ashamed, for after all the little viper
was
sick. She busied herself putting Natalie into her outdoor gear.
    The child whispered excitedly, ‘When I was watching through the window I saw the little furry girl.’
    Abigail hugged her. ‘You and your little furry girl! And how could you see her all the way down there in the playground?’
    ‘I don’t know; I just did. I wonder where she comes from?’
    ‘I expect she lives in one of the little terrace houses,’ said Abigail as they went down in the lift.
    ‘I’d like to live in a little house,’ said Natalie, ‘with sunflowers higher than the roof and little hollows in the stairs. And a bedroom with a slopey roof. And a chimney.’
    The little girl, freed from the oppressive presence of her brother, skipped blithely along, looking at the children sliding down slippery-dips, hanging on the bars like rows of orangoutangs and climbing over the gaudily painted locomotive that stood near the sandpit. Abigail lifted Natalie up to the driver’s seat, but she was frightened at the height; and, besides, most of the children had begun their obsessive game of Beatie Bow, and she wanted to watch.
    ‘Why do you want to watch when the silly game scares you so, Natty?’
    ‘I just want to look at the little furry girl watching, because I like her, you see.’
    ‘You’re a funny little sausage.’ Abigail sat on a cement mushroom and watched curiously while the children formed themselves into their hushed circle, and ‘Mudda’ took her place in the middle. Natalie pulled at her shawl.
    ‘There she is, Abigail. Do look.’
    Abigail looked. At the edge of the playground, absorbed in the children’s activities, yet seemingly too shy to emerge from the half-shadow of the wall, was a diminutive figure in a dark dress and lighter pinafore. Her face was pale, and her hair had been clipped so close it did indeed look like a cat’s