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Authors: Margo Lanagan
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heavily, how soundlessly it swung. Feeling most impudent, she laid the baby Branza there, and covered her with the soft woollen blanket. Again, slowly, she walked about the room, noting the instances of repair and renewal—a fresh-carved spoon where the old one had worn almost to a stub; a new lamp for the one that those boys had knocked from the table and broken. Everything was clean, as if swept and wiped by a woman just now left the house to shake out her cloth; it was all as new and neat as a bride’s house with every gift on display.
‘Who has done this?’ She still spoke in a whisper. She was afraid some person would hear, and step in from outside, and say,
I did, and it is mine; be off from here
.
She went to the door and looked out fearfully, but that woman—that owner, that cottage-wife—was not there, only the two jewel-bushes, the red and the green, one with a tree-sparrow in it, hopping and fidgeting. And as she stood there worrying, the house laughed, a minor squeaking rumble of its timbers, a twitch of its fabrics and a titter and click of its shutters. Laughing at her, it was, but hardly unkindly. Like a shaft of moon-plum light, it came to her, the realisation: this was hers, all hers, the work and gift of the moon-baby.
‘I do not deserve this!’ But she heard the words miss the mark. The forces behind these events, these gifts, had stars and seasons to move, oceans to summon, continents to lay waste. They did not take account of such small things as Liga’s deserving or Liga’s not. To them in their vastness, she must look as blameless as her baby. This was a mere blink of their eye, a grain of purest luck fallen from a winnowing of such size that it was not given her to see the sense or benefit of it. She could only marvel at her good fortune; she could only tend the child who
did
deserve this fresh house, this clean world, and hope that no one noticed the injured and besmutted mother, or called her out and required her to justify herself.
Her first week in the renewed cottage was a time of such unalloyed luxury and peace that when the thought occurred to Liga that she might go into the town, she was sure her mind had been addled by her new, soft way of life. But why should she not? She frowned and went outside, and sat in the sun and tried to recall why she had stayed here in the house for so long, for she knew she had had good reason.
Mostly, she remembered when she put her mind to it, she had been afraid of meeting those young men. Any one of them would be bad enough, but what if two came along at once, or more? Might they not follow her, and pin her up against a wall, and fondle her or worse? And who would come to her aid should she have the courage to cry out?
That had been her main fear, but underpinning it were the habits of all the years since Mam died.
We don’t need anyone
, her father had often said, so often that she hardly heard the words any more.
We can look after ourselves with no aid nor interference from no one
. Year by year, he had grown less sociable and harsher to others until, during the last round of the seasons before he died, Liga had seen exactly three people besides themselves: a pretties-seller at whom he had shouted, like a madman,
I will set the dogs on ye!
although he had no dog, until the poor man had fled—Liga had only glimpsed a flash of his legs, a basket with a swatch of ribbons flapping; Lame Jans up on the road near where Liga sometimes hid on the chance that something of the world would wander by; and a hunter whom she saw, like foliage-mottle moving without benefit of wind, among the trees below Prospect Hill.
Then, when Da had died, those women had visited, and Liga had not wanted to encounter any more such as them, with their needling eyes—and no man, either, taking care to look away, that the sight of her did not taint him or make him laugh, or whatever it was they feared.
What was more, with the passing months her belly and then her baby
‘Who has done this?’ She still spoke in a whisper. She was afraid some person would hear, and step in from outside, and say,
I did, and it is mine; be off from here
.
She went to the door and looked out fearfully, but that woman—that owner, that cottage-wife—was not there, only the two jewel-bushes, the red and the green, one with a tree-sparrow in it, hopping and fidgeting. And as she stood there worrying, the house laughed, a minor squeaking rumble of its timbers, a twitch of its fabrics and a titter and click of its shutters. Laughing at her, it was, but hardly unkindly. Like a shaft of moon-plum light, it came to her, the realisation: this was hers, all hers, the work and gift of the moon-baby.
‘I do not deserve this!’ But she heard the words miss the mark. The forces behind these events, these gifts, had stars and seasons to move, oceans to summon, continents to lay waste. They did not take account of such small things as Liga’s deserving or Liga’s not. To them in their vastness, she must look as blameless as her baby. This was a mere blink of their eye, a grain of purest luck fallen from a winnowing of such size that it was not given her to see the sense or benefit of it. She could only marvel at her good fortune; she could only tend the child who
did
deserve this fresh house, this clean world, and hope that no one noticed the injured and besmutted mother, or called her out and required her to justify herself.
Her first week in the renewed cottage was a time of such unalloyed luxury and peace that when the thought occurred to Liga that she might go into the town, she was sure her mind had been addled by her new, soft way of life. But why should she not? She frowned and went outside, and sat in the sun and tried to recall why she had stayed here in the house for so long, for she knew she had had good reason.
Mostly, she remembered when she put her mind to it, she had been afraid of meeting those young men. Any one of them would be bad enough, but what if two came along at once, or more? Might they not follow her, and pin her up against a wall, and fondle her or worse? And who would come to her aid should she have the courage to cry out?
That had been her main fear, but underpinning it were the habits of all the years since Mam died.
We don’t need anyone
, her father had often said, so often that she hardly heard the words any more.
We can look after ourselves with no aid nor interference from no one
. Year by year, he had grown less sociable and harsher to others until, during the last round of the seasons before he died, Liga had seen exactly three people besides themselves: a pretties-seller at whom he had shouted, like a madman,
I will set the dogs on ye!
although he had no dog, until the poor man had fled—Liga had only glimpsed a flash of his legs, a basket with a swatch of ribbons flapping; Lame Jans up on the road near where Liga sometimes hid on the chance that something of the world would wander by; and a hunter whom she saw, like foliage-mottle moving without benefit of wind, among the trees below Prospect Hill.
Then, when Da had died, those women had visited, and Liga had not wanted to encounter any more such as them, with their needling eyes—and no man, either, taking care to look away, that the sight of her did not taint him or make him laugh, or whatever it was they feared.
What was more, with the passing months her belly and then her baby
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