Read Online The Grass Castle by Karen Viggers - Free Book Online Page B

syringe, then sets it on the bench and turns her attention to cleaning the wound more thoroughly. ‘How’d you cut yourself?’ she asks.
    ‘Flying saucer,’ Steve grunts, and the doctor frowns with annoyance, thinking he is joking. Steve refrains from elaborating.
    The doctor slides the needle in under the edge of his wound and he flinches. ‘Hey, steady on.’
    ‘It’s local anaesthetic,’ she says. ‘Stings at first, then you won’t feel a thing.’
    The doctor’s smile is as tight as a cat’s arsehole, Abby thinks.
    ‘You new here?’ Steve asks.
    ‘Been here a few months,’ the doctor says, biting her lower lip as she slips the needle in again and injects more local anaesthetic. ‘I have to complete a country stint before I can get a city rotation.’
    ‘Enjoying it?’
    ‘It’s okay.’
    The doctor opens her kit, then she washes her hands in a cursory manner, as if sterility is only a marginal matter with rural beasts like Steve. She draws out a length of white thread for stitching and does a quick job of pulling Steve’s forehead together. He frowns and winks involuntarily every now and then, as she probes into areas not quite numbed by anaesthetic.
    ‘Am I better looking now?’ he asks, as she secures the last stitch. Abby is impressed by her father’s joviality with this seemingly disinterested young woman who manages only a half-smile at his game joke.
    ‘Depends on your perspective,’ she says.
    ‘Starting from a low base, eh?’ Steve adds with a grin.
    On the way home, sitting beside a scrawny Frankenstein’s monster with a patched forehead, Abby asks if he and Brenda will be okay now.
    Steve smiles wanly. ‘We’re even,’ he says, ‘at least for another year, till your mother’s anniversary comes up again.’
    ‘Or until you step out of line.’
    ‘I guess that’s possible.’
    Steve’s grin reminds Abby of Matt. It’s good to know a measure of spunk still runs beneath his skin.

    The next morning Abby calls Matt and asks him to pick her up. He’s amazed she’s still alive, and he comes willingly to save her from the house of monsters. She waits for him outside, sitting on her suitcase in the middle of the turning circle, her goodbyes said and accepted. Her father has retreated to the vegie garden, a lonely figure leaning against his shovel like a scarecrow on a stick, small and stooped, older. But what can Abby do? She can’t change his life, can’t alter the fact of Brenda—it’s his choice, not hers. Consumed by guilt, Brenda has immersed herself in the fine art of constructing a caramel slice in the kitchen—Steve’s favourite. From here, the path to peace may still take a few days. There’s no point in Abby hanging around; at least they’ve declared a truce.
    Abby likes the stillness and emptiness of the yard, the large quiet of the shed where the battery for the electric fence ticks with monotonous regularity and the orange Kubota tractor stands in oily sleep, and the hay bales sit neatly stacked, waiting for winter. She can hear the soft clucking of the chooks turning over this morning’s scraps in their pen, the wispy voice of the wind sounding in the pines, the distant rattle of Matt’s Nissan coming down the driveway.
    Now that yesterday’s tension is subsiding, and she is relaxing into peace, she’s aware she could almost live here on the farm if it wasn’t for Brenda. The air carries the thick rural scent of her childhood, rich with good things, and coloured with memories of her mother. But it’s the same each time she comes back now—if she stays too long, the cloudiness returns, and she begins to think of her mother’s death. Today, however, the sun is warm on her skin, and here is Matt, swinging open the car door for her. He’s wearing that perpetual frown, so quirky and quizzical it’s almost funny.
    ‘Get in before Brenda appears,’ he says from the driver’s seat.
    ‘What, you’re not going to lift my bag for me?’
    ‘You’re