Read Tree Palace for Free Online

his crying good and loud showed a decent pair of lungs.
    There was cooled water left over from her practice goes. She scooped in powder, shook the bottle and was ready to start. She lifted Mathew up, sat down on the deckchair and placed him on her lap with the bottle angled across her breast to feign the real thing. She let a few drops dribble onto his lips and used her forefinger to smear it around and tease him into sucking. He sucked the tip of her finger, and she slipped the teat forward between his lips and he sucked that. It took a while for him to suck as hard as she thought he should. But his hands did curl eventually, a pawing reflex of pleasure.
    Zara came from the tent wearing her black T-shirt. It never looked comfortable given its tightness, but she wore it anyway for going out. She had black knickers on. They rode up at the back and she picked at them. And pantyhose with the seat cut out. Only the legs remaining, sagging thigh-high, black and too big for her.
    ‘Take those stupid things off, girl.’
    ‘I can hold them up with some elastic. Or a rubber band.’
    ‘They’re your Christmas stockings. They weren’t meant for wearing.’
    ‘Haven’t been laddered. Except there.’
    She pointed to a place above her left knee.
    ‘Take them off.’
    ‘A bit of nail polish’ll fix it.’
    ‘Since when did you become an expert on pantyhose?’
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘Where’s what?’
    ‘Nail polish.’
    ‘We don’t have nail polish.’
    ‘Do I look good in them?’
    She took a few steps and showed her legs off with a slow turn.
    ‘You look stupid. But it’s good to see you cheery. That’ll relax you for milk coming down. I’ve started him off with this stuff but now you take over.’
    Zara wasn’t listening. ‘What date is it?’ she said.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘When’s New Year’s Eve?’
    ‘I don’t know. A day or two.’
    ‘There’ll be parties in town.’
    ‘Come and sit down.’
    ‘No bastard’s given me an invite.’
    ‘It’s not important. Sit down and do some feeding.’
    ‘I want to pull a skirt over these pantyhose and see how I look.’
    ‘Afterwards.’
    ‘No. Now.’
    ‘Deal with Mathew and then we can go for a walk. Beautiful night like this. Let’s take the pram and look at the stars. All the shapes they make.’
    ‘We got no nail polish?’
    ‘I told you, no.’
    ‘I’ll walk to town and get some.’
    ‘You will not. Stop this nonsense, please. Get it into that head of yours that Mathew is your son. You take him and you feed him like you was shown, and stop this walking-into-town nonsense.’
    Zara rammed her fists down on her knees. She screamed no and rammed her fists again. It made Moira flinch and take a tighter hold of the baby, a sudden, snatching action that caused the bottle to fall loose from his mouth. She took a long breath to control her voice. ‘Take him and feed him.’
    ‘I don’t want to look at him.’ Then Zara said it again with slow, gritted gaps between the words. ‘I. Don’t. Want. To. Look.’
    The baby started crying and Moira told him, ‘Shh, baby. It’s all right. It’s all right.’
    Zara went to the tent, swearing at the stones hurting her feet but stamping harder as if wanting to be hurt. The stockings bunched around her ankles. She stamped into the tent and flicked the door flap down.
    Moira flicked the flap up. She had Mathew tucked along her right arm in a football grip. The bottle fell from her left hand as she swung at the flap angrily to let herself through. Inside was stuffy dark with only the outlines of the few furnishings to gain her bearings. Zara was by the bed, in silhouette. Her shape disappeared into the darkness of the corner. She was on the other side of the bed now. She slumped between it and the tent wall.
    The bottle was on the ground somewhere but Moira wasn’t going to feel around on her hands and knees. She put the baby in his pram and told him everything was fine, though that wouldn’t quieten