Free Hope Farm by Peggy Frew

as if nobody noticed or understood what he was doing.
    When he said, ‘Thank you kindly, madam,’ to the gaunt woman who ran the coffee shop in Kooralang and I saw the flush bloom over her craggy face and at the collar of her blouse, I had to drop my eyes. He calls you Typhoid Mary behind your back , I wanted to shout. He says you’re inbred .
    When he wielded the mattock, I noted the laboured arc of his great arm through the air, the muscles in his back heaving as he dragged it through the earth, the patches of sweat on his shirt, the way he had to stop often, panting. For all his heft, he was bad with tools, inefficient. Even I could tell he didn’t know what he was doing.
    His smell. Dense, bulky, threatening. Pot and sweat and something else, something that made me think of bulls and billygoats.
    The way he grabbed hold of Ishtar and took her from where she sat on the floor by the fire, like a toddler snatching up a toy. The way he kissed her in front of everyone, kneaded her flesh with his hands — her breasts, her buttocks — then turned and walked with his arm round her neck, pulling her in close beside him, locked to him, steering her through the house and out to the mud-brick building.
    And the way she loved it! The gentleness that came over her, the softening. I narrowed my eyes, clenched my teeth in disdain. Pathetic , she was. Sucked in .
    It was before dinner, early evening, and I had been sent out to empty the compost bucket. Jindi was followed me, her prattling a rude trail at my back in the cold darkness, when suddenly she broke off with a squeak. I turned and saw the bush of Miller’s hair, gold in the light from the kitchen window. He had her in his arms, and was holding her above his head.
    â€˜Look, look, my little pup,’ he rumbled. ‘The stars are out for us tonight. Can you touch them? Can you? Reach up your arms, my girl. I’ll help you.’ He lifted her higher. ‘Go on, reach.’
    Against the studded sky, Jindi’s figure wriggled. I could hear her eager breathing.
    â€˜Did you touch one? Yes? Ah — look!’ He swung her to the ground again. ‘See?’ He stepped back and spread his arms. ‘You did!’ The girl tottered like someone who had just gotten off a ride. ‘You know how I can tell?’ Miller went down on one knee and lowered his voice. ‘I can see it shimmering all through you, the starlight. You’ve got sparkles in your hair.’
    Jindi’s hands went to her head, and she crooked her neck and twisted and turned, trying to look down at herself. ‘I —’
    Miller’s croon, warm and full, slid over her timid whisper. ‘Oh you can’t see it. Nobody can but me.’
    â€˜But why —’
    â€˜Because, my little puppy dog, I see things other people don’t.’
    Then he rose and turned and went into the house, leaving Jindi gasping and voiceless, clutching her hair. I waited for her to rush across to where I stood by the compost heap, to appeal to me to check her over for shimmers and sparkles, but she didn’t.
    I squinted at her. Against the yellow glow of the window she was a solid, definite, black. Not one shimmer. But once I’d dumped out the kitchen scraps and walked back with the plastic bucket bumping against my thigh, I saw, up close in the light, how wide and moist her eyes were, the fevered brightness of her cheeks, her parted lips.
    From inside the kitchen came a round of Miller’s laughter. I took the steps slowly. I didn’t want him near me, I didn’t want those big, strange, soft hands to touch me, couldn’t stand the thought of his face close to mine, his breath entering my lungs. But still, I felt myself stiffen with the heavy, lonely pride of the excluded.
    I don’t know why he didn’t ever scoop me up in his arms, purr into my ear, try to summon in me the thrill that set Jindi sparkling, brought the tiny but