Free Remembering Babylon by David Malouf

could barely hide his tears.
    She had her triumph. But seeing it she felt ashamed, it was so easy. And Scotland, home, was sacred to her. She was going against herself when she mocked it.
    There were times when she felt helpless against a place which, as her parents evoked it in every word they uttered, belonged so much more strongly to all the highest emotions in her than the place she was in. And he had seen it, and she had not. He would have that over her for ever.
    After a time he discovered what he was endowed with that gave him an advantage over her and used it mercilessly; except that the thing was so native, so accidental in him, that though he could name it, even he did not know what it really was. He was full of scorn when she failed to understand some word he used, and took delight, with their mother, in slipping into the old tongue. He would look towards her with his eyes wide and innocent but a little smile of satisfaction on his mouth that for the moment he had shut her out. Her fist ached to wipe the smug look from his face, and he knew it, and was more cocky than ever. ‘I don’t understand,’ little Meg would whine. ‘What’s splairgin’? What’s a moothfu’ o’ mools?’ But she would not ask.
    The struggle between them was fierce. Till Lachlan came she had been used to going her own way, unconditioned and free. She had no limit to herself. Now she resented his easyassumption that he was superior, should take the lead in all their doings, and that she must naturally yield to him.
    She was half a head taller, for the moment she had that over him; but it would not last, she had no illusions about that. (She had long ago discovered the satisfaction of tormenting herself with hard truths.) She sought out ways to hurt him. He was very proud and liked to believe he was tough, but he cried easily, she could make him cry. Then, when she did, she was shocked, felt miserable, and longed, against her own interest, to comfort him, though she saw that if she did he would hate her for it.
    Sometimes for a day or two they would be close. Full of liveliness and schemes for fresh adventure, he was easy so long as you gave in to him. He had always to assert himself and be first. He was in love with his own nobility but at the same time needed to boast, and of things, Janet saw, that were not always true. It offended her own sense of inviolable honesty. She was hard on herself; why should she be less hard with him? She was consumed after a time with the need to expose him, to make him confess that so much of what he claimed was just another attempt to intimidate and assert himself and the superiority of ‘hame’; which might be true – the latter in fact was true – but she could not let him be the judge of it.
    She would have forgiven him all if he had shown any sign of humbling himself. She was full of affection, she wanted to love him, and longed for some softening in him that would allow it without loss of pride. But first he had to admit need, and he would not. Everything she and Meg knew, and he did not, was not worth the knowing.
    They showed him the reddish-gold resin that ironbarks wept, which when you chewed it had a bitter flavour. He spat it out and thought they were making a fool of him.
    They showed him bacon-and-eggs bushes. He told them scornfully, ‘That’s no’ them. That’s no’ the real wans.’ He had seen bluebells. When he stood up and sang of them in his high clear voice, Janet was overwhelmed and their mother wept. He glowed. He was radiant. The light of some far-off place she had only imagined shone through his skin.
    She slipped away and stared into a glass but could find no such beauty – no promise of it either – in herself. She was gangly and freckled. She had warts on her hands. And there was such a hunger for beauty in her. The appearance of it in Lachlan did not make her envious. It struck her with awe, as of something impersonal, that commanded her absolutely beyond her