Free Tree Palace by Craig Sherborne

so, I suppose you better do it.’
    He folded his form neatly in half, then thought of something and flattened it back out on his knee. ‘Am I supposed to include Zara on our form or does she get her own? Might complicate our form having her included with a baby. Might get asked in for questioning.’
    Questioning was always a concern. A few years ago Midge got questioned about his form and they checked up whether he’d been looking for work as stated. They kicked him off welfare and he had to wait to apply again. Ever since, Shane had rotated it with Midge. Midge went on for a few months and then went off and Shane applied. Then Shane went off and Midge went back on. When Shane went back on Moira was included as his dependant. Zara and Rory too, which meant more money, but still they stuck to the rotation system. Better to be safe rotating than risk being banned from applying at all. Shane called it ‘flying under the radar’.
    Yet, in Zara’s case the rotation system might be worth revising. With a dependant of her own she’d get good money if she applied. If she went on their rotation system it could be profitable.
    ‘I’ll look into it,’ said Shane. ‘I’ll get the forms. Weigh the ins and outs.’
    He folded his form into his pocket. ‘You go tell Zara about the pool.’
    Moira went to the tent door and peeped under the closed flap and gave a soft call. ‘Zara, sweetie? Sweetie, I got good news. Shane’s got a plan for the pool.’
    She ducked through the flap into the tent, sunlight coming in with her like a fog with dust and insects in it. ‘I said, Shane’s got a plan for the pool. He’ll get his bolt cutters and we’ll go in through the fence.’
    For all the smell of canvas and plastic she could smell Zara’s hair needed washing, the mustiness of it, and the damp odour of her sleeping body. All of which would be solved by a good swim. ‘Sweetie, come on, wake up.’
    She knelt by the bed. Zara moved her legs under the sheet.
    ‘You said you wanted to go to the pool, so let’s go tonight.’
    ‘I don’t want to.’
    ‘But you said you wanted to.’
    ‘Don’t want to see nobody.’
    ‘But you wanted to.’
    ‘No.’
    Shane put his head under the flap. ‘All good in here?’
    Moira ordered him gone. She strode over and put her hands on his chest and said, ‘Out.’
    She stood in front of him and walked him backwards outside. She said Zara wanted to thank him very much for the pool plan and was looking forward to a swim as soon as she felt up to it. Her neck stiffened, her chin closed over her throat and she smiled and touched Shane’s bruised cheek lightly and he accepted her word.
    She waited until Shane and Midge had driven off—‘I got a bone to pick with Alfie in town,’ Shane said—and then went back into the tent, hooking up the flap to let the day in. She crouched on the plastic beside Zara and stroked her hair and shoulder. ‘This is no good. We can’t just go on like this,’ she said. ‘You can’t just lie there.’
    She might as well have been talking to herself. Zara was awake and listening, her eyelids were moving, but she was silent.
    ‘If you’re not going to speak, if I’m going to talk to myself, I might as well say what I’m thinking.’
    Moira knelt, straight-backed, her hands clasped against her chin like prayer. ‘What I’m thinking is, I get someone to help you if you’re like this. There’ll be someone at the hospital, maybe. Come to the hospital with me.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You don’t want help?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What, then? What do you want?’
    ‘To go. I want to go somewhere out of here.’
    ‘Where would you go?’
    ‘I don’t know. Somewhere better.’
    ‘You got no money. Where can you go with no money?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    Moira’s hands cracked in the knuckle joints because she was clenching so tightly. Angry and pitying at once.
    Hospital. There was a worry with hospital, she realised. It would not be as simple as giving Zara