Free Tree Palace by Craig Sherborne Page B

was starless dark and so windy the trees sounded like rapids. There was no point sleeping outside as you normally did when the nights sweltered. Who could sleep in that wind? Yet there being no stars meant the wind would soon change. The north-travelling clouds were thickening way up there out of sight. South-west clouds were doing the same and were ready to clash. Limpy slunk off under the house for cover.
    It happened after midnight. A southerly snap of coolness that caused the house’s timbers to flinch. The tree rapids became wilder and thunder rolled above them. Lightning twitched among storm clouds. A few fat raindrops spattered on the roof but that was all. No rainy smell for the nostrils, let alone anything to fill the tank. The stars came out and bats flew white beneath them. You could see all the way to the moon again. Rory slept through the change and Zara must have too. Moira and Shane didn’t. They went outside so the air could tingle their skin. Midge came out and did the same, holding up his arms to let the jolting cold in.
    The air was still cool at morning and it worked through the flesh, bringing good spirits to everyone. Not Zara—her spirits were too closed over to receive fresh weather. Rory was persisting with his tough-guy look but took off after a feed of Weet-Bix to lift stones onto the shed’s tarp fringe. He wasn’t told to, he just offered. Shane put it down to the weather or a spurt of good-boy hormones.
    The day’s priority was to get into town and catch Alfie. Get in early when he was sure to be in his office. Moira said she’d come too. There were groceries to buy, and washing to do, and they might as well all go in together. That was true but she was also mindful of police. Better to have Shane driving and not draw attention to herself just a day after getting stopped. She sat in the back seat with Mathew and two plastic bag loads of washing. The window down an inch for the breeze. No need for a towel to keep the sun out. The sun lacked bite today. It was up there in plain view but uncompetitive against the coolness.
    Front of Alfie’s shop was for the ancient implements: hoes and scythes of the Grim Reaper kind. Ploughshares and pitchforks with red-rusty prongs. Bridles and a horse harness with straw bursting from the stitching. Like a dusty museum of the plains. But in this museum everything was for sale, though not much ever sold to Barleyvillers. Not the meat scales and pump organ. Old tonic bottles dug up from cottage gardens. Sewing machines and top hats, polo sticks, fur stoles, lace doilies and mounted ram horns. Lace bed linen and table cloths, sun-yellowed but heavy with grace. All of them popular in city junk stores.
    Locals preferred the middle section of the store where more practical goods could be picked through for bargains. Egg beaters and egg poachers. Pottery bowls and jars with Sugar painted on them. Cutlery, carving knives and steels laid out on metal shelves. There was fancy crockery—not a full set but odd cups and plates.
    Moira couldn’t bring herself to like just one cup and saucer, however pretty and floral and only five dollars instead of a fortune. She’d had her heart fixed on a full, gleaming complement. She didn’t know why exactly. Some ladylike fantasy of being a better person in better times. Settling for one cup would ruin the fantasy and make her resent needing fantasies. Fantasies were just another way of saying your own life won’t do.
    Yet she would have slipped a cup and saucer into the folds of Mathew’s pram if Alfie wasn’t important to Shane. She was tempted anyway but saw Alfie looking over Shane’s shoulder, suspicious, which offended her. She picked up a cup and held it to the light, shook her head dismissively and put the cup down in its saucer with a forceful clink.
    The good stuff, the hefty period-feature items, was out the rear through the sliding door into the backyard and converted hayloft. The loft took up most of the yard