Henry’s Daughter by Joy Dettman

fighting. Mick gets the bunk under Greg, and Jamesy is moved in to sleep under Vinnie, due to he’ll survive Greg and Vinnie better than Alan would. Neil moves into Mick’s old bed, Alan into Neil’s, with the rubber mattress cover. Timmy, who still wears disposable napkins at night so doesn’t needa mattress cover, gets moved out of the cot and into Jamesy’s old bed and Matty goes into the cot, even though he’s sort of lost in it.
    Lori doesn’t get moved. She’s the girl so she has to sleep closest to Mavis’s door – and why she can’t sleep in the bunk room instead of Jamesy, she doesn’t know. She’s the next biggest to Mick and she’s heaps bigger than Jamesy, and it’s not fair that she’sgot to be stuck in the lounge room with the little ones, and bawling Matty too. It’s just not fair.
    All day the house stands in the sun, windows open, collecting the heat, storing it up so it can roast people in their beds at night while mosquitoes suck blood and bodies toss and turn like oily sardines packed into a tin. All day Mavis rants and eats and smokes while Henry and the kids wait forher bad mood to pass. It will pass. Her eating moods always pass after a bit – though this one is lasting longer than most. And that’s Alan’s fault, because he won’t stop howling, and he won’t talk to her either; he runs away if she comes within two metres of him.
    â€˜I’m your bloody mother,’ she yells. ‘You grew inside me, not her.’ He looks at that massive jelly mound of her stomach and has anotherfit of the screams. And who’d blame him? It would be better if she’d just leave him alone. And leave Henry alone too. He’s copping it every night, she’s keeping him awake every night and when he goes to work after getting no sleep, she goes to bed and sleeps most of the day while Matty bellows and Alan howls.
    People can’t cry forever. They run out of tears after a while. People can’t eat forever,either. They run out of food in the cupboards and fridge and out of money; Henry is refusing to get Mavis’s child allowance money from the bank. Things settle down a bit and Alan starts acting like that last retarded Labrador pup Mavis adopted, except Alan is on Lori’s heels all day instead of Mavis’s. Every time she turns around, he’s behind her. He sits close to her each night at the table,though he still won’t look at a plate full of pumpkin, cabbage, grey broad beans and Henry’s stew. He looks at Mavis’s roast potatoes she cooks for herself. He doesn’t get them because if Henry cooks him roast potatoes, all the other kids will want them too.
    This seems to be the year for forgetting birthdays. Alan’s tenth birthday gets lost sometime in mid March. No one remembers it, except Eva,who sends him fifty dollars which Mavis accepts gratefully. By the time Henry remembers, it’s too late for the usual bought cake and candles, and by March’s end, Alan’s eyes look bigger due to his face looking smaller and his hair being shorter – it and his feet smell like everyone else’s now, but he’s stopped most of his crying and as Mavis has no intention of ever sending him back to Eva, Henrygets him enrolled at school. He is put in grade five, two years ahead of Jamesy when he seems like two years younger.
    Lori’s teacher still hates her, and some days Alan gets pushed through the school gate then Lori nicks off, goes home to find Matty bawling and Mavis sleeping. She plugs the bawl with a bottle of weak condensed milk or, if Mavis is out of bed and eating, Lori nicks off to townto watch the tourists and look for money, or just to prowl the supermarkets, pinching grapes and nuts. You can eat a lot of grapes and nuts without being noticed. Everyone tries them before they buy – it’s not really stealing. She’d like to test a banana too but