Sawdust by Deborah Kay Page B

probably to call the police, to get some help, but as she picked up the phone, Dad, in one of his quick army style manoeuvres, had the cord wrapped around her throat and was squeezing it. Mum was standing there shrieking and puffing. She was unable to move, unable to gasp breath. Her face looked so red it was beginning to turn blue.
    The four of us kids were standing in front of them like white ghosts; we did not have to say it to each other, we thought this was the end of Mum. Perhaps us too? Dad, all six foot and three inches of his lanky, iron body was shaking with rage and thunder. It looked like he was going to choke Mum to death right there in front of us and then come for us.
    Just when we thought she had taken her last pant of air, we watched as he breathed out heavily and sharply and suddenly, unexpectedly, let go of her. Instead, he leapt across the lounge to his gun cupboard.
    Inside the cupboard, you could see even from where we were standing, he had any one of about twenty guns to choose from. It flicked in our minds, this was even worse than the strangulation was going to be. Our hearts were racing again. We saw bullets in our heads and guts. No one was going to escape.
    Unable to take our eyes off him, we held our breath and watched. He was standing in front of the cupboard with the slow determination of a cowboy. And like that cowboy he took his time in choosing his weapon. When he turned around we saw he had chosen his carbine.
    It seemed strange, because of all his guns he always kept the carbine in pieces – each piece wrapped in cloth like some sacred metal scroll.
    Even more slowly now, a cowboy reconnoitring and planning his high-noon strategy, meticulously, he put the gun together, one piece at a time. He did it with the purpose of a world champion chess player, breathing deeply, thinking every step of the way, and out of the corners of our eyes we watched as Mum’s body shook and sweated.
    She was free from the telephone cord now, but she was standing dead still, like she could be a spear of metal stuck into the floor. Her eyes, dark and dry, stared back at Dad with the certainty of death.
    Finally, screwing the stock into the barrel, he began yowling: ‘I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna fucking kill you, Julie! You’ll never do anything like that again!’
    Sam, my little brother, couldn’t take it any longer. He broke from us and ran up to Dad. He was clutching at Dad’s knees. ‘Dad, Dad. Please, please! Don’t! Please don’t kill Mum!’
    Foam firing from his lips, his eyes spinning like a wild boar, Dad looked down at Sam hovering around him, and we thought that was the end of Sam. Moments later, something in Dad’s entire being froze over. It was like a beer out of the freezer meeting fresh air and suddenly going to ice; it seemed to crack something in him.
    He breathed in as though about to squeeze the trigger, only instead of pulling the trigger or even bludgeoning Sam with the gun, as we expected he was going to do, Dad took the gun and placed it, his prized possession, carefully on the lounge floor.
    He pushed Sam aside like he was an annoying fly and stepped up to Mum. He grabbed her by the top of her dress and shook her. They were both screaming and shouting at one another, and all of us kids, as though one, ran for our lives.
    We ran to the outside patio, which had a waist-high railing but no security rails. The boys instantly half jumped and half slithered down the long, two-storey-high posts and scurried into the backyard. But Marge and I, unable to make the jump so easily, were still slowly climbing down the posts when we heard Dad breathing just above us.
    We were so frightened that we were ready to jump, but as we did so, we felt Dad’s big hands around our hair. He literally had us both by the locks of our hair and was heaving us up like an elevator back onto the patio.
    Once back up, still holding us tightly by the hair, he dragged us across the floorboards back into the