It wasn’t a long walk to the shop, but to Aida it felt like a marathon.
She squinted behind her sunglasses and pulled her hat lower over her face. Taking the back roads wasn’t an option – the detour stretched around the back of Milson’s dairy farm. So, strolling conspicuously along the suburban streets, Aida chain-smoked and hugged the front fences of house yards, lingered in the shade of overhanging jacarandas and pepper trees, and kept her face down.
The walk was Elsie’s idea. Let’s get you out of the house, she’d said that morning, adding the promise of a block of chocolate to share.
Now Elsie glanced at her as she tugged yet again at the brim of her hat. ‘Are you really that worried about someone recognising you?’
Aida didn’t know how to answer. What was she afraid of? She could no longer tell where her fear ended and her shame began. The edges of her feelings were all smashed in together, one crushing chunk of betrayal and anger and disgrace.
They reached Swaffer’s shop; the bell above the door jangled. From behind the counter, Mr Swaffer called out a greeting. ‘Mrs Thomas Mullet, what can I do for you?’
Elsie gave a warm response to the shopkeeper and wandered to the counter to enquire after dried apricots. Aida slunk into an aisle and studied the tins of soup. She picked up a cream of chicken and a cream of mushroom. She imagined heating them in a saucepan on the stove, sipping hot soup in bed late at night. The thought was both comforting and alarming.
Because in the image that came to her, Elsie was beside her.
Aida clunked the tins back onto the shelf, and joined Elsie at the counter.
‘Good morning, ma’am,’ Mr Swaffer said. ‘Have we met?’
‘I’m visiting my friend,’ Aida recited.
‘Very good. Are you from Gawler?’
‘Uh, nearby.’
‘Barossa way?’
Aida opened her mouth. Just say Adelaide, she scolded herself. What’s the harm in it?
‘So what can you recommend today?’ Elsie broke in, and Aida’s shoulders softened.
‘We have fresh peas,’ the shopkeeper went on, unperturbed. ‘Please take some, lovely in a shepherd’s pie for Mr Mullet’s tea.’
Elsie murmured responses, mm-hmming at appropriate junctures and offering answers to the shopkeeper’s stream of questions: how was Mr Mullet’s work, was he keeping busy, wasn’t business booming these days?
‘I hope to see you again, dear,’ Mr Swaffer said to Aida as Elsie paid for the groceries. ‘I never did catch your name?’
‘I’m sorry, how rude of me,’ Elsie said, turning to Aida. She shot her a look of apology. ‘This is Aida.’
‘Aida . . . ?’ Mr Swaffer repeated, with a polite but definite upward inflection.
Why hadn’t she prepared for this? Of course the local shopkeeper would want to know her full name. Her rank, status, background – it was a small town and she was a new face. Desperately, Aida cast about and lit upon the peas Mr Swaffer had pointed out: fat, grassy green pods heaped in a bucket.
‘Shepherd,’ she said. ‘Aida . . . Shepherd.’
‘Goodness is that the time?’ Elsie said, taking Aida’s elbow. ‘I’m going to be late for knitting group. Goodbye, Mr Swaffer.’
Aida smiled wanly and tugged her hat lower. When they were safely outside the store and had walked for several minutes, she finally sighed and began to breathe easier.
‘Aida Shepherd, huh?’
‘I panicked,’ she said. ‘He mentioned the pie and . . .’ she shook her head. ‘So now I’m Aida Shepherd, wife of an absent miner.’ She was unsure whether to laugh or burst into tears. ‘I’ve never had to –’
She was silenced by a sudden whoop whoop of air at the back of her head. Elsie cried out and ducked. Aida turned in time to see a magpie whip around in the air in a flurry of black-and-white feathers, and swoop back down towards them. Wings outstretched, sharp beak aimed like an arrow.
‘Oh, damn bird!’ Elsie cried. She clutched her basket tight to her chest. ‘Go away, we’re not near your babies – aak!’
Aida grabbed her arm, and they ran. Their footsteps pounded up the street as the magpie’s furious squawking rained down on them, the beat of its wings brushing the backs of their heads. At one point Aida heard the sharp clack-clack of its beak so close to her ear she felt a hot sting. Dashing up a side-street, Aida pulled Elsie beneath the bowl-like limbs of a pepper tree. They huddled beneath its shelter, their breath coming hard.
‘I think it’s gone,’ Elsie panted. Setting the basket at her feet she leaned against the tree’s thick trunk and put a hand to her chest. ‘I can’t catch my breath,’ she said, giggling. A flash of alarm crossed her face. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you have blood on your ear. Here.’ She held out her hand.
Aida stepped closer. Elsie licked her finger and touched it to Aida’s ear. Between her thumb and forefinger, she gently pinched Aida’s ear lobe.
‘There,’ Elsie said softly. ‘All better.’
With the touch of Elsie’s fingers, all the terror and loneliness and deception of the past weeks shunted itself into a knot of pain in the middle of her. Her baby, her baby. Perhaps it was this rope of panic, or the beat of her own pulse, or the wind fingering the limbs of the tree, or the way Elsie’s skirt lifted in the breeze. Whatever it was, something stole the air from her lungs and when she leaned forward it seemed there was nothing else to do.
She kissed Elsie’s mouth.