“Mr MacGregor belongs to the Home Guard, and he takes his duties very seriously.” Izzy ambled into the whare and the cool of her tiny bedroom, stripping off her dirt and sweat-streaked shirt, careful not to drop the dirty clothes on the neat, if threadbare, pink candlewick bedspread. Tea had started to follow but immediately backed out, averting her eyes. Izzy grinned into the coolness of a fresh shirt. “We’re always prepared for anything, snow, storm, or invasion.”
The bread and freshwater smell lingered overtop the stringent cut of paint. The new girl said nothing.
“So, you’re Robbie’s twin sister, huh?” Izzy called out. “You do look like him.”
Tea’s shadow appeared in the narrow hallway. “You’re the first to say that. He’s bigger in the shoulders than me.”
“Who’s older?” Slipping by, Izzy took a gulp from the water pitcher in the small front room. The girls used the room as a shared living space and had furnished it with tatty armchairs, a bookshelf, and a small fireplace, making the whole cottage a little cosier than its previous incarnation as the shearers’ quarters. Had the new girl brought any books with her? Izzy’s mind itched for something new.
“He’s never said?” Tea’s laughter bubbled up, sweeter than Robbie’s, but just as rich and warm. Finally. “I am. And he doesn’t let me live it down.”
Izzy paused, pretending to fidget with the matches and kindling in the fireplace. Tea cut a darker hole in the shadows of the dim cottage, like there was more than one of her standing in the same place. Izzy blinked and squinted; the doubled form resolved into one. How could this be? It didn’t run in families.
Izzy blinked again and could see the warmth boiling within Tea’s silhouette, something different again to the double vision. Another coldness gripped her guts. Oh yes, it’s there alright. Maybe brother and sister are cut of the same cloth. Izzy had heard myths passed down and down again about twins.
Best to wait, watch, be careful. So very careful. People had their rules, their lines. They liked to gossip. There was a weight to darkness in this land.
A muddy collie tumbled through the front door with a clatter of claws, tongue a-flop with happiness to see Izzy.
Tea pushed it away, horrified as it stuck its nose in her crotch. “They’re all over the place!”
“They like you.” Izzy stepped onto the veranda, whistling for the dog.
“I just got here. They barely know me. Hey, where are you going?”
“It’s time for—” The pump of the bell echoed across from the farmhouse. “—dinner.”
Wiping her hands on her thighs, Tea snatched up her painting tools from the veranda and, juggling the ladder, scurried to catch up. “But how did you—”
“The dogs know.”
*
Tea had smelled the question before it drew breath. It radiated as much sunshine as her blouse.
What was she wearing, the girl had asked. The wrong clothes, the wrong skin. A skin that pretended she could be a good farmhand. A skin obviously too much like her brother’s – she hadn’t decided if that was a good or bad thing. This was her one chance to draw a new skin over herself. Who knew how long the war would last, before she’d have to stop pretending and find a husband?
Tea blushed as she hurried to catch up with Izzy. There was another scent, mingling with the new, large scents all around. They were nowhere near as terrible as she thought she’d find them. The farm made a great blanket of awareness quite unlike her disjointed understanding of the city. She’d always been carefully attuned. Scents were warnings, heralds, rewards. She had never told anyone about this strange, heightened awareness, not even her brother. It made her sound quite mad.
She’d scolded herself for the less-than-ladylike greeting she’d attended upon the other land girl. Hunger, the strange dog on the road, and the long day had caused her peevish tone. Mum would be so cross with her if she’d heard.
But Izzy Larson wasn’t Mum. Chattering far too easily about shearing timetables and mealtimes and rising at ridiculous o’clock, the person walking beside her exuded Tough.
Mum had warned her about tough girls. They wore pants, cut their hair shorter than was proper, smoked cigarettes and had loud voices, big rough hands, and too-brown skin from working outside.
But there was something comforting about Izzy’s deep laugh, the still-perfect dark curls at her forehead and ears. She was big and dark as a storm, flashing diamond rain. And that scent like dog and cool night air. Terribly poetic in non-poetic times. Mum would say she’d been reading those awful books again.
“You got a sunhat in that rig of yours?” Izzy was asking as they rounded the low hill studded with native trees. On the far side of the farmyard, the dogs were snout-down in their bowls. Another girl ladled out bones and bloody chunks. The dog that had fetched Izzy dove into the mix.
“Yes, that survived the purge, at least,” Tea sighed.
“Good. It’s easy to get sunburn out here when you’re not used to it.” Izzy went on about all sorts of strange things about eating and drinking that didn’t make sense.
Tea snuck another glance at Izzy’s long jaw and nose. She was lucky. The width gave away nothing, while her own sometimes warranted a second look. MacGregor wouldn’t have asked the same disquieting question of Izzy that Tea had been on the pointed end of earlier.
Mrs MacGregor pumped the dinner bell a second time, and Tea hurried to store away her tools.
“Bell only goes twice,” Izzy explained, slipping off her mucky boots, lining them up neat, and padding into a washroom lined with a rack of oilskins, buckets and mops, a heavy kettle and wringer, and shelves with soap boxes and scrubbing brushes. Tea obediently followed suit. “Five minutes to wash up, and if you’re not done in that time you go hungry.”
The girl who had been feeding the dogs, all red pigtails and freckles, burst into the washroom and grabbed up the Sunlight soap. She reeked of dog. “Tuesday!”
“Sorry?” Tea paused in lathering her hands.
Izzy indicated between them with soapy hands. “Alison Twidle, Tea Gray.”
Tea murmured a greeting, then, “What do you mean, Tuesday?”
“Lamb chop day!” Alison grinned.
Saliva sprang into Tea’s mouth. Real farm lamb chops? Rationed lamb had been on the small side, fatless, infrequent. They did this every Tuesday?
Lost in her meaty daydreaming, Tea only gave half her attention to Alison’s questions which were, yet again, about her brother.
They passed through the spacious kitchen where an enormous wood-run Shacklock blasted heat, and Mrs MacGregor’s head twitched when she heard Robbie’s name. “Later, Miss Twidle. So the poor girl doesn’t have to repeat herself five times over. Here we go, ladies. Steady as you go, all the way through to the dining room, please.” She handed out piled-high plates.