Hedgehogs

Locals call them the hedgehogs; the huddle of little old ladies who trundle our streets toward dusk. They walk with their heads down, ignoring each other, united only by their solitary thoughts, travelling their circuit to check out the lie of the land. Sniff out what’s changed.

Not that there’s much to see in this part of the bay, set low in a crucible of sheep-ridged hills, facing half-west, into the thin light of the setting sun, and half-south, with Antarctica the next stop. Paint-peeling fibro houses line the street, with rust-crusted car bodies stacked against wire fences and grimy sofas wedged onto porches. No gardens, just plastic flowerpots blooming with cigarette butts and Chupa Chup sticks.

Change is glacial here, but for the hedgehogs—with their memories and health and their tired old bones wearing away—gauging time is all they have left.

At three o’clock every Wednesday they emerge and set off on patrol. Some days there are two shuffling the beat, on other days six or more, their ranks changing with the seasons or the hiccup of a visiting grandchild. They barely speak—don’t need to—but still they go, because they must stay fit and there’s safety in numbers.

That’s what the doctor says, they might tell you if you asked.

Today the one who lives at the bottom of the hill starts the ritual, pushing up the street into the tearing autumn wind, her jaw set and rheumy-blue eyes squinting into the middle distance. Too poor for new specs and too stubborn to admit that her sight is shot.   

The next one appears from the house with the daisy bush out the front, sucking on a peppermint. Neighbours call her Mrs Gnash, for her ill-fitting dentures, which clack and whistle when she speaks. If she does.

Hedgehog three pretends not to be waiting, outside the flats at number 27, and by halfway up the hill there are four, rolling up the road under a prickly shield of old age and determination. They hunch over against the cruel southerly, not looking at anyone, not even each other, because eye contact can be risky.

You don’t want to attract the bad elements they might explain, if you asked. 

Of course, it’s nothing to do with seeing what you’ve become reflected in the face of another. “I’m not old,” one might protest, sticking out her turkey-jowl chin. “No bloody way.”

They look like an op shop parade, decked out in shapeless raincoats and hand-knitted jerseys, their trousers and socks tucked into cheap brown boots.

Today there’s the Cat lady.

The Hat lady.

The Fat lady.

And Old Bet, the Bat lady. Here she is now, forty kilos of poverty and pain, hanky ready to wipe away the dribble that leaks from her mouth since her muscles gave up after the stroke. She’s clamped a grey beanie over her spiky home-cut hair, framing a thin little face which looks like a skull with windburn. Her kiddy-department leggings, washed a hundred times, pouch around the knees, emphasizing her skinny legs as she trudges up the middle of the path.

At the top of the hill the hedgehogs clutch their hats with knotted brown hands and bend into the corner, squaring up to the wind for part two of the circuit—the path along the cliff top.  One gust would send them over the edge, but gravity is kind today and keeps them pinned to the earth for one more round. They bunch together, their coats filling with wind and flapping like spinnakers.    

The path is narrow, not much more than a track, cut through the long grass which whips at their legs as the wind tosses around them.  Even the keening seagulls are struggling to stay aloft.

“Bit fresh today,” says Bet.

 The bay spreads out below, rocky and rough at one end then smoothing into dirty black sand and a row of old boat sheds. Everyone knows the Bay Boys run a dodgy trade in shellfish from the sheds, but nobody ever sees a thing. There’s no one on the beach today, it’s too cold and getting dark. It’s not safe for kids anymore either, not since that little one got taken on her way home from school. Never did find a trace.

Old Bet remembers that kid—she used to play with Tuck—a nice wee thing, even if her dad was no good and her mother never amounted to much. Didn’t deserve that though.

All the kids call Bet the bat lady; Tuck started it when he was just a tyke.

“Lift up yer arms, Nana Bet,” he demanded when she fetched him from school one day.  She did, never thinking to ask why, until her stickish arms waved like a scarecrow and all the little kids went scattering and shrieking. “Dad says yer an old bat,” Tuck explained. “I wanted to see your wings.”

At night, they believed, she hung upside down in the spooky pine tree behind her house, although no one ever saw her.

She didn’t mind being the bat lady; there were never any firecrackers exploding in her letterbox on Halloween. 

“They never bother me,” she’d tell you if you asked.

She remembers all of them: the bad kids and the good, the bullied and abused. And now they’re growing up—big and mean, some of them pushing prams of their own—crowding the hedgehogs for space on the footpath.

“I’m not scared of them,” Old Bet would say. “They’re just unhappy kids, under all those tattoos and smelly leathers.  I know who liked flowers and brought me shells from the beach, and who came cradling that little dead thing (whatever it was) that he found squashed on the road by the park.”

It’s true. She has a small-animal graveyard up the back of the garden. She seeded it with poor Toby, the Jack Russell terrier who had a seizure on the back lawn when she was out at the shops. She found him, cold and stiff, back arched and teeth bared in surprise. Never quite got over it.

He’s got plenty of company now though. As well as the dead thing from the park, Tuck’s goldfish is there, with an ice block stick for a headstone, and Jenny’s zebra finch. The kids know she’ll bury their pets and keep them warm with her muttering and mulch. At home the dog would dig them up, or their brother would chuck them out on bin night and laugh at their secret tears. 

Bet’s days are peopled with the no-longer-present and the passed. She keeps tabs, checking the deaths column in the paper at the library, watching for curtains that no longer twitch.

“My life’s too crowded,” she will complain if you ask about her day. “And I’m not sure who’s who anymore, who’s real and who’s in my head.”

She sees her father, all buzz-cut and tubercular lungs, and Grandma Cameron in her big woolly coat. Her sisters too, still whining about their health and who’s the worst off.

“My money’s on Nola,” she’ll say, running some private tote. “That shunt in her head is worth two of Dot’s heart attacks any day.”           

The hedgehogs complete their precarious cliff-top navigation, shoulders relaxing and coats deflating as the wind frees them from its grip. A left turn and they’re back on the footpath. Sure-footed once again, they speed up to a slow dawdle for the final stretch down the hill—past the school, barred shut for the night, but still not safe from the graffiti and obscenities sprayed across the peeling brick walls.

Rotten brats, a hedgehog might say, mouth pursed tighter than a drawstring bag. What’s the world coming to?

No answer there. The graffiti is so faded the culprit has probably moved on to bigger things. Like prison.

They ramble on, past a building site full of junk not worth pinching and across the street to the yellow corner shop. There’s a mean-looking black dog tethered to the bike stand. Its bristles stand up and it growls low in its throat. The hedgehogs sweep wide, calculating the reach of its heavy choker chain.

Not Bet.

Bet swipes her mouth with a crumpled hanky then marches straight at it.

“Good dog,” she says, banging a big hearty pat right between its ears. Thump-thump.  “Good dog!”  

It looks confused then licks her hand.

Bet wipes its drool on her coat and trails after the group, still shuffling toward sunset. She thinks about her small, chilly kitchen and the lamb chop she will have for tea. She thinks about Toby, and his dusty bowl still out on the porch.

At the bottom of the hill the first hedgehog peels off into the gloom, waves her arm vaguely, not looking back. The others nod stiffly and carry on.

Just doing the rounds.