From the Top Shelf - That Eye

That Eye, the Sky by Tim Winton is a moving coming of age story told by Ort, an adolescent boy living in the Australian outback. Ort lives with his parents, grandmother, and older sister Tegwyn, and after his father has an accident and remains in a coma, a mysterious stranger called Henry Warburton arrives. Henry, who is an itinerant preacher, becomes part of the family, and the women of the house are drawn to him in different ways. Ort watches them.

Tegwyn and Henry Warburton are arguing again. They fight all the time in her room; he uses all the big words on her like salvation and sanctification and she yells at him and tells him to go stuff his head up Margaret's bum.

Later I come out after scrubbing potatoes for Mum, and I see Tegwyn throw a potful of tealeaves all over Henry Warburton, on his face, in his hair - everything. He picks her up and puts her over the rail of the steps and smacks her. Her dress is all up over her head and her knickers are black and he smacks her and smacks her until she screams and bawls.

After tea I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth to get out all the bits of meat and there's Henry Warburton bleeding into the sink. Blood's all coming out his nose and it runs all over his chin and into the white sink. He looks at me in the mirror.

"Not a word."

I go out.

Henry and Tegwyn reconcile, as Ort later discovers.

In the night I wake up.

I get up and go into the hall. I look in on Tegwyn and her and him are biting each other and hitting each other, with his hairy bum up and her making hate noises at him and the bed squealing.

I listened to this story on an audiobook while driving to and from work, and the spanking was quite unexpected. Luckily I wasn't driving too fast at the time, but I did have to reverse the CD player and listen to the passage a time or two, just to make sure I had heard correctly.