‘Tennis or badminton?’ I asked. I didn’t want to make a joke, but I didn’t know what else to say.
‘It’s called a duty list,’ said Mum. ‘Where we file all the documents relating to the case. You know, the findings from the Family Dispute Resolution officer and other things.’
It was difficult to forget the visit to the FDR mediator. Mum and Dad agreed that I should be present at the meeting on the grounds that I was mature enough to deal with the issues, and that my wishes were, after all, the main reason we were in this situation in the first place. The mediator – a very friendly woman who insisted we call her Helen – suggested that we all meet at her office rather than coming to our home, because that would be ‘neutral territory’. The meeting took about two hours and was civilised enough. Helen encouraged all of us to discuss the issues fully, to pinpoint exactly what the problems were and how they could be resolved. But I think it was fairly obvious to everyone that this was not something like agreeing to financial settlements or access arrangements. Mum wanted me to go to England. I didn’t. Dad supported me. It wasn’t a situation where compromise could figure, unless we all moved to somewhere in between, like Myanmar.
In the end the mediator issued something called a Section 601 Certificate, which basically called for the case to be heard in the Family Circuit Court by a judge. A week or so after that, some woman turned up at Mum’s home on a Saturday morning and watched as Mum and I did our normal mother and daughter stuff, like me resisting doing dishes or vacuuming the front room but always giving in eventually. The woman poked her head into my bedroom (after asking my permission) and talked to me and Mum in general terms. Then she left. ‘Who the hell was that?’ I asked Mum. ‘Someone checking that I am not a psychopath,’ Mum replied. ‘She’ll be visiting your father as well.’ I didn’t give it much more thought. Well, I did, but it didn’t help very much.
I shook my head to get rid of the memories.
‘You didn’t tell me you were going to court,’ I said.
Mum checked her rear-view mirror, merged into traffic.
‘No point,’ she said. ‘It was all routine. Just the four of us – your father and his lawyer and me with mine. The judge understood that nothing could be resolved in an interim hearing and she fixed a date for the final hearing, when a decision will be made.’
My mouth was dry. Things were happening too quickly. At the back of my mind I must have been hoping that something would change, though I couldn’t think what that might be. Now there was a date.
‘When?’ I asked.
‘Monday. Two weeks today,’ said Mum. ‘You will have to take the day off school. Maybe a few days, if the case drags on. Though I suppose taking time away from school won’t bother you too much.’
She glanced at me and smiled to show she wasn’t being shitty, but I couldn’t respond because the muscles in my face weren’t obeying me.
Two weeks. My future, or at the very least a large part of it, would be determined in two weeks by a total stranger. I was scared.
‘What are you going to call her?’
Elise’s backyard wasn’t huge, but that didn’t seem to matter to her or the pup. El rolled on her back while the dog jumped on her, pretend-growling and having small nibbles at her feet and hands.
‘Ow,’ said Elise. ‘Ya mongrel.’
‘Not a mongrel, El,’ I pointed out. ‘Definitely not a mongrel.’
‘True,’ said El. ‘Ow, ya pedigree.’ She played with the Saint Bernard’s ears. ‘I don’t know,’ she continued. ‘If you’re buggering off, I might call her CC. You know, give me a reason to say your name.’
This was almost unbearably sad, because she wasn’t joking for once. I told her about the court date. We sat on her lawn in silence for a few minutes while the pup explored smells along a fence line.
‘So how long before the judge makes a decision?’ she said finally. ‘Like, could be months later, yeah?’
‘I googled that,’ I said. ‘Possibly the same day.’
‘Shit.’
‘The case might take a few days,’ I continued, ‘but Mum reckons it won’t because no one is bringing crap loads of witnesses or anything. Should just be arguments by both lawyers, my statement, a cross examination. It all depends. One day, possibly two. And the judge might delay judgement.’ I gave the pup a liver treat from my pocket. She wagged her tail and El and I fell a little bit more in love. ‘But both Mum and Dad reckon that’s unlikely as well. It’s a pretty straightforward decision and Mum will be arguing that there’s some urgency.’
‘And if the judge is on your mum’s side, when would you go?’
I shrugged. ‘Mum says quickly after that. A few weeks, probably. Her granddad was a UK citizen, she says, so she can apply for an Ancestry visa which allows her to work and live in England for up to five years. But I suspect she’ll be marrying Sam, anyway. And Sam has dual citizenship. Permanent residence in England is not going to be a problem, especially since we’re all vaxxed to the eyeballs.’
‘What do you reckon are your chances, CC?’
‘Not good.’ I sighed. ‘Dad’s lawyer says it’s not a foregone conclusion, that the days when mothers automatically get custody are long gone. But Dad is paying him. It’s unlikely he’d say we have no chance when he’s being paid to make sure that no chance isn’t an option. But I can read Dad’s eyes. Oh, he’s upbeat, but he doesn’t think he’s going to win.’
‘So we might only have four weeks left,’ said Elise.
‘Better make the most of them then,’ I replied.
Two days before the court case, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognise. I’d been getting a few of those recently – some of them came with warnings of suspected fraud and some played recorded messages informing me that there was a warrant out for my arrest for nonpayment of non-existent tax bills. To be honest, there aren’t too many people outside my immediate family and Elise who have my number. So I wasn’t very optimistic when I answered the call.
‘Hello?’ I said.
‘I’m trying to reach Caitlyn Carson,’ said a woman’s voice at the other end of the line. The voice sounded somewhat puzzled, as if I was obviously not Caitlyn Carson and was trying to confuse her for reasons best known to myself.
‘That’s me,’ I replied.
‘Oh …’ There was quite a long pause. When she spoke again, it was with a tone of greater confidence. ‘My name is Mo Axon and I’m a commissioning publisher at Blake McDonald Publishing House. I’m ringing in relation to the manuscript of Unicorn Girl, which was passed onto me by Jane Brown of the Book Pitch Program. That is your manuscript, right?’
I hadn’t forgotten about the book. Of course I hadn’t. But it had somehow slipped down my list of priorities after everything that had been happening. Now my heart threatened to break out through my ribs. I mean, I know I had given up writing, but …
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s me. I wrote that. Unicorn Girl. That’s mine.’ I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so much in control of words. Mo Axon couldn’t fail to be impressed.
‘Ah. Look. I should say immediately that I don’t think we will be publishing your book …’
There was a ringing in my ears and I missed the rest of what she was saying. Yes. Okay. What on earth was I expecting? Come on, Cate. I knew that the chances of getting published were really slim. Hell, JK Rowling was rejected twelve times for Harry Potter, so what chance did I realistically have? For all that, I hadn’t realised how much I had been hoping for a miracle until I heard those words of rejection. They hit me in the gut. I wanted to cry, but I wasn’t going to allow that to happen. I’d made some kind of pledge to myself. Caitlyn Carson was not going to cry anymore. Not for anything short of death.
So why was Mo Axon ringing me now? Was everyone in the office of Blake McDonald bored and listening around the phone as she rang? Was Mo Axon going to say, We think your book’s crap! before hanging up? I wished it had been someone telling me there was a warrant out for my arrest unless I paid my non-existent tax bill with iTunes gift cards. I could’ve laughed at that.
‘Hello?’ The voice at the other end was still there.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hear that last bit after you said you weren’t going to publish Unicorn Girl. I think the line dropped out.’
‘I asked how old you are.’
I nearly answered automatically, but caught myself in time.
‘Does my age matter?’ I asked. Then I wondered if I came across as someone who was getting pissy because they’d been rejected and wished I’d just answered. This phone call was a nightmare from the start and getting worse by the moment.
‘No,’ said Mo Axon. ‘Not to the book and not to our decision to publish. But I’m curious. You sound very young.’
‘I’m thirteen,’ I said.
There was a long pause.
‘You’re joking,’ she said finally.
I thought about replying, What part of ‘I’m thirteen’ has you in hysterics? But I thought it wiser to say nothing.
‘Caitlyn,’ she continued. ‘Please listen carefully. I know you must be disappointed, but you should understand that I do not normally ring up writers we are rejecting. In the vast majority of cases that is done by our commissioning editor. Even then, it’s normally by email.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘I think your writing has enormous potential and I wanted to discuss things with you in person. Because I really believe we will be publishing you in the future.’
‘Okay,’ I said again.
‘I was going to suggest that we meet up for a meal in Melbourne to discuss your writing, but given you’re thirteen I suppose that’s not going to work.’
‘Okay.’
‘How would it be if I came to your house and talked everything over with you and your parents?’
‘Okay,’ I said. I knew there were other words available to me, but they seemed to have left my brain for destinations unknown.
We talked for another few minutes. I gave her my address. We arranged a time, about four or five days after my court case.
I don’t know why I bothered. Probably because the old polite Cate had moved back in to stay. But the publisher didn’t think my book was worth publishing. There was no way round that.
Giving up writing was a good decision, whichever way you looked at it. But now I’d have to put up with someone telling me that failure was something positive. I could do without it.