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My home life is so precarious that I can’t create any new activities for Being Sleek. Instead I spend the week before we leave making a scrapbook of clippings about my mermaid adventure – something to show little Tyler when he grows up. Five nights with the geckos, and no alcohol to compensate, sends me slightly feral. And when I read in a magazine on Sylvie’s coffee table that they’re not even native to Hawaii – they’re blow-ins just like me – the whole belonging thing gets rubbed in even more. I can’t wait to escape all these symbols.
I do manage to write up several posts in advance for the Moonshine blog: How to Blend Curiosity Into Your Core Business and How Are New Customers Like Fresh Fish? Suddenly I’m full of the wisdom of seals.
The contract for signing over the house to Andrew for little more than pocket money arrives at Wanda’s, and she calls into the office with it.
“A parcel from the charmless Andrew Tabrett. You’re about to sign him out of your life, right?”
“A contract I’m not going to sign, you mean. Could you ‘pickle it in aspic’ or whatever it is you do to your fish?”
“You need a shredder, but I could custom-make a fish to send him.” She gazes wistfully at the ceiling. “Razor-sharp teeth. Black. And a few imbedded prawn heads for some authentic halitosis. They’d smell for months.”
We laugh until I open the parcel and read his ‘headline’: Seal Siren goes Ape. Signs over House for Peanuts.
That’s when Wanda saves my sanity with a gift for my journey. As I open the handmade wrapping, a small resin fish leers at me with technicolour teeth.
“A magic mullet,” she says. “To tie to the handle of your suitcase. I don’t sell these, I give them away to the right people.”
People she’s kicked out of home?
“It’ll keep you safe and prosperous, and help you remember your sense of humour.”
***
Rupert has gone, so the boys can finally host their kirtan – but that means their house will be full of Nirvana-seekers for my final night in Honolulu. Many will be sleeping over, so Derek offers me the back seat of his car, parked in the garage where no-one will know. I’m ashamed by how desperate I’ve become, but his offer forces a bizarre twist. I tell him I can stay with Sylvie for one more night, but I make myself return to my office floor – to sharpen my resolve to leave Honolulu, the place that’s been my home ever since I walked out on Andrew.
In spite of the heavy-handed signs that I’m passing through, it’s a big thing to turn my back on my new life here, even for just a few weeks. Thank God Derek’s coming with me, otherwise I’d be heading off into the unknown with only Being Sleek and the contents of my little red suitcase for company.
Derek and Nigel pick me up outside the office around midday. As we drive to the airport, I’m looking a little worse for wear but they don’t comment. I’ve been trying to organise a farewell party in the departure lounge but Wanda can’t make it, Davina has already left for New York, and then Alister calls to say he’s got a meeting.
“We’re always saying goodbye,” he murmurs down the phone.
“Because we keep going in different directions.”
“So let’s start going the same way.”
Not today.
“It’s just the three of us for the farewell party,” I tell the boys.
As we’re stopped in traffic, my phone rings again. Maybe Alister can make it after all, but my peptic intuition says otherwise.
“Your father’s been rushed to hospital,” Stella says without preamble. “Chest pains.”
“Oh my God. A heart attack?”
“What else? After the stress you’ve put him under.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You never phone him. He thinks you hate him. If you ever stop thinking about yourself, it will be a miracle.” And I thought Stella might have mellowed towards me. “He’s asking for you, in spite of everything. You’ve always been his favourite.”
“Is he OK? I’m about to board a plane for Paris.”
“I’ll tell him you’re busy then. A shopping spree. Why not pick up a little French number to wear to the funeral? Unless you’re having too much fun to fly back.”
Bloody hell. “I’m not going shopping, I’m doing a seminar tour.”
“Cancel it.”
“Is he going to die?”
But Stella’s already gone.
The boys have heard everything. Derek’s glancing at me in the rear-view mirror as I collapse on the back seat. Beside him, Nigel starts making calls. By the time we hit the airport, he’s pulled some strings and rearranged our flights, booking me to Sydney and delaying Derek’s departure for Paris by a week. He’s even paid for the changes for both of us and I’m too broke to protest.
Derek parks, and we sit in the car while I pull myself together. I’ve never been close to Dad – he left my upbringing to Stella, and then disapproved of Andrew – but the thought of losing him now, before we can get to know each other, hits me like a missile out of nowhere. He’s only sixty-five. Too young to abandon me to orphanhood. Or is this just my famous selfish streak in action? “It’s always about you, isn’t it?” Stella always says. She’s right. Behind the sudden grief, there’s an edge of anger. Dad and his heart attack are in the driver’s seat of my life, just like Andrew.
Nigel’s been waiting for the right moment. He hands me a paper bag with something heavy inside. “You might need this.”
The rock I dug up in that midnight frenzy. He’s washed off the dirt and its surface is gleaming.
“I was thinking you’d take it to France,” he says, “find somewhere special to leave it. But maybe it’s really for your dad. A peace offering, if you will.”
I take it in my hands, its weight and coolness suddenly reassuring. Then I burst into tears. Nigel says nothing more as I shove the rock into the corner of my suitcase. He knows I’m hoping Dad will be alive to receive it, that I won’t be putting it on his grave.
The three of us cluster in the departure lounge, drinking pina coladas. There’s something particularly jarring about the jaunty angle of the little umbrella in my drink, as if it’s poking fun at my sudden change of fortune. I pull the blank fortune cookie message out of my pocket and wave it.
“This seems significant.”
Nigel nods. “It might be saying, Wing it.”
“Or Watch this space,” Derek adds.
“More like Forget the plans, douchepants.”
I wonder what Davina would say. Because I ignored her entreaties about Sydney, has the universe conspired to intervene? But that would make me responsible for Dad’s heart attack and make Stella right after all.
I push these thoughts away as Derek says, “It’s a long flight to be alone with no news.”
“My sister will keep in touch.”
He nods. I can tell he wants to play guardian angel, but there are things you have to face on your own and your father’s mortality is one of them.
When my flight is called, he’s pushing send on his phone. “I’ve written a visualisation. To wrap you in a protective bubble. Not around your dad, but before you see Stella. Promise?”
***
It’s only a few weeks since I left Sydney, after the birth of little Tyler. Dad picked me up from the airport that time, and the memory of his large hunched figure at the barrier causes me a pang. Back then, the summer was lingering but now the weather has turned. I arrive to an overcast sky and a strong wind off the sea. It feels like an omen.
I’ve checked my messages but there’s no news from Gretel. Has he already gone?
Gretel knows which flight I’m on, not that I’m expecting her to be here. But when I walk through the arrivals door, I almost have a heart attack myself. Standing at the barrier is the figure I was just remembering – all broad shoulders and anxious eyes. Dad.
I stop and blink, thinking he’s a spectre of my fear, then gasp as he rushes over and hugs me.
“I thought you might be dead,” I say. Tears are falling. Relief tinged with something else. What the hell’s going on? “You’re not even in the hospital.”
“False alarm,” he says, looking sheepish. “Stella...overreacted.”
Bloody hell.
“That’s why I came to meet you myself. It’s the least I could do, give you the news from the horse’s mouth.” Pause. “I’m touched that you wanted to fly to my bedside, Selkie.”
Stella didn’t give me much choice. Did she set this up? A little loyalty test would be just her style.
“It’s what daughters do,” I say, sounding as stiff as I feel. I can’t find the words to tell him I love him. Do I? “There’s no way I wouldn’t have come, Dad.”
He takes my suitcase and we walk towards the parking lot, but at the exit doors I stop.
“Now that I know you’re well, I’ll fly to Paris as soon as I can get a flight.”
“Oh.”
“It’s where I was going when Stella called. I’ve got a seminar tour starting in a few days.”
Surely Dad didn’t think I’d play happy families? I did that a few weeks ago and it confirmed what I’ve always known: I’m the outsider in the family, the cuckoo in the nest, the daughter of Dad’s union with Stella’s crazy sister. Stella stepped in to mother me, and I know that in her misguided way she’s wanted me to love her. But now that Gretel’s given her a grandchild to dote on, she can finally give up on me. Until Dad threatened to die on us and called me back.
“You won’t even stay overnight?” he asks. “Now that you’ve come all this way?”
He knows a few hours with Stella will undo me, but he looks so hurt I soften.
“OK. I’ll make a booking for tomorrow. Then I’ll come back with you for a while. But I’ll stay at a hotel tonight.”
At the airline desk I can’t get a flight for three days. I don’t tell Dad. It’s kinder if he thinks I’m leaving tomorrow.
Three days in a soulless hotel. I remind myself it’s not my office floor, and that seminar presenters flit from hotel to hotel all the time, living out of a suitcase. It’s freedom. But in the background, the small matter of unfinished business gnaws away at my resistance. Andrew and the house.
The drive to Seaforth in Sydney’s north, to the house where I grew up, gives us time to talk.
“Tell me it wasn’t heartburn,” I say, remembering my ‘peptic’ intuition.
“Close, I’m afraid. A hiatus hernia. The symptoms can resemble a heart attack, apparently. And with my extra kilos and family history, Stella was sure I was finished. Ambulance, stretcher, the works. You don’t take chances at my age. She did the right thing.”
“She told me it was my fault. That you’re stressed because I hate you.”
“She said that?” He shakes his head. “That was just the worry talking.”
We both know that’s not true.
“Well,” I say, “I’m glad you’re not dead. I’m not ready to lose another parent.”
It’s as close as we’ll get to discussing my mother.
“Why aren’t you ready?” he asks. “Not that I’m planning to pop off any time soon. The doctor’s got me on a diet. I might live till I’m a hundred.”
“Because I don’t know who you are, Dad. We should find out who our parents are, even if they’re people of straw.”
“Ouch.”
“And you don’t know me either. You’ve been content to buy the propaganda.”
“I’m glad you’re not pulling any punches just because I’ve been sick.”
“I thought you were dead, remember? All the way to Sydney, I thought I could be coming to your funeral. Now I’ve got the chance to confront you, I’m not letting you off the hook.”
Pause. “What do you want me to say?”
The question stops me in my tracks. All my life I’ve wanted him to apologise. For all his weaknesses and how they’ve impacted on me – as my mother’s lover, as my hands-off father, as Stella’s passive husband. But now, in a rush of something sharp and hot, I let it all go.
“I just want you to be real, Dad. A real person who’s made mistakes. Stop hiding and be yourself. Is that so hard to live by?”
The traffic on Spit Road means he can keep his eyes ahead and be silent for a while.
“You’re different since you ran away,” he says. “You’re strong. Outspoken. You’ve broken free from the propaganda, as you call it. Become your own person. Your mother was strong, but she had a knack for manipulating everyone and it made her selfish. You’re not like that, Selkie, even though Stella can’t see it – won’t see it.”
It’s the first time he’s criticised Stella and stood up for me – even if it’s only in private. He’s different too and it marks a small but breathtaking shift in our relationship. I look out the window with wet eyes, feeling what Davina would call grand.
***
Stella is waiting at the French doors. She pecks me stiffly on the cheek, but doesn’t apologise for forcing my mercy dash across the globe. She doesn’t do apologies.
I step into the dining room to find Gretel sitting there with Tyler at her breast.
“What kept you?” she asks, and winks. “I managed to get here last night.”
She’s played devil’s advocate ever since we were kids and I was the big half-sister who never did anything right.
I bend to give her a hug and whisper, “You might have warned me Dad wasn’t dead.”
“He asked me not to tell you. He wanted to surprise you, and I knew you didn’t have long to wait.”
To look after his digestion Dad’s got to graze throughout the day, so we sit around a table laid with cold meats and salads and bread and help ourselves. It’s almost relaxing with Gretel and Tyler taking the focus away from me. A baby in the house brings out a soft side to Stella, a side I’ve never seen. I get a twinge of what I’ve missed all my life, but push it away.
When Gretel is ready to leave, I take my cue. She offers me a lift, and as we carry the baby and his gear to her car she’s careful not to ask me where I’m going. Not in front of Stella.
“Are you going to take her past her old house?” Stella asks Gretel out of the blue.
“Why would she do that?” I ask.
“You know he’s got himself a bimbo? It doesn’t take them long. Some little minx with too much cleavage and not enough morals.”
She doesn’t say ‘just like your mother’ but we all know that’s who she means. I’m surprised Gretel’s shown her photos of the voluptuous Juliet. Andrew hasn’t blocked Gretel, so she’s kept me up to date with his Facebook posts.
“Mum had a dream about your house,” Gretel says, deflecting us away from bimbos.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Stella’s quick to add. She believes in dreams as much as she believes in apologies. “But it was...disturbing. Your house going up in flames and hundreds of cats jumping out the windows.”
“Cats? Andrew hates cats.” I don’t like them either. I remember Myrna’s cat sitting on my bed and shiver. “What made you think it was my house?”
It’s a question I’m about to regret.
“If you must know...I saw you at the window. The pane was cracked and your face was a maze of jagged pieces.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Gretel says. “That’s horrible.”
“It was only a silly dream,” Stella says. “Forget I mentioned it.”
But I can’t forget. Why tell Gretel the bare bones if she didn’t mean her to tell me, and then save up the part about my fractured face at the window? I don’t believe for a minute she had a dream. She made it up to unsettle me. About the house that was my home for eight years. About Andrew. And Juliet.
It’s worked.