Thankfully the Pain had an early morning shift at the hospital so he didn’t hang around for tea that night. Instead Mum ordered in some pizzas and we downloaded a couple of scary movies to watch. I might have been acting a bit mopey, so it was probably Mum’s way of cheering me up and getting me talking.
My mother can be devious like that.
But it worked.
It was fun stuffing our faces and hiding behind a blanket together. For a while there, it was just the two of us again. Like good old Castle Butt was fully repaired and restored to the way it always was before The Pain ever existed. But the truth was he did exist, and it was time for me to sit down with my mother and have a ‘serious’ talk about the kind of company she was keeping. After the first movie finished I made us some hot chocolate and brought it into the lounge room.
My ‘serious’ talk came with some ‘serious’ questions.
Serious question Number 1:
‘So, Mum … aaah, you and … this Danny guy. You’ve been seeing a bit of each other. It isn’t starting to get a little bit … you know … serious … is it?’
I was watching her closely over the rim of my steamy chocolate.
Say no. Go on, pull a face and laugh at my ridiculous suggestion and then say something like, ‘Serious? Me and him? Heavens above, Maggie. Absolutely not! What in the world gave you that idea? You know me. Once bitten, always shy.’
But she didn’t say that. In fact she was taking far too long to say anything at all.
‘Mum!’
It might have come out a little louder than I intended.
‘Is there a problem, Maggie?’
And then it all sort of poured out of me before I could stop it.
‘Problem? Well, yeah. Remember Dad? You and Dad? Remember how well that worked out for you? For us? You wouldn’t want to go through that again, would you? All that awful … shittiness. Isn’t once enough?’
Mum put her mug on the coffee table.
‘The part at the end was shitty, I’ll grant you that. And yes, once for that is definitely enough. But we had our moments. It wasn’t all bad, you know. How could it have been? It got me you, didn’t it?’
She placed her hand on my knee.
‘Look, Maggie, I’m certainly not making any long-term plans. But I’m tired of walling up my heart and stopping myself from being happy because of what happened in the past. I’ve done that for long enough. I enjoy Danny’s company. And he’s a good person. What you see is what you get. No surprises. Except good ones. And he makes me laugh.’
‘If he’s so great, how come he isn’t married already? How come someone hasn’t snapped him up or something?’
‘He was married.’
AHA!
‘So did he run out on his family too?’
My mother didn’t look impressed with my line of enquiry.
‘They were only married a few years. There were no children. And his wife died of leukaemia. He cared for her. That’s why he eventually became a nurse.’
Great. Thanks a lot, Mum. Way to make me feel like some sort of insensitive creep.
Serious question Number 2:
‘Okay, fine, but he’s not going to be … moving in with us … with you … is he?’
Mum looked at me and raised her eyebrows.
‘Danny?’
This was too much.
‘No, Mum. Ryan Gosling. See, I’ve been reading all about you two in Hollywood Hype magazine. The goss is that you and the Gos are a hot item.’
Mum twisted up her mouth, frowned hard and stroked her chin like a really bad actor pretending to think.
‘Sorry, I’m just trying to remember something someone once told me about sarcasm and wit, but it’s slipped my mind. However, back to your question. I can assure you, Maggie, that despite all the ugly, unfounded rumours, Mr Gosling and I are merely good friends.’
I folded my arms and turned away.
‘Well, if you can’t have a serious conversation …’
A hand on my shoulder pulled me back around.
‘But … if you were referring to Danny, then no. He will not be moving in with us.’
‘Sleepovers?’
‘No! Can we move on now, please?’
Definitely good!
The Pain might be camped outside the walls of Castle Butt and might have gained occasional visiting rights, but at least the drawbridge was still in good working order and doing its job.
Mum put down her chocolate and shuffled around on the couch to face me.
‘Look, Maggie. Danny is one of the nicest things that has happened to me in a very long time. And I am ‘serious’ in that I would never do anything to hurt him or lead him on. And he does tick some important boxes for me. But I’m certainly not about to rush into anything if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Mum wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a big bear hug.
‘Come here. Cheer up, my Maggly-Poodles (!!!!!!!!!!!). The way things are going, you’ll probably end up being stuck with me for the rest of your life. Now there’s an excuse for another vodka binge, if ever I heard one!’
Then she became more serious.
‘Maggie, I know that what your father did hurt you. Hurts you. But what I said just now applies to you just as much as to me. More so. I don’t want you hiding away your big beautiful heart either just because you’re scared you might experience that sort of pain again. It might make you feel safe, but it’s no way to live. You have to be brave. That heart of yours is far too precious and beautiful not to share with the world. At some point, you have to stop worrying about the consequences and just bite the bullet and let it out.’
I managed to smile, but the mention of that vodka binge thing got me thinking about something that had been on my mind ever since I found out about The Pain being at St Vincent’s that night.
Supplementary serious question:
‘Mum … you know at the Emergency Ward that night … you’ve never really talked much about it … in detail. Was it really awful? I mean … was I really awful?’
My mother placed her hand on my cheek, looked me in the eyes and shook her head slowly at me.
‘Yes, dear. I’d say that it and you were about equal in your awfulness.’
‘Mum! I mean, apart from the blood and the spewing up everywhere, I just sort of lay around like a zombie most of the time, right? It’s not like I did anything totally embarrassing.’
She shook her head again. Although not quite as convincingly as I would have liked.
‘Or said anything totally embarrassing?’
The head shaking ground to a halt.
Oh-oh. Not good.
‘Mum?’
‘Well, sweetie … it depends a lot on what you would consider “totally embarrassing”, doesn’t it? Different things embarrass different people. Some of the things I find terribly embarrassing don’t seem to bother you at all. Personally I’d say most of what you came out with that night was at best … marginally embarrassing.’
Riiiiight. Okay. So far, so not-too-disastrous.
‘So give me an example of something that I said that you’d rate as marginally embarrassing.’
Mum grabbed at her head.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Maggie! I don’t know. What does it matter now? It’s done and finished with. Put it behind you.’
‘Just tell me, Mum. Please.’
She breathed out and closed her eyes.
‘There was the Robby Spears thing, I suppose.’
Now ‘Not good’ didn’t seem to quite cover it.
‘Robby Spears from In Your Dreams? What Robby Spears thing are you talking about? Mum? What did I say?’
She pulled a face.
‘That you and Robby were “soul mates” and that he was totally misunderstood and that you were the only person in the world who knew the “real Robby” and that you loved him and were going to have his babies. All eight of them apparently. You were quite adamant and specific about the number.’
I watched my mother’s mouth closely. I was praying it would curl up at the ends and turn into one of those smiley things that people use to indicate that the words that had just come from their mouth were some kind of feeble attempt at humour.
There was no curling.
‘Oh god, Mum, no. That can’t be true. I don’t even like Robby Spears. Okay, maybe I did. Once. A bit. But having his eight babies … how embar –’
I was about to bury my face in my hands when something occurred to me. I grabbed at Mum’s wrists and pulled her close.
‘Wait a minute. You said that most of the things I came out with were marginally embarrassing? Most? Are you saying that I said some things that were more than marginally embarrassing? More than me being “Octo-Mum for Robby Spears” marginally embarrassing?’
Mum just gave me a sickly smile and shrugged her shoulders.
‘Mum?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know, Maggie. Like I said before, it depends …’
‘Was he there when I said it?’
‘Ryan Gosling?’
She sighed.
‘Yes.’
I clamped a hand over my mouth and spoke through my fingers.
‘And it was worse than the Robby Spears thing? Oh god, what was it? Tell me. Tell me now. Wait! No, don’t. I don’t want to know. Ever. Or do I? Yeah, I do. I definitely do. Go on, tell me. I have to know. I think …’
Mum drank down the last of her chocolate and picked up the remote control.
‘That’s it. I’m not telling you,’ she said. ‘And we will speak no more of this. Ever. It’s over. It’s the past. It doesn’t matter. Let it go and move forward. We Butt women are good at doing that. Time for our second creature feature.’
I didn’t put up much of a fight. Maybe it was best not to know. Ignorance is bliss. Isn’t that what they say? We settled down to watch It Came from the Basement.
The title didn’t lie. That’s exactly what it did. And it was plenty terrifying.
Almost as terrifying as imagining the horror that might have come from my mouth that night in the Emergency Department.
And with The Pain there to hear it.