‘Just what I need,’ Fiona said, accepting a tall lemonade and ice. ‘I’m parched.’
‘Parched?’ Noah snorted. ‘Geez, Miss Fancy Pants, you can put it on when you want to. Then again, I guess parched is a bit more ladylike than freakin’ thirsty.’
‘Are you always so annoying? Thanks for reminding me—again—why I like being an only child.’
‘You really do? I think it sucks. Reckon having a brother or sister—nah, make that a brother—would be cool.’
‘I was supposed to have a brother.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘His name was Christopher. He died the day he was born—about seventeen years ago now, I reckon. Mum lost the plot. She blamed herself. I think because he was Phillip’s he was special. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t. Anyway …’ Fiona tied the last knot in the last blue balloon and batted it into Noah’s head. ‘So, your mum was okay about you playing tonight? I got the impression she wasn’t keen.’
‘Nah, she’s cool. Mum worries about me getting caught up with my music and slacking off on my studies. She likes it when I play. Reminds her of Dad. They met here when Dad played in the pub. He used to write love songs ’specially for her, too. He wasn’t much older than I am now. I think I take after my Dad that way.’
‘Oh yeah? You can write me a love song?’ Fiona asked, not really impressed. No place for such family sentimentality in her world.
‘As if I’d want to write you a love song.’
‘It must be nice knowing you’re like someone. I look like my mother, but that’s where it stops. Sure as hell never saw any of Phillip’s traits in me. Now I know why,’ Fiona grunted and drove the last thumbtack and balloon into place on one of the wooden uprights. Satisfied that the tired little beer garden now looked festive enough, she brushed her palms together. ‘Done—no thanks to your mate, Cory.’ She’d sent the moron packing earlier, unable to tolerate any more exploding balloons.
‘Looks good.’
‘Speaking of looking good … Is your dad as cute as you?’
‘Piss off!’ Noah smacked Fiona’s hand as she ruffled his hair. ‘He’s all right, I guess.’ Noah shrugged. ‘Haven’t seen him in a while. Mum reckons I have the best bits of them both.’
‘Lucky you! I don’t know any bits about my father: what he looks like, what he does, what he loves. Does he even know about me?’ Fiona coughed to budge the sob wedged in her throat, blaming the first thing that came to mind. ‘Reckon it could be any dustier or hotter out here?’ She tugged her hair into a twist, knotting it tight like one of the balloons, and felt instant relief as the air cooled the sweat on the back of her neck. ‘So,’ she said, slumping into a chair, ‘what are the best bits of Noah? Tell me everything. Where’s Noah from? What’s he doing? Where’s he going?’
Noah turned a chair and straddled it, resting his arms on the back and glugging the remaining lemonade. ‘He comes from about as far away as you can get from Potts Point—not geographically, just every other way.’
‘Don’t let the manicured gardens fool you. Potts Point is a long way from perfect. Some of us just know how to nip and tuck our ugly bits to hide our imperfections from the neighbours. At least that’s what I’ve discovered lately. Comes from having a plastic surgeon in the family. Besides, my growing up wasn’t as great as you might think. Like I told you before, Mum sent me away to school mostly. Having a kid got in the way of her social engagements.’
‘How was boarding school?’
‘I’ll have you know I attended a ladies’ college,’ she said, striking a pose and poking out her tongue.
‘Nice one.’ Noah laughed. ‘They teach you that classy act at your fancy school?’
‘You’d be surprised what I learned at an all-girls school.’ She winked.
‘Like?’
‘Strictly on a need-to-know basis. Sorry.’ Fiona grinned. ‘We made our own fun, so it wasn’t all bad. Better than being at home, not that I told Mum. Much better idea to milk it so’s every time I did go home for the holidays they’d shower me with apologies.’
‘Huh?’
‘Apologies. You know. Presents ’n’ stuff. I got this one year.’ She thrust the gold locket under Noah’s nose. ‘I deserved that and more for putting up with my parents’ crap.’
‘Oh yeah, sounds like a crap life all right.’
‘You have no idea just how crap it was at home.’
Their banter became a game. What was the most embarrassing thing your parents made you do? What was the worst bit of advice, the weirdest present, and so on. Fiona knew she’d win.
‘When I was small they made me perform for their friends. I was like the lost freakin’ Von Trapp kid.’
‘I’d sing with my dad, until we got too loud for the building and people in the other flats complained, except the two guys downstairs. They were cool as. On the weekends Dad and me would go play somewhere like Centennial Park or the Domain, and Mum would pack sandwiches and bring them down. Dad liked it when people stopped to listen. Some threw coins on the blanket like we were buskers and my Mum …’ He laughed, stood up and walked over to where his guitar rested against the small amplifier. ‘Poor Mum would shit herself every time. So totally embarrassed she’d try to give the money back. Dad would have to stop her so we could get ice creams and buy takeaway pizza on the way home.’
‘Your parents met here, then moved to Sydney?’
‘Dad was born in Wagga Wagga, but he and his dad toured clubs and pubs playing together. They ended up here a couple of times and one year he proposed to Mum. But Dad says to crack the music business, Sydney is the place. So they got married and moved.’
‘Did he?’
‘Did he what?’
‘Crack the music business? What’s his name?’
‘Brian Henkler. You won’t know him. He’s been working behind the scenes—and with some big names, too.’
‘Really? Like who?’
‘Sorry. The details are on a strictly need-to-know basis.’
‘Hmm.’ Fiona couldn’t decide if the supercilious smirk on Noah’s face was because he didn’t know himself, or a show of one-upmanship.
‘I wish I was back in Sydney, even just for a visit. Mum says no way can we go back while Pop is sick and until the pub’s sold. Not seeing Dad sucks, big time.’
‘You at least have a father,’ Fiona said, jumping up to fix a loose streamer.
‘You’re right. You win.’ Noah played a few chords, stopping to adjust the tuners at the head of the instrument that had seen better days. ‘That really does suck—them not telling you, I mean.’
‘Like I really give a shit.’ She turned and glared at him. ‘You don’t know anything about me, Noah, aside from how stressed I can get when a deadline’s looming. We still have to finish the photo display. So here’s your hat, cowboy, let’s hurry.’
Noah caught the hat she frisbee’d. ‘You still planning on doing that thing?’
‘What thing?’
‘I heard you talking on the phone to your boyfriend. You’re planning on unveiling some big sign. Something to do with those photos you’ve been collecting.’
‘What I do is none of your business, cowboy.’
‘I think the problem is you do give a shit.’ Noah strummed a few chords. ‘You like to act tough, ’cept you’re not.’
Fiona was not about to admit he was right. Of course she cared. She cared that the man she’d loved and looked up to all her life was not her father. She cared that her mother had lied about having a grandmother still living in a dusty country town. The best thing would have been never overhearing the argument between her mother and grandfather that day. Phillip would still be her father and she wouldn’t have to torture herself about what was real in her life, or trying to fit in. One thing from that awful day that remained with Fiona, clear and comforting, was Amber’s determination to defend her daughter; not something Fiona remembered witnessing before. They weren’t that kind of mother and daughter.
The day her mother had walked out to come back to Calingarry Crossing without warning or explanation hadn’t drawn a single tear from Fiona, not one that anybody saw. Fiona had been crying all her life in such a way that nobody ever saw the tears. When Phillip brought Amber back home a few months later, she was different. She was even trying to be a better parent. The memory of Amber standing up for her that day of the argument would haunt Fiona forever.
Fiona had let herself into her parents’ apartment after spending the day shopping and lunching with Molly at Bondi. She was about to dump her bag inside the door as usual and drop her keys in the Murano glass bowl on the sideboard when she heard her mother’s voice.
‘Listen to me, Dad,’ her mother was saying, ‘Phillip and I have discussed it and we don’t want you encouraging this relationship with Luke. He’s not right for her.’
‘Don’t you think Fiona is old enough to make up her own mind? He’ll be good for her, you’ll see.’
‘She’s too young to be engaged, Dad, and Luke is too old and too, I don’t know … pushy.’
The door was ajar enough for Fiona to catch glimpses of her grandfather prowling around the study with its wall of books, enormous L-shaped desk of smoked glass and chrome, and reading chairs that looked like red spaceships. The same predatory stare she’d seen him use on his staff—the look that said don’t fuck with me—was now fixed on her mother. Amber was standing with one hand on the edge of the desk, a bottle of Perrier and two glasses on a silver tray close by. She couldn’t see Phillip, but her mother’s stare seemed fixed on something.
‘Pushy, my arse,’ her grandfather was saying, his words rolling out in one long, low growl. ‘The lad knows what he wants. It might please you to know he likes the idea of settling down: an engagement, marriage, babies. Oh, and unlike you Amber, he’s smart enough to know it happens in that order. Luke will be good for my granddaughter. He’s a damn good kid. None of this growing up and getting everything. Like me, he’s had to work hard to get where he is and he has ambitions. I’m mentoring him myself.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ her mother mumbled into her Perrier water.
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, daughter dear. You weren’t so against my guiding you in a certain direction once. I think young Luke will keep Fiona in line. She’ll need that, assuming she’s her mother’s daughter.’
‘He’s not young Luke and he’s not a kid. He’s thirty! Don’t you have a problem pushing your granddaughter onto someone almost ten years older?’ Amber’s face said she heard the irony of that. There was twenty years difference between her and Phillip. ‘And before you shoot me down, it’s not just his age. Luke seems very … intense.’
‘You mean determined to make something of himself? You bet he is. I even see a little of me in him.’
Phillip Blair moved into Fiona’s frame and with a nod from his wife—almost an approval to speak—he wrapped an arm around Amber’s waist. It was a psychological move perhaps, to show strength in unity.
‘I’m agreeing with Amber, Jack,’ Phillip announced. ‘Luke seems to be moving awfully quickly. Fiona is—’
‘Fiona is not your concern, Phillip. This is between me and my daughter. You don’t get a say.’
‘Stop that, Dad.’ Amber’s body seemed to go rigid, until Phillip’s gentle tug drew her closer. One arm squeezed reassuringly, it also possibly pinned his wife against him, anticipating her attack.
Whatever the strategy, it worked. Amber’s voice softened, the strained whisper making it hard for Fiona to hear without turning one ear closer to the study door.
‘Do not speak to Phillip like that, Dad. Of course this involves him. Both of us want Fiona to be able to make her own choices, and in her own time. She needs to know herself before she can do any of that and I won’t have you manipulate her life like you did mine. I am her mother and Phillip is her father.’
‘Bullshit!’ Jack spat.
The burst of profanity made Fiona jump and draw breath, clasping a silencing hand to her mouth. Phillip was whispering, calmly disarming his wife of the Perrier bottle she now gripped, prising away her grasp finger by finger. The old Amber would never have argued. By this stage she would have retreated to her room, popped a pill—or a cork—and wiped herself out. The new Amber, the one who’d had some great epiphany in Calingarry Crossing, now stood her ground, despite an indomitable Jack Bailey rearing up like a snake just before it strikes.
‘You expect me to butt out?’ he hissed into his daughter’s face. ‘And just where do you think my butting out would’ve left you all those years ago?’
Amber retreated, her shoulders dropping as if giving in to the weight of Phillip’s arm around them. For a while no one said anything, the room thick with angry, heaving breaths and unsaid words.
When Amber did speak, her voice was soft, submissive. ‘Please, Dad, can we not dredge up the past? That’s not what’s important here. We’re talking about Fiona. Her future.’
‘Fiona’s future is exactly why I’ve invested so much—’
‘Invested?’ Phillip interjected. This time it looked like Amber was soothing him, a hand on his arm. ‘I’ve seen the way you play the market, Jack. One sign of things not going your way and you drop shares like a hot potato. My daughter is not a commodity to be invested in.’
‘Your daughter! Stop with the bullshit, Phillip.’ Jack Bailey smashed a fist on the desk so hard the decorative vase wobbled and a pen spilled from its holder. ‘And Amber, don’t you dare tell me what’s important and what’s not. You think you’d be better off today if I hadn’t taken control and made the hard decisions? What would life be like back in Calingarry Crossing with you shacked up with whichever deadbeat fathered the kid?’
‘Phillip is Fiona’s father.’
‘We all know that’s not the truth and why on earth you haven’t told the girl that by now—’
‘When and what I tell my daughter is my business.’
Fiona was struggling to hear anything except her heartbeat banging in her ears. She wasn’t breathing. No air, no oxygen to the brain and no idea what had just transpired.
‘Oh, well, excuse me, Amber,’ Jack mocked. ‘This is what a mother looks like then, is it?’
‘That’s enough.’ Phillip’s commanding voice kick-started Fiona’s breathing with a sharp intake of air, silenced by her open palm clasping her mouth as she waited, half-expecting Phillip to follow up with a punch. ‘You’ve gone too far this time, Jack.’ Despite a body swollen with anger, the generous, gentle man Fiona had known all her life backed away. ‘Let’s all take five, shall we?’ Phillip said in a quiet, conciliatory tone. ‘Everyone take a deep breath and remember what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about what’s best for Fiona. Jack, Amber and I are simply expressing our concerns. We want Fiona to have some time to decide what she wants and, well, let’s face it, you can be very convincing.’
Phillip Blair, perennial peacemaker. A nip here, a tuck there, and voilà! Blemishes all gone—from the surface anyway. Phillip had played up to his father-in-law’s arrogance and it had worked.
‘Okay, okay, fine,’ Jack said from behind surrendering hands. Her grandfather had a number of gestures and Fiona had learned them all over the years by close observation. This one—raised palms usually accompanied by a small shrug—said, I don’t agree, but I’ll give in for now. ‘I wonder, Phillip, if I might have a quick word with my daughter.’
Fiona experienced a moment of alarm that she’d be caught out. Then, with a reassuring nod from Amber, Phillip exited the study via the deck, closing the glass door on the chilly south-easterly blowing in off Sydney Harbour. Fiona remained tucked out of sight in the hallway, watching and listening.
‘At least you can agree with me, Amber. I knew what was best for you back then. As I see it that gives me a good track record to know what’s best for Fiona. We both know she’s been spoilt rotten. She’s also strong-willed. She’ll need someone to support her financially and keep her in check. Someone she can support in return. That’s what good wives do.’
Amber groaned as if she’d heard the same lecture too many times. ‘Honestly, Dad, what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means good wives most certainly don’t go running off after twenty years of marriage without explanation and leave their high-profile husband to lose face. I’m surprised Phillip stuck by you. The man has no balls, if you ask me.’
‘Do not talk about Phillip that way,’ she snapped. ‘By all means criticise me. What’s new? But Phillip has done nothing wrong.’
‘What in God’s name was so important that you had to go back to Calingarry Crossing? Was it a sudden attack of conscience? Did you go back and see him? Hmm? Who was it anyway? Who was the lucky lad that knocked up my daughter? Will Travelli was always my bet.’
‘Stop. I’m not going to let you drag all that up again.’
Amber was doing her best to stay calm, yet looking strangely fragile, brittle almost, like kindling taunted by a struck match held by Jack Bailey.
‘At least agree your father knew what you needed. We both know it wasn’t some small-town boy and a dead-end corner of the country so you could turn into a pathetic drunk like your mother. I knew you and I knew what you wanted back then. Not even Will Travelli was good enough. You had to have it all. I don’t recall you complaining about my taking you away to Sydney and getting it all for you. You were just as keen as I was to say goodbye to that town and everybody in it.’
‘What you stirred up about Will was wrong and unforgivable. I’m glad I got to go back and make things right. I want a chance for my daughter to make her own decisions too. She at least needs the opportunity. I will make that happen if it’s the last thing I do.’ Amber looked ready to ignite. ‘You’ve got a hide talking about running away and leaving people. What you did to Mum, all those things you said to make me think she didn’t care and didn’t want me—’
‘What are you dragging all this up for again? Your mother was never sober enough to know you were even there. Remember how she was?’
‘And who bought her the booze? Even when she said no more, you bought it and you put it where she’d be tempted.’
‘The strong are not that easily tempted.’
‘She was sad and lonely and bullied into being what you expected, and when she didn’t meet your standards you let her feel so inferior, so useless.’
‘Is that what she told you?’ Spit sprayed out of Jack’s mouth, his words venomous. ‘Your mother was irresponsible and careless and you’d be exactly the same if I hadn’t married you off so damn well. Like mother like fucking daughter, I say. Well, history is not repeating itself with my granddaughter.’
Amber’s gasp snapped her neck back, her upper body stiffening, squaring up to Jack.
‘Get out!’ She braced herself on the desk with one hand. The other hand waved, pointing him to the front door. ‘Get out of my house—now. I don’t want you anywhere near me or—’ Her mother’s eyes shot open, a lifeless, grey mask falling over Amber’s face as she spotted Fiona in the doorway. ‘Fiona? Oh my God! I’m so sorry. I …’
They were her mother’s last words before she clasped her head with both hands and folded to the floor.
‘You okay, Fi?’ Noah was staring, his fingers frozen on the guitar frets mid-chord.
Fiona groaned. ‘I’d be better without this freakin’ heat wave. Even my eyes are perspiring.’ With the heels of both hands she blotted the tears from her cheeks before engaging fake Fiona again. ‘So, are we going to finish this job?’
She started collecting empty packages and snatching bits of broken balloon, cursing Cory in the process.
‘Fi?’ Noah was staring at her. ‘I was just wondering about something. Something you said before about not giving a shit.’
‘Like?’ She stopped what she was doing to plant both hands on her hips, the plastic bag dangling by her side swinging in the warm breeze.
‘Well …’ Noah strummed a chord. ‘Like …’ strum ‘… I think …’ strum ‘… you’re hoping the reunion will help you find out who your father is.’ Strum, strum, strum.
‘Wanna know what I reckon? Here.’ She scrunched the bag into a ball and launched it at an unsuspecting Noah. ‘I reckon you should stop thinking, quit with the guitar and the guesswork and get back to freakin’ work.’
‘I’m thinking it’s pretty good guesswork.’
‘So what if I am?’ Fiona said, a little more defensively than she’d intended. ‘Tell me you wouldn’t be just as curious to know who your real father was if you found out it wasn’t the person you’ve known all your life.’
‘You haven’t seen me and my dad together. I look just like him.’ Noah tilted his head and looked at her. ‘At least let me in on the plan. I gather you’ve got one. Or are you going to just stalk every bloke ever pictured with your mother. Maybe you think there’s going to be some dude arrive with a nametag on that says: “Fifi’s father”.’
‘Maybe, smart-arse, I’ll know straight away ’cause he’ll look just like me.’
‘Poor bugger.’ Noah smiled. ‘Besides, I thought you looked like your mother.’
‘I do. I did,’ she corrected. ‘Except I have blue eyes. Her eyes weren’t blue.’
‘Gee, that should narrow your search down. Have you thought to just ask your grandmother?’
‘From the way my grandfather used to talk about her, Cheryl had a fairly foggy view of the world back then. And by foggy I mean off her face. She gave me some photos, though. That’s something.’ Fiona had tried to broach the subject with her grandmother a couple of times now, although not directly. If the old lady knew, she wasn’t about to say, redirecting her back to Phillip. But Fiona couldn’t talk to him about this. He didn’t even know she was looking for her biological father. She wouldn’t want to hurt him. She loved Phillip. He’d been the one stable thing in her life. ‘You know the worst thing about all this, cowboy?’
‘What?’
‘I finally understand why I struggled to fit in with Molly’s crowd and I told her so. I had to tell Moll. Her and Luke are the only real things in my life right now. Molly’s been my best friend since pre-school, and Luke’s been so supportive. Mum and Phillip didn’t like him, but they were wrong about him. It was his idea to find my father. He looks out for me.’
‘So are you doing this find my father thing for him or for you?’
Fiona contemplated the question, plonking back down in the chair. What was she doing hanging around with a kid like Noah, letting him interrogate her motives and make her second-guess her choices?
He was right though. What made Fiona think she could rock up to a stranger—a face in a photograph—and ask what he knew about her mother twenty-two years ago? And what would she do if she found the guy? Would she hug him? Probably not. Fiona didn’t come from a family of huggers. If the thought of coming face to face did nothing but make her feel sick in the stomach, was that not telling her that she maybe didn’t want to do this? What would she say? Fiona was an expert at talking about herself, not so at ease with deep and meaningful conversations.
Noah seemed to be an exception. Talking to him seemed easy because he listened—really listened. Not only that, Noah told her straight out what he thought, as if it didn’t matter if the truth upset things between them. None of her Sydney friends would dare be so blunt, or give her a hard time. Noah was a good listener, a nice kid, and he was growing on her. He had a maturity about him that she didn’t see in the skateboarding, beach-loving seventeen-year-olds back in Bondi.
‘You’re really pushy, Noah. Anyone ever tell you that?’ She leaned over, giving him a solid nudge with her shoulder.
‘My mum would call that changing the subject. I know ’cause she’s pretty good at it herself whenever I ask her about Dad. So?’
‘So what?’
‘So which one is it? You doing this thing for you, or for this Luke guy?’
Noah clearly wasn’t giving up. ‘I’m doing it because I want to know and because I’m angry. Angry about being lied to all my life. Okay? Satisfied?’
‘Angry enough to want to hurt people who love you and maybe ruin your mum’s party that’s taken months to plan?’ he persisted. ‘I guess I can understand if you’re doing this thing because you want to, but if you’re doing it because this Luke guy thinks it’s a good idea …’
‘You know, for a kid, you’re pretty smart—and cute. How come some girl hasn’t got her hooks into you?’
‘You wanna change the subject again? I’ve got an idea,’ Noah said. ‘How about you forget crashing the reunion? I can help you finish the photo display this afternoon—unless you’re planning something I don’t know about, in which case you can count me out. Mum’s already about to blow a fuse. You can gate crash the party and leave town. I can’t.’
Fiona shrugged. ‘I don’t know that I want to any more.’
‘Then forget it. You don’t want a showdown in the middle of a party. Let’s finish the display and maybe we can do something together tomorrow night.’
‘Like?’
‘I dunno. We’ll have the pub to ourselves. We could play the jukebox really loud.’
‘Shame you don’t have a karaoke machine. Molly bought one for a party one night at her place. It was totally brill. You should’ve seen poor Molly though. The girl has everything, except a voice.’
‘And you?’
‘Oh, I can sing. I love it.’
‘You mean like Britney-oops-I-can’t-hold-a-note sing, or you mean really sing, ’cause I’ve been working on a song.’ He played a few chords. ‘No lyrics yet, but …’
‘I’m good with lyrics.’
‘Cool. We can do a collaboration. Music and lyrics. Gotta be more fun than a room full of old farts. Come on,’ Noah nudged. ‘Whatdaya say?’
‘I say, Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, eat your hearts out.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, forget it.’