For the second time now, Joel Hedges’ email to me has been dripping with sarcasm. And the guy’s an idiot. I cannot believe he actually wrote: ‘… his eyes took on the glint that had given him his name and that only the dead had seen’. If only people he was about to murder ever saw his ‘mad eyes’, then they’re not exactly capable of going around giving him a frickin’ nickname, are they? I mean, THEY’RE DEAD, dickhead. Hello?
I can’t believe I ever liked Joel. Well, not liked him liked him. Just sort of liked him. At first, when he was with Emma, I was sorta envious. Joel was funny and cool and always made a point of including me in conversations and stuff, which is not something you can say for most people’s boyfriends. I remember when my friend Olivia was seeing Matt Stewart in Year Nine. She pretty much dumped all of us in her group and just started hanging out with Matt. Until he broke up with her at the Year Nine camp three months later and all of a sudden Olivia’s ringing me again on Saturday mornings saying, ‘Hey, Kit-Cat, watcha doin’ this arvo?’ as though nothing had happened. As though she hadn’t not invited all of us to her Idol-themed birthday dinner in favour of Matt and his dickhead mates.
The point is that Joel was never like that. He was, I dunno, one of us. Part of our tribe. Even if he did bring Luke along with him. But then what would I know because ten months later I caught him at Westfield Indooroopilly with another girl. Cheating on Emma. And I realised that he was a bastard after all. But worse than that, he was a bastard in sheep’s clothing. Pretending like he was one of the good guys when all along he wasn’t. No wonder Joel’s so comfortable writing about delusion. He’s the master. It was a reminder to me that you should never let your guard down. Not where guys are concerned. And especially not when Joel Hedges is involved.
I look back at Joel’s paragraph. Trust him to get off on thinking Elizabeth was naked in that scene. She wasn’t naked. In my mind she was wearing silk pyjama shorts. She could feel the velvet on the back of her thighs. God, he’s such a perve. He’s turned my para into porn or something. But that’s Joel for you, obsessed with getting his grubby little hands on as many women as possible. That’s the problem with guys who know they’re good looking. They think they can get away with anything. Bastard!
I look at my watch. I’ve got to be at work in a few hours. At work and as wrinkle-free as Ann-Maree’s forehead. The thought of seeing Ann-Maree creates a knot of anxiety in my stomach. I don’t want to go. I look down at my work clothes, which are still lying on the floor where they’ve been since I changed out of them on Thursday night. My clothes are slumped over like the deflated, exploited, disenfranchised victim of capitalism that I am. They look the way I feel – defeated.
My mobile beeps. I flip it open and find a message from Emma: ‘Bridesmaid’s dress = total disaster. I look like Klinger from MASH.’
I can’t help but smile. I’d forgotten she had the dress fitting last night. Forgotten, even though Emma spent most of yesterday going on and on about how sure she was that her cousin was going to make her walk down the aisle wearing peach taffeta. I start to think about how I still haven’t told Emma about Mum leaving. I’ve meant to. I just, I don’t know, haven’t had the energy – haven’t really wanted to talk about it to anyone. You’d think, after the police-station thing (where my mother displayed the parental skills of Michael Jackson on a balcony), Emma might have picked up that something weird was going on. But she wasn’t phased. In the car on the way home from the station, as my mother snored in the back seat, Emma pointed out that her own mother was still reeling from a lifetime ban from Wildboys Afloat. She was a little sketchy on the details, but said it involved Mrs Marchetta being very, very drunk, impersonating a journalist and attempting to interview the boys in their dressing-room using an eyeliner pencil and a serviette.
Wrapping my dressing-gown around me, I walk past the lounge room where Mark is watching Video Hits. He’s sitting so close to the TV that I wouldn’t blame Kylie Minogue if she took out a restraining order. He’s slumped in the red beanbag, picking pineapple off a piece of rather limp-looking pizza, a one-litre bottle of Coke by his side and a greasy pizza carton at his feet.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ I say, walking over to him, but he just keeps watching the TV. ‘Tell me you’re not having that for breakfast?’ I kick the pizza carton with my foot.
Mark blinks up at me and says, ‘Whatever, Trevor.’
I roll my eyes and reach down to take the picked-at piece of pizza away from him. ‘You can have this for lunch. You shouldn’t be eating this shit for breakfast.’ I grab the quarter-full bottle of Coke while I’m at it. ‘How much of this stuff have you had?’ I give it a shake. ‘And yuck – it’s flat. You should be having cereal. Mum’d never let you have this stuff. She’d freak.’
‘But there’s no milk left,’ he whines.
‘Well then, I’ll make you some to-oast,’ I say, pretending to whine back at him.
He scowls.
‘Peanut-butter toast.’ I say, as though it’s some sort of peace offering.
‘Nutella?’ He looks up at me hopefully.
‘Of course, what was I thinking? You would naturally be wanting “dessert toast”. Fine. Nutella. But just this once.’ I tickle him in the ribs with my toes and then walk towards the kitchen. I get a shock when I see the digital numbers on the microwave clock. ‘Hang on, shouldn’t you be at soccer? God, it starts in like twenty minutes. Go get your uniform on, Mark, and you can eat the toast in the car. Where’s Dad? DAD!’
‘I’m not going to soccer today,’ he says, and I pop my head around the kitchen door. ‘I just want to stay here with you.’
I walk back into the lounge and kneel down on the carpet, resting my hands on the red corduroy of the beanbag. ‘Marky, I’ve gotta go to work today and I think you should go to soccer practice.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t want to,’ he says, in his stern five-year-old voice, staring at the screen ahead.
‘I know, but you know what?’ Mark casts me a sideways glance, a glance full of suspicion. ‘I think it’s really important right now for us to keep doing all our normal stuff. Stick to routines. You know? Do what we always do. And I bet you’ll go to soccer today and you’ll have a great time and you’ll see Angus and Ben and Zac and Lucy.’
‘I want Mum to take me,’ he says, looking straight at me now.
‘I know you do.’
It takes a promise to help Mark build a new backyard bike ramp just to get him to agree to change into his soccer outfit. All I have to do now is locate Dad. I find him, dressed in yesterday’s track pants and faded T-shirt, asleep in bed.
‘Dad!’ I jab his shoulder. ‘It’s ten past eight. Mark’s supposed to be at soccer.’
Getting no response, I jab him again. My father makes a weary groan and half opens his right eye in a way that tells me he’s having trouble focusing and dealing with the sunlight.
‘MARK HAS SOCCER.’ I say the words loud and slow as though my father is not only asleep, but also partly deaf and not overly familiar with English.
He winks at me, opens his other eye, blinks, and then, as if this is all too much for him, his eyelids shut up shop.
I lean over and pull back one of my father’s eyelids. ‘YOU NEED TO TAKE MARK TO SOCCER PRACTICE.’
But my father, the man who never sleeps past six, even on weekends, simply groans and shrugs me off, rolling over and turning his back on me. I hear him mumble something about letting Mark stay home if he wants. The room smells sad and stale. It looks as though Mum has never been here.
I stand there and look at the mess around me. The fast-food wrappers and pizza carton on the floor. The four empty Tiger Beer bottles, the drained bottle of Moet that looks suspiciously like the one Mum was keeping for my graduation, the partly raided cigarette packet. Ransacked family photo albums with snapshots peeled out from behind plastic covers have been strewn across the floor and over the bedspread. And among it all is my father, looking unshaven and dishevelled and smelling like hops. This is not how it’s meant to be. He’s the rational one.
‘We need routine,’ I want to say to him. ‘You’re the dad, you’re supposed to be keeping us together. Keeping everything else normal. We don’t even have milk.’ But I don’t say any of that. I just quickly tidy up as best I can, gather up the empty bottles, pick up the photos and albums and put them into a rough pile, open a few windows, close the curtains and grab his car keys on my way out.
The truth is that I hate driving my dad’s MG. I know it looks good and I’m the first to admit that it’s fun to be a passenger when the top’s down and Dad’s gliding down the M1 to our unit at Broadbeach. People always stare in an envious way, which is kinda cool and more than makes up for the lame-o Beach Boys music Dad makes us listen to. But this morning they’re not staring at me in an envious way, they’re staring in an ‘Oh my god, she’s like Stevie Wonder behind the wheel’ kinda way.
The problem is that this gorgeous 1967, shiny red convertible with wood panelling and original leather seats is also a manual. Driving Mark to soccer, I grind the gears every time I move from second to third. I just know I look terrified. Perched on the very edge of the seat and anxiously reminding myself to change down when I pull up to traffic lights, this ten-minute drive to Nudgee Junior School has never felt longer. My eyes flicker up to the rear-vision mirror. Mark is sitting in the back seat, Nutella toast in his hands. But he’s quiet – which isn’t like him. For once I would give anything to hear his usual inane chatter.
‘All right, back there?’ I try to conjure a jovial tone, which doesn’t last long because I quickly let out a ‘Shit!’ as I stall, having attempted to pull away from a set of lights in second gear. I can feel the stares of the drivers stuck behind me. There’s a row of them lined up and glaring at the back of my head.
It is with great relief that we pull into the school car park and I somehow manage to manoeuvre into one of the narrow spaces. I look over to the primary-school oval and see a bloke wearing too short shorts, a green polo shirt, wraparound sunnies and a broadbrimmed hat. He’s taking the kids through a warm up.
I take a deep breath, grateful to have taken the keys out of the ignition. Then I turn around to face Mark in the back seat.
He whispers, ‘I’m late. They’ve already started.’
I reach out and touch his grazed left knee. ‘I know, but we’re only a few minutes late. So it’ll be fine.’ I look over again at the group of parents standing by the side of the oval. ‘Now all I have to do is organise for one of the other parents to drive you home, okay? ’Cause I’m going to be at work. So you’re going to get a lift home with…’ I scan the crowd for any vaguely familiar faces. ‘With hopefully Ben, okay? I’ll sort it out now and let you know before I head off.’
Mark looks at me solemn-faced and says, ‘Whatever, Trevor,’ before climbing out of the back seat and heading towards the oval. I follow not far behind him, my hand trying to cut the glare from my eyes, squinting, trying to spot Mrs Christiansen in the crowd of parents sitting on eskies and collapsible chairs, clasping mugs of coffee or doing the crossword.
‘Excuse me?’
I turn around and find myself staring at a man with white sunscreen on his lips. Mark’s soccer coach.
‘You’re Mark’s…?’
‘Sister,’ I say to my own reflection in his wraparound sunnies. It’s a bit disconcerting.
‘And Mark’s sister is called?’
I stare at him now, wondering why he’s referring to me in the third person when I’m standing right in front of him. ‘Catriona.’
‘Rick.’
Rick with a silent ‘p’, I think.
‘Well, Catriona, we really like the kids to wear hats when they come to training.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t realise.’
‘Didn’t realise that it’s the middle of summer and already twenty-five degrees?’ He looks at me, eyebrows raised. ‘I’ve got a spare he can borrow today, but remember that for next time, hey?’ He gives me a bit of a nod and then heads back to the group.
‘There won’t be a next time,’ I want to scream back at him. ‘I’m not even meant to be here, doing this.’ But Rick the Prick wouldn’t care. In his world of wraparound sunglasses and slip-slop-slapped lips, there’s no room for explanations. And I’m just today’s irresponsible parent. I begin to wonder if it’s genetic.
I turn and start to walk away.
‘Hey, Cat, Mark says he needs a lift home. We’re fine to drop him off.’
I turn and see Ben’s mum – Mrs Christiansen – dressed in her usual T-shirt and high-waisted jeans, her thick red curls fighting the sunglasses perched on her head trying to push her hair back.
‘Do you want me to drop him home?’ She smiles and all I can think is that this is what parents are supposed to look like. They’re supposed to be at their son’s soccer practice doing the crossword, looking daggy in high-waisted jeans. Not hungover. Or in a holding cell at the police station. I really do feel like I have Britney and K-Fed for parents. Except even they don’t have the jail part of the story.
‘Cat?’ She looks concerned as though I might actually be mildly autistic.
‘Sorry, yeah, thanks. That’d be great if you could. I’d… we’d appreciate it.’ I turn to leave.
‘So where’s Vanessa this morning? Is she here?’
I turn around again. ‘Um, no. She’s got a migraine. She’ll probably be in bed all day.’
‘Well, you tell her we hope she’s better soon.’ She smiles.
‘I will. Thanks.’ I half-smile back, and then speed walk to the car before she can ask me anything else, praying the whole time that Mark remembers to stick to the migraine story that we practised on the way here. Then, secure in the knowledge that I’m away from Mark and Mrs Christiansen and Dad and Mum and everyone else, I lean on the steering wheel and cry.
It’s two minutes to ten by the time I’m standing outside the electronic doors of Myer watching Ann-Maree direct a mannequin in the sports department. Her bony hand is on her protruding hip, and she’s directing people in a voice probably laden with contempt. I’m frozen there, standing on the sensor, as the electronic doors have a fit.
‘Screw this,’ I say out loud. It’s not even ten a.m. – I’m going to be late and I’m still a little blotchy faced from crying. The thing is that I need to speak to Mum. I’ve been putting it off because I thought she’d just sort of come home. But she hasn’t. Things have gotten worse. So I need to see her and find out what the hell is going on. And I need to tell her that Mark is eating pizza for breakfast and that there’s no milk, and that I’m having to drive Dad’s car, and that I don’t know what to say to people when they ask me where she is, and that Dad’s not coping. And she needs to come home.
I step inside the unused public phone box and grab my mobile phone out of my bag. Within seconds I’m calling in sick for work from immediately outside the building, wondering the whole time if I’ll make the ten-seventeen train to Toowong. Wondering what will happen if the human X-ray looks out through the Moggill Road doors right now and sees me in all my badly ironed glory arranging a sickie.
But she doesn’t see me. And Marg, the second in command who takes my call, doesn’t even seem to remember who I am, let alone seem suspicious at the traffic sounds that must be in the background.
‘Catriona Davis from Handbags? Rostered from ten till two? Right. Thanks for calling us, Catriona. I’ll let Ann-Maree know that you won’t be in today.’
I stand in the box, a little shocked at just how easy that was, peering out through the glass at my workplace just six metres away. Okay, so if someone saw me right now, standing in this phone box, what would I say? I’d say that I got here, had every intention of being at work today, but then I was – what? Overcome with nausea?
It’s better if I go now. Better from the work point of view, better if I want to make that train. I push my way out through the glass door, head down, telling myself not to risk one last glance at Westfield.
And that’s when I walk straight into Joel Hedges and Luke Pickett.
‘What are you doing here?’ Luke practically spits the words at me. Oh god. This is the last thing I need.
‘Yeah, hi.’ I look around, worried now that Ann-Maree – anyone inside – is going to see me.
‘Are you working today?’ Joel says, and it’s a totally reasonable question.
‘Ah, um, no.’ I glance over his shoulder through the main doors, praying that Ann-Maree doesn’t turn around.
‘So why are you dressed in your Myer uniform?’ Joel nods at my black-and-white outfit.
‘I was supposed to be working, but I actually have to go and visit my mum.’
Joel’s forehead crinkles and I realise what I’ve said. Why would I have to visit my mum? Where is she that she needs visiting? Why isn’t she at home, with my dad, like she’s supposed to be? This is what Joel and Luke are thinking. I can tell. And I don’t want either of them knowing that my mum has left us. I don’t want either of them knowing anything about my family. And all of these thoughts are flipping over and over in my head as I stand there outside Myer at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning.
‘You see, I have to visit her because she’s, um… in hospital.’ HOSPITAL? ‘And I have to go and see her.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
I turn and stare at Luke. God, I hate Luke.
‘What’s wrong with her? Well, she –’
‘Is it serious?’ Joel asks.
‘Well…’ And I look from Joel to Luke and back to Joel and then I look over their shoulders, still praying that Ann-Maree doesn’t turn around. And meanwhile my mind has gone completely blank as to any possible reasons why my mother might be in hospital. So I go with something I saw on The Bold and the Beautiful yesterday afternoon. Suddenly my mother and Ridge Forrester have a bit in common.
‘Coma. She’s in a coma.’
Joel’s eyes narrow. I shift from one foot to the other.
‘Your mother is in a coma?’
‘Mmm.’
In Myer, Ann-Maree has stopped berating someone I can’t quite see. She’s satisfied with the mannequin and she’s now turning around to face the glass doors. She’s practically staring right at me. SHIT. I move a little to the left in an attempt to hide behind Joel and Luke. Bend my knees just a touch.
‘So, is she, you know, okay, your mum?’
‘Ah, yeah. Yep, she’s fine…’ I say, making sure that Luke’s big fat head is blocking Ann-Maree’s view of me. ‘It’s all good.’
‘All good, except, maybe, for the coma part,’ Joel says, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
‘Right, well, the coma is only sometimes. She’s usually better than that. Drowsy and… It’s appendicitis mainly.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ I say loudly, but perhaps still crouching a little. I push my handbag strap further onto my shoulder, turn my back on the boys and head for the train.
It feels wrong that now, in order to see my mother, I have to be ‘buzzed in’ to some Best Western apartment in Toowong. She’s no longer just around. In the kitchen. Out by the washing line. No longer within hollering distance. Now if I want to see her I have to get a train to a neighbouring suburb and be ‘buzzed in’.
When she answers the door, she takes me by surprise. Partly because her hair is down and in its rarely seen, naturally wavy state. Partly because for one of the first times in her life she isn’t wearing make-up. But mostly because she answers the door practically nude.
‘OH MY GOD.’
‘Sweetheart!’ she says, her face splitting into a cut-watermelon grin. Her arms reach out to me from beneath the drapey sleeves of her familiar red-and-blue silk dressing-gown. A gown that at home looks unremarkable, but here, gaping open and revealing most of my mother’s right breast, the same gown looks strangely lurid.
‘I’m so glad to see you.’ She moves in to give me a hug, but I immediately take a step back. ‘Your robe is…’ I gesture at her while keeping my gaze at eye level. ‘Oh my god, open. God!’
She smiles at me, not the least bit embarrassed, re-ties the belt of her robe, smoothes out her hair and turns on her heel. ‘That’s the beauty of living alone, Cat. You can walk around naked, if you want,’ she says as I follow her into the apartment. ‘What do you think of that?’
‘I think my eyes are bleeding.’
She looks over her shoulder, then rolls her eyes, makes a ‘tch’ sound and says, ‘The human body is a wonderful thing, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.’ Then she hooks her arm in mine. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve missed you.’
She manoeuvres me like a bouncer towards the cane lounge. ‘Sit. Sit,’ she says. ‘I’ve got some Tim Tams if you want some? Yes?’ She looks at me and nods her head, answering for me. ‘And are you thirsty?’
I shrug and say, ‘Dunno. I s’pose.’ But I don’t sit down. Won’t. This is not about making myself comfortable. Instead I wander around the lounge, arms crossed over my chest, trying to make sense of the fact that Vanessa the Undresser here is now living in a motel apartment featuring cane furniture and water-colour paintings of parrots. Out of the corner of my eye I watch as she flutters around her new kitchen, too familiar with her surroundings. I feel an ache as I realise how relaxed she seems. She’s not supposed to be like this. She’s supposed to be miserable. Like Dad.
Minutes later she brings over the biscuits, carefully arranged on a too-big white dinner plate, and a glass of apple juice for us both. She’s put a frangipani behind her left ear. I perch on the edge of the lounge. She perches next to me. My eyes glance down to see my mother’s right boob doing a curtain call.
‘Hey, Booby McBooberson, could you just, you know, get changed? I can’t sit here and drink apple juice with one of your breasts staring straight at me.’
‘Oh, haha, yes, of course. I was actually just about to have a shower.’ Her laugh is nervous now and her hands fumble with the silky belt and then move to her throat. I watch as she slips away into some room down a hallway. Her room, I guess.
‘You know, Mark’s practically chain-eating chocolate biscuits,’ I call out. Even I can hear that my tone is accusing. ‘He’s turning into that fat kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’
She pops her head round the doorway, ‘He looked fine when I saw him after school yesterday.’ She disappears again. I forgot that she saw him yesterday.
‘Well, don’t let looks fool you – it’s a slippery slope to obesity. One more packet of Tim Tams and Dr Phil will be calling you Mark’s “enabler”.’
My mother reappears around the corner, a smile on her face. She’s dressed in a purple silk sarong decorated with green-and-red swirls. It’s wrapped around her chest and then knotted – halter-neck style – around her neck. I thought asking her to get changed would make her look more normal, but it doesn’t. She doesn’t. She takes a seat.
‘This thing between you and Dad is affecting Mark. You know what he did in class yesterday, don’t you?’ I grab a Tim Tam, then I think better of it and put it back. ‘I went to pick him up and Miss Clelland told me that when they were all singing The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round and she asked Mark for a suggestion for lyrics – you know, like “the horn on the bus goes beep beep beep” or “the wipers on the bus go swoosh swoosh swoosh” – you know what Mark said? He suggested vaginas. “Vaginas on the bus go la la la.” And before Miss Clelland could do anything the kids just ran with it.’
My mother laughs at this. Laughs at my brother’s vagina lyrics. I watch as she bites into a Tim Tam. ‘Come on, Cat. That’s pretty funny.’ She winks at me. ‘I s’pose he hears words like that because of your father’s job. And they were only going “la la la”, after all. Not that I’ve ever known one to do that. I’m sure Miss Clelland thought it was funny.’
‘Yeah, sure. I’m sure she was cracking up about it as she DIALLED FAMILY SERVICES.’ I turn to look at my mother. ‘Yesterday I asked him to set the table and he told me to shut my cakehole. This split is affecting him. He needs you at home.’
My mother puts down her apple juice and leans forward. ‘And what about you, Cat? What do you need?’
She looks at me. I look at the nearest parrot.
‘Cat?’
‘I couldn’t care less where you live.’ Even out of the corner of my eye I can see my mother’s face fall. I watch her flick her fringe out of her eyes, and she says, ‘Well, okay… I, ah, think I need some ice for my drink.’
For some reason I can’t bring myself to tell my mum how desperately I want her back. I don’t know why. It’s like the evil me wants to see how badly I can hurt her feelings – the way she hurt mine by leaving.
‘I have a spare room and everything, with two beds,’ she says, sliding an ice tray back into the freezer. ‘For the two of you, for whenever you want to stay.’ She points towards the bedroom door, trying to convince me to take a peek inside. ‘I went out and bought all the latest magazines that I know you love reading and I put a stereo in there and there’s heaps of closet space so I thought maybe you could even leave a few clothes here. Now, this place isn’t airconditioned, but when I signed the lease the real estate agent said the owner was planning to put in –’
Lease?
I interrupt her. ‘Mark shouldn’t have to get a train to Toowong to see his mother. He’s five years old. You should be at home. With us. With Dad. You don’t even look like you’re trying to work this out.’
‘Cat, believe me, I’ve tried.’
‘Dad’s not coping. He keeps listening to Tina Turner, keeps playing “Private Dancer”. And he’s drinking all the time. He drank my graduation champagne.’
My mother nods at this, at least, and leans against the kitchen doorframe. ‘Your father rang my mobile eighteen times last night.’ Her tone is weary.
‘Was it that bad, living with us? Are we that horrible?’ Despite my best efforts, my eyes fill with tears.
‘Of course not, of course not,’ she says, rushing towards me, back to the lounge. Holding my hands. Patting my back.
And then she’s talking at me. Telling me that I need to understand that she and Dad haven’t been happy for a long time. That work and kids changed their relationship. She tells me that all the spontaneity is gone. That all they do now is fight about money. That there are too many nights when they have nothing to say to each other. And that Dad’s long hours were never part of the deal. She goes on and on about how she gave up university to have me. About how she has all these unfulfilled dreams as Vanessa Lang – the person she was before she married my father. Before she had us kids and her life became all about lunch boxes and soccer practice.
‘I need to get to know myself again, Cat. My likes and dislikes. Who I am underneath the labels of wife and mother. Aunty Fiona is loaning me the money to rent this apartment for a while. I’m looking for a job, and I’m actually thinking of going back and studying design. I had plans to open my own interior-decorating business when I met your father, and before I knew it I was pregnant and final exams were –’
‘I can’t…’ I get up from the couch. ‘I can’t have this conversation with you. You’re my mother. I don’t want to hear about you being unhappy and feeling like Mark and I are the two biggest mistakes you’ve made.’
‘No,’ she reaches out for my hand. ‘I didn’t say that! Darling, I didn’t mean it to sound…’
But it’s too late, I’m walking out the door of unit number eleven to the sound of my mother’s voice calling me back.
I don’t go home right away. Instead I walk to the Toowong Library, just down and across the road from my mother’s unit, and spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in front of one of the library computers. I google ‘marriage counselling’ and ‘couples’ therapy’ and ‘sugar addiction’. I read the first chapter of Dr Phil’s Relationship Rescue and download his Relationship Autopsy for couples, minimising the page whenever anyone walks past or lingers around my carousel. I pray that no one from school turns up, and I decide that I will simply announce that I’m doing an assignment on divorce for Legal Studies, or Australian Society or Religion. After thirty minutes of solid reading, I feel as convinced as the bald Texan doctor that my parents’ relationship has simply hit a slump and that, with a bit of work, it is entirely salvageable. Except that I think my parents need more than a book. They need counselling. Outside help. I go back to one of the sites I bookmarked earlier: Re-Relate Australia. This is what my parents need. And my dad, right now I think, needs some support. People to talk to. Someone to point him in the right direction and get him back on his feet. Mum, on the other hand, just needs some clothing.
I print off the information and put an asterisk next to the bit about the variety of ‘Abandoned Partners’ support groups that are available, and an even bigger asterisk next to the paragraph about the counselling for couples who are having marital difficulties. And, while I’m at it, I put a mark next to the session for people going through a midlife crisis. I decide to leave this information on my dad’s pillow and to raise it with Mum next time I see her.
When I get home and walk through the front door I trip over Mark’s rollerblades.
‘Shit,’ I say, more ferociously than usual. I stay on the ground for a moment with my eyes closed, feeling as though any sharp, quick movement could see my entire insides shattered. Eventually I get up. Straighten my skirt.
My dad appears round the corner wearing a pair of faded, baggy-in-the-bum tracksuit pants and an old Heineken T-shirt. His face remains unshaven.
‘Did you go and see your mother?’
I nod and continue walking down the hallway.
‘How is she?’
‘She’s signed a lease.’ I keep walking, don’t look back, because we both know what this means. She’s not coming back anytime soon.
By six-thirty, my stomach is audibly rumbling and I realise I’ve barely eaten anything today. For the briefest moment I wonder what we’ll be having for tea. And then the realisation hits – we’ll be having whatever I decide to make. In less than a week, my life has completely and utterly changed. Now, my before-school routine involves putting on a load of washing and hanging it out. And yesterday, in a newsagent with Emma, I actually bought a cookbook called Easy Dinners. Emma was so shocked I had to tell her it was for Mum’s birthday. But before I can think about dinner, before I can be freed from my desk, I need to respond to Joel. Joel and his ridiculous paragraph. Joel who I am beginning to resent even more because of his repeated attempts to make this harder than it needs to be. I have other more important things in my life right now. Not that he’d understand. He’s a typical spoilt only child who probably has nothing to worry about but himself. I bet his mum does everything for him. I bet she makes all his meals and does all his washing and ironing and drives him around. All the stuff my mum used to do for me.
Joel, Joel, Joel,
If the only people who get to see Max’s ‘mad eyes’ are his victims, explain to me how exactly they get to spread a nickname? Or do you envisage the victims are all whipping out mobiles and SMSing their mates as the icicle goes through their flesh, saying, ‘I’m being iced to death by Max “Mad Eyes” Eislander… pass it on.’
Would it kill you to try a bit harder, Joel? I’ve got enough on my plate right now without having to fix up your work.
Cat
A crashing wave of guilt hits Elizabeth as she stares at the black-and-white photograph of Christopher on her dressing-table. She walks down the hallway, smiles weakly at Anna who is heading towards the boudoir with the usual tray of Lady Grey tea accompanied by a selection of breakfast delicacies. With just the merest nod of her head, Elizabeth indicates that Anna should set the tray for her in the drawing room. Elizabeth watches Anna’s heel turn the corner and then picks up the heavy, gold receiver of the phone, dials the number and makes what will be the first of today’s many calls to Dr Manning. There was a small incident last night, he says. When refused a second serving of custard, Christopher put on his Batman costume and then went into the music room and started playing Copacabana over and over and over on the old upright. Dr Manning explains delicately that they had no choice but to sedate him, place him in a straightjacket and then lead him back to his room – a safe, padded place, where Christopher can’t hurt himself. Elizabeth sighs and says, ‘Not again.’ She had never understood Christopher’s love of custard.