I instantly recognise the silver BMW parked across our driveway when I get home. It takes all my willpower not to “accidentally” scrape my bike along the passenger door as I wheel it into the garage.
When I walk into the kitchen Rocky starts bouncing on his perch, flapping his wings with excitement. “Hellohellohello,” he screeches.
“Shut up,” I tell him, after checking to make sure Gran’s not lurking in the shadows.
“Freia, is that you?” calls Mum. “Come and say hello to Dr Fairchild.”
I shoot Rocky the death stare as I head for the living room. “Thanks a lot, stupid bird.”
Mum and Dr Phil are sitting on the couch. There’s a teapot and three cups on the coffee table, and Gran’s knitting is plunked on top of her tote bag, as if she left the room in a hurry – probably to send Archie a text message.
“Hello, Dr Fairchild,” I say in a monotone from the doorway.
Dr Phil turns his head but doesn’t bother shifting in his seat to face me. He looks even more tanned than usual, as if he’s been to Fake’n’Bake at Parkville Metro and asked them to dial the spray gun all the way up to Oompa Loompa.
“Hello, Freia,” he says smarmily. “How are you? Enjoying the holidays? Keeping busy? That’s the way.”
He turns back to Mum before I can answer, which is just as well since if he’d waited for a response, I probably would’ve said something along the lines of, “I’d be much better and enjoying myself a lot more if you hadn’t forced my boyfriend to go away for an indefinite period,” which may have been satisfying but would also have made Mum’s face turn purple, something I’m trying to avoid until she’s made a complete recovery.
As it is, Mum smiles at me for being polite and then says, “Make us another pot of tea, will you? Your gran said she was going to do it but I think she may have gone for a nap instead.”
While I wait for the kettle to boil, I recall a movie I watched on TV when I was home “sick” one day, about this woman who killed her whole family by putting rat poison in their tea. I remember that she looked like a nice motherly type, with an apron and her hair in a bun on top of her head, but when her victims got sick, she laughed and laughed. I didn’t drink tea for a month after that.
The refilled pot is very hot and too heavy to carry easily in one hand. I wish I’d brought in the tray as well, but I can’t be bothered making another trip to the living room to get it. Halfway down the hall, I stop and rest the teapot on the hallstand while I shake out my wrist. I’m about to pick it up again when Mum says, “How’s Daniel getting on at his mother’s?”
“Well, you know he doesn’t tell me anything,” says Dr Phil, “but it’s a positive sign that he’s still in Little Ridge. I must admit, I was shocked when he asked if he could visit Anne-Marie, especially after what happened last time, but he was determined to go. Is it too optimistic to think that he might be growing up at last?”
The two of them are still chuckling when I put the teapot on the coffee table.
“Thanks, Fray,” says Mum. “Would you like a cup?”
I shake my head and leave without saying a word.
I don’t know why Dr Phil would lie to Mum about Dan, but it just doesn’t make any sense. After everything Dan said about his mum – and all the things he left unsaid – I can’t believe he actually wanted to spend time with her. And if he did, why would he lie to me about it? Was there some other reason he wanted to go? Or someone other than his mum that he wanted to see?
I close the front door behind me as quietly as I can and bolt down the driveway before Dr Phil or Mum can come after me. Not that they would – they’re now deep in conversation about Ziggy’s “issues” – but the last thing I need right now is to be subjected to any of Dr Phil’s kiddie shrink questioning.
It’s dog-walking hour in the park. The owners stand around in groups with their backs to the Dogs Must Be Leashed sign while they keep a weary eye out for the ranger. I can see the wounded tree from ten metres away. It has a sort of bandage around the middle of its trunk, like a gunshot victim who’s taken a bullet in the stomach, and there’s a low fence around it, made out of wooden stakes and orange-and-white striped hazard tape. I know it’s only a tree, but it looks like it’s in pain. (Note to self: ask Vickypedia if trees have feelings.)
The bandage is about ten centimetres wide and smells strongly of something natural and chemical at the same time. It covers Jim loves Elsie and Sara loves Ty and, of course, DTF + FL. It’s as if all traces of me and Dan have been obliterated. I reach across the hazard tape to touch the trunk, running my fingers over the smooth bark, then the ridges of someone’s initials and up to the bandage. A trickle of sap has escaped it, making a dark, sticky, bloodlike streak. The tears come so quickly this time that I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to.
Dr Phil’s midlife-crisis mobile is gone when I get home, and Mum’s dozing on the couch. I tell Gran not to worry about making me any dinner, that I’m feeling a bit crook and am going straight to bed.
“What kind of crook?” she asks, reaching a hand out to feel my forehead.
I duck out of reach. “Just a bit off, that’s all. I think I’m overtired.” I yawn as evidence. “I don’t want to make a big deal about it; it’ll only worry Mum.”
Gran looks unconvinced but she doesn’t argue.
I close the study curtains, trying to pretend it’s not a warm, sunny summer evening. It should be freezing cold, to suit my mood. Freezing cold and raining that heavy, steady kind of rain that makes the air grey all day. Perhaps even a little thunder. If it was that kind of weather, I could put on my snuggliest pyjamas (the ones covered in ducks wearing galoshes that I officially “grew out of” at the end of Year Seven but keep at the top of my wardrobe for emergencies like this), get under the covers and wallow in self-pity. Boris is already there, sleeping off his dinner.
“I don’t get it,” I whisper to him. “How could going away have been Dan’s idea?”
Boris twitches his whiskers in response to my voice but doesn’t bother to open his eyes.
“Some beagle you’d make.”
There’s a knock on the study door. I don’t know what time it is, but a sliver of moonlight shines through the gap in the curtains, so I must’ve been lying here for a few hours, at least.
“Are you awake, Bloss? Can I come in?” Gran opens the door before I can decide whether to answer. “I thought you might be hungry,” she says, holding out a plate and a glass of milk. “It’s avocado and cheese. I hope that’s still your favourite.”
As I sit up to take the plate, my stomach lets out a loud rumble. “Thanks.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” I ask through a mouthful of sandwich. Now that I’ve started eating I’m ravenous, and Gran does make a good cheese and avo sandwich. (Her secret is to cut the cheese slices thick and add plenty of salt and pepper.)
“About what’s going on with Dan to make you so miserable. Don’t give me that look. I was married to your grandfather for over fifty years; I can spot love trouble a mile off.”
I take a long drink while I consider whether I want to tell Gran what’s going on with Dan.
“A problem shared’s a problem halved,” says Gran.
“No offence, but I think sixteen-year-old ‘love trouble’ is a bit different to old-married-couple ‘love trouble’.”
“Try me,” says Gran.
So I tell her what Dr Phil said to Mum about Dan choosing to go away, and how he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to come back, and he still hasn’t called and I don’t know what that means. She lets me talk until I have nothing left to say, nodding occasionally, but not interrupting.
When I finish she says, “There’s a reason why so many sad songs and poems and books are written about love. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it hurts, and when it does it’s the most miserable feeling on Earth.
“‘Love is a trap for young players’, that’s what my mother told me when Bill and I had our first real tiff. We were newly engaged and we’d arranged to go for a drive in the country and have lunch somewhere. Of course, we were both still living with our families then, so getting away by ourselves was a pretty big deal, if you know what I mean.” She winks and I fight off a mental image of my grandparents getting amorous in a country laneway.
“That’s what I thought we’d arranged, anyway, but your grandfather never came to pick me up. Three hours after he was supposed to be there he turned up in his cricket gear, covered in mud and asking if I wanted to come down the club to celebrate him being named man of the match. Well, you can imagine what I told him he could do with his souvenir wicket. I was furious that he’d chosen some silly game over me, and not even had the courtesy to tell me.”
“So what did he say?” I ask, reaching for the other half of my sandwich.
Gran sighs. “Nothing. Not a word. He turned round and left. I didn’t see him again for three days, by which time I was convinced our engagement was off. But then Mum invited him over for tea without telling me. I was so happy to see him again that I forgot about being angry. He told me that he hadn’t realised we’d made a definite arrangement. To his mind, we’d agreed that a drive in the country would be a nice thing to do ‘one’ weekend, not ‘this’ weekend. When his best mate called and said they were a man down for the weekly match he hadn’t thought twice about going to lend a hand.
“So you see, Bloss, these trials and tribulations aren’t particular to you and young Daniel. Every couple goes through them. And if they don’t, it just means that they don’t love each other enough to care, if you ask me.”
Gran’s assessment sounds a bit harsh, but I can tell she’s trying to make me feel better, and it’s working, at least a little.
“Gran … when did you know you were in love with Grandad?”
“The moment he walked into the florist’s where I worked and asked if we had any flowers as blue as my eyes. He always was a bit of a smooth talker, your grandad.”
I’ll say. He used the same line on me about forty-five years later when we were colouring in together, only then he wanted to know if there was a crayon as blue as my eyes. I didn’t know what a compliment was at the time, so I told him off for going outside the lines and handed him the murky grey-blue from my sixty-four colour crayon set.
“All done?” Gran nods towards the empty plate and glass balanced on my lap.
“Yes, thank you. That was just what I needed.”
The look on her face when she takes them and stands to go tells me that she understands I mean more than the food. “Sleep tight, Bloss. And remember, there are two sides to every story. Don’t start waving wickets till you have all the facts.”
“’Night, Gran.” I snuggle back under the covers, suddenly exhausted, and fall into a deep sleep.