Tuesday 16 August

So, Clare was right about rehab. Of course. The morning after my father gets picked up, things are quiet and cold. My heart rolls a slow, sick somersault remembering him slumped in the car and my mother’s look of complete exhaustion. Still, no one’s talking about it. We didn’t have dinner together last night because our mother was at a meeting at school.

Charlie has already eaten and run. Bowl and plate in the kitchen sink. I’m wondering how Absent Dad will impact on Mr Routine. He’s mostly coped with conflict by not being here much. Helpful habit.

The buried hum of hot water pipes signals mother shower, so I can breakfast without a side order of uncomfortable heart-to-heart, if I hurry. I want to talk to her and find out what’s happened, but at the same time I can’t stand the idea of talking to her and don’t want to know what’s happened.

Domestic trauma never dulls my appetite. Two eggs, fried. Two slices of toast, buttered. A slurp of Sriracha sauce. A handful of spinach leaves. Slap them together and yum. Thank you, genes, for the metabolism that lets me eat all I want and never get sucked into the misery of limiting food, rationing food, cutting whole delicious food groups, fearing food. Food is my friend.

Clare debrief before inevitable mother deep encounter might be an idea. She will be sipping her – at least – fourth cup of tea from her glass infuser teapot, positioned at exactly ten o’clock relative to her laptop. She will already have finished her disgusting own-recipe, Tuesday breakfast: extra ancient-grains, brain-food Bircher muesli with brain-cell-building nuts served with a glass of fresh orange juice for vitamin C to keep away any disempowering illness. Clare says no to losing even one optimal study day. She carries a disposable surgical mask on public transport and does not hesitate to use it if there’s any snot or coughing in her vicinity. Good practice, too, for getting used to the breathing restriction when she is eventually an actual surgeon in a surgical mask, if all goes according to plan A, which of course it will.

The distant muted thumping is her maniac forty-second flat-out spin on the exercise bike in her room. She does that a few times a day. It keeps her fit without eating into any significant study time. I’m really going to miss her next year. Not at all.

*

Living as she does in the super-fit study zone, alert, one ear cocked like a dog, Clare always knows more than I do. She instructs me with a downward glance to lower my sorry-to-interrupt-your-study chocolate frog onto the side table arranged at a forty-five degree angle to her desk.

‘You might have to be the one to find your next school, you realise that?’ she says.

‘My what?’

‘St Hilda’s has refused to continue the fee repayment scheme our idiot parents entered into.’

‘The what?’

‘They’ve been paying our fees in small, affordable instalments for the last year, but they’ve missed the last couple of payments.’

‘They have?’

‘School has waived my final year’s fees, as a “scholarship”, because I’m obviously going to ace the year, so it looks good for them.’

‘Our parents?’

‘The school. Sharpen up, Ady. You’re a different case.’ She softens for a nanosecond. ‘If they had scholarships for great art, you’d be fine.’

It becomes clear. ‘Wow.’

‘She had a meeting with the school accountant and Gaffney last night.’

‘Do you think they’ll get divorced? Who will we live with?’

‘I’ll be in Sydney. You and Charlie will be with Mum. Dad’s got too many substance abuse problems to get custody – if they do go down the divorce road.’

Fuck my life. ‘You don’t seem fazed.’

‘Can’t afford the time.’

‘How has this happened? What about all his awards?’ A whole crowded shelf of them. He’s like the king of advertising.

‘It’s not that he lacks talent.’ Clare shrugs. ‘Forty-four is pretty old for advertising. Newer, younger, better directors have come up behind him. It’s the way of the world.’

She jots that down, the way of the world. She must be going to use it in some killer essay. Can’t wait for that one.

She sees me looking at her note. ‘Congreve,’ she says impatiently.

I have no idea what that is or means. ‘How do you know about our life, and I don’t?’

‘I asked Mum. You should try it some time.’

‘What’s she going to do?’

Clare has a very expressive way of raising her eyebrows. ‘Well, she’s re-watching The Good Wife.’

‘But she hasn’t worked as a lawyer since . . .’ When, actually?

‘Yup.’ Clare has already spun back around to face her desk. ‘So: find new school. Sorry I can’t help you out there. But I’m happy to check out your shortlist.’ She puts her earbud back in.

I only ever warrant one earbud out. I wonder what it would take for her to remove both.