CHAPTER
TEN
invited me to go and watch his basketball game! I couldn’t believe it. He just strolled across to where Helen-and-Sarah-and-Rachel and I were chucking the ball around and, in front of them, said, ‘Hey Millie, I didn’t know you played basketball.’
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘We’re just mucking around.’
‘If you’re interested, you should come along to the game on Saturday. We’re playing against St Mick’s.’
‘Are you asking her out?’ Rachel asked.
My face felt hot.
‘Just to the game,’
said, ‘if she’s interested.’
‘Sure, I’d like that,’ I answered. My voice sounded tight and squeaky.
‘I have to be at the basketball courts at ten o’clock on Saturday morning,’ I told Mum as soon as I got home from school. ‘Our school is playing St Mick’s.’
‘Since when have you wanted to go and watch basketball?’ Mum asked. She was sorting through a pile of clothes on the bed.
‘Since this boy asked me to go and watch him play,’ I said. ‘I can go, can’t I? It’s not a date or anything but I want to go.’
‘Well, you’ll have to work it out with Tom,’ Mum said. ‘I have to leave you with him this weekend.’
‘What?’
‘Some funding came through at the last minute. I’m sorry, Millie, we didn’t think it would happen. The application went in late, then it got lost, then they found it and then they decided I should go.’
‘Go where?’
‘A conference in Canberra. It’s a great opportunity. I simply can’t knock it back, Millie. Tom said he wouldn’t mind looking after you. Can you cope with that?’
‘I guess. So long as he takes me to the basketball game.’
I liked Tom even if he didn’t do the stuff that everyone said boyfriends did. He hadn’t bought me a television for my room. He never gave me extra pocket money or bought lollies for me or slyly passed me a ten-dollar note to go and spend at the shopping centre so he and Mum could have time together.
He just kind of hung around. He took photos a lot. Which you’d expect, I suppose, as that was what he did. Sometimes he and Mum planned a day somewhere, like Lake Glenmaggie, taking photographs and painting, and Pavlov and I went with them, being sure to remember a book and lots of food because it could get kind of boring. Mum offered to buy me a sketchbook and charcoal or pastels, but she was our family’s artist, not me.
Sometimes we went back to Tom’s place and watched while he developed the photographs in his darkroom. That was really exciting. You put this blank paper in the developing tank and just watched while the picture slowly floated to the surface of the paper. It was like magic. Then I got to peg them up carefully on the little line that was strung at one end of the darkroom.
You couldn’t go in the darkroom if the little red light was on because you might ruin all the photos. You had to knock then, to make sure that Tom wasn’t in the middle of exposing them, when any extra light could mean disaster. He’d prefer his tea cold rather than risk losing photographs.
‘I’m sure he’ll take you to the basketball game. I’ll ask him for you, okay? Look, Millie, do you think that this top would be all right with those trousers? Because then I can just take that skirt which does go with that top.’
The phone rang before I could answer her.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Millie here.’
‘Hello, darling, how are you?’
‘Patrick! Mum, it’s Patrick! Yes, I’m fine, we’re all fine ... You’re what? ... Mum, Patrick’s coming to Sydney!’
‘He’s what?’ Mum snatched the phone from me. ‘When are you in Sydney, Patrick?’
‘Give me the phone back, Mum! I was talking to him first.’
‘Hold on for a sec, can you? Millie, just give me some time, okay. Then you can talk to him again. Patrick, how long are you over for? Are we going to see you? Oh, what a shame. No, I’ll be in Canberra. Millie? No, she’s staying with ... just hold on.’
Mum took the phone in to her bedroom, giving me a warning look I couldn’t misread. I had to wait my turn and I might as well be patient.
It was so unfair. Patrick was going to Sydney only – a science conference. Then he had to go straight back to England to start teaching again.
‘I can’t help it,’ he said, his voice all warm and close on the phone. ‘They won’t give me leave, Millie. I’ve a full teaching load. It’ll be lucky if your mum can come to Sydney after her conference.’
‘When will I see you?’
‘I’ll be back for Christmas this year, definitely. I couldn’t go for two years in a row without seeing my Millie. Now, tell me, how are things? What is this Tom like?’
‘It’s so unfair,’ I said to Mum. ‘He’s my father. He isn’t even related to you but you get to see him and I don’t.’
‘You can write him a long letter,’ Mum said, ‘and I can give it to him—that is, if Tom can mind you the extra day.’
‘I can email him if I want to,’ I pointed out, snappish.
‘Why don’t we get Tom to take some photos of you and Pavlov and I’ll take them up with me?’
‘Okay.’ It didn’t help that much but it was better than nothing, and Patrick had promised that this Christmas—which was ages away of course—he’d come back to Australia come hell or high water. That’s exactly what he said: ‘come hell or high water’. I liked the sound of that.
Tom came around the next afternoon and took photos of us, and Mum too. He fussed around with lights and reflections and Mum fussed around with make-up, scarves and even a hat.
‘It’s not for Patrick,’ she told Tom. ‘If I look okay in any of these and not like someone with early-onset dementia, I’ll use them for the next show catalogue. If you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind, Kate. I’d be flattered. And I’m really happy to take shots of Millie for her dad to see, and to mind her for the extra time. Honestly, I’m delighted to be able to do that. It’s just ... I just feel ... I know you’re good friends and that’s important. It’s just that I feel...’
‘It’s okay.’ Mum went up and gave him a hug, awkwardly because he had cameras dangling around his neck. ‘It’s okay, Tom. We’ll talk later.’
Why do adults do that? I wasn’t stupid. I knew that Tom didn’t want to think about Mum meeting Patrick in Sydney, because they might fall into each other’s arms again after all these years and discover they really truly loved each other. As if.
I wanted to tell him that Mum and Patrick weren’t like that. As he took our photos he looked as if he was trying very hard not to be miserable. Mum did her best, but she was too excited about the conference and about seeing Patrick so she constantly put her foot in it.
We went over to Tom’s to have dinner so he could develop the photos in the dark room. Mum bought take-away pizza. I waited until Tom was ready to do the developing and then asked if I could help.
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘come on in. I can always use an assistant.’
While I jiggled photos around and peered through the enlarger and hung up the prints on the little clothes line, I told Tom about Patrick.
‘You know, you’re The Boyfriend,’ I said to Tom, ‘not Patrick. I mean, Mum does love him, of course. Because they are the best friends in the world. But it’s that friends kind of love, not the smoochy kind.’
‘I know,’ Tom said, in an unconvinced voice ‘It’s fine. Honestly. And we’ll have a good time together, I’m sure. We’ll keep the fort for your mum.’
When we got home later, with ten beautiful black and white photographs that made both Mum and me look like long-ago movie stars, I said to Mum, ‘He’s nice, Tom, even if he is The Boyfriend. I like him, you know.’
‘Mmm,’ Mum said. ‘So do I, Millie.’
‘You’ll ring him, won’t you, when you’re away?’
‘Well, of course I will.’
‘It’s just that sometimes you forget, you know. Like that time you and Sheri went to Queenscliff and didn’t ring May for three days?’
‘Oh Millie, that was different. Sheri and I were having a holiday. Or trying to. Honestly, the way May carried on you would have thought I’d abandoned you. Three days, that’s all. The nearest public phone wasn’t working. I told her that.’
‘I didn’t mean you to go over it all again,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I think you’ll have to ring Tom, that’s all.’
‘Tom’s old enough to look after himself. You’re the one I have to ring.’ And Mum gave me a quick grin.
‘And Tom,’ I insisted. ‘And take your mobile, Mum. I mean it. Don’t forget it again either.’
Mum’s mobile was the most immobile cell phone in the world. It often lived on the top of the bookshelf closest to the front door. It was there so she’d see it before she left the house. The trouble was, Mum was always leaving the house in a mad rush and the mobile stayed put.
‘I’ll take my mobile. Of course, I’ll take my mobile,’ Mum said crossly. ‘Honestly, Millie, that’s why people have them. I’m not stupid.’
Getting Mum packed and off was a major exercise. Without Sheri, Mum needed my help with her clothes. I wasn’t the best person in the world to ask. But I was better than Tom, who said that everything looked terrific when even I could see that the brown skirt was shiny at the back and that her new impulse-buy trousers made her bum look enormous.
‘Didn’t you look in the mirror?’ I asked her.
‘Of course I did, but I looked at the front, not the back. I didn’t have time to look at the back. I don’t think it can look that big, Millie. I think you’re exaggerating. It’s just my bottom, that’s all. It’s no bigger than ever it has been.’
‘Well, it looks huge in those trousers, but if you want to wear them, go ahead.’
I was worried enough about my own clothes. I had to go to Rowan’s basketball game on Saturday and I had nothing to wear.
I had to start calling him Rowan, I decided, not just
I couldn’t turn up on Saturday and call him by his initials. He would think that was very peculiar. I had some practice at school.
Tayla came over while Helen-Rachel-and-I were having lunch (Sarah was sick).
‘I hear you’re going out with Rowan,’ she said, standing directly in front of me, her arms crossed and her runners (new) planted firmly, as though she was ready for some kind of action.
‘I’m not,’ I said.
‘She is,’ Helen-and-Rachel said.
‘I suggest you back off,’ Tayla said. ‘He asked me out first and just because I said no this time doesn’t mean that I’ll say no next time. So, if you don’t want trouble, Miss Dilly Millie, I’d make sure that it doesn’t happen again.’
‘You’ve got no right to intimidate her,’ Helen said. ‘Millie can go out with Rowan if she wants to.’
‘That’s right,’ Rachel said, ‘so long as he wants to, too. Who do you think you are, Tayla?’
Tayla looked at Rachel as though Rachel was a particularly unpleasant bug she’d found on her sandwich. ‘Who do I think I am? Well, for your information, Rachel, I know who I am and that’s one hell of a lot skinnier and prettier than you are, so I’d pull my head in if I were you, Lard Butt.’
‘Who’re you calling Lard Butt?’ Rachel asked, getting up.
‘Do you really have to ask?’ Tayla turned away from Rachel and back to me. ‘So did you hear what I said, Millie, or do your friends have to speak for you?’
‘I heard.’ Inside me my heart was beating out of control. Had Rowan really asked Tayla to the game first? Was I just his second-best choice. I didn’t even know that. I could have been his third or fourth or even fifth best choice. How would I know? I could hardly ask every girl in our grade whether or not she’d been asked first.
‘Good.’ Tayla strolled away casually, her skirt flipping as she walked.
‘She’s horrible,’ Helen said. ‘You haven’t got a huge bum, Rachel, so don’t look like that.’
‘I don’t care anyway,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s my bum and I like it.’
‘Do you really think he asked her out first?’
Helen and Rachel looked at each other. They didn’t mean to, I knew that. It was the kind of look you almost can’t stop happening—the checking-up look.
‘I don’t really know,’ Helen said.
‘I think he might have,’ Rachel said at the same time.
‘So he only wants me to go because she’s said no?’
‘He really likes you, Millie, otherwise he wouldn’t have thought of you at all.’ Helen patted my arm.
‘Anyway,’ Rachel said, ‘that’s not really important. The thing is that he did ask you and you’ll be at the game, not Miss Cat’s Bum Mouth. You’ll be there. That’s what counts.’
That night I wrote in my journal:
I didn’t expect the Spirit to do anything, really. Helen was right, it had too much to do anyway, what with all the starvation and war and cancer in the world. But you never knew, and if anyone deserved a huge pimple somewhere where everyone could see it, it was Tayla Cameron. Nothing was surer.