The night before he left for London, he invited his mother over to his apartment. They hadn’t spoken properly in the past two weeks. He wondered if he’d been too hard on her and he didn’t want to leave Sydney while there was still this rift between them.
He was cooking a Spanish omelette; it was Dom’s recipe. The trick to making a Spanish omelette, she had told him, was in the seasoning. He reached behind him for the salt and pepper grinders. He poured the eggs into the pan in long glistening strands.
His mother arrived in his apartment with a bottle of wine, which she offered to him as she walked in. It was a big thing for her to come to Darlinghurst, he knew, since she so rarely left the inner-west.
‘Thanks for coming over, Mum,’ he said, smiling and looking at the pan.
‘Do you need help with anything?’ his mother said, stepping towards the kitchen, a small, tentative step, as though the ground below her was fragile and might give way.
‘No, you sit down,’ he said, batting her away with a hand. Then, more kindly, ‘I’m making a Spanish omelette, the way Dom taught me.’
‘Have you spoken to her recently?’
‘Yes. We’ve spoken,’ he said. He didn’t want his mother to ask him anything else. He didn’t want to admit how angry Dom had been the last time they spoke and he worried what she’d say to him when he called her again, so he kept putting it off.
‘We’d better eat soon,’ he said. He was suddenly anxious for their dinner to start—the hurry he was in was for it to conclude. He didn’t want to talk about his father with her again; he wanted simply to mend things with her so that he could fly away to London the next day.
He served up the omelette and dressed the salad, thinking to himself that it looked quite respectable, the eggs tanned the way they looked when Dom had made it herself. They started in silence, a silence that was still and gaping and one that he felt he needed to fill.
‘The gallery has asked me to come to London a couple of days before the opening,’ he said. He rarely spoke about this aspect of his life with his mother and she looked surprised to hear him mention it. She nodded and carefully manoeuvred a piece of lettuce on a fork into her mouth and pushed the rest inside with a finger.
His mother had only ever been to one of his exhibition openings, his first solo show in Sydney, and she had worn a black dress, stiff and crisp and bought especially for the event. She stood in the corner of the gallery, gripping the fabric with one hand and holding a glass of wine in the other. She favoured her right leg when she stood, tipping that way, uncertain about her own presence in the room. It was difficult for her, all the people and being in an environment in which she didn’t know the rules.
‘What time is your flight tomorrow?’
‘It’s around one,’ he said. ‘I’ll go straight out to the airport after breakfast. The real estate agent has a tenant who wants to move in at the end of next week.’
‘That’s good to know it’s been a worthwhile investment for you, hasn’t it?’
‘It has.’
She looked around at his apartment. ‘The old place is still holding up.’ She smiled gently. ‘Have you ever thought about renovating it?’
He smiled awkwardly at her. ‘Maybe when I get some more money.’
She was quiet, but he could tell there was something she wanted to say to him. He felt himself recoil from her; whatever it was, he didn’t want to hear it. He wanted things between them to be easy again.
‘I’m sorry I never told you about your father. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, since we had that conversation. At the time I was grieving and I didn’t want to speak about it, not to anyone. I thought it would be easier if I just kept quiet and dealt with it myself. I actually thought that would make it easier for you when you were a boy.’
In doing that, she had damaged him. It was a surprise at thirty-seven to realise suddenly that his upbringing had been so flawed.
‘Mum,’ he said, feeling tears bank up beneath the bones in his cheeks. ‘I do understand. I know it was hard for you.’
‘God, Andrew, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even see the effect I was having on you.’ She looked away. Outside it was dark and on the road below him he could see a bright line of headlights moving up the hill from Edgecliff towards Kings Cross, like a row of nocturnal animals in the darkness, marching through the night.
He thought about Pippa and Phoebe. How Phoebe had been hurt, even though her mother thought she was doing the right thing. Phoebe would wear the damage on her face for the rest of her life. The only chance she had for surviving was to understand what had happened and to find some way to accept it. If she could do that, Phoebe would grow into a fine young woman; she might even flourish because of it.
‘I found out about Kirsten, Mum. I went to see her mother yesterday, that’s why I’m back here I suppose. Somehow I can’t help feeling that what happened to Kirsten must be my fault.’ A sob rose in his throat, a large uncontrollable sound. All the feelings he had about Kirsten were held in his chest.
‘Andrew, Kirsten was a very troubled woman.’ He looked at her and wondered how his mother knew that about Kirsten.
‘I know, but, Mum, you don’t really know what happened between us. It went on for years. After I moved out from that apartment we shared, I couldn’t live with her, but I kept seeing her. I’m not sure what was wrong with me. I’m selfish and other people end up hurt.’
‘I knew that, Andrew. I knew you saw each other.’
‘How? Did she tell you?’
‘No. I guess because of the way you spoke about her and the way she spoke about you.’ She lifted the edge of a napkin with her finger. ‘But, Andrew, what Kirsten did, it wasn’t your fault. You must know that. Her family—it was a very difficult situation. And she was very sensitive. That had nothing to do with you.’
‘I don’t understand, Mum. I cared about her. Why was it so hard for me?’
His mother took his hand.
‘Do you think your dad’s death might have had something to do with it? The fact that you hadn’t got over it, you hadn’t come to terms with it?’
‘I don’t know. Dad died years ago. I should have been over it by then.’
‘I know, but grief takes a long time. I’m starting to think I will always be grieving, but that it just gets easier to live with.’
He found himself crying now, hot tears falling from his eyes and onto his omelette.
‘I tried to encourage Kirsten to see a counsellor. Funny that it never occurred to me I should see someone myself.’ His mother tore a piece of bread in her hands as she spoke.
‘I left without saying anything, Mum. I didn’t say goodbye. I slunk away to Berlin and never spoke to her again; I don’t know what she thought. What if it was my fault, Mum? Why couldn’t I have been kinder?’
‘People also have a responsibility to themselves. Not everything’s your fault, Andrew. Not my grief. Not Kirsten’s death.’ She sighed.
He looked up at her, at his mother, who’d come through a difficult thing and was suddenly wise about the world.
‘You can’t know why someone does something like that, Andrew. Whatever her problems were, they were bigger than you.’ She paused and cut a piece from her omelette. ‘Have you ever thought that maybe in those years you spent with her, you actually helped her? That maybe you helped keep her alive?’
He tilted his head back to try to stop the tears from falling. He hadn’t cried like this since he was a young boy and it felt childish to lose control in this way.
His mother came over to him and they moved together to the couch. She took him in her arms. He couldn’t remember ever being held so tightly by her. It took him almost half an hour to empty himself of tears and when it was over he felt calm.
Later, he showed her out and she stood in the hall for a moment, lit from above by the halogen lights, small, pursed circles. He kissed her soft cheek goodbye.
•
After his mum left, before he went to bed, he made a call to Dom.
‘Hallo?’
‘Dom, it’s me,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I’m flying to London tomorrow for the exhibition opening. I’ll be back in Berlin a few days later.’
She sighed. ‘So, now you’re coming back?’ Her words were short and hot, delivered like blows.
‘Yes, probably on Saturday,’ he said, speaking quickly, making the most of this new certainty that possessed him. ‘Or, I was thinking you could come to London for the opening? We could spend a few days there. We’ve never been to London together, it might be fun.’
‘Come to London?’
‘Yes, for the opening. You usually come to my openings with me.’ It was always comforting having her there, a reminder of who he really was.
She was silent and so he continued to speak.
‘I found out about Kirsten, what happened to her. And I took those photos I was telling you about, of the young girl. They’ll be in this exhibition—I’m really happy with them. I think it’s my best work for a long time. I’d love for you to see them.’
‘I don’t even know what to say. You’ve been away for weeks—am I supposed to ignore that? Should I pretend nothing’s happened?’
‘No, Dom, it’s not . . . It was just . . . I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? Sorry isn’t enough right now.’
‘I found out about my father while I was here. How he died. It was a brain aneurysm; my mother finally told me about it. Do you know I always thought it was a heart attack?’
‘Your father? How could you not know that, how your own father died? Didn’t you ever ask?’
‘No, Dom, I never asked my mother about it. Not until now.’
‘Well, I’m glad you found out, then.’ She was silent, but she didn’t hang up. ‘Sometimes it’s very hard to know what you feel about things, Andrew. I had no idea you didn’t know about your father’s death.’
‘No, I didn’t tell you. I think I was embarrassed about not knowing.’
‘Sometimes, it’s like you push your feelings away.’
He paused. ‘Maybe I do. But not my feelings about you.’
‘No, not about me, but other things. And it affects me.’
‘Don’t say that. I love you. I’m coming back. I’ve only been gone a month—nothing’s really changed, has it?’
‘No, but I don’t think I can do this thing where we’re together, but you keep so much to yourself. If you want me to be a part of your life, you need to involve me in it. I don’t want to feel like I’m living with someone who doesn’t let me all the way in.’
There was a gentle click and then nothing. The silence of a dead line. Had he ruined it? He had found out about Kirsten and about his own father, but he worried that it had been at the expense of his relationship with Dom.