After the phone rings, Poppa tells him Mummy isn’t coming to get him tomorrow night and it’s Daddy who’s coming again. The sound on the telly gets loud with the ads, and Poppa grunts and turns it off.
‘Why not?’ he asks, but Poppa doesn’t hear. And anyway, he didn’t really mean to ask out loud.
Poppa puts his cup of tea down on the table too fast. Some of it spills on the coaster, but he doesn’t clean it up. He leaves it sitting there. Then he goes into his and Nanna’s bedroom and closes the door.
Nanna puts him to bed even though it’s still a bit light outside and he hasn’t had dessert. She pushes a strand of hair out of his eyes with her lavender finger and kisses his forehead.
‘Night, baby boy,’ says Nanna, but she doesn’t get up from the bed. Her chicken-foot hands are spread out on her thighs and they tap … tap … tap on her building-block knees. She sits and sits in the quiet with just the sound of her thinking. Through the terylene curtains the sky goes pink, then dark blue, then black. The people over the road turn on the telly in their front room and then close the blinds. And still Nanna sits in the dark.
When she’s finally done with thinking, she stands up and walks off without looking back, and pulls the door shut behind her.
Baby boy kicks off his blanket and turns away from the door.
‘Bad Mummy,’ he says and pushes his forehead hard against the wall till it aches.
* * *
Something in his dream wakes him up, but he can’t remember what it was. It’s hot and the new shortie pyjamas that Nanna bought him are sticking to his back. He gets up from the folding bed and walks as quiet as a mouse along the hallway. Nanna and Poppa are in the lounge room now watching the telly and it’s up really loud, so he doesn’t even have to sneak to get past the door. Nanna’s left the light on above the kitchen sink, so he finds the pantry door without bumping. He reaches up to the handle, pulls, and then closes the door softly behind him.
Thin strips of light from the sink squeeze through the slats and pick out slices of the labels lining the shelves: a bird with blue wings, a yellow aeroplane, a red coffee mug. He takes a deep breath and recognises Nanna’s cooking smells. On the left are garlic and onions that she cuts up for spaghetti sauce, and on the right are the spices in little bottles that she sprinkles on hot bread and butter pudding in winter.
He knows just where the chocolate block is hidden on the shelf. He saw Poppa slide it in behind the big tin of olive oil when he got back from the shops. It’s a family block and it’s for special time with Mummy when she picks him up and stays for dinner.
But now Daddy’s coming tomorrow and he doesn’t stay. He just picks up the bag and takes his hand and off they go. So the family block will stay there, and it won’t come out for weeks. And that’s not his fault. And Poppa said it would be this week. So why should he have to wait till it’s Mummy’s turn for picking up?
He climbs up on the bottom shelf where the big bag of rice and the dry dog food for Scampy live and tips his chin up so he can see over the third shelf, with the cans of tomatoes and creamed corn, to where the olive oil tin is stored. He holds on to the edge of the shelf tight with one hand and reaches behind the big cold tin that makes a wobbling sound when Nanna pours the oil. He clutches the slippery paper oblong, lowers it level with his chest, and holds it in place with his arm as he climbs back down from the shelf.
He’ll only eat his and Mummy’s share. Just one row. Then he’ll close the silver wrapping all neat and slide it back behind the gold metal tin.
He knows he should be sharing it with Mummy like they do on pick-up nights. They sit on the pouf in Nanna and Poppa’s lounge room facing each other with their knees touching. Then Mummy puts one end of the row in her mouth and he puts the other end in his, and then they let it melt square by square, and it’s only when the square is almost gone that they’re allowed to move forward to the next one. And at the end Mummy gives him a chocolatey kiss and sometimes she starts laughing and rolls off her pouf onto the carpet, and she rolls around and round and spit mixed with chocolate spurts out from the corner of her lips. Nanna and Poppa just look at her and then keep watching telly. Sometimes he jumps on her and gives her a chocolate kiss back and tells her he loves her this much, even if she did eat almost the whole row and he only got one square.
* * *
He sits on the cool pantry floor and carefully peels back the purple paper and silver foil to reveal the five squares of chocolate. He has to wedge the block tight between his knees to break off the top row. It’s hard. He needs both hands and even then he thinks it’s never going to break and then it suddenly snaps and his fingers hurt from the edges of the squares.
He sits cross-legged on the floor with his row in one hand and the rest of the block balanced on his thigh. He stiffens as he hears Nanna’s voice, all high and pointy, not like usual, in the kitchen, just the other side of the door. Then Poppa comes in too and he’s all low and grumpy. He turns on the kitchen tap and takes the kettle from the bench.
‘We have to give her one last chance,’ says Nanna.
Poppa laughs a little bit, but not like when he makes a joke.
‘One last chance.’ He turns off the tap. ‘How many last chances do you want, Marg?’
Through the slats of the pantry door, he peeks down at the floor. Their feet are right there, in their inside slippers, all wide and bumpy and facing each other.
Nanna’s voice is low like Poppa’s now.
‘You don’t give up on your kids.’ She takes two mugs from the wooden stand. They clink together.
‘I’m not saying we should give up on her.’ Poppa talks like the man on the news. ‘But it’s the little one we’ve got to think about. She certainly isn’t.’
The mugs bang down on the kitchen bench.
‘That’s not true.’
Poppa puts the kettle on the bench and clicks it on. ‘Sweetheart, she’s got to make the effort …’
‘It’s not a question of willpower, Graham.’
Poppa’s slippers move away from Nanna’s. He takes the lid off the teabag canister. ‘No, I know, but—’
Nanna opens the top drawer really quickly. The knives and forks and spoons bang about like jingle bells. ‘She’s not doing it on purpose.’ Nanna’s feet turn around and face the sink.
‘But she at least has to let us help her,’ says Poppa.
Nanna breathes in really deep. ‘She will when she’s ready. She’s got to be ready.’
Poppa’s voice gets louder again. ‘Fine. And in the meantime, the little one—’
‘Shhh,’ says Nanna.
‘What if he asks …?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ says Nanna.
‘Well, we might have to soon,’ says Poppa. ‘Michael’s going to lose patience and she’ll lose the overnight stays.’
Nanna’s slippers turn back around. ‘That can’t happen.’
‘It might,’ says Poppa. ‘It might, sweetheart.’
Nanna’s voice is all scratchy like Cookie Monster’s. ‘It’ll kill her,’ she says. ‘He’s all she’s got.’
‘You wouldn’t know it,’ says Poppa.
‘It’d undo the little progress …’
Poppa’s slippers move up next to Nanna’s. There are no words now. Just a faraway siren leaving a faint urgent trail along the freeway. Its lights crack like fireworks through the kitchen window and splash the floor with red and blue.
‘Okay,’ says Poppa softly. ‘But they can’t leave him with her just for her sake. They’ve got to think of his welfare too.’
‘They will,’ says Nanna. ‘Of course they will.’
‘And that’s why she could lose him.’
Nanna’s voice is all small like a bird. ‘There’s no point worrying about that yet.’
Poppa sounds tired. ‘Yeah, well, we probably won’t have to worry about it at all. She’ll probably be dead before it’s decided.’
‘Graham!’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. It’s the truth, Marg.’ His voice is softer now. ‘And I don’t want the little one to be there when it happens.’ He clears his throat. ‘Daughter or not, she’s not fit to have him.’
‘And is Michael?’
‘Yes, he is,’ says Poppa. ‘Yes, he is. Look, I’m not mad about him either, but you’ve got to admit that he takes decent care of him. He’s a better father than she is a mother. And I’m pretty sure the judge will see it that way.’
The kettle starts to whistle and gets louder and louder. Nanna’s voice gets real loud too. ‘And if they ask for your opinion?’
Poppa finally turns the kettle off. The whistle calms down and sighs and stops.
‘I’ll tell them that’s how I see it too.’
No one is talking now. Nanna’s toes are going up and down in her slippers.
‘I can’t believe …’
Poppa’s slippers move so close they’re touching. ‘I’m sorry, love. It’s alright. It’s alright. We’ll get there. We’ll get there.’
Nanna sounds like she’s got the hiccups.
‘It’s just—’
‘I know. I know,’ says Poppa.
He pours the water into the mugs. Nanna puts in the sugar and stirs. They pick up their mugs and their slippers move away from the door. The light above the sink goes out.
* * *
He stays perfectly still in the warm darkness. There’s no noise inside. Just the hum of his breathing. He can hear Nanna and Poppa talking in the lounge room, but he can’t hear what they’re saying. He wishes they’d just stop. He takes deep breaths but it feels like he’s got his blanket over his face. The floor is moist under his thighs and his pyjama bottoms are soggy. They cling to his bottom and make his thighs itch. He slides his free hand underneath and sniffs his damp palm. It smells like Mummy’s salty fingers when he bites the Cheezels off. His mouth fills with spit. It feels cool when he swallows it down. He’s thirsty and his lips are dry. The pantry smells are making his eyes water. A single drip of sweat makes its way over his forehead and along the curve of his nose. It tickles and hangs, but he doesn’t wipe it away. His hand is cool and tingly from holding the chocolate up and the squares have melted around the imprints of his fingers. The chocolate oozes between his knuckles and runs down his wrist. He brings his fist up to his mouth and scrapes away at the melted chocolate with his front teeth till his knuckles sting and taste like rust. The chocolate is all sweet and thick and sticks to the roof of his mouth. He pushes it around with his tongue till it forms a hard-edged ball. It weighs on his tongue and almost makes him gag. He keeps it there till his mouth fills with spit and then swallows it down. The ball sticks in his throat like an ice cube and hurts on the way down. He gulps more spit to push it through. When the last of it is gone and the taste is disappearing from his tongue, he wedges the family block between his legs. He clamps it tight with his knees. He tears off the paper wrapper and the silver foil. He clenches the next three rows with both hands, holds his breath and snaps them off clean.