‘Do you want to talk to him?’
I shake my head. ‘Not tonight.’
Emmy finds the phone and picks it out of its charger. Everything I hear from that point is one-sided and brief. It doesn’t surprise me. Even in the best of circumstances, Emmy and Jack can barely do polite.
‘Hi, Jack.’ She meets my eyes. ‘Yes, they’re here… Yes, she’s okay — a bit messed up. No, she said she doesn’t want to talk to you, not tonight…okay, I’ll tell her.’
There’s a pause and she says again: ‘I’ll tell her.’
She hangs up. ‘He said he’ll call you in the morning.’ Her lip curls.
‘He should save his breath.’
‘He also said to say to you not to believe everything you hear about him and Marnie James. Something about not listening to golf club gossip.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? I heard more than enough of Marnie James today to last me a lifetime. I’ll never get it out of my head.’ She called him Jacky for crying out loud.
Emmy shrugs. Walking around the kitchen counter, she puts a hand on each of my shoulders, squeezing gently. ‘You have to talk to him at some stage.’
Then she excuses herself for the bathroom.
My mother always said you’re stuck with the father of your child for life, so choose him wisely. Mum’s greatest fear when we were growing up in Karratha was that I would end up pregnant at fifteen and have to drop out of school.
Somewhere in the next decade as I inched closer to thirty and remained childless, she changed her tune. Instead of, ‘You’ll be careful now, love, won’t you? Don’t go off with the boys alone,’ it became, ‘You don’t want to wait too long, Jenn, you’re not getting any younger.’
That’s my mum. She loves to hedge her bets.
When Emmy gets back, she takes a box of crackers from her pantry and slashes open a slab of brie. I’m not sure I’ve got room for anything else after the ragout, but the brie is good. I love red wine and cheese.
She takes the Scrabble set from the chest of drawers, sets it up between us, deals tiles. Halfway through the game she asks me: ‘So what happens tomorrow? I mean, don’t get me wrong, you can stay as long as you like, but there’s not much here that’s fun for Seb to do. I don’t even have a backyard.’
She spells karma with her tiles and makes it fit ring and after. It includes a double-word score, and the grin on her face is evil as she calculates, and writes her tally.
I have a y, two n’s, an a, an s, and more o’s than an octopod, plus a q with no u, and I’m wondering if kayos counts as a word. I could use Emmy’s k.
‘If I buy Seb a spade and a bucket, we could pretend your yard is the beach,’ I say.
Emmy glares at the screen door leading out to the porch. There’s no guard rail out there. A handyman was all set to fix it months ago, but he picked up a fly-in, fly-out job in the mines instead, and so far none of the other tradies she’s called have even bothered to come and quote. Emmy’s pot plants guard the six-foot drop, terracotta statues threatening to smash themselves on the sand pad below.
I lay kayos on the board.
Emmy leans over to check, brandishing the cracker in her hand like it’s a thesaurus, then declares: ‘That’s not how you spell chaos.’
‘It’s kayos.’
She snorts. ‘Kayos is so not a word. You’re the wordsmith, you should know that.’
‘Kayos like in boxing. To win by knockout… when a boxer gets kayoed.’
‘That’s kayoed then, not kayos. No plurals allowed.’
‘Well that’s debatable. Whether it’s a plural or not.’ I’m feeling a bit smug. The y is on a triple-letter square. ‘I let you have zit.’
‘Zit is so a word.’
‘It’s slang. No slang allowed.’
She picks three letters from in front of her and uses my y to make baby. ‘Very dull and boring compared to kayos. But it’s legal.’
‘Ha.’ I shuffle Scrabble tiles, trying to work out if I can make bonbon with her baby. Banana? I don’t have enough a’s.
‘You’re stuck aren’t you?’ Emmy starts making ticking clock noises with her tongue.
‘I’m not stuck, I’m thinking.’
‘Holy hand grenades, me too! I just had a brilliant idea.’
‘Hold the phone, Emeline. It’s not even your bloody turn.’
She bounces on the stool. ‘Forget Scrabble, Jenn. I’m talking about you and Seb. Why don’t you use the beach shack if you want to get away for a while?’
‘The beach shack?’ Already, my brain spins with the reasons why and why not.
I haven’t been to the Culhane’s shack at Busselton in years, not since Emmy and I graduated from uni. We used to go there all the time. Our gang. Emmy, Brayden, me, Pope, Marvin…
‘No one’s using it. Go down there, get your head together. Work out your next move.’
I’m tempted but I hesitate, and I know it puzzles Em. She’s footloose and toddler-free, so none of the things I’m considering even enter her head. Like: what happens if I get a flat tyre on the three-hour drive, or something goes wrong with the Corolla, or: what do I do for an entire weekend at a beach house with a toddler and no enclosed fence?.
‘Do you have any jobs on?’ Emmy asks. ‘Anything that can’t wait?’
I think for a minute. My boss, Nathan Blain, like most real estate agents this time of year, is on holiday. January is dead in property. People don’t want to make big decisions about buying or selling a home when they’re on holiday.
‘Nathan is on annual leave. He mentioned a property in Scarborough is coming on the market soon but I don’t think he’ll need me to write it up till at least next week.’
‘Then there you go. Sorted.’
‘But will your folks mind?’ I’m stalling for time, thinking it through.
Emmy bats the question away. ‘Of course they won’t mind. They only use the place at Easter and Christmas. They’ll be glad to think someone’s using it.’
‘But you’ll ask them, right?’
‘Sure. I’ll call them in the morning. It’s too late now, they’ll be in bed.’
When we were teenagers, driving from Perth to Busselton for a weekend at the shack was a joyride. I’d have three hyper-aware hours where I got to sit behind Brayden — he was always in the driver’s seat — and if I ever dared, I could have reached out my fingers and touched his ginger-blonde hair as it tangled in the wind rushing through the car window.
‘Fish and chips on the beach, walks on the jetty…Seb will love it,’ Emmy pleads.
Those magic words cut through. Seb will love it.
I’d do anything for my son, plus, this gets me out of the city and away from Jack. Company would be nice though. ‘Can’t you come, Em?’
‘Sorry, no.’ She’s already shaking her head. ‘I have Mrs McClusky’s colour first thing in the morning and a wedding on Saturday. I have the entire bridal party to make beautiful. Speaking of which,’ Emmy looks at my hair. ‘I need half an hour with you too before I let you leave.’
I groan. I like haircuts about as much as I like shopping.
‘Okay. Thanks, Em. That sounds great.’ I smother a yawn. ‘I think I’ve got to go to bed. I’m too tired to spell.’
‘I’m too drunk to keep you honest.’ She snorts at me. ‘kayos.’
We pack the game into the box, then Emmy shows me how to work the low-volt night lights in the corridor outside my room.
‘There are towels in the linen cupboard, sweetie. Help yourself to whatever you need. Have a shower if you want.’
‘I will, Em. Thank you for keeping me sane tonight. I’m so lucky to have you.’
She hugs me tight, patting my back. ‘It will all work out. You’ll see.’
After a quick, hot shower, I’m asleep in no time. The good thing is, I don’t dream of lemon-coloured knickers or golf bags on a grass green. When Seb wakes for his night-time feed, I’m jolted from dreams that are vivid and blue, of a never-ending sky meeting an endless sea.
***
My mobile phone vibrates on the bedside drawer just after seven the next morning. I don’t need to look at the screen to know that it’s Jack.
Swinging my feet out of bed, I grab the phone and close the bedroom door behind me so Seb stays asleep. I couldn’t settle him in the portacot after his bottle in the night so he slept in the double bed, lying on top of my chest until I had to roll over and push him off or my lungs would have squashed.
The shower is running and the television is on low, tuned to one of the morning current affairs shows.
I press the button to accept the call. ‘Hello, Jack.’
‘Jenn. Hey. Are you okay?’
Jack has a beautiful voice — it’s like gravel tumbled through silk. It’s my favourite thing about him and now I have to steel myself against it. ‘I’m fine.’
There’s a silence each of us wants the other to break.
‘I got your note,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing going on with me and Marnie.’
I slump against Emmy’s bright yellow wall. ‘I know that’s not true.’
‘Marnie cops all this flak around the club because I’ve taken her under my wing and she’s the President’s daughter. You’d remember what that’s like, Jenn, when you’re the Pro’s protégé? Everybody talks.’
In the bathroom, Emmy has switched the shower off.
Jack’s voice caresses my ear. ‘I mean, I don’t know who’s been filling your head with that kind of crap, but you can trust me — ’
‘Give it a rest, Jack, I know you’re lying.’
‘Babe — ’
‘You and Marnie were in the bunker on the twelfth yesterday afternoon, about five-thirty. I saw her knickers by the green, Jack. I heard you tell her I didn’t like the sand.’ Saying the words, giving them life, is like vomiting a bad prawn.
‘What are you talking about?’ Jack’s breath whooshes through the phone. ‘You never come out to the club anymore — ’
‘I did yesterday. I thought I’d surprise you — you know — make an effort. I thought we might hit a few balls, go home — I had the champagne on ice. I had all sorts of good things planned. Silly, silly, Jennifer.’
Emmy emerges from the bathroom in tracksuit pants and a T-shirt with a towel twined around her hair. She sees me and mouths: ‘Jack?’ I nod, and she puts two fingers up like a gun and shapes like she’s shooting. Then she drifts to her bedroom to give me some privacy.
Turning to the spare room, I open the door a crack. Sebby is sleeping with his bottom in the air, his face turned to the wall. My heart swells with love for that beautiful bottom and its beautiful boy.
I twist the door handle back in place.
Jack says, ‘This thing with Marnie, it didn’t mean anything. I know it’s not what you want to hear right now and it doesn’t help, but, it was just sex. I mean, you’ve had your… problems in that department.’
‘You’re right, Jack. It doesn’t help.’ My fingers clench the phone. ‘Thank you so much for finding a willing vagina to save my dodgy one the trouble.’
‘That’s not what I — ’
‘I’m getting away for a few days with Seb. Emmy’s offered me her beach house at Busselton. When I get back, you and I can talk. I don’t want to spend all our cash on lawyers, and I don’t want to do anything that means you lose your house. I want what’s best for Sebastian.’
‘The best thing for Sebby is to have his parents together. You just told me you came out to the club because you wanted to make an effort — ’
Again, I cut him off. ‘It doesn’t matter, Jack. It’s not worth it. We’re finished.’
‘So does that mean Brayden Culhane is worth it?’ Jack sneers. ‘Maybe he’s there, is he? You’re at his sister’s house.’
‘You have no reason to — ’ I break off. It’s all been said before. Jack will always be jealous of Brayden and there’s nothing I can say, or do, to change his mind. Taking a deep breath, I rub the nape of my neck with my free hand. The muscles are knotted tight. ‘Can we please try to be amicable, Jack, for Sebby’s sake?’
‘Amicable?’ He tests the word, like he’s on the edge of spitting it at me, then I hear a sigh as he relents. ‘We can do better than amicable, Jenn. You know that. We can be good together.’
Good. Never great.
‘Jack — ’
‘Think about it while you’re in Busselton. I know I’ve stuffed up big-time, but please, babe. Don’t rule out anything yet. Seb’s my son. You’re the woman I want to be with. I’ve been a dickhead, but I can change.’
‘I’ll think about it, but don’t hold your breath. After what I heard yesterday…I’m not sure I can go back.’
He’s silent, and then he says simply, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes, Jenn. Drive safe.’
And he hangs up.
I’m sour inside, tight and tired around the eyes. I’ve got three hours in a car with a toddler, all on my own, and I’m exhausted before I even start.
***
A cup of tea helps.
So does the half-hour of toddler-free solitude I get to drink it with Emmy, even if she does make me churn through the pages of her magazines, looking for hairstyles I like.
‘Nothing fussy, Em. You know me. Nothing that needs blowing dry before I can leave the house. Okay?’ I’m grim with the okay. Give Emmy an inch, she takes a mile.
‘Trust me,’ she says, way too sweetly.
Seb’s squawk from the bedroom puts the dreaded haircut off for the next hour while I get his breakfast, and my breakfast, and then get both of us dressed.
‘Sit.’ Emmy says after that, pointing at a tall stool and draping a plastic coat around my shoulders. Seb watches her, fascinated. She has to keep moving her scissors and clippers closer into the centre of the counter so his little hands can’t reach.
Emmy’s adamant I need layers to get my hair off my face. ‘It will lighten it, Jenn. It’s just hanging right now, doing nothing for you.’
‘I never knew hair had to stay busy,’ I grumble. ‘Oh what the hell. Go for your life.’
For Emmy that means foils, because a few highlights can’t possibly hurt. I end up with pale blonde streaks through the crown, lightening my hair so it’s closer to that nirvana called honey than I ever thought it could be, and a sleek cut that curves at the front to frame my face. At its longest, the cut just sweeps the nape of my neck.
It makes my eyes look bigger, my mouth wider.
I like it.
When she’s finished she blows it dry, despite my protests that there’s no point because it won’t happen again. I don’t even own a hairdryer.
‘Do you love it?’ Emmy asks, showing me the back in her mirror.
I reach out to pat her on the hip. ‘It’s great, Em. Thanks. It feels nice.’
‘It’s better than nice. You look hot.’ She admires her work a few seconds more, flicks here, cuts there, and declares me done. ‘Now for Mrs McClusky.’
After Emmy leaves I do a sweep of the house, collecting sleeping bag, nappy bag, cereals, bottles and bowls, dismantle the portacot. I make my bed, tidy the bathroom, and then pack the car.
There are things I’ll want close to hand in the front: emergency rations like bribery biscuits, Seb’s sippy-cup filled with water, a cheese and vegemite sandwich (crusts off) cut into tiny squares.
Before we leave I heat a bottle of milk, wedge it between my handbag and the lunch bag so it won’t tip. In half an hour it should have cooled enough for him to drink. Fingers crossed, he’ll then sleep most of the way to Busselton and by the time he wakes up, we’ll smell seaweed and hear gulls.
Just after eleven, I lock Emmy’s house behind us and we’re on the road, winding our way south along the coast. It’s a stunning day. Waves lick and foam against Cottesloe Beach and already the carpark along the foreshore is packed. I keep the window open. The breeze makes Seb’s curls flutter. My own hair dances soft and fluffy against my cheek.
Soon I join the new Kwinana Freeway, settle in the left lane so the faster traffic can flow past. In the days we used to come down for holidays, we crawled south via Rockingham and Mandurah. There wasn’t a freeway then.
I shake a square of cheese sandwich out of the lunch bag and pass it back to Seb. He’s been babbling his own brand of baby-talk most of the drive but he’s quiet now, getting that far-away glaze in his eyes that says it’s time for milk and sleep. I pass him a second square of sandwich. When he finishes I get the bottle, now at the perfect temperature, and pass it into his grasping hands.
Buzzing the window three-quarters shut to stop the fiercest rush of wind, I channel surf for a radio station, lean back into my seat, and let the sunshine warm my chest. The pain that’s been lodged there since yesterday eases.
A clunk from the rear makes me jump.
Seb’s milk bottle has fallen from his fingers and landed on the floor. A quick head-check shows me it’s empty and Seb’s fast asleep, cheek tucked into the headrest.
Dear little boy.
I lean my head back, getting comfortable, settling in to what I always called the rhythm of the road.
Jack is in my head for a while, but not too long.
***
Seb sleeps for two hours and when he wakes, sweat plasters his hair to his temple. He yawns, stretches, rub his fists in his eyes, stretches again.
‘Hey, buddy. Are you thirsty?’ I have water in a spouted cup and his favourite twisty straw. He takes it from me but it only lasts a few sips. He blows through the straw instead, making the water bubble before he throws it on the floor.
‘I’ll take that as a no.’
Seb pulls at the black belts strapping him in and starts to cry. I’ve passed Bunbury, I’m not far from Capel. By my calculations, that puts me about twenty minutes from the shack.
Biscuits buy his silence for five of those minutes, but once they’re gone, his face screws up tighter than before and tears leak down his reddened cheeks.
I really don’t want to stop. We’re so close. If I get him out of the car I’ll just have to strap him in again. ‘Hang on, Sebby, we’re almost there buddy.’
My backside aches, and the sunshine I’ve loved for almost three hours is at the wrong angle now, way too bright. There’s a headache trying to stow-away in my skull.
‘Are you sick of being in the car, Seb? I’m sick of driving.’
He screams at the window.
I tell him about the beach, and seagulls, and fish and seaweed…and seagulls again, and none of it makes any difference. He gets angrier and sadder. I don’t blame him.
We’re at Busselton now, on the outskirts. I can’t remember if the speed limit sign said sixty or seventy kilometres. My speed arrow nudges sixty-six. I also can’t remember how far along Bussell Highway I need to go before the turn-off toward the shack and the sea. This town has changed so much I can’t get my bearings. Somewhere in the last eight years, sleepy Busselton woke up.
‘We’re so close, little man, hold on,’ I plead, willing the traffic lights to stay green, praying for free-flowing lanes, no traffic snarls, no hold-ups.
Every tear makes it worse.
Finally, there’s a sign on the left of the highway that I recognise. It’s for the caravan park that sits a few hundred metres further along the road from the Culhane’s shack. I indicate into the right-hand lane and slow, waiting to turn. Seb has screamed himself hoarse. Hiccupping sobs shake his small frame. Each sob is like a nail in my spine.
Turning right, I enter a bitumen road that divides a row of seventies-style brick and tile houses, all with manicured lawns and garden beds of colourful roses. Those houses haven’t changed, even if the town has.
Skateboards, surfboards and bodyboards vie for space on garden paths. BMX bikes lean against walls and veranda posts, helmets dangle from the handlebars.
I brake at the T-junction where the coast road stretches left and right along the foreshore. I can’t see the millpond of Geographe Bay. It’s hidden by dunes and a row of peppermint trees that sway in the breeze.
I turn left, driving slow. There are no cars behind me and none on the quiet road. I pass a couple of kids on bikes with towels slung over their shoulders.
The old fishing shacks are gone. Instead, I’m driving past architect-designed, two-storey mansions with entire walls of glass fronting, manicured lawns, and outdoor kitchens that shine with stainless steel.
Leaning forward, I rest my forearms across the steering wheel, peering at all the palaces. There’s the track to the beach, cutting through the dunes on my right. The shack can’t be much further. Memory is all I have to rely on and everything is so different.
I remember the Culhane’s beach house as all picture-postcard charm: a neat white weatherboard house with a red roof, set way back from the road and flanked by a grove of mature peppermint trees. There were always cicadas chirping, and the soothing wash of distant waves.
And there it is. It’s not as pretty as it is in my memory. It looks like no one has stayed here for a very long time. Even so, right now it feels like a palace to me.
I made it. ‘We made it, Seb. We’re here!’
Slowing even further, I drive over the cracked concrete kerb onto a sandy goat track that is losing its fight to repel the coastal scrub. The track runs beside what used to be a rough lawn large enough to host our games of cricket and frisbee and football, then it disappears behind the shack where we always used to park. It’s a sad excuse for lawn now. It’s sparse dry sand and the only thing tough enough to thrive in it is the weeds. The bushes bordering the lawn are straggly and blown in the shape of the prevailing winds.
‘Check out the neighbours, mate.’ I let out a whistle. A two-storey chateau throws a blanket of shade over the Culhane’s sand and weeds, darkening the low front porch and its timber steps.
I drive carefully past the house, concentrating on staying in the wheel ruts that mark the soft sand. There’s a patch where I think I see tyre tracks, but it must be a trick of my tired eyes and the shadows.
Seb starts whimpering again.
‘Hold on, little buddy. Hold on.’ Please, hold on.
Clearing the rear corner of the cottage, I nose my car behind the house, and then I stomp on the brake so hard the seatbelt near cuts me in half.
Two towels wave at me from the clothesline.
There’s a late-model black Pajero with silver roof-racks parked near a ramshackle iron shed. I don’t recognise the car, but I’d know that number plate anywhere.
BC-1983.
Brayden is here.