This Has Been Absolutely Lovely

by Jessica Dettmann

‘You can call me Annie. Thorne’s my stage name.’

  ‘Right, well, Annie, we’ve been working on how to describe her, and I guess her voice has elements of Bjork, and Sia, and Lana del Rey. It’s really rich, and silvery and taut. It’s gravelly sometimes. It sounds like the driveway to a haunted house. But then it can be smooth and it soars and it honestly just mesmerises you to listen to her. She sounds like being two drinks in feels. And she’s gorgeous, to look at, I mean. She’s most of the whole package. She just can’t write songs for shit. She’s got no ideas, because she’s only a baby. She hasn’t lived. She’s never been dumped. Never been hurt or rejected, and she hasn’t got much imagination. She’s had a really nice life so far, you know? Which is great, but you can’t sing a song about having an ace time with your mates when your voice sounds like a hangman’s noose. It just doesn’t gel.’

  Annie steeled herself. ‘Lizzie, you should know that I am fifty-eight. I am a grandmother of three. I’ve been working in the office at a school, with a very small sideline in running holiday music workshops for kids, and I’ve written a few advertising jingles. Nothing very much has happened to me either. I’m not sure I’m what you’re after.’

  ‘Yeah, look, I don’t really care. Your age isn’t relevant. Those songs you gave Philip, are they recent?’

  ‘Extremely. I wrote them all this month.’

  ‘Amazing. They are full of what we want. They have heartbreak and pain. They are clever and wry. Can we get you in a room with Juniper?’

  ‘For what, exactly? To teach her my songs?’

  ‘I want to see if you can write together. I’ll buy all the songs of yours that I’ve heard so far, and if they go on her album you’ll get sole credit for them, but I want her to have some co-writes too. Makes her look less manufactured.’

  Annie lay back on the bed, staring at the plaster ceiling rose. ‘I don’t want to ghostwrite. I’ll have to have credits on any songs I work on. And if she doesn’t contribute, she isn’t having a credit on my songs.’ Where is this strong voice coming from? she wondered. It felt like Jane had taken over her body.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Lizzie. ‘I just have a feeling you can bring out something in her. Your songs and her voice would work, I know it. And I’d love her to learn something from you.’

  ‘Does she have a band?’

  ‘We’re putting one together for her. She can play the guitar and the piano, to some extent, but she’s going to be a stand-at-the-mike performer. Maybe we’ll give her a tambourine. Just for retro kicks, you know? Maybe not. They’re harder than they look. She’s acting too, and she has a biggish film coming out in April. Annie, this girl is going to be massive. I think you want to get on this train with us.’

  Annie thought of something. ‘Where would I get in a room with her to write?’ She’d been assuming this Juniper girl was Australian, but she hadn’t asked. If it was in Sydney it might work. She could do three days with Juniper, and still manage two with Petula, like she’d promised Molly.

  ‘Juniper is LA-based right now. We’d want you out there for a month, to begin with. Would that be possible?’

  Annie held her breath. Surely this was a hoax. They’d ask her to send a bunch of money to a Nigerian bank account in a minute.

  ‘Annie? Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m here. Look, this is very flattering. It’s just, well, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, it sounds too good to be true and frankly I’m wondering if this is some sort of scam.’

  ‘It’s not a scam. But I get that. Look, text me your email address, and I’ll send you some material about Juniper, and about Celeste and me. We’re legit, I promise. You can google us, too. Lizzie Gessle and Celeste Delamotte. Why don’t you have a think, and call me back in the morning? Do you have a manager, someone we should discuss money with, or do you do that yourself?’

  ‘I have a manager. I’ll have her get in touch with you.’ She had no idea if Jane knew the first thing about negotiating a songwriting contract, but if she didn’t, Annie was sure she would find someone to teach her pretty swiftly.

  ‘We’re keen to move fast, Annie, so don’t feel like you have to wait until after the holidays to call. Tomorrow’s fine. Might be a pretty cool start to the New Year for all of us?’

  ‘It might be.’

  ‘You doing anything fun tonight?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, the other two members of my old band, Love Triangle, are getting married in my garden in a couple of hours,’ Annie said. ‘I used to be married to one, Paul, and he fell in love with the other one, Brian.’

  Lizzie guffawed. ‘If that’s what you call nothing much happening in your life, I think you’re exactly what Juniper needs. I’m so glad you called me back. Talk soon, Annie. Bye.’

  * * *

  Molly emerged from her room after having a nap with Petula to find the preparations for the wedding had kicked into high gear. Diana had taken control of operations, and was issuing commands to the others with such authority and speed that Simon couldn’t even get a word in edgewise, which was just as well since by the look of him he wanted to make a lame crack about the Germans losing World War II. To her surprise, Simon held his arms out for the baby, so she passed Petula over. He made clucking sounds and started a little bobbing dance, and Molly saw Diana’s face soften.

  She couldn’t see her mother anywhere, but Jane was folding napkins into heart shapes, using a YouTube tutorial. Diana pointed out that it wasn’t a sit-down dinner, so the napkins would all have to be thrown into a basket together and they’d come undone, but Jane paid her no attention. She put down the napkin she was working on and came over to admire the baby, giving her an approving frown and a ‘Good work, Molly.’

  Glancing outside, Molly saw the back garden was festooned with tiny fairy lights and strings of large white lightbulbs. Where had they all come from? Had her dad and Paul been stocking up in preparation for this when they’d been on their Christmas-light bender? All the dining room and kitchen chairs had been assembled for the congregation, and the hall carpet, an old dark red Persian runner, had been moved to the aisle in between the chairs. The afternoon sun shone brightly, and it looked like a clear and warm evening ahead.

  The sink was filled with scrubbed potatoes, and someone had made a start at slicing them, so Molly took a knife and continued.

  Paul struggled into the kitchen, bowed under the weight of a huge jar of yellowish liquid. Molly paused and made a face at him. ‘Toilet too far from your room, Dad?’

  ‘Molly,’ came Naomi’s reproving voice from behind him. ‘He’s helping me. The kombucha I’ve been making is ready and I thought it would be perfect for tonight. It’s my gift to Dad and Brian.’

  ‘They might have preferred a toaster,’ said Molly.

  Paul set the jar on the counter and Naomi took off the lid. She reached in and hauled out a slimy lump that looked like ET’s placenta.

  ‘What is that?’ Molly asked, horrified. ‘Has that been in your room?’

  ‘It’s the SCOBY.’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘It’s a mixture of yeast and bacteria.’

  ‘I think yeast and bacteria are traditionally the gift for a thirteenth anniversary.’

  Paul hugged Naomi. ‘I think it’s very nice.’

  Molly watched them, enviously. Naomi did everything right. Their father had always loved her more. She was so easy-going and accepting. Molly had never been accepting, she knew that. It was a bit late to start now. She put down the knife and walked outside.

  In the garden, Jack was using a trestle table as a bar. He’d spread a white cloth over it and was unpacking hired wine glasses from their plastic crate. She stood behind him and watched until he felt her eyes on him and looked around.

  ‘Hey babe. You all right?’

  ‘No,’ she said grumpily. ‘No one gave me a job. They didn’t even think of asking me to contribute something for the wedding. They all think I’m useless. Probably because I am.’<
br />
  ‘You can help me.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Right,’ he answered, confused.

  Molly bit her lip. ‘It’s just, I don’t know. What does this wedding mean? Where do we go from here?’

  ‘It means Brian and your dad are spending the rest of their lives together. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘It’s not beautiful for Mum. Don’t you feel like it’s disrespectful of them to get married here? It’s her home.’

  ‘Annie’s okay with it. I think she’s been all right with their relationship for a long time. It’s you who’s struggling.’

  She sat down on the grass and stretched her legs out. ‘Can you believe we were just a normal family once?’

  ‘What’s a normal family?’ Jack asked. ‘Like one off a detergent ad? Or do you just mean a family without musicians and gay people and depression and Germans and single mothers and problem gamblers and illegitimate secret kids and toyboys and a sister who believes in ghosts and paints auras? The normal family ship has well and truly sailed.’

  ‘I do mean that. Once it was Mum and Dad and us three kids and my grandparents. That was it. Brian was just their friend. I thought my parents were happy — but they can’t have been. And my grandparents can’t have been either. Is that what being a parent is? Pretending to be happy and normal until your kids are grown up enough for you to let your guard down? Are we going to do that with Petula?’

  ‘I like to think we might actually be happy. Not just pretending.’

  ‘The odds are not in our favour.’ She felt dry and hollow. She wished she could cry.

  Jack looked at her. ‘You’ll be back, Molly. The well you. This bit, what you’re going through and how you’re feeling now, it really is temporary.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I hope so. But the me at the moment is the one Petula is getting to know, and bonding with. That me is who she’ll think I am. That’s not what I want. I want to be old me for her. Old me was fun. New me sucks.’

  ‘I know you’ll figure it out,’ Jack said to her.

  Molly tried to think positively. ‘Yeah. I will. The pills will kick in. People figure out motherhood. And Mum will help me.’

  Jack took a breath — Molly could see him do it. Lord, what was he going to say? ‘I don’t think we should stay here. I think you’ll do better without your mum.’

  Molly felt like she’d been slapped. ‘What? What’s wrong with my mum? I thought you liked her. You said you thought it was a good idea for her to mind Petula.’

  ‘I know. I did think that. And there’s nothing wrong with her. I love your mum. But you don’t have to do everything like she does. Like she did. Our kid doesn’t have to have your childhood. It doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with it, but our life isn’t her life.’

  Molly was still stricken. ‘But we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know what jobs to do, or where to live. We owe so much money on the flat. The safest thing is to stay here.’

  ‘Do you want to live the safest life? Just because you’re scared of making the wrong decision?’

  No, of course she didn’t. No one was supposed to want that. But maybe she did. ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true.’ His eyes were shining. ‘A mortgage like ours is an anchor, and it just leads to bigger heavier anchors. We’ll decide the flat is too small, and we’ll upsize, and have a bigger mortgage. And that will limit our choices about what we do for work, and how we raise Petula. It’s possible that a million-dollar anchor isn’t the right thing for us.’

  He was speaking aloud all her fears. ‘What else can we do?’ she asked. ‘We need to find proper careers, raise our daughter in a stable home. That’s the way it’s done.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be. That’s what I’m saying.’

  Molly began to cry. ‘Why haven’t we sorted ourselves out yet? We should have decided all this before we had a baby.’

  Jack sat on the grass in front of her and cuddled her shaking form. ‘My love, this is our life. Remember being a kid, and having no say in anything? Do you remember thinking, “When I’m grown up I’ll do whatever I like”? That’s now! We’re the grownups now. We get to choose. We can go anywhere. Yes, it will be terrifying and hard to move somewhere new and start again, if that’s what we decide, and not have family right there to help us all the time. But we can do that. We can do hard things. And if it doesn’t work we can come back. No one will care. We could sell the flat, buy a campervan, quit our jobs and travel around Australia.’

  She raised her tear-stained face and stroked his cheek. ‘Not that. I hate the outback.’

  He smiled. ‘I know you do. We can move to Mexico. Or Finland. Or Kenya. Or Greece. Wherever we want. We’ve done the right thing. We got married, got the mortgage, had the baby. Let’s fuck the crappy parts off. Petula is so little and portable. Let’s not waste our lives not choosing how we want to live.’

  Molly pulled him in close and buried her face in his neck. She closed her eyes and tried to picture them somewhere else. Exploring a steep village in Mexico hand in hand with Jack, Petula in a baby carrier on her chest; or watching Petula crawl along a beach in Borneo as the sun set behind her and Molly and Jack sat in the sand with cold beers. The scenes were cheesy, Instagram versions of travel. It wouldn’t be quite like that. She was terrified, but she knew his bravery was enough for them both, and inside, for the first time in ages, she felt a tiny bit brighter.

  Chapter 38

  Annie needed to get out. She didn’t know anything else for sure at that moment, except that she couldn’t make a decision, or process what had happened in that extremely odd phone call, if she was in the house with everyone in the world who mattered to her, where too much had happened and where she could still feel her parents hovering over her shoulder.

  There were only a couple of hours until the wedding, and she should have been helping set up and cook, but she put her sneakers on and crept down the stairs. She waited until the hall was clear before dashing to the front door and down the steps. How ridiculous, she thought. Sneaking out of her own house.

  At the gate she turned left, and headed to the end of the block before taking the street on the right that would lead her the rest of the way to the beach. For fifteen minutes she strode along, breathing in the warm afternoon air, and feeling the confetti of her thoughts swirl around until it eventually sank down to stillness. She crossed the main road, and, pulling off her shoes, marched straight down onto the sand. The waves were big, rolling and crashing messily. The lifeguards had knocked off for the day, but they’d left Beach Closed signs up, to be on the safe side. As if there would be any stopping the drunken skinny-dippers at midnight.

  Annie sank down into the sand and stared at the sea. But the warm wind was stronger than she’d realised, and the sand whipped into her, stinging her shoulders and face. It was not an environment conducive to making big life decisions. Not for the first time, she wondered what people saw in the beach. Yes, she felt in awe of nature, but so often the beach was too hot or too windy, too busy or too rough. Her parents had lived in the house on Baskerville Road because it was where her dad grew up, but had it ever really suited them? Neither of them had been what you’d call beach people. Hardly anyone in the family was. No one could surf. They were all fair and prone to freckling. The little kids enjoyed it, but they’d grow out of that. Allowing thoughts like that into her head felt like pulling down a cobweb, snapping the threads of silk one by one.

  A sudden urge to sweep down every cobweb in her life came over Annie, and at once she knew what she was going to do. She would say yes to the music producers. She would close her eyes and step off the cliff. Her body hummed with the thrill of the decision. How it would affect her kids, she still didn’t know, but they’d survive. She felt the force of her mother’s unlived dreams behind her, and her daughters’ and her granddaughters’ unrealised futures.

  She stood to escape the blowing sand and walked back towards th
e dunes and the surf club. A woman stood beside the building, sheltering from the wind. Her red hair tangled around her face and she was trying to hold her kaftan down over her legs. Heather.

  How long had she been there, watching? Had she followed her? Heather waved. Annie desperately wanted to walk the other way around the club, to avoid her completely, but she heard her mother’s voice in her head. ‘There’s no excuse for rudeness, Annie.’ Though she felt fairly certain her mother would have made an exception in this case, Annie approached Heather.

  Heather smiled tentatively. ‘How are you? I like your new fringe. I meant to say at Christmas, but I didn’t get a chance.’

  Annie’s hand went to her hair and smoothed it. ‘I’m wonderful,’ she said.

  Heather looked as if that wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting. ‘Oh, good. That’s great.’ She paused to drag a lock of her own hair out of her mouth. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m a widow now. Ray passed away a few days ago.’

  ‘I know. Patrick came to us when it happened. We looked after him.’

  Heather’s lip curled. ‘Oh, well done you. Perfect Annie. Always doing the right thing. Such a good mother. Just like your mum.’

  ‘My mum was a good mother.’

  ‘You treated her like dirt, though. All you cared about was your father.’

  Annie looked Heather in the eye. ‘I’m not proud of that. I was a kid. I didn’t know what he was really like.’

  ‘I can tell you what he was like. He was pathetic. He wanted excitement, and great sex, but he didn’t want risk. When Ray found out what I was doing, he threatened to tell your mother, to get us to stop. But I knew he wouldn’t. He didn’t have the guts. He was pathetic too. They were all just sad, trapped, suburban losers.’

  A young man walked past carrying a surfboard, a wetsuit pulled down to his waist. He stopped just beyond them, turned on the outdoor shower and rinsed his board. Annie didn’t reply, embarrassed to have their heated conversation overheard. Heather used the opportunity to watch the surfer, one eyebrow raised, her mouth in a lascivious pout.