by Bill Condon
‘Well, my mum and dad … I think they’re going to split up.’
‘Jeez. Sorry, Caitlin. What’s been happenin’?’
‘Fights. Arguments. Mum’s been really angry for so long. Now they’re not even talking to each other. I’ve kept hoping they’d work it out. I told myself all they needed was more time. But the longer they stay together, the worse it gets. I don’t think they’ve got any chance, Lanny. I wish I knew what to do.’
‘I’m comin’ over.’
‘It’s ten-thirty.’
‘I’m comin’ over.’
The house is still. Mum and Rory are in their bedrooms and Dad’s legs jut over the edge of the couch. He doesn’t stir as I tiptoe past him and open the front door.
I sit on the doorstep for ten minutes, more and more regretful that I confided in Lanny. It’s a mistake. You don’t share your big secrets with someone unless that person is special to you. That’s what he must be thinking right now as he drives over here. He’s going to get so hurt if I’m not careful. You give a guy like Lanny hope and then snatch it away, it’s not fair.
The mobile is in my hand and I hit his number.
‘Caitlin?’
‘I don’t want you to come here, Lanny. Turn around and go home. We’ll talk some other time.’
‘I’m almost there.’
‘You’re not listening. I don’t want you here.’
The words spring out like sharpened knives. He’s silent and, I imagine, bleeding.
‘I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.’
‘What idea’s that?’
‘That there’s something going on between us – I mean, something more than friendship. I’m not going to lie to you. Okay? At first I was glad you were coming over. Then I realised it was for purely selfish reasons. It had nothing to do with wanting you, Lanny – oh God, that sounds so bad. I was being a baby. I just wanted someone to hold my hand and you were closest. But it’s no more than that. I like you – a lot. I don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘No. You’ll have to tell me all over again.’
‘What do you mean?’
A car turns into our street.
Lanny.
He stops in front of my house, leans across the seat and opens the door. ‘Now do you want to run all that past me one more time?’
‘I appreciate you coming over here. But I’ll be fine now. Just talking to you was enough. Please go home.’
‘You don’t feel like going for a ride in my brilliant car?’
‘One day I will. Not now. It’s very late.’
‘Did I tell you that I finally decided on a name for it?’
‘No. What’s it called?’
‘I named it after you.’
‘Caitlin?’
‘Not quite – I’ll show you.’ He digs into his pocket. ‘I got this guy I know to make a little tin nameplate – here it is. I’m going to glue it on the front of the glove box. Only charged me twenty bucks. Check it out.’
He hands me the nameplate. In silver letters it says Hunny.
‘Good, eh? See, it’s because I think you’re a hunny. Beautiful, you know? So I named my car in your honour.’
I’m too touched by the thought to correct his spelling.
‘You don’t mind, do yer, Caitlin?’
This guy. He sneaks up on you. I keep pushing him away and then he says or does something that wrecks all my plans. There’s no stopping him. He’s like the Terminator. I reject his every move and now he uses his secret weapon – his precious car – bad spelling and all. It’s very unfair of him to be so nice.
‘It’s sweet of you, Lanny. Thank you.’
‘Then will you come for a drive with me?’
I hesitate, but then … ‘Why not?’ I clamber into the car. ‘It’s not every girl who has a car named after her.’
‘Cool!’ He grins like a kid on Christmas Day as he switches on the ignition key. But the grin slips away as he turns off the key. ‘I forgot,’ he says. ‘Almost out of petrol. I’ll have enough to get home, but that’s it. You want to just sit with me for a while? You don’t have to talk if you don’t feel like it.’
I nod and lean back in the seat, realising more than ever that I enjoy being around Lanny.
‘Sometimes, real late, I sit on the back steps at home.’ He pauses to listen. ‘This is exactly what it’s like.’ He whispers the next bit. ‘Even the night is asleep.’
Like all of us, there are many different shades to him. Usually I see the firecracker side. Bright lights and noise. Always something to say. Forever going for laughs. Now he’s calm and it flows into me. Soon I’m telling him more about Mum and Dad. It’s like I’m murmuring secrets into a pillow, the way I’ve done so many times, only now there’s a friend listening and caring. I can’t bring myself to talk about the affair. ‘Dad did something pretty bad’, tells him enough. The thing I hear myself saying the most is that I’m scared. The only life I’ve known, that Rory’s known, is about to end. It’s a plane falling out of the sky and we’re directly underneath it. Yes, I’m scared.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ he says.
They are scarecrow words. There’s nothing inside them at all. Sometimes just saying them is enough to chase off your fears. But not this time.
‘No, it’s not, Lanny. I know you’re trying to help but you don’t understand what it’s like.’
‘I might. You never know.’
The way he says it, I think I do know.
‘Did you have the same thing happen, Lanny?’
‘Yeah, but a long time ago, so it doesn’t really count now.’
‘Of course it counts. Will you tell me about it?’
‘Not a lot to tell. The old man left when I was nine.’
‘How did you handle that?’
‘I didn’t – not very well, anyway.’ Lanny winds down his window. He breathes in the crisp air as though he needs it before he can continue. ‘Bawled me head off for a while. Dunno why I bothered now. He wasn’t worth it.’
He stares ahead at the windscreen as if he’s nine years old again.
‘Do you still see him?’
‘No way. Haven’t for years. Don’t want to, either. He’s a loser. Used to hate him for runnin’ out on us. But I don’t anymore. Wouldn’t waste me time thinkin’ about him. Now he’s nothin’. Not even dead. He doesn’t exist.’
I tell him I’m sorry.
‘Nothin’ to be sorry about,’ he says. ‘Not a thing.’
I command my tear ducts to stay shut, but they don’t listen.
‘You’re going to be all right, Caitlin. Don’t be sad.’
I don’t tell him that the tears are more for him than me. My dad is always going to love me, as I’ll love him. Right now Lanny is the one who needs the scarecrow words, but I can’t think of any. There is only one thing that might work, one dangerous thing.
I kiss him. On the lips. My eyes are closed and so are his. It’s a sort of toes-in-the-edge-of-the-water kiss. Careful. Testing. I’m prepared to plunge in deep. I think I want to. But I don’t feel anything, like you’re supposed to. It’s a friend’s kiss and he knows it because he doesn’t try to take it any further.
I lean my head against his.
‘Thanks, Lanny,’ I say. I realise at once that it’s a very stupid choice of words. When you kiss someone you don’t need to say thanks. The kiss is supposed to say it all.
He doesn’t answer.
We’re in the car and he’s in shorts. Haven’t seen him like that very often. Now I see his pale legs. Dad with sandals on. He’s dressed for a holiday but that’s not what’s on his mind.
‘What was it she said to you? Your grandmother?’
He stops at an intersection. The road is clear but he doesn’t move, even when a car pulls in behind us.
‘Um, you know, it was just talk.’
‘About what, David?’
‘She said you wouldn’t go to a cou
nsellor and get any help, and you and Mum wouldn’t get back together and …’
‘That’s enough.’
He hits the accelerator and the car explodes across the intersection. Suddenly he’s in a hurry and speed limits don’t matter. I know where he’s going.
‘Gran really didn’t say much,’ I tell him. ‘I was probably exaggerating a bit. She was only sticking up for Mum.’
‘I should have had it out with her years ago. Interfering bitch. All my married life she’s been doing this and getting away with it, but not any more, not any more.’
I feel sick in the stomach.
‘She didn’t mean anything, Dad. Lots of times she’s said good things about you.’
He doesn’t speak again until we get there.
‘Wait here.’
Dad steps over the small front fence, marches up the path and pushes on the doorbell.
I’ve got the mobile in my hand just in case I have to ring Mum, the police, an ambulance – I don’t know. Just in case.
Gran opens the door and he attacks her straightaway, with words. I keep my window rolled up because I don’t want to hear what he says, but his voice still carries to me. It’s muted but it could be in another language and I’d still understand it. Rage. Nothing but. In seconds it’s over. An image of Gran looking frail and shaken as she stares into the car at me is burnt into my mind. I mutter I’m sorry, I’m sorry. She has no hope of hearing me. Doesn’t understand. She thinks I’m part of this. I look away from her. Have to, because I am part of it. This wouldn’t have happened if I’d kept my mouth shut.
Dad comes back, talking loudly. I don’t know if it’s meant for me or himself.
‘To think I used to mow that woman’s lawn. Every week. And not once did I get any thanks.’
He gets into the car and slams the door.
‘NO BLOODY THANKS!’
I buckle up as the car jerks forward, before he reverses into Gran’s letter box, knocking it flat.
‘She might think twice now. Wicked Meddling Hag!’ He sticks his head out the window and bellows, ‘Don’t you ever try to turn my children against me! You hear? Stay out of my life!’
We spear off down the road. The anger isn’t left at Gran’s. It surges again when his mobile rings.
‘Yes, Lorraine, I did that.’
‘That’s correct, I said that.’
‘No, no, you listen to me. The only thing I’m sorry about is that it didn’t happen a long time ago.’
‘David’s fine! He’s – talk to him yourself!’
He shoves the phone at me.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Sure I am.’
‘Did he make you go with him?’
‘Are you kidding? Noo.’
‘Do you have any idea how worried I am?’
‘Everything’s sweet.’
‘Sweet! God, David! It is not sweet! Didn’t you see what he just did to your grandmother?’
‘He didn’t do anything to her. He only –’
‘Open your eyes – he’s out of control!’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘He’s taken you from school!’
‘But I wanted to go.’
‘Look, I don’t care what you want! You are not allowed to be with him! That is final!’
‘But I don’t get what the problem is. We’re only going fishing.’
‘Don’t argue with me! Just tell him you want to get out of the car! Tell him right this minute! Go on!’
‘I can’t do that, Mum.’
‘Put your father back on the phone – I’ll tell him!’
‘She wants to talk to you, Dad.’
He takes back the phone and switches it off.
Thirty seconds later my phone rings. Dad holds out his hand and I give him the phone.
‘Lorraine. No. No. No. This is not about getting even with you. Just listen. For once. Just listen! This has nothing to do with you. I want to spend some time with David. Would it hurt you so much to give me that?’
He turns the phone off.
‘She’s just worried, that’s all, Dad. You know what she’s like. Maybe we could give her a ring later. Leave it an hour or so. You think?’
He answers me by taking his phone, and mine, and flinging them out of the window.
‘That’s what I think, David. That’s what I think!’
I sink a little lower in my seat as we rush past town after town, the silence blaring. Half an hour goes by before I try to make conversation.
‘Did I tell you I got an A in Science, Dad?’
I ran screaming around the house so I’m sure he must have known about it.
‘Well done.’
‘Right … you know this play I’m working on?’
He nods, only vaguely interested.
‘Well, I met a girl – one of the actors. Her name’s Glenna. She writes poetry.’
‘Does she?’
‘It’s not rhyming poetry. She showed me some. I thought it wouldn’t make any sense, but it did. She thought I was just saying that I understood it – because that’s what her friends do – trying to be nice, you know? But I really meant it.’
I pause so he can say something and when he doesn’t I let myself drift back to that moment with Glenna. I’d gone around to her place to pick up the DVD of Cyrano. She got a surprise when I asked to see her poems. And when I actually read them and told her what I thought they meant, her eyes welled up. I kissed her. In those handful of seconds Glenna and I had our own world cut off from everybody else. I remember how quiet everything went.
‘We hit it off pretty good, Dad. She’s not like a big party girl or anything. Just likes quiet stuff – a bit like me. Be great if you could meet her.’
‘Yes.’ He reaches across and pats my arm. ‘That’s great, great.’
Everything I say runs into a dead end. It doesn’t stop me.
‘Didn’t expect I’d see you today. Never thought I’d go for a drive with you … I’m glad you thought about going on this trip.’
I want him to say that he’s glad too, but he doesn’t say anything. When I look at him I see the same grim face I saw after the fights with Mum.
We’re on a long stretch of road with bushland on both sides of us. Heading for the south coast. It’s all familiar except that the ground is black now and there are so many dead trees from the fires. We were there at Christmas three years ago. Had a picnic on Austinmer Beach. The countryside was green on that trip and we were happy. Now a fire’s gone through the land. Through us, too. But I know the bushland does come back. I see patches of green to prove it. I know people come back, too. And I’m not giving up. Not ever. I touch Dad’s arm to let him know I’m still with him. That’s all you need sometimes. Just a touch from someone. He looks at me kind of curiously, as if he’s surprised to see me. I don’t know where his head’s taking him these days, but it must be a lonely ride.
Down the winding Bulli Pass. No trucks to slow us. No braking. The tyres squeal around tight corners as the speedo climbs. Dad leans forward in the seat, intense. He grips the steering wheel tightly.
Have to start him talking again. Get him focused on now, not on Gran, not on last night.
‘Hey, I was thinking – we need to stop somewhere and get some bait. Will we be going out on a boat, or fishing from …’
The sentence stays unfinished because I know I’m yabbering on to myself.
I put my hand on the steering wheel, right in front of his eyes.
‘We’re not in a hurry, are we, Dad? We’ve got all day. It’s just that we’re goin’ kind of fast.’
There’s a slow realisation of where he is and what he’s doing. A sorry. And he gradually drops the speed down.
‘I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me,’ he says. ‘I’m not in a good place right now … I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘You don’t have to do anything.’ The smile. The cheery voice. ‘Let’s just go
fishin’. How hard is that? We can work on the rest of the stuff later, but today’s for us. Right?’
He nods uncertainly and we drive on at a steadier clip. In only moments we sweep around a corner and crest the last hill of the Pass. It always amazes me, this part. There has been nothing but bushland for so long except here and there a hint of water glimpsed through the trees. Now in front of us is the huge ocean, blue as ink and endless.
‘Lorraine always loved seeing that,’ Dad murmurs. ‘Never tired of it.’
Much further on we pass steel mills and a dirty sky. Sulphur fumes seep into the car even though the windows are up. At last we break free of the suburbs and now there are open fields between the houses with cows and horses grazing behind falling-down wire fences.
‘I’d like a place like that.’
I follow Dad’s eyes to a white house with a veranda running all the way around it. A weeping willow is near the front gate; drooping branches like seaweed hung up to dry. It’s shady and there’s a jet black horse under it picking at the grass.
‘If I could start again,’ he nods to himself, ‘that’s what it would be. A little place in the country.’
‘Why don’t you, Dad? I’d live out here. So would Allie. Be great. Mum could get a transfer from her school. Maybe that’s the answer. Start all over. You could make it work for sure, and I’d help. We could grow vegetables. A whole new life. Allie could have her own horse. She would so love that. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s a wonderful daydream. And I wish it could happen. But I know it can’t. Unfortunately, David, one of the hard things you learn as you get older is that life doesn’t give you a second chance.’
Bullshit, I say, but only to myself. I decide not to fight openly with Dad. I can’t beat him that way. I’ll pick my time and sneak up on him. I don’t know how yet – whatever it takes. Because I know there is a second chance there for him if he’ll only reach out for it. I know because when I look behind me at the house fading into the distance, I see Dad on the veranda. And Mum is there too.
My parents are chained to opposite ends of the couch. I’m sitting next to Rory who’s clutching a basketball to his middle, blissfully unaware that this ‘little talk’ we’re about to hear will be the end of everything.
