‘Got to catch me first,’ Tom laughs, swimming away from her. Lola pulls her dress over her head and lobs it at the sand before turning to brave the waves. Too late to catch the first one, she dives under it, feeling the massive force of water pass over her. When she stands up, she sees Noah swimming out to join her.
‘Look,’ she calls out when Noah surfaces a foot away from her, a huge wave behind him.
‘Jesus,’ he says. They start paddling and the wave picks her up, yes, and she’s flying forward, all foam and bubbles and roaring in her ears. Standing in the shallows, the water streaming past her feet, she hears a voice in her ear.
‘Still as crazy as ever,’ Noah says. Then he gives her a slow smile, just like he used to, and she knows they’re OK. He glances towards the shore. ‘Think you’re in trouble.’
Oh great, there’s her mother — the leather case containing Lola’s blood-sugar meter and insulin in one hand, Lola’s sodden dress in the other. Lola can’t hear what her mother is saying over the rumble of the sea, but she’s pretty sure it will be something along the lines of Lola Jean Mortimer blood sugar new dress blah blah blah.
‘Lola Jean Mortimer,’ her mother says when she draws closer. ‘Swimming in your underwear at your age, you should be ashamed of yourself.’
Lola peers over her mother’s shoulder at McKenzie, who is lying on a towel in her bikini.
‘Who’s showing more cleavage, her or me?’ Lola asks, pointing at her cousin. McKenzie sits up, and gives Lola one of the sly smiles that always makes Lola want to hit her. Then Lola feels all self-conscious, because she’s suddenly aware that she does have cleavage, for the first time ever. Ugh. The last thing she needs is ginormous boobs getting in the way of her bowling.
Lola grabs the dress off her mother and yanks it over her head, even though it feels clammy and gross. ‘Happy now?’
‘Blood sugar,’ her mother says as McKenzie’s younger brother, Beckett, walks up to them, a surfboard under his arm. ‘Now.’
Lola glares at her. ‘I’m covered in sand.’
‘So come back to the house and do it,’ her mother says, pushing the case at Lola. ‘Hi, Beckett, gosh, you’ve grown. Are you fourteen yet?’
‘Last month,’ Beckett says.
‘You’re all growing up so fast. Lola will be sixteen in two weeks,’ Kiri says, beaming at Beckett.
‘What’s that?’ Beckett asks, nodding at the leather case.
‘Heroin,’ Lola says and stalks away.
Back at the house, Lola heads straight downstairs and into the usual room she shares with McKenzie when the whole family is staying. McKenzie has already claimed the bed next to the wall and strewn her stuff all over the duvet — purple earphones, a pair of white Converse sneakers, a pink laptop and an assortment of glossy magazines. Scraps of Christmas wrapping paper are scattered over the threadbare carpet. McKenzie, thinks Lola, is such a slob.
Sully spoils those kids, Lola had heard her father say to her mother recently, when he’d thought she wasn’t listening.
Give him a break, Kiri had said. He only sees them at the weekends.
Aunt Chloe and Uncle Sully had split up just over a year ago. Lola’s father calls Aunt Chloe high maintenance. McKenzie is no better, already plucking her eyebrows and waxing her legs, even though she’s only a year older than Lola.
Lola passes the boys’ bedroom, with its two sets of bunk beds and clothes all over the floor, and continues into the bathroom. After locking the door, she takes off her wet clothes and pivots in front of the cracked mirror above the basin. Unlike McKenzie, who has inherited the blonde Mortimer locks, Lola’s hair is an unsatisfactory shade of brown. She has the Mortimer freckles, though, and her skinny limbs are covered in ageing bruises. Cricket balls are unforgiving like that.
After sticking her tongue out at her mirror image, Lola turns her attention to the blood-sugar meter. She pricks her finger with a lancet, which hurts like hell, even after three months, then squeezes up a dot of blood and lets it soak into a test strip. The meter’s verdict isn’t good: fifteen, too high.
Sighing, Lola draws up ten units of insulin and pinches up a fold of skin on her stomach. After injecting herself — not as painful as the blood-sugar check, but not great either — she steps into the shower. Watching the water cascade over her breasts, she wonders if there is a female version of Peter Pan.
She doesn’t want to change. She was happy with her athletic figure just as it was, when her boobs were a tidy B rather than an out-of-control D. She doesn’t want to act like a lady, either. Not swimming in her underwear? What the hell? What happened to spontaneity? What happened to having fun?
If only time could stand still, even just for two weeks.
When Lola walks outside twenty minutes later, her father is in the backyard, stuffing a rubbish bag into the outside bin.
‘Have a nice swim?’ Ants clips the lid back on.
Lola plucks a tennis ball off the driveway and tosses it to him. ‘Until Mum came and started nagging me.’
Her father throws it back. ‘She’s just watching out for you. Gives her something to do.’
Lola plucks the ball out of the air. ‘I hope I have more interesting things to do when I’m forty-nine.’ After winding up, she throws the ball overarm, a gentle bowl that bounces directly in front of her father’s feet.
‘Come on, where’s that spin you’ve been practising?’ Her father demonstrates.
‘That was shit.’ Lola says, stepping sideways to let the ball thud against the garage door.
‘If your mum were here, I’d tell you to watch your language,’ Ants says, and they grin at each other. Lola winds up again, but is distracted by Noah and Tom appearing around the side of the house, sand glistening on their bare chests.
‘Oh, how the mighty do fall,’ her father chortles, after her bowl goes wide. ‘Better go, I was meant to be fetching your nana some rosemary.’
‘Are you sleeping in a tent, too?’ Lola asks, watching Noah empty the contents of a tent bag onto the lawn.
‘Yep.’ Noah extends a tent pole and snaps the joints into place. ‘Got it for Christmas. You should join us. We could make a tent city.’ There’s the twang again, cit-ee.
‘I didn’t bring a tent,’ Lola says, her eyes straying to her brother, who is already hammering pegs into the lawn surrounding his tent.
‘There’s enough room in here,’ Noah says and clears his throat. ‘Joking.’
‘Sure,’ she says, a melancholic disappointment seeping into her. They’ve been sharing rooms and tents all their lives. So that’s off-limits, too, just because she’s a girl with cleavage? Suck. ‘Well,’ she says, turning away, ‘I’ll be having fun with McKenzie, if you’re looking for me.’ Not.
‘Hey Lola,’ he calls after her, but she is already halfway up the stairs to the kitchen. Hearing Richard and Molly’s voices from the balcony above, she slows.
‘I’d appreciate your support, Richard.’ Her aunt doesn’t sound happy.
Richard says, ‘Why me, when you’ve got Joe?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Molly says and turns, noticing Lola. Ducking her head, Lola carries on into the kitchen and fills a glass with water.
‘What was your blood sugar?’ Kiri sails into the kitchen, her caftan-style dress billowing behind her.
Lola gulps on her water. ‘Eight.’
‘Not bad.’ Kiri takes a platter out of the cupboard and opens a box of crackers. ‘Did you record it on your app?’
‘Yep.’ Another lie. Later, she’ll do it later. She’s got better things to do than record her crappy blood-sugar levels.
‘Lola, I haven’t had a proper chance to say hello to you yet.’ Aunt Molly comes forward to give her a hug. Molly is her favourite aunt, just as Joe is her favourite uncle.
She can’t wait to see Uncle Joe.
They’ve no sooner finished welcoming Uncle Joe than Nana has them lining up for a photo. After the extended-family shot, which Sully takes by setting
the camera on a tripod with a timer, Nana orders they line up for the obligatory cousins-only photo.
‘In height order, please,’ Nana says, herding them like sheep towards the rose bushes. Their grandmother is never one to miss getting some shots of her garden at the same time.
‘I’m having a bad-hair day,’ McKenzie whinges, which is complete crap. Lola wishes her hair were Rapunzel-straight and golden, instead of brown and frizzy like one of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters.
‘She said height order, not age order,’ Noah says, jostling Tom with his elbow. Tom gives him the evils.
‘You’re dreaming, mate,’ he says in a perfect imitation of an Australian accent.
‘Unfortunately, your cousin is right,’ Ants says, patting his elder son on the shoulder. ‘Not by much, but Noah is definitely taller than you.’
‘That’s because they put steroids in the chicken in Australia.’ Tom reluctantly stands to the right of Noah. Lola’s elder brother is eleven months older than Noah, and they’ve been competing with each other for as long as she can remember. Not like Lola and McKenzie, whom their grandmother always refers to as chalk and cheese. Lola often wonders who is the chalk, and who is the cheese.
Next is McKenzie, followed by Lola, then Beckett and Austin. Lola figures it’ll only be a year or two before she’s last in the cousin line-up. Maybe Nana will have given up on the photos by then. Somehow Lola doubts it.
‘I’m sick of smiling now,’ McKenzie grumps after the fifth photo, earning a reproachful look from her father.
‘Come on, Mac,’ Uncle Sully says. ‘You know how your nana likes to show you all off to her friends.’
‘I’m not going to stop until you give me a nice smile either,’ their grandmother says, raising the camera again. ‘Austin, how many times do I have to tell you to keep that hat off? All right, say cheese.’
By this stage Lola is getting restless too. All she wants is to play cricket. Restraining herself from saying ‘chalk’ instead, she choruses ‘cheese’ with the others, before lining up for the family shots. Their family, excruciatingly, is last, her parents standing on either side of Lola, Tom and Austin.
‘Ants and the brunettes,’ Sully says, raising his phone to take a shot as well.
Lola’s mother laughs. ‘Sounds like a band,’ she says.
‘Can we play cricket now?’ Lola says.
Lola taps the end of the cricket bat on the bitumen.
‘Where did he go? The beach?’
‘He’s doing his run-up.’ Beckett, standing near the letterbox, is looking down the fence line, at someone out of Lola’s view.
‘No one needs that long a run-up,’ she complains, but when Joe emerges around the side of the house, running full-tilt, Lola can’t help giggling. The ball flies out of her uncle’s grasp and she swings the bat, thwack. Joe jumps to catch the ball and falls sprawling to the ground. The rest of them bend their heads back, watching the ball sail up onto Nana’s balcony.
‘Six!’ Tom and Noah chorus. Nana appears at the balcony railing.
‘You break any more windows this year, Lola Mortimer, and you’ll be paying for the glass yourself.’
‘I won’t break anything,’ Lola says, resting the bat on her shoulder. McKenzie is drooping over the opposite end of the balcony railing, staring intently at her phone. It’s as though her social life is super-glued to her palm.
‘LBW,’ Joe protests, waggling one of his legs in the air.
‘Oh, it was not,’ Molly says from her deckchair, positioned in the shade beneath the balcony. Joe jogs up to her and plucks the beer bottle out of her grip.
‘Mmm, Corona.’
‘Get your own.’ Molly snatches it back. Funny how Lola’s aunt and uncle always act like kids when they get together. Now that Molly has cut her hair short, they look even more alike.
‘Are you still bowling, slacker?’ Tom calls out.
‘Hey, have some respect for your elders,’ Joe says, reaching into the air to catch the ball. Seeing a flash of red t-shirt out of the corner of her eye, Lola turns to see Noah sidling up to him.
‘Think it’s my turn to bowl, actually,’ he says, and Lola blinks. All afternoon, she’s been glimpsing side profiles of her father, Joe and Noah, and mixing them up with each other.
Hitler would have loved your family, her mother had said to her father once. All that blonde hair and blue eyes.
Could have given me some of those blonde genes, Lola had griped.
She stands in front of the wicket again. Noah grins at her.
‘Get ready to be bowled out.’
‘You wish,’ she says, her focus on the ball. Before she can strike, a pair of arms encircles her — Tom, again — and yanks her out of the way.
‘Out!’ Beckett shouts as Lola wrestles free from her brother’s grasp.
‘You guys are such cheats,’ Lola yells, plucking one of the bails off the overturned rubbish bins they’ve been using as wickets, and chucking it at Tom. ‘That’s against the rules.’
‘Ah, but rules were made to be broken,’ Joe says, turning to look at Molly, and everyone laughs — everyone except Molly, who stands up and wanders over the lawn and down the road towards the beach.
‘My turn to bat.’ Beckett turns his cap backwards.
‘I’ll be back,’ Uncle Joe says, walking in the same direction Molly has gone. But he doesn’t come back for nearly an hour, and nor does she.
Chapter 3:
MOLLY
When Molly and Joe arrive back from the beach, Sully is sitting on the bottom balcony step, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette.
‘Nice stroll?’ Sully asks.
‘Lovely.’ Molly stands in the bucket of water her mother has placed beneath the tap, the sand swirling off her feet. ‘How’s the New Year’s resolution going?’
Sully regards his half-smoked cigarette. ‘The new year’s still five days away.’
‘Wasn’t that this year’s resolution too?’ Molly asks, and Sully’s face grows long.
‘Look, if you’d had the kind of year I’d had, you’d be smoking too.’
‘Try smoking weed, that’ll put a smile on your dial,’ Joe says, giving his feet a cursory dip in the bucket before heading up the stairs.
‘Yeah, you’re funny,’ Sully calls after him.
Molly sinks onto the step beside her eldest brother. ‘Chloe still giving you a hard time?’
‘She gave me half an hour with them on Christmas Day. Thirty fucking minutes before she whipped them off to her parents’ house.’ Sully dangles the bottle of beer over the parched grass. ‘I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t turn up here before the week’s up, saying they’ve got to be God knows where.’
‘You get to have them at the weekends, though, don’t you?’
Sully grinds his cigarette into the concrete. ‘Not even that. There’s always some excuse. Not from the kids, they’re always happy to come and stay, but sometimes it’s only every third weekend. Jesus, Mol, sometimes I feel I don’t even know my kids anymore. They’re growing up so fast, they’re different people every time I see them.’
‘I feel like that with Noah, and we live in the same house,’ Molly says, plucking the beer from his clasp and taking a large gulp. The cold liquid sliding down the back of her throat is welcome. Five o’clock, and the temperature must still be in the high twenties.
Sully’s eyes shift towards Tom and Noah, walking around the side of the house with their shirts off and their towels slung around their necks, and lowers his voice.
‘How’s Noah taken the move to Melbourne?’
‘Not so well.’ Molly’s about to elaborate, but at that moment McKenzie appears on the balcony, a pink laptop tucked under her arm.
‘Dad, my computer’s fucked.’
‘Jesus, watch your language,’ Sully says, rising to his feet. ‘I only bought it a week ago, I’m sure it’s not broken.’
‘It won’t even turn on,’ McKenzie says, shoving it at him. Molly’s got half
a mind to tell her niece not to be so rude, but what business is it of hers?
Molly stands up and passes the bottle back to Sully. ‘Think I’ll go and get myself one of those too.’
‘Plenty in the fridge,’ Sully says, beckoning his daughter to sit beside him. He gives her a quick hug. ‘Right, you going to show me what’s wrong?’
‘That girl is turning into a spoilt brat,’ her mother says as soon as Molly enters the lounge. Hazel is sitting at the table, a pen poised over one of her crosswords. ‘If Sully and Chloe aren’t careful, she’ll end up barefoot and pregnant.’
‘Mum,’ Molly says, glad the other kids aren’t around to hear that, but for once she can’t help agreeing with her mother. Perhaps Sully should have given his daughter the contraceptive pill for Christmas, instead of a bunch of expensive presents that McKenzie doesn’t even seem to appreciate.
Kiri, sitting at the other end of the table, says, ‘Thank God that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about with Lola. She seems far more interested in cricket than boys.’
‘And long may that last,’ Molly agrees, continuing on into the kitchen.
They start up the barbecue around six. Sully and Ants drink beer and argue about the best way to cook steak, while Richard and Kiri seek shelter from the relentless sun in the lounge. They talk about rising house prices, impending drought, terrorism. The other kids have joined Tom and Noah at the beach, armed with chips and soft drink. The sky is duck-egg blue.
‘So, a professor now.’ Joe pulls back on his beer. Molly is onto her third. Her limbs feel heavy, as if they’re full of sand.
‘Associate professor,’ Molly corrects. ‘It’ll be a while before I make professor. How about you? Got any plans to move back to New Zealand?’
‘Mmm, not yet.’ Joe crosses his legs, the tuatara tattoo on his left ankle winking up at her. ‘The Middle East makes this place look like paradise, though.’
‘You’ll get yourself killed.’ She gazes out over the bay. Meringue-tipped waves, bleached sand, glassy skies. It should be paradise.
Moonlight Sonata Page 2
