Inheriting Jack

by Kris Webb

‘Seeing all these hot, sweaty kids doesn’t make you itch to sell them ice-creams?’ I asked.

  At the words ‘hot and sweaty’, I found myself looking at his rather lovely chest. I jerked my eyes upwards, pretending to look at something else.

  ‘To be honest, no. I’m a bit over it all at the moment. I’ve had a couple of complaints in the last few weeks – it’s a much bigger deal when it’s not just you.’

  ‘See!’ I shook my head. ‘It’s that music – it’s got to go.’

  He laughed. ‘The complaints were actually about the quality of the ice-cream from one of the vans. Mind you,’ he added, ‘if all complaints worked out as well as yours, I wouldn’t mind.’

  He looked at me and we both smiled.

  Suddenly I realised that I couldn’t see Jack and I spun around in panic. He was only a few metres behind us, watching a woman with a chihuahua.

  I looked back at Grant but the moment was gone. How on earth was I supposed to make meaningful eye contact with an attractive man while looking after a cyclonic toddler?

  Grant chuckled, looking in Jack’s direction.

  Jack was miaowing at the top of his voice at the chihuahua, much to the amusement of everyone in earshot. Everyone except the dog’s owner, who looked stonily ahead.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I muttered under my breath.

  ‘Kind of hard to blame him,’ Grant replied quietly.

  ‘Let’s just hope the owner doesn’t realise he’s with us – she looks scary.’

  Grant looked at his watch. ‘I have to get going,’ he said in what I hoped was a regretful tone. ‘Can’t keep my public waiting – the kids get pretty mean if I’m not there on time.’

  He stood up and picked up his towel and keys. ‘Well, thanks for a great morning. Bye Jack,’ he yelled in his direction.

  ‘See you then. We might even buy an ice-cream from you next week when you drive by.’

  Grant looked suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Ah, I won’t actually be around after tomorrow. I’ve got someone else to handle the inner-city van next week.’

  ‘Okay then,’ I replied, slightly confused at his reaction.

  ‘Yeah, I’m taking a week’s holiday.’

  ‘Half your luck. Where are you going?’

  ‘Ah, I haven’t decided yet.’

  ‘Oh – right.’

  The conversation had switched back to being awkward again.

  ‘Well. I’d better go. I’ll give you a call when I get back.’ He smiled and headed for the road.

  Jack tugged at my legs, saying his word for ‘hungry’.

  As I rummaged in my bag for some food, I cast a look at Grant’s retreating back. ‘What on earth was that about, Jack? Come on, you’re a man. Explain it to me.’

  He looked at me silently.

  Shaking my head, I handed Jack a biscuit and slumped down on the sand beside him.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I’ve heard it said that most recovering addicts have had a defining moment which makes them realise they need to make some changes.

  Mine was a sudden, horrifying glimpse of my future in which I had become the kind of person no one wanted to sit next to at a dinner party.

  It started on Sunday. By amazing coincidence Jack and I headed to New Farm Park at almost exactly the same time we’d seen Grant there last time. Jack insisted on walking the last half of the way and as we cut across the lawn, Grant’s van tinkled past on its way out of the park. He didn’t see us, but I was close enough to know it was him and to see the blonde girl sitting beside him.

  Normally that wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but not only was she very attractive, she was also sitting in the middle seat of the van and Grant’s arm was around her.

  I stopped dead, looking after them. For some reason I’d assumed Grant wasn’t seeing anyone. But maybe he was. After all, there was nothing between us, but why on earth had he spent time with Jack and me yesterday if he was with someone else? The thought that he was trying to pay me back for my actions of years ago crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. He was too nice for that.

  The more likely answer was that he was keeping his options open. There was no rule against seeing two women at the same time. That theory also explained why he didn’t want to tell me where he was going on holiday – or with whom.

  Our history, the fact that our current relationship had spanned a whole two weeks, and my interest in the elusive Tony, made it hard for me to feel angry. But it didn’t stop me picturing Grant and his floozy arriving at a lovely unit on the Gold Coast and cracking open a bottle of complimentary champagne on the balcony.

  And as the week wore on without a word from Tony to distract me, I began envisaging Grant and the mystery blonde in ever more romantic settings. My current picture was of them sipping tequila sunrises beside a swim-up bar in the Maldives.

  But it was the ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ conversation that convinced me I had to change my life.

  Patrick had arrived home from a day on the boat, just after I’d put Jack to bed.

  ‘Have a look at this, would you?’ I said, proffering an open book of nursery rhymes.

  ‘What am I looking at exactly?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘The lyrics to “Pop Goes the Weasel”. Have a read of them.’

  He scanned the page and looked up again. ‘Okay . . . read them – I’m obviously missing something here.’

  ‘But have you read them properly?’ I demanded.

  ‘Julia, have you been drinking?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I answered haughtily. Patrick didn’t need to know that was only because the cupboard was bare. I silently congratulated myself for thinking in nursery-rhyme parlance.

  I took the book back. ‘Listen to this. It talks about the monkey chasing the weasel around the mulberry bush, but when the monkey stops to pull up his socks, the weasel goes pop!’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Patrick was starting to look worried.

  ‘Does that make any sense to you?’

  ‘Um – no. It’s a nursery rhyme.’

  ‘But what do you think it means? I’m thinking there must be a hidden drug reference or something, but I just can’t work it out.’

  ‘Julia, to be honest I don’t care. It’s a nursery rhyme, for God’s sake – they’re not supposed to make sense. And you shouldn’t care either.’

  I looked at him. ‘I’m losing it, aren’t I?’

  ‘Not losing it,’ Patrick said a bit more kindly. ‘But I think your perspective is getting a bit . . . a bit confused,’ he finished.

  ‘Am I boring?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ He said it a bit too quickly. ‘What you’re doing is amazing. Working really hard and managing to figure out how to look after Jack at the same time. But – all that – well, it doesn’t leave time for much else, does it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look. I’ve been pretty crap, I know. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself about not having a job and now there’s this television thing.’

  ‘Jack’s not your responsibility.’

  ‘No, but you are my sister.’

  He gave me a strange look. We weren’t big on talking about emotions in our family. I felt a bit odd about Patrick becoming all caring and considerate.

  He obviously felt the same, as he continued in a lighter tone. ‘And it reflects very badly on me to have a sister who . . . has lost perspective. I still owe you two babysitting nights for asking Grant out, so why don’t you take a night off and go and do something fun?’

  ‘Okay, I will,’ I said decisively. Patrick was right – I needed to get out more. The prospect of an occasional night with grown-ups was as appealing as a fifty per cent pay rise would have been a month ago.

  ‘All right, see if I can get this straight. Weekend in Fiji with handsome man – exciting. Afternoon at local park – boring. Ahhh . . . Morning spent stacking blocks on top of one another . . .’ I paused, ‘boring. Evening eating and drinking with group of good friends – exciting.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a
big improvement,’ Patrick smiled, obviously relieved to have escaped the dangerous territory of his sister’s mental instability. ‘And on weekend with said handsome man or evening with friends, do not discuss nursery-rhyme lyrics.’

  ‘Right,’ I nodded seriously. ‘Got it.’

  We decided Patrick would look after Jack on Monday night and then moved on to something else, but I thought about our conversation a number of times afterwards.

  My existence consisted entirely of work, looking after Jack and evenings at home, generally by myself. Given the not-so-good direction my job had taken, I couldn’t even justify my lack of a life on the basis that I was dedicating myself to my career. I tried to think about what I used to talk to friends about before Jack arrived. Nothing very intelligent or exciting leaped to mind. But I was pretty sure that nursery rhymes hadn’t featured.

  Something had to change if I was going to keep my sanity and any of my friends. The difficult thing was to decide what to do to make myself more interesting.

  Maggie wasn’t any help when we met for a quick lunch together on Monday.

  ‘Are you sure this is the right way to go about it?’ she asked dubiously. ‘Isn’t trying to make yourself interesting a bit deliberate? It’s something that just happens, isn’t it?’

  I shook my head firmly. ‘I’ve thought about this. It’s fine if you have lots of time to do a whole bunch of stuff. You can afford to relax and let things happen because in the course of, say, a week, you do a whole lot of things which provide you with interesting snippets. But I have a four-hour window. I can’t afford to muck around – I’ve got to spend my time wisely.’

  ‘At least wait until next week and I’ll go with you.’

  Again, I shook my head. Maggie sighed. ‘All right then, what are you thinking of?’

  ‘Well.’ I pulled the entertainment guide out of the paper ‘There’s no shortage of options. But I was thinking maybe kick-boxing?’

  Maggie spluttered her mouthful of mineral water over the table, obviously picturing me attempting a head-high kick.

  ‘Okay,’ I acknowledged with a small smile. ‘Maybe that’s not quite me. What do you think about some kind of course?’

  ‘Maybe you should go for one-off things to begin with. Work up to a commitment.’

  ‘You’re right. Oh, I don’t know.’ I folded the paper and threw it on top of my handbag. ‘Re-engineering your life is exhausting. I’ll think about it later.’

  ‘I need to get back to the pub.’ Maggie looked at her watch. ‘Marcus gets here on Thursday, and I’m taking Friday off, so I need to get a day ahead of myself.’

  ‘He doesn’t waste any time, does he?’ I asked, watching her face carefully. This was the first time she’d brought up the subject of Marcus.

  ‘No. He says now he’s decided, he just wants to be here – he’s moving in with a friend until he finds a place to live.’

  ‘And you’re okay about it?’

  ‘Yeah, I think I am,’ she smiled slightly. ‘Still a bit nervous though.’

  ‘It’ll be great,’ I declared. ‘Right, let’s get back to it – I can hardly see over my in-tray.’ Thankfully Mark was still managing the First Gen matter by himself, but Gordon’s trial was due to start on Friday and I had a million things to do before I left for the day.

  By five-thirty I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do that evening. The pressure of it all was getting too much and I found myself wishing that I could just forget about it and have an early night.

  Patrick was waiting in the kitchen when we arrived home. Lifting Jack into a bear hug, he looked at me jubilantly.

  ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ After the last time, I wasn’t taking any chances.

  ‘Um – the bad news.’

  Patrick smiled broadly. ‘There is no bad news – Tony called about the show.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And . . .’ Patrick could hardly stand still he was so excited. ‘The management committee loved it.’ He put on an American accent. ‘It’s been green-lit, baby!’

  ‘That’s fabulous. When will it be aired?’

  ‘That’s the best bit. Tony decided to use the last take we did – the one where we were mucking around. The people he showed it to thought the chemistry between David and me was great and that the whole thing was really funny. They’ve canned the idea of doing it at a different person’s house each week and want me to do the whole series with him!’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. The details need to be sorted out, but I’ve been invited to some big studio party on Thursday night so I can meet some people. How good is that?’

  ‘This calls for champagne,’ I decided. ‘You start Jack in the bath and I’ll be back in ten minutes.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Patrick shook his head. ‘This is your “I am going to get a life” night. You’re not going to get out of it that easily. We’ll celebrate tomorrow night. Go and get ready.’

  At seven o’clock I was standing out the front of the house, wondering what the hell I was going to do with myself for the next four hours.

  Well one thing was for sure, I wasn’t catching public transport at this time of night. I pulled out my car keys and sat inside the car. Turning on the interior light, I flicked through the pages of the newspaper Patrick had thrust at me as I’d left.

  Seeing a band was an option. But it was only seven o’clock. None of the musicians would even be awake yet and I couldn’t face a day with Jack tomorrow on only a couple of hours’ sleep. Besides, a whole night in a bar by myself didn’t sound like much fun.

  I flicked through the theatre reviews. Why did anything with any form of theatrical credibility have to be wrist-slashingly depressing?

  At the bottom of the page was a section on art galleries. I noticed that tonight was the opening of a new exhibition at a gallery on Brunswick Street. I’d never heard of the artist and knew nothing about painting. But it sounded like an excellent tidbit of information to drop into a conversation – actually every conversation I had in the next week – and as an added bonus I figured there was a good chance I’d score a free glass of wine. Decisively I flicked off the light and turned the key in the ignition.

  As I approached the gallery, I could see that it was full of people and my steps faltered. Who exactly was I going to talk to? I couldn’t spend an hour looking at the paintings. Close to the gallery was a bus shelter and I sat down, trying to get up enough courage to go in.

  I was tempted to turn around and go home. But summoning the look of concern on Patrick’s face when I told him my nursery-rhyme theory, I stood up and walked to the door.

  There was a waiter holding a tray of drinks standing inside and I picked up a glass of wine. My plan had been to head straight for the paintings, but the closer I got the less I wanted to see. Given that I didn’t know a soul, though, I had no other option and I was still wandering from one to another when a woman spoke to me.

  ‘Ah, excuse me?’

  I turned to her with a smile. Obviously this was what sophisticated people did at gallery openings. I needn’t have worried about meeting people.

  ‘Ah. I just thought I should tell you that you have something on the back of your skirt.’

  From the distasteful look on her face, I knew we weren’t talking a small something.

  ‘Right.’ I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say. ‘What is it, do you know?’

  She shook her head uncertainly. ‘Well, I’d say chewing gum. But it’s a very odd colour.’

  Duty done, she gave me a pitying look before threading her way through the crowd.

  My first thought was of the length of time I’d been standing with my back to a room full of people. I felt the colour rise in my cheeks and cursed the impulse which had made me sit on the bus stop seat, which I could only assume was the source of the unidentified goop.

  I looked for somewhere to put my wineglass, focusing on the quickest possible exit route.


  ‘Julia!’

  My blood chilled as I recognised the voice which haunted my dreams.

  ‘Gordon, hello,’ I stammered. He didn’t appear to notice my lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Hello Julia. I didn’t know you were an art buff!’ He took my arm and pulled me towards a group of people.

  ‘Oh well, you know, a well-rounded lawyer is a good lawyer.’ I thanked God that none of my friends had heard those words come out of my mouth, but Gordon nodded in agreement.

  ‘This is my lawyer,’ Gordon announced to the circle in front of him. ‘She’s going to blow the other side out of the water at our trial on Friday.’

  Gordon’s confidence in me had the result of making me even more terrified that we were going to lose badly. I smiled wanly at the faces turned unenthusiastically my way.

  My back was now to the door and any exit would involve presenting my soiled rear view to Gordon for at least ten seconds. Not the way to inspire confidence in a client.

  For once Gordon’s mercurial nature, which was the bane of my professional existence, worked in my favour. Within minutes of greeting me, he spotted someone he knew across the room and disappeared. Pointedly ignored by his previous companions, I took the opportunity to bolt for the door, thrusting my glass at the same waiter who had served me.

  I tried not to run as I headed for the side street where I’d left the car. As I turned off Brunswick Street I stopped and swivelled my skirt around. The woman at the exhibition hadn’t been joking. It was truly disgusting. I reached out to touch the raised mess, but pulled back at the last minute.

  Suddenly I felt tired. At least I couldn’t humiliate myself publicly if I was at home with Jack.

  I couldn’t even summon the energy to turn the car radio on and stared glumly at the road as I drove. Patrick wouldn’t be thrilled to see me back so early, but sitting in the car at the front of the house until ten o’clock seemed a bit sad, even for me.

  A crowd of merry cinema-goers was streaming out of the local theatre as I drove past. On impulse, I pulled over. I had to make the most of my night off. A movie – that was the answer. Something mindless, something totally lacking in credibility, something fabulous.