As soon as I had sorted out my washing, I took the phone into my room and rang Helen.
‘It looks bad,’ she said, ‘but it might just look bad. Phone Rachel and see what she thinks.’
‘Definitely a boyfriend,’ Rachel said, as I outlined the kitchen sink contents. ‘Two of everything has to be boyfriend.’
‘What will I do?’ I wailed.
‘Well, you can either ask her straight out or wait,’ Rachel said. ‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Boyfriends make mums feel guilty,’ Rachel said, ‘so if you want some new jeans or a new book or a CD now is the time to strike.’
‘Don’t you think that’s mean?’
‘It’s life,’ Rachel said.
‘I’ll have to think about that,’ I said and hung up. I rang Sarah. She actually had two parents who still lived together. She was an endangered species, but it meant that she’d be able to look at the morals of it all objectively.
‘You don’t even know if it is a boyfriend,’ Sarah said, ‘although the evidence does suggest it. Maybe she wanted you to find out, do you reckon? Like what Ms O’Grady was saying about that book, you know, where the girl left all the stuff lying around so her mum would find out that she was on drugs? It’s a cry for help.’
‘It can’t be a cry for help if it’s a boyfriend.’
‘He mightn’t even be a boyfriend yet,’ Sarah said.
‘There were porridge bowls,’ I pointed out.
‘Oh, he’s a boyfriend then. And she wanted you to find out otherwise she’d have done the washing-up right away. I bet she tells you over take-aways. That’s why they get take-aways—it’s to make you feel good about what they’re going to tell you.’
‘So I shouldn’t ask her?’
‘I’d wait,’ Sarah said. ‘I think she’d feel better.’
Helen agreed.
‘She’ll feel in control then,’ Helen said. ‘They like that. Then you want to meet him as quickly as possible and check him out. Boyfriends can be really cool, but only if they want you to like them. If he doesn’t want you to like him, get rid of him.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll have to,’ Helen said. ‘Mum had one like that. I had to get rid of him. You only want the best ones to stick around. The others will end up being creepy anyway and hurting your mum. You don’t want that to happen. So you have to meet him and test him.’
‘Millie! Are you on the phone?’
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
I hadn’t thought of creepy boyfriends, but what if Mum was with someone like old Pig’s Trotters? That would be the worst thing in the world. I couldn’t let that happen to her. I’d have to save her.
I waited until we’d bought take-away noodles. I waited right through the noodles. Mum cleared her throat a couple of times but nothing happened. She said it was the satay sauce, and it might have been, but it might also have been the word ‘boyfriend’s ticking there like a fish bone.
I waited right through the ‘Worlds Forgotten by Time’. We watched in silence as various archaeologists talked excitedly about chipped pots. ‘Worlds’ finished and before we could sit through another program in total silence, the phone rang and Mum dived to get it.
‘I’ll get it,’ she practically screamed at me.
‘I’ve got it,’ I said, holding it aloft. ‘Hello, Millie Childes speaking. Yes, she is. May I say who’s calling? It’s for you,’ I said. ‘Someone called Tom Grafton. On the exhibition committee, I suppose.’
I said the last bit in my most sarcastic voice, but Mum didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy grabbing the phone and leaving the room with it. What did people do before portable handsets?
The call took ages. When she finally came out, I said, in my meanest voice, ‘So I suppose that’s the exhibition committee who came to dinner and stayed for breakfast? Also known as The Boyfriend?’
‘Oh, Millie,’ Mum said and hugged me. Her face was flushed and her eyes were all soft and gooey. She looked the way I felt when I looked at
I felt sorry for her and hugged her back.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked. ‘You’ve always told me things before.’
‘I was waiting to see if it was ... you know, serious or not.’
‘So is it? Is he a “boyfriend”?’
‘I guess he is. It’s pretty weird having a boyfriend at my age, but “man friend” sounds...’
‘Weirder,’ I said. ‘Is he nice? Will I like him? Will he like me? When do I get to meet him?’
‘Steady on. Yes, he is nice. I think you’ll like him. I think he’ll like you. You’ll get to meet each other at the exhibition opening which is on Friday night. Okay? He wants to meet you too, Millie.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Well, he is kind of on the exhibition committee. He’s in the photography department.’
‘So he’s an artist, too? I don’t think artists should live together, Mum.’
‘We’re not even talking about living together, Millie!’ Mum said. ‘And he started photography as a technical photographer but, yes, I think he is an artist.’
‘That’s okay, I quite like artists. Although they don’t earn much money and it’s not good for there to be two in the one house.’
I could see why Mum was nervous on Friday. When I got home from school she was in the bathroom, getting ready. We had two and a half hours before zero hour, but she was shut in there already.
‘Scrubbing off paint,’ she called out.
When I put my head around the door to ask what there was to eat, she was wearing a face mask. It was blue. She looked like an alien.
‘Is that for The Boyfriend’s benefit?’ I asked. I had counted the phone calls—he had rung her three times that week. They both worked at the same place, for heaven’s sake.
‘Why doesn’t he just come round?’ I’d asked after the second phone call. ‘It would be cheaper.’
‘We’re both busy,’ Mum had said.
‘Not too busy to spend an hour on the phone,’ I’d pointed out. I was becoming more of a scientist every day.
‘No, it’s not just for Tom’s benefit,’ Mum said. ‘Okay, I guess I do want to look my best, but not just for Tom. It’s the exhibition and the students. This is my first kind of public thing in the department. I’m feeling anxious.’
I made her a cup of tea without her even asking.
‘Millie, what are you going to wear?’ She had practically everything she owned out on the bed but she asked me as though my answer would solve everything for her.
‘My jeans,’ I said. ‘And yes, they’re clean.’
‘You’re not wearing jeans to the exhibition opening.’
‘Okay, my denim skirt with that new top. Will that do?’
‘Providing you have a shower and wash that hair.’
‘I’m not meeting my boyfriend.’ I felt obliged to point that out.
‘No, but you are meeting mine, and I want you to look your best.’
‘Do you think he’s worrying what he’s going to wear?’
‘He might be,’ she said.
‘I doubt it. Boys don’t.’
‘Some do—when they get over a certain age. What am I going to wear?’
‘Your rosebud dress,’ I told her and separated it from the pile, ‘and the shoes that go with it and I’ll subdue your hair for you if you like. You’ll be beautiful, Mum.’
‘We both look good,’ Mum said finally when we were ready to go only half an hour before we needed to be. ‘Come on, Millie, I want to get there early anyway, just to make sure everything is looking as good as we are.’
I’d been to the TAFE before, of course, but it all looked different at night and the exhibition had been hung in a gallery space I ha
dn’t seen before. It looked great. There was a table right at the front with a roll of paper on it and a handful of felt-tipped pens so you could write your comments on it. Other tables were covered with white paper which had been sketched on, so when you went to get a biscuit and cheese, you had to reach across someone’s face or a bit of a leg or a bent-over tree. Other tables invited you to sketch, with big fat pencils laid out on them along with the dips and baskets of baguettes.
‘Hospitality students are catering,’ Mum said, looking around the room critically. ‘Look, there’s the installation I was telling you about.’
In the middle of the room was this kind of forest of things hanging down—from fishing line, I guessed, because you could hardly see what was allowing them to hang in midair like that.
‘What are they?’
‘Read the title, darling,’ Mum said.
‘Rev Head Chimes?’
‘They’re all car bits. He got them from the automotive boys. Great, isn’t it? You can walk through it, Millie, and they make noises.’
I walked through it and they did make noises, but not the noises I expected. I heard a car start up, really loudly, and that made me jump. Then something else went boom boom boom, just like those too-loud car stereos with too much bass, and a car burglar alarm went off, too.
Mum was watching, laughing her head off.
‘It’s fantastic, isn’t it?’ she said. They work on some kind of light-trigger thing – like automatic doors do. When you walk through it, the sensors pick up your movement and set off the sounds. It’s hilarious. Come on, come to my office now and we can worry in there until it’s time for people to arrive.’
When we got to her office, there was a big bunch of flowers at the door.
‘Oh my,’ Mum said, picking them up. ‘Oh Millie, look, they’re beautiful.’
They were those soft feathery flowers. I can’t remember their name but their petals look exactly like some kind of feathers and they feel like them, too. They’re Australian, and much artier than plain roses or chrysanthemums. I knew they’d come from The Boyfriend before Mum even read out the card.
‘Kate. Your night. Celebrate all the hard work.
With love, Tom.’
‘That’s pretty nice of him,’ I said grudgingly. I probably wouldn’t have to get rid of him. Which was a good thing because I didn’t know how you got rid of a boyfriend and Rachel and Helen’s suggestions had been funny, wacky and sometimes downright dangerous.
When he turned up, he was nice. He had dark hair and eyes and a way of looking at Mum that made me feel both really proud of her and as though I was eavesdropping on him looking at her, if you know what I mean.
‘You’re Millie,’ he said, and stuck out his hand for me to shake. That made me feel kind of awkward, because I’m a bit left/right dyslexic and I didn’t have my watch on, so for a minute I dithered about which hand I should use. ‘You look like Kate.’
‘I look like Patrick, too,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got Patrick’s hair, which is good when it rains because Mum’s goes all frizzy at the slightest hint of wet weather, but bad otherwise because curly hair is cool.’
‘Right,’ he said and looked around the exhibition for help.
‘Have you walked through the installation?’ I asked him.
‘No. Shall we do that together while your mum is swanning around?’
‘Okay, but put your fingers in your ears.’
He didn’t, of course. It’s funny how grown-ups don’t ever really take a kid’s advice. The noise blasted out and he jumped and then grinned at me.
‘Should have had my fingers in my ears,’ he said and right away I liked him.
I didn’t spend all my time with Tom, of course. Mum’s students were there and I met them and walked around some of the night with a couple of them. I was introduced to everyone and couldn’t remember anyone’s names, but that was okay because no one expected me to. Everyone asked me if I was going to be an artist like Mum, but I told them that she’d taken that slot in our family and I was going to have to choose something else.
I played with Susie’s daughter, too. Susie was the coolest of Mum’s students. She was dressed in tie-dyed leggings and a series of tie-dyed tops—seriously a series. The bottom one was that kind of mesh stuff and had long sleeves and was all dark purples. The next one was lighter purples and had three-quarter sleeves, still out of the same mesh. The next one had short sleeves and finally, over them all she wore an orange tie-dyed singlet. She had great shoes, too. I always look at shoes because of Mum’s soul. Susie’s shoes were orange. One of them had a bee painted on it and the other had a flower.
‘They’re called “You’re the Bee’s Knees”,’ she said, when she saw me looking at them. ‘I painted them myself. Do you like them?’
‘I love them,’ I told her. ‘They are the best shoes in this whole room, and that includes my mum’s and I thought she was the queen of shoes until I saw yours.’
After the opening we went to a pizza place. My mother and her boyfriend held hands. When I went to the toilet, Mum followed me.
‘Would you mind if Tom came home with us tonight?’ she asked, looking at me in the mirror’s reflection.
‘No, that’s what he’s supposed to do, isn’t he?’
‘Only if you’re comfortable with the idea, Millie.’
‘I’ll have to get used to it, if you’re going to have a boyfriend, Mum,’ I pointed out. ‘Just so long as he’s nicer than Pig’s ... I mean, Brendan.’
‘Oh Millie, what were you going to call him?’
‘Pig’s Trotters,’ I said. ‘Well, he’s horrible. I think Mitchell should get rid of him.’
‘I think Sheri should get rid of him.’ Mum sighed. ‘But she makes excuses for him: Brendan’s so busy, so caring about other people, so dedicated to his job, so good with those kids. He’s not great with Mitchell and it’s hard to see where he’s caring about her!’
‘So Tom’ll be there when I wake up in the morning?’
‘Tom? Well, yes, I guess. Is that a problem?’
‘Only that breakfast is a kind of private thing.’
‘We could go out, maybe?’ Mum offered. ‘Have breakfast at Evita’s?’
‘Can we talk about it tomorrow?’ I yawned. I was suddenly very tired and all I wanted to do was to get home and crawl into my own safe bed with Merlin at the top and Pavlov down the bottom.
‘Sure, we can do that, Millie. No breakfast decisions until the morning. Thanks for being a great daughter, though.’
‘Thanks for being a great mum,’ I said and snuggled into her for a second. She smelt perfumey, like incense but better. ‘But you’re not the shoe queen anymore. Did you see Susie’s shoes?’
‘I did,’ Mum said. ‘I’m thinking of asking her if she’ll make me a pair. Will that reinstate me?’
‘Would she make me a pair, too?’
‘Maybe. But your feet are still growing, Millie, so you’d only have them a short time.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘It would be worth it.’
‘We’ll see,’ Mum said. ‘No promises, though. It depends on Susie.’
It was strange hearing Mum and Tom talking in the lounge room. I wasn’t used to it. Pavlov growled a bit in her sleep. She wasn’t used to it either. It felt a bit like it does before a storm—a change in the air.
CHAPTER
TEN
invited me to go and watch his basketball game! I couldn’t believe it. He just strolled across to where Helen-and-Sarah-and-Rachel and I were chucking the ball around and, in front of them, said, ‘Hey Millie, I didn’t know you played basketball.’
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘We’re just mucking around.’
‘If you’re interested, you should come along to the game on Saturday. We’re playing against St Mick’s.’
‘Are you asking her out?’ Rachel asked.
My face felt hot.
‘Just to the game,’ said, ‘if she’s interested.’
‘Sure, I’d like that,’ I answered. My voice sounded tight and squeaky.
‘I have to be at the basketball courts at ten o’clock on Saturday morning,’ I told Mum as soon as I got home from school. ‘Our school is playing St Mick’s.’
‘Since when have you wanted to go and watch basketball?’ Mum asked. She was sorting through a pile of clothes on the bed.
‘Since this boy asked me to go and watch him play,’ I said. ‘I can go, can’t I? It’s not a date or anything but I want to go.’
‘Well, you’ll have to work it out with Tom,’ Mum said. ‘I have to leave you with him this weekend.’
‘What?’
‘Some funding came through at the last minute. I’m sorry, Millie, we didn’t think it would happen. The application went in late, then it got lost, then they found it and then they decided I should go.’
‘Go where?’
‘A conference in Canberra. It’s a great opportunity. I simply can’t knock it back, Millie. Tom said he wouldn’t mind looking after you. Can you cope with that?’
‘I guess. So long as he takes me to the basketball game.’
I liked Tom even if he didn’t do the stuff that everyone said boyfriends did. He hadn’t bought me a television for my room. He never gave me extra pocket money or bought lollies for me or slyly passed me a ten-dollar note to go and spend at the shopping centre so he and Mum could have time together.
He just kind of hung around. He took photos a lot. Which you’d expect, I suppose, as that was what he did. Sometimes he and Mum planned a day somewhere, like Lake Glenmaggie, taking photographs and painting, and Pavlov and I went with them, being sure to remember a book and lots of food because it could get kind of boring. Mum offered to buy me a sketchbook and charcoal or pastels, but she was our family’s artist, not me.
Sometimes we went back to Tom’s place and watched while he developed the photographs in his darkroom. That was really exciting. You put this blank paper in the developing tank and just watched while the picture slowly floated to the surface of the paper. It was like magic. Then I got to peg them up carefully on the little line that was strung at one end of the darkroom.
Millie and the Night Heron Page 7
