by PJ Vye
“Did you tell Bernadette?” she heard Mat’s voice through the open door.
Sunny smiled at Mat’s use of the carer’s name. Tulula’s ability to influence his behaviour was as impressive as she’d ever seen in a female role model.
Sunny knew it was none of her business, but she desperately wanted to know what Tulula had told Bernadette. Everyone else in this house seemed to know but her.
Over the past eleven days, Sunny had resisted asking questions. She was grateful for the roof over her head and she enjoyed Tulula’s no fuss nature more than she could say. Out of respect she stayed silent. But that didn’t mean the questions weren’t burning up inside her. Checking her emails twenty times a day to see if her passport was ready wasn’t enough to keep her mind occupied.
Neither Tulula nor Mat had thought to shut the kitchen door, and with Ipo laying on his back, begging for a stomach rub, she felt justified to wait there, just a while, and let the voices filter through as she scratched his belly. If they’d wanted privacy, they’d shut the door, right?
Tulula spoke next. “Yes, I told Bernadette.”
“Aunt!”
Sunny heard a hand slap the table before Mat continued. “You told her what, exactly?”
Sunny held her breath and stopped patting. Ipo, annoyed the patting stopped, shuffled closer, his paws scratching the floor in the process. Sunny cursed silently as footsteps approached and the door to the kitchen closed. Damn it, Ipo.
Since moving in, Sunny had tried hard to move around the house without anyone noticing her too much. She avoided the back of the house like she’d been asked and tried to look scarce when the carer asked Mataio questions outside her room one afternoon that he didn’t seem to want to answer. She’d been nearby when the carer then tried those same questions on Aunt Tulula.
Sunny assumed Junior had some kind of disease and the carer would know what he was being treated for.
But apparently not.
She’d been employed to care for the man, administer the drugs but not given any further information as to his condition. No wonder the carer was curious. Sunny herself was consumed with it, and why his treatment was so secretive.
She could hear low murmurs from the kitchen, but not the words. Then, Mat’s voiced boomed through the wall, “Well, now she’s stolen some of it, Aunt. And if she’s using it, we’re in a shit loud of trouble.”
Sunny couldn’t make out Tulula’s response, but Mat’s comeback was as clear as if she was in the room with him. “But it could kill her!”
That was enough to get Tulula’s voice raised. “So, it’s okay to take that kind of risk with my son, but not with a stranger?”
“Junior had nothing left to lose. But she’s a healthy woman. This is bad. Very bad.”
“I don’t care, Mataio. What does it matter if she knows?”
“It matters, because if she’s using it on herself or someone else, and they have a serious complication, then the authorities will come storming in here and stop the treatment and lock me up. And then that’s it for Junior. You understand?”
Sunny heard the clatter of dishes being stacked. “Don’t be ridiculous. They wouldn’t do that. Not if it was saving him.”
“Yes, they would Aunt. Yes, they would,” said Mat.
Sunny jumped as the kitchen door flung open and Mat appeared. He stared, harassed, not really seeing her, then headed off towards the back of the house.
All went quiet and Sunny took Ipo’s lead and he followed her down the corridor, his nails clattering loudly against the bare floorboards, aware she was heading outside for a walk. Sunny opened and closed the front door quietly, like a guest who’d just realised they were at the wrong funeral service.
And she thought she was the fugitive, stealing her own money back from a spouse? Looks like she wasn’t the only one living in the fuzzy grey area of the law. Mat had his own secrets.
In some, disturbing way, it made her feel so much better.
At the dinner table that night, Sunny poured herself a third glass of wine while Mat and Tulula ate in silence.
She tried to analyse the tension between them but couldn’t understand either of them. Instead she listened to the rhythm of the forks against the plates and kept sipping away at her wine.
Mat refused a glass, as he always did—apparently, along with being extremely fussy around food, he also didn’t drink alcohol.
Tulula asked for a glass, took a single sip and then drank no more.
Sunny scraped the remains of her plate with bread and watched Mat pretend to eat.
She considered starting a conversation about the weather or the dog or the food but decided it was too much trouble.
Eventually Tulula stood, her plate half eaten and said, “I’m going to bed early. I have a headache.”
Mat nodded without taking his eyes from his plate.
“Mataio, please check on Junior and see if he would like anything else before you pack this away.”
Sunny stood and collected Tulula’s plate with her own. “I’m sorry you have a headache, Tulula? I’ll take care of this. Can I get you anything?”
“No. I just need a rest. Mataio, don’t forget to check in on him.”
Mataio lifted his eyes to his aunt and nodded again. She seemed happy with that and left.
Sunny turned on the taps to fill the sink and took Mataio’s plate while she waited.
“I haven’t finished.”
“Who are you kidding? Of course, you have. Now go check on Junior so I can clean up.”
Mat sat back in the chair, not looking like he was going anywhere.
“Unless you want me to go and check on Junior for you. I’m happy to, you know.”
Mat looked up at her and she gave him a wide smile. Let him think she was joking.
“I’ll do it. I just need a minute.”
Sunny turned off the taps and put some dishes in to soak, then sat back at the table and drank the rest of her glass. She knew it was the wine talking, and she knew she might regret asking and she didn’t know how far he could be pushed before he threw her out of his aunt’s house, but she asked anyway. “Why do you keep so many secrets? No wonder you’re exhausted.”
Mat’s shoulders lowered and his hands fell into his lap.
Sunny waited, sensing he planned to answer.
“What makes you think I have secrets?” he asked, eventually.
Sunny looked at him from under her eyebrows and he chuckled. The first laugh she’d seen from him in a long time and she couldn’t put into words the explosion of gratitude she felt. The gratitude made her brave.
“I tell you what,” she said. “I’ll ask you three questions. You only have to answer one. As long as you answer honestly. No judgement, no consequence. And then you can ask me the same.”
Sunny poured the last of the wine from the bottle, not daring to check his reaction to her proposition. The food in her stomach suddenly felt heavy. “What do you say, Mataio?” She used the Samoan accent of vowels in his name and his forehead creased.
He stared at his hands in his lap for a moment and she watched his face—an entire soap opera played out on it in the space of a few seconds.
His lips barely moved when he answered. “Okay.”
Sunny swallowed and passed Tulula’s wine to him. “Maybe have some of this. It might help.”
He waved it away and she didn’t push it. The man’s self-regulation was military.
“As long as I can go first,” he said.
“Shoot.”
Mat pushed his chair out from the table and slightly turned his body so he could watch her as he asked.
“Okay, Sunny. Question Number One. How did someone like you end up with someone like Judd? And why did it take you so long to leave him?”
“Well, that’s two questions,” Sunny said, surprised at the mention of Judd. Here, in the safety of this house, Judd’s name spoken out loud felt like a hot cough lozenge. Something you should only use when absolutely no
thing else will do.
Mat’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, fine. That can be two questions.”
“And the third?”
Mat didn’t hesitate—like he’d had the questions waiting to be answered for days. “You told me you moved here because there was no work for you in the UK. What are you going to do when you go back?
Sunny fiddled with the stem of her wine glass as she thought about her response. “I don’t know the answer to question one or three, so I’ll have to go with question two.”
“Why did it take you so long to leave?”
Sunny had had almost two weeks to ponder this herself since leaving Judd. She’d Googled that very question and wasn’t surprised her story was similar to many others.
She’d thought she’d been strong to stay. To live with his inadequacies. She was beginning to question that idea these last few days.
She was ready to say it out loud. “Because I loved him. Because he only treated me badly some of the time. The rest of the time he was really quite nice. Because when things were going well, he was fun to be around. He made me laugh. He made me happy. Or at least he made me think I was happy. Those first few days when he got back from the rig, they were the best days. We’d lay in bed all day together, explore each other, pretend the world didn’t exist for a while. And then as he got cranky and irritable, I’d look forward to him leaving. And those first few days after he left for six weeks, they’d be great too. And then I’d start to miss him. Or miss the company—I’m not sure which. And then repeat. It’s easy to leave someone who isn’t making you happy any of the time. It’s hard to leave someone who makes you happy some of the time.”
“What made the difference? What made you leave now?” He stared inside her, like he was willing her to give a certain answer.
She answered as truthfully as she could, because she didn’t know what other answer there was.
“Because I realised that my happy times weren’t all that happy after all. They were just better than the unhappy times. He’d made me feel so unworthy and useless that I felt grateful just to have him around. I didn’t realise he was the reason I felt so bad. He wore me down slowly, telling me he didn’t care about how I looked or how heavy I was but at the same time making little judgements about what I wore and what I did all day. He believed in me, but only so much that it didn’t impact on his life. If it inconvenienced him, he wouldn’t support it.”
“How do you feel about it now?”
“You’ve had your quota of questions, Mister. But I will answer. I feel lighter, taller, younger, prouder, happier, clear headed, and more relaxed than I’ve ever been. I can’t even begin to explain how much stronger I feel.”
Sunny leaned back in her chair and smiled at her own awareness. She hadn’t realised how much better she felt until saying it out loud. She wanted to thank him for asking but didn’t want him to know how much it had helped, in case he felt he didn’t need to hold up his end of the bargain.
So instead she said, “My turn. Question One.”
Mat shifted back in his seat and immediately closed his arms. “Go ahead,” he said reluctantly.
Sunny considered her original question about Junior, realised he wouldn’t answer it anyway, so changed it to, “Why do you pretend to be anti-social when clearly you’re not?”
Mat’s face flashed an expression she couldn’t name and then quickly realigned itself into its usual, detached way.
Sunny hurried on, a little unnerved at his reaction. “Question Two. Where is your cousin La’ei?”
Mat nodded again, his expression fixed and prepared.
Sunny felt a twist in her gut as a third question came into her head. She knew she shouldn’t ask. She knew it might come out wrong. But she knew she desperately wanted to know the answer. The words spilled from her lips before she changed her mind.
“Question Three. Do you or have you ever had a girlfriend…or boyfriend?”
She watched a slight twitch at the side of Mat’s mouth come and go and waited for him to answer. Now that her question was out, she held her head firm, determined he would answer her.
“What? No questions about Junior? Why Bernadette hasn’t shown up to work today? What mystery illness am I treating him for? You’re not going to ask me that?”
“Stop avoiding the question, Mat. Which one will it be? Your cousin La’ei, your pretend life or your love life. Pick one. I’m waiting.”
He smiled and scratched the whiskers on his chin that had appeared over the day. It made a bristly sound that distracted her a moment. She stared at his lips and when he stopped, she looked up to see him staring at her oddly. She quickly looked away. Crap. Had my tongue been hanging out? She shifted in her seat.
He shifted as well. “I’ll answer question number…”
Sunny held her breath. Please be question three.
“Question three.”
Not in a million years had she expected that. Not once had Mat shared with her any information about his past or personal life. And now he was answering the most personal question of all.
She waited and worked hard on an expression that didn’t care too much about the answer. If he told her now, he was gay, she knew she’d be disappointed. She couldn’t say exactly how much, but she knew she’d silently curse the other team if he was on it.
It shouldn’t surprise her. He’d never brought anyone home the entire time she’d lived above him, that she could tell. Maybe if he was a closeted gay man, it would explain a lot. She was determined to be supportive and accepting of whatever he answered.
“I’m not the kind of person suited to relationships. With men or women. I’m more of a loner.”
She threw back her head and laughed.
“What?” Mat asked, looking confused.
“That’s not an answer.”
In her gut she knew he wasn’t gay. Something about the way he stood so still beside her sometimes, like he wanted to reach out and hold her but wouldn’t. The way he breathed when they were close. She knew being in close proximity to her made him hold himself differently and she had met enough gay men to know she didn’t have that affect on them.
“Why did you laugh when I said I’m not suited to relationships?”
“Because you have this whole persona going on where you want people to think you don’t care and you push them away and keep yourself closed and distant. But I don’t really believe it. I think it’s an act.”
“Why on Earth would you think that?”
Sunny shook her head, knowing it would be pointless to argue. He had a reason for acting the way he did. He wasn’t likely to tell her why. She wished he would, though.
“I gave you a three-minute answer,” she countered. “You gave me a five second answer. And you still haven’t told me anything. Have you ever been in a romantic relationship?”
“No.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“That’s another question.”
“It’s the same question.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t,” clarified Sunny. “I just wondered if it was a woman who broke your heart. Made you this way.”
“It wasn’t. It’s just who I am.”
“No, it’s not.”
“What evidence do you have otherwise?”
“You’re risking your medical license on your cousin.”
“He’s family.”
“You had me look after Ipo when you thought I wanted to kill myself.”
“I took an oath as a doctor.”
“You let me stay here when I had nowhere else to go.”
“That was Tulula. I wanted you gone.”
Sunny shook her head. “Remember that guy you saved—with the severed arm?”
Mat stared back at her blankly as if he didn’t, but she knew it was an act. “I went into the hospital to visit him,” she said. “He told me you’d organised a private room once he came out of the ICU. You spoke personally to his wife’s boss so s
he could get three months off work and stay beside him as he recovered. They also told me you organised a—”
“I’m going to see if Junior wants anymore of this food before you put it away. You right with these dishes?”
Mat stood and walked away from the table as if to make his point clear. He was a snob and an arsehole and if he couldn’t convince her with words, he’d do it with actions.
“Sure,” Sunny answered quietly, not sure why he’d shut down so suddenly. Did he not like to be recognised for the good things he did?
She started to wash the soaked dishes and heard a slight noise behind her. She turned to see Mat standing in the doorway, his arm resting high on the arch. “I’m glad you’re still happy about your decision to leave Judd.”
And just like that, he showed his true personality again. The man couldn’t stay detached if he tried. Sunny wished she knew why he thought he had to.
“I need your help.” Mat stood at her bedroom door and tapped the frame as she tried to wake up and focus on the blurry numbers on her watch.
“Why?” Sunny’s hands went to her hair, sensing it was sitting like a wild nest on top of her head. She pulled at the hair tie she’d left in overnight which got tangled further in her hurry to rearrange it and then realised her breasts were bare under the white singlet she wore and dropped her arms to cover them.
Mat didn’t look away or give any indication he’d noticed. “Can you drive me somewhere? I’m meeting Bernadette and I need you to be there.”
“Junior’s carer? What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain in the car. Can you be ready in five minutes?” He left the room and Sunny tentatively touched her hair again. Five minutes? Not a chance.
Thirty-five minutes later Sunny was dressed and waiting in the ute, balancing a slice of coconut bread on one knee and a mug of coffee on the other. Mat wandered out eventually, appearing unworried she’d taken so much longer than requested.
“Does time ever stress you?”
“Time doesn’t. Only people.”
They drove through Melbourne traffic for another twenty minutes before she asked, “So what did Bernadette do that’s got you so riled up?”
