by J. C. Burke
Up ahead, Andrea, Justin and Louise Lovejoy were walking back to class. Andrea’s arms were flapping around, which meant she was probably still stuck on the topic of Vanessa.
Usually, I’d call out to them to wait. But today I didn’t. There was something bugging me about Vanessa’s last words. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
2
MUM HAD A MOUTHFUL OF PINS AND WAS circumnavigating the kitchen table she made her clients stand on while she measured and pinned their gowns. Once I told her I didn’t think it was a particularly hygienic practice. She bit my head off, saying, ‘What do you suggest when my workroom is the size of a mouse’s house?’
‘… ma sis is trtina.’ Mum introduced me to Catrina, her latest bride-to-be, who didn’t look a lot older than me.
‘Catrina,’ she told me with a little wave. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ I answered. ‘Believe it or not, I can understand Mum through a mouthful of pins. Years of training.’
The hem was pinned and Mum was smiling. ‘I like this new length. Now hubby will be able to admire your nice slim ankles.’
Catrina blushed. I grabbed an apple from the lopsided papier-mâché fruit bowl I’d made for Mum in Grade 4 and went off to my room, ignoring the call of, ‘How was school, darl?’ because I was too busy wondering why Catrina was turning red over her future husband seeing her ankles. Surely the guy she was about to marry had seen more than that?
I wasn’t a ‘sexpert’, as Andrea liked to call herself because she had done it with three boys and I’d still only had the one. Fergus Eames, a year ago in the back of his mother’s Holden Camira.
I had been wearing a blue-and-white dress that laced up at the back. I felt it go in all right but the problem was that it was over so quickly that I wondered if we’d really done it properly. I didn’t want to walk around unsure if I was still a virgin or not but it wasn’t the sort of thing you could ask. Fergus Eames just mumbled something like, ‘Thanks, that was nice,’ buttoned up his jeans and then told me we’d better get back to the party.
The first time I’d ever contemplated slapping Andrea across the face was five minutes later. Fergus was still in earshot but Andrea had rushed up to me and said, a bit too loudly, ‘Why don’t you ask Fergus to our Year 11 formal next year?’
‘Why would I do that?’ I’d answered. ‘That’s over a year and a half away.’
She’d shrugged. There were so many things that shrug could have been saying and none of them were good.
‘Andrea,’ I started, hemming her into a corner just to make my point a bit firmer, ‘stop trying to organise my life! I just wanted to get my first screw out of the way. That’s all. Fergus was there and he doesn’t have six heads so I decided he’d do. That’s where Fergus and I start and finish. Got it?’
‘Take a chill pill,’ she’d muttered back.
That was the God’s honest truth. It was something I’d wanted to get out of the way. Like a box I needed to tick on my mental list of things to achieve before I finished high school. I knew that sex could be and should be more than that. But in time it’d happen. There was no point flying into a panic about it now.
Last Christmas, Billy told me that when he’d met Saul and fallen so deeply in love he realised that the good sex he thought he’d been having was like thinking oranges were tasty until you discovered mangoes.
That night, I was wearing my new Christmas pyjamas. Red spotty shorts and a singlet with one giant red cherry in the very centre. Maybe that’s what gave Billy the idea of the fruit analogy but I was extremely relieved he’d left it at that. Hearing any more details would’ve totally grossed me out.
I didn’t tell him about Fergus and me. In fact, that night we hadn’t been talking about sex. We hadn’t been talking at all. It was hot and we were lying on my bed with the fan blowing cool air into our faces. He’d said it, just out of the blue, like it was a thought that had turned into words.
Billy was missing Saul, I could tell. He was quieter, didn’t go out as much and slept a lot. But mostly he talked about how much he loved Saul.
It was the first Christmas in four years that Billy had come home on his own.
I was disappointed. I missed Saul and his funny whistling snore that sounded like a plane landing. I knew that Christmas wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without him. After we were stuffed full of turkey and Christmas pudding, Saul would start the games, like my favourite, when someone sticks a movie star’s name on your forehead and you have to ask questions to guess who you are. The year before last, at the end of the night, Saul had dressed up as Mrs Claus and performed a hysterical cabaret act that ended with him and Aunty Penny doing a tap dance to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Most importantly of all, Saul was a big present-giver. One Christmas he gave Aunty Penny a CD player, Mum a new state-of-the-art sewing machine and me a pair of sapphire studs. I got the special present because I was his ‘number one gal’.
Saul had to stay in New York last year because he had family issues to deal with. It was hard to get a straight answer from Billy when I asked what these ‘family issues’ were.
‘Just the usual.’
‘What?’ I questioned. ‘That his parents can’t handle he’s a poof?’
‘All that stuff.’
‘Do they hate you?’
‘They’re …’ he started. ‘They’re just not too happy about it.’
‘That sucks.’
‘Gems, they’re no different to Dad. We all have a parent sob story. You should come to some of our dinner parties.’
‘So yours isn’t the best?’
‘It’s up there. But Dad still rings home. Like when it’s your birthday. Even if he does need a prod from Mum.’
‘Wow, give the man an award!’
‘It’s something.’
‘Yeah, right!’ I spat. ‘It’s pathetic. He’s pathetic. Have you ever written to him?’
Billy sighed.
‘Exactly! And I haven’t written to him either. Ever. I’d shoot myself before I did that.’
‘Gem. Come on.’
I didn’t know why he wasn’t cooperating. Usually Billy would join me or sometimes even lead the stampede in the verbal assassination of our father and all the things we could do to him. But that night, he didn’t.
I’d finished my Biology homework and scanned through the crib notes of Hamlet, yet Mum and Catrina were still in the kitchen discussing her wedding dress. I wandered out there, opened and closed the fridge a few times and generally started making noises about dinner and how hungry I was.
But Mum and Catrina stayed locked in their deep and meaningful.
‘Maryanne, how do you know if you’re doing the right thing?’ Catrina was asking Mum. ‘How do you know if he’s the one?’
‘Do you love him?’ When my mother answered a question with another question it either meant that she didn’t know the answer or she didn’t want to say it.
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘Can you imagine your life without him?’
‘Gee, Maryanne, I …’ Catrina started.
But Mum was up for a soliloquy. ‘That’s the question you need to ask yourself, Catrina. Can you imagine your life without him? If he were gone, would it feel like half your limbs had disappeared or that you were suddenly just a shadow and not a whole person? That’s how you know if it’s love. If you can’t bear to think of your life without him.’ Mum was burying herself thigh-high in the mud of life. I wondered where these lines were coming from because I was fairly sure it wasn’t the way Mum had ever described her relationship with my father.
Anyway, Mum’s speech did the trick or perhaps Catrina was wishing she’d never asked because she simply said, ‘Thanks, Maryanne. See you in two weeks,’ and left.
‘About time!’ I groaned. ‘Gee, Mum, you could replace Donahue or Oprah. When you get started there’s no …’
But Mum was heading for the bathroom. Almost jogging there.
No d
oubt Andrea was jumping around somewhere playing netball, and Justin smashing cardboard in his karate lesson. Not me. Saturday mornings were spent watching Video Hits on the couch with a bowl of cereal so huge the milk spilt over the edge and into my lap.
It was almost 11 a.m. and Mum was still in bed, which wasn’t that unusual for a weekend. I stood at the doorway of her room watching her fingers trying to adjust the blinkers she wore at night.
‘A bit to the left,’ I offered.
She mumbled, ‘Is that you, Gem?’
‘No, it’s Coco Chanel.’
‘She’s dead,’ Mum said, pushing her eye mask up onto her forehead. ‘But oh, all the things I’d ask her.’
I crawled under the covers and hooked my arm around Mum but instead of a handful of flesh I found a handful of tissues.
‘You know you’re lying on a mound of tissues,’ I told her, throwing them onto the bedside table so I could cuddle her properly. ‘Are you getting a cold?’
‘Maybe.’
But she said it so softly that I asked again, louder. ‘Are you?’
She yawned back.
‘Mum, do you think Saul will come out with Billy in October?’ I asked. ‘Maybe they could both stay until Christmas?’
Mum’s answer was half snap, half sigh. ‘That’s months and months away.’
‘Mum?’
‘What?’
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘Gemma, please don’t invite Polly Pessimistic into bed with us.’
‘They’re not breaking up, are they?’
‘Sweetheart, Billy and Saul love each other,’ she told me. ‘More than any other couple I’ve ever known.’
‘Did you and Dad love each other?’
‘At the time I thought we did,’ she said.
‘You were talking to Dad the other night, weren’t you?’ I asked. ‘When you shouted at me to piss off.’
‘Ah.’ Mum sighed. ‘Right. I thought you’d forgotten about that.’
‘I’m not mad at you. That’s not why I asked.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she answered, tightening her arm around me. ‘I shouldn’t swear at you.’
‘Piss off isn’t really swearing, Mum. Not in my books.’
‘Well, it is in mine.’
‘Does Dad ever ask how Billy is?’
‘Darling, I really don’t feel like talking about your father.’
‘You’re going to say “it’s complicated”, aren’t you?’
‘Because it is.’ For a while Mum didn’t speak. But by the way she was breathing I knew she wasn’t finished. It was that kind of thinking breathing. So I waited. ‘Of course your father loves Billy. He loves you both. I’m just not sure he knew how to be a good dad,’ Mum said. ‘His father died when he was so young and his mother was one cold fish.’
‘Did she really never kiss you?’
‘She probably did on our wedding day. I can’t remember.’
‘But she liked Billy?’
‘Everyone loved Billy. He was such a gorgeous kid. He could even make Uncle Roddy smile and that was a beautiful sight. Your father’s little brother was always so kind to me. I liked him very much.’
‘Is that why you have the photo of Billy and him on your chest of drawers?’ I asked.
‘I just like that photo. That’s all,’ she answered. ‘They look so happy. Especially Billy.’
‘Mum, do you honestly not know where Uncle Roddy is?’
‘He could be dead for all I know.’
‘But you’ve never seen his name in the death notices and it’s not like you don’t read them.’
‘Gemma, a family member or a friend has to put your death notice in the newspaper. It doesn’t just automatically happen because you die.’
‘Well, I’m going to start checking for his name in the death notices. At least we’ll know then if he’s dead or alive.’
Aunty Penny, my mum’s little sister, was the only aunty I had and it didn’t look like she was going to get married and give me cousins. She was a nurse and looked after men’s ‘waterworks’. I had no idea what that meant, but she said that she saw a lot of willies, so she was turned off men for life. Really, Mum had told me, Penny didn’t trust men because a guy called Dean had broken her heart.
Lying in bed, snuggled under Mum’s arm, her soft fingertips running across my skin while she answered my thousand and one questions, was my most favourite thing in the world. Then, I wasn’t the sixteen-year-old girl who had a mental list of things she wanted to do before high school was finished; who had a friend like Andrea who was a full-time job to keep up with; and who had a formal at the end of the year that ended in the ultimate, but never-going-to-happen, fantasy of getting off with Vanessa’s twin brother Ralph.
Right now, there was no ‘bad’ to sense. Instead I felt completely safe, as though Mum and I lived together in a bubble, away from all the horrible things that could ruin our lives.
I was nine years old the first time that I really understood what fear was. A girl called Meg Docker, the same age as me and who didn’t live that far away, had disappeared. Her parents were always on the news, their words garbled as they pleaded for anyone who had information to come forward. ‘Please, please help us,’ they’d beg.
I’ve never ever told anyone, but I took it upon myself to help. At every drain I’d pass on the footpath or road, I’d stand there, even crouch if Mum or Dad or Billy weren’t looking, straining my ears in case I could hear her cries.
When they found her body, I went to my room and sobbed. Mum told me it was a tragedy but that I was safe and nothing bad would ever happen to me.
‘But how do you know? How do you know?’ I choked out the words through my tears.
And for the first time in my life, Mum couldn’t give me an answer.
3
I WAS BENT OVER THE BATH, SCRUBBING IT till it sparkled. Mum’s instructions. No sparkle, no pocket money.
Mum was standing in the doorway, watching me clean. ‘Billy’s friend Claude has found some great material for your formal dress,’ she said. ‘He’s sending us a few swatches in the post.’
‘What are swatches again?’ I asked.
‘Little samples of fabric, Gemma!’ Mum groaned. ‘You’ve been living with a dressmaker all your life. How could you still not know what a swatch is?’
‘Mum, sewing and I aren’t friends,’ I said. ‘Just like how you and housework will never be friends.’
‘Yes, but I don’t get a choice.’
‘Mum, no offence, but I’m not sure you’d clean the house if Bob Hawke was coming over.’
‘Oh dear, I’ve grown a new wrinkle. It definitely wasn’t there last week.’ Mum was studying herself in the bathroom mirror. I watched as she leaned in closer, her fingers pulling at the skin on her forehead. ‘Are you still thinking about your formal dress being as short as the one in the picture on the fridge?’
‘Why? Are you still wanting to make that train thing for the back of it?’ I grumbled. ‘Err, gross, Mum. You forget that I’m sixteen, not thirty-six!’
‘It was good enough for Jodie Foster to wear to the Oscars last year.’
‘I think you mean Demi Moore?’
‘Sorry if I’m not up on all their names! I know some glamorous movie star wore a train.’
‘Mum, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not going to the Oscars,’ I answered.
‘I think a long dress is more appropriate for a school formal. Andrea’s wearing long.’
‘All the more reason not to. Plus she’s wearing hot pink. Spew!’ I said. ‘How many bits of these swatch things has Billy sent? Did he say what they’re like? Did he get them from that fabric shop he saw Madonna in?’
‘I’m not sure if he’s seen them.’
‘But Billy’s meant to be picking the fabric at that shop he told us about,’ I complained. ‘I don’t even know this Claude guy. His taste might suck. He might’ve got them from somewhere else?’
; ‘I’m sure your brother wouldn’t ask someone whose taste sucked!’
‘I don’t know why Billy can’t do it himself,’ I grunted. ‘That was the deal.’
Mum spun around. She caught me off balance and I hit my knee against the edge of the bath. ‘Ouch!’ I yelped.
It was like Mum hadn’t noticed or if she had she didn’t care. ‘Your brother is obviously caught up … with … more important things.’ It seemed each word was measured and weighed before it spat from her lips.
‘Take a chill pill,’ I muttered.
But Mum had left and her bedroom door was slamming.
Someone’s a bit oversensitive today, I thought. I perched on the edge of the bath, studying my knee. A monstrous bruise would appear by tomorrow and Monday was sports day, which meant shorts plus my bruise on display for everyone to look at and go, Yuck! Disgusting! What happened? and I’d feel like a child-abuse victim.
I was about to go back to cleaning the bathroom when I suddenly changed my mind. This was my formal and my formal dress. I didn’t want some long, daggy train trailing behind me because my mother thought it was more appropriate, and I didn’t want some nobody called Claude picking my fabric either. The formal was meant to be my night to shine, and at the moment it wasn’t feeling like that.
I ripped off the rubber gloves, chucked them into the basin and marched down the hall.
‘Mum?’ I announced, throwing open her bedroom door. ‘I need to call Billy about the swatches.’
‘Sorry, Gemma, it’s the middle of the night in New York.’
‘It’s eleven-fifteen,’ I told her. I’d been smart enough to calculate the time difference before I made my demands, because I knew that would be the quickest and easiest way for her to shut me down. ‘Billy and Saul won’t be asleep yet, and if they’re out, I’ll leave a message.’
Mum was rummaging around in her chest of drawers. She didn’t stop. She didn’t turn around to look at me. She simply answered, ‘No.’
