The Things We Promise

by J. C. Burke

  I fastened the buttons and tied the belt around the waist, then sashayed my way down the hall and into the kitchen. Billy whistled. ‘Look at you.’

  I spun around, doing my best Naomi Campbell poses.

  ‘I think it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever owned,’ I told Billy.

  ‘It’s pretty special.’ Billy smiled in a sad way that I was starting to realise meant a Saul story was coming. It didn’t matter how much life felt like it was getting back on track, the constant reminders would never stop. ‘Saul saw the coat in the window of Saks Fifth Avenue on his way home from work. By the time he walked in the door at our place he was so excited.’ Billy’s smile became even sadder. ‘He couldn’t wait to post it off to you.’

  ‘I love it so, so much,’ I said, spinning around again. Today I didn’t want to be sad. I had a whole weekend with no trips to the hospital, and Louise was coming over to meet my brother and then we were going to see Pretty Woman.

  I picked up my purse from the kitchen table. ‘Are you going out?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Just to the shops,’ I answered. ‘I thought I’d buy something yummy for afternoon tea.’

  ‘Won’t you be a bit hot in the coat?’

  ‘Who cares,’ I answered. ‘I’m going to stroll up to the shops like I’m off to buy pastries in Paris.’

  Billy was laughing now. ‘Off you go then.’

  ‘Toodles.’ I waved to him from the door. ‘Oh, and don’t forget to wake Mum by eleven.’

  The last of the autumn leaves were scattered across the footpaths. Mounds of yellow and brown that crunched under my feet as I walked through them. I loved that sound. I stamped and shuffled my way through every pile I could find.

  Seasons and memories. We’d talked about this in English last week. What triggered us to remember these things – a smell, a sound. Of course one of the prissy girls shot up her hand and said, ‘Summer and coconut oil,’ at which all the other prissies had started giggling. One of the guys blitzed three senses in one: feeling the cold winter air, eating meat pies and hearing the whistle blow in the footy season. Lots of the other blokes nodded and grunted at this.

  I didn’t want to share mine even though I could squeeze in a sound, touch, sight and taste. Walking to kindy with Dad. The touch of his hand tightly holding mine. Watching my yellow gumboots as I jumped in puddles. That was another sound I loved. The splash when my boots landed. Sometimes if I jumped extra hard and the puddles were deep, the water flew so high that I could catch the droplets on my tongue.

  The kids in class knew my dad had left. But that wasn’t the reason I didn’t want to tell them. I didn’t care about their sad faces looking at me and thinking, Poor you, you must really miss him. It wasn’t that at all. It was much simpler. I didn’t want to think about my father. Let alone talk about him.

  The topic of whether Dad should be told that Billy had AIDS was still coming up in our dinnertime conversation. Often I would find myself staring at Billy, wondering if we were all actually talking about the same man. Perhaps some of Maurice’s cat disease had crawled its way into my brother’s brain? Telling Dad would be a disaster. It wasn’t something I sensed, it was something I knew. A basic fact. Like my name and address and what day of the week it was.

  I tightened the belt around my coat as I turned the corner into the street where all the shops were. There was a new bakery owned by a Vietnamese family, also called the Leongs. Andrea said their bread sticks and apple danishes were the best and the line that snaked around the corner proved that others thought so too.

  I had just joined the queue when I noticed Andrea’s mum’s car parked across the road, outside the beauty salon. I scanned the line to see if Andrea was waiting here for a bread stick, but no luck. Deidre was probably getting her hair done. Billy always joked that she changed her hairstyle more often than her undies.

  Could Andrea be at the hairdresser getting a third ear piercing? She’d been talking about it all week, telling me that three little studs up the ear were quite elegant. She’d even asked if she could borrow the sapphire studs that Saul had given me, to which I answered a flat-out, ‘No way, José!’ Was she punishing me? Was that why she couldn’t come over this afternoon?

  I ditched my place in the bakery queue and made a beeline straight for the salon. I was right. Through the window I could see Andrea sitting in a chair facing the mirror. Deidre and another woman were standing behind her, holding her hair up off her shoulders. They were talking and they kept pointing at something on Andrea’s lap.

  I crept up to the door, waiting for the right moment to burst in and surprise Andrea. But the woman suddenly pushed Andrea’s chair so that it swivelled to face me. I ducked, just in time, then slid back up the window to get a better view.

  On Andrea’s lap lay a book, opened at the middle. I could see Elizabeth Taylor with her hair up in a French roll. The exact hairstyle she’d wanted to workshop with Billy.

  Panic seized me, squeezing my heart into my mouth. I made a sound I had never made before. A gasp, a cry, a bleat like a newborn lamb, all rolled into one note.

  I started running. Back across the street, cutting through the line outside the bakery. I ran down the middle of the road, dodging and swerving through the Saturday morning traffic, because I didn’t want to run through the autumn leaves and hear the crunch under my feet.

  I hadn’t seen this coming. I hadn’t figured out what was really behind Andrea’s hmms. I hadn’t sensed the betrayal lurking around the corner.

  By the time I burst through the front door I could barely breathe. I wrestled myself out of the black-and-white checked coat, flinging it across the room so that it knocked the pepper grinder off the kitchen table.

  ‘You back already?’ Billy called, wandering into the kitchen, a towel around his waist.

  I ducked around the corner and into Mum’s workroom, and sat on the floor.

  But Billy spotted me. ‘You’re as red as a beetroot,’ he started, ‘… Gemma?’

  Billy crouched next to me. His bare arms wrapped around me and I could smell the soap on his skin, feel the droplets from his wet hair dripping onto my face.

  ‘Andrea … Andrea and her mother were in the hairdresser.’ I knew how pathetic my words sounded. ‘She had that stupid Elizabeth Taylor book with her.’

  I didn’t have to say anymore. Billy understood. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘it’s started.’

  ‘What’s started?’ Suddenly Mum was standing there, in her nightie, her eye mask hanging around her neck. ‘Gemma, what’s happened? Billy?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be doing Andrea’s hair and make-up anymore,’ Billy simply replied.

  17

  MUM BECAME HOMICIDAL. I HADN’T SEEN her act like that since she’d ripped the poster off the church billboard. She wanted to drive to Andrea’s place and ‘give it to Deidre’. She told me she’d been holding back all these years for the sake of my friendship with Andrea. Suddenly my mother was reciting a list of grievances she had with my best friend’s mother: ‘Deidre judged us from the moment your father left. Deidre always looked at your brother as though he was dirty, but as soon as his career kicked off she acted as though we were all best friends. She even had the hide to ask me one day if I was sad he would never make me a grandmother! I am not having her in my home ever, ever again.’ If she’d harboured a desire to rip Deidre to shreds, she’d done a good job of hiding it from me until now.

  After we’d had a cup of tea, calmed down and, more importantly, I was sure Mum wasn’t going to burst into another psycho rant, I phoned Louise. I wanted to suss out if she knew anything. I think part of me also hoped that she’d cancel coming over. I would have been quite happy to lie on the couch and watch television for the rest of the day.

  I told Louise what had happened. She listened to every word, adding the occasional ‘oh’ and ‘shit’ and ‘really’. She wasn’t freaked out by any of it. That’s what I was starting to learn about Louise: nothing really seemed to shock her.<
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  Louise had had no idea that Andrea and her mum were going to the hairdresser today. But she did know that Andrea had been getting cold feet.

  ‘She started talking about it when Billy went to hospital,’ Louise told me. ‘She wanted to ring the AIDS hotline and get some advice.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘No! Justin told her she was being ridiculous.’

  ‘Justin was there?’

  ‘It was one lunchtime. I can’t remember where you were. But Justin really gave it to her.’ Louise let a giggle escape then quickly apologised and went on. ‘Justin told Andrea there was no way she could catch AIDS from Billy doing her hair and make-up unless he poured a big bucket of blood all over her.’

  ‘Obviously she didn’t listen.’

  ‘She said her grandma was scared about her catching it from the lipstick.’

  ‘How? Billy doesn’t put it on his own lips!’

  ‘I know how stupid it sounds,’ Louise said. ‘Most of it is coming from Andrea’s mum.’

  ‘Still,’ I hissed, ‘she’s meant to be my best friend.’

  For a while I lay on my bed, thinking how strange it was that at the start of the year I didn’t even know Louise. Now she was someone I could ring and talk to about anything. Someone who could make me feel better.

  What was wrong with Andrea? Why couldn’t she be that person?

  But she wasn’t and she never had been and it’d never really bothered me before. Maybe what I was really mad about was that I hadn’t sensed it coming. All the signs had been there. Andrea making excuses, the long hmms that’d found their way into our conversations. I had known that one day there’d be some kind of outburst from her but I hadn’t expected this. I was the wind beneath her wings. Wasn’t I?

  I’d always imagined me and Andrea getting ready for the formal together. Billy doing the final touches to our hair and make-up in the kitchen, Mum giving us a sneaky glass of champagne before we left. Outside the school hall I’d pictured us winking at each other and saying something cheesy like, This is our moment. A third person had never even featured. But now I couldn’t imagine the night without Louise in it.

  Luckily, Billy’s head popped around my bedroom door just as my tragic imaginings of Andrea and me at the formal were making my jaw wobble.

  ‘Is Louise still coming over?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘Remember she’s got a busted nose. She’s pretty self-conscious about it.’

  ‘Powder and shadowing can trick the eye,’ he answered. ‘I told you I can perform magic.’

  I sniggered, thinking about the afternoon with Andrea. ‘Andrea and Deidre said you were her magic bullet. They obviously don’t think that anymore.’

  Billy wiggled his fingers at me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The gloves,’ he replied. ‘People are scared, Gem. Did you ever hear about that little girl who wasn’t allowed to go to kindy because she was HIV-positive?’

  ‘No. What happened?’

  ‘All the parents became paranoid and didn’t want her at the school,’ he explained. ‘In the end she was allowed to go only if she wore a mask all the time.’

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘The family eventually moved away. Don’t ruin a friendship over this. The only thing Andrea and Deidre are guilty of is ignorance.’

  ‘I hope the hairdresser is lousy at doing French rolls.’

  Billy started laughing. ‘Even a good French roll still looks like a piece of dog’s poo on your head.’

  ‘Stupid Elizabeth Taylor,’ I muttered.

  ‘Come on, Gem. You know Elizabeth Taylor is one of the biggest supporters of AIDS? Probably she and Princess Di are the ones who’ve helped fight the fear and ignorance the most.’

  I spat back, ‘Isn’t that called irony?’

  Louise came over with a big smile and a sponge cake covered in fresh strawberries and cream. She seemed a bit starstruck when she first met Billy, but after a while she relaxed.

  Billy’s make-up collection was spread out along one side of the kitchen table and his portfolio laid out on the other. Some of the pages were opened at looks he thought Louise might like: teased hair and skin dusted in bronze powder; a mop of curls with hot pink glossy lips; a sleek ponytail with smoky black eyes. The pictures of slicked hair and red lips weren’t on display because that look was reserved for me.

  I stood in Mum’s workroom as she measured around me, watching Louise through the doorway. She sat at the kitchen table while Billy dabbed cream on her nose and dusted powder across her face.

  Louise was holding the picture of my formal dress. ‘I love this dress,’ she called.

  ‘The fabric should arrive this week,’ Mum answered. ‘It’s the most beautiful, lush, rich black velvet that slips through your fingers.’ Billy and I started laughing because Mum always talked about fabric like it was a man she was in love with. ‘Plus I’ll use some thick gold braid to edge around the bodice.’

  ‘What about jewellery?’ Louise asked me. ‘Are you wearing earrings or a necklace?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe big gold earrings.’

  ‘Start saving,’ Mum the killjoy butted in.

  ‘You’re going to look stunning, Gemma,’ Louise said.

  ‘So are you,’ I replied.

  But my comment was met with silence. I was racking my brains, trying to think of something to say, when Billy handed Louise a mirror, saying, ‘What do you think?’

  Louise didn’t move. There wasn’t a sound. She sat there, staring at her reflection like she had turned into stone. ‘Oh my God,’ she finally uttered. ‘I … Is that really me?’

  Mum and I walked into the kitchen so we could see Louise in full view.

  Billy had worked his magic. Again.

  A tiny teardrop stained with mascara was sliding down Louise’s cheek. ‘I look like me again.’

  On Monday morning I walked to school with Louise and Andrea pretending that I hadn’t seen her on Saturday because I’d promised Billy I would. But just to rub another kilo of salt into my wounds I discovered a huge AIDS poster plastered onto the bus stop outside school. Most parents suffer from AIDS. What the hell did that mean?

  Andrea and Louise didn’t seem to notice the poster. Andrea had ended up with a third piercing in her ear and was deep in discussion with Louise about whether it had hurt more or less because the skin was thinner there. At least the school holidays were about to start because I really wanted to shout at them, There are more important things in the world to think about.

  Most parents suffer from AIDS. All day I tried to figure out what the slogan meant.

  I supposed I could say that our family was suffering from AIDS. It was like the boogieman knew where we lived but we didn’t know when he was going to turn up on our doorstep. And when he arrived, how did we know if he was going to be in a really bad mood, or just a bit cross like he’d been on the morning Billy went to hospital?

  We’d been lucky. I understood that now. Billy’s pneumonia had been caught early, the drugs had worked and now he was back home, better than he’d been before he went to hospital. Matt Leong hadn’t been so lucky. The boogieman had shown up at his place in a rage. The doctor had probably put him straight into a single room because he knew it’d all be over in a week. Brian had been to hospital eight times but he’d managed to go home eight times. Maybe the boogieman felt sorry for him because he was a haemophiliac and not a poofter or a druggie?

  At dinner that night, I asked Mum and Billy what they thought the slogan was about.

  Billy said he thought he knew what they were getting at because there’d been a similar campaign in the USA. ‘Most parents suffer from AIDS means that parents suffer from the fear of it and therefore they don’t talk about it with their kids like they should.’

  ‘So it’s kind of like Silence equals Death?’ I asked, sucking up the last strand of spaghetti on my plate.

  Billy put his fork down. He’d barely touched his bolognaise.

&
nbsp; ‘You okay?’ Mum asked.

  Billy nodded. I thought he was thinking about my question because he started saying, ‘Same sort of message. If you walk down the …’ but mid-sentence, he jumped out of his chair and ran into the bathroom.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked Mum.

  ‘I think his meds have given him diarrhoea,’ she explained. ‘He’s going to see the GP tomorrow to sort it out because clinic isn’t for a few more days.’

  ‘He’s hardly touched his dinner.’

  ‘His mouth’s getting sore again with that bloody thrush.’

  I rinsed and stacked the dishwasher while Mum went back to her sewing. I sang along to Crowded House on the radio and Mum joined in for the bits that she knew.

  But in every microsecond of silence, that split second between one song finishing and the next one starting, the groans could be heard coming from the bathroom.

  The boogieman was back. In Billy’s bowel was a bug with the longest name I’d ever heard: cryptosporidium. Aunty Penny called it ‘crypto’ for short. Most likely Billy had caught it in the public pool where he was swimming in his quest to be healthy.

  Because Billy’s immune system was being so wrecked by AIDS, he would catch more and more infections from now on. Crypto was just one of them.

  That made me so mad. People like Andrea and her mother and grandma were terrified that Billy was going to make them sick, when in fact it was much more likely that they would make him sick. I knew that my mother felt the same as me. As our GP explained this to us, I could hear Mum’s tongue clicking and see her eyeballs changing into her mad psycho woman ones.

  By the second week of holidays, I was back in the lift on my way up to 9 South West. This time, Billy was in a different room with just two beds. In the other bed was Zane.

  Zane had just gotten over the crypto bug, but now he had pneumonia and his lung had collapsed. He had a thick tube sticking out of his chest. My eyes followed it all the way down to the floor where the tube was attached to a glass bottle that bubbled when he breathed.