‘Very funny,’ Jacqueline says, unbuckling her seat belt.
Gravel crunches beneath their shoes as they walk up to the front door. Loki grabs Antoinette’s hand. ‘Paul Morgenstern, at your service.’
She smiles. ‘Thanks, Loki. Really, I mean it.’
Jacqueline steps forward, small fist raised, but before she has a chance to place knuckle to wood, the door swings open, spilling a wan yellow light onto the porch.
‘You’re late,’ says the woman standing in the entrance way. The emaciated, spindle-shanked woman whose creased and hollowed face, whose grey and short-cropped hair, bears such meagre resemblance to the mother Antoinette knows, that she finds herself rendered mute, stunned into gaping silence.
‘Close your mouth, dear,’ Sally Paige says. ‘Something will fall in.’
— 13 —
‘I expected you an hour ago,’ their mother says, clasping first Antoinette and then Jacqueline in her awkward, stiff-armed embrace. For Loki, for Paul, there’s merely a glare and the curtest of nods. ‘This long in the oven, my lamb will be all dried out.’
Far from it; the roast is pink-centred and pretty much perfect, but their mother still eats very little of the thin sliver she carves for herself. Merely sits at the table with shoulders slightly hunched, cutting the meat into smaller and smaller squares and pushing them around on her plate until they’re barely distinguishable from the mash of potato and carrot and thick, brown gravy. She murmurs a begrudging acknowledgement when Loki compliments her cooking, points her fork at the serving platter and instructs him to help himself when he asks for seconds.
Antoinette doesn’t like the way her mother keeps looking at him. Covert, suspicious glances, as if there’s something about him that bothers her, something she can’t quite put her finger on, but give her a minute . . .
Jacqueline nudges her beneath the table, a light tap of shoe against shin. ‘Don’t you think so, Ant?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Our mother’s new haircut. I was saying how much it suits her.’
‘Oh. Oh, yeah, definitely.’
Antoinette forces a smile, studies again the short curls-slash-cowlicks that adorn their mother’s skull. So different from the frizzy, flyaway locks which were a Sally Paige trademark going on just about forever, prematurely grey and falling near to her waist, steel-wool medusa spirals she refused to colour even though they made her look twice her age in a good light. Shorn away now, hacked away – Antoinette would lay even money that her mother’s own hands did the deed – leaving this abrupt new style which makes her look so much worse. Thinner and older and alarmingly less substantial without her wild, windblown mane.
But it’s not just the new haircut, emphasising as it does those eyes sunk deep in shadows, those cheekbones knifing through wrinkle-sagged skin, and Antoinette makes a surreptitious count on her fingers. Christmas, the last time they were up here on the mountain – sitting around this table with homemade fruitcake and egg custard thick enough to stand a spoon in – which means not quite two months. Scant time, it seems, for age to steal in and so ruthlessly stamp its mark.
‘It’s easier,’ their mother says, raking bony fingers across her scalp. ‘Too many mornings spent battling the knots and snarls, you get sick of it. I don’t do more than shower and run a comb through these days.’ Wrists balanced on the edge of table, she offers a cool, deadpan stare to both her daughters. ‘Of course, I have worn it like this since the new year.’
‘We’d come up here more often if we could,’ Jacqueline says.
Antoinette swallows a mouthful of orange juice, wishing she had thought to bring a bottle of wine. Or vodka. ‘Yeah, we’ve both been slammed with work.’
‘Is this a new job, Antoinette?’ her mother asks.
‘No, still the same place. Simpatico.’
‘Oh.’ The waning smile, the lowered gaze; Sally Paige does crestfallen particularly well. ‘I thought . . . I mean, I’m sure Jacqueline is very busy jet-setting about the place with her career, but I didn’t think waitressing was that demanding an occupation.’
‘I’ve been pulling a lot of extra shifts lately,’ Antoinette lies. ‘Trying to put some money aside, you know?’
‘It must be a strain, with the two of you to support.’
‘Oh, Mum, can we please not–’
‘Didn’t you tell her?’ Loki interrupts, turning his thousand-watt grin towards the woman now scowling at him from the head of the table. ‘I have a job too, Mrs Paige. So it’s all cool. We’re not exactly rolling in moolah, but–’
‘Really?’ Sally Paige raises an eyebrow. ‘What about your book?’
‘All done,’ Loki says. ‘Sitting with my agent as we speak.’
‘I see. And now you have a job as well.’
‘Yep. Nothing flash, just writing copy for an environmental agency. Ground level stuff, but room to move up if I play my cards right.’ His smile doesn’t waver, not for a second. ‘I know you’ve been worried about me and Antoinette, Mrs Paige – and I don’t blame you being a bit dirty on the guy who stole away your youngest daughter – but it’s all good. I swear.’
Antoinette struggles to keep a straight face. He has Paul down pat and pitch perfect, each idiosyncratic nuance and subtle rhythm of speech, even the way he sits, that same stoop-shouldered slouch that always made her want to rope her ex to a cross-post – straighten up, scarecrow boy – his whole performance so uncanny, it gives her chills.
‘Well, isn’t that lovely,’ her mother says. ‘Antoinette, you should take some time off, now that Paul’s working. Come up here and have a holiday with me.’
‘Mum, I told you, I’m – we’re – trying to save some money.’
‘You have the rest of your life to do that. Why don’t you–’
‘Mother,’ Jacqueline breaks in, her foot making a gentle but pointed return to Antoinette’s leg. ‘Ant didn’t want to say anything in case it falls through, but she’s going to apply for university next semester.’
Their mother sits back in her chair. ‘University?’
‘Um, yeah.’ Antoinette scrambles for an answer. ‘That’s why I’m saving all I can now, because I’ll probably have to stop working if I get in. Stop, or else cut my hours right down. You know, so my studies won’t suffer.’
‘I see,’ their mother says. ‘What course are you going to do?’
‘Psychology.’
‘Psychology?’
‘Yeah, if I get accepted.’ Antoinette hasn’t a clue where that came from, and even Jacqueline looks mildly surprised. Psychology simply the first idea to strap on its skates and glide across her otherwise barren mind, but at least it puts on a good show. Impressive enough to placate Sally Paige while still managing to sound feasible; a course she might actually be able to get into – and complete – a course with a career waiting at the end. Tick, tick, tick.
‘You want to be a psychologist?’
‘Maybe. There, um, there are lots of options, really.’
Her mother contemplates this for a moment before conceding a slight and careworn smile. ‘That’s good, dear. I’m glad to see you finally putting some thought into the future. It’ll happen without you, otherwise, and before you know it . . .’
Abruptly, she clears her throat, then lays her cutlery across her plate and pushes it aside, holds a crumpled napkin to her mouth like she might be about to bring up what meagre amount of food she actually put into her stomach.
‘Mum?’ Antoinette reaches for her mother’s free hand, stricken and trembling on the tablecloth, but physical affection has never been a strong suit in their family and she pauses, never really sure when – if ever – her touch might be welcome. And in that moment of hesitation, Jacqueline is up and by their mother’s side with a glass of juice, pulp sloshing thick and orange up the sides, and
Loki too has scraped back his chair – ‘Mrs Paige? Can I get you some water maybe?’ – but Sally Paige just coughs and waves them both away.
‘I’ll live,’ she croaks. ‘I’ll live for now.’ Turning to Loki with eyes reddened and watery, but still sharp, scrutinising his face as she wipes at the corners of her mouth with the napkin, dab dab dab, before scrunching it into her fist. Antoinette feels her own stomach churn. She can see. She knows.
‘Paul,’ her mother says. ‘I need to talk to my girls for a bit. Alone.’
Loki looks to Antoinette, his face an open question.
‘Mum, he’s part of the family. Whatever it is–’
‘No,’ her mother says. ‘He is not part of the family, he’s . . . I’m sorry, Paul, I don’t like to be rude but it was meant to be just the three of us tonight.’
Antoinette starts to protest, but Loki holds up his hand, cuts her off with a brittle shake of his head. ‘No worries, Mrs Paige.’ His smile is stiff, marched all the way past polite and back to barely civil. ‘How about I clean up? Let you all get on with talking about whatever it is you need to talk about.’
He picks up the congealing remains of the roast and carries them from the room.
‘Way to make him feel welcome, Mum.’ Antoinette gets to her feet and begins stacking their plates. ‘As per usual.’
Her mother coughs again. ‘I didn’t ask for you to bring him.’
‘He’s my boyfriend.’ A dissonant, discordant word because this is Loki now, Loki and not Paul, but the track is too familiar, its grooves worn too deep to skip at speed. ‘What part of that is so hard for you to understand?’
‘The part where you let him walk all over you.’
‘I don’t–’
‘Ant,’ Jacqueline says. ‘Why don’t you go and make us some tea? We’ll be in the living room.’ Take a few minutes, her unspoken subtext. Take a few minutes and calm yourself down.
Antoinette grabs an armful of dishes and storms into the kitchen where Loki already has the kettle on, cups and spoons lined up and waiting. He’s even found her mother’s tea tray, the one with the border of yellow roses. ‘I’m sorry,’ she tells him. ‘She was truly awful.’
He shrugs. ‘She’s been worse.’
The water boils and Antoinette takes her time making the tea, showing Loki where the dishwashing liquid lives and what Tupperware to use for leftovers, until he takes her by the shoulders and plants an unexpected kiss on her forehead. ‘Get back out there, you.’
She hugs him. A fierce, impulsive embrace that she wants never to break, never or at least not until she feels something more for this inexplicable creature beyond the effortless affection she could almost class as maternal. Because he deserves more, this kind and gentle boy who loves her and has never hurt her, who could never hurt her, because he is not Paul.
But there’s nothing, just a cauterised line of scar tissue in the hollow where her heart used to beat. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says again, stepping away.
Loki turns to the sink, turns his back, turns the taps on full.
Antoinette picks up the tray and carries it through to the living room where her sister and her mother wait in opposing chairs, their faces blank and smooth as queens on a chessboard. ‘Here we are now,’ she quips, distributing the cups and settling herself on the middle cushion of the sofa. ‘Entertain us.’
Jacqueline looks puzzled, and Antoinette isn’t surprised the reference is beyond her; it’s hard to imagine a person less interested in music, more oblivious to pop culture of all kinds, than her sister. But the expression on their mother’s face stops her smile in its tracks. Eyes dull, lips drawn tight and bloodless, Sally Paige is a woman resigned. She places her tea on the little round table beside her chair, then considers each of her daughters in turn.
‘I have cancer,’ she tells them. ‘It’s terminal.’
Cancer. Jacqueline holds the word inside her head. Turns it over. Examines its hard, impenetrable surface. It is a stone, that word. Hard and cold. A heaviness in her skull. It sits there, beyond denial, despite her sister’s best efforts to the contrary.
Yes, their mother is certain. No, there is nothing to be done; the thing has worked its way too far into her body. Into her organs. Into her glands. Into every cell it has convinced to turn traitor. No, chemo is out of the question. Surgery, too. It is too aggressive, has been caught too late. It’s all over bar the shouting. Bar what comes next. What comes last.
‘There is nothing to be done,’ she repeats as Ant opens her mouth with yet another protest, another but, another what if, another have you tried. Their mother knew something was wrong before Christmas. Well before, she insists. Knew also that it was too late even then. ‘You live in a body as long as me, you can feel when the warranty’s about to run out.’
‘You’re not even sixty,’ Ant says. She wipes at her eyes. Smears a thin streak of black liner across her cheek.
Their mother sighs. ‘Feels I’ve lived a lot longer than that, believe you me.’
‘What do you need us to do?’ Jacqueline asks.
‘Don’t you start. How many times do I have to say it?’
‘I’m talking about palliative care. Have you organised anything?’
‘I have Dr Chiang for that side of things. He’s prescribing me drugs for the pain, says he can give me something stronger when it’s needed. You remember Dr Chiang?’
Jacqueline remembers him. A nice man, a good doctor. She remembers his kind, soft-lined face. His hands which were always warm, always gentle. His sad, sympathetic smile as he talked her through the results. So many tests, so many procedures. All of them leading down a singular dead-end path. I’m sorry, Miss Paige, but it’s extremely unlikely you will ever be able to have children. She remembers, too, the lecture from her mother as they drove home. Her admonition that Jacqueline not consider her circumstance to be a Get Out of Jail Free card. That there are worse things to be caught from sex than pregnancy. That – when the time comes, of course – she should be careful nevertheless. Protect herself. Always protect herself.
What would her mother think now, if she knew of all the times her eldest daughter had ignored that advice? Those hurried, hopeful encounters in her teens. The desperate calculation of her early twenties. Until she could no longer convince herself that Dr Chiang may have been wrong. Until, finally, she forced herself to give it up. To pack it away. The desire, the longing, the need which she felt for near her entire life. Curled within her heart. Within her broken, bloodless womb. Only rarely, now, does she hear them. The ghosts of those children she can never conceive.
Jacqueline clears her throat. Pushes such thoughts aside. ‘Have you thought about where to go?’ she asks her mother.
‘I have everything right here, I don’t need to go anywhere.’
‘Mum,’ Ant’s voice is wavering. ‘You can’t just . . . you need people to take care of you. People whose job that is, you know?’
‘What, you think I want to die in some hospital? In one of those horrible homes, stinking of disinfectant and stale piss?’ Their mother snorts. ‘I think not, missy. I intend to die right here, right in my own bed.’
‘All right,’ Jacqueline assures her. ‘No one is saying–’
‘You can’t make me go to one of those places. Neither of you can make me. I still have all my faculties; you don’t have the right to shuffle me off to some nursing home just because it’s more convenient. It’s my right to refuse whatever care I please.’ Her mother coughs, loud and phlegm-filled, then sits back in her chair. Crosses her arms over her chest. ‘It’s my legal right, I checked with my solicitor.’
Ant looks as though someone has slapped her. Pale, eyes wide and brimming with tears. Jacqueline moves to sit beside her. Takes her sister’s hand. ‘We’re not saying that.’
Their mother glares at them. Her lower li
p quivers.
‘What we’re saying . . .’ Jacqueline pauses. ‘What we’re saying is that you do need to think about it. That we all need to think about it. If you want to stay here, that’s fine and we’re not going to make you leave–’
‘Damn right, you’re not.’
‘–but you are going to need help. Professional help. This is going to get worse, a lot worse. You have to know that.’
‘Jacqueline . . .’ her sister says. ‘I don’t think . . .’
‘You have to know it as well, Ant.’
In the silence that follows, their mother coughs again. Grimaces and clutches her side. ‘I’m tired,’ she tells them. ‘I need to sleep.’
Jacqueline rises from the couch. Steps swiftly across the room to offer an arm to her mother. The older woman’s fingers seem little more than skin and bones as she digs in. Hauls herself to her feet. ‘I’ve made up your beds,’ she says. Nods towards the kitchen. ‘Don’t know where he’s expecting to lay himself down.’
‘Loki can have my room,’ Ant says. ‘I’ll share with Jacqueline.’
‘Loki?’ That keen, bright stare is vintage Sally Paige.
‘It’s a nickname.’ Jacqueline rolls her eyes. ‘Don’t even ask.’
Ant swallows, hard. ‘Yeah, you don’t want to know.’
Their mother laughs. It’s not a happy sound. ‘You’ll both be here in the morning, then? Not planning to sneak off early on me?’
‘Mum!’ Ant sounds hurt.
‘Of course not,’ Jacqueline says. ‘We’ll be here for breakfast.’
‘Good, because I’m making pancakes. I bought maple syrup. The real stuff, not that maple-flavoured rubbish.’
‘Mum, you’re sick,’ Ant says. ‘Really, you don’t have to get up and make us breakfast when you’re sick.’
Again, that laugh. Brittle as burnt sugar. ‘I’m not sick, dear. What I have, it isn’t anything you recover from.’ Their mother reaches out a skeletal hand. Touches her youngest daughter on the cheek. ‘I’m going to die, Antoinette; I’m going to die soon. Don’t kid yourself into thinking anything else.’
Perfections Page 17
