The Near Miss

by Fran Cusworth

  Tom snored and Grace smiled. She was pretty sure a deal had just been struck.

  That night, Eddy breathed in a steam of peas and gravy, and watched his mother stab another slice of overcooked roast lamb and shake it off onto his plate. He nodded to his father’s offer of wine, a startlingly bohemian turn on the part of his parents in recent times, who had drunk beer or Coke with their meals forever, and then he picked up his knife and fork and assembled his most incredulous face.

  ‘This looks fantastic, Mum!’

  Merle beamed. ‘Oh, phooey. It’s nothing.’ She flicked him one last potato quarter.

  Romy raised her knife and fork cautiously. She had two microwaved Sanitarium tofu burgers on her plate; the same as every time they went to Merle and Ray’s place for dinner. Merle must have a sack of them stashed in the deep freeze. To the side of that, Romy had four dry roast potato pieces, with no trace of the Gravox and chicken-fat gravy, and a tablespoonful of rehydrated peas. In addition, as if to acknowledge and apologise for her paltry understanding of what on earth a coeliac vegetarian did eat, Merle had added something new; a little flourish which might be an attempt to be a bit interesting, artistic. It appeared to be pineapple which had been sliced and then fried, in a mix of breadcrumbs. Or something. Eddy followed Romy’s stricken gaze and saw where it rested. Surely that could not be . . .

  Merle leaned between them, her kind eyes turning back and forth reassuringly. ‘Do you like pineapple, Romy? I just wanted to make you a little something . . .’

  ‘Is that bacon?’ Romy poked at it with her knife. Ray rose across the table to join the examination, his face full of a sullen threat that was not directed at the plate.

  Merle nodded encouragingly. ‘It’s a Pacific dish. I got it from the Women’s Weekly cookbook, because you were talking about Pacific foods last time you came over, remember?’ Her tone turned instructional. ‘You just mix a bit of all-spice and a handful of bacon chips . . .’

  ‘I don’t eat meat.’ Romy made the statement, its contents only too well known in this household, with apparent satisfaction. Gotcha. Nowhere did she cling to her vegetarian principles quite as firmly as in the home of her boyfriend’s parents. She had been known to scoff the odd sausage roll in the wee hours after a night of drinking; she would sometimes absently take a marinated drumstick from Eddy’s hands and gnaw off the crispy exterior as if she were in a trance-like state, as if eating your boyfriend’s meat would not count before a jury of the great meatless. But at the Plentys, her state of ecological, gastronomic purity was complete. Here in this suburban home of plastic plants and macramé owls, here she was as meat-free as the Dalai Lama.

  Merle’s horror was tidal, physical. She seized handfuls of her own face, she shrieked into her hands. The origins of bacon chips had obviously somewhere slipped off her radar, and she had recategorised them as a spice, or a flavouring, or something.

  ‘Oh, darling! Oh, I’m so sorry! God, what was I thinking! Bacon chips! Bacon! Of course! Ray, I’m going crazy! Ray you sat and watched me cook this for Rommers, and it didn’t click with you either, did it?’

  ‘Nope. No, it did not.’ Ray pointed the remote control at the television. His mouth twitched, and he appeared to be chuckling at a quite serious news item on the collapse of the Greek economy. ‘Didn’t notice a thing, darl.’

  Now that guilt had been established, Romy was all forgiveness. ‘Oh, Merle, please, don’t you be sorry. I should be sorry, inflicting my dietary needs onto you. And it looks like a . . . such an interesting . . .’ Here she poked at the yellow mush with her fork. ‘. . . concept. I’m sure Eddy would love to try some.’

  Eddy leaned over the dish again, his hands pressed between his knees under the table. ‘Oooh, I’d love to. I reckon vegetarians get all the little treats we carnivores miss out on.’

  ‘Except it’s not vegetarian,’ Romy corrected him sweetly.

  Suddenly, Ray stood and whisked the dish away. Their faces turned to him in a silent chorus of astonishment as he marched it over to the bin and scraped half the contents of the plate into the bin. He then crashed the plate back down on the table, tofu burgers skittering, before Romy. She put her hand to her throat and winced away from him, turning one shoulder slightly as if fearful of a blow.

  ‘Hey, Dad. I would have eaten that,’ Eddy protested.

  ‘Ray!’ Merle’s mouth sagged with distress. Ray clattered his chair around like he would break it against the floor before he reseated himself. He took his cutlery in his big, farming fists, and started eating, glaring at the telly.

  ‘I’m sure we don’t want to force anyone to eat anything.’

  Romy lowered her head like a nun in prayer, and nibbled at her tofu.

  Eddy sighed, and ate. So often it ended up like this, Romy and his father growling like two dogs on a leash while his mother and he smiled their faces off and tried to keep the peace. Your father and I are so different, Romy always said in the car on the way home, shaking her head. A red-necked, bullying old man and a new-age, feminist young woman, she would marvel. So different! The classic confrontation of generational power! Eddy often reflected privately that Romy and his father were actually scarily similar. It was just that stubbornness, like second-hand clothes, looked stylish on the young, and plain dowdy on the old.

  Eddy and Romy had met at Romy’s parents’ wake. His own parents had known her parents through the Lions Club, and when Carlos and Francesca Fernandez were killed in a car crash towing their caravan up the Hume Highway, his parents went to the funeral. Their own car was in for servicing that week, and Eddy was driving them everywhere; to golf, to the doctor, to the supermarket. When he heard about the funeral, he offered to drop them off and pick them up. His mother saw it as a good chance to show him off to her acquaintances. Eddy was the sort of son you showed off. He had a good job and nice skin and he had no tattoos or earrings. On the downside, he could come across as a little embarrassed in his demeanour and not very confident, and he could absent-mindedly slide his fingertips down the waistband of his pants when he was nervous, as if seeking comfort from the warmth of his privates. But he had an endearing gentleness and excellent manners.

  But when he laid eyes on Romilda Fernandez, he forgot his manners immediately.

  ‘So, got yourself a girlfriend?’ Roger Davis from the golf club had enquired, winking at Eddy’s dad. But Eddy pushed past him without responding and crossed the room.

  ‘I’m Eddy,’ he told the pretty, dark-haired woman with the swollen red eyes. ‘You must be Carlos and Francesca’s daughter.’ He had heard she was living and working in London, had been called by the Australian police in the middle of the night to hear the news that her parents were dead. Had flown back from an English winter into a blistering Melbourne summer.

  ‘My name’s Romy.’ She pressed her hands to her eyes and walked out the back door to where the sun was setting and fruit bats wheeled through the branches of a giant fig tree. He followed, and offered her a clean hanky. She took it.

  ‘I just . . . wish I’d been able to say goodbye.’

  ‘You’re living in London?’

  ‘Streatham,’ she said. He nodded, having never heard of it. Should he run and get her a seat? But then he would have to leave her.

  ‘Are you going back?’ He couldn’t believe the greed of his own question; too desperate to hear the answer to mess around with niceties like what a loss, so sorry to hear, pillars of the community.

  ‘Yes. I was an actress there. I’m part of a show, so I have to go back.’

  A double knife to the heart. First she was going back, and second she was an actress, something so incredibly glamorous and interesting that her geographical placement on the other side of the planet was a mere pebble of an obstacle when compared to this. He had held up a drink with a straw for her to sip from, through her tears, and wondered how illegal it would be to kidnap her and physically stop her from leaving the country.

  But in the end, it wasn’t necessary. Heartbr
oken by her parents’ death, Romy was easily convinced she was in love with Eddy. A wise elder in her life might have advised her to return to London and her show; suggested that this was not a time to make big decisions, or to abandon a hard-won career break. But there was no such person left in Romy’s life, and, although Eddy felt a vague sense of guilt about pressing Romy to stay in Melbourne, it was outweighed by his greedy love, and his overwhelming desire to care for her.

  Romy moved in with him in Melbourne and found waitressing work. For a few years, the two of them were happy. Her grief about losing her parents was so solid at first, that it was almost a third member of the household, but he grew used to it. In his heart, he knew this grief was his ally. She was a creature he had captured while broken; an exotic bird with a damaged wing, who he had tenderly nursed back to health. Romy’s sexual infidelity with the yoga instructor had shaken him, but he thought of it now as a momentary glitch. A fluttering of those once-damaged wings, a stretching of them. It didn’t occur to him that those wings might have healed, that that bird might be beating her chest against the bars of her cage.

  No, no. Romy had always needed him, all their relationship, and he had always looked after her. That would never change.

  Chapter 4

  The doorbell rang, and Melody ran down the stairs. ‘Van.’

  She held her friend for a moment, inhaling his scent of smoke and sweat and metal. He followed her back up and through her doorway, and let a small backpack slide to the ground. He wore a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt under a sleeveless leather vest, and black fisherman pants, his thin ankles bare. In Birkenstocks, small silver rings gleamed on his toes, and a tattoo marked the top of his right foot.

  ‘Some supplies.’ He dropped a shopping bag on the table. She rifled through tofu, bok choy, a packet of the chocolate teddy biscuits that Skipper loved.

  ‘Thanks so much for finding me this flat.’

  ‘It’s cool.’

  ‘Thought you had a job this week?’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Put it off.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Melody had once had a twin, Esme, and Van had been Esme’s boyfriend during high school, until her death from a heart infection contracted after getting a tattoo. Melody had known Van as a skinny weird kid, then as an art school student, briefly as a fashion designer, then as a photographer, then he had seemed to create a niche as a stylist, then there was that bit where he imported things from overseas, things that were never really explained. She suspected drugs, but made a point of never asking. Nowadays he seemed to own real estate around the country, and to make unexplained business trips.

  ‘You cut your hair,’ she said.

  ‘Too hot for dreads.’

  ‘No. Dreads are cooling. Like insulation.’

  ‘Does everyone stare at you here?’

  ‘I don’t know. A bit. Hey, are you doing anything Saturday night?’

  He shrugged. There were things he didn’t tell her. But she knew he would drop everything to help her.

  ‘It’s just this woman, the mum of the kid that I —’ she raised her eyebrows and mimed dramatically ‘— saved, she’s asked me for dinner. And said I could bring a friend.’

  ‘Oooh.’ He fluttered his eyelashes and squeezed up his shoulders in a camp way. She laughed.

  ‘Melbourne people.’

  He agreed. ‘They love to do dinner parties.’

  ‘And they plan things so far ahead. Skipper’s new kinder have arranged a playdate for all the children in three weeks’ time.’

  ‘I hope you’ve logged it into his iPhone.’

  ‘Of course.’ She laughed, but felt uncomfortable. She was desperate for Skipper to make friends. Bad karma to be badmouthing the mothers.

  ‘So you got him into a kindy. Montessori?’

  ‘State government. Just around the corner. It’s sweet. So, anyway, will you come?’

  ‘To the free dinner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  She smiled and stirred her tea. What was the rhyme the children had chanted each morning back in Tuntable, under the painted sun and stars of their ceiling, cross-legged on mats woven with wool from the kindy’s own goats?

  Here is the earth,

  Here is the sky,

  Here are my friends,

  And here am I.

  Grace toasted the almond flakes, banging the pan on the stove as the nuts browned. The strangers were due in fifteen minutes and she wished she’d never asked them. The last thing she felt like now was facing people she barely knew, and making conversation for a whole night. What had she been thinking? What was wrong with her? Couldn’t she have just sent a thank-you card? This was beyond gratitude; she must have been punishing herself for the accident, and her own negligence. Maybe she could ring and cancel. That was it, she would say that Lotte was sick, a very contagious child thing, chicken pox maybe. No doubt the hippy didn’t vaccinate. She froze, immobilised with hope and fear. Was there time? She stared into the almond flakes, now turning from brown to black. Should she invest the remaining fifteen minutes in finishing the stir fry, putting on the rice, checking that the broken toilet seat was at least clean, or should she throw her bets on finding the kindy contact list in the hope that Melody had been included, despite Skipper’s late enrolment. Although there was a look about Melody as if she might not even have a phone. She might live in a cave. Grace stepped towards her little desk, overloaded with a laptop and electrical cords and unpaid bills and lists, and then she stepped back and looked at her black almonds and her stir fry. But the guy, Eddie, she certainly didn’t have his number.

  A knock rapped through the house, signaling an end to the decision. Was it them? Were they early? Curse them to Hell and back. Not even ready. Grace cast one despairing look around her and strode up the hall, with what she hoped sounded welcoming, Gosh-I-can’t-wait-to-get-to-that-door-and-see-you footsteps. Grace had already decoded the initially faltering knock, now being repeated aggressively, as that of a child. She swung back the door and crouched to be on the same eye-level as Skipper, who wore a little checked shirt and some cargo pants. He carried flowers, which looked as though they might have been picked from nearby front yards; Grace thought she recognised the wattle from the Trappers’ rental.

  ‘Did you bring them for us?’ Grace took them. ‘How beautiful! Come in, come in!’ Then she stood and saw Melody had brought someone; a man with a shaven head and a leather bikie jacket that gave him the look, in the shadows, of a cartoon super hero; as if he should have a logo emblazoned across his broad chest. He stretched out an arm to shake her hand, and the leather sleeve shifted to reveal tattoo ink on a muscled forearm. The silver rings on his fingers were an oddly feminine touch. His warm and rough hand enclosed her small one, and she felt the physical jolt of contact travel straight from her palm to her thighs. He stepped close to her and smiled. She blushed and glanced around; where was Tom?

  ‘This is Van.’ Melody dropped a bike helmet onto the step with a clunk. The long beige knots fell down her shoulders and her blue eyes were serious. She wore no makeup and her features were little-girlish: a pert nose, soft-looking cheeks with faint freckles, and a mouthful of what looked like a pre-schooler’s milk-teeth — small and shell-white, slivers of space between each.

  ‘Fan, was it?’

  ‘Van.’

  ‘As in Morrison.’ God, the voice on him, the sort of spine-tingling vocal damage that took a lot of drinking and smoking and probably shouting to achieve. A faint American accent. Grace stood back to let him move further into her home, against her better judgment. She leaned to see where he was going and bumped her head on the coat hooks. Whether he attractive or repulsive, she couldn’t quite decide. Where was her daughter?

  ‘We didn’t get chocolates because they make you fat,’ Skipper told her.

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Grace blushed and twinkled at Melody over the little boy’s head, and hoped he wasn’t about to tell her she was fat, as
only a four-year-old could do. She hastily headed them all off on a tour of the house. ‘Here’s the lounge room. We still have to fix that crack and we’re choosing a colour for the feature wall, but it should be finished by the time we’re ready to move into the old folk’s home.’ She laughed shrilly. ‘Over the hall is our bedroom . . .’ Grace always did this on her house tours: launched into them and then faced the dilemma of whether to include the master bedroom. It always felt a little intimate to show people one’s married bedroom — ‘this is centre stage,’ one bawdy friend had introduced her own boudoir as — but then it was also a little reserved to hold a part of yourself back. And she owed such a debt of thanks to this woman, she would hide nothing, absolutely nothing, even the pile of clothes on the bed, obviously revealing she had tried on at least a dozen outfits. ‘Excuse the mess, I’m just sorting through things to throw out.’ She marched around the bed, determinedly waving at the wall of blankets down the middle of the unmade bed, the cluttered, dusty side tables, and the towels on the bathroom floor. She could see herself through Melody’s eyes; oh-so-boring and middle-class suburbia.

  ‘Nice curtains.’ Melody stood in the bedroom doorway and fiddled with the zipper of her jacket. She cast a look down the hall. ‘Where’s . . .?’

  ‘Oh, they’ve found . . .’

  Skipper and Lotte had indeed discovered each other. Their reunion was reminiscent of an old movie; they saw each other down the length of the hall and they ran. Once face-to-face, they stopped and regarded each other from a hand’s width apart, and then Lotte put her hands around Skipper and hugged him. Skipper looked thoughtfully over Lotte’s shoulder while this occurred; he didn’t respond until she went to pull back, at which he raised his fists and squeezed her until she gasped.

  ‘Oh, sweet.’

  ‘Don’t hurt her.’ Melody smiled. The children moved apart.

  ‘Doesn’t hurt!’ Lotte shrieked. ‘Come and see my room!’

  Tom emerged, in King Gee shorts and dusty boots and hair thick with grease. ‘This is Tom!’ Grace smiled at him threateningly. ‘Darling, you didn’t have to dress up for us!’