by Ilsa Evans
We meet up again in the kitchen where Maggie has dumped a box of her supplies next to the air-conditioner (another item that I don’t possess). We grin at each other in relief and Maggie turns it on to high. It doesn’t take long after that for the smell to start dissipating, or perhaps I’m now getting used to it. Maggie delves into the box on the counter, produces a roll of Contact and proceeds to line every drawer in sight (I haven’t even lined my own kitchen drawers yet). I find a sponge and some Ajax, and desultorily start to wipe out the oven.
‘D’you know, I’m a bit envious. I think you’re going to have a ball at university.’
‘I hope so. I know I’m really nervous about the whole thing.’
‘Don’t be. You’ll be great. And I think you’ll make a great social worker eventually.’
‘Oh well, if it doesn’t work out – I’ll just get a job with you.’
‘Hmm.’
‘It’s okay, I’m only joking.’
‘Oh! I haven’t asked yet. How’s your sister? Still hanging in there?’
‘Yes, still. She’s bored stiff and can’t wait, but her doctor is thrilled that she’s lasted this long. They were worried she wouldn’t make it past Christmas, let alone all of January!’ We are talking about my older sister Diane, who has been languishing in the William Angliss Hospital since shortly after her forty-third birthday last October. No, she is not dying of some incurable disease but merely expecting the arrival of twin girls at any moment. They are actually due on Sunday but nobody really expected the pregnancy to last this long. Not only because twins are notoriously early, but also because Diane has suffered from pre-eclampsia with each of her previous pregnancies and I think her doctor expected real problems this time given her increased age. I am very fond of Diane, and her husband David, who live about fifteen minutes’ drive away in Croydon. They already have four boys, Nicholas, Evan, Christopher and Michael, who range in age respectively from twenty down to fourteen, and are all large, blond and Nordic-looking like their father. This latest pregnancy came as a bit of a shock to everybody, except perhaps Diane. I try to get into the hospital to visit her every second day or so.
‘Took some magazines in to her after the New Year, but I haven’t been since. I might try to get in on Thursday, that’s always a slow day.’ Maggie deftly flips out another length of Contact and slices it neatly with a Stanley knife.
‘Oh, she’ll enjoy that. She is really bored.’ I give up on the stove and look around for something else that might need cleaning. ‘But one good thing that’s come out of this is that David and the boys have had to look after themselves for a change. And perhaps she’ll realise that they are capable of doing their fair share.’
‘Huh, doubt it,’ Maggie grunts. ‘Besides, I don’t think she wants to realise it.’
‘True.’ I reflect on the insightfulness of that observation. In many ways Diane does make a rod for her own back. She protects and pampers those males of hers to such an extent that I personally believe her doctor threw her into hospital as much for an enforced rest as for the pre-eclampsia.
‘Even so, that David really should set a better example for his sons.’ Maggie is not having a go at David’s personality, which is perfectly pleasant, but at the way he lets Diane hover around him all the time. Maggie herself claims to be a rabid feminist, although I’ve never been able to work out how she can reconcile her career choice with feminism. She says it’s no different from supplying any service, like being a doctor, or a physio, or even a hairdresser. I’m sorry, but I can see quite a number of little differences. However, we have agreed to disagree.
‘Oh well, perhaps these babies will make a difference.’
‘True. And what’s up with your other sister?’
What is up with my other sister? That’s a question I have been asking for many years. Thirty-four to be exact, ever since she was brought home from the hospital with much fanfare and promptly took over my room. Bloody Elizabeth. Tall, slim, with long naturally curly chestnut hair, intensely blue eyes and the lightest dusting of freckles across her pert little nose. She rarely keeps a job for more than six months yet somehow still manages to survive, never seems to have any friends yet still always has somewhere to go, and has very little personality – yet has still managed to land the nicest boyfriend this side of the black stump. And probably the other side as well. We don’t see very much of each other, although, since around the time that she landed the nice boyfriend last year, I have actually asked her over a lot more than I used to (and as I never used to, this is quite easy).
‘She’s okay, I think.’
‘Still like that, are you?’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, this sibling rivalry thing.’
‘It’s not sibling rivalry – there’s nothing she’s got that I want!’ Even as I speak an image of tall, dark, handsome Phillip (a vet, no less!) with his liquid brown eyes and Errol Flynn moustache (I have always had a thing for moustaches) pops into my head and I can’t help smiling.
‘Yeah, I can tell,’ Maggie says sarcastically. ‘He’s not your type, you know.’
‘Oh please, Maggie! Did I say he was?’ As far as she’s concerned only Alex is my type. ‘He’s just a nice guy, that’s all.’
‘Sam says he comes over quite a lot.’ She has stopped Contacting and is looking at me narrowly with her Stanley knife held mid-air.
‘Oh, really!’ Why is it I feel guilty? I’ve been divorced from Alex for years, I’ve even been remarried since, had another child – and I really wish she’d put that knife down when she looks at me like that. ‘For your information, he’s usually with Elizabeth when he comes over, otherwise he’s only checking out the animals. He’s taken Ben under his wing a bit because he wants to be a vet, that’s all . . . and it’s good for Ben, he loves it.’
‘Hmm.’ Maggie lowers the knife and goes back to measuring a drawer. I stand watching her for a moment. I do hope that when Alex shifts in and starts to meet people and go out, it doesn’t cause problems between Maggie and me. Because she really seems to have her heart set on us reconciling, and it just isn’t going to happen. There’s too much water under the bridge. In fact, I think there has been so much water under the bridge that it’s knocked down the pylons and the bridge has washed clean away.
‘Sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘It’s none of my business who you see or whatever.’
‘You’re right, it’s not. But I’ll tell you anyway, there’s nothing going on there at all.’
‘But you’d like there to be?’
‘Maggie!’
‘Okay, I’ll drop it. How’s your mother?’
‘God! I think I’d rather talk about Phillip!’
‘Huh! That’s the plan!’
I laugh and set to work on the hotplates with a bit more gusto than I’d intended. My mother as a topic of conversation is definitely limited. Or at least my patience with my mother as a topic of conversation is definitely limited.
‘How’re the wedding plans?’
‘Are you going?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘Well, as far as I know everything is organised faultlessly. And I don’t think she’d allow any less. I must admit that I’ve tried to stay out of it as much as I can. Which is just as well because she doesn’t have any faith in my organisational abilities.’
‘Elizabeth still the only bridesmaid?’
‘I’m not sure how it works. All I know is she, Sam and CJ have the same dress, much to Sam’s disgust. I believe it’s sort of a light salmon pink, fleshy colour.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Yes, precisely. Like cheap tuna. They have the final fitting on Saturday.’
‘And what about your birthday?’
Yes, what about my birthday? Of all the days in the year, my mother has chosen my fortieth birthday on which to get married for the fourth time. Some people never know when to quit. And you’d think that her fiancé would have t
aken a slight clue as to his likely future from the fact that each of his three predecessors is dead. But no, Harold is still wandering around beaming as if he has won first prize in the lottery. Perhaps he thinks he has. Having finished lining everything in sight, Maggie stands back to examine the windows and their coverings.
‘Do these look grubby to you?’
‘Yes, they most definitely do. And it doesn’t surprise me either. I mean, smell this place! That Waverley mob must have been pigs.’
‘Suppose if we wash them it might help with the smell.’
‘That’s true. I’ll get them all down and take them next door. Did you know that I’ve got a new washing-machine?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ replies Maggie, displaying a rather discourteous lack of interest in my pride and joy, ‘and while you’re at it, I’ll start on the windows.’
It takes an hour to get all the curtains down, and it’ll take the rest of the afternoon to get them all through the machine. I know one thing for sure, I am not taking them to a dry-cleaner’s. If they fall apart in the wash, it’s just too bad. I already think that the time and effort I’m putting in here is a bit above and beyond the call. I escape next door with my armful of curtains and leave Maggie hard at work washing windows. The only minus to this brief respite is that my house doesn’t have air-conditioning and it has definitely become a lot warmer. I fish out the finished washing from this morning and dump it in the laundry basket. Then I refill the machine with the first load of curtains, add some detergent, and put it through the cycle while I lean against the machine lost in my latest fantasy involving Alex’s return. The wash cycle ends just as he is telling me, in a voice positively throbbing with raw emotion, that the real reason he has been unable to form a meaningful relationship since our split is that nothing has ever quite measured up to what we had. I nod sympathetically in reply and then head outside with the wet washing. As I am hanging up the first load, and affording Murphy a great deal of pleasure in the process, Maggie sticks her head out of one of the sparkling windows next door and calls out to me.
‘What about some lunch?’
‘Sounds great. What did you have in mind?’
‘Chinese? I’ll get it, there’s one up the road.’
‘Delicious! I’ll have satay chicken, thanks.’
Maggie heads off to fetch the lunch and I go back inside to sit down unobserved while I have the chance. I’ll finish the hanging up and put on another load in a minute. This is really a rather ludicrous situation. My own house is desperately screaming out for me to spend a day lining drawers, scrubbing carpets and washing curtains, but instead I am performing these services for my ex-husband. Would he do the same for me? I don’t think so. In fact, I doubt it would even occur to him and I also doubt that we’ll get much thanks – he probably won’t even notice the difference.
It’s going to be a long, long day.
MONDAY
4.30 pm
Maggie has not stopped working all afternoon. Even when she came back with lunch, she worked while she ate, and my repeated efforts to persuade her to sit down for a cup of tea or something have been to no avail. And, of course, I couldn’t very well sit down while she was working so hard. The only break I had was when I collected CJ from school at two-thirty (as a new prep she hasn’t graduated to a full day yet, more’s the pity). I am hot, sticky and absolutely exhausted.
We have vacuumed and deodorised the carpets, cleaned the curtains and the windows, washed the walls and the floors, cleaned the bath and the showers, scrubbed the kitchen spotless, and even polished the light fittings. As soon as she arrived home from school, Samantha examined the house, chose a bedroom, and then dragged out our lawnmower and proceeded to mow the front lawn (which now makes our grass look very long by comparison). Benjamin is doing a bit of random weeding around the front verandah and CJ is counting out the wire coathangers that Maggie brought, so that every wardrobe gets exactly the same number (well, it keeps her busy anyway).
‘Okay, I’ve had enough. I’m going next door to put the kettle on. Anyone who wants coffee or tea can come over. Or a cold drink.’ I dump the cleaning equipment back into the box in the kitchen and leave Maggie musing over the best position for each of the assorted pot plants that she has brought over. I repeat myself to Ben and then Sam as I cross the front lawn and clamber over the side fence again.
The telephone starts ringing as I close the front door behind me and I glance at it, sitting squatly on the hall table, before deciding to let the answering machine pick it up on the grounds that I just can’t be bothered. So, ignoring its shrill insistence, I limp slowly down the passage towards the kitchen, and the kettle, and the rejuvenating properties of a really strong cup of coffee.
I turn on the tap to start filling the kettle as the answering machine kicks in and my two daughters warble their way through our welcoming message. Then, turning the tap off, I pause to listen to who is on the other end.
‘Are you there? It’s David! Come on, you must be there!’
With the kettle held in front of me, I stare open-mouthed at the kitchen wall-phone. The excitement in his voice can only mean one thing or, in the case of my sister, two things – both small, and pink, and female. And, judging from the enthusiastic tone of his voice, both healthy.
‘Come on! Last chance! If you’re there, pick the hell up!’
Obediently I clutch the kettle damply to my chest with one hand and grab the receiver off the wall with the other.
‘It’s me! What’s happening?’
‘She’s had them! This afternoon!’
‘David! Congratulations!’ I hug myself gleefully, if a trifle awkwardly. ‘That’s fantastic!’
‘Yep, and they are absolutely bloody gorgeous.’
‘So, no problems? I mean, everyone’s okay?’
‘No problems at all. They’re both fine.’
‘How much do they weigh?’
‘Weigh? I don’t know. But they look biggish.’
‘David! You’re a twit. How’s Diane – how long was the labour?’
‘Oh, not that long at all and she’s fine, fighting fit,’ he replies with all the airiness of someone who has not just pushed two ‘biggish’ humans through an extremely narrow orifice, and one who is never likely to be called upon to do so either.
‘Names? Have you thought of any names?’
‘No . . . well, we have, but we can’t agree yet.’
‘Well, you’ll have to get your act together now that they’re born. What about visitors?’
‘Not tonight, she’s probably knackered. But tomorrow’d be good.’
‘Well, congratulations again. Give her my love and tell her I’ll be in tomorrow.’
As I hang up I can actually feel a sense of relief surge through me. As Diane’s pregnancy had progressed so satisfactorily, my sense of foreboding had lessened somewhat, but it is still great to know that it’s all gone smoothly, and she’s fine, and they’re fine.
This definitely calls for more than coffee – it calls for champagne. Accordingly I put the kettle down and mop at my chest with the tea-towel before fishing a bottle of bubbly out of the fridge (it pays to be prepared). Then I grab five champagne flutes, arrange them on a tray with a bag of nuts and, balancing the tray carefully, head slowly back next door.
‘Sam! Turn it off and come inside!’ I yell as I pass my daughter, who is doing a surprisingly meticulous job on her father’s front lawn, something I must file away for future reference. Benjamin looks up from his weeding and catches one of the flutes deftly as it topples off the tray. I raise my eyebrows in surprise because Ben is usually so incredibly clumsy that he is a positive menace to have around anything even remotely breakable. I have no idea where he gets it from.
‘Thanks. Bring it in with you, please.’
Ben moves past me onto the verandah and opens the door for me as the mower shudders to a halt behind us. The cool air inside the house is positively orgasmic. I carry my tray through the house to th
e kitchen where Maggie and CJ are putting tins neatly into one of the freshly lined cupboards.
‘We’ve got something to celebrate! Come on, Sam, hurry up, you can get back to the mowing in a minute.’
‘Hmm, what’s going on?’ Maggie looks questioningly at the tray and then at me.
‘In a minute. Right, is everyone here? Well, we have to have a toast,’ I say as I attempt to wrest the top out of the champagne bottle. ‘Diane has had the twins and everyone is fine!’
‘That’s fantastic!’
‘Oh, Mummy! Do they look like me?’
‘Das ist gut!’
I ignore Sam’s foray into German, which I have been finding increasingly irritating over the last six months (however, one of the elective subjects I have chosen is German, so soon I’ll know what she’s talking about and then she’ll be in for a surprise), and concentrate on unscrewing the wire from the champagne cork. That done, I start to carefully lever out the cork.
‘Oh, can I do that, Mum? I’m really good at it.’
‘So give us all the details – like, how big are they?’
Just as I am about to answer Maggie and inquire of Ben why and how he is really good at removing champagne corks, the cork I’m working on disengages itself with a loud pop and immediately shoots straight through my fingers and upwards into the ceiling. Where it imbeds itself. We all stare in unison at the little bit of cork that is sticking crookedly out of the plaster. It looks a bit like a lunar module after a bad landing.
‘Mummy, look what you did to the roof!’
‘Good one, Mum!’
‘Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it, let’s fill the glasses before it froths everywhere.’ Maggie grabs the bottle from me while I am still staring in disbelief at the corked ceiling, and proceeds to pour foaming champagne into the five flutes.
‘Here, CJ, only a little one for you. Ben, Sam.’ She passes them out and then tops up the remaining two to the brim.
