by Fiona Wood
‘Don’t you dare shout at me. I’m trying to make some money, too. And it’s bloody hard.’
‘It wouldn’t be so “bloody hard” if you stopped sending customers away.’
‘I don’t! They just change their mind about getting married.’
‘Or maybe they recognise a crazy psycho when they meet one, and go somewhere else for their stupid cake!’
I walk out. I can’t handle it. I stamp through the house, longing to smash something up, but contain myself to banging my door, opening it again and banging it again. A patch of plaster from above the door falls, settling on the large pile of recycled socks and boxers I’ve been dressing from lately. I lie down and pick up the weights. I’m doing them twice a day and can lift them easily now. Adrenalin pumps through my system; I’ve never managed so many repetitions before.
My mother knocks on my door.
‘Dan?’ She tries the handle. It’s locked.
‘Go away.’
‘I’ve made you a sandwich.’
‘I don’t want it.’ What am I, five? She must know it’s a lie, anyway.
I hear her putting a plate down outside the door, with a huge sigh. I’m still burning with self-righteous rage and a petty impulse tells me not to eat it. My mother doesn’t seem to realise that things are every bit as bad for me as they are for her. Does she even know or ask how I’m going? Is it fun for me being pulled out of my life and dumped in this cold, dreary museum?
I’d always assumed that me being around means my mother has to cope, and she has to think her life’s okay. That is clearly not the case. It makes me feel hollow and hopeless.
‘Thom Yorke and I obviously aren’t enough, Howard.’
He gives me the inscrutable psychotherapist look: you figure it out.
‘Well, I can’t. That’s why I’m talking to a dog. And imagining a dog is talking to me.’
He turns away, huffy. Now the whole world is against me.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage your species.’
He comes back over and settles himself next to me. You could interpret that as him wanting some physical warmth, but it feels more like being forgiven. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but he’s my dog and I’m his human.
There’s a bump from above. The unattainable one. So close, but never further away . . .
16
REVISITING THE LIST:
1 Kiss Estelle.
Okay, at least I’ve met her. She thinks I’m a creep. And that’s without her knowing I’ve read her diaries. Unless we somehow fall over, exactly aligned, lip to lip, and gravity causes the pressure, or we find ourselves in a darkened room and through a series of Shakespearean ID muddles she thinks she’s kissing someone else, I can’t see how this is ever going to happen.
2 Get a job.
Got a job, probably.
Still in financial shit.
3 Cheer my mother up.
Failing. She’s a nutcase.
4 Try not to be a complete loser.
Failing completely. Am a complete loser.
5 Should talk to my father when he calls.
Still can’t face asking him, how could you leave us like this? The other thing that I wake up thinking is, you’re not who I thought you were . . . and did you even love us in the first place?
6 Figure out how to be good.
Failing utterly.
17
MY MOTHER AND I are mostly skirting around each other. Any time we go beyond talking about food, or what time I’m going to be home, we end up fighting and neither of us wants that. She needs some ‘happy family’ illusion, and I just can’t be bothered fighting.
And I’d like to ask her more about my father, but I can’t. I wish I could talk to her about how I don’t want to see him, and yet equally, I miss him. How I wonder a lot about him being gay. Did he always know it? Or was it unexpected, like a fit of sneezing? Or is there such a thing as sexuality amnesia? It’s so confusing.
Under the weight of everything that remains unspoken, the niggling ‘your father rang’ message surfaces every few days.
‘Tell him to stop calling.’
‘Tell him yourself.’
‘I don’t want to speak to him.’
‘Neither do I particularly. And I don’t want him to think I’m not passing on his messages, so please just call him.’
I’m not budging on this one.
‘He’ll give up eventually.’
‘Don’t forget he’s left that present for your birthday.’
‘I don’t even know where it is.’
Howard looks up from his bed of cardigans, head tilted sceptically to one side.
I scratch Howard’s ears, trying to figure out how the hell he knows I’m lying as I half-listen to my mother.
‘It’s just . . . there’s no cash flow at the moment. I’ve got you something little, but it’s not going to be like other birthdays.’
‘No kidding.’
A disappointed look from Howard.
I know I’m being mean, but I can’t seem to stop it. It’s like the editing equipment on my bile has packed up. It’s better not to talk.
It’s mostly because I’m avoiding my mother that I go to the after-school reading group. That, and I know Estelle goes.
And Lou says, ‘You’ll love it – it’s like English class minus the morons.’
The youngest English teacher, Ms Griffin, runs it. She has red hair, and her ears and cheeks and chin turn pink with enthusiasm.
I glance over at Estelle a few times, and, unnervingly, she looks up each time and sees me looking at her, so I immediately look away. Now I’m vying with Ms Griffin for the pink face prize. But it’s like Estelle’s a magnet and I’m metal, and the second I stop concentrating on not looking, I’m looking at her again. Now Janie and Estelle are both looking at me and I can read Janie’s thought bubble: ‘Stop staring at my friend, you creep.’
Ms Griffin reads aloud from a Raymond Carver short story. It’s clean writing that I like straight away. The story’s called Nobody Said Anything; it’s about a kid who lies to his mother, skips school, jerks off, and then what happens when he goes fishing. The discussion is about how some compromises are a mess, and how everyone has to go through problems their own way, and on their own. I don’t say anything, but boy can I relate.
At the end I say goodbye to Lou and walk off in the same direction as Estelle and Janie. It’s the perfect opportunity to walk along with them – just be myself, join in etc – but of course I don’t. They talk quietly as they walk. I feel obliged to clear my throat loudly in case they don’t realise I’m right behind them. When they see I’m there, they stop talking, so I cross the road and walk on the opposite footpath. I feel acutely conspicuous, because we’re taking exactly the same route home, and when we get there I have to cross back over the road.
‘We don’t bite, you know,’ Janie snaps, as they disappear through Estelle’s shiny crimson front door.
In the kitchen Mrs Da Silva and my mother are drinking peppermint tea, and my mother looks a fraction less frazzled than she has been lately. I start getting some food.
‘I’m sorry about the late notice, but the daughter who promised is snowed under . . .’ says Mrs Da Silva.
‘Tomorrow’s fine,’ my mother says. ‘I’ll cook it tonight and ice it first thing in the morning. It’ll be ready to pick up any time from noon.’
Looking at me, she explains, ‘Mary’s asked me to cook a wake cake.’
Mrs Da Silva gives me a little wink. I nearly choke on my banana and peanut butter sandwich. It’s genius – my mother can’t talk a dead person out of dying.
‘The second cousin I told you about,’ Mrs Da Silva says, with a philosophical grimace.
‘Cancer of the liver,’ I remember.
‘Swift. And she was eighty-eight. So . . .’ Mrs Da Silva folds her arms across her chest, satisfied there are worse ways to go. She’s wearing an orange sari today with a purple polar-fleec
e vest. She’s mad on the polar fleece.
‘Dan, could you please pick some violets?’ my mother asks.
‘Your mother is making a rich chocolate cake with rumsoaked raisins, iced with a chocolate ganache and sprinkled with frosted violets and slivers of gold leaf.’
‘And you’re thinking sixty serves?’ my mother checks.
‘Perhaps we’d better make it eighty,’ says Mrs Da Silva. ‘It’s Russell’s family – they’re a greedy lot.’
My mother starts getting some cake tins down to show Mrs Da Silva the exact size the cake will be and I go out with a bowl to pick the violets.
They’re growing all along the base of the daphne hedge, and there are heaps of flowers out.
I start at the end where our garden borders on Estelle’s. When I hear voices, I step in closer, jamming myself between two big shrubs right next to the fence. Eavesdropping is nothing to someone who’s low enough to read a diary. It’s Estelle and Janie. Janie’s having a cigarette, that must be why they’re hiding out next to the fence. (Smoking is on Estelle’s ‘Things that disgust me’ list.) I just hope Mrs Da Silva stays in the kitchen for a bit longer.
When I hear my name – well, cake boy – my ears strain so hard I forget to breathe.
It’s Janie who says, ‘What about cake boy?’
Estelle laughs. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘Why? Why not?’ says Janie.
‘He’s just not right,’ says Estelle.
Right for what?
‘We’d have to swear him to secrecy,’ says Janie.
‘I suppose he could be okay . . .’ Estelle thinks I could be okay. Yes! But what for?
‘He’s not the sort you’d suspect.’
‘The element of surprise.’ Estelle’s trying it on for size, I can tell she’s just about convinced.
‘Do you think we could persuade him?’
‘Maybe.’
Maybe nothing. Estelle could persuade me to do anything.
‘Definitely,’ says Janie. ‘He’s hot for you in a big way.’
‘Shut up.’
No, she’s right.
‘Well he never stops staring at you. I told him you think he’s a creep.’
‘I never said that.’
Ah-ha!
‘Sure you did.’
‘Janie, I did not.’
Oh, joy.
‘Well he is.’
‘Anyway, why don’t you ask him? You work with the guy.’
Hmm. She could have fought back a bit, surely?
‘Does he have it in him to kill someone, though? That’s what we need to decide.’
Kill someone? I nearly fall over. In the shocked instant I take this at face value, a range of enticing images floods through me – the thrilling possibility of Estelle using her persuasive powers to lure me, one chilling yet seductive step at a time, to life on the wrong side of the law. Could I resist, or would I turn into a compliant puppet in her supple hands? The latter for sure.
Howard comes barking his head off out the back door, heading straight for me, followed by Mrs Da Silva. I emerge from my hiding place with as casual an air as I can muster.
‘There are plenty, Dan, over here,’ she says pointing to the violets.
To her complete puzzlement I silently sprint as far away as I can from the fence before answering, ‘Thanks.’ With any luck they won’t guess they’ve been overheard.
I’m wondering what the hell they were talking about as I bring the violets inside, and register my mother has just said we are invited in next door for a drink tonight.
‘Don’t you have to cook the wake cake?’
‘Yes, but these have to soak before I can do much.’ She points at the raisins. ‘And the violets have to be washed and dried before I can start on them.’
‘Do I have to come?’
‘Unless you’ve got a compelling reason not to, yes, you do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a polite, neighbourly response to a polite, neighbourly invitation.’
Seeing my glum face, she continues. ‘The girl is in your class, isn’t she? Or your year level, at least?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When we get there, stand up straight and try not to be so morose, if you can manage it.’
We’re on their doorstep fifteen minutes later. My mother has put on lipstick. I’m trying to boost my confidence by talking to myself: ‘She doesn’t think I’m a creep, she doesn’t think I’m a creep,’ but a bracket keeps sneaking in (but she would if she found out what I’ve done . . . ), followed by another one (but she never needs to find out . . . ).
Estelle’s mother lets us in and under the introductions and greetings, I check out their house. A breathtaking contrast to Adelaide’s, it’s had the guts stripped out of it. Most of the walls are gone and everything is painted white. Just as Adelaide’s house is choking with more junk than you can imagine, this house is almost empty, except for not very many pieces of modern furniture and art. It’s warm and smells beautiful. Estelle’s mother, Vivien, is thin with very white skin and very red lips, wearing a complicated black dress that looks as though it is trying to disguise the fact that it’s made for humans. Her hair is cut into weird asymmetry. She’s a curator. In the middle of a show. Frantic! So sorry not to have been in touch earlier! The father is called Peter. I’ve never seen or heard him. He disappears soon after introducing himself, talking into his mobile and throwing a phoney apologetic look in our direction.
Estelle troops in wearing her school uniform and a resigned expression, carrying a large, shallow bowl of chips.
There’s another plate of food the mothers are nibbling from, and soon they are happily nattering away about white anchovies and an obscure restaurant they’ve both been to in Rome.
Estelle is looking at me with some concentration – perhaps wondering, is he our killer? And I’m hoping for enlightenment about that conversation. Is it a metaphor? Code language? Are they putting on a play? Do they want me to eradicate some pests?
As usual around the unattainable one, I’m confused and tongue-tied. But for a change, Estelle is interested in talking to me.
She asks me about work, and about how I like school. I manage to stumble and mumble my way through answering some questions, and then remember my dad dissing someone they know who never speaks, except in response to direct questions. He’s one of my father’s top five bores. I do not want to be like that guy, so I snap out of it.
I tell her about the op-shop, and Howard, and with a wobble of conscience, ask her about music, knowing we’ll connect over TV on the Radio and Hot Chip, and we do. So after only a little bit of plonking through wet cement in clown shoes, I’m actually enjoying myself. In fact, I feel as though I could look into those eyes – dark, stormy blue – and talk about anything forever.
The social comfort is short-lived. My mother starts making moves to go, then says, with absolutely no warning, ‘Oh, you two can go the Year Nine dance together. That’s handy.’
My deepest wish sits there on the floor, as unprotected and squirmy as a little turtle out of its shell. A rush of heat to my face feeds on itself and spreads. What is she thinking? Where did that come from?
Estelle says, very pointedly, ‘I’m probably already going with someone.’
Estelle’s father comes in just then, and they’re all looking at my face as it burns on. He walks over and picks up a thermostat remote control. ‘Bit warm in here, is it?’ he asks, pointing the thing nowhere in particular and clicking away.
My mother says, ‘I’m just talking about sharing a lift.’
Vivien says, ‘Sounds like a good idea.’
I say, ‘I might be going with someone, too.’
Good strategy: when you’re in a tight spot, dig yourself deeper.
My mother asks, ‘Who?’
‘No one you know.’
‘Well perhaps you can all share a lift together,’ she says with patronising, exaggerated patience.
S
he and Vivien exchange a teenagers-you-can’t-say-a-thing-right smile, and we leave.
‘Sorry if I embarrassed you back there,’ she says, when we get home.
‘I’d really appreciate it if you’d just stay the hell out of my business.’
Oh, yes, because I’m handling it all so well. Or maybe not, in light of the current crises:
1 Attic temptation.
Much as I am intrigued by the idea of Estelle as a heinous conspirator to murder, prepared to use me callously to achieve her evil goal, I am dying to know what Estelle and Janie were actually talking about. I begin to think about a third attic visit. Why not? I’d already gone all the way in the bad stakes. What was one more tiny little peek going to matter? The moral slippery slope – wheeee.
2 Money worries.
The nest-egg thing is eating me up. How can I provide any cushioning when I earn so little? Three shifts at Phrenology, crummy fifteen- year- old hourly rate as of my birthday next week, plus two shifts at the op- shop, zero hourly rate. But I can’t just dump that, at least not until a respectable interval has passed. (Three months? Six months? And how am I going to work that one out?) Not enough time; not nearly enough money. I’ve told Fred we can see a movie this weekend, but that just seems like a money- wasting activity. And I can’t keep scabbing off my best friend.
3 Mother meanness – mine to her, not hers to me.
I have to start being nicer to my mother, somehow find my sympathy for her again; I have it in theory. If someone were to tell me her story I’d feel sorry for her, no question. I just can’t find it in practice. Why is it so impossible just to be pleasant?
4 Father call.
I told my mother he’d give up calling eventually, but the idea terrifies me. The calls are a lifeline. I’m hanging on, just not ready to pull myself in yet. If he gives up, I drown. Down, down, down into the black water between our icebergs.
5 Howard limping.
Sort of a subset of the money worries category. It means a vet visit. No idea how much that costs, but I bet it’s heaps.
6 Need new clothes.
Could also be considered a subset of money worries. Arms and legs sticking out of clothes, toes jammed in shoes. Replacing them is up to me. No more visits to the uniform shop asking them to put whatever on the parents’ account. I can probs get some casuals from the op- shop, but not sure on etiquette of buying from where you work.
