by Fiona Wood
‘How do you explain this?’ asks Vivien.
But her tone is all wrong. She’s curious, excited. I look up. My mother is calmly pouring coffee. Vivien is peering into the palm of her own hand.
‘Seriously, where did you find this?’ she asks.
I feel like hitting my own head like they do in cartoons to see if I’m hearing properly. Shouldn’t she be demanding to know why I’ve disobeyed her specific instructions and helped Estelle defy her ban?
She is holding out her hand. In it is the little carving I gave Estelle.
‘Adelaide left it to me,’ my mother is saying, handing around the coffee.
‘It’s museum quality netsuke. I would have borrowed it to put in the exhibition if I’d known about it,’ says Vivien.
‘But how come you’ve got it?’ my mother asks.
‘Dan, you gave it to Estelle. Is that right?’ says Vivien.
‘Er, yeah.’
What’s Ali doing here? Wearing a suit? He offers me some toast. I take it.
‘When I came home last night there it was, sitting on the kitchen table, on Estelle’s book. I said to Peter, “Where on earth did this come from?” and he said it was Estelle’s and I went straight up, but the girls were still asleep of course. Anyway, it’s very exciting.’
‘There are lots more,’ says my mother.
Vivien’s eyes widen with excitement. ‘You do realise they’re worth a squill?’
My eyes widen with excitement.
‘They’re ancient Japanese belt ornaments,’ she says. ‘Carved ivory.’
‘Really?’ says my mother. ‘We must have at least a dozen.’
‘Sixteen, counting that one,’ I say. ‘But that’s Estelle’s.’
Vivien hands it to me. ‘It certainly is not. It’s much too valuable to give away.’
Maybe Ali had too much to drink and my mother let him sleep on the sofa. Yeah, that must be it.
Vivien gets up.
‘Let me know if you want to sell them and I’ll put you in touch with a reputable auction house. They should be auctioned internationally if you want a good price.’
But I’m pretty sure Ali doesn’t drink. So what gives?
‘Thanks, Vivien. When you say a squill . . . ?’
Howard looks up, alert to the conversation, waiting for us to remember the big op.
‘If the others are this good, there’ll be enough to give yourself a nice long holiday, not worry too much if the business doesn’t work out and heaps left over.’
My mother sits down abruptly.
Ali stands, kisses my mother on the top of her head (!) and says, ‘Time for me to open up.’
He leaves. He just kissed my mother?
Vivien stands, ready to head off, too.
‘Meanwhile, you should insure them, and get them stored somewhere safe,’ she says.
‘Good idea,’ says my mother.
My mother and I sit in stunned silence for a minute or two.
‘Howard needs an operation,’ I say.
‘I know.’
‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ we say at the same time.
‘I took him to the vet. I’ve been trying to put some money aside for it, but then my stupid tooth . . .’ She starts crying. And it’s possible to put my arms around her again and give her a hug.
‘I’m not sad, Dan, just relieved. I’m hopeless at the wedding cake business. I’ve got rid of more clients than you can imagine. And this means I can ditch it. Thanks for taking that out, by the way,’ she says, nodding in the direction of the midnight cake. ‘How was last night?’
I nod. ‘Okay. What about you?’ I notice she is still in her going out clothes. ‘Was the reunion good?’
‘It was. I haven’t quite made it to bed. Ali and I sat up talking all night. We decided we can probably manage to work together and go out.’
Say what?
She is smiling as she registers my double take. She looks younger, and pretty, and very tired.
‘Is that going to be too weird for you?’
‘I . . . no. I mean yeah, but I guess not.’
‘I need sleep. And you look like you could do with some more, too,’ she says. How can she be this calm?
But I’ve had all of about three hours, so I don’t argue.
Maybe she’s just stunned, like me.
I shut my bedroom door and lean my forehead against it. My mother and Ali? My mother and anyone? I try to make the adjustment. It’s not like, in the circumstances, she and my dad are going to get back together.
I’m distracted by the horrible thought that I’ve lost track of exactly where the box with the netsuke is. I find it in the bottom of the wardrobe and leave it there. It’s not till I turn around that I notice a sleeping girl in my bed. A sleeping girl in striped pyjamas, snoring softly.
34
SOMEONE’S BEEN SLEEPING IN my bed and she’s still there. I touch her hand and she opens her eyes straight away and sits up with a small groan.
‘I didn’t sleep much last night,’ she says.
‘Neither.’
‘I was sick some more, then I had a shower, then I went up to the attic, the land of feeling better, and I found these on my desk.’ She is holding my diary and the note I left her.
‘I don’t expect you to think it’s okay, just because I let you read my diary too,’ I say.
‘Janie says I was obnoxious last night. I’m sorry.’
She’s apologising to me?
‘She said you were patient and determined to get me home safely, no matter how much I abused you. Heroic, she said.’
Janie was defending me to Estelle?
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘I’m sorry to hop in, it was so warm,’ she says.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘You kissed me.’
‘I did.’
‘That seemed . . . What made you do that – so suddenly?’
I shrug. ‘I needed to kiss you.’
‘I thought I was going to have to kiss you first. I thought you were too shy.’
‘I reminded myself of your note.’
‘What note?’
‘This note,’ I shuffle around my desk. It’s not there.
‘Do you mean this note?’ She’s holding it, too. ‘I was going to write on the back of it, but I fell asleep instead. How come you kept it?’ She reads it aloud, puzzled: ‘I owe you big time?’
I owe you big time? Not, ‘love you big time’? I owe you?
A meteorite-sized d’oh hurtles towards me and lands on my head. I’ve misread her handwriting. At least a thousand times over.
I decide not to share my mistake just yet.
She looks again at the note. ‘I always put kisses and hugs on. I’d call that mild encouragement.’
‘I guess that was all I needed.’
Then she unfolds my note to her. My one line note. My make it or break it note.
‘So I read this,’ she says. ‘Then I read your diary.’ Her eyes fill up with tears. She’s sad, for me. ‘The whole holidays . . . it was like a furniture catalogue . . . So I could kind of understand, just a bit, how you did what you did.’
I hand her a tissue and she blows her nose.
My note said, I was so lonely.
But I’m not any more.
35
‘MY MUM TOLD ME about the loot. How are you going to spend it?’
‘Howard’s operation, for a start.’
He gives a sleepy tail thump.
‘You’ve been rescued by Adelaide.’
‘Yeah, but we’d already started rescuing ourselves, more or less.’
‘Do you want to go out with me, Dan?’
‘You know I do. But do you want to go out with me? After what I did .. .’
She gives me the longest look, holds out her hand and I sit next to her.
‘There are two things. First, I don’t think you were yourself – you were sad and lonely. And second, you’re the only person I
want to tell all that stuff to anyway. No, there are three things. That list in the back of the diary – you put kissing me on the top.’ She smiles her mile-wide smile. ‘Good call.’
She leans against me, resting her head on my shoulder like it’s been there a thousand times. I bend down and kiss the top of her head. Her hair smells like lemons. She looks up at me and I kiss her again. She breaks away, gazing at my face. ‘Do you think you’ll ever get the texta off?’
Acknowledgements
Heartfelt thanks to Greer Clemens, Kaz Cooke, Claire Craig, Jack Godsell, Philippa Hawker, Julia Heyward, Catherine Hill, Simmone Howell, Penny Hueston, Julie Landvogt, Nigel Langley, Louise Lavarack, Violet Leonard, Angus McCubbing, Joel Naoum, David Parsons, Jenny Sharp, George Wood, Zoe Wood, and especially Jamie Wood.
And for wonderful places in which to write thanks to Varuna, the Writers’ House, for The Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship, to Iola Mathews, the Victorian Writers’ Centre and the National Trust for the Glenfern Writers’ Studios, and to the Readings Foundation for the Glenfern Fellowship.
