‘The King?’
‘Apparently yes,’ I said.
‘Ah huh,’ she said triumphantly.
‘What?’
‘It’s a radio competition.’
‘What’s a radio competition?’ I asked.
‘The marriage thing.’ Elaine said it slowly, sounding out the syllables.
‘Oh my God,’ said Gloria. ‘As in ‘The King’ on Sunshine Radio?’
‘Yes. Why?’ I asked, still none the wiser.
‘Sunshine Radio is running a radio competition looking for a bride for ‘The King’. Kind of a crossy spin on those stupid reality shows where the winning girl gets to have a date with a prince or marry the bachelor. Every weekday they’ll have a new competitor. He asks them three questions, and at the end they announce the winning girl and they get married.’
‘But Matt is ‘The King’,’ I said stupidly, remembering him talking about a radio competition he had to be back for. I wondered when he had been planning to tell me. After his new bride was pregnant?
‘Yep,’ said Gloria excitedly.
‘So he’s getting married to someone he hasn’t ever met?’
‘Yep,’ she said again, a bit more uncertainly.
I sat stunned, trying to take it all in. ‘But what does he mean by it’s not what it seems?’
‘Well,’ said Nat, ‘it’s just a radio comp.’
‘But he’s getting married,’ I said. ‘So he’s still unavailable, right?’
I looked around at them and one by one they nodded their heads.
‘Maybe he’ll get it annulled,’ suggested Dinah helpfully.
‘Yeah, well if he does he can come and find me.’
* * *
After the girls left I decided it was time to ring Mum. If she hadn’t been receiving any postcards from me she would be frantic by now.
‘You sound calm,’ I said, after she’d picked up.
‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘let me put you on speaker. Now what did you say?’
‘I said you sound quite calm.’
‘Well, after the first couple of weeks I didn’t hear from you I figured the Australian Embassy would ring me if you were dead. You know what they say, no news is good news.’
‘Sorry. I sent you some postcards. I didn’t realise how long they’d take to get here. How was the wedding?’ I finally broached the subject I had been dreading.
‘Trashy and boring.’
‘Really?’ I asked hopefully.
‘Do you really think your Aunt Jackie would organise a trashy wedding? It was a little boring though. They disappeared for hours getting photos done. Sold the rights to Woman’s Weekly, for $200000 and donated all the money to charity.’
I resisted the urge to stick my fingers down my throat.
‘She was a vision in white,’ I could hear Dad yell out in the background.
‘Really Bert,’ said Mum annoyed, ‘why don’t you go and play in the garden?’
‘Play in the garden? I’m 60 not 6,’ I heard him say.
‘And the rest. I thought I saw some weeds near the petunias this morning.’
‘Really?’ he asked in dismay.
‘That got rid of him,’ my Mum chuckled. ‘You know how he feels about his petunias. Anyway, the speeches were long and windy. All these important people got up – they do love the sound of their own voices don’t they? I got quite tipsy waiting for them to finish so we could eat something.’
‘How was the food?’
‘Your Dad was complaining about the portions.’
‘Big white plates with dainty little amounts?’
‘Yes, you know the ones. We had to go through the McDonald’s drive-through on the way home to top up.’
‘How did she look?’ I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
‘Beautiful of course. What did you expect – that the only day in her life she’d look less than stunning would be her own wedding day?’
I sighed. ‘I guess it was too much to hope for.’
I could hear Dad in the background mumbling about something.
‘What’s that dear?’ Mum called out.
‘I’ve put up with your steroid-filled cat playing hide and seek with me and your dog trying to smother me, but I think when your horse starts to use my veggie patch as its own private buffet enough is enough.’
‘But darling,’ I heard Mum say, ‘I don’t have a horse.’
There was a pause, during which I could imagine Mum and Dad sharing an astonished look, and then Mum said quickly into the phone, ‘Gotta go Tara. We’re expecting you tomorrow for lunch.’ And with that she was gone.
* * *
Mum rang me just as I was about to walk out the door. ‘There’s been a terrible accident on the freeway. A truck has overturned and is blocking both directions. You’ll have to catch the train,’ she informed me.
It wasn’t so much that I minded catching the train, it’s just that I didn’t like leaving my car at the train car parks. It’s not much of a car – a dinged up old Datsun was all I could afford to buy when Jake and I split – but it was mine.
Dad picked me up from the station in Woy Woy so we got a chance to have a little one-on-one time before the mayhem of Lil’s family.
‘How’s it going?’ I asked.
‘Can’t complain. You?’
‘I’ve been better. I’ve been worse too,’ I said, realising it was true.
‘Well as long as you’re better than your worse you can’t complain,’ he said wisely.
We rode the rest of the way in a companionable silence.
I always find being at Mum and Dad’s a soothing experience. Today was no different. Even though it was total chaos with children and animals running everywhere, (Mum seemed to have managed to banish the horse), at the core, there was a calm that I could tap into. There was always somewhere in the house that you could curl up in a patch of sunlight and relax. I sat with a glass of wine listening to the kids play and Mum and Lil chatting about school and homework.
‘What’s happening for Christmas?’ I asked. Mum had the good grace to look uncomfortable. ‘Oh no, you didn’t,’ I said.
‘Well darling it was at the wedding, and I’d had a lot to drink, and as I said before not a lot to eat, and it just seemed like such a good idea when Jackie brought it up.’
‘How bad is it?’ I said to Lil.
‘Bad enough that we’ll be having Christmas dinner with Martin’s family.’
‘Muuummmm,’ I whined. ‘I don’t want to spend Christmas by myself.’
‘You could always come.’ I gave her a look that could have curdled milk and she sighed. ‘No, I guess not. It’s not till the evening anyway.’
‘So I can come up for Christmas eve and breakfast?’
‘That would be lovely,’ she said, nodding her head.
‘We might come up for the morning and then go to Martin’s family,’ said Lil.
‘So what exactly are you doing for Christmas dinner?’ As I asked her, Dad stomped into the kitchen to get another beer for himself and Martin. He shot Mum a dirty look and harrumphed before leaving. ‘I take it Dad’s not happy either?’ I said.
‘No. It’s a black tie event at the summerhouse. Jake’s family will be there as well.’
‘Black tie?’ I giggled. ‘Seriously? Oh poor Dad. He’s going to enjoy that about as much as a hole in the head.’
‘I’d rather have a hole in my head,’ he yelled from the balcony.
‘So,’ I said to Lil, ‘any dirt on the wedding?’
‘Not on the wedding, but I did hear something about the honeymoon.’
‘Ooooh. Tell me, tell me,’ I said eagerly.
‘Lil,’ Mum interrupted us, ‘it’s not nice to tell stories.’
‘But Mum, you told me,’ Lil said.
Mum looked a little embarrassed.
‘You know she’s going to tell me anyway Mum,’ I said, ‘so you may as well make sure she doesn’t embellish it too much.’
‘I guess you have a point there,’ Mum said. ‘It would be wrong of me to let you turn this into a Chinese whisper. Okay go on Lil.’
‘Well, apparently Jake organised the whole honeymoon as a surprise,’ Lil said.
‘He wouldn’t tell her anything about it,’ cut in Mum.
‘She found brochures for different countries and overheard him talking on the phone. He mentioned an around-the-world plane ticket.’
‘She was so excited that he was going to so much trouble for her,’ said Mum.
‘You should have seen her at the wedding gloating about it,’ Lil said.
‘Lil, that’s not very nice.’
‘Well, she was Mum.’
‘It was her wedding; she can gloat if she wants to.’
‘Please, just get on with it,’ I begged.
‘No need to get snitchy Tara.’
‘I’m not snitchy Mum, I’m dying to hear what happened.’
‘Well, he whisked her off overseas and she found herself in China,’ Mum continued.
‘China could be interesting?’ I offered.
Lil shook her head. ‘Not when she was hoping for the Bahamas.’
‘Tara, it’s not the fact that they were in China that was the problem. They were in Guangzhou,’ Mum informed me. When I looked blankly at her she said, ‘Honestly, don’t they teach you youngsters anything in school these days?’
‘Mum, school was a long time ago. They may have taught me about Gongzoo.’
‘Guangzhou.’ She pronounced it with a fake Asian accent that made me giggle. ‘It’s a sister city of Sydney.’
‘Ohhhhhhh.’ I began to see where this was heading.
‘And then after that they went to Nagoya,’ said Lil.
‘It’s in Japan,’ Mum informed me.
‘I do know where Nagoya is Mum. So let me guess. Nagoya is also a sister city of Sydney?’
‘Uh huh. And then to San Francisco,’ said Mum.
‘That wouldn’t be so bad.’
‘Yes, but they didn’t get to do any sightseeing. Well not unofficially,’ Mum said.
‘Oh no. So he had organised this all politically?’
‘One of his assistants organised it,’ Lil said. ‘Official meetings with the Lord Mayors of the sister cities, official dinners, ribbon-cutting events, balls, one event after the next. No private time and certainly no romantic time.’
‘He even had one of his administrators accompanying them,’ said Mum indignantly.
‘And translators with them,’ said Lil.
‘After San Francisco?’ I asked.
‘Somewhere in the United Kingdom,’ said Lil.
‘Portsmouth,’ supplied Mum. ‘Then Florence and finally Wellington in New Zealand.’
‘Although she didn’t go to Wellington,’ Lil informed me. ‘She got the shits in Florence and insisted they go sightseeing by themselves.’
‘They had a huge fight about it. She accused him of being a selfish pig,’ Mum said in a scandalised voice.
‘Touché,’ I said.
‘And he accused her of not caring about his political career,’ Mum continued.
‘She told him that she was going to stay and have a proper honeymoon with or without him,’ said Lil.
‘And he said it would have to be without him.’ Mum shook her head as she said it.
‘Ouch.’ I actually felt – for the very first time – a fleeting feeling of pity for Tash. I tried to banish it, much more comfortable with my feelings of distaste for her, but it persisted.
‘So she came home alone, and he went to Wellington,’ Mum finished.
Lil sniffed disdainfully. ‘Of course it was all flowers and chocolates when he got home.’
‘So they made up?’
‘Of course,’ said Mum.
‘It’s so hard to see through his bullshit.’ I sighed. ‘Poor Tash.’ I realised that both Mum and Lil were staring at me in disbelief. ‘What?’ I asked, ‘It’s not like I want to be her best buddy or anything. I still think she’s a shallow cow. But I know what he’s like, and I realise now that if it weren’t for her, I’d still be in an unhappy marriage. I’m thinking of sending her a thank you card.’
‘That’s nice dear,’ Mum said vaguely, as she raced off to check on dinner.
‘Wow,’ said Lil, when she was out of earshot. ‘What happened to you in India?’
‘Long story, but let’s just say that I am finally over him. How ironic. We had our first ever fight on our honeymoon.’
‘Really, what was it about?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How can you forget what your first fight was about?’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten. I didn’t know at the time why we were fighting.’
Lil looked at me with a perplexed expression on her pretty face. ‘How can you not know what you were fighting about?’ she asked me.
I paused while I tried to work out how to explain it to her. ‘You know how when you had that fight with Martin the other night about whose turn it was to put the kids to bed?’ She nodded at me. ‘Well our fights were never like that. They were never about anything black and white.’ I could tell she was still confused, and I struggled to explain it better. ‘Our first fight was about something that I thought was funny and he didn’t.’
‘But why would you fight about that?’ she asked.
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘With anyone else I wouldn’t. But he thought I was being stupid, and I wanted him to see the funny side of it. In the end we had a huge argument and he stormed off, leaving me to find my own way back to the hotel.’ Talking about it still hurt. ‘Every time I argued with Jake I lost a little piece of myself,’ I finished quietly.
She reached out and touched my arm. ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me?’ she asked.
I smiled as I said, ‘I didn’t want you to hate him any more than you already did.’
‘I didn’t hate him,’ she said.
‘You didn’t like him,’ I replied. As we looked at each other I realised something I had been too blinded by my obsession with Jake to see. While my loyalty had been with Jake, Lil’s had been with me. ‘It’s okay,’ I said, finally understanding. ‘I wouldn’t have liked him either.’ I reached over and squeezed her hand, thankful for her love.
‘So did you want to tell me about India?’ Lil said, when we had both wiped the tears from our eyes.
‘As I said, long story.’ Mum had finished checking the roast and was heading in our direction.
‘Come over for dinner on Tuesday night and fill me in,’ Lil said.
‘Sure, why not.’
I found myself thinking about Jake and Tash on the train home. I had always believed Tash had premeditatedly seduced Jake. It was far less painful than admitting he hadn’t wanted to be with me. I had enough distance now to see that the opposite had probably been true, and I realised that I really did feel sorry for Tash. It was a unique and refreshing feeling.
* * *
It was dark when I departed the train; dark and deserted. I had stayed at Mum and Dad’s till late in the afternoon playing Monopoly with Rose, Tulip, Lotus and Petunia. Blossom and Camellia were too young to understand the finer points of the game.
I was still thinking about the whole Jake/Tash thing; revelling in my uncomplicated feelings, so I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings. I was nearly at the car when I noticed the youth, with his spray can, squatting down with his back to me. I watched in amazement as he proceeded to graffiti the driver’s door.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ I yelled, expecting him to jump guiltily away from my car.
But instead he turned slowly to face me and replied insolently, ‘It’s art.’
‘It is not fucking art,’ I screeched, ‘it’s my car.’
‘Nooooo,’ he replied, pretending to be shocked, ‘this here is your car?’ He aimed his can at the windows and sprayed a long red line along them. I watched dismayed as some of it dribbled towards the door.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ he asked as he squirted a cross on the bonnet.
It was a very good question. What was I going to do about it? The smart thing would have been to walk away and call the cops, hoping that they would get there in time to apprehend the little shit. Not that he was that little – he towered over me. But I have never been good at doing the smart thing, and I’d had a couple of rough days – what with the whole Matt marrying a total stranger thing never far from my mind, and having to hear about Jake and Tash’s wedding. Without even thinking about it I found myself charging him, yelling like a mad woman. I saw the look on his face change from smugness to alarm as I barrelled into him; punching and kicking and screaming. He dropped the can and grabbed a fistful of my hair.
‘What the hell are you doing? Get off me you crazy woman,’ he yelled.
He held me out at arm’s length while I punched the air in front of me. All those years of kickboxing classes finally paid off as I instinctively ball-kicked him in the groin. (Please note that a ball-kick is a kick using the ball of your foot, not a kick to the balls. Although in this case it was both.)
I watched in satisfaction as his eyes rolled back into his head. He let go of my hair and bent over holding his crutch, at which point I palmed him in the face. He collapsed to the ground, one hand on his face the other cradling his crutch.
I hadn’t finished though. ‘It’s art?’ I screamed crazily, grabbing the can off the ground. ‘I’ll give you fucking art.’
I spray painted him from the tip of his head right down to the end of his Nikes. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun. I felt like I was finally striking back at every shitty thing that had happened to me over the last few years.
‘Take that,’ I shrieked as I sprayed his hair bright red. ‘And that.’ I kicked him in the back, rolling him onto his stomach and sprayed a bull’s eye right over his butt. It looked so funny I doubled up laughing.
‘Have you finished?’ a calm voice asked me from behind.
I started guiltily up and peered over my shoulder. Oh great a cop. ‘I guess so,’ I said, handing him the spray can.
‘I don’t know,’ he said pointing at the youth’s head. ‘I think you missed a little there.’
[2012] The Seven Steps to Closure Page 29
