Too Close to Home

by Georgia Blain

  ‘There’s a lot of people doing good work now,’ she says. ‘I have another friend who ran a very successful restaurant and now has an underground catering company. They employ people who don’t have work visas. It’s all cash, private parties, and it’s making such a difference to people’s lives.’

  The room is filling now. People are clustered in the doorways and spilling out onto the street. Someone is handing around a bucket for donations to the nappy service, and Freya grimaces as she searches for something smaller than a fifty.

  ‘Do you have any money?’ she asks Matt.

  Matt hadn’t wanted to come, although he hadn’t complained. They are being careful with each other, neither willing to lift the rock of a potential hurt. In the last few days, Lisa has told them she’s going; she has found a flat for her and Lucas and they will be moving there at the end of next week. But the initial relief that Freya felt at the news has dampened with the ongoing realisation that they are not going to just disappear.

  As Matt looks for his wallet, Frank leans over. ‘I wondered when you were going to come and say hello.’

  She hasn’t seen him since the morning she left his flat, exhausted from lack of sleep. She had kissed him in the doorway, and in the harsh sobriety of morning, there’d been no desire, only a sense that this was what you should do when you left someone after a night of sex which, coupled with the staleness of her breath, as well as guilt and tiredness, made it a kiss she wanted only to forget.

  Neither of them have called each other in the intervening days and she has avoided having anything to do with the theatre. Now, as she stands opposite him, under the gaze of so many people they both know, she feels embarrassed, idiotic. She takes the money Matt hands her, and says she’s going to check on Ella.

  Anna is sitting with her, both of them trying to make the strangest food combinations they can concoct. Ella has a cupcake sandwich, while Anna pours herself a devil on horseback lemonade.

  ‘I’ve been telling her about pregnancy cravings,’ Anna grins. ‘How you can get up in the middle of the night and eat a gherkin ice-cream sundae.’

  ‘Only if you’re in an American sitcom,’ Freya replies.

  Anna’s smile is now brittle. ‘Your mother can be so pedantic.’

  Behind them Scot has come out in a ‘Mommie Dearest’ outfit to shrill wolf-whistles and applause. Alistair is clapping his hands loudly. ‘We have a show,’ he calls.

  Lifting Ella onto a chair so that she can see, Freya tells her she will be back soon. ‘And your daddy’s over there if you need him.’ She points to where Matt leans against a window frame, still with Frank and Marianne.

  The music is turned up, a medley of songs, starting with ‘Baby Love’, Scot and Louise dancing and lip-synching in a burlesque parody of motherhood. Alistair follows, waving the bucket for the nappy service collection in front of all the guests.

  Out in the kitchen, it’s quieter. A couple of young men employed to clear plates and stack the dishwasher are clattering crockery in the corner. Paolo greets her with a kiss on each cheek, telling her he’s searching for a wineglass for Anna. He looks at the dishwashers and mouths the words: No English. He shrugs his shoulders. No help at all.

  ‘She wants a cigarette too. But, you know, they are so hard to find these days. Particularly at baby showers.’

  ‘Isn’t she having a baby?’ Freya just looks at him. She speaks the words without thinking, aware as she utters them that perhaps she’s making a terrible mistake and Anna has been hiding her pregnancy from Paolo, although the likelihood of this is so small as to be ridiculous.

  There is a loud cheer from the other room, a clanging of forks and a call for a speech.

  Paolo shakes his head. ‘I thought she had told you.’

  The music has been turned down.

  ‘She miscarried. Two nights ago. There is no more baby. Me, I am a little relieved. But not for her. For her, it has not been good.’

  When Freya returns to the room, Louise is standing by one of the open doors that lead onto the street. She is thanking them all for coming, and for their gifts and good wishes.

  ‘And the nappy donations!’ She laughs. ‘Although, I must confess, I may go disposable, but I promise I’ll use the money at the cash register in Woollies. I’ll be the one there in my slippers, hair in rollers, trolley loaded with Huggies, formula and cartons of cigarettes. Seriously, I couldn’t be happier. I thought I was going to miss out on the whole baby thing. I was one of those foolish women who concentrated on her career – which I don’t regret – but, you know –’ she raises an eyebrow, ‘I left it a bit late to find a man.’

  ‘Lucky you found two.’ It’s Frank calling out from the crowd.

  Anna is out on the street, talking to Max and Clara. On the pavement near her, someone has drawn up a hop-scotch, and Ella throws a stone onto the next number, calling out to the adults to watch. ‘Look,’ she says. ‘I got it in the square.’

  No one looks her way.

  ‘Can someone play with me?’

  Freya promises she will. ‘In a moment.’ She wants to talk to Anna, just for a second. But she can’t of course, not in front of the others. And so she can only join them, hovering in the hope that Anna will disengage, as she half listens to Clara’s assertion that there won’t be any change in government.

  Max says he can’t bear the thought of three years of Liberal leadership. He’s so convinced it will happen, he’s planning on leaving the country. Mikhala has applied for a painting studio in Paris and they intend to spend six months there before travelling to Eastern Europe.

  ‘Which you’d do anyway,’ Freya laughs. ‘I mean it’s hardly a political statement.’

  The words have a sharpness she didn’t intend, and Anna just looks at her, almost smiling as she shakes her head.

  ‘Your mum is a cranky pants these days,’ she tells Ella.

  ‘A pedantic cranky pants, I believe.’ Freya, too, is smiling but there’s a stillness, a weight that hovers in the perfection of this winter afternoon.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Freya no longer cares that Max and Clara are there; in fact, she’s not even aware of the two of them slipping, quickly and quietly, back into the house.

  Ella has stopped her game. She sits on the pavement, eyes wide, watching.

  Anna doesn’t flinch. ‘You are always so fucking judgemental.’

  It’s a blow Freya did not expect.

  Behind them, the music has been turned up again, and there’s the sound of shouting, a crash of cutlery as someone dances with too much enthusiasm. Across the road, a woman whistles, the back of her four-wheel drive open as she waits for her dog to jump in, and from further up the street, Freya can hear the sound of a bus, the grind of the gears as it pulls away from the stop.

  ‘You’re harsh about everyone. No one meets your standards. You always think the worst of other people’s motives –’

  Freya is about to interrupt but Anna speaks over her: ‘When I became pregnant, you acted as though I did something devious, as though I tricked Paolo. I know you didn’t say anything but I saw it in your eyes. In the way you looked at me. Having Ella was something you always had over me. I might have everything else, or so you thought, but you, at least, had managed to have a family. And then there I was – laying claim to that too.

  ‘But it’s not just that. You judge Louise and what she’s doing, and Mikhala and her relationships. And the way you’ve been treating Matt – well that’s the worst, and what the fuck you think you’re doing playing around with Frank, that’s simply beyond me.’

  Ella.

  In a panic, Freya looks to where Ella was sitting. But she isn’t there. She didn’t hear. The tightness in her breath dissolves and she sees that Anna, too, has realised her mistake and the realisation stops her, for just long enough. Because Freya wants to speak.

  ‘I’ve never meant to be harsh,’ Freya says. ‘And I’m sorry if you’ve found me that way.’ She shakes her head in disbelief. �
��It’s been so hard at home. And I’ve hated myself for not rising to the challenge.’ She bites her bottom lip in an attempt to stop the tears. ‘Believe me. I feel ashamed. So I’m sorry if you feel I’ve turned it on you.’

  They stand opposite each other and Freya looks down at the ground for a moment and then breathes in. She can see Ella out of the corner of her eye. She is inside the door now, holding Matt’s hand, a worried gaze on her mother outside.

  ‘She didn’t hear me,’ Anna says. ‘I’m sorry about that. It was stupid of me.’

  Freya faces Anna and it is her smallness that she sees in that moment. How slight she is. Because as Anna apologises, she seems to shrink, her limbs like a child’s, her eyes too large for her face.

  ‘I wish you’d told me about the miscarriage –’

  ‘I thought you’d think I deserved it.’

  Freya reaches for her, holding Anna’s fine hand in her own.

  ‘It happened two days ago. I started bleeding and there it was. Gone.’ Anna looks up at the sky, the slight ripple in her throat the only sign that she could cry. But she doesn’t.

  ‘And you were right.’ She utters the words softly now, as though no one is there to hear them.

  Freya doesn’t know what she means.

  ‘I did trick him. I stopped taking the pill and I didn’t tell him. But I thought I should be able to have whatever I want.’

  Freya moves towards her but Anna winces slightly, stepping back. ‘We’re all guilty of that,’ Freya says, her voice soft. ‘We all find it so hard to accept that maybe everything isn’t going to go our way and that our lives will have crap we don’t like.’

  Anna puts her hand on her stomach. ‘And aren’t I the living proof of that?’

  THEY DRIVE HOME BEFORE it is dark, she and Matt silent in the front seat, Ella asleep in the back. Freya stares out the window at the late golden light, slanting honeyed and warm across the Sunday quiet, sparkling as it hits a window or softening with a rose glow on the tiled roofs of the bungalows that line the street. On the pavement a young girl rides a scooter in a tutu, the tulle dancing in the last of the sun. Further along, a buffed man walks a Pekingese, his muscles rippling in his too-tight T-shirt as he struts in the hope of being observed. An older couple sit on the low front wall of their garden. They are waving goodbye to relatives, one of the grandchildren jumping out of the car at the last minute to kiss the old man. He bends low and picks the boy up with a surprising display of strength.

  Freya watches it all with her cheek pressed against the cool of the glass, while next to her, Matt has the radio on, and he hums softly, his voice warm and soothing.

  ‘It was a strange day,’ he eventually says to her.

  He has no knowledge of her argument with Anna and she isn’t ready to talk about it.

  ‘Why?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. And then he glances across at her. ‘I suppose getting caught in the crossfire between Marianne and Frank didn’t help.’

  Freya shifts in her seat.

  ‘He doesn’t deserve her.’ Matt’s voice is low.

  It’s the first time she’s heard Matt be critical of Frank and there’s a vitriol in his tone that’s unlike him.

  She doesn’t respond.

  They are on the bridge over the canal now, and she looks at the slick of filthy water, coiled between the brick walls of the embankments, rows and rows of brightly coloured storage containers stacked up like giant Lego in the surrounding wasteland.

  As they turn into the Princes Highway, Ella stirs, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Are we almost home?’

  Freya tells her they are.

  ‘Are you and Anna still friends?’ Ella’s voice is small, anxious, and Freya turns to face her.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘We both said sorry and made up.’

  Matt glances in her direction, but she shakes her head.

  Entering the first of the network of small side streets that lead to their house, she hears a police siren sputtering and then starting. Or perhaps it is an ambulance. The wail is high and thin, cutting through the quiet of the softening evening.

  ‘Hold a button,’ Ella tells her.

  It’s a superstition from Freya’s mother, supposedly a protection against the trouble being in your own home, and they all do as Ella instructs until the scream has faded. But for a moment Freya fears that there’ll be flashing red lights when they turn into their street, an emergency vehicle parked out the front, the brick facade lit with the eery intermittent slash of pink, marking them as a place to step back from, while neighbours surreptitiously peer in, hopeful of catching a glimpse of something ghoulish.

  It is, of course, only in her head.

  Trouble is rarely like that.

  The front door is open, the light on in the hallway, and Freya steps in, unable to deny the dread she always feels on returning since Lisa and Lucas came to stay. It is only a few more days, she tells herself.

  There are voices from the kitchen, and it takes her a moment before she recognises the soft low register of Shane’s words, the wheeze in his chest as he speaks. He’s sitting at the table with Lisa, his mobile next to him, a pouch of tobacco between them both.

  There’s something different about the room. It’s an emptiness, a lack of clutter that Freya notices first. The open shelves that hold their plates and bowls, the row of glasses, are all almost bare. She looks behind her into the lounge room. The Danish vase from her father has gone, and the standard lamp in the corner is missing its shade; the slender wooden base stands with a bare globe on top.

  Lisa is looking up at them and she is shaking her head, tears streaking the freckles on her face, the tip of her nose red, and then she reaches up for Matt who holds her, and Freya doesn’t know what on earth is happening, but she clutches Ella’s hand tight and tells her it’s okay, everything is all right.

  It’s Shane who eventually speaks.

  ‘Tried to call, to warn you.’

  Matt just looks at him.

  ‘The young bloke. Lucas. Went off.’ Shane shakes his head, and turns to Lisa.

  She cannot speak.

  Matt rubs her arm and tells her it’s okay, to sit back down, there’s no need to try and talk now if she can’t.

  She takes a deep breath, the intake audible, and then she smooths her hair back with the flat of her hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ she tells Freya. ‘He broke a lot of stuff.’ She waves her hand in the direction of the bare shelves, her arm trembling as she does so.

  Freya tells her it doesn’t matter, because what else can she say? She knows it’s just stuff, but there are things from her parents … She breathes in, her fingers white on the chair as she looks around her, unable to take in the full extent of the damage. She sits, pulling Ella onto her lap. ‘Do you want to go and watch a DVD?’ she whispers in her ear. ‘It’s all fine. I’ll tell you later.’

  Ella slides off.

  In the soft light of the kitchen, Lisa tries to explain. It had been getting worse, she says. His agitation. He didn’t sleep.

  Freya has heard him pace, and she has noticed the light from the hall under the crack of her door. She has also smelt the stale cigarette smoke in the morning and picked up the butts littered around the back garden.

  ‘Happens,’ Shane says. ‘Seen this before when they get in trouble.’

  Shortly after they had left for the baby shower, Lisa and Lucas had fought. She hesitates for a moment, eventually finding the words. ‘He wanted to know –’ she looks at Matt – ‘about you.’

  Freya also looks at Matt, and then out to where Ella is. ‘Not now.’ Her voice is urgent, and she nods in the direction of the lounge room.

  ‘I know.’ Lisa shakes her head.

  ‘Anyway, it sent him off. He got worse and worse. He was rocking back and forth on the floor and not listening to me. I got scared. It was like he was out of it. I don’t know whether he was or not.’

  It wasn’t until Lisa tried to still him that she re
alised he wasn’t even aware of her presence.

  ‘And I didn’t know what to do.’ She looks at the ceiling. ‘I didn’t want to call the police. Not the way things are. I got Shane.’

  Shane stands, wheezing even more now. ‘Poor bloody bastard. He was smashing it all up when we got here. Couldn’t stop him. Not straightaway.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘Not as strong as I used to be. Took all my strength to hold him down, get him still, you know?’

  But it wasn’t enough.

  When Shane loosened his grip, Lucas was muttering to himself, the low words increasing in volume, too rapid to understand. ‘Like gibberish,’ Shane says.

  Freya looks around the room once again, trying to remain calm. There are only a couple of plates left, and she sees that two of the pictures that were on the wall are stacked at the side of the fridge, the glass gone. She wants to cry in frustration. To shout out that she’s had enough, but she looks from Lisa to Matt, who sits hollowed out, emptied, and she breathes in. Stuff, she tells herself. Just stuff.

  Ella is calling to her from the lounge room. Excusing herself, Freya pushes back her chair and goes to where her daughter sits in front of the TV. She cannot find the remote control.

  ‘What happened?’ Ella asks.

  Freya doesn’t know what to say. ‘Lucas got upset.’

  Ella just looks at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lots of reasons. And so he broke things.’ Her head hurts and she rubs at her temples.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But he’s not here.’

  ‘Did he break stuff in my room?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Ella wants to look, and Freya is not quick enough to stop her, or perhaps she doesn’t want to stop her because she should be able to look. It’s her room in her house.

  There doesn’t seem to be any damage.

  Freya next thinks of her workroom, at the other end of the garden. She can’t go through the kitchen and check it now. She’ll leave it. She squats down on the floor and holds Ella close. ‘You’ll have your room again in three days,’ she promises.