The Full Ridiculous

by Mark Lamprell

  Declan asks if you’re going to tell James’s parents. You say you haven’t decided, you’ll discuss it with Mum. Declan looks frantic and starts up a protest but you cut though it.

  ‘Declan!’

  Amazingly, Declan stops.

  ‘I want you to promise me that you will never do anything like this ever again.’

  Declan looks out the window and nods.

  ‘Look me in the eyes and promise me.’

  He turns to you, this son of yours, brimming with fragile potential. ‘I promise,’ he says.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And Pa?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  You get up from the table, wrap your arms around him and, aware of his injuries, hug him gently. ‘So you reckon Juan took ’em?’ he says.

  15

  It’s a cold day. The two-bar radiator under your desk does its best to warm your feet while you construct a zinging opening sentence for your chapter on Australian cinematographers. You hear Juan leaping up the stairs, two at a time. He pops his head in the study, says, ‘My mum’s here,’ and disappears. You hear the front door close and look into the garden to see Juan walking out the front gate.

  The peach and plum trees have lost their leaves but an unruly arrangement of camellias, azaleas and citrus blocks your view of the street. You hear a car door slam and assume it’s Juan’s mother, whom you have never met.

  You can’t remember how you gathered this intelligence, but Juan is in regular contact with his mother and sister although he does not communicate with his father at all. You know that the father is an orthodontist and a successful one, from the description of Juan’s waterfront mansion. You assume that the father is the hard-arse responsible for his son’s banishment from the family home.

  After about five minutes, you realise that Juan has not reappeared with his mother. You have not heard a car drive away so you conclude that they are talking out on the street. You decide to go out and introduce yourself.

  Bernadette—that’s her name, Juan’s mum—is not what you had imagined at all. For some reason you had pictured a tanned blonde with a penchant for faux leopard-skin but the woman shaking your hand has curly brown hair, a slight hunch and dresses like a woman a generation older than herself. With the trace of a Liverpudlian accent (she sounds like a female John Lennon), Bernadette thanks you for having Juan stay these last couple of months but you can tell on some level she resents it. Somewhere deep down she sees you as an enabler: because you allow Juan to live with you, he is not forced to resolve the conflicts that keep him from returning to his family home. You are prolonging the estrangement between mother and child, part of the problem, not the solution. You’re not the guy in the white hat.

  The second thing that surprises you is her car. The tanned blonde would have been driving something elegant and European, a BMW or an Audi. But parked outside your house is a ten-year-old Ford, resprayed a glittering silver, with fat, freshly blacked tyres and gleaming spoked hubs. It’s the kind of hotted-up vehicle you’d see in a collectable-car magazine.

  It turns out, of course, that it’s not Bernadette’s car at all; it’s Juan’s. She has just purchased it for him as a gift for agreeing to come home and return to school. This is news to you. It’s obviously news to Juan as well. You watch him ping-pong through a range of responses before he settles on a beaming grin and exclaims, ‘Thanks!’

  Once you would have been privately appalled by the manipulation: You can’t buy good behaviour! What is he learning from this? What are you teaching him? But you are keenly aware that your own crap performance as a parent leaves you in no position to judge. It’s barefaced blackmail but it appears to have done the trick.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a licence,’ you say.

  ‘I’m only fifteen,’ he reminds you.

  ‘He can keep it in the garage till he’s old enough,’ Bernadette explains.

  Yeah, right. Like Juan isn’t going to take it for a spin the moment your back is turned.

  Bernadette turns to Juan. ‘So do we have a deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ Juan beams.

  ‘You have to work hard, help around the house.’

  Juan nods.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay, let’s see what Dad says.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see if he wants you to come home.’

  ‘Doesn’t he know?’

  ‘I didn’t want to go stirring him up until I knew you wanted to come home.’

  ‘What about the car? Does he know about the car?’

  At this point you excuse yourself. You can’t believe what you are hearing and you don’t want to hear anymore. No wonder the poor kid is messed up; he’s probably been messed around like this all his life.

  You go back to your Australian cinematographers and spend a productive twenty minutes doodling on the spine of your empty diary. You hear the car start up and drive off. Juan does not return.

  Hours later you are sitting at the kitchen table eating takeaway barbecue chicken and coleslaw with Wendy, Declan and Rosie when there’s a commotion at the front door and Egg starts barking. Juan appears, swaying on his feet. He leans against the fridge. ‘Can I stay a bit longer?’ he says with a slight slur.

  Three days pass until it is time to take Rosie back to the police station for her formal warning. You and Wendy hold her hands as you walk through the doors, Team O’Dell once again. Your gut is churning and your mouth goes dry as you announce yourself to the pimple-faced constable at the counter.

  You take a seat on the familiar bench but in no time at all an older policewoman introduces herself as Sergeant Lisa Gardner. You’re more than a little wary when she invites you to call her Lisa but the friendliness proves to be genuine. She’s firm with Rosie but kind, respectful even, and you can feel the relief radiating from your daughter. Lisa emphasises that you can’t use physical violence to resolve conflict. She explains that while the police will keep a record of this incident until Rosie is eighteen, she won’t actually have a police record.

  If she stays out of trouble, that is.

  Rosie smiles gratefully. You look across at Wendy and see her slump slightly in her chair. Her face softens. She wilts with relief.

  You’re almost on top of those damn Australian cinematographers when the phone rings. Determined to forge ahead, you ignore it and keep typing but part of your brain starts obsessing about who it might be and what they might want so you pick up the receiver just as it stops ringing. You sit staring at the silent phone for a while then dial your message service to discover that your publisher, Maxx, has called.

  You’ve explained to Maxx a thousand times that yours is a message bank, not an answering machine; there’s no point shouting, ‘Pick up! Pick up! I know you’re there!’ because you can’t hear the message as it’s being recorded. Maxx, who has an answering machine, cannot seem to grasp the difference and shouts, ‘Pick up! Pick up! I know you’re there!’ There’s a pause before he adds, defeated, ‘Oh bugger, call me back will you?’

  You call back. Maxx uses the cheerful voice he reserves for bad news. ‘I’ll cut to the chase, shall I?’ he says, launching into a rambling explanation so obfuscated by elaborations and sidebars that you’re not exactly sure what he’s telling you.

  ‘Is this about the next payment for the book?’ you ask.

  Maxx huffs. ‘I just explained that to you. I can’t pay it yet.’

  You’ve been expecting this but nonetheless your heart sinks. Keenly aware that desperate is not a good look for a writer, you remain breezy with Maxx until you hang up. Then you smash the phone into the desk top until the back of the handset pops off and the batteries spring out. They roll reproachfully around the study floor.

  When you have reassembled the phone you discover a small (and insignificant, you hope) metal spring under your chair. You are contemplating your next move when Rosie arrives home from schoo
l. All she says is ‘Hi,’ but you can tell she is miserable. Juan is not home to distract her and you’re glad because it gives you an opportunity to talk to her. You brace yourself for rejection as she prepares her chocolate-malted milk, and indeed Rosie tenses when you open with, ‘How’s it all going?’ but then something within her surrenders and she collapses on a kitchen chair, ready to talk.

  Back at school for a couple of weeks now, everyone appears to have heard about Rosie O’Dell’s experience with the police. She is festering in a Petri dish of rumours and burns with humiliation through every minute of every class. She feels isolated and alone and wants to be somewhere else.

  You put your arms around your daughter and let her ramble through all the minor and major injustices she has been forced to endure. When she is spent, you point out that some of the class may be behind Eva but the rest is behind her.

  Rosie brightens and admits that a few of her friends have really stuck by her. You tell her that she is the kind of person who inspires true friendship. She smiles and hugs you and heads off to do her homework.

  Doctor David Wilson’s winning smile wavers slightly as he takes your blood pressure and listens to his stethoscope. Without comment, he taps his keyboard to call up the results of more bloody blood tests. ‘So how’s the blood pressure?’ you ask, slightly irritated that you are being forced to extract this information.

  ‘Still high,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘Higher than last time?’ you ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would that be related to the weight gain?’ You catch yourself referring to the weight gain rather your weight gain, attempting to put some distance between yourself and the fact that you’ve put on two kilos since your last visit, an overall increase of twelve kilos since the accident.

  ‘I would say that it is undoubtedly related to your weight but as I mentioned last time, I’m afraid you’re at the point where—’

  ‘I don’t want to take medication,’ you interrupt. You remind the good doctor that you have been able to control your blood pressure with exercise and that as soon as you have recovered, you will be able to resume this previously successful strategy.

  The doctor winces as if some remote extremity of his body is hurting and informs you:

  (a) that your blood pressure is not just high, it’s perilously high,

  (b) that this requires immediate medication, and

  (c) that you will most likely be on this medication for the rest of your life.

  Without pause he swings back to his computer screen and further informs you that, while your liver and kidney functions have shown some improvement, you are insulinresistant, probably headed for diabetes. The insulin resistance will also require medication, and yes, most likely for the term of your natural life.

  Doctor Wilson turns to you and smiles and you want to smash his stupid caring face into the computer screen. Instantly you are ashamed and look at the floor.

  Where is all this is coming from?

  To your horror, tears spring to your eyes and you fight them back until you are able to look up again, dry-eyed.

  ‘Depression is not a sign of weakness,’ the doctor says quietly. ‘It’s a perfectly normal response to a life-threatening event.’ You nod and wind up the consultation as quickly as you can, mortified by your emotional incontinence.

  On the way home you pull yourself together and decide not to worry Wendy with these latest developments. Although there is one issue you cannot keep from her: your impending financial doom. If you lived in America you would probably be suing someone—Frannie Prager, or the man who painted the stripes on the crossing, or the company that built the road—for vast amounts of compensation. But this is Australia and those avenues of recompense are not open to you.

  That night, as you’re watching a re-run of Wendy’s favourite TV show, you mention that Maxx can’t make the next payment for the book. In some stupid part of your brain you hope that the television will distract her from this news but all it does is spoil the show. Wendy wilts. You are about to suggest that maybe you should think about selling the house and renting something in the neighbourhood but the impulse dissolves into a metallic taste in your mouth.

  Wendy says you can afford one more mortgage payment and that’s it. She can make enough money for food and living but not the mortgage as well. ‘Maybe I could get a weekend job,’ she offers. You know you should be the one with the weekend job so you say, ‘No, I’ll try to go back to the paper.’ There’s a long pause and Wendy says, without looking at you, ‘Maybe that’s for the best.’

  Later, in the shower, you feel the weight of failure pressing down on you. It pushes you to the tiled floor where you sit watching the water sheet down the mildewed plastic shower curtain until Wendy knocks on the door and tells you she is going to bed.

  ‘Night,’ she calls.

  ‘Night,’ you call back.

  You and Wendy sit solemnly at the breakfast table as Rosie hovers in front of you, wondering where to begin. She has made you promise not to interrupt her until she has finished what she wants to say. Catastrophes ricochet around your head.

  She’s pregnant.

  She’s pregnant and she got AIDS from the prison cells.

  She’s going to have an AIDS baby.

  ‘I’ve decided to leave school and get a job. I’m going to start work at the chicken shop with Juan,’ says Rosie.

  ‘Is that all?’ you blurt.

  Quickly concluding that you are going to be of no assistance, Wendy takes control. Assuming Rosie wants to leave school to avoid humiliation, she encourages her to endure the current scrutiny.

  ‘One day, sooner than you think, it will all blow over,’ Wendy assures her.

  Rosie says yes, she knows this; things won’t be horrible forever. ‘I just wanna job, make some money.’

  You point out that she’ll be able to get a better job, a higher paying job, if she finishes school.

  ‘We’ve always talked about you going to uni,’ Wendy adds, ‘doing vet science. You’ve always wanted to be a vet.’

  ‘Maybe later. Right now I just want to make some money.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’d be able to help around here.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With money. I could help you with money.’

  ‘We don’t need help with money.’

  ‘Yes, you do. I heard you talking last night. You wouldn’t have to pay school fees—that would save a lot of money. And I could pay board. I know it’s not a lot but every little bit helps, that’s what you always say, Mum.’

  ‘Oh darling,’ whispers Wendy.

  Those damn tears spring to your eyes again so you study the tabletop. Wendy puts her arms around Rosie and thanks her. She explains that it’s not Rosie’s job to worry about the family finances, that we’re going through a bit of a rough patch but we’ll be fine. All families go through times like this and she’s not to worry. She says this with such loving authority that you almost believe it yourself.

  Rosie’s hand brushes across the tips of your fingers. ‘You okay, Pa?’

  You look up at your daughter so filled with love that you think you might burst.

  The Herald has been through one regime change and two arts editors since you worked there so, although you know every desk and chair, many of the faces are not familiar to you. The new arts editor is a weedy hipster with a carefully coiffed quiff and a rat-tat-tat manner of speaking. Knows your work. Loves your work. Hilarious. Vee funny (he actually says vee).

  Rat-tat-tat asks you what movies you have seen recently. You falter as you realise that you haven’t seen any movies recently. He reframes the question: ‘What’s the last movie you saw?’ You know you should say something impressive like Citizen Kane but your mind goes blank. ‘Can’t remember,’ you reply. Fortunately he interprets this as a cryptic analysis of recent cinematic offerings. ‘Ha! So know what you mean!’

  You nod sagely.

  ‘So,’
he says, inviting you with a gesture to state your business.

  Artlessly, you get to the point. ‘I was wondering if I could have my old job back.’

  He swivels in his chair and smacks his lips. ‘If only you’d asked me that five months ago!’

  Five months ago the guy who replaced you was replaced by a new reviewer, Louisa Orban. Louisa loves movies. She loves it when the lights go down and the cinema falls quiet and she is transported into other times, places, lives, worlds. There is a genuine infectiousness to her reviews that makes people want to see the movies she has seen. Even the bad ones seem to offer an illuminating moment or a thrilling performance. Hers is a new-wave positivism that is completely counter to your seen-it-all-before-and-last-time-it-was-actually-good reviewing style.

  You suggest that you could provide some yang to balance Louisa’s yin.

  ‘Actually your style is more yin and Lou is more yang,’ he says.

  ‘What I meant was—’

  ‘It’s just that I’m a Buddhist,’ he interrupts.

  He pronounces it Boo-dist as though he’s giving you the password to a secret society and launches into a monologue that features the phrase ‘budget cuts’. It’s like one of those comic strips in the Sunday papers where the Owner talks to the Dog but all Dog can hear is ‘Blah blah blah Rover. Blah blah blah Rover.’ All you can hear is ‘Blah blah blah budget cut. Budget cut. Budget cut.’

  As he walks you to the lifts he repeatedly pats his right fist with his left hand until he suddenly stops dead and you almost walk into him. Omitting all personal pronouns, Rat-tat-tat makes an offer. ‘Hope this isn’t ridiculous. But happy to look at any freelance stuff. More than happy. Delighted. No guarantees, though, with the budget cuts.’