Sunny
side
up
Sunny
side
up
marion
roberts
First published in 2008
Copyright © text and photographs, Marion Roberts, 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Roberts, Marion, 1966– .
Sunny side up.
ISBN 9781741752366 (pbk.).
I. Title.
A823.4
Cover design by Design by Committee
Cover illustration by Ali Durham
Set in 11.7/17 pt Adobe Garamond by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Oscar
And special thanks to John,
Ava, Lucian, Willow and Arthur
for their unending support
and inspiration.
Warning! This book may contain traces of nuts.
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 .
That was the summer when everything started to change, and let me tell you, change is not my strong point. For starters, Mum insisted that Carl (her boyfriend), and his kids (Lyall and Saskia), help decorate our Christmas tree. Can you imagine? Tree decorating has always been my job.
‘I want to put the angel on,’ shouted Saskia, pulling a dining chair over towards the tree. Saskia is nine and Lyall is eleven.
‘I’m doing the lights then,’ said Lyall, taking them out of their box.
‘Mind you don’t get them all tangled,’ said Carl giving Lyall a hand.
I gave Mum a blank stare, and raised one eyebrow as if to say Good one, Mum. I guess that just leaves me to throw on a bit of tinsel then, fine! I was actually a little worried about the Christmas lights. Mum said there have been cases where faulty lights set Christmas trees on fire, which you have to agree would be a total disaster because the first thing to burn down would be all your presents.
The following week Mum invited Carl, Lyall and Saskia over for Christmas morning and present-opening – without even checking with me. I mean, doesn’t everyone know that Christmas is not a time to spend with people who aren’t actually part of your family? It’s meant to be just about Mum and me and Dad and Steph (my stepmother who’s going to have a baby, possibly very soon).
But this year, we all squashed into the lounge room around the tree – even our dog Willow, who had been very naughty and already chewed the paper off two presents. She’d even eaten the cards. One of the presents was for me, from Carl. It was a T-shirt with red writing on it saying If you can read this, you can read, which is a lot like Carl’s sense of humour.
‘Do you like it?’ he said, as I was checking the size. ‘It was between that and another one which said, Smile If You’re Gay.’
‘Daaad-duh!’ yelled Saskia, punching Carl in the arm. ‘Yeah, Dad!’ said Lyall. ‘As if she’s going to want a T-shirt saying that!’
‘I really like this one,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Carl.’ I gave him a kiss on the cheek and could smell straight away that he’d had a cigarette, which probably explained why he and Mum had disappeared out to the shed for a while just before Dad and Steph arrived. It’s also part of the reason I became a social activist and founder of Children Living With Hypocritical Parents Who Smoke. At the moment I’m the only member of the organisation, but I’m sure more kids will join because I’m not the only one living with parents who pretend not to smoke and constantly fail to give up. Seriously, my mum rings the Quit Line so often they probably think she’s a stalker.
Don’t get me wrong about Carl. I like him, I really do – even if he is the sort of guy who wears man-perfume. Carl’s cool, he rides a Vespa and tells lots of jokes. The only problem with Carl (apart from being a smoker) is that he comes with kid baggage, of the Lyall and Saskia variety. I don’t exactly not like them, it’s more that I simply don’t want to see them all the time or have Christmas with them. Also, Lyall and Saskia argue a lot, and I’m an only child who’s used to peaceful and harmonious living conditions, and I really do want to keep it that way.
Being an only child is total bliss, even though lots of people feel sorry for you or think your parents are selfish for not providing brothers and sisters. As far as I can see (and I’ve done my research), all siblings do is argue and bash each other and have to take turns riding in the front seat. Being an only child might have been hellish if I had mean parents who locked me in a cupboard, but I have quality parents – even if they are divorced (in a friendly way). Anyway, at Mum’s place we don’t even have cupboards. She uses a clothing rack and still sleeps on a futon.
When I’ve been over at Claud’s house (that’s Claudia, my best friend) I sometimes come home exhausted by all the noise and fighting that goes on with her brother Walter, who is always hiding the remote control and has a permanent case of head lice. And sometimes it’s not just Walter and Claud. Their family does foster care, and depending on who they have staying with them you can’t guarantee getting a seat on the couch at all. That’s when I appreciate my biffo-free conditions the most. I can lie on the couch watching any show I like, without someone changing the channel or bashing me up and infecting me with lice.
So anyway, I’m slightly off the topic now, but that’s something you’d better get used to because I’m the sort of person whose mind accidentally runs off on tangents. That’s why I’ve had to invent the Tangent Police, who are meant to step into my brain and blow a whistle if I’m off the point. In reality though, the Tangent Police are often out on a boozy lunch, and I don’t realise I’m off on a tangent until someone like Mrs Hasslebrack (my maths teacher) sees me staring out the window and says, ‘Sunny Hathaway, are you paying even the slightest bit of attention?’
So the other totally odd thing to happen at Christmas was that Mum and I got presents from Granny Carmelene, which has absolutely never happened because Mum and Granny Carmelene haven’t spoken to each other in about twenty years. Whenever I ask Mum what all the fuss is about she just gets really angry (in a silent way) and says things like: ‘Not all relationships necessarily last for ever Sunny,’ or even, ‘It’s none of your business, Sunny. For heaven’s sake you’re just like a dog with a bone.’ And that totally makes my throat ache.
M
um had bought some presents that I could pretend I’d bought for Lyall and Saskia. I (Mum) got Lyall a book about making horror movies and I (Mum) got Saskia a flower garden set. I was more excited about the present we’d wrapped up for Willow. It was a giant bone from the butcher.
‘There you go girl,’ I said, handing the parcel to Willow, ‘Merry Christmas.’ She took one quick sniff at the paper, then grabbed it (in a gentle greyhound way) and galloped out the back door. Willow usually buries bones straight away then digs them up again later. Don’t ask me why. Maybe dirt gives bones an added crunch?
Dad and Steph bought me a new basketball and some basketball shoes.
‘They should get you moving,’ Dad said, because he’s what you might call sports obsessed and is going to be coaching our team once school goes back. I think he’s planning to train us extra hard. Then he handed me the present from Granny Carmelene, and I noticed Mum’s top lip go all tight and thin as I opened the card.
Dear Sunday,
It sometimes makes me sad that we’ve never had a chance to get to know one another. I was thinking that it might be nice for you to come to visit me one day, if you’d like to. Maybe you could give me a call? I’m in the book you know. I hope you have a lovely Christmas.
All my love,
Your grandmother,
Carmelene Aberdeen xx
Granny Carmelene had given me some posh writing paper and fifty dollars. She’d also sent photographs of her rose garden, which looked very Botanical Gardensy, all surrounded by green spongy lawn. I reached under the tree and passed Mum the present Granny Carmelene had sent for her.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ I asked.
‘No, I’m not, actually,’ Mum said, and she stormed into the kitchen. Everyone looked at me as though it was my fault, so I followed her out there. Carl started telling a joke to smooth things over.
Mum was putting on the kettle for a cup of tea.
‘I knew she’d do this,’ she said, banging a cup down on the bench.
‘Do what? It’s Christmas, Mum. It’s normal to send presents.’
‘It’s not normal for her.’
‘Well, maybe she’s trying to make up.’
‘Well, maybe there are some things that can’t be made up for, Sunny.’
‘She can’t be that bad, Mum, she’s your mother.’
‘She bloody well can be that bad, and the fact is, Sunny, I just want you to stay out of it. None of it concerns you. None of it.’
‘She’s my grandmother,’ I said under my breath.
‘What? No Sunny! I know what you’re thinking. You’re not to have anything to do with her. Do you understand?’ She opened the biscuit tin with the White Christmas slices that I’d made the day before. Willow appeared in the doorway wagging her tail. She had dirt all over her nose.
‘Here, put these out for everyone would you please?’
‘But what about—’
‘Just drop it, Sunny! You’re not to see her. Promise?’
I picked a bit of marshmallow out of one of the slices and put eight out on a plate, including one for Willow, who is the sort of dog who loves White Christmas, even though sugar is meant to be bad for dogs and (according to Mum) bad for people, too.
‘Sunny?’ Mum said.
‘Mum?’ I replied.
‘Promise me you won’t have anything to do with her. Look me in the eye and promise.’
I gave her a darting look.
‘I promise,’ I said, hoping she wouldn’t notice I had my fingers crossed.
That night I heard Mum talking on the phone to Carl. They were having the let’s all move in together conversation again, which freaked me right out. Can you imagine? I’d have precooked siblings. We’d be one of those modern blended families like the Brady Bunch. But the idea of blending didn’t really blend in my mind, if you know what I mean. The whole concept felt more like a murky pond with a slick of rainbow-coloured oil over the surface. There’re no prizes for guessing that the slick of oil, the non-blending part, was me. I wished like anything that Claud was back, because it’s one thing to enjoy being an only child, but it’s another thing entirely to be an only child while your bestest-ever friend is away in Queensland, and you have absolutely nobody to talk to about being forced to become blended. Besides, Claud and I had business responsibilities to deal with, because we’re not just best friends, we’re also entrepreneurs.
2 .
I know you can’t blame everything on global warming, but it sure seemed as if it was around the time the massive heat-wave came, and the wind grew all mad and blustery, that my whole life got blown around in circles and whipped out of shape. It was as though we were fighting a war against high temperatures, keeping all our doors and windows closed during the day to stop the hotness stealing inside and smothering the last patches of cool. Even thinking about how hot it was makes me start to wilt, and to wonder if I can continue with this story. But I will, because I’m trying to become the sort of person who finishes what they start.
After Christmas, Mum got into a lot of gardening at night, which is how I knew she was feeling positive about life. When she lets the vegies die and the grass get wild, I can tell she’s sad and feels like giving up. But Mum had been pulling weeds and planting lettuces and singing songs and watering at night, so I knew she must be feeling up. She was still sneaking around the side of the house to smoke, though, and still pretending she’d quit, which is the totally pathetic part of this story.
There were days when it was perfect and summery, and days when it was a bit too hot, and then there were the forty-something degree days that made it an official heat-wave. After about four days of totally mad temperatures, I started to wonder whether God might actually be bored and that maybe we should think about getting a place in Tasmania. Somewhere inland and up high, so that we’d still have a home when Greenland melts and the sea levels rise, or if God gets extra bored and causes another tsunami.
I was lying on the couch, waiting for Mum to get home. We’d planned to walk to the beach together, after dinner, even though Willow couldn’t come because dogs aren’t allowed on the beach at night in December. I wanted to escape from the unbearableness of living in my own warm-blooded skin, so I closed my eyes and tried some creative visualisation techniques. That’s when you imagine things exactly the way you want them to be, and then your life is meant to just turn out that way. Don’t ask me why, but I visualised myself as a pink rubber hot-water bottle lying flat on the racks inside an empty refrigerator. I could hear the gentle fridge hum as I became colder and colder, from the outside in. The only problem was that imagining myself with cold blood led me to thinking about cold-bloodedness in general, and after a bit I was thinking of cold-bloodedness in particular.
Pretty soon I had forgotten about being a pink hot-water bottle in the refrigerator and found myself thinking about the very thing I was absolutely and undeniably afraid of; the most sinister creatures of sneakiness and cold-bloodedness, which, as far as I’m concerned, have no place of value on this earth. You guessed it. Snakes. See? Even the word snake doesn’t sound like something you could trust. They’re just so . . . snakey.
I closed my eyes very tightly and tried to focus on all the things that were the opposite of snakes, so I could hotfoot it right off the topic. I thought about animals with fur and pouches and big paws; animals that roll around and never squirm or hiss; animals you can snuggle up to, and ones that smell nice when they’re asleep; animals with ears and cute button noses and fluffy parts that you can brush; animals that make you feel warm. But then I started feeling all warm, on top of already feeling impossibly hot, so I had to open my eyes and abandon visualising completely.
I stood up on the couch and jumped off as far as I could into the middle of the lounge room, just in case my visualisation had backfired and actually created a snake (or two) and it was waiting under the couch to lurch at my ankle. I thumped into the laundry (snakes are scared of big vibrations), took off my T-shirt
, wet it in the laundry tub, wrung it out and put it back on again. This is the best method of cooling down if you can’t actually have a swim.
I don’t know why I’m so scared of snakes, I mean they’re just a tube with fangs, and most of the time they’re so scared of you they slink off when they hear (feel) you coming. Only some of them chase you, like tiger snakes for instance . . . I think I’d better get off the topic now or I might be reminded of that old lady in Heidelberg who was innocently picking passion-fruit, which she probably needed for a pavlova she was making. She was a nice old lady, the sort with blue hair and a shopping buggy, who wouldn’t hurt anybody. And I could imagine her thinking pleasant, old-lady-cakey thoughts as she plucked a passionfruit from the vine on her back fence, not knowing that it was the home of a mean old tiger snake who bit her fair and square on her thin, veiny hand. And if it wasn’t for her Jack Russell terrier, who barked and barked (as they do) until the neighbours came to see what the fuss was about – and noticed the old lady lying on the grass with just enough life left in her to tell them about the tube with fangs – if it wasn’t for that incredibly loyal and yappy dog, she’d be deadibums. I don’t reckon Willow would be like that, though. She’d probably catch the snake and throw it back on me, thinking it was a game of Dog, Snake and Dying Owner.
See what I mean about the tangents? According to Mum, it’s because I’m an introvert. I should also mention that apart from being an introvert and an entrepreneur I’m also an inventor, a poet, a dog trainer and part-owner of Pizza-A-Go-Girl, our deluxe, wood-fired, Friday night pizza delivery service. I also like learning about psychological theories. I used to be very good at keeping secrets, but have noticed lately that I’m getting worse. Oh, and I also have the hugest collection of stripey toe-socks, and my favourite dessert is bombe alaska (even though I haven’t actually tried it yet).
Snakes are kind of relevant though, because if they’re not hiding under your couch they often live in holes, and that summer was making me feel all holed-up, like an animal that needs to shelter all day. We’d been forced to become all in-doorsy – and not the type of indoors that has air-conditioning, either, because Mum and Carl say air-conditioners add to the problems we’ve got going with greenhouse gas.
Sunny Side Up Page 1
