The Sparkle Pages

by Meg Bignell

  Jude (Ava and Thomas’s friend, Jimmy’s age) was the only one to show any interest in badminton, so I insisted Jimmy go and play too. I wonder why they’re not friends, I thought. Jude seems like Jimmy’s sort of boy.

  ‘You have a strong arm, Jude,’ I said. ‘Do you play cricket with Jimmy?’

  Jude said, ‘No.’

  Then Mary-Lou, Raffy and Ava declared that they were going to make slime. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘That sounds fun,’ and off they went to get the ingredients. How very resourceful, I thought when I saw Raffy looking up a recipe and lining up ingredients.

  Twenty minutes later there was glitter everywhere. EVERYWHERE. And a sticky sort of dough that dried to the taps, the sink, the cupboard knobs and the benchtops. At this point Ava declared slime-making a failure and they ran off to jump on the badminton net, leaving Barky behind, licking up the glitter. I shut him in Mary-Lou’s room so I could clean up. Failed slime is IMPOSSIBLE to clean. As well as the glitter, it apparently has glue in it, food colouring, icing sugar and my entire bottle of contact lens solution. Honestly.

  Soon after that, there was a horrific scream from Mary-Lou’s bedroom and we all rushed in to find Ava standing amid piles and piles of polyester stuffing. Barky was shaking the skin of her eviscerated Strawberry-Baby.

  ‘Barky!’ I barked, and he looked at me and ran out of the room with a final, snorty grumble. I shut him outside. Ava was inconsolable. I offered her another honey joy but she only howled more. She refused to come out of Mary-Lou’s room until I promised to buy her another Strawberry-Baby.

  ‘They come from Teddies Galore and there’s a blue one to match my bedroom,’ said Mary-Lou.

  At dinnertime, everyone played with their food instead of eating it because I’d made spinach pie and ‘Spinach has grubs in it and makes your wee green,’ said Thomas. I ate mine, Mary-Lou’s and some of Ava’s. Then Hugh came home and said, ‘Well, hello. Looks like I’m in time for the party,’ and was all hilarious and not at all tense. I cleaned up while he pretended to eat the grubs in the spinach pie and did a little farewell toast for Strawberry-Baby that even Ava enjoyed.

  Jude helped me clear some dishes from the table and said, ‘Thank you for dinner, Mrs Parks,’ and I said, ‘Oh, thank you, Jude. You’re a good boy.’ He blushed a bit and scurried back to the table. There was a funny sort of silence then, and Raffy came over to whisper, ‘Mum, Jude’s a girl.’

  When everyone was finally collected by loved-up, Valentiney Josh and Isobel and I’d given my mortified apologies (most sincerely to Jude, who is such a lovely child, oh God), I went to retrieve the disgraced Barky from the garden. He was under the holly tree looking altogether pleased with himself, a dug-up kitten at his feet. I had to sit on the garden bench for a long moment and think about how strange life can be, and about the chances of a normal family fostering me, to teach me their ways. Then I had to get Hugh.

  He patted me on the arm and said, ‘Ah, well, at least the children missed this little epilogue.’ But mostly he laughed. Then he bagged up the kitten again, said, ‘The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away,’ and popped it gently in the wheelie bin. I was too wrung out to feel guilty.

  Later he gave me my Valentine’s Day surprise: a bunch of flowers from the servo (yellow gerberas, pink patterned cellophane) and a packet of Fruit Tingles. For God’s sake. Tingles are pretty close to sparkles, though, I suppose. I wonder what would happen if you popped a Fruit Tingle in your fanny.

  Barky has come into the wardrobe, gazing at me with his head on his paws. I can’t look at him. The furry little arsehole.

  WEDNESDAY 15th FEBRUARY

  Oh. Oh, dear.

  The wardrobe man turned up today and he’s very, very handsome. He is also about twelve (well, maybe thirty), tall, blond, tanned and blue-eyed with some sort of hypersexual European accent. And perhaps I imagined it, but I think I’ve just been on the receiving end of some first-class flirting!

  Does this sort of thing happen all the time to middle-aged women with red bird’s nest fluff for hair and ‘please want me’ in their eyes? I mean, there we were, Wednesday morning, dead flies in the hallway, cereal bowls in the bathroom, Strawberry-Baby tufts on the carpets, Middlemarch audiobook on the stereo and me in my loungewear, when he looked at me. I mean, he really looked at me. I was brewing some tea for us and we’d run out of pleasantries so there was silence and he looked through my eyes and possibly through the muddled-up wiring behind them and into my throat and down, down into my chest, which is where I think perhaps the soul might be. He looked into my soul.

  I know this sounds ridiculous but that’s what it felt like. As though, in that moment of complete silence, he sang to me. In the distance, ‘Once You Lose Your Heart’ drifted from Valda’s window (a capella – such a touching interpretation, must ask her who produced it).

  I don’t know what my face was doing, but I think I spoke first. I think I said, ‘Anyway …’ as though someone had spoken off topic, but no one had, except I’m pretty sure we’d slipped into some sort of unspoken aside. And then I said, ‘We should have paid for the better model. That rail shouldn’t have broken, should it?’ And the moment broke too.

  If wardrobe man did look into my soul, I wonder what he saw …

  Anyway, he took his tea into the wardrobe and started fixing the rail. There was that awkward moment when you’re not sure if you should hang around watching what he is doing or leave him to it. I ended up leaving, then fiddled about in the kitchen like a normal person might. I ditched the usual Thursday night pesto (jar) pasta (instant) plans and decided to make my own fettuccine.

  I shouldn’t even be thinking about this – let alone writing about it – but the thing is, I felt a spark! And given that this is all about sparks, the Wardrobe Man deserves a mention. And perhaps that spark does something towards explaining what happened next.

  I went back into the wardrobe to make sure all was going as planned (also perhaps to make sure I hadn’t conjured him up altogether like some kind of hopeful mid-drought mirage). He’d replaced the broken rail and was rubbing his hands on a hand towel while staring absently at my viola.

  ‘Oh, you’re done already,’ I said, and he jumped. ‘Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to sneak up.’ I tried a direct stare into his eyes.

  ‘Yes, all done. No troubles,’ he said, then nodded towards the viola case. ‘Your viola?’

  ‘Yes!’ I said, surprised that he hadn’t mixed it up with a violin. Also surprised that he looked properly interested. I haven’t been interesting for years. And Ria is right, being interesting is very nice; transformative even. So I smiled and sent an interested look right back at his.

  He gestured to the viola case and said, ‘May I?’ and, looking through my eyelashes, I nodded.

  So he opened the case and said, ‘Oh, it is beautiful,’ and I saw that it really was. All elegant curves and rich brown. He picked it up gently and said, ‘They’re works of art, aren’t they? I wish I could make these instead of wardrobes. I used to do a lot of classical dancing.’

  (The beautiful boy is a ballet dancer!!! I couldn’t help but cast my mind to images of him in tights, avec substantial package.)

  Then he held the viola out to me and said, ‘Please.’ The instrument’s curlicued eyes looked up at me, hopeful and sad. I reached out towards it just for an instant before I felt a faint fizz in my hands. I recoiled abruptly. So abruptly that he said, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ But in the far distance I could see things I hadn’t looked at for a long time, and I didn’t feel all right at all. I clenched my nothing hands and said, ‘Could you put it back please? I feel a bit funny and I wouldn’t want to drop it.’

  So he put the viola back in its case and said, ‘Do you need to sit down?’

  ‘No, thank you. Sorry, too much coffee, I think. Or something. I’ll just go and …’ I left the wardrobe because at that kind of proximity he could easily see the holes in my soul.

  He left
after that and now, from where I sit (back in the wardrobe), I see that he probably didn’t look into my soul at all, that he was probably just a really nice bloke.

  I overstepped things. Badly. Far, far worse than any potential tingle in my nethers was the fizz in my hands. I almost played my viola for the first time in eleven years to a man I don’t know. Hugh’s recital. The promise I’ve given to him all the times he’s asked me to play for him again. ‘One day I will,’ I kept saying, ‘I promise.’ He has, I suppose, given up asking, but still. He used to proudly tell dinner guests about my music … One day, one day …

  Will our love life head this way too? ‘One day we might again, one day …’ until one of us gives it to someone else?

  It’s terrible, the sound of your own deterioration, with an accompaniment of betrayal. I will not be picking up the viola again. At least I know that for sure.

  THURSDAY 16th FEBRUARY

  If I could let this Wardrobe Man experience inform the Sparkle Project (which might negate some of this searing shame), I could say that I have received a very important lesson: genuine and keen interest in a person and their endeavours really can lead to heightened attraction. Does this mean I should ask Hugh questions about golf? Get him to demonstrate his swing? Ask him to show me his Antarctic photos? Show some renewed (gentle) interest in his penis? A blow job? They say a moist environment is best for healing.

  MONDAY 20th FEBRUARY

  Holy God, the Wardrobe Man just sent me a text:

  Hello dear Susannah, I hope everything is functioning well again in your wardrobe. Please let me know if you have any further problems. It was very nice meeting you. Yours, Max (Wonderobes)

  Perhaps he really does have a crush. I mean, he said ‘dear’. Is that an English-as-a-second-language thing or is that some swoony romance right there? And ‘yours’ – is he reading an eighteenth-century book on English Letter Writing? Also, ‘Max’ is an inexplicably sexy name (although he’d be sexy even if he’d said ‘Yours, Darryl’).

  I have deleted it without replying, so that should be the end of the affair (not an actual affair, obviously, although the viola thing could have been just as disloyal).

  TUESDAY 21st FEBRUARY

  Just to exacerbate feelings of guilt, Hugh has finished the awning case and is having one of his attentive patches. He phoned from work this morning to suggest he leave early and we pick up the smaller children together so that he can see their new classrooms and teachers. This is good; Jimmy’s been banging on for two weeks about Hugh going in and seeing a robot he’s had a hand in building. But it’s also discomforting. At least when he’s being all important and distracted, I might be able to justify at least part of the Wardrobe Man incident.

  There’s a slim chance he’s feeling sorry for me after the penis injury, the Antarctica argument and the Valentine’s Day debacle. But it’s more likely he’s just had a satisfactory conclusion to some hard work and is feeling good. Hugh never dwells on things. I dwell on my misgivings for so long I could build houses and grow oak trees on them.

  I went into the office to collect him and he was at his desk, all capable in his suit with the gold tie that brings out his eyes. He smiled at me and his wedding band shone and I thought, How can I truly have any misgivings? Honestly. And at the same time, I remembered the feeling in my hands when the Wardrobe Man held out my viola. The guilt went twang …

  While Hugh was gathering his things and leaving instructions for people, I had the wild idea that I could mitigate my guilt with a sort of confession. So once we were in the car I said, ‘The man who came to fix the wardrobe was very nice.’

  ‘Oh, I forgot about that,’ said Hugh. ‘Is it all sorted?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Good-o.’

  I took a breath. ‘I think he took a bit of a shine to me.’

  ‘Did he?’ said Hugh with a little chuckle and nary a hint of concern.

  And then I said (because I think I wanted him to be jealous), ‘He was quite flirty. He told me he was a classical dancer. I think he wanted to dance with me.’ (Little bit of embroidery.)

  Hugh wasn’t jealous. He laughed and said, ‘Oh, come on. Give me a break. What added extras was he trying to sell?’

  ‘None!’ I said, but this wasn’t true. He had offered to come back and retrofit a jewellery drawer. Hugh’s right, of course. I realise now that Max mightn’t be a nice bloke at all. He’s a salesman, a very good one. Charm is in his training manual. ‘Are you saying he wouldn’t want to dance with me?’ I asked with some mock (and genuine) affront.

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying,’ Hugh said. ‘A woman like you? Of course he’d want to dance with you.’

  We pulled up outside school and got out of the car and I asked, ‘Would you want to dance with me?’ And Hugh said, ‘Most certainly,’ in a silly voice. Then he looked around furtively, took me for a little waltz on the footpath and honked my boobs as though they were old-fashioned car horns, which they are nearly, except flat.

  It wasn’t all that romantic. Just a small flaring of ye olde warmth. Potential passion. I shouldn’t mess with that by telling him the viola part of the story. I mean, relationships can’t really be built on honest communication. Honesty is not bricks, and if I told Hugh that I nearly gave my first recital in years to a wardrobe salesman, he would be understandably upset and our building could well sustain some nasty cracks.

  Or worse, he might not be upset at all.

  Diplomacy and compromise are the other foundations of a relationship, aren’t they? And if you think about it, they are often mired in dishonesty. There’s much to be said for leaving things unsaid. Letting it pass. It usually does. Like a gallstone. We all have to bite our tongues and grit our teeth throughout our lives. Old people’s tongues are quite pock-marked if you care to look …

  In other news, Hugh said all the right things about Jimmy’s robot and Jimmy was well pleased. Raffy’s teacher showed us the stars he’s received for helping in music. Raffy’s never mentioned those. He won’t even practise the recorder (not such a bad thing). I wish he’d agree to piano lessons.

  WEDNESDAY 22nd FEBRUARY

  Warmth snuffed. The Aurora Australis is all over the news for rescuing some French scientists from their trapped boat. Hugh’s gone all quiet. I know he’s imagining himself in the thick of the excitement.

  School called. We have six lost library books. For goodness sake. How did I end up spending my life searching for sundries, washing undies and trying to get out of cooking?

  SUNDAY 26th FEBRUARY

  This afternoon was one of those wistful golden ones: still and yellow and warm with birdsong and bare skin. And a little glass of gin, even though it was a school night. I opened up the kitchen doors to let the last of the sun in (this is the time of year when Tasmanians start clinging desperately to sunbeams) and folded the washing while everyone played cricket on the lawn. I would have joined in but my ongoing viola/wardrobe man thoughts had me ironing underwear.

  Through the open door came gleeful shouts and having-fun laughter. And behind that came a little breeze that slipped in and stroked my face, like Mum might have done when I was very small, being lectured and forgiven for some mischief. It stopped me, that breeze, made me gasp. This is what makes me, I thought. This life, those people, this dear old house. All part of me. Without them, there’d be nothing left of me at all.

  There was another thought, worried by the breeze: what if everything really does fall to pieces?

  When they all came in, we ate, we put the children to bed, we sat in front of the telly. I thought about being interested and asked Hugh how things were going at work and he said, ‘Very well, thank you,’ as though I was an elderly aunt asking how he’s liking Geography.

  ‘What have you got on this week?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, we’re starting the interviews tomorrow,’ he said. ‘They’ll take a day or two, I reckon.’

  ‘Interviews for what?’ I asked.

  He looked un
comfortable, shifted towards me and said, ‘For the new roles.’ His toes waggled. ‘I told you about that, didn’t I?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I must have.’

  ‘No, you certainly didn’t.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said and sighed. ‘I want to put on an electrical engineer. We’re getting a lot of electrical enquiries. And we need an office manager.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said, trying to channel nonchalance but failing. ‘But I could come and do the office manager thing. Didn’t we talk about that once?’

  ‘We need someone full-time, though. You can’t manage that.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ I was suddenly very conscious of the over-flowing newspaper basket and the threads of spider web hanging from the ceiling.

  Then he patted my head and said goodnight and I lingered, irritating myself by sighing a lot and being altogether pointless. Then I swept the hearth, because even Cinderella didn’t just sit around being pathetic.

  But one day I’d like to be taken to the ball.

  WEDNESDAY 1st MARCH

  Little to report. Sparkle is scarce. If I could just fetch it back – some of it at least – but it’s so hard to hold. Just a little puff and it blows away. I need to discipline myself, concentrate and stick to my resolve. A battuta. Strictly in tempo. Going back in time in search of sparkle …

  Hobart, 1992

  The day I went to play my viola for Hugh’s grandmother, he drove me from uni to the Wintergreen Eldercare Home in his very grown-up car. It smelled like new carpet and had no McDonald’s chip boxes on the floor. I felt like a dignitary. I tried not to act impressed because materialism doesn’t suit enigmatic musicians, but I was impressed – very. I’d only just managed to scrape up enough busking coinage for a dodgy bike. I tried to arrange my thoughts around an intelligent but not nerdy conversation topic and failed.