by Nick Earls
‘Sure.’ He throws the ball now, and this time I take it cleanly. ‘And it’s usually the ones you least expect. I’m tanked on calcium hypochlorite most of the time. Not that it offers a lot as a chemical.’
What would it be like, being in this pool with Cat Davis instead of Luke and a raggy old ball? A hot summer weekend day, late afternoon, the sun settling behind the buildings, the air still full of heat and the smell of cut grass, no one else around…
‘Hey, it kills bugs,’ I tell him, since this is about calcium hypochlorite. ‘It lets us all swim in safety and gives your skin that fresh flaky complexion. Something really is messing with the Cat Davis brain, though. I mean, last night’s tandem-story paragraph…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Did I miss the bit where Ashtoe said last night’s paragraph had to include a superhero cape, an upright piano and a yearning for custard?’
Luke laughs, quite a lot. ‘She’s working you hard. That’s some great team play, tossing you that. What are you going to do with it?’
He throws the ball. It sticks cleanly in my hand, and I don’t even move.
‘I’m going to have to take her down. No more Mister Nice Guy.’
‘What do you think’s happening with her mother?’
‘Thanks. Right. I’m being a bastard. Selfish when it comes to my own mother, thoughtless when it comes to hers. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? Her mother’s sick – she’s distracted. She was weird yesterday. Her story’s weirder because her mind was on her mother.’
‘Don’t weaken. You’re going to be nice when you email back, aren’t you? I can read it now, all sickly sweet…’
He goes to put two fingers in his mouth, and makes a gagging noise. So I throw the ball and it clips his knuckles and ricochets over his head. I think he bites his hand, but he pretends he hasn’t.
‘Shit no. It’s only appendicitis. Her mother’ll be fine. And we’ve got to get this story back on track. No mercy, Lukey, no mercy.’
The smell should give it away, but it doesn’t seem to. My mother’s too deep in the trough to recognise a low-grade intervention when it’s being put together around her. Betty and I have talked, and it’s time for baking.
I give her the signal when I’m back from the pool and she comes over with plates of newly made macaroons and melting moments. Today she’s keeping it strictly old-school Anglo – not a hint of Central America.
I’m the facilitator and tea-maker. Hot beverages and an atmosphere of painless spontaneity – that’s my brief.
‘Such a nice afternoon for it,’ Betty says. ‘For a bit of baking. For a couple of old favourites.’
I make the tea in a pot and take it into the lounge room on a tray with milk and sugar and cups. Everyday cups, or it’ll look too much like a fuss is being made.
‘That Luke’s a nice boy,’ Betty says, since we quickly work out that the conversation has found itself with nowhere to go.
My mother says, ‘Hmmm,’ and then realises it’s not exactly an endorsement and follows up with, ‘Oh, yes, very nice. He and Joel have been friends since the day they met.’
Chapel Hill State School, 1996. Luke had a very large hat. And that’s it for the day we met. No conversation there.
We ask open questions and then closed questions about my mother’s work in the coming week. She gets stuck when she realises tomorrow night is now blank in her diary. Betty asks me about school. I struggle to find some news and then tell her, inexplicably, that I’m having a really interesting time working on the stupid tandem story. We’re trying so hard that we even talk about the weather. My mother hasn’t noticed any. She takes another bite at her melting moment, then looks at it as though for the first time.
‘Time to put a name to the elephant dancing on the coffee table, perhaps?’ Betty says.
‘Would that name be Jorge?’ my mother says. ‘Or Enzo?’ She looks again at the broken half of the melting moment in her hand. ‘You know I like these, don’t you?’ she says. ‘Thank you.’ She looks at Betty, then at me. ‘You were right. I’m pretty sure you both had suspicions, and you were right.’
Would she have liked him as Enzo, the fruit packer? I can’t know and, for now at least, I can’t ask. If he hadn’t led with a lie, and then lived it in the half-arsed way he did, stumbling over mock-Spanish and bad food and all the rest – if they had met under different circumstances – would things be different now? But they didn’t, since his lie was already in the air when she walked into the church hall in Graceville, salsa-ready, manhungry. There he was, taking CDs out of boxes, setting up for the class – Jorge.
‘It’s depressing,’ she says. ‘That’s all. I can’t say it’s a complete shock, but…’
She starts talking, letting out some of what she’s held back for a day and a half. I don’t want to hear everything and she doesn’t want to tell it, but we all know she can’t keep every part of it stuck inside her. She talks, pours us all more tea, takes a second melting moment and then a third.
‘We had fun,’ she says. ‘I think he could be a nice guy. He was a nice guy. But who knows what he was when all the facts… aren’t facts after all.’
Beneath the made-up identity, the fear of discovery and all the effort he had to put in to faking it, what was Enzo and what was Jorge? What was just him scrambling to fill the untidy gap in between? He probably hates me for exposing him, but it was bound to happen some time and for my mother’s sake – and maybe his too – sooner was, I’m sure, better than later.
But I don’t have the answers. I don’t even have the questions. I’m the one who mentions the support group for new singles.
‘I know you’re a mentor most of the time, but maybe tonight’s meeting would be a good chance for you to get some of that support back.’
She’s about to resist, and then she doesn’t. She nods, says, ‘Hmm. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s a sign that the fortnightly meeting is tonight. Or maybe it’s not a sign and I should just go. But what would you do for dinner?’
‘I think there’s some leftover…’
‘Mexican,’ she says, stiffly. ‘Go on, say it. There’s some leftover Mexican in the fridge from Friday night.’ She stops, and manages something like a smile. ‘Don’t say Salvadorean, and please eat it all. That’s all I ask.’
She’s away at the counselling centre and the smell of reheated, mediocre Mexican is still in the air when I go to my computer and click on Cat’s email. Any thought that Cat might be anything but extremely annoying is dashed by re-reading her story paragraph.
Okay, so I’m a little embarrassed about the slight logical error with the whole ‘Mad Eyes’ thing, but I had bigger story issues in mind and what gives her the right to be so picky? What is she thinking, writing a paragraph like that? She’s standing in the way of the story, stopping me making progress.
‘She had never understood Christopher’s love of custard.’ The line hangs there as though it’s laden with meaning, as though she’s watched far too many enigmatic foreign films, but never actually understood them. How do I follow that?
Hello Cat,
Yes, thank you for that point about the ‘Mad Eyes’ name (clarified, see below). Thank you also for the gift of the witless, unfascinating Christopher, and his penchant for custard. Superb. May I reciprocate with a character gift of my own?
Nice work with the tea, too. Let me know the instant another member of the Grey family comes up with a beverage of their own. Paragraph follows…
J
Max ‘Mad Eyes’ Eislander – only the dead had seen his eyes like that. Only the dead and Heinz ‘Hands of Doom’ Heckler – renegade, master of disguise and Eislander’s nemesis. They had stood side by side in the Austrian secret service, taken on aliases together, but that had been years ago. Eislander had been Kristof then, and sometimes Christopher. But he had long since cast such masks aside. Heckler was damaged goods. He had turned to absinthe, had drowned his mother’s Cat in a vat of custard – though th
at had surely been a good thing, since the creature was quite disturbed – and had gone away hallucinating. The things he said were vicious, and made no sense at all. There was trouble brewing, and Eislander had already been sent once to deal with it. For Eislander, Heckler was ‘the one that got away’. But no more. The rush of the wind invigorated him, as did the firm pressure of a dozen thirty-round curved box magazines in his pockets. This was truly a day to kill. Heckler was out of control, worse than unpredictable, a warhead, a warhead with the timer set and running. And only Eislander could take him down.
PS – Not sure whether to go for ‘masks’ or ‘masques’, which perhaps could be more intriguing… await your thoughts, breath bated.
PPS – Is it possible your part of the story might be seen as a little, or possibly extremely, dull?
– Monday
I wake up to the sound of clapping. I half-open my eyes, squinting at the sunlight that is suddenly flooding into my bedroom, and realise that my father is standing at the foot of my bed.
‘Rise and shine, Catriona Marie.’
I sit up, furiously blinking, trying to get things in focus. ‘Sorry?’
Opening my eyes properly I find my father smiling at me from my bedroom doorway. He’s clean-shaven and immaculately dressed – if you don’t count the Garfield apron he’s wearing. His hair is wet and combed. He smells of aftershave and fake optimism.
‘You’re wearing an apron?’ I say, propping myself up on my elbows, not yet ready to commit to sitting upright or getting out of bed.
‘Mark and I are doing pancakes,’ he says as if to cue Mark who suddenly yells out, ‘They’re bubbling, DAD! Come back and flip them!’
‘Coming,’ my father calls back. ‘Come on, Cat, it’s quarter to seven. We’re having a family breakfast.’
I wince.
His smile fades for a moment. ‘For me? Please? We need to do this,’ he says, pleading.
I sigh and nod. ‘Just give me a… ah…’ I hold up a finger. ‘Just give me a minute and I’ll be right there.’
He gives me a grateful smile and turns to leave.
‘Dad?’ His head pokes back round the corner of the door. ‘Is everything okay?’ I ask.
‘It will be.’ He offers a half-smile and then disappears.
Ten minutes later and I’m eating under-cooked, doughy pancakes while my father tells Mark and me about how he thinks it would be a good idea if we started playing Pictionary together one night a week.
‘Pictionary needs four,’ I say, while confiscating the maple syrup from Mark. He tries to grab it back, but I hold it above his head, out of reach. ‘Buddy, your pancake isn’t meant to be an island in a sea of syrup. You’ve got enough syrup there to sink Tasmania. Now open your mouth and let me check you still have some teeth left.’
I turn back to my dad, but he’s gone. He’s moving around the kitchen from the stove to the fridge to the pantry, as though he knows what he’s doing. I watch in fascination and horror as he starts to juice some oranges. Give my father a gentleman’s perm and right now he’d be Mike Brady.
‘Make sure there’s no pulp, Dad!’ says Mark through a mouthful of pancake, as though this scene before us is somehow normal.
‘Will do,’ says Dad, in what I can tell is a forced cheerful tone. ‘Four, hey? Pictionary needs four, does it? Well, I’m sure we can rustle up a fourth each week if need be.’
What the hell is going on? I wonder. ‘What the hell is going on?’ I say to Dad.
He comes over to where I’m sitting, crouches beside me. ‘It’s all right, Cat. I know you’re scared. There have been so many changes lately. I just want you to know that I’m back. Your dad’s back,’ he says, reminding me of those people you see in Anthony Robbins infomercials. ‘I’m here one hundred per cent for you guys, and we’re going to make this work. I know that I sort of dropped the ball for a while there, but I swear, you guys, I’ve picked that ball right back up. I found the ball and I’m running with it, right? We’re going to make this work together. As Dr Phil says, “Sometimes you just have to fake it till you make it.” I’ve got to put all my eggs in the family basket – that’s what everyone helped me realise last night.’
Mark screws up his face and mutters, ‘Eggs smell.’
But all I can think is what on earth happened last night?
Dad stands up. ‘Okay, gang, now who’s up for some Bircher muesli?’
‘ME!’ cheers Mark, who seems to think we’re in the middle of a pantomime. My father immediately starts scooping muesli into Mark’s favourite Bob the Builder bowl.
I stare as he hands the bowl to Mark who immediately starts picking out the green and orange thingies. Dad doesn’t even seem to notice when Mark pours Milo cereal into the mix.
‘What about you, Cat?’
I look at my father. I look at Mark’s bowl of chocolate mush. I look at my glass of orange juice, which is full of pulp and a fair bit of rind.
‘Pass.’
‘No, you’ll love it, Cat. I made it early this morning. It’s a recipe I picked up last night from a lovely lady in my group.’ He wipes his hands on his apron and looks at his watch. ‘I’d better get moving. You okay to take Mark to school?’
‘The way I do every morning? Yeah, Dad, I think I’ve got it covered.’ I follow my father out of the kitchen and into his study, and stand in the doorway watching him rifle through papers and manila folders and textbooks. ‘What group? What group did you go to last night?’ I ask, leaning on the door frame.
‘The singles’ group I’ve joined at Re-Relate Australia,’ he says, putting a bill in his mouth as he piles himself up with folders and medical journals. ‘Remember? I think you might have had something to do with it.’
Red flag. Red flag. Big fat bright-red flag.
‘Oh my god, Dad, that’s not why I gave it to you. It’s not a singles’ group it’s a single parents’ support group. You know that, right? Right?’ I say, sounding just a tad hysterical and following him out of the study and along the hall to the front door.
He’s not even listening. His mobile phone has just beeped and now he’s scrolling through a message and laughing out loud.
‘Wendy just sent me her recipe for iced-coffees,’ he says, smiling, not even looking up at me. ‘Gee, she’s a lovely lady. Her husband left her after sixteen years and moved in with one of his female clients. Hasn’t paid Wend a cent of child-support. Mongrel,’ he says, his voice turning suddenly fierce. ‘Remind me tonight that I promised to send her my recipe for fish pie.’
‘Fish pie? I’m sorry, but have we met?’ I scramble to keep up with him as he heads towards the car. But he’s not listening – too busy attempting to text something back to ‘Wend’. This is not how things were supposed to go. He’s supposed to be learning how to work things out with Mum. Not trading recipes with other women.
What on earth have I done?
Mr Ashton’s in one of his Dead Poets Society moods in Extension English and decides to conduct the entire lesson outside under the trees. Due to nothing else other than the fact that the UNIVERSE HATES ME, Prue and I end up being squashed behind Luke and Joel for the entire lesson. At first, Joel’s solution is to pretend I don’t exist, but Luke says to him, ‘First I sit on an ants’ nest, now I get Cat Davis’s shoes up my arse. You’d think she could scrunch up a bit.’ He and Joel snigger like the children they are. Luke ducks around, presumably demonstrating scrunching. Joel thinks that’s hilarious.
Meanwhile Mr Ashton is holding court from the wooden bench he’s sitting on, leaning forward, trying to get us excited about the ‘write what you know’ creative-writing strategy.
‘Did you know that most novelists write incredibly autobiographical first novels? So don’t be afraid to use your own experiences with the short story you’ve got to write for English this term. Or even for the tandem-story unit. If you know about skateboarding, use it. If you know about raves, or working at McDonald’s or what it’s like to have five older brothers, use
that. David Malouf, Jane Austen, Bryce Courtenay – three very different writers – all used their own life experience to write their novels.’
When Mr Ashton moves on to answering Jason Lamey’s question about the difference between second and third person, I hear Luke whisper to Joel in a voice deliberately loud enough for Prue and me to hear, ‘If he wants us to write about what we know, guess I’ll have to turn my character into a sex god who’s constantly banging chicks.’
Luke laughs at his own joke. Joel smiles. I grunt in disgust and say, ‘Like you’ve ever had sex, Luke Pickett.’
He rolls his eyes at Joel and then turns and whispers, ‘What would you know, Davis? For your information I had sex last weekend.’
‘Yeah?’ I say, nodding my head at him. ‘Well, I hope she gave you a receipt.’
Joel laughs. Prue laughs. Luke frowns and struggles to think of a comeback. Meanwhile I sit back, smug, and enjoy the rest of Mr Ashton’s class.
I don’t get to check my email and read Joel’s paragraph until I’m logged on to one of the student computers in the library during morning tea.
What the hell is absinthe? And what’s with the cat with a capital C drowning in the frickin’ custard remark? He’s trying to screw up this story. A rage begins to swell inside me. For just a second there this morning, when he laughed at my joke, he seemed nearly human. I can’t believe I let my guard down. You want a literary war, Joel Hedges? You got –
‘Are you emailing Joel?’ I spin around and see Emma standing behind me, sporting a horrified expression. ‘Are you and Joel emailing each other?’
‘No, okay, yes, but –’
Emma holds up her hand to my face and says, ‘OH. MY. GOD.’
‘No, Em,’ I grab her arm, which she tries to pull away. ‘No, see, Mr Ashton put us together to do a tandem-story assignment. We have to email each other every day with a new paragraph. That’s all. Nothing else. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get upset.’