by Susan Green
When the waitress came back with his coffee, he saw that she had a tattoo on her forearm. Mon famille, it read, in swirly script. The French conversation lessons they’d taken a couple of years ago flashed briefly through his mind. She had it wrong; it should be ma famille. And why did she have ‘my family’ written in French on her arm? Why would you need that, anyway – a reminder of your origins every time you picked your nose or scratched your arse – when it was in you, in your blood and bone and each tiny skin cell? Christ!
‘How are you feeling, Tom?’ It was Paula.
‘Annoyed. Don’t you think a tattooist has a duty to get it right? You know, spelling or grammar or, you know, French . . . And don’t say it, Paula. Not again. For Christ’s sake.’
‘Say what?’
‘Oh, Tom.’ He was a good mimic, but she wasn’t offended. She rested her head on his shoulder.
‘Don’t be nasty to her, Tommy. She can’t help it.’
‘She’s just so fucking bossy. Always has been. D’you remember what Beatie called her? “The little madam.”’
‘I know. But that doesn’t mean she can’t be hurt.’
‘And then Beatie would say, “Come on, Tommy, be nice. It’s not her fault. She’s never had a mum.” You know what, Paula? None of us did.’
‘There were some good times, Tom.’
‘Right now, I can’t remember them. Poor old Dad, eh? He couldn’t hack it, could he? I don’t blame him, not really.’
‘Don’t blame any of them.’
‘Are you trying for a sainthood, sister mine?’
‘Fuck off, Tommy.’
He put his arm around her and they stayed like that until Anne came out with Tom’s mobile in her hand.
ANNE TAKES CHARGE
It was Roly.
Tom heard the words ‘aggressive’, ‘urgent’, ‘surgeon’ and repeated them like a dull child learning a lesson. He ended the call and handed the mobile back to Anne.
‘It’s your phone, Tom,’ she said, and he stared at it, bemused, as if he’d never seen it before. ‘Tell us what he said.’
‘They’re operating next Tuesday.’ He looked from one concerned face to the other. Paula’s eyes were filling with tears, but it was Anne who took charge.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You need to get back to Sydney. It’s nearly three; it shouldn’t be too hard to get a flight. I’ll drive you to the airport.’
‘But what about Mark and Olive? They’re expecting me.’ He was to have stayed with his old business partner and his wife in Northcote. ‘And there’s Bliss’s flat, and –’
‘We’ll sort it all out. Paula can ring Mark and explain. We’ll tell Bliss what’s happened. Come on.’ She guided him back to their table, helped him on with his jacket and led him to her car.
Relief washed over him. He was going home. It was just happening, without any effort on his part. Anne threaded her way through the traffic, overtaking and changing lanes with careful calm. She was a good driver, thank Christ, not like Paula. He loved Paula to bits but he didn’t need her overflowing sympathy or her nerves. By the time Anne joined the freeway, the tight feeling in his chest had unclenched. He took a deep breath in and then released it. It sounded as if he was sighing.
‘Thank you, Anne,’ he said. He was sorry he’d been cruel.
‘There’s no need. What would I do – make you take the airport bus?’
‘Thank you,’ he said again. ‘I mean it.’
‘So – with Bliss – it’s all right now?’
So much for timing, he thought. Or tact. No segue. Anne didn’t have Paula’s timid antennae, always quivering for sensitivities.
‘I mean, now you’ve talked about it.’
Oh, God. Let’s talk about it. The mantra of the age, straight from the women’s pages, the self-help books. He hesitated over a snarky response, and then let it go. He felt like telling the truth – or, rather, he was too tired not to. And he was grateful for Anne’s competence and calm; there was even a genuine dawning of warmth. Her car insulated him from the grey day outside, the wind and spitting rain, the afternoon darkening already towards evening. A capsule, a cocoon, a travelling confessional . . .
‘Yes and no. Actually, I feel like the biggest bastard ever. She . . . oh, fuck, how lame this sounds: she loved me – loves me – more than I knew. I guess that’s the way it is; you don’t get it when you’re a kid, how your parents love you. The things they do for you. I’d forgotten . . . You know – or do you? – that Dad was pretty much gutted when I came out? We never really talked about it.’ He shook his head. ‘It was Bliss who made it okay. I’d forgotten. She’d had gay friends for most of her adult life, it was no big deal for her. Somehow she normalised it for Dad, and he – well, you remember, towards the end he was even a bit of a crusader for gay rights. He got over himself, as Bliss would say. He got brave. But the thing is, Anne . . . Shit.’
Anne turned off the freeway towards the airport. ‘It might do you good to tell me about it, Tom.’
And it might do you good to shut the fuck up, Anne.
But the cat was out of the bag, the balloon had gone up, the floodgates were open.
‘I’ve always secretly, not so secretly, blamed Bliss for Caroline’s death. It was easier that way. Because – how perfect – she was the wicked stepmother. I’ve been angry with her forever. But now I have to ask myself: how could she have saved Caro? There was no way she could have. It was Dad and I – her men – we should have been there.’ There were tears on his face now. ‘We failed Mum and then we failed Caro. We could have, should have . . .’
‘Mum had a mental illness, Tom. You can’t blame yourself for that.’ Anne tried to revive some memories of Caroline but nothing came except shouting, slammed doors, the smell of a joint from the backyard shed. ‘And Caroline made her choices.’
‘Mental illness? Choices? Jesus, Anne!’ Tom saw their mother and Caroline staring, wide-eyed and uncomprehending, as Anne reduced their blooming, buzzing, exploding, crashing, crushing worlds to a pair of trite labels. ‘You imagine it. Try. Try to imagine being so fucked up that nothing in your life actually works. You can’t even fake it, you can’t –’ His voice was trembling, and he stopped.
‘I’m not angry with you,’ he continued. ‘You were just a kid. How could you understand? Or Bliss, for that matter. How could someone like Bliss possibly get it? Caroline didn’t believe in herself. She didn’t feel real. I suppose in a way that’s normal for a teenager, but you go searching, you find yourself. But Caro – I don’t think she ever trusted or believed that if she went looking, she’d find anything at all. So there was no stopping point for her. Most of us get it, you know? Christ, even I did. It’s a kind of survival instinct, knowing that there has to be a limit to the partying, the booze, the drugs, the sex.’ Tom paused and added softly, ‘Most of us actually want to live.’
‘Well, yes. Exactly.’
Tom wasn’t listening to her. He wasn’t even really talking to her. ‘I understood her. I should have been there, should have reached out for her, even if she didn’t want me to. I should have held her back from the edge.’
You mustn’t blame yourself, was all Anne could come up with in response, but she didn’t say it. For once she was truly embarrassed by her own inadequacy. She wanted to comfort Tom, to draw near to him; she found this closeness almost intoxicating and she wanted him to love her, value her; but she realised – and it was like a glancing blow, felt sharply but only for an instant – that not only did she lack the words, she lacked the courage. The heart. She’d always shied away from the chaos of guilt and grief and loss. It was her survival instinct.
‘Here we are, Tom,’ she said, turning in to the airport entrance.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, Anne. Here we are.’
It wasn’t till nearly ten minutes later, when she was nosing the Landcruiser into a spot in the short-stay car park, that Tom spoke again. The raw pain in his voice was gone, replaced by that familiar teasing
edge.
‘So, what about you, Anne? Did you and Bliss have the talk?’
It was an ambush. ‘What talk?’
‘Oh, come on. It’s your turn. You’ve had this standoff with Bliss for years, since you left home. What do you blame her for?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, please. We all blame her for something.’
‘Paula doesn’t.’
‘You’re right. Saint Paula!’
They both laughed and as she parked the car, Anne argued with herself. She could deny, she could deflect . . . but in doing so, she would terminate this thrilling new intimacy.
She turned off the engine and turned to him. ‘Okay. Blame? I don’t think I blame her. Truly. I mean, she didn’t wreck my life or anything. She wanted me to go to art school and so I did, even though I knew it wasn’t me. I guess I didn’t know what else I wanted to do with my life until . . .’
‘Until what?’
‘Until Andy.’
‘Ah, the happy accident.’
‘Andy wasn’t an accident. He was – well, almost planned. I wanted to get pregnant.’
Anne could tell Tom was surprised. As he would be; the family story had always been how poor little Anne, seduced, abandoned and up the duff, came shining through like a plucky little heroine.
‘I never knew that.’
With a little shiver of satisfaction, she saw herself become instantly more interesting and somehow more substantial in her brother’s eyes.
‘Well, I never told you. I never really told anyone.’
‘What about the father? Or should I say sperm donor?’
Anne shrugged. He was not part of the story. ‘Bliss was disappointed. And she let me know it. Her dream had been shattered, but it was never my dream.’
Art school, then the artist’s life. The future Bliss had planned for her was one of effort, struggle and continual exposure. Seeing her drawings pinned up for the weekly critique sessions, even among all the others, was a nakedness so excruciating that Anne still flinched from the memory. Though she liked to interpret her pregnancy as a bold move outwards, into life, adult life, with responsibilities and ties and obligations, it was really a withdrawal. All she wanted, all she’d ever wanted, was shelter and safety.
‘And anyway, I didn’t have the talent.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I suppose we should try to find you a plane.’
‘I suppose we should.’
After a frustrating hour or so at the various airline booths, they finally moved through the X-ray machines and into the shopping concourse. There was an hour and half before the flight; he told her not to wait with him, but she insisted. They wandered in and out of shops, leafed through magazines in the newsagent, examined the latest in lightweight carry-ons.
‘Sorry, Anne,’ he said at last. ‘I feel really spaced out. Roly missed the check-up before this one. We were going to Brisbane to see his kids and then we were so busy with the renovations when we got back I didn’t even think about it. I should have, shouldn’t I?’
She shook her head. Her voice was flat. ‘I don’t know, Tom.’
He’d expected a different response. Something comforting, banal, like You couldn’t have known. Or perhaps, It’s not your fault. She’s exhausted, he realised. He wouldn’t usually have noticed, or cared. He put his hand on her arm.
‘Don’t wait, Anne. You’ve had a big day. I’m all right now.’
‘If you’re sure . . .’
‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’ Suddenly he was over it. The lot. Melbourne, Rosevale, the flat; Bliss and his sisters, all three of them. He wanted Anne to leave him now. He wanted to be in the air and then out into the night catching a cab. He wanted to walk down the stone-flagged path and open his door and be home.
‘Goodbye then, Tom.’
He gave her a quick peck on the cheek for goodbye, but as she turned away he surprised them both by taking her in his arms.
‘It’s all right, Tom.’ She moved a little in his grip but still he held her. ‘It will be all right.’
‘I don’t know if I can do it.’
He meant waiting rooms and trolleys and curtained beds; blood tests and chemo and radiotherapy; skin rashes, mouth ulcers, vomit; macrobiotic diets and homeopathic injections and mega-vitamins. And over all of this, the pall of illness, ashen and pale, leaking into the air like poison gas. He saw everything that scared him, everything he hated. He saw his mother, the blood, the white coats, the long linoleum corridors.
‘Roly needs you. You can do it.’
Oh, little Annie, he thought. You can’t begin to imagine . . .
‘You’re right. Just think – someone needs me. That’ll be a change, won’t it?’ Laughing, he let her go.
Tom boarded with an unaccustomed feeling of fluster and unease, and the deep thrumming of the engines brought up a nagging anxiety about air crashes that made him, for once, pay attention to the safety routine.
But the plane lifted off and began to climb, and he could feel a kind of relieved calm emanating from the other passengers and the cabin crew. The flight was only half full; there was no-one next to him and the row behind was empty so he reclined his seat and told himself to settle. But he still felt odd, out of himself, unformed like one of those blobby moving things you see under a microscope. No, not one of them. They had boundaries, however ill-defined. This brief time with Bliss and the girls had left him with a sense that they’d bled into him somehow. He wasn’t his own Tom any more but some pathetic porous half-self.
‘Fuck them,’ he thought, accepting a drink.
As the alcohol softened his mood, his mind realigned itself, stretching up and forward to Roly and leaving Bliss, Anne and Paula back there down on the ground. The sticky filaments that joined them stretched and then broke. Sick Roly dissolved into Roly right now, stressing over paint samples and fabric swatches. Caroline, always and forever a part of him, whispered something revisionist in his ear and he decided, in a lazy sort of way, that if Caroline had invented some weird story about her paternity, it was because she needed to. It was because she’d always felt fatherless. He wasn’t angry with her any more. The lies were, somehow, justified.
Tom looked out the window at the shining empty plateau of clouds. When he was a little kid, he thought heaven must be like this and never wanted to go. He briefly pictured Bliss, pathetic and shrunken in her bed. There’d been tears from both of them; genuine tears.
Now, coming back to himself, Tom felt he was due for a little congratulation. Not only had he got through the whole thing, he’d done well, hadn’t he? He’d pitied her. Forgiven her. Understood her. He’d truly acknowledged the love she’d given him.
Roly sometimes accused Tom of hypocrisy, for the way he could mirror someone in their presence but, once the intensity of connection faded, would make an about-face and disavow something he’d said and even truly believed earlier. The further from Bliss he travelled, the more the old pattern re-established itself, although the blame was now like a variety of nostalgia, not sharp or bitter but blurred, non-specific, almost comforting.
By the time Tom landed, nothing much had changed.
HOME
On the way out of the airport, Anne stopped at the cafe they’d been to that morning. She ordered a pot of tea, then changed her mind.
‘I’ll have a hot chocolate,’ she said, and then found herself pointing to the hummingbird cake under a glass cloche on the counter. She knew she should drop five kilos, but she’d been caring for other people all day. It was cold. She had a long drive home in the rain.
She’d bought a magazine for Tom but he’d forgotten to take it. It was Vanity Fair, with Johnny Depp on the cover; not something she’d have chosen for herself, but Tom would have enjoyed it. It would have taken his mind off Roly during the flight, and he would have known about all these magnates, actors and celebrities. She read about a young designer who had his own line of ultra-luxe seamless T-shirts, liked to stay at the Regency in New York, drove a matt-black Rub
icon jeep and supported Beagle Rescue. She skimmed advertisements for skin care and handbags and lingerie. The inside back page featured Stacey Bass, a New York socialite and philanthropist (did these people even exist?), giving trite answers to a list of trite questions.
The first was: When have you been happiest? and the reply: Every moment is my happiest. It’s such a privilege to be alive.
When have you been happiest, Anne?
Her wedding day? No, it was when Jake, her second child, was born. She was happy because she had what she wanted, what she’d always wanted – a husband, children, a family. A happy family. So happy that all her friends commented on it.
The last question: What is your motto?
Live with all your heart, said Stacey Bass.
This is just a stupid questionnaire in a stupid magazine, Anne told herself, turning to the back cover and a glossy full-page image of a watch. The Roman numerals were encrusted with diamonds. Anne concentrated her scorn on the watch, but there it was, on the page underneath. Live with all your heart. Live with all your heart.
What if you can’t do that? she thought. What do you do then?
She upended her mug to get at the last of her drink and the chocolaty sludge on the bottom was so sweet it made her teeth ache.
The outside light wasn’t on, but the back door was unlocked. Anne let herself in and walked through the dark house towards the sound of the TV, stumbling over a pair of boots in the hall and finally opening the door to find Matty and Maura side by side on the couch. A pair of dirty bowls sat on the coffee table in front of them.
‘Anne!’ said Matty. He sounded more shocked than surprised. ‘I thought you were staying down tonight.’
‘I was, but I had to take Tom to the airport, so I came on home. I texted you.’
‘I haven’t looked at my phone.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You must be tired. Do you want a cuppa? I’ll make you one.’