by James Roy
‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Dad asked as I buckled up my seatbelt.
‘Oh, just this guy whose bag busted open,’ I answered. ‘I got him a new one. See? Community service.’
‘Nice one,’ he said, nodding. ‘You’re a good kid, Betty.’
Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed something big and white in the back of the car. I turned and looked, and saw a large box wedged in beside Richie’s car seat. ‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘That? I bought it.’
This wasn’t really much of a surprise, to be honest. ‘But what is it?’ I asked him again. Then, so I wouldn’t have to wait for him to answer, I reached back and turned it so I could see the printing on the side. ‘An expresso machine?’
He sighed. ‘It’s not “expresso”, it’s “espresso”.’
‘Isn’t that basically just a coffee machine? We’ve already got one of those,’ I said, because we did. It was quite expensive when Mum and Dad first bought it, but I felt pretty sure that it wouldn’t have cost as much as this one. This one looked ex-pen-sive!
‘This, my love, is a better espresso machine than the one we’ve already got,’ Dad said. ‘Much better.’
‘Was it expensive?’
That was when he made a face that said three things, all at once. His expression said, ‘Oh yes, it was very expensive’. It also said, ‘But it was so worth it!’ And the third thing it said was, ‘Your mum is going to be pretty mad about how much money I just spent on this thing’.
When we got home, Dad followed me down the hallway to the kitchen carrying the huge box from the back seat of the car. Mum was sitting on the couch folding clothes, and as he came in, she looked up, and a puzzled sort of expression came across her face.
‘What have you got there, Marty?’ she asked him.
I thought about telling her that it was an espresso machine, since it said so right there on the side of the box, but then I figured that she could probably read better than me, so unless she’d forgotten how, she must have had another reason for asking.
‘I’ve wanted one of these for a while,’ Dad said. ‘It was on special.’
‘Seriously, Marty? I thought we talked about this last night.’
‘It wasn’t really this,’ Dad said.
‘No, it was things like this. Things exactly like this.’
Dad dumped the box on the kitchen counter. ‘Look, I don’t feel like discussing it right now.’
‘No, well, don’t you dare unpack that thing – not until we’ve had a little chat.’
I took a deep breath. I know what it means when Mum says ‘a little chat’, although I doubted that Dad was about to be sent to his room or have his pocket money cut in half.
‘Lizzie . . .’ Mum said.
But I’d already started heading for the stairs. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m going. I’ll be upstairs practising my spelling words,’ I said.
I don’t want you to think that I’m sneaky, because I’m not, but I have to confess that I didn’t go straight to my room. I stopped for a little while at the top of the stairs. And while I didn’t hear the whole conversation, the bits I heard were these: Mum was saying stuff like, ‘I think it’s symptomatic, Marty,’ and ‘You can’t push that feeling away by buying more things,’ and ‘It has to stop, Marty,’ and ‘You need to see someone.’ And Dad was saying stuff like, ‘It’s not a symptom of anything!’ and ‘What? It’s got nothing to do with that!’ and ‘Who are you – my mother?’ and ‘Oh, and what would they tell me? That I’m crazy, or nasty, or just pathetic?’
After a while, because I couldn’t make any sense at all out of these different bits of conversation, I did go to my room. But I couldn’t practise my spelling, because I’d left my spelling sheets downstairs, and I wasn’t going to head back down there while such a confusing conversation was going on. So then I thought I would call Jenni, just for a chat, before I remembered that it was early on a Wednesday afternoon, and she would still be at school.
With Amanda Jenkins.
And that just made me cry.
Shortly after that I heard the front door close, and when I looked out my window, I saw Dad driving away, with the big white box in the back seat.
And even though I wasn’t sure why, that made me cry even harder.
CHAPTER 19
A little while after Dad had left to return the espresso machine – and luckily after my eyes weren’t red from crying any more – Mum came upstairs and told me that I had to catch up on the schoolwork I’d missed while I was away for the morning.
Catch up? Did that mean I was falling behind? How? Hadn’t she noticed that I was the only kid in her class? (Unless you count Richie, that is, who would rather eat a crayon than write with it. And Muppet, who just lay at my feet and snored all day.) But I didn’t want to cause the second fight of the day, so I asked her what she thought I should be doing.
‘Have you decided yet on who you’re going to interview for your project?’ she asked.
‘Maybe. Is Dad okay?’
‘Yes. So, the project –’
‘And are you okay?’
‘Yes, Lizzie, I’m fine.’
‘And how about you and Dad – are you okay?’
That was when Mum gave me that special ‘we’re not talking about this any more’ stare that she only takes out once in a while. ‘So, who is it you’re doing the project on?’
‘I said I’d “maybe” decided, not “definitely”.’
‘Can you give me a hint? Because if you need me to help set up the interview –’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, because it was. ‘I’ll organise it. Actually, I’ve kind of already started.’ (This was also quite true.)
Mum raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘You’ve already organised your interview?’
‘Kind of,’ I answered. ‘So, do you want me to work on it?’
‘Sure,’ she said.
‘But you’re not allowed to look,’ I said.
‘If you want to do it all on your own, that’s entirely up to you,’ Mum said. ‘How about you work on it until three o’clock, then you’re done for the day.’
At ten past three I put my books away and texted Jenni, telling her to call me when she could talk. I really wanted to tell her about my day.
She didn’t reply to the text, so I lay on my bed and played some games for a while, and talked to Muppet, and tried not to get impatient, which is really hard to do.
‘Why won’t she even text me back?’ I asked Muppet (even though he’s a dog, and like I’ve said before, dogs can’t talk). ‘I bet she’s with that horrible Amanda Jenkins.’
A little while later, the phone rang. It was Jenni.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘Hey.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At home. Where else would I be?’
I was about to say, ‘You might have been at Amanda’s house, being her best friend,’ but somehow I managed to stop myself saying it. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said instead. ‘Can I tell you about my day?’
‘Why? Oh, yeah, the poor-people clothes shop.’
‘Don’t call it that,’ I said. ‘It’s the Helping Hands shop. They have all kinds of different things there. Do you want to hear what they have?’
‘Sure,’ she replied.
So I started listing all the stuff they had at the shop, which I think might have been a bit dull for Jenni, because after a while I was sure I heard her yawn.
‘Am I boring you?’ I asked.
‘Sorry,’ she answered. ‘But seriously, Lizzie, I’ve been to that place with Mum heaps of times. I already know what they sell there.’
‘Yeah, but there’s a whole bunch of other stuff out the back that we haven’t put out in the shop yet,’ I said.
‘Like what?’
‘Well, last night someone left a box at the back door, and when we opened it, it was full of bits of car.’
‘Which bits?’ she asked.
‘How would I know what bits they were? I don’t know anything about cars! But there were heaps of these bits. They were all metal and plastic and stuff, and bendy with springs and wires and things, and they had grease on them.’
‘And whoever left them there thought you could sell them?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Maybe if you collect enough bits of car, you could put them all together and make an actual car!’ Jenni suggested.
‘Yeah, maybe!’ I said, even though I knew that it was a silly suggestion, and couldn’t possibly work.
Could it?
I was about to tell her about Mum and Dad’s argument, but her mum said that she had to do her own homework, so she had to go. ‘I guess you’ve finished your homework for today,’ she said to me.
‘Yeah, all done.’
She sighed. ‘You are so lucky.’
*
Dad didn’t come down for dinner that night, which was surprising, since Dad never misses a chance to eat. In fact, sometimes I think he eats just because it makes him happy. (But please don’t tell him I said that.)
‘Where is he?’ I asked Mum.
‘Upstairs. He’s not feeling well.’
I wasn’t sure what to say about that. Basically, it felt to me like he was having a monster-sized tantrum because Mum had made him take the coffee machine back. And if that was the case, he’d still be hungry, because I’ve always found that tantrums make you hungrier.
That was why, as soon as I’d finished eating my spaghetti bolognese and taken my plate to the dishwasher, I headed straight upstairs.
Dad was lying on his and Mum’s bed, just staring at the window. Or maybe it was at the alarm clock beside the bed. But definitely staring.
‘Hey, Dad,’ I said. ‘Do you want some dinner?’
He didn’t even look at me. ‘I’m fine thanks, Betty,’ he said in a really flat voice.
‘But it’s a wonderfully rich meat and tomato sauce infected with just a hint of basil –’
‘Infused,’ he said, still not looking at me.
‘What?’
‘It’s infused with basil, not infected.’
‘Infused with basil. And it’s served on a bed of squiggles. It’s very good. I give it four stars.’
‘Maybe I’ll have some later,’ he said. ‘I’m not very hungry at the moment.’
‘Oh. Do you want anything? A glass of water? A cup of tea?’
Finally he looked at me. ‘A cup of tea would be lovely, Betty. Thank you.’
‘And then I’m going to put out the big bin,’ I added, because it was Wednesday night, and I didn’t want him to have to think about reminding me. I was pretty sure he had enough on his mind already.
As I left the room, I almost ran into Mum, who’d been standing at the door, listening. And as I went past her, she just cupped her hand on the back of my neck and kissed the top of my head.
You know what’s weird, though? The next morning, it was as if nothing had ever happened. Dad came downstairs while I was having my bowl of cornflakes, and he was chatty, and happy, and he was even singing (although I wasn’t sure what song it was, since the words didn’t make any sense at all). But the most weird thing was that he didn’t say anything about having to use his old coffee machine instead of the new one he could’ve had. Or that he did have for a little while, until he had to return it.
I did notice one thing, though: when he gave Mum a hug in the middle of the kitchen floor, it was a bit longer than it would normally have been.
But later on in the day, everything came crashing down again.
CHAPTER 20
It was lunchtime, and I’d been washing my hands before lunch. (My teacher was very particular about hygiene, you see.) I came back into the kitchen wiping my hands on the seat of my jeans. Mum was at the table feeding Richie some kind of browny-orangey mush, and Dad was there too, making a coffee. And he didn’t look happy. He wasn’t happy. I knew he wasn’t happy because of the way he was using all these jerky, cranky movements. He jammed the coffee powder stuff down into the silver thing that has the handle, slid it into the machine really roughly, and pressed the button so hard that I thought he was going to push the machine right off the bench. I wondered if he was trying to break it, so he could go back to the shop again and buy the new, expensive one he’d had to return.
‘You okay, Dad?’ I asked him.
‘What’s that, Betty?’
‘You seem cranky about something.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, but I could totally tell that he was lying. It was mainly the coffee tantrum, but I also saw the way the muscles around his jaw were all tight, and that’s usually a pretty good clue with most people, but with my dad in particular.
‘You don’t seem fine,’ I said. ‘You’re all –’
‘Lizzie,’ Mum said, and she made a tiny little shake of the head.
‘But –’
‘Lizzie.’ Another head shake.
I couldn’t work out what was going on. Shakes of the head usually either mean ‘no’, as in ‘No, Lizzie, don’t push your little brother down the stairs again’, or ‘I can’t believe it’, as in ‘I can’t believe you actually pushed him after I told you not to!’
But these head shakes from Mum weren’t really very clear ones. I knew they meant ‘no’, but I couldn’t work out why she was telling me not to ask Dad if he was okay.
Meanwhile Dad had started thumping his fist against something on the side of the coffee machine. ‘See, this is why I thought I’d get a new one of these things!’ he said in time with the thumps.
‘Marty!’ Mum said.
‘The doo-hickey on the side has come loose!’ he said. ‘That’s why it’s not frothing properly! I hate you, you piece of –’
‘Marty! Marty, it’s fine.’
‘It’s not fine!’ he snapped. He pulled out the top drawer beside the stove and started rummaging around in it. ‘Where is it? Where is the stupid thing?’
‘Where’s what stupid thing?’ Mum asked.
‘The little screwdriver with the red handle.’
‘I don’t know, Marty,’ she replied. ‘Probably in the garage.’
‘If it was in the garage I’d be getting it out of the garage, wouldn’t I?’ he said.
He slammed the drawer shut, grabbed the small knife from the knife block that stands beside the microwave oven, and bent down beside the coffee machine, muttering to himself.
‘Marty, don’t use a knife to do that – use a screwdriver,’ Mum said.
‘I can’t find my screwdriver! Oh!’ Dad yelped, dropping the knife on the floor and spinning away from the bench, holding his hands close together. Then he said a word I’d heard heaps of times in Mass, but never when someone had just cut themselves.
‘Oh Marty,’ Mum said, standing up and handing him a tea towel. ‘Let me see. Is it bad?’
‘No, it’s great! It’s fantastic! What do you think?’ he snapped. He snatched the tea towel from her and wrapped it around his bleeding hand, then stomped away up the stairs.
‘Is he okay?’ I asked Mum, who looked as though she was about to cry. This surprised me – I’d cut and scratched myself heaps of times, and I’d never seen her cry about it.
‘He’ll be fine, Lizzie,’ Mum said. ‘I don’t think it’ll need stitches.’ She was behind the bench now, picking up the knife and checking the pointy tip, which was all bent and crooked from being used as a screwdriver. ‘Well, that’s completely ruined,’ she said, sliding it back into the knife block.
‘But Dad was cranky before he cut himself,’ I said, because he had been. ‘Why was he so cross?’
‘Bad review,’ she said.
‘Someone gave him a bad review?’
‘No, he wrote a bad review. Do you remember the one about the German restaurant?’
‘Yuck Sausage?’
‘Yes, Yuck Sausage. Well, they want to take him to court.’
‘Over a food review? That’s crazy,’ I said,
because I thought it was. ‘The food was horrible.’
‘How would you know what the food was like?’
I shrugged. Wasn’t it obvious? ‘Because Dad said it was, and he’s . . . like, it’s what he does. He’s a food eating and describing and marking guy. That’s what food reviewers do, Mum!’
A bit of a smile was playing on Mum’s lips. ‘Quite right. But it’s still shaken him up.’
‘Maybe the people who own the restaurant were a bit shaken up by what he wrote,’ I suggested, which I still think was a very good point. ‘So maybe he should be a bit tougher.’
‘You mean he should write a worse review?’ Mum chuckled. ‘Yeah, why don’t you go upstairs and suggest that to him while he’s bandaging up his finger?’
‘No, I mean maybe he needs to be tougher when people say they hate something he writes.’
‘They’ve threatened to sue him, Lizzie – it’s a bit more than hating his review. And they’ve insisted on a full apology.’
‘What, he has to go in there and say sorry?’
‘They want him to apologise in the newspaper, and say that he made a mistake.’
‘That’s stupid!’ I said, which it was.
‘Yes, well, he has a lot to think about at the moment, so go easy on him,’ Mum said. ‘I’m going to go up and see if his finger is still attached to his hand, and then I have to go and grab something for dinner, so I’d like you to keep going with those maths problems you were working on.’
I groaned. ‘I hate maths.’
‘I know. But I don’t care. Go.’
So I went and did my maths problems, and a little while after that I heard Mum come back down into the kitchen.
‘Is he okay?’ I called out.
‘He’s fine. It wasn’t that bad at all, once the bleeding stopped. I’m just making him a coffee, then I’ll go to the supermarket.’
She seemed to take forever giving him his coffee, but finally she came back down. The second I heard her drive away, I left my pages of numbers and went upstairs.
Dad was in his study, sitting at his desk with his chin resting on one hand (he had a couple of big brown plasters on his sore finger), while the other hand slowly turned his cup around and around on the desk. I was going to say something, but then I thought of another better thing I could do, and I walked over and began to massage his shoulders. They were really tight, but when I started rubbing I felt them relax, just a little. Plus he kind of sighed.