The Things We Promise

by J. C. Burke

  ‘Come to my place when Billy and Saul are home,’ I answered. ‘They have this good friend Aunty Mame. She does shows where she calls herself Madame Tutti Frutti, and she wears these amazing headdresses with bananas and oranges.’

  ‘So you say “she” even though …’

  ‘Yeah. I know it’s confusing.’

  ‘And she’s not your actual aunty?’

  ‘No!’ I laughed. ‘She’s called “Aunty” because she helps guys come out. She shows them around town and introduces them to other guys,’ I explained. ‘If you’ve come from the country to get away from your family because they don’t know you’re queer, or rather they don’t want to know you because you are queer, then you arrive in the big city and it’s really scary. That’s where the aunties help.’

  ‘That’s way cool.’

  It was easy talking to Louise Lovejoy. She didn’t hog the conversation. She was a good listener and her mind didn’t just shut down when she heard something a bit different. Once I’d tried to explain the ‘Aunty’ thing to Andrea’s mother. I was almost halfway through the explanation when I noticed Deidre’s nose was starting to screw up like someone had let off a fart. I cut the story short because I suddenly felt embarrassed.

  I was still dying to ask Louise about Simon Finkler. A few days ago, I’d almost had the chance because I saw Bronnie Perry walk up to Louise Lovejoy and say something. I was sure it had to be bad but when I asked Louise if she was okay she’d simply said, ‘Fine. Bronnie was just asking if the buses are still on strike this afternoon.’

  The Fink and Bronnie Perry had broken up, but it still didn’t make sense. Why would the girl who’d rearranged your face ask you a mundane question about the bus? Actually, why would she speak to you at all? And why would you speak back? There was something suss and it was going to be a delicate extraction to get the real story out of Louise. But now wasn’t the time.

  ‘I’d better go,’ I told Louise. ‘My mum and Aunty Penny will be home in a minute and I’ll be majorly busted if they find out I’m using the phone in the bath.’

  I went into Mum’s room and used her hair dryer because mine was about to die and had been taking an hour to dry three hairs. Mum’s rule was that I had to wait until it cooled down before I put it back in her cupboard or it might set the flat on fire.

  While I waited, I stood in front of the mirror pretending I was asking Ralph to be my partner at the formal because, let’s face it, he wasn’t going to ask me.

  I began by smiling at my reflection. ‘Hi, Ralph.’

  Hi, Gemma. How’re you going?

  ‘I’m good.’ I nodded in a coy kind of way because I didn’t want to seem like a full-on stalker. ‘How are you?’

  Good. I keep thinking about that dance you did at the Fink’s party. It was cool.

  ‘Really?’ I shrugged and gave a giggle. A husky one. Not a girly one.

  Yeah. You’re a good dancer, Gemma.

  Suddenly real voices echoed down the hall. ‘Pizzas are here. One minus anchovies.’

  I took the yellow envelope off Mum’s bedside table and wandered into the kitchen.

  ‘Hey, I found these in your drawer, Mum. They are way cool. Saul looks incredible.’

  Mum dropped the pizzas on the table, but one of the boxes fell onto the floor.

  ‘I’ll fix that,’ Aunty Penny said, dropping to her knees.

  ‘I hope that’s one with anchovies.’ I laughed. ‘Because I’m starving.’ Mum was staring at me. ‘What?’ I said.

  Her keys were in one hand and the other kept hitting the table. Not hard, more like a slow, rhythmical thud. Thud … thud … thud … And then I understood: she was trying to think of something to say.

  ‘Why were you going through my drawers, Gemma?’

  ‘I was looking for the swatches,’ I told her. ‘I couldn’t find them anywhere.’

  Aunty Penny was furiously digging through Mum’s bag. She pulled out a package. ‘We accidently took them with us. I like the black velvet the best too.’

  ‘Do you?’ I mumbled, because I was busy watching Mum walk out of the kitchen – or rather the way she was walking out of the kitchen

  ‘Is Mum drunk?’ I asked Penny.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, what’s her problem? She’s walking funny. And she’s acting funny too!’

  Penny was fussing around. Opening and closing cupboards, getting out plates and glasses. ‘She mentioned she was feeling a bit sick.’

  ‘Well, that’s a lot of pizza for just you and me to eat. Or rather you, Penny, because the margherita is mine.’

  I opened the envelope and showed the photo of Saul to Penny. ‘Have you seen this? How amazing does Saul look?’ Penny was nodding and I couldn’t work out why she wasn’t saying how incredible my brother’s work was. ‘Saul’s written this cryptic message on the back. Thanks to my love, you’d never know,’ I read. ‘Never know what? That’s he’s actually a human and not a real zebra?’

  Aunty Penny didn’t laugh at my joke. Instead she left the room, muttering something about the toilet. But I saw her go into Mum’s bedroom and close the door.

  ‘Schizo sisters!’ I muttered to myself.

  I ate the margherita pizza. I flicked through the Woman’s Day that had been sticking out of Penny’s bag, along with a pamphlet for a Bachelor and Spinster Ball. But mostly I listened to the muffled cheers of the soccer game Mr C was watching upstairs. Really, what I was waiting for was my mother’s laughter as Aunty Penny snapped her out of whatever mood she was in.

  But there was nothing.

  I stood up and left the table, feeling merely curious. But once I was there, standing outside my mother’s closed bedroom door, my sense of ‘bad’ loomed up out of nowhere and wrapped its hands around my neck.

  There are moments when silence feels like the loudest noise you can actually hear. Right now, in the hall, it was beyond deafening.

  Something had happened. I could feel it. The ‘bad’ was bubbling up through the carpet, seeping through the walls.

  I didn’t knock. Instead I barged into Mum’s room. ‘What’s going on?’ I demanded.

  Mum and Aunty Penny were sitting on the bed, holding hands. But when they saw me, they let go. If they weren’t sisters, I would’ve been suspicious they were having an affair because they both had guilt pasted all over their faces.

  ‘I know you’re hiding something. Both of you.’

  ‘What on earth would we be hiding?’ Penny said.

  ‘You tell me!’

  ‘Gemma, what are you suggesting?’ Penny continued.

  ‘Well, if I knew I wouldn’t have to ask, would I?’

  ‘Why are you raising your voice at your aunt?’ Mum said.

  ‘Because!’ I suddenly yelled really, really loudly because I wasn’t going to be shooshed this time. I wasn’t going to be answered with another question or told ‘it’s complicated’. The ‘bad’ was strangling me now. Its hands were so tight around my throat I could barely catch a breath. ‘Because neither of you are talking to me!’

  ‘Put your voice down. We live in a block of flats.’

  So I snarled at my mother instead. ‘You’ve gone all weird. And I want to know why!’

  ‘What have I done that’s weird?’

  ‘Yes. How’s your mother being weird?’ Penny added.

  ‘I know what you’re both doing!’ I snapped. ‘You’re answering my questions with other questions. Don’t worry, I do know your tactics by now.’

  No answer from them. They knew they’d been caught red-handed.

  ‘Since we found out Matt Leong died, you haven’t been yourself, Mum,’ I started. ‘You barely got out of bed for ten days and now you’ve gone on this cleaning, sewing frenzy. I can handle the sewing but not the cleaning. The cleaning is seriously weirding me out. And … and it’s not me being Polly Pessimistic. I know when things aren’t right, and don’t say it’s complicated! Tell me. Now!’

  Aunty Penny stood up and left the room,
closing the door behind her. Suddenly I was terrified.

  ‘Mum?’

  Mum was peering up at me. ‘Sit next to me, Gem,’ she said softly.

  So I did. Mum took my hands, curling her fingers over mine, swaddling them in her palms until both her hands were wrapped over them.

  ‘Mum, you’re scaring me,’ I whispered.

  Mum took a deep breath in. The air heaved through her nose like she was trying to suck up courage. She held it in for a moment, then the awful words escaped with a single breath. ‘Saul has been sick. Very sick.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that he’s been very sick.’

  ‘And he’s …’

  ‘He’s not going to get better, Gemma.’

  I didn’t scream and cry the way I’d imagined I would if I heard bad news about someone I loved. It was more like I suddenly couldn’t move and inside, my body had gone very, very quiet and still.

  ‘Is it …’

  Mum nodded.

  ‘No!’ A sob escaped. ‘What about Billy? Is he …’

  She shook her head.

  I started crying. I buried my head in Mum’s lap and cried so hard it scared me. I was crying because I loved Saul and I didn’t want him to die. But mixed in there were sobs of relief because my brother was okay.

  I could’ve stayed cradled in my mother’s lap all night. But I actually started to feel like I was drowning in my tears. I’d always thought that was just a saying. Yet at that moment, I couldn’t breathe. My nose was blocked, my face was wet and there was liquid gurgling in my throat.

  When I sat up Aunty Penny was back, sitting on the bed too, and we were all drowning in our tears. Saul was dying of AIDS. It’d started with a cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma. Aunty Penny wrote the two words on paper. Ka-po-si’s sar-coma.

  It began with a single purple spot on his chest. Not much bigger than a fleck of dust. Now the lesions were all over his face. That was the reason Billy had turned Saul into a zebra. So no one would see. Thanks to my love, you’d never know. That’s what the words had meant.

  7

  MAY

  THE NEXT MORNING, I WOKE AT 11.51 A.M. with almost half the school day over. Every muscle ached. My eyes looked like two slits in my face and my head throbbed more than it ever had after white wine. And, to be honest, there was a part of me that woke up mad.

  Why hadn’t I known Saul was sick? Why did no one tell me? I’d sensed something wasn’t right but all I’d got back was ‘You’re being Polly Pessimistic’.

  In the kitchen I could hear the whir of the sewing machine and a whining voice on the radio complaining that the trains were never on time.

  ‘Who cares,’ I snapped at the anonymous voice. ‘Don’t you realise there are bigger things happening in the world?’

  I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes. I needed to block out how cranky and ripped off and left out I felt. I needed to lie here quietly and think, because there was only one thing on my mental list of things to do today and it was enormous and terrifying. Not like yesterday. Yesterday morning when I’d woken up the first thing I’d thought was: Do I have time to shave my legs before school?

  Today it was making a phone call to Billy and Saul. What would I say to them? That’s what terrified me. I’m sorry? How are you, Saul? Are you okay, Billy?

  Then I thought of all the things I’d like to ask Billy in private. Is Saul really going to die? When? Are you scared? Is he scared?

  I made a cup of tea. I tried to eat some toast but I wasn’t sure I could swallow food.

  ‘It’s nearly midnight in New York,’ I called to Mum.

  ‘Too late to ring, Gem.’

  ‘I know.’

  I heaped another spoonful of sugar into my tea. I usually had two, but today I couldn’t taste the sweetness on my tongue.

  ‘That’s why Billy couldn’t pick my formal dress fabric, isn’t it? And that’s why Saul didn’t come home for Christmas?’

  The whirring of the sewing machine stopped and Mum appeared in the kitchen.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Mum?’

  ‘I had no choice. I promised Billy,’ she said. ‘He wanted to tell you everything himself.’

  Mum was leaning against the fridge with her arms crossed and the tip of her right elbow just covering the picture of my formal dress. Suddenly the answers I wanted didn’t matter. Instead, I wanted to vomit. Imagine if I had called Billy the afternoon I was mad about the swatches? I had changed my mind at the very last second. A mixture of not wanting to spend my money, feeling foolish over making a scene and being scared that Saul might blast me for calling so late. But if I had called, maybe Saul would’ve answered? Maybe he wouldn’t have been mad? Maybe he would’ve been happy to hear my voice because he knew he wouldn’t be hearing it too many more times?

  Now I had a new question for Mum. ‘Have you spoken to Saul?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did he sound?’

  ‘Weak. Tired.’

  ‘Did he ask about me? Did he say, “How’s Gemma?” ’

  ‘He said, “Tell Gem she’s still my number one gal.” ’

  ‘Did he say it in that funny voice?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to him.’

  Mum swallowed. I heard it clearly and I thought I knew what it meant.

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ I told her. ‘I mean, I’ll probably cry, and I’m scared because I know he might not sound like Saul, but I should talk to him, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Saul knew you loved him. That’s what was important.’

  ‘Stop talking about him like he’s already dead!’ It was hearing my words, not Mum’s, that made me realise. ‘Mum? Mum?’ I could barely breathe. ‘Saul’s already dead, isn’t he?’

  Saul was dead and buried. He’d died almost a week after I’d found Matt Leong’s death notice in the newspaper. At the end, he hadn’t even known who Billy was.

  Saul’s funeral has just been his family plus Billy. Billy had told Mum that he’d felt like the outsider. That it was as though Saul’s family were farewelling a man Billy hadn’t known.

  It was Saul the Attorney, Saul the Valedictorian, Saul the 100-metre University Sprinter, Saul the Good Son and Eldest Brother. Billy, Saul’s partner of five years, wasn’t even mentioned. But Billy had told Mum that he felt lucky to have been invited at all.

  Now he was away with friends at a place called Martha’s Vineyard. He said to Mum that this would be his time to remember his true love.

  But my mother had been furious. A red-faced, roaring, homicidal, spit-flying, crazy madwoman. She had been holding on to this rage and now that I knew everything, she was letting it out and letting it rip. What she’d say and what she’d do if she ran into Saul’s mother, which just as well for both of them was never going to happen or my mother would be spending the rest of her life behind bars.

  On Wednesday afternoon we went to the supermarket. Neither of us felt like eating but we always did the shop on a Wednesday after school.

  Mum hurled cans and jars into the shopping trolley. Then she bit the check-out chick’s head off because she was too slow. But it was on the drive home that she had the psycho moment of the century.

  We were remembering the Christmas when Saul had carried a drunk Mrs C up to her flat and how we had heard the echo of his groans as he climbed each stair. We were laughing really hard. That kind of laughter that at any second could turn into hysterical, blubbering tears.

  We pulled up at the traffic lights next to the church where Andrea and her family went. Now we were bathing in that warm, fuzzy silence that comes after a memory that both devastates and delights. That silence where you’re both still there, lost somewhere in the story. I was on the verge of letting out a big, long sigh when Mum suddenly yanked on the handbrake and jumped out of the car.

  In a split second she was charging up the stairs to the church and ripping a poster off the noticeboard. Then she leapt back into t
he car and we were driving away, sticky tape caught on the cuffs of her jumper.

  If I hadn’t been feeling so lousy I would’ve burst out laughing because it was the craziest thing I’d ever seen my mother do.

  ‘Why’d you do that?’

  ‘I hate bigots.’ Mum’s fingers were strangling the steering wheel and her nose was almost pressed up against the windscreen.

  ‘Okay. But … what did the poster say?’

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like crap about love between a man and a woman.’ The brakes screeched as Mum took the corner too fast.

  ‘Okay,’ I said again, pulling on the strap of my seatbelt to check if it was fastened properly. ‘Can you elaborate?’

  ‘Isn’t love just love? Why does it matter who it’s between? It’s like saying one love is better than another.’

  By the time we arrived home and were lugging the shopping up the stairs my mother had flipped so badly she was quoting lines from the Bible. ‘Love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God. That’s John. Or is it Paul? I can’t remember now. They’re just a bunch of bigots.’

  ‘Mum, how about I put the kettle on?’ I said as she unlocked the door.

  The answering machine was beeping. Mum dashed in and just about pounced on the message. ‘Hey, Gemma …’ the voice started.

  ‘Oh, it’s Andrea,’ Mum moaned.

  Andrea’s voice was a jerk back into reality. A reminder that the world outside was still turning. ‘Bludging again, hey? Are you coming to school tomorrow? Call me. It’s urgent. Marty update.’

  ‘You still haven’t told Andrea about Saul, have you?’ Mum asked.

  ‘I haven’t felt like talking to anyone,’ I answered. Yet I’d thought about calling Justin. I’d even thought about ringing Louise Lovejoy. But Andrea? I wasn’t ready to tell Andrea, and that had never happened before.

  Andrea was my first stop for everything. The Saturday morning in Year 8 when I woke up with my period. She was the first to know, even before Mum. My first pash at summer camp with the lip-gnawing Timmy O’Brien. We’d barely parted and I was dashing down to the tennis courts to find Andrea. The day after Boxing Day when Dad had slammed the door and we understood he wasn’t ever coming back. It was Andrea who met me at the phone box and whose arms I collapsed into. My virginity, my exam results, my fights with Mum, my broken hearts. My Year 9 identity crisis when for a night and a day I thought I might be a lesbian. It was Andrea who I’d whispered my fears to.