by Anna George
I’m over it.
A sound emerged from the silence. Hissing and distracting. The unmistakable sound of the kettle. Neve broke into a run. In the kitchen, on the bench, Jessie was leaning over the stainless steel kettle, which was rumbling on the gas stovetop.
‘What are you up to now?’
The kettle’s belly growled, low on water.
‘Making tea for you and the man.’
Neve gave a quiet snort. One doesn’t have tea with one’s tradesman. She smiled to herself and, fleetingly, wondered where he was. What was keeping him?
Jessie climbed off the bench – aware she’d erred but not knowing how – then slumped onto the stool. Awkwardly, Neve swept the hot and empty kettle from the gas, singeing her fingertip in the process. They both stared at the naked ring of blue flames.
‘You mustn’t touch the stove,’ said Neve. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’
Neve sucked the singed tip of her index finger. With her other hand, she extinguished the flames and filled the kettle. The stainless steel hissed wildly. Goodbye sleep.
‘Do you have any friends?’ asked the girl.
This was too much. The girl’s behaviour was becoming trying; not only risky but prying now too. When Jessie’s stare didn’t waver, Neve sighed. Once, she’d had many friends or at least more. Before Kris, back at work, her two closest, Flick and Rachel, were colleagues . . . but not bosom buddies. She hadn’t had a best friend since grade four. Since that day, after netball training, when Stephanie Miller had said, ‘Stop trying to steal my mum!’
‘No.’ That should shut her up.
Neve averted her eyes from the girl’s resigned nod, then reset the kettle on the cooling stovetop. Plucked her phone from the bench.
The girl’s face blanched. ‘I’m sorry I was naughty.’
Ignoring the child, Neve tapped three numbers into the phone. As she waited, she ran cold water on her fingertip.
‘I’ll be super good,’ said the girl. ‘From now on.’
On television, Neve had watched appalling stories about parents who rorted the welfare system and let their kids run wild. Parents who truly didn’t deserve to have children. It sounded harsh, she knew, but some people didn’t. She wasn’t mother of the year herself, but at least she was trying. If Jessie’s mother or father wasn’t about to knock on the door, surely the daughter could live somewhere else. Somewhere better.
Watching the plume of water, Neve felt her head roll forward then jerk back. A second passed. Two. Something fell from her hand and she roused herself. Her fingers were quivering. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating again. She peered into the phone in the sink; its screen was cracked in three places. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands then considered Jessie. Who are you? Where have you come from?
Jessie blinked, her lashes meeting and opening, in a twitch.
‘Mummy left because I was bad, didn’t she?’
Neve felt her certainty wane. What could she say to that? Perhaps it was true. She gestured to the hall, out of sight of the windows, and led Jessie from the kitchen. There, Jessie sat on the vent and Neve sat beside her on the floor. They each stared at the facing wall of stacked stone. Neve extended her legs and let her toes climb the cool, irregular steps. She tried to wake up, assemble her thoughts. Minutes stretched around them.
‘Is your mummy always angry?’
‘Yeah. I mean . . . No.’
Neve examined her toes, training her focus lest she speak out of turn. What did she know of the woman’s motives? She was careful not to look at Jessie and Jessie did not look at her. They were at the cinema, the screen ahead of them made of toes and stone, the action of the story within. But wanting, needing, to be shared.
‘Where’s your daddy?’
‘He’s gone.’
Neve nodded, having guessed as much.
‘But . . . Mummy will come back . . .’ said Jessie.
Neve heard the quaver of doubt in the unformed voice. The innocent hope against the odds. She found herself hoping too, for the girl’s sake, that the mother would return and soon – improved. She wasn’t inclined to teach that particular lesson in disillusionment. That our mothers will inevitably disappoint us. Fail us. By leaving. By dying. By staying exactly the same.
‘I miss her,’ said Jessie, ‘but . . . Please don’t make me go . . .’
From their unlikely vantage point, Neve considered her home’s split levels and private corners, its snippets of views. The harmonising of stone and timber and glass. More than a decade ago, it’d been designed to be a sanctuary, for when life became too much. Her eyes closed. Her father had actually used the word: refuge.
17
In the Emergency Department, uniformed people rushed about with important things to do and other patients wandered in, worse off than her. Leah glimpsed their bandaged heads and bloodied hands and waited. Eventually a doctor with rosy cheeks, like a doll, examined her. The doctor spoke fast, with an accent. German or Polish or Russian? Leah wanted to say: ‘Could you say it again please, slow?’ But she didn’t want to waste the woman’s time and she wasn’t that interested really, not in her ear. She just wanted to be fixed. Quick.
When the doctor’s beeper went, she left and a nurse helped Leah take off her hoodie and put on a robe. Leah tried to explain that she didn’t need the robe but the nurse wouldn’t have a bar of it. The robe got tangled in her hair. In her good ear, she heard the nurse gasp. She heard someone say ‘dehydrated’ and ‘underweight’. Embarrassed, she pretended she didn’t hear. They hooked her up to a drip. They took the rest of her clothes.
She felt like a mouse in a lab.
‘We’re going to find you a bed,’ said the nurse, like she was doing Leah a favour.
A bed. Leah hadn’t had one of those in months.
Please don’t, she thought.
When the nurse hurried off, Leah slumped into the trolley. She’d taken one step forward and fallen through another trapdoor. Bloody Mitch. She missed him, hated him, and needed him. Especially his anger. If he were here, he’d get their attention; he’d tell them what’s what. Then they’d let her out.
18
The sliding doors from the top balcony to the kitchen and dining room were open. Through them, Sal could see Neve Ayres at the kitchen bench; banana skins and pear peel topped a compost container. Muffins were cooling on a rack. He’d been longer than he intended; he blamed that sorry bird. Her baby was in a bassinet by the twelve-seater table. Four chunky candles dotted the tabletop. He wondered if she was expecting guests. The thought gave him a lift. He poked his head through the door, his feet planted squarely on the balcony. She seemed calmer.
‘Job’s done.’ He waved the shed’s keys.
‘Thank you.’
Stepping to him, she took the keys, careful not to touch him. ‘Did you get lost?’
‘Yeah, almost ended up in Shoreham.’
She gave a small smile. Her kettle was bubbling and whistling. She picked at her right index finger. He felt her looking at him, properly looking. Staring. Was it him: was his hair windswept or eyebrows silty? His nose snotty? She was nursing her phone.
Over the racket, he said, ‘Your kettle . . .’
He camouflaged his confusion with a cough.
‘Oh. Yes.’
She turned it off then looked from it to him. He couldn’t read her face. His work for today was done. She knew that. And he had no intention of sipping tea by the makeshift plywood fence. ‘Well, I’m packed . . .’ He said this more slowly. ‘Time I got going.’
‘I have pear and banana muffins.’ She raised her eyebrows. She seemed pleased with herself as she gestured to a stool at her bench. He tried to contain the frown carving up his brow. Was she inviting him in?
The candlelight flickered; and an impressive fire crackled in the hearth. The only other life was the sound of the sea. He counted the muffins – twelve. The house was a large, unpopulated cave, without power. So she wasn’t expecting guests. As he�
�d suspected, she was here alone. That would explain her impatience for the wall to be repaired. He noticed a nearby painting was crooked, and thought of the packing awaiting him at his mum’s. His family working in teams of two, four, six. Casting judgement on frocks, crockery, books. Thanks to that walk, he’d decided he wanted one of two things: her voice on the answering machine; or the bird feeder.
Neve was smiling at him, earnestly.
This was peculiar too. He’d not known her to socialise with the tradies before. Hardly any of them did. At best, he came in through the trades’ entrance but, ended up, when the work was done, sitting with the owners and the architects at the bench he’d crafted. And that was fine with him. It took time for clients, and architects, to trust the man who worked with his hands.
But today he’d merely erected a temporary fence.
He was being ungrateful.
She opened her fridge and, within its unlit interior, he saw the overflowing food. ‘Milk loses one day of its life for every hour out of the fridge,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’
‘Can’t say I did.’
His phone beeped with a message: Carl and Tony both wanted the lawnmower (which he’d bought six months ago). He reconsidered the wide, warm living room. The fire. He’d not been in the house before, not since it’d been finished and furnished. He knew some of the houses she’d designed. He wondered who else she’d worked with. And where her partner was . . . He was already hours late and that walk on the beach had hollowed him out. The house was enticingly toasty. His brothers wouldn’t want the answering machine; and he couldn’t care less about the mower.
He removed his boots. ‘I’ll have a quick one.’ His hands were grey. ‘I might freshen up first if that’s okay.’
‘Of course.’ Her smile became neon. She gestured to the powder room behind the pantry. ‘Do you remember the way?’
He nodded and followed his nose to the laundry. She watched him, gesturing. ‘No. To your right,’ she said, with a zealous nod. Her anxiety reverberated within him. It seemed her house was a maze and she feared he might not return.
He found a towel on the floor in the bathroom; another pleasant reminder of human existence in this flawlessly designed place. He returned it to the rail. Scrubbing his hands with a honey-butter soap, savouring the heat, he wondered if he was getting chilblains. His circulation wasn’t the best and today he could’ve used another layer. As he watched the silty water drain, he decided he needed to be careful with Neve. She was a private person. Guarded, like her house with its walls. But, possibly, punctured too, today. He ran his fingertips across his eyebrows. Fine dust rained onto his cheeks.
His gaze travelled around the bathroom. The day’s shadows dappled the tiles. In the toilet bowl, something pearly glimmered. Was it some new designer gizmo? He peered into the clear water. A dozen or more envelopes – named and addressed and stamped – were partially submerged. They looked like invitations to a wedding. He fished them out, with his fingertips on their dry corners, and put them on the vanity.
Sal’s concern for Neve manifested as something tangible in his throat. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one out of sorts. He coughed and washed his hands again.
Back in the kitchen, he sat on a stool at her bench and felt brightened by the natural light. ‘What brings you back this way?’ he said.
As she said, ‘What’s new out there today?’
‘Not much,’ he said, with a shrug.
They smiled politely.
Neve held his unblinking gaze, until she realised his question remained unanswered. He took a bite of a muffin and chewed, as neutrally as he could. She had, he suspected, forgotten to add sugar. She had made them quickly. Or was she one of those unfortunate gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free people? As he swallowed and her hesitation grew, he felt regretful, inclined to look away – he should’ve opened with something more neutral. About the weather, the power, the house.
‘Maternity leave,’ she told him, after a moment. ‘I go back in three months, two weeks and three days.’
He nodded. Some women took to motherhood; some couldn’t wait to escape. He’d gleaned there was no predicting it. And given the intense way she was watching him, he didn’t intend to comment.
‘Many people about outside?’ she said.
‘Hardly any. Too gnarly. Trees are down everywhere, roads blocked. SES fellas are working hard.’
She looked through the window, as if to picture the scene. Then her gaze flicked to a nearby closed door. ‘Which roads?’
‘Mornington-Flinders was one,’ he said.
‘Oh that’s a shame,’ she said.
‘Yeah, what with the storm and the cold; a few Easters will be ruined.’
She smiled briskly and stirred her tea into a whirlpool. He couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or relieved. But she was something.
‘Emergency services must be stretched,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
Unobserved, he noted the smudges cupping her eyes, the lattice work of veins in each one. Her skin was dull and finely lined. He glanced towards the baby, awake but quiet in the bassinet. Was this the time to ask about the dad? Probably not. He took another bite of muffin. She seemed about to ask him something else.
‘You getting much help?’ he said.
‘Nope. Flying solo.’
He nodded. To choose to do it alone was a big thing. Admirable, brave. Sad. He watched as she sipped from her wide-brimmed, silver-speckled mug. It was asymmetrical, and looked too full. He’d assumed she’d paired up with another architect; they tended to do that – the professions. Mated within. He was nodding. He made himself stop.
Neve’s smile was a glib full stop.
‘Tough gig being a single mum,’ he said. Her green eyes flared. He’d surprised her. She shrugged, uncomfortable with scrutiny. Or was it compassion?
‘We’re doing okay.’
‘A man’s lifelong happiness rests on his childhood,’ he said slowly, ‘and his relationship with his mum.’
‘Does it . . . truly?’
‘Yeah, truly.’ He grinned, curled his toes around the bar on the stool. It was pleasantly hard and cold.
She smiled too then. And his phone beeped a second time. He didn’t respond.
‘Do you have children? I mean, are you married?’ The change in her tone was abrupt, its directness almost accusing.
‘No and no.’
He thought for a moment she looked disappointed. ‘Do you live around here?’ she said.
‘No.’
She sighed, with unmistakable disappointment then.
He felt her eyes upon him, as she formulated her next question. They were quite similar, he suspected. Curious but guarded; direct but wanting to be respectful. Although today she had an air of unpredictability. He thought to give her something.
‘Was almost married, once,’ he said.
He clamped his lips closed. He didn’t know why he’d said that. What he did fifteen years ago wasn’t worth discussing. As it was he thought about Tilly Armitage more often than he should. She’d moved to London, he’d heard; become a graphic artist, into self-defence. He considered eating more, decided against it. The muffin was awful. Impossible to swallow.
She was staring into her mug. It looked like she’d run out of questions.
He took advantage of the silence to survey the living space. The expanse of Tasmanian oak table; cafe-style chairs; rectangular, tan couch; gaping granite hearth and that gorgeous fire. He noted washing drying on a clothes horse near it. Nappies, wraps, and a few hefty bras. He glanced away. That was strange too, given the size of the laundry.
After a moment, he realised she was watching him, waiting for him to keep talking. He put his mind back to their conversation. ‘The work doesn’t go well with relationships,’ he said. ‘I’m too tired, especially the older I get. I’m not good for much come the weekend. But I’m happy enough; I take my nieces to tennis, once a week, and I babysit my godchildren when I ca
n.’
He took another sip of his coffee. He could hear himself explaining, trying to sound convincing. He wondered why. This was not the conversation he was expecting. But he understood it; sometimes when he spent too long alone he skipped small talk. Truth be known, he preferred big talk anyhow. Her focus shifted to a room down the hall, as if she was listening or sniffing. A dog with a scent. What was in there? A cat?
‘Is the tennis around here?’ she said.
‘Ah, no.’
She frowned, tapping her mouth. He guessed she wanted to ask him something more, or something specific. But he couldn’t work out her agenda. She picked up her telephone and noted the time. A stray hair was resting on her cheek: a dark thread of cotton. Some people were too perfect. Twelve years ago, Neve Ayres had been like that, from her laces to her satchel. She’d needed a roll in the mud. But this afternoon, she was more frail. More human. Could be that was age, or the baby’s doing, or the father’s. Whatever its cause, her altered demeanour became her, even if it also concerned him. He clasped his mug to stop himself from carefully sweeping the fine strand from her skin.
She returned her telephone, face down, to the benchtop. ‘At least you get a weekend,’ she said.
‘Mostly.’ He gave a wry smile, but she didn’t seem to notice. It seemed a reasonable time . . . ‘How old is he?’
‘Almost nine weeks.’
‘May I?’
She considered the space, as though his moving within it was a risk.
‘Yeah, okay.’
Sal skated in his socks to the bassinet. Careful to keep the coffee from the infant, he tried to see Neve in the tiny features. He tried to see the father. He took his time. Finally, he said, ‘Does your sperm donor have big ears?’