I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  The day that her father came home, Fancy wrote a poem, Mummy washed the curtains, and Marbie turned the hose onto the vegetable garden.

  It was Marbie who answered the phone when he called from the airport.

  ‘That’s Marbie, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you remember your old dad?’

  ‘Ye-e-e-s! Of course!’

  They ate chicken and chips for dinner, and their mother said, ‘Let’s get this place looking perfect for your dad!’

  Fancy threw away the chicken bones, and Marbie, accidentally, threw away Fancy’s poem.

  Mummy hung freshly washed curtains in the kitchen windows and stood back. ‘Girls, what do you think!’

  Fancy said, ‘Beeeautiful.’

  Marbie said that the curtains looked crinkly.

  ‘Did anybody see my poem?’ said Fancy, shifting magazines around.

  Mummy took another step back and bumped into Fancy. ‘Maybe you’re right. I should iron them.’

  ‘They look beautiful, Mummy,’ Fancy said. ‘Leave them. But I can’t find my poem. Did anyone see my poem?’

  ‘Only I don’t know if I have time.’ Mummy looked at the kitchen clock, the curtains, and the closed front door. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Maybe you should just throw the curtains away,’ suggested Marbie.

  ‘That’s not the answer, precious one,’ said Mummy, then: ‘Fancy! What are you doing?’

  Fancy had the kitchen garbage tipped upside down. She was sitting amongst chicken bones, tin cans, paper towels, tuna-fish, carrot peels and corn.

  ‘My poem!’ Fancy cried. ‘I can’t find my poem!’

  ‘The floor!’ Mummy cried.

  Headlights flashed through the kitchen curtains and an engine grumbled in the drive.

  ‘He’s here!’ Fancy shrieked, and Mummy and Marbie jumped.

  ‘And I’m all ruined, and I can’t find my poem, and –’ Then she found her poem.

  ‘My poem!’ Now she was crying properly. ‘It’s ruined, it’s got chicken grease all over it, and LOOK AT MY SKIRT.’

  Which is why, when Daddy got back from Ireland, the first thing he looked at was Fancy’s new skirt.

  ‘That’s tuna or something on your skirt there, isn’t it, Fancy?’

  Those were his first words. He was carrying a large brown suitcase, and his face, Marbie thought, was like a fat pink balloon. Fancy stood up in a tumble of rubbish, and ran from the room in a sob.

  ‘I hope you’re not hungry,’ Mummy announced. ‘We’ve eaten all the chicken and chips.’

  ‘Have you got presents?’ said Marbie.

  ‘Of course I’ve got presents!’ said Daddy. ‘I’ll put my suitcase away, and then we’ll all go sit in the lounge.’

  ‘Come on, Marbie.’ Mummy began scraping rubbish back into the bin. ‘Help me with this.’

  In the lounge, Daddy gave them presents: boxes of Smarties and packets of chips. They waited hopefully, but that was it, so they began to eat the Smarties. Daddy looked around the room and began picking up objects and putting them back down.

  ‘Just leave that one,’ said Mummy suddenly, but Daddy had put down a photo frame and picked up a magazine. When he did, a dried flower fell onto the floor.

  ‘Oh,’ said Daddy, ‘sorry’, and he tried to pick up the pieces of the flower. ‘Just leave it,’ Mummy said.

  Meanwhile, Fancy sat on the carpet in her dirty skirt and sniffed. ‘I wrote you a poem,’ she said eventually, ‘but it got thrown away and now it’s ruined.’

  ‘Here, come sit on my lap,’ Daddy suggested. ‘You can write me another poem if you like!’

  ‘But I can’t . . .’ Fancy burst into tears and nobody heard what she said next.

  ‘We can’t hear you,’ Marbie explained. ‘You have to stop crying.’

  Fancy kept crying anyway, and Mummy said, ‘Hush now,’ and leaned forward to stroke her hair.

  ‘I can’t sit on your lap, Daddy.’ This time they heard Fancy. ‘My skirt’s too dirty.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ cried Daddy.

  ‘Yes,’ Marbie explained, ‘it’s rubbish. All over her skirt.’

  ‘Come along.’ Daddy patted his knees. ‘I think on this special day you can sit on my lap, no?’ So Fancy did.

  ‘Where did you go for a whole year, Daddy?’ said Fancy, wiping away her tears.

  ‘I went to some islands, Fancy, off the west coast of Ireland.’

  ‘How many islands, Daddy?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘What are they called?’

  ‘Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer.’

  ‘What are they like? Are they nice?’

  ‘The soil is almost paved with stones,’ said Daddy, clearing his throat, and continuing: ‘so that in some places nothing is to be seen but large stones with openings between them, where cattle break their legs. The only stone is limestone, and marble for tombstones. Among these stones is very good pasture, so that beef, veal and mutton are better and earlier in season here than elsewhere.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Mummy.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Daddy.

  ‘What did you do on the islands, Daddy?’

  ‘I wrote my novel, Fancy.’

  ‘Can I see your novel, Daddy?’

  ‘No. Once I had finished my novel, Fancy, I took the pages, one by one, made each into a paper boat, and sent them all to sea. Because, Fancy, my novel took me away from my family. So I washed it away in the waves.’

  ‘Daddy!’ whispered Fancy, then: ‘Welcome home.’ She cried again, and threw her arms around him.

  ‘Little Fancy,’ whispered Daddy, ‘little Fancy.’

  Marbie sat on the carpet, ate her Smarties, and blinked her eyes to make herself cry. ‘What’s the matter, Marbie?’ said her mother. ‘Don’t tell me you’re allergic to this carpet?’

  THURSDAY NIGHT

  Late Thursday night, Cath closed the door on Warren, and sat down on her couch to imagine.

  She had driven straight home from the Staff Meeting that day, without touching the rose in her pigeonhole, and had waited, breathless, for Warren to arrive. When he did, she threw open the door and said, ‘What’s going on?’ Then she laughed at her own melodrama: he was sure to have an explanation.

  It turned out he did not. The truth was set out in his solemn face: Breanna had a job at Redwood Primary, beginning Monday. In fact, he could not even stay tonight – he had to go home and get the house in order. Her furniture would arrive the next day. The affair was officially over.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t know until today that it was definite.’

  ‘But why did I have to hear it from Billson?’

  ‘I tried to warn you. I left you a rose.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Warren. ‘You’re so completely right. But it was up in the air until this morning, and I just didn’t want it to be true. Really. I left you a rose.’

  ‘But at our school! Why didn’t you stop it from happening?’

  ‘I couldn’t stop it – how would that have looked? When it came up a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t think it was serious. I really didn’t think it could happen.’

  They spent the evening sitting on the couch, while Cath tried to cry. She found that she could not. There was nothing to cry about. Here he was beside her. The idea of his not being there was absurd.

  ‘It’s just that I think I love you,’ she murmured, eventually, into his shoulder. Then she panicked: it was the first time this had been said between them. It was the first time she herself had ever said it first.

  ‘I think I love you too,’ he replied, and stroked the hair behind her ears.

  ‘It feels impossible,’ she said.

  Warren agreed. His voice was sad, but practical. ‘I can tell we’ll be together one day,’ he said. ‘Some day, soon, it will all work out.’

  ‘You’re married,’ she reminded him, but
in a teary, smiling voice.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but it’s coming apart at the seams.’

  Then he left, pausing at the door. They stared at each other fiercely, and then laughed, and he placed his hand on her forehead as if checking for fever.

  Cath returned to the couch to imagine the affair being over. To help her imagination along, she pictured a train screeching to a halt with a jolt and a tick-tick-tick into silence. (Then the sound of a window squeaking open and a passenger blustering: what now?) But, in her vision, the train slid back into motion almost at once. She could not imagine it simply standing still.

  It would be intellectually interesting, she decided, but otherwise would probably not hurt. It was not as if he was leaving her, he just had to return temporarily to his wife.

  She would miss spending nights with him, of course, and the sex. They had always agreed that contact would cease when Breanna moved to Sydney. Otherwise they would have to sneak around like people having an affair. And, although she would miss his body, this would be altogether different to broken hearts of her past. After all, she and Warren were in love. They had admitted it. Shortly, the marriage would unravel.

  Warren would still be around. She would be able to see him, talk to him, tell him her secrets. ‘It will be fine, won’t it?’ she confirmed with her cat, Violin.

  Late Thursday night, Fancy stood at the long narrow window by her front door and gazed out across the dark lawn.

  Radcliffe had driven to the corner shop to buy milk, and Cassie was asleep in bed. For the first time that day, Fancy had a moment to consider how she felt about the end of her husband’s affair.

  Instead, she thought about hotel foyers.

  Ah, she thought, hotel foyers! The smooth integration of elevator doors, marble floors, and granite reception desk!

  The concierge behind his helpful little glasses, which glint in the chandelier light. The glass shop fronts with their indoor plants and neat subtle lettering: Armani, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana. The wine bar in curving stainless steel with dashes of electric blue (martini glasses!); and the bathrooms, especially the bathrooms! Their frosted glass and their clever taps, towels folded into neat white piles, dried flowers and sensors! Everywhere the sensors! Hand driers, toilet flushers, doorways!

  As generally happened when she thought of hotel foyers, Fancy’s breathing slowed. She calmed enough to return to her own front hallway. Your husband is NOT having an affair, she reminded herself. But watching the front lawn, and hearing the occasional gear change of passing cars, she felt herself jolted back to the imaginary foyer.

  Immediately, she ran into a man in a pale grey T-shirt. This had never happened in her hotel before.

  She thought she might kiss him deeply. No! She would lean in to kiss him and he would turn away! She saw him, the man (not quite his face, more his T-shirt), and she longed for his touch; please, put your hand on my wrist! But he refused.

  Jolted again, she was back in her home. She shrugged deeply, feeling the spasm of the stranger’s non-touch by touching her own arms with her fingertips.

  Was that him now? Had he followed her out of her dream? That was a car!

  She peered beyond her reflection into the night. A car was pulling in to the driveway. There was a succinct click as the headlights turned off. The engine was quieting. It was him! The man from the hotel foyer! It was his strong hands unbuckling the seatbelt, his thumb on the button of his keys: Bip-Bip!

  His shoes were on the gravel – a quiet crunching, a few running steps up the stairway – and now he would knock! ‘That was you in the hotel foyer,’ he would accuse, enigmatically.

  ‘Won’t you come in for a drink?’ she would reply, breathless, and –

  Fancy jumped as keys rapped on the window.

  ‘Fancy that!’ cried a voice. ‘My Fancy is at home!’

  Radcliffe leaned around the door with a grin, holding up a carton of milk.

  Late Thursday night, Marbie drove home from the A.E.’s house, relieved she had finally ended the affair.

  She walked down the hallway of the empty apartment, switching on lights and checking behind doors for intruders. Then she sat down on a beanbag in the living room to think.

  The A.E. was not attractive, kind, intelligent, poetic or interesting. In fact, he was mostly annoying. Despite that, she had slept with him twice, told him the Secret, and spent several nights in his home. All the time, she had been conscious of a mild yet persistent voice asking, Excuse me, but where is your mind? She had treated the voice in the same way you might treat a person asking, What’s that burning smell? You might look vaguely towards the kitchen and then turn back to the TV.

  Now she would suffer the consequences. She would wake each morning, conscious of the fact that she had failed to pay attention while her house burned down.

  9

  THE HOT AIR BALLOON

  Once upon a time there was a man named Monsieur Blanchard, who fell in love with hot air balloons. By lucky chance, he also fell in love with a woman (Madame Blanchard), who herself was enamoured of balloons. Together, they cast their ballooning spells, performing sky shows all over France.

  Madame Blanchard was a sensitive soul who could not stand the clamour of noise. Often, of an evening, she took her balloon into the sky, and remained there, with the moon, until dawn.

  Sadly, Madame Blanchard died in a balloon crash. It was during a fireworks display over the Tivoli Gardens in Paris. From the basket of her balloon, Madame Blanchard sent gold! and silver! in cascading stars to the delight of the crowd below, and then she sent a great burst of fire. The crowd cheered happily, not understanding that this burst of fire was an error, and signified disaster: in fact, the balloon was on fire.

  She crashed onto the roof of a house in the rue de Provence, and broke her neck.

  Maude Sausalito, now older, and married (and in fact not Maude Sausalito anymore), wore her hair long and flat like a shawl. She was telling her husband about the Blanchards, the legends of ballooning, while he polished his shoes. She herself was icing cupcakes on the one clear corner of the kitchen table; he had spread newspaper across the remainder and was nodding as he dipped a brush in polish. He had just been promoted to Assistant Manager at the menswear store where he worked, which is why shiny shoes were important.

  When Maude told how Madame Blanchard took to the sky of a night, her husband, David, chuckled to himself, and said, ‘Not a bad idea!’

  They both glanced down at their first child, Fancy, who was sleeping in the bassinet. Lately, she had been teething, so that their nights had become precarious affairs: they did not sleep so much as teeter in suspense. The baby’s cries were so sharp they both felt the cut of the tooth.

  Maude and David had married two years before, and honeymooned in the Hunter Valley. Maude had secretly arranged a dawn balloon ride for the second day of the honeymoon, but, during the wedding reception, David’s brother made several jokes about his vertigo.

  ‘What’s vertigo?’ Maude whispered.

  ‘A fear of heights,’ David whispered back.

  He had never told her! Secretly, she cancelled the balloon ride.

  They never mentioned his vertigo, but both acknowledged it silently – for example, when Maude’s kite got caught on the chimney, she herself climbed up to retrieve it while David watched, trembling and pale.

  Generally, David was happy to hear her balloon stories, but when Maude finished the story of the Blanchards, he said sternly, ‘She died in a balloon crash? That’s not a nice story, Maude. Why tell me that story?’

  ‘Okay, here’s a nicer story,’ said Maude at once. ‘About Monsieur Blanchard. The husband. About how he crossed the English channel in a balloon! Just bounce the bassinet a bit with your foot, would you? We’ll kid her to go back to sleep.’

  As she told the story of Monsieur Blanchard, Maude daydreamed about the journey they would take in a hot air balloon, once David was cured of his vertigo. (If she told enough balloon stories, then s
urely . . . ?)

  The pilot would have long curling hair, almost to his shoulders. In the creaking basket of the balloon, one night, he would point out a powerful owl. ‘Is that actually a bird?’ David would say. ‘Isn’t it just a bit of dust?’ But the pilot, his muscular arm reaching up to tug a rope, checking the wind with a private little nod, would steer them closer to the dust, which would turn into a powerful owl. He would glance at her reaction, shy for a moment, but then he would grin, mischievously, and turn to the care of his balloon.

  Blushing, she would look down at the slice of lime, perched on the side of her martini.

  10

  CATH MURPHY

  The following week, Cath found out how it felt, the end of her affair.

  It felt: suspenseful, frightening, surprising, confusing, obvious, outrageous and eventually like despair. These emotions arrived individually or in clusters, and sometimes one would brush the surface for a moment before eliding into another. On the first day, Monday, the primary emotions were SUSPENSE and FEAR.

  Three significant events took place that day:

  1. seeing Breanna for the first time;

  2. being introduced to Breanna; and

  3. having coffee with Breanna.

  At Monday Assembly, she sat in her usual place, mistaking the suspense and fear for an exciting arriving-at-the-theatre sort of feeling. Warren ran in late, as usual, and sat beside her, with a friendly yet restrained ‘hey, hey’. His face was grim and grey, and her excitement increased. She ignored Billson’s introductory remarks, but then tuned back in when she realised he was no longer talking but was breathing, unpleasantly, into the microphone.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ he said, holding up his left thumb and then his pointer. He was going to count ten fingers, while the children whispered and giggled. ‘All right,’ he said, growing bored with the game. ‘Let’s show our newcomer how well behaved we are at Redwood! A round of applause to welcome our new school counsellor, Breanna Woodford!’