‘It took such a long time to convince him to exhibit,’ she said in a melodic South African accent.
Dad slipped his arm around the slender-handed lady’s slender waist. She turned and smiled at him and I saw her profile. She was probably only about forty.
Just then Trust burst into the restaurant, rousing me from my nauseous trance. ‘Miss Jess!’ he called from the open front door at the other side of the room. I ducked out of the gallery doorway and fell against the wall. ‘We must go!’ He tapped his wrist urgently even though he didn’t wear a watch.
I looked up at Jimmy and backed away. ‘Did you know? Did you know this whole time?’ I remembered him looking at the photo of Dad when Pete and I had first met him.
Jimmy shook his head, frowning with confusion.
‘Miss Jess!’ Trust said urgently.
I turned and ran out of the gallery, wanting to be far away from whatever the hell I had just seen.
Jimmy rushed after me. ‘Wait!’
I dived into the open van door. Trust slid it shut and I turned in my seat. Through the restaurant window I could see Dad and the lady walk across the room and join the children at the bar. As Trust screeched away from the kerb I looked at Jimmy standing on the footpath watching me leave with a look of anguish, and the gravity of the situation hit me.
‘I will drive fast, but traffic—’
‘It’s OK, Trust,’ I said, turning on my phone. ‘It’s my fault. Just do the best you can.’
Trust nodded and made some decisive lane changes. My phone came alive with the apple chime and Jimmy rang through immediately.
‘I didn’t know, I swear,’ he said as soon as I answered. ‘When he came in with his English accent I just put two and two together. So that guy is your dad? Oh my god, you were right. I’m so sorry, are you OK? I can’t believe it’s your dad! Are you sure? Of course you know your own dad, but are you really sure?’ He was babbling and I had to close my eyes to calm myself. I still thought I might throw up. Trust’s hurried swerving wasn’t helping.
‘Yeah . . .’ I said, the words hitting home. ‘That was my dad.’
‘Christ,’ Jimmy said. ‘Do you want me to do anything?’
‘Yes please,’ I said, my chest burning with a sudden hot anger. ‘I want you to punch him in the face.’
‘Right,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’m not going to do that . . .’
‘Shit,’ I breathed in and out. ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can . . . Actually, yes. Can you find out as much as you can about that lady he’s with and . . . actually no, I need to . . . yes. No, I know . . . no, that’s not a very . . .’ I trailed off feeling both horribly in the moment and also like I was watching it all happen to someone else. Like how you feel after a night of missed sleep, which you’ve tried to counteract with far too much caffeine; distant and detached yet wired and keenly alert.
‘Um . . .’ Jimmy sounded tentative. ‘I’m not clear on the . . . the, ah . . . proceedings.’
I swallowed, trying to get my thoughts in order. ‘Do nothing.’
‘OK,’ he said, sounding relieved.
‘But maybe see if you can get the name of the lady he’s with? And her age.’
‘Right.’
‘And also the names and ages of those kids. And also try and find out where he lives and if he has two mobiles, and also—’
‘Hang on, I need a pen.’
‘No, don’t worry about it,’ I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. ‘Just do nothing like I asked.’
‘Right,’ Jimmy said, sounding confused.
‘God, this is so fucked up.’
‘I know,’ Jimmy said. ‘I really want to do something for you but I don’t know what.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said, and I began to feel nauseous again. ‘I’d better go. I’ll call you later.’
I got off the phone and saw that there were a bunch of missed calls and text messages from Priya asking me to call her back IMMEDIATELY. They were all from that morning.
‘Babe!’ Priya said down the phone. ‘I’ve got something awful to tell you. I’m going to need you to sit down. And get Pete with you, OK, because, I’m really sorry babe, but this is bad.’
‘Oh god, what?’ I said. My mind couldn’t dredge up a more horrifying scenario. I was all panicked out, it seemed. ‘Are you OK? Is Laurel all right?’
‘We’re fine, babe. It’s about your dad.’
‘Oh.’
‘OK, sorry about this, but Laurel and I were leaving our resort today and we saw your dad. With a young family. Two kids. Hot lady. Babe, you know I always like to see the positive, but . . . It didn’t look good. It looked . . . intimate, you know?’
I was quiet. Obviously I’d already seen what I had seen but this additional information made it hit home harder. That was really him: the local on holiday in Mozambique with his family. But he was my father. He lived at home with Mum. It didn’t make any sense.
‘Babe? Are you OK?’ She said some panicked, muffled words to someone, I assumed Laurel. ‘Oh god, babe, are you OK? Are you there?’
‘Yeah, I’m here,’ I said, my voice croaky.
‘I would have gone over there and kicked his arse but we were getting on a ferry to go back to the mainland to get our flight tomorrow and he was boarding a sea plane. And it’s Teddy Roberts! It’s your dad! I know it doesn’t make any sense but I saw what I saw, babe, and I’m so, so sorry.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘Babe, put Pete on. I’ll tell him you need lots of looking after. Are you at the airport?’
‘We’ve broken up. He cheated on me and is staying here with that guy, Goat, from The Bachelor who he idolises and I’m stuck in traffic and might miss my flight.’ I started to cry. ‘Priya, everything has gone to shit. I just want to go home.’
‘Whaaaaaat?!’ Priya shrieked down the phone then turned and quickly told everything to Laurel. She came back on, incensed. ‘Pete is a muthafucking cunty possum-faced wank bastard fuck-hole . . .’ She kept ranting and I had to hold the phone away from my ear. ‘What the fuck!?! Oh my god, I feel like this is all my fault! God, you were going to go back engaged and now Pete is fan-boying over Goat and your dad has a whole second family!’
I hadn’t put that sentence together yet. Obviously those words were exactly the ones you’d use to describe the thin-handed lady and his two kids who were nearly the same age as his grandson, but I hadn’t said them out loud. And neither had the psycho in my head. Where was she? Taking a lavender oil bath?
‘What do you want me to do?’
I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about anything.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just get home safely.’
‘OK,’ she said, her voice calmer now. ‘Love you, babe.’
‘I know. I love you too.’
I hung up and looked ahead at the lanes of traffic. It was moving. Slowly. Trust threw quick glances my way while he navigated vehicles in various states of disrepair. I checked the time. It was going to be a fine line if I made the flight or not. Exactly how I started this trip two long weeks ago. Except in very different circumstances to those I found myself in now. No boyfriend, a cheating father and Annabelle not being constantly at the forefront of my mind. Plus a little tired from all the shagging I’d been doing with a bartending, scriptwriting muso who lived in the basement of his brother’s place.
I dialled Annabelle’s number.
‘Hi. I’m just in the middle of the kids’ dinner.’
‘It’s Dad,’ I said miserably. ‘He’s got a whole second family. For real this time. Jimmy saw it, Priya saw it and I saw it. I don’t know what we’re going to do! What about Mum? What about us? He’s got a whole second family, Annabelle!’
‘OK,’ Annabelle said, her voice soothing. ‘OK. Just take a second to breathe.’
I took a deep breath in and eased it out.
‘Good. Now tell me what happened. Slowly.’
Annabelle listened without judgement as I explained
about Jimmy and the phone, Sylvie and the ice cream, the thin-handed lady and her diamond, Frankie and her pink hair tips, Dad and his arm around thin hand lady, about Trust bursting in and me being late for the flight, about how I ran out of there without confronting Dad and how I was currently regretting that decision because I was sitting in a van in traffic, probably going to miss my flight anyway, with a shit ton of accusations.
‘And don’t think you can convince me out of this disaster,’ I said. ‘It’s exactly what I thought it was! I can’t believe you made me doubt my intuition.’
‘Well,’ Annabelle said diplomatically, ‘it’s just that your intuition is generally, psychotically, paranoically, drastically incorrect.’
‘I concur,’ I said as Trust made a few brisk and frightening lane swerves. ‘But this time I’m right. So what should we do about it? Should I call him? Should I forget my flight and go back there? What should we do?!’
I started crying, Trust got worried and kept looking away from the road and making questionable driving choices, and Annabelle told me not to call Dad and just to get home and we would sort it out together. Then she had to go and get Hunter down from the top of the fridge, and suddenly the traffic opened up; Trust and I had a tearful yet brief goodbye, check-in was relatively empty and I made my flight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I dragged myself off the plane and through the rigmarole of baggage collection, passport control and onto the tube without engaging with any of it. Is it possible to have your mind racing without actually thinking about anything? Fragments of thoughts came to me: Jimmy’s face when we said goodbye the first, second, third and final time; Dad’s young kids and how they looked at him; Dad’s young kids(?!); Pete and his eagerness to get back to Goat (Giselle); that super-large crepe from the market, shark flags, Ian in his white NSYNC outfit, Diego saying Jimmy liked me, Ian’s cologne, Diego’s pancakes, gluten day, Jimmy’s face on gluten day, Pete’s face on confession day. Dad and his kids. Dad and his kids. Dad and his god damned kids . . .
I stood on the tube, my bag between my feet and my winter coat, which had been in in my suitcase, weighing heavily on my shoulders. It made me feel burdened and cumbersome after the last two weeks of shorts, flip-flops and summer vests. As the movement of the carriage jolted me back and forth I began to feel more awake and questions popped into my head. Are those kids my half-brother and sister? Did the little girl look a bit like a blonde Annabelle? Dad draws vaginas? Does he have a model? Was that woman with the thin hands his wife and vagina model? Was Mum ever his vagina model? Why in Christ’s holy pyjamas do I have to contend with THAT mental picture?! The thin hand woman had a big diamond on her finger. Mum had never worn such extravagance, preferring to give money to those more needy (generally an obscure charity that nobody ever donated to, like ‘slam poetry counselling’ or ‘save the British house spider’ even though most people were busy flushing the things down the plughole) – so why did that woman get a big diamond? Did Dad know he had a second family? It sounded ridiculous but Dad was a little vague at the best of times. Perhaps he had some kind of weird affliction that caused a person to live a double life without ever fully knowing it? Maybe it was a new kind of brain tumour that, once diagnosed, would be named after him, and our family situation would end up in a celebrated oncology dissertation? Thoughts such at these flew in and out, but nothing stayed in my mind long enough to fully explore.
One hour and four train changes later I arrived at Annabelle’s. I walked in and fell into her delicate arms, relishing the familiar smell of her Sunday-morning special: cinnamon and coconut porridge. Katie, in pink flannel pyjamas, ran over followed by the thundering footsteps of Hunter.
‘AUNTY JESS!!’ He screeched.
Katie made excited squeals.
‘Kiss sandwich?’ I said, crouching down, and each of my flight-parched cheeks received a giggly kiss.
I was desperate for a Katie cuddle. I scooped her up. In the past I thought there was nothing a Katie cuddle couldn’t solve but now, with her unyielding arms around my neck, I wasn’t so sure. Tears trickled down my cheeks.
‘So,’ I said, leaning forward and setting my coffee on the polished coffee table fifteen minutes later. I sank into my favourite spot on the sofa, where the cushions were neatly lined up instead of in their usual haphazard manner. Hunter and Katie sat on the floor occupied with the gifts I’d given them. ‘How are we going to tell Mum?’
‘We just tell her.’ Annabelle curled her legs under her in the armchair opposite and spoke over the top of her mug of herbal tea, the steam curling past her delicate nostrils. ‘What else can we do?’
I nodded and wondered how Mum would react. She was nearly seventy and she’d been with Dad most of her life.
‘Where’s Pete?’ Annabelle said.
I looked at her strangely then realised I hadn’t even told her about him cheating and staying in Cape Town to find himself, become an internet sensation and fuck Giselle.
I huffed out an angry exhale. ‘You know this trip, apart from Priya’s wedding and shagging Jimmy, was a complete disaster.’
While Hunter helped Katie do a puzzle on Hunter’s bedroom floor, Annabelle and I sat in the living room. I told my sister about seeing Pete kissing Giselle on Goat’s Instagram, about Jimmy at the festival saying he really liked me and how I’d turned him down, about the rainy day on the sofa that ended up in an afternoon of unbelievable sex (which technically wasn’t cheating because Pete cheated first and fuck him, anyway). Then I got distracted by describing Giselle and her airbrushed-like skin and said I was growing out my fringe and that Botox actually sounded kind of harmless, and somehow ended up on how pissed off I was that I got sat next to a man on the plane who had Alzheimer’s and kept tapping his wife to ask the same questions over and over, keeping me awake. I’d felt bad about being annoyed by the Alzheimer’s man and spent the rest of the plane ride worrying that I’d end up with Alzheimer’s myself, which would be the universe’s way of punishing me for being intolerant. Annabelle’s expression told me I hadn’t had enough sleep and needed to calm down. I turned down her offer of a ‘smoothie’ and went into the kitchen and ditched the coffee for camomile tea.
Around 2 p.m., as I napped on the sofa, the sound of a van door sliding shut alerted us to Mum’s arrival. Annabelle and I gave each other a fortifying look, then went outside to greet her.
‘Oh my deary dears, hello!’ she said, leaping out of the van and gripping me in a bony hug. She smelt faintly of ylang ylang and vegetable stock. ‘You look so well! And tanned. Why are you tanned? Where’ve you been?’ She frowned. ‘Did you leave Annabelle on her own? Did you use sunscreen? You know that stuff is full of chemicals, don’t you? It’s best to just wear long sleeves and a big hat.’
‘Hi Mum,’ Annabelle said, taking the suitcase from the driver who looked only too keen to dump and run. I imagined Mum had gabbed the poor man’s ears to bleeding point after being silent for so long.
Mum spun around. ‘Oh my dear Belle-belle, have you coped? Did Jess leave you? I’m so sorry I stayed away longer, I had my eyes opened to the guilt we all carry and I had to do some serious inner work. Did Wayne call you? Where are my delicious grandchildren?’
We hustled Mum out of the cold, let Katie and Hunter leap all over her, chuckled at their faces when presented with dreamcatchers made of foraged plant matter, then Annabelle set them up in Hunter’s bunk bed with a movie and the three of us made tea in the kitchen.
‘Can we make you something to eat?’ I asked Mum. ‘A sandwich?’
‘We have grain-free bread?’ Annabelle offered.
Mum flapped her wrinkly hands. ‘No, no, no,’ she said. ‘I don’t eat like that any more.’
‘Like what?’ I said.
‘Like that: this lettuce, with that tomato, with that bread, with this chicken. The body doesn’t know what to do with all the different things at the same time! Oh, the poor body. It’s called Mono Meal-ing. I’ll tell you all about it.
No, I shall just have the tomatoes, please, if you have them. And the lettuce a little later.’
‘Right.’
While Annabelle got the tomatoes I made tea, then we moved to the living room, Mum chatting about the benefits of eating only one food item at each meal, giving the body the respect it deserves while it performs the ‘wondrous, delicately balanced art of digestion’.
‘You know, you can actually feel your body responding to the nutrients if you have them one by one,’ Mum said, taking a seat at one end of the sofa. ‘Now are you going to tell me where you had to go that was so important you left Annabelle on her own?’ She frowned at me again.
I sat at the opposite end and turned to face her. ‘Mum, we have something to tell you.’
‘Is it about Katie?’ Mum’s face paled and she drew a worried palm to her pendant.
‘No! Nothing like that. Katie’s been doing really well, hasn’t she, Annabelle?’
‘Really well,’ Annabelle said, settling into her armchair.
‘So, then, what is it?’
‘It’s about Dad . . .’
Mum looked worriedly from me to Annabelle. ‘Is he OK?’
‘He’s fine,’ Annabelle said.
‘Hardly,’ I snorted at the same time.
Annabelle gave me a look. Mum glanced between the two of us, confused.
‘This is going to be really hard to hear,’ I said. Annabelle had thought it best I just come out and say it: succinctly and plainly. Annabelle said I was to stick to the facts and not get carried away with anger just yet. We needed to let Mum know that we would be here for her no matter what. With this plan in mind I began the succinct, clear speech I’d been practising in my head. ‘I went to South Africa and I—’
‘SOUTH AFRICA?!’ Mum shrieked, looking horrified.
‘Yes, and when I was there—’
‘What on earth for?!’
‘Priya’s wedding. But Mum—’
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