I turned to Dad, ready to ask my questions. ‘How can someone love two families? Why couldn’t you stop yourself? Why didn’t you use a frigging condom? Why didn’t you use a frigging condom after NOT using a condom and ending up with Annabelle?’ I stopped and thought for a second. ‘Did they have condoms in your day?’
‘Well yes, actually,’ Dad said, taking on his you-may-find-this-interesting-to-know fact-regurgitating voice. ‘They’ve been around for quite a while. In France, after the syphilis outbreak in the fifteenth century, they used a linen sheath soaked in chemicals, which they tied on with a ribbon. It was called a “glans cover” as it only covered the . . . ah . . . the tip. They used a variety of other materials around that time; like leather, intestines and bladder. These were mostly used to protect against disease, though, not birth control. The first rubber condom was produced in the 1850s. The earliest ones had to be made to measure for each individual . . . ah . . . man, by a doctor. Latex condoms were made a little later and were given to soldiers in the war. Again, mainly to protect against disease. Durex made the first lubricated condom in 1957, I believe, and by 1960 Japan used more condoms per capita than any nation in the world. Although the French were the first to add texture to the condoms.’ Dad stopped, seemingly only just aware he’d been talking about condoms, rather loudly and near mothers and toddlers, to his youngest daughter for going on two long minutes.
‘This conversation has taken a very weird turn,’ I said.
‘Yes, Plum, I agree.’
‘And I’m still the same amount of angry and also now a little grossed out from the penis and intestine talk.’
Dad nodded.
Again we sat in silence.
‘I can’t tell you how someone can love two families,’ Dad said after a moment. ‘I can only tell you that I do. I love you all very much – equally, if that is possible to understand. How could I stop myself loving your mother? I’ve loved her since I was sixteen years old.’
‘But . . .’ I sniffed back a threatening sob. ‘But I thought we were an open family. People who shared everything, and now I find out that half of your life you kept hidden from us.’ I started to cry. ‘And it hurts so much.’ Heavy sobs shuddered themselves out of my body.
Dad’s hand hovered near my shoulder. He was frightened to do what he’d done for so many years without thinking. Everything may have changed, but I didn’t want that to. I leant towards him, giving him permission, and his warm hands pulled me closer and gripped me in a strong, honest embrace. He smelt like Dad. He smelt like home. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
I don’t know how long it took me to get my crying under control. It could have been a matter of minutes or I could have been there for half an hour, unleashing the hurt and confusion from the past couple of weeks. I pulled back from Dad, all cried out. He ran a thumb across my damp cheek, his face familiar and full of tenderness.
I blew my nose on his offered hanky. ‘I just want everything to go back to normal,’ I said once I’d got myself under control. ‘And I’m afraid that will never happen. I know that will never happen because . . . because it wasn’t normal to begin with.’
Dad drove me back to my flat in silence. But a less prickly silence than before. I sat in the passenger seat of his very tidy Mercedes contemplating the fatherly face that I’d thought was all mine, but had also been some other child’s all along. He was still my Dad. Just not all mine.
We pulled up outside my flat and just as I was about to get out of the car Dad’s hand fell on my arm.
‘Will we be OK?’ he said. ‘Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me?’
I looked at my father’s troubled face. ‘I want to,’ I said. ‘And I think if you want to then that’s a good place to start.’
Dad’s eyes softened. ‘It is a good place to start,’ he said in a quiet, almost relieved voice.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get over the art, though.’
‘The art?’
‘Why vaginas, Dad?’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You were great at landscapes.’
CHAPTER FORTY
‘I’ve been walking all around Notting Hill and not once have I seen Hugh Grant,’ Steve-o said, while he frothed my milk. He looked mystified about Hugh’s reticence at hanging around Notting Hill for the benefit of Aussies on their two-year work visa, and I couldn’t tell if he was absolutely dry and hilarious or serious and very weird. ‘David Beckham nearly bumped into me on the street once,’ he said, looking dejected.
‘Most people would be excited to have David Beckham nearly bump into them.’
‘Nah, not into soccer. We play Aussie Rules back in Bondi. You know it?’
I shook my head then got stuck listening to the rules of a game that sounded like open caveman warfare in lycra tank tops.
I carried two terrible coffees into Lana’s office and two almond biscotti that Steve-o had made over the weekend. I had felt a weight off my shoulders having spoken to Dad on Friday, and so on Saturday, after chatting with Annabelle, we’d emailed Mum and Dad saying we were OK to go ahead with the party but that after that we would no longer be willing to lie; and whatever they decided, we’d be ready for it. Then that afternoon, after a mind-cleansing run followed by a quick skype with Jimmy and Flora, I’d called Lana to tell her I was ready to come back to work.
‘And you won’t talk about being roofied by your mother?’ Lana had checked.
‘I’ll save it for my day on Jeremy Kyle.’
‘Mmm, nasty,’ Lana said after testing her long black that looked more like tar soup. She pushed it to the side and broke off a piece of biscotti. ‘So you’re doing better?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Much better. You were right. I definitely needed the time off. I’m still working through everything but I’m much less wrath-y.’
Lana smiled, producing two crescent-shaped wrinkles at either side of her mouth. ‘That’s really good.’
It was good. After talking with Dad I had felt that I might just get through everything with the majority of my sanity intact. I still had times where I got a full range of emotions. I’d be trucking along thinking I’d finally reached an emotional status quo when suddenly out of nowhere another scenario would pop into my head. The song Dad used to sing to me at bedtime, for example; did he sing the same song to Maryna, altering Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ to feature Maryna instead of Jess? I’d become hot with rage, followed closely by grief for a lost reality. Then emotional numbness would arrive, then apathy, and finally I’d reach a state of fatalistic calm. ‘What can I do? Nothing. Must forge on with life.’ And I would. Until the next memory and the next cycle of emotions. But they were becoming less frequent and I was developing tactics to deal with them. Like drinking. Or looking at baby foxes on the internet. Or drinking and looking at baby foxes on the internet.
I rattled all of this off to Lana while she sat listening, nodding, smiling and making faces of commiseration in appropriate places.
‘And what about your parents? How are they doing?’ she said.
I told her that Dad had flown out to meet a client in Dubai but would be back in time for the party the next weekend. He hadn’t told his other family yet but would be doing that after the party; when hopefully he’d have made a decision about which family he would choose. The look Lana gave me when I’d said that had me swallowing thickly but I’d managed to fight off the tears. Mum was still going to her radio show every morning, except weekends, and spent her spare time feng shui-ing her garden shed or researching foods that healed frazzled emotions. She’d try them out and write her findings in a diet diary. So far we knew that tomatoes made her feel mad, cucumber made her feel pensive and onions caused her to pass wind with alarming frequency, which on an emotional level inspired both liberation and shame.
We knew this because Mum would call in on both Annabelle and me to update us with her food findings. If I ever asked her how she felt about the future she would suddenly remember something she had to do that was very
important and nowhere near me. Or she’d tell me not to worry and bury her nose in a book on the herbal healings of Hippocrates. Sometimes we’d find her gazing off at nothing, tears dampening her soft cheeks. Often she didn’t even realise it was happening and upon trying to comfort her we were told it was nothing to worry about, she probably just had weak-celled tear ducts or needed more curcumin in her diet. Or she’d developed an allergy to marzipan. Never mind that none of us ever had any marzipan on our person.
‘And,’ I continued, ‘I’ve decided that although I love them both, I disagree with the decisions they’ve made, and just because they’ve had affairs and spent a lifetime lying to people they love, it does not mean I am headed for a relationship disaster future; even though I have just been in a spot of relationship bad luck with Pete the Cheat.’ I squared my shoulders. ‘My parents’ past will not determine my future.’
‘Very mature.’
‘I read it all on a support forum for second families. Plus there are other people with majorly fucked-up situations and it makes me feel heaps better.’
‘That is not.’
‘I don’t care.’
Lana and I grinned at each other.
‘And Pete?’ Lana said, nibbling on another piece of biscotti.
‘He’s called me a couple of times.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Yeah, he says it’s to check up on me but it always ends up that he can’t find his running socks, or favourite boxers, and wants me to search through Dave’s stuff.’
‘Oh.’
‘I say I’ll look but I never do. I’m not going into Dave’s room. I’ll catch jock itch or fleas or bump into a cousin that visited and couldn’t find their way out and now has a four-foot beard, jock itch and fleas.’
Lana, her elbows resting on her desk and her delicate chin resting on her clasped fingers, grinned and shook her head.
‘Of course I feel really sad that we broke up, and I think he’s a real arse-munch for cheating on me, but I think the fact that it all happened at the same time as finding out about my parents did make me go a bit . . .’ I spun my fingers around my temples and rolled my eyes like that freaky little girl in The Exorcist, making Lana laugh her tinkly, white-toothed laugh. ‘But I do see now that we were probably not right for each other.’
Lana gave a smiling nod of commendation.
‘And I’ve stopped Instagram-stalking Giselle every day, which I think is healthy,’ I said with pride.
‘Good,’ Lana said.
‘It was getting boring anyway. She keeps posting pictures of all these touristy London places with millions of hashtags and exclamation marks, and Pete grinning like he’s never stood under Marble Arch or sat at the foot of a Trafalgar Square lion before. Although yesterday they did the zombie experience in Greenwich. I can’t believe she got him to go! He would never have gone with me, and . . .’ I stopped at Lana’s singular raised eyebrow.
‘I’m getting a handle on it,’ I said, picking up my coffee. ‘I’m down to every second day and am intending to take that down incrementally week by week.’
Lana narrowed her eyes. ‘Glad you’ve got yourself a plan.’
I nodded and grimaced at the intense sweetness of my ‘no-sugar-thank-you’ almond milk flat white.
‘How’s Annabelle coping with everything?’
I smiled. ‘She’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her. Which is weird considering everything that’s been going on. She’s been seeing Marcus for eight months. Eight months, and Mum and I were pretty much there every day. I don’t know how she did it. He’s very sweet with her and the kids seem to adore him.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘He wears woollen vests. And not in a hipster way. In an “I-don’t-want-to-catch-a-chill” way,’ I said, as if that were all the explanation needed. ‘He’s made Annabelle and the kids happy, so I like him for that.’
‘And no more spiked smoothies?’
‘Nope. I take my own food to Annabelle’s now. Hermetically sealed.’
Lana laughed.
‘I don’t trust either of those drug pushers. They don’t even see that what they did was wrong! But I’m not talking about that any more.’ I pretended to lock my lips with an imaginary key.
‘It sounds like you are doing very well, all things considered.’
‘Well, between Pete’s cheating, Mum and Annabelle’s roofie-ing, and Mum and Dad’s life of lies, I’ve definitely got some trust issues but I’m trying to be distant from it. You know, view it from afar; observe and analyse without getting emotional. I’ve started reading articles and watching documentaries on cheating.’
‘And what have you learnt?’
‘A European beaver mates for life and remains monogamous but the male American beaver, who also chooses a mate for life, will cheat and father more babies while remaining in a relationship with their original mate. And a blue whale can have a cock up to eleven and a half feet. That’s two of Steve-o.’
‘What’s two of me?’ Steve-o said as he walked past Lana’s open door with a tray of empty cups.
‘A blue whale’s penis.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ he said with a slow nod like he’d been told he was half the size of a whale’s phallus many times before and now it was just getting boring. He tipped a finger to his head in a salute, grinned and disappeared.
‘What kind of documentary on cheating talks about whale penises?’
‘None. That was purely for entertainment. Did you know they have a penis museum in Iceland that has dried-out erect animal penises mounted on the wall like trophy heads?’
Lana shook her head, indicating we weren’t going deeper into that topic, even though I had sooo much more to say on the matter. ‘And what about Jimmy?’ she said, her over-forties crow’s feet creasing as she smiled.
I sighed like a corseted heroine in a romance novel. ‘He’s lovely.’
And I launched into a soliloquy about the wonder that was Jimmy; his father, gay support websites, Diego and Ian’s secret/maybe wedding plans, Flora and her butt-sniffing advice, Jimmy’s musical, Jimmy’s singing, Jimmy’s stubble, Jimmy’s abs, and when I’d reached the limit of my Jimmy knowledge many, many moments later, Lana handed me a pile of work, which included booking Steve-o in for another barista course, and we beamed at each other, happy to be getting back to normal.
‘Oh, Jess?’ Lana said just as I was about to leave her office.
I turned in the doorway. ‘Yes?’
‘Now that Annabelle seems to be doing OK, would you like to think about training for that producer role?’
I went back to my desk with the job description outline and a little seed of excitement.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
At 6 p.m. that Friday evening I arrived at Annabelle’s to go over the final points for the party the next day.
‘Now what?’ I said as I entered the living room and found Mum on the sofa quietly sobbing.
‘We’re not sure,’ Annabelle said from the armchair on the other side of the room. Marcus was perched on the edge of the armchair next to her, an uncomfortable expression on his pale face. ‘We’ve been through all the usual stuff it could be.’
‘Mum, is it Dad?’ I dropped my bag on the floor and crouched beside her. ‘Has something happened with Dad?’
Mum stopped to blow her nose then continued sobbing.
‘She won’t answer,’ Annabelle said.
‘Did David Attenborough like another one of your tweets?’
Still nothing except sniffs and sobs.
‘Is it the catering?’ I said, putting my hand on her arm. ‘Because if you really want to have some mono-mealing options, I’ll put them back in, but I honestly think nobody’s going to be interested in a bowl of spiralised carrot.’
Mum carried on snivelling, her face buried in her handkerchief.
‘Is . . . is it . . .’ Marcus looked tentatively from Mum to me to Annabelle. ‘Could it be . . . the menopause?’
Mum’s he
ad shot up.
‘Christ,’ I said.
Marcus reddened. Annabelle patted his arm.
‘Menopause?!’ Mum gave Marcus a contemptuous glare. ‘That was years ago!’
‘Well then, perhaps it’s . . .’ He turned to Annabelle. ‘What comes after the menopause?’
‘Nothing!’ Mum spat. ‘I’m a hormonally depleted husk. I’m barely a woman!’ She dissolved into shuddering sobs.
I rubbed Mum’s shoulder and made soothing noises while giving Marcus a death stare.
Marcus’s blush deepened.
‘Where are the kids?’ I mouthed to Annabelle.
‘Movie in my room,’ she mouthed back.
Eventually Mum stopped blubbing long enough to utter a few stilted words.
‘I’m . . . losing . . . him,’ she said between sobs.
Annabelle and I looked at each other. With the party happening the next day, Dad’s decision was upon us. Mum would potentially lose her best friend and the love of her life. But until the decision was made it was still a big fat question mark, and it was turning Mum into a basket case. She’d recently checked out seventeen self-help books from the library yet spent the entire week engrossed in Fifty Shades of Grey.
‘But Mum,’ I said in a gentle voice. ‘He wasn’t ever yours to lose.’
Mum lifted her wretched face from her hanky and Annabelle gave me a look that said I was being harsh. I turned back to Mum and grabbed hold of her hand. With Dad not having yet made a decision and Mum rapidly spiralling into (further) lunacy I needed to appeal to her to do the right thing.
‘Mum,’ I said.
She continued to sob into her hanky.
‘Mum, look at me.’
She looked up, sniffing and hiccuping.
‘You need to do the right thing,’ I said. Mum continued to sniff. Under the watchful gaze of Marcus and Annabelle I continued. ‘You need to step back and let his wife decide if she wants to forgive him. Girl Code, Mum.’
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