The Fence

by Meredith Jaffe

  ‘When are you scheduling the surgery?’ Frankie interrupts.

  ‘This afternoon.’

  That soon, Frankie thinks. ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘My best estimate is that she will be in surgery around two hours.’

  Frankie turns to Brandon. ‘We’ll have to tell the children. We can’t let them find out when she gets home.’

  Brandon’s expression is stricken. ‘I can’t,’ he stammers. All his actions, his stupidity, have led to this moment. He has failed all of his children but especially Ruby Clementine. That Frankie refuses to blame him only makes him feel worse.

  Brandon’s guilt is palpable. It’s not his fault but Frankie can see why he feels as though his actions have led to this moment. God how she’s hated him at times over the last two years but she can’t let him take responsibility for an act of fate. That would be cruel. Frankie lays a hand on his arm. ‘I know you can’t.’

  She leaves then, to get coffee. She has tried every coffee shop in this hospital, navigated every nook and cranny. Her favourite is on the top floor of the private hospital, with a view over Sydney’s red-tiled rooftops to the bay. She orders a large flat white and takes a doughnut as well. Then she rings her mother and shares the news.

  ‘Well, you won’t be returning to work now,’ Noelle says but without her usual nasty bite.

  Frankie made that decision days ago, when the doctors first became alarmed. She’d surprised herself. There was no jerk of resistance, which is strange given work has defined Frankie’s life for so long. She’d always imagined missing it, that being at home full-time with the children would be unfulfilling. She thinks of this morning, making an origami fish with Amber. A simple act filled with joy.

  In the scheme of things, work is the least of her problems. Sipping her coffee, she says, ‘I’m unemployed, Mother.’

  ‘Brandon will have to find a job,’ Noelle adds in an unforgiving tone.

  Frankie knows this too but she is beyond caring what her mother thinks. Noelle has interfered in her personal life for way too long. No more.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Noelle continues, ‘Ruby will be a gift.’

  A gift, Frankie thinks, as she makes her way downstairs to the ICU. As usual, she goes via the physiotherapy department. Of all people, Diane Slaughter’s husband Simon is head of the department. He encourages her to visit, to see the older children. There’s one girl who must be about ten years old. She wears a leg patterned in hot pink paisley. Frankie sees her laughing with her mother, relaxed and confident as she removes her prosthetic and hops onto the exercise equipment. Her mother told Frankie that the same thing happened to them. Her daughter Tamara has never known any different. And Frankie can see she is a happy, uninhibited child. Just like Ruby will be, she promises herself.

  Brandon sits next to Ruby’s crib, holding her tiny hand through the plexiglass window of the humidicrib. It’s the only part of her not attached to a monitor, a machine to help her breathe, a tube to drip antibiotics into her system. She still looks perfect, a miniature Frankie with that thick brown hair and serene face. Holding her frail hand, how helpless he feels in the face of an invisible enemy. Powerless to make her whole again.

  Frankie touches his shoulder, pretends not to see the tears caught on his cheek. ‘Go home, Brandy. I’ll sit with her. Come back when she’s in recovery.’

  Brandon nods and takes his jacket off the back of the chair. He stands before her, shoulders slumped, his face grey with a beard that shows how this experience has aged him. Frankie embraces him, holds him there for a minute. For months she avoided his touch, now she needs it. Because, despite everything, he is the father of her children. They are still married and they are still a family. Now more than ever.

  ‘Have a shower, a shave, you’ll feel better when you’ve freshened up.’ She passes him a coffee and the rest of her doughnut.

  After he leaves, Frankie sits in the warm chair. Ruby lies there, the ventilator hissing as it helps her breathe. She is wrapped in a flannelette blanket, only her head and one hand peeking out. Tubes run from her leg, a bandage around her hand holds the catheter in place, on her head is a hand-knitted beanie.

  ‘Poor little Ruby.’ Frankie rests her hand on the hump of blanket. ‘You will feel much better soon. I’m going to take you home and you and I are going to have a wonderful life together. I’ll never leave you, sweetheart. No matter what happens, I will never, ever leave you.’

  Frankie lays her head on the edge of the crib and lets her own tears fall. It is such a relief to cry. Being strong is exhausting.

  June

  Frankie swaddles Ruby in a towel. She smells so nice after her bath, all warm and sleepy. Now Bijoux has started at Gumnut two mornings a week, the house is quiet. Just her and Ruby, the way she likes it. Brandon has a job at Kuring-gai Public School teaching three days and is also working at the leisure centre qualifying as a swimming instructor. It means he’s gone from the house all day Saturday and Sunday mornings as well. To give him his due, he has accepted the reversal in their roles without complaint. She knows he was petrified about looking after Ruby on his own. And anyway, the payout from Klaussman & Sons allowed them to pay down the mortgage enough that they can manage for now. Ruby Clementine has been a gift. She has forced them to mend their marriage and all the children have been calmer for it.

  Frankie had always thought, after being the surrogate mother to her five siblings, that she would hate being home full-time but she has discovered it is different. When it’s your own children, you care about their welfare in a way that is different to being a sister with an overbearing mother hovering in the background.

  Ruby begins to whimper.

  ‘Are you hungry, Ruby Clementine?’ Frankie coos. ‘Shall we give you your feed?’

  Walking into the lounge room, she notices a huge removal truck backing into next-door’s driveway. The house sold quickly. Green Valley Avenue is a desirable location and there were many potential buyers. Frankie was pleased to hear the price the Hills got. It augured well for their place should they ever sell, although Frankie isn’t sure they will now. It’s time to stay put and deal with life’s challenges. It’s what they should have done in the first place.

  After her feed, she lays Ruby down for her nap and makes herself a cup of coffee. She drinks it watching the removalists unpack the truck. There is a drum kit, which is alarming, and as she stands there, she hears before she sees a black BMW with P-plates drive onto the grass verge. Music bellows out when a boy opens the door. Another teenager emerges from the passenger side. His name is Cooper, she surmises when the driver yells at him. A boy around twelve climbs out of the rear of the car.

  ‘Liam, hurry up,’ the eldest shouts.

  The parents arrive in a Mercedes, parking across Frankie’s driveway.

  ‘Kai, get that car off the grass and park it on the road please,’ yells the father in a strong South African accent.

  It takes them the day to move in. Frankie keeps coming back to the picture window to see where they are up to. It seems Mr Hill’s old workshop is being turned into some kind of teenage retreat. The eldest boy, Kai, struts around, bossing his brothers. After the quiet of living next door to the Hills, three rowdy teenagers will take a lot of getting used to.

  After the first week, the enormity of the difference truly dawns on Frankie. The noise never stops. The only time the house is quiet is sometime between midnight and about 8 am. For starters, there are the cars. Not just the P-plater Kai and his black BMW doof-doofing in and out of the drive at all hours, the hotted-up engine growling up and down the street, but the new neighbours turn out to be sociable people. Kai and Cooper have a constant stream of mates coming to visit, piled into cars, spilling out onto the road in spontaneous games of cricket.

  The two eldest boys are in a band and the workshop is their rehearsal space. Cooper is the drummer. Mates have been
co-opted into the other roles. The bass player isn’t bad, but whoever plays lead guitar is atrocious.

  Frankie has begun making a quilt. She was walking past Lincraft the other day and decided to go in. When she was in her teens, she’d loved craft. There was something therapeutic about cutting out shapes, gluing stuff together. She had walked out of Lincraft with bags bulging with fabric offcuts, and she had not been able to pass the scrapbooking section. She is planning to make Ruby a scrapbook and a quilt for her cot.

  Frankie digs her old sewing machine out of the garage. She moves the computer off her desk and sets up the machine. It will be temporary. Last week, Carol from HR rang on Tony’s behalf. They’ve asked her to come back as a consultant to work on a new product line for the Hush Hush range. It’s only three days a week and they’re flexible on the hours. She told Carol she’ll think about it but working full-time is not an option so she supposes she’ll play them along until they offer her a better hourly rate and then say yes.

  When Ruby goes down for her nap, Frankie decides it is time to see if she remembers how to sew. She’s practising on a piece of cloth when the doorbell rings. Frankie checks the kitchen clock. It is only eleven, her mother is bringing lunch and it is not like her to be this early.

  At the door stands a tall woman with short auburn hair. She has an open eager face and a deep tan for this time of year.

  ‘Megan Venter,’ she says, extending her hand, ‘your new neighbour.’

  Her handshake is firm. Frankie imagines long days on the tennis court strengthening her grip.

  ‘I know it’s supposed to be the other way around, but I brought you this,’ Megan says, handing Frankie a cyclamen in a pot.

  Frankie feels she has no choice but to invite her in. ‘The baby’s asleep,’ she warns the woman.

  ‘Oh yes, you have little ones. I love them when they’re small. You can pick them up and cart them around and they still think you’re the boss.’ Megan laughs, a rich warm sound filled with joy. ‘How many do you have?’

  Frankie lists the children and their ages as she makes them both a coffee. Megan settles onto a kitchen stool.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ she asks.

  ‘A year this month.’ Frankie pauses and recalculates the numbers. It feels an awful lot longer than a year.

  ‘Is that all? It seems like a nice neighbourhood. We’ve been on an executive lease for the past three months in this semi-­detached in Mosman but it was too small for the boys. Boys need space to stretch out. Well, mine do anyway.’

  Butter gets up from his mat and nuzzles Megan’s leg. ‘Hello boy,’ she says, scratching him behind the ears. ‘Our dogs should arrive soon. They’ve been in quarantine.’

  ‘What sort of dogs are they?’ Frankie passes Megan her coffee.

  ‘Dobermans. We’ve had them since they were pups, totally adorable.’

  ‘Dobermans!’ Frankie tries to find a polite way of expressing how she feels, ‘Aren’t they bred to be fairly aggressive?’

  Megan laughs. ‘You obviously haven’t met our two then. Rex and Princess are big sooks. They’ll love meeting your children.’

  Frankie isn’t so sure and is quite glad when Megan finishes her coffee and says she has to fly. She hopes that will be the last she sees of her but Megan turns out to be a friendly neighbour. No matter that the gates are closed, Megan is one of those, ‘I just thought I’d knock on the off-chance’ types. Frankie idly contemplates electrifying the fence to keep her out.

  ‘Living next door to the Hills was bad enough,’ she complains to Brandon, ‘but the Venters are worse.’

  Brandon laughs. He’s had a good day. He’s teaching Year Ones and has a great bunch of kids. As soon as he brings out his guitar, he tells her, they’re putty in his hands. Work seems to be easier than he thought it would be. Maybe because he’s older and there’s something about teaching at the same school his kids go to that makes him feel more like he’s part of a community.

  Frankie punches his arm lightly. ‘Don’t laugh at me, Brandy. You’re not the one who’s home all day.’ She dodges his kiss and goes to the lounge room window. She used to hate the fact that you could see over the fence from here when the Hills were neighbours. Now she suffers a perverse fascination with the goings-on next door. Right now, there is a jam session happening in the garage. There’s been no noticeable improvement in their performance. She gathers they fancy themselves as the successors to AC/DC as they play several of their songs horrendously.

  Amber pulls a dining chair over so she can look too. ‘What’s that?’ she says, pointing at the youngest boy who is dragging sheets of plywood and masonite onto the lawn. They watch as he gathers his materials – two timber batons, boxes of screws and nails, and a long piece of steel.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ says Frankie, gathering Amber into a cuddle, ‘but I suspect that whatever he’s building won’t be pleasant.’

  Ruby wakes and Frankie feeds her, before dressing her leg and putting her on the bunny rug to play in a sunny corner. Marigold and Bijoux join her, Bijoux lying on her back and batting at the mobile to make it jingle, Marigold nursing Grow Up Daisy who now has a missing leg. ‘So Ruby won’t be lonely,’ Marigold explained. The whine of a circular saw starts up, the band keep rehearsing, the noise never stops.

  The father Jerry is helping Liam and their project is now a triangular timber shape.

  ‘It’s a kicker ramp,’ Brandon says, handing Frankie a coffee.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asks.

  ‘For a skateboard. Pretty snazzy ramp too.’

  ‘Skateboarding?’ Frankie’s heart sinks.

  Sure enough, in the afternoon, in the brief respite after band practice, the skateboard ramp gets its first tryout.

  ‘Mummy, can we go over and play?’ ask Amber and Silver.

  ‘What about me?’ Marigold whinges, ‘I want to go too.’

  ‘No, sweethearts, I’ve told you before, you are to leave the boys next door alone. They’re much bigger than you.’

  ‘But I have a skateboard, I want to play on the ramp.’

  ‘You do not have a skateboard. You’re too little.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’ll show you.’

  Amber runs to her room and returns with a dusty pink skateboard with blue wheels.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  Amber studies her feet. ‘I found it.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘Outside.’

  ‘Outside where, Amber Desmarchelliers-Boyd?’

  ‘On the road.’

  ‘You found a skateboard that just happened to be sitting on the road. Is that the truth, Amber?’

  Silver looks sideways at his sister and Frankie guesses he knows all about it. Gone are the illusions that her children are immune from fibbing, making bad choices and generally being as flawed as the next person, herself included. Knowing this has made her a better parent. Not a great parent but better for not defending their every action and mistake.

  ‘Well, wherever it came from, you are certainly not going next door to ride the skateboard ramp. Is that clear?’

  The twins nod, though Amber pouts in disappointment.

  Frankie softens. Poor Amber is too young to understand that teenage boys do not want a five year old tagging along. ‘Look, why don’t you practise riding in our driveway. Maybe once you’re good enough, Daddy might build you a skateboard ramp of your own.’ She turns to Brandon. ‘What d’you reckon, Brandy?’

  Brandon looks up from his guitar and smiles. ‘Could be a plan.’

  *

  Despite the fact she is in and out of Gumnut all the time, Frankie is surprised to see Mrs Hill. She knew she hadn’t retired from her special helper role, it’s just that she doesn’t seem to be undertaking that role anywhere near as often as she used to. And today, here she is. Frankie’s pi
cking up the middle two and sees the old woman heaping straw around the plants in the vegetable garden. The children are helping her, their expressions showing how much they enjoy spreading the spent hay around. Marigold has a bucket and is collecting snails.

  ‘When you think you’ve found enough, Marigold, I’ll pour some hot water over them and we’ll feed them to the chooks,’ says Mrs Hill.

  The chickens seem aware there is a treat coming. Their beady eyes are pressed to the wire of their coop.

  As she turns, Mrs Hill catches Frankie’s eye. She raises her hand in a salute, Frankie waves back. She’s aged, Frankie thinks. Whenever she does think about Gwen Hill, which is not often, the image in her mind is of a sprightly woman, like a little sparrow jumping here and there, always on the move, its eye alight to opportunity. But the woman walking towards her has none of the vim and vigour of the old Mrs Hill. As the old lady stands in front of her and says hello, Frankie sees she is tired, but says, ‘You look well.’

  *

  ‘So do you,’ Gwen replies, though she thinks Francesca looks tired. Diane told her about what had happened to the baby and she wills herself not to look at where the little leg had once been. Francesca Desmarchelliers keeps the child swaddled, who knows what it looks like beneath the wrap.

  ‘You’re still helping out then?’ Francesca says.

  Gwen looks at the children who are playing with the straw rather than protecting the young plants. She says, ‘I wouldn’t give this up for quids.’

  Really what she should say is, it stops me from getting lonely. Oh, since Val’s moved into Paradise Gardens, she’s constantly on at her to join in. Gwen’s drawn the limit at bridge on a Friday. A little bit of Val is all she can take. But she is finally learning French like she told Babs all those months ago. There’s a fun crowd at the U3A practising their conversation every Thursday. ‘Voulez-vous une tasse du thé?’ she warbles feeling ever so sophisticated when offering a cuppa.