Magenta McPhee

by Catherine Bateson

  She sat on the end of my bed and stroked my ankle, carefully. I held a cushion to my face so I couldn’t see all of her. She stroked for a while in silence. Up and down along my foot and then up to my ankle again. It almost, but not quite, tickled.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually. ‘Grown-up life gets a bit tricky, you know. But you are absolutely right, I shouldn’t talk about it to you or in front of you. It’s just that you’re the only person I know who sees him and knows what is going on at his end. Then this problem-page letter of yours! I am only worried, Magenta. Just because you leave someone doesn’t mean that you stop worrying about them.’

  ‘You’re worried about money,’ I said in the tightest meanest voice I could manage. I had to move the cushion and say it all again because the cushion muffled my first attempt.

  ‘True,’ she admitted. ‘There are things Trib and I would like to do and they require a bit more money than I have available at the moment. But I am also worried about your father. It may not always sound that way, but that’s the way it is.’

  ‘Just don’t talk to me about it.’

  ‘Magenta,’ she said and I could hear an edge creeping into her voice, ‘I do try not to. Then my Year Seven girls show me a letter that has clearly been written by you and sent into a public forum. A public forum. So I am now worried about you worrying about your father. Clearly you are the innocent party in all this so I’m not only worried about you, I’m angry that your father has made me have to be. I know this may not make sense to you. At the same time, I’m kind of proud you wrote the letter and doubly proud that it was such a good letter.’

  There was silence while we both struggled not to cry. Through the far edge of the pillow I could see she had pressed her fingers against her eyes as though to hold the tears inside. She’s good at that. When I try it the tears spill around my fingers so I swallow hard and screw my face up. That was a good reason for keeping the cushion over it!

  ‘Okay,’ she said eventually, ‘let’s start again. Magenta. It’s great to see you and congratulations on the very fine letter that you’ve recently had published.’

  ‘Thank you, Mum. I wasn’t going to show you due to the subject matter but I’m pleased it has been brought to your attention.’

  ‘That phone call was from Trib. He’s been held up in Sydney, so we’ll have a girls’ night. Just the two of us. What do you think?’

  ‘A DVD?’

  ‘Oh, definitely with a DVD. And, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to have my nails painted.’

  ‘That would be a pleasure, Lady Tammy. Perhaps I could request a similar service?’

  ‘Delighted. A foot soak, too, might refresh us? Not to mention some delicious morsels – cheese and dips or something more substantial?’

  ‘Takeaway pizza from the Gourmet to Go? There are, after all, only two of us.’

  ‘Gourmet to Go it is.’

  Mum and I settled down with a roast pumpkin, fetta and pine nut pizza with pesto sauce and watched ditsy-blonde movies most of the night. She had another call from Trib and I had one from Polly. She took the call from Trib into her room and I paused the DVD. So when Polly rang me, I insisted on the DVD being paused and taking the call in my room, too.

  ‘It’s up!’ Polly said.

  ‘What? Oh, and congratulations on the rain, by the way.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ I could hear Polly’s smile in her voice, ‘a bit of wet rhyme.’ She laughed manically at her own lame joke. ‘No, the real thing is that the profile is up. On Two’s Perfect. It reads pretty well. I added some stuff after you left, to make him sound more of a catch. I checked with Nanna. She said everyone wanted to sound better than they actually were and you took the profiles with a bucketload, never mind a pinch, of salt.’

  ‘How can I see it?’

  ‘You could go on at your mum’s place?’

  ‘Too risky. Trib’s been held up in Sydney so she might get prowly.’

  ‘Okay, tomorrow at my place after school. We’ve still got some information to fill in. And a photo. We desperately need a photo. I don’t think we’ll get any hits until we have a photo up. People will think he’s gross or something. With bad skin disease. Or a huge hump. It’s superficial, but the dating marketplace is. You just have to face the facts.’

  I could always tell when Polly had been talking to her grandmother. She just repeated huge chunks of their conversation without changing a word. I thought it might be plagiarism but according to Polly you couldn’t plagiarise direct speech. That was really a good thing for a writer, I thought. It even helped me a little, although my characters had to talk weirdly because of the age they lived in, so it was more difficult for me. I mean, as an example, how do you translate this sentence I over-heard on the train into the Middle Ages? We had such a totally like awesome night with these random dudes we met on MySpace. I’d have to write, The feast was splendid and I enjoyed the unexpected company of my Lord Harry and the rest of his hunting party who had fortuitously stumbled across our smallholding on their way to ... You get the picture. No wonder fantasy books never come singly. You can’t learn the language in just one book. Rabbiting on like that takes up so much space.

  I’d be writing the Chronicles while I was at university at this rate. If I get into university and don’t fail school because of all the time the Chronicles are taking out of my life. I’m certainly never going to manage a boyfriend.

  ‘Okay – I’ll clear it with Mum. But she’ll be fine. See you at school.’

  The DVD ended just as we knew it would. The couple got married and lived happily forever.

  ‘For seven and a half years,’ Mum said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The national average length of a marriage these days.’

  I shook my head. ‘Why bother?’ I asked. Marriage seemed a bit like a fantasy novel to me – but apparently you didn’t get to write a trilogy. Unless, of course, that was why people tried again.

  ‘Do you think marrying Trib is like having another go at the story?’ I asked Mum as we cleaned our teeth together.

  ‘What?’ She spluttered toothpaste everywhere. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, like fantasy. You’ve got the language and the characters and a bit of the plot, so you start out on the first book but it doesn’t work out. You’ve still got the language and you’ve introduced a new character and you’ve got your plot that could maybe still work?’

  ‘Magenta McPhee, I think that is the most brilliant definition of a second marriage I’ve ever heard. Chilling, but brilliant. Go and write it down somewhere. When you’re a world-famous fantasy writer, you can sell your juvenilia to some rich American library.’

  ‘Do people do that?’

  ‘All the time,’ Mum nodded. ‘Keep everything!’

  I did write it in my journal. My everyday journal. I added some biting comments on the plight of a child caught in the crossfire of financial strife but I added that Mum and I had had a really good girls’ night in and that my face felt as soft as rose petals after using Mum’s new face mask. I didn’t want anyone from an American university thinking I had issues with my mum. We got along fine. When she left Dad out of it.

  I was woken in the morning by my mobile phone. It was Polly sending me a text. She had a mobile she used only in the strictest of emergencies, as she didn’t approve of them. It was a short message.

  Bring photo of yr dad.

  A photo! That was going to be difficult. I could hardly ask Mum, particularly not after last night. I told Mum I’d walk to school, rather than get a lift, and she told me that Trib might not be home tonight, either, and that after she picked me up from Polly’s we could look through the wedding plans if I wanted. Great, I thought, more wedding plans. But I tried to look enthusiastic instead and waved her off.

  Then I went photo hunting.

  Mum didn’t
have any, of course. There were none in my room, either. I kept photos of Mum and me at her place and of Dad and me at Dad’s place. I checked the storeroom. Buried underneath some old magazines was a big wedding album. I flipped through it. It’s funny, but at weddings they only take photos of the bride by herself, never the groom. Also, you’d have been able to tell it was a wedding because Dad was in a suit with a funny bow tie. Plus, he was years and years younger. They wouldn’t do at all.

  Then I found a falling-apart photo album from a holiday we took – the last holiday together. Okay, Dad was still a fair bit younger than he looked now and Mum was in it, but they were separated by me and I thought I might just manage to cut Dad out of the photo. Maybe.

  I peeled the photo off and put it carefully between pages in my planner and then had to almost-run the whole way to school to make it before the bell went.

  In the end we cut just Mum out and left me in because Polly said the photo with me looked as though Dad was a good family man. Also it was harder to cut me out because he had his arm on my shoulders (but not around Mum’s, I couldn’t help noticing). We scanned the photo and then loaded it onto Dad’s profile.

  ‘I added a bit,’ Polly said sheepishly. ‘I thought he didn’t sound romantic enough.’

  She’d added, Well, that was my daughter speaking and I second her thoughts but decided I should add that I’m looking for that special someone. Someone I can walk on beaches with, cuddle up in front of fires with, look for falling stars with and tell my secrets to. I love camping out – being at one with nature. I love reading a good book, watching a good movie and listening to good music – but all that is empty without a special someone to talk things over with.

  ‘You should be a writer,’ I said sarcastically.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Polly asked. ‘I thought it was pretty good but I really want to do environmental science.’

  ‘I was joking. I think it sounds stupid and just like every other desperate person here.’

  ‘You’re just jealous, Magenta McPhee!’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘You’re just a third-rate romance writer, Polly Davies.’

  ‘I am not!’

  But we posted it up anyway, with the photo. Then Polly did a kind of spell thing. She called it a finding spell but she’d just made it up, I could tell. The incense she waved at the computer wasn’t particularly convincing either.

  Looking, looking always looking,

  I need a time that’s ripe for cooking.

  Finding, finding – that be joy.

  A pretty girl for this lonely boy.

  ‘That’s so lame, Polly,’ I said and would have said more but at that moment Jane came in.

  ‘What on earth’s that smell? Not that gruesome incense again, Polly? It will taint my kitchen, darling. Hello, Magenta, lovely to see you! How are things?’ Jane swept in, waving her arms at the wisps of incense smoke. ‘Do open a window, Polly. Staying for tea, Magenta? Had a cancellation, so we’ve got Moroccan packs – spicy lamb, tabouleh with preserved lemon, a wedge of Turkish bread served with an eggplant relish. Fifty serves beautifully packaged in the Green Box signature recycled-cardboard box, each with “Happy Ever After” written on them. I wrote fifty Happy Ever Afters in the early hours of this morning. It was an engagement party.’

  ‘What happened?’ I had wondered why Jane looked a little bedraggled around her designer edges.

  ‘She had a text message from an old boyfriend. A text message! All my work. And I can’t freeze it. Eggplant deteriorates. We just have to eat Moroccan packs until they’re gone. Do stay for dinner, Magenta. Would your mother be free, do you think? And what about that boyfriend of hers, Tib?’

  ‘Trib,’ I said. ‘No, he’s in Sydney fixing a network, but Mum might be able to come? Do you want me to call her?’

  ‘Yes, please do. That would be, let’s see, three packs for Marcus, two for the rest of us ... They’re very small servings, just a light, slightly-more-than-finger-food, less than dinner, not-quite-lunch sort of thing to serve with drinks. That would be eleven gone already. Maybe four for Marcus, three for the rest of us. Gosh, that would only leave me with thirty-four. Then you could take home – say ten? I could give ten to dear Amanda and we’d only have to eat fourteen more! Just think, Polly, only three days of Moroccan nights.’

  I love Jane. She always managed to turn a potential disaster into a good thing. Plus, she’s the most cool-looking Mum. She has dead black hair with these bright red wings at the sides. They go with her spectacle rims and her lipstick. Her hair’s as short as a boy’s so she doesn’t have to put it up in the kitchen, she says, but Polly says it’s because she likes to show off her neck. Marcus has made her neck into a sculpture. It’s one of his not-quite-famous sculptures bought by a regional gallery. A very prominent regional gallery, Jane says. But Marcus just sniffs.

  So we all ate Moroccan packs for dinner from little cardboard boxes. I saved one of my boxes. I liked the idea of having a Happy Ever After box. I wasn’t sure what I could do with it, but I knew it would come in handy for something. And even if it didn’t it was good to have something that believed in Happy Ever Afters.

  Spooky

  Trib came home in the middle of the week and that put an end to chick-flick DVDs and takeaways. Mum went back to trying to be a domestic goddess and I decided to try to get Lady Rosa to the wedding. My readers wouldn’t be all that interested in how Ricardo shaved, but they’d probably enjoy hearing about Lady Tamsin and Rosa’s wedding clothes. Lady Tamsin would have to look spectacular so I dressed her in a golden gown covered in seed pearls. In contrast, Rosa wore a pale-green gown, the colour of new leaves. I was a bit stumped when it came to what they’d eat. I decided that roast sucking-pig sounded just the thing. I put an apple in its mouth for good measure. How you could eat anything that still had a face was beyond me. It was enough to turn me vegetarian. Polly agreed.

  ‘It’s disgusting,’ she said on the phone. ‘Pigs squeal when they’re about to be slaughtered.’

  ‘How do you know?’ My pig would have to have been killed in the castle grounds. Mind you, it would be kind of interesting if Rosa heard it and refused to eat it. But then what would she get to eat? I wasn’t sure that there were a lot of vegetables around in those days.

  ‘Cabbage, turnips, carrots,’ Polly suggested ‘and she could always fill up with bread.’

  In the end I let her have a lady-like shudder at the pig’s head but Ricardo, always a gentleman, carves her a succulent slice.

  ‘You must eat, my Lady Rosa, your skin is as pale as starlight. Becoming, of course, but perhaps this piece of succulent pork will bring a slight blush of dawn to your face.’

  Ricardo was the bee’s knees as far as I was concerned!

  ‘Thank you, my Lord. Your compliments are as gratefully received as the food you heap on my plate.’

  ‘My compliments fade in comparison to their subject, Madame!’ Lord Ricardo bowed low over the plate he proffered.

  Really, it was hard to imagine how they were actually ever going to kiss, given that they had to talk in this extremely fancy way. I’d have to introduce Holly quickly. This wedding feast just ended up making me hungry.

  Mum was preparing roast lamb and vegies in the kitchen. Her face was all sweaty because the oven was on and she had streaks of flour over her black top despite the apron she wore.

  ‘Don’t eat too much,’ she warned, ‘dinner will be in an hour or so.’

  ‘An hour is ages away, Mum. I’m starving.’ I wolfed down two more biscuits while her back was turned. ‘What kind of food do you think you’ll have at the wedding?’

  ‘Well,’ Mum said, giving me complete attention, ‘I wondered if Jane wouldn’t cater for it, given that it will be very small. I did love the Moroccan Nights idea – though I’m not sure about making that a wedding theme, to
be quite honest. I can’t see myself wearing harem pants. They’re so seventies. Then I wondered about a kind of picnic thing. Jane could put together little picnic baskets. But then why ask Jane to do that? I could put BYO picnic hamper on the invitation. We want to keep the cost down.’

  ‘You could have sucking pig,’ I suggested, ‘with an apple in its mouth. A kind of medieval theme. We could wear costumes. Trib would look dashing in breeches.’

  ‘Tights,’ Mum said, ‘the men wore tights.’

  ‘Oh no, I’ll have to rewrite everything. I thought they wore breeches.’

  ‘Well no, darling, kirtles and hose. Don’t you love the word kirtle?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘I really do have to do some research, don’t I?’

  ‘I expect you do. Anyway, I don’t think a medieval theme is the way to go for us. We want something simple. Simple but elegant. Or simple but chic, even if it’s slightly shabby chic.’

  I had no idea what she was talking about, so I just nodded and scoffed another biscuit while she arranged things in the oven.

  ‘I need some action,’ I told her when I had her attention again, ‘for the Chronicles. Things aren’t happening fast enough. I’m going to introduce an apprentice witch but I’m not sure that will be enough.’

  ‘She could kill someone,’ she suggested, ‘or try to. That’s even better.’

  ‘I need some action,’ I told Trib over dinner, ‘for the Chronicles?’

  ‘A car chase,’ Trib suggested. He was catching up on reading the papers, even though I couldn’t read at the table.

  ‘It’s set in the Middle Ages,’ I said, ‘so I don’t think a car chase is exactly what I need.’

  Mum spluttered, ‘It’d be action, though,’ she said. ‘You could add some time travel – a Dr Who kind of thing. They could arrive in a blue Chevrolet, bang smack in the middle of the wedding. That would be action for you!’