“What were you going to say?” Mum asks.
I tell her about the job and she’s happy for me of course. She fetches another glass and we have a toast in front of the washing machine.
“Here’s to your bright future,” she says proudly.
“Thanks mum.”
“No I mean it. You’re destined for good things, Albert. I’ve known it since the moment I clapped eyes on you.”
She’s lying of course. Or the wine is. But I’m grateful anyway.
I try again to broach the subject when we’re all seated around the table eating dinner. My audience is hardly the most receptive. Louis’s kids are sulking because they’ve been made to leave their electronic devices in the lounge. Their faces look like their hands have been cut off, so I could probably announce I’d been abducted by aliens and they wouldn’t care less. My brother and father are on the whiskey, which means I have a small window while they still feel jolly and goodwill towards mankind, before one too many glasses tips them over the edge and they become brooding and spoiling for a fight.
“Ahem.” I clear my throat, and wait for someone’s, anyone’s, attention.
Mum looks from me to dad and gives me a wink. “Yes love?” she says unnaturally slowly. A stage actress she is not. “Do you have something exciting to announce?”
“Speaking of announcements,” Louis says. Some mashed potato escapes through his teeth as he talks and does a kamikaze leap to the tablecloth. I don’t blame it. Of the two fates I know which I’d prefer. “You’re going to need to buy another chair in a few months.”
I lean back in my chair. As far as announcements go, he’s just trumped me.
Miranda flushes and lowers her cutlery to the table. “I thought we’d agreed not to tell anyone yet.”
My brother looks genuinely surprised, which is a clear sign he most likely wasn’t listening when that particular conversation took place. “Did we? Oh well. Doesn’t matter whether we tell them now or in six months. We’re screwed regardless.” He sees her crestfallen look. “Sorry, you know I’m just joking.”
My mother, maybe because of the unknown quantity of laundry wines already consumed, is slow on the uptake.
“Why do we need another chair?” She looks blankly from Louis to Miranda.
“I guess congratulations are in order,” I say. “Congratulations.”
Louis narrows his eyes at me. “What’s that supposed to mean.”
“Congratulations? It’s a term people use when someone shares good news. Means well done. Good on ya mate.”
“Shut up smartarse.”
“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” mum asks.
“Why did you say it like that,” Louis growls at me. The whiskey window has closed and Louis the Hulk is here. Normally it’s my cue to keep my mouth shut, but I’m resentful that no one is interested in hearing my news. So I prod the bear instead.
“Like what?”
“Like the way you said it.”
“How did I say it?”
“Like you were having a go.”
“Well I wasn’t.”
“Sounded like it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Better not have been.”
“Or what?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“That’s why I asked.”
Our father is watching the exchange with amusement. Growing up, he always pitted us against each other. ‘Competition is healthy’, he would say. ‘A little confrontation is what separates the men from the boys’. Which was all very well in theory, but what it meant in practise was that I frequently got my arse walloped at the hands of my older, much bigger, brother, whether I was in the right or not. Who needs to be right when you have brute strength on your side?
“Keep going and you’ll find out,” he says menancingly.
But I’m not twelve anymore, and since my heartbreak I’ve had a small streak of a death wish anyway. If he wants to wallop me at the dinner table because of some misconceived slight, he’s welcome to.
I stare at him, waiting until I know he thinks he’s won and I’ve shut up, then just as he’s lifting a piece of steak up to his mouth I fire the kill shot.
“Not my fault you can’t keep it in your pants,” I say.
With a roar he drops the fork to the table and shoves his chair back violently.
“Outside, now,” he bellows. He is panting with fury and ready to rip my head off. To an outsider this would probably be an alarming sight. For us it’s just a regular family dinner.
Miranda grabs an arm that is pointing an angry finger at me and tries to pull him back down onto his seat.
“Louis please,” she says. “Stop being silly. He didn’t mean anything, did you Albert?” She looks at me desperately. She looks exhausted, and for the first time I notice she has wrinkles that don’t go away anymore when she smiles, instead they are carved into her skin in a permanent reminder of a frown. It’s not easy living with my brother 24/7, I know firsthand. And she also has his offspring and now a bun in the oven to deal with. I take pity on her.
“No,” I smile charmingly. “Of course I didn’t. I’m really happy for you guys.”
She smiles at me gratefully. “See?”
Louis grumbles, unconvinced. But he relents and lets her push him back down into his seat.
“It’s early days yet,” Miranda says. “So please don’t tell anyone. And no, it wasn’t planned.”
“Oh!” My mother claps her hands together and squeals. “You mean we’re getting a new baby?”
Maddy
Photo of the week, not mutually agreed upon, is a stunning night shot of the moon, framed by clouds and dotted around by stars. It is the blue of midnight, of dark denim, of the ocean right at that point where the bottom drops off. Whoever took it clearly fancies themselves as somewhat of a nature photographer. Based on their photos, I’d be inclined to agree. There are photos of flowers, trees, birds and even a small lake that has Kyle and I mystified. Neither of us is aware of the existence of any lakes around these parts. But it’s the moon photo that captivates me.
It is not Kyle’s first choice, or even second, but it beat his choices by way of a round of rock paper scissors.
It’s not often we disagree over our photo of the week choice, but occasionally it happens. We keep our selection pinned to a board in the backroom. Depending on what we’ve chosen, they’re either there to inspire or entertain us.
Kyle went all soppy on me on Tuesday when he processed an order from an old couple’s 60th wedding anniversary. Misty eyed as he flicked through the shots – “Just look at the love on their faces when they look at each other, have you ever seen anything so sweet?” – he nominated a photo of the two of them sitting at a table with a big cake in front, the words Happy 60th Wedding Anniversary Edith and Pete!!! (With two extra exclamation marks needed to get the point across apparently). They are leaning in towards each other, their heads touching, smiling for the camera.
“So romantic,” he sighed dreamily. “Can you imagine spending sixty years of your life with someone?”
“Yeah, in my nightmares maybe.”
“God you’re so cynical. I suppose you don’t believe in love at first sight either.”
“Not unless you’re talking about between me and a pizza,” I say, grinning.
He shakes his head sadly.
The second photo he puts forward for nomination is less the romantic side of him and more the rampant horny bastard.
“Holy shit,” I hear him whistle on Thursday. Sensing excitement, something the last seven hours of my shift has lacked, I’m out the back immediately.
“What? What?”
“Check this out.”
I peer over his shoulder at the screen, then groan.
“I should have known.”
“I bags being there when she picks these photos up,” Kyle says. “I don’t care if I’m rostered on or not.”
“You don’t think she might b
e a touch out of your league?”
We study the screen. The photo is a selfie taken on a stick by a drop dead gorgeous brunette who could easily give the Kardashians a run for their money in the lips and buttock department.
“Do you think they’re natural?” I ask, touching my fingers to my own inadequate lips.
“Probably not. Who cares? I bet they feel great when she goes dow–” he remembers his audience. “I mean when you kiss her.”
“Nice save.”
“Thanks.”
“You could rest a beer on her butt.”
“It does look a little like a shelf doesn’t it.”
“Do guys seriously get turned on by that kind of body?”
“I can only speak for myself, of course, and normally as you know I’m more of a boob man, although she has a pretty spectacular pair of those too. But yes, there is something about her body that makes me want to –”
I put my hands over my ears. “Stop. TMI.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t care what you want to do to her, it’s not going on the board.”
“Oh come on, you have to admit she’s pretty spectacular.”
“Compared to what?”
He looks me up and down.
“I’d think twice before you say what you’re going to say,” I warn him.
“Compared to your crappy moon shot, is what I was about to say,” he lies. “Give me a chance.”
“It’s not crappy. You loved it too when you saw it.”
“That was before I saw this.”
“Rock paper scissors?”
“Rock paper scissors.”
“One two three, go.”
“Dammit.”
When I get home after my shift finishes the house is quiet. Too quiet.
“Mum? Bee?” I check the lounge. It’s empty.
“In here,” mum calls from their bedroom.
They are lying on the bed, Bee watching something on her MP3 player. Mum has her arms around her and is smoothing fine tendrils of hair away from her forehead.
“Everything ok?” I ask, sitting on the end of the bed and wriggling my sisters big toe. She doesn’t look up at me.
“She had a fit.”
“For how long?”
“About forty minutes. Then she slept for an hour. She’s just woken up.”
Apart from being a bit pale, Bee looks her usual self. She usually does though, after a fit. Just quieter. She is transfixed on the small screen in her hand, her other hand flapping near her face in a self soothing gesture.
“I’d like a three minute egg,” she says. “Woah! Steady on! Oww!”
‘It’s my fault,” mum says guiltily. “The change in routine, changing stables. I should have known it would upset her.”
“That’s not true. You know her fits are completely random. Don’t blame yourself.”
She sighs. “I know. It’s hard not to. After all these years they still terrify me.”
Mum looks pale too, and tired. Her eyes are red rimmed like she’s been crying, which she probably has. It’s not like her to blame herself or go down the self pity route, not for a long time anyway. I know she’s kicking herself. I also know that anything that happens with my sister’s health is not her fault or my fault or indeed anyone’s fault. It’s just the way things are.
When Bee was born mum was already the proud owner of another bastard child, namely me, product of father unknown. Well, she has some hazy details. A good looking stranger, she says, that she met in a bar after a Madonna concert (hence the name). She didn’t even catch his name, and the mechanics of their meeting were brief as she tells it. A drunken fumble in a back alley, forgotten until she fainted at work four months later and learnt he’d left her with more than the imprint of a brick wall on her arse.
Bee’s father was at least in the picture slightly longer. I was eight when she was born, the result of a brief fling my mother had. Her father was nice enough, harmless, good natured. He was also jobless and transient, grateful for the warm bed my mother provided him. He took for the hills when my mother told him about his impending fatherhood. We woke up one morning and he was gone, and we’ve neither seen nor heard from him since.
She was the most beautiful little baby, my sister. Tiny, like a baby bird, with delicate features. Her skin hung off her and she had very little muscle tone.
I fell in love with her fast and deep.
She’s like a little doll, people would exclaim.
The doctors suspected something was wrong from day one, and we went for appointment after appointment while they ran tests.
“She’s just not growing,” mum insisted. “She doesn’t even have enough energy to drink her milk properly.”
There were other things we noticed too. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, they flicked from side to side and her head measurement was too big compared to her tiny body. The doctors thought she had hydrocephalus, and scans showed the ventricles in her brain were enlarged, which most likely indicated fluid on the brain. A cerebral shunt to bypass the obstruction was discussed. I was only eight, playing on the floor of the waiting room with my doll, and the big words the doctors threw at my mother went over my head more often than not, but the intention and the worry on my mother’s face were clear enough. Then one day not long after, when she was just shy of five months old, she stopped flicking her eyes from side to side and focused, and the doctors said the fluid in her brain had found its own drain. I remember my mother celebrating with a small glass of wine that night, saying that everything was going to be ok now.
But at eight months we were back in for more investigation. She still wasn’t growing as she should, or meeting her milestones. Cerebral Palsy was mentioned. Again, I didn’t know what that meant, but I heard my mother cry at night and I knew it wasn’t good. At a year old Bee weighed less than the Jack Russell puppy next door, although her head was that of a much larger toddler. It was so big she couldn’t hold it up, or crawl or roll over, and she was floppy, like a rag doll. We were told she would never walk or talk, but mum was determined to prove them wrong. She did the special physio exercises she’d been shown religiously at every nappy change and was rewarded when Bee took her first steps at the age of two and a half. It took her much longer to learn how to balance properly without falling flat on her face.
We tried hard, mum and I, to teach her words, but she remained non verbal despite our best efforts, so we learnt Makaton, the signing language. It was a turning point; at least now we could communicate with her.
When she was six my mother requested an appointment with a new doctor. The autism diagnosis came as no surprise to us really. We knew something was different, and now we had a label for it. I was fourteen then, and more aware. There had been an autistic boy in one of my classes a couple of years prior. He wore nappies and once masturbated in the cloakroom and we avoided him like the plague. I remembered the other boys teasing him when the teacher wasn’t around. If he understood the words they called him he never showed it.
Bee was toilet trained, thanks to my mother’s determination, and always happy. She went to a school for children with special educational needs where she did intense speech therapy and physio. We learnt to ignore the stares and the snide comments from people who really should know better. I never stopped wanting to hurt or maim anyone who looked at her like she was a freak, but I did learn not to act on it. Bee taught us tolerance and patience. If she didn’t feel sorry for herself, what right did we have?
Puberty bought with it another diagnosis, epilepsy. It was hard not to feel bitter and think, ‘hasn’t she been through enough?’
But we learnt to live with it. What choice did we have?
Still, at night when I would lay in bed and listen to mum comfort her after yet another epileptic fit, I would cry silent tears into my pillow. I was terrified for what the future held for her but I knew that as long as she had mum and I she would be ok.
Albert
The next time I see Maddy
she makes my heart stop, not for a long time, just enough for the tick of a clock hand. I catch a glimpse of her from behind, you see, and her resemblance to Kate is uncanny enough to leave me stricken, caught up in momentary fantasy that it is Kate, here now, looking for me, to tell me she made a huge mistake and to beg for my forgiveness.
It’s not of course.
The world is generally not that kind, not to me anyway.
I’m on a break so I follow her and her sister to the indoor arena and loiter in the shadows of the doorway from where I can watch them unseen. She’s attentive to her sister, helping her onto the horse, standing just close enough to be there should she be needed, but she doesn’t mollycoddle. She let’s Bee take the reins, literally and figuratively, and watches on proudly as Bee smiles broadly from the back of the horse.
She’s quite pretty, Maddy, with long dark hair and delicate features. Somewhat guarded at our first meeting, it’s here when she’s unaware she is being observed that she lets that guard down. Her features have relaxed as she smiles and calls out words of encouragement. She isn’t wearing any make-up, or if she is it’s subtle, but she doesn’t need it.
Maybe it’s the weight of my inquisitiveness, but something tips her off and she stiffens and tilts her face to the side. I quickly draw out of sight, aware the situation could come across a little on the creepy side. Checking my watch I realise my break is over anyway so I head over to the stable to finish polishing the leather with a cream preserver. I’m lost in thought when Todd comes up behind me.
“Payslips are out,” he says, flourishing a piece of paper at me. “Let’s see what pittance we’ve earned this week eh?”
I take mine from him and watch as he rips along the dotted lines of his own, his forehead furrowed as he mouths out the figures he sees.
“Aw damn,” he says. “I’m short this week. Mustn’t have any sick days left.”
“When were you sick?”
“Monday.”
‘What was wrong?”
He leans forward and looks both ways as if he’s about to cross the road. “Between you and me and that saddle,” he says. “I had a case of can’tbefuckeditis’.”
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