He storms off outside, slamming the door shut behind him. My mother raises a hand to her face and ever so softly wipes her cheek. It’s a gentle gesture, a simple one, and it breaks my heart. She doesn’t deserve this life. Why does she put up with him?
She sits down at the table and picks up the application form.
“I’m not doing it,” I say, fully expecting her to be on my side like she always is. I’m thrown when she doesn’t answer; instead she sighs and looks at me sadly.
“What?” I ask.
“Would it really be so bad?”
“Are you serious?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“It’s not like you’d be signing the rest of your life away, honey. If you don’t like it you can always look at something else down the track. But for now this might be a good thing. You’d finally be earning some good money, you could get your own place.”
“You want me to move out?”
“No,” she shakes her head but then it turns into a nod. “And yes. You need to move away from him Albert. You two have always clashed, that’s never going to change. I hate seeing him hurt you. If you stay I’m scared he’ll permanently break your spirit.”
“So you want me to join the police force so I can end up just like him?”
“You’re nothing like him. You never could be. Becoming a policeman won’t change that.”
“I can’t believe you’re agreeing with him.”
“I just don’t think it’s his worst idea for once.”
“Come on, can you really see me in the same uniform as him? Doing what he does?”
“It takes all sorts to make the world work.”
“That’s corny crap mum.”
“I know. But it’s true. You can be the yin to his yang. You wouldn’t be working with him anyway. You could get posted anywhere in the country.”
Immediately my thoughts turn to Maddy, and my face clearly betrays this.
“I know you really like her,” mum says. “But there’s no reason why you still can’t see her. If you guys are serious, there’s long distance while you train and then maybe she’ll move wherever you go. It’s not like her job is holding her here.”
“No.”
Her job might not be, but something else is. Bee. I don’t tell mum this though. Irrationally I’m feeling let down and a little betrayed. I thought my mother understood me better than this. The thought of being a policeman like my father fills me with dread. Not just because of him, but because it’s not me. I’m naturally non confrontational.
“Please love,” mum says. “Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I have to go.”
“Don’t be angry with me.”
She sounds so sad that any anger I feel deflates instantly. “I’m not angry with you, mum.”
She stands and holds out her arms hopefully. “Cuddle?”
“As long as you don’t tell anyone,” I say.
It’s our little joke and it’s always cheered me up but today it doesn’t work. I can’t help but feel as if things have changed. It’s an odd world when my mother agrees with my father, and it’s put me into a spin.
I pick up a box of beer and go to Connors. We drink and watch some action movie where apparently guns never run out of ammunition and the good guy never gets hit, despite everything around him being blown to smithereens. It’s mindless enough I don’t have to concentrate on it, but not enough to distract me from my thoughts.
Maddy
It’s D-day, according to the calendar.
“It can’t be,” I say, staring at the big black D scrawled on today’s date, circled twice for emphasis.
‘Hmm?” Mum says, a piece of toast clenched between her teeth while she attempts to run a brush through my sister’s violent curls, not helped by the fact my sister is wearing her headphones and is watching The Simpsons on her MP3 player. She keeps dropping her head down and mum has to pull it back up.
“Do you like children?” Bee says. “What do you mean all the time even when they are nuts? Oh yes, yes I do. Well done Simpson.”
“The calendar reckons Bee has a dentist appointment today.” I drain the dregs of my morning coffee, wishing the cup was twice as big but making a half arsed effort to cut down on my caffeine consumption. “It can’t have been six months since the last check up though, surely?”
“Oh yes, I forgot about that. Time goes quick when you’re having fun eh?”
“Yeah. So much fun.”
Mum stops brushing to look at me shrewdly. “You ok?”
“Fine.”
“You sure? You and Albert aren’t having problems are you?”
“No. We’re fine.”
I haven’t seen him since the beach. We’ve spoken on the phone a few times but our schedules keep clashing. Vague plans to catch up this weekend are in place, and it can’t get here soon enough.
Mum clears her throat. “Are you seeing him tonight?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason.”
There is a reason and we both know it. She wants to do something, most probably go out but she doesn’t want to ask because she feels bad. It’s a familiar routine.
“Just say it mum.”
She puts down the brush and pulls my sister’s hair back in a chunky ponytail. “We really need to get this thinned out and trimmed again.”
“Fine. I’m not going to force it out of you.” I shrug.
“Sonia and Kelly are going out for a few drinks tonight after work and I thought, maybe, if you weren’t busy with Albert, I could go along for one. Just one. Probably water.”
“Mum its fine. Go. Enjoy yourself. Have a wine. We’re not so broke you can’t have a drink with your friends.”
“Speaking of, we’ve had a letter from winz yesterday. They’ve reinstated Bee’s disability allowance and backdated it. No apology for their stupidity though.”
“Of course not. Didn’t expect one. But that’s a relief, at least we can clear a few bills.”
Mum puts her arms around Bee and pulls her in against her chest. She looks at me sadly. “This isn’t the life I wanted for you girls, you know. I’m sorry it’s such a struggle.”
I hate when she talks like this. It falls on me to talk her out of her low mood, and sometimes I just don’t have the tolerance for it. Other times I try and put myself in her shoes and I have more patience for her. “It is what it is mum. And no one is blaming you so stop saying sorry. Everyone has their own problems; we’re better off than some.”
“‘I know.” She sniffs audibly and I look at her alarmed. The last thing I feel like dealing with is her tears, not when I already have Bee and the dentist visit looming.
“Do it. Drinks. Go. Have fun.”
“Are you sure love?”
“Yes. Bee and I will be fine.”
She sniffs again but it’s quieter, crisis averted.
“If you’re sure?”
“Yes.”
She gets to her feet and starts hunting for her keys. I pick them up from the fruit bowl and hold them out for her. She takes them gratefully and gives me a sad little smile.
“What would I do without you love.”
I smile tightly but don’t answer.
“Let me know how you get on at the dentist.” She turns to Bee. “Be a good girl for Maddy.”
As soon as we pull into the dentists carpark Bee starts getting anxious.
“No thank you,” she says, shaking her head. “White car, mummy’s house.”
Our car is white. This is her way of saying ‘take me home please’. I would love to, but my sister has a smaller palate than most due to her disabilities. She also has an overcrowded mouth and a high pain threshold, so if she has a rotten tooth, for instance, she couldn’t tell us. Problem is, she’s not a fan of doctors or medical clinicians of any kind.
“White car, mummy’s house,” she says over and over in the waiting room. She won’t sit down and paces, flapping her hands near her head.
The receptionist comes out to offer Bee some water but she shakes her head. “No thank you, white car, mummy’s house.”
“I’ll just leave it here for her,” the lady smiles, indicating towards a table with a pile of ratty magazines that look like they’ve been there for the last ten years. As soon as she bends to put the plastic cup down I see what Bee is about to do but I’m too far away to be able to stop her. Still, I try.
“Bee, no,” I call out.
Slap
Bee smacks the receptionist hard on her bum and the woman’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. She lurches forward and grabs on to the table to stop herself from toppling over.
Bee laughs and jumps up and down.
“Sorry,” I say.
Luckily this is a special dentist, used to dealing with children and adults like Bee. It is probably not the first time she has had her personal boundaries invaded. She stands up and gives a little laugh and turns to shake a finger at Bee.
“Naughty girl,” she says. “You caught me unawares then.”
“I’m sorry,” I say meekly. “She just doesn’t know any better.”
“No need to apologise or explain. It’s fine, honestly.”
Thankfully the dentist calls us in then and I lead Bee down the long white hallway. Her anxiety grows the closer we get to his room. She clearly remembers being here and knows what’s to come.
“Hello Bee,” the dentist, a cheerful man named Harold says. He is thin, too thin, and it makes his head look like a skull on a stick. He has no hair on the top of his head, just a few tufts above his ears and around the back, and he wears glasses that magnify his eyes. I don’t blame Bee for being scared of him. With his white lab coat and in this sterile environment with the tools of his trade laid out on a tray a bit like torture instruments, he looks like a villain in one of the cartoons she watches.
“No thank you, white car, mummy’s house.” She shakes her head, refusing to look him in the eye. He closes the door and flicks the lock and immediately she starts pacing around the room like a caged animal.
“It’s ok Bee, he’s just going to look inside your mouth,” I reassure her, like I have so many times before.
“No thank you, white car, mummy’s house.”
I hate seeing her like this. I know he’s not going to hurt her, and I know that this has to be done for her own sake, but it’s hard to see the fearful look on her face.
I sit on the chair. “Look Bee, it’s easy. Just open your mouth so he can look inside. It won’t take long.”
I open my mouth and Harold peers inside. It is a stage show we have perfected over many visits.
“No thank you, white car, mummy’s house.”
“We’re not leaving until you let the dentist look in your mouth Bee.”
She stops in front of the window and pries open the blinds to look outside. Construction is happening somewhere nearby and we can hear the sound of loud hammering and drills. It adds to her anxiety and she flaps her hands near her face vigorously.
“Bee.”
She lets go and the blinds snap shut again.
“Come on Bee, open your mouth.”
She opens it for the briefest of moments. Harold quickly looks inside with his little mirror before she closes it again, almost trapping his finger.
“Finished now,” she says. “White car, mummy’s house.”
“No Bee. Not finished. Open your mouth please.”
It takes about ten minutes. Ten minutes of pacing and coaxing and brief glimpses before Harold is satisfied that everything is ok, at least as ok as it can be. I am relieved because when Bee needs dental work we have to go through the local hospital and they have to put her to sleep. We have just bought ourselves another six month reprieve.
I fish a ready-made pizza out of the freezer and heat it up for our dinner. Then while Bee watches nursery rhymes on her laptop I call Albert. He’s distracted, I can hear it in his voice, but when I ask him what’s wrong he tells me nothing and we have a weird conversation like we are strangers instead of people who have been as intimate as they can possibly be with each other. I tell him about the dentist and he doesn’t laugh when I tell him about Bee smacking the receptionist, even though it is funny.
I shower Bee and dress her in her PJ’s. She lies in mum’s bed with me and refuses to sleep, no matter how much I ignore her or how many times I tell her to close her eyes. She is in a playful mood, and keeps touching me, pinching my nose shut, stroking my hair, wrapping her legs around mine. She recites nursery rhymes and script from shows, jumping between them so quickly I struggle to catch up.
Finally she drifts off, just before twelve. I am just falling asleep myself when I hear the front door open. Sliding gently out of the bed so as not to wake Bee, I walk softly out to the kitchen where my mother is trying to pour herself a glass of water. She is having difficulty because she is twisting the tap the wrong way.
“Big night I take it,” I say dryly.
“Nooo,” she slurs. “Not at all. Nooooo. Just a couple of drinks. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m glad you had a good time. Come on, you’d better sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep with Bee.”
She snores loudly after a few drinks, my mother, and if she wakes Bee there’s a high chance none of us will get any sleep tonight. I lead her down the hallway, where she bounces off a couple of walls and into my room. She sits on the edge of my bed while I take her shoes off and when I look up she is crying, but without making a sound.
“Go to sleep mum. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
She lies down, her eyes closing immediately. Thinking she’s asleep, I cover her with the blankets. Just as I’m tip toeing out of the room she speaks.
“You’re just like him, you know.”
“Go to sleep mum.”
“He was kind and caring too. You get that from him.”
I pause, my hand on the doorknob. “Who?”
“Your father. You remind me of him so much sometimes. Night baby girl.”
She rolls over onto her side facing the wall and sighs softly. Within seconds she is snoring.
I stand there for a couple of minutes in the darkness listening to her breathe, confused. As far as I know she barely knew my father. Couldn’t even recall his face, let alone remember pertinent details of his personality. Do I wake her? Ask her what she meant? I’m a step towards the bed when through the wall I hear Bee say something. She has woken up and realised I am not there. If I go to her immediately I have a chance of resettling her without too much hassle.
My questions will have to wait until morning.
Albert
One thing in particular from the conversation with my mother has stuck in my head, and I’ve been mulling it over for days.
You need to move away from him, Albert.
She’s right. Of course she is.
Obviously I hadn’t planned on living at home for the rest of my life. There was always the vague intention to move out when time and circumstance was right. The main thing that’s held me back has been money. I just couldn’t afford it. I still can’t. At least not on my own.
For about two seconds I fantasise about asking Maddy if she wants to find a place together. It’s a nice fantasy; one where I come home from work and she’s waiting for me wearing next to nothing and we spend our nights making love and our weekends at the beach with the lovable scruffy dog that we pick out together from the local shelter riding in the back of the truck. So carried away do I get with the fantasy that I name him (Buddy) and hold an internal debate over whether Maddy is a character or modern house kind of girl. Character, I decide, with adorable quirks just like her.
Then reality crashes back in and I realise that she probably can’t afford to leave home either, even if she were able to move away from Bee, which she’s made perfectly clear she can’t.
I do some asking around to gauge the current state of the rental property market, do some figures, and realise that even using every cent I ear
n, I still couldn’t even afford to pay rent on my own place as well as utilities and food/truck payments.
“You could move in with us if you want,” Matt suggests when I mention my dilemma at work. He’s leaning against a tree smoking, leg cocked against the trunk like he thinks he’s some kind of James Dean. I’m shovelling manure into buckets that we’ll try and sell on the roadside as fertiliser. Every penny counts, according to Francine.
“Who’s us?”
“Me of course, plus my brothers Derek and Johnny.”
I do a quick memory search and come up blank. “Do I know them? Did they go to my high school?”
“Nah they didn’t spend much time at school. Not really their scene. Don’t suppose you’ve done time at Juvie?”
“Juvie?”
“Juvenile Detention.”
“Um, no. I haven’t done time at Juvie.”
“Then you probably don’t know them. Course they’re adults now. Derek’s in the big house down Palmerston ways. That’s why his rooms empty. I’m happy to sublet it till he gets out.”
“They sound like great guys.”
“Are you having a go at my brothers?” He pushes off the tree and drops the cigarette on the ground, grinding it into the dirt with his boot and scowling at me. Intriguingly, I can actually see a bit of James Dean in him when he does that.
“Not at all.”
“Good. Because only I can talk shit about them, not you or anybody else. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You interested in the room or not?”
I pretend to think about it. “Thanks, but no. I really need something more long term.”
“He’s not due out for another year or so.”
“Still, he might be well behaved and get out sooner and then I’d be back to square one.”
He laughs. “Derek? Good behaviour? Not going to happen.”
“Still, thanks but I’ll pass.”
“If you change your mind let me know. Be quick though, I might have other interested parties.”
“Sure.”
We hear tyres crunching on gravel and turn to see Francine’s car pull into the carpark. Matt picks up a shovel and applies himself enthusiastically to scooping up manure. For about a minute. As soon as she disappears into the office he leans on it and starts rolling himself another cigarette.
Differently Normal Page 12