Transformation of Minna Hargreaves, The

by Beale, Fleur

  That caught Noah’s attention. ‘Right on, sis.’ He grinned again, at Dad this time. ‘You’ll swan in, ask a million dumb questions, take us somewhere dumb, pretend we’re all having a frigging party and then vroom! Gone again.’

  Dad pushed his chair back into the table with a decided thump. ‘Bloody kids. Who’d have ’em?’ But we both noticed he didn’t contradict us.

  He banged pans around in the kitchen. Mum appeared. Dad shot her a swift glare and kept working.

  Lunch was heavenly. Dad stuffed the fish with herbs and baked it whole in the oven. Noah created a slight ripple by remarking that it was worth nearly killing me to get the fish but, apart from that, harmony reigned. Mum didn’t sit at the table, but she hadn’t ever since we’d been on the island. She did manage to eat more than a couple of teaspoonfuls of the fish, however.

  We all told Dad how magnificent the meal was. He grinned at Noah and me. Didn’t react at all to Mum’s comment, but I thought I detected a softening. Things could be looking up.

  For the next few days the wind blew hard, and Dad kept obsessively disinfecting my leg. I put up with it because I figured I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if I complained, ha ha.

  Dad made Noah go down the path and haul up the gear and the yacht. Noah went, without one moan.

  Okay, so maybe we had learnt our lesson. I’d never tell Dad, but I damn well wasn’t sorry we’d made it down to the beach. What a blast.

  And when I tested my heart, I found that the pain was bearable — not pleasant, but bearable. It was more sadness now than pain, but I was pleased that when I thought about Lizzie I still wanted to smash her. Bitch. Traitor.

  Dad and Noah went back to the chopping and hacking routine. I hobbled around feeding the chooks and doing most of the other stuff. Life went on, my leg got better, but possibly my career as a swimsuit model was out the window. Would they want a model with a fifteen-centimetre scar down her thigh?

  Mum still spent most of the days lying down, but she was sketching a fair bit. Feeling much better, she said, but she still didn’t eat a lot so who knew what better meant? Mental note: never have kids, Min.

  ‘The olds are not so bitchy,’ Noah said about a week after the cliff episode, when we were both away from parental ears. ‘Wonder if we should drop you off another cliff.’

  I gave him a shove. ‘Your turn this time.’ But it was true. They still didn’t chat to each other, but things were definitely less tense. ‘You reckon they’ll get it sorted before we go home?’

  Noah shrugged. End of conversation. God, I missed Jax and Addy but not Lizzie. Except I did in a weird sort of way. She was crazy, she was out there, she was Lizzie. But we were finished. You couldn’t come back from such a huge betrayal of trust. So why did I want Dad to talk to Mum? I ought to understand why he wouldn’t, but I still wanted him to. Bloody life — why did it have to be so hard?

  October helicopter-day arrived. We’d sent in the supply list, crossed our fingers and hoped the weather would behave.

  It did — the day was blue and perfect. Dad, Noah and I waited at the landing pad. I hoped with all my heart that Jax and Addy would leap out of the chopper. It swung into sight, reeling above us in the blue day before swooping down.

  The door opened, Cara plus camera bounded out. I looked behind her for Jax and Addy, my heart lifting. But next came Dr Hunter and then a man. And that was it. I wanted to bawl but not now, thank you very much, with old Cara waving her camera over us.

  Dad moved towards the chopper. ‘Come on kids. Packhorse time.’

  ‘Who’s the bloke, Dad?’ Noah asked.

  Dad shrugged. ‘Nobody I know.’

  Cara stopped, so did the man. Dr Hunter went on towards the house. Cara said, ‘This is Robert Chisholme.’

  Dad put out a hand for him to shake, but Robert Chisholme didn’t take it. He looked Dad in the eye and said, ‘You’d better know straight up — I’m the father of your wife’s baby.’

  Cara: (filming like crazy)

  Noah: (mouth open like dead fish)

  Me: (no breath left in body)

  Dad: (whirls round and spits at Cara) Turn that bloody camera off or I’ll throw it over the cliff and you after it.

  Cara: (goes pale and turns camera off)

  Dad: (exits swiftly towards other end of island)

  Robert: (stares fixedly into distance)

  Noah shut his mouth and said, ‘Come on, Min. Grab the boxes. There’s ice cream in there.’

  I stumbled towards the chopper. It was like walking in some awful wasteland where nothing was solid. ‘Why did he come?’ I whispered.

  Noah heaved a box into my arms. ‘Dunno. Good television, I guess.’

  Bloody Cara. God, I hated her.

  We lugged the supplies back to the house. ‘I don’t want to talk to him.’ I stopped at the gate.

  Noah kept walking. ‘Don’t then.’

  I followed. Cara and the man were in the lounge. He stood away from her, his arms folded tight across his body. Good. He didn’t like this any more than we did. Serve him right. Cara smiled at us in her bright, brittle fashion and asked, ‘So what’s been happening?’

  I couldn’t look at her. ‘Why did you do it?’ I muttered. ‘That was so mean.’

  He — Robert — sent me a tight-lipped glance.

  She ignored me. ‘Noah?’

  He kept on hunting through the box till he found the ice cream. Only then did he look at her. ‘Nothing,’ he said. He ratted around in the cutlery drawer, grabbed a couple of spoons and grinned at me. ‘Come on, Min. Let’s eat ice cream. Outside.’

  I followed him on to the verandah. We slid the doors shut behind us, leaving just enough of a gap to hear any informative conversation.

  ‘Bitch,’ Noah said and dug into the ice cream. Double chocolate ripple.

  I picked up my spoon. I’d never be able to eat it. My stomach hurt. I filled the spoon and licked at it. It was good. Noah ate his way through most of it.

  ‘Leave some for Mum,’ I said. We both knew Dad wouldn’t reappear until dark and maybe not even then.

  Cara made a couple of bright, cheerful remarks to him. He didn’t respond. This island was full of pissed-off men, but he only had himself to blame so that should cheer him up.

  Dr Hunter came out and sat down beside us. ‘She’s doing well and she wants me to check out your leg, Minna.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. I pulled up my trouser leg to show her. All but the last of the bruising had faded and the cut was healed.

  ‘Excellent,’ the doctor said. ‘I guess you’ve already been told how lucky you were?’

  I nodded. She patted my knee and didn’t say anything about the man. Noah asked, ‘Did you tell her he was here?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dr Hunter, and that was all.

  We sat in the sun together and watched the sea while Mum’s ice cream melted. Noah drank it.

  Cara bustled out, followed by the man. ‘Well, goodbye, kids. See you next time.’

  ‘Not if we see you first,’ Noah muttered. I didn’t say anything. They left. He strode ahead of her and I hoped she liked filming his back view. We watched the chopper leave from where we still sat on the verandah. Mum didn’t show. Dad didn’t show.

  Back to normal.

  Shit.

  Noah helped cook dinner. He did the sausages, I did spuds and the hugest salad. Mum had a nibble of spud. No sign of Dad.

  ‘Why did he come, Mum?’ I asked.

  She rubbed both hands over her face, sighed and then put her hands down and leaned back into the couch. ‘He wants to be part of the baby’s life.’

  I stared at her. ‘He can’t! Does he want to marry you? Mum, you can’t!’

  Noah thumped the table and muttered.

  Mum closed her eyes. ‘Of course he doesn’t want to marry me — and anyway, I wouldn’t. But he says it’s his baby and it deserves a father.’

  I yelled at her. ‘Well so do we, but thanks to him ours is a gone-burger.’


  Mum didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Sorry, I’ll make it better would be a good start, but she couldn’t and I knew it.

  I packed up food and left the house in search of Dad. Found him. ‘Thanks Min. Put it down there, will you.’ I did, and left him. He had that look on his face that says I want to be alone.

  twenty-five

  I ran back to the house with the sounds of the night loud around me. The wind was blowing again. Two and a half months and the night noises would be of engines and sirens. A few more after that and there’d be a baby yelling its head off as well. Fun. Maybe I would live with Dad and Mum could play happy families with bloody Robert.

  She was still sitting slam-dunked on the couch when I got back. ‘How old is what’s-his-face, anyway?’

  ‘Twenty-seven.’ She didn’t open her eyes.

  Noah opened his wide enough for them to fall out. ‘A toy boy, Mum! Way to go!’

  I yelled at the pair of them, ‘It’s disgusting! You’re disgusting. Not that anybody cares what I think!’ I stomped off to my room. Bloody mothers. Bloody brothers. Bloody fathers.

  ‘There’s mail out here for you.’ Noah.

  Why couldn’t he have told me that before I made the grand exit? I stalked back, snatched my letters, didn’t look at Mum.

  Her voice hit me before I could escape again. ‘Sit down, Min. Now.’

  I was so surprised, I sat. Wow! First time since we’d been here that she’d let fly with that particular tone. I glared at her. Don’t try and come the responsible parent over me, lady.

  She eased herself upright so that she sat with her back straight and unsupported, and who cared if her face was slightly green? ‘Min, you will not speak to me like that. Ever again. Is that clear?’ She eyeballed me.

  Something in me snapped. I leaned forward, my hands on my knees. ‘Yeah? Why not? It’s what you deserve. Why should I treat you with respect? What’ve you done to earn my respect? I’ll tell you!’ I waved a finger at her. ‘Sweet bloody nothing that I can see!’ I jumped to my feet and paced around the room, past Noah who sat at the table and watched like we were a video game. ‘I’ll do all the work, Mum — but I’m bloody not going to pretend I think it’s fantastic that you shagged a fucking kid!’

  ‘Minna!’ That was Dad’s voice. Trust him to turn up at the wrong moment. ‘Go to your room. Right now. I’ll come and talk to you when you’re calmer and can stop speaking like a sewer rat.’ His voice was cold enough to freeze hell over.

  Too bad. I kicked at the floor rug. Not satisfying enough. I grabbed the bird book from the bookcase and sent it spinning across the room. Hurled a cushion after it. ‘No! Fuck the pair of you! I hate you — d’you hear that? I hate you. Both.’ I took a gulp of air. ‘Just when you were starting to talk to each other again — oh, not a lot, don’t get me wrong. But just when you looked like you could actually stay in the same room without bursting a blood vessel, then Robert has to turn up and ruin everything. I hate him, and I hate you. Both of you. Arseholes!’

  I turned and ran, but not to my room. They’d come, one after the other, never together and they’d talk and pretend they loved me and it was all lies. Huge, stinking lies.

  I ran through the night, through wind gusts and bustling night birds. The morepork called from the bush. Such a lonely call. I ran harder, wiping my eyes but it didn’t really help. The night was dark and I had no torch. But I knew where I was going. The access path was easy to find and it would be sheltered down there.

  It was one of those nights where the wind pounces from one direction then turns to swipe at you from another. I was glad to hit the path. I went carefully, scrambling and slipping in the darkness. About halfway down, I stopped, found a rocky bit and sat down.

  It was cold. Should have brought a blanket. And a torch. And my letters. I wrapped my arms around my knees. I was cold inside as well as outside.

  I sat there for ages, cried a lot. It’s no fun bawling when you haven’t got tissues.

  It was so cold. I stood up, had to un-kink my body. I hurt all over, inside and out. This was it. No more. Somewhere in all of the drama of the night, a decision had formed in my head. I would leave the island, leave the warring parents and live with Gran and Gramps Aveson. Maybe I would let the parents visit from time to time, but they could bloody earn the privilege because I didn’t care if I never saw them again.

  It was hard, stumbling my way back up the path. I thought Dad and Noah would come looking for me. I thought that any second now I’d see a torch and hear their voices calling me.

  Didn’t happen.

  I stepped over a tuatara on the path, dragged myself up the steps and slid the door open. Mum and Noah were both absent. Dad sat working at the table. He pushed the papers away and looked at me. ‘Sit down.’

  I shook my head and shuffled to the woodburner. ‘Cold.’

  ‘Sit down. Now.’ That was the you-are-in-deep-shit voice. Too bad, I didn’t care.

  ‘I’m divorcing both of you,’ I said, but it wasn’t as forceful as I wanted because my teeth were clacking from the cold.

  Dad gave one of his exasperated, impatient snorts, got up from the table, disappeared, came back with a rug which he wrapped around me. He went to the sink and filled a hottie. He shoved it into my arms, took me by the shoulders, manhandled me to the table and made me sit.

  ‘Now listen, Min — this is what’s going to happen. In the morning, you are going to apologise to your mother — and you are going to mean it. So I suggest you take yourself off to bed and do some good, hard thinking.’

  ‘Why should you care?’ Buggered if I was going to apologise.

  He leaned an arm on the table and skewered me with a glare. ‘She is your mother. She cares about you even when you’re being a snotty little brat. She loves you. And you will not disrespect that by flinging cheap words at her. If you’ve got a problem, you talk about it. Understand?’

  I stood up. ‘You have got such a nerve! Telling me to talk about problems. You!’

  He stood up too, came and put an arm round me which I tried to shrug off, but he wouldn’t be shrugged. ‘I take your point, Min. And you’re right. But not about your mother. She’s never shut you out. She doesn’t deserve for you to slag her off.’

  ‘I’m going to bed.’ I couldn’t take this turnaround. Dad defending Mum — talking about her as if none of the last weeks of hell had happened.

  Divorce felt like a damned good option.

  Why had Mum done it? But I knew. Loneliness.

  I knew what it was like to be lonely.

  But she bloody shouldn’t have. She should have talked to Dad.

  Like that was easy to do.

  And most of all she shouldn’t have agreed to come on this journey into disaster, not when she knew the whole entire country would find out what she’d done.

  I turned out the light and climbed into bed. Remembered my mail. Didn’t have the energy to get out of bed and turn the light back on.

  It was raining in the morning, blowing hard from the south, so cold as well.

  Dad let Noah and me sleep late and woke us up with the smell of bacon. That would make Mum feel sick and serve her right. She wasn’t going to get an apology out of me in a hurry.

  I ambled out to the cooking smells, my mail in my hand. Letters from civilisation. The fat one was from Jax and Addy and they’d both written on the envelope the way we used to do when we were kids. There were skinny ones from both sets of grands. With one eye on the cameras, I picked up the grands’ letters first. It wouldn’t do to alienate either set since I was going to divorce their kids. I skimmed the notes. Not much news, but they all said how interested they were in the television series and what a different sort of life I was leading.

  Gran A: You’ll have to cook us a meal when you get back, Minna. We are very impressed.

  Gran H: Please watch your language, Minna. It’s most embarrassing to hear my friends talking about the way you speak.

  I l
ooked up at a camera. ‘Thank you, grandparents. Lovely letters and they are totally in character.’ I smiled. ‘It’s so reassuring to know that some people don’t change.’ Suck on that, Gran H.

  My gut knotted as I tore open the fat letter. I ran my eye down the pages, searching for news — I’d read the whole thing properly later in my room away from cameras and prying family.

  Jax: We miss you sooo much.

  Addy: CTC says we can’t say anything about the telly programme and if we do she won’t send this (she is reading it to make sure we OBEY).

  I managed a grin. I’ll bet old Cara was desperate to know what CTC meant but it didn’t take me more than a nanosecond to work it out: Cara the Cow. Such a pity we hadn’t been little kids who worked out secret codes, then they could have told me all the stuff she would have chopped out. And she read my letters. I bet that was against the law. Cow.

  I forgot about her.

  It was Jax who gave me the goss on Lizzie and Seb.

  She sticks to him like used gum, hangs off his arm, goes to all his meetings with him. But we think he’s getting fed up — we reckon he wants his freedom and the only place she won’t follow him is to Jilly’s, when he goes to see the baby. The word is that he’s going back to Jilly. Watch this space!!!

  Would he want to get back with me when I came home? That would show Lizzie Two-face. I hoped he’d dump her and dump her so hard she’d be bruised for a century.

  I went back to my letter. Jax was going out with Brynn Foley, although she still had feelings for Noah. Addy, writing in lurid purple, said that she personally had gone off boys and was thinking of getting a puppy.

  There was other news, stuff about school and telly and clothes and music and life. God, I missed it all.

  Dad brought me back to the present. ‘Your mother will be up soon.’ He gave me a meaningful look that suggested he hadn’t forgotten about the apology.

  Go sing for it, sunshine.

  Mum stayed in her room with the door shut until we’d eaten and let air blow through the house to get rid of the smell. I dressed in combat gear and fed the chooks.

  Mum was up when I got back with five eggs. The stage was set for the big apology, with Dad busy wiping down the bench and making it plain he wasn’t going anywhere until I’d done the deed. Oh what the hell, I could act sorry.