‘Are you in pain?’ I finally ask, but she continues to sob. ‘Are you worried about something? Did somebody do something to you?’
She says nothing. I don’t know whether this is because she is having a seizure or because she simply can’t hear me above her own bellowing. She begins to gasp and wheeze so I suddenly become frantic and ask desperately, ‘Tadpole, Tadpole, what on earth is wrong?’
She makes a final sigh and then says, ‘Oh, you know … nothing.’
We get in the car. She hasn’t eaten her breakfast. She stares forlornly out the window. She is silent for perhaps five minutes and then exhales with the sound of a front-end loader being shot in the tyre. I decide that perhaps a change of subject might be a good idea. I ask about her friends but Tadpole* appears to have gone deaf. When I stop asking her questions she suddenly yells, ‘You don’t care about my life!’
So then I ask her about school and she replies, ‘All you care about is school.’
So then I ask how her friends are and she says, ‘My school friends?’
And I say, ‘Yes.’
And she says, ‘See!’
And then we pull up at a set of traffic lights outside the local boys’ school and Tadpole suddenly dives under the dashboard.
‘Oh, look,’ I say, trying to cheer up Tadpole. ‘There’s Martin Williams crossing the road right in front of us. Didn’t you use to like him?’ Tadpole doesn’t reply, so I honk the car horn.
For a brief moment it looks like Tadpole is actually trying to climb into the glove compartment but she stops when there is a tap on her window and Martin appears to say hi.
‘Drive the car!’ she hisses.
‘I can’t. The lights are red.’
Then Tadpole seems to have died or somehow become frozen like a statue. She is not making a sound or moving a muscle.
‘Hi, Tadpole,’ Martin says once more through the window, as the Don’t Walk sign begins to flash and he realises he has to hurry. ‘Well, nice to see you. You look great.’
‘What did he say?’ Tadpole asks as the traffic lights change and we continue to drive.
‘Oh, he said that you looked great.’
‘Was he joking when he said that? Do you think he was being rude?’
‘No, I really think he thought that you looked great.’
‘Oh, God. That sucks.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he thought I looked great and I acted like a turd and now he won’t even like me.’
We indulge in a split-second of relative silence and then our world explodes once again.
‘Oh, God!’ she screams. ‘No wonder I have no friends and never go anywhere. You may as well kill me now, because my life is over!’
Suddenly she grabs her head. Then she clutches her stomach and writhes in agony.
I ask her whether she is okay and she says, ‘Don’t speak to me. This is all your fault!’ So I sit there not speaking and she sits there not speaking, while staring out the window kind of swaying, until all of a sudden her mobile phone rings and suddenly her powers of speech are recovered.
‘Hi-i-i … Who? Oh, Martin, yeah. What’s happening? Oh, yeah. I thought I heard you but I was just really out of it, you know … really late night.’
I listen in shock. Tadpole seems to be suggesting that she was out clubbing all night as opposed to my recollection of her evening which saw her listening to her iPod and chatting on Facebook and Skype while trimming the split ends from her hair.
‘Saturday? Yeah, well, that could be okay,’ she says on the phone. ‘I’ll just have to check my diary and call you back.’
She hangs up.
‘Oh, my God, oh mygod, ohmygod!’ She hugs me again and again and again and then says, ‘Martin’s asked me to a party on Saturday night. Can I get a new dress?’
I don’t know what to say. I am outraged by her behaviour and the open disdain, disrespect and disregard that she’s shown for me this morning. I am appalled that she could think I could be treated so badly, then suddenly, with a series of psychotic hugs, think that everything would be okay. But she hugs me again, and kisses me on the cheek, and suddenly it is like my little girl is back. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Of course you can get a new dress, and would you like some new shoes too?’
We Didn’t Discuss My Problem That Day
So I decide to talk to Tadpole about my problem another day.
Despite my anxieties through the night as I mentally prepare for a delicate, delicate approach to my discussions with Tadpole, I miraculously manage to sleep until seven-fifteen a.m. I can’t believe it because I haven’t done this since … actually, ever. As you know, I grew up in a religious family where to sleep in beyond five a.m. was considered a sin. In fact, the only time I can ever remember sleeping in was after returning from a flight from London that stopped to refuel in Iceland, Antarctica, Africa, Brussels, Bahrain, Singapore and Perth. It was one of those accidental round-the-world tickets you buy when you’re a penny-pinching backpacker and you fork out a couple of hundred dollars less than those who fly direct but you actually end up paying with several years of your life because it takes that long to unfold your legs after flying fifty hours in economy.
Anyway, I’m awake early and minutes later Tadpole wakes up and emits an almighty scream, which she likes to do every morning immediately upon emerging from her slumber. It’s a terrible habit but I assume it must be my fault because I listened to too much soothing whale-mating music when Tadpole was in utero and she must still have nightmares about it.
Thirty seconds later another scream hurls forth. I quickly learn that this is Tadpole’s reaction to the discovery that she’s overslept. The day has barely begun and apparently we’re already running late for school. I panic because Tadpole panics and then we both realise it’s Saturday and there is no school today so we calm down again. And then we remember that Tadpole has school sport on Saturday mornings and so we panic once more.
Personally I don’t think that Tadpole should play any sport. I think this because when she plays sport she is dangerous to others and in particular dangerous to herself. This is because she is so incredibly hopeless at every kind of sport that everyone watching tries to encourage her by telling her she’s great, and I believe that this sort of positive reinforcement encourages delusional self-confidence in children. And delusional people start wars and cults.
To further add to the stress of the morning, Tadpole has decided that today should be the day I give her another driving lesson. Where we live, seventeen-year-olds must accumulate 120 hours of driving experience before they’re permitted to sit for their driving test. So far Tadpole has accumulated forty-five minutes over eight separate ‘lessons’ with me and the mere thought of participating in another ‘lesson’ together makes me want to have a Scotch. I know it’s illegal for the learner driver to drink, but is it illegal for the driving teacher to be drunk as a skunk?
I suggest that being pissed should perhaps be a prerequisite. I know that this doesn’t necessarily sound wise, but then again is it really wise to put someone who is oblivious to others (i.e. a teenage daughter) under the tutelage of someone they either feel compelled to ignore or contradict (i.e. their mother) AND then place them together in a potentially lethal situation (i.e. the driving of a vehicle on crowded roads).
Anyway, we get in the car, Tadpole starts to drive and we’re nearly involved in six separate accidents, but luckily we only cause them and manage to drive on.
In my day, when I was a teenager, it was easy to get your licence. You were allowed to start your driving experience with no knowledge of road rules whatsoever. You simply kangaroo-hopped around the local car park a couple of times with your dad while he grimaced, clutched the dashboard and, even though sitting in the front passenger seat, frantically pressed his left foot to the ground as though controlling an invisible brake. Then you went for your test and got your licence.
In those days you didn’t have to wear a seat belt, there was no limit to
the number of people you could have in your car, there were no speed cameras, and if anyone oncoming saw a police car on speed patrol, they’d alert you by flashing their headlights as they passed. Furthermore, although there were drink-driving limitations, there was absolutely no way of accurately monitoring them as there was no breathalyser in those days and all a drunk suspect was requested to do was walk in a straight line (without singing or dancing).
For most of the drive I am terrified and Tadpole is angry because I’m ‘acting like a mother’. So I try to get back on her good side by telling her that she looks pretty when she drives, then she checks herself out in the mirror, swerves off the road and hits the gutter.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she says. ‘That was completely your fault.’
I can’t speak.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she demands.
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘Well, why aren’t you speaking, then?’
‘Maybe I’m a bit stunned.’
‘Well, don’t you think that’s a bit selfish? I mean, I’m the one who just had a car accident.’
‘Sorry, Tadpole,’ I say. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Jesus, Mum. I just nearly died. I don’t think that I can go to sport.’
So she gets in the passenger seat and I get in the driver’s seat and we drive home where she goes back to bed to convalesce and watch The Hours on DVD. When I enter her room to see if she’s okay she says in a very soft and kind voice, ‘You know, I’m really beginning to understand you now. You’re just like Virginia Woolf.’
Oh, great, I think to myself sadly. Now I’m a suicidal poet with a great big nose.
Tadpole then reaches her arms out to give me a hug, but my instinct is to withdraw because I think she’s going to attack me. I realise that after all these years I’m still only just getting used to having her around because for the first sixteen years I was in shock.
‘Do you have menopause?’ she asks.
‘No. I think it’s about a decade away.’
‘Well, then, maybe you need some sort of mood elevator.’
‘Thanks for that advice,’ I say. ‘And while we’re at it, do you have any advice on how I can deal with an empty ache in my heart?’
‘If you think it’s a result of our recent car accident,’ she replies, ‘then I suggest that I don’t speak to you and you talk directly instead to my lawyer.’
‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. I’ve had this ache for all my life and I think it may be a yearning or a longing for a kind of fulfilment that I haven’t yet found.’
‘Well, sounds like you know what the problem is,’ she replies, ‘so study it further and perhaps monitor your feelings by keeping a diary.’
I turn to exit her room.
‘Oh, and by the way,’ she says softly and hopefully, ‘do you think there’s any chance that I was swapped in the hospital at birth?’
Dear Diary
I did start to keep a diary but I ran out of interesting life to write about after nine o’clock on the morning of day one. This was just after I’d written about how the guy at the corner store got robbed that morning and someone stole three mangoes. It is true that I attempted to plagiarise events from other days in my life, but it got a bit depressing when I still hadn’t found anything interesting to write about, even when running through every day of my life back to 1963.
I did contemplate hiring someone to write my diary for me but then got worried that they’d make my life sound so fantastic that I’d end up jealous of the fictitious me. And so my diary-writing experience was short-lived and when I’d finished I felt worse. More isolated, lonelier, a little less normal. Which I guess once again raises the question of just what normal is. I have always wanted to be both normal and exceptional at the same time. While I kind of want to lead the life that is presented in TV commercials, with a handsome husband and a perfect home, I have also wanted to be able to visit a psychic and be greeted at the door by those resonating words, ‘Oh, my heavens. Thank God you’re here. The whole world is waiting for you. You are the blessed one!’
Perhaps I am simply abnormally normal. Or then again normally abnormal. No matter which, the ache in my heart continues.
I can’t find life’s meaning, or its purpose, and as a result I don’t know what to do with my life. This leaves me bewildered. I feel like I have lost something that I don’t know I ever had.
I feel like I’ve been searching for this thing for years, but how can you ever find something when you don’t know what you’re looking for?
Running out of People
Life can be hard, so they say. And it’s particularly hard when you’re trying to feel sorry for yourself about how hard life is and you see someone to whom life has been much harder than it has been to you.
Four days ago I looked out the window to a beach that was empty save for a lone wheelchair in the sand. I panicked, wondering whether to call for help, until a moment later I saw a man drag himself out of the water using only his arms and, with a face full of smile, heave himself back into his chair.
On the radio that afternoon I heard a woman talking about how much fate there is in our lives. She’d calculated it to be between approximately five and ten per cent. I wanted to ring the radio station and ask how on earth she’d calculated that. Was it the same equation that people have used to determine the memory span of a goldfish? (Eight seconds, apparently.)
A very wealthy woman I used to work with rings me out of the blue. ‘I’m in a tizz,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what to do, but I seem to recall that you might know people who know people who might be able to help.’
‘Oh, my goodness. Of course. What’s the matter?’
‘Well, we’ve just moved house …’
‘Yes?’
‘And the phone number is the same …’
‘Yes?’
‘But the fax number has had to be changed.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, that’s the problem,’ she says. ‘We have to get our letterhead redone and we need the name of a good graphic designer!’
Graphic designer! Oh, my God! By the tone of her voice I thought she needed an oncologist. Is this as traumatic as this woman’s life gets? Am I jealous? Do I want her life? Could I live her life? Am I happy to be me? If I were her, would I be happy? Would I still have an ache in my heart? And if I did, could it be simply filled by getting the family letterhead just right?
At the entrance to our suburb there’s a sign that begins Police are currently targeting … The sign is designed so that a smaller sign can be inserted in a space below which itemises what is being targeted by the police that week. A few years back someone stole the smaller sign and replaced it with a scrawl that said Sign thieves.
My mother thought this was reprehensible. I thought it was hilarious. Maybe life is just a matter of perspective. Is it? I was truly running out of people to ask. I’d tried friends and family, strangers on median strips, and finally thought, ‘I’m going to have to speak to a professional. I’m going to have to ask God.’
8
‘Hi, God.’
‘Hello, Number Nine.’
‘No, it’s me, God. Number Six, occasionally referred to as Three.’
‘Ah, yes, Six and Three. You can see how easily I came up with Nine. So tell me, Six, what can I do for you?’
‘Well, I was just wondering why you make women’s bums drop!’
‘Because, my dear, I think that dropped bums are hot!’
I Went to the Top
I’d never really asked God for anything before. Oh, yes I had. I’d asked for a pony when I was nine, but Dad got a new ride-on lawnmower instead and told me, ‘At the end of the day, they’re really kind of the same thing.’ I was of course very disappointed, and when Dad realised this he let me name the lawnmower Thunder and also occasionally pat it.
Normally I don’t pray. It’s one of the disadvantages of having low self-esteem, in that you feel too ins
ignificant to demand attention even from the bloke who allegedly created you. But this time I decided to pray. It had been a long time. I wasn’t sure what to say. All I could recall was the prayer we mumbled at four years of age, so I began with that:
Our father, who art in heather, Harold be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heather,
Give us this day our daily dread and deliver us from weevils,
For wine is the kingdom, the power and the gory
And could you also please help me to find a way to fill this empty black hole in my heart?
For Christ’s sake, amen.
And then I went to the local supermarket, stood in the fruit section and realised that without a job or income everything was really getting way too expensive. I began to cry softly, and God used a vessel to speaketh unto me:
‘I hope the bananas haven’t done something to upset you?’
It was the voice of a female. I turned to her and saw that she was wearing a badge that said Hi, My Name Is Fluffy, Just Ask Me, and so that’s precisely what I did. I told her that I’d lost my TV job and my writing jobs, and then I told her about the trouble with the insurance company, the roof blowing off our home and our kitchen burning down, about being sued by a robber, our washing machine repairman dropping dead in the laundry, my only son preparing to move out of home to study overseas, the fortune we lost on a financial blunder, my love affair with the masochist, the midlife crisis, the camel through the eye of the needle, the eternal ache in my heart and the bum drop. And then I asked her what she thought I should do.
Fluffy appeared to respectfully process everything I said, and then with great contemplation and consideration she said, ‘Geez, your situation sounds like shit. You’re prob’ly best not to think about it.’
As we all know, God works in wondrous ways and this isn’t the first time I’ve been told not to think. In fact, my entire life I’ve been told that I think too much and I would be better off if I thought less. Until now I’ve avoided thinking about this because thinking about it would kind of defeat the purpose, but I realised that the young woman in the supermarket, who told me not to think, seemed to very happily practise what she preached. I thought this as I watched her stack the Vegemite next to the Vagisil, ‘because they both start with the number V’.
The Night my Bum Dropped Page 16