by Andrew Daddo
We laughed, but Dad didn’t.
‘What were you doing there in the first place?’ said Kylie. Fair question, I thought. He couldn’t have missed what it said on the sign.
‘I was going to find Lotus to ask about my car keys, when you were all relaxing on the first afternoon. I was starving. I was so hungry I would have cooked roadkill. Old roadkill.’
‘So why didn’t you eat your lunch?’
‘I wasn’t that hungry! So I came over to ask for my keys – nicely – and there was this smell. It was delicious. I felt as if I was in a cartoon and a smoky finger was dragging me towards temptation. I sneaked up to the kitchen window, but there was no action in there. The smell was coming from round the back of the house. A barbecue. There’s no smell in the world like it. I watched from behind the bushes. It was Lotus, of course. She was smoking a ciggie like this.’ He stopped, folded one arm across his chest and used it to prop up his other arm. He waved his hand about as if he was still talking, and pretended to smoke.’
‘She was talking to herself. Yap yap yap. And acting something out. At the same time she was keeping an eye on this massive steak. Even from where I was hiding I could see it was perfect. A t-bone with all that golden fat left on the outside. And just as the juice began to rise to the top, she flipped it. You should have heard the sizzle!’ My mouth was starting to water, again. ‘Lotus went inside – just left it there. I wasn’t going to eat it; I only wanted to back the heat off, just a fraction. If it was on there for any more than a couple of minutes it would have been ruined.’
‘You’re sick, Dad.’
‘I was starving to death! There was a plate, and a knife and fork. Mustard. It was all just waiting. I only cut off the end to see how much longer the steak needed and it was perfect. I turned the heat off and ate the little bit that I’d cut. It happened to be the good bit near the edge. I can taste it now.’
‘I can, too.’
‘And then I had a bit more, and a bit more, and just as I was about to pick the thing up and run off with it, Lotus came out of the kitchen. “What are you doing?” she yelled. “You’re a meat eater and a smoker! And you’ve got beer!” I blurted out at her. And that was that, pretty much.
‘I’d busted her. You can’t run a wellness centre and tell people to starve and cleanse themselves and not do it yourself. It’s wrong. It’s – it’s – immoral. And that’s what I told her. She knew it, anyway, which was why she’d put up the chain and the sign. So we made a deal. I could come here and make bacon and egg rolls and coffee, as long as I didn’t tell anyone about her little secret.’
‘That’s blackmail,’ said Kylie.
‘I know.’ He laughed. ‘Terrible, isn’t it!’
‘Why didn’t she just give you your car keys so you could go out and get whatever you wanted?’
‘She thought someone might see me leaving. And she said if one person got to leave, they’d all want to. Made sense, I guess, and I didn’t want to spoil it for you and your mum.’
‘You were scared of Mum, you mean! So that was the deal? Her food for your silence.’
‘Pretty much. And I’ve got to do the classes without complaining. Yoga, stretching, exercise: everything except the relaxation classes, because that,’ and he tapped his nose, ‘that’s when I eat. With you, if you like. We’ll just tell Mum we’re spending special time together, okay? Catch-up time.’
‘Cool with me,’ I said.
‘Orroight,’ said Kylie. ‘I think.’
‘I know.’ Dad smiled.
‘You’d better wipe the corner of your mouth, Dad. You’ve left a bit of egg there.’
‘Thanks, buddy. I was saving it for later.’ He flicked his tongue out to get it. Nice shot.
Mum was buzzing.
She’d danced with the Ng Ng and gone straight to the Drumming in the Middle of Magic class. She said it was held in a teepee. ‘And the cool thing about a teepee is there’s nowhere to hide. And it felt as if we were only in there for about five minutes, but it was actually about half an hour. Spiv, the instructor, said it’s really easy to lose track of time when you’re in there. He calls it “teepee time”. That’s kind of weird because “teepee time” is time that you lose and there are no corners in a teepee to lose things in. It’s so intense! So multi-layered. We all have to do it, especially you, Len – you’ll love it. There’s another class tomorrow.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, babe.’ Dad winced. ‘Drums? Teepees? Not really my bag.’
‘Come on, honey. You’ve hardly done a thing since we got here.’ Mum sounded as if she was pleading.
‘Don’t forget the deal, Dad.’ Kylie gave him one in the ribs.
‘What deal?’ Mum loved deals.
‘It’s nothing, really,’ said Dad.
‘Oh, come on, stud muffin, what’s the deal?’ She snaked an arm round his waist and gave him a squeeze.
‘Well, Dad said to us that as long as he got his relaxation time with Ashton and me, he’d do whatever you wanted.’ Kylie raised her eyebrows. ‘Everything you wanted. So that’d include drumming in a teepee, wouldn’t it, Dad?’
‘It doesn’t have to be everything –’
‘But that’s what you said, Dad! The word was “everything”.’ Kylie had him on a spit. And just to get the message all the way home, she made the sound of sizzling meat. ‘Ssssssssssssssssssssssss.’
Dad went Swedish, Mum went Hot Stone, Kylie went Swe-Thai and I went Neck and Shoulders. It was the only massage name I recognised.
I was sitting on the massage bench with my shirt off as I’d been told to by Orange Hannah, the yoga teacher. She was at the front desk. When Lotus came into the little massage room she lit a couple of candles and told me to lie down on the table and stick my face into the hole at one end.
I could almost get my head through it. She turned some music on and fussed for a bit.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. ‘Ooops!’ she said. ‘That happens when I squeeze the oil bottle; it wasn’t me.’
There was a bit of clapping and slapping. It sounded as if she was slopping something around in her hands. I hoped I wasn’t in the Hot Rocks Massage room by mistake.
Then Lotus’s bare feet came into view. She was wearing a silver ring with a bell hanging off it on her third toe, and bright red nail polish that was chipped and growing out.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. ‘Now that was me. Ba-ha! Just kidding.’ Her hands were warm and wet with the massage oil and they felt great. She moved them across my shoulders, on to my neck and back again. They slid down my back and up; across it and along it until I felt as slippery as an eel.
‘So how are you enjoying your time at the wellness centre, Ashton?’
‘It’s good. Thanks.’ The way she was massaging my back, it was getting better every minute.
‘Relaxing, isn’t it!’
I was starting to like the music and that was a bit of a worry. ‘Mmmmmm,’ I groaned. Lotus was kneading away up the length of my spine. She stopped at the top and worked her hands out towards my shoulders again.
‘You know, it would be better for you if you followed the program. Properly.’
‘Unh-huh!’
Then she dug something into my shoulders: her knuckles, maybe, or her thumbs. ‘Ouch!’ I yelled, trying to squirm into the table to get away from the pressure.
‘Sorry, Ashton,’ she said in that soothing voice. ‘You know what that is, don’t you? But then, how could you? It’s the bacon and eggs. And this –’ She dug her fingers into the muscle next to my neck and it really hurt. ‘This, is probably the Coca-Cola.’ As hard as I squirmed, though, I couldn’t get away. She was too strong. ‘Just breathe, Ashton.’
‘Ah aha aha aha aha aha.’
‘That’s it. Does it feel better?’ And it did. She stopped pressing and started gently rubbing up and down my spine again. ‘Would you like me to show you where your secrets are kept? It’s wicked!’
‘No,’ I mumbled. She was being a bit scary. A lot scary,
actually.
‘Fall through the floor. Breathe in and out, just like you do in yoga. That’s it. Good boy.’ I relaxed a bit, but not properly until she stopped working on my shoulders and back. She smoothed oil down my arms and made them slippery, too. Then she shook them. ‘Come on, relax, buddy.’ She gently pulled my fingers (I didn’t fart the way Dad always did for a joke) and then she pressed on my forearms. I wanted to groan again, in a good way. But she suddenly dug her thumb into the muscle and I squealed.
‘Lots of secrets there, Ash. That’s where they’re kept.’
‘What?’
‘Every pressure point relates to different things in your body and your life.’ She hit the spot again. ‘Mmmmmm! Too many secrets there – and they’ll eat you up. It’s better not to have them.’
‘Aha aha aha aha aha aha!’
She let go.
‘My only big secret is the bacon and egg rolls and that’s really a secret about you. Do you want me to tell?’
‘Ashton, Ashton, Ashton.’ She rubbed the spot gently. ‘Secrets are lies. They’re a form of dishonesty. That secret is not about me: it’s a secret from your mother, a secret from yourself. You’re lying to yourself. Do you understand? You’re supposed to be here getting well, and you’re not. You’re cheating. Cheating is lying, cheating someone out of the truth. But the one you’re really cheating most is yourself.’ She sounded like our sports teacher when he talked about golf, until she rammed her thumb into the spot again. ‘I think it’s time you got back to the program. Don’t you?’
‘Aha aha!’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Aha!’
‘Excellent. All right.’ She took her thumb out of my forearm and gave it a shake. ‘I think your father was having the Swedish, wasn’t he? Gooooood. I’ll send Hannah in to finish you off.’
20
I was a frog and I woke up before I had to choose whether I ate the goldfish in the pond or the fly in the air that looked a lot like a bucket of chips at the footy: the salty, soggy, saucy kind. I forgot to ask anyone what that morning’s wake-up music was. I couldn’t imagine it was ‘Fish and Chips and Froggy’.
We downed the orange drinks and did yoga before breakfast, like we had every other day. And then, for the first time, we all went to the morning relaxation class – Dad included. I’d expected him to take off and invite us with him, but he didn’t, and once class started, The Deeper Breathing Techniques of Aztec High Priests, I stopped wondering why.
This class was way too weird. How would anyone know about Aztec high priests’ breathing in the first place? Why wouldn’t they breathe like us – and who cared? And where did the time go, because the whole thing was over really, really quickly. I was puffed, too, even though I didn’t think I’d done anything.
And I was hungry, so I ate all my lunch. Kylie did, too, and so did Dad. Without complaining.
Lotus had said before lunch that now we’d graduated from the mung bean menu we could eat real food. The detox was over.
‘No more cravings,’ she said, ‘and no more pain. We are now rebuilding a base for our wellness.’ She smiled at me as if we were best friends, but that was the look she gave everyone.
Lunch was macaroni and blended tofu with nutritional yeast, green beans and almonds. Brilliant. We got a slice of nine-grain bread (which Dad said was overdoing it by about six) and fruit salad for dessert. Without cream or ice-cream.
When I finished, I’d expected to be scragging around the place looking for something else, but I was full. Even Dad patted his gut the way he did after a big meal at home. But then, he did take both Kylie’s and Mum’s bread and use it to mop up every last drip of flavour on anyone’s plate. ‘I could murder a latte,’ he said.
We had free time after lunch, if we wanted it, or a choice between Zen and the Art of Imaginary Maintenance or The Sacred Art of the Swami: Stretching for Compliments.
Mum said imaginary maintenance sounded too much like deep inner work, so she told us we were going to see the swami.
There were more stinky candles and there was more weird music and funky breathing, but the only person who said anything vaguely complimentary about my stretching was Orange Hannah. She said good things to Dad too, though – and even I could tell he was hopeless.
He made his own special music: a symphony of grunts as he tried to push and bend his body this way and that. ‘This is nothing like the swami they used to have on TV in the mornings, babe,’ he complained to Mum as he tried to get his hands to meet in the middle of his back.
It was one hand up, the other down. I got close.
‘That’s good, Ash,’ said Orange Hannah, ‘very good. You’re nearly there. I’ll help you. Hang on.’ She came up behind me and gently pushed my elbows together until my top hand could grip the fingers of my bottom hand. It was kind of cool to be able to do something I didn’t know I could do – not that I’d ever tried.
Neither Mum nor Kylie had any problems at all. It was as if they were made of rubber.
‘Ugh! You remember that swami, hon?’ Dad grunted.
‘Don’t talk, Len, just breathe. Concentrate.’
‘That’s good, Marnie, very good.’ Orange Hannah was behind Mum, now. She’d managed to get her so wound up she looked as if she’d been turned inside out. Dad was still panting and grunting, but not at Mum or Orange Hannah. He was battling, but at least he was sticking at it. I wondered what had happened in the other massage rooms while Lotus was working me over, but I hadn’t been able to get Dad alone to ask.
Mum had booked us all in for another massage that afternoon, and no one was allowed to have the kind they’d had before. She said we’d all do a massage roulette. We had to rate them from best to worst and she’d put the results in her article.
‘That’s right,’ said Dad, as if someone had whacked him on the head with a reminder. ‘Your feature: how’s it going?’
‘Huuuuuuuuuuurp! I’d forgotten about it till today, too,’ said Mum, looking a bit surprised. ‘But in that stretching class, when I had one foot behind my head and the other under my butt and Hannah said, “Lovely, Marnie, I had no idea you had it in you”, well, it all came back to me. I don’t think I look any different, though. Do you?’
‘Sure, babe,’ said Dad. But it was pretty close to his of-course-it-doesn’t-babe, whenever she asked him if her butt looked big in the clothes she was putting on.
‘I’m serious this time, Len.’
‘You’re always serious, Marnie. You look great. Honestly. Good enough to eat.’
‘That’s not much coming from you, Mr Starving-to-Death.’
‘Babe – ’
‘Let’s go, everyone – now!’ Mum fixed us with her oddball soldier stare and marched off. We all followed, because that was one look that was not to be messed with. We went to our room and watched her rip her t-shirt off. She stood before us in her shorts and bra as if that was the most normal thing in the world. ‘Come on, hurry up. Tops off, you goombahs. What do you think this is – a holiday?’
‘Mu-um!?’
‘Tops off, I said.’ She started digging around in her suitcase and didn’t come up again for air until she had the camera. ‘Get ‘em off. Let’s go!’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think? This is the “now” photo to compare with our “before” shot. I need to see how we’re going. Now get ‘em off!’ She fiddled with settings on her digital camera. Her photos usually stank, so if she set it to ‘auto everything’ they’d be much better.
‘But, Mum,’ Kylie moaned.
‘H-U-R-R-Y U-P!’
‘But I haven’t got a bra on –’
‘Why would you need one?’ I said.
‘Well, you do!’ she snapped and it hurt more than any punch.
‘That’s enough, you two,’ said Mum.
‘Boy boobs started it.’ She flounced. That was enough for me. I didn’t hang around for another word, even though I heard Mum, then Dad, yell at me to stop. I slammed the d
oor on the way out of the room and the door to the dorm for good measure. Then I ran as far as I could – although it wasn’t really that far, because the fence stopped me. So instead of running, I thought I’d hide.
I didn’t (I don’t) have boy boobs.
My sister was a rodent; she lived underground. She was a ferret. I sat behind the biggest tree I could find for hours and waited for the night to come and swallow me. This whole idea had been really dumb. The sort of dumb idea Mum should have kept to herself. It wasn’t as if anyone else had to go to a wellness centre with their parents. Other kids got to go camping or to theme parks or Movie World, even. And we got to go to a wellness centre and swallow garbage. It wasn’t fair.
I played tic-tac-toe against myself in the dirt and lost.
Great!
21
Lotus found me.
I’d heard the others calling, but no one was even close to finding me. I’d moved around a bit, eventually settling on the spot against the wall of Lotus’s place: the one behind the daisy bush where I’d hidden as Dad made those first delicious bacon and egg rolls.
That all felt like ages ago.
I don’t think even Lotus would have found me, except that she ducked outside to empty her teapot. ‘Hello, mate,’ she said. It wasn’t her soothing voice or her wake-up voice. It was just normal. ‘Hello, mate. Everything all right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, feeling a bit stupid about hiding behind a bush – obviously without much success.
‘Really? I would have thought there’d be better places to be.’
‘I kind of like it here,’ I said.
‘Right. Do you want to come inside? It’s a bit warmer. And there’s no mozzies. I’ve put the jug on.’ I didn’t say anything, but wondered how the jug always went on when it was time to talk – even in the movies. ‘All right, then. Stay there if you like.’ And she left me to it. I wasn’t angry anymore. Not really. I just wasn’t sure how to get found, now that I’d run away.
This was the first time I’d done a runner.
It was tricky. I didn’t know whether I’d get busted for making trouble, or get some loving because I’d taken off. And I didn’t know what to say to Kylie. She owed me an apology, but maybe I owed her one, too. Still, she shouldn’t have said it. Nicholas Scofferson’s got boy boobs, so has his brother; and his little sister’s got baby boobs. The Scoffersons are massive.