Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

  ‘No, Ma, Lainey is still living in the past. I’m actually between radical beliefs at the moment. I’m tossing up between the Fur Trappers Society and the Animal Rights Movement.’

  ‘Go for the middle ground, Dec,’ Lainey said. ‘Give up teaching and get a job inside one of those giant koalas that go begging for donations in the shopping centre.’

  ‘I’ve been offered a job at the shopping centre,’ their mother announced.

  They both stared at her. ‘Doing what?’ Lainey said.

  ‘As a product demonstrator. In the supermarket there.’

  ‘Oh, brilliant,’ Declan said. ‘So now I’m surrounded by capitalists.’

  Mrs Byrne was defiant. ‘We need the money. I’ll be able to go out for a few hours in the evening during late-night shopping, while your father’s friends call round. Any he’s got left, that is.’

  ‘Good on you, Ma,’ Lainey said enthusiastically, trying to send an ESP message to Declan not to tease their mother about this. ‘What are you demonstrating?’

  ‘New food products – anything and everything, apparently. I start next week. My friend Mrs Douglas down the road suggested I do it. She’s been doing it for years. Says it’s great gas altogether, gets her out of the house as well. God knows I need to do something. If I’d known this was going to happen I would never have taken early retirement from the library. Oh yes, your father promised we’d finally get that caravan, go and see Australia, go home to Ireland once a year, but look what’s happened instead. Stuck here while he lies in state feeling sorry for himself…’

  Brendan arrived then, dressed in his suit, obviously straight from work. Lainey was relieved at the interruption. She knew their mother needed to talk about things, she just found it hard to listen sometimes. Declan tossed his older brother a beer from the fridge. ‘Golden boy himself. A little late, I’m sorry to see. We don’t want a black mark on that perfect slate of yours now, do we?’

  ‘Hi, Ma. Hi, Lain,’ he said, ignoring Declan and putting the beer back in the fridge. Lainey noticed Brendan had put on even more weight since she’d seen him last. Like herself and Declan, he was taller than average, and usually very slim. Ever since he’d moved into a managerial position at the recycling company he worked for, though, his edges had been getting flabby. She suspected he was in no mood for it to be pointed out. ‘How are the twins going, Bren? Eaten any more cat food lately?’

  ‘It wasn’t cat food, Lainey. It was a single dog biscuit between them.’

  Mrs Byrne passed him a glass of milk. ‘Don’t mind Lainey, Brendan. And it could have been worse – the daughter of a friend of mine came home to find her children had been working their way through her laxative chocolate. The babysitter hadn’t even noticed, just thought they had a bit of a stomach upset.’

  ‘There’s an idea, Bren,’ Lainey said brightly. ‘Laxative chocolate cakes for the twins’ next birthday party. That’d give their parents a day to remember.’

  ‘I still can’t believe anyone would voluntarily invite children into their homes. They’re bad enough for six hours in a classroom each day,’ Declan said. ‘Tell me, Bren, are you planning on stopping this breeding program of yours soon, or do you intend to singlehandedly repopulate the eastern suburbs of Melbourne?’

  ‘Leave Brendan alone,’ Mrs Byrne said. ‘At least someone in this family has managed to get married and give me some grandchildren.’

  Brendan drank the milk in one swallow, then turned back to them, wearing a milk moustache. Neither Lainey nor Declan drew attention to it. ‘I have to go back into work tonight, so can we get started? Is Hugh coming?’

  ‘Hugh knows,’ Declan said in a sing-song voice.

  ‘That really bugs me. I break my back to get here…’ Brendan seemed to realise what he’d said and stopped short, embarrassed as he noticed his father out of the corner of his eye. ‘Dad, hi. I’m sorry about that. Just a figure of speech, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Mr Byrne was at the door, leaning heavily on his walker. On the wall behind him Lainey could see a large photo taken at the time of her parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary five years ago, Mrs Byrne all elegance and beaming smiles, Mr Byrne tanned, full of good humour and vitality. Lainey wished her mother would take the photo down. The man in front of her couldn’t have been further from that image. He’d lost lots of weight, yet somehow he looked puffier, unhealthy around the face. He shuffled into the room. ‘How are things, Brendan? How are Rosie and the twins?’

  ‘Going great guns,’ Brendan said in a fake cheery tone. ‘The twins are starting to run around so much, it’s all we can do to keep up with them these days.’

  Mr Byrne gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I wouldn’t have a chance at all then, would I? Some grandfather I am. Can’t even pick them up any more.’

  Brendan’s smile faltered. There wasn’t anything he could say to that. It was the truth. The phone rang. Lainey picked it up, guessing correctly that it would be Hugh. She listened for a moment. ‘No, Hughie, of course I can’t take notes for you. It’s a family meeting, not a lecture. Okay, see you soon.’ She hung up. ‘He’s running late. He had to do a double shift at the radio station.’

  ‘He’s only a volunteer at that station, how can he get a double shift?’ Declan asked, throwing his empty beer can into the bin and taking a new one from the fridge. He ignored a glare from Brendan who pointedly retrieved the can and put it in the recycling bin. ‘That’s like nothing times nothing which equals nothing. Which sums up Hugh’s contribution to society, really, doesn’t it? The world hardly needs another media studies student. We need more teachers like me, don’t you all think? Pushing back the boundaries of modern education, stretching young minds, exploring the frontiers of learning techniques. Or more like you, Brendan, our very own guardian of the environment, in there in your suit each day, pushing your pen and keeping Melbourne’s recycling industry ticking over. As for you, Lainey, I’m afraid we still can’t understand your role in society –’

  ‘Declan, could you shut up?’ Mrs Byrne clearly wasn’t in the mood for one of his rants. ‘Come into the living room, please. Your father and I need to discuss something with you all.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  LAINEY HELPED HER father get settled in his special high-seated chair, then sat on the sofa across from him. On the coffee table was a folder of paperwork. She picked it up. ‘Can I look?’

  Mr Byrne nodded. Since his sister May had died nearly four weeks before, there’d been a stream of correspondence between Ireland and Australia, trying to sort out the legalities. She had died suddenly, suffering a heart attack while out in her local shopping centre collecting petitions against the construction of a new roadway in County Meath.

  None of the family had attended her funeral, held in Dunshaughlin, the nearest town to her bed-and-breakfast. Mr Byrne had wanted to go to Ireland to sort everything out, say goodbye in some way, but his doctor had been blunt. ‘Gerry, you’re in enough pain lying in your own bed or sitting in your chair at home. That flight would kill you.’ Her funeral had been organised according to the strict instructions she’d left, the solicitor wrote in a subsequent letter. In further respect of her wishes, he’d advised, ‘her ashes were then scattered on the Hill of Tara.’

  On top of the file was a clipping from one of the local Meath newspapers. Lainey hadn’t seen it before. It was a tribute to her aunt, headed with a large photo of her. There was no real resemblance between her father and May, Lainey thought, though that could have been the twelve-year age difference as much as anything. ‘The Meath community this week mourned the loss of May Byrne, 72. Miss Byrne was well known in Meath and beyond through her involvement in the local tourist industry and for her love of Irish history and legends…’

  She wondered how her father had felt when he read the article. They had been estranged ever since the family had gone to Australia. May had been furious apparently, calling them traitors for abandoning Ireland. Her father had been too proud to try to heal the rift.
He’d also insisted that she wasn’t to be told about his accident, convinced she would tell him it served him right, that such a thing would never have happened in Ireland.

  Lainey turned the clipping over. On the other side was an aerial photo of the Hill of Tara showing the distinctive circles marked in the green field. She skim-read the article. Work was starting on a new promotional film about the site, ‘befitting the ancient capital of Ireland and one of our most significant tourist attractions’, it said. Aunt May would have been pleased about that, Lainey thought. Or perhaps she wouldn’t. Aunt May might not have approved of modern tourism promotions. But the exposure would surely help increase the value of May’s B&B, just nearby. Which would mean her father would get more money once the sale went through. All good news.

  Mrs Byrne came in with a fresh tray of tea and biscuits. ‘We’ll have to start without Hugh, I think.’

  ‘Will you fill them in, Peg?’ Mr Byrne asked, shifting in his chair, still trying to get comfortable. ‘You’re better at this business than me.’

  Mrs Byrne nodded and picked up an envelope from the coffee table. ‘We’ve had a letter from May’s solicitor in Ireland. It seems we started counting our chickens too soon when we asked him to sell her property.’

  ‘Chickens? What chickens?’ Declan said. ‘I thought it was a B&B, not a chicken farm.’

  Mrs Byrne ignored him. ‘It seems the will Mr Fogarty sent to us just after May died, the one leaving her B&B and land to your father, wasn’t in fact her final will.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Brendan crossed his arms. ‘Mr Fogarty was her solicitor, wasn’t he? Why didn’t he have the most up-to-date will?’

  ‘He thought he did. The one he had in his office had been signed and witnessed just three months before May died. But they’ve since found another more recent one, among her papers in the B&B, when they went in to start clearing her things away. She had a lot of paperwork, apparently.’

  ‘And this new one’s valid is it? Witnessed and everything?’ Brendan snapped the questions.

  Mrs Byrne nodded. ‘It is, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And is it much different?’ Lainey asked, looking from her mother to her father, trying to guess their mood. ‘Didn’t she leave everything to you after all, Dad?’

  ‘No, she did. It’s just the conditions are a little more…’ he paused, ‘complicated.’

  ‘Complicated?’ Declan said. ‘Did she owe money or something? She didn’t own it after all?’

  ‘No, it was definitely all hers.’ Mr Byrne leaned forward, trying to straighten up in his chair. Lainey bent forward to help him. He continued. ‘There’s no point beating around the bush. You know May was always raging at me for emigrating. Well, she has still left the B&B and the land to me, but only if a member of this family lives there for a year first.’

  There was a sudden and loud eruption of questions before Mrs Byrne called for silence. ‘It’s all in the letter. Let me read that section to you. “In summary, May Byrne has placed a new condition that while the house, contents and land have still been left to you, Gerald Patrick Byrne, none of it may be sold until such time as a member (or members) of the Byrne family currently resident in Australia has lived in and operated the B&B for a year. Further instructions will be issued from our office upon arrival of the elected member of the Byrne family. Please be aware also that Miss Byrne has set aside a sum of money for the airfares from Australia to Ireland and return, as well as adequate living expenses for the twelve months’ duration. Should this offer not be taken up within two months of Miss Byrne’s death, she has directed that the property go to auction, with all proceeds to be divided among local history groups.”’

  There was a heavy silence in the room.

  Mrs Byrne put the letter down. ‘We’ve phoned our own solicitor and it seems a will is a will. If she’d insisted we had to wear clown suits for a year before we could inherit the building and land, then that’s what we’d have to have done.’

  ‘Well, it’s ridiculous,’ Brendan said, picking up the letter and glancing through it. ‘Can’t we challenge it? Prove she’d gone batty in the last years of her life?’

  ‘She’d gone batty in the early years of her life,’ Mrs Byrne said under her breath. An only child herself, her parents long passed away, she’d always enjoyed the luxury of insulting May without having to worry about any reciprocal insults to her family.

  Mr Byrne pretended not to hear. ‘We could. But that would take months or years. And we might lose. And the truth is I need that money as soon as I can get it. I can’t wait for the insurance money to come through, if it ever does.’ No one questioned that. They were all too aware of the financial problems. Between legal bills, medical bills and the pay-outs to his former employees once he’d realised he wouldn’t be able to work again, Mr and Mrs Byrne were already in debt. Lainey had wanted to help, but her father had refused.

  Declan snorted. ‘Fantastic. So we’re moving back to Ireland to run a bed-and-breakfast together. I can just see it. Ballykissangel meets Nightmare on Elm Street.’

  ‘No, Declan, it doesn’t specify all of us,’ Mrs Byrne said. ‘It just needs to be one of us. If your father hadn’t had his accident, he and I would have gone, of course. We would have enjoyed it, but it’s impossible now, you know that. And the problem is we don’t have the time to hope that your father makes a full recovery in the next few months. One of us has to be in residence in the house by the end of February or we lose the lot.’

  Lainey, Declan and Brendan went very still.

  Mrs Byrne broke the silence. ‘We could ask Hugh to go, I suppose.’

  Declan scoffed. ‘Come on, Ma. You wouldn’t ask Hugh to mind a goldfish.’

  Mrs Byrne looked solemnly at him. ‘You’re probably right, Declan. There’s always you, of course…’ Declan stiffened. Mrs Byrne continued. ‘But the timing’s so bad, with you starting in that new school next month. It’s taken you this long to get a full-time teaching position, who knows what would happen if you took a year off.’

  Declan beamed. ‘I’d go off the rails altogether, I’d expect. Never work again.’ He lay back on the sofa, arms behind his head.

  Mrs Byrne turned her gaze to her oldest son. ‘Or there’s you, Brendan. You and Rosie have talked about going back, haven’t you?’ Rosie’s family was Irish too and she had plenty of aunts, uncles and cousins still living in Ireland.

  ‘Well, yes, but I’m so busy at work these days, and the twins are a handful here, let alone over there, but I don’t know, perhaps…’

  ‘No, Brendan, I know it’s too much to ask.’ Mrs Byrne turned her attention away from him. ‘Or there’s you, Lainey…’

  ‘Me?’ Lainey looked from her mother to her father. She knew at that moment this meeting had been a set-up. ‘You want me to do it?’

  ‘It’s a lot to ask, Lainey, I know,’ Mrs Byrne said quickly, ‘but we really don’t have any other option. We have to do what the will says or we lose the inheritance, and God knows you’re well aware how badly we need it. And aren’t you the best placed of all of us? Your boss thinks so highly of you, surely she’d give you a year off, leave without pay if it had to be that? And you’re so capable, so quick, so organised, I’m sure you’d take to running a B&B like a duck to water.’

  ‘And you’ve been back to Ireland more recently than any of us,’ Declan said, not bothering to hide a big grin. Lainey had been in Dublin on a flying visit several months before to be bridesmaid at her best friend Eva’s wedding. ‘God, I can hardly remember the place myself. What on earth could I tell the tourists?’

  ‘And Eva and her husband would be able to give you a hand, wouldn’t they?’ Mrs Byrne added.

  Lainey’s mind raced. For a moment the only sound in the room was the hum of distant traffic through the open windows and the whirr of the airconditioner from their father’s room. Of course she couldn’t go to Ireland for a year. She was up to her eyes at work, almost second in charge these days. She couldn’t
just drop everything and go away. Not when her boss Gelda had been hinting for the past month about a promotion. And she couldn’t just leave her apartment like that. What about the rent? And what about Adam…

  Then Lainey looked at her father. He was trying to twist into a more comfortable position, grimacing at the pain. All these months after his accident on the building site and he was worse, not better. The sight of him stopped her protesting thoughts mid-flow. If she didn’t do it, who would? She glanced around. Not Brendan, far too busy at work. Not Declan, with his new job. And as much as she loved her youngest brother, Declan was right, you couldn’t ask Hugh to do something like this.

  Which left only her.

  Her father’s voice filled the room, his County Meath accent sounding stronger than ever. ‘Lainey, could you do it? For my sake?’

  She opened her mouth, about to speak, when another voice beat her to it.

  ‘Could Lainey do what?’

  They all turned. It was Hugh, spiky scarlet hair, nose ring and all, standing in the doorway. ‘Sorry I’m late. Have I missed anything?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  LAINEY PULLED AWAY from her parents’ house, honking the horn and waving at her mother on the front verandah. She was too distracted to play KC and the Sunshine Band again, much as she’d like to have screamed the words at the top of her lungs, to try and clear her head. She put on a relaxation tape for a few minutes, until the simulated water sounds got on her nerves. She settled for the radio instead.

  At the freeway exit to Richmond, she made a sudden decision and turned left, heading to Camberwell. The road was free of trams for the moment. She slowed as she drove past Adam’s restaurant, just up the road from the cinema complex, and peered in – nearly all of the ten tables were filled. No point going in to see him to tell him her big news. He’d be too busy cooking to talk.

  Ten minutes later she was at her apartment building in Richmond. Walking up from the underground car park, she moved the pot plant in the front porch from the left to the right – her invitation to Adam to call up when he got home. There were times it was very convenient to live in the same apartment building as your boyfriend.