Girl in Between

by Anna Daniels

  I’ve been holding on to the news about Cher’s world tour and, having already posted Mum a tin of The Queen’s 90th Birthday Luxury Shortbread Biscuits, I decided to wait until Christmas Day to deliver the show-stopper gift.

  There’s silence on the other end of the phone when I tell Mum that, for one night only, Cher is coming to Sydney.

  ‘Lucy, can you repeat what you just told me?’ she says in disbelief.

  After I triple-confirm that the Goddess of Pop has decided to don the suspenders once more and turn back time, and that Rosie and I want to go halves in tickets for her and Dad, Mum starts crying tears of joy. ‘“I keep coming back because I have no place else to go. What else would I do? I love to sing,”’ I say, quoting Cher in an attempt to make her laugh.

  Mum tries to speak, but her words are punctuated by tiny sobs and I can’t understand what she’s saying.

  ‘Mum, don’t worry, I’ll make sure I get the tickets. Presale’s soon and even if it means staying up all night I’ll just be online until—’

  ‘It’s not that, Luce,’ says Mum, her voice breaking. ‘I had a lump removed from my breast on Monday.’

  Suddenly I’m the one who’s speechless.

  ‘I felt a lump when I was in Mongolia and had a biopsy as soon as I got home,’ says Mum. ‘We got on to it early, thank God.’

  ‘What?! But why didn’t you tell me before? I would have …’ My voice fails me as shock gives way to fear.

  ‘Come on, none of that, Luce—I didn’t tell you precisely because I don’t want you thinking you have to drop everything and come home. And you don’t. It’s all going to be okay.’ Mum has pulled herself together now and her voice is strong and clear. ‘The surgeon’s confident he got all the margins and he’ll have the pathology results back in no time.’

  ‘Oh, Ma,’ I say.

  ‘My dear Lucy … The last thing I wanted to do is tell you on Christmas Day, but then you went and blindsided me with Cher, you naughty girl, and that just tipped me over the edge.’

  ‘How big was it?’ I ask.

  ‘Between the size of a marble and a ping-pong ball.’

  ‘Oh, Ma,’ I repeat. ‘Does catching it early mean it won’t ever come back?’ I ask, seeking the unrealistic reassurance only a parent can give.

  ‘Yes,’ she answers emphatically. ‘It’s gone now, never to return.’

  And because it’s my mum, my beautiful, crazy, wonderful mother, I try to believe her.

  ‘I tell you, it hasn’t stopped word getting around town, though,’ she continues. ‘I was only in hospital for forty-eight hours and the fridge was stocked from top to bottom with minestrone and lasagne when I got home. Even Ruth dropped off a chicken casserole, although I don’t think I’ll be going near that.’

  ‘Ma!’ I chuckle, and wipe away tears. ‘That was nice of Ruth, Mum!’

  ‘Hm,’ she sniffs. ‘Good way to knock Brian and me off in one fell swoop too!’

  ‘That would be one fowl swoop! Ha!’

  I feel brighter when Mum laughs at my silly joke and starts grumbling about Ruth like she always does.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time you and Ruth made amends?’ I say. ‘She went out with Dad forty-two years ago!’

  ‘I know, but I’ve got to keep my guard up, Luce. Brian broke her heart, and I think she’s had designs on him ever since.’

  ‘Designs? Are you from a Jane Austen novel?!’

  Over Glenda’s furious barking, I hear the smile in Mum’s voice as she tells me how Glenda has been playing nursemaid, dispensing lots of licks and providing steadfast companionship.

  ‘How’s Dad been dealing with it all?’

  ‘He’s been very good, actually. We were both shocked at first, of course. But you know Dad, ever practical. He’s made my recovery into a project, and has me doing CrossFit for the Over-60s videos he’s found on YouTube. He read an article about the healing power of antioxidants and the juicer’s always going. To be perfectly honest, if he doesn’t start heading out to the farm or the Men’s Shed again soon, I’ll be locking him downstairs in ours! On the upside, Glenda’s lost a few kilos now that Brian’s not going past Bernie’s as much.’

  I cry quietly into the phone, desperately sad at the unbearable possibility of not always hearing Mum prattle on about Dad. I wish I could teleport myself home to share Christmas with them, even if it meant listening to Michael Bublé.

  ‘Anyway, Lucy, that’s that and we’re not going to worry,’ Mum says firmly. ‘Oh, I’ll tell you who else has been my rock …’

  ‘Cher,’ I say immediately.

  ‘Well, that’s a given. Guess again.’

  ‘Ruth,’ I say with a giggle.

  ‘Fat chance,’ she says dryly.

  ‘Colleen.’

  ‘Like hell. Although she did drop off a lovely vanilla slice, I shouldn’t be mean.’

  ‘I know—Trish from the drumming circle!’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘Give me a hint, Ma,’ I say, stumped.

  ‘Next door,’ she sings.

  ‘Helen!’ I cry, slapping my hand triumphantly on the couch.

  ‘She’s been great, but someone else has too,’ she says coyly.

  Suddenly the answer hits me, and as the colour rushes into my cheeks, I find myself tongue-tied. Mum fills the silence between us with laughter and I realise she knows Oscar’s with me.

  ‘I can’t believe you were hanging out Mum’s undies,’ I say to Oscar as we lie together later that night in his room at the Cranley Hotel.

  ‘It was more your Dad’s saggy Bonds trunks that had me thinking twice,’ he replies, and we both laugh.

  ‘So you are here because you want to be and not because you’re on Her Majesty’s Service, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course I’m here because I want to be,’ he says, leaning over and kissing my forehead. ‘Your mum’s like Jenny Brockie off Insight or something; she wangles everything out of you. One session on her swinging chair and she knew how much I cared about you. And when Ben said Rosie wasn’t completely convinced about your feelings for Joe, Denise told me to grow a pair and tell you how I felt.’

  ‘She never let on she knew about Joe!’ I say, surprised. ‘And I’m sure she wouldn’t have used those words exactly.’

  ‘Well, it was more like “Are you strong enough?”’ he says with a grin.

  ‘Probably not,’ I quip. ‘Joking, Oscar, joking!’ I yell as he starts to tickle me.

  As I catch my breath, his expression turns serious.

  ‘When your mum told me she had cancer it brought everything about Dad back up. That’s when I decided to hire someone to help share my workload and have a break. And then, when I was no longer distracting myself with Bev’s Buffet, I realised I’d never forgive myself if there was still a chance we could be together.’

  ‘Oh, Oscar,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry about your dad.’

  ‘I know, Luce.’

  I turn on my side and trace a curl of his hair with my fingers.

  ‘You know, your mum doesn’t want you to think you have to come home for her,’ he says. ‘She wants you to make choices independently of how she is.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I respond.

  ‘But not independently of me,’ he adds quickly.

  ‘Oscar, do you think Mum’ll be okay?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah, Luce,’ he says, drawing me closer. ‘She’ll be okay.’

  Despite Oscar’s reassurances, and Margie’s happy updates about her dalliances with Dennis, I go through my entire month’s mobile budget in two days ringing up Mum. And whenever I get a phone call from home I answer with a leap of anxiety in my stomach, and a tightness in my throat, wondering if this will this be the call where Dad tells me the pathology results are back and the cancer is one of the aggressive types.

  On several occasions I greet Mum, my heart clanging against my chest, only to have her ask me how to create a Ticketek account.

  Thankfully, Dad puts my mind at rest with a morning call saying
the pathology’s back and the oncologist has given Mum the all-clear. I’m so relieved I start crying.

  ‘How about bloody Cher, hey?’ says Dad, trying to cheer me up. ‘S’pose we’ll have to look at flights to Brissie soon.’

  ‘No, she’s only going to Sydney, Dad.’

  ‘What!’ he exclaims. ‘What about poor old bloody Queensland?’

  I tell him Rosie and I are buying tickets to Cher for both of them, but he says not to be silly, and that it’ll be a relief to buy Mum a birthday present she’ll actually like for once.

  I laugh, remembering the time he gave her a stainless-steel shower stool for her sixtieth; she barely spoke to him for the rest of the day.

  When I ask how Mum’s been travelling emotionally, I find enormous comfort in Dad’s inability to beat around the bush.

  ‘She’s been up and down like a yo-yo, love, but that’s to be expected. Now that she’s got the all-clear she’ll be right as rain. God, we could do with some of that here too. It’s terribly dry. Bloody awful result in the Ashes, wasn’t it?’

  In the end, my deliberations over whether to return home to Australia sooner rather than later are resolved for me at our first post-Christmas staff meeting at Scribe, when the managing director soberly informs us that the owners have accepted a takeover offer from a major bookstore chain. In a classic English understatement, he adds there may be some ‘realignment’ of staff.

  Over the next few days Penny is told her position is safe, but Margie and me and all the other expats will be losing our jobs. After the initial shock, I’m relieved because, as much as I have to play my own hand at life, sometimes it’s liberating to have a couple of cards fall in a certain direction.

  When Margie and I clock off from the children’s section for the last time, we join Penny, Sally and a few of her Aussie nanny mates for a pint at the Cat’s Back. After a couple of drinks, Penny is well and truly three sheets to the wind as she laments the loss of my Aussie-accented Storytime sessions and Margie’s outbursts of Afrikaans.

  Margie announces she’s going to stay on in London, joking she’s been in England long enough not to mind the weather anymore, though it’s clear her burgeoning romance with Dennis is influencing her decision. With a wink, I tell her I’ll be rsvp’ing ‘yes’ to her and Dennis’s wedding braai, and assure Penny I intend to keep writing fiction, promising to let her know if I hear back from any of the Australian publishers I’ve contacted about my manuscript.

  Then, as Penny and I hug each other farewell, I tell her how much I love her and how her belief in me has changed my life. She squeezes me tight and says, ‘One day, Lucy, I’ll be boasting to everyone, “I know her!”’

  Oddly, my most poignant farewell is with Sally, who says I was her dose of Queensland in London and the highlight of her week. She then asks me shyly whether I’d mind if she texted Joe to see what he’s up to and I assure her that nothing could make me happier.

  ‘Gee, I haven’t see you at the pool in a while!’ says Dominic Cavendish as I squeeze in beside him at the baggage carousel in Rocky’s airport. ‘Been too cold for ya?’

  ‘No, I’ve been living in London for seven months, Dom,’ I say with a laugh. ‘Bit far away to come for a few laps.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he says, picking up his bag. ‘See ya.’

  ‘See ya,’ I reply.

  As I wait for my battered red suitcase to come into view, I recognise several parents of high school friends; the man from behind the counter at Officeworks; the husband-and-wife team from Newcastle who run Gone Bush; and a burly bloke with a grey beard and buttoned-up shirt patterned with pineapples, who barrels past me to retrieve his swag from the conveyor belt.

  ‘Excuse me, love,’ he says gruffly, and I glow with the warmth that comes from touching down on home turf and chuckle at the complete disparity between this terminal and Heathrow.

  Amid cries of, ‘Gee, she’s warm!’ I roll my suitcase into the mid-January furnace-like heat, and feel steam rise off the bitumen as I cross over to the passenger pick-up zone. ‘How hot is it!’ I say to the women beside me and we all laugh, because that’s what you do when you’re sweating profusely.

  Dad’s rusty old LandCruiser rumbles in, and I’m so overjoyed to see Glenda’s little head panting out the passenger window, I run over and give her a kiss even before Dad hops out of the ute and takes my bag.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ I ask, just as Dad says, ‘Where’s Oscar?’

  I smile at the thought that every single member of my damn family seems to be having their own separate love affair with this man. ‘He’s staying in Sydney for a few days to catch up with things. He’ll be up here soon.’

  ‘Very good,’ says Dad, buckling his seatbelt. ‘Mum’s busy making pumpkin scones for when you turn up.’

  We’re silent for a while as I soak in the vivid blue sky, the feeling of warmth on my arm on the windowsill, the air alive with the screech and call of birds and the scent of star jasmine, the ridiculous sense of space.

  ‘Are you happy to be home, Luce?’ asks Dad, breaking into my reverie.

  ‘Yeah, Dad,’ I reply. And as we pass the bull statue astride the airport entrance roundabout, the sun glistening off its fibreglass rump, I know in my bones that this time I mean what I say, and that I am happy to be back.

  As soon as Dad pulls up in the driveway, I bolt inside with Glenda. I find Mum in the kitchen setting out a plate of Iced VoVos, her damp togs outlined beneath her cotton dress.

  ‘Oh, Ma!’ I say, breaking down at the sight of her freshly combed wet hair. ‘I don’t want you to die, Ma! I want you to know my kids.’

  ‘Well, hurry up and have them then!’ she says with a laugh, rubbing my back as we hug. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Luce. Your father’s got me healthier than ever with his CrossFit programs and nutri-ninja smoothies or whatever they’re called. I did thirty laps at the pool this morning! I would actually consider myself to be superbly fit!’

  ‘Jeez, thirty laps is alright!’ I say, wiping away my tears. ‘I saw Dom at the airport.’

  ‘Ha! I think he fancies me.’ Mum gives me a wink and flicks on the kettle.

  I burst into laughter; Mum is definitely back to her normal self.

  ‘God no, I’m not going anywhere,’ she continues. ‘Particularly not now that I’ve got VIP tickets to Cher!’

  ‘What? VIP tickets!’ I exclaim incredulously.

  ‘Yep, your father splashed out big time, darl. After all, how often do you get the opportunity to have champagne and canapés with Cher?’

  ‘But how did he get those tickets? Wouldn’t they have been snapped up in minutes?’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about Brian and me, Luce! You should have seen us Tuesday morning. Dad was on the website at eight-thirty, ready to swoop at nine.’

  ‘Dad? Buying tickets online?’ I say as we move to the kitchen table with our tea.

  ‘Yeah, he’s enrolled in a computer course for seniors out at the uni, knows all about USB sticks and control-alt-delete and Facebook—and thankfully he was able to navigate the Ticketek site.’

  ‘Ha! That’s hilarious.’ I grin. ‘Don’t go joining up to Facebook, Ma,’ I add quickly.

  ‘I spoke with Rosie and she’s taken care of your ticket,’ she says, ignoring me. ‘She’s been so good about helping me, the sweetheart. No doubt she’ll be around soon.’

  I nod and watch the spindly arms of brigalow trees wave about outside in the summer breeze, smiling as the kookaburras break into their familiar cackle.

  ‘How’s my lovely Oscar?’ says Mum over the birds’ raucous laughter.

  ‘He’s good, Ma,’ I say with a big grin. ‘Weren’t you conniving over here like Mrs Bennet out of Pride and Prejudice!’

  ‘Sometimes you young pups need an old, steady hand to help you see what’s what,’ she says. ‘Particularly you with your horse blinkers on in London, eyes down in your book, head in the clouds. Meanwhile, I’ve got Oscar on my swinging chair, pouring out his heart and
pegging up my bras.’

  I put my head on her shoulder in embarrassment.

  ‘It was all just too absurd,’ giggles Mum, and we laugh and laugh.

  The sound of my bedroom door opening stirs me from a jetlagged slumber, and I glance across to see Rosie in her bicycle lycra.

  ‘How are you?’ she shouts, flicking on the light and striding over to give me a hug. ‘Fucking hot outside!’

  Immediately energised by her presence, I tear down the covers and stand up in my pyjamas.

  ‘Hello, Rose! Should we go to the pool?’

  As we kick alongside each other in adjacent lanes, Rosie tells me that Ben’s been accepted into Charles Darwin University and is now up in Darwin, scoping out a place for them to live. She says they’re going to fly up there permanently after Cher’s concert.

  ‘He loves Nightcliff and Rapid Creek, says they’re right on the ocean and have some cool troppo houses to rent.’

  ‘Wow, sounds awesome,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, he’s having a ball in the Top End. Already has a gang of friends and has been to a few wild parties. We might lock it in for a while, I think.’

  I tell Rosie about Oscar helping Mum and she nods like it’s old news, saying Mum filled her in over multiple cups of tea on the swinging chair.

  ‘Of course she did,’ I reply.

  After the pool, Rosie and I relax with prosecco on her balcony. We’ve got so much to say to each other, that we say nothing, and instead watch clouds of bushfire smoke swirl around the Berserkers, cloaking the town below us in a blanket of thick, soupy air that stings your eyes, catches in your throat and seeps into your clothes.

  It’s among these mountainside flashes of flames, the dim twinkle of city lights and soundtrack of insects and birds that I finally realise I’m home, and I rest my feet on Rosie’s railing and look over at her.

  ‘I can’t believe how many lines my hands have all of a sudden,’ I say, examining my wrists. ‘I just don’t know how they got like this.’