Family Drama 3-in-1 Box Set: String Bridge, The Book, Bitter Like Orange Peel

by Jessica Bell

  Kit clears her throat again, crosses her arms as if it might shield the consequences. “Ivy, you can’t go to Sydney to complete your PhD.”

  The air conditioner stops humming automatically. The art-deco clock ticks, louder than ever. Someone says “shit” under their breath.

  “Whaddaya on about, Kit?” Ivy spits, wiping tears from her eyes.

  Eleanor glances at Ailish and says, “You didn’t.”

  Ailish nods, but avoids eye contact and leans into Harold’s side. He rubs her shoulder and mutters something incomprehensible.

  “Kit. Please,” Eleanor pleads, almost in a whisper, and begins to massage her temples and glare at the floor.

  Kit wishes she hadn’t done this now.

  How could I allow myself to stoop to their level? You stupid idiot.

  But the daggers have been removed. And she can’t just let their limbs bleed out. No matter how much it’s going to hurt. You have to be cruel to be kind. The only cliché in existence that Kit feels comfortable using.

  “Eleanor has spent your entire education fund,” Kit blurts out as fast as she can. The hard rock she felt earlier is now hot jelly, melting into her legs. Eleanor’s face blanches.

  “What?” Ivy squeals. She glares at Eleanor. “Mum? Is she serious?”

  Eleanor nods, still massaging her temples, now with her eyes closed.

  “On what, Mum?” Ivy snarls. “Did you go and get your boobs done?”

  Eleanor snaps out of her stance and looks Ivy straight in the eyes. “Of course not! What kind of woman do you take me for?”

  “Then, what?”

  Eleanor squints at Kit and then Ailish, lowers herself into an armchair. “Oh God, just tell her, for crying out loud. The cat’s out of the bag.”

  Kit opens her mouth. Nothing but an airy stutter comes out, shame choking her like a puff of thick tarred smoke.

  “I gave the money to your father, Ivy,” Eleanor says, as if simply telling her where she put the mustard. “He had a stroke. He was broke. I helped.” She flicks her hand as though shooing away a fly. “End of story.”

  Sein laughs and Fareeq elbows him in the side, twitching his head as if to say they had better leave. They head for the front door. Kit mouths, “Sorry,” and “I love you,” with a hesitant pause in between as he passes by. He brushes the back of his hand against her thigh.

  “Thanks for having us,” Fareeq says, “but I think it’s time we headed off.” He nods a thank-you to Eleanor and Ailish, without directing his gaze anywhere in particular, then tugs on Sein’s elbow as the family nods back, forcing smiles of gratitude, as they leave the room and move toward the door.

  The sound of front door opening and closing envelopes the room.

  And Ivy slaps Eleanor in the face.

  Ailish

  She escorts Harold to the front door.

  “Perhaps this is the time to tell her, hmm? Take her aside. Discreetly. There’s no need for the rest of the family to know,” Harold whispers, giving her a soft farewell peck on her top lip.

  Ailish sniffs. “I can’t.”

  “You can. You’ll feel better. You’ve had a heavy heart for way too long.” Harold hugs Ailish like she is the only woman on earth worth it. She rests her head on his chest, taking comfort in the steady beat of his love.

  A steady beat. If only it could lull me to sleep.

  He leaves with a tap on his nose.

  In the lounge room, everyone sits in silence. Kit, at the dining room table, rests her head on her folded arms and closes her eyes. Amir thrusts his tongue down Ivy’s reluctant throat before disappearing out the back door. It slams. Eleanor’s face has become so red that she looks like she’s broken out in a rash.

  “Elle.” Ailish apologetically touches Eleanor’s shoulder, but she flicks it off with a tsk.

  “How could you keep this from me?” Ivy asks Eleanor with a phony sniff. “I had plans for that money.”

  Eleanor scoffs. “Plans? What plans? You’ve done a pretty good job of destroying every single plan you’ve had for yourself, Ivy. I wouldn’t bother concerning yourself with that much.”

  Ivy opens her mouth to speak but Eleanor interrupts.

  “You know what, darling? I think it’s about time I teach you a little life lesson—.

  “Life lesson? You stole money from your own daughter. Perhaps you might like to rethink who it is exactly that needs one!”

  “I stole money? It was mine in the first place! For God’s sake. If there’s anyone in this room who has done wrong, Ivy, it’s you. How do you deal with it all? How do you keep all that shit inside you? Don’t you just want to squeeze all the … the … rot out of you?” Eleanor screams, clutching at her scalp. “What did I do? I didn’t bring you up like this. How did you become so selfish?”

  Ivy looks out the window and starts to cry, blubbering like a child coming down from a sugar high. Eleanor groans and takes a deep breath.

  “If any of you,” Eleanor says in a hoarse whisper, “has anything else to reveal about this family, I suggest you spit it out. Right now.” She glares at Ivy. Ivy shakes her head. She glances at Kit; she shakes her head too. Then she stares at Ailish.

  Ailish opens her mouth but nothing emerges besides mute deceit.

  Eleanor raises her hand. “Don’t tell me, Allie. I don’t think I can bear it,” Eleanor replies in a gentle, disheartened tone.

  Ailish bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing. I don’t have anything to say.”

  “I hope not. Because I’ve had enough. Enough of all this … of all this!” Eleanor claws her fingers and waves her hands around in circles, clenching her jaw and snapping her head side to side as if she were being electrocuted.

  Eleanor takes another deep breath and composes herself, as if figuratively pinning a large full stop in the middle of the room.

  “This mess started with Roger.” She sighs. “And it’s going to end with Roger. Tomorrow.”

  Ivy

  At the Hilton, Ivy taps her fingers on the front desk while the young blonde receptionist locates which room Brian is staying in.

  “Room 242. Bit late for a visit, isn’t it?” she says with a nasal twang that borders on chipmunk pitch.

  “That’s none of your business,” Ivy snaps, and turns on her heel.

  She steps into the elevator and presses 2. The number lights up. Red. As if telling her she’d better stop.

  Just do it. You owe him this much.

  The elevator door pings open, and she scans the brass door numbers to identify which direction to turn. She turns right, and when she reaches his room, the door swings open before she has a chance to knock.

  Brian blinks and steps backward. “Oh.” He looks at his bare feet.

  Ivy smiles wryly. “May I come in?”

  “Sure.” Brian steps aside for her to enter and gently closes the door.

  Ivy stands in the middle of the room and spins around full circle. “Nice.” She nods.

  “Yes.” Brian runs his tongue over his front teeth. They both open their mouths to speak at once.

  “You first,” Ivy says, slapping her hands on her thighs.

  “No. You. Please.” Brian sits backward in the seat at the dresser, legs spread, arms crossed on the backrest. Ivy sits on the bed and briefly bounces on it. She smoothes the bedspread at the sides of her thighs and clicks her tongue. “I’d like to apologize.”

  “Go on then,” Brian mumbles, looking at the floor.

  “But first, I have to say, you really shouldn’t have just jumped on a plane. You should have called.”

  Brian scoffs and rests his head on his forearm. “No, Ivy, you should have told me about your ex-husband.”

  Ivy bites her bottom lip. “You should have told me about your wife.”

  The sound of a room service trolley passing by soothes the absence of speech. Ivy kicks off her sandals and crosses her legs under her bum. The bedspread rustles, and she is reminded how good Brian i
s in the sack.

  “Getting remarried?” Brian lifts his head and looks Ivy in the eye, his stare emitting pure indifference. He purses his lips.

  Ivy lies on the bed, looks at the ceiling, wishing she could just vanish from this planet and start fresh on a new one.

  “No. I’m not.”

  Brian stands and drags his feet to the bathroom. “Plans?” he asks, his voice adopting an echoic quality that resembles an accusation. “Staying here or heading back to Emerald?”

  “Neither.” Ivy sits up and notices a pile of used tissues on the floor on the other side of the bed.

  Brian returns from the bathroom, drying his hands on a dirty white towel. He throws it on the dresser. Straightfaced.

  “Well.” Brian raises his eyebrows and adjusts the band of his trousers. “Thanks for coming to, uh, apologize, but I think it’s best you leave.” Brian opens the door and stares straight into Ivy’s eyes.

  Ivy slips her feet back into her sandals, swallows, then hooks her arm through the handle of her bag.

  That’s it? This can’t be it. He’s playing me. For sure.

  She approaches Brian with a slight wiggle in her walk and summons a sexy smile. She moves in close, takes hold of his shirt collar with both hands, and breathes into his neck. She whispers, “One last fuck for the road?”

  Brian pushes her off. She stumbles backward, hitting her shoulder blades against the plaster wall. The hollow thump mimics exactly how she feels inside. Exactly how she’s felt her entire life.

  “Ivy. No,” Brian snaps, and then hangs his head in his hands. He rubs his face. Looks at the floor. Sways side to side and puts his hands in his pockets.

  “Actually,” Brian says, looking up and meeting Ivy’s glazed eyes, “you make me fucking sick.”

  Kit

  Kit stands outside Samuel’s suburban sea village house with Ailish, Eleanor, and Ivy. Dry overgrown grass tickles Kit’s calves. She lifts a leg to scratch and notices tiny red welts on her shin as if she’s been attacked by fleas. A psychosomatic reaction to events yet to unfold?

  On the inside, she feels at ease. Ready for anything. Ready to grab on to the first piece of driftwood that passes her by. But on the outside, there are other voices. Voices she doesn’t know if she can trust anymore. Voices that come from bodies and souls who like to choose the biggest and best waves, preferably ones with GPS.

  The four women follow the narrow cracked concrete pathway to the front door. The handle is rusty, the dark-brown paint is peeling, and claw marks are strewed all over it as if a dog’s been scratching to be let in.

  Eleanor knocks on the door. She clears her throat three times and scratches her chin twice. A frail man with very short grey hair and a slight hunch opens the door. It creaks. Kit holds her breath.

  Oh my God, is that him?

  Eleanor

  With a tight-lipped smile, she holds out her hand for Samuel to shake and tilts her head to the side. He chuckles and shakes her hand with vigor. The loose flab of her upper arm wobbles like a skin flag.

  Maybe I should consider plastic surgery.

  “So wonderful to see ya again, Eleanor. You’re still as stunning as evah,” Samuel says with a croak, and then launches into what seems like a smoker’s cough. His breath is as potent as a rotten lung.

  Eleanor blushes, but purses her lips as though trying not to appear flattered.

  “Thank you, Sam. May we come in?”

  Ivy

  Ivy feels like she falling into the cracks of the decrepit wooden deck. Eleanor moves to her left so Samuel can see the three of them behind her. He nods as if expectations have been met.

  Why did I agree to this?

  “Is it them?” A man’s gruff, firm, yet kind voice travels through the corridor and out to the patio.

  “Yep!” Samuel calls behind him. “Make yourself presentable, will ya?”

  “Righteo.” Creaking couch springs follow a stunted groan, as if it took great effort to stand up.

  Ivy glances at Kit to see if she appears as uncomfortable as she feels. Kit’s body goes stiff, she clasps her hands behind her back, and she looks at her feet, wriggling her nose, eyes closed, as if about to sneeze.

  Ailish smiles as if inhaling woe.

  If only you’d been in my shoes, Kit, you wouldn’t have looked for the bastard. Look what you’ve bloody got me into. I shouldn’t be here!

  Samuel gestures with a low murmur for everyone to come in. He has a long, thin scar below his left eye. The sight of it triggers a flash of him pushing her around her backyard on a toy black bulldozer. The wheel got caught in a pothole and tumbled over. When Sam was dressing her grazed knee, Roger galloped over with a Mr. Whippy cone, told Sam to scoot, and sat there on the lawn feeding her the ice cream. She remembers licking drips off Roger’s hairy wrist.

  The thought makes her feel weak and sick.

  Samuel looks the four women up and down as they step inside one by one. “Ya all look much prettier in person than ya do in the snaps Eleanor sent,” he says, shifting his full weight to one foot at a time as if delegating pain. He takes a few heavy breaths before leaning against the wall inside the front door.

  Ailish grabs Eleanor’s arm as they step inside. “Photographs? You sent him photographs?”

  Eleanor nods about ten times in the course of five seconds and raises her eyebrows. “I had to do something.”

  Ailish gives Eleanor’s arm a light squeeze. “That was very kind.”

  Eleanor rubs Ailish’s upper back with a tender smile, glancing at the floor. But Ivy catches Ailish rolling her eyes and mouthing, “Oh God.”

  What the hell is that all about?

  “Ladies, I’ll fetch Roger for ya. Wait here. He gets a bit, er, weird. About his space. He been a bit shy since ... well, ya know. The left side of his mouth is still a bit slow. Doesn’t like staring. Just sayin’.”

  Is this guy for real?

  Ivy frowns as she watches Sam hobble down the corridor, wondering if the first sight of Roger is going to make her want to puke.

  Kit

  Anxiety is setting in. The lull she felt earlier has liquefied like a dissolvable pill. This whole thing is beginning to feel futile. And will she even want to see him again after this? What if she feels absolutely nothing after setting eyes on him? Or even worse—what if he feels nothing? What if seeing her again just solidifies the reason he never contacted her directly? What if she meant nothing to him, and only included her in Ivy’s letter out of obligation? Is she the bastard child? Not worthy, born out of wedlock, the baby he could have easily left in a basket on a stranger’s doorstep? But none of it makes sense. Why then did he send letters to Eydie?

  What is so wrong with me?

  Kit notices Ivy’s face turn white—fear surfacing for oxygen, fuel, via her overcleansed pores. It reminds Kit of the way she felt when she discovered Roger’s surname on Ailish’s office door. Like her entire life evolved under pretence. But that feeling soon passed. Especially once she saw how it had affected her mother too. If only Ivy could look beyond her own pain, then it might eventually ease.

  “There’s no need to be so afraid. He’s only human,” Kit whispers into Ivy’s ear, thinking it may have sounded more malicious than reassuring. But there’s no time to explain that she actually cares.

  She loves her.

  But it doesn’t mean she has to like who she has become.

  Ivy

  Kit’s hair tickles Ivy’s cheek when she leans over to whisper consoling bullshit into her ear. Her immediate instinct is to push Kit’s head away, but then she realizes what she just said.

  He’s only human. Huh. Right.

  Kit contorts her mouth to the left, shrugs her shoulders, and clicks her tongue in her cheek. Ivy pulls back to look Kit in the eye. There is an air of confidence about her she’s never noticed before. It’s as if she’s stopped fighting her own personality. Ivy’s tempted to respond with kindness, but as her common reflexes would have it, it doesn’t happen.


  “Listen to yourself,” Ivy says. “Who do you think you are? The Dalai fucking Lama?”

  Eleanor and Ailish turn their heads and frown.

  “Mum. Oh my God.” Ivy grabs Eleanor’s arm and yanks her closer. “What were you trying to achieve here by making me see Dad now?”

  Eleanor jerks her arm from Ivy’s grasp as if preparing to throw a shot put. She squints, clenches her jaw, and shakes her finger as if scolding a misbehaving kindergartener. “You are thirty years old, and you’re still running. It’s time you learned how to stop.”

  Kit

  “What?” Ivy growls, putting her hands on her hips. She looks fifteen again, her face warped and twisted like the time Eleanor caught her trying to convince Kit to smoke.

  Kit bites her thumbnail and glances at her mother. She’s ironing out the front of her tailored floral skirt with splayed fingers. Roger could walk down the hall to greet them at any second, and they want to bicker? Are they crazy? Is that what they want Roger’s first impression of them to be?

  “I’m not holding your hand anymore,” Eleanor yaps. “Learn to live through the shit on your own. Now shoosh, for Christ’s sake, and introduce yourself to your father like a decent, compassionate human being.” Eleanor spins around and wobbles her arms as if trying to shake her anger away.

  Kit can’t help but smile. What Eleanor said resembles a lot of what Ivy said to Kit the night she verbally abused her on the phone. Kit faces the skirting boards to shield the satisfaction she can feel spreading across her face.

  Finally. A taste of your own medicine.

  Ailish

  She listens to the low murmur of male voices swim through the long musty-smelling corridor. She notices shifting shadows on the walls and beams of sunlight appearing and disappearing against the glass of a large painting above a small antique desk. Her stomach churns. This is it.