Too Close to Home

by Georgia Blain

  ‘Was that your way of giving advice?’ he eventually asked, smiling slightly as he did so.

  Shane’s grin was slow. He held up his hands, as though backing away from the accusation. ‘Another beer?’

  On the edge of getting very pissed, Matt declined. Tonight he wanted to go home.

  ‘Told Freya I wouldn’t be late,’ he explained, and Shane just grinned once more.

  ‘Yeah, don’t want her getting the shits with me again,’ he said. ‘Particularly now we’re getting good, her and me.’

  Matt smiled. He would see himself out, he said, and he stood slowly, stretching as he did so. Looking down at the kids curled around Shane, he offered to help him carry them inside.

  ‘Nah.’ Shane shook his head, shifting his body weight back into the couch. ‘Reckon we’ll just sleep out here.’

  ‘Shall I get you a blanket?’ Matt offered, aware of the chill now that he had stepped a few feet away from the warmth of their fire.

  But Shane shook his head again. He’d go himself. In a while. ‘They won’t wake now,’ he said, looking down at his kids. ‘Not even if a bomb went off.’

  As he walked home in the darkness, the street quiet and empty, the vision he had of the three of them, all in that one couch by the last of the fire, made him smile again. He would take Ella camping soon, he thought. Perhaps go with Shane and his kids. She, too, would be fast asleep, unlikely to stir as he crept into her room to give her a kiss goodnight, and he quickened his pace, wanting to see his daughter now, his heart warm with the wonder of her, with the wonder of all children – and he realised he was drunker than he had thought, but also slightly calmer. He could deal with Lucas. It had all got out of proportion. It was a matter of letting it be, taking it as it came. The tightness in his heart loosened slightly, and he pushed the front gate open, the hinges squeaking in the stillness, his footsteps loud on the stairs, his fingers clumsy as he fitted the key in the lock.

  The hall light was off. From down in the kitchen he could hear Freya talking to someone on the phone. In Ella’s room, the darkness was thick but he could see her. He bent over her, kissing her softly on the cheek before stepping back to just look at her, a beautiful burning in his heart as he soaked up the sight of her. His daughter. And sliding down against the wall, he sat on the floor, knees to his chest, listening to the softness of her breath, the steady flow of air entering and leaving her as she slept, arms flung out to the night, unaware of his presence there, in the corner of her room.

  IN THE DAYS THAT follow Lisa’s call, Freya asks Matt how often they have spoken.

  ‘A few times,’ he tells her.

  ‘Was there a reason why you didn’t tell me?’

  He takes a moment to answer and she can see he is genuinely thinking. ‘I don’t know how to talk to you about this.’

  ‘You don’t even try.’

  They are both aware Ella is there, watching television in the next room.

  He has tried, he tells her, lowering his voice. But it always ends up like this.

  ‘Like what?’ She has her arms folded and she is aware of how petty they must sound, like children squabbling. She hates it. ‘Is there something I should be worried about?’

  He looks at her, shaking his head. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You and Lisa?’ The words come out like a hiss.

  His denial is immediate.

  And then Ella calls out, wanting to know how long it is until dinner.

  The next night, they have all arranged to go out after Mikhala’s opening. They are trying to be nice to each other, or at least Freya is trying. In the car on the way to the restaurant, she asks him what he thought of the work. She is surprised when he tells her that he wasn’t that impressed.

  ‘Really?’ and she looks across at him, eyes focused on the road, peering forward to see through the fogged-up windscreen. ‘I loved it,’ she says. ‘It was so dark and beautiful and strangely archetypal. It’s like she’s taken each possible nightmare and distilled it to its essence. You should open your window, by the way.’

  He does as she suggests and the rush of cold is a relief from the closeness of the car.

  ‘So why didn’t you like them?’ Freya asks when it becomes clear that Matt is not going to expand on his dismissal of the paintings without her prompting.

  He shrugs his shoulders. ‘They were clever clichés. Technically adept. But as interesting as a one-trick pony.’

  She hadn’t expected this response from him. ‘I wanted to buy one,’ she says.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

  ‘It’s not as though we could afford it anyway.’

  She looks out the window at the rain glittering on the oil-smeared road, aware that they are perilously close to another argument although she’s not sure why.

  She had enjoyed the opening. She had gone there on her own, taking Ella up to stay with Shane before she caught the train into town.

  Matt had been surprised when she’d suggested that they ask Shane if he could have her for the night, rather than getting a babysitter.

  ‘Why not?’ Freya said. ‘We’ve had his kids often enough.’

  ‘I just didn’t think you’d want her staying there.’

  Freya had been offended. ‘What makes you think that?’ she’d asked, forgetting how confronting she had initially found Shane to be.

  Ella was excited. ‘Can I sleep with Darlene? She has her own TV in her room.’

  Freya told her it would be up to Shane where she slept. ‘You have to do as he says,’ she instructed.

  Shane was strict, Ella replied. ‘He gets really cross with Archie sometimes.’ She skipped ahead, pausing at the corner. ‘Do you reckon we’ll go to McDonald’s for dinner? They have Coke every night and sometimes they have it for breakfast too.’

  Freya was about to tell her that if she was offered Coke for breakfast, she had to say no, but then she stopped herself. What did it really matter?

  She arrived at the gallery only moments after six, but it was crowded already, the huge white room filled with a crush of colour and noise. Every painting had sold. In fact, most of them had sold prior to the opening. Seeing Clara at the entrance, she stopped and talked to her and then she found Mikhala. She squeezed her hand, congratulating her as the gallery owner took her by the elbow to meet another interested collector.

  ‘Let me show you the one we picked,’ Anna said, her arm on Paolo’s as she guided them both through the press of people to the one that Freya, too, would have chosen: the abandoned shoe in the field.

  Glancing quickly at the catalogue, she saw the amount: $30,000.

  ‘Jesus, she’s hiked up her prices,’ she said before she could stop herself.

  ‘I’ve promised Paolo I’ll take another film.’ Anna smiled, her beautiful wide mouth animated, her eyes sparkling with the excitement of the purchase. ‘I love it.’ She had just had her hair cut, shorter than usual and it suited her. In fact, Freya thought, it made her look even younger.

  ‘Let’s get a drink,’ and Anna led the way to the bar, leaving Paolo behind.

  Frank was there, and as soon as Freya saw him, she wished she hadn’t. His presence was not a surprise and the truth was she’d wanted to see him, but she also hadn’t; the strangeness of their kiss was knotted inside her, alongside the knowledge that she would only be opening the door to another form of trouble because she didn’t want to deal with what was right there, already inside her house. And so she tried to avoid looking directly at him, keeping her eyes fixed on the row of wineglasses lining the bar.

  But Anna went straight up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him on the cheek. ‘Frankie,’ she said. ‘You know it’s so bloody good having you back in town and seeing you everywhere again.’ She reached for two glasses of wine, passing one back to Freya. ‘Let’s move away from the bar,’ she suggested, reaching out to bring Frank with them as well.

  Towards the entrance, they saw that Anna hadn’t followed after all. Sh
e had been stopped on the way, and was talking intently to a man who appeared to be a friend of Paolo’s.

  ‘So,’ and Frank smiled as he nodded in Anna’s direction, ‘we’ve been dumped.’

  Freya shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m used to it,’ she told him.

  He tapped at the tobacco in his pocket, and he looked at the door. ‘Want to come with me?’

  In the cool darkness, there were a few people clustered by the entrance, the tips of their cigarettes glowing as they leant in against the gallery wall or stood out in the narrow laneway.

  Freya shook her head when Frank offered her a rollie. Her slight nervousness was making her ill; a cigarette would only make it worse. She watched him roll it, taking in his long fine fingers, and then she looked away again, smiling at Max as he and a couple of friends also stepped outside to smoke.

  ‘So, you okay?’ Frank eventually asked, looking directly at her.

  She met his gaze as she told him she was fine.

  ‘After the other afternoon?’

  She didn’t know whether he was referring to her having mentioned Lucas’ possible arrival, or their kiss outside the theatre and so she asked him directly what he meant.

  ‘You know,’ he said, grinning slightly.

  Freya also smiled. ‘I don’t actually,’ and she reached out and took his cigarette, the drag making her feel as ill as she had thought it would. ‘That was a mistake.’ She gave it back to him, their hands brushing against each other, just briefly. She looked away again, turning to the street just in time to see Matt coming round the corner, and she waved to him as he approached.

  Now as they sit in the car, the possibility of a disagreement hovering between them, she wonders whether it has anything to do with Frank, whether there is any suspicion on his part, but she dismisses the thought quickly. Matt is not the type to be jealous, to even notice whether she is spending more time or less with anyone. He lives within himself, largely complete and contained. Which doesn’t mean he does not love her (she has learnt that over the years) but ownership or possession don’t have a significant place in that love.

  Reaching across and touching the warmth of his leg, she tells him that Anna bought a painting.

  ‘Did she really like it?’ he asks.

  ‘I assume so,’ Freya says. ‘Although I’m sure the fact that they now sell so quickly, and for so much, was a help in making the decision.’

  She looks across at him again, wanting to know if he is all right. ‘You seem tense,’ she says, and she is about to ask him whether it’s the news about Lucas, when he tells her that he doesn’t want to come to dinner.

  ‘We won’t stay long,’ she promises.

  But he’s made up his mind. He’ll drop her there, he says. She can get a taxi back. He’s had so much work on, and when she doesn’t take her eyes off him, he eventually says that he’s sick of these occasions; they are small and narrow, they all sit around talking about their own work, and if they move beyond that to the state of the world, they just complain about how terrible the government is, how nothing has changed for refugees, for Aboriginal people, how hopeless they are on climate change, and yet none of them ever do anything. All they do is produce work for each other and congratulate each other on what they have done.

  ‘That’s not true,’ she interrupts. ‘Julia teaches English to migrants. Clara does bush regeneration.’ As she utters this statement she is aware of how puny a defence it is in the face of his accusations. ‘Besides, what the fuck can we do? It’s not like we can really change anything. No one listens to us. No one cares what we say. What do you want from us?’

  ‘It’s always the same.’ He thinks he will scream with the claustrophobia of it all.

  ‘I assume you are including me in your disgust.’ Her voice is chill.

  ‘No,’ he says, but his denial is hollow. ‘I just need something other than this,’ and he waves his arm uselessly out the open window.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she tells him, unbuckling her seatbelt. ‘Perhaps we are doing nothing other than producing work for each other, engaging in this tiny claustrophobic debate, but what’s so wrong with that? If we don’t do it, then who does? Who speaks for us and to us?’ She can hear the slight tremor in her words, and she doesn’t want to betray her anger with such feebleness. ‘It’s not like you’re any better.’ Breathing in, she tells him she will see him later. ‘At home.’ And she steps out into the soft drizzle, slamming the car door shut behind her as she turns to where the restaurant is, a few doors down the street.

  They are all there already, sitting around a long table in the corner. Mikhala is at one end with Max on one side of her and Anna on the other. She’s laughing loudly. Louise, who is now heavily pregnant, is talking with Frank, who appears to be listening to all she has to say. Clara has the menu in front of her and is in the process of ordering. She looks across at Julia, taking her hand in her own.

  Standing on the pavement and watching them through the window, Freya feels the softness of the rain down her back. It is cold but her face is hot. Her eyes are stinging, and her heart beats, a rapid staccato that feels sharp enough to puncture. She has a hole in the sole of her left boot and the dampness is seeping in. Catching sight of her reflection in the glass, she contemplates turning around and going back to the car. There’s a panic in her eyes and a flush across her normally pale skin. Any glow she’d felt earlier about being out with her friends has gone. But she is too hurt to face Matt now.

  She pushes the door open and smiles as both Anna and Frank turn to greet her. Unable to trust herself to speak to them without crying she goes straight to Mikhala and congratulates her again, before taking the last seat at the other end of the table, next to Clara and Julia.

  They’re talking about the Liberal Party’s growing popularity.

  ‘It’s real,’ Julia tells Louise. ‘We’re going to end up with a climate change sceptic as a leader. This is a man who hates homosexuals, who wants to completely demolish any form of workers’ rights, who believes abortion is wrong – I don’t understand why people don’t care.’

  Freya just nods.

  ‘Perhaps “caring” about issues other than your mortgage is a privilege very few can enjoy.’ Clara offers Freya a glass of wine. ‘Perhaps it’s only people like us who have the time to go to marches, who aren’t working ridiculous hours to buy a bigger house or send their kids to private school.’

  Freya drinks rapidly, needing the warmth of the alcohol to centre her before she attempts to engage with the others at the table. As she puts her glass down, she looks at Clara. ‘I hate that phrase: “people like us”.’ She has spoken more loudly than she intended and the others are quiet. ‘Why are we always so certain we’re right? We sit around convinced that everyone else is a fool, but we’re completely irrelevant. I mean, look at us.’ She waves her hand around the room. ‘I write plays no one comes to, Anna acts in films that last a week in the cinema, you design publications that no one buys –’ She pauses, aware she is repeating all that Matt said in the car, and she wants them to refute his statements, to ease her agitation, because her argument with him has scratched beneath her skin.

  Clara refuses to be ruffled. ‘So you think it’s all just a question of numbers? An idea or work only has value if it’s got mass appeal?’

  Freya shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. Most of the time I like to think otherwise, but sometimes I just don’t know, and I wonder about our smug surety in our opinions, I really do.’ She reaches for the wine. ‘And on my bad days, I feel it’s all so pointless. We vote Green, knowing Labor will get in and knowing they’re a con-job, pretending to care about the kind of issues people like us care about without ever really doing anything. And we also know it would be a disaster if by some miracle the Greens actually got real power. They couldn’t manage it.’ She smiles ruefully. ‘And I hate the fact I’ve now just said “people like us” too – it makes me cringe.’

  Julia intervenes. ‘Frank says your play i
s amazing – irrelevant or not.’ She looks at him. ‘His words.’ She pushes the bottle towards Freya. ‘Who knows, maybe it’ll play to packed houses.’

  Freya laughs. ‘Even then I’d only be reaching a couple of thousand people.’

  Louise leans forward. ‘I want to see it,’ she says. ‘I’ve been desperate for something worthwhile to direct.’

  Freya glances across at Frank, who sits at the other end of the long white table, glasses and bottles and plates and food and people between them. ‘It was enough to convince me that making the move back here was a good thing.’ He smiles in Freya’s direction. ‘Where’s Matt?’ he asks.

  Ignoring his question, Freya turns back to Louise. ‘It must be close now,’ she says, referring to the baby.

  ‘Less than two months.’ Louise smiles. ‘And I’ve been feeling great. I’ve been looking at duplexes with Scot and Alistair. We’re going to try to live together.’

  They talk briefly about working with small children. ‘It’ll be hard,’ Louise says at one point. ‘I’ll be a single parent.’

  Freya is surprised. ‘It doesn’t sound like it,’ she corrects her. ‘There’ll be three of you.’

  But Louise continues talking, ignoring her comment, as she complains about how inhospitable the film industry is to the realities of motherhood, and her anxiety about what this will mean for her career.

  ‘I suppose as director I can call the shots to some extent –’ and she reaches across the table for another sugarcane and prawn roll – ‘make the whole process more amenable to parenting, but there are always limitations. The sheer cost of a production means ridiculous hours.’

  ‘Get Scot and Alistair to step in,’ Freya suggests, but again Louise ignores her.

  ‘Has she told you?’ Louise nods in the direction of Anna, and Freya shakes her head.

  ‘Oh.’ Louise looks embarrassed but also pleased with herself. There’s smugness in her expression as she runs her hand over her own stomach and looks meaningfully to where Anna is sitting at the other end of the table.