‘Why are you making such a big deal out of this?’ Lydia asked.
Behind her, the Australian History teacher was promenading a framed signed Collingwood guernsey across the stage. Evangelia clenched her jaw. She didn’t know how to articulate it. Lydia sighed patiently.
‘Fine. What photo do you want? What magical photo that doesn’t seem to exist? From what time period? From what country? Mum in the kitchen cooking our dinner when we were kids? Mum at the church fundraiser ragged from baking all morning? Mum sitting by Dad’s bedside each time his back played up, when neither of them slept at all? Which interchangeable point in time would you like to memorialise?’
Evangelia squeezed her eyes shut.
‘Oh, no answer! I see. Not so easy, is it? Not so easy being the one who does all the work keeping this family on track. You don’t realise what it’s like. You’re not the oldest. You don’t have the crushing weight of being the matriarch now.’
Evangelia squeezed her eyes tighter. Images of their mother were crashing through her mind. The factory. The cherries. Hiding from the Waltons man. Speckled by candlelight at midnight mass. Cracking red eggs. Squirrelled away in the tomato plants. Lifting her grandchildren high above her head. Spitting on her daughters’ wedding dresses to drive away the evil eye.
‘Hello? Evangelia? I said you don’t know what it’s like being in charge now.’
Evangelia’s eyes flashed open and she seized the platter of meats in front of her. And before anyone could say anything, she hefted it across the table at her sister, showering her with salami, prosciutto and something that was, knowing Lydia, very expensive jamón. The hall broke into ecstatic applause as Evangelia grabbed her bag and someone bounded to the stage to collect their framed guernsey. Lydia was, for the first time in Evangelia’s memory, stunned.
In the car on the way home, Peter reached across and rested his hand on her thigh. She glanced over at him, her eyes catching the Buddha strapped into the back seat behind them.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ she snapped.
She watched the suburbs pass by.
‘Your mother would have hated to see good meat go to waste like that,’ Peter said gently.
Evangelia bit down on her tongue.
‘But she would have hated that statue more.’
And they smiled, the three of them, pained, weary smiles that didn’t for a minute have any answers at all.
18
DB
Jonesy!
Loved the safari pics. Never been that close to an elephant myself. Internet says they’re dangerous but nothing stops the Jonesenator, amiright?! Pity about the lost passport, but as you said, it was almost full anyway.
Life continues this side of the Equator. Case is proving more challenging than we originally thought but you know me – glutton for challenges! Obviously can’t give you details but the other party is a bit of a name in the legal profession. You’ve heard of him. That’s all I’ll say. Former university Law Society President. So that’s what we’re up against but you know I’m not a quittin’ man. And Nell is not a quittin’ anything, so there’s that.
Rudy’s fifth birthday this weekend. You’re missing out on one stellar party, my friend. Upgraded the barbecue in preparation because it’s going to be epic. Balloon guy for the kids, fully stocked tiki bar for the adults. Matching father-and-son chino polo combos plus Ray Bans. You know we do!
DB squinted at the screen. Should it be you know we did? He tried to recall the hip-hop he listened to in the car whenever Sylvie and Rudy weren’t around, testing out both phrases in his head. You KNOW we do. Like that. That’s how he wanted Jonesy to read it. Because if he didn’t it just sounded like DB had made a typo . . . Except, wasn’t it you know how we do? That sounded better. You know HOW we do!
‘Wozzle womble worry?’
DB glanced across the desk. Nell was looking at him expectantly. He stared at her for a moment.
‘Yes,’ he replied eventually, and this seemed to satisfy whatever question she’d asked.
She turned back to her computer and continued typing. DB watched her, immersed in whatever it was she was working on. Most likely the pro bono case because this was what she seemed to spend most of her time doing, staying late in order to manage the rest of her work and continuing to fuel his suspicion that she had little life to speak of outside of her day job. This suited DB since it had become apparent that they may not win this case after all. And if they didn’t win this case it would not impress Old Man Williams and impressing Old Man Williams was something DB was passionately devoted to right now. He’d even invited him to Rudy’s party that weekend. It was a strategic move – he’d seemed so enamoured of Rudy when they’d met at the golf course – and might prove handy if – and this was only an if – if they were to somehow, potentially, perhaps not win the case. Which they would. But just in case. He had only been invited to the second of Rudy’s parties – the one with the petting zoo and tiki bar – and DB had been working hard to ensure this party would be the more memorable. Sure, there was Nino’s party with its homemade cake and decorations first purchased in the 1980s, but that was more about them than Rudy, and he knew how impressed everyone would be by the extravaganza he was preparing. Even Sylvie, who seemed inexplicably weary of the whole thing. But it was all set in place now: Rudy was to have two parties, one after the other, in a sort of procession of celebrations like a Hindu wedding. Nino would hold his in the morning and DB theirs in the afternoon, and Rudy would helicopter into each like a celebrity. The guests could decide which party they chose to attend, potentially either and hopefully both, unless it was Naughty Niki who was at this point invited to neither as she had recently clawed superficial trenches into Rudy’s cheeks when they were meant to be practising their sharing. DB wavered for a moment. Rudy had finally made the connection between very old people and the proximity of death, and was not un-vocal in sharing this information. And Mr Williams was an . . . aged man. But of course he would charm Mr Williams once more, because he was a charming young fellow, just like his father. And right now his father had a job to do and that job was to confirm the petting zoo man. Across from him, Nell stretched then returned to her goblin-like hunch over the keyboard. DB picked up his phone and dialled.
*
The day of the party arrived and Sylvie set off early with Rudy to help her parents prepare. DB had insisted on this arrangement, that Sylvie not lift a finger, and she had happily obliged. He waved them off from the driveway, then stole into the house, his dressing-gown whipping behind him in the breeze. The DJ had cancelled at the last minute – something Sylvie suggested may have to do with the two dozen or so instructional emails DB had sent him up to that point – so he’d been up most of the night putting together the ultimate party playlist. He wanted it to make a bold statement to the attendees about what kind of dad he was – why yes, that was The Specials playing at his son’s party. The Pixies? They’re coming up next! He’d cleared the backyard of the plastic paraphernalia abandoned by Rudy in past play, and dragged the outdoor setting from where it had been pushed to one side. He arranged the chairs around the perimeter of the yard, then decided this made it look too much like a 1960s prom, so instead he set the whole thing up to one side. He’d checked the barbecue had gas, there was ice in the garage freezer ready to be broken up and tossed into the drink stations, and he’d purchased enough fancy sausages to stock an Oktoberfest tent. He scattered items on the kitchen bench – venison sausages, salt, bread, a bottle of red – as if to say, ‘Oh, hey, I was just being gourmet . . .’ as guests wandered into the house. A whole section of the yard had been reserved for the petting zoo and DB imagined the sheer joy on his son’s face when he arrived home from his no doubt pedestrian first party to find a veritable menagerie of creatures roaming his backyard. He planned to take a picture of Rudy patting a sheep or ridin
g a goat, and get it printed nice and big so that Guiseppa could place it in the centre of her fridge door.
He spent the rest of the morning picking up platters from the deli, selecting craft beers, and negotiating the towering honeycomb double chocolate mud cake into the passenger seat. Once everything was in place, he showered, pulled on his carefully pressed outfit and styled his hair in the mirror. Rudy was already dressed in his matching outfit, which included proper big boy underwear because he was five now, and five-year-olds – Sylvie had assured Rudy – wore proper big boy underwear. It was almost time to pick up Rudy and Sylvie so DB headed out the front door, stopping to perform a last-minute scan of the house. As he closed the door a ute pulled up with the petting zoo’s logo on the cab door. DB watched, frowning, as a young man climbed out smoothing the sides of his pompadoured hair.
‘Here we are!’ the young man, whose name badge read Ravi, announced.
DB peered into the ute’s tray. There was a handful of cages housing an assortment of guinea pigs, rabbits and what looked like a terrifyingly obese rat.
‘Is someone following you?’
Ravi looked confused.
‘The animals,’ DB clarified. ‘Is someone following you with the rest of the animals?’
Ravi turned to his ute, gesturing as though its contents were the jackpot of a game show.
‘This is it. The “Great and Small” selection. That was what you ordered, wasn’t it?’
DB took another look at the cages. It was definitely an obese rat.
‘Where are the great animals? The lambs and goats and things?’
Ravi’s bright eyes sparkled.
‘This is them – they’re small but they’re great! For instance, did you know that a guinea pig’s coat is made up of five different types of hair? And that while they have four toes on their front paws, they only have three . . .’
Ravi trailed off, noticing the look on DB’s face.
‘I don’t know what you were expecting, man. I mean, you picked the cheapest option so . . . Do you want me to go? You still have to pay.’
Ravi looked somewhat crestfallen and DB got the distinct feeling this had happened before.
‘No, no, come in. They’ll be expecting animals and these will do, I guess.’
He cast a disparaging eye over the obese rat, which seemed to be struggling to pull itself off the cage floor. Ravi followed him into the house.
‘So where are the kids?’
‘They’re not due for another hour. I thought you’d need time to set up the animals. You know, release the lambs, tether the goats and whatnot. I was going to leave you to it while I pick up my wife and son from his grandparents’ place.’
‘Oh.’ Ravi looked around the empty house. ‘I mean, I need to bring in the cages but that takes, like, five minutes tops.’
So he left Ravi sitting in front of the television while he drove through the outer suburbs to Nino and Guiseppa’s house. He had planned to pull into the driveway, leave the car running and dash in long enough to arrive to a hero’s welcome, pluck Rudy and Sylvie from one party and lead everyone to the next. Only when he got there he had to drive up and down the Zambettis’ cul-de-sac several times before he managed to squeeze into a narrow park. The whole thing was dense with cars, half-mounted across lawns, double-parked along Nino’s driveway, boxing each other in with a snug familiarity. He spotted Tony’s motorbike, parked almost across the threshold, like a shiny death-trap welcome party. From the house, the sound of laughter and accordion music danced through the air. DB squeezed between two cars, scraping his knee on a bumper, and grumbled up the driveway.
Inside, it was chaos. Children tore about the place, laughing with the joy of television commercial children. They clutched in their hands sugar-dusted biscuits and semicircles of cassateddi, Guiseppa’s specialties. Parents stood in happy clusters, nursing plastic cups of wine and warming bottles of Carlton Draught. DB could smell the faint scent of grappa coming from somewhere in the house. He recognised only a handful of faces. A few parents nodded at him but most ignored him. He stepped into the backyard to find a swarm of children, delighted and screaming, crawling all over Nino as he played his accordion. Tony was nearby, lifting children like free weights as some of the mums looked on in admiration. He spotted Rudy, alone and shadow-faced by the grapevine at the end of the yard, and while it was a heartbreaking sight, a tiny part of DB felt better. At least someone was having a bad time. Rudy’s face lit up when he saw DB and he bumbled across the yard with his awkward angular run.
‘No one will play with me,’ he whispered into his father’s ear, his warm breath scented with potato chips.
Sylvie, who was standing in the middle of a group of mums halfway through a story, raised her eyebrows at him as if to say, Look how great this party is. DB, Rudy in arms, raised his own and gestured to their child as if to say, He seems to think it’s shit. And then Guiseppa appeared with a tray full of bubble blowers and the whole yard erupted in effervescent joy.
They drove home in silence, DB and Rudy. Sylvie had decided to stay, ostensibly to help her parents pack up, as had pretty much everyone else.
‘We’ll see you all in a little bit,’ DB had called out as they left, though no one seemed to hear him above the fun.
Rudy had been sullen for a while then perked up suddenly.
‘My zoo is waiting for me!’
DB thought of the lethargic rat and shuddered.
‘You bet it is, buddy.’
When they got home the party was in full swing. That is to say, the balloon man had arrived and was now sitting on the couch alongside Ravi discussing the results of the previous evening’s football.
‘Help yourself to beer,’ DB told them, because they already had.
There was the flush of a toilet and DB’s father appeared in the lounge room. He crossed the room and handed a wrapped box to Rudy.
‘It’s a set of educational books,’ he announced, before Rudy had had the chance to unwrap it.
‘Your mother had a prior engagement,’ he informed DB as he shook his hand in greeting. ‘She’s sorry she missed the party at Nino’s because she’s particularly fond of ethnic cooking.’
DB stole an embarrassed glance at Ravi. This was exactly how his mother would have phrased it, unflinching, as if it were still the eighties.
‘My in-laws are Italian,’ DB explained apologetically to Ravi, who looked up from the chip bowl, confused.
‘This is some party,’ the balloon man commented wryly, plunging a corn chip into the ramekin of guacamole, and DB pretended not to hear him.
In the meantime, Rudy had spotted the cages now sitting in the backyard and raced out towards them. Ravi pulled himself up from the couch, brushed the chips from his khakis, and followed him outside. DB was left in the lounge, staring between the balloon man and his father, who were now seated on the couch side by side watching a sports highlights program and eating the selection of expensive dips.
‘I’ll just pop some music on then,’ DB announced and headed towards the sound system.
He un-paused the playlist and the opening chords to a Belle and Sebastian song began. There was the sound of the front door closing and Mr Williams appeared in the living area, proffering a bundle of helium balloons and an expensive box of whisky. The balloons said things like Birthday Boy, and 5 today!, and Congratulations!!!, and bobbed around Mr Williams’ head like bodyguards. DB realised that apart from the golf wear, he had never seen Mr Williams dressed in casual clothes, and that he had never imagined that these casual clothes would be so similar to a cowboy’s. He even had a little buckle – well, a large buckle – that appeared to have a rearing horse on it.
‘Young Mr Arnolds!’ Mr Williams boomed, his face momentarily confused by the somewhat empty house. DB rushed over to relieve him of the balloons and whisky.
‘That’s good
single malt there. Top shelf.’
‘Laphroaig?’ DB’s father asked, turning from the television, and Mr Williams clicked his fingers in the affirmative.
The two men observed each other appraisingly, locking hands in a bone-crunching grip. Neither of them mentioned the car park incident.
‘One of my finest lawyers, there.’ Mr Williams nodded.
‘Takes after his old man,’ DB’s father replied.
DB looked between the two seasoned lawyers jostling for paternal recognition and his heart swelled outwardly until it butted into his ripening ego.
‘I think it’s time we barbecue,’ he announced.
After some discussion they agreed that, seeing as it was DB’s house, he should be the one who did the barbecuing while the rest of them stood around offering him advice. DB lined the hotplate with sausages in the event that there was a sudden mass arrival of guests from Nino’s party. You never knew, what with the traffic, he explained to the others, and they nodded, kindly, in agreement. DB’s father cleared his throat loudly.
‘Ben’s told us about the pro bono pilot,’ he said, directing his conversation to Mr Williams.
The balloon man had made them all little balloon hats to wear and his father’s was a nifty red and black pirate ship.
‘Brilliant idea.’ Mr Williams nodded, his rainbow top hat quivering as he did so.
DB’s hat was meant to look like an elephant trunk with a pair of eyes set either side of it. He suspected from the way that everyone tittered whenever he spoke that it actually looked more like a penis graced by a tightly coiled scrotum.
‘A lot riding on it, I imagine,’ DB’s father continued, sipping his beer. ‘Reputation and whatnot. Rather embarrassing to catch a loss.’
‘Quite a lot,’ Mr Williams affirmed. ‘But we’re in safe hands, aren’t we, Mr Arnolds?’
‘I hear it’s DB now,’ his father replied, a merry glint in his eye. ‘Or haven’t you got the memo?’
The Book of Ordinary People Page 21