You Belong Here

by Laurie Steed

  ‘Sorry, Mum.’

  She tossed him a pre-wrapped slice of banana bread, and took the iced coffee and slice of carrot cake for herself.

  ‘What time’s the flight?’ said Jay.

  ‘4.15,’ said Emily.

  ‘You nervous?’

  ‘A bit. When’s the last time you saw Dad?’

  ‘We caught up for my twenty-first. Beer at the Paddington.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’ said Emily.

  ‘Alex,’ said Jay.

  ‘I saw him,’ said Emily.

  ‘Well, bully for you. Is he coming today?’

  ‘I left a message.’

  Businessmen hustled in and around, dodging sunburnt tourists with wonky-wheeled suitcases; men in fluorescent yellow work shirts and socks encrusted with dust, all beards and beer bellies, forever in search of the next shot of grog, just to stop them from heading home sober.

  Jay watched the bags and cases waltz and pirouette, lifted up over bumps, careening around corners, near wobbly tables, and onto planes headed anywhere but Perth.

  ‘Black’s popular,’ said Jay. ‘I’d go green. A nice beige. Remember Mum’s suitcase? Bright blue.’

  ‘Shocker,’ said Emily. ‘And that fucking handle.’

  ‘I don’t think coffee agrees with you, Em. You get all worked up.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m a bit nervous.’

  ‘I thought that might happen, so I bought you some Soothers.’

  ‘Soothers?’ said Emily. ‘Are you mental?’

  ‘They’ll soothe you,’ said Jay.

  ‘They soothe a sore throat, Dr Phil.’

  ‘Still, it’s the thought that counts.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Emily. ‘I know, you’re being silly, brilliant stuff, it’s just some things aren’t that silly, you know? Do you understand that?’

  She walked away, destined for the exits, it seemed, but then she stopped, sat only metres away.

  ‘Hey,’ said Jay, walking over. He sat next to her.

  ‘What are we doing?’ said Emily.

  ‘Sitting in the airport, but really we’re more like two old dudes hanging around at the RSL. You okay?’

  ‘No,’ said Emily. ‘How do you do that? Be okay?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jay. ‘I guess you take a step back, see what you’re doing at any given moment. If you’re being ridiculous, then that’s when you laugh at yourself. You go for a walk or call your best friend. You hug a dog, read a book. You put on your favourite album, crank it, feel it, ‘50ft Queenie’ on repeat, shouting at the speakers.

  ‘You say, “I am Slater, and I’m a bloody fool, with stupid hair, and bug-eyes, but when I get it together, I am razorblade sharp, super sweet, a comet, a goddamned sky show”.’

  ‘You think that about yourself?’ said Emily.

  ‘I think that about you,’ said Jay. ‘Above and beyond all the bullshit.’

  They headed to the gate, having done the rounds of the newsagent and the gift store, the latter making Perth seem a little cheap and nasty, all car flags, pens, and caps; cane toads holding bottles of rum and coin purses made from a kangaroo’s ball-bag.

  Crowds spilled out, wrinkles creased into their shirts, hair bunched up from sleeping on the plane.

  ‘That’s not him,’ said Jay. ‘That’s not him. And that’s not——’

  ‘Jay? Don’t do that.’

  Emily put her palm on her belly, circled slowly.

  ‘Are you good?’ said Jay.

  ‘I feel sick.’

  ‘It’s huge,’ said Jay. ‘Dad’s on this plane. Dad!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We can go if you want,’ said Jay. ‘I mean, it’s not as if he’s earned this. Up to you. You want to go, we’ll go.’

  She went quiet. Jay went to speak, but she raised her hand, definitive. Closed her eyes, whispered, Always, but it stuck in her throat.

  And then finally it came, and tears ran down her cheeks. ‘I’ve missed him, Jay. I’ve missed him so much.’

  Jay cradled his sister, leaned his head against hers. Let her cry for a bit, squeezing her shoulder as if to stem the flow.

  ‘Hey,’ said Jay. ‘He’s here now. He wants to see you.’

  ‘We really going to do this?’

  ‘We’re doing it. Speaking of which, here’s big brother.’ said Jay. ‘You know it’s huge if he’s bothered to show up.’

  Alex walked through the crowd in trackies and a zip-up hoodie. Stubbled face, hair spiked, with keys in his right hand, as though ready to drive off. He reached them both. Looked down, embarrassed. ‘Happy to see me?’

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ said Jay.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Emily. ‘And anyway,’ she said, turning back to Jay, ‘when did you become so perfect?’

  They fell into a loose triangle formation, with Alex trailing slightly behind. Sidestepped mothers, daughters, boyfriends, and girlfriends until they reached the barricade.

  Jay nudged his sister. Pointed to the farthest arrival gate.

  Him. Here.

  She struggled to walk. Her muscles, heavy. Jay let go of her hand, wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

  So close. Coming closer, closer, and then there, in front of them.

  ‘Dad,’ she said, pulling him in for a hug.

  ‘My girl,’ said Steven. He held her awkwardly, deliberately, before gradually letting her in.

  He turned to Jay and Alex. ‘You doing all right?’

  ‘Great,’ said Jay, smiling.

  ‘You know,’ said Alex, ‘Up and down. Kind of my thing.’

  ‘Back to mine?’ said Jay.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Emily. ‘It’s a work day tomorrow and——’

  ‘You’re coming,’ said Jay. ‘Please?’

  She sighed, nodded. Turned to her dad and banged on about the bub, her voice softening. Jay stayed a step behind, taking everything in.

  ‘I got a car,’ said Steven. ‘I mean, I wasn’t sure, if, you know.’

  ‘Right,’ said Emily.

  ‘Can I drive it later on?’ said Jay.

  ‘You got your licence?’

  ‘It’s somewhere at home,’ he said. ‘But yes.’

  ‘Then, you’ve got yourself a car,’ said Steven.

  Jay’s phone rang. He checked it, grinned, and took the call.

  ‘Mum! Dad’s here,’ said Jay. ‘I mean, really here. We’re headed to mine. You want to come around?’

  ‘In a bit,’ Jen said, over the phone. ‘He only just got home.’

  They paid for their parking tickets, passed the time with small talk. Walked Dad to his car, which was parked absurdly close to the terminal. As he drove away, each child feeling a pinprick of loss, but keeping it in, as one so often does when dealing with what’s not and would never be.

  They found Emily’s car. Alex held open the door, a hand on her back until she plopped down in the driver’s seat. Jay helped her back the car out, Alex gave a thumbs up, and soon enough they’d waved goodbye to Emily and were standing side by side.

  ‘You farther out?’ said Jay.

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ said Alex.

  Walking on, they were flanked by cars, the sun reflecting off windscreens, signs, and shelters. Onto Jay’s car, white Corolla, second-hand, but the best he could get on a student’s budget.

  ‘See you at mine,’ said Jay. He clicked the remote and the lights flashed once.

  ‘We good?’ said Alex.

  ‘I don’t know. What’s “good”?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Alex. ‘Maybe one day, a bit better and it’s okay, not best friend high-fives, just not too bad.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Jay. They hugged, a backslap, a big-boy hug.

  Alex watched, waved, as the car backed up, paused and then passed, Jay’s arm resting on the driver’s window.

  Alex walked on, his Subaru parked up the back to save from scratches. He hopped in. Wiped dust off the dash. Started the car, felt the idle, and wai
ted.

  He rifled through a stack of tapes in the console: Post, Purple, The Real Thing . Some go-to albums, for sure, but not his jam nor the tracks to take him home.

  Dug further, deep beneath a layer of tapes, until he found it.

  He blew at the pressure pad, tightened the take-up reel. Pushed Just Hits ’85 into the deck, and drove out of the car park.

  2015

  The World According to Val

  My mum is such a dork. She thinks she’s all indie and cool, but really she’s a dork.

  It’s my thirteenth birthday and everyone is coming over. Gran, Pop, Great-Auntie Sophie, Uncle Jay and Auntie Anna, and her niece Grace, who has taken a vow of silence until her mum lets her see Bright Eyes at the Fremantle Arts Centre. I tell her some guy online called him ‘Mr Skinny Asshole,’ and she scowls, mouths, I love his every breath.

  There’s my cousin Elliot, and Mum and Dad too. Elliot’s a miracle baby, apparently, which has me beat because he’s all right, not a total dick, but he’s a kid, not a freaking unicorn.

  When Jay and Anna mention him, they get teary. The odds weren’t great, but things turned out all right. Maybe things were always going to be okay, it’s just they were scared . . . and you think some crazy things when you’re scared.

  Dad’s here because it’s a special day, and because, whatever else he’s done and despite the days he wanted nothing to do with us, he’s now trying to be a good dad. He asked on the phone if he could bring his latest girlfriend, and Mum said, Let’s just see if she makes the six-month mark, hey?

  The last time this many of the family were here, things flared up pretty quick. Couldn’t work out why, something between Gran and Pop. Jay defended Gran and Mum said, Of course he would, there’s no surprises there, but for me there’s never been that many surprises when it comes to the Slaters.

  It’s like you get a gold star for fights, an ‘A’ for unnecessary drama. Maybe that’s why it’s rare to have us in the one place. It’s not like you have to get together, once you’re older.

  But they’ve made an effort, a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of thing. Like a good Madonna song, or a pizza where the addition of pineapple makes it better and not worse—it’s rare, precious. A moment of note, and a chance to be grateful.

  Not everyone’s coming. I have an Uncle Alex. Only met him a couple of times. The odd catch-up on Skype. The occasional story of the Slater siblings, all they did and saw while growing up.

  He’s big, a bit scary, at least compared to Uncle Jay. He lives down south. All that tourist crap: wineries, waves, the Busselton Jetty. Mum says he’s the odd one out, which is weird, because they’re always talking about him.

  I asked Pop about Alex. He said, ‘It’s hard, this parent thing. Do your best, just hope they’re happy, healthy, knowing what’s worth keeping and what’s best to throw away.’ He fiddled with his straw, tied it in a knot, and left it on the table. I tied one too, laid it next to his, and he smiled, as if to say, That’s better.

  Not a lot of friends at school, but that’s okay. I’m there to learn and besides I’m Valerie Slater, not Kim Kardashian, friend to the stars. Sometimes I draw a face, a place in my notebook. Daydreaming, Mum calls it. She can call it what she wants. It helps, for a bit, to be out of my head. To think of something other than how I look or the dangers of walking down Railway Parade.

  Uncle Jay says I’m the next bright star in a galaxy of Slaters. Says he was smart too. That they all were, just Alex found his calling at the chef’s station, and Mum did her BPharm, was ready to do honours, but she soon had other things to worry about, namely me, and I was dead-set on filling nappies and screaming down the house.

  Jay said I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He came day two, Mum all stitched up, and me, a ball of a bub. Said he’d skip a year of his life if it meant he could have that day over.

  I tell Jay about the hot boys at school. That I was going to invite Simon, but Mum says I’m not old enough, and Besides, there’s plenty of time to break your heart, why the rush?

  ‘She’s right,’ says Nan. ‘Although she’s never been the best judge of men, truth be told.’

  ‘Are we really going to do this?’ says Mum, and for a moment it’s tense, and I wonder what I had missed while Mum was growing up. ‘What about Jay? He never put a foot wrong, I suppose?’

  Jay makes a face, like whoa, the drama, and I laugh. ‘What’s she talking about?’ I ask, and he raises a finger to his lips. Mum turns, certain she’s caught us, but we’re far too quick.

  Jay and Anna renewed their vows a year ago. I was maid of honour. Sang ‘It Must Be Love.’ Got nervous. Stopped completely in the bridge. Thought I was going to die. Jay and Anna, sitting there waiting. Elliot smirking, and I’m thinking, He is never going to forget this.

  Heard Mum’s voice, ‘It must be love, love, love,’ in the church. Then Jay and Anna, Pop and Gran joining in. Even Alex up the back sang a line or two, crazy off-key, and then we sang to the end, and it was like I’d never messed up in the first place.

  I want to be like Jay and Anna. They fight sometimes but it always ends with her in his arms. You want to cheer. It feels like the end of your favourite film.

  I asked Uncle Alex to come, but he’s working it out, whatever that means. I called him, told him, Come anyway, but he said, It’s not that simple, as if anything is.

  Mum made a cake with my favourite line from a song of Anna’s, written for their wedding:

  Some will come, some will go

  You I love, have always known

  You belong here.

  Dad came in with an armful of presents, but I wouldn’t have minded if he’d shown up without. Mum says he does his best with a ‘limited emotional vocabulary.’

  Gran says raising one child’s hard enough, let alone three, and most of the time it was all she could do not to fall apart. Says she still feels young and pretty, but her bum is sagging and her hearing’s gone well past bung, needs to up and up the TV just to hear it.

  Pop’s quiet for the most part. Says that given another chance, he would spend as much time with his kids as he spends with me.

  Adults are strange. Always so obsessed with the price of houses or whatever team won some poxy football match, as though it proves they’re living their lives.

  I get to have my favourite meal on my birthday. It’s Mum’s favourite too. Booked in for a five-thirty pick-up, before the dinner rush.

  Three, three-thirty, Gran is crying at the dining table. I can’t tell if she’s happy or sad. I sit opposite, the table half-dressed with chip bowls, dips, and M&Ms.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. Gran’s holding a photo. ‘Is that you and Alex?’

  She nods.

  ‘You miss him?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘But you talk, right?’

  ‘Now and then,’ she says, although it sounds more like then and less like now.

  Strange Gran. But then, I’m strange too. Incredibly bright, says Mrs Simmons, but I reckon she just wants to palm me off to academic extension, whistles, bells, ribbons, and certificates, and through it all, no longer hers to worry about.

  ‘You okay?’

  Gran nods. ‘My little girl,’ she says, and holds my hand.

  Mum and Pop leave to get dinner at around four, as Mum says she needs to pick up some things on the way. Sophie’s slicing, dicing for a super-shred salad, tock, tock, tock with the Scanpan, as she nurses a vodka and tonic, while Gran, me, Anna, and Jay play a four-player game on the Wii U, and Elliot reads Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We start with Wii Sports, and they’re bad, and I mean awful. Nunchakus leap out of hands, barely held by wristbands. Their avatars are stuck in all corners of the screen, hitting themselves when they’re meant to be hitting each other. We move on to Just Dance and they’re even worse. Well, not Anna. She’s some sort of musical genius, which is strange because Jay’s a genius too, but only when he feels like it. At any other time, he’d be lucky to find his socks.

&nb
sp; ‘That’s the Way I Like It’ blares out of the TV. Anna’s fingers point up, down, up, down, down in perfect sync. Gran wobbles left, right, like she needs to go to the loo, and Jay’s not even looking at the screen. He breaks into a knee spin, knocks us over, and we fall onto each other.

  That’s when the front door opens: a thick, salty smell drifts down the hall. Scrape of boots and Uggies on the mat: steps up the hallway. Slow and careful.

  We’re stacks on the mill, but eventually the pile thins out, and I’m alone, tummy down on the rug, looking up. Mum comes in first, the hugest grin on her face. Pop’s next. Rushes to my side, tickles me, as if I’m seven.

  Then a pause. Two slow steps, a figure emerging in the door frame.

  Alex smiles. Looks at Jay. ‘You.’

  ‘Me,’ says Jay.

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me,’ Jay says again, smiling.

  Alex runs for Jay, spear tackle, and they wrestle to the floor.

  ‘Wait!’ says Jay, laughing, but it’s on, and Alex’s massive dinner-plate hand vigorously musses his brother’s hair. He stops, and it’s quiet.

  ‘You hanging around?’ says Jay.

  ‘We’ll see,’ says Alex.

  ‘Which means no.’

  ‘Let’s just enjoy today, hey Pollyanna?’ Alex stops, turns. ‘Now, I heard it’s someone’s birthday, but I can’t remember whose. Is it yours?’

  I nod.

  ‘Well, happy birthday,’ he says, taking a bent card out of his pocket. ‘It’s a movie voucher. A little damaged in transit. Thought we could go see something. Me, you, and your mum, as long as she’s cool with that.’

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ says Mum.

  God, she’s such a mum sometimes.

  Alex hugs me, freezes halfway through.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Hello, darling,’ says Gran.

  She helps him up off the ground. They hug and it’s cautious, awkward. He holds her like she’s fine china, gentle hands upon her shoulders. She hugs him more in a kid-and-their-teddy-bear kind of way, and I wonder what they’ve seen, and how they made it through.

  Soon enough, we’re up at the tables, outdoor, indoor, pushed together. Mum unwraps the packs, fritters, fillets tumbling onto the plate. Gran across the table, shaking sauce, blobs of red streaked on and across the chips.