by Nicki Reed
‘I had a prom-queen at home,’ she says. ‘Got rid of the last one.’
Ruby loves those pre-mixed vodka lolly-waters marketed to under-age drinkers—says they’re quick and painless, like sex on New Year’s Eve.
‘Feel like another?’ I hope she turns me down.
‘No, I’d better wait until the guest of honour arrives. I like the poster. Although, I would have got the big one.’
‘Ruby, you’re my guest of honour. Carole Smart is BJ’s.’ I can’t let it go. ‘How’s Mark?’
‘He’s been hurt.’
‘Everybody has been hurt.’
‘Not me,’ BJ grins.
‘Yes, you too.’ Ruby points at her. ‘Last time I saw you, you had a massive shiner, looked like you’d gone ten rounds with Rocky Balboa.’
A knock at the door.
‘Brace yourselves,’ Ruby says.
I have become a habitual skirt-straightener. Have I developed any more nervous gestures? I want to wait with Ruby where it’s safe. But BJ takes my hand.
‘We’re in this together.’
‘Did you make the soup, Belinda?’
‘Yes, Carole.’
‘Sorry, BJ. It’s lovely. What is that, ginger?’
‘No. I don’t like ginger.’
‘Oh, Belinda. You love ginger.’
‘So, BJ, tell your mum what you did today,’ Ruby says.
I feel the heat in my cheeks and focus on my soup.
‘Peta, didn’t you say BJ cut her own hair today? That’s what I meant. Not that you’d been going down on each other all afternoon.’
‘Ruby!’ I kick her. She returns my kick. Like Grade Four and Six, and homework and untidy bedrooms. Did so. Did not.
‘Yes, I thought it looked different, homemade…’
‘Homemade? Mum, when it comes to hair, that’s not normally a compliment. I didn’t bake it, you know.’
‘There is no need to raise your voice, Belinda. I mean, BJ.’
‘Did anyone see that documentary about elephants last week?’ I say. ‘Did you know a mother elephant will breastfeed until their calf is four or five years old?’
‘Well, did you, Carole? Did you see it? Or were you competing in the quarter finals of the judging Olympics?’
‘Boy, this is better than TV, isn’t it, Pete?’
‘BJ, can you help me in the kitchen?’
She’s up fast, knocking over the pepper grinder. Slam. Black flecks the tablecloth. I follow her into the kitchen and close the door.
‘Cowboy girl, you might want to tone it down.’
‘I’m having too much fun.’
‘Beej, I need your mother to like me. Us.’
‘She should like you. Us. She says she loves me. She should love who I love and who I am.’
Four pots on the stove. I assemble their contents into bowls. I’m neat in the library and tragic in the kitchen. I don’t get it. I sponge the bench.
‘Not everything you do is art, BJ.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Well, she’s allowed to not like the same things you do. You wouldn’t want her engaging in your rebellion.’
‘Rebellion?’
‘You’re sticking it up her, aren’t you?’
The kitchen door flies open, hits the wall. The calendar on the back of the door swings on its hook like an over- running pendulum.
‘Just how long do you think you’re going to fucking leave me out there with her?’ Ruby says.
‘Do you mind not saying her like that? She is my mother.’
‘BJ, if she stopped looking about the place like everything was sticky and she was afraid to fucking touch it, I would.’
‘She’s nervous.’
‘It’s like every time she looks at Peta she pictures her face between your legs.’
‘Ruby!’
‘Well, it is. I picture it too, but we’ll all get used to it.’
‘Ruby!’
‘Forget I said anything. Give me that bowl, and that one. Let’s get this over with.’
I trail BJ and Ruby out of the kitchen.
‘Belinda, what have you got there? It looks interesting.’
‘Carole, it’s BJ.’ She serves her mother, dumping curry onto her plate, dispatching a madras splash onto the tablecloth. ‘Sorry, Pete.’
‘How long has it been since you asked me how my day was?’
‘How was your day, Carole?’
‘More like how’s your night going?’ Ruby says. ‘Better than fucken mine, I hope. Peta, can you pour me another? Pour yourself one too. It’s going to be long night.’
‘Ruby, is Mark still living with you?’
‘He’s not living with me, Carole. He’s staying at my place until he moves to Chicago next year.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know that,’ I say. How easy it is for him to move on.
‘How long for?’
‘Long enough, BJ.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Carole’s arms are folded so hard into her chest, I think she might turn blue.
‘I wouldn’t start defending your daughter now. You’ve been bagging her all night. My sister did not lezify your daughter, but your daughter did steal my sister away from her husband and ruin her life.’
‘She didn’t ruin my life, I did. Sorry BJ, you know what I mean.’
Ruby turns to me.
‘If she hadn’t had her hands all over you on her couch that night, sucking and fucking you,’ she turns, ‘yes, Carole, sucking and fucking,’ back to me, ‘you’d still be with Mark.’
‘We forgot how to love each other.’
‘Yes, you have to work on these things.’ Carole Smart nods and I want to kill her.
‘You’d know, would you?’
‘Yes, Ruby, one divorce behind me, I do know.’
‘I’m into infidelity. It’s all sex and no waiting. Nothing wrong with that. What I want to know is how the fuck they can work on their marriage when you send Mark all over the place?’ Ruby pours herself another. ‘Is it home-time yet?’
She has a sip, bumps the glass back onto the table and starts unbuttoning her shirt. ‘I’m boiling.’ She leans back, concentrating, pushes her shoes off without undoing the laces.
‘Who wants a coffee? BJ makes the best coffee, don’t you, Beej?’
‘If you say so.’
‘Carole, coffee?’ I say. ‘Anyone?’
‘Oh, by all means, Peta, let’s drag this out.’ Ruby’s cheeks are flushed. She rests her head on the back of her chair. ‘Give me two coffees. Come on, Carole, let BJ make you a coffee.’
‘What do you mean I ruined your life?’ BJ says.
‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
‘No, Peta, I don’t know it. You’ve said and not said stuff before.’
‘BJ, I love you. I want to be with you. I’m just… adjusting. My friends have ditched me, nobody calls, nobody emails. I’ve got Ruby and you and Taylor. And there’s something wrong with Ruby tonight.’
‘She’s not normally such a bitch?’
‘Oh, she can be a bitch all right. But she seems to hate Carole as much as Carole hates me.’
BJ reaches for the cups. High shelf. Flash of skin.
‘Carole doesn’t hate you. She hates my choices. And your friends have not deserted you. You have deserted them. I’ve had to adjust, too. My friends think you’re a newer, better version of my mother. Like I’m on some Freudian search for approval.’
‘They think you want to fuck your mother? Have you told them I’m not old enough to be your mother?’
‘Or that I want someone to look after me.’
‘Darling, don’t they know you wear the leather pants in our relationship? Well, if not the pants the jacket.’
BJ’s at the coffee machine, buttons lit, milk hissing a white whirlpool in stainless steel. I’m behind her, my hands on her hips. She backs into me, turns, closes off the steam. I kiss her, taste her tongue.
‘You know,’
Ruby staggers in, bumps against the door frame, looks at it as though she doesn’t know where it came from, ‘there’s this stereotype about homos, that all they do all day is fuck. I come in here to get away from Carole, who seems to be cataloguing what Mark took with him, hoping he won, and I find you two going for it again.’
‘That’s a long sentence for someone as inebriated as you, Ruby. Sit down, before you fall down. You’re staying in the spare room tonight. There’s no bed—not yet, Mark took it—but the floor is wide and comfortable. We know, don’t we, BJ?’
‘Sure do.’
Ruby is sprawled across the kitchen table. ‘Just as long as you look after her, BJ. She’ll get old and tired before you. She won’t want to go to raves, bounce around on ecstasy all night. She’s pretty conservative, really. She might have wanted babies. He says they were close…’
‘We weren’t that close, Ruby.’
‘Were you really talking about babies?’ BJ says.
‘He was. I was trying not to.’
Four cups of coffee sit abandoned on the bench. The milk in the jug is cooling, the froth turning to foam, unusable.
‘Babies are noisy and smelly.’
‘Not when they’re yours, BJ, it’s different.’
‘I don’t want to talk about this, Rube.’
‘Mind if I sit down?’ Carole sits opposite Ruby. ‘What don’t you want to talk about, Peta? How you left a perfectly good man to take up with a girl half your age who’ll tire of you the moment she comes to her senses?’
‘Come to my senses about what, Carole? About being a lesbian? I’ve never been more in my senses. About Peta? What the fuck do you know about love? You saw Dad off. You haven’t been with anyone since. You don’t know what Peta and I have.’
‘BJ, it’s all right.’
‘It’s not all right, Peta. Drunky here doesn’t trust me, Mum doesn’t take me seriously, you say I’ve ruined your life…’
‘It came out wrong. I was trying to say, it wasn’t you who dragged me away, that I left of my own volition. Sure, maybe this would never have happened. Maybe I’d never be with a woman. Maybe I’d have kids and the whole catastrophe. But I have you. And that is what I want.’
‘But…’
‘No buts. You have not ruined my life.’
‘I’m going home. Belinda, you can come with me, if you need to. Your room is just as you left it.’
‘Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Carole? Break them up before they’ve had a chance. She’s not coming back. You might as well pack up your Belinda-Jane memorial.’
‘That’s enough, Ruby. Go to bed.’
‘I’m not moving while she’s still here.’
‘Belinda, I’m still paying the rent at Northcote.’
‘Mum, you can pay the rent for everyone all over town and it won’t make any difference. I’m staying with Peta.’
‘Until her unconscionable little experiment is over and she goes back to her husband. Is that what you want, Belinda? To be some desperate woman’s failed experiment? Another Serena fiasco?’
Serena again.
BJ grits her teeth, ‘I thought you were going home, Mum.’
‘Who the fuck is Serena?’ Ruby’s head is in her arms. The question echoes onto the tabletop.
‘I’m going.’ Carole Smart stands up, holds out her hand, ‘Belinda?’
‘It’s BJ, Mum, BJ. I’ll walk you out.’
‘Peta, I don’t have any belief in this.’ She gestures, a hand in the air. For a moment I think she’s talking about the coffee machine. ‘I want you to leave my daughter alone.’
‘Get out, Mum.’
‘Yeah, fuck off, Carole!’
‘Ruby, it’s okay. Sit back down.’
The front door slams.
‘Wow! What a way to send off a month. Goodbye July, hello hell. Let’s do it all again next week. I’ll bring the pitchforks and you two can come as you are.’ Purple teeth, tongue and lips, Ruby slides off her chair onto the floor. Sitting opposite each other, BJ and I laugh until we cry.
Top Ten Things I Learned About Cycling Without Ever Riding A Bike:
BJ says unless you’re both stopped at a light, a cyclist won’t hear the abuse you’re hurling.
BJ has a ONE LESS HEAD INJURY sticker on her helmet. She’s sold me. If I’m ever forced to ride a bike I’ll wear a helmet.
Tram tracks, drain covers, and white lane markings are all death in the rain.
BJ carries spare socks for wet days.
Proper cyclists don’t wear underpants under their shorts.
The word for the strange metal clip under their shoes is cleats not clits.
Unless you’re in the Tour de France never, ever, wear yellow bike shorts.
BJ reckons flat tyres only happen when you have the tools to fix them. I said that sounds like madness. She compromises—carries a spare tube, no tyre levers.
If you’re real about your cycling you don’t ride through red lights. You don’t need to give drivers, pedestrians, the cops and Neil Mitchell any more reason to hate cyclists.
Cycling makes you good at sex. She’s either made that up or she’s proof.
29.
When I came home from work BJ’s bike was in the hallway, leaning against the wall, between Mum’s grandfather clock and the bookshelf. I wheeled it onto the porch and went inside to start dinner.
‘Why is Thunder outside?’
‘It’s not going to live inside, is it?’
‘I’m not leaving her out there.’
I’m attempting vegetarian lasagne. BJ’s favourite. Doing my best to impress her. Ruby says she won’t help: you will always be a mediocre cook if you don’t try. I’m pressing lasagne sheets onto the sauce, trying to get the ratio of sauce-pasta-cheese right. Kitchen maths combines two of my biggest weaknesses—cooking and calculation—and I’ll agree to anything.
‘God, all right, bring it in.’
‘Her in. I’ll bring her in. Love me, love my bike, babe.’
‘I’ve got a bike. We could go for a ride.’ Why did I say that? I hate bike-riding. It’s scary and it makes my bum ache.
‘If you’re talking about that thing behind the house—it’s a shitfighter. I’m sorry, but if I was given that bike, I’d be upset about having to find a place to dump it. I bet it hasn’t even got a name. I just thought of one: Cheap Arse Piece of Crap. Also, it’s too big for you.’
Good. Maybe I won’t have to come through with riding it. ‘Just make sure you keep it out of the way. It’s already left a couple of marks on the wall.’
‘She. She has left marks on the wall. They’re love marks. They show us she’s happy.’ BJ pats the handlebar. ‘You’re happy, aren’t you, Thunder?’
She pats her bike’s handlebar frequently. She’ll pass it in the hallway, give it a little pat, squeeze the handle for the brakes, move on. I’m not sure she knows she’s doing it. After a while, I’m patting it, too.
‘So, where is it?’ BJ says.
‘You’re standing in it.’
Surfaces shine. Glass, steel, pure white. The furniture, shelving and computers are minimal. There’s not a book out of place. In the world that’s a cliché, but in my library it’s everything.
‘Where are the books?’ She looks around. ‘Is that it?’
‘Of course not.’ I take her hand and walk her to the compactus, wheel it open. ‘Look. We have ten bays, double bays with six shelves each.’
She doesn’t seem impressed.
‘We wanted a streamlined look.’
‘It’s very streamlined,’ she nods, ‘practically invisible. Where’s the reference desk?’
‘I don’t have one. Most requests come in via email. The library looks like less, well, it is, but the feedback has been that the practitioners find me more accessible.’
Less really is more.
‘So, where is everybody? I thought this place was a hotbed of activity on weekends.’
She’s right. I expected someb
ody to be here but we haven’t seen one person. I would have liked to show her off.
‘I don’t know. The footy?’
BJ’s back to the compactus. She turns the wheel and a person-size gap opens. She steps inside, pokes her head out, does a come-here with an index finger.
‘Library Lady,’ she says, ‘find me a book about law and shit. Make sure it comes from a low shelf.’
Ruby and I are sitting on the floor in front of the couch, watching TV. BJ’s at uni trying to avoid an extension. I like sitting on the floor, the carpet is yielding and you can’t fall off.
‘Peta, you know how Mark’s been staying at my place?’
Her tone is like the one she used when she broke one of Mum’s teacups last year. I don’t think I’m going to like what she says next.
‘Yes, Mark is staying at yours…’
‘Well,’ she says, she has one arm on the coffee table and she’s put her wine down, ‘we’ve been doing it. It started by accident.’
Yep, I know about accidents. BJ and I had sex on her couch. The sex continued through weeks of my marriage. Serious accident.
I turn the TV down. It’s a cooking show and I only had it on for Ruby. She reckons she could be a TV chef.
‘It started as comfort and turned into coming.’ She shrugs. ‘Happens all the time.’
‘So that’s why you were weird before the dinner party?’
‘Yeah, I felt guilty.’
I have nowhere to go with this. I turn the TV back up.
Who am I trying to kid? As if I’m watching cooking shows just for Ruby. Not when Nigella is on. Drizzle. Juicy. Slice. Plunge. Intense. Nigella Lawson is the antithesis of BJ. But she can park her measuring cups and fancy fencing-mask sieve in my second drawer anytime.
‘You shouldn’t care.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You left him and I’m an adult.’
‘You are.’
Nigella is standing in front of her open fridge. It’s night-time, supposedly. She’s helping herself to leftovers, no plate, she uses her fingers. Naughty girl.
We’re having fish and chips for dinner from our local. We eat in the lounge room off the coffee table. Gin Wigmore is in the background. Music for takeaway. I’ve downloaded four songs, pot luck on a recommendation from the radio.