The Spill

by Imbi Neeme

  Dad stared at his coffee as his plastic spoon went around and around, like he was hypnotising himself.

  ‘This baby was an opportunity for me to be a better husband and a better father. It felt like I was being given a second chance. And now it’s been taken away.’

  I squeezed his arm. ‘Oh Dad, you were a great father. You got that much right. And I know you’re a good husband. Tina can’t have been the easiest person to be a good husband for, but you managed it. And Donna-Louise . . . that was just bad luck.’

  Dad just continued to stare at his coffee. I had really wanted him to look me in the eye and assure me he’d been a great husband to both his previous wives so that I could banish the uneasiness Meg had dredged up. But, I supposed, there was no point in him making such a statement without Nicole around to hear it. I needed her to hear the truth, too.

  ‘Is Nicole still with Cee-Cee?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ I said. I thought again of that huge bunch of flowers.

  ‘She’s been there all afternoon. Yesterday, too. Jethro came as well.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Cee-Cee’s so glad to talk to someone who understands what she’s going through.’

  ‘She is?’ I was growing increasingly uneasy. I knew Nicole couldn’t have children but I had never actually thought she had wanted them. Like, really wanted them. The first time she’d held Rosemary as a newborn baby, she’d acted like Rosemary was a bomb about to explode. Maybe I’d had it wrong all this time.

  Dad stopped stirring the coffee and drank it all in one long gulp. I guessed he must have stirred the heat out of it completely. ‘That Jethro is a good sort,’ he said. ‘I just hope Nicole agrees to marry him one day.’

  ‘I’m not sure the ball is exactly in Nicole’s court, Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Au contraire. Jethro asked my permission about eight years ago and I’ve heard nothing since.’

  ‘Maybe he changed his mind,’ I argued, half-heartedly. This conversation was starting to do my head in. One by one, all my assumptions were being turned upside down.

  ‘Maybe.’ Dad didn’t look convinced. ‘Let’s go back.’

  Up in the ward, we found Celine on her own.

  ‘Where’s Nicky?’ Dad asked.

  Celine frowned. ‘You didn’t see her? She said she’d try to find you both to say goodbye.’

  I was about to comment that Nicole mustn’t have looked very hard, but I chose to just shake my head instead. ‘No, we missed her,’ I said.

  Dad sat by Celine’s side, the same seat Nicole had been sitting in. Unsure of what to do, I started tidying a few things on Celine’s bedside table and rearranging the flowers.

  ‘Leave it,’ Dad said and I felt stung. He was one of the few people who had always understood and supported my need for order. Him and Donna-Louise, who had taught me how to channel emotional uncertainty into physical order.

  I sat down and then stood up again. ‘Is there any laundry you would like me to do? I can take some with me now.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. They said I’ll probably be discharged in the morning,’ Celine said.

  Dad was now holding Celine’s hand in exactly the same way Nicole had done before. I quickly said my goodbyes and left, feeling as stirred up as Dad’s coffee.

  As I stepped into the elevator, I checked my phone for the first time since I’d arrived at the hospital and found a text from Nicole from half an hour ago.

  I’m on my way to Mum’s to sort more stuff. Come by if you can.

  I sighed and dropped my phone back into my bag. I knew I’d been putting off going to Tina’s flat, a place I’d visited only a handful of times over the years. But I also knew that Nicole had been doing the lion’s share of the work and it was time to step up.

  Also, I needed something to do to settle myself and I knew that reordering our meagre CD collection wasn’t going to cut it.

  Leaving hospital now. There in 30.

  As I pulled into the tenants’ parking area at Tina’s building, I immediately felt depressed. There was something about the dirty blond brick, the broken Venetian blinds and the weeds surrounding the block that made it feel post-apocalyptic. A haven for the living dead.

  I’d made it to the first floor and had started along the walkway when I realised I couldn’t remember which of the identical doors belonged to Tina’s flat. I stopped and stood there, wondering what to do. I was too embarrassed to ring Nicole and admit that I didn’t know, but also too embarrassed to go door-knocking until I found the right flat.

  I remembered how, as a little girl, when we’d first moved to Bassendean, I was constantly going to the wrong door. The cookie-cutter sameness of the townhouses had been a bit of a shock after the grandness of the Mount Lawley house, with its double-fronted verandah and prize-winning rose garden.

  Once, I’d asked Tina why she hadn’t tried to keep that house, why she’d moved out so easily.

  ‘That house was far too flashy for my tastes,’ she’d replied. ‘And that garden was a full-time job! In any case, you should know that there was nothing easy about moving out.’

  I’d let that last comment slide at the time and I realised now that I would never know the full story. It had been buried with Tina.

  One of the far doors opened and Nicole came out with a couple of bags of rubbish.

  ‘Let me help you with those,’ I said, stepping forward and hoping that Nicole hadn’t noticed I had been just standing there.

  ‘You couldn’t remember which door was Mum’s, right?’ Nicole handed me a bag. ‘Don’t worry. I still get confused and I’ve been here way more than you.’

  I couldn’t help but feel a little judged by her remark, but I shook it off. It had been my choice to not visit Tina here very often and I knew I needed to stand by it.

  ‘How was Dad when you found him?’ Nicole asked, as we walked back down the stairs to the skip I’d hired.

  ‘He was okay. Sad, but okay. How was Celine?’ I asked, giving her a sideways glance.

  ‘My heart really goes out to her,’ Nicole replied. ‘I had no idea they’d been trying so hard to have a baby. Did you know that was their third round of IVF?’

  ‘No. I had no idea either.’ I looked sideways at Nicole. ‘Dad said you were being a “great comfort” to Celine. What did you talk to her about?’

  ‘I didn’t talk. I just listened,’ Nicole said, as she flung the bag into the skip. ‘You should try it sometime.’

  ‘Are you saying I don’t listen?’ I said, flinging in my bag on top of hers. I could feel the blood rising up into my ears. ‘If you ever said anything interesting, I’d be the first in line to listen to it.’

  Nicole looked hurt. ‘Jesus, Sam.’

  I was ashamed of what I’d said, but I had no idea how to find my way back to her in that moment. So I turned and walked back up to the flat as fast as I could.

  As I stepped through Tina’s front door, I was immediately hit by the ghost of Chanel No. 5, Tina’s scent. I had to stand completely still, lest the surge of grief overtake me completely.

  ‘The smell . . .’ I turned to say to Nicole, standing behind me, but I couldn’t put the rest into words.

  ‘The flat’s been shut up all this time. What did you expect?’ Nicole replied tersely, as she pushed past me. She was clearly still upset with me.

  ‘It smells like Tina,’ I said, but Nicole was too busy banging cupboard doors to hear me.

  I pressed my lips together and set to work.

  Separately, we worked in silence. I went through the kitchen cupboards, dividing the crockery and cutlery into boxes labelled BIN and CHARITY on the small dining table, while Nicole went through Tina’s books.

  After a while, she brought an armful of them over to the table. I saw this as an invitation of sorts.

  ‘So many Dan Brown books,’ I remarked. ‘I wouldn’t have pegged Teensy as a fan.’

  It had been years since I had called Tina ‘Teensy’, Dad’s old nickname for her. When we wer
e in high school, Nicole and I had sometimes joked it was because Tina was always a ‘teensy bit drunk’ or a ‘teensy bit hungover’ or a ‘teensy bit negligent’. It had been one of those ha-ha-funny jokes we’d hid our pain behind.

  Nicole shrugged, obviously not quite ready to forgive me. She began to pick through the charity box I had been adding to, separating out a few things.

  ‘This platter belonged to Nanna, and this one too,’ Nicole said. ‘And this knife is the last remaining part of a set Mum and Dad got for their wedding.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I lived with Mum for much longer than you, remember.’

  ‘As if you’d ever let me forget,’ I muttered under my breath.

  ‘What?’ Nicole looked at me with a ferocity I hadn’t seen in her for decades, not since she was a kid.

  I backed off. ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  We returned to our work in silence. I was now tending to an ancient wound, the one that Nicole always sought to re-open, given half a chance. She always treated me like I had abandoned Tina, as if me moving to Dad’s house in Mount Lawley was something I had done on a whim and had nothing to do with Tina not wanting me in her home any longer.

  I focused on the task at hand. Most of the crockery went into the bin box. It was either chipped or cracked. Nothing matched. Nothing was even particularly clean.

  As I carried the box down to the skip, I found myself going over what Nicole had said about Celine needing someone just to listen. I’d never given Celine much consideration. All her make-up and hokey beliefs had got in the way, but perhaps there was more going on beneath the surface than I had allowed.

  ‘Do you think Celine and Dad will go through another round of IVF?’ I asked Nicole when I got back to the flat. She’d moved on to clearing greying frayed towels and torn bedsheets out of the small linen cupboard next to the bathroom.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nicole answered, her face hidden by the cupboard door. ‘It’s very invasive and expensive and extremely taxing. And the success rates aren’t as high as everyone thinks. For most people it’s just an expensive journey towards total heartbreak.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about this.’ I wasn’t used to Nicole speaking so authoritatively about anything.

  ‘I couldn’t have children, remember?’ Nicole said with the kind of sigh that I usually gave.

  ‘But you also never wanted children. Did you?’

  Nicole closed the cupboard door and looked at me briefly, before scooping up an armful of rags for the skip.

  ‘You know what, Sam?’ she said as she started to walk out of the flat. ‘You think you know everything about me. But you don’t.’

  I pressed my lips together and went back to work. But no amount of sorting could erase the feeling that I might not know my sister at all.

  Piece #13: 2009

  ‘Will you look at how cute our toothbrushes look together,’ Jethro said, as he watched Nicole unpack her toiletries. He’d cleared one of the cabinets for her in the en suite. It was at least four times the size of the single cabinet she’d had in her flat.

  ‘It’s like they were meant to be together.’ Nicole laughed, looking at the two toothbrushes. She’d had her toothbrush in Jethro’s bathroom a hundred times but had never felt bold enough to put it in the fancy holder.

  ‘You know, I thought you’d never move in. And yet, here you are,’ Jethro said. ‘Has it really taken three years for you to finally realise I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you?’

  Nicole nodded. She’d given Jethro the impression that she’d finally made a decision, but the truth was that the lease on her flat hadn’t been renewed and that had made the decision for her.

  ‘Of course, had I known I’d get my own bathroom cabinet the size of a small warehouse three years ago, I might have moved in sooner. Like Suzette.’

  The minute she mentioned his ex-wife’s name, Jethro’s smile disappeared. ‘Please don’t do a Suzette,’ he said.

  Legend had it that Suzette had turned up with a suitcase three weeks after she’d started dating Jethro and had stayed for a decade, before breaking his heart and making a considerable dent on his bank account.

  ‘You know I won’t do a Suzette,’ she reassured him. ‘As long as you don’t do a Darren.’

  ‘Yeah, nah. There’s no risk of me running back to live with my mother. She’d never have me.’ Jethro smiled.

  While Jethro made dinner, Nicole started unpacking her clothes and stacking the usual pile of unread books next to the bed, the same unread pile that had sat next to her bed in Leederville. At the very bottom of the pile was the copy of The Secret that Samantha had given her for Christmas three years ago, just before she’d met Jethro. Nicole still had no idea why Samantha had bought it for her. Self-help books weren’t really her thing. But every time she’d gone to get rid of it, she’d felt overwhelmed with guilt. Sometimes, Nicole thought that Samantha herself was like a book she felt she had to read, but perhaps didn’t really want to.

  She eased the book out from the bottom of the pile and, before she could change her mind, marched down the stairs to the bookshelves in Jethro’s study – now also her study – where she quickly found a space for it. It felt good to free herself of that burden.

  She’d used the move to free herself of other burdens, too, mostly Darren-related. The plastic trinkets from Japan he had given her, the Windows 95 sweatshirt he had forgotten to take the very last time he’d left her, the blanket they’d shared when they were watching TV together. The one thing she hadn’t got rid of was the Cookie Monster jar, which she’d already put on display in the large modern kitchen, much to Jethro’s amusement. Ever since her miscarriage, ten years ago, she’d kept it as a reminder that she should never want too much.

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’ Jethro called from the dining room.

  She wandered over to the dining room, noticing how it really was the kind of house that you could wander in, it was that large. It was hard to imagine that this was really her home, this fancy house with all its fancy rooms and furnishings. She wondered if she would ever feel as relaxed here as she had in her tiny three-room flat.

  She stopped in the piano room, lifted the lid on the Steinway and played a few random notes.

  ‘There you are.’ Jethro slipped through the double doors that led through to the dining room.

  ‘Here I am. And so is this piano,’ Nicole said. ‘Now that I’ve moved in, can you at last tell me the secret of how it got in here?’

  The first time Nicole had come to the house, she’d quickly worked out that there was no way the piano could have fitted through any of the doorways or windows into the small room. But every time she’d asked Jethro about it, he’d made up another story. One had the piano grow slowly from a seedling. Another had him ordering the piano from IKEA and constructing it with a single allen key.

  Jethro laughed. ‘I’ve been building this up for so long, I’m afraid the answer is going to be quite disappointing.’

  ‘Go on, then. Disappoint me.’

  ‘As you’ve probably already worked out, we built the room around the piano. It was moved in here while the whole back of the house was still open. We’d have to completely pull this part of the house down to get it out.’

  There was something about the story that made Nicole feel sad, like they had trapped the piano there against its will.

  Jethro cleared his throat. ‘If the lady would care to make her way through to the dining room . . .’

  He opened both the double doors to reveal the dining table, decorated with candles and roses.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, touched. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘I thought we should make our first night officially living together special,’ he said. ‘I’ve made my legendary lasagne.’

  ‘Well, that makes up for the disappointing story about the piano,’ Nicole said with a smile, as she gently closed the lid. ‘By the way, I just put some books on the shelves in the study, is
that okay? I’m afraid there’ll be a whole heap more in the boxes.’

  ‘Of course! You should just put them wherever you want. I want our books to mingle, to really get to know each other, maybe even have little book babies together. Now, make yourself comfortable while I serve up dinner.’

  Nicole sat down at the table, uncomfortable in her guilt. There was that word again. Babies. He dropped it every now and then. It was the only thing that made her uncomfortable about being with Jethro. She knew how much he wanted children and she knew that she should have told him the truth about her fucked-up womb before she agreed to move in. Not that she knew for certain that her womb was fucked up. She was supposed to have gone to a follow-up appointment after the miscarriage, but she never did. It felt easier not to know what the problem was.

  ‘Et voila!’ Jethro brought out a large silver platter with a lid and laid it on the table in front of Nicole. ‘Will you do the honours?’

  She lifted the cover and, instead of a lasagne, found a note with the words MARRY ME written in Sharpie.

  Nicole was completely taken aback. ‘But . . .’ she stammered. ‘But I thought you didn’t want to do the marriage thing again.’

  If Jethro had been expecting her to say ‘Yes!’ immediately, he didn’t show it.

  ‘I didn’t think I would want to do “the marriage thing” again, either. And yet here I am, wanting it, and wanting to do it with you,’ he admitted. ‘And anyway, I never asked Suzette to marry me. She was the one who proposed.’

  ‘I . . .’ Nicole didn’t know what to say. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Well, I do know what to say. I love you, Nicole. You’ve brought such gentle sunshine into my life. You’ve lit up corners that I thought would remain dark until I died.’ He walked around the table and, taking a small velvet box out of his pocket, he knelt in front of her. ‘Please, Nicole. Do me the honour of living with me for the rest of my life, putting up with my bad habits and even worse jokes, and maybe, just maybe, having a baby or two . . .’