How to Grow a Family Tree

by Eliza Henry Jones

Clem’s mother goes very still.

  ‘Mum, you’re so embarrassing,’ Clem says, burying his head in his hands. ‘You’re so old-fashioned! Girls and boys can be friends!’

  She shakes her head. ‘Not when they look at girls the way you look at Stella.’

  The buzzer sounds. ‘That was fast,’ she says.

  I hear a familiar nervous laugh drift up from downstairs and the sound of feet across tiles. ‘My mum’s here now. Great.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Clem. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Mum comes into the room. ‘What’s all this?’ she asks. She’s gone blotchy and her hair’s standing on end, just the way she doesn’t like it to.

  ‘They missed his birthday yesterday, so I stayed over to make sure he was okay. I slept on a blow-up bed!’ I snap. ‘We’re just friends! You know we’re just friends!’

  ‘It’s all okay,’ Mum says, sitting down on Clem’s laundry hamper. Clem’s mother sits back down at the desk and crosses her arms.

  ‘Sex can be great,’ Mum says. ‘It really, really can. And you’re getting older. I get it. I do. But you’re still too young. You can’t understand all the consequences, not how you need to.’

  I press my hands to my ears. ‘Please stop.’

  ‘Were you safe?’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Because I know it can seem like a great idea, but then . . .’

  ‘I know. I’m adopted, remember? I know what the consequences are! And, just for the record, if we were sleeping together – and, I repeat, we are very definitely not – we wouldn’t be dumb enough to get caught!’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much point going on,’ Mum says to Clem’s mother. ‘They’re not going to listen. C’mon, Stella.’

  Clem’s mother nods. She points at us. ‘You’re not to be up here alone together, understood? I only want you in the living room. With the doors open.’

  ‘Because you can’t have sex on a couch,’ Clem mutters.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  In the car on the way home, I glare out the window.

  ‘I know that was humiliating, but it’s for the best,’ Mum says. ‘We’ll come up with some boundaries so it can’t happen again.’

  ‘We didn’t do anything!’ I say. ‘I wish you’d listen to me!’

  Mum pats my knee. ‘You want some pancakes? We can stop for pancakes.’

  ***

  Christmas Eve dawns still and sticky a few days later, like the world outside is holding its breath. Our Christmases have always been quiet, even when we lived at our house. We always went to church on Christmas Eve, which I complained about but actually didn’t mind. I loved the candles and the hymns and the smell of worn wood and old paper.

  Mum had been brought up religious, but now only went to church at Easter and Christmas time. She’d sung in the choir as a teenager, although she was too shy to sing for us now.

  Mum plays Christmas carols on her old, portable CD player, and Taylor and I take turns in the bedroom to wrap our presents. I wonder who Dad’s buying for; I wonder if he bought the present, or whether it was just another thing Mum had to do to pick up after him.

  ‘Done,’ Taylor says, coming out of the room, looking glum.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  She pokes me and goes and sits down on the couch, just as there’s a knock on the door of the annex. ‘Yoo-hoo!’

  Muriel stands on the little doormat, wearing Christmas earrings and a t-shirt with a reindeer on it. ‘You coming to the Christmas party?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘At the pavilion,’ she says.

  ‘What time?’ Mum asks, coming up behind me.

  ‘Five,’ Muriel says, smiling at us both before wandering off. She’s wearing elf slippers with bells on the toes.

  ‘That’ll be nice, won’t it?’

  ‘What about church?’ I ask.

  ‘We can go to this first,’ Mum says, but her voice is flat and I wonder if we’re going to church at all this year.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask.

  ‘Lying down,’ Mum says.

  Dad spends a lot of time out in his hammock, now. And I think he’s relieved to get away from us, particularly in the run-up to Christmas. He’s even slept out there a few times, although nobody’s ever mentioned it. Not out loud.

  Mum and Dad don’t talk very much these days. But three times I’ve seen them dancing. Nothing flashy, nothing energetic. Just the two of them swaying in the annex or out near the hammock, in the dark. To music that I suppose must mean something to them, although to me it’s just the sort of background stuff that’s been played all through my life.

  ‘Why do you dance?’ I ask Mum as she settles down behind her sewing machine. As soon as I’ve said it, the words feel wrong, inadequate. I want to know why she dances when her feet are so sore from work. I want to know why she dances with Dad when she’s too angry to look at him properly most of the time. I want to know whether they whisper things that I’ve never been able to hear, or whether they come together and dance and part all in silence. There’s so much you can’t get from books.

  ‘It makes me think of all my happiest moments, Stell,’ she says, not looking up from her sewing machine.

  ‘With Dad?’ I ask. I think of how much I’ve been pestering them to talk to each other, but maybe there aren’t words for everything they need to say.

  ‘Some of them,’ she says, fanning out the fabric.

  ***

  The Christmas Eve party in the pavilion is a blur of crackers and mince pies and bad music and even worse t-shirts. There are more people than at the garden night, and even with all the portable fans on, it’s dizzyingly stuffy and I end up sitting behind the pavilion in the place where the snake bit Jube. Matthew’s whipper-snippered it down to the dirt and I trace shapes in the dust with my fingers. I think about going into Richard’s lean-to, but know it will be suffocatingly hot.

  ‘We’re going to the church,’ Taylor says, appearing from around the edge of the pavilion in her netball skirt.

  I stand up. ‘Dad coming?’

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t think so.’

  Taylor and I fight over who’s going to sit in the front seat and the little purse I’d made for her falls out of her pocket, and I’m so touched that I forget to hang onto the doorhandle and she swings into the car, triumphant. Dad’s standing outside the annex as we pull away and I wonder what he’s thinking.

  The service at the church is the same as it always is. I see Clem’s mess of hair and his mum’s sleek bob a few pews ahead. His mum had sung with mine in the choir when they were young. I don’t think she sings anymore, either.

  I wonder what she said to Clem about missing his birthday. Or if she said anything, or if Clem had just been presented with another roll of cash with not even a card. I think about what she said, about the way Clem looks at me. It’s alarming how wrong she is about her own son, thinking that we’re anything other than friends. Clem’s not interested in me – he doesn’t exhibit any of the eighteen classic signs I read about in The Unspoken Language of Love. For instance, he never ignores me and the book explains in a lot of detail how if a boy ignores you, it means he likes you. He also smiles a lot when he looks at me and the book clearly states that if a boy likes you he’ll gaze moodily off into the distance a lot and not smile at you, at all. I’d have explained it all to her, if she’d given me the chance.

  Mum hums a little during the gaps between songs and the sermon. I’ve never noticed her do that before. I recognise snatches of songs that she dances to with Dad and I wonder if she’s thinking of him.

  After the service, we mill around outside while Mum chats to some of the other ladies she’s known for years. Normally, Taylor rushes her home – wanting to watch the Christmas Eve High Life special that’s always on – but tonight she just leans against the side of the church and plays with her hair.

  I feel a tug on the back of my top. ‘Price.’

  Clem has damp
, wild hair. He’s wearing a terrible shirt covered in cartoon reindeer that his mother bought him a few Christmases back. He stretches and I see that he’s wearing the stupid belt I’d made him.

  ‘I’m not going to ask if you’re alright,’ he says, tugging his shirt back down. He stands so close that the toes of our shoes touch.

  ‘Good.’ Neither of us moves. I think of dancing, of Mum humming. Of things that can’t be captured properly with words.

  ‘Stell! Taylor!’ Mum calls, already at the edge of the car park.

  Clem is slow to step away. When he speaks, I can smell the candy-cane sweetness of his breath. ‘See you tomorrow?’

  He’s wearing too much cologne.

  I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how to explain that everything has changed too much. I stop myself panicking and give him a weird, forced smile. ‘See you, Clem.’

  ‘But what about tomorrow?’ he asks.

  I stride quickly away and pretend not to hear him, even when he calls my name again, loudly enough to carry to where Mum and Taylor are now waiting beside Mum’s car.

  ‘What’s he want?’ Taylor asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You can ask him tomorrow,’ Mum says. ‘When you lot do your little Christmas dinner. I’ve always thought it’s so sweet, your little dinners together.’

  ‘Shotgun,’ Taylor says, and I climb quietly into the back seat and look out the window, away from the church.

  ***

  Late on Christmas Eve, I pull my letters out and don’t open them. After Christmas, I’ll be ready to face whatever Kelly wrote to me about. It’s not avoidance, I tell myself. It’s just good strategy. It’s planning. It’s being the architect of my own future.

  Christmas morning is strange. Mum has Taylor for Kris Kringle and Dad has me. He gives me a fine gold necklace that I smile at and put on, even though it makes a lump lodge in my throat that I can’t quite swallow away. Nobody asks where he got it from, but the question fills the spaces between us, anyway. We eat pancakes for breakfast and don’t talk much. Afterwards, we sit around the television, which is playing a Christmas movie marathon. Dad walks to the local grocery store – the only place in Sutherbend open on Christmas day – and comes home with a backpack full of food.

  Mum stares. ‘Three roast chickens?’

  ‘They didn’t have any turkeys.’

  ‘But . . . three of them? That’s nearly one each, Charlie.’

  ‘It keeps.’

  ‘You just don’t think!’ Mum starts savagely pressing buttons on the CD player and Dad stands there forlornly, cradling one of the roast chickens.

  Matthew knocks on the pole near the annex door and we all jump.

  ‘Oh, Matthew,’ Mum says. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, good. Just wondered if you’d like some candy canes? I got some for the kids, but I over-estimated.’

  ‘Think we’re all pretty full from brekkie,’ Mum says. ‘But come in – there’s plenty of food. Too much, really.’ She glances at the backpack. ‘And some crackers.’

  Matthew doesn’t move. ‘I don’t want to interrupt.’

  ‘Get in,’ Taylor snaps, and he does, not looking at her.

  ‘Not having lunch with your dad?’ Mum asks.

  Matthew winces. ‘We eat at night.’

  We spend the next couple of hours eating chicken and salad and watching a Christmas movie. Dad goes out for a walk. We spend a good half-hour trying to fix the portable fan. Mum reads Little Women like she does every Christmas, and then there is the sound of crunching gravel and someone swearing as they try to undo the annex zipper.

  ‘You’re kidding me!’ Mum says, tucking her book away.

  I look up at Clem, who’s trying to juggle a cooler bag full of leftovers while he unlaces his shoes. Mum beams at him.

  Clem glances at Matthew and tries to smile. ‘Not with your family?’

  I frown. ‘Clem.’

  I want to explain about Matthew’s dad and the yelling we hear every few nights. But I know Matthew well enough to realise he wouldn’t want anyone outside Fairyland to know about that stuff. And Clem would just feel pity and I don’t want that, either.

  Matt shifts a bit in his chair and I see Taylor notice.

  ‘It’s actually been an acceptable day,’ Taylor tells Clem.

  ‘She’s only happy because Adam’s taking her away for the weekend,’ I tell Clem flatly. I’d been meaning to tell Taylor about Adam blabbing to everyone about us living here, but I hadn’t been able to quite bring myself to do it.

  Taylor rolls her eyes.

  ‘That’s not happening,’ Mum says. ‘You’re not going away with Adam.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘You’re sixteen!’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘You’re seventeen! Too young to go away overnight with your boyfriend.’

  ‘You’re such an old fuddy-duddy!’ Taylor moans. ‘And honestly – if I wanted to do it, I’d have done it already! I wouldn’t bother waiting to go away for the night!’

  Every part of Mum stiffens. ‘Have you slept with Adam? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No! I’m saying teenagers are inventive and that I don’t get what the big deal is about us going away – it’s such a sweet idea.’ She spins around to face Clem so fast that he winces. ‘Isn’t it a sweet idea?’

  He crosses his arms. ‘Very, very sweet.’

  ‘No, Taylor.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because people will talk!’ Mum snaps. She flushes immediately and pours herself more soft drink.

  Taylor bursts out laughing. ‘More than they do already? Get real, Mum!’ Taylor starts counting things off on her fingers. ‘We live at Fairyland – no offence, Matt.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘You stole all Stella’s letters.’

  ‘I just kept them safe!’

  ‘I already got expelled over that whole misunderstanding about the school library.’

  ‘You set it on fire,’ I mutter. Matthew clears his throat.

  ‘And Dad’s probably at the pokies right now. And you’re worried about people talking? Seriously?’

  Mum stiffens. ‘What about the pokies? What do you mean? He’s at the shops! It’s Christmas.’

  ‘He’s not at the pokies, Taylor,’ I say.

  ‘He’s getting cream! He forgot the cream this morning. Bought three chickens but forgot the cream. He’s getting cream.’ Mum pours another glass of soft drink. ‘Don’t say things like that, Taylor. It’s mean and ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s true. And you know what else is true? I’m going away with Adam.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Did you guys have turkey?’ Clem asks hopefully and we all stare at him.

  Matthew points at the remains of the supermarket chicken carcasses in the middle of the table. ‘Chicken.’

  Clem looks at him. ‘Chicken.’

  ‘Don’t you two sit too close on the couch,’ Mum says to Clem and me. I feel my face flush and Clem does an awkward scoot away from me.

  Taylor frowns. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Don’t think I’m not keeping an eye on you all,’ Mum says, pointing at us. ‘Because I am. I’ve been distracted lately, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with acting like animals.’

  ‘This is fun,’ says Taylor as Muriel pokes her head in with a huge bowl of leftover trifle. ‘Yoo-hoo! Want some trifle? You young’uns will have to go easy on it – my arthritis played up when I was pouring in the sherry.’

  ‘Yes please,’ we all say at the same time.

  ***

  Later, I walk Clem out to the gate of Fairyland. The place is a mess of tinsel from the discount store near the cinemas and the oily smell of barbecues. Kids ride bikes and run toys up and down the pathways between the cabins. Richard and Ginny wave from the doorstep of their cabins and I wave back. Clem kicks along with his hands in his pockets and turns to face me when we reach the road. I k
eep thinking about Kelly, wondering how she’s spending this Christmas.

  ‘You’re very quiet.’

  ‘No I’m not. What was that?’ I ask.

  He runs his hands through his hair. ‘What was what?’

  ‘You were rude to Matt. That whole time.’

  He squints towards a chipped angel statue by the gateway. ‘Was I?’

  ‘You know you were.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘His dad’s awful.’

  Clem doesn’t respond.

  ‘Clem! Why were you horrible to him?’

  ‘I wasn’t horrible.’

  ‘You were!’

  ‘You bailed.’

  I blink. ‘What?’

  He sighs. ‘We always do Christmas together. It’s a thing, Price. An important thing – to me, anyway. And you just bailed.’

  ‘Can’t you see? Everything’s different this year.’

  ‘You know what’s driving me nuts? The fact that not everything’s different. So much is still exactly the same and you can’t even see it.’ He closes his eyes. ‘It just . . . it only feels like Christmas when I see you.’

  ‘Clem . . .’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Price.’ He backs away and starts running down the road.

  ‘Clem!’

  I’m not sure if he hears me. He begins to run faster towards the corner and then he disappears.

  ***

  Back at home, the radio’s on. Something about the wettest start to summer in a decade. I think of the river, of the swollen banks. I hope they’re wrong about the rain continuing.

  ‘It’s nice,’ Taylor says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The necklace Dad got you.’ She casts a disgusted look at the school shoes Mum had given her.

  I reach up and touch it. I’ve wanted to take it off since the moment I put it on, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. I’m very aware of it, the chain against my skin. The little abstract charm sitting just below my throat.

  ‘Not really my thing,’ I say.

  ‘Because it’s probably stolen?’

  ‘No. It’s just not the sort of thing I’d normally go for.’

  ‘Why are you wearing it, then?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘Because why?’

  ‘Because I feel like I need to! Are you really that dense?’