Maddie, thankfully, had woken up as sweet and sunny as the weather, but Lyn's cold had gotten considerably worse. She dosed herself up on aspirin and felt wooly-headed, muffled from the world.
They were just about to leave the house when the phone rang.
"It's for you, Lyn," called Michael.
She called back, "Take a message! We have to get going!"
A couple of minutes later he came down into the kitchen and picked up the giant picnic basket to take out to the car.
"Who was it?" asked Lyn. She was squatting down, retying the laces on Maddie's shoes. Maddie's hands rested gently on her head.
"It was Hank."
She looked at the bright red laces on Maddie's shoes and felt as caught out as if she'd been unfaithful to him.
"Did he leave a message?"
"Yes. He said he got your e-mail about your panic attacks and to hang in there, because you're not alone, and he's got lots of really helpful information he's putting together for you."
Lyn finished tying up Maddie's shoelaces and stood up, swinging her onto her hip. "O.K. Look. It's nothing."
"It's something." He was agitated, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, swinging the picnic basket. "You're telling some bloody ex-boyfriend your problems. Some strange guy I've never met telling me about my wife's problems!"
Lyn put a hand on his forearm and deliberately allowed a fragile note to creep into her voice. "I've got a cold. I'm really feeling terrible. Can we please talk about it after the party?"
He immediately, as she knew he would, lifted Maddie out of her arms and said without malice, "Of course."
Oh, Georgina, no wonder you cried when I stole him.
With her head heavy against the passenger car seat and the Teletubby birthday cake safely on her lap, Lyn let her eyelids sink and wondered if she'd make it through the day.
Maddie kicked and chattered in her car seat between Kara and one of her more likable best friends, Gina. The girls were taking turns playing Around and Around the Garden, like a teddy bear tracing a circle on Maddie's palm, causing her to chortle with rising anticipation until they tickled her tummy and she completely dissolved.
Every time she laughed, everyone in the car laughed.
As they pulled up at a set of lights on the Spit Road, there was a loud bip of a horn.
Michael looked out his window and said, "Look who made it after all."
Lyn leaned forward and saw Cat in the passenger seat of Gemma's car. They were both waving extravagantly. Cat wound down her window and held out a bunch of brightly colored balloons.
Watching their lips move excitedly and silently reminded Lyn of some moment in her life when she had understood something, for the first time. Something sad and inevitable. Her blocked sinuses and muffled head wouldn't let her pin down the memory.
The lights changed and Gemma's car sped off down toward the blue-green glitter of the harbor, the balloons still bobbing merrily out of Cat's window.
Maddie went wild when they arrived at Clontarf and saw Gemma and Cat already unpacking picnic things and tying balloons to a tree.
"Mummy! Look! Cat! Gem!"
"This O.K.?" called out Cat.
Lyn waved an approving hand, and Maddie went running drunkenly across the grass to be scooped up by Cat and spun around.
Kara and Gina didn't offer to carry anything from the car. They also went straight to Cat, both of them pulling out sheets of paper from their knapsacks. Lyn craned her neck to watch as the three of them bent their heads over the papers, the two girls laughing and pointing. She wished Kara could be as relaxed and natural with her.
"What do you think those three are talking about?" she asked Michael, as she slammed shut the boot.
"Homework?"
"In your dreams."
The birthday picnic was well under way when Lyn got a call on her mobile from her play-group friend, Kate. They weren't coming because her little boy, Jack, had just come down with chicken pox.
"Maddie probably has it too," said Kate. "Nicole's kid was the culprit; she would have been contagious at Julie's lunch. Anyway, good to get it crossed off! Some parents have 'pox parties' to pass it around."
"I had Maddie immunized."
"Oh, I see. Well, I looked into it obviously but--"
A child roared in the background, so Lyn was spared the sweetly veiled criticism she knew she was about to receive. She felt far too woozy for it.
"You know, you missed out on chicken pox, Lyn." Maxine looked up from her foldout chair, where she was delicately balancing a paper plate on her knees. "Gemma and Cat caught it when they went on that Christmas holiday with their father."
"Oh, don't remind their father," said Frank. "What a nightmare."
Now she remembered that memory. It was the day Cat and Gemma drove off in Frank's car for the water-slide holiday. They were both up on their knees in the backseat, their faces pressed against the back window, shouting things to her that she couldn't hear.
Different things will happen to us, six-year-old Lyn had realized and felt a little sad and shocked but also almost immediately accepting. It was logical. It made sense. There was nothing you could do about it.
"We probably infected about a thousand kids on that water slide," said Cat.
"Oh shit," said Lyn. She was thinking about Julie's lunch and how Nicole's runny-nosed little girl had wrapped her arms around Lyn's knees.
Everyone looked at her.
"I think I've got chicken pox."
Gemma patted her shoulder in a motherly fashion. "Nooo, you've just got a little cold!"
Lyn pushed back her cardigan sleeve to look at her wrist where she'd been scratching. There was a tiny little red sore. "I think this is the start of the spots."
Michael dropped his bread roll onto his plate.
"But what if you're pregnant? Is it dangerous?"
"Pregnant?" said Cat. She was sitting cross-legged on the picnic rug, a bottle of beer in her hand. "Are you trying to have another baby?"
Lyn watched Cat and Gemma exchange loaded looks and closed her eyes. How many more people would she upset today? Suddenly she felt unbearably ill. She opened her eyes again.
"Where's Maddie?"
Nobody took any notice of her question.
"So do you think you are pregnant?" asked Cat.
"Where is Maddie?"
She got to her knees on the rug and looked around wildly, fear clenching her heart.
"She's right there with Kara and her friend." Maxine looked closely at Lyn. "Darling, I don't think you are well. Feel her forehead, Gemma."
Lyn saw that Maddie was in fact only a few feet away, sitting on Kara's lap.
She collapsed back down on the blanket and looked mutely at her family.
Gemma put her hand against her forehead and announced, "She's burning up!"
"Right," Michael stood up. "We're getting you home."
"You're not to worry about Maddie," ordered Maxine.
Gemma said, "We'll sing her "'Happy Birthday.'"
And before she knew it, Michael and Frank were on either side of her, practically carrying her off to the car.
"I'm not paralyzed," she protested.
But her legs did feel strangely wobbly and her head was spinning and it was rather nice to be carried off, away from all those plates of food that needed handing around, candles that needed lighting, and Cat's hard, closed-up face.
CHAPTER 20
Lyn woke up the next day to find an army of weeping, seeping spots had ravaged every part of her body. They crouched on her scalp, lurked in her pubic hair, huddled at the roof of her mouth.
"This is like a joke," she croaked, as she lay in bed and lifted up her nightie to look with sick fascination at the vile rash of dots marching purposefully across her stomach. "This shouldn't be allowed."
She couldn't remember ever feeling more ill.
Michael took time off work, and Maddie was packed off to Maxine's house.
"
I'll be fine," she told Michael pathetically. "Don't use your holiday time."
"For once in your life, will you just shut up and let me look after you! Now, I've rung the doctor about complications for pregnancy."
She interrupted him: "My period came this morning, along with the spots."
"Good. You're my only baby to look after."
Over the following days he did so much research on the Internet he became a chicken pox guru, nodding with rather annoying professional pleasure as each new symptom presented itself. When the spots started to itch, he was ready with cotton wool, a refrigerated bottle of calamine lotion, and damp cloths.
"Hmmm, this is rather erotic," he said, as she lay facedown on the bed and he dabbed at the blisters on her bottom.
"I'm hideous," she moaned into her pillow.
"Now I need to cut those nails," he said, rolling her over. "So you don't scratch yourself and end up with scars."
"That's for children, you big idiot. I'm a grown-up."
The concentration on his face as he manipulated the nail scissors reminded her of Pop Kettle painting Nana's nails. She had to look away and blink.
One afternoon she woke up from a sleep with a raging throat, to find a carefully quartered orange sitting on a saucer next to her bed, together with a jug of iced water, a pile of magazines, and three brand-new paperback novels.
"You're wasted in I.T.," she told him. "You should have been a nurse."
"I'm only interested in your spots."
New ones kept materializing, including a five-cent-piece-sized monstrosity on the end of her nose.
"Oh, gross!" said Kara, delivering a cup of tea from Michael one morning. I'm glad I had chicken pox when I was a baby! That one on your nose--man!"
Lyn laughed, put her hand to her face, and started to cry.
"Oh, no!" Kara was beside herself. She put down the cup of tea and crawled onto the bed next to her. "I'm such a bitch! And it's not that bad."
"I'm only crying because I'm sick and emotional. It's O.K."
Kara slung an arm around her. "Poor Lyn."
Lyn sobbed harder. "Oh! When you were a little girl you used to hug me all the time. Remember your Crafty Case?"
Kara patted her kindly on the shoulder but obviously thought the disease had spread to her brain. "Daaad!" she shrieked. "I think we need you up here! Like, now!"
Kara came in after school that same afternoon, carrying a plastic bag from Kmart and a Women's Weekly magazine.
She showed Lyn a picture in the magazine of a mobile with silver stars and moons, hanging in a child's bedroom. "I thought we could make this together for Maddie," she said. "To take your mind off, you know, how bad you look. I've bought all the stuff we need."
"You lovely girl." Lyn pulled cardboard, glitter, glue, and crayons out of the bag. "But what's this?"
It was a new black bra with a label promising "fuller, firmer, more beautiful breasts" and a picture of a woman demonstrating two magnificent examples.
"That's a get-well present for you," said Kara, elaborately avoiding Lyn's eyes, as if she needed to be tactful. "It's your size. I checked in the laundry basket."
"Well, thank you!" said Lyn. Teenagers really were perplexing. "Thank you so much."
"Yeah, O.K."
An hour or so later, when the bed was covered with cardboard shapes, Lyn asked, as casually as she could manage, "What were you and Gina talking about with Cat the other day? Was it an assignment?"
"Ha," said Kara. She was cutting out a star, and Lyn noticed that when she was concentrating she still stuck out the tip of her tongue just like when she was a little girl. She wanted to say, There you are! I've missed you!
"It's just these e-mails Cat sends me and my friends. She started last Christmas."
"Oh." Trust Cat not to even mention it. "E-mails about what?"
"Stuff."
"What sort of stuff?"
"You know, stuff. It started out just for me after Christmas, when I got depressed about something. But then I showed it to a couple of friends and then everybody started wanting copies. Girls have started e-mailing her questions and things. It's like a newsletter now. She does it every week. It's cool. She cracks you up."
Lyn pushed her luck. "I don't suppose I could see it?"
Kara sighed and put down her scissors. She looked at Lyn with stern benevolence. "It's sort of private, you know. But you can look at the last one for like ten seconds, if you really want."
She went off to her bedroom and came back with a sheet of paper that she held in front of Lyn's eyes while she counted out loud, "One elephant, two elephant, three elephant..."
Lyn just had time to read the headings:
The problem with diets
The problem with boyfriends like Mark
The Donna/Sarah/Michelle dilemma
Handling Alison's mum
Ideas for cheering up Emma (& anyone else suffering from Emma-type symptoms)
ANSWER FOR MISS X: No, that does not sound like herpes!
"...Tenelephant!" Kara snatched the paper away.
"Thank you," said Lyn humbly, praying that Kara wasn't Miss X. "You know, you can always ask me things too. About--stuff."
Kara groaned and rolled her eyes. "The whole point is that it's stuff you would never in a million years ask your parents. And even though you're not my real mum, you sort of are."
You sort of are. Lyn picked up the tube of gold glitter and poured a little pile into her palm. She looked back up at Kara and smiled.
"Oh no," said Kara with disgust. "Please tell me you're not going to cry again!"
The next day she felt well enough to sit for a while on the balcony. She lifted her spotty face up to the sun as Michael pushed a cushion behind the small of her back.
"I spoke to Georgina yesterday," he said. "She rabbited on about changing her next weekend with Kara, but I think the real purpose of her call was to tell me she's doing a tandem skydive."
"Why would she want to tell you that?"
"When we were together she was always frightened of doing anything physical, or even sporty. I think she's implying I made her like that. Or I was holding her back. I don't know."
"What an idiot."
"It happens, though, doesn't it? When you're in a relationship you get stuck playing out your different parts. With me, she was the princess. Now she wants to say, See, there's more to me than you thought!"
"We're not stuck playing different parts."
"Of course we are. You're Wonder Woman and I'm--who am I? I'm Donald Duck. No. I'm Goofy."
The tiny thread of bitterness in his voice dismayed her. She stretched out her fingers and battled a mad desire to itch and itch and itch until her skin lay in bloody shreds at her feet.
"You're not Goofy!" she cried, and her itchiness made her sound frenzied.
Michael looked amused. "Thank you, honey."
She burst out with it: "O.K.! I've been having these ridiculous panic attacks in parking lots and I'm frightened I'm turning loony like Nana Leonard and I know I should have told you and, oh my God, my God, I want to scratch!"
That afternoon, while Lyn slept, dosed-up on aspirin and slathered in cold calamine, Michael did a Google search and downloaded every word ever written about panic attacks and parking lots.
Four days after the picnic, Lyn felt strong enough to withstand a visit from her sisters.
They came bearing get-well cards, a creamy bun, and a bombshell.
"What did you just say?" spluttered Lyn.
"I said I'm four months pregnant," answered Gemma.
"And--but--four months?"
"Yep. Freaky, hey? I had no idea until about a week ago."
Lyn didn't know why she was so stunned. Gemma wasn't exactly the Virgin Mary, and if anyone was likely to accidentally fall pregnant it would be her.
But pregnancy and Gemma just didn't go.
"The father? Was it Charlie?"
"Well, yes."
"How did he react?"
"Obviously you have to tell him."
"No, she does not," Cat put down the teapot unnecessarily hard. "Obviously."
"That's the other thing," said Gemma. "Cat's going to adopt the baby."
"Adopt it?" repeated Lyn dumbly.
"It makes sense. I don't want a baby. Cat does. We've formed a synergistic partnership."
"I knew you wouldn't approve," Cat said aggressively.
"I haven't said anything!" Lyn put a finger to the healing scab on her nose. "I'm just trying to take it all in."
But Cat was right. She didn't approve at all.
Maxine dropped off Maddie later that afternoon.
She was fizzing. "You've heard about their appalling little plan?"
"Yes." Lyn rocked Maddie's compact little body to her. "Oh, I've missed you! Has she been good?"
"Not in the least."
"Ooh, Mummy fall?" Maddie sympathetically pointed at Lyn's face. "Whoops-a-daisy!"
Maxine tapped her nails rapidly on the coffee table. "When you were little, whichever toy you picked up, Cat wanted it. Didn't matter what it was, the moment you wanted it, she wanted it. She'd be throwing a tantrum, screaming like a banshee--and what would Gemma be doing?"
"What?"
"Giving Cat her own doll or teddy bear or whatever! I said to her, Gemma, a baby is not a toy! It's not something you just hand over to your sister because she hasn't got one! She just giggled in that ridiculous way of hers. I mean really, the child is deranged! Ever since that dreadful Marcus got himself killed she's been quite odd!"
"What does Dad say?"
"Oh, Frank is no help. He's always been far too soft on Cat. I'm surprised we've only been in court with her once. We had our first argument about it."
"Your first argument?!" said Lyn.
Maxine stopped tapping and smiled. "First one this time around."
The Twist
I remember I was in a record shop once and I saw a woman shopping with her grown-up daughters.
The girls were probably in their early twenties. The mother was one of those grim North Shore types, sensible shoes, pursed mouth.
Anyway, the record shop starts playing some rock 'n' roll music and one of the girls says, "This is your era, Mum!" and she starts dancing the twist. The woman says, very firmly, "That's not right, this is how you do the twist!" And she actually starts dancing right there in the record shop and blow me down if she's not damned good!
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