One True Thing

by Nicole Hayes

  I feel his arm around me. His warm, kind voice threatening to undo all my resistance and refusals. ‘Please don’t fight, Frank. Please. Just give me a chance?’

  I take a long minute to let the warmth of his arms soothe me before I pull back and wipe away any errant tears. I study him closely and, I realise, bravely. Maybe I do know what courage looks like because right now I’m terrified. I want to lock myself away for another fortnight, or month. Or year. But there’s no point. It will still be here, waiting for me. It’s time I faced the truth.

  ‘Go on then. Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.’

  CHAPTER 28

  FRIENDLY FIRE

  The park bench is hard and dry, green paint peeling off the edges. My fingers automatically continue the process, giving me something to look at while Jake gathers himself. His large frame beside me, rigid with tension, or nerves, literally perched on the edge of his seat.

  I drag my focus from the peeling paint and look at him. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I took the photos.’ His head dips and I can’t see his face. He looks up. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? You think that will fix things? You’ve ruined my life. You humiliated me and used me!’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’ He clutches his backpack strap so hard his knuckles turn white. ‘I didn’t use you.’ He moves closer. ‘I want to fix this. It’s all I want.’

  ‘You can’t fix this!’ I cry, the energy deserting me as fast as it comes. ‘Neither can I.’

  ‘At least know the truth then.’

  I sink against the bench, too hollowed out to argue.

  ‘I know a waiter who works at the Grand Marin restaurant. He used to work with me, but the hotel pays more – better tips.’ Jake glances towards the street. It’s afternoon now and the spring sky is a pale blue with wisps of cloud. I have no idea what time I left school, but either way, I’m in deep trouble for bailing like that. So is Jake.

  ‘How is this relevant?’

  ‘I was working every night the week of the debate. He called me, told me to hurry and bring my camera. I didn’t even know why, but when I saw the scene outside …’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I shot off some photos without thinking – I didn’t even know it was your mum at the start. I just knew it was something powerful – a moment I couldn’t miss. Then I recognised your mum. She and that guy were yelling, crying …’

  ‘The night of our …’ I swallow the word, refusing to connect it with this monstrous thing. ‘When we went to the gallery, you’d already taken them?’

  He rubs the back of his neck. ‘Yeah.’

  Acid rises in my throat, the sun suddenly too bright and harsh for my eyes.

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he says hurriedly. ‘No one knew I’d taken them.’

  I clear my throat. I have to know the truth. ‘Then how did they end up on Seamus Hale’s blog?’

  ‘Dad has a lot of media clients – journalists, TV hosts, radio stars …’ Jake looks at me.

  ‘Including Seamus Hale?’ I almost spit the name.

  ‘Yeah. Hale is his biggest client.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me?’

  Jake looks stricken. ‘I didn’t know. I’d just arrived here. I was trying to make it work, trying to keep out of Dad’s way, to please him. He kept asking about you once he found out.’

  ‘So you were stalking me. You set me up?’

  ‘At the start. I didn’t know you then. I just thought Dad would let it go after a photo or two.’

  I hold up my hand to stop him, not wanting to hear any lies or to see his pity. ‘You gave them to your dad?’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Photos of my mum that would ruin her career?’

  ‘I didn’t believe he’d do that. I mean, it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Isn’t that his job?’

  ‘After our dinner, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’ He tilts his head, his expression pained. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Too late.’

  He turns his hands over, declaring his innocence. ‘I didn’t want anyone else to see them.’ He closes his hands, folds those long fingers into fists.

  ‘What made you change your mind then?’

  Jake grimaces. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You’re going to have to spell this out for me,’ I say slowly, ‘because English doesn’t seem to be making sense right now.’

  Jake shakes his head. ‘I know you hate journalists. I know you don’t trust me. And I wanted this thing –’ he gestures to me, to us – ‘I wanted it to work. I still do.’

  I blink back tears.

  ‘I didn’t give them to him,’ Jake continues. ‘He took them.’

  ‘You’re saying your dad stole your photos.’

  ‘Yes.’ He looks almost sick.

  I stand up, unable to listen a minute longer. ‘Yeah. Well, maybe you’re full of shit.’

  ‘Please,’ Jake says, his hand gripping mine.

  I remember the first time he held my hand, running through the streets after our interview. Laughing and messing around. All of it fake. All of it a way to get to my family. My stomach roils and I yank my hand away.

  ‘I want to make it right, Frankie. Let me make it right.’

  I turn to face him. ‘Actually, Jake, you’ve done plenty already.’

  CHAPTER 29

  COLLATERAL DAMAGE

  I catch the tram down Grantham Street but I’m too steamed up to go home. I get off after a couple of blocks and lose myself in the Alternative Rock section at Words&Music for a couple of hours, flipping through their vinyl collection and a neat stack of recent editions of Guitar and Rolling Stone. I buy a coffee and select a copy of Beat and, before I know it, it’s six o’clock.

  As I head down our street, I see that the media pack has clocked off for the night. The idea is so bizarre that I almost laugh. Luke meets me at the front door as though he’s been watching the street for my arrival. I grab him in a rough hug and drop a kiss on his tangled hair. He offers me a weary grin.

  ‘That bad, huh?’ It was his first day back too, I realise with a start. How did I not think about that?

  Luke examines his feet.

  ‘I thought Dad was picking you up from Nathan’s.’

  ‘Mum’s home,’ he says.

  It’s then that I see it – the puffiness around his left eye. The pink flesh, round and shiny and tight. I hold his shoulders steady, forcing him to look at me. ‘Who did this to you?’

  He blinks but his left eye doesn’t close properly and he flinches at the pain.

  ‘Luke! Tell me who.’

  His head drops.

  ‘Why didn’t the school do something?’ I’m furious and desperate for someone to blame. Someone I can hate so that this burning feeling inside me has somewhere to go.

  ‘They called Mum. She picked me up.’

  ‘Did you ice it?’

  He pulls away. ‘Mum fixed it,’ he says with such pure and simple trust that my heart lurches.

  I’m about to head into my room, to collect myself so I can face Mum and not cave in, when Luke takes my hand, stopping me in my tracks. He’s grown this past year but he’s still a shrimp. His hand feels small in mine, his one healthy eye so big in that ghostly face. The shiny pink of his wounded eye somehow accusing, even though he can hardly open it.

  ‘What?’ I coax, bracing myself. He looks so serious, so … tired. The little old man in a ten-year-old’s body. I squeeze his hand. There’s nothing to say that will make a difference.

  ‘Do you think it’s true, what they’re saying about Mum?’ he asks me for the first time since the whole nightmare started. It was easier to keep him out of it before Mummygate made its way onto breakfast radio and TV talk shows, like our family falling apart is the funniest thing to happen since The Chasers crashed APEC. I’d been kidding myself that most of the nastiness went over his head.

  I frown, confused. ‘Mum told you the truth about Colin. That he’s –’ What? Her son? Our brother? The words still
sound too unnatural to say – ‘family,’ I say, wishing I had a better word that didn’t strike at my heart at its mention. ‘They’re just making things up to hurt her.’

  Luke pulls his hand away and stands taller as if he’s bracing himself. ‘They’re saying Mum and Dad are getting a divorce.’

  ‘Don’t listen to them, Luke. They’re just trying to keep the story alive,’ I say, fighting the panic that flutters in my chest. ‘Mum and Dad are … having a tough time but they’re sticking together. I know it’s hard to understand why she won’t tell the truth. But Dad won’t give up on her. He won’t.’

  Luke nods solemnly. ‘So, why have you?’

  ‘That’s different,’ I start to say, when a movement in the dimly lit hallway stops me.

  My mother is standing there, her beautiful face hollowed-out and pale, and yet there is an undeniable dignity in the way she holds her head, tall and steady. ‘Luke,’ she says, breaking the silence. ‘I’d like to talk to your sister.’

  CHAPTER 30

  THE BACKBENCH

  Luke stiffens but otherwise does not move.

  I wouldn’t have left either, even at his age. ‘Let it go, Mum.’

  Mum straightens, bracing to defend herself, or argue. But she looks at my brother and softens. ‘Luke, please give us some privacy.’

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s my family too! I want to know what’s happening!’ His voice breaks mid-sentence. Tears slide down his face and his hands are clenched beside him.

  Mum’s whole being seems to sway towards her son, even though she doesn’t move closer. ‘I know, Luke. I’ll come and talk to you next. But first I need to talk to Frankie.’ Then she steps forward and sweeps him into her arms, his body giving in to her shape. The warmth and familiarity of that gesture is so powerful that I almost rush to join them.

  Luke sloughs off down the hall, his back convulsing a little with the last of his sobs. We both watch him until he disappears into his bedroom and closes the door.

  I’m about to do the same. I don’t want this. But her voice halts me in my tracks.

  ‘Francesca?’ The control in her tone makes me want to scream.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please.’

  I let my backpack slide off my shoulder, stretching my neck left and right to ease the tension. Stalling.

  ‘How about a coffee?’ she says into the quiet.

  I look at my mum, see the lines under her eyes, dark circles like bruises. There’s a fine streak of grey in her hair. Is it new? Or has it been there since it all started? I have no idea.

  I remember Dad’s words. That it isn’t all about me. ‘You don’t have time for this, Mum.’

  ‘I’ve got a couple of hours.’ She looks at her watch. ‘One,’ she says, correcting herself with a half-grin. ‘Then Harry’s coming to get me.’

  ‘Since when does Harry give you time off during an election campaign?’

  She winks, though it’s half-hearted and cheerless. ‘I juggled some stuff. The world won’t end, even though Harry will act like it has.’

  I follow her into the kitchen. We take the same seats at the island bench that we assigned ourselves when we first moved here twelve years ago – me staring out the window, Mum sitting across from me, one seat over to the left. Back then we would talk over a Milo. It feels like a million years ago.

  She stands suddenly and heads to the cupboards, setting up the coffee machine and laying out the bits and pieces. She stares at the espresso glasses and the grinder, and suddenly she looks lost. My mum is focus personified, and now she can barely remember where the coffee beans are.

  ‘I’ll make it,’ I say, standing up.

  She turns to me, deep sadness a shadow across her face, then nods and sits down.

  The coffee scalds my lips as I drink too fast. ‘So?’ I ask into the silence, sounding angrier than I mean to.

  Mum sighs. ‘Me first. How was school?’

  I frown, not wanting to think about it. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say, hoping it’s true. I’ve got one day down – this should have been the hardest, surely. Tomorrow things will be easier.

  ‘Yes. You certainly seem fine.’

  ‘What do you expect?’ I ask, annoyed. ‘Seriously, what did you expect?’

  ‘I know I deserve that.’ Mum nods, agreeing with herself, then pushes her coffee away. ‘But I don’t deserve all of it.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell the truth, then?’ I say. ‘Don’t you care how it affects us? How it affects Dad?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ Mum looks up.

  ‘Then tell the truth!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘So it’s up to Luke and me to defend you to the media? And the kids at school. Did you see Luke’s eye? Did you?’

  She looks visibly shaken. Colour drains from her face.

  I hesitate, knowing I’m hitting her hard. ‘And still you stay silent.’ I stand up, pushing my coffee away, perfectly matching her action. ‘They’re hounding us, Mum, stalking us outside our own home. I can’t look up without seeing those photos on every screen and media outlet there is.’ I’m ranting but I’m running out of steam too. I shake my head. ‘But still you say nothing. It seems pretty simple to me.’

  Her hands clasp and unclasp on the bench between us. We both stare at them like they belong to a magician who’s about to make doves appear. ‘I’m sorry about school, the other kids, the media. It will pass. I promise.’

  I shake my head, furious. ‘No, it won’t! Not with all those lies out there. Is Colin more important than us? Because that’s what’s happening here. You’re choosing him over me and Luke. You’re putting him first.’

  Mum’s voice is barely above a whisper when she speaks. ‘No, I’m giving him a chance,’ she says. ‘The one he never got.’ She searches the room, as though for an answer.

  ‘He’s not taking it! Obviously, he’s not going to.’

  ‘Then I have to live with it.’

  ‘No, Mum. We have to live with it.’

  A flash of pain crosses her face. ‘He won’t see me – any of us. If I could just speak to him … He’s angry, understandably. He’s very angry.’ She offers me a half-smile, empty and sad. ‘He hates me too.’

  ‘Mum, you’re going to lose the election.’

  ‘That feels a little like it’s out of my hands at this point.’

  ‘So, you’re giving up?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, not giving up. I just don’t know how to fix this,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Then let me.’

  She presses her lips together, and despite her exhaustion, I also see tenderness. ‘How?’

  ‘Let me talk to him.’ It’s so obvious to me now that I can’t believe I’ve waited this long.

  ‘He won’t talk to us. I don’t even know where he is.’

  ‘You could try to find him.’

  Mum lifts a shoulder. ‘Probably, but I can’t do it to him. He has to be ready. I’ve tried and tried. I won’t make him go through this just to save my own backside.’

  ‘Not even for us?’

  Her face crumples and, when she speaks, her voice is hoarse. ‘Not even for you.’

  CHAPTER 31

  A PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE

  ‘Go away!’ Luke’s muffled voice drifts through his bedroom door, barely cutting through the bootlegged live version of ‘Black’ that I gave him for his last birthday. It’s so loud I can feel it through the floor, even louder than Luke’s warbling voice as it strangles that incredible melody. I wonder sometimes whether he’d even like Pearl Jam if I wasn’t his sister. I wonder if it was his choice and not just something he didn’t have a chance to think about because I kept smothering him in it. Then again, I wonder if I’d be a musician if Harry hadn’t given me his Martin guitar, the perfect match to Eddie Vedder’s, or taught me the intro to ‘Alive’ before I could play a whole song. If Dad hadn’t sat through all my concerts, or let me spend my pocket money on records. If Mum didn’t insist I learn ‘someth
ing musical’ from the day I could walk. Sometimes it’s hard to know where I start and my family finishes.

  The idea is too depressing.

  I press my forehead against the door and breathe in. Luke’s more confused than any of us. No wonder he’s angry. I open the door and stick my head in.

  A faded Hawthorn Hawks stuffed toy comes flying towards me, the tiny footy sewn to his wing catching the door handle before falling to the floor.

  ‘Go away!’ Luke shouts.

  We both stare at the toy on the floor in front of me. ‘Poor Cyril,’ I say, gently cradling the stuffed toy, giving it a cuddle.

  ‘I said go away.’

  And yet he sounds just that tiniest bit less angry. I head into his room, turn down Eddie and the boys, and plonk down on the foot of his bed. I hold out the hawk as a peace offering. ‘I think he’ll live.’

  He grunts before snatching the toy from me and returning it to its rightful place on the shelves over his bed. We both look at Cyril up on the shelf, his crooked beak almost tipping him forward.

  ‘Why won’t you forgive Mum?’

  There’s a small hole along the seam of Cyril’s right wing, I notice, and one of his talons is thin and floppy, the stuffing knocked out of him. I kind of get how he feels. ‘I don’t know.’

  Luke snorts. ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ I say, glancing up at his door, imagining Mum in the kitchen starting dinner or organising take-away. I’m glad she’s home, even though I’m furious with her. At least I don’t feel entirely like it’s up to me to take care of Luke. On the other hand, knowing she’s home early just makes Dad’s absence more obvious. It’s as if the world as we know it has been turned upside down, and only Luke and I are still facing the same way.

  I sigh. I want to go to sleep and wake up with my memory erased. Or just this last bit, with some of the nice stuff still safely tucked in there. Kissing Jake before I knew about the photos. Maybe that summer night with the full moon, when Kessie and I slept under the stars, talking and singing like idiots until the sun came up. Our voices were husky for two days straight. Or that time the whole family went to Sorrento to swim in the rock pools, our skin wrinkling after hours in the icy water; Luke catching a bay trout on the jetty at dusk. Then I realise that we can’t do these things as a family anymore without a pack of paparazzi stalking us. Suddenly, full erasure seems like a better idea.