Chapter Twelve
By the time Jack and Cameron reached Balwyn Park on Sunday, it was coming up on four o’clock and the party was in full swing.
The party was a tradition, an annual get-together for Cam’s primary school.
There were seven food trucks set up in a semicircle around the north and west boundaries of the park, and there were families with picnic blankets and camping chairs spread out in all directions.
The playground was full and the bike track that ran around the outside of the park was busy with little kids on scooters.
Jack plastered a smile on his face and looked around for parents he knew.
Thank god Elsa would be there. She’d bring food and booze and she’d talk enough for both of them, which suited Jack fine.
He was dog tired. He’d had to work until midnight the night before to hit his quota and after that his brain had been too busy for sleep.
Cam was looking around anxiously, trying to find his friends.
‘You’ll find them, Cam. Don’t worry.’ Jack locked their bikes together on the first available rack.
‘There’s Noah!’ said Cam. He raised a hand in an excited wave, and ran off into the crowd. Jack’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and saw a message from Elsa:
So sorry. Hours behind. Disaster. Won’t make it to park. Sent hockey stick with Celine. She has the girls so you’ll be able to find her. xxx
Jack swore under his breath. He had no idea who Celine was.
The hockey stick was for Cam, a gift from a friend of Elsa’s who had older boys and no more use for it.
Jack looked around the park. How the hell was he supposed to find the woman in this crowd?
Ask some of the other parents? Celine could be another mother, or she could be the new nanny.
Elsa went through nannies faster than he went through coffee filters.
Which did make Jack wonder. Elsa was a good friend, when she wasn’t cancelling plans at the last minute, but maybe she was a shitty boss.
Jack started to make his way slowly through the crowd.
He saw Cam off in the distance, talking with his friends Noah and Tom.
Some sort of friendly debate was going on—the conversation was energetic, accompanied by a lot of nods and hand gestures.
Tom had a football under one arm. Jack felt himself relax a little.
The hockey stick mattered, because he couldn’t afford to buy Cam a new one, but if he didn’t find Celine he could always call over to Elsa’s the next day to pick it up.
The important thing was that Cam was having a good time.
The park was rapidly filling up. Jack took it all in.
He saw a lot of familiar faces, people he could nod and smile hello to, a few he could maybe sit with for one of those conversations.
The kind of conversation you have with people when the only thing you have in common is that your kids go to the same school.
Or . . . he could grab some food from one of the trucks and retreat to the edges with his phone for company.
‘Uncle Jack!’
Jack turned to see a little girl wearing a rainbow tutu, leggings and a pale blue jumper, pink-faced and running his way. She kept running until she slammed into his legs and wrapped her arms around him.
‘Hi, Doris.’
Doris was Elsa’s younger daughter. Four years old, she was equal parts demanding and charming, just like her mum.
‘Hi,’ Doris said, in a muffled voice. Her face was still buried somewhere around his knees. Jack looked around for Doris’s responsible adult—presumably the mysterious Celine.
‘Where’s Lola?’ Lola was Doris’s big sister: seven years old, creative, sweet-natured and sensible.
‘Over there. Reading her book.’ Doris pointed vaguely in the direction of the trees, where three young women were spreading out some picnic blankets.
One of them was already walking their way.
She was maybe nineteen or twenty years old, blonde and pretty, with a little pointed chin.
She wore a pleated denim skirt and a white T-shirt, and had multiple gold studs in each ear.
‘Hello.’ She smiled at Jack.
‘Hi.’
‘Uncle Jack!’ said Doris, by way of introduction. She gazed up at him with embarrassing approval.
‘I’m not really her uncle,’ Jack said. ‘But I’ve been friends with her mum so long that it feels that way.’
‘Celine,’ said the girl. She offered her hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’ She spoke with an accent.
‘You’re French?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I am the new au pair.’
‘Oh right. Welcome.’
‘Come and play, Uncle Jack.’
Doris pulled on Jack’s hand as he hesitated.
The other two women were setting out food on the picnic blanket, and Lola—book in hand—was looking in his direction.
There were other children close to the group: a pair of little girls around Doris’s age, playing with dolls, and a little boy who was attempting to climb a tree.
‘Please. You like to join us?’ said Celine.
The women had an elaborate set-up, with the food platters and cushions. Jack felt his stomach growl.
‘If you’re sure,’ he said, and immediately felt guilty.
She was just being polite. Celine must want to sit and talk to her friends, not play host to a friend of her boss.
But if she was disappointed that he’d said yes, she didn’t show it.
She just led the way to the blankets, then introduced him to the other women.
Lucia was Italian and Beata was from Lithuania. They were friendly enough.
‘Would you like something to eat?’ Celine pushed a large plastic container towards him.
It was a neat thing, with a separate section on the bottom for ice blocks, to keep food cool, and a top section that was subdivided into little compartments.
The compartments were filled with grapes cut neatly in half, strawberries in quarters, Jatz crackers and pieces of chicken and cheese—the kind of food you put together for small kids.
‘Not that, Celine,’ Beata said, rolling her eyes. She reached into her bag and took out a cardboard box. She opened it to display half-baguette rolls stuffed with chicken salad.
Jack’s stomach growled again, this time loudly enough to be heard. Beata grinned at him. He smiled back, a little awkwardly.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking one. ‘This is great.’
‘I didn’t make them,’ Beata said, shrugging. ‘They are from the patisserie. My boss pay for them.’
‘Well thanks,’ Jack said, trying to smile around a mouthful of sandwich.
‘Something to drink?’ Celine asked. She had a paper cup in her hand.
‘I have water, thanks.’
Beata exchanged glances with Lucia. ‘Well, we might have something a little better.’ She opened her bag just enough for Jack to spot the bottle of wine inside. ‘If you promise not to tell.’
Jack laughed. Every second person in the park had a stubby in their hand. But he supposed it was different when you were looking after someone else’s kids.
‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ he said.
* * *
Two hours later, Jack was feeling lightly buzzed. They’d finished Beata’s bottle, and Lucia had produced a second one.
It was nicer than he expected, to sit in the park and listen to them talk. Celine was new to Australia, a recent arrival. She was desperate to see a kangaroo but was less keen on the spiders and the snakes.
‘I’ve been here for two years, and so far no snakes,’ Beata said. She was lying on the blanket, leaning on her left elbow, eating dissected grapes. She looked up at Jack through long eyelashes. ‘You have a nanny?’
Jack shook his head. He didn’t know how to explain, without sounding like a sad sack, that he and Elsa might be friends, but that they moved in very different worlds. ‘No nanny,’ he said.
‘So your wife, she stays at home?’ Lucia asked.
Jack shook his head. ‘No wife.’
Lucia raised an eyebrow, and Beata gave a very small smile. There was an awkward silence. There was always an awkward silence. Jack knew from experience that it was better to explain things quickly and simply and move on.
‘Cam’s mother died when he was a baby,’ he said. ‘So there’s just me.’
Beata’s eyes softened. She leaned closer. ‘I’m sorry. That must be very hard.’
Jack shifted his position on the rug, putting a bit of distance between them.
‘But you are a very good father, yes? You bring your boy to the park. You play with him. This is good.’
‘All dads do that,’ Jack said.
Celine and Lucia exchanged glances. Beata laughed.
He straightened his legs, wanting, suddenly, to leave. Cam must be hungry. They could visit the food truck on their way out.
‘Cam is lucky that you are his father,’ Beata said.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Jack.
‘No?’
‘No,’ he said again.
‘But why?’
‘Because if it wasn’t for me, his mother would still be alive.’
That killed the conversation. Jack spotted Cam wandering back in their direction. Relieved at the reprieve, he stood up.
‘Thanks so much for everything. For the wine and the food. I’ll . . . uh . . . return the favour sometime.’
Celine gave him the hockey stick. She smiled at Cam, said they should set up a playdate with Lola soon, and insisted on Jack taking her number.
They stopped at the food truck and Jack bought them two sausages in bread each.
He wrapped them and put them away in his backpack, and they biked home.
He and Cam lived three streets over from Elsa’s home on Ripley Street, but the postcode was the only thing their homes had in common.
Elsa’s house was a four-bed, five-bath contemporary masterpiece, the kind of house that made the front cover of Architectural Digest, whereas Jack and Cam lived in a granny flat at the back of his landlady’s place.
And they could only afford that because Mrs Dorsey gave him a deal on the rent in exchange for taking care of her cats when she travelled.
Jack and Cam wheeled the bikes around the side of the house. When they got to the flat, Jack spotted the parcel waiting for them on the doormat.
‘What’s that?’ asked Cam.
‘Don’t know, mate. Lock up the bikes, okay?’