Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
‘ Y ou’ll need to rub it out and start again,’ I said to Angus absent-mindedly as he scrawled his maths homework at the kitchen table. I was thinking about Mum, who was staying for a few days while Matthew was interstate. She was upstairs preparing for her meeting with Dad. That’s how I chose to see it, anyway. It certainly couldn’t be a date. My palms were sweaty. My head ached. And I felt somewhat delirious. Sick with worry.
‘But I don’t have a rubber.’
‘Ask Lexi.’ I continued chopping tomatoes and contemplated a glass of wine. Resisting the urge, I was chopping cucumbers by the time he came back.
‘Mum, do you ever think about cutting your fingers?’
‘What? By accident?’
‘No, just because.’
‘No, Gus. Why would I?’
‘Dunno.’
‘The way your mind works…’ I shook my head. Maybe The Flintstones wasn’t the only programme Angus was watching. I thought back to The Banshees of Inisherin , the movie where Brendan Gleeson’s character cuts off his fingers. Horrible. I shuddered and continued slicing vegetables, paying close attention to the position of my digits.
‘So did you find a rubber?’
‘Yeah.’ Angus rubbed a hole in his Maths Mentals book. ‘But it’s not working.’
I sighed. ‘Show me.’ I picked up the eraser. ‘What the?’ – A condom – ‘Where did you get this?’
‘Lexi’s pencil case. It fell out yesterday, and she said it was a rubber, so I went to her room and borrowed it.’
‘Lexi!’ I shouted up the stairs. ‘Get down here now!’
Puzzled, Angus said, ‘She’s in the bathroom.’
Mum came rushing into the kitchen. I held up my open hand. ‘Don’t ask.’
She took Angus by the hand and moments later, I heard Twinkle, Twinkle playing on the piano in the lounge room.
Lexi sauntered in, eyed me and scanned the condom clenched tightly in my hand.
‘It’s a joke, Mum.’
‘Really? I’m not laughing.’
‘Susie put it in my pencil case.’
‘Do you think it’s funny? Does it make you feel grown-up? Clever?’ I stared at her long and hard, choosing not to focus on the small purplish bruise on her neck that looked suspiciously like a love bite.
Lexi’s expression was unforgiving. Defiant. ‘Some of my friends have competitions to see who can get a condom on a banana the fastest… with their lips.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Which friends exactly? Lexi, come back here now,’ I ordered as she walked out of the kitchen. Who was Susie? Where had she come from? Had my daughter fallen in with a bad crowd? As far as I knew, she still had the same girlfriends including Jazz and Issie since she was six or seven. My mind went into overdrive as a grainy video of Lexi messing around with boys played in my head. I didn’t want my daughter to be the type of girl boys treated badly and whispered about in school halls or online… My daughter, Lexi, the subject of toilet walls – make that cyber – and discussions about bananas and God knows what other fruits.
I marched upstairs and banged on her locked bedroom door. ‘Lexi, open the door. Now!’ She didn’t answer. Music blared from inside her bedroom. I waited outside. Eventually, she’d have to come out and when she did… well, the first thing I’d do was take the stupid lock off her door.
As I walked down the stairs, I passed Angus, who was singing along to her music, then I heard Lexi bellow, ‘Can you tell dumbo the lyrics are about single ladies not wanna see my legs? ’
‘Mum, I don’t want you to see him again,’ I said unreasonably as I poured Chardonnay. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t drink alcohol from Sunday to Thursday, but I couldn’t manage it, not this week at least – Mum and Dad; Lexi and the condom (not to mention her neck); Graeme and the red plate; Arnaud and those green eyes. Matt’s absence.
I handed Mum a glass. ‘You look very nice by the way.’ And she did. At least ten years younger. I shuddered at the thought her flushed cheeks were because of the sex she was anticipating having with Dad at some stage.
‘Katie, I can take care of myself. Stop worrying.’
‘I can’t, it’s all too much. I can’t get my head around the fact you’re’ – I dared not say dating – ‘seeing Dad again.’ There was a time, after the blackness, a good time – a time that lasted many years – when Mum had hated Dad. I missed those years.
‘But it’s not just that. It’s Lexi and her hair, the condom. She’s locked herself in her room. I don’t know what to do anymore.’
‘You were like that once. ’
‘I never cut my hair and never had condoms in my pencil case. She’s thirteen.’
‘True, but it’s only hair, sweetheart. It’ll grow back.’
‘And the condom?’
‘A silly joke.’
‘If I’d done that…’
‘Different standards. Times have changed. She’s testing boundaries.’
‘Understatement.’ I rolled my eyes and swigged my wine. I couldn’t believe fourteen years ago I’d looked into Matthew’s loving eyes (as they were at the time) and said, ‘Let’s make a baby’ in the overly optimistic naive voice of a woman in lust. Bingo! Nine months later I was in labour. Fool! A couple of minutes thinking about the consequences of such a rash decision would have made all the difference.
I jumped when the doorbell rang. ‘You said you were meeting him at the restaurant.’
Mum placed her glass on the table. ‘I thought we were.’ She picked up her coat and handbag and we stood for a moment listening to the sound of the front door being opened. Then voices and laughter. Bloody Lexi!
‘Hurry up then.’ I pushed her into the hallway. I’d seen Dad infrequently over the past twenty-five years, the most recent occasion being three years ago, by accident, at a relative’s funeral. I’d only agreed to go as the family representative because I assumed he wouldn’t be there. For the excruciating five and a half minutes I spent talking to him at the wake, my stomach had been in knots. I’d felt so disloyal to Mum.
When Dad left all those years ago, I blamed myself for the break-up. Mum was a mess, and because I was the eldest child, I took it upon myself to remove every photo of Dad in the house. I no longer considered him part of our family. It took me hours – we were a very snap-happy clan. I thought I was doing the right thing, but it backfired.
Mum flew into a rage when she finally crawled out of bed. What did you do that for ? she demanded. Where are all the family photos? I remember the scene like it was yesterday. I put them away to protect you, us , I told her. Well, put them back exactly where they were , she said. He’s still your father . After everything he’d done, she still wanted photos of him on mantelpieces, sideboards and hanging in the entrance hall. It took two years before his pictures were permanently removed from sight.
Who’d have thought more than two decades later, Dad would be in my home calling to take Mum out to dinner? My stomach was in knots again. I could see my father standing in the doorway with Lexi. They were still laughing.
‘Grandpa says I look exactly like you when you were my age,’ Lexi said to me as I crept behind Mum. I was trying to hide behind her and not doing a very good job of it.
Dad walked over and held out his arms to me. ‘Darling, it’s been too long.’
‘Mmmm.’ I looked at him but refused to relax. Maybe his hair was thinner. At least it was greyer. Yet he still looked like my father – tall, fit and strong. The deserter. I pulled away.
When he embraced Mum, I couldn’t decide whether I was more repulsed or embarrassed. I was definitely horrified. Lexi giggled.
‘I see you’ve met Lexi.’
‘Last time I saw you, you were barely walking, Lexi,’ Dad said.
I frowned. ‘Whose fault is that?’
Mum glowered. ‘Katie!’
‘Please join us for dinner.’ Dad acted as if we were one big happy family who saw each other twice a week. ‘We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Pip? ’
‘We can’t,’ I said quickly. ‘Lexi has homework.’
‘Mu-u-m,’ Lexi whined.
‘Besides, Angus is already asleep.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Angus called from the top of the stairs.
‘Gussy, come down and meet Grandpa,’ Mum said.
Angus bounded down the stairs.
‘Let me look at you.’ Dad stretched out his arms.
‘How come I haven’t seen you before?’ Angus asked as Dad engulfed him in a bear hug. ‘Mum said we’ve only got one grandpa and he lives in Adelaide.’
‘Later, Gus,’ I said, waving him away.
‘Katie, I tried to stay in your life?—’
‘Now’s not the time,’ I said as Mum took hold of Dad’s hand. I needed a Scotch. A large one. And I don’t drink Scotch.
Suddenly I was a teenager again, watching as my parents prepared to leave for a neighbour’s dinner party.
Mum kissed me on the forehead. ‘Have a great night.’
I didn’t like the way Dad touched the small of her back as they were leaving. I shut the door and watched them through the window as I’d done many years earlier. In those days, Mum was always immaculately dressed, never without her pearls and high heels. Dad was always charming.
I watched as he opened the car door for Mum and held her hand as she climbed in. They were laughing. Tears streamed down my cheeks until long after they’d driven away.
Angus tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Butch is dead.’ He took my hand, and we walked over to the fish tank.
He was right. Butch was floating on his back, quite dead. I scooped him out of the water, and Angus and I carried him to the laundry toilet, where I conducted a quick but heartfelt funeral. After Angus played a few off-notes on his trumpet, we flushed the toilet together. Before leaving the room, I double-checked to make sure Butch really had flushed away .
‘Come on, Angus, let’s change the fish-tank water together.’ A longer activity than anticipated. For the next hour, Angus and I changed fishy water, adjusted filters and cleaned plastic seaweed. It kept my mind off Mum, Dad and Lexi. Almost. By the time we’d finished, the remaining five fish looked happy. At least they showed no visible signs of disease or despair.
At bedtime, I resisted the urge to correct Angus’s pronunciation as he read aloud from a book on dinosaurs and then, when I could resist no more, we started an audio book, The Mapmaker Chronicles: Race To The End Of The World.
‘Mum, do you think there’s a fish heaven?’
‘Probably.’ I kissed him and turned out his light. ‘Love you, Gussy.’
Then I knocked on my daughter’s door. ‘Lexi, you’re going to have to come out and talk to me sooner or later.’
‘Yeah…’
‘So when will you?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I love you – You know you can talk to me about anything. Don’t you?’ Silence. ‘Lexi?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Anything at all – sex, drugs, TikTok…’ But it was no use. Lexi refused to step out of her room. Even though I was angry, part of me envied her. She was free. Unburdened by responsibilities and worries about the future. She was free to express herself, regardless of whom she offended.
But then, was she? Maybe Lexi wasn’t as free as I wished she was. Cyber-bullying, boyfriend worries, and the general school and friendship angst that few teens could escape. So much worse now that iPhones could record a person’s every move and upload a video within seconds for the world to view. A permanent recording. I briefly thought about Robyn. No one was immune.