Chapter 6
In and of itself, it is not my brother’s arrival causing this, but rather the week, the exhaustive list of planned neighbourhood events, the expectations, the lack of downtime.
Dr Montague and social media have educated me around autistic burnout, giving me an understanding of why I can no longer do many things that used to be part of my regular routine.
I have regressed, in clinical terms, or crashed out, to use more fitting internet language.
What I previously understood as my own rudeness and inadequacy, I now know as signals of distress.
Capacity outmatched by expectations, never a fair fight.
Social undertakings are the hardest, the simple act of being around people draining nearly every drop of self I have worked hard to collect.
There is a hole in my bucket, dear Liza.
And every recovery period feels harder than the last, never quite bringing me back to my prior energetic starting point.
I have genuine fears I may one day end up a melted pile of human remains, identified only by my dental records.
But, one must continue on, hold on to hope despite all evidence.
Stop being such a self-indulgent little shit.
I hoist my tired limbs out of bed, motivating myself with the thought of tiny fingers, auburn curls.
When the warmth of the shower water cascades over my hunched shoulders, I try to imagine the stress of the day washing away with it.
Breaths like circles, around and around.
Yes, I am remembering, Dr Montague, even if you still have not replied to my email.
All of these tools she gave me seem like toys sometimes – colourful distractions to keep my little mind occupied while the real stuff happens somewhere else.
I try to imagine my existence at literally any other point in history, and how quickly I might have come to an ill-fated end.
Peasant Nora definitely died before puberty, of that I can be sure.
Turning the shower off is almost as difficult as getting in.
I dress my damp body and have a ‘ghost in the machine’ kind of flash, as though I am watching this person from the inside as she struggles to put her legs into her leggings without falling.
It scares me enough to squeeze my eyes shut until I am fully dressed, which makes the whole endeavour take twice as long, but I feel more fused together when I am done, so it is worth the effort.
Leggings fulfil their promise to keep everything compressed.
The kitchen is empty when I finally make my way upstairs. Sun streams in and the rays catch my feet as I slide across the floorboards in my socks. Always socks – my feet need protecting. I need protecting. And it is fun to slide, that does not change with age.
‘Morning.’
Olivia is pressed and ready for the day like Mum’s favourite tablecloth, greeting me without looking my way.
I watch her for a moment, trying to see her clearly – her experience of being alive.
She is throwing back tablets with a glass of chilled water, and Maeve is tottering around her feet in a bright onesie, chasing the dust dancing in the light, her curls matted at the back in an adorable bedhead nest.
‘Morning, Maeve,’ I say, that new voice back again.
She smiles a shy smile and points to Gary, who is lying face down on the couch. It is not the first time I have felt kinship with or a desire to be a soft toy.
‘Morning, Gary,’ I call.
Olivia laughs. The unease I expect is nowhere to be felt. We are convening, we are doing the thing. I pour my own glass of water, riding that high, and manage to spill half the contents down the front of my T-shirt. I needed to be humbled, lest I become too inflated by my own social success.
‘Where are Mum and Dad?’ I ask.
‘Dad has been sent to pull the dead leaves out of the agapanthus and Mum is changing the bedspread in Luke’s room. Again.’
Olivia contemplates the contents of the fridge and settles on strawberries for her breakfast. She chops them into small pieces in a small bowl, ready to fuel her small stomach.
Though she has issues with food portion sizes, a gift from our mother, she does not seem to struggle with variety or regularity as I do.
I wonder how many different types of food she can eat, and I try not to feel jealous.
There are always more reasons to envy Olivia, and I am bored of all of them.
I want to connect with the person in front of me, rather than continuing to build on the version in my head shaped purely around my own feelings of inadequacy.
‘Did you speak to him much when you were in London?’ I ask.
It is odd to envision the inter-personal relationships of my family members away from myself.
We are not the best at being together, but I know there are more harmonious groupings within this unit, like Mum and Olivia, or Dad and Luke.
Those pairings seem to work quite well. Perhaps Maeve and I might one day be added to that list.
‘Not that much – I called him on birthdays and sent him photos of British stuff like the palace and London Bridge. Sometimes I’d text if I was thinking of him, but he’s become all about his job. Like Dad, I guess. I spoke to Laura more – well, for a while there.’
‘Not anymore?’
‘Not anymore. I’m surprised she’s coming, that’s all I’ll say.’
There it is, another implication – this one entry-level, very nearly totally spelled out as an explicit statement for the benefit of an amateur like me.
There is trouble in Luke’s marriage to Laura.
Easy, understood. I lean against the sink and bite into a green apple, contemplating what else I can eat before my appetite is killed by the humidity, and the fact that Luke and I do not communicate at all.
Not photos of Melbourne stuff, or Sydney stuff; no birthday phone calls or ‘just thinking of you’ messages.
In my mind, our relationship existed in childhood but neither of us put in the effort to transition it to our current, adult lives.
We have never been a potential pairing. I may remember parts of his past and how he acted at certain moments as a child, but I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me, and there does not seem to be anyone at fault, but I still feel a little angry about it anyway.
He is older; isn’t that a bit more his job?
Luke met Laura at uni and they have been together ever since, but this will be the first time Laura has been to the family home.
The yearly cycle of viruses, floods (here) and fires (there) gave them probable cause for a registry wedding in Sydney (only two close friends there to witness), and Luke’s work in finance seems to surge any time there has been mention of them visiting, a pattern I cannot be the only one who notices.
Nobody is saying anything direct about that; nobody ever says anything direct. I settle next on toast.
I eat slowly as Olivia fills me in on her most recent communications with Luke, and the fact that he has booked a car from the airport to bring him here this morning.
Not a taxi, not an Uber, but a private personal driver.
I cannot imagine this version of him – work-obsessed, married, a job in finance, a real adult arriving home in a nondescript luxury car driven by – probably – a man in a suit and a hat and little white gloves.
My imagination runs away with the visuals, comedic exaggeration a little respite.
There is a red carpet, and then a French horn.
It must all be for Laura, and I wonder what her family home is like.
None of us have been there, but the way Mum talks about the way Luke talks about his Sydney life, the fragment filtered through her perception, our middle-class comfort may as well be feudal peasantry compared to his work colleagues’ upbringings, laden with trust funds, family estates, and surnames that match those on street signs and university buildings and monuments.
Hence the agapanthus, because they line the front fence and the driveway, and Laura might just ask that man in the top hat, monocle, and tails to turn right around if she sees even a hint of brown foliage.
‘Do you think he got fake teeth?’
I am now scrolling Luke’s page, trying to get an understanding of the adult version of the child who was my brother.
I zoom in on a photo of him and Laura, seemingly taken on a boat in Sydney Harbour.
His teeth seem substantially larger than they used to be, even when accounting for the child to adult tooth-size trajectory.
‘They’re not fake teeth, they’re veneers,’ Olivia replies, rolling her eyes as though I am the one who is being ludicrous in this situation.
Something has shifted in her energy. I get a sense of my morning walks with Elsie.
‘What’s the difference?’
‘They’re a totally different thing.’
She does not seem to care to elaborate, but is instead massaging her temples, her eyes closed. I have offended the very idea of veneers by calling them fake teeth, despite the fact that, from what I can tell, that is exactly what they are.
‘Well, they look weird.’
‘Don’t say that to Luke, he’s sensitive about his looks.’
‘Is he?’
‘Of course he is. The tiny teeth and weird chin – he’s got a total complex about them.’
I am conscious of her tone, now mocking and dismissive, and wonder whether it was a conversation with this version of Olivia that brought about the not-fake teeth, and if there has been some kind of alteration made to the chin as well.
It does not look weird to me, at least not in this photo.
Maybe there is a filter. I make a mental note to assess the real thing.
Maybe chins are something we should all be more worried about.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask, cautious.