Chapter 7
Luke and I do not cross paths again until late afternoon.
He catches me by surprise while I am convening with the raised vegetable beds, the perfect place to be alone and detach from uncomfortable feelings whilst also removing grasshoppers from the kale and lettuce that they are relentlessly demolishing. Plants have a way of quieting things.
‘How’s it going out here?’ he says, surveying the herbs and produce.
‘Pretty good,’ I reply, continuing my pest control as though my entire nervous system has not just activated in response to his unexpected appearance.
‘You know, I could make a call, put in a good word for you at the pub – they’re always looking for extra kitchen and wait staff around the holidays.’
‘I’m okay, thank you.’
Luke scoffs. Never have I heard someone scoff so often. He is the chairman of the scoffing society. I continue searching for hungry small green insects.
‘You’re too good to work hospitality, is that it?’
It is my turn to scoff, though I do not have the energy for a good one. It is a rather pathetic scoff, if I am being honest – scoff-worthy in and of itself. I would not even make the committee.
‘No. I would be terrible at it, though,’ I reply.
He laughs and says: ‘You’re not wrong there.’
‘I know.’
Something about my agreeing with him, or the way in which I do it, seems to aggravate him further.
‘I’m trying to help you, you know. Mum and Dad are doing you no favours letting you mooch around here doing nothing.’
I continue gardening, now starting on the weeds and nutgrass that quickly spread out of control, strangling our edible plants during the warmer months.
It is wild how winter is now the best season for growing; that cannot be a good sign, climate-wise.
I relocate some of the marigold seedlings that have sprouted up, seeds that must have lain dormant since last year’s warmest season.
They are good at their job of repelling pests and attracting pollinators.
I think about being a marigold, hiding deep in the soil until the conditions are right for me to thrive.
‘Hey, are you even listening? You can’t expect to be able to do nothing forever.’
Even as I become aware of how this interaction is escalating, I do not feel part of it.
It is happening to someone else, somewhere nearby.
I am alert to potential danger, but aware or perhaps not aware enough to know I have little control over how things will unfold.
Much like the grasshoppers, who must sense I am trying to catch them, I stay still.
My world is tiny, green buds rising from dark earth.
‘You really have lost the plot, then,’ he says, continuing his mission to get something from me, the essence of which remains a mystery.
No sudden movements; I find the secateurs to trim the parsley plants that are beginning to go to seed.
‘Ignore me all you want; everyone agrees. I told Mum I would help you get work, but I’ll let her know you’re not interested in my help.’
‘Okay, you let her know,’ I reply.
I am aware that my doing poorly, being out of myself, is the reason I am not able to engage with this conversation, but I may have also accidentally stumbled upon the healthiest way to respond to this version of my brother.
To find myself so sick I have become well, all the way around like a circle – what a bloody miracle.
Or maybe it is avoidance, because I know I will get my feelings hurt interacting with someone who does not have the capacity or inclination to see any other view than their own.
It is a knot I cannot brush out, so I save myself the effort of trying.
After saying a few more things at me, Luke goes to get ready for tonight’s event, leaving me to my garden work.
I take myself to a place where my garden work is appreciated.
Mum and Dad come out to admire all of the effort I have put into the garden beds they have not had time to maintain.
‘You’ve transformed them,’ Mum says, taking time to admire the careful way I have wired each tomato plant to allow for maximum sun to reach the fruit.
‘Well done, sweetie. It’s never looked so good,’ Dad adds.
I pick them snow peas and green beans to snack on, and run some of my plans for further planting past them.
‘I was thinking we could add an archway, and I could grow passionfruit vines around it, so it feels like a secret garden,’ I say.
‘I could build you an arch,’ Dad suggests.
‘You loved that book,’ Mum says with a smile.
We mark out the space for the arch, and Dad promises he will go to the nursery to pick up two new plants later on. They can see that my being out here is helpful, healing. I am so thrilled they are pleased.
The white car pulls into the driveway next door and I am back in my body, skin alight.
I cannot help but stare, and then catch myself, trying to find an angle for my face that allows me to continue watching through peripheral vision.
The car comes to a stop, and the driver door opens.
I see slides, tan legs, a polo shirt, and a cropped head of hair emerge.
Each detail is a further affront to the memories I harbour, until I realise it is Martin I am observing.
My shoulders loosen, and my attention returns to the plants.
‘Nora, is that you? The prodigal daughter returns.’
I look up with my best effort at feigned surprise. Martin is standing at the fence line, one hand on his hip and the other shielding his eyes from the sun.
‘Oh, hey Martin,’ I say, giving a small wave.
I turn the nozzle of the hose to give the plants another round of watering; it will not hurt in this weather. If I keep my feet rooted to the spot, our relative distance will limit the depth and hopefully length of conversation that is thrust upon me.
‘I didn’t know you were home. Back for Christmas, then? Olivia and Luke as well?’
He is not taking the hint, only projecting his voice louder to continue our chat.
‘Yep, the gang’s all here. And you?’
‘Ah yeah, just the week, not like Fran. Have you caught up with him? I’m not sure he knows you’re home.’
‘Not yet.’
‘I can send him over now if you like – might be the only thing that’ll get him out of his room.’
I turn off the hose and shift to face Martin, trying my best to remain in one piece.
‘We’ve got a bit on today. Luke’s just arrived and Olivia’s daughter Maeve is keeping us all busy, but I’m sure we will see each other soon,’ I say in my own Netflix voice, trying to maintain a vagueness I am not well versed in.
‘Fair enough, fair enough. Your mum must be thrilled having everyone back. We’ll see you all tonight at the Kingstons’ do anyway, yeah?’
‘Yeah. See you then.’
Martin turns and heads inside, duck-footed and slow.
This kind of chit-chat is clearly neither a problem nor of much importance to him, and yet it has derailed the rest of my afternoon.
How dare he. I am cursing him for being such an annoying interruption, at the same time acknowledging that his maintaining light conversation for a few short moments was not necessarily a direct attack on my emotional and mental wellbeing.
At least not an intentional one. I had forgotten, or failed to acknowledge in the first place, that one of our scheduled neighbourhood festivities might be the time I am most likely to encounter Fran.
And, more specifically, that the street party is tonight.
Another birthday party is brought to mind – my own, at our house, when I turned thirteen.
It felt as though I had no choice, because the other girls from school all had birthday parties at their homes when they turned thirteen, some of them old faces and some new, and they did not ask me if I was having one, only when.
It was a tricky time, feeling everything, knowing nothing, and looking to the wrong people to fill in the blanks.
There was rarely a moment I did not feel as though I was half a step behind, flailing in their wake.
It would be years before I understood that I did not enjoy being celebrated in this kind of way.
Spending time with friends is a lovely idea, in theory, but actually being friends would be a good starting point.
Also, everyone’s eyes need to be focused on something else, together – eyes pointed at me, especially in great numbers, is unbearable in practice.
There are parts of this memory I revisit more than others, but I do my best now to recall the entire scene.
Six girls from my class came along, and I can only remember the names of four, mostly because of the bloody footprints they left through my adolescence or that I would later tread through theirs.
The two that remain unnamed got out unscathed.
Dad hung silver balloons and streamers around the deck and Mum set the most beautiful table of blues and whites that I had ever seen.
If the party had ended there, with Mum and Dad busy making my quiet world beautiful, and the balloons and streamers and the blue hydrangeas and the white daisies, and me getting to sit in silence watching it all come together, my heart would have been full.
The moments that came before the main event – my favourite.
Much like at Poppy’s pool party, the chasm between what I was expected to enjoy and what I actually did was hard to comprehend, and so I believed if I squashed myself into the discomfort of expectations enough times, they would become more enjoyable.
Is that not what ‘fake it ’til you make it’ means?
Apparently, some people do not take this phrase so literally.
Meanwhile, I never made it past faking it.