Chapter 21 #2
Mum is connected to that thread, too; she always has been.
She has remained on her path of avoidance, her judgement of others a protective factor.
Perhaps it is so important to keep those people over there, like I once might have done with Brent Roberts, because she herself can feel the tug of that thread.
And maybe my judgement of her keeps my mind from turning in on itself, my own protective factor.
Are we so different, then? If her judgement is directed towards those who live in her town, while I reserve mine for those to whom I am blood-related?
If there is one thing I appear to have inherited from my mother, it is avoidance.
Fran appears at the far end of the street, and I wave wildly above my head to try and get his attention.
For a second I think he catches sight of me, but then he turns and does not react, so I guess not.
Luke grimaces at me, as though I have embarrassed myself by waving at a friend.
We have differing views of what should bring about embarrassment.
Olivia falls back into step with us, a glass of wine in her hand that she did not have before.
‘Where did that come from?’ Luke asks.
Olivia points across the street, in a direction so general it barely attempts to be an answer. Her eyes are unfocused and her balance is definitely off. I wave her away when she tries to take the pram back.
‘It’s fine, I’ve got it,’ I reply.
‘Maeve is not an “it”,’ she says, though all jumbled together into one almost incomprehensible word.
‘I meant the pram . . .’
‘She’s my child, not yours,’ Olivia says, anger flaring out of nowhere.
She yanks the pram handles from my hands, glass still in hers, and nearly topples Maeve over in the process.
‘Ease up there, mate,’ Luke says, with an embarrassed expression on his face. I watch his armour re-emerging.
‘Fuck off,’ Olivia replies, in a voice raised enough to signal danger to my nervous system, and perhaps even to those around us as well.
This deviation from the set course has Mum’s attention.
‘Liv,’ she scolds, with a smile, as she looks around to see if anyone has overheard.
‘I’m enjoying a glass of wine on Christmas Eve with my family, so shoot me,’ Olivia replies, gesturing with the hand that has the wine in it, and managing to pour half of it down the front of her dress.
‘My guess is it’s been a little more than one glass,’ Luke adds, performing again, and helping no one.
‘Let’s start heading home,’ Mum says, her voice now clipped and level.
We turn as a group but Olivia does not. I am exhilarated by her lack of compliance.
She has never made more sense to me than she does right now, with the culmination of everything I have observed and learned about her these past few days.
Rooted to the spot, one hand on the pram, one hand still holding a nearly empty wine glass, she is looking up to the sky as though she is admiring the stars. Perhaps she is astral projecting.
‘Do you want to go home and get your jammies on, Maeve?’ Mum changes tack by addressing her grandchild directly, and this approach has me holding my breath.
‘I think the neighbourhood has seen enough Byrne family drama for the night,’ Luke adds, now a breakfast radio presenter, apparently.
I do not know who he is performing for but it is not doing us any favours as the receiving assembly, other than to signify he has no qualms going for the upper hand himself when it suits.
If I were ever to betray his confidence, it would be now, to implore him back to the humanity I glimpsed.
Having already had my say about his character, I remain silent, while Olivia takes two deep breaths, in, holding, out, and resets her face.
‘We don’t even know how to act like real people,’ she mutters, defeat in her voice.
I wait for her to add to that statement, though I do not disagree. Luke scoffs, for a change, any sign of lingering compassion now quickly rendered and sealed away, while Mum looks alarmed.
‘Are you feeling alright?’ Mum asks, perhaps unable to comprehend that anyone might think she is not doing a stand-up job at the ‘being a real person’ act she has been perfecting for a lifetime.
‘Let’s go home, Maeve needs to get to bed,’ Olivia replies, and she marches ahead.
‘I’m not tired,’ Maeve protests through sleepy eyes.
By the time we get to the top of our street, Maeve is asleep. Mum’s jaw is set and Olivia is walking at a languid pace. I do not know what to think. About these people, about this week.
‘Well, that was a fun night,’ Luke says in his broadcast voice.
Olivia stops again.
‘Has anyone, ever, in your entire life, told you that not talking is an option?’ she asks. ‘You know that you can shut the fuck up any time, for free, right?’
I want to laugh and I want to cry. It is almost comforting to see the cracks starting to spread; this breach of normality no longer starts and ends with me.
There is tension elsewhere, under the surface of other smiling faces.
I would rather the group at least acknowledges it.
First, we need to name the problem, folks.
These momentary flecks of truth unable to be contained are seeds I wish to plant.
Yes, it can be messy, and my body does not know how to react when someone steps outside the lines of our family’s social contract.
But I could adjust, we all could. It no longer works for any of us to pretend every dysfunctional, dysregulated moment does not exist or is someone else’s fault, because keeping up appearances is a Ponzi scheme, destined for collapse.
Perhaps there is hope in that. Anything is better than feeling like the only person who is aware of the atmospheric pressure changes or the poisonous gas seeping in.
I am the dead canary, and it would be nice if people stopped telling me to make more effort to fly.
The memories are bubbling up now, as though I have inadvertently tapped an aquifer that cannot be contained until the whole world is under water.
Unfathomably, by the following February, I was living on campus in Melbourne, starting my first year of university in an unknown city, studying for a Bachelor of Science – a degree with many elements I did not understand.
Fran had said the choice made sense to him – I loved birds – back when I had been planning to study a lot closer to home.
I probably stuck with it far longer than I otherwise would have because of his words, and his belief in them, even after I carved him out of my life and fled.
It makes no sense to me now that I did not speak to him about what had happened, with Elsie or between the two of us.
Not a single conversation, or even a text.
We were perfect, and then I disappeared from view.
Sometimes I want to scream at my past self for how poorly she handled things, to take that version of me and shake her as hard as I can by her shoulders.
Do better; be better. But hating her will not aid the finding of me now; it may even be part of what is stalling the process.
The best I can surmise about that time is that I had deprioritised my own interests and desires to the point I could not identify them anymore – far more important to be attuned to what other people might want from me.
I had to stop being bad and start being good.
I let my life be led by group consensus, and a clean slate was utterly irresistible.
There was pressure at home to make something of myself, to choose a degree or a TAFE course or a job, and this made as much sense as any of the other options.
I had talked it through with my parents before I graduated high school and they had helped me with the enrolment paperwork.
Brisbane was my first choice, Melbourne my third.
Dad felt some kind of way, as though his birdwatching with me as a child had paid off, and Mum seemed to be letting out one permanent exhale of relief.
She had done her duty; she had succeeded in her role.
All she had wanted was for me to be a finished product that reflected well on her craftsmanship.
After New Year’s, I had announced my desire to study interstate rather than in Brisbane, and they had helped again with the extra paperwork that brought.
The funds were there for on-campus living and I wanted to unburden everyone of my care.
I ploughed ahead without thinking, too tired to think, as though that is any kind of way to live.
I floated so as to avoid having to plant my feet in any one choice.
Promising to return for Christmas, if not before, I hopped on a flight and stared out of the window, dissociating, from take-off until landing, as if partaking in some kind of thought experiment and not an actual interstate relocation.
Living in a dorm was lonely, though perhaps not any lonelier than living anywhere else in that kind of mind-frame.
I find it hard to know how I feel about certain life choices when the act of choosing means I do not get to try any of the other options.
Everything is relative; this might have been the start of the worst time of my life, and also the best possible version of that same time.
And I did not even feel as though I had chosen this; it felt instead like one of my extended daydreams or something I had read about in a book.