Chapter 27 Another Life
ANOTHER LIFE
Ronnie shuffled outside, cupped her hand around the phone. “Oi. Can you pick me up?” Reg helped Rainbow with her math homework at the dining room table. Rainbow corrected him every time he solved an equation differently than Nev would have.
Nev sounded exasperated. “Gumball has to be your priority right now. Stop calling me.”
“After she falls asleep.”
“What do you imagine life will be like if you get every other week with her?”
“I’ll get used to it.”
“Stop running away from her.”
“I’m not. I’m here all the time.”
“Don’t perpetuate the cycle of abandonment.” Nev was right, as usual. Irritating. “Go play with her.”
She can be kind of a lot, if you haven’t noticed. “Being around kids is exhausting.”
The familiar roar of the large Kubota’s engine carried through the phone. Nev was riding a tractor. Probably fertilizing the hayfields with lime. “Wait until she’s a teenager. I’ve been meaning to ask. When you sleep over at my place, is it a Freudian thing?”
Ronnie swallowed, looked out at the pool and the dry grass in her dad’s garden. She puffed out her cheeks, made a popping sound with her lips. She scratched a bug bite on the back of her arm. “What is that again?”
“Never mind,” Nev said. “I don’t want anyone to get their feelings hurt.”
“I like you. It’s not that complicated.” She winced. “Am I taking advantage of you?”
Nev snorted. “Pretty sure it’s the other way around.”
Ronnie didn’t know what that meant, only that Nev wasn’t coming.
Saturday night, after Rainbow fell asleep, Ronnie texted Nev a picture of Rainbow asleep against her side. The girl was wearing pale purple pajamas with fluffy white clouds on them.
(Nev) Good job, mama.
(Ronnie) What’s on for tomorrow?
(Nev) For you, nada. I’m driving up to Mareeba to meet a potential buyer and give them a test bale. I’ll leave after smoko. Might pay some bills. Could take Uni out if it doesn’t rain, check perimeter fence for fallen trees. If it rains, I’ll change the oil on the Kubota.
(Ronnie) My hero
(Nev) Go to sleep.
(Ronnie) Miss you
(Nev) No you don’t. I don’t do codependent shite.
Ronnie didn’t answer. Eventually her phone vibrated again.
(Nev) Sorry. There was nothing wrong with what you wrote. I miss you, too. Ennio Morricone and champagne make me emotional.
(Ronnie) What’s the occasion? Are we celebrating?
(Nev) Not exactly.
Oh right. May was dicey for Nev, a continuation of April, heavy with anniversaries. The genocide had lasted one hundred days. Ronnie had read that somewhere.
(Ronnie) Sorry
(Nev) No worries.
(Ronnie) Wish I was there
(Nev) Enjoy your kid. She’s growing up too fast.
(Ronnie) Love you
Ronnie waited, holding her breath, resisting the urge to touch the black screen in her hand until after it vibrated. She felt silly for waiting. Her brain felt like a free throw from the sideline, frozen in mid-air. Her phone buzzed.
(Nev) Love you.
The ball unfroze, play resumed.
Reg came in and kissed her head. He had been doing that lately, which would annoy her normally, but for the moment it was nice. “Who are you texting?”
Ronnie set the phone on the bedside table.
“Ah,” Reg said. He sat on the bed. “We like her. Is she emotionally available, though?”
Ronnie shrugged.
Reg rubbed her feet. “You guys talk about ex-boyfriends or girlfriends?”
She shook her head.
He raised his eyebrows. “Friends talk about that stuff.”
“Nev doesn’t.”
“Maybe she’s asexual.”
“I doubt it.”
“You might want to ask her. Before you go too far down that road.”
Ronnie shrugged. Her dad hadn’t grilled her like this about any of her casual hookups.
“You guys have been getting a lot closer recently. You’ve been focusing on her instead of asking Maude how she feels about giving you your parental rights back. It’s a distraction. You’re procrastinating.”
She frowned. “I think, in another life, she and I would have been together.”
Reg blinked, then laughed awkwardly. “That’s some depressing shite.”
Her face burned. “I just meant…” What had she meant, exactly? “I want to find someone exactly like her who loves me the way she does. I want to work with her forever. Or at least see her every day. Ideally, we’d live together.”
Reg chuckled. “I hope this is your way of saying you have a crush on her, not internalized homophobia that’s gonna haunt you for the rest of your life and prevent you from ever finding true happiness.”
“Um, no,” Ronnie said. “The first one.”
He looked relieved and let out a deep sigh. The foot massage he was giving her felt nice. “Talk to her. Relationships don’t have to be murky. They can be straightforward and out in the open. You don’t have to sneak around.”
She hadn’t experienced a healthy relationship like that. She had never brought a partner home to her parents. Maybe Nev would be the first, if that was the direction this was headed.
Reg was right. She should find out.
“Call Maude,” he said.
“I will.” Eventually.
Tuesday night Nev picked her up and drove her to a theremin concert at the Anglican church.
The woman playing the theremin was a middle-aged white woman in a yellow sundress and a grey shrug.
Without smiling, she raised her hands in the air like she was a conductor and the audience was the orchestra.
The instrument was a metal stick protruding from a wooden box plugged into the wall with a bright orange extension cord half-hidden by a rug.
Her hands hovered, one at chest-height, the other a little higher.
One was closed, as if pulling an invisible string, the other open, pushing something away.
It reminded Ronnie a little bit of the tai-chi she had seen older people doing at parks near the beach.
The audience watched, transfixed, as the woman used her hands to make the instrument, which must have been some kind of receiver, howl and warble.
The sound was more like music than Ronnie had expected it to be.
It was actually pleasant, like watching a magician play an invisible harp.
It sounded like a flute or a bird, mixed with a synthesizer.
It peeped and trilled, but most of all it whooped and whipped up and down the scale like a slide whistle.
Most impressive, though, were the times when the musician hit clear single notes, on key, not pitchy at all, without a trace of a slide into true.
She must have known exactly where the notes were in the air, the way violinists know where to put their fingers on the strings. Precision like that took practice.
During the intermission, concertgoers milled around the church cemetery at dusk.
“My dad likes you,” Ronnie said.
Nev pulled overgrown grass from around a random headstone. “Oh?”
“He respects you.”
Nev lit up, then offered her the pack.
Ronnie shook her head. “We’re quitting, remember?”
“After this one.”
She held out her hand for the lit cigarette, then stubbed it out. “The pack.” Nev handed it over reluctantly. Ronnie threw it in a waste bin. “Healthy living from now on. We’re reformed.”
Nev said nothing, continuing to weed the gravestones from the 1800s, revealing willow trees and winged death’s heads, angels of death.
“Looking for anyone?”
“No.”
“Are you asexual?” Ronnie asked.
“Not as far as I know. Why?”
“My dad was wondering.”
Nev snorted. “You told him.”
“What?”
“That we spoon. Is he creeped out?”
“No. Why would he be?” Ronnie asked. “He likes you.”
“You tell me. It’s creepy. I’m your boss.”
“Yeah, but you’re not like that kind of boss,” Ronnie said.
“You’re not like, in a position of power.
You don’t manipulate me or make me do things for money.
” Gravestones of a family. Mother, father, and three children.
Influenza epidemic, 1919. It had unfairly targeted the young.
“Why do we never talk about personal stuff?”
“What do you mean I’m not in a position of power over you? I have more everything than you do. This isn’t an equal dynamic. I wish it was, but it isn’t. We’re not in the same stage of life. We’re not holding the same number of cards.”
“I think you’re wrong about that. You’re like, skint, and have no friends, mate. You’re not some big CEO with a corner office, babe. My dad thinks it’s odd we don’t talk about sex.”
“Why would we?”
“I don’t know. Friends talk about personal stuff.”
“We talk about personal stuff.” Nev laughed nervously.
Ronnie scuffed the grass with the toe of her Blundstones. “I have a crush on you.”
Nev frowned, pink rising through her neck and ears.
Ronnie picked a blade of grass that had gone to seed, chewed on it. “Do you have a crush on me?”
Nev looked like she would rather be getting a root canal.
“Jesus Christ, Dain’y.” The Tablelands were open-minded on account of the rich greenies who retired here from Sydney for the weather and waterfalls, but Queensland was still the most conservative state.
“If I did, I couldn’t tell you because of workplace ethics.
But I’d probably act the way I’m acting now, so conclude what you will. ”
Not direct enough.
“Have you ever been in a relationship?”
Nev nodded.
Thank god. This would have been awkward if she hadn’t.
“I’m guessing you’ve been in the closet your whole life.”
Nev shrugged. “I was and I wasn’t.”
“You have zero interest in this conversation.”
“Correct.”
“With anyone or with me?”
“What are you asking, Dain’y? How is it your dad’s business what we talk about, hmm? Am I talking to you or your dad?” Nev wasn’t usually defensive; something Ronnie said must have struck a nerve.
Ronnie felt bad. “I don’t usually tell him things.” I don’t tell him everything.
Nev rubbed her forehead, then folded her arms, looking miserable. “I’m not asking you to keep secrets from him.”
Don’t freak out. It’s just me.
“He doesn’t want me to shag you,” Nev said.
Peggy Collins chose that moment to walk up the stone steps into the chapel. Nev held the heavy door for her. “G’day, engaged lady.”