Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER
26
When my mother calls on Wednesday morning, I consider not answering, but that’s the kind of thing she always does. I put aside a saddle and pick up.
‘Hey, Mum. How are you?’
She liked to be called ‘Mummy’ when I was a child. But after I started school, I worked out few children of six or even five called their mother Mummy, and I started to call her Mum. ‘If you won’t call me Mummy,’ she’d say, ‘call me Clementine.’
‘You know I don’t answer to that, darling.’
‘Have you been given the final figures for the fundraiser?’
‘We raised three thousand dollars more than last year.’
‘That’s great. Thank you.’
A tinkling laugh. ‘If you’d really wanted to thank me, Mackenzie, you wouldn’t have run away. You would have stayed until the end of the party.’
‘Before I left, I thanked everyone who came.’
‘You’re twenty …’
‘Seven.’
‘Mature enough to engage with the media. Why not tell everyone about the documentary?’
‘It was irrelevant to why I was there.’ I tip the saddle over, check the stitching on the gullet. ‘Anyway, I’m not a public speaker.’
‘Kit Thorsen rose to the occasion.’
The saddle slips off my knee with a clunk. ‘Good on him.’
‘I’ve booked you in for media training. It might be a challenge at first, but Susannah is brilliant.’
‘What?’
‘It will get you used to the camera. Kit is supportive of it.’
‘He said that?’ When I swallow, it hurts.
‘Like me, he’s concerned you’ll be unable to manage the attention the documentary is bound to attract.’
‘I’ve already had media training. James Partridge helped me out.’
‘He’s a charming actor, granted, but not a coach. I honestly think—’
‘I’ve got work to do. I have to go.’
‘Kit knows you well, Mackenzie.’
‘Because he said I’m a crap media performer?’
‘That was just the start.’
‘What else?’
A delicate huff. ‘I couldn’t possibly betray his confidence.’
I’ve abandoned the saddle and I’m sitting at the kitchen table searching for Kit in my contacts when Keith Urban appears in the doorway. As if knowing I’m reluctant to press ‘call’, he lies down with his head on his paws and sympathetically looks up.
‘The Viking deserves the benefit of the doubt,’ I explain with more confidence than I feel. Kit’s phone rings once, twice—
‘Mackenzie.’
‘Why did you talk to my mother about me? I’ve told you before, she’s to have nothing to do with the documentary.’
A short hesitation. ‘What has she said?’
‘What’s your version?’
‘We agreed you’re intelligent and beautiful.’
Throat tight, I get up from the chair, stand at the window, stare through the glass without seeing. ‘Stay away from her.’
‘It was after the party. I didn’t talk. She did.’
‘Walk away!’
‘She’ll find another way to get to you. It’s better to know what she’s thinking.’
Like it’d be better to know what the person searching for my father’s film was thinking. Should I tell him? Can I trust him? Do I—
‘Mackenzie?’
‘You haven’t given me all of Dad’s film yet. There are more photographs, aren’t there? And videos.’
‘You’ll have to download software. I need to explain.’
‘Can’t you do that now?’
‘I’ve got commitments for the rest of the week. Can I come to the saddlery next Tuesday?’
When my thoughts scatter, I scoop them up. ‘Five o’clock?’
‘Morning or afternoon?’
I bite back a retort. ‘Afternoon.’
‘Mackenzie.’ Another hesitation. ‘What did Clementine say?’
‘I avoid facing up to things. I run away. I’m no good with media.’ ‘You lack confidence.’
I press my head against the window. ‘Do you always have an answer?’
He mutters something under his breath. ‘English is your language, not mine.’
‘Your English is perfect.’
‘I’m fluent in Norwegian. Also German. Not English.’
‘I can’t …’ Articulate words? Confabulate? ‘We’re different, Kit.’
‘You won’t accept help.’
It’s in his nature to be careful, to balance the positives and negatives, the plusses and minuses. According to Chloe, he was with his mother when she was injured. Reading between the lines of what Erik said, he felt responsible for the doctor who broke his leg in Antarctica. He feels responsible for people he works with generally. Even so …
I squeeze my eyes shut. Push off the window. ‘I can look after myself.’
***
‘Don’t tell me there’s nothing the matter when there is.’ Grandpa inches backwards, finding a corner of the chair where he can be more comfortable. The carer has draped a sheet over the stand and bag so there’s nothing to see, but he hates not only the appearance of the catheter, inserted a few days ago to assist with the treatment of a bladder infection, but the additional restriction to movement. ‘Is it the documentary?’
‘Astrid and Erik do the planning. All I have to do is show up.’
‘How are you getting on with the snow bloke?’
I’ve kissed him again. We’ve argued again. I haven’t seen him in weeks and I’ve missed him. ‘Much the same. I talked to him last Wednesday. He’s coming to the saddlery tomorrow.’
‘I don’t want you upset.’
Plates and lids clink on a trolley as it’s wheeled down the corridor. ‘He rides a motorcycle. That doesn’t help.’
Grandpa scratches his head. ‘Is there anything else troubling you?’
‘Mum keeps calling. Last Wednesday and Friday and then again this morning. Three times in a week.’
He winces. ‘What did she have to say?’
‘The usual.’ An attempt at a smile. ‘I was a disappointment.’
‘Never to me, Mary Mackenzie. Never to me.’ Grandpa’s skin is mottled and thin, but there’s strength in his grip when he takes my hand. ‘Best to put Clementine out of your mind if she’s not got good to say about you.’
I run away. I avoid things. When my vision blurs, I pretend an interest in the view from Grandpa’s window. Two ribbons of children in burgundy and gold stream into classrooms. A pair of lorikeets hang upside down from a banksia that grows near the school fence.
‘Mackenzie?’ He pats my hand. ‘Tell me what’s the matter, love.’
‘I’m fine, Grandpa, really.’ A brave smile. ‘There’s nothing for you to worry about.’