Keep Her Sweet, page 5
After they’d finished with the photos, they made love on the sofa for at least three minutes and smiled on the drive home while singing to Simon and Garfunkel. As they entered Ballarat, they were holding hands.
CHAPTER SIX
The Second-Born
We swapped rooms. I’m on a mat on the floor now. The pottery wheel’s my bedside table. Loving the window btw, I can breathe, and there’s an excellent place in here to hide stuff. Can’t believe I found it. It’s incredible, my best secret ever – she must never find you! The Queen asked us all to pick three happy family photos to take to the next session. She’d never have guessed that this might be dangerous, but I knew I had to choose very carefully, and I did. When I got back from town (with this silent, smooth ballpoint pen, plus ingredients for carbonara and the goon sack of red wine Asha requested) I did everything in my power to be careful, selecting three shots that I looked terrible in. I didn’t damage the albums when I removed them, and I put them in a clean envelope to take to therapy, confident about my choices: two giggling toddlers on Grandma Moloney’s swing, two energetic pre-teens at the Preston pool, two dolled-up teenagers at Wes McDowell’s barbecue. My photo choices calmed me down, like the walk to town had, and I was happy when Asha came into my new pottery-wheeled bedroom, sentimental even, because I was remembering that we had nice times as children, mostly. Mum and/or Dad were around most of the time and stepped in if Asha lost her temper. Most of the time we looked out for each other, encouraged each other. Asha didn’t believe in speaking in tongues back then, and she wasn’t locked in a tiny house and didn’t drink wine all day and didn’t have a married ex-lover who hated her. Things were different. When Asha left to study at eighteen, I cried and cried. I couldn’t imagine life without her. It’s terrifying how things have changed.
‘What do you think you’re doing, ruining our old photo album?’ Asha barged in and said.
Her tone alerted me to the danger immediately.
‘I’ll put them back later,’ I told her, showing her the envelope and then the photos, which I thought would placate. She was always so pretty, Asha. I was always so proud of my big, beautiful, clever sister.
Alas – in the toddler photo Asha was chubby and I wasn’t (she ripped up the photo and tossed it in the bin). In the pre-teen photo she had a bather’s wedgie and I didn’t (she scrunched it, missed the bin, then made a fist). And in the young-adult barbecue one I had sunglasses on and she didn’t, which meant she was squinting and I wasn’t (she ripped it up but held on to it, standing over my bed, closer and closer, her back stiff, her teeth clenched). I am so dumb choosing the one at Wes McDowell’s barbecue. She’d fancied him for years and when he invited her she was so excited. We took hours getting her dolled up. But at some point during the event his best friend Henry Someone said something to Asha about me being a real looker. And Wes followed me around yapping about footy, he was so boring. Asha didn’t talk to me for at least one week after that.
I definitely won’t buy her red wine again – it goes the wrong way, like it does with Mum sometimes. Her voice changes and everyone is apparently out to get her, like me. I remained in the same position, lying on my gym mat, phone in hand, and suggested she go pray for a better personality. That was also the incorrect response. Her face went from red to white to grey. Her mouth area was green again. She began screaming that I was a selfish narcissist and a sponger and a blasphemer and that I was never going to be chosen, both her hands in fists now.
I may have asked why Gee-suss would choose an unwashed alcoholic criminal with bad skin and stupid hair, and before I knew it she threw the family album against the wall. The hard cover came off and the plastic-covered pages scattered. I was still lying on my faux sheepskin on the floor, determined to avoid another injury. Don’t even sit up, Cammy, I was saying to myself, don’t even look at her. I picked up my phone to scroll TikTok and before I knew it she was shaking and sobbing on the pottery wheel, and I was having strong impulses to press the peddle and watch her spin.
‘You’ve ruined it,’ she said, collecting the broken-off cover and the loose pages, and trying to put them back in the twisted spiral. ‘Look, look what you’ve made me do.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, putting my phone down and sitting up. ‘We can fix it. Hey, Asha, we can fix it. We can turn this round.’
She was weeping into her knees now, sobbing, breaking my heart. And as we collected the pages, confronted and moved by the happy faces of our past, I said, ‘Let’s have a mini-break too. From now till Saturday, let’s have fun together. We can play music. We can make yummy food: carbonara and garlic bread, and salad with goats cheese and grapes. I bought it all, it’s in the fridge. We can turn this round. Asha? I’m sorry. Let’s have fun like we used to. We could set everything up for the Open House. Let’s make lots of money so Mum and Dad aren’t so worried and angry all the time. We can surprise them. Can we do that?’
*
I made a lot of good decisions that night. I didn’t use any negative words or even have any bad thoughts. The Queen would’ve been proud. I coaxed Asha into a bubble bath and unpacked Mum’s record player. After setting it up in the kitchen we took turns DJing the daggy songs we snarled at as kids, with the volume so high we could sing full pelt without being embarrassed. It was so lovely to hear Asha sing something without Gee-suss in it. It helped that I drank wine with her too, after shaming her the way I did. I decided I should stop winding her up, be more empathetic. I matched her glass for glass as we fried pancetta and separated eggs and grated parmesan. Then we danced – danced – in the kitchen, in the lounge, in the courtyard, up the stairs and in Mum and Dad’s mezzanine. We were Kate Bush, actually we were more like Mum when she’s drunk, whisks as microphones, arms all over the place, all the wrong lyrics. The alcohol wasn’t dangerous when it had somewhere to go and with food at the ready. I’m almost tearful thinking about it now. It was wonderful. I was high on my love for her. We ended up changing outfits three times and putting on green face masks, and I didn’t mind at all that she wore my white fluffy jumper the third time and got avocado on it. Not a bit. Asha fell asleep on the sofa around midnight without praying or singing or telling someone called Nellie to rise, and I honestly thought about ripping you up, DD, after everything I’ve written in here. I was telling myself off big time for being a mean and horrible person.
Then she woke up. With a changed face.
‘Will you do me a favour?’ she said.
Fuckety shit. How was I supposed to say no after the evening we’d just had? ‘Of course,’ I said, nauseous.
‘Can you text Richard for me?’
She’d asked me to do this a few times after court, when we were getting on okay, and I talked her out of it because she wasn’t allowed to. This time I messaged him immediately, retyping as she perfected her words:
Hi Richard, Camille here (Asha’s sister). Just to say she’s doing really well and wants you to know she believes, more than ever, and will never give up. She is still praying really hard she knows it is working. She says she understands why you can’t talk and that she forgives you and will wait for you.
*
I woke to Asha’s finger prodding my chest.
‘Oi!’
One day that poke and oi combo is going to cause me to have a massive heart attack. It nearly did this time, I swear, but I was still desperate to muster the empathetic Camille I’d been the previous night.
‘Morning,’ I said, rubbing my eyes enough to notice she had my phone.
‘He hasn’t messaged back,’ she said.
‘How did you get into my phone?’
‘Your fingerprint,’ she said. ‘Wakey wakey, you need to make a Facebook page for the open house on Saturday and invite him. Don’t you think, yeah?’ She handed me my phone, fully expecting me to do it immediately. ‘I’ve been up all night. Set everything up. It’s amazing. It’s going to be so good. We can make at least eleven grand, I reckon, and I can give a percentage to Dance Said He from my stuff. Mum and Dad are going to love me. I’ve done a spreadsheet. Come, get up, up.’ She pulled the sheet off me, yanked me upright. ‘We’ll do the invites together. It’s his wife stopping him, she checks his messages. But she won’t stop him going to a fundraising event, she’ll never even guess. I know him, he’s dying to see me, this might be the way. Come, check out what I’ve done with the place.’
Asha had been very busy. She’d priced almost every item in our embarrassing shop-home – including, and unbelievably, all of the pictures and ornaments I bought on my school-leaver’s trip to Bali, the roller skates I got for my twelfth birthday (and fully intended to use again one day), my prom dress (which I hated but wanted) and seven items of clothing that didn’t fit me anymore (but would again after the two-week soup diet I was going to start any day now). I actually checked the cutlery drawer to see if the knives and forks had price tags, but she hadn’t thought of that yet. She spent the day racing around with indignant huffing efficiency, moving furniture from one room to another then back again, cleaning walls and bathrooms and even my new bedroom, which she had no business doing. Thank god you were tucked away in my hiding place, DD.
‘We can make beautiful jugs during the event,’ she said. ‘It’ll add to the vibe: artistic authenticity. We’ve got plenty of clay, check it out, look, see how much clay we have? We just need to chop some wood for the kiln. It can make us money, Cam, yeah, are you with me, it’ll be great, don’t you think, Cam, don’t you agree?’
‘None of us can use that wheel,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure it even works. And we don’t have a kiln.’
‘We do. There’s one of those small ones in the shed. Mum found it on Facebook.’
‘Does any of it work though?’
She pressed the pedal and the wheel turned. ‘Totally works, Camille. We can learn how to do this, we have time, why don’t you chop some wood and check the kiln’s a goer? We can charge people to have a go. That is such a good idea, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t you think?’ was up there with ‘Oi’. It made my insides burn my outsides. There was no good way to respond.
She added $600 to the spreadsheet for the unmade pottery jugs ($75 each) and $1000 for the forty guests who’d defo have a go at it for twenty-five each.
She took photos of every item and put them on the Facebook page, checking each time to see who’d responded to the invite (no-one yet). She tried on outfits – all mine – she did her makeup – all mine – she drank, she put the wood I chopped into neat piles, then into neater ones. She lit and tested the kiln (goer). She swept the courtyard, watered the pots, put the awning down. She checked the Facebook Page (one yes: the middle-aged red-head from the Eureka Theatre). She did her makeup again, her hair again, she took selfies and posted them all over social. She videoed herself touring the house and put it on Tik Tok. She drank. She kept my phone in her pocket and checked it every few minutes. (Three maybes, none of them The Dick.) She drank.
Asha tried really hard to sleep that night but didn’t manage and by Friday morning she was too depressed to prod me with her finger and stayed in bed all day. I spent Friday taking her soup and fruit and several fun, fizzy mocktails instead of the fresh goon sack of red wine she wanted me to get.
By Saturday morning, Asha’s spreadsheet was looking very optimistic. So far, our open house was to be attended by three members of Sturt St neighbourhood watch, an elderly couple from across the road, the boss at ye olde goldy lolly shoppe, one longstanding member of the Ballarat Punjabi Society, someone from the Geelong Highland Games, Mum and Dad’s hot yoga instructor (the yoga, not the instructor) and seven of my new local mates, including Spock and his bogan big brother, Big John. The Dick had still not responded to the invite. By the time I got back from the bottle shop with four goon sacks of red wine – ‘for the guests, Camille, Mum said to get cocktails, they’ll want a drink don’t you think?’ – most of the ninety people we invited had declined, including all our friends in Preston – I warned her that they never venture further than St Kilda – and all fifty-three members of Asha’s church, including her Sunshine housemates.
It was dawning on Asha that she was being holy ghosted.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Therapist
Moving wasn’t as stressful as everyone said it would be – certainly not as difficult as Bertie’s death, and nowhere near as hard as Jeanie lately – but once Joy was ensconced in her tiny cupboard-house in the altogether less congenial Sebastopol, she realised she did not know how and when it had all happened: how she had sorted and packed all her own clothes and belongings, taken Bertie’s suits to the charity shop, visited Jeanie’s rehab for a pre-discharge meeting, arranged and filled a skip and sold what was left of her crockery to Anne MacLean from the historical society – oh dear, she had forgotten to ask about the origins of the bluestone fortress that was home to family number nine. Over her first cup of tea in the low-ceilinged beige kitchen/living area, she made a note to do this on Monday, after collecting Jeanie, and before her afternoon sessions with families number three and five, both of which were certain to lift her spirits. There was terminal bowel cancer and infidelity in number three, and number five was dealing with a second suicide, yet both were determined to get though it as a team.
Somehow that day she’d also managed to take most of her trinkets and leftover antiques to young Ciorstan McDaid, who sold such things at the Sunday market and could do with the cash, as well as signing documents with the lawyer and collecting keys at the estate agent’s. Finally, she had transported the BMW to her new unit, taken a taxi back to Lake Wendouree to collect the still-unsold (and unpainted) mobile dental van, and said a final goodbye to her old life. She had brought an extra hanky in anticipation, but the empty rooms did not stir her. She didn’t look out the back windows, over the plum and lemon trees before leaving, and she kept her eyes on the ground as she walked to the iron gate and closed it.
To her surprise, the van started straight away, and she did not feel scared at the wheel. She had done it, somehow. Fixer Joy. She could do anything.
As she looked out at the flowerless courtyard in Sebastopol, she was relieved to get a text from number nine’s second-born.
Camille here, it said. We are having an open house this evening if you want to come? Beautiful homewares, pottery lessons, huge bargains, free wine. I’ve sent you a link to the Facebook page. Hope to see you there .
Joy had long stopped trying to separate her work and her private life. It wasn’t possible in Ballarat. Already that day she had bumped into Federico of family number four, who was looking sober and might just get to see the kids next weekend. It was 4pm, so many hours still left in the day. She replied to Camille straight away: I’d love to.
Her Facebook Messenger beeped – Rosie: How did it go? You get the ticket?
What are you doing up at this time? Joy replied.
Waiting to hear from you! Did you get the ticket?
Joy hadn’t forgotten. She’d driven the van past Nina Nguyen’s travel agency in Lydiard Street, but there was nowhere to park, and it was closed anyway. Knowing these reasons would not be good enough for Rosie, she lied. Nina Nguyen’s onto it, she said. It’ll be sorted first thing Monday. Can’t wait.
Rosie didn’t reply. She might have fallen asleep. More likely she was annoyed. How many times over the last five years had Joy put this off? It was one thing after another. She added to her Monday list: Go to Nina’s.
The local shops were just around the corner from her unit, but she didn’t fancy crossing two busy roads. She didn’t feel like listening to her favourite song over and over either. Today she wasn’t a Wayfaring Stranger who was going home to see her sister. She was Sebastopol Joy. She chose to drive. She would try to be less of a snob; embrace her new community. In Sebastopol there was a bakery and a chemist and a Bunnings and a lovely Italian cafe. There was even a bank machine where she could withdraw her daily allowance of $50. She had no pension, not with Bertie’s business venture starting up – as well as going under. Plus Jeanie’s visits to rehab, of course. She must stay positive! The proceeds from the sale of the house, plus five therapy sessions a week, would give her enough to survive thirteen years if she stuck to the budget. She owned the unit outright, so she had no mortgage. She owned the dental van, and the BMW. She was in a good position compared to a lot of people she knew. Joy was good at sticking to budgets, and thirteen years was plenty. She was sure to die before then, everyone in her family did. Both parents (cancer), and all her aunts and uncles, bar Aunty Mary, who became the definition of a misery guts from eighty-five on. She didn’t know anyone who lived beyond eighty-five and had a good time. If she had nothing at eighty-five – no house, no cash, no pension, no car – she’d just live in a cardboard box or – if she was lucky – in some kind of charity shelter and it wouldn’t make her less happy than all the folk she knew over eighty-five. The only luxury on Joy’s strict budget was her trip to see Rosie. It would be her last holiday trip to the UK. She would only go again to move there permanently. No-one her age really enjoyed holidays anymore. The Wilson’s trip to New York sounded freezing, exhausting and extortionate. They had a lot of photos, but not one good anecdote. All they talked about was how happy they were to be home.
