Keep Her Sweet, page 9
Someone has just thrown something. Mum, probably, throwing things at Dad. Keep writing, Cammy, keep writing.
Shit, I think that Dad just slammed the front door. Gonna check.
It’s him, he’s taken a suitcase and two bags with some of his old Herald newspapers.
Shit, that’s Asha knocking on my door. The desk is backed up against it and I will not let her in. Don’t let her in. Cammy, do not let her in. Shit shit shit shit, gotta go hide you, gotta go.
*
Later: I didn’t let Asha in. I told her she was scaring me. I said if she broke my door down I’d call the police. She stood at the door for ages. I could hear her breathing really fast.
‘Why would I break your door down?’
She was trying so hard to act human.
‘I’m just wanting to see if you’re okay.’ She paused. ‘Dad texted to say he’s at the Western Inn. Mum’s really upset. I’ve been making endless cups of tea and brushing her hair.’
She waited for me to say something.
‘I’m going back to her now, gonna give her a foot massage.’
She has played this card a lot in the last two weeks – who am I kidding, in the last twenty-one years – that she is the one who cares about and understands and helps our mother. Me, on the other hand – I’m the lazy selfish one who spends one hundred per cent of my time indulging in fun or in self-pity.
‘Why can’t you be nicer to Mum?’ she said the other day. ‘She’s so down and worried and lonely. Dad doesn’t seem to care about her at all, and she does everything for him. She does everything for you too, Camille. How long have you been living here for free? Do you ever pay for food? Are you ever going to get a job? She gave birth to you, breast fed you, she gave up her career for you.’
Just for me? And which career exactly: modern dance, part-time admin worker, sandwich maker, or did she mean empty-nest influencer?
Anyway, I know Asha doesn’t really want me to help Mum. She likes to be the one who’s close to her, who’s properly loving. What Asha always wants is praise and a favour. I don’t want to do her another favour and I have a terrible sick feeling in my tummy – probably because she is trying to behave like a human – that she is going to ask me to do one really soon.
*
Later, god, it’s ten past three: Asha and Mum fell asleep on the sofa a little while ago. I’ve hidden what’s left of the wine (you know where, I love that only you and I know where, DD). I’m not gonna make a sound, don’t want to wake them. Crazy bitches. Since Dad left they’ve been taking turns to howl, and now they’re spooning, which is especially creepy cos Asha’s the outer. I’d join Dad at the Western Inn if he was definitely alone there. For his sake, I hope he’s not, I hope the red-headed divorcee from the Eureka Theatre is laughing at his jokes and kissing him kindly and making him feel good about himself, valued, like he should be, because he is utterly gorgeous and always generous and writing about him is making me cry. I could do with a red-headed step-mother, tbh, I could do with any mother other than the one I’ve got. She is a fuckhead. She is a selfish, lazy fuckhead. She is the same as Asha. They both have the same problem, don’t know what it is though. Every time I look up their symptoms a different condition seems to fit: depression, anxiety, alcoholism, bipolar, ADHD, narcissism defo, anger-management issues FOR SURE. The one that keeps popping up is personality disorder, but I don’t like thinking it’s that one, cos there’s no medicine for it, all you can do with those fuckheads is get them out of your life, which is what I am going to do, DD, after what happened today – yesterday now. That is exactly what I am going to do. I’ve packed my bags, and when it’s not stupid o’clock I’m trying Spock’s number again and I’m moving in with him, even though he’s never asked me to, even though we’re not even boyfriend and girlfriend officially yet, even though he lives with his big brother, Big John, and Big John is a total idiot who thinks Scotland is in England.
*
It’s 5am, still too early to turn up at Spock’s. I think Asha and Mum are stirring. Hang on … False alarm, all good I think. Hang on … It’s just the telly still, they’re watching Meet, Marry, Murder or Who the Fuck Did I Marry?, or one of those true crime shows they’re into with never-ending episodes about betrayal causing throat-slits and poisonings and the sawing of women into tiny little pieces. OMG I am actually still shaking with fear. I have my back against my bedroom door because I am terrified she’ll bash it down and smash up my things like she’s smashed up everything else tonight. I HATE HER. I am SO tempted to tell Mum and Dad about Nellie, but I won’t because I promised.
It’s nearly 6am, the sun’s up and it’s going to be hot again. I am already boiling. I could probably go to Spock’s, but I smell, and I am not risking going to the bathroom yet. Dad left hours ago. I need him to come home. In between howling with Mum on the sofa and praying in her room, Asha has tried to get me back on side. I will not be conned. She will not get me back on side. For hours I have been fantasising about killing her; strangling her with my bare hands; smashing my fist into her face again and again till it’s wet, stabbing her in the stomach with a much bigger clay tool than the one she put against her neck, wriggling it round inside so it scrapes bone and squelches organs. I want to pull her hair till her scalp skin comes off with it. I want to stamp on her mouth with my biker boots until my foot gets stuck in her skull. I want to put sandpaper on the pottery wheel and hold her cheek against it and press the pedal till ‘the good side’ of her face comes off. I want to drug her unconscious and cover her mouth and nose with wet clay, and watch her legs and arms wriggle till it starts to dry.
Oh boy, I really need a shower.
‘Camille?’
Fuckety fuck, that’s her again.
‘Cammy, are you awake?’
I am not responding. She will not oi me, I will not be oi’d. And I am never, ever, EVER, doing her another favour as long as we both shall live, AMEN.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Therapist
Joy didn’t spend a cent on Sunday. She’d need several money-free days to get back on budget after the open house with family number nine. Poor things, they needed the dosh more than she did. They also needed a lot more therapy. What a time they were having; unhealthy relationships in every direction. She hardly knew where to start. They seemed to be stuck in perpetual lockdown, one daughter unable to leave, the other stubbornly unwilling. So many families had spiralled into toxicity after the virus, many surfacing with new ideas their loved ones didn’t understand. In family number one, for example, the dad and the third-born came out believing the local dry-cleaner’s was the centre of a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping paedophiles. The two of them never stopped talking about it. Thankfully the thirty-two-year-old third-born left home when lockdown lifted (unvaccinated, as he was all about freedom). But the dad and the mum were still having a terrible time. Last session they fought non-stop because the dad was staking out the sinister shop in the family car every night.
‘He’s stuffing his gob with doughnuts,’ his wife said last session. ‘He thinks he’s in a movie. And he’s so fat I can’t even look at him.’
Unhappy families all around. More work for Joy, which gave her a mixture of guilt and gratitude.
But she wasn’t going to think about work. Today she would be concentrating on Jeanie, who was coming home tomorrow, after three long months. She would be moving to a new environment, which might be just the thing. She wouldn’t be reminded of her dad all the time – the plum tree he planted, the barbecue he built, the height marks he made on the kitchen wall, the Christmas turkeys he carved at the mahogany dining table he polished (and which Joy sold to Mr and Mrs Yung). The unit wasn’t so bad really, not once the beds were made up with crisp, fresh sheets and the right lighting sorted. The extortionate scented candles she bought the previous night were helping to mask the odd smell. What was that? And while she could hear what her new neighbours were watching on television – reality, mostly, lots of yelling – they were more friendly than the ones she had in Lake Wendouree. Mr and Mrs Barnard, who had lived at number fourteen, were a pair of mean old snobs. When Joy told them she was moving to Sebastopol, Mrs Barnard actually gasped and said: ‘Oh lord, Joy, it’s a dump. The druggies all live there.’ Joy would never say something like that to anyone, no matter where they lived. Mrs Barnard realised immediately that she had made a faux pas, not about Joy’s new suburb, but about Jeanie. She knew fine well – like everyone within a two-kilometre radius of the lake – that Jeanie had grappled with addiction since her father’s death.
‘We’ll fit right in then,’ Joy said, hoping never to see Mrs Barnard and her scrawny bald husband and their three ridiculous cars ever again. Joy intended to embrace the diversity of her new area. She would not miss the lake or the garden or the endless, grief-filled walks listening to the same song over and over. She certainly would not miss the pretentious and intolerant residents of her picture-postcard parade.
Already, three of her new neighbours had popped by to welcome her and had given very handy advice about local facilities, alarm systems and refuse collection. One of them, Yolanda, presented her with muffins. Bought ones, but very tasty. Joy didn’t need lunch after.
She worked hard all day unpacking and making the place her own. It was going to work this time, she told herself. This time, Jeanie would stay off that terrible Ice and be herself again. She was certain of it. So was Jeanie’s key worker at rehab.
‘She’s never been so motivated,’ her key worker said at the pre-discharge meeting. ‘Absolutely determined. She has part-time work set up at the florist in Ballan, just ten hours a week, which is a sensible start. She has cut off all ties with her drug-using friends. She’s had enough, haven’t you Jeanie?’
‘I’d rather die than use again,’ Jeanie had said. ‘And if I use again I will die anyway. I have, Mum, I have had enough. Third time lucky.’
Joy was so excited she couldn’t sleep on Sunday night. Her little girl was coming home. Her little girl of forty-three.
*
This was the third time Joy had collected Jeanie from rehab. The first time was just after Bertie’s death, but raw grief wasn’t why she cried all the way there. Jeanie had only been in the facility for seven days when a staff member caught her buying drugs from another resident. She was kicked out immediately. She no longer had a home to go to and she had no job. Joy had begged her to come back home with her. She would make her soup. They would go on long walks. They would watch movies, play board games, listen to music, bake cakes. Alas, Jeanie asked to be dropped off at her friend’s house in the country. His name was Mike and he was no good. There was a sofa in his front garden as well as a lot of car parts, but no actual cars. Apart from insisting on going to Mike’s, Jeanie didn’t talk for the entire trip. She just sat there, scratching her neck and rocking back and forth. She opened the car door before the engine stopped and didn’t even say goodbye, racing into Mike’s house to do whatever it was meth users did.
Next time, Jeanie saw out seven weeks of the three-month programme. Joy had paid for it with what little was left of Bertie’s pension as well as her own superannuation from the part-time dental nursing she had dipped in and out of till Bertie died. Joy refused to take her to Mike’s. When Jeanie asked to go to Nathan’s, who Joy didn’t know, she also refused. They argued all the way to Lake Wendouree, where her daughter remained for two long and horrid days. Walks and boardgames were sullen and often turned into tantrums. Even baking was sour. Joy was almost glad when her daughter ran away in the middle of the night to Mike’s or Nathan’s, or someone else’s who was no good.
It was understandable that she was sick to the stomach as she made this third and final drive. There was very little money left to try this again, and she was terrified that she might greet a scratching and rocking Jeanie who would ask to be dropped off somewhere with rusty car parts on the grass.
Think positive, Joy said to herself, country music blaring in Bertie’s precious BMW. An extravagance, the car. She had often considered selling it and buying a Toyota, especially since Jeanie had repeatedly driven it without permission and like a teenage hoon. It had been impounded three times in the last two years. But it was her only remaining luxury, and it smelt of Bertie. And while Bertie reminded her mostly of disinfectant and poor financial decision-making, the scent calmed her in this situation. She was not the single mother of a ‘druggie’, she was not alone.
She had no need for nerves. Jeanie had completed the full programme this time. She had made plans. She had emailed every florist in the western district and secured a part-time job, starting tomorrow. She had drawn up a daily and weekly routine: yoga, reading, baking, working, walking. She had dropped her anti-social drug-using friends. Best of all, she wanted – actually, she had pleaded – to live with her mother for a few months ‘at least’.
‘I know I need the support,’ she had said at the pre-discharge meeting. ‘I want your help, Mum.’
There was nothing sweeter to Joy’s ears than these words. Her daughter needed her, wanted her.
She arrived ten minutes early, and Jeanie was waiting on the veranda with a smile, her suitcase packed. She raced towards the car and gave Joy a huge hug. What a feeling. Joy tried to lift her like she did when Jeanie was a child, but she was a weak old woman now and only managed to tighten the squeeze.
Jeanie sang on the way home. She didn’t rock or scratch or even change the music. ‘Can you drive by the old house?’ she said when they reached Ballarat.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah, do you mind?’
Joy stopped on the other side of the parade. The new residents were already ripping the place apart. There was a portaloo in the garden. The rockery had been flattened.
‘Bye, house,’ Jeanie said.
Joy took her hand, expecting tears. But Jeanie smiled. ‘Let’s go home.’
*
Joy hadn’t been so happy in years. Her daughter was her old self. She wasn’t poor Jeanie, she was positive Jeanie, energetic Jeanie, loving, beautiful, kind Jeanie.
‘I love that it’s small,’ Jeanie said. ‘You had too much stuff, Mum. Stuff everywhere. Honestly, Dad’s clothes freaked me out. I didn’t think you’d ever get rid of them, and I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it.’
She marvelled as she explored the house and area: the shops are just round the corner; I can walk to McDonald’s; the windows open; check the pressure of this shower; it doesn’t go from hot to cold with no warning; the courtyard catches the afternoon sun; the folk next door are lovely; it’s cool in here for November; I bet it’ll cost next to nothing to heat in winter.
Over tea and sandwiches in the courtyard, they planned flower beds together, and decided to do long daily walks. ‘Countryside one day, town the next,’ Jeanie said. ‘Let’s see new things. God, I love that the Barnards aren’t eye-balling us from their ugly gazebo. I love it here, Mum, thank you. Thanks for everything.’
Joy was a little nervous leaving Jeanie in the afternoon. She had sessions with families numbers three and five. Poor three, the infidelity had halted but the bowel cancer hadn’t. And the remaining members in family number five cried non-stop the entire session. But both wanted to see her again, they were hanging in there, working hard at it, because they believed that blood is thicker than water; that a happy family is an early heaven; that with family no-one gets left behind or forgotten. Joy smiled all the way back to Sebastopol. And all the way through to Wednesday afternoon, during which time she and Jeanie enjoyed a sun-filled falling-in-love style montage:
Mother packs daughter a healthy and imaginative lunch and hands it to her at the front door.
Cut to
Mother blows daughter a kiss as she heads off to work in the BMW.
Cut to
Daughter brings mother beautifully arranged begonias home from work.
Cut to
Mother and daughter eat McMuffins on the walk back from the local shops.
Cut to
Mother and daughter listen to the same song as they zig-zag (some of) Mount Buninyong.
Cut to
Mother and daughter bake fairy cakes, eat fairy cakes, play Scrabble.
Cut to
Mother puts on The Crown.
Cut to
Mother makes daughter toast with real salted butter and even dabs of vegemite.
Cut to
Mother fills daughter’s bunny mug with hot milk and too many spoons of chocolate.
Cut to
Daughter falls asleep in front of The Crown.
Joy was so happily occupied that she didn’t even think to check her phone till Wednesday morning, just after waving Jeanie off the second time.
Rosie had left seven messages:
Sunday: Hey!! Good luck with the move. Cannot wait to see the new pad. On your phone just press video instead of photo, show me around. Mwah
Monday: Hello! How’d it go? Jeanie okay? Click the attachment and check out the restaurant I’ve booked for our first night. It’s a short walk from our cottage. Let’s get diabetes together! Two weeks to go! Fourteen days! Send me photos if the vid thing is too hard for your feeble, aged brain, Love you so much. Mwah
Monday: All okay? Tell me you’ll get the ticket no matter what. Love you x
Monday: Hmm…
Tuesday: ?
Tuesday: Seriously, Joy, pick up. I’m worried. Is she back on it? If you can’t buy the ticket I will.
