Davo gave him a slow, unimpressed nod.
“There are worse ways to spend your afterlife,” Leanne said. “Why be a friendly ghost when you can be a...what are they called?”
“Awili,” Marcus supplied. Davo looked away and rolled his eyes, and irritation bloomed hot and prickly in Marcus’s chest.
“A wili, right,” his mum said, meeting his eyes with a familiar encouraging smile. “One of these days I’m coming back as a wili. And what about you, David, how’s work?”
Probably great, Marcus thought. If the construction he’d seen on the way here was any indication, it was a good time to be a contractor.
“It’s fine,” Davo replied. Leanne looked at him and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Davo had never been the chattiest guy, but these days he was downright monosyllabic.
“We’re finishing up a big home over in Potts Point,” Davo added reluctantly, “and the neighbour across the street likes it so much he’s hired us to do his place, too.” Leanne looked impressed. Potts Point was one of the city’s wealthiest suburbs, and Marcus was sure Davo was charging those people an arm and a leg for their renovations.
“Well, that’s wonderful news too,” Leanne said, smiling at them both. “And it’s lovely to have you both here together again. What’s the occasion?”
Busted, Marcus thought. He should have anticipated this. His mum was no fool, and he should have realised she’d know something was going on if both he and Davo turned up together for a scheduled visit. Especially since the last time they’d done it, Davo had introduced the idea of moving her out of the house.
Marcus looked across the table at Davo, eyebrows raised.This was your idea, he wanted to say,you start.
“I think—we think—you’re wrong about staying in the house,” Davo said.
Leanne cocked her head and blinked a few times.
“What he’s trying to say is we’re worried about you,” Marcus said, resisting the urge to kick his brother under the table. Heknew Davo was speaking out of concern for her, but come on. He forced himself to meet his mother’s eyes. “Because living alone in this house seems to be getting harder for you. And I know you said you’re not ready to sell just yet, but we think you should reconsider. Or...consider reconsidering.”
“Nonsense,” Leanne said calmly. “I’m doing just fine here. The garden’s a bit of a mess,” she added, gesturing behind her at the back of the house, “but that doesn’t bother me at all.”
“Yeah, but,” Davo tried again, “the house is pretty big for one person, and it’s hard to move around. The stairs, and everything...”
“I move around perfectly well, thank you,” Leanne corrected him, her calm tone giving way to crispness. “The doctor’s got my knee pain under control and says it should be fine for a few more years. I’m certainly not about to move out of my home over a little joint pain.” She’d spent most of her life as a nurse, but she would have made a very good ballet dancer, Marcus thought with a twinge of irritation.This thing I’m doing hurts me? Who cares, I’ll just keep doing it because I love it!
This was going about as well as it had last time—except now, she was ready for them. “But what about the toilet upstairs?” Davo asked, shifting in his seat.
“What about it?” she shrugged. “I’ve been managing my own bowels for quite a while now, m’dear, and I’m quite sure I can keep doing it, stairs or no stairs.”
Davo opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Marcus met his brother’s eyes and gave him a little shrug.
They didn’t have to convince her today, he reminded himself, they just had to float the idea again. Davo wanted this settled as soon as possible, efficiently and without fuss. There was a reason his clients liked him: he got the job done, fast and clean. But their mum seemed pretty dug in, just as she had the first time they’d raised this with her.
Marcus was about to say they should drop it when Davo tried again. “Mum, I really think it’s a good time to downsize. Movesomewhere a bit smaller where you can move around more easily. A unit somewhere.”
“And where would that be?” Leanne inquired, though Marcus knew from experience it wasn’t really a question that expected an answer. Her green eyes were wide and her brows were raised sceptically in her sun-lined face. She had grown up in a time before sunscreen became a way of life for Australians, before public schools started requiring kids to wear hats to go outside and play, and he knew she’d already had a few sunspots burned off her shoulders.
“Um,” Davo started, pointlessly, because they both knew from her tone what was about to happen.
“There isn’t a unit somewhere,” she answered her own question, predictably. “At least, not somewhere near here or near my friends or near anything else in my life. You think it’s hard for young people to buy a home in Sydney? Try being a senior citizen on a fixed income, especially one who took a few years off work to raise her children.” She looked at her sons and raised her eyebrows still further.
Marcus felt his cheeks flush, and guilt crawled in his ribs. Why had he let Davo talk him into this again? What had he thought would happen, that she’d suddenly change her mind and start chucking things out on the front lawn for a garage sale?
“Look,” Davo put his elbows on the table, looking almost as guilty as Marcus felt as he leant towards his mum. “We don’t want to gang up on you, but—”
“Then don’t,” she said, her tone crisp again. “This is my home. I love it here, just like I did when Richard and I bought it thirty-five years ago.” Her eyes flicked to the head of the table as she spoke, and her voice cracked a little. She paused for a moment and swallowed before continuing. “I’m delighted you boys are here together and that you seem to agree on something for a change, but I will leave when I’m good and ready, which won’t be any time soon. Now, David, will you please start the barbeque?”
There was no point in continuing to argue. Not just because Marcus recognized her And That’s My Final Answer tone, but because he’d heard the shake in her voice when she mentioned his dad. He didn’t want to upset her any further.
She was right, he thought as Davo rose moodily from the table and went to fetch the lighter for the barbeque. The Sydney housing market was a nightmare, and people like him and Davo couldn’t afford to buy anything bigger than a one-bedroom apartment without handing over a small fortune. Flats in Manly, the suburb built around the next beach over from Freshwater, were going for a million or more. For all the fuss people made about how hard it was for first-home buyers to break into the property market without help from rich parents, he’d never given much thought to how hard it must be for older people, especially women. He didn’t know how much his dad had left his mum when he died, but he knew it wasn’t a mint. His dad had done all right as a builder, and better as a contractor once he got too old to haul cement and go up on roofs. They’d never been rich, and they certainly weren’t wealthy.
But they’d had this house. This squat brick three-bedroom just a few blocks from the best beach in the city, maybe the country. This house where, as a kid, Marcus used the railing of the back verandah as a barre and shared a thin wall with Davo all through their teen years.
