He cracked a smile like morning light. This is a memory I would live in, if I could. Fran told me a few years later that he knew we would be friends forever that day. I am not exactly sure when he changed his mind.
2
Despite my feelings about exercise, namely that I would rather do literally anything else, I have found value, since my return, in joining my mother Elsie on her morning expeditions around the neighbourhood. There is something about being in motion that eases things between us. And these past weeks and months – the weight, the dread, the panic, and the new lens through which I am now trying to recalibrate myself – have fuelled a desire in me to figure her out too.
‘I’m just hoping I have enough food in, though Olivia doesn’t eat much, does she? Now that she’s not feeding anymore. And Laura doesn’t either, I’m sure. But Luke will more than make up for that. Remember when he ate those two loaves of bread in one sitting?’
Elsie has her Lululemon activewear, her topic of interest (what people might or might not be eating) and her brisk pace; she is unstoppable. I am, as always, lagging, awe-struck by her togetherness, though unable to communicate anything other than disgruntlement, as per our pre-established parent–child dynamic. It is energy-efficient, and a necessity for self-preservation given my low battery setting.
‘He was a teenager, Mum. I’m sure he isn’t regularly sitting down and eating two loaves of bread anymore,’ I reply.
‘Well of course not the bread, but what would be the equivalent? A roast chicken and a large potato salad? Should I get a chicken in for lunch?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I think I will. They’re a lot easier to feed than you, I’m sorry to say. You were always my fussiest eater.’
‘Only ate beige food, I know. Although, chicken and potato salad do fall into the “beige” category, so I think I’ll be fine.’
Elsie throws her hands out and looks up to the sky as though she is performing in a pantomime. ‘What am I going to do with this youngest child of mine?’ might be her line. Perhaps she would ask the audience and put her hands on her hips as she awaits a response. But we are not in a pantomime; we are alone. It is a level of performance that has always both unnerved and impressed me; she does not seem to have an off-switch. Where I have a mask I put on to step out into the world, Elsie is always wearing hers, always performing her public self, even in front of her family. Perhaps especially with us. I wonder about her private self – if she even exists, or if they are simply one and the same. There is never so much as a wink or a nod to a less-than-perfect version of this perfect woman. I want to see her stumble, or even to hear about it second-hand; not for my enjoyment, but to feel closer to her for a moment or two. Okay, maybea littlefor my enjoyment as well.
From what I have seen since coming home, however, there is no stumbling, there are only regular highlights and bouncy blowouts, Country Road outfits, one pose for photos with her good side and her right angles, elbows out to avoid the appearance of upper-arm fat, Pilates, a lifelong calorie deficit, manicured nails, moisturised hands, monthly book club, date nights with Dad, remembering birthdays, beautiful gifts with floral cards, thoughtful compliments, seasonal changes to the home decor, four hours of volunteering a month at the local charity shop, and an app on her phone to help her learn French, despite never having been nor ever expressing any desire to go to France. The upkeep of Elsie looks exhausting; it must be exhausting.
‘And please remember to be nice to your brother when he gets here. He actually has quite low self-esteem, you know,’ Elsie adds.
‘Does he?’
‘You’d never know, he’s achieved so much. But he’s very hard on himself – he gets that from me.’
Luke’s self-esteem is not something I would have thought needed concern, him having always been what he needed to be to everyone, but perhaps I only view him this way because we no longer know each other all that well. I make a mental note to try and allow room for him to be someone other than I imagine. Elsie keeps things moving – she turns to look in the front windows of each house we pass, commenting on the recent happenings of the residents who live inside. The Kingstons painted their Queenslander over the winter, got rid of the ‘gaudy’ lilac and replaced it with a stark white. I contemplate if pastel colours can be considered gaudy, given that they are, by nature, the very opposite of bright. Voicing this would be unwise.
‘Every house on the street is going to be white by the end of next year, and it will feel like we’re living in a cult.’
Our house is white – seemingly the first on the street, although I do not remember, back when the trend for wooden homes was pastel, pastel, pastel. Mum, I suppose, believes white homes should start and end with ours. We are the true and rightful owners of the hue-less house. I nod and smile and pick up my pace. It is remarkable how quickly I have lost my fitness. I used to run and run and run. The cigarettes certainly did not help; nor did the burgeoning agoraphobia. A stitch pinches just under my left ribs. The Drews ripped out the gum trees lining their long driveway after the February floods, afraid of them uprooting or dying and dropping limbs. The neighbourhood is scandalised.
‘I’d say it has decreased the value of the whole street by ten per cent,’ Mum says. ‘At least.’
I want to laugh, or ask how she could possibly quantify this, or defend the Drews’ right to value safety over aesthetics. The people least in need of worrying about house prices are the ones who live on this street. And the Drews do not deserve the ongoing undercurrent of neighbourhood disdain, rendered over with bright smiles and false niceties. It is a tactic that elicits more fear in me than direct conflict ever could. They are kind – they brought me flowers when I turned sixteen, and offered me packing boxes when I first moved out of home. I say nothing but, ‘Mmm.’
‘Are you listening to me? Or away with the fairies again?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘You were always away with the fairies, even as a baby.’
Of course, I now have the explanation as to why I was not paying sufficient attention as a literal infant, but Elsie did not take well to it the first time I tried to explain it, and she suffers sudden-onset hearing loss whenever I try to find a way into the subject again. If it is ever referred to, it is in passing, about me but never to me, a cynical drive-by shooting poorly disguised as a joke. I would be happy to laugh with her about the experience of late diagnosis – it is equal parts clown show and Greek tragedy – but not without some kind of genuine attempt at connection and understanding first. So, I pretend not to hear the jokes and we stick to the important things.
The Baileys have cancelled their European cruise, not because going on a cruise during an extended period of global illness and unrest is a ridiculous idea, but because Fran has not yet found a post-university job and has moved back home for the summer, or until he becomes appropriately employed. I already knew this because Mum told me when I first arrived, though I am surprised I retained any of what I was told in those initial days, my ears still ringing from the self-detonation I had so expertly executed. The Baileys are spending their cruise money converting the workshop in their shed into a secondary dwelling, as per council regulations, because the world would not be ready for the aftermath of somebody on this street failing to adhere to council regulations. I do not know why Fran’s bedroom no longer satisfies, as it has done for more than a decade, but I can relate to the desire to have some grass between self and family.
‘It’s awfully sad. Jackie might never see Notre-Dame.’
I have been doing my best, really, but this one is too ripe to resist. I am but a girl.
‘Why not?’
‘Why not what?’
‘Why won’t she see Notre-Dame?’
