‘And then I got sent to the principal’s office, and now I have detentions every Wednesday for a month,’ he told me another time, after one of his teacher impersonations had gone wrong.
‘That’s awful,’ I replied, imagining the fear and shame that experience would bring to me.
‘Nah, it’s fine. The guys in my class thought it was sick, and now they’ve invited me to play soccer with them at break.’
‘Oh, okay. Cool.’ I felt confused by his response, sure he would have seen it the same way I did.
It was a reminder the fields and players were different, the games rigged in their own unjust ways. I could not fault him for adapting as best he could, though I could not understand it either. Our friendship deepened quickly, I think, because of the liminal space in which it existed, and what that allowed us to reveal about ourselves to one another. It was private, pure, easy, right. For a time. Until it wasn’t. We could not have remained vacuum-sealed forever, as much as I would have loved and also personally benefitted from that. Things had to get contaminated, diluted, complicated, messy, because that was what growing up meant. I did not wish for it to change any more than ice might wish to melt, and had as much power over such a shift as any other matter. Which is to say, none. So perhaps it is no surprise the memories from these days are my favourite to revisit; the easiest, the clearest. Moving through them is like crossing a gentle stream, no sharp rocks to catch my toes or heavy currents to unsteady my balance. There is no need to alter any aspects of these visions to go back and enjoy them. They are still whole; I could almost reach out and touch them.
Another afternoon, we stayed too long in the tree and a mounting fear stopped me walking back through the grass in the fading light. The night held too many creatures I could not see and my imagination, armed with a wealth of knowledge as it was, filled every dark corner with venomous danger. When I started to panic, Fran must not have known what to do, but he said, ‘It’s okay,’ again and again and again. Until I believed him. Dad eventually came with a torch and lifted me down, and Fran was sorry, but Dad did not seem to mind at all. Or, if he did, he did not mention it, silence his natal tongue. We drifted home, gently, unspeaking, watching the first stars come out.
3
My parents travel to the airport together, because neither likes to drive down the range alone. And because the arrival of their eldest daughter and only grandchild into the country is quite a big deal, by any measure. Dad has been working overtime to ensure he can take the full ten days off during their visit; he is apparently semi-retired, though I am yet to see evidence of this since being home, which is, conveniently, when he began clocking up extra hours in the office. I do wonder what being fully retired would look like for him, when work has been his one focus for as long as I have been able to form and retain memories. Work seems to have taken the place of family, friends, hobbies, and rest; a perfectly acceptable trade-off, in his eyes. It is impossible to imagine a version of him not surrounded with spreadsheets. Perhaps he would still make them for fun. His transition to permanently not working might also be my best chance to witness the undoing of Elsie, if either is ever to happen. I won’t hold my breath.
They do not ask me to join them for the journey, nor do I consider the idea, despite my desperation to meet in person the niece I have only thus far seen over video call. Ten days together under the one roof will be more than enough. And I will meet Maeve in a more comfortable setting for us both, which is worth the two-hour delay. I wave them off from my desk; Mum returns a graceful wave and Dad toots the horn to signal their departure – same as it ever was. It means three hours in the house alone, all my dreams come true and too much pressure to know where to start. If my most recent stint alone in a residence is anything to go by, I will need to take care. Avoid mirrors, and too much time in my own head.
I want to watch a movie, drink tea on the deck and spy on the birds, attempt to read my book, stretch in the sun, swing on the fridge door as I peruse the shelves for snacks in the escaping fog, shower without time pressure, stay in my pyjamas, have a long-overdue orgasm, fart and shit and curse. Instead, I lie on my bed and visualise a version of myself who was mentally and emotionally capable of flying over to visit Olivia when she first gave birth.
Arriving at Heathrow, I am able to navigate the underground and then the overground train system well enough to make my way to her flat in Sevenoaks, way outside London, with ne’er a problem or a panic. My belongings packed in one small, rolling suitcase, I am able to find my way with ease. Olivia opens the door, new baby in her arms, and bursts into tears at the sight of me. The good kind of tears. I can help whenever and however she needs help – here I am. I rock Maeve to sleep while she is able to finish a whole cup of tea, her first since the birth, and she recounts her birth story while I respond with the perfect balance of theatricality and genuine emotion. I am moved, and she is moved that I am moved. Adaptable as I am, it is no problem to take the couch; I can sleep anywhere, don’t worry, just give me a place to lay my head. At nights I rise with her, sending her back to bed for a few more precious hours, while I manage Maeve’s bottle, and nappy, and settle her back into her cot. On brisk mornings, we stroll through the park, coffees in hand, talking about everything and nothing. Sometimes we do not talk at all, both tired from the nights as we are. But it is the manageable kind of tired, not the flattening kind.
When she has her book events, I come along and stand at the back of small bookshops, rocking Maeve to and fro in her pram. She does not unsettle often, but if she does, I take her for a stroll outside until she is asleep, so as not to disturb Olivia when she is speaking to her crowds of adoring readers. On nights when Olivia has to travel to events more regionally, I am able to offer her the option of coming with Maeve, or staying behind at the flat. Maeve takes her bottle easily for me, a mix of formula and expressed milk as Olivia so desperately wants. I stay two long months, and offer to extend my trip if Olivia needs the support. She wants to try to manage on her own, but begs me to make it an annual trip, if we can pool her airline points with Dad’s. Of course I will, or even more often if possible, and of course we will be together every Christmas once Maeve is old enough to make the trip.
As the tyres crackle back up the driveway, it dawns on me that I will not have this time alone again until the new year, and I did not make the most of it. I barely made the least of it. Frustration starts to itch. I steal a little bit extra by staying in my room instead of going up to greet Olivia straight away. I should feel bad, knowing Maeve is waiting, but I also want her to meet a calmer version of me, and right now that is the me who has four minutes of extra silence to luxuriate in. First impressions are weighted, and this one feels as substantial as they come. Footsteps clomp up the stairs past my window, to the main part of the house where everyone will be staying except me, and I hear Olivia telling Mum and Dad that Maeve is in desperate need of a nap. This indicates I may have more than four minutes; I may actually have the length of an almost-two-year-old’s nap. Which is what, an hour? Two? Mum tells Olivia, ‘Nora never napped, she fought any and all forms of rest,’ and they laugh about this unfortunate fact until their laughs become murmurs and I know the front door must have closed. It does not aid the required calming, being the subject of a supposedly humorous but clearly critical anecdote.
Maeve is surely more proficient in the art of sleep, born of the superior sister as she is. I never could understand why I was the one housed on the lower level all alone, surely a place for the eldest child rather than the youngest, but I suppose in the context of the lack of napping, it makes a touch more sense. I suppose it was intended to give everyone a break – from ever-wakeful me and also from my ‘tremendous tantrums’, as Dad likes to recollect. When I moved out, my room became a space for sewing, and exercise biking, and storing furniture, framed paintings, and decor that had gone out of style. Even with everything surplus now rehomed to the shed, or Grandma Sue’s, or the op shop, the space still doesn’t feel quite back to being mine. I have started redecorating the walls, in the hope this will help. Olivia’s and Luke’s rooms, meanwhile, have been preserved like they are part of a museum exhibition, or the ‘first settlers’ cottage you can visit in town. Come and see: this is how the very first residents once lived. Marvel at their dusty clothes, smelly shoes, and dire living conditions. And please don’t ask any questions about First Nations peoples, because that would make the grey-haired ladies who volunteer at the cottage very uncomfortable. But look over there, a bedpan!
Anyway, I suppose I did surprise my parents with this return, much the way a cat surprises its owner with a dead mouse dropped on the doormat or the living-room rug. It is a marvel they did not shoo me out the back door with a broom. My residing in Melbourne, despite the accompanied rapidly declining mental health, at least allowed for the implication of some degree of artistic prestige – Mum could say ‘gallery opening’ and ‘exhibition’ and ‘bohemian’ enough times to encourage a favourable, though thoroughly artificial impression amongst friends and neighbours who would not understand, but would be dazzled enough not to question any further. Staying away was the least I could do for them, really, after dropping out of university without so much as half a degree to my name. And I had romanticised the interstate move first, convincing myself and my parents that a new city was exactly the thing I needed, rather than an expensive, drawn-out, and ultimately fruitless exercise in trying to outrun myself.
Being on the mountain again, these kinds of allusions are now difficult to make. I am not the kind of grown-up child proficient adults find pleasing to meet, nor one who, I imagine, fills my mother with great excitement to have around her friends. Maybe it is a youngest child thing, where my siblings are the shining examples, reflecting my parents’ light, and I am the feral, untrained pet kept downstairs, the one that grew up not understanding its role because everyone was too tired by the time it came along. Or perhaps this role is as outdated as our discarded modern farmhouse-style kitchen stools – we have the white Hamptons ones now – and the old floor lamp with the carved wooden base. I can change things up too, I remind myself. My personhood does not reside fixed in a museum’s permanent exhibition space.
There is a knock on the door, three raps – efficient, polite.
‘Come in,’ I respond, scooting back to lean against the headboard.
Olivia opens the door slowly, revealing herself like she is the ‘after’ in a movie makeover scene. Her long blonde hair is pulled loosely into a scrunchie on her shoulder, and her outfit is loose and black. She looks like how I imagine famous people must look after flying for twenty-four straight hours on a private jet: unbothered and beautiful.
‘Hey, girly,’ she says.
‘Welcome home. Is Maeve asleep?’ I pat the space beside me, and she sits, slowly, as though mine is a waterbed and she must retain her centre of balance.
‘Yeah, she’s completely out,’ she replies, doing a quick impression of a sleeping almost-two-year-old, one arm flopped across her face, tongue out.
She smells like citrus and we do not hug, though I am glad she is here. Her energy is unexpectedly warm, and I try to recalibrate, integrating our past lives with what I know of myself now, on this day – which is, admittedly, not all that much. What I bring from our childhood is the feeling that there is comfort in the discomfort that has always existed between us. Like my favourite pair of swimmers, she might rub me in the wrong areas sometimes, but she also gives me the opportunity to access a feeling I crave – in this instance, familiarity and belonging, rather than the cool compression of submersion. We sit in silence that is easy for me, but I wonder how it will be for Olivia. Historically, she wants me to talk, to tell her everything. Talk, talk, talk – she has always delighted in sharing spoken-word discourse with anyone who would so boldly endeavour to keep up with her rapid, effortless pace.
Today her laser focus is aimed squarely at me. There is so much she must already know about my current circumstances that she has not yet had the pleasure of gleaning directly from the source. And has something even really happened if Olivia has not had the opportunity to pluck it from the horse’s mouth, lay it down, carefully dissect it, and stitch it back up, better than new, with her own pithy commentary and sage wisdom, and report back to Mum her findings? I hardly know. I accept all of this about her, have even come to admire it, because Olivia is nothing if not a professional – she knows exactly the right sounds to make, advice to give, and anecdotes to offer. She just never wants to be the person whose insides spill. My mind fills in the blanks about her even as I wish to grant her the space to recast them. I cannot be sure of her if I am not sure of myself.
‘So, Mum’s in a bit of a state, isn’t she?’ she says with a scoff.
‘Is she?’
‘It’s the time of year, I suppose. All the extra mouths to feed.’
It would be fair to say, upon examining the evidence and decoding the patterns, that Christmas might be Mum’s least favourite time of year, disguised as her most treasured. Elsie would never admit that, and would likely bombard whoever was so brazen as to suggest it with a detailed list of all the visible indicators of why that could not be true. She imbued in us as children the specialness of the season, and I have held on to that feeling, despite mounting evidence that she might actually have an entirely contrary belief. Said evidence is of the emotional and energetic nature, which I suppose is not really evidence at all, at least not any that would stand up in a court of law. But I can feel it – her energy stays heightened and pulled tight, often hitting a frequency only dogs and autistics can hear, with the fussing and the planning and the chaos of it all. Two closely timed wrong things would be enough to set her world on fire, which is a dangerous warning sign for someone as upturned and out of depth as I am right now. I want to avoid being one of those wrong things almost as much as I want to see if an imperfect Elsie would rise from the ashes if I was. I will stay out of her way – she has things to do, self-imposed tasks as well as community expectations to meet. She seems entirely fuelled by light neighbourhood gossip and moderately priced white wine, both of which she keeps well stocked. And when all is over and done, I know well enough she will need to be alone to recover. This has been the rhythm for a while now, or perhaps it always was.
‘Right,’ I reply.
‘I don’t mean you,’ Olivia says.
