‘How can you not mean me? I’m literally one of the mouths to feed. I’m the most permanent mouth.’
‘Sure, but you don’t eat much and anyway, she’s happy you’re here.’
‘I am sure that is what she is telling people.’
‘Come on, give her a break. She’s doing her best.’
I can’t argue with that.
‘So, how’s the UK?’
‘Politically and economically? Absolutely fucked. But personally, pretty good.’
We laugh at the dire state of her chosen home and how little it is impacting her.
‘How about the book?’
‘If you ask me about sales, I swear I will put a new hole in your wall with your head.’
‘Okay . . .’
‘That’s a joke, Nora. People just ask, “How’s sales?” as though they have any idea, and as if they wouldn’t baulk if I casually asked them about their salary. The book is fine. It’s its own thing now; I hardly think about it at all. My days revolve more around whatever illness Maeve has brought home from nursery, and how we survive the onslaught of vomit or shit or spots that comes with it. And emails.’
‘Sounds glamorous. Well, you look great.’
‘Thanks – I did a juice cleanse last month, got rid of the last of the baby weight. So, anyway, tell me about you. Melbourne didn’t end up being any good?’
‘Politically and economically mostly fine, but personally, absolutely fucked,’ I reply.
‘I’m sorry, Nor.’ She squeezes my forearm in an uncomfortably tight grip. ‘Did you really get fired, or did you actually want to leave your job? Did something happen with Cleo, or was it the hospital stuff?’
‘I don’t really want to talk about it,’ I interject, a reflex.
‘Well, I’m here if you change your mind.’
My mind is immediately changed; I want to talk to her. There are few people I feel as desperate to connect with as my sister; actually, there is only one. So, I try to reset.
‘I think I got fired on account of repeated no-shows, so I suppose I wanted to leave. And I’m not sure about Cleo. I maybe blew things up there, even before hospital and the wedding and all that. I suppose I let her go. Did Mum fill you in?’
‘A bit,’ she admits, though not keen to expand on exactly which bit.
‘So, you know about my diagnoses, then?’
‘I do.’
We hit a conversational dead end, despite my efforts. She could map a little section of the new path, the piece that I need in order to find my way to her. She could throw me a lifeline, or some crusts of old bread. She could hold out her hand, and we could course it together. Telling her as much is more than I am capable of right now, though I am aware that is not necessarily fair. My insides are swimming, though outwardly I suppose I am quite still. Stalling at this crucial moment is unbearable.
‘Well, I better go shower and unpack. Come up for lunch, when Maeve is up?’
‘This mouth needs feeding,’ I reply, feeling petulant again, suddenly angry that she did not act in the way I had hoped she might.
Olivia looks at me with a drooping expression I cannot decipher, perhaps frustration, and closes the door gently behind her. It is clear she also desired more from our interaction and I let her down. I hope as I chart a bit more of my emotional topography, I can find a way to explain to her that it is a desire to be known as I am rather than a desire to disappoint with my lack of words that fuels this. There has to be a waypoint where we can eventually meet. My sister is my familial starting point, I now feel, her residing outside this country for the entirety of my undoing only working in my favour. I have not let her down the way I have so many other people. And, of course, by that I mean mostly one particular person.
The first time Fran came over for a meal was during the Christmas holidays. We had been hanging out for months and months, after school and on weekends when he did not have other plans. He had given me a nickname – Rah – sometimes roaring it like a child pretending to be a lion, and other times using it more like punctuation for his free-flowing thoughts and ideas. I just called him Fran. Fran had invited me to his house for dinner loads of times and I had always declined. I was embarrassed by my restricted and peculiar dietary habits, and how tired my hands got when trying to use a knife and fork. After years of failed corrections, Mum and Dad pretended not to notice when I used my hands, but I could not expect that from anyone outside of my home. I also wondered what Fran’s parents might think of me, and guessed it would not be positive. I had curated an acceptable version of myself for them with small doses – waves over the fence, polite greetings, and smiles through the car window – that I knew could not be sustained for the entire length of a meal. Better aloof than degenerate. It was only one afternoon when we were kicking the ball with Ranger that Fran said, ‘I was going to ask you to come for dinner, Rah, but I know you’ll say no.’ It made me sad and felt like a challenge all in one.
‘You could come to mine,’ I threw out in a casual way, as though this was something I could have asked any time, if I’d wanted to.
‘Really?’ He pushed his hair, to his shoulders by this stage, out of his face.
