‘By buying those magazines you’re supporting them, Jo,’ Spencer points out. ‘Buy a book instead.’ It sounds like something his mother would have said, years ago. He’s trying not to think about his mother, but it’s impossible.
Joseph looks up from the magazine. ‘You’re right. I tell you, you kids are smarter than they give you credit for.’ He clearly means this.
‘Hey,’ says Spencer. ‘You were a kid yourself ten minutes ago.’
‘More like ten years ago. And not a smart one. Is Nina sick?’
Spencer pauses. ‘No. She, uh, moved.’
‘Really? Didn’t tell me. Where to? Can’t imagine why anyone would leave here. Paradise. With excellent veterinary services.’
‘We’re…not really…in touch, at the moment.’ He’d like to tell Joseph everything, but he’s trying to stay cool.
‘Ah. I see,’ Joseph says, in such a way that Spencer believes Joseph has seen inside his head and does indeed know everything that’s going on, and sympathises.
‘Hey, Spencer,’ says Diane, appearing in the doorway. Spencer waves. Her hair is piled on the top of her head in a haphazard bun—she looks like she has just rolled out of bed. The man in the waiting room stops staring at the wall as though it’s his ticket out of there and stands up. Diane ushers him and his cat through to the operating room.
Spencer wanders out the back and inspects the cages, looking for Morrissey, Nina’s cat. Diane comes in and starts rifling through a drawer.
‘Where’s Morrissey?’ Spencer asks.
‘He got adopted on the weekend,’ Diane answers, smiling. ‘Good, hey? Elderly lady, really taken by him.’
It’s such a stupid thing to feel as if his heart is breaking again. It’s not even as if it really was her cat—it was just a cat she named and looked after one afternoon a week for a couple of months. But he can’t help that he feels devastated by it. It’s as if Nina had hardly existed at all—except for everything he remembers about her.
‘That’s wonderful.’ He gives nothing away in his tone. He reminds himself that this is all in his head—there is nothing physically wrong with him. His heart is still in one piece.
When he returns home, Monica is standing at the stove, stirring, an ancient cookbook propped up in front of her. Whatever she’s cooking smells like cinnamon.
‘Hi Monica,’ he says. ‘Good day at school?’ He still expects her to talk but she doesn’t respond, doesn’t even glance up from the pan. Obviously she’s in a worse mood than usual, because she doesn’t bother to give him a Conversation Heart.
He can’t stand the silence and walks into the living room, switches on the TV. Judge Judy’s brusque, condescending tone is almost soothing. Soon there’ll be a melodramatic soap opera about two feuding families having lots of nearly incestuous relations. He never used to watch much TV, but now he’s thinking that these shitty afternoon programs will be vital to his survival.
‘It’s rude to ignore people when they speak to you,’ he yells out to Monica. He meant to say it good-humouredly, a joke between the two of them, but it comes out sharp and wrong and mean.
He returns to the kitchen and lifts himself onto the counter beside the stove. Monica glances at him, then returns her focus to cooking. ‘Our own junior master chef, hey?’ says Spencer, attempting a smile.
Asking questions only to receive no response is depressing. It shouldn’t be his job to deal with Monica, should it? Perhaps he’s being massively selfish, a really awful big brother.
Chance wanders into the kitchen, sniffing around for crumbs. He’s grateful for the presence of the dog, silent, non-judgemental. Living in a house with people who are silent is just frustrating—who knows whether they’re listening or not.
‘Planning on sharing any of that with me?’ asks Spencer. It looks like she’s making an apple cake.
Monica stops stirring and produces a packet of Conversation Hearts from her pocket. She pulls one out and presses it into Spencer’s hand. It reads
All mine
.
Spencer laughs. ‘I’m going to write to the company that make these and suggest some new ones. Like
My brother Spencer is wonderful
and
It’d be my pleasure to take out the bins and feed the dog
.
Monica turns away.
‘Dad’s home, right?’ asks Spencer. He swallows. ‘I’m just going to go upstairs and chat with him.’
This is it. He’s cooked and made cups of tea and been considerate to his father for almost a week now, since she left. His dad’s still stumbling around in a daze. He has to know it’s not good enough.
Spencer is pacing the hall outside his father’s room. He is not a confrontational person, but right now he needs to confront his father.
He knocks on the door. ‘Dad?’ Inhale, exhale.
No response. He opens the door slowly. His father is sitting at his desk, laptop open, staring blankly at the screen. He glances up at Spencer. He looks as if he hasn’t slept in an eternity.
Spencer eliminates opening lines in his head.
We need to talk
, gone.
I understand you’re going through a lot right now,
no way. He is not the school counsellor.
‘Shit, Dad.’ Perhaps not the most tactful thing to say. ‘This family is messed up at the moment. I get that you’re freaking out right now, but look, I’m dealing with my mother leaving. And Monica—she’s not even speaking. She barely acknowledges me. You can’t just be a zombie, moping around the house like this forever. Life has to go on.’
He’s channelling every person in every film that involves somebody dying and/or a rousing speech delivered to a failing sports team. He’s dealing with this. He’s not curling up in his room and pretending the gaping hole left in their family will heal over on its own. He paces back and forth across what used to be his parents’ room. A few of his mother’s clothes, photos, books, perfume are still in there. Artefacts from a different time, belonging to a different family. His dad just watches him.
Spencer breathes in deeply, breathes out. ‘Aren’t you angry at her? Can’t you…can’t you get angry and get over it? I’m angry at you, too, now. Christ, it’s not your fault she left. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. But you need to get through it and help us. I can’t deal with Monica or the quiet or this feeling that we’re not even a family, that we’re just a bunch of depressives sharing a house. Well, it’s felt like that for a while. But it’s killing me now.’
There is an uncomfortably long pause, and neither of them is able to find the right words to say.
Finally, Spencer bursts out with, ‘You know, normal teenagers? They fight with their parents. This isn’t right. Me yelling at you and you not reacting. That is the definition of messed up.’
His father speaks so faintly Spencer hardly hears him. ‘I’m trying, Spence. I really am.’
In a flash, Spencer realises the futility of this scene. He’s not going to be able to confront his father and have him return to normal. Raising his voice isn’t going to heal anyone’s emotional wounds, let alone his own. But he’s so goddamn frustrated. And he doesn’t like always being able to hear his own thoughts.
‘Why does everyone have to be so bloody quiet!’ he shouts down the hall.
Nina
They have checked into a motel in a town six hours inland from their last apartment, a town remarkable only for its thermal springs. There is a KFC next door and a pool in the complex, so Tom is in his element. It has been two weeks since Paul’s teaching job ended. He does not have another job lined up.
‘You know, I’ve never been to Ayers Rock,’ says Sophia. ‘How about we go there next?’ She has just come into the room, carrying a sports bag from the car.
‘I’ll just clear my schedule,’ says Nina. She’s sitting on the lumpy bed, flicking through TV stations. There are twenty channels but nothing decent is on.
The wallpaper, carpet and curtains are varying shades of brown. Whoever did the interior design had a total lack of imagination.
Nina could get out her laptop and engage in some aimless web-surfing, but there’s no Wi-Fi in the motel. Even if there was, she doesn’t want to give herself an opportunity to email Spencer. She just needs to think about something else. She did not say goodbye, which seemed like the best decision at the time. He’s sent her multiple emails already, but apologising now and attempting to explain would only make the situation worse. She’s hoping he’ll move on or get distracted and forget about her soon. She’s hoping she’ll forget, too.
‘We haven’t been on a good road trip in a long time. Moving from place to place hardly counts. It would be a great family bonding experience. You learn much more out in the world than you do in the confines of a classroom, Nina.’ Sophia drops the bag on the other bed. ‘You can quote me on that.’
Nina has had enough bonding experiences with her mother to last several lifetimes. She does not inform her mother of this.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ says Tom, emerging from the bathroom in board shorts. He has a beach towel around his shoulders and goggles on his head.
‘You’ll catch a cold,’ says Paul. He’s sitting at the table, reading the paper and sipping coffee from a chipped mug. ‘And I’d rather you didn’t disparage my profession, Sophia. I don’t think life experience is going to teach them much in the way of algebra, or ancient history.’
‘Algebra has no application in the real world if you’re not a mathematician. And how is ancient history relevant in the modern world? It is ancient after all.’
‘I know that you’re joking,’ he says, focusing on his paper. ‘Don’t give Tom more excuses to entirely avoid learning.’
‘I won’t. Now, wait a minute, would you, Tom?’ Sophia says. ‘I have to show you something.’
She produces three guns from the sports bag and puts them on the bed—two handguns and a short-barrelled shotgun. Tom looks awed. He walks over to the bed. Nina is not impressed. She never has been. Is it different because Tom’s a boy? Because Tom is more like their mother?
Maybe it’s just the fault of violence in the media. Totally not their mother’s influence.
Call of Duty
is to blame. Nina resists the urge to laugh at the thought.
‘Where did you get them?’ asks Tom.
‘The shotgun belonged to your grandfather,’ says Sophia. ‘These two your father bought in Sydney quite a few years back. We got a licence for them. We had to join a gun club and do a course. Six months’ probation. It’s all very bureaucratic and regulated. This country is a nanny state.’
In Sophia’s ideal world they would probably legalise everything and allow everyone to descend into chaos. Nina would not enjoy the mayhem.
‘Are they
loaded
?’ whispers Tom.
‘No. Legally, you have to keep the ammunition separate,’ says Paul.
‘I suppose legally you’re not meant to use them in robberies either?’ says Nina. Paul gives her a disapproving look. She’s the one who should be giving him the disapproving look. He obviously didn’t manage to win her mother over to the whole staying-in-one-place, not-being-criminals thing they’d spoken of months earlier. And Nina had thought that would change things…How ridiculous.
‘This is called a semi-automatic pistol.’ Sophia tucks her hair behind her ear and picks up one of the handguns to point out the different parts to Tom. ‘This is where the magazine goes. Here’s the barrel, muzzle at the end here. This is the trigger, obviously. And trigger guard.’
‘Is there going to be a test?’ Nina asks. They ignore her.
‘You can take one along next time, Tom, if you want,’ says Sophia. ‘I don’t think your sister’s too keen on carrying a gun.’
‘Sophia,’ Paul interrupts. He puts down the newspaper. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary. And I don’t think we need to take in more than one. We won’t be loading them, Tom. They’re just props.’
‘Maybe one day your dad will let you fire it. It’s a worthwhile skill. Wouldn’t that be a nice father-son bonding activity, Paul?’ says Sophia. ‘Go to a shooting range?’
Paul shakes his head.
‘If it’s just props, why don’t we use fake guns?’ suggests Tom.
‘People in the bank might be able to tell,’ she says. ‘They’re not going to be very compliant if they don’t have a sense of genuine terror.’
Tom nods. Nina wonders how he can accept that excuse. She doubts he even knows what compliant means.
‘I’ve got the best idea. For the robbery,’ says Tom. ‘We could wear contact lenses. Since bala-clavas don’t cover your eyes.’
She smiles. ‘You’re a thinker, Tom. We’ve got months ahead of us to plan. We can relax and enjoy ourselves.’ She puts the guns back in the bag, zips it closed. She turns to Nina. ‘Are you excited?’
Nina wonders how she can possibly be excited, or relaxed, with the next bank robbery hanging over her head. She ignores the question. ‘I don’t think it’s called Ayers Rock anymore. You’re supposed to call it Uluru.’
‘I’ve always wanted to go to Uluru,’ says Sophia.
Spencer
It has been two weeks since Spencer’s mother left. Bridie insists on coming over with fish and chips for dinner.
‘We have not hung out, just us, in months,’ she says on the phone. ‘We’re drifting apart. This is like the meerkat and the warthog in
The Lion King
drifting apart. It just can’t happen. There’s a foreign phrase for you, Spencer.
Hakuna Matata
.’
Spencer still finds himself unable to say no to Bridie. ‘I hope I’m not the warthog. I’d much rather be Simba. And Swahili for “No worries” is not high on my list of interesting words.’
When he puts down the phone, he looks around and sees the house as Bridie would see it: a total mess. His father and sister seem to create a lot of chaos for a couple of people who have just ghosted around for the last fortnight. Spencer picks things off the floor and hurriedly vacuums. The floor never seemed to accumulate this much dirt when his mother was there. But he tries not to think about his mother.
‘Be prepared for the most awkward evening of your life,’ he tells Bridie when she arrives.
‘I’ve been friends with you for eleven years. I am the master of handling awkwardness. I’m kidding. Don’t look at me like that.’ Her outfit is not too theatrical this evening. She’s wearing flared jeans and an oversized white shirt. Her arms are laden with packages. ‘I got enough for everyone. I’ve decided I’m going to talk your sister out of her silence.’