Hard Word (5 page)

Grandma Vera

Inside I'm still Vera. I'll always be that. Vera. Always be Vera. Aloe Vera, Bill used to say sometimes. As a joke.

It's just that I get confused. I know that. I can tell that. No one needs to tell me that. I get woozy. The the the … white man in the coat says it's vertigo, but it's not. I just get dizzy, that's all. And words. I can't – In the dark I can't. It's dark in here. In some places in here. I get angry, I get frightened when I can't –

The fat woman was here again. Mrs Johanson. I don't know why Miriam lets her come here when she steals from them all the time. She slaps me when they go out. Miriam doesn't believe me. She pretends she doesn't even know her.

‘Mrs Bloodstock?' Miriam says. ‘But I don't know any Mrs Bloodstock, Mother.'

When she does. She lets her in. I lock all the doors when I know she's coming, but then I forget, and the next thing I turn around and she's there. Miriam's let her in. Old Fatso. Or he has. Prick Philip has.

‘Johanna,' I tell her. ‘Johanna Bloodstock.'

‘Well, I don't know her, Mother.' And then she says in that cunning voice as if I was a child or crazy or something, ‘Maybe she's just your own special friend.'

As if I'd made her up. As if I was the only one who could see her. Where
Miriam's
the one who lets her in in the first place.

‘The fat woman,' I tell her again.

‘Mrs Johnson? Is that who you mean?'

Why does she do this, I wonder. Pretend like this when she knows all along, and then only has to admit it in the end. She never looks at me when she talks. She's always fussing with something with her hands as if she's too busy, or looking past me at the windows or the walls or the dorkthings as if she's just seen some dirt there.

‘That's a good idea,' I tell her.

‘Mother, I wish you wouldn't keep saying that.'

‘Well, it is,' I tell her.

‘Je-sus.'

I like the little girl best, like her, like her. Katie. Like her. Have to protect her. It's disgusting. Only six. Katie's six. Greeks are disgusting. They're only after one thing. Look at Homer – or was it the other one? It's disgusting. His own daughter. Prick Philip. The Prince of Something Something. I liked the other one best. Even though he took Miriam away from me. Philip wants to send me away. So he can get the girl. Six, it's disgusting. It killed her father, Miriam's father. We met at the Town Hall. Or the
Affiancé Francaise.
That was a long time ago. But I remember it like it was yesterday. We –

Her father and I –

Her father and I –

His name. His name …

Ooh – To say it. Just to
say
it.

But I can't. I can't.

Fuckit.

There.

I've said it.

Philip

‘You didn't mind leaving early?' Miriam says.

‘No,' I say. ‘No.' To tell the truth, I had enough on my mind as it was at that moment, worrying about breathalysers and speed traps.

‘It's just that Laura's got exams next week,' Miriam says, ‘and I didn't want her up all night. Besides, it wasn't such a great party,' she says. At this point I'm too pissed off to answer, so I just stare straight ahead through the windscreen.

‘Did you think?' she says.

I thought it was a fabulous party. Half of Sydney must have been there – legal Sydney, I mean, Higgisons, Mallets & Ashleys, Paynters, Jacques & Escrocs, everyone. Senior Counsels, magistrates, two judges. Frank Fletcher greeted us by the door as soon as we got inside. ‘He'll take silk, that young man of yours,' Fletcher said. It was the first thing he said, as though he'd been thinking of it just before we came in. ‘In two years,' he said, ‘three at most.' And Fletcher should know. It's not just this recent case. He knows me, knows what I can do, I must have appeared before him half a dozen times. And if he says three years … Two, I'm sure he said. Two or three. Plus, he went out of his way to be pleasant to Miriam as well, the big kiss and hug, and all the rest. There was one tricky moment –
taking silk
– which means something different to Miriam and myself, and hearing it publicly that way from someone else
He'll take silk, that young man of yours
was a bit like being caught in the act itself, as if we'd actually been walked in on. But I don't think Fletcher noticed any of this. If he did, he probably just put it down to professional modesty, to me not wanting to seem over cocky or ambitious. I don't know if Miriam was embarrassed, but she moved away fairly smartly. It was a bit cool, I thought, to someone like Fletcher. Maybe she was still upset about what had happened at home.

We were late of course – we're late everywhere these days – and I was supposed to be one of the guests of honour. Not that that mattered so much, the thing wasn't meant to be that formal, no speeches, it's a party after all, not a reception. But still. Everyone knows, and they've come there partly to say well done, and if you're not even there to be seen, greet … It's not so much a black mark, but people do wonder a bit. Talk. Have we had a domestic? A crisis? Is something
WRONG
? That kind of thing. First sniff in this community, and they've got you splitting over cocktails, separating by supper and in the Family Court before they get in their cars for the trip home. When all it was, was the usual trouble of getting Mother to take her bath and eat her supper and then some tomfoolery between herself and Katie. Katie was racing up and down the corridor to Mother's rooms bowling this cloth ball and making a dreadful racket, doing some kind of radio commentary as she bowled, and then shrieking with laughter. I couldn't get any sense out of her at all for a while.

‘What's she saying?' I said to Miriam.

‘I've got no idea,' Miriam said. She was already tense. I don't think she was looking forward to the party, even then. I tried to get her to have a drink.

‘Would you like a gin?' I said. ‘To relax you?'

‘Later,' she snapped back. ‘Later. I've just spent half an hour getting Mother into the bath, and now she's refusing to get out.

Why don't you go and ask Katie yourself,' she said, ‘if you're so keen to know. She's your daughter, as well.'

‘Well, pardon me for living,' I said. But I did yell at Katie, and for a while she stopped her noise. Though the bowling with the cloth ball went on.

‘What are you doing?' I said finally.

‘Warne's bowling,' she said, darting past me and hurling the ball against the wall at the end of the corridor. ‘He's doing leg-spinners.'

‘I didn't know you were interested in cricket,' I said. It was the first I'd heard.

‘Katie, go and get ready for bed,' Miriam broke in. When she'd just asked
me
to deal with it.

‘And Grandma Vera's Steve Waugh,' Katie said.

‘What?' I said.

‘Katie …' Miriam said. In warning.

‘I'm just telling Dad. Grandma Vera's going to play for Australia. Didn't you know? As soon as she gets a proper bat.'

‘Katie, I won't tell you again. Go and get your pyjamas on.'

‘And some stumps and pads. She wants to play with Glen McGrath and Shane Warne. I'm going,' she said then, as Miriam moved towards her. ‘I'm going. I was just telling Dad.'

‘Oooh – that girl,' Miriam said as Katie disappeared.

‘What was that all about?'

‘I don't know. Some … fantasy.'

‘Do they play it often?'

‘What?'

‘Cricket.'

‘Philip,' she said, but she was still standing with her back to me, gazing after Katie, and I couldn't tell what she was thinking, ‘I thought you were the one who was desperate to go.'

‘I am.'

‘Well, then –'

Of course we no sooner had that settled than we ran into the next cartload of nonsense about who was to have Yogi, the cat, for the night – Mother or Katie. And that made us well over an hour late, and it's hard after that to get around properly and catch up with everyone you have to, especially if some of the most important people are old and deliberately go early. So that the rest of us can then let go a bit. As we do.

By midnight, I've had a whisky more than I needed – what with everyone topping me up, pressing a glass into my hand – though I don't know who's pressed Maureen Barlow's generous left tit into my hand or her tongue into my ear and kept it there as we danced. But they're there, all right, I find, and I glance around at one point and see Miriam looking across the room at us, or rather through us, not mad at all, just slightly glazed and distracted. Something breaks the spell as I watch and she smiles and then notices, and pulls her neck and head back and wrinkles her brow in mock disapproval. She and Maureen are close, she'd know it was innocent. I think. But I can tell she wants to leave. She waves, and goes out towards the back of the house and the pool. She'll be willing herself to lighten up, to let go, not to be a party pooper. For my sake. I know her. But in an hour she'll be back, wanting to go. So I'd better stop drinking now. And whatever else I'm doing.

‘I guess I just wasn't in the mood,' she says on the drive home. I don't say anything back. I don't say
you're never in the mood these days.
Miriam's smart, she'll be listening to the echo of her own words. ‘I could have got a taxi,' she says. ‘Or you could.'

‘I suppose,' I say. That's if I didn't value my life, I think to myself.

‘If you'd wanted to stay.'

‘Yes,' I say, driving on.

‘Did you?' she says. And I need a moment to think whether I'm going to tell the truth about this.

‘Did I what?' I say.

‘Want to?' she says.

And I've decided it's best to say nothing, and hope she doesn't ask again. But I needn't have worried because the next thing, just as we're crossing the bridge, she says, ‘Philip, I'm sorry. I know you wanted to stay.'

And there's something sad in her voice, and it's not just for me. Two years ago, I'd have been the one having to tear her away from a party like that.

‘That's okay,' I say, and as I say it, I find I mean it, and can look at her properly.

‘Let's go parking,' she says then.

‘What, now?' I say. Just from the shock, but knowing too, as soon as she says it, that it's what she wanted to hear herself saying, rather than really meaning.

‘How long is it,' she says, giving me a look of such hunger I nearly drive off the bridge, ‘since we last went parking?'

And now I think she
does
mean it. But against herself somehow. And I don't know what I'm meant to say. And suddenly I feel confused. And manipulated. And so, when I do speak, it comes out wrong:

‘I thought you were the one who was keen to get home,' I say, though I do slow the car a bit. As if I'm prepared.

‘Yes,' she says. And I know I've messed it up – whatever it was – and the moment's gone.

Later, in bed, I know that by force of will she tries to resurrect it – whatever emotion it was she'd felt for a moment back there in the car. She straddles me, tries to let herself go, she goes through the motions. But something is wrong, and whatever it is can't be forced, and when she rolls over and pulls me on top of her, I know she's surrendered, given up. And I'm made to understand then that, though you can't force it – this letting go, this losing yourself – you can still fake it.

‘Ah –'

I pretend to be pleased. Tomorrow is another day. For both of us.

Laura

‘Well you can't have
both,
Toni says.

‘But I like them both,' I say.

‘Yes, but if one comes, the other one won't.'

We're up in my room, sitting on the bed, working out the guest list for my party. I'll be fifteen in two weeks. My birthday's actually a Thursday but Mum says I can only have the party on the weekend after our exams. Toni's is a month earlier, we're exactly thirty days apart. Toni's my best friend. She sounds like a boy – it's actually
Tonia
, but we've always called her Toni. Toni Darling.
Darling's
her second name, which is funny though she gets sick of it. All the jokes all the time. And even I can't help laughing at times – though, when I do, she looks at me like she's never going to speak to me again. Like in school sometimes when the teacher asks a question, especially if it's a male teacher and he looks around the room and he picks on Toni to answer and he goes, ‘Well … um … let's see, Tonia Darling?' and we all go, the whole class goes,
‘Ooooh!'
You can really make some of the teachers blush then – a few just smile but some go really red, especially the younger ones who don't know how to handle it. The embarrassment and everything.

Not Mr McIvor, though. He's a real creep, Mr McIvor. He's our Maths teacher and he's always in a suit or a jacket and tie, even if it's a hundred and fifty degrees. Everyone's a bit frightened of him, not because he belts kids or anything – they're not allowed to now, they've got to get permission from the Principal and write it in a book – it's because he's so creepy. And a real perv. He's always coming around when you're doing problems and standing right next to your desk and leaning over to see your working or to ask if you need any help but actually he's trying to look down your blouse. He's always offering to help the girls – he says it's because he doesn't want us to get Maths-phobia, it's never the boys, so we all reckon we've got Mr McIvor-phobia or Aristotle-phobia because he's always going on about Aristotle and how important Aristotle was and if only we could see the clarity of his mind. So we all call him Mr Aristotle, but we don't want to see the clarity of
his
mind. So all the girls do their top buttons up as soon as he comes in the room and that nearly gives him a stroke on the spot, for a start. Except for one or two who don't care. Like Liz Fabretto – her father's Italian – and she's got the biggest ones in the class by a mile, she's bigger than Liz Hurley. They're just humungous. Anyway, she's not frightened of Mr McIvor. She sometimes – if she hasn't done the homework or she just wants to stir – she leaves the whole top three buttons undone and that means he's hanging around her the whole class while we're all cacking ourselves and not doing any work at all. We had this Maths test a week ago, and it was supposed to be about theorems and things, like Pythagoras and others, and Liz, she had this bit of paper on her desk, just to stir him, because we'd talked about it at lunchtime before the test, making up stupid sentences when we should have been revising, and she had this bit of paper when you weren't supposed to have anything on your desk because it was a test, and Mr McIvor, Mr Aristotle, that is, comes up beside her and whispers, but the rest of us can hear it because we're all listening, and he goes, ‘What's this, Miss Fabretto?'
Miss
Fabretto, if you don't mind – it's like we're still in the nineteenth century or something. He does that all the time.
Miss Vassilopoulos
he goes to me when all the other teachers just go
Laura,
but when he goes
Miss Darling
we all give him a big stir by drawing in our breaths in a whistle, like we're shocked or something, and if thirty people do it at the same time, it can sound like some huge vacuum pump or something, and it even shocks us and there's silence for a minute afterwards. But Mr Aristotle doesn't turn a hair, he just says, ‘Get on with your work,' in this real creepy, pervy way. Anyway he picks up this bit of paper off Liz's desk and he's frowning as he reads it, looking real strict like he's caught her cheating and that, with the theorem already written out, and then his face just goes
Huh?
because on the paper it's got
The angle of the blouse is equal to the sum of the squares perving into it,
which everyone in the class knows because we were laughing about it, making up all these stupid theorems at lunchtime. And we thought if Mr Aristotle saw it, he'd just crumple it up and put it in his pocket or throw it in the bin because he's so creepy and unruffled all the time, but he goes really white instead, not red like he's angry or embarrassed or anything, but white like he's going to faint, or maybe pass out, and when he says something then, it's like he's hissing like a snake or something, but it's not just to Liz, the whole class can hear it. ‘What do you mean by it?' he hisses, ‘What are you suggesting?' he goes. ‘Are you making an accusation –?' He's gone totally spazzo and hormonal by this stage. I suppose it's cos he thought he might get the sack or lose his job, or something. But when we talked about it later, we decided he wouldn't have said it if he hadn't been guilty anyway. Because why would you? Any other teacher, they'd just take no notice and throw it away. And that's why he's so creepy. Mum talked to me once and said if teachers or anyone did that sort of thing, I should talk to her about it, not make a big deal or anything but just let her know. But you couldn't. It's nothing anyway, but you couldn't talk to your mother about it. I mean, how embarrassing. It's not as though he's dangerous or anything, he's just a creep, that's all. And one or two of the kids in the class actually like him. But they're mostly nerds and have read about Aristotle anyway. He's
such
a fake. Mr McIvor, I mean. I haven't read about Aristotle yet, even though he's Greek.

‘Well,' Toni's saying, ‘you could ask Craig to the first part of the party and Simone to the second part. After supper and that.' Simone and Craig have had this big relationship for nearly all year, and they've just broken up and they won't talk to one another, they won't even go in the same room together. But they're both my friends, and I want to invite them both.

‘I don't think that'd work,' I tell Toni. ‘I mean, how could you send someone an invitation to the first half of a party? And what would you say anyway, if everyone's having a good time –
you've got to go at eleven because Simone's coming then?
And even if you could,' I say, ‘how could you get rid of him if he said he was going to stay?'

‘I hadn't thought of that,' Toni says.

Anyway we don't know what to do, so we put on this Spiderbait disk again, even though we've listened to it about a hundred times already this afternoon and Mum's yelling, ‘Haven't you two girls got anything else to listen to?', but we tell her we don't want to listen to anything else, all the kids have got it, and we dance a bit and think about it, but we can't come up with any answer. So we don't mention it for a while, and Toni says:

‘Did you ask your Mum?'

‘About the sleep-over?'

‘Mm. And about your Mum and Dad and the others going away for the weekend.'

‘Yes, and she said no.'

‘Is that a
No
no, or just a no?'

‘I think so.'

‘What'd she say?'

‘She said it's not the house and she knows we'd be responsible and that, but everything's just too difficult with my Grandma. She's sick and things.'

‘Is she still? She was sick a long time ago.'

‘Yes. And Mum can't just pack up and take her off somewhere for the weekend, even if she was happy about it.'

‘Why?'

‘Cos she's frail, or something.'

‘Your Grandma?'

‘She's got this … She gets upset if she doesn't have her things. You know, everything she knows and she's got used to, around her.'

‘It's just if they're all here –'

‘I know. Mum says we'll just have to use half the house, and they'll all go down to Grandma Vera's rooms and shut the door in the corridor, like we were in a separate house anyway. And then we can make all the noise we like so long as we don't upset the neighbours, and Mum and Philip won't come into our part unless we ask them, or I need Mum to help with supper or something.'

‘We can do the supper –'

‘That's what I told her. And she said, if some people want to sleep over, they can, as long as they've got their parents' permission, so it'd be just like we'd have it anyway if they weren't there.'

‘But they will be.'

‘I know,' I say. ‘But would your Mum let you?'

‘Mine? You must be joking, Lolly. My Mum has trouble with
me
sleeping over, and it's my own house.'

‘Seriously, though, would she?'

‘No way. She'd chuck a fit. But your Mum's always been different, you know?'

‘Yeah, I know.'

Advanced views
was the way some people put it – one or two of the other kids' parents, and Grandma Vera of course. ‘Advanced views are not a proper basis for bringing up two daughters,' she'd say. She and Mum used to have just the worst rows over Katie and me. What we could do, where we could go, what time we had to be home from everywhere. Not any more, though. Grandma Vera never keeps up an argument now. Even if she's upset, she forgets what the point was or says something weird that's not even English. Or goes spacey altogether. It's Mum and me who have the rows now. Like when I asked her about the party and she said no, the family couldn't just pack up and go away like that.

‘You don't trust me,' I said then.

‘That's not it, I
do
trust you,' she said. ‘I trust you as a person. I don't entirely trust your judgement –'

‘There,' I said. We'd been through this about a hundred times by then.

‘Laura,' she said, ‘they're not the same thing.'

‘They are. You just said, you don't trust me.'

‘Your
judgement
.'

‘It's the same thing.'

‘It isn't.'

We were only getting more and more angry. She has this way of spreading her hands, on a table or the sink or something, like she's totally calm and reasonable, and that's when you know she's really upset, and about to lose it. Whereas I just shout, I suppose, and throw my arms.

‘Look, darling,' she says, and she's got her hands spread and is leaning on her arms, and I know she's going to be super reasonable. And say no. Again. ‘I know you're responsible …' she says.

‘Well, then.'

‘But you're only fourteen.'

‘Jennifer Capriati was only thirteen when she was playing tennis and travelling all round the world –'

‘Yes, and look what happened to her,' she says.

This is the trouble with Mum – you've got to pick good examples. It comes from being a teacher, I suppose.

‘Look, darling,' she says again – and that tells me she's really annoyed –
‘you
might be responsible … Okay, okay,' she says, and she's got her hand up like a policeman, ‘you
are
responsible, I don't doubt that, but what about some of your friends?'

‘I'm only asking people I like.'

‘That's not the point.'

‘It's
never
the point when I want something,' I say. And she finds this harder to answer than examples.

‘The point is, I'm responsible not only for you,' she says, ‘but for your friends. I'm responsible to their parents as well. And, above all, I'm responsible for Grandma Vera. This is her home, just as much as yours and Philip's and Katie's and mine. And she
can't
be moved …'

‘I'd
go away if Grandma Vera wanted to hold a party,' I say.

Mum just looks at me with her eyebrows up, and I realize this is another bad example.

‘You just don't trust me,' I say again. Because I know this gets her the most.

‘It-isn't-a-matter-of-trusting.' She sticks her teeth out as she says this, like she thinks I'm deaf and learning to lip-read or something …

‘It's everyone sleeping over, isn't it?' I say. ‘You think we're all going to be –'

‘No, I don't.'

‘If we wanted to do that, we could do it now. We could do it when no one was home, or up the back of the school, or in the gym or the park or someplace …'

‘Laura.'

‘You just don't trust us,' I say. And I know I'm shouting and going round and round in circles and this would be a good point just to walk out and slam the door, and I'm about to, when she says in this tired voice:

‘It's true …'

And I look at her.

‘It's true,' she says, ‘that I want you to come to things in their own proper time. And not to rush at things and make hopeless mistakes.'

‘Like you did,' I say, and she flashes, as if she's going to slap me. ‘Having me,' I say.

‘Oh, Laura,' she says, ‘you can't think that.'

And she suddenly looks beaten and a bit old, and all I can say is, ‘Well –' And then, while she's still standing there with the same face, I find I'm saying, ‘You don't have to go away. Or Grandma Vera. We'll just have the front of the house,' I say. Just when maybe she was right on the point of giving in. It's crazy the way you fight, and then when you're actually just about to win …

Just crazy. Because the next thing is, I'm saying, ‘Can I help?' And that's simply the best time ever when we're standing there together in the kitchen and Katie and Grandma are somewhere else and Philip's not even home yet and it's just Mum and me, and it's like the years in between Dad and Philip, when there's only the two of us and we're just doing something side by side and not even talking, I'm washing a lettuce and she's making cold rice and putting spices and lemon and pine nuts in it like we still did sometimes when we came back from Greece, and there's no anger or anything left and sometimes I'm singing or humming a bit, or she is, and she asks me what it is, and I sing a bit of it for her, but we're not really talking. About anything, you know. Just being together. I really love my Mum when we're like that.