Six Impossible Things (27 page)

I start breathing again, slow myself down. The letter ends:

None of this is offered as an excuse, Dan, but I hope it starts to be an explanation. I need to talk to you, so call me when you’re ready, even if it’s just to yell at me. Any contact will be welcome.

We’re going to be fine, all of us. We just need to find a new shape,

Love from
DadXXXOOO

I’ve missed him so much.

I get into bed and read his letter through three times slowly. It bangs me over the head with some of the things I love most about him – honesty and confidence and affection and humour.

Rummaging under the bed, I find the diary I kept when we first moved in here, and on the last page, the list of things I’d thought impossible.

T
HE LIST, AGAIN
:

1 Kissing Estelle. Unbelievable, but it happened. And I can remember every moment. It’ll never happen again.

2 Getting a job. Done. It’s not like I’ve made anything like the amount of money we’d need as a safety net if I Do Wedding Cakes folds, but we’re getting by. And I know how to wipe down a table. It was a bit of grandiose mad anxiety if I really thought it was up to me to support us.

3 Cheering my mother up. Didn’t I even realise that how she feels is up to her? I helped her find a job and she’s started cheering herself up.

4 Not being a loser at school. Turned out to be possible, with lots of help. I’ve just organised the Year Nine social. Thanks to Em it was great. Thanks to Oliver I’ve got non- loser hair and clothes. Thanks to my fear of getting beaten up, I’m fit and strong. I haven’t fainted in a while. I’ve fought Jayzo and survived triumphant as his maths tutor. Hmmmm.

5 Talking to my father. He’ll be here in three weeks. Still scary, but definitely not impossible.

6 Being good. As opposed to my father. What a judgmental little git. I’ve lied now twice to help friends do what they wanted to do, stuff I figured they were entitled to do. I’ve pinched clothes from school lost property. I’ve eavesdropped on my mother and her friends trying to find out what the hell was going on in our life. I listened in on Estelle and Janie when they were talking about me. I
read Estelle’s diaries
desperate to get to know someone I decided I loved before I even met her. Then I read them
again
! Good? I figure the best I can do is sort things out on a case-by-case basis as I stumble along.

T
HE
iP
OD IS CHARGED
and loaded with a playlist – songs for Dan. My dad has written down the song titles and why he likes them. The first one is from way back when he was my age, ‘Walking on the Moon’ by The Police. Giant steps.

As I listen, I realise I have to go up to the attic one last time. There’s something I need to give Estelle. No excuses, just the beginning of an explanation.

I climb the ladder and sit at her desk in the attic for a long time, deciding what my note should say. In the end I write just one line. And finally I can haul my aching body to bed.

I wake swinging from a tree, tied by one foot, trying to free myself so I can get to the church and stop the bell so Estelle and Janie can get out of the elevator in time . . . But the bell pushes insistently through layers of consciousness. It’s our doorbell, a Big Ben chime.

I jump out of bed forgetting about the fight, and feel my face, my shoulder, my back and every rib screaming out their protest as I limp to the window and open the curtain, trying to figure out what time it is. It looks early. I pull on some track pants and a jumper, stop in the bathroom to reassure myself that the texta scrawls disguise the worst signs of the fight – kinda – and head downstairs, starving.

Ali is in the kitchen. I barely have time to register this bizarre fact when my mother comes in, leading Vivien.

We’ve been sprung after all.

Now I’ll have to face the music for sure. All those false assurances I made about being a responsible friend . . . I meant them at the time.

I look down at my grazed hands. How am I going to explain this?

‘How do you explain this?’ asks Vivien.

But her tone is all wrong. She’s curious, excited. I look up. My mother is calmly pouring coffee. Vivien is peering into the palm of her own hand.

‘Seriously, where did you find this?’ she asks.

I feel like hitting my own head like they do in cartoons to see if I’m hearing properly. Shouldn’t she be demanding to know why I’ve disobeyed her specific instructions and helped Estelle defy her ban?

She is holding out her hand. In it is the little carving I gave Estelle.

‘Adelaide left it to me,’ my mother is saying, handing around the coffee.

‘It’s museum quality netsuke. I would have borrowed it to put in the exhibition if I’d known about it,’ says Vivien.

‘But how come you’ve got it?’ my mother asks.

‘Dan, you gave it to Estelle. Is that right?’ says Vivien.

‘Er, yeah.’

What’s Ali doing here? Wearing a suit? He offers me some toast. I take it.

‘When I came home last night there it was, sitting on the kitchen table, on Estelle’s book. I said to Peter, “Where on earth did this come from?” and he said it was Estelle’s and I went straight up, but the girls were still asleep of course. Anyway, it’s very exciting.’

‘There are lots more,’ says my mother.

Vivien’s eyes widen with excitement. ‘You do realise they’re worth a squill?’

My eyes widen with excitement.

‘They’re ancient Japanese belt ornaments,’ she says. ‘Carved ivory.’

‘Really?’ says my mother. ‘We must have at least a dozen.’

‘Sixteen, counting that one,’ I say. ‘But that’s Estelle’s.’

Vivien hands it to me. ‘It certainly is not. It’s much too valuable to give away.’

Maybe Ali had too much to drink and my mother let him sleep on the sofa. Yeah, that must be it.

Vivien gets up.

‘Let me know if you want to sell them and I’ll put you in touch with a reputable auction house. They should be auctioned internationally if you want a good price.’

But I’m pretty sure Ali doesn’t drink. So what gives?

‘Thanks, Vivien. When you say a squill . . . ?’

Howard looks up, alert to the conversation, waiting for us to remember the big op.

‘If the others are this good, there’ll be enough to give yourself a nice long holiday, not worry too much if the business doesn’t work out and heaps left over.’

My mother sits down abruptly.

Ali stands, kisses my mother on the top of her head (!) and says, ‘Time for me to open up.’

He leaves. He just kissed my mother?

Vivien stands, ready to head off, too.

‘Meanwhile, you should insure them, and get them stored somewhere safe,’ she says.

‘Good idea,’ says my mother.

My mother and I sit in stunned silence for a minute or two.

‘Howard needs an operation,’ I say.

‘I know.’

‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ we say at the same time.

‘I took him to the vet. I’ve been trying to put some money aside for it, but then my stupid tooth . . .’ She starts crying. And it’s possible to put my arms around her again and give her a hug.

‘I’m not sad, Dan, just relieved. I’m hopeless at the wedding cake business. I’ve got rid of more clients than you can imagine. And this means I can ditch it. Thanks for taking that out, by the way,’ she says, nodding in the direction of the midnight cake. ‘How was last night?’

I nod. ‘Okay. What about you?’ I notice she is still in her going out clothes. ‘Was the reunion good?’

‘It was. I haven’t quite made it to bed. Ali and I sat up talking all night. We decided we can probably manage to work together and go out.’

Say
what
?

She is smiling as she registers my double take. She looks younger, and pretty, and very tired.

‘Is that going to be too weird for you?’

‘I . . . no. I mean yeah, but I guess not.’

‘I need sleep. And you look like you could do with some more, too,’ she says. How can she be this calm?

But I’ve had all of about three hours, so I don’t argue.

Maybe she’s just stunned, like me.

I shut my bedroom door and lean my forehead against it. My mother and Ali? My mother and anyone? I try to make the adjustment. It’s not like, in the circumstances, she and my dad are going to get back together.

I’m distracted by the horrible thought that I’ve lost track of exactly where the box with the netsuke is. I find it in the bottom of the wardrobe and leave it there. It’s not till I turn around that I notice a sleeping girl in my bed. A sleeping girl in striped pyjamas, snoring softly.

S
OMEONE’S BEEN SLEEPING IN
my bed and she’s still there. I touch her hand and she opens her eyes straight away and sits up with a small groan.

‘I didn’t sleep much last night,’ she says.

‘Neither.’

‘I was sick some more, then I had a shower, then I went up to the attic, the land of feeling better, and I found these on my desk.’ She is holding my diary and the note I left her.

‘I don’t expect you to think it’s okay, just because I let you read my diary too,’ I say.

‘Janie says I was obnoxious last night. I’m sorry.’

She’s
apologising to
me
?

‘She said you were patient and determined to get me home safely, no matter how much I abused you. Heroic, she said.’

Janie was defending me to Estelle?

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘I’m sorry to hop in, it was so warm,’ she says.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘You kissed me.’

‘I did.’

‘That seemed . . . What made you do that – so suddenly?’

I shrug. ‘I needed to kiss you.’

‘I thought I was going to have to kiss you first. I thought you were too shy.’

‘I reminded myself of your note.’

‘What note?’

‘This note,’ I shuffle around my desk. It’s not there.

‘Do you mean this note?’ She’s holding it, too. ‘I was going to write on the back of it, but I fell asleep instead. How come you kept it?’ She reads it aloud, puzzled: ‘I owe you big time?’

I owe you big time?
Not, ‘love you big time’? I
owe
you?

A meteorite-sized d’oh hurtles towards me and lands on my head. I’ve misread her handwriting. At least a thousand times over.

I decide not to share my mistake just yet.

She looks again at the note. ‘I always put kisses and hugs on. I’d call that mild encouragement.’

‘I guess that was all I needed.’

Then she unfolds my note to her. My one line note. My make it or break it note.

‘So I read this,’ she says. ‘Then I read your diary.’ Her eyes fill up with tears. She’s sad, for me. ‘The whole holidays . . . it was like a furniture catalogue . . . So I could kind of understand, just a bit, how you did what you did.’

I hand her a tissue and she blows her nose.

My note said,
I was so lonely.

But I’m not any more.

‘M
Y MUM TOLD ME
about the loot. How are you going to spend it?’

‘Howard’s operation, for a start.’

He gives a sleepy tail thump.

‘You’ve been rescued by Adelaide.’

‘Yeah, but we’d already started rescuing ourselves, more or less.’

‘Do you want to go out with me, Dan?’

‘You know I do. But do you want to go out with me? After what I did .. .’

She gives me the longest look, holds out her hand and I sit next to her.

‘There are two things. First, I don’t think you were yourself – you were sad and lonely. And second, you’re the only person I want to tell all that stuff to anyway. No, there are three things. That list in the back of the diary – you put kissing me on the top.’ She smiles her mile-wide smile. ‘Good call.’

She leans against me, resting her head on my shoulder like it’s been there a thousand times. I bend down and kiss the top of her head. Her hair smells like lemons. She looks up at me and I kiss her again. She breaks away, gazing at my face. ‘Do you think you’ll ever get the texta off?’

Heartfelt thanks to Greer Clemens, Kaz Cooke, Claire Craig, Jack Godsell, Philippa Hawker, Julia Heyward, Catherine Hill, Simmone Howell, Penny Hueston, Julie Landvogt, Nigel Langley, Louise Lavarack, Violet Leonard, Angus McCubbing, Joel Naoum, David Parsons, Jenny Sharp, George Wood, Zoe Wood, and especially Jamie Wood.

And for wonderful places in which to write thanks to Varuna, the Writers’ House, for The Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship, to Iola Mathews, the Victorian Writers’ Centre and the National Trust for the Glenfern Writers’ Studios, and to the Readings Foundation for the Glenfern Fellowship.