The Seven Steps to Closure (4 page)

Mum handed me a glass of wine and took a seat for the final round.

Tulip and Petunia circled each other like pro boxers in a ring. Tulip tried a lunge to the left but Petunia moved with her. Petunia tried to land a kick but Tulip, dancing like a ballerina, easily dodged the blow. I took a sip of my wine.

‘This is really good Mum,’ I said, holding the glass up to look at the wine.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘it’s Giesen.’

We both winced as Tulip risked her hold to pinch Petunia under her right arm. Petunia squealed but responded by tightening her grasp.

‘Where’s Giesen from?’

‘New Zealand – Marlborough region.’

‘Ahh, no wonder I like it so much.’

Just at that moment Petunia faked a look of horror and peered above Tulip’s head.

‘Spider!’ she squawked, very riskily letting go with one hand to point at the ceiling.

This tactic may not normally have worked, but the last time the girls had stayed with their grandparents they had been playing hide and seek in the garden and poor Tulip had ended up with a huge huntsman spider on her head. She had come very close to knocking herself out cold with a shovel.

Tulip let out a huge ‘Aieeeeeee’, and releasing the gift, launched herself sideways through the air into an impressive commando roll. She bounced back onto her feet and starting searching her hair for the spider.

Lily, Mum and I laughed, watching Petunia do her victory dance.

‘Oh yeah, oh yeah,’ she chanted, while waving the present in the air.

Tulip, realising she had been tricked, kicked the carpet and went over to shake hands with Petunia.

‘Nice play,’ she said grudgingly.

Martin and Dad had arrived for the last half of the battle and both applauded Petunia’s efforts. She bowed in their direction and then deposited the present in my lap.

As I was opening it there was a knock at the front door.

‘That’ll be Aunt Esme,’ Mum called out to Dad.

‘Aunt Esme?’ I asked in horror.

Mum looked sheepish. ‘Sorry love,’ she said, ‘I accidentally mentioned your birthday when I was on the phone last week. Of course she insisted she come.’

I sighed, resisting the urge to sulk. Aunt Esme was Mum’s Aunt. A tall, elegant lady with an acrid tongue, she had never gained my vote for favourite relative of the year. She loved Tash of course – but Lil and I? Well I guess she loved us in her own weird little way.

Aunt Esme developed a heart condition a few years ago, which she is not scared to use to her advantage. If something isn’t going her way she’ll clutch her chest, roll her eyes back in her head and start moaning. Two years ago, sick of her demeaning attitude towards us, Lil and I had decided to test our theory that the heart condition was non-existent. Unfortunately we had underestimated her acting skills and her competitive nature. Consequently the whole family spent Christmas Eve at the Gosford Emergency Ward, waiting to hear if we had killed her. We still think it’s all bluff, but as the wily old bat is prepared to go the whole hog to get her way, we have to concede every point.

It was during lunch that the topic I had been dreading was raised.

‘So,’ said Aunt Esme, watching me carefully, ‘Jackie tells me that Natasha and Jake are engaged.’

‘Yes,’ I said, trying to keep the expression on my face neutral, ‘so I’ve heard.’

‘What?’ said Lily in outrage. ‘You’re not even divorced yet.’

‘Well,’ I replied, managing with super human effort to maintain a level voice pitch, ‘in all fairness to Jake, you have to be separated for a year before you can file for divorce. Oh wait,’ I said, ‘it’s been a year now, so I guess I’ll be getting a surprise sometime this week.’ I let out a little laugh, aiming for a casual devil-may-care affect. I sounded instead a little like a chicken being strangled.

‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘the sooner you get him out of your life completely the better. Mind you if he becomes Lord Mayor none of us will be able to get him out of our lives.’

‘Hmmmm,’ I said nonchalantly, as I shoved a huge piece of potato into my mouth followed by an even larger piece of lamb and proceeded to chew noisily. My gross tactic appeared to work and Aunt Esme, who can’t abide noisy eaters, was momentarily distracted.

‘Really Tara,’ she admonished, ‘you’d think you hadn’t eaten for a week.’

I gulped loudly and grabbed my wine. ‘Oh look, I’m empty,’ I said, after I’d skolled the remnants in my glass, ‘anyone else for more?’ Hopping up I proceeded to top up the still full glasses around the table.

‘Jackie tells me the way he proposed was so romantic,’ Aunt Esme continued. ‘You don’t mind me talking about it dear?’ she asked me, fake sympathy fairly oozing from her voice.

I knew she was trying to get a rise out of me, so she could clutch her chest and pretend to swoon. Mum was staring at me with wide eyes – silently willing me to behave myself, so instead of pouring the contents of my wine glass over Aunt Esme’s head – which would have given me a few seconds satisfaction, I replied airily, ‘Of course not. I’m so over him that I couldn’t be more over him.’ Realising how silly that sounded I took another swig from my glass and sat back down. Lily squeezed my knee under the table in sympathy as she continued.

‘He took her horse riding at sunrise along a beach, and there was a table set up overlooking the water. He had organised one of the top chefs from the Hilton to cook breakfast for them right there.’

I picked up a toothpick and began to clean between my teeth, thoroughly examining the end of the pick as I went for any signs of plaque.

‘And then it turned out that her serviette was really a big treasure map and she had to follow the map and find the clues.’

Yawning loudly I stretched my arms above my head.

‘It took her all along the beach until finally she found the place on the map where the treasure was.’ Aunt Esme was really getting into her story.

‘They did that once in
The
Bold and the Beautiful
,’ interrupted Lily, boldly attempting to stall her without causing a myocardial infarction. Aunt Esme looked at her. ‘Ridge was proposing to Taylor, mmm, could have been Brooke – I can’t keep up with them. Anyway he did a treasure hunt on the beach and she found a little chest, and in it was an engagement ring.’

Aunt Esme, looking disappointed that her thunder had been stolen, continued. ‘Well it was kind of like that,’ she concurred, ‘but in the chest was a little heart with Jake’s name on it. And when she picked it up he said, “My heart is in your hands, will you marry me.”‘

She looked positively teary. I, however, had a strong desire to throw up.

‘And then a man appeared with a limousine and whisked them off to Tiffany and Co.’s. They had the whole shop to themselves while she picked out her engagement ring.’

‘That’s like in
The Bachelor
.’

‘Huh.’ Aunt Esme stopped with her mouth wide open, looking at Lily.

‘In the show
The Bachelor
when he is choosing between the last two girls he takes each of them to a jewellery store where they pick out an engagement ring, and then the next day when he chooses the winner he proposes with the ring.’

‘Hmmmph. I doubt Jake would watch a show like
The Bachelor
.’

‘Everyone finished?’ I asked jumping up to start clearing the table.

I wanted to do the dishes to take my mind off Aunt Esme’s story, but as the birthday girl I was forbidden to even enter the kitchen. I took my glass of wine and retired to the garden where there was an extremely comfortable chair. It was only normal, I guess, that I would think about how Jake had proposed to me, comparing and analysing the differences.

We had been dating for two months when I turned 22, and were just starting to reach a comfortable place in our relationship. He had taken me out to dinner and I was a little nervous, never having done any official gift exchange with him before. I was a little panicked thinking,
What if I don’t like it? Or
what if it’s a really functional, useful present?
When let’s face it, all we really want is something pretty. Or even worse…
What if he doesn’t even get me a present?
Then I would have to pretend that it didn’t matter, when I knew deep down I would be devastated. Not that I wanted something big or ludicrously expensive – rather just a token of his affection.

We had just finished dinner when the waiter appeared at the table with a wrapped box, sporting a big bow. It was from Jake and I could tell he had wrapped it himself because the raw ends of the paper hadn’t been folded under.

So I shook it and, looking cheekily at him, said, ‘What is it?’

‘You’re going to have to open it to find out,’ he answered, quite seriously.

I unwrapped it and there was another box inside, also wrapped. And then another and another, like a game of pass the parcel, until finally I was left with a tiny box, and I thought,
Oh God he’s bought me a piece of jewellery, I hope it’s not a locket.
I start mentally practising my Oh-God-it’s-so-beautiful-I-really-really-love-it face.

I opened it and inside was the most beautiful diamond ring I had ever seen. It was princess cut in white gold – a dainty thing with a claw setting. My breath caught in my throat, and then he was on his knees in front of me proposing.

I started crying; it was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me, and of course I said yes – although it sounded more like this, ‘YEEEEESSSSSSSS!’

The manager of the restaurant popped the cork on a bottle of champagne, and we rang our parents to tell them the good news. I can honestly say that, apart from our wedding, it was the happiest moment of my life.

I was distracted from my thoughts by my father joining me.

‘Look at that,’ he said. Panther – my mother’s huge black cat – was lying in the sun while the birds played around him. ‘Damn thing, won’t even try to catch a mouse.’ Dad shook his head.

I knew what he was referring to. Panther had – a while ago – decided that his favourite game was hunting Dad. He would hide in the garden while Dad worked, waiting patiently till he could launch himself from his hiding place onto Dad’s back. The first time it happened – Dad had admitted quite shamefaced – he had peed himself in fright.

I wasn’t the only one ending up with animals from the shelter where Mum worked. She had personally taken on the responsibility of finding happy homes for the pets that had been mistreated by their owners. Unfortunately they were often the ones with the psychological problems. Mum and Dad had Panther and Fluffy – a huge Great Dane that thought it was a lap dog.

Right at that moment Fluffy joined us in the garden, backing up slowly till the very end of his butt rested on Dad’s knee. He lifted his hind legs off the ground and perched there happily.

‘Damn dog should come with a reversing alarm,’ Dad said gruffly, but he started to scratch him behind his ears. Fluffy groaned in appreciation and nudged further back onto Dad’s knee.

‘How’re you holding up?’ Dad asked.

‘Oh just fine and dandy,’ I replied brightly.

Dad was not fooled by my tone of voice. ‘You’ve got to forgive your Aunt Esme,’ he said.

I looked at him quizzically.

‘She doesn’t mean to hurt you.’

‘Really?’ I said, looking at him with raised eyebrows.

He laughed a little and looked over his shoulder to make sure she wasn’t within hearing range. ‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘she’s a cantankerous, nasty old cow, who gets pleasure out of other people’s misery, but she’s the only relative – apart from Jackie – that your Mum has left.’

He reached out and took my hand. I was fine until he touched me, but then I could feel tears threatening to overflow. I concentrated on containing them.

‘I’m going to be all right Dad,’ I assured him, when I could finally speak again.

‘I know you are sweetheart. I know you are.’

We sat like that for a long time, holding hands and enjoying the uncomplicated silence between us.

* * *

Dinah’s surgery is on Oxford St in Paddington. There are three working rooms, a sterilising bay, an office, a bathroom and a tearoom. She has another full time dentist, Mark, and a hygienist, Rana, working for her in the other two surgeries. I organise the running of the practice – the rosters, ordering and chasing up of bad debts, as well as the marketing. I also fill in when someone is sick, and have become a proficient dental nurse. The practice operates from 8am to 8pm. Dinah and Mark takes it in turn to work the late shift and the Saturdays. Thankfully, I get to go home at 5pm every day.

The best thing about Dinah’s practice is that it is situated above Beethoven’s – a German teacake shop. The lingering smell of the night baking is waiting for us when we open the surgery in the morning, making you want to run straight down there and eat something. I gained a few kilos when I first started working for Dinah and now have to be very careful about how often I visit the shop. Right next door is a lovely little café called Biscuit. They do great take-out salads, so when I am too lazy to take lunch to work I eat there.

The first day back after my birthday weekend was pretty routine. I did the morning banking – being very careful not to inhale too deeply as I walked past Beethoven’s. The shock of the engagement could very easily have turned into a cake feeding frenzy. On my way back from the bank though, I saw it. A life size picture of Jake, whizzing past me on the side of a bus with the caption,
Vote one, Jake Wellington for Lord Mayor.

‘Good to see Uncle Edward’s money being put to good use,’ I said, as I headed into Beethoven’s.

Dinah was in the tearoom having a cuppa when I returned. She looked at my purchases and raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

‘Just saw Jake on the side of a bus.’

‘Lucky me,’ she said, helping herself to a wedge of bee sting cake. ‘Of course if you do this every time you see a photo of him during the campaign, we’re going to be obese by the election.’

‘I know. It was just such a shock.’ I placed a slice of pear crumble onto a plate and then ladled some into my mouth – moaning as the custard rolled over my tongue. ‘I never get over how good this is. Anyway, it’s still my birthday week.’