Lisa Heidke (2 page)

Day 3

I
’m woken by a ringing phone. Max! Rolling over to answer it, I almost gag. Big mistake trying to move so fast after my escapade with the Grange last night. You know, I don’t really rate it, despite all the hype. Too woody and dense for my liking.

I bite down to quell the roiling in my stomach and reach for the phone.

It isn’t Max. It’s Gloria, my agent and friend - most of the time.

One of the reasons I wasn’t as keen as Max on doing major renovations to our house was that, with the kids getting older, I was trying to rebuild my acting career. Ever since I played a mother on a couple of vegetable commercials a year ago, I’ve become a recognisable face again. Okay, not so familiar that I could jump the queue at Target or get an automatic upgrade to business class when flying, but sometimes strangers stop and stare at me. And point . . . on occasion.

I used to be a soap star not too long ago: popular and hot - everyone said so. I starred in
The Young Residents
for a good three years as Nurse Sophia Frances, which was a huge success overseas, selling to numerous countries including the Netherlands, France, even Turkey. Prior to
TYR
I had a leading role in
Against Time
, and then after
TYR
,
Marvels
. Sure,
Marvels
was cancelled after half a season, but that had nothing to do with me. Last century, audiences weren’t ready for a crime-fighting dog who communicated with his owner (me) telepathically. I’m sure if it was reprised now post-
Medium
and
Heroes
, the public reception would be much more positive.

After
Marvels
, there were babies to look after and I let my career slide. Max liked the idea of me staying at home with Bella and Sam while he headed off each day to his work as a funds manager. And I convinced myself I liked the idea too. I was happy in the beginning, playing Earth Mother and cooking biscuits, muffins and apple pies. But it wasn’t long before I realised the store-bought versions generally tasted ten times better than anything I could come up with. And takeaway was often cheaper than home-cooked stuff. Domesticity never really was my strong suit.

So over the last year Gloria has been putting me forward for acting jobs. And the odd reality program. We’re both serious about me making a huge comeback. Last week I auditioned for a lead role as a femme fatale in a fabulously lavish new dramedy, and let’s just say I’m quietly confident.

‘Can’t talk,’ I say to Gloria. ‘Need to throw up.’

‘Congratulations on finally getting out and socialising,’ responds Gloria in that high-pitched girlie voice that’s so completely at odds with her appearance. I wouldn’t call Gloria a plus-sized person (not to her face, anyway) but she has ‘big bones’, as my mother would say. As well as her big bones, Gloria can be ferocious. She dresses in black, has jet-black shoulder-length hair and pale skin, and only wears Paloma Picasso red lipstick. An altogether intimidating package. Put it this way: I’m always glad she’s on my side.

‘I wasn’t out last night. I was drinking in bed, alone,’ I tell her.

There’s a brief silence. ‘You
are
joking, right?’

I hang up on her and, since she hasn’t called about an audition, decide to stay in bed indefinitely. Or at least for the rest of the day. Bella and Sam aren’t here, and I’m long overdue for some serious ‘me’ time.

I drag the covers over my head and invest in nursing my hangover.

The phone rings again some time later. My heart starts hammering. This time it
has
to be Max.

‘Lucy, I need to talk to you. But before I do . . .’ It’s Gloria.

‘What is it?’ I say grumpily. ‘I’m dying here.’

‘Can I just tell you you’re a wonderful person, a great woman -’

I feel sick. ‘Have you spoken to Max?’

‘Max? Of course not. Luce, look, I’ll give it to you straight. You didn’t get the part in
Seasons
.’

I say nothing.

‘Really sorry, hon. Life’s a bitch. But there’ll be other parts. Besides, who wants a role in an outdated soap anyway? Hey?’

‘Who’d it go to?’ I say.

‘I don’t really remember. Let me -’

‘For God’s sake, just tell me.’

‘All right, but don’t flip,’ Gloria says in a tone that screams,
I know you’re going to flip
. ‘It’s really no big deal.’

It’s clearly a big deal. A
very
big deal.

‘Gracie.’

I utter a strangled ‘Fuck!’ Gracie Gardener is my least favourite person in the world. THE WORLD. I can’t believe she’s still popping into my life. Gracie - or should I say, Darlene (her birth name) - and I were at NIDA together. Back then, as well as desperately searching for a more appealing moniker, she always snatched the lead roles from me. And she’s still bloody winning them.

‘To be honest, Luce, she’s lost a heap of weight,’ Gloria goes on, ‘her surgery scars have healed, and her boobs are -’

I hang up again.

Seasons
was supposed to be my big comeback. My break. I should have been a shoo-in. The part called for a vibrant, fiery redhead. That’s me. Darlene/Gracie is talentless. And she doesn’t have a single red hair on her head.

Day 4

S
till in bed, still wallowing in my private pit of misery, I think about the things that might have pushed Max over the edge. Forced him to abandon his Pad Thai and take off.

Could it have been the roofing disaster à la Spud?

Too much kitchen-cabinet talk?

Or maybe appliance shopping was the final straw.

A few days ago we went hunting for kitchen appliances. Max really wanted the Liebherr fridge with its bio-fresh compartment and MagicEye cooling. ‘Ridiculously excessive,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with Westinghouse? Buy Australian.’ Besides, I reminded him, Patch, our one-eyed foreman on the building job - another thing I’d recommend against - had only allowed one metre for the fridge. The Liebherr was one point two metres wide.

Then there was the stove. I liked the Ilve Majestic because, as the name implies, it’s majestic. Okay, so it’s not Australian. Max insisted that the Titan - ‘a state-of-the-art iridium stainless-steel-finish oven with easy-to-use side opening doors and a retractable range hood with illuminating low-voltage halogen downlights’ - was the way to go. I ask you, what would you prefer - Italian design or Kiwi?

We even discussed our preferences at a subsequent dinner party.

‘Oh, the Titan,’ one guy said, eyebrow cocked. ‘We thought about getting it too, with its ten cooking modes -’

‘Which no one but a professional chef would ever use, you wanker,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘- but in the end we went for the Ilve Majestic because, well, it craps on everything else.’

Maybe he wasn’t such a wanker after all.

And I haven’t even mentioned the fracas over the toilet . . .

‘Bathrooms aren’t just about being clean,’ the sales assistant told us. ‘They’re a whole-of-life concept.’

Max’s patience was running thin by now, and his left foot tapped faster and faster on the grey vinyl floor as the sales guy went on and on and on.

‘Today’s up-market bathroom mimics the day spa experience, as busy people like yourselves seek pampering in the midst of their hectic schedules. The Magic Flush 4000 is unique. With its heated soft-close seat, it’ll be the centrepiece of any elegant bathroom -’

‘How much?’ Max snapped.

‘It’s state -’

‘I get that. How much?’

‘Three thousand -’

And Max exploded and stormed out of the store.

Was that the final straw for him? How could I tell people he’d left me over a toilet?

I ring Max’s phone again. Still off.

Another bottle of Grange bites the dust, but there’s still plenty of great wine in the cellar. I creep down to restock, making my way silently past the builders.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Patch sitting down, drinking a cup of coffee. He’s nice enough - pleasant temperament, easy laugh. Some might even call him charming. Tall and tanned, with fashionably messy caramel-coloured hair, he’s easy on the eye too. Unfortunately, he’s also titanically slack and his coffee breaks never seem to end.

Then there’s Jamaican Joel, Patch’s second-in-charge - a nuggetty fellow with long dark dreadlocks. He’s always lurking in the background, tapping his safety glasses. And the twins, Tom and Ted. When I first met them I thought I was going mad, or needed glasses. ‘We’re not that similar,’ said Tom or Ted. I beg to differ. They are identical.

‘I like snakes, all reptiles, in fact. But Tom doesn’t.’

‘I love being in the dark,’ said the other.

‘And you twitch when you’re angry.’

Their chat gives me headaches.

‘Make it easy on yourself,’ Patch advised. ‘Call them both “T” and be done with it.’

The others - there must be five at least, all interchangeable to me - mostly sit on their rather large bottoms smoking and swilling coffee. And, I suspect, urinating on my hydrangeas, which are looking very sad since the builders’ arrival.

I load several bottles of Henschke’s Hill of Grace into a green recyclable bag and carry it through the dirt pit that’s supposed to be my new parquetry kitchen floor. Patch calls out as I slink past but I pretend deafness, run up the stairs to my bedroom and close the door behind me. I don’t mean to slam it, but somehow the doorknob slips out of my hands. It’s so undignified having to sneak past builders in your own house.

I’m into my second Hill of Grace when the phone rings. Gloria again, in serious hounding mode. I listen to her bang on to the machine about a celebrity archery tournament and how I simply must let her put me forward as a participant.

What the hell am I doing with my life? Archery games? Half-empty wine bottles lying around?

In a burst of clarity and optimism, I realise I can’t hide in my bedroom forever. Bella and Sam are coming home tomorrow. Whether Max has left me or not, I have to get my act together.

Day 5

E
asier said than done. Instead of cleaning the house, showering and shopping for groceries, I spend the majority of the day crying so that I’m puffy, bloated and red-faced when I pick up my hungry and exhausted kids.

‘Mum, you look really bad,’ says my daughter, Isabella, who’s far too switched-on for a ten-year-old. You’d never guess we were mother and daughter. For a start, she has dark brown hair while mine is reddish with blonde highlights. Bella has beautiful olive skin, gorgeous big eyes, rosebud lips and long skinny legs. My skin is fair, almost translucent, and it’s been a long time since any part of me could be described as skinny, or even slim. Shapely, certainly.

Now Sam, he definitely
is
my child with his fair skin, red hair and pale green eyes.

‘Where’s Dad?’ he asks after we arrive home. A typical eight-year-old, he never usually notices anything unless it’s right in front of his nose.

I return to my bedroom, and my bed.

‘Camp was great, Mum. Thanks for asking,’ says Bella, coming into my room after a while. ‘God, it’s filthy in here. I can hardly breathe for the dust. What’s with all the bottles?’

Sam joins her. ‘Why is the carpet all wet and red?’

‘There’s no food in the house.’

‘When are we going to have a kitchen again?’

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘The toilet’s broken.’

On and on they go, bombarding me with complaints and questions.

I look over at the photo beside the bed. It’s of the four of us - me, Max, Sam and Bella - taken five years ago on a beach holiday. We’re all smiles. It’s just a brief romanticised snapshot of our lives, though. Earlier in the day the children had been getting on Max’s nerves. And looking at my beaming self, I notice the hint of a double chin, and think how boring and conservative my blue sarong looked. No wonder Max left me.

‘Mum, we
have
to eat,’ says Sam, interrupting my reverie.

I briefly think about cooking a nutritious meal, then abandon the idea and ask Bella to dial Mitzi’s Chinese home delivery.

Day 6

‘M
um,
when
are you getting out of bed?’

Bloody kids. Why can’t I hibernate here in my darkened nest forever?

‘I’m sick, Bella,’ I groan, peering sleepily at the clock radio on the bedside table. ‘It’s Saturday morning. It’s nine o’clock. Go and watch cartoons.’

‘But we’ve been awake since six-thirty and there’s no food in the house, not even enough milk for Weetbix.’

The way Bella talks you’d think I was a completely hopeless mother, which is far from the truth. On school days I’m always up (reluctantly) at 6.40 am making sure the children are fed, watered and clothed before sending them off to school with a nutritious packed lunch. Okay, so sometimes it’s a Baker’s Delight bacon and cheese roll and an apple. Still.

‘Anyway, I called Nanna,’ Bella goes on.

‘What?’ I say, sitting up quickly.

My mother marches into my bedroom, yanks back the curtains and opens the windows. ‘For goodness sake, Lucy,’ she bellows, ‘I should report you for neglect. And it’s so stuffy in here.’

How is it my mother can still make me feel like a naughty seven-year-old?

‘I’m the one who’s neglected,’ I say, sniffing a little. ‘And sick. And bloody stressed.’

Mum gives me a withering look. She’s a big woman, not so much in girth as in stature (I inherited my height from her), and while I’m slightly taller, she has an imposing (some might say overbearing) nature. Her hair, like Bella’s, is cut in an immaculate bob, except hers is pure white.

‘What have you been
doing
while the children were at camp? You didn’t return any of my calls. And Bella says there’s absolutely no food in the house.’

‘There
is
food. I bought some. The builders have probably scoffed it. Drunk half the cellar as well, no doubt. They’re a disgrace. But I can’t watch them twenty-four seven.’

‘But Mum,’ says Bella, waving a piece of paper in the air, ‘the builders left two days ago - it says so in this note. It also says that if you’re not going to talk to them in a civilised manner, they’re not coming back. Patch has left a number for you to call when you’re ready to apologise.’

‘Give that to me,’ I say, snatching the note out of her hand. I have a hazy recollection of a minor altercation about turning off the ear-splitting power tools that had been going full speed fourteen hours a day. I might even have mumbled something about fucking power tools operated by a bunch of fucking imbeciles. Not sure.

‘Off you go now, Bella. I need to talk to your mother,’ says Mum. Her voice has its what-have-I-done-to-deserve-a-daughter-like-this tone.

Oh dear.

Bella eyes me suspiciously. ‘My school uniform hasn’t been ironed, my camp clothes need washing and I’ve almost run out of other clothes to wear.’

‘I hear you,’ I say, slipping further under the doona.

‘Where’s Max?’ Mum barks after Bella has gone off to find more dust and grime to complain about.

‘Away on business.’

It’s not such a lie. He
could
be away on business. Mind you, that doesn’t explain why I’m lying in bed with the curtains drawn, sporting greasy hair and spots, and surrounded by vintage Grange empties and experiencing a headache that’d reach at least three point five on the Richter scale.

Mum’s itching to question me further, but still working out how to go about it. Quite frankly, I’m not up to any quizzing about Max. If I confide in her, she’ll ask the hard questions and I have no answers.

‘Okay,’ she says finally. ‘Let’s get you up and into a warm bath.’

‘What for? I’m living in hell, Mum, in a half-finished house -’

‘Don’t talk to me about hell, Lucy, we all have problems.

It’s a question of how you deal with them.’

Half a bottle of Henschke is just within reach. I grab for it and miss. Just as well. I’d have been torn between wanting to drink it and wanting to hit Mum over the head with it. She stares me down and I slowly pull back my hand.

‘There’s no hot water,’ I say.

‘I’ve boiled water for you. The bath is perfect.’

‘But Mum,’ I protest, as she pulls the doona off the bed.

‘But Mum, nothing.’

It’s only after I ease myself into the scalding bath that I realise I’ve barely been out of my bedroom all week. I certainly haven’t left the house. I wonder what’s been going on in the wider world. Perhaps there’s been a change of government? George Clooney might have married? Amy Winehouse might have gone straight? Maybe my concrete slab has been poured - Yeah. Like that will have happened.

Half an hour later, I’m squeaky clean and I wander downstairs. The house - what still exists of it - resembles a bomb site. There’s dust everywhere, and the floors are littered with nails, wood, half-drunk cups of coffee in filthy mugs and throwaway polystyrene cups. Gross.

And Bella’s right. The builders have downed tools and disappeared.

This is all I need.

Outside in the garden - otherwise known as the ten-centimetre patch of greenish grass that hasn’t yet been destroyed by wood piles, a skip and other assorted garbage - Mum has barbecued sausages for the kids’ lunch.

‘I told you there was food in the house,’ I say with a smirk.

Mum glares at me. ‘I did some shopping on the way over here.’

‘So nice to have a home-cooked meal after all the takeaways we’ve been eating for the last few months,’ says Bella as she and Sam stuff their faces.

‘We’ve had no kitchen to cook in,’ I say in self-defence.

‘What on earth are you wearing?’ Mum asks, staring at my green puffer jacket and black woolly Ugg boots. ‘You look like a caterpillar larva.’

I ignore her as I wolf down three sausages and several cherry tomatoes in rapid succession. I’m starving.

‘You should have told me Max was away. I would have come and stayed earlier,’ Mum goes on.

‘Staying? What’s this about staying?’

‘Bella thinks it’s a good idea, just till her father’s back.’

‘I am perfectly capable of looking after my own children, thank you very much.’ I speak with such authority I almost convince myself.

‘Lucy, there are newspapers littering the driveway, piles of washing to be done, the house is full of dust -’

‘I have no clean clothes,’ adds Bella sulkily.

‘Quite right,’ says Mum. ‘I was surprised to find Oscar still here.’

Startled and guilty, I look over at Oscar, our snooty Persian, who looks very thin and is currently choking on a chop bone.

‘I was sick,’ I say. ‘I’m better now. After lunch you can go home, honestly. I’m sure Dad’s missing you.’ I can only hope.

‘He’s at the footy all afternoon and will probably go out afterwards. He’s a big boy. He can manage by himself,’ says Mum.

‘What? And I can’t?’

‘I’ll just stay for the night,’ Mum insists. ‘Just to make sure you’re all okay. You
are
okay, aren’t you, Lucy?’

God! It’s so depressing that the highlight of the evening is watching
Big Brother
in the makeshift laundry/kitchen/ family room.

I know how the inmates feel, trapped in their prison and at the mercy of BB - or in my case, Patch and my mother. I drift off to sleep with the words ‘Big Brother will be speaking to you in the morning,’ except I hear them in my mother’s voice. It’s rather unsettling.