Six Impossible Things (21 page)

Howard gives a whingeing whine that turns into a sharp bark. He’s got surgery on his mind.

‘I think Howard wants his dinner,’ my mother says.

And food.

I pat Howard apologetically and try to bend the discussion back to money.

‘So, good news about the cake order.’

‘Just in time to rescue us from the snapping jaws of the bank.’

‘No cash to splash?’

‘None. It’ll cover the bills. Almost. And if I can keep doing some work for Phrenology when Anne gets back, we might just be able to keep our heads above water.’

‘That’s great.’

‘You know what? It really is.’ She looks genuinely pleased.

Pittney corners us two days later about the social to tell us we’re getting to the ‘business end’ of the planning and demands to know what exactly we have ‘finalised’.

All we really have finalised is a risky ‘getting there’ plan for Estelle and Janie, and that’s only if they manage the sleepover con, which looks to me like an outside chance. Apart from that not much is solid except the venue – the gym.

By the end of lunchtime I cave and we book Vile Bodies, the Year Twelve band. The transposable bracket girls are being difficult about refreshments so we ask if they’d like to take over that area and they say (omigod) (only) (like) (so) (totally). So now everyone’s happy.

No Radiohead again when I get home. Salsa. My mother’s grooving around the kitchen while she cooks. I personally don’t like seeing parents dance; it’s unnatural. But I can see it’s a good sign. I’m sure it has something to do with her getting out and about in the world with other human beings. Like Oliver said, good for her brain-health.

‘I’ve said I’ll go with Ali to his twenty-year class reunion.’

Twenty years out of school. That is so old.

‘That’s nice of you.’ Go figure.

‘But, Dan, because of the lead time for Mrs Da Silva’s niece’s wedding cake . . .’

‘Yes . . .’ I sense a favour about to be asked.

‘All the layers, and marinating the fruit . . . It means the last layer will have to be cooked that night.’

‘No problem. I’ll keep an eye on it.’

‘You’ll have to be utterly reliable, to the minute, or everything’s ruined.’

I try not to roll my eyes. Of course I understand this. Have I not lived through the product development, the cake trials, the advanced testing, the refining, the perfecting, the getting rid of clients?

‘Dan! Don’t drift.’

‘I’m listening! I can turn the oven off. I’ll remember. When is it?’

‘That’s the thing. It’s the night of your dance.’

‘Oh. That’s okay.’

‘But I’ve worked out the timing. I can put it in to be cooked by midnight. So long as you’re home by midnight it’ll be fine.’

‘Consider it done.’

‘It’s possible I’ll be home by then but it depends what sort of night it turns out to be.’

‘I understand.’ But I don’t really. She’s doing Ali the big favour, surely she should be able to cut and run when it suits her? She hugs me. Howard wags his tail, thumping it hard on the mat. Normally he jumps around barking if there’s any hugging going on. My mother notices.

‘Are you tired, little doggy?’

I wish I could tell her exactly what Howard’s problem is, but the last thing she needs is something new to worry about just when it seems the clouds are parting.

I give Howard an ear rub while my mother puts food on the table. We’re having one of my favourite dinners – piles of roast vegetables with homemade pesto. And there’s apple crumble for dessert.

When I carry Howard outside for a bedtime pee, Oliver is arriving home and he’s not alone.

‘Hey, man, this is Em. Em, Dan.’

‘Hi.’

Em looks scarily cool. She comes over and grabs a handful of my hair.

‘A-ha! Yes, I think we can do something with that.’

I get a warm bro glow realising Oliver must have spoken about me to Em.

‘House still standing? No burgs?’

‘Everything’s fine. I let a friend sit in there for a few hours on her way to Sydney.’

‘That’s cool. Okay, see you when we surface.’

‘Night.’

While I sit on the back steps waiting for Howard to select a suitable place to pee – it’s quite a ritual – I hear a door opening next door and Vivien saying an extremely firm ‘No’.

‘But I wouldn’t be leaving the house at all,’ says Estelle.

‘Save your breath. Janie may certainly not come over here. Grounding precludes all social activities, here or elsewhere.’

If anger and volume are anything to go by, they’re well into the argument.

‘We’re already missing our social,’ says Estelle.

‘There’ll be other school dances.’

‘Not if I die. Then I will never have been to a proper school dance. In my entire life.’

‘Don’t be dramatic.’

‘So I’ll be all alone, with no one to comfort me on the tragic loss of my one and only social. And you’re happy with that!’

‘Perfectly. Your father will be here. You’ll be fine.’

‘
Fine
!’

A door slams. Vivien exhales loudly, it sounds as though she’s smoking.

‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child, or whatever,’ she says to the night.

I’m not surprised to hear the manhole cover grating open a little while later.

‘Knock, knock, are you busy?’

I go into the storeroom. ‘Nah, come on down.’

I expect Estelle to be upset, but she obviously knows her mother better than I do. She expects to lose a few battles, it’s all part of a strategic wearing down campaign. She is confident that her mother, and Janie’s, will give up exhausted by the night of the social.

‘Especially if I can bring home an A or an A plus on something in the next few days, and I fill the house with Yo-Yo Ma.’

‘Rap?’

‘Cello.’

She looks right at home curled up on my bed next to Howard, her hair wet, wearing striped PJs. Ironically, she would be the perfect person to talk to about her.

If I had any guts I’d broach the near miss kiss, or, better still, initiate a new kiss, but instead I start telling Estelle about my father. The whole story – bankruptcy, gayness, Byron Bay. She listens completely, never taking her serious eyes from my face.

It’s definitely gutless but maybe it’s also a reply of sorts: me saying here I am; I show myself to you.

‘Interesting,’ she says. ‘It’s like he’s having his teenage years now, instead of back then. Because he and your mother got together so early, before he knew who he’d turn out to be.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘He must have really loved her to want to get married and have you, even though somewhere inside he must also have known it mightn’t be right for him.’

‘Why do you think it took him so long?’

She shakes her head.

‘Imagine how hard it would be. Years ago you land on married-daddy planet. Then you have to turn around to the whole world and say, actually, guys, I took a wrong turn – didn’t mean to come here – I’m supposed to be way over there.’

‘He should have known sooner.’

‘Maybe he did but by that time you were a family. It sounds like you were a happy family.’

‘We were.’

It’s a relief to remember that’s still true.

‘Years could go by. He probably couldn’t bear to hurt you. Then, in the middle of the big meltdown, maybe he thought, jump, it’s now or never.’

She’s good. Are all girls natural psychologists? Everything she says lightens my load of worry bricks.

When I tell her about the unopened birthday present she even has a theory about that. I didn’t open it at first because I was angry. It was a simple withholding, a rejection of him. But the longer I leave it unopened, the more it symbolises. So wrapped up in there, with whatever, is the hope that magically, improbably, impossibly, my father can give me something that will make everything okay again. And for as long as it’s unopened, that hope is alive.

I’m not kidding, she could charge money for this.

I
I FREAKISHLY FAST TIME
there are only five days until the social, then four, then three – everything seems to be organised – then two days to go. . .

And two things happen.

The first one is that there’s a rush on ticket sales. All the undecideds, too-cools and can’t-afford-its unexpectedly commit. Like an invisible message received by the herd, going to the social is the accepted thing to do.

It may have something to do with Vile Bodies whose reputation is firming based on decent performances at a couple of recent parties.

Which makes the second thing that happens two days before the social even worse. And it’s completely my fault.

I somehow manage to collide, in classic ‘running around the corner from opposite directions too fast’ manner, with the lead guitarist. This seems to annoy him. A lot. He’s extremely fond of himself.

When I say sorry he screams abuse at me so I tell him to chill and he says, ‘Chill on this, arsehole,’ and swings a punch in my direction.

Being a dedicated fan of pain avoidance, I manage to duck and swerve on a rush of pure fear, and his punch lands on a metal locker door. I fall off the unexpectedly-popular-entrepreneur pedestal in one loud, agonised expletive.

Jayzo gets the call in English.

‘You’ve really done it now, dickhead,’ he says to me. ‘You broke his fucken meta-something.’

‘Metacarpal?’ asks Lou.

‘Yeah, that,’ he replies.

‘One of these bones,’ says Lou, pointing to the back of her hand.

‘No guitar for a month,’ Jayzo says. He’s enjoying it. ‘All gigs are off.’

A gasp of horror sweeps around me.

‘Are you saying we’ve got no band? For the social?’ asks Janie.

‘That’s right. All thanks to him,’ says Jayzo.

‘He punched
me
,’ I remind people in feeble defence. No one cares about the details.

I’m the prize spoiler of all fun, skewered by the dagger stares of the entire class.

I more or less expect hatred from Jayzo, but even my friends are turning on me.

‘They were going to play our song,’ says Lou.

‘We don’t have a song,’ I say, deliberately obtuse.

‘Mine and Fred’s,’ she says. ‘Obviously.’

‘Mine and Fred’s, mine and Fred’s,’ I echo childishly.