Truly Madly Guilty

  'I am not going to eat one single bit of this,' said Holly. She folded her arms dramatically. 'Not. One. Single. Bit.'

  'Well, in that case I'm not going to let you have one single minute on my iPad,' said Sam. 'Not. One. Single. Minute.'

  'What?' cried Holly, predictably shocked and enraged, as if this were a brand new threat, not one she heard virtually every day of her life. 'No fair!'

  'Just one mouthful,' said Sam to Holly. 'You too, Ruby.'

  'Did you play with Isabel at Honey Bees today?' said Clementine to Ruby.

  'Ummmm ... yes,' said Ruby. She lifted her eyes and tapped her fingers to her mouth, trying to remember. 'I mean no.'

  They said she was fine at day care. Not traumatised or affected in any way as far as they could see, just happy to be back. In that first month after the accident, Clementine had decided, and she truly meant it at the time, that she would give up her career and become a stay-at-home mother. (She had even allowed for the fact that they wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage repayments, they would sell the house, sell the cello and rent a modest flat, where Clementine would spend her days grating vegetables, doing craft and never removing her eyes from her children.) She had said to Ruby, 'Would you like to give up Honey Bees and stay home with Mummy every day?' Ruby had looked at her as if she'd asked for a treat and been offered a raw carrot. 'No fank you,' she enunciated very clearly. So that was the end of that as a means of atonement.

  'Fine then, I'll have one mouthful.' Holly picked up her fork and took the teeniest, tiniest possible mouthful. Her face contorted into a paroxysm of disgust.

  'Oh for God's sake!' Sam thumped the palm of his hand flat on the tabletop so hard all their plates rattled and everyone jumped. He stood, grabbed both the girls' plates and walked into the kitchen where he dropped them into the sink with a loud clatter.

  There was silence. Holly and Ruby looked flabbergasted. This was never part of the shepherd's pie routine. It wasn't meant to be serious. They weren't a family who yelled and thumped tables.

  Ruby's lip trembled. Her eyes swam with tears.

  'It's okay, Ruby,' said Clementine.

  Ruby ducked her head and covered her face with her hands as if she were trying to hide.

  'Oh God, Ruby, I'm so sorry, sweetheart,' said Sam from the kitchen. He sounded close to tears. 'I just got frustrated. I'm very sorry. Very, very sorry.'

  Ruby lifted her tear-stained face and sucked noisily and deliberately on her thumb.

  'That was actually a very loud voice, Daddy,' said Holly shakily. 'It hurt my ears.'

  'I know, I'm sorry. Who wants ice-cream?' said Sam. 'Lots of ice-cream!'

  'What? They can't have ice-cream for dinner.' Clementine, whose chair faced away from the kitchen, turned around to look at him.

  'Sure they can,' said Sam feverishly. 'Why not?' He went to the freezer.

  'They should at least have a bread roll first,' said Clementine.

  'I want ice-cream!' howled Ruby, suddenly recovered and furious, waving her pink, waterlogged thumb in the air for emphasis.

  'Me too!' said Holly.

  'Bloody hell, Sam,' said Clementine. 'They're not having ice-cream for dinner.'

  Their parenting these days was all over the place. They veered from excessive leniency to excessive strictness and back again.

  'They're having ice-cream,' said Sam. He put the tub of ice-cream on the bench and pulled off the lid. He was frenzied, agitated. It was like he was on drugs. 'Who cares if they have ice-cream for dinner? Seize the day. Live for the moment. Life is short. Dance like no one is watching or whatever that crap is.'

  Clementine stared at him. 'Why are you being so ...'

  'Where's the ice-cream scoop?' said Sam, his head down as he looked through the cutlery drawer. 'The one with the polar bear -'

  'It's lost!' shouted Clementine. 'Like everything else!'

  chapter sixty-four The morning after the barbeque Dakota felt her unhappiness before she opened her eyes. It was like her whole body felt different, flatter, heavier and yet emptier, as if something had been sucked out of her. Yesterday, she had done something terrible, disgusting and irresponsible. She had played with a beautiful little girl like she was a doll and then she'd just tossed her aside when she'd got bored with her and gone to play with something else and the little girl had nearly drowned. She thought about the lady on the corner who was having a baby. Dakota and her mum had run into her at the shops just last week, and Dakota's mum had suggested that Dakota could babysit one day when she was older and the lady had been, all, 'That would be great!' and everyone had been all smiley, smiley, not knowing that Dakota was so irresponsible she could never ever be a babysitter, she would let the baby electrocute itself or get burned by an iron or pull a saucepan of hot, bubbling soup over itself or -

  BANG!

  Dakota jumped. There was an awful banging, crashing, smashing sound coming from the backyard. She threw off her covers and ran to her bedroom window. She got up on her knees on the window seat and pulled back the blind.

  Her dad was standing in the fountain, except all the water was gone so there was nothing but ugly muddy ground. He was swinging a big metal bar like a baseball bat at the giant monument in the middle of the fountain. Dakota was reminded of some old footage she'd seen on TV once from a war or a revolution or something where hundreds of people were using ropes to pull down a giant statue of a man, and they all cheered as it slowly toppled.

  Except in this case it was just one person: her dad. And she'd never seen him look or act like this: angry and silent and violent, as if he wanted to kill someone or something. She watched the marble head of an angel baby go flying through the air, and then she couldn't stand to watch anymore. She ran back to her bed and hid under the covers like a little kid trying to hide from a thunderstorm.

  chapter sixty-five

  'Where are we going, Mum?' said Dakota for the third time from the back of the car.

  'Maybe that new Japanese restaurant I was telling you about this morning?' said Vid hopefully from the passenger seat. 'That's over this way, isn't it? Best tempura in Sydney, apparently. Did you make a reservation? I bet you made a reservation, hey? As a surprise?'

  'We're not going to a restaurant,' said Tiffany as she drove through a roundabout, keeping an eye out for road signs.

  She knew exactly where she was going because she'd renovated a few properties around here. She'd done nicely with them too. It was so easy to give the hipsters what they wanted: their little hipster hearts reliably exploded over an original (looking) decorative ceiling.

  'We're just going to make a quick visit,' said Tiffany. 'We're going to just drop by.'

  'People don't really do that anymore,' said Vid gloomily. He'd love it if people still dropped by. He sighed. 'You know, if we're going where I think we're going, it's not a good idea. Are we going where I think we're going?'

  'Yep,' said Tiffany. She glanced at him and he shrugged. He avoided confrontation. He just wanted everyone to be happy. The conflicted expression on Vid's face at a wake (he had a big extended family; people died regularly) was always priceless: I'm not allowed to look happy even though I'm at a party with all these great people!

  'Where are we going, Dad?' Dakota leaned forward and pushed her face in between the two seats.

  'We're going out to dinner.' Vid pulled out his phone. 'I'm going to make us a reservation right now.'

  'This is it,' said Tiffany triumphantly. She drove slowly down a narrow, car-lined street. That was the problem with these cool, inner-city locations; it was all very funky, but you could never get a freaking parking spot.

  'You'll never get a park,' said Vid to her. He had his phone to his ear. 'Forget it. It's not a good idea. Yes, hello! I hear you have the best tempura in Sydney, is that right? It is right?! Great! Well, can we try some tonight? No! Come on now, are you sure you can't squeeze us in a corner somewhere? We are only three small people!'

  'Where are we?' said Dakota.


  'We're going to drop by at Clementine and Sam's place!' said Tiffany with cheery bravado. The earlier conviction she'd felt suddenly wavered. She had their address only because Erika had given it to her so they could send Ruby a get-well present, for which they'd received a polite but stand-offish thank-you card by return mail. The thank-you card had made it clear: We don't want to see you ever again.

  'What?' said Dakota. 'Why?'

  'Is that a spot? Can I do it?' said Tiffany as she reverse-parked the Lexus in between two hybrids. 'Of course I can do it, I am the champion!'

  'Got us a reservation!' Vid waved his mobile triumphantly. He looked around. 'So you found a spot.'

  'I'll just go and knock on the door,' said Tiffany. 'Make sure they're home.'

  'Yeah, we'll stay here,' said Vid. 'You check if they're ... in the mood.'

  'Do they know we're coming?' said Dakota.

  'No,' said Tiffany. 'It's a surprise visit. I'll tell them we were in the area.'

  Vid snorted.

  Tiffany got out of the car, popped her umbrella open and slung her bag over her shoulder. She'd put one of Vid's strudels from the freezer into her bag before they left.

  She stopped. The rain fell softly, in a resigned, bored fashion, like it was sick of itself too. Tiffany paused. Was this the right thing to do? Eventually they would all forget. Move on with their lives.

  'Mum?' Tiffany turned. Dakota had wound down her window and was poking her head out. She looked flushed and breathless. 'If Holly and Ruby are there, and if they, like, do want to see me, um, I'll, like, come inside.'

  'Me too,' Vid leaned over the seat. 'I'll, like, come inside too.'

  It was the right thing to do.

  She drew herself upright and walked towards the house. She thought, randomly, of the night she'd auditioned for the job at the club, the terror of walking that catwalk in those high platform shoes. She remembered telling Clementine about it. Yeah, it really compared to an audition for the Sydney Royal Chamber Orchestra, but Clementine had needed distraction, so Tiffany just told her whatever crap came into her head, and afterwards she'd felt embarrassed, as if she'd made Clementine listen to sleazy, sordid stories from her past.

  Number nine was a cute, charming, narrow little two-storey sandstone house. It was jammed in between two other almost identical-looking terraces. Tiffany studied them and wondered whether they were heritage-listed. She imagined a demolition ball smashing through all that charmingness and a three-level apartment block going up in its place. Wrong! Oh so very wrong and evil! But oh so profitable.

  As she rapped the lion's head door knocker, she wondered if she might hear cello music, but instead she heard a man's voice shouting. Sam? Surely not. He was too genial. Now she could hear a woman yelling. Oh, jeez Louise. Great timing. She'd 'dropped by' when they were in the middle of a fight. She turned indecisively back towards the street. Mission abort? Go eat Sydney's best freaking tempura.

  The door swung open.

  It was Holly. She wore a blue and white checked school uniform, long fluffy purple socks and strands of coloured beads around her neck.

  'Hello.' Tiffany smiled. 'Remember me?'

  'You're Dakota's mum,' said Holly. 'I'm going to invite Dakota to my birthday party. My daddy said she wouldn't want to come.'

  'I think she'd love to come,' said Tiffany.

  Holly got a look of pure vindication on her face. She turned on her heel and ran. 'Da-ad!'

  'Tiffany!' Clementine appeared in the hallway. She looked aghast. 'Hi. How - I didn't even hear the knock on the door ... um, how are you?'

  'I'm fine,' said Tiffany.

  Clementine looked thinner than when Tiffany had seen her last, and drabber, older.

  'We're going out to dinner,' said Tiffany. 'And I knew you lived nearby, so I thought I'd drop off some of Vid's strudel, I remember you liked it. Dakota and Vid are in the car.'

  She took the container with the frozen strudel from her handbag and handed it over to Clementine, who took it warily, as if it were radioactive.

  'Thank you,' she said. 'And thank you again for the lovely doll you sent for Ruby.'

  'You're welcome,' said Tiffany. 'We got your thank-you card. I think Vid has been trying to call you ...'

  Clementine winced. 'I'm sorry, yes, I know, I've been meaning to give you a call, it's just ...'

  'It's just that you don't really want to have any contact with us because you don't want to think about that day and because you didn't really know us that well in the first place,' said Tiffany. She was sick of the bullshit. 'I get it. I do get it.'

  Clementine flinched.

  'But the thing is, Dakota blames herself for what happened to Ruby that day. She's been making herself sick with guilt over it.'

  Clementine's mouth dropped. She looked like she might cry. 'Really? Seriously? I'm so sorry. I'll talk to her. I'll tell her it was nothing to do with her.'

  'Dakota needs to see Ruby,' said Tiffany. 'She needs to see she's okay. And actually I think Vid needs to see her too. Just for a minute. I know we don't know your family that well, but it happened at our home and you've got to realise, this affected us too, and ... and ...'

  She stopped, because Ruby had suddenly come running down the hallway, carrying her whisk. When she saw the unexpected guest at the front door she wrapped her arm around her mother's leg, put her thumb in her mouth and considered Tiffany.

  'Hello, Ruby.' Tiffany squatted down to Ruby's height and put the back of her hand on her pink, velvety cheek. Ruby gazed back at her with big blue disinterested eyes. Some random grown-up who didn't appear to be carrying gifts.

  Tiffany smiled up at Clementine. It turned out that she'd needed to see Ruby too. 'She looks great,' she said.

  Clementine pushed open the front door a little wider. 'Why don't you go and get Vid and Dakota?' she said.

  chapter sixty-six

  Another rainy morning. Another talk to a group of elderly people. Clementine's eyes felt hot and dry as she drove into the car park of the community hall where the Hills District Retirees Association held their monthly meeting. She'd been up most of the night with the word 'separate' going round and round in her head, until finally she'd sat up, found a notepad and a pen and wrote in it: I'm worried that my marriage is over. Because wasn't there some research that suggested the act of writing down your worries reduced stress? In fact, it was shocking to see it written down so baldly like that. It hadn't helped her stress levels at all. She had torn out the sheet of paper and ripped it up into tiny pieces.

  When Vid, Tiffany and Dakota had left last night after their unexpected visit, Clementine had felt almost cheerful. There had been a definite sense of relief: the slip-sliding feeling of release after a fearfully anticipated event had finally taken place. The idea of seeing Vid and Tiffany had been so much more traumatic than the reality. All their qualities had become exaggerated in her memories of that night when in fact they were just ordinary, friendly people. Tiffany wasn't quite as sexy as Clementine remembered. Vid wasn't quite as charismatic. They didn't have special hypnotic sexual powers. And poor little Dakota was just a kid who had been carrying around a terrible burden of guilt that had not been hers to bear.

  But it was immediately clear that Sam didn't feel the same way. As soon as they'd left, he'd turned on his heel and gone straight into the kitchen to pack the dishwasher. He'd refused to talk about anything except the ongoing administration of their lives: he was taking Holly for her taekwondo class before school, she would transfer some money onto the credit card, they didn't need to worry about dinner tomorrow night because they were going to Clementine's parents' house. Then off they'd gone to their separate beds. It had occurred to her during the long night that she and Sam already were separated. People could legally separate and live under the same roof. That's exactly what they were doing.

  It was a relief when her alarm had gone off and she could give up trying to sleep. She'd got up and done her audition practice, and then she'd had an early mo
rning lesson with thirteen-year-old Logan, who she had been teaching for the past two years and who didn't want to be there but smiled so politely at her as if he did. Logan's music teacher had told his mother that he had talent, and that 'it would be a crime not to foster it'. Logan was technically proficient but his heart was with the electric guitar. That was his passion. As Logan had played that morning, dutifully following every one of Clementine's instructions, she'd found herself wondering if that was how she sounded to Ainsley when she practised her audition pieces. What was that awful word she'd used? Robotic. Should she tell poor little Logan he sounded robotic? But what would be the point? She bet he didn't sound robotic on his electric guitar.

  Now it was only eleven thirty and she felt like she'd been up for hours.

  Because she had in fact been up for hours, she reminded herself as she put up her umbrella to walk through the crowded car park.

  'Where's your violin, dear?' asked the head of the Hills District Retirees Association when Clementine introduced herself.

  'My violin?' said Clementine. 'I'm actually a cellist but, um -'

  'Your cello then,' said the woman with a little roll of her eyes to indicate Clementine's unnecessary attention to petty detail: a cello was just a big violin, after all! 'Where's your cello, dear?'

  'But I'm not playing the cello,' said Clementine uneasily. 'I'm a guest speaker. I'm doing a talk.'

  She had a moment of sudden terror. She was doing a talk, wasn't she? This wasn't a gig? Of course it wasn't. She was doing a talk.

  'Oh, are you?' said the woman disappointedly. She studied the piece of paper in her hand. 'It says here you're a cellist. We thought you'd be playing for us.'

  She looked at Clementine expectantly, as if a solution might present itself. Clementine lifted her hands. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm doing a talk. It's called "One Ordinary Day".'

  For God's sake.

  She felt exhausted. Was there really any point to all this? Was she actually helping or was she just doing it to make herself feel better, to pay her penance, her dues, to even things up on the universal scale of right and wrong?