Three Wishes

  "Never," he mumbled, his tongue already in her mouth, his hands running up and down her spine.

  She had thought sex would be ruined forever--but they were too good at it for it to be bad. The hurt of the last few weeks seemed only to make it more intense; it gave her a feeling of exquisite fragility, as if at any moment she would cry. She came fast and hard and that thing happened, the phenomenon that had only happened twice before and both those times she'd been smoking pot. It was like a stained-glass window shattered in her head and every fragment was a different memory or thought or feeling. There was the plate of spaghetti smashing against the wall and there was Gemma with shiny eyes saying, "Two very, very pretty blue lines," and there was Dan walking toward a child looking up to say, "That's my dad," and there was the Christmas tree of Cat's childhood, glittering with gold and silver tinsel in the morning light, surrounded by presents that had magically materialized overnight.

  It took them a few seconds to catch their breath.

  "Wow."

  "Yeah, wow."

  "So, this should make Christmas less stressful," Dan said as they drove toward Lyn's place. "Getting your parents over and done with in one go, instead of driving all over Sydney to see them."

  Dan had a low-maintenance family. His parents had considerately moved up to Queensland a couple of years ago, and he had an enviably casual relationship with his only sister, Mel. Christmas was all about the Kettles, which was fortunate because they didn't leave much energy for anyone else.

  "It will be more stressful," said Cat. "I think it's a bizarre idea having the parents together for Christmas. Mum will be even more uptight than usual, and Dad will be showing off. It will be painful to watch."

  "And you can't drink yourself into oblivion anymore."

  "I assume you're going to give up alcohol in sympathy with me."

  "Enjoy your little fantasies, don't you?"

  "You're still on probation. Don't get all cocky just because you got lucky this morning."

  "Ooh, I got lucky all right."

  As they waited for the traffic lights to change Cat looked out the window and watched a family who had just pulled up outside someone's house. A group of kids were running helter-skelter into the house, and a man was standing with his arms outstretched while a woman loaded him up with presents from the car. He pretended to stagger under their weight, and the woman flicked him on the arm.

  The lights changed and Dan accelerated.

  "You know, I might forgive you, one day," she said. "I might."

  "The air conditioning isn't working," said Michael as he ushered them into the house. "My wife is not happy. Merry Christmas."

  He had a screwdriver in his hand, which he handed to Dan. "It's time to initiate you into one of the great joys of fatherhood, mate."

  Dan stared at the screwdriver.

  "You get a picture on a box, a thousand little screws, and instructions entirely lacking in logic. Oh, it's fun. Today, we're working on a three-story cubby house. Santa Claus must have been out of her mind. Come on. You're not escaping."

  "A drink?" asked Dan a touch desperately, as Michael led him off by the elbow.

  Cat mouthed the word "probation" at him.

  She found Lyn in the kitchen, wearing a sleeveless sundress that made her shoulders look too thin. The gleaming granite bench tops were covered with orderly rows of chopped ingredients. She was standing at the kitchen sink washing lettuce leaves.

  "You're the most organized cook on the planet," said Cat. "What is that noise?" She bent down to see Maddie sitting under the table, frowning heavily, while she banged away discordantly on a tiny xylophone.

  "My Cat!" cried Maddie and banged even harder to celebrate. "Look! Maddie noisy! Shhhh!"

  "Ooh, can I see?" asked Cat hopefully, but Maddie was way too smart for that.

  "No!"

  "It's no use." Lyn wiped the back of a wet hand against her forehead. "It's her favorite present. You know who it's from--Georgina. The bitch. She must have combed the shops looking for the loudest toy she could find. I've had the worst morning. First the air conditioning. We can't get anybody out to fix it and they're forecasting thirty-four degrees. Nana will be complaining all day. Michael has spent two hours on that stupid cubby house. Mum's setting the table on the veranda, and she's so tightly wound up you can see the static crackling. You'd better keep away from her. Kara is upstairs, refusing to come out of her room. Gemma just called, all dreamy and idiotic, asking how to make a potato salad. Dad and Nana are late. Oh no, you disgusting, vile creature!"

  Lyn did a strange little flapping dance on the spot and pointed at a cockroach in the middle of the kitchen floor. It seemed to have caught Lyn's panic and kept changing its mind about which way it should go.

  "The spray! It's right there next to you. Stop laughing and kill it!"

  Cat grabbed the spray. "Die, you little motherfucker," she said and blasted it.

  "Yucky," observed Maddie, who had come out from under the kitchen table and now stood with her hands on her hips like a disgusted little housewife.

  "That's exactly what I say when I kill cockroaches," said Lyn, as she scooped up the cockroach with a paper towel.

  "Yucky?"

  "Die, you little motherfucker. In exactly that tone of voice. I'm pretending to be Arnie Schwarzenegger."

  "Yeah. Me too."

  They grinned, pleased with themselves.

  "We'll have to ask Gemma if she does it too," said Lyn.

  "She probably doesn't know you're meant to kill them. What shall I do to help now I've got rid of your vermin?"

  "Can you extricate Kara from her hovel? She listens to you. Thinks you're cool."

  "O.K."

  "You're glowing by the way," said Lyn as she returned to her lettuce leaves and Maddie returned to her xylophone. "Pregnancy must suit you."

  Cat smiled widely. "Cool and glowing. Glowing coolly."

  "Yeah, yeah. Go away. Maddie, I'm begging you to be quiet!"

  Cat knocked once on Kara's door and walked into her dark bedroom, which smelled of perfume and illicit cigarette smoke. The floor was layered in discarded clothing.

  It was Cat's own teenage bedroom. The one she got for four months of the year before she had to move out and let a sister take a turn at a room of her own. Kara was lying facedown on her bed, and Cat could hear the tinny beat of music from her headphones. She sat down on the end of the bed and grabbed her ankle.

  Kara's shoulder blades twitched angrily and she turned over, revealing blotchy mascara tearstains.

  "Oh," she said, pulling her headphones around her neck. "It's you."

  "Yep," said Cat. "Happy Christmas. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing."

  "So why the suicidal look? Did you get really bad presents?"

  "You wouldn't understand."

  "No. Probably not. Try me anyway so you can prove yourself right."

  Kara sighed dramatically.

  "O.K., so this morning right, Mum gives me these shorts for Christmas and she goes, Try them on, try them on! I didn't want to try them on in front of everybody but she wouldn't shut up, so I did and I had to do this embarrassing, like fashion parade, with my gran saying Ohhhh, isn't she sweet? and then do you know what Mum said, really loudly, in front of everybody?"

  Kara's voice quivered and Cat thought, You bitch, Georgina.

  "What?"

  "She said they didn't really suit me!"

  Kara's face crumbled. "Can you believe she said that?"

  "Mmmm. Well, I guess--"

  "She means I've got fat, ugly, disgusting legs!"

  "No, I don't think she did mean that actually."

  "You don't understand. You've got great legs!" Kara pinched viciously at the flesh on her own thighs. "And don't you dare say there's nothing wrong with my legs because if you do, you're just a liar. I know there is, because at the swimming carnival, Matt Hayes pointed at me and said he'd seen better legs on a table, and all his stupid friends laughed through thei
r noses, like they agreed!"

  It was no wonder that teenagers ended up going on shooting rampages, thought Cat. She herself could cheerfully fire off a few rounds at Matt and his pathetic, pimply little mates.

  "And don't talk to me about how the media tries to make women feel bad about their bodies and it's a feminist issue and blah, blah, blah. I know all that stuff! It doesn't make any difference."

  Cat shut her mouth quickly. Kara lay back down on her bed and they sat in silence for a few seconds.

  Cat tried frantically to think of something cool to say.

  "I really hate my breasts," she offered finally, lamely.

  "What?" Kara snorted.

  "The Kettle girls missed out on breasts. You should hear the jokes boys have made about us over the years. They thought they were so witty. So hilarious."

  "To Lyn, even? Did Lyn get upset?"

  "Of course. Once a boy told Lyn she had two mozzie bites instead of tits and she cried for a whole week."

  "Really? Did she?" Kara sat up, invigorated. "I can't imagine her, young, and getting all upset."

  "And you obviously don't have any worries in that department."

  "Shut up." Kara pulled at her T-shirt. "Boys don't care about breasts."

  Cat stood up. "No. Of course not. Boys never think twice about breasts. Come on, you idiot, I'm sweltering in here. Are your legs capable of getting us downstairs?"

  "Oh, all right. I'm starved to death, anyway. So what did that boy say again? Two mosquito bites, huh?"

  "Don't ever mention it to her, will you?"

  Now Kara looked positively delighted. "I won't. It might be a traumatic memory."

  "Probably."

  The sounds of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" floated up the stairs, and Kara winced painfully. "Oh no." She clattered down the stairs, two at a time, yelling out, "Dad! Stop embarrassing yourself! Turn it off!"

  Cat followed her, wondering if that mosquito bite thing happened to Lyn, or herself. Oh well. The year she turned thirty she had finally made peace with her breasts.

  Gemma, Nana Kettle, and Frank were sitting around Lyn's kitchen table shelling prawns and drinking champagne. The three of them all had tinsel bows tied around their heads, which were no doubt Gemma's creations.

  "I wish you'd all go outside on the balcony," Lyn was saying.

  "We're helping you," said Gemma.

  "You're not. You're annoying me."

  Frank stood up and grabbed Cat around the waist, swinging her around.

  "There you are! The mother-to-be! Happy Christmas, angel! Sit down and put your feet up. That's what you do when you're pregnant. I hope Dan knows that. I hope he's waiting on you hand and foot. I'll have to have a word with him." He sat her down in his chair and began to pull at her protesting feet to put them on the table.

  "Not on the food!" warned Nana.

  Lyn said, "I'm sure you waited on Mum hand and foot when she was pregnant, Dad."

  The doorbell rang. "That will be Charlie," Gemma happily popped a peeled prawn into her mouth. "He's come to let you look at him."

  Lyn said, "Could you please stop eating the prawns!"

  "Oh. Isn't that what they're for?"

  "Why don't we ask this Charlie fellow to take a look at the air conditioning?" Nana fanned herself with a napkin.

  "He's a locksmith, Nana."

  "I expect he's handy, though. That's our problem. None of the men here are at all handy."

  "Gemma!" Maxine came into the kitchen followed by a man and woman. "Your friend is here."

  "Everyone! This is Charlie!" Gemma waved her champagne glass rapturously and threw an arm around his shoulder.

  He was a stocky man with a barrel chest, exactly the same height as Gemma. She hadn't mentioned he was short. Sort of attractive, thought Cat, for a short man. She leaned forward as she shook his hand to check out the famous eyelashes. They looked perfectly ordinary to her.

  "And this is my sister," Charlie said to the room. "Her Vee-dub conked out this morning. So I'm the designated driver to our family lunch."

  Cat turned her attention to the sister. She had long dark hair scraped back off her face and a red T-shirt with a scooped neckline, revealing the cupped together curves of a luscious cleavage. She was beautiful. Model beautiful. She was also familiar.

  "Hi." She smiled. There was a buzzing sensation in Cat's ears.

  "I'm Angela."

  Lyn had appeared from nowhere to rest her hand gently on Cat's shoulder.

  "Hi, Angela," said Gemma, and as her smile slid away from her face, her champagne glass slid from her hand to shatter on the floor.

  I have mosquito bites for breasts, thought Cat.

  CHAPTER 10

  Lyn's Christmas Day started in the gray half-light of 5 A.M. when she woke to see a pair of unblinking brown eyes only inches away from her own. Maddie was standing next to their bed, sucking her thumb, staring at Lyn as if she were hypnotized. It gave Lyn such a fright she banged her elbow on the bedside table.

  "Shit!" She sat up straight, cradling her elbow. "How long have you been there? You're not meant to wake up for three hours yet!"

  Maddie carefully unplugged her mouth and began to wail.

  Michael woke up, instantly alert and cheery. He lifted his head from his pillow to observe Maddie. "Someone looking for Santa Claus?"

  "She's too young for Santa Claus. She hates him, remember?"

  "Merry Christmas to you too."

  "I hurt my elbow."

  "Ah."

  He threw back the quilt and walked around the bed to pick up Maddie. Lyn watched his long skinny brown body in the Mickey Mouse boxer shorts Kara had given him for his fortieth. He had a new haircut--it made his head look smaller, shorn and vulnerable, like a schoolboy who got teased on the bus.

  "Mummy hurt her elbow," he said to Maddie. "Did you hurt your elbow too?"

  Maddie stopped crying and nodded her head tragically, pointing her finger at her own elbow.

  Michael was delighted. "Did you see that?"

  "She's a little liar," said Lyn proudly.

  Michael climbed back into bed with Maddie in his arms and tucked her in the middle of them.

  "She won't sleep," said Lyn.

  "Your mummy is a pessimist."

  But within minutes the three of them were sound asleep, Lyn and Michael curled on their sides facing Maddie, who lay flat on her back, star-shaped, a thumb-sucking sunbaker.

  It seemed like only seconds later when the strident demands of the telephone woke them. Lyn answered it, her mind fuzzily clutching at a dream.

  "You weren't asleep, were you?" Maxine's voice was tinny with distress. "It's nearly nine o'clock."

  "It's not. Is it?" Lyn was remembering her dream in alarming detail. She was eating mangoes, naked, in a bath with...with...with Hank.

  Sticky. Sweet. Slippery. His tongue circling her nipple.

  Oh dear. She'd been sleeping with her husband and daughter on Christmas morning and having erotic dreams about an ex-boyfriend. She looked at Michael, who had woken up and was contentedly scratching his stomach, his new haircut squashed flat on one side "It is Lyn!" said Maxine. "Is everything under control? Is the turkey in the oven?"

  There was something a little sad about having erotic dreams when you led such an unerotic life.

  And what was she trying to prove by doing the Christmas lunch this year, right down to the bloody turkey? She wasn't depriving her mother of stress. She was giving her more stress, cruelly removing control from a control freak. "You like it," Cat always said. "You've always liked being the martyr. So go ahead. We won't stop you."

  She could have spent the morning eating mangoes in the bath.

  "It's only family," Lyn told her mother. "It's only us. Nobody's going to care if we're not sitting at the table right on the dot."

  "Have you got a summer cold, Lyn?" asked Maxine, meaning, "Are you delirious?"

  "I'm perfectly fine, Mum. I'm just saying we don't need to stress."

>   "Of course we need to 'stress,' as you put it. If we eat too late everybody drinks too much, you and your sisters start fighting, your grandmother falls asleep at the table, your father becomes morose, and Maddie gets overtired and eats too many lollies."

  These were all valid points. "Besides which, I've got something I want to tell you all at lunch," continued Maxine. "I'm a little tense about it."

  "You're tense about it? What's wrong? What's the matter?" "I'm a little tense" was a deeply personal revelation for her mother. It must be something terrible. It would be just like Maxine to announce terminal cancer over Christmas lunch.

  "It's something good--I think. I'm happy about it."

  Happy about it? That was even more worrying. Lyn pressed two fingers to her forehead. She could sense the beginnings of a vicious headache: a tribal thump in the distance.

  Michael sat up in bed and flapped his arms like a chicken to indicate Maxine in a flap.

  Lyn nodded.

  "Talk!" demanded Maddie, reaching for the phone.

  "Maddie wants to talk to you. I'll see you at lunch," said Lyn. "Don't you dare come early." She handed the phone to Maddie and then grabbed it back.

  "Happy Christmas, Mum."

  "Yes, dear."

  A door slammed downstairs.

  Michael raised his eyebrows. "That doesn't bode well."

  Kara had spent Christmas Eve with her mother. She wasn't due back till lunchtime.

  A minute later Kara stuck her head in the doorway.

  "Happy Christmas, honey," said Michael and leaped up with arms outstretched. "You're early!"

  Kara looked revolted. "Dad, you're not dressed. Anyway, I just wanted to say, I'll be in my room. I don't want anything to eat. I don't have anything to say. Just...leave...me...alone. Is that too much to ask?"

  Michael stuck his thumbs awkwardly into the elastic of his boxers and held them out slightly from his concave stomach. "Ah."

  "Dad, what are you doing?"

  "I don't know," said Michael miserably, letting his hands drop.

  "I hate Christmas!" exploded Kara, and she walked off down the hallway to her bedroom.

  Lyn said, "So do I."

  Michael looked at her.

  "Not really." Lyn headed for the shower. "I just don't trust it."

  The first Christmas after Frank and Maxine separated was the first Christmas the Kettle girls were separated from each other.

  It began with a brochure--a glossy, seductive brochure.