Three Wishes

  Cat was goal defense, Lyn was goal attack, and Gemma was center. The three of them had the court covered, with the wings and keepers all but irrelevant. It was the one time in their lives where the roles were divided up evenly, neatly, fairly--equally distinct but equally important.

  "Good play, girls!" Frank would call out from the sidelines. Not embarrassingly enthusiastic like some parents. Just cool and smooth. A little thumbs-up signal. He wore chunky woolen sweaters and jeans and looked warm and comfortable, like a dad in an aftershave commercial.

  And where was Maxine? On the other side of the court, sitting very straight on a fold-out chair, her elegant shoes in neat parallel lines. Her white face pinched and set. Cold weather made her ears ache, and she was not the sort of woman to wear a warm hat: not like Kerry's mum, Mrs. Dalmeny, who wore a bright red tea cozy of a beanie and danced joyfully up and down the sidelines, calling out, "Oh, well done, Turramurra, well done!"

  Cat hated her mother then. Hated her so much she could hardly bear to look at her. She hated the discreet little clap, clap, clap of Maxine's gloved hands when either team scored a goal. She hated the way she spoke to the other parents, so stiffly and carefully. Her manners were so good they were like a putdown.

  Most of all, Cat hated the way her mother talked to her father.

  "Max, how are you?" Frank would say, his eyes hidden by designer sunglasses, his tone as warm and sexy as his chunky sweater. "Looking as gorgeous as ever, I see!"

  "I'm perfectly well, thank you, Frank," Maxine would respond with an unflattering flare of her nostrils. Frank's teeth would flash with humor and he'd say, "Hmmm, I think it might be a bit warmer on that side of the court."

  "Why does she have to be a bitch to him?" Cat would say afterward to Lyn, and Lyn would say, "Well, why does he have to be so sleazy?" and then they'd have an enormous fight.

  Twenty years later Cat lay in a sweaty tangle of sheets and thought, What if the three of them had been just plain mediocre netball players--or even bad, D-grade, fumbling-for-the-ball bad? Would Dad have still been there every week, smiling in his sunglasses?

  Maybe not.

  No, not maybe at all.

  He wouldn't have come.

  Well, so what? Dad liked winning. So did Cat. She could understand that.

  But Mum would still have been there. Shivering and sour-faced in her little fold-out chair, peeling off the lid on the Tupperware container full of carefully cut oranges.

  That particular thought was somehow too irritating to deal with right now.

  Once more Cat let herself submerge into deep, murky sleep.

  "Cat. Babe. Maybe...Maybe you'd feel better if you got up and had a shower."

  Cat heard the sound of the blind being opened and sensed evening light filling the bedroom. She didn't open her eyes. "I'm too tired."

  "Yeah. But I just think maybe you wouldn't feel so tired if you got up. We could have some dinner."

  "I'm not hungry."

  "Right."

  A tiny "I give up" twist on the word "right."

  Cat opened her eyes and rolled over to look at Dan. He had turned around toward the wardrobe and was taking off his work clothes.

  She looked at the perfect muscled V-shape of his back as he shrugged himself into a T-shirt, pulling it down in that casual, don't-care boy-way.

  Once upon a time--was it that long ago?--watching Dan put on a T-shirt used to make her feel meltingly aroused.

  Now, she felt...nothing.

  "Do you remember when we first started going out and I thought I was pregnant that time?"

  Dan turned around from the wardrobe. "Yeah."

  "I would have had an abortion."

  "Well. We were pretty young."

  "I wouldn't have thought twice about it."

  Dan sat down on the bed next to her. "O.K., and so?"

  "And so I'm a hypocrite."

  "We were like, I don't know, eighteen. We had our careers to think about."

  "We were twenty-four. We wanted to go backpacking around Europe."

  "Well. Whatever. We were too young. Anyway, it's irrelevant. You weren't pregnant. So what does it matter?"

  He reached out to touch her leg, and she moved away on the bed. "It just matters."

  "Right."

  "It didn't suit me to have a baby then so I would have got rid of it. I was even a bit proud of how O.K. I was about it--as if having an abortion was making some sort of feminist statement. My body, my choice, and all that crap. Deep down I probably thought having an abortion made me cool. And now...so, I'm a hypocrite."

  "Christ, Cat, this is the most ridiculous conversation. It never happened."

  "Anyway, I probably aborted this baby."

  Dan exhaled. "What are you talking about?"

  "The night of your work Christmas party. I drank a whole bottle of champagne in the Botanical Gardens. I would have been pregnant then. God knows what damage I did."

  "Oh, Cat. I'm sure--"

  "Before that I was being so careful whenever I thought there was a chance I could be pregnant. But I was a bit distracted by your little one-night stand with the slut."

  He stood up abruptly from the bed. "O.K. I get it. It's my fault. Your miscarriage is my fault."

  Cat pulled herself up into a sitting position. It was good to be fighting. It made her feel awake. "My miscarriage? Isn't it ourmis- carriage? Wasn't it our baby?"

  "You're twisting my words."

  "I just think it's really interesting that you said your miscarriage."

  "Christ. I can't talk to you when you're like this. I hate it when you do this."

  "When I do this? What's this?"

  "When you fight for the sake of it. You get off on it. I can't stand it."

  Cat was silent. There was something unfamiliar about Dan's voice.

  His anger was cold, when it was meant to be hot. Their fights weren't biting and contemptuous. They were violent and passionate.

  They looked at each other in silence. Cat found herself touching her hair and thinking about how she must look after three days in bed.

  What was she doing thinking about how she looked? This was her husband. She wasn't meant to think about how she looked when she was fighting with him. She was meant to be too busy yelling.

  "I know this is really hard for you," said Dan in his new cold, calm voice. "I know. I'm upset too. I really wanted a baby. I really wanted this baby."

  "Why are you talking like that?" asked Cat, really wanting to know.

  His face changed, as if she'd attacked him.

  "Oh, forget it. I can't talk to you. I'm going to make dinner."

  He headed for the door and then suddenly turned back, and she felt almost relieved as his face contorted with anger.

  "Oh. And one thing. She's not a slut. Stop calling her that." He closed the door hard behind him.

  Cat found herself breathing hard.

  She's not a slut.

  You used present tense, Dan.

  Present tense.

  And why are you defending her?

  The thought of Dan feeling protective toward that girl gave her such a violent, unexpected thrust of pain that she almost whimpered in surprise.

  "Where are you going?" Gemma had asked him the other day, as if she had a right to know. Gemma never talked liked that. Sharply. Looking straight at Dan, with a touch of accusation. Most of the time Gemma didn't even notice people leave the room. Dan always said Gemma had the attention span of a goldfish.

  And then there was Christmas Day. "Danny!" Angela had said and there was pleasure and surprise in her voice. Was that the right reaction for someone you slept with once and never heard from again? Someone who went slinking shamefaced off in the night, without even bothering to say, "I'll call"?

  She's not a slut. Don't call her that.

  Cat lifted and dropped the sheet over her legs.

  So.

  So.

  So.

  So, she wasn't having a baby.

&nb
sp; So, it seemed there was a very real possibility that her husband was having an affair with a gorgeous brunette with very large breasts.

  So the gorgeous brunette had a brother who just happened to be dating Cat's sister.

  And Cat's divorced parents were having sex, instead of politely despising each other, like nice, normal divorced parents.

  And sick leave didn't last forever.

  And as far as she knew Rob Spencer was still alive and breathing cliches and spite.

  And there was no point in any of it. No point at all.

  Cat got out of bed and walked with wobbly legs to the dressing table mirror.

  Ugly. So ugly.

  She bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile and spoke out loud.

  "Well, Happy New Year, Cat. Happy fucking New Year."

  "Why don't you just say sorry to Daddy?" For days after Frank moved out, six-year-old Cat followed her mother relentlessly around the house, questioning and nagging, her fists clenched with frustration. It was like pushing and pushing against a gigantic rock that wouldn't budge--and you really, really needed it to budge so you could open the door to where everything was good again.

  She didn't care what Mum and Dad said when they had their little talk in the living room. All that stuff about how they still loved them and it wasn't anybody's fault and these things happened and everything would be just the same except that Mum and Dad would live in separate houses. Cat knew there was no question about what had really happened. It was her mother's fault.

  Dad was the one always laughing and making really funny jokes and coming up with really fun ideas. Mum was the one always cross and cranky, ruining everything. "No, Frank, they haven't got sunscreen on yet!" "No, Frank, they can't have ice cream five minutes before dinner!" "No, Frank, we can't take them to a movie on a school night!"

  "Oh school, schmool! Relax, Max, babe. Why can't you just relax for a minute?"

  "Yeah, relax, Mum! Relax!" chanted her daughters.

  That's why Daddy had moved out. He couldn't stand it any longer. It was no fun living in this house. If Cat was a grown-up, she might have moved out herself.

  All Mum had to do was say sorry for being such a misery-head.

  Cat followed her mother as she lugged a basketful of laundry into the living room and upended it on the sofa.

  "You always tell us," Cat said shrewdly, "to say sorry when we're fighting." Her mother began sorting the clean clothes into neat piles across the top of the sofa, one for Lyn, Cat, Gemma, Mum--and none for Dad.

  "Your father and I are not fighting." Mum lifted up a T-shirt of Gemma's and frowned. "How in the world does she get these marks on her clothes? What does she do?"

  "Dunno," said Cat, bored by this topic. "I just think you should say sorry. Even if you're not really."

  "We're not fighting, Cat."

  Cat groaned with frustration and slapped both her hands to her head. "Muuuum! You're driving me crazy!"

  "I know just how you feel," answered her mother and when Cat tried to change tactics and be nice by saying, "Mum, I think you should just relax a bit," it was like she'd pushed a button. A button right in the middle of her mother's forehead that turned her into wild, crazy, lunatic Mum.

  "Catriona Kettle!" Her mother threw down a clump of clothing forcefully and her face went a familiar bright red, causing Cat to immediately begin strategic escape maneuvers. "If you don't leave the room this instant, I'm going to get my wooden spoon and smack you so hard that, that...you won't know what's hit you!"

  Cat didn't bother to point out what an amazingly stupid thing this was to say because she was already running. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," she muttered under her breath. "Hate, hate, hate!"

  A few days later their father took them to see his new flat in the city.

  It was on the twenty-third floor of a very tall building. Through his windows you could see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and little ferries chugging frothy white trails across the flat blue water.

  "So what do you think, girls?" Dad asked, spreading his arms wide and turning around and around in circles.

  "It's very, very pretty, Daddy," said Gemma, running happily through each room and stopping to caress different things. "I like it a lot!"

  "I'd like a house with a window like this." Lyn pressed her nose thoughtfully against the glass. "That's what I'm going to have when I grow up. How much does this cost, Dad? Quite a lot?"

  They were both so stupid. Didn't they see? Everything in Dad's new house gave Cat a bad feeling in her stomach. Everything he had--his own fridge, his own TV, his own sofa--proved that he didn't want their TV or fridge or sofa. And that meant he wasn't coming back and this was what it would be like forever and ever.

  "I think it's a really dumb place to live." Cat sat down on the very edge of her father's new sofa and crossed her arms tight. "It's all small and squashy and stupid."

  "Small and squashy and stupid!?" Frank opened his eyes very wide and let his mouth drop in shock. "Now would a house be small and squashy if you had a room to swing a cat? But where could I find a cat to test it out? Hmmmm. Let me think."

  Cat kept her arms folded tight and compressed her lips, but when Dad was being funny it was like the very tip of a feather dancing ticklishly across your cheeks.

  She was already laughing when her father grabbed her under the arms. "Wait a minute! Here's a cat. A really big grumpy one!" and swung her wildly around the room.

  There was no point being mad with Dad. It was all Mum's fault. She would just stay mad with her, until Daddy came back home.

  "You're up." Dan was at the door, car keys in his hand.

  "Yes."

  "That's good."

  "Yes."

  Cat stood in her dressing gown with her hair wet from the shower and her limbs heavy and doughy. She imagined her arms falling straight to the floor like stretched-out plasticine.

  Someone should mold her into a nice, neat smooth ball and start again.

  He said, "I was just going to Coles. I thought maybe a nice steak for dinner."

  Dan always thought maybe a nice steak for dinner.

  "Oh. Good."

  "You want a steak too?"

  "Sure." The thought of steak made her want to gag.

  "O.K. I won't be long." He opened the door.

  "Dan?"

  "Yeah?"

  Do you still love me? Why were you talking in that cold, hard voice? Do you still love me? Do you still love me? Do you still love me?

  "We need more tea."

  "O.K." He closed the door.

  She would ask him when he came back. She would match his cold tone. "Is something going on with that girl?" and there would be no undignified catch in her voice.

  She sat down at the kitchen table and placed her hands flat in front of her and bent her head till she was close enough to examine the tiny pores and wrinkles on the joints of her fingers. Her hands looked elderly in close-up.

  Thirty-three.

  At the age of thirty-three, she thought she'd be a proper grown-up doing whatever she pleased, with a snazzy car that she could drive wherever she wanted and everything--all the confusing parts of life--worked out and checked off. In fact, all she had was the not especially snazzy car. She had more worked out when she was twelve. If only bossy, know-it-all twelve-year-old Cat Kettle were still around to tell her what to do.

  There was a messy pile of bills sitting on the kitchen table from today's mail. Bills bored Dan. He threw them down in disgust when he saw one, leaving them half sticking out of their envelopes for Cat to worry about.

  She pulled the sheaf of papers toward her.

  The bills would keep on coming, no matter what else was happening in your life and that was good because it gave you a purpose. You worked so you could pay them. You rested on the weekends and generated more bills. Then you went back to work to pay for them. That was the reason for getting up tomorrow. That was the meaning of life.

  Electricity. Credit cards. Mob
ile phone.

  Dan's mobile phone bill.

  She picked it up almost eagerly, a sick sense of satisfaction, a refreshing injection of adrenaline. Twelve-year-old Cat Kettle always wanted to be a spy.

  The paper quivered in her hand. She didn't want to find something bad, but she almost did. For the sheer satisfaction of solving a tricky problem. For the pleasure of the "gotcha!"

  Many of the phone numbers she recognized. Home. Work. Her own mobile.

  Of course, there were a lot she didn't recognize. And why should she? This was stupid. Silly. She was smiling mockingly at herself as she scanned the page and then, there it was:

  25 Dec. 11:53 P.M. 0443 461 555 25.42

  A twenty-five minute call to someone late on Christmas Day. Cat had gone straight to bed as soon as they got home from Lyn's place. On the way home in the car they were O.K. They'd talked, calmly, without fighting, about the day's events. Angela turning up in Lyn's kitchen. Frank and Maxine getting back together. They'd even managed to laugh--Dan a touch warily, Cat a touch hysterically--about how horrible it had all been. Nana with the lepers. Michael clicking his fingers to his awful Christmas music CD. Kara finally collapsing face-first on the tabletop.

  Of course, that was when she was still carrying her baby like a magical talisman.

  "Next year," she'd said to Dan as she sighed with the comfort of cool sheets and a pillow. "We could have a Kettle-free Christmas. We could go away somewhere. Just us and the baby."

  "That sounds like a perfect Christmas," he'd said. "I'll come to bed soon. I'm going to walk off some of Lyn's cooking."

  He'd kissed her on the forehead like a child, and Cat fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.

  And then he'd spoken to someone for nearly half an hour, till past midnight.

  It could be anybody of course. It could be a friend. It could be Sean, for example. It was probably Sean.

  Although his conversations with Sean were always short and to the point. They weren't chatters, Sean and Dan. Yeah, mate. No, mate. See you at three then.

  Maybe they had long, meaningful, sharing-their-feelings conversations when Cat wasn't around.

  She looked back through the bill for other calls to the same number.

  It appeared eight times in December. Most of them long conversations. Many of them very late at night.

  On the first of December, there was an hour-long call at eleven o'clock in the morning.

  That was the day after Cat found out she was pregnant. It was when she would have been at Lyn's place, looking after Maddie.