Three Wishes

  "We've been married for four years," she told the taxi driver, becoming more exhilarated with fury with every word. "Everything's going well; we're even trying to have a baby. And then, what does he do? He goes out and has sex with some strange woman he picks up in a bar. He tells me this while we're eating spaghetti. So, fine. That's fine. I'm trying to deal with it. He's sorry. He's very fucking sorry. But you know what he just said to me?"

  The cabdriver had pulled up at a red light. The streetlights illuminated his face as he twisted around from the steering wheel to contemplate Cat. He had a black beard and smiling white teeth.

  "No, I do not know," he said. "You tell me."

  Dan groaned quietly.

  "He said I was boring because I keep asking questions about it."

  "Ah, I see," said the driver. He glanced over at Dan and back at Cat. "This is very painful for you."

  "Yes," said Cat gratefully.

  "The lights have changed, mate," said Dan.

  The driver turned back around and accelerated. "If my wife unfaithful to me, I kill her," he said enthusiastically.

  "Really?" said Cat.

  "With my bare hands, I hold them to her neck and I squeeze."

  "I see."

  "But for men, it is different," he said. "Our biology, it is different!"

  "Oh, for God's sake!" Cat put her hand on the door handle. "Stop the car. I can't stand either of you."

  "Pardon me?"

  She screamed at him, "Stop the car!" and opened the car door to reveal the ground rushing by beneath them. Dan reached over and clenched her upper arm painfully hard. He told the driver, "You'd better pull over!"

  The driver swung the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes to an enraged chorus of horns.

  "You're hurting my arm."

  Dan loosened his grip. "Do what you want. I give up."

  Cat climbed out of the car, while Dan looked straight ahead, his arms folded, and the cabdriver watched with wary eyes in the rearview mirror. Gently, precisely, she closed the door behind her.

  She wondered if she was going mad.

  It felt like a decision she could make. One small step over an invisible line and she could choose lunacy. She could lie down right now in the middle of Sydney and scream and kick and throw her head from side to side like Maddie having a tantrum. Eventually someone would call an ambulance and stick a needle into her and she could sink into a mindless sleep.

  The cab pulled away from the curb in a mature, sober fashion so Cat could see just how childishly she'd behaved.

  It was like every fight she'd ever had with her sisters. A wave of rage would sweep her up and carry her high and righteous until she did something embarrassingly excessive. Then it would dump her, splat, leaving her stupid and small.

  Maxine's voice sharp in her head: If you don't learn how to control that temper of yours, Catriona, you'll pay the price. Not me! You!

  No doubt Dan and the cabdriver were chuckling and shaking their heads over the amusing, probably premenstrual hysteria of women. Dan would make up some excuse about her nonappearance at the party, get drunk, and not even spare her a thought until he was unsteadily aiming his key at the front door.

  Or of course, he could find some other woman to sleep with. It would be understandable. Not only did his wife not understand him, she was fucking boring too.

  An excited babble of Christmas-drinks noise was coming from a bar directly behind her.

  "Got any ID, love?" asked a bouncer who seemed to be having trouble balancing the top half of his body. Any minute he would topple forward from the weight of his muscles.

  "Yeah, I need ID like you need more steroids," she told him and walked past him into the bar.

  Men. What was the point of them?

  Expertly, her elbows vicious, she ducked and wove her way through the crowd to the counter and ordered a bottle of champagne.

  "How many glasses?" asked the girl. Her roundly innocent eyes made Cat feel like a wizened old crone.

  "One," she snapped. "Just one."

  With the ice bucket and champagne cradled brazenly under one arm, she walked out of the bar and onto the street. The top-heavy bouncer didn't try to stop her. He was distracted by some more appreciative thirty-plus patrons who were gigglingly presenting their ID.

  She walked down George Street toward the Quay.

  "Merry Christmas!" A group of drunken office workers in witty Santa Claus hats danced around her.

  She kept walking.

  Why did everyone have to be so inanely happy?

  She continued on past the Opera House and finally into the Botanical Gardens. Hitching her $200 Collette Dinnigan skirt up to her thighs, she settled down cross-legged on the ground, her back up against a tree. She poured herself a glass of champagne and let it slosh all over her hand and onto her skirt. "Cheers."

  She toasted the harbor and drank thirstily. Boats strung with colorful lights slipped across the water, throbbing with music and the shouts and cries of overexcited party people.

  If she drank this whole bottle she'd have a hangover for tomorrow morning's counseling session. Now that would really add to the whole experience.

  Tomorrow they were discussing their childhoods. Their "homework"--Annie's plump fingers formed exaggerated inverted commas in the air--was to think of a memory from their childhood when they had observed their parents dealing with conflict. "We're going to look at the role models in your life!" cried Annie.

  Cat was looking forward to submitting the famous story of Kettle Cracker Night 1976. There was no material in Dan's boringly happy childhood that could possibly match it. She would win the battle for most psychological damaging childhood hands down.

  Cat, Gemma, and Lyn, six years old, wearing identical blue hooded parkas and brown corduroy pants. Everyone in the street had come to a Cracker Night party in their backyard. There was a towering, noisy bonfire and its crimson glow made everyone's faces shadowed and mysterious. The kids were waving sparklers that fizzed and crackled white-hot silver stars. Their father, a cigarette held rakishly in the corner of his mouth, kept making all the men laugh, big booming bursts of raucous laughter. Their mother, in a short green dress with big gold buttons down the middle, was handing around a big platter of prunes wrapped in bacon with little toothpicks. Her hair was still long then, a smooth auburn sheet that stopped in a neat straight line just past her bottom.

  At last, after endless hours of lobbying the slow-moving parents, it was time for the real fireworks. Beer bottle in hand, their father strolled theatrically to the center of the yard, pulled at his trouser knees, squatted down, and did something mysterious and clever with his cigarette lighter.

  "Wait till you see this one, girls!" he said to his daughters. Seconds later--bang! The air exploded in color.

  "Oooh!" exclaimed everyone at each new firework. "Aaaaah!"

  It felt like their dad was creating the fireworks himself. It was wonderful. Cat was pretty sure that it was the best night of her entire life. So it was typical that Mum had to try and ruin it.

  "Let one of the other men have a turn now, Frank," she kept saying, and Cat hated her mother's hard, whiny tone and the way it was getting sharper and sharper. She was probably just jealous of Dad for having the fun job, while she was stuck handing around cups of tea.

  "For God's sake, hurry, Frank!"

  He stood grinning in the center of the yard, challenging her with his chin, taking a slow, deliberate sip of his beer. "Relax, Max babe."

  And then it happened.

  Frank lit a Roman candle and was still on his knees, unsteadily peering down at it. "Frank!" their mother warned. This time Gemma caught her mother's fear. "Hurry, Daddy!" she called, and Lyn and Cat gave each other looks that said, She's such a baby!

  Frank stood up, took a step back, and the Roman Candle exploded. The beer bottle fell to the ground as he held out his hands, palms down, as if he could stop the firework from exploding.

  Cat, Gemma, and Lyn watched the
ir father's ring finger get blown cleanly off his hand. It went hurtling through the air illuminated in sharp detail by a flash of brilliant purples and greens.

  He collapsed backward into a silly sitting position, like a clown, clutching his hand. There was a strange sweet fragrance in the air, the smell of their father's sizzling flesh.

  "You stupid, stupid man!" Their mother's voice was a furious wail. She stalked across the yard toward him, her high heels sinking into the grass.

  "Girls. Inside, now!" And they all had to go inside to the TV room and sit with Pop and Nana Kettle. Sammy Barker got to find their father's finger where it had fallen into the rosebush underneath their parents' bedroom window.

  Cat never forgave her mother for that. She should have been the one to find her dad's finger, not snotty-nosed Sammy, who gained instant celebrity status at St. Margaret's Primary.

  It was only a few months later that their dad packed his things and moved into a flat in the city. They couldn't save his finger. He kept it floating in a jar of formaldehyde. It was brought out from his bathroom cupboard with much ceremony for especially privileged guests.

  Now that should keep Annie satisfied. And how pleasingly symbolic! It was their father's ring finger that got blown off! A symbol of their parents' explosive marriage.

  Of course it was one of Dan's favorite family stories too. "Awesome!" he said when he heard it for the first time. At dinner parties, he told the story as if he'd been there too.

  If Dan had been one of the neighborhood kids, Sammy Barker would have had no chance at finding that finger.

  Lifting the champagne bottle from the ice bucket, she held it by the neck and refilled her glass. She hiccuped as she settled herself back against the tree.

  Maybe she should just forgive him. Maybe she did forgive him.

  After all, didn't she herself have fantasies about Dan's uni friend, Sean? Every time they went out with Sean and his irrelevant wife, Cat would feel her cheeks start to go pink after her third glass of wine, as shocking images popped unbidden into her mind.

  It was alcohol. Alcohol was a terrible, terrible thing, she thought and held up the champagne bottle to look at it accusingly.

  Perhaps she could just choose to stop being angry, as recommended by Lyn's self-help gurus.

  She felt a sense of wonderful well-being at the thought. It was like recovering from the flu, when you suddenly realized that your body was functioning normally again.

  Her mobile phone beeped. It was a text message from Dan:

  Where R U? Did not go to party. Waiting at home 4 U. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. XXX

  Carefully, Cat got to her feet, pulled her skirt back down to her knees, and, leaving the empty bottle and ice bucket on the ground, began to walk toward the ferry.

  "Well! Here we are again!" Annie had gone for a nautical theme today. She wore a blue-and-white-striped shirt and a little red scarf tied jauntily around her neck. Her eyes were clear and dewy. Cat and Dan regarded her with bleary awe. They'd been up all night, drinking and crying.

  "Now, you're a triplet, Cat!"

  "Yes!" said Cat, failing to match her enthusiasm.

  "Now, a lot of triplets have unusually strong relationships with their siblings. Yes?" said Annie.

  Oh, Christ. Annie had obviously been foraging through her old textbooks since their last meeting.

  "Now, what I'd like to look at today is Dan's relationship with your sisters!"

  "What about our homework?" asked Cat.

  Annie looked confused. She obviously didn't remember the homework.

  "Well, yes, but first let's look at this. I think it's important. Dan?"

  Dan smiled.

  "I get on well with her sisters," he said. "Always have done."

  Annie nodded encouragingly.

  "Actually," said Dan. "I even dated one of them before Cat."

  An invisible fist punched the air from Cat's lungs.

  "What are you talking about?"

  Dan looked at her. "You knew that!"

  "No, I didn't."

  "But of course you did!" said Dan nervously.

  Cat's heart was hammering. "Which one?" Gemma. It would be Gemma. Dan was looking at her beseechingly, Annie was quivering with professional pride at this breakthrough.

  "Which one?" insisted Cat.

  "Lyn," he said. "It was Lyn."

  CHAPTER 5

  "But surely she knew that!"

  "I never told her."

  "Why not?"

  "It was complicated." Lyn buttered Michael a piece of raisin toast and put it on his plate. "She's not eating anything, you know."

  "Isn't she?"

  Michael looked at Maddie, who was sitting in her high chair next to him. Maddie dimpled flirtatiously at her father with blissful unconcern for the applesauce dripping from her face. She slammed both hands in the gooey mess in front of her.

  "More!" she demanded and leaned forward, opening her mouth wide.

  Lyn watched as Michael held the spoon high, made "clack, clack, clack" helicopter sounds, circled it around her head, and zoomed it toward her mouth. At the very last instant Maddie snapped her mouth shut and shook with silent hilarity as Michael tried to wedge the spoon in between her pursed lips.

  Maddie might have inherited her father's black curly hair and dimples, but her sense of humor was pure, unadulterated Kettle.

  "She hasn't had one mouthful," said Lyn.

  "She'll eat if she's hungry." Michael put down the spoon and picked up his coffee mug. "Kara used to do the same thing. She never starved."

  Lyn privately suspected that Maddie was much smarter than Kara would have been at the same age. "Oh, she's just average," she told the other mothers at play group, without believing a word of it. She felt sorry for them, Maddie's superiority was so embarrassingly obvious. "Maddie is perfectly capable of not eating when she's hungry. She thinks it's funny."

  "Ah, mothers, you're all the same!" said Michael comfortably. "Georgina used to get herself in a state with Kara. It's obviously innate, this desire to see your children eat."

  Lyn squeezed the bridge of her nose hard between her thumb and forefinger. She didn't want to be in any category that also included Georgina.

  Michael pointed his piece of toast at her and spoke with his mouth full. "Your sisters do exactly the same thing with their noses when they're annoyed. I noticed Cat doing it Friday night. Had a little laugh to myself."

  Lyn let go of her nose. "Did you now." She stood up and shoved hard at his shoulder. "Swap places please. I'm going to indulge my strange desire not to see my child starve."

  Michael circled one arm around her waist and pulled her down onto his lap. Lyn picked up the spoon and the jar of baby food and sized up her daughter. "Do you want your breakfast?" she asked. Maddie opened her mouth to say "no" and Lyn shoved in a laden spoon. Maddie swallowed, licked her lips, and opened her mouth to bellow at these deceitful tactics. With unerring accuracy, Lyn jammed in another mouthful.

  "Your mother has incredible reflexes," said Michael admiringly. Maddie didn't look impressed.

  "Better than bloody Georgina, I bet," said Lyn as she wiped Maddie's glowering face with her bib. "Oh much better than Georgina!" Michael jiggled her up and down on his lap suggestively. "In every respect."

  "What's better than Georgina in every respect?" Kara came into the dining room, pulled out a chair so that it screeched horrendously across the floorboards, and sat down at the table in front of them. She picked up a box of cereal and looked at it with disgust. Michael and Lyn froze.

  "Kara!" crowed Maddie and clapped her hands, showering her parents with applesauce.

  "Lyn, I bet," said Kara. She put on a prissy voice. "Your lovely Lynnie is so much better than Mum, isn't she?"

  Michael cleared his throat. "Good morning, sweetheart!" he said hopefully, while Lyn extricated herself from his arms. "I made scrambled eggs," she said to Kara. "Want some?"

  Kara made retching noises.

  "Don't do that pl
ease, Kara," said Michael.

  "What? Scrambled eggs make me sick. So what?"

  "You're being rude and you know it."

  Lyn said mildly, "You liked scrambled eggs yesterday."

  Kara ignored her. She was looking mutinously at her father. "Oh. And it's really polite comparing Lyn to my mother in front of me, isn't it? How do you think that makes me feel?"

  "Sweetheart, I was not comparing Lyn to your mum. I was just being silly."

  "Yeah, whatever, Dad. I'm not retarded."

  "No, darling, you're not. You're very intelligent. Speaking of which, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for a good laptop for you--"

  "Oh! Now you've made me feel sick! I can't stand it here!" Kara threw down the box of cereal so that Sultana Bran went flying and stormed out of the room.

  Michael raised baffled hands at Lyn.

  "Eyes peeled," she explained. "You shouldn't have said you were keeping your eyes peeled."

  "My God," Michael shook his head slowly back and forth.

  "What do you think of that, Maddie?"

  Maddie looked at him in solemn agreement.

  "My Dod." She frowned heavily and shook her head vigorously back and forth. "My Dod."

  TO DO

  WORK

  Sign off New Year promotions.

  XMAS Day staff roster

  Staff bonuses

  Ring back M.

  Accounts!!!

  FAMILY

  Book M.'s swimming lesson.

  XMAS gifts still to buy: Mum, C., K.

  Menu for XMAS Day

  Appointment for K. with Dr. Lewis

  Talk to C. re D.

  FRIENDS

  Call Yvonne for birthday.

  E-mail Susan.

  MISCELLANEOUS

  Query gas bill--why so high?

  "Cat. It's me. Please don't hang--"

  The phone clicked and beeped ponderously in her ear.

  Oh, for God's sake, thought Lyn, as she replaced the phone. Each time Cat hung up on her, it felt like a stinging slap across her face. It was so childish! So unproductive!

  She doodled an asterisk next to Talk to C. re D.

  Fine then, she would move on to another priority. She looked at her list, sighed, checked her watch, and considered her half-full coffee cup. It was still hot. She couldn't even pretend she felt like another one.

  Get a grip, she told herself. It wasn't like her to procrastinate like this. Come on, remember the third habit: First things first.