10Chapter six
Four more seven o'clock work shifts later, I still hadn't gotten back to Matt about anything. The cinema bookings were now confirmed, the permission notes sent out to all the parents and Skye and Shane were practically bouncing on the balls of their feet whenever we discussed the plans. It was all a little bit too much of materialistic merriment for me, so I was glad when Friday afternoon finally came along because it meant that I no longer had immediate obligations to the group of four-year-olds playing with a box full of vintage Barbies.
It was with several and constant sighs of relief that I tidied up my staff locker, grabbed my possessions and washed my hands. At exactly three o'clock on the dot, my mobile phone rang and I fished it out to see displayed my mother's work number.
"I didn't forget about dinner tonight, Mum," was my greeting.
"Well there's no harm in making sure," Mum sounded a bit huffy. Maybe she was really looking forward to lecture me on my bad memory.
"I've called you about four times" she continued, "why didn't you answer earlier?"
"I don't answer my phone during work," I replied, glancing at the window to confirm that all the children and the rest of the staff were playing outside, "the four-year-olds will probably call me out on having an out-dated Nokia model."
"It's nice to hear your justification for your work ethics," Mum said sarcastically, "but I wanted to ask you if Matt's going to be coming to dinner with you, or if he will arrive on his own."
I sighed again and stuck the phone between my ear and shoulder, proceeding to try to fix the busted zipper on my backpack.
"Mum," I enunciated, "we broke up. So that's a 'no'."
"Um, excuse me," a voice and footsteps came from behind me.
I turned to see a guy, my age or a little older, standing behind me. Deciding that I was officially off working hours, I motioned for him to wait for a second, and then directed my attention back to my mum.
"…honestly Alison, you two should work things out, get back together! I've only met him twice but he seems like such a nice boy, and your father might have seemed a bit doubtful about him, but that's just because he's your father and he has to disapprove by principle."
"Mum," I interrupted, but she kept talking anyway, "MUM! I have to go. I'll see you tonight. Matt will definitely not be there at all because he is no longer my boyfriend. Love you, bye."
Pressing the 'end call' button was probably the most satisfying thing I had accomplished that afternoon.
"So," I started, addressing the stranger.
"I, uh…" he looked a bit embarrassed, and I immediately regretted talking on the phone with Mum while he was present.
"I'm here to pick someone up…?"
On my first day of work, I underwent some very intense training. Basic first aid, nutrition information, how to operate the electronic security system, and how to recognise a paedophile.
I narrowed my eyes at him, going over the tell-tale signs in my head. He looked too young to seem like a full-fledged paedophile, however, according to studies in abnormal psychology, experimentation usually began during the early to mid teen years.
"I'm, um, I'm Shelley's brother," he started, a bit uncertainly, as if he was sheepish at having overheard my crazy conversation with my mother or at being scrutinised by me. Probably a mixture of both, I thought.
He looked do uncomfortable that I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt unless he showed some explicit sign of a fetish for children.
"You're not on the list of guardians," I said, consulting the pick up details for Shelley Wilkinson.
"Yeah," he said, "I'm usually away at uni in England, but I'm taking some time off so I'm back in Sydney."
It sounded like a legitimate excuse. And Shelley did say a few times that she had a big brother who lived in another country. His hybrid BBC-like accent also added in some authenticity.
"You know," he continued, "I'm not a paedophile. My mum was supposed to call but I guess she didn't, but if you're really concerned I guess I could still catch her at work."
I was taken aback by his frank comment. Wasn't it only moment earlier that I thought he looked uncomfortable with my scrutiny?
"I wasn't… I didn't think that…" I managed to stammer out.
"Come on," he chuckled, "of course you did. You had 'suspicious eyes'."
His use of the air quotes made me smile a little. "I take my job very seriously," I replied, trying to keep a straight face.
"And I'm glad." He smiled, and I noticed that the dimple in his left cheek was decidedly similar to Shelley's.
So we were just standing there, smiling, and I realised that it had been several moments of silence of, well, standing there and smiling, which was by any standards a bit too much with a nameless guy who I had earlier suspected to be a paedophile.
"I'm Oliver, by the way," he said at last, still smiling.
Ok, so he wasn't nameless anymore, and neither was he a paedophile, I decided.
"I'm Alison," I replied, returning his handshake, "nice to meet you."
It was a nice, firm, handshake, probably perfected by the dozens of business dinner parties he had attended for his parents' sake. He certainly looked the part of a trust-fund kid, with the light brown hair, confident smile, polo shirt and keys to a BMW dangling from his fingers. The perfect late-teenager version of the type of parents that I saw around Ramsay Street all the time.
"So, can I get my little sister now?"
I started, and remembered the real reason why we were having this conversation in the first place.
"Uh, yeah, sure, I'll go get her,"
A few minutes later, I had persuaded Shelley to leave her friends and toys behind and returned to fixing my backpack zipper while she ran off to her cubby to grab her bag. I was on the verge of swearing before I realised that I was in a childcare centre and acting that way would certainly lead to enquiries about whether I was really suited to working with children.
"You, uh, need some help with that?"
I had totally forgotten that Oliver was still present, being so preoccupied with wanting to get to my parents' and finishing this family dinner obligation as quickly as I could.
I hesitated for a moment before accepting his offer, and Oliver moved forward to attempt to accomplish the impossible task.
"Don't worry about it too much, I'm not optimistic," I said, thinking that I would just keep it in my car so that my mother wouldn't get all worked from seeing that I couldn't even buy myself a bag that could close and ask me to move back home.
He smiled goofily in response, "what you need is love and magic."
And so there I was, standing behind a guy I had never met before get to work on a backpack that probably should have been thrown away months ago, and feeling completely useless, standing in the background and wringing my hands.
"So that was… some conversation you just had," Oliver commented, trying to force the teeth of the zipper apart.
I almost laughed at his reference of my 'chat' with Mum. I wasn't sure if he was genuinely interested in the topic, or if he was just trying to cover up the awkward silence that was happening (again) with a topic that wasn't as cliché as something like 'seen any good movies lately'? Either way, I decided that I could appreciate his boldness.
"Yeah," I agreed, "it was interesting." Like that would ever explain it all.
"So I'm taking it that you don't live at home anymore," Oliver suggested, and I could hear the hint of a smile in his voice.
This time, I really did laugh. "Is my desire for independence really that transparent?"
The wry smile on his face didn't go well with his rich boy image. "I totally get you, that's all. Why else do you think I decided to take higher education to London?"
Money, connections and the extraordinarily lively party scene were some of the reasons that popped into my head, but I didn't think it would be appropriate to voice them out loud.
Oliver stood up and turned to face me. "I think we have found something in common," he remarked, and handed me my backpack.
I tried the zipper, which now worked better than it did before it went bust.
"See? Love and magic," was the only bit of gloating that I heard before Shelley burst back into the room and made her brother carry all her stuff.
"Nice meeting your, Alison," Oliver said, and followed his sister out the door.
I grew up in a big mansion in the snobby Eastern suburbs about two streets away from the beach. The house was a family heirloom, built by my great-great-grandfather once he had made some money after his convict sentence, and passed on dutifully down since then.
My father is probably the most house-proud person ever, and it took my mum constantly bribery and blackmailing to deter him from giving out historical tours of the place to the general public. I think he still has a stack of those printed out brochures in a shoebox somewhere.
I never associated our family with the people around us. Our family didn't come from old money, and my parents were not making millions in the corporate world. Mum ran a nursing home, and Dad opened up his own hardware store after Vietnam. They went to university because of the Whitlam administration and prided themselves in being happy and average in every way possible.
The social dynamic in our neighbourhood, however, wasn't the friendliest to the happy and the average. Our house was the only one in the street that still maintained its authentic Victorian feel, that is to say, all of the others had been renovated and snazzied up, reconstructed and had new extensions added so that they were all now competing with each other for the creative modern architecture awards.
Growing up in a district in which its residents cared so much about the monetary value of their houses, cars and children's education, I always felt that we had nothing in common with the other families around. Ironically enough, I moved out only to take a job at a snobby private childcare centre.
I parked my car in front of house number five on the left, as Jason's car was already sitting in the prime spot under the Jacaranda tree right outside the front gate. An old lady wearing yellow rubber gloves and holding pruning shears waved at me as I got out of the car, and I recognised her as my parents' new retiree next-door neighbour.
"Hello love," she called out to me.
I remembered her name, Glenda, because Mum would go on and on about what a wonderful person Glenda was. I couldn't remember the specifics of Mum's detailed character profile on Glenda, but it did sound as if the elderly woman brought some degree of new joy and excitement to my mother's life by teaching her a thing or two about gardening.
"Hi Glenda," I replied, "how are you?"
"Oh, I'm wonderful," she let out a giggle that sounded like it was backed by Chardonnay, "I absolutely love this neighbourhood! It's so quiet, and so clean, and peaceful…"
That's because everyone who lives here is too busy working at their white collar careers and not hanging out in the streets, I thought to myself, but nodded in agreement.
"Well, it's nice seeing you again," I said politely, opening the trunk of my car and taking out the crate of VB that was my signature offering to family dinners.
"Ok darling, you have fun with your family now," she giggled again, her bubbly suspiciously Chardonnay-infused posh half-British accent making her sound as if talking to me was the greatest thing she'd done all year, "take care and don't drink all of those by yourself now!"
The middle-aged alcoholic WASP, yet another stereotype of the Eastern Suburbs. Jason and I grew up around such wonderful influences.
I stood on front step and rang the doorbell. The front yard, as it had always been, was in serious need of mowing. Dad's theory was that as long as the path leading from the gate to the front door was clear, there was no reason to eliminate the 'antique, mysterious and rustic' feel of the property.
The door swung open and my mother stood on the other side.
"Alison!" she exclaimed, "I told you that you didn't have to ring the doorbell, just use your key!"
The crate of beer cans I was holding prevented her from giving me a welcome hug, so instead she ushered me into the kitchen.
"It's rude just to barge in someone else's house, Mum," I replied, "didn't you tell me that?"
Mum made her famous tutting noise, reserved for her children whenever they said something she deemed inappropriate. "Nonsense, love, this will always be your house too."
It was a statement she had made several times before. Mum was totally against me moving out and paying my own bills, especially if I was trying to make money duding my gap year. She also didn't think my decision to go to France was such a good idea, because with HECS and my UAI the state university system seemed like the way to go.
I set the crate of beer down on the floor and looked around the kitchen. Three different pots were cooking something on the stove, and the oven had something large and covered in aluminium foil inside on one of its racks.
"That's a lot of food, Mum," I commented.
She beamed so widely and looked so absolutely excited that I wondered if Glenda had only just taught her a thing or two about gardening.
"Well, it's a big occasion when your daughter finally drops by," she said.
For a moment there I felt slightly guilty. Maybe I should have had taken the role of doting daughter more seriously, visited and called more often. Maybe I shouldn't have always been so short with her during our phone conversations. I knew she was genuinely happy to see me, and that meant something. I made a note to visit more often.
However, that little feeling of guilty warmth was quickly dissipated when Mum linked her arm through mine and started with, "so, why did you break up with Matt?"
I sighed. Here we go again, I thought. And right when I was getting sentimental.
"Mum..." I took a deep breath, "I really don't want to talk about it."
Mum gave me one of those disapproving stares. "You obviously can't be that emotionally scarred if you're already off chatting up guys at work!"
Chatting up guys at work? The only guy at work was Shane, and I certainly wasn't chatting him up.
"What on earth are you talking about?" I asked, now more curious rather than just plain annoyed.
Mum all but pushed me down onto one of the kitchen table chairs. "I called your work after you hung up on me this afternoon, and Shane told me that you were flirting up a storm with a spunky boy with an English accent."
I could only shake my head in disbelief. My mother was talking to Shane. My very-eager-to-get-involved-with-my-life mother was talking to my uses-the-word-'spunky' co-worker Shane.
"I wasn't flirting with him," I said defensively, "Oliver just came to pick up his sister, that's all."
Mum inclined her head in the way that I knew she didn't believe me. "If you say so," she turned the oven light on for a second to check the roast, "but I still think you shouldn't have broken it off with Matt."
There was a slight accusatory tone in her voice, and I frowned.
"What makes you think I wasn't the one who got dumped?"
She scoffed, or as close to scoffing as she could muster, "Come on, Alison, you're the one with the big plans and the hero complex."
It reminded me vaguely of my conversation with Dan and Charlie, but I shrugged off the similarities. "That doesn't have anything to do with it," I retorted.
"And as if that boy would do anything to hurt you!" Mum continued on, ignoring my comment completely, "he's just been moping about at home ever since the two of you broke it off. He's really sad about it!"
My mother definitely had her ears out for any kind of news, but this was a little bit too weird. "How do you know all this?" I asked her.
"Oh, Sharon mentioned it when we were chatting," Mum replied, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary.
But it was, out of the ordinary that was. Sharon was Matt's mother, the nice woman who used antique tea sets to appease her mother in law?
"You talk to Matt's parents?" How come I didn't know that my mother was friendly with his? They'd only met each other once, at a university open day when both Matt and Jason were involved in some information booth or other, but that was it.
"I ran into her at the Fish Market a few days ago," Mum stood up to check on the pots on the stove, "and we decided to have some coffee and catch up."
I shook my head in disbelief. Mum really was something, first enquiring about my love life from my co-workers, and now being all buddy-buddy with my ex-boyfriend's mother while purchasing fresh seafood. I couldn't believe that this was happening. I had moved out of home. She wasn't supposed to know all the details about my life anymore.
"Mum," I said evenly, "You don't have anything to 'catch up' with her about. You're not friends with her, you don't even know each other!"
"Alison," she turned her head back to look at me, speaking in a tone just as even as the one I was using, "I can be friends with whomever I like, don't you think?"
I tried again, deciding that it would be best if I told me mother exactly how I felt about what she was doing.
"I just really don't appreciate you butting into my life like this, Mum. It's really none of your business."
She looked back at me with her eyebrows raised, speaking in a tone that was probably reserved for some of the more difficult residents of the nursing home, "It's not called 'butting' if I'm your mother, Alison. I'm looking out for you. Aren't I a part of your life too?"
I wanted to say more. I wanted to get angry at her, and tell her about boundaries, and privacy, and independence and all those things that I felt that I deserved. And I probably would have, if my older brother didn't stroll into the kitchen then and greet me by ruffling my hair.
"Hey kid," he yawned, and I guessed that he had just gotten back from a series of dull lectures at uni, "did you bring the beer?"
"Yeah," I said, pointing at the crate on the floor. Jason made it his duty to open the box as quickly as possible.
"What were you guys talking about?" he asked, as an accompaniment to the sound of ripping cardboard.
"Nothing much," I answered quickly and stepped forward towards the stove, "do you need help with anything, Mum?"
As Jason rattled on about his day of boring classes and I rinsed a head of lettuce in the sink, I decided that yelling at my mother wouldn't have been the best thing to do. Instead, I wanted to try to be that doting daughter just this once, test out the persona and see how that would work out for me. And the first part of that was to not rage a fight in the presence of a beer-drinking older brother, and to concentrate on the vegetables.
Maybe that's what family's all about.
Eastern Suburbs: a district in Sydney, by the sea, where it is a stereotype that many rich people live.
Vietnam: yes, the Vietnam War also included many many Australian troops. This is why it's also not surprising that Australia has been heavily involved in Iraq too.
Whitlam: Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister of Australia in the early 1970s, was very big on education and the arts and multiculturalism etc., and made university education completely free for the first time.
VB: Victoria Bitter, a beer
UAI: University Admissions Index, determines the fate of your higher level education
HECS: a government loan for university students, interest-free and very cheap.
The Fish Market: is literally a big market in Sydney where you can buy fresh, cheap seafood, almost like a wholesale seafood place. I thought it would be funny to have the two mums meet there.
Yeah, it's me again, and I will finish this story. Some day. It now has a new name, which I think it corny but may work better, and some new characters who are adorable. That's all I can say for now.