Swimming on Dry Land (3 page)

‘We'll take the scenic route. There's 400ccs of horse power in that little lady.'

Dad was holding onto the coat stand. I knew he didn't really want to go.

Mum said, ‘I can drive,' the way she always said
I can drive
, and snapped up the car keys from the bowl on the dresser before she went outside.

‘I might stay here,' Dad said, resting one of his hands on my shoulder and giving it a squeeze.

Uncle Eddie slapped Dad's arm. ‘Come on, Mike. My treat.'

Mum came back in for Georgie's shoes. She could see what was happening. ‘Don't spoil it for everyone,' she said to Dad, not quite looking at him. That meant he was in trouble.

Dad heaved a sigh out of his chest and slowly shrank, like a punctured balloon. His hand went limp on my shoulder. I took hold of it and kissed it and held on to his fingers.

‘We're going out for lunch. It's booked. Let's go. Come on, skunk.' Uncle Eddie called me skunk sometimes. I didn't really like it. He strode outside, and Mum and Georgie followed. I thought they were going to go without us, but Uncle Eddie marched back in and stood so close to Dad their noses nearly touched. ‘This isn't fair, Mike,' he said through his teeth. ‘Just get in the car.'

Dad told me to go outside, and edged me towards the door, which Uncle Eddie closed behind me. I could still hear them talking though, as if they were trying to knock each other over with their voices. It was Dad's voice that kept falling down. Eventually they both came out.

Uncle Eddie said ‘Let's cruise,' as he caught the car keys Mum threw at him and slid into the driver's seat. On the way to the restaurant, he told us about opal stones and how if you look at them for long enough, they turn into the sea. What he meant was, they
look
like the sea. The sea at Whitley Bay is grey, and in the winter it looks black. Most stones are grey or black anyway. I couldn't see why Uncle Eddie thought opals were so special. Dad only spoke once, just as we went past the cinema. He said, ‘They've made this into a one-way street.'

That restaurant wasn't like the Berni Inn where we went for our birthdays. There were silver knives and forks, padded chairs, and a tablecloth which matched the napkins. Mum noticed that the napkins were the same colour as the carpet and the curtains. It was hard to decide what to eat. I ordered the third thing on the menu, which was basically fish and chips, only they'd written
fillet of plaice with French fries
. Georgie had the same. We all got green soup to start.

The waiter was a tall skinny Frenchman who wore white gloves and a white apron and smiled a lot. He had the exact same smile as Uncle Eddie.

‘What will we drink to?' Uncle Eddie said, raising his glass of champagne.

‘Australia?' Mum said, looking at Dad with an upside-down grin. And then she chinked glasses with Uncle Eddie. Georgie held up her glass of orange juice and chinked too. Dad didn't feel like chinking. Me neither.

‘How's the writing?' Uncle Eddie asked, passing Dad some bread. ‘I think you're in the wrong game. What you bringing in? Twenty, thirty grand?'

‘Try halving it,' Mum said into her napkin.

Uncle Eddie carried on talking to Dad. ‘I'm not trying to tell my older brother what to do. But the property market in Oz is about to soar. All you need is a bit of savvy and a few contacts. I could set you up. Plus the fact that you'd love it out there.' He took up his bread roll and ripped it in half as he turned to Mum. ‘Why don't we all drive down to Whitley? Your folks wouldn't mind a quick visit?'

‘They'd be delighted,' Mum said. Her cheeks were pink from the champagne.

‘It's too long a drive for Georgie,' Dad said, laying his spoon down next to his bowl and wiping his mouth on the fancy napkin. ‘Can you pass me another roll, please?'

Mum looked from Uncle Eddie to Dad and said, ‘We don't all have to go.'

‘If you like,' Dad said flatly. He filled up Uncle Eddie's glass. The bubbles nearly spilt over.

‘Come to London with me?' Uncle Eddie said to Dad, nearly jumping out of his chair with excitement. ‘You can check out the national papers, show them your articles, boost yourself up a bit.' Uncle Eddie reminded me of next-door's dog, the one that always tried to sniff your knickers.

‘Leave it, Eddie,' Dad said, putting on a weak smile. ‘We don't all want what you have.'

Mum said something underneath her breath and then gulped down the rest of her drink. She had a lipstick smudge on her front tooth but I didn't bother telling her.

‘Course not. I'd just love you to see it. Think about it. That's all I'm asking. How's Terry doing? Must call in while I'm here.'

Terry was our next-door neighbour who owned the knicker-sniffing dog. He was pretty old and smelly, but he always gave us Fry's chocolate mint bars, and there was a giant snow globe on his windowsill that he'd let you shake if you agreed to comb his hair. Georgie liked the globe. She never combed Terry's hair though; it was always me who had to do that.

‘Is it like Disneyland?' Georgie asked. We were all amazed because Georgie didn't speak normally, not in public. She'd talk to me if we were on our own, or to Mum and Dad, if she wanted something, but I'd never heard her say anything when we were out. Most people thought she was deaf and dumb. Uncle Eddie didn't even blink.

‘Akarula? You could say that.' And then he went on about the town and the people and what they did and how many houses he had and how much we'd like the weather. He made everything sound so important. I imagined Australia to be black and white, like a newspaper: not many pictures, and that small neat print. Dad's stories were always interesting.

Georgie stopped listening to Uncle Eddie. Because she was twisting the buttons on her cardigan, Mum got cross and slapped her hand away; then she gave Georgie her gold wedding ring to play with so that Georgie wouldn't cry.

I asked Uncle Eddie what kinds of animals there were in Akarula. He gave me a whole list. Dad knew even more. I'd heard of kangaroos and wallabies. In my notebook I did a few sketches and wrote down most of the names while I was waiting for my main course.

The food was served on plates the size of car wheels, and there wasn't much of it. Georgie finished hers, which was the first time she'd ever finished a plate of food. She was in a great mood. We played ‘I Spy' at the table; I won and she didn't even try to win back. Only at the end, when the rest of us were eating our chocolate mousse, she slid off her chair and started doing her floor dance, rubbing her legs against the carpet, getting fluff all over her velvet skirt. That's when Mum stood up and said it was time to go home. I had to look after Georgie until the waiter brought the bill. It came on a saucer with some chocolates, which Mum stuffed in her handbag. Dad took the bill and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.

Uncle Eddie said, ‘This is my shout, Mike,' but Dad insisted. He said, ‘You don't have to pay for everything.'

Mum got all cockadoodled. ‘You can't afford this,' she said to Dad. ‘That's more than a week's wages.' The waiter took Dad's card and brought it back on the same saucer, only there were no chocolates this time. Uncle Eddie left a £10 note under the sugar bowl. He tried to slip Dad some money on the way out, but Dad got cross, so Uncle Eddie held the door open for him instead.

Georgie let Uncle Eddie squeeze her hand on the way home while we were stopped at the traffic lights. He called her his Strawberry Girl, probably because her favourite fruit is strawberries, or at least one of her favourite fruits; she likes peaches too, but only if the skins are peeled off.

‘You're privileged,' Mum said.

‘She's right to be choosy.' Uncle Eddie winked at Mum in the rear-view mirror.

Georgie told me later that Uncle Eddie was BLAST. I said I thought he was OK. When Uncle Eddie was around, everyone behaved differently; it was a bit like being on holiday. He came down to Wogan's with me later that day. We found a book on Australian wildlife, a big hardback, and Uncle Eddie bought it for me. While Mrs Wogan was wrapping up the book, Uncle Eddie told her she had the smile of a movie star. She drew a sort of squiggle with her body and smiled even more. The next day, when I went in to spend Uncle Eddie's fiver, she said: ‘Your Uncle's very handsome.' I told her that he wasn't half as handsome as the lead singer of Showaddywaddy.

Oh, and Mum went back to the restaurant to find her wedding ring, the one Georgie had been messing around with. She didn't find it though.

On the last night, Uncle Eddie went with Mum to the country club to watch her sing and came back drunk, shouting out her songs at the top of his voice, waking us all up. In the morning he told Mum she was going to be a big hit, said he'd sort her out with a record deal as soon as he got back to Australia. Mum told him to stop talking nonsense, but she wasn't cross. She reminded him of what Grandpa had told her (that was Mum's dad):
singers are either drug addicts or drunks.
They both laughed. When Uncle Eddie asked her to sing his favourite song, she did, right there in the kitchen, in her quilted dressing gown.

The next day Uncle Eddie drove Mum to Whitley Bay in the limousine. Mum thought it was best if I stayed and helped Dad with Georgie, so I wrote a letter to Granny and Grandpa instead. I could have gone, if it hadn't been for Georgie.

After Uncle Eddie flew back to Australia, Mum went on so much about Akarula and the sun and all the rest of it that Dad said we were going nowhere and if he heard another word he'd … he'd … he'd do something – he hadn't worked out exactly what. That put an end to the talking. For at least a week Mum didn't speak to Dad. And then the letter came. We were at the breakfast table. Georgie had a rash on her face and Mum was dabbing cream on with a cotton bud. Dad was reading the newspaper. He got up to answer the door: a special delivery that had to be signed for, a large brown envelope addressed to The Harvey Family. Dad stood by the sink with his mouth hanging open as he read through the papers inside. Somewhere between throwing them at Mum and sinking down into his chair, he let out a kind of wet dog-cry, and then with what was left of his voice said: ‘What the hell is this?' holding up a cheque he'd obviously found in the envelope, waving it in front of Mum's face like a pair of dirty knickers. Mum put down the cotton bud and took a few deep shaky breaths before she spoke.

‘I gave Eddie a call. If we don't like it, we'll just come back.'

‘Just come back?'

Mum snatched the cheque from Dad's hand and told him not to get worked up. His face and neck had patches of purple on and he was juddering as he said: ‘We'll get the house, if that's what you want. I'll borrow some money until we get sorted.' He pushed his hands against the table to steady himself. I thought he might need some pills so I got a box from the dresser in the hall and put them down in front of him while Mum carried on.

‘I don't want to live in a house we can't afford.' (She'd seen this house for sale in Johnstown, a yellow one with huge windows and a balcony, about twice the size of our house.) She was getting all huffy and her hands had bunched up into fists. ‘We're the ones who have to live with it; it's not just you. If we stay here, nothing will change.'

She yanked the cotton bud out of Georgie's mouth as Dad took his hands off the table and let them fall into his lap. He hadn't touched his pills. I wanted to say that it was alright, that it wasn't his fault. I felt sorry for Dad. He got blamed for everything, unless it was my fault, and even then he always stepped in and rescued me. Dad was staring at the butter dish. By the time I'd worked out exactly what I wanted to say, he was talking again.

‘I might be doing a story for
The Times
.'

‘When was the last time we had a holiday?' Mum asked.

I knew the answer to that. ‘Before Georgie was born,' I said. I was going to add that Mum had been to Whitley Bay with Uncle Eddie for the night, but I didn't get a chance.

‘Exactly.' Mum was still looking at Dad as if he had answered her. ‘Think about the girls. It's a great opportunity for them.'

‘Can we leave it, please?'

Mum got up and started clearing plates off the table and stacking them beside the sink. Over the clattering she said, ‘This isn't just your decision.'

‘What's wrong with this house?'

Mum looked like she was on the verge of tears when she turned around. Her hands were clutching at the edge of the sink behind her. ‘I'm so tired,' she said. I thought she was going to go on, but she just stood there with her mouth open.

I decided not to say anything, but I was thinking I would like to see a koala bear and a kangaroo. I'd been reading about Australian animals in that book Uncle Eddie had bought me: tree frogs with gold marks on their foreheads, poisonous red-back spiders, flying fruit bats, giant worms. And then there was the fact that I'd promised Uncle Eddie. We'd spat and shaken on it.

‘What about school?' Dad asked.

‘Moni's already a year ahead.'