The Pause (19 page)

‘Can't say I've had that fantasy.'

‘Well, if you'd had my life, you would have.
I fantasised about it every night. It became my safe place. Somewhere to escape to, every night as I cried myself to sleep. I was alone, Declan. All alone with no one to turn to. I hated my life so much, I just wanted to die. And then a handsome prince showed up on a train quoting some guff about
To Kill a Mockingbird
.'

I feel myself choking up. I practically did nothing for her and she thinks I'm a prince.

Lisa looks up at me and sees the doubt in my eyes.

‘You showed me another life. You showed me that it was okay to be a bit rebellious. You made me feel worth it. No one, not even my family,
especially
not my family, made me feel like I was worth anything. You showed me that I was. You made me feel special.'

‘You
are
special, Lisa.'

Lisa turns around and kisses me. ‘And it turns out that I was.'

‘You were what? Special?'

Lisa eases herself up from my chest, still covered in foam (when will these bloody bubbles burst?) and moves back to her side of the bath. She takes a sip of champagne and looks at me. ‘Adopted.'

My chin practically goes under water. ‘So you're like, what, a Chinese princess?'

‘Not quite a princess.'

‘I'll be the judge of that.' I scoop up some bath-water with my empty glass and toss it over her chest, clearing away the suds so that I can finally see her in all her glory. ‘I anoint you Princess Lisa of Hong Kong.'

Lisa looks down at her breasts but doesn't attempt to cover them.

‘Now arise and take a bow.'

‘Nice try, Declan.'

‘Seriously, though. You're adopted?'

‘Yep. Well, sort of.'

‘When did you find out?'

‘That night we arrived home from the concert. The night I stood up to her.'

‘So what happened?'

‘She'd been hitting me more than usual since – I have to say it, sorry – since I started seeing you.'

I reach over and hold her hand. I pull her towards me so that we can hug. I love her warm skin against mine, the feeling that I'm protecting her as she is me. I soap and massage her back as we hug. Anyone can have sex. I'll choose love, I'll choose closeness, I'll choose friendship every time.

‘Well, you remember how I told you about how when I got home she went crazy? She was screaming at me that I was a worthless, black-hearted whore. I knew I was going to get caned, and I could tell
that this was going to be the worst one yet. And it was, but I guess even worse than the beating was what she was saying. She kept telling me it was
my
fault, that this is what happened to deceitful, disgusting, ungrateful, selfish hearts. And all the time I knew what she was doing was wrong. So wrong. None of my friends' mothers treated them this way. She never laid a finger on my sister or brother. Just me. Susanne's right. She's crazy.'

I could kill Joy right now. What an effing sadist.

‘Well, she was so mad she started stomping on the floor. It was only then that I realised that she was left-footed. She probably didn't even know herself because, seriously, how many middle-aged women get the opportunity to play football? And I was kind of laughing at the idea of her trying out for the local Aussie Rules team when her slipper went flying off. And this made it worse – I was hoping that the slipper would decapitate one of those stupid figurines she decorates the house with, and I couldn't stop laughing. And then when she went to retrieve the slipper she said it, the …' She trails off.

‘Said what?'

Lisa holds up her fingers, one after the other, as if she's counting. ‘Hang on a sec.' She mouths as she counts. ‘Okay, got it. She said the eleven words that changed my life.'

‘Eleven?'

‘I know. Ten would have been better – rounder – but it was eleven.'

‘So what were they?'

‘“You are nothing but a cheap whore, just like your mother.”'

Although she'd prepared me for it, it still takes a moment for this to sink in.

‘It was like the world just stopped for a second and then we exchanged this look. I actually smiled at her because we both knew that she'd just lost her leverage and she was in a very awkward position.'

‘Awkward position for what?'

‘Well, after she got her slipper, she came back and she was leaning over me but she was off balance, so I used my judo skills and threw her off me.'

‘You know judo?' I know this isn't the point, but it hits me that there's still so much I have to learn about Lisa.

‘I don't. But I went for a lesson with my cousin when I was ten and I remembered this one throw. It's about using your opponent's weight against them.'

‘Lisa. You are my hero.'

‘She kind of flew off me. I saw it all in slow motion. She was actually airborne for a moment, and she squeaked when she hit the floor. She
literally squeaked! Then she was rolling around on the ground as if
she
was the victim. I got up and ran to my room and slammed the door, daring her to come in.'

‘Where was your dad?'

‘He usually went into hiding when she went ballistic. Probably scurried away to the pub.'

‘What a guy.'

‘A couple of hours later, the phone calls started. She was screaming down the phone to Hong Kong, and it didn't take me too long to figure out who my mother was.'

‘Susanne?'

‘Susanne.'

‘How old was she when she had you?'

‘Fifteen. She bought us the condoms tonight because she doesn't want us making the same mistake.'

‘So who's your father?'

‘He was some guy from school she was seeing at the time. Works in New York now. Financier or something mind-numbingly boring. Never wanted to know anything about me. Has his own family now.'

‘His loss.'

‘Okay, that's me. Not exactly Anastasia or Anne Frank but there it is.'

‘Why didn't you tell me about what happened when we spoke the next morning?' I ask her.

‘I was still processing it myself. And it wasn't definite that Susanne was my mother. She only confirmed it when we went out to dinner the first night I arrived back. Now, what about you?'

The water's getting cold and we're out of champagne. We scissors, paper, rock to see who goes for a beer. I can't believe my luck when my paper covers Lisa's rock. I promise to close my eyes (yeah, right) as she climbs out of the bath and glides across the bathroom without bothering to cover up with a towel or robe.

I top up the hot water while Lisa slides gracefully back into the bath, more swanlike than my earlier rollerskating giraffe. I twist the top off the beer and pour us both half a glass.

‘What happened to you at the station?' She hesitates. ‘Please tell me that it wasn't me. I don't think I could take it …' She trails off.

But I'm not going to sugar-coat it. If we're going to stay friends, a couple, or whatever this is, then we have to be truthful. ‘Your leaving kind of tipped me over the edge.'

Lisa slumps. I reach forward and pull her to me again.

‘It wasn't you, though, Lisa. I promise. It wasn't you that put me on that platform. There was something that happened that I kind of tried not to think about. It was
our
dirty family secret and
it was chewing me up inside even though I didn't know it. Everyone thought I was pretty normal, but until I met you all I ever did was go to school, do a bit of weight training in the garage, then hide in my room reading and watching movies.'

‘Same as me.'

‘So we were good for each other. We kind of saved each other.'

‘But you almost died.'

‘Almost.'

‘Tell me, Declan. Tell me what happened.'

I tell her and she cries for two hours.

I sit at the breakfast bar listlessly stirring the dregs of my Coco Pops and feeling like something that the cat pooed out.

‘He'll just have to go to school,' says Dad. ‘That's all there is to it. He can't have the day off for every little sniffle.'

‘Look at him,' replies Mum. ‘He's not well.'

‘His temperature's fine. He's just putting it on.'

‘I'm not!'

‘Don't talk back to me, Declan.'

‘He's got a cold coming on, Shaun,' says Mum. ‘For God's sake, show a little compassion.'

‘When I was his age …'

‘Stop!' snaps Mum. ‘Spare us the “When I was
a lad we used to walk barefoot to school across broken bottles and arctic icefloes to get to class” routine. You went to a bloody private school.'

‘Gabriella! Language.'

‘Can you take the day off work?' says Mum.

‘You know it's the end of financial year.'

‘And the world will stop turning if those accounts don't get reconciled.'

‘Well, can
you
?'

‘I'm in court today.'

‘What about your mum?' says Dad. ‘Surely she's the obvious solution.'

‘You know she can't handle the two of them at once. Even Kate's too much for her at times.'

Right on cue from the playroom, Kate attempts to beat a Lego policeman into compliance with a lump hammer.

‘Could you ask Mary?' suggests Mum. ‘I'm assuming she's still on the wagon.'

‘Mary's fine,' says Dad. ‘She hasn't had a drink in years.'

‘I don't want to stay with her,' I say.

Dad crosses his arms. ‘And why not?'

‘She smells.'

Despite the domestic bind that they're in, Mum has to snort back a laugh.

‘Aunt Mary does
not
smell,' says Dad.

‘Does too.'

Before Dad has the chance to issue his ‘Does not' rebuttal, Mum chimes in.

‘Actually she does. Kind of like mothballs and gin.'

‘This is my mother's sister you're talking about, Gabriella.'

‘Okay,' says Mum. ‘Your mother's sister smells like mothballs and gin.'

After dropping Kate at Grandma's, we pull up outside Aunt Mary's house in the Western Suburbs. The house resembles Aunt Mary. It's neat enough on the outside, but inside it's falling apart.

This is a big detour for Dad and he isn't happy about it. He's been grumbling like a wino's dog since we left home. He's going to be late for work and late home tonight. Despite this, I stand my ground. ‘I don't want to stay with her,' I say. ‘She's mean.'

‘So what is it, Declan? She's mean or she smells?'

‘Both. And she's ugly.'

‘She took me in through the goodness of her heart when I first came to this country,' says Dad. ‘I know she's got a bit of a temper but she's a good person. She hasn't had an easy life.'

‘She's still ugly.'

‘That's enough!' snaps Dad. ‘You used to like staying with her when you were little.'

‘She's mean and she hits me.'

‘She does not! Don't lie, Declan. You know I can't stand liars.'

‘Can I come to work with you?'

‘There are no crèche facilities at the office.'

I don't have a clue what crèche facilities are, but I suppose it means that I can't go to work with him.

‘Okay, I'll go to school then,' I plead.

‘You don't have your uniform.' Dad's got me with this one.

‘I can tell Miss Stevely it's in the wash,' I suggest.

‘You should have thought about that this morning before you decided to skive off.'

Dad carries my toys and library bag up the path. I trudge along behind him, staring at the creepy-looking gnomes that are scattered about the garden.

‘And put a smile on your face when you see her. Don't you embarrass me in front of her, you hear? She's doing us a favour.'

The door creeps open before we even knock.

‘Hello, Aunt Mary. You well?'

‘Grand, Shaun. Yourself?'

‘If I was any fitter I'd be dangerous.'

Aunt Mary's disturbing screech-like laugh is the type you would normally associate with the sort of person who owns a squadron of flying monkeys. I wish I had a pair of red shoes that I could tap together and fly away to Kansas in.

‘And here's the wee fella,' she says. ‘Are you feeling poorly, my love?'

‘He's fine,' says Dad. ‘Got a bit of a sniffle, that's all. Nothing fatal.'

Aunt Mary takes my stuff and Dad ruffles my hair. ‘Behave yourself,' he says. He then winks at the Wicked Witch of the Western Suburbs. ‘Both of you.'

‘Ah, Shaun, get away with you, you big tease.'

When Dad leaves, Aunt Mary tells me that we're going to have a grand time. We're going to have lots of ‘crack' (which is Irish for ‘fun' – I hope). She's going to be doing some baking and if I'm a good boy she'll let me stir the mixture and if I'm a
really
good boy she'll let me lick the bowl afterwards. She's in a happy mood, for now. I just hope it stays that way. It's when she goes for that bottle under the sink that she turns into the Witch. I swear if there were an instruction manual for Aunt Mary, it would say, ‘Instant psycho – just add alcohol'.

She sets me up at the kitchen table so that I can draw and read while she gets the cake and
scone mixture ready. She leans over me as I try to keep myself busy and off her radar. ‘What are you drawing there?' She examines my picture a little closer. ‘What's that big fella with all them legs doing on that boat?'

‘They're not legs, they're tentacles. It's a giant octopus. And he's taking over the ship.'

‘There's no such thing as giant octopuses.' Even though it's only around nine in the morning, I can tell from her fumes that she's been under the sink already.

And like an idiot I decide to go all David Attenborough on her. ‘There might be. In the really deep parts of the ocean. Where no one has ventured yet.' I actually use the word ‘ventured'.

Big mistake. I look at Aunt Mary. She sees the fear in my eyes as I see the fire in hers.

‘So you think you know more than me, you little smart alec?'

‘No, Aunt Mary. I'm sorry.'

‘You know I used to be a school teacher. Back in Ireland.'

‘Yes.'

‘You think you know more than a qualified school teacher, do you?'

‘No, Aunt Mary.'

‘That's your mother coming out in you, so it is,' she hisses. ‘Thinks she's such a big shot, that
one, in her fancy black robes and ridiculous wig. Correct me again, young man, and I'll wash your filthy mouth out with soap.' She grabs the back of my hair. ‘You got that?'

‘Yes, Aunt Mary. I won't do it again.' And right now I hate my stupid father. Him and his psycho aunt. Why doesn't anyone believe me?

After that, we retreat to our corners for a while. She busies herself baking while I carry on drawing – though I reduce the size of the attacking octopus significantly. It's no longer a serious threat to the sailors; it's more something to have a bit of a laugh at and poke with a stick. Despite my concession, there's to be no mixing or bowl licking for me. Not now that I've had the audacity to suggest that there might be larger than usual molluscs lurking in the depths of the ocean somewhere.

Aunt Mary is still coming to terms with the latter part of the twentieth century so she doesn't have a DVD player. It's lucky she even has electricity. Deciding to give me a reprieve from her death stares, she relocates me to the ‘sitting room' and puts on an old
Wallace & Gromit
video, which, apart from a few episodes of
Pingu
and
Spot the Dog
, are all she has for when Kate and I visit.

When Wallace forgets the crackers to take up to the cheese moon, I try to stifle my laughter with a pillow in case I'm laughing the wrong way.
I'm mid-snort when Aunt Mary summons me into the kitchen.

‘Declan! I called you.'

I leap up and hit stop on the video player, which is so old it has a wood-grain finish. I race into the kitchen just as she's putting the bottle back beneath the sink.

‘Yes, Aunt Mary.'

‘Ah. There you are. Good boy.' She ties up a plastic bag and hands it to me. ‘Be a love and bring this out to the bin for me.'

I take the rubbish bag from her and walk out through the laundry towards the backyard and realise that I'm in serious trouble. Aunt Mary owns three dogs: an Irish wolfhound, a Jack Russell and something that looks like a cross between a goat and a weasel. And like the dogs themselves, Aunt Mary isn't exactly the cleanest person in the world. It's not so much that her backyard has a bit of dog poo in it, more that her dog poo has a bit of backyard in it.

I open the laundry door and try to plan a route through the teetering, festering and steaming piles of dog crap, all of which are in various stages of decay and stench. This tiptoeing might have worked had it not been for the half-starved demented hounds leaping up at me and the rubbish bag like dolphins after a fish at Sea World, which
wasn't something that I'd factored into my trip across the yard.

When I arrive at the bin, one of the dogs, the wolfhound I think, knocks me off balance and I stumble awkwardly. I only just manage to retain my footing by steadying myself on the wheelie bin, blissfully unaware that I've stepped backwards into a dog turd of such dimensions and freshness that every fly within a ten-kilometre radius is currently inbound to worship its very wonder.

Aunt Mary notices, though. Boy does she notice.

Task complete, I wander back into the kitchen, determined to stay in Aunt Mary's good books by asking if there are any other jobs that need doing. I am completely oblivious to the faeces trail that I'm leaving in my wake, like some sort of urban Hansel and Gretel.

Aunt Mary turns to look at me. She sees my turd track and practically spontaneously combusts.

A rational person would have said something like, ‘Declan. Don't move. You've accidentally walked some dog poo through the house. Stay there while I help take your shoes off and then we'll get it all cleaned up.'

The thing is, if she'd said that she would probably still be alive. It's funny how these things work. Your life changes with the toss of a coin, the smear of some dog shit. But Aunt Mary wasn't
a rational person. She was a raving lunatic into whose care I should never have been trusted.

‘Will you look at the feckin mess you're leaving, you useless little gobshite?'

I'll tell you another thing that a rational person doesn't do. When your psycho aunt comes running at you clutching a rolling pin, a rational person doesn't just stand there and see what the psycho aunt might do with the rolling pin. A rational person goes into flight-or-fight mode. And when your attacker is a half-pissed, completely insane psycho with a hair-trigger temper who's armed with a heavy wooden rolling pin that she's waving about like a marauding Viking wielding an axe, then fight doesn't come into it either. You take flight. Even if the route of your flight takes you across said half-pissed, completely insane psycho's brand-new recently laid cream-coloured carpet.

By the time she finishes chasing me and my poo-coated shoes through the house and has cornered me in the bathroom, her new carpet looks more like the pattern was taken from a zebra.

She grabs me by the hair and holds me down, raising the rolling pin above her head as I close my eyes. She only hits me once. That's all she needs. We both hear the bone snap.

She covers my screams with her hand and carries me from the bathroom and lays me gently
on the sofa. She doesn't seem to care about the crap on the carpet anymore, or that I'm now getting it on the sofa with the hand-knitted white (though not-so-white-anymore) doilies.

‘You just rest there, love,' she says. ‘I'll get you some ice and a couple of aspirin. You'll be right as rain.'

I curl up in a ball as she disappears into the kitchen and returns with the pills and a glass of water.

‘Right so. Sit up and take these.' I do as I'm told, swigging the pills down with the water. ‘Now let's put a little ice on this arm of yours.' As soon as she touches my arm, the jolt of pain is so excruciating that I immediately vomit the pills back up.

‘Stop that, you disgusting boy.' She clips me over the back of my head and then hugs me by way of an apology, but this hurts my arm even more and I scream out in agony.

She covers me with a blanket and I spend the rest of the day drifting in and out of consciousness. At one point I stir in my delirium where I see narwhals in the hallway and hear Aunt Mary talking on the kitchen phone. I think she's speaking to Mum.

‘Ah, we're having a grand old time. Making scones and cakes. He's a great little helper, so he is.'