Unsuitable (18 page)

Esther
had reacted to the pregnancy by saying Audrey had ruined her own life, by
suggesting that there were ‘things’ a woman could do and when Audrey persisted
with the ‘nonsense’, by ignoring the coming grandchild, and then taking the
barest amount of interest in Mia, ‘out of respect for your father’.

Esther
stood. “All right, yes, I’ll come back later. That was the plan anyway.” Audrey
could interrupt and explain about the gobbled chip, but for the moment she
might need Esther, if only to fetch supplies from home.

“I’m
sure you’re tired. That man nurse with the punk hair and the awful deformity on
his arm said you had a headache. Can’t they give you a pill for that? I’ll bring
you flowers. Those ones you like.”

If
there were flowers she liked especially, Esther was unlikely to know about
them.

“Can
you bring me a nightgown and my dressing gown? It’s hanging behind the door in
the bedroom. I need my phone and my computer. I’ll make a list, but for now,
just those things. And will you ask Merrill to bring Mia, please?”

“I
wasn’t planning on returning to your place today before I came back. I was
going to catch a movie while I’ve got the chance. I’ll bring you those things
first thing tomorrow, all right. You don’t need them today. Merrill is out in
the waiting room. I’ll ask her to come in.”

Audrey
closed her eyes again so she didn’t have to watch her mother leave the room to
window shop, to see a movie, to enjoy her holiday in Sydney. Every shopkeeper
she met, every taxi driver, every waitress, they’d all be told how Esther’s
daughter nearly died and how stressful that was, how this little bit of
shopping, this respite for coffee was helping her take a break from the hideously
draining experience.

She
heard Mia before she entered the room, running. “Mum. Mum.”

She
found the button to raise the head of the bed and was on her way to upright,
her head spinning, the nausea revisiting with the speed and velocity of a
bullet train, when Mia appeared in the doorway. She had the old tatty fairy
dress, on over her clothes, her hair loose and flying all over her face. She
stopped when she took in the bed, the room and her mother, who must’ve looked
strange.

“You’re
awake. Nanna is at our house. And Merrill and Joe. We had pizza. I want you to
come home right now. You look funny, but you’re not sick any more. You’re
better and you can be in your own bed, and I can be in mine, and Nanna can go
away to her house and Reece can come back and we’ll all have a picnic.”

Merrill
lifted Mia to the bed. “Oh Aud.” She was crying. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Mia
crawled over Audrey’s knees and the pins and needles bleed into a sharp pain,
but it didn’t matter. She needed a hug more than she needed pain relief. She
pulled Mia forward and wrapped her close. The only drug that could settle her
anxiety.

“Mum.
When is Reece coming?”

She
kissed Mia’s forehead and smoothed her hair. “Are you being good for Nanna and
Merrill and Joe?”

Mia
looked at her wide eyes. “You smell.”

She
smiled. “What do I smell like?”

Mia
wrinkled her nose and whispered, “Like dog poo. What’s this?” She tugged on the
oxygen line.

Audrey
hugged Mia harder, took her hand away from the tubing. Any smell she didn’t
like smelled like the dog poo she’d trodden on in the park and tracked all
through the car and the house one time. But it was all the compliment Audrey
needed. Mia might’ve been describing the sweetest perfume because she was safe
and well and because there was Merrill who knew about Esther and had stepped
in.

Merrill
sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“I
look dreadful don’t I?”

Merry
bit her lip and nodded.

“I
probably look better than I feel.”

“You
don’t have to worry about anything. Marvellous Mia is being a good girl. I’ve
taken leave from work. Joe and I are on deck until you’re ready to come home.”

“Esther?”

“Is,
um.”

“Say
it.”

“She’s
being Esther. She’s exactly as you’ve described her. I always half thought you made
her up. But if anything you were kind. I’m sorry, I know she’s your mother, but
some people—”

“—Shouldn’t
be allowed to have kids. And Reece?”

“I
want Reece. I don’t want Nanna. She smells like dog poo too.”

Audrey
looked down at the tangle of dark hair on Mia’s head. “Oh, she does not,
monkey. Esther said she sent him away.”

“Oh
Aud, we mucked things up. It was Reece who found you and got help.”

“He
broked the door, Mum. But Polly fixed it with his magic pencil.”

“He
really broke the door in?”

“Didn’t
have his keys for some reason and heard Marvellous crying.”

“I
was scared, Mum. You were being Sleeping Beauty, you wouldn’t wake up. Reece
was the prince but he couldn’t wake you up too. I wet myself.”

“Joe
and I, we nearly wet ourselves too. We didn’t know what to do. It’s been years
since we had that discussion about being Mia’s guardians. We never thought we’d
need to do anything about it.” Merry shrugged. “Knowing Esther was Esther, we
figured we needed to keep Mia with us. We weren’t thinking about Reece. We more
or less dismissed him.”

Audrey
swallowed a lump of emotion. She didn’t want to cry in front of Merrill and
Mia. But Reece hadn’t abandoned them.

“Marvellous
here didn’t like that so he—oh, he had every right to be furious—he came back
to help out. But when Esther arrived she banished him. She actually waved her hands
at him and she might’ve said the words, ‘begone evil spirit’.”

“Nanna
is the weird kid witch.”

She
shouldn’t encourage this, but free pass for nearly dying. “Wicked.”

Mia
gave a wicked witch cackle and wriggled out of Audrey’s arms. Merry rumbled in her
bag, pulled out the giraffe and handed it to Mia who set up at the end of the
bed. What was that stupid giraffe’s name? Why didn’t she know it?

“What
do you want us to do, Aud?”

She
wanted her mother gone and Reece back. She wanted to be home in her own house,
her own bed. There was sandpaper under her eyelids and it rasped over her
eyeballs every time she blinked. She was so tired. She didn’t know what to do. Merry
saw it and gathered Mia.

“Mum
needs to have a sleep. We’ll come again later.”

“No.
Mum comes too.”

“Go
with Merry, Mia. I’ll come home soon.”

Mia
started crying. “I want Reece.”

Audrey
wanted him too. So very badly, even with a fuzzy brain, with uneven emotions, she
knew it had to be the illness because she was almost convinced all the medicine
she needed would be having him hold her hand.

15:   Hesitant

Reece
had reached a white flag truce with Audrey’s mother. If he didn’t speak to her,
if he kept Mia out of her sight, she tolerated his presence to do his job. He
didn’t much care what she thought about him, about anything, and he couldn’t
believe Esther and Audrey shared any hardwiring. They didn’t share looks. Esther
had the look of someone who enjoyed sour, salty flavours and ingested so much
of them she’d started drying up from the inside.

Audrey
must have favoured her father, one of those guys who thought they were Kings,
Gods, who should determine how everyone else behaved. Guys who deserved to go
down in a fight. Reece had fantasies about going back in time and taking on
Audrey’s father, both of them in their primes. Reece would put Bates on the mat
so he was hurt bad and couldn’t get up, so he thought about what it was like to
be beaten and discarded, learned fear and humility, so later he’d think twice about
abandoning his family.

If
Bates so much as threatened to disturb Audrey’s peace of mind, Reece might
still do it, without the time machine, without mercy, and they could sell
tickets to the event.

He
smoothed the coverlet over Mia’s bed. He shouldn’t be thinking about pleasure
from violence when Audrey was due home any minute. Merry and Esther were
bringing her. Two long weeks she’d been in hospital. Two long weeks during
which she’d struggled to overcome the lingering effects of the meningitis and
he’d shared Mia’s care with Merry and Joe and suffered through Esther’s pointed
disdain. She’d seemed disappointed when it was clear he had no symptoms.

Turns
out, Joe was all right. He copped to freaking out, to being heavy-handed. He
and Merry were trying to get pregnant and it wasn’t happening. It wasn’t an
excuse for how he behaved, but it was an insight. Joe ran flack with Esther. He
flattered her with courtesy, listened to her rigid opinions without starting an
argument, chauffeured her around, and got her out of the way without a single
complaint. That alone made him a hero.

Reece
did a last minute tidy while Mia played in her lounge chair treehouse. He set
flowers in a vase and gave Esther’s suitcase a kick as he passed it in the
hall. She wasn’t waiting to see if Audrey could manage on her own before moving
out. He went back and kicked the bag again, then wanted to kick himself. He was
nervous about seeing Audrey.

He’d
seen her regularly in hospital once she woke and asked for him, but never
alone, always with Mia, and Esther or Merry, and that’d stopped him doing what
he’d wanted to do most, but didn’t know if she’d welcome. He’d held her hand, while
Esther made tsk sounds, but he’d wanted to climb in the bed with her and hold
on to her, knowing she was growing stronger despite being so thin and drained
and brittle looking he was scared anew for her.

All
he’d had those visits were her eyes; yellow, bloodshot and sunken, guarded by
wary dark thumb prints but searching for his. He didn’t know how to read those
looks, Audrey’s eyes on him down the length of the bed, across the shoulders of
others. But he drank them down.

He
didn’t know if she remembered kissing him. None of the others had mentioned it,
either out of respect for Audrey or because it was the definition of awkward,
especially as it became clear they needed him. Merry could only take a week’s
paid leave and Esther had no interest in caring for Mia. He wasn’t going to
mention it either. Audrey had enough to worry about.

He
had no good reason to be nervous. Audrey was his boss. The kiss was distant and
minor in the scheme of things and even if she did remember it, she’d been clear
it wasn’t a defining moment. He was back to doing his job. Mia was healthy and
happy. It’d taken him a few days to get her out of her fairy dress again, but swimming
goggles worn around her neck were her new favourite accessory now.

But
shit, shit,
shit
. He was nervous. When he heard Merry’s car, he went to
the kitchen and put the kettle on, heard them enter the house. Then he stood in
the doorway between the lounge room and the kitchen and watched Audrey crouch
at the entrance to Mia’s treehouse. The action seemed to cause her discomfort,
she braced her hands on her thighs and bent gingerly.

Mia
barely looked up. “Oh, you’re home.”

“Can
I have a kiss?”

“No.”

Audrey
grimaced. “I can see you really missed me.”

Mia
poked her head out from under the sheet. She was surrounded by every stuffed
animal, doll and bright thing she owned. “I’m busy, Mum.”

Audrey
struggled upright and Reece stepped forward. Merry and Esther were behind him in
the kitchen. This was as close to being alone with Audrey he’d been since the
night before he’d had to break the door down. He held his hand out to steady
her and she grasped it. He wanted to use her words and ask for a kiss.

“Welcome
home.”

She
stepped towards him and then she was in his arms, her head pressed into his
chest. He wrapped around her. The way her shoulders moved, she might be crying.
She smelled like antiseptic, chemical and stale, her hair was limp and dull,
her clothes hung off her, she was all bone and sprung tension.

“It’s
so good to have you home.”

She
lifted her head. Her eyes were wet.

“Mia
missed you.” He felt as though he should apologise for Mia being a kid. “It’s
been a confusing time for her.”

“Thank
you for being here for her. I know you had to fight for it.”

“Not
that hard. Mia did all the work.” He shrugged. “Kids and their routine.”

She
put her hand to his face. The gesture so intimate, her look so intense, he felt
it through layers of skin and tissue all the way to his bloodstream, it
re-oxygenated with tenderness.

“Thank
you for being here for me.”

God,
he could kiss her again now. Learn her pale lips and fragility as deeply as
he‘d learned her strength.

He
heard movement behind him. Esther’s slippers. A sound he hoped never to hear
again after today.

“Audrey,
tea is made.”

Esther’s
voice was acid laced with disapproval. He dropped his arms and Audrey stepped
around him to face her mother. Mia called and he took the opportunity to make
himself scarce, going to the other end of the room, but Esther used lack of
discretion as a weapon.

“In
front of your daughter. Have you no shame?”

Audrey
sighed and Reece hesitated. If he took her in his arms he’d make things so much
worse.

“I
saw your suitcase. You’re going home today, Esther.”

Esther
grunted. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll stay till you get your good sense back.”

“No.”

“I’ll
call your father and tell him you’re not well enough yet to be left alone.”

“Since
I’m not one of his dogs, I guess that won’t matter to him.”

The
muscles across Reece’s backfired, firming as if he was bracing for an attack.

“Don’t
be impertinent, or I will start to think you have suffered some form of brain
damage, like they said can happen. Maybe that’s what this thing with that man
is, brain damage. I can only hope you recover before it becomes something
you’ll regret any more than putting your child’s welfare in his hands.”

Reece
didn’t like Esther’s manner, but he had the same question. What did Audrey
regret where it came to him?

“Audrey.”
Merry was in the room. “Reece made you a sandwich. I thought you might like to eat
then lie down. Esther, I’m ready to drive you to the station. We don’t want to
miss your train and I need to get back to work.”

“I’m
staying.”

Merry
said, “No, you’re not. Change your shoes. We’re going. Audrey doesn’t need you
here.” Reece almost cheered.

“Oh,
Merrill, she’s not well. How can I leave her yet?”

“Esther.
Merry.”

Audrey’s
distress was a landed punch. It stung more than anything Esther had thrown at
him. He moved across the room and stood behind Audrey. Merry looked up at him
and smiled. He knew why she was Audrey’s friend. He had no beef with Merry and
he wished her and Joe well.

Merry
took Esther’s arm. “Audrey has friends who will care for her. And you’ve made
it clear you don’t approve. And you know what? You’re one of the most selfish
people I’ve ever met.” Audrey put her hand out to stop Merry. It didn’t stop
her.

“Audrey
is a brilliant and generous friend, a talented and successful executive, and a
great mum, but instead of being helpful, you’ve done your best to ignore her
needs, avoid your own granddaughter, malign Reece, and drive Joe and me around
the twist. So you’re getting on the train and you’re going home, and that’s all
there is to it.”

Esther’s
spine was spirit level straight. She pulled out of Merry’s grip and appealed to
Audrey. “Do you want me to go?”

“It
would be better.” Audrey was trembling.

Reece
stepped closer. He put a hand to her shoulder.

“You
only had to say. If I’m inconveniencing you, well then I’ll go.” Esther looked
over her shoulder at Merry. “When you’re ready. Goodbye, Audrey.” She left the
room.

Merry
lifted her hands in gesture of defeat. “Sorry, Aud. If you want me to
apologise, I—”

“Don’t
you dare.”

Merry
grinned. “That train can’t come fast enough. Reece really did make you lunch. You’re
as white as Caspar, you should lie down.”

She
went after Esther and Audrey sagged into him. He steered her to a lounge chair
and went to his knees in front of her.

“Mia,
come out and say goodbye to Nanna,” she said weakly.

“No,”
came from under the sheet. Then there was a series of animal noises, a lot of
pig snorts.

Audrey
shook her head. “I don’t have the energy to make her.”

“Do
you want me to see—”

She
touched his face again, shook her head. Merry and Esther were in the hallway,
then on the front steps. Merry said, “Bye. Call you later,” and the door banged
shut.

Audrey
took a deep breath. “I want something else from you.”

He
said, “Anything,” and would’ve taken it back. She didn’t need him being such a fucking
great, wet sap.

“My
lips are so dry.”

He
moved to get her water at the same time as she leant forward. He caught her
shoulders between his hands. “You need to lie down.”

“I
remember, Reece.”

He
studied her face. Her eyes were clear. Her headache had eased, but she still
had the pins and needles and she was physically weak. It could’ve been so much
worse, from death to loss of limb and permanent brain trauma.

“You
saved my life.”

“I
did what anyone would do.”

“I
want—”

“I’ll
get you—” Water, she needed water.

“You.”
She closed her eyes. “But I’m—” She was going to apologise for her appearance,
or her health or shit, who cared, it wasn’t happening.

“—Perfect.
You’re perfect.”

He
put his hand to the back of her head as his pulse tripped and blood raced
around his body at super speed. He brought their faces close and they kissed, and
she sighed, winding her arms around his neck. Her lips were rough and broken
and the kiss had no pressure behind it, no emergency to it, or power to make it
last, and yet it was beautiful for all the life it did have and all the promise
it could make.

She
rested her cheek on his. “Will you stay with us tonight? I’m not okay to be
alone yet. I told Merry, she and Joe should go home so the guest room is free
again.” She straightened up and moved her hands to her lap. “I should’ve talked
to you first.”

“I’m
happy to stay.” He couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. “I’ll stay till
you’re well enough, and you kick me out.”

“We
need to talk.” Her voice shook. “I don’t know what this is, but I need you.”

Her
words were like a song. He dug his fingers into his thighs to stop himself from
mauling her. “You need to rest.”

He
brought Audrey her sandwich and made fresh tea. She ate while Mia entertained them
with random animal noises and the occasional stuffed toy ejected from the
treehouse for unsatisfactory behaviour. She chastised the toys in Esther’s
voice saying, “You’re too noisy,” and, “Sit still and behave yourself, young
lady.” Audrey took that with amused resignation.

She
slept the afternoon away and that night they ate dinner together for the first
time since the fish and chips. Mia was silly with the attention from both of
them, but Audrey, though looking less stressed, was never far off tears. Mia’s
bath was a joint effort, then Audrey read her a story.

Reece
could hear their voices, low murmurs and smile making giggles while he cleaned
up. He rang Polly, but his phone was off. He left a message saying Audrey was
home and he was staying, that he’d be around to the flat later for a bag of
clothes and things. For tonight he had his gym bag, a spare t-shirt and a pair
of cut-off track pants. They’d do to sleep in.