I'll Tell You Mine Read online

  ‘Yeah. I miss you guys too. Well, you, Liv and Chilli anyway. Where’s Mum?’

  ‘She’s flying out this afternoon. Early meeting tomorrow.’

  I’m silent, giving him a look that says I know he’s lying.

  ‘She’s just not quite ready to see you,’ he says.

  I feel myself closing down, hardening up. ‘I don’t want to see her either. I have nothing to say to her.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think that’s true,’ Dad says. ‘I think you two have plenty of talking to do.’

  Dad presses his thumbs to his forehead like he has a headache and glances over at Liv, who is scraping the last bits of goo from the sides of the cup. Dropping his voice, he leans into the table towards me. ‘She’ll forgive you, you know . . .’

  ‘No. I don’t know. Maybe she won’t . . . ever.’

  When Mum came out of hospital she shut the door to her bedroom and refused to look at or talk to me. She still avoids being alone with me. I can’t say I blame her but it hurts.

  Dad grabs my hand from across the plastic table, littered with wrappers and cold chips. I try to squirm out of it but he won’t let me. His grip is strong. ‘She forgave me for something once. Something pretty terrible. So I know, okay. Just give her some time.’

  We look at each other. He thinks I don’t know what that terrible thing is he did. But I do.

  *

  Dad had an affair once. Well, one that I know about. I think it was a lady who came to the house one time to see him. She knocked on the door and I answered it and she looked very surprised to see me. Dad said she was just an old friend from Torquay, but he was nervous and tried to make her leave quickly. He didn’t even offer her a cup of tea or a beer. And he always does that. Her name was Susannah and she wore thick glasses, a long, tie-dyed skirt and amber beads round her neck. So, maybe Dad had an affair with a hippy lady called Susannah.

  I found out on the worst family road trip ever. Dad had planned a surf trip up the coast to Byron Bay. Right from the start it wasn’t a good idea. I hate beaches and sunbaking, Mum said she’d already done enough camping with Dad to last her a lifetime and Liv just wanted to go to the theme parks on the Gold Coast. We all couldn’t give a stuff about Dad’s surf breaks along the way.

  But Dad has a way of talking everyone into his grand plans. He had a big map with all the secret surf spots highlighted and we borrowed a flash campervan from his work friend. We had about six different boards wedged in with us and I nicked my leg on one of the sharp fins. I still have that thin, straight scar in the middle of my calf. When I look at it, it makes me angry.

  Dad insisted on giving me and Mum surf lessons, even though we were both terrible at it and it made Mum’s back hurt. Liv was too young to have a go on her own but Dad chucked her on the front of his wide Mal and pulled her up to her feet. She was screaming with excitement when she crested down the front of the wave with Dad’s hand clutching at the back of her bathers. That was a highlight.

  But it rained, on and off, so most of the time we hung around waiting for him to come in out of the water, playing cards in the smelly van – bored, damp and shivering.

  One morning I woke up early. It was still dark outside. Liv and I were sleeping in cramped bunk beds just metres away from Mum and Dad in a double bed. Huddled on the bottom bunk, I woke up to the sound of them fighting in low, urgent whispers. I was desperate to wee but afraid to rustle the fabric of my sleeping bag. Their whispers became loud hisses – Mum was furious. Boiling. Swearing.

  I’d never heard her swear before. Not even when she got her finger caught in the car door and the nail went black.

  ‘You slept with her? An office affair is the height of tacky, David. Don’t you have any respect for me?’

  My bladder hurt. The toilet was out the door, across the oval and in the dimly lit toilet block. I tried to hold it in, pressing my legs together and grabbing my crotch with two hands.

  ‘I suppose she’s young, stupid and pretty. That’s how you like them, don’t you? Such a cliché.’

  ‘She’s thirty-two,’ Dad said. ‘And she’s very smart.’

  ‘What was in it for you then? Apart from the obvious.’

  ‘She listens to me. Unlike you, she thinks I’m interesting.’

  ‘Oh my God. Just stop talking. You make me sick.’

  They fell into a hot, thick silence that comes between hurtful comments. I had to get up or I’d risk wetting the bed, which at thirteen was not an option. It was now or never. I unzipped my sleeping bag and headed for the door, rubbing my eyes like I had just woken up.

  ‘Are you okay, Kate?’ Dad whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I just need to go to the toilet.’

  ‘Want me to come with you?’ Mum said.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’

  I scurried out of the van and hoped their horrible conversation didn’t continue.

  When I got back from the loo it was silent in the van. Mum was lying facing the wall and Dad had his back to her. There seemed to be a lot of space between them in such a small bed. Dad had his eyes closed tightly, pretending to be asleep. I could tell. It was a trick I’ve done a million times before. I had no idea parents could pretend to be asleep too.

  *

  It’s Wednesday night and everyone’s in their PJs getting ready for bed. We’re all a little grumpy because it’s been raining and windy all week, and everyone is swamped with homework. I’m reading and generally trying to ignore Jess and Harriet’s ridiculous conversation about who has the best body out of the Year Ten Holston boys. Like anyone cares. Especially Jess, who I’m sure would rather be discussing who has the best rack at Kiltern Girls.

  Maddy throws me her contraband phone from the doorway. ‘Steve’s about to call but I’m busting for a slash. Answer it? It’s on silent.’

  I keep reading, chuck the phone on my bedside table and seconds later it vibrates.

  The caller ID says LACHY. And yeah, I should let it go to voicemail because Maddy didn’t say to pick it up if it was her delectable brother. But I can’t resist.

  ‘Hello?’ I say into the phone.

  Harriet shakes her head at me. ‘You guys are going to get all of us into trouble with that phone,’ she says. I ignore her, knowing that she’d be just as excited as I am if she knew that Lachy Minogue, the Lachy Mingogue is on the phone.

  ‘Hi Mads, it’s Lach,’ he says in a deep, rich voice that I’ve never heard on any Holston boy, that’s for sure. I could lick it up like a bowl of melted chocolate.

  ‘Uh, it’s not Maddy. It’s Kate. Her friend.’ After that I have absolutely no idea what to say next. She’s having a wee?

  ‘Where is she?’ he asks.

  ‘Um. She’s in the toilets.’ Great stuff, Kate. Really thrilling conversation.

  ‘Oh. Have I met you before?’

  ‘No. I mean, not really. I saw you that day when you dropped Maddy off. I was standing next to the door, with my bags . . .’ I trail off, thinking there is no way on God’s green earth this gorgeous boy will remember me, so why I’m bothering to jog his memory is anyone’s guess.

  There’s a little pause, and I think maybe the phone has cut out.

  ‘Hello?’ I say.

  ‘Oh, you’re that girl. With the black hair?’

  I smile into the phone and feel my skin burning up.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. That’s me,’ I say.

  ‘Kate,’ he says, as if my name is a sentence with a full stop.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you.’

  ‘Um, you too.’

  And, of course, now that we’ve having something like a normal conversation, Maddy flings the door open and walks in.

  She whips the phone out of my hands before I even have a chance to say goodbye.
>
  ‘Steve?’ she asks. ‘Oh, it’s you, Lach. Can I call you back later? Are you and Dad eating that stuff I left in the freezer? I put notes on it so you know what to do. Just chuck it in the microwave. You know, that white box in the kitchen? You two are hopeless. Okay, see ya.’

  I lie back on my bed and pretend to read but the words are a blur and all I can really think about that night is Lachlan Minogue, who remembered that I have black hair.

  *

  Nobody told me my grandmother would be joining us for Sunday lunch. And yet here she is. She picked the restaurant – a Southbank bistro with white tablecloths, shiny marble floors and a menu of fancy-pants tapas plates – none of which sound appealing. Grandma will be paying with her credit card so we’re all supposed to be grateful. And we have to be extra nice to her since she lives by herself in a lonely apartment overlooking the river.

  I can’t help thinking Mum wanted someone else at the lunch so everyone would have to be on their best behaviour. Everyone meaning me. It’s the first time I’ve seen Mum since I was kicked out. We’re sitting at opposite ends of the table and barely speaking.

  I’m sulking because I didn’t want Grandma here, poking her powdered nose into our day. Dad is out of sorts, too. He always is when Grandma is around. She seems to bring out the worst in him.

  ‘Can you really eat crispy pig’s tail?’ I ask, disgusted. ‘Poor little pig.’

  ‘I think it sounds . . . intriguing,’ says Grandma.

  ‘Yeah? Well, you wouldn’t be so intrigued if someone cut off a piece of your bum and served it on a bed of wilted spinach,’ I point out.

  Mum looks annoyed and directs conversation at me for the first time at the table. ‘Kate. Please don’t speak to your grandmother that way. How about you try something new? Mum has made a big effort to get us a table at this restaurant. It’s quite famous. It’s got two hats.’

  I slap the wooden menu shut and it makes a cracking sound. Mum flinches and draws in a breath, like she’s gotten a fright. She’s jumpy around me now. ‘Chips,’ I decide. ‘And a side of tomato sauce.’

  ‘Fine,’ Mum says. ‘And I’ll have the pig’s tail.’

  ‘Pig’s tail?’ Liv asks quizzically. ‘That sounds a bit stinky.’ She’s happily ploughing through the bread basket, spreading each piece thickly with butter and slurping on a lemonade, oblivious to all the tension.

  ‘Isabel, can’t you do something about the way she dresses?’ Grandma whispers, as if I am not at the table.

  Mum shrugs but doesn’t feel inclined to defend me. ‘I’ve tried.’

  ‘But it’s not good for your image. She looks more spooky every time I see her.’

  ‘I can hear you!’ I shout, bringing attention to our table in a way that causes Mum’s shoulders to stiffen. She looks around nervously.

  ‘Kate. Please.’

  ‘Should I use my inside voice?’ I ask.

  Dad puts a hand on my shoulders as if I’m a skittish horse and addresses Grandma.

  ‘Zoe, we respect Kate’s wish to dress in the Gothic culture. It may not be to your taste but she doesn’t comment on your wardrobe, so there’s no need for you to comment on hers.’

  Grandma looks like she’s swallowed a fly that would probably taste better than a crispy pig’s tail.

  ‘Yes, I would expect that sort of attitude from you, David.’

  Dad stands up from the table. ‘I’m going for a cigarette,’ he says.

  ‘I thought you’d quit,’ Mum says.

  ‘I thought I had too. Kate, join me for a walk?’

  I stand up. ‘Gladly,’ I say.

  So much for our nice family lunch.

  *

  Dad plays with his unlit cigarette, caressing the stem and sniffing the earthy tobacco. Then he sighs and crushes it in his palm.

  ‘Your mum had a pierced nose when I first met her,’ he says. ‘Can you imagine that?’ We both look silently out across the fast-flowing Yarra River, watching a rowing crew drift under the iron bridge.

  ‘Did she really? But she grounded me for getting a lip ring. What a hypocrite.’

  Dad puts a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Right here.’ He illustrates. ‘A small silver stud.’

  ‘Why aren’t there any photos of it?’ I ask, thinking of the yellowed albums I’ve flicked through countless times.

  ‘Zoe, your grandma, made her take it out. She said it looked common.’

  ‘What did you think?’ I ask.

  ‘I thought it looked pretty and sort of sexy.’

  ‘TMI,’ I warn him.

  I try to picture my mother, with her tasteful diamond earrings, sitting in a grotty piercing studio getting a needle stuck through her nose. It’s pretty well impossible.

  ‘She wasn’t always this uptight,’ he says. ‘The Isabel I used to know would’ve hated this restaurant as much as you and I do.’ He hugs me, then pushes back from the railing. ‘We better go in and try to be nice to Grandma. The old bird does make it hard sometimes . . .’

  At the table I look for a white blemish on Mum’s nose from the piercing. A sign that she once made decisions that weren’t properly thought out. A speck of individuality. I search so hard she asks if she has spinach in her teeth. But all I see is her perfection. Where all my angles seem to collide on my face in the wrong way, hers are even lines that match up like she’s been drawn with a protractor.

  *

  Miss Horsell writes something on the board during second period English that gives me the shivers.

  CREATIVE WRITING COMP

  MAX: 1000 WORDS

  SUBJECT: ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. LET YOUR IMAGINATION GO WILD!

  DUE: 10 NOVEMBER

  She puts a big box on her table and taps it enthusiastically with her ruler, as if she’s a magician and the top will open to reveal a flock of white doves. ‘I encourage all of you to enter something in this year’s creative writing competition. The winning story will be published in the end-of-year magazine. Either start writing or start thinking about a story you’ve already written that you can enter. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Just have a go.’

  Nobody else seems that excited by this announcement; in fact, most people either groan softly or continue their private conversations. I just sit there feeling fluttery. We’re studying To Kill a Mockingbird and I really like it. I’ve read it twice already, which is why I spend the rest of the class working on a graphic novel idea. I lean my notepad on my knees and start the story. I scribble, sketch, cross out words and try to get it all down before it slips away. I’m so absorbed in it that I don’t notice that Miss Horsell has finished the class and everyone is filing out.

  ‘Kate?’ Miss Horsell says. ‘What are you up to today?’

  I close my notepad quickly and stuff it in my backpack. I’m not going to tell her I’ve been up to a little graphic novel about Nate, Jemina, me and Annie. Our strange love quadrangle.

  ‘Nothing. Sorry. I was just going . . .’

  ‘Can I see what you’re working on?’ she asks gently.

  Miss Horsell virtually has to wrench my assignments from my hands, so there’s no way I’m going to give her half-finished scribbles. ‘It’s not done,’ I say. I pack up the rest of my stuff and stand to leave.

  ‘Got a minute?’ she asks, sitting down on the edge of a desk, looking like she’s in no hurry to get to her next class.

  Usually when a teacher asks if I’ve got a minute I’m in trouble again. For reading a magazine instead of studying cell anatomy or for painting my nails with liquid paper. But I don’t think Miss Horsell wants to give me detention.

  She motions to my chair and I sit down gingerly.

  ‘How are things at the boarding house?’

  ‘Okay, I guess.’

  ‘Been doing
any writing on your own? Poems. Stories?’

  ‘Some stuff. Nothing good.’

  Miss Horsell smiles and looks at me without blinking. She can be pretty intense when she wants to be.

  ‘I think you should enter the writing competition.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re the best writer in this class. You try hard not to be but you are.’

  ‘I dunno. My writing is . . . private.’

  ‘Okay. But will you think about it?’ Miss Horsell says.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say. ‘Can I go now? I’m going to be late for Biol.’

  Miss Horsell shakes her head, like she’s dealing with a trying two-year-old. ‘Yes. Go,’ she says, as I rush out the door.

  10

  Maddy and I walk, elbows linked, towards chapel, following the ant trail of girls into the dark, stuffy room dappled with stained-glass shadows. We take our seats a few rows from the back, sliding our bums along the worn wooden pew.

  Harriet has started working as an altar girl. She studiously helps Reverend set up the altar and light candles. She’s wearing a long white dress that makes her look like an angel. The only thing missing is the halo. She’s been campaigning extra hard recently – prefect elections are weeks away. The teachers get to vote, so pretending to be a Child of God really helps.

  ‘She’s going straight to hell,’ Maddy says. ‘She might as well not bother trying to get back in God’s good books.’

  Louise shuffles up to us. ‘Can I sit with you guys?’ she asks.

  Maddy shrugs as if to say ‘it’s a free world’. I move up to let her in. ‘Course you can, Louise,’ I say. Without Louise we would both be expelled.

  ‘Call me Lou. Most of my friends do.’ She stops, no doubt thinking that she’s rushed into thinking we’re friends, just because we let her sit with us in chapel. ‘Or you could call me Loopy, like my sisters.’ A rosy blush blooms at the base of Louise’s neck and she wipes away the sweat on her forehead.

  ‘Aw, no, I forgot my hymn book,’ I groan.

  Mr Papadopoulos is doing the rounds, sniffing out girls who regularly forget to bring their books. Three times and a detention is issued.