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I snorted. If anyone was going to refer to his girlfriend as Lady X, it was going to be Marcus.
‘Lady X moved to Adelaide for work, so that’s the end of that.’
‘Very sad,’ chirped another voice. ‘You know, you really should get married, then she can’t move away. Unless she’s like my dad, but Mum says he’s an arse. You have enough suits to get married. You could wear this one, and she would think you’re pretty enough to not leave. And your mum can make the cake. My mum makes all my cakes.’
‘Good morning, Mr Blair,’ a mother chirped as she, and her crowd, began circling his general area.
‘Morning.’ He nodded politely amidst the teasing laughter of his class.
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing and, despite myself, chanced a look at him. In classic black and white, he could very well have turned up to the church at recess and be married by the first ring of the bell. I was sure any number of the fan club now hovering about his area would line up for the honour.
Weekly school assemblies were a non-negotiable, a rite of passage for teacher and student alike. We mumbled through the national anthem, listened to Phil make rapid-fire announcements and, when my name was announced as a new teacher, a hand from behind propelled me towards the crowd.
When the word ‘Dismissed’ was finally uttered, it was like jamming a pin in an overfull balloon. Sound rose from the floor, a cacophony of shuffling feet and pent-up voices as bodies got lost in the scramble to stay in class groups. The mystery hand springing me forth into the world? That was Penny.
‘You can’t run now,’ she teased. ‘You’ve been officially introduced.’
‘The pet has been named,’ I teased. ‘And once they’ve got a name, they’re not going back.’
Beside Penny, someone laughed. ‘It’s good to see you again, Eleanor.’
Sandy hair in a messy bun, and a beard that hadn’t been trimmed in weeks? It had to be …
‘Jack!’ I exclaimed.
‘Oh, shit, you haven’t been introduced yet, have you?’ Penny bounced excitedly.
‘No.’ I looked at Jack. ‘Yesterday was mayhem, and I didn’t get around to your classroom.’
‘Okay, well, Ellie, Jack, Jack, Ellie.’ Penny waved her hands about. ‘Jack’s going to have a new piano delivered in a few weeks and, yes, he does remember you.’
‘You do? You have?’ I asked. My ears pricked up. ‘A new piano? What brand is it? Can I come and see it? When we’ve both got a free moment, that is.’
For some people, a new mobile phone or widescreen television gets their go-go-gadget fingers tingling. For me, new pianos evoked those feelings. From the tinkle of shining keys, taut strings under a gloss black hood, to the shy reluctance of new pedals, there was nothing I didn’t love about them. I longed for the day I had a place big enough to buy myself a new one.
‘Ah … it’s a Brodmann upright, and absolutely you can,’ he enthused. ‘My door is always open. But we should catch up before then. I think we’re all doing Friday night drinks, if you’re in?’
‘Yes! Friday night,’ Penny chimed in.
‘Okay, that sounds great,’ I enthused. ‘I’d love to catch up.’
We moved slowly with the tide, me towards my library, Jack towards his side of the school.
‘I’ll send you the details!’ he called. ‘It’ll be great!’
Chapter 5 (#ulink_f33016bb-7f04-5991-970e-9500803f38c7)
Before I made it anywhere near the other end of a Friday night martini glass, I had to wade through the rest of the week. With only a few days’ grace before I began taking classes of my own, I didn’t have long to get myself in order.
For most of the week, I was pent up in my office. New folders, printouts, an overheated shredder, and an overabundance of spray cleaner and kitchen towel. So far, I’d torn down streamers, football posters, and artwork. A co-worker once remarked to me that a clean desk meant an empty mind, though I was sure that was just an excuse for his desk looking like a junk sale diorama.
I spent evenings working through curriculum and coming up with class plans. Late-night emails were distributed to teachers and, amongst the ones that bounced back telling me to go home, they were approved.
All of this happened in the shadow of catching up with Sally. Now that we’d swapped numbers, the text messages came thick and fast. We swapped stories of school and everything after, laughed at shared memories of boys and high school, and my inbox was soon filling up with photos of her happy family. It tickled me to know that she’d found her spot in the world and was thriving with a bustling household.
By four o’clock Friday afternoon, I’d found my groove. From my stool at the returns counter, I could survey my lands – a little like Simba in The Lion King. The courtyard, which earlier had tornadoes of rubbish, was clean. Weeds were gone, pavers swept, and rubbish removed. There were no books wandering about on return trolleys; everything was in its place. I’d discovered my borrowing computer, with the bash of a key and my tongue held right, sent overdue emails to parents. Once upon a time, I’d have been sending letters through the mail, so this was a nice step up in the world. In the corner, my little office was sparkling clean with windows yet to be covered in smeary, snotty fingers.
Everything was coming up Ellie.
Behind me, the library door crept open with a tired yawn.
‘Or, maybe not,’ I grumbled, spinning on my stool and tucking a flyaway lock of dark hair behind my ear. ‘Hello.’
Marcus came close to filling the doorway, at least with his height. He shifted from foot to foot and slid his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello,’ I echoed. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I hope so.’ Something on my desk caught his attention. ‘I just spoke to Grace over in the Prep unit.’
The paper in front of me had been the victim of an hour’s mindless doodling. It was covered in musical notes, clefs, quavers, book titles, and my own name a hundred different ways. I reached for it quickly, screwed it up and tossed it into the waste paper basket by my feet. My breath caught nervously.
‘Okay.’
‘She said we could swap classes depending on what I could give her in return.’ He grinned.
‘You do realise that this is not life threatening, don’t you?’ I launched myself from the stool and landed with a little thud on the floor. Marcus followed as I rounded the desk and walked back to my office. His stride was slow, purposeful, and a little too sure of himself. ‘Nobody is going to die if you don’t get a precious afternoon session. I don’t understand what this obsession is. Are you just doing it to upset me? To try and assert some, “I’ve been here longer than you” type of authority?’ I waved my hands about. ‘Why can’t you just wait the year out?’
‘So, what you’re saying is that, even though I’ve met your conditions, you’re still not going to help me?’
‘What I’m saying is exactly what I said the other day. I’ve been here barely a week. I would appreciate being allowed to settle in before I go changing things. I’m sure you can last another few weeks on a Friday afternoon.’ I reached for my PC, listening to it burp and whir as it woke up. ‘And what’s so bad about you getting to start your weekend early? I would’ve thought someone like you would love an early start to the weekend.’
‘Right.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Thank you.’
As I watched him leave, my mobile phone began rattling across the benchtop. It stopped, then started again. Without looking, I picked it up and pressed it to my ear.
‘Eleanor speaking.’ I tapped a pile of papers against my desk and slipped them into the in-tray. I could worry about them tomorrow.
‘Eleanor!’ A wine-soaked voice puttered down the line.
My stomach tightened. ‘Mum.’
‘Don’t sound so excited,’ she clipped.
‘No, it’s not that,’ I lied, doing a very quick emotional stocktake and chirping up. ‘I’m just at work, that’s all.’
‘How is that all going?’ she asked. ‘Your father told me you’d started a new job.’
‘He did?’ I asked, surprised. Since when were my parents talking to each other? It was news to me. ‘When did he tell you this? What are you, like, pen pals now? He’s sending you postcards from the edge?’
‘Not quite,’ she said, the smile in her voice evident from the next state. ‘Facebook.’
‘What?’ I blurted.
How did it happen that my parents, who barely spoke to each other throughout my childhood, and who refused to be in the same room together, were now having regular catch-ups online? Had I missed something? If they told me they were planning on having dinner next week, I was going to start developing an oxygen sensitivity.
Also, how come I hadn’t had a friend request?
‘You deleted my request,’ Mum deadpanned, though I was sure I hadn’t voiced that thought aloud.
I scoffed. ‘I did not.’
Then again, maybe I did. Yeah, probably.
Explaining my relationship with my mother makes for prickly skin, especially in a world where we’re taught that Mother Is All because, sometimes, she just isn’t. The knowledge that she’d packed up and left before I was six months old had always sat in the back of my mind as a warning. We weren’t the stuff of Hallmark movies or cheesy greeting cards.
While Dad insisted that I saw her as often as possible when I was younger, which still wasn’t very often, it was still a whole lot of awkward. Visiting her often felt like that scene in Austin Powers where he’d got the jeep stuck in the middle of a three-point turn. That she kept me at arm’s length and shoved me in the corner with a colouring book or novel while fawning over my stepfather just added to the issues.
‘Anyway.’ She interrupted my train of thought. ‘What do you think?’
‘Sorry, about what?’ I stuffed my water bottle into my bag, retied my hair, and pulled my office door shut behind me, all with my phone wedged between shoulder and ear.
‘Spending some time together, silly,’ she laughed, while continuing a conversation with someone named Floss in the background.
‘I mean, I can, but can you give me a few weeks to settle in first?’ I asked. ‘I’ve barely unpacked my belongings.’
‘Okay, do you want to send me details of your flight when you book them?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I laughed. I didn’t mean to, it just kind of burst forth in the same way a broken pipe might split asphalt. One minute, everything is quiet; the next, there’s a raging torrent springing up from the street. ‘I don’t quite have the money for a last-minute flight. I could drive up, but it’s ten hours either way, so I’d be turning up for dinner and leaving early the next morning. It’s doable, but you’d want to be serving me up caviar and Dom Perignon for dinner, followed by five courses with a private chef and a lap dance from Paul Rudd … or Idris Elba. You know, either one I’d be fine with’
‘Who’re they? Do you have their numbers? Why don’t we do that for your birthday?’ she enthused. ‘What a great idea, Ella!’
Me and my big mouth. I pinched the bridge of my nose as she prattled on about hiring a yacht for the day. Twelve months ago, when that kind of lifestyle was the norm for me, I would have frothed with delight at that idea. Even with my mother at the helm, I would have considered it. Now, it just felt all kinds of pretentious, like something worse was hiding just below the surface. I walked into the staffroom and made a beeline for the coffee. Hopefully it would clear out the throbbing that was starting to wrap its way around my head.
From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Jack. He smiled and offered me that little close to the body wave he’d always had. I motioned for the bottle of milk in his hand. Instead of passing it, he poured, and put it back in the refrigerator.
‘What was that?’ I turned my attention back to my phone call. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t you think?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, what am I thinking?’ I asked.
‘I said I should come down for the weekend, while your father is still on his trip.’
Ctrl Alt Delete. ‘Sorry, say again?’
‘I could come down, spend the weekend,’ she suggested. ‘Go shopping, have lunch.’
‘Mum, we haven’t seen each other in almost eighteen months,’ I said. ‘And, can I just remind you that was because I came to you. The last time you were supposed to visit, you forgot and never showed. The last three times, in fact.’
My mother had this habit, and I wondered if it wasn’t just a game she quite enjoyed, where she would make plans to visit, and never show up. Her disappearance was always followed up by a quick, apologetic phone call that left me little room to move.
‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry,’ she cooed. ‘Won’t happen again, I promise.’
Just like it wasn’t going to happen last time, or the time before that. Really, my afternoon would have been easier had I just ignored my phone. Voicemail was the great technological filter. Even another round with Marcus was preferable to this.
‘You’re going to have to stay in a hotel. We don’t have room in the apartment,’ I said.
‘You know, I haven’t been back to that blasted town since you were a baby?’ she scoffed as if I was about to jump in and support her.
‘What a surprise.’ I smiled sarcastically.
Yesterday’s lunch box was languishing in the back of the communal fridge, which was kind of an office etiquette red card misdemeanour. Sidelined with side-eye. With nobody looking, I shoved it into my handbag and hoped it hadn’t been noticed. I closed the refrigerator door, screwed the lid on my travel cup, and turned to leave. The sound of laughter echoed up the corridor. As I yanked on the door, someone pushed against it, and I ambled straight into a wall of suit.
Everything slowed. The shuffle, the sidestep, the miss, the clash, and the crescendo of realisation. Caught between the two of us, an innocent coffee cup. Only ten seconds earlier, and it would have been full to the brim. Not so much now though.
‘Okay, Mum.’ I waited for her to take a breath between her words. ‘Mum, I have to go, I’ve just … I need to go. Now. Need to go now. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll call soon.’
Stabbing on the red button, I missed the tinny ends of her one-sided conversation. I held my phone out to my side, as if that would keep it safe from any further harm and peered down at my front.
I. Was. Sopping. There was so much liquid that it was dripping from the hem of my shirt and pooling around my feet. A milky brown bloom climbed up across my chest and over the toes of my shoes and, wouldn’t you know, there was my five-dollar Target bra making an appearance. At least it was white and fit relatively properly because, right now, I looked like I was starting a one-woman wet T-shirt contest.
‘Fuck.’ It was all I could muster. I pinched at my shirt and peeled it away from my skin.
‘Oh … shit.’ Marcus snorted, failing miserably at not laughing.
On what planet was this funny? My shirt was verging on translucent, at least everywhere south of my bra straps. To make matters worse, he’d managed to escape completely, except for a splash on his shoes. When I could focus briefly, it was definitely only on his shoes. I was incandescent with rage, from the acidic pit in my stomach to the bright lights sitting behind my eyes.
‘Is this funny to you?’ I shrieked. ‘Really? You … I have no words for you.’
My words were a starting gun, and he began faffing about, hands searching, darting across the bench to a roll of kitchen towel when it had been discovered that, for once, the cleaners were early and had made off with the dishcloths. He thrust a fistful of paper towards me, his arms bobbing about in suggestion that, just maybe, he’d like to be the one to blot me.
‘Don’t you touch me.’ I held an arm out to stop him moving closer. He placed the towel gingerly in my hand. ‘Or I swear to God, you’ll never ever have children.’
‘Well, that’s kind of important to me, so I’ll just throw paper at you from here,’ he teased. I watched in shock as he began folding a square into a paper plane. Was he serious?
‘Why don’t you just go away?’ I spat. ‘Flutter off into a cloud of mothers somewhere. I’m sure they’d be happy to have you.’
‘You really are an angry little onion, aren’t you?’ Marcus turned on his heel and left me, sopping wet in the middle of the staffroom.
Grappling for the kitchen towel as it rolled away, I unravelled another length and began dabbing it against my front. People came and went, curious onlookers joked about there being better ways to score a caffeine hit and, no, I didn’t really need any help. Thank you all the same. While it felt like I was there forever, the eyes of the world watching my embarrassing spectacle, it had only been ten minutes or so when the door swung open. Penny stood there looking both confused and worried.
‘Ellie?’
I looked up from my shirt, which I’d pulled away from me to better survey the damage. ‘Yeah?’
‘There’s someone here to see you.’ The waiver in her voice was not indicative of someone excited for the pub in about seventy-six minutes’ time. I, on the other hand, was already doing the mental maths of just how much I could afford to drink.
I groaned. Now what?
