chapter seventy-eight
The day of the barbeque
Erika stood at the entrance to the backyard clutching the stack of blue china plates Vid had handed her in the kitchen. They were beautiful solid plates with intricate, patterned designs. Willow pattern, thought Erika. She remembered that her grandmother had once had plates exactly like these. Her grandmother used to have a lot of beautiful things and Erika had no idea what had happened to any of them. They were probably lost somewhere, or broken, buried beneath the sedimentary layers of crap in her mother’s house.
That was the irony: Her mother loved things so much that she had nothing.
Erika gripped the plates tighter, filled with an overwhelming desire to keep them. She imagined hugging the plates to her chest and running next door to hide them away in her own kitchen cupboard. She would not do this. Of course she would not do it. For a moment she was terrified she would do it.
She stood without moving for a moment. When she was little she used to like going into her backyard and turning round and round in circles until the world spun. That’s exactly how she felt now. Why had she deliberately done that? It wasn’t a nice feeling. She must be drunk. Why would Oliver’s parents choose this feeling? Plan for it? Long for it? It was awful.
She focused on the little girls. Ruby toddled out of the gazebo holding Whisk in one hand and Holly’s little blue sequinned bag in the other. Holly wouldn’t like that. No one was allowed to touch her rock collection. Where was Holly?
Sure enough, Holly suddenly appeared behind Ruby, shouting something Erika couldn’t hear over the sound of classical music pouring again from Vid’s sound system. Ruby looked over her shoulder and quickened her pace. It was so cute. She looked determined to escape with her contraband.
Careful, thought Erika. Are your parents even watching you?
She looked over at the adults. Oliver was nowhere to be seen. Clementine was talking to Vid. Tiffany was talking to Sam. The four of them were just totally thrilled by each other. She and Oliver might as well not be there. They were spoiling the fun. Neither Sam nor Clementine was watching the girls right now. It was neglectful, negligent.
She watched Vid pick up a knife and pretend to conduct along to the music. She saw Clementine laugh merrily. What had she said exactly, earlier, upstairs? What was that word she’d used? Repulsive. The idea of donating her eggs to Erika was repulsive. All that time she and Oliver had spent discussing it. She thought of Oliver telling their IVF doctor, ‘We’re going to approach Erika’s best friend. They’re like sisters.’
Like sisters. What a joke. What a lie.
Erika watched Clementine pull her hair over her shoulder as Vid fed her a spoonful of something and she leaned forward to take it. Clementine was like that princess in the fairy tale who received all those gifts from her fairy godmothers at her christening. You shall have parents who adore you! Ding! You shall have musical talent! Ding! You shall live in cleanliness and comfort! Ding! You shall fall pregnant naturally as soon as you feel like it and go on to give birth to two beautiful daughters! Ding, ding!!
One old fairy got left off the invitation list. The uninvited crone. Erika hadn’t been invited to a lot of parties when she was a kid. What did the uninvited fairy do? She laid a curse of some sort. You shall prick your finger on a spinning wheel and die, so watch out for needles. But then a nice fairy stepped in and modified it. You’ll just fall asleep for a hundred years. That’s not too bad. Wait. It was Sleeping Beauty. The fairy tale was Sleeping Beauty!
She was really very drunk. She should move from this spot, but she didn’t move.
Sleeping Beauty. Clementine did like her sleep. Sleeping bloody Beauty, that’s exactly right. You’re asleep right now. You’re not even bothering to watch your children.
There was a sound. From somewhere. A sound trying to slide beneath the classical music pouring and tumbling from Vid’s sound system.
Is Clementine performing? Of course she’s not performing, Erika, you’re in the neighbour’s backyard, you’re drunk, this is drunkenness, your brain has turned to water and your thoughts are slipping and sloshing all over the place.
She heard it again.
It was knocking. That was the sound. A rapid knock, knock, knocking. She saw her mother’s face. Finger to her lips. Don’t answer the door. Yes, Mum, I know what I need to do. Not make a sound. We never, ever answer the door. We don’t want people to see our filthy secret. It’s none of their business. How dare they knock on our door uninvited?! No courtesy. They have no right to make us feel like this. We stay very quiet and very still until they go away. Some people knock in a loud, angry, accusing way, as if they know they are being tricked and they’re angry about it, but eventually they give up and go away.
Sure enough the knocking got louder and angrier. Her mother’s eyes burned with hatred. They have no right. No right.
Erika shook herself. There was no one knocking on her front door. She was at a barbeque. Where were the little girls? She saw a flash of blue in the corner of the yard. Holly sat cross-legged on the grass with her bag, carefully taking out her rocks and laying them down in a row one by one. She liked to catalogue her collection at intervals.
There was a burst of laughter from the table.
Still that knocking sound. Where was it coming from?
Erika looked at the ridiculous fountain. She could see rubbish floating in the fountain. Someone’s old coat spinning in a slow circle.
Her mother had piles and piles of coats. Big winter coats. As if they lived in Siberia, not Sydney. Well, she wasn’t going to pull that coat out of the fountain. It was not her responsibility. She’d had enough of cleaning up.
Knock, knock, knock. How dare you knock on our door in that entitled way? It was coming from somewhere above her. She looked up and there was Harry, grumpy old Harry, standing at his upstairs window as though he were pressed against it, not knocking but banging on the glass, like he was trying to escape. He saw her looking. He pointed. He jabbed his finger violently in the direction of the fountain. His mouth gaped in a silent shout. She could tell from the stance of his body and his gestures that he was angry with her. He was yelling something at her. He wanted her to clean up that rubbish. The neighbours were always angry. They always wanted her to clean up the rubbish. She wouldn’t. It was not her responsibility.
She stared at the fountain, at the old pink coat turning in slow circles.
She saw Whisk lying on the side of the fountain.
That wasn’t an old coat. That wasn’t rubbish.
The adrenaline was like a shot to her heart. All the things she’d stolen from Clementine, but she’d never meant to do this. Her fault, her fault, her fault.
The plates fell from her hands. She screamed Clementine’s name.