Chapter Thirteen
Sunday 9th March
We’re having the wedding at Jess’s family’s bach. My mum said she’d have nothing to do with it. She’s never heard of anything so ridiculous.
So, Jess’s mum drives it all. She is just a whirlwind of thoughts, ideas and plans. I think the faster she moves the less she has to think.
Maybe that’s unfair, maybe she just wants to make the day special for me and Jess like she says. But special? There’s nothing about this that feels special.
“We’ll have the service under the pergola, it will be lovely.”
“We don’t have a pergola at the bach, Mum.” Jess pointed out.
“We will by then,” said her mum.
During the week, we built the pergola Jess’s mum wanted. Dad helped. Then Jess’s mum spent two days winding white ribbons around it. Since the grape vines she really wanted weren’t going to grow in time. She tied big bows and added these silk flowers she’d bought in bulk off some outlet store. She was still just a whirlwind of grim smiles and relentless positivity.
Jess sat and watched. She was even quieter than she usually was. I put it down to the morning sickness.
“Are you, all right?” I asked.
She nodded and smiled. Her hair fell over her face. She pushed it back. The way she looked, and the way she moved, made my soul reach out to her. It was how I felt about her when we first started going out together. I know, because I’ve read over that bit of the journal a couple of times. For a moment there I was almost certain we were doing the right thing and I really did just want to be with her.
Sunday 16th March
The wedding has happened. Jess turned up in long white lace dress her mum found in some shop. Her hair all piled on top of her head with little cream flowers threaded through.
She bit her lip then smiled when she saw me waiting under the pergola with Luke. We looked like we were in school uniform, white shirt, black pants, shoes.
But she was beautiful, even a bit pale, and not looking like she was real. She was Jess and for a moment again I could see why I was doing it.
Cole, Adam and Noah were there too, somewhere in the crowd of Jess’s family.
Mum and Dad gave us a bloody house as a wedding present.
It’s small.
It’s in town.
It needs work.
But fuck.
A house?
As for the day being special? With me scared shitless, Jess crook most of the time, her dad a ball of fury, barely concealed, my mum looking like she just bit into a lemon, dad keeping mum polite, Jess’s mum making the best of things, and Murphy being impossible. It was never going to happen.
Tomorrow I start working for Luke’s dad. I’m going to be a builder. Luke’s dad said he wanted another apprentice. Builder wasn’t part of the plan, but Jack White was an upholsterer so that makes me feel a bit better.
A bit. I guess Jack never planned a career in upholstery either, and he moved on.
Thursday 20th March
The first few days of being a builder were fine. Me and Luke got to make our tool boxes. Luke’s dad got this old guy Reg, to show us the ropes. He made sure we had earmuffs and tool belts and he assigned us a workbench each in the joinery workshop.
We started on the tool boxes. I did woodwork at college the first couple of years I was there, so it’s all good. I know how to use the saws and hammers and drills. Besides Luke’s been hanging around building sites and this joinery factory all his life. If I get stuck I can ask him.
Luke went to the store cupboard, found the screws and brought them back to the bench. “You’ll want these,” he said.
“Thanks.” I looked up and saw Reg walking across the workshop floor towards us.
“Need any help?” he asked.
“Not yet, just sorting stuff out.” Luke put the jar of screws on the bench. “Where do you lot keep the PVA these days?”
Reg rolled a cigarette. “I’ll get some.” He wandered off to another workbench picked up the bottle of glue and brought it back.
Reg stood there watching us work, face worn, bald spot showing through the comb over. He twisted one end of the cigarette paper carefully with the tips of his fingers, slipped the smoke between his lips, then fished in his pants pocket for a lighter.
“Were you at school with Luke, Isaac?” he asked around the cigarette.
“Yeah.” I ran a line of glue down the edge of the side of the toolbox. I got the bit I’d cut out for the bottom and put them edge to edge and started screwing them together.
“Are you in the band too?” Reg lit the smoke and took a puff.
“Yeah.”
“A bit of advice, keep the makeup for the weekend. A couple of the other guys have mentioned it.”
I looked at Luke. Not a sign of mascara. He could have warned me. He shrugged. He must have already had that message from his father.
“Thanks,” I said to Reg, and got on with making the toolbox.
Wednesday 7th May
After the first week on the job, we got sent out on site. It’s all pick up this, put that there, stack this load of timber inside, now move it outside, dig that hole and so on.
And fuck they expect you to work all day. When I got home from work, I was real tired. It’s not just me, even Luke has had the bounce knocked out of him.
I did what Reg said, I left the makeup off. Over the next couple of months, I let my hair go brown again. I don’t have the money to keep all that stuff up anyway. They don’t mean you to try and buy a car, keep a house and a wife and prepare for a baby on apprentice wages.
Do you know what a car seat costs?
Two things make life worth living. I’m still writing lyrics with old Collins and I’m still going to Hamilton in the weekends with Stadium. Now some of what we play is stuff I’ve written.
I’m not great yet. I haven’t written those lyrics that are going to make our fortune, but I’m getting better. And when Luke sings my lyrics, the crowd listens. It’s a rush.
Tuesday 24th June
Yesterday, Jess dropped me off at the building site. She wants to turn the spare room into a nursery and needed the car for the day. Just before morning tea time she came back to show me the paint samples she liked. I saw Reg watching us.
“You choose,” I said to Jess. “You know what you want. Get it and we’ll do it in the weekend.”
“Thanks.” She kissed my cheek, hopped back in the car, then took off to buy the paint. It’s her mum and dad paying for it anyway.
I went to the smoko room.
“When’s baby due, Isaac?” Reg asked.
“Seven weeks.” Jess and I’ve done the maths, she pretty much must have got pregnant the first time we had sex. Talk about lucky.