Am I Right or Am I Right? (8 page)

Vanessa was sitting by herself, head bowed almost to her knees. Her overnight bag sat forlornly on the ground between her feet. There was something so unutterably pathetic and depressed about her posture that I knew she was crying. I couldn’t actually see it at that distance, but I knew it as surely as if I had been sitting next to her. I was tempted to make another run for it, but didn’t think Jason’s lungs would stand another pounding. What was it with this evening? I always seemed to be in the wrong place.

Anyway, before I could even think about crossing that bloody bridge again, Vanessa got to her feet. She moved slowly, as if a weight was pressing on her and the effort of raising it was painful. She stood and wiped her eyes briefly with a sleeve. Then she picked up her bag and shuffled off along the river bank, away from me. I tell you, there was something in the way she moved that made tears prick behind my eyes. I had never seen anyone who seemed so steeped in unhappiness.

I stood for a while watching her slow progress, unaware of Jason standing next to me examining my face.

“What’s the score, Calma?” he said eventually.

I snapped myself out of it. I became aware suddenly that I was rigid with tension and I was gripping Jason’s hand so tightly my knuckles were white. It must have been unnerving for him. I forced another smile.

“Nothing,” I said. “I want to go home now.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll walk you.”

And he did. On the doorstep he asked if I wanted to go out with him again. I did. I certainly did. And I told him that. But I was worried and distracted. Maybe, as a result, my tone of voice wasn’t altogether convincing. His face was puzzled and closed as I shut the door. I was sorry about that, but only vaguely.

All I wanted to do was go to bed. It had been a very strange evening and I couldn’t help but think it was a precursor to stranger evenings to come.

Chapter 14

Calma hits the trail

“Did you have fun last night?” asked the Fridge. “And why are you wearing a towel around your head?”

It was Saturday morning and I was picking at a round of toast. The Fridge was drinking coffee.

“Yeah, great,” I replied, ignoring her second question. “How was work?”

“Oh, you know. Work is work. Nothing to write home about. Tell me about your evening.”

Okay. There were two ways this could go. Let’s call the first one
The Seriously Mature Daughter Tackles Her Mother Head-On About Issues Important to the Integrity of Their Relationship.
The plot would undoubtedly unfold like this:

Calma Harrison popped the last piece of toast into her mouth and gazed steadfastly at her mother. She had come to a decision. She was not going to allow their relationship to become tarnished by omissions, half-lies, and outright whoppers. The time had arrived for plain speaking.

“Mother,” she said, “I saw you last night, in the company of a gentleman. Now, for some reason, possibly to protect me from potential feelings of jealousy and abandonment, you have kept this liaison quiet, even to the extent of fabricating alibis that you were in gainful employment during the time of these romantic trysts. I feel, Mother—and I have to be brutally frank here—betrayed by your lack of trust. I am no longer a child. If you have found a soul mate, even if it is someone I might consider to be less than the dust beneath your chariot wheels, then the very least I deserve is that you share your feelings with me.”

Mrs. Harrison looked into her coffee cup and a tear slid down her cheek. She didn’t speak for a moment, but when she did, her voice cracked with emotion.

“Oh, Calma,” she said, “I have been foolish not to trust you. What you have said, albeit rather wordy, has hit the emotional and intellectual target. I am, indeed, involved in a romantic association and, furthermore, have made the serious miscalculation of indulging in duplicitous practices with regard to communicating such a state of affairs with the only fruit of my loins. I stand justly accused. But Calma”—and here she raised her eyes to meet her daughter’s—“you must believe I was acting according to the dictates of my conscience.”

“I freely acknowledge this, Mother,” said Calma, “though, incidentally, I feel a touch aggrieved at your accusation of overblown linguistic flourishes, which, coming from you, is a little akin to receiving a sermon on pacifism from al-Qaeda. But enough of that; the identity of your new
amour?”

“His name is Jerome. He is the chairman of a large multinational telecommunications company and owns apartments in Sydney, Paris, London, and New York, not to mention a luxury oceangoing yacht and a medium-sized island in the Whitsundays. He has proposed and I have accepted….”

Let’s call the next
The Seriously Pissed-Off Daughter Sucks her Thumb and Throws a Tantrum.

“Tell me about your evening,” said the Fridge.

“It was good.”

“Is that it? ‘Good’? This was your first date!”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you go?”

“Movies.”

“What film did you see?”

“Dunno.”

“You don’t know? How can you have forgotten already?”

“Something with pirates.”

“Was it good?”

“All right.”

“Come on, tell me. What was Jason like? How did you guys get on?”

“All right.”

You get the picture. I wasn’t in the mood. And before you start blaming me, put yourself in my position. Here’s my mother trying to get me to dish on
my
date, yet she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge that
she’d
been on one herself. Maybe you’re a saint, but I’m certainly not. I was going to tell her bugger all. I kept the towel wrapped tightly. Everyone else might know about my shaved head, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction, even of common knowledge. She didn’t deserve it.

Okay, I was angry. And confused. And worried. Not just about the Fridge but about Vanessa as well. I hadn’t slept much. The image of a girl hunched on a bench had come between me and sleep. She seemed so lonely, so defeated. I regretted not running after her the previous night, but there was no point in berating myself with things that couldn’t be changed. I needed to talk to her but had no idea where her father lived. I wasn’t even sure Aldrick was his last name. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Nessa and her mother had reverted to a previous name after the divorce. It was only a niggling half-memory—like I said before, I couldn’t remember Vanessa talking about her father—but it felt right.

The Fridge tried to draw me out, but I was like a clam with additional superglue. Then she changed tack. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Calma,” she said, “don’t you think it’d be a good idea to talk to your dad? He told me he’d tried, but you wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Couldn’t you give him a chance? Just listen to what he has to say?”

I didn’t bother replying and eventually she gave up and disappeared somewhere in the car. I didn’t ask where. Why bother, when you have no idea if the answer you’re going to get has even a passing acquaintance with the truth? Anyway, she left, all tight-lipped and seething with resentment at my lack of communication. She’s got a bloody nerve, I’ll give her that. And my dad. When was he going to stop screwing up my life?

As soon as she was out the door, I was on the phone. Mrs. Aldrick answered after a few rings.

“Hi, Mrs. Aldrick,” I said. “It’s Calma. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to get in touch with Vanessa and I don’t have her father’s number. I wondered if you could let me have it.”

There was a gasp at the end of the line, as if I’d told her I was holding her daughter ransom and unless she dropped three million dollars in a trash bin at the local mall, I’d be mailing amputated extremities to her at regular intervals.

“I’m sorry, Calma,” she said eventually, “but I can’t give out her father’s number. He’s very strict about that.”

“Oh, come on, Mrs. Aldrick,” I said with a hint of exasperation. “It’s me. Her best friend. I mean, I’m not going to post it on the Internet or anything. And I do need to talk to her.”

“I’m sorry, Calma. His number is unlisted for a reason.”

I could tell by her tone of voice that I was up against an immovable object. I had to think laterally.

“Well, how about you call her and tell her to contact me? That would be okay, wouldn’t it?”

There was silence at the other end of the phone. I could almost hear the cogs whirring. I mean, it was a perfectly reasonable request. No one could object to it. So why was her silence swollen with reluctance?

“I can’t do that, Calma. This is Vanessa’s time with her father and I will not intrude on it.” There was triumph in her voice, as if she’d found a foolproof defense against checkmate. The trouble was, the defense
did
seem solid. I hate losing. It makes me mad. And then I want to get even.

“Okay, Mrs. Aldrick. Vanessa’s back…when? On Sunday evening?”

“Yes. Quite late, usually.”

“Can you get her to call me as soon as she gets back? Doesn’t matter how late.”

“I’ll tell her, but you might have to wait until school on Monday. She normally just wants to drop straight into bed.”

What was it with this woman? Talk about putting obstacles in the way. I hung up, my politeness stretched to breaking point, and sat in the garden for a while, thinking. As far as Vanessa was concerned, I couldn’t see a way around the problem. Her dad must live downtown—I couldn’t imagine Vanessa getting a bus at that time of the evening, so it was a reasonable assumption she was walking to his place immediately after her tearful spell on the bench. I suppose I could have wandered around in the hope of spotting her, but the chances were remote, to say the least. I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I would have to wait until school on Monday.

That left the Fridge. The mystery surrounding her might have been solved by the direct approach, but my pride wouldn’t allow it. If she was going to be secretive, I could be even more secretive. I’d find out, in my own way, whom she was seeing. If it was my father, then I’d head for the Galapagos Islands by myself. But if it was a new boyfriend, I’d humiliate her with prior knowledge. I had visions of a conversation in which I’d say,
Oh, a boyfriend, Mum. You mean that Mr. Jones you’ve been seeing for the last month and a half? Tall guy, works in insurance in the city, lives in an apartment on Mitchell Street, divorced, forty-two, has a birthmark shaped like a sperm whale on his left buttock? Oh, I’ve known about him for ages….

Yes. I was going to solve this enigma.

The trouble was, I didn’t have a clue how.

The solution presented itself when the Fridge reappeared, carrying bags of groceries. Call me a genius if you must, but the idea flashed fully formed into my mind. I needed some information first, though, so I bustled through to the front of the house and helped the Fridge get more bags from the trunk. She was surprised by this spontaneous act of helpfulness. I tried a cheery smile, exuding the air of someone now entirely at peace with the world, instead of the premenstrual harridan I’d been impersonating before.

“Do you want me to put these away, Mum?” I said.

“Thanks,” she replied.

“Are you going in to work today?” I shoved packets of pasta into the kitchen cupboard and attempted to sound nonchalant.

“Yes. Four o’clock. Why?”

“Oh, I just wondered if you could give me a lift, that’s all.”

“But you start work at five yourself, don’t you?”

Bugger. I’d forgotten about that. The last thing I felt like was going into Crazi-Cheep, but I didn’t have much choice. You can’t throw a sickie when you’ve only worked a week. And anyway, there were compensations. Like it was also Jason’s shift. And I was going to get paid. About four dollars and fifty cents, probably, but it was better than nothing. I did some quick calculations. Even though I would only have an hour between her shift and mine, I thought it might be enough time to make a start, at least. I’d give it a go.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’d forgotten. Good thing you reminded me.”

The Fridge stopped putting a carton of milk in her namesake and gave me a long, searching look.

“Are you okay, Calma?” she said. “You seem…I don’t know. Distracted. And you have a bath towel welded to the top of your head, for no apparent reason. There isn’t anything you’d like to tell me, is there?”

“Like a secret I’m keeping from you?”

She looked at me even more funnily then.

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

I put on a broader smile.

“Would I keep secrets from you, Mum?” I said sweetly. And that seemed to end the conversation.

I’d given the Fridge every chance to come clean, but she’d spurned the opportunity. If there was any part of me feeling bad about the plan I had formulated, it disappeared at that moment. Actually, I don’t think there was any part, so it was a little academic. I thrust a bag of split peas into a dark corner of the cupboard, where the Fridge was unlikely to ever spot it, and went to my room. I told the Fridge I needed to study math, but it was just a cunning subterfuge.

What I really wanted to do was perfect my disguise.

Now, how do you go about changing your appearance so that not even your mother would recognize you? I suppose my barren dome gave me a head start, if you’ll forgive the pun, but I was uneasy about going out without some kind of covering. Sure, the Fridge would be unlikely to associate a skinhead with her own daughter, but it was a style that attracted exactly the attention I wanted to avoid. So I fished the blond wig from her wardrobe and stashed it under my bed.

I then turned to my own wardrobe. There were articles of clothing in there that hadn’t seen daylight in years. The Fridge used to make a habit of searching through secondhand shops for the most appalling fashion disasters and then presenting them to me triumphantly, as if I was going to be thrilled at receiving stuff other people had thrown out for quite obvious reasons.

Still, it’s a favorite maxim of mine that you never know when something might come in handy. I pulled out a short red skirt that would have come to my knees when I was thirteen but which now would be useful only as a broad belt. I tried it on and it fitted around the waist beautifully but exposed so much of my legs I wouldn’t dare bend over in public. I also found a glittery silver top. A pair of high-heeled black shoes, which I dusted off with another top, completed the outfit. I put on the blond wig and surveyed myself in the mirror.

It was then I discovered what the Fridge had been attempting to achieve when she bought all this junk. She’d wanted me to be a child prostitute. It was the only explanation. It was strangely empowering. In this getup I could do anything I liked and wouldn’t feel any responsibility. You know, a kind of Jekyll and Hyde thing.

During the day, she is meek, mild Calma Harrison, librarian to the elderly and infirm, but at night she is transformed into…Super Slut!

I glanced at my watch. There was still time for the final touch to my disguise: makeup. I didn’t hold back there either, I can tell you. I put it on with a trowel, and my lack of expertise proved a distinct advantage. Bright, glossy lips and enough black mascara to make my eye sockets seem as if they were suffering a lunar eclipse. I had the face of a nymphomaniac panda.

I stuffed a change of clothes into a plastic shopping bag and glanced out my bedroom window. The car was still in the driveway, but my watch told me the Fridge would be making tracks very soon. I tiptoed out of my room and listened at the top of the stairs. The toilet in the bathroom flushed and I knew the coast was temporarily clear. I clattered down to the hallway, nearly breaking my ankles in the high heels, and opened the front door. Fortunately, the street was deserted and as far as I could tell there were no curtains twitching across the road.

I yelled up the stairs to the Fridge.

“I’m off now, Mum. Catch you later.”

There was a muffled reply, but I closed the front door and scuttled round to the side of the car. Making sure the car body was between me and any windows in the house, I carefully opened the rear door and bundled myself into the well behind the driver’s seat.