Chocolate Cake for Breakfast (15 page)

‘I’ve tried and tried to sleep,’ declared Bel, appearing in the
doorway of the lounge half an hour later. ‘But I just can’t.’

‘Snuggle up under the covers, then close your eyes and think about nice things,’ I said.

‘What nice things?’

‘Princesses. Fairies. That sort of thing.’

‘What about fairy princesses?’ Bel asked.

‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Goodnight.’

She pattered off down the hall, and Mark yawned and said, ‘I’d have gone for fast cars and hot women myself.’

‘Whatever floats your boat, I guess.’

‘Mm,’ he said, stretching himself out on the couch and laying his head on my knee. ‘Toulon and Racing Metro have both upped their offers.’

‘To?’ I asked. It would be a lot, I knew; European – particularly French – rugby clubs seemed to have insane amounts of money to spend on player salaries.

‘Racing’s is four million dollars for three years,’ said Mark.

‘Give or take.’ He might have been remarking on the weather – surely that offhand delivery had taken some practice in front of the bathroom mirror. His management team, who worked on commission, must have been beside themselves with delight.

‘I don’t want to think about fairy princesses,’ said Bel, suddenly materialising at my elbow.

‘Then think about something else,’ said Mark.

‘Are – are you going to accept?’ I croaked.

‘What should I think about?’ asked Bel.

‘Racing cars and girls in short skirts,’ Mark told her. ‘Go back to bed.’

‘But I’m scared,’ said Bel, sidling closer and laying a small pink hand on his.

‘Scared of what, sprat?’

Bel cast around hurriedly for something to be scared of.

‘Dragons,’ she said.

‘We don’t have dragons in New Zealand,’ said Mark firmly. ‘Not one.’

‘They could fly here,’ she suggested.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Too far. They’d never make it all the way over the Pacific. Go back to bed.’

Bel abandoned the dragons. ‘Helen, could you sing me a song?’

‘Annabel Jane, stop making excuses and
go to bed
.’

‘Just one teensy-weensy song, and I will,’ she said, producing her most winning smile.

Annabel’s most winning smile, along with pink fluffy pyjamas, two stubby pigtails and a missing front tooth, was too much for me. ‘“Inchworm”?’ I asked. I am very fond of the inchworm song, especially when sung by Danny Kaye with a Muppet backing group.

‘No. “Close your eyes and give me your hand”.’

So I sang ‘Eternal Flame’, and leant forward to kiss her on her freckled nose. ‘Bed.’

‘Goodnight, Helen. Goodnight, Mark,’ she said, and trotted off back down the hall.

‘You’ve got a lovely voice, McNeil,’ said Mark.

‘Thank you. Look,
are
you going to go and play in France?’

He made a face. ‘I doubt it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve always felt like getting paid to play rugby’s just a bonus, because I’d do it anyway,’ he said. ‘But if I went and played for a club over there I’d only be doing it for the money. And I can’t get my head around the idea of watching the guys playing on TV instead of being out there myself.’ He picked up my hand and drew circles on the palm with one fingertip. ‘And then I didn’t think I’d be able to talk you into moving to Paris. Not enough dairy cows.’

‘I would,’ I said. ‘Move to Paris, I mean. If you wanted me to.’ I would have moved to the bottom of a hole if Mark had happened to decide that the bottom of a hole was the place to be.

‘Would you?’

I nodded, and he sat up and kissed me at some length.

‘Helen?’ said a voice from about thirty centimetres away. Mark and I jumped simultaneously, smacking our noses together just like characters in a cheesy sitcom.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘What
now
?’

‘Bel won’t let me go to sleep,’ Caitlin informed us. ‘She won’t stay on her side.’ My sisters, when they stayed, shared the double bed in my tiny spare room.

‘Then go and sleep in my bed,’ I said, carefully feeling my nose. It hurt quite a lot.

‘But Bel will be scared all by herself.’

‘Caitlin,’ said Mark, ‘I don’t get to see your big sister very often, and the day after tomorrow I’m going to Europe for six weeks. Please be somewhere else.’

‘Do you want to kiss Helen?’

‘Yes.’

‘And don’t you want me watching?’

‘No.’

‘Oh,’ said Caitlin.

‘Tell your partner in crime that if she doesn’t stay on her side I’ll come and beat her,’ I said. ‘Okay?’

Caitlin giggled. ‘Okay.’

‘Goodnight, McMunchkin.’

‘Goodnight.’ We heard her scurry down the hall, and then the slam of the spare-room door.

Somewhat to our surprise, there were no further forays from the spare bedroom. Murray ventured back in and curled himself into a tight marmalade-coloured ball of fur on the battered cane armchair, and Mark and I went to sleep on the couch. We seemed to spend a significant portion of our time together asleep on either his couch or mine, which I suppose is only to be expected if most of your time together follows a day’s work and a two-hour drive.

I was woken by the crunch of car tyres on gravel, and slid out from underneath Mark’s arm to stagger zombie-like out to the kitchen and open the door.

‘Were you asleep, sweetie?’ Em asked.

I rubbed my eyes. ‘Mm. How was your dinner?’

‘Very pleasant. Did the girls behave themselves?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘We had fun. Their bags are just here.’

As Dad and Em came back down the hall with a comatose child apiece, Mark appeared in the kitchen doorway with his hair standing all on end, looking at least three-quarters asleep.

‘You survived the invasion?’ Dad asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Mark, ‘they were great.’

Caitlin lifted her head off Dad’s shoulder and said, ‘We played cards and rugby tackles and circuses. And Bel was kicking and kicking me in bed, but Mark said I had to go away so he could kiss Helen.’

‘Lucky Helen,’ Em murmured, looking Mark up and down appreciatively. ‘Come on, Tim, love, let’s leave these two alone.’

‘Your stepmother is scary,’ said Mark. He yawned and stretched, and the seams of his shirt split another inch or so under the arms. It was lucky Em had gone: the glimpse of bare chest through the holes might well have been too much for her.

I waved at my departing relatives through the kitchen window. ‘Many years ago, when Lance and I had only been going out for a couple of months, I brought him home for the weekend,’ I said. ‘Caitlin was about eighteen months old, and she tipped everything out of his bag and spread it all over the floor. And Em picked up his tube of K-Y jelly and said, “Sonny, if you’re doing it right you don’t need this stuff.”’

‘The poor bugger,’ said Mark, laughing. ‘Come on, let’s go to bed.’

15

‘
DOING ANYTHING TONIGHT
?’
I ASKED AS ALISON AND I
descended Birch Crescent at a jog-trot one warm afternoon in early November. The breeze was fragrant with the scent of rhododendrons, and the soft baby shoots of Mrs Taylor’s wisteria tickled our knees as we passed her fence.

‘Dinner with Mum and Dad. How about you?’

‘Not a thing. Maybe I’ll go and annoy Sam.’

‘When does Mark get back?’ she asked.

‘Twenty-two days, seven hours, and –’ I looked at my watch ‘– about nineteen minutes. Not that I’m counting or anything.’

‘That’s just the price you have to pay for being a Wag.’

‘Scrummy,’ I corrected. ‘Soccer players’ girlfriends are Wags; rugby players’ are scrummies.’

Alison laughed. ‘What about the ugly ones?’ she asked.

Sam’s reply, when I texted him regarding his plans for Friday evening, was brief and to the point.
Busy.

Keri had gone hiking and it’s a bit sad to spend two consecutive Friday nights at home alone watching
Dirty Dancing
on DVD, so after work I went to see Dad and Em. I found my father at the table with the paper spread before him and his glasses balanced on the very end of his nose.

‘Hullo, senior daughter,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and pushing his glasses back up. ‘What’s new?’

I sat down on the edge of the table. ‘Almost nothing. Where are the girls?’

‘Emily has gone to the gym, and the small ones are in the bath.’

‘Any exciting new advances in the field of dentistry?’

Dad scratched an ear in a thoughtful fashion. ‘I did remove most of last Sunday’s dinner from behind a woman’s plate this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Although I’m not sure you’d call that exciting.’

‘Did she not realise she was supposed to take it out and clean it?’

‘She’s losing the plot, poor old soul. I’ve spoken to her daughter and she’s going to keep an eye on things. How about you? Pushed back the frontiers of veterinary science in the last week?’

‘Well, I had a long talk with a woman who wants us to castrate her dog and implant a pair of silicone testicles,’ I said.

‘Can you
get
silicone testicles?’ Dad asked.

‘Yep. Wouldn’t have thought there’d be a huge market for them, myself, but apparently there is. And I’m treating John Somerville’s pet chicken for bumblefoot.’

‘Groundbreaking stuff,’ he said. ‘I see Mark’s in today’s paper.’

‘Is he?’

Dad passed me the sports section. On the back page was a picture of the All Blacks at a training session; Mark, in tracksuit pants and padded jacket, was talking to one of the assistant coaches at the side of the field. ‘It says he’s hurt his shoulder and he’s out for tomorrow’s game.’

‘I talked to him this morning, and he said it was just a twinge,’ I said. He had sounded tired and annoyed, and it had been an unsatisfactory sort of conversation. From down the hall came a loud splash, followed by a shriek. ‘Want me to go and investigate?’

November crawled by. Buttercups grew thick along the roadsides, and the snowball bush beside my porch steps was a vision of loveliness. At work the non-cycling cow calls slowed to a trickle and the lame bull calls increased sharply. Keri started the Ketosis Diet, losing both five kilograms and her sense of humour. Mark and Alan lunched with Prince William in Cardiff. I lunched with Lance’s mother at the Stockman’s Arms. Their lunch attracted considerably more media attention, but I think mine was more awkward.

One Monday night, eight days before Mark was due home, I made myself a truly superb prawn stir-fry. I had two forkfuls before going off the whole idea of food. Which was odd, because I’m the sort of person who starts planning dinner as I finish lunch.

The next morning I poured myself a glass of orange juice, sat down to peruse yesterday’s
Broadview Broadcast
, and then had to make a wild dash outside to throw up over the edge of the porch. I decided, tipping the rest of the glass sadly down the sink, that I must have caught one of those unpleasant twenty-four-hour bugs.

On Thursday I vomited into the rubbish bin in the surgery halfway through a bitch spey, which impressed Zoe not one bit. And on Friday afternoon, wending my seedy way along Mohapi Road to see a sick bull, I decided enough was enough and pulled the ute off the road into a gateway. I opened my phone and texted Alison.
Can u nick preg test from work? If buy one Aunty Deb will
see.
Aunty Deb – Sam’s mum – worked at the pharmacy, and not so much as a cough lolly could be obtained in Broadview without her guidance and support.