One True Thing (17 page)

I catch the tram down Grantham Street but I'm too steamed up to go home. I get off after a couple of blocks and lose myself in the Alternative Rock section at Words&Music for a couple of hours, flipping through their vinyl collection and a neat stack of recent editions of
Guitar
and
Rolling Stone
. I buy a coffee and select a copy of
Beat
and, before I know it, it's six o'clock.

As I head down our street, I see that the media pack has clocked off for the night. The idea is so bizarre that I almost laugh. Luke meets me at the front door as though he's been watching the street for my arrival. I grab him in a rough hug and drop a kiss on his tangled hair. He offers me a weary grin.

‘That bad, huh?' It was his first day back too, I realise with a start. How did I not think about that?

Luke examines his feet.

‘I thought Dad was picking you up from Nathan's.'

‘Mum's home,' he says.

It's then that I see it – the puffiness around his left eye. The pink flesh, round and shiny and tight. I hold his shoulders steady, forcing him to look at me. ‘Who did this to you?'

He blinks but his left eye doesn't close properly and he flinches at the pain.

‘Luke! Tell me who.'

His head drops.

‘Why didn't the school do something?' I'm furious and desperate for someone to blame. Someone I can hate so that this burning feeling inside me has somewhere to go.

‘They called Mum. She picked me up.'

‘Did you ice it?'

He pulls away. ‘Mum fixed it,' he says with such pure and simple trust that my heart lurches.

I'm about to head into my room, to collect myself so I can face Mum and not cave in, when Luke takes my hand, stopping me in my tracks. He's grown this past year but he's still a shrimp. His hand feels small in mine, his one healthy eye so big in that ghostly face. The shiny pink of his wounded eye somehow accusing, even though he can hardly open it.

‘What?' I coax, bracing myself. He looks so serious, so …
tired
. The little old man in a ten-year-old's body. I squeeze his hand. There's nothing to say that will make a difference.

‘Do you think it's true, what they're saying about Mum?' he asks me for the first time since the whole nightmare started. It was easier to keep him out of it before Mummygate made its way onto breakfast radio and TV talk shows, like our family falling apart is the funniest thing to happen since The Chasers crashed APEC. I'd been kidding myself that most of the nastiness went over his head.

I frown, confused. ‘Mum told you the truth about Colin. That he's –' What? Her son? Our brother? The words still sound too unnatural to say – ‘family,' I say, wishing I had a better word that didn't strike at my heart at its mention. ‘They're just making things up to hurt her.'

Luke pulls his hand away and stands taller as if he's bracing himself. ‘They're saying Mum and Dad are getting a divorce.'

‘Don't listen to them, Luke. They're just trying to keep the story alive,' I say, fighting the panic that flutters in my chest. ‘Mum and Dad are … having a tough time but they're sticking together. I know it's hard to understand why she won't tell the truth. But Dad won't give up on her. He won't.'

Luke nods solemnly. ‘So, why have you?'

‘That's different,' I start to say, when a movement in the dimly lit hallway stops me.

My mother is standing there, her beautiful face hollowed-out and pale, and yet there is an undeniable dignity in the way she holds her head, tall and steady. ‘Luke,' she says, breaking the silence. ‘I'd like to talk to your sister.'

Luke stiffens but otherwise does not move.

I wouldn't have left either, even at his age. ‘Let it go, Mum.'

Mum straightens, bracing to defend herself, or argue. But she looks at my brother and softens. ‘Luke, please give us some privacy.'

He shakes his head. ‘It's my family too! I want to know what's happening!' His voice breaks mid-sentence. Tears slide down his face and his hands are clenched beside him.

Mum's whole being seems to sway towards her son, even though she doesn't move closer. ‘I know, Luke. I'll come and talk to you next. But first I need to talk to
Frankie.' Then she steps forward and sweeps him into her arms, his body giving in to her shape. The warmth and familiarity of that gesture is so powerful that I almost rush to join them.

Luke sloughs off down the hall, his back convulsing a little with the last of his sobs. We both watch him until he disappears into his bedroom and closes the door.

I'm about to do the same. I don't want this. But her voice halts me in my tracks.

‘Francesca?' The control in her tone makes me want to scream.

‘What?'

‘Please.'

I let my backpack slide off my shoulder, stretching my neck left and right to ease the tension. Stalling.

‘How about a coffee?' she says into the quiet.

I look at my mum, see the lines under her eyes, dark circles like bruises. There's a fine streak of grey in her hair. Is it new? Or has it been there since it all started? I have no idea.

I remember Dad's words. That it isn't all about me. ‘You don't have time for this, Mum.'

‘I've got a couple of hours.' She looks at her watch. ‘One,' she says, correcting herself with a half-grin. ‘Then Harry's coming to get me.'

‘Since when does Harry give you time off during an election campaign?'

She winks, though it's half-hearted and cheerless. ‘I juggled some stuff. The world won't end, even though Harry will act like it has.'

I follow her into the kitchen. We take the same seats at the island bench that we assigned ourselves when we first moved here twelve years ago – me staring out the window, Mum sitting across from me, one seat over to the left. Back then we would talk over a Milo. It feels like a million years ago.

She stands suddenly and heads to the cupboards, setting up the coffee machine and laying out the bits and pieces. She stares at the espresso glasses and the grinder, and suddenly she looks lost. My mum is focus personified, and now she can barely remember where the coffee beans are.

‘I'll make it,' I say, standing up.

She turns to me, deep sadness a shadow across her face, then nods and sits down.

The coffee scalds my lips as I drink too fast. ‘So?' I ask into the silence, sounding angrier than I mean to.

Mum sighs. ‘Me first. How was school?'

I frown, not wanting to think about it. ‘I'll be fine,' I say, hoping it's true. I've got one day down – this should have been the hardest, surely. Tomorrow things will be easier.

‘Yes. You certainly seem fine.'

‘What do you expect?' I ask, annoyed. ‘Seriously, what did you expect?'

‘I know I deserve that.' Mum nods, agreeing with herself, then pushes her coffee away. ‘But I don't deserve all of it.'

‘Why won't you tell the truth, then?' I say. ‘Don't you care how it affects us? How it affects Dad?'

‘Of course I do!' Mum looks up.

‘Then tell the truth!'

‘I can't.'

‘So it's up to Luke and me to defend you to the
media
? And the kids at school. Did you see Luke's eye? Did you?'

She looks visibly shaken. Colour drains from her face.

I hesitate, knowing I'm hitting her hard. ‘And still you stay silent.' I stand up, pushing my coffee away, perfectly matching her action. ‘They're hounding us, Mum, stalking us outside our own home. I can't look up without seeing those photos on every screen and media outlet there is.' I'm ranting but I'm running out of steam too. I shake my head. ‘But still you say nothing. It seems pretty simple to me.'

Her hands clasp and unclasp on the bench between us. We both stare at them like they belong to a magician who's about to make doves appear. ‘I'm sorry about school, the other kids, the media. It will pass. I promise.'

I shake my head, furious. ‘No, it won't! Not with all
those lies out there. Is Colin more important than us? Because that's what's happening here. You're choosing him over me and Luke. You're putting him first.'

Mum's voice is barely above a whisper when she speaks. ‘No, I'm giving him a chance,' she says. ‘The one he never got.' She searches the room, as though for an answer.

‘He's not taking it! Obviously, he's not going to.'

‘Then I have to live with it.'

‘No, Mum.
We
have to live with it.'

A flash of pain crosses her face. ‘He won't see me – any of us. If I could just speak to him … He's angry, understandably. He's very angry.' She offers me a half-smile, empty and sad. ‘He hates me too.'

‘Mum, you're going to lose the election.'

‘That feels a little like it's out of my hands at this point.'

‘So, you're giving up?'

She shakes her head. ‘No, not giving up. I just don't know how to fix this,' she says quietly.

‘Then let me.'

She presses her lips together, and despite her exhaustion, I also see tenderness. ‘How?'

‘Let me talk to him.' It's so obvious to me now that I can't believe I've waited this long.

‘He won't talk to us. I don't even know where he is.'

‘You could try to find him.'

Mum lifts a shoulder. ‘Probably, but I can't do it to him. He has to be ready. I've tried and tried. I won't make him go through this just to save my own backside.'

‘Not even for us?'

Her face crumples and, when she speaks, her voice is hoarse. ‘Not even for you.'

‘Go away!' Luke's muffled voice drifts through his bedroom door, barely cutting through the bootlegged live version of ‘Black' that I gave him for his last birthday. It's so loud I can feel it through the floor, even louder than Luke's warbling voice as it strangles that incredible melody. I wonder sometimes whether he'd even like Pearl Jam if I wasn't his sister. I wonder if it was his choice and not just something he didn't have a chance to think about because I kept smothering him in it. Then again, I wonder if I'd be a musician if Harry hadn't given me his Martin guitar, the perfect match to Eddie Vedder's, or taught me the intro to ‘Alive' before I could play a whole song. If Dad hadn't sat through all my concerts, or let me
spend my pocket money on records. If Mum didn't insist I learn ‘something musical' from the day I could walk. Sometimes it's hard to know where I start and my family finishes.

The idea is too depressing.

I press my forehead against the door and breathe in. Luke's more confused than any of us. No wonder he's angry. I open the door and stick my head in.

A faded Hawthorn Hawks stuffed toy comes flying towards me, the tiny footy sewn to his wing catching the door handle before falling to the floor.

‘Go away!' Luke shouts.

We both stare at the toy on the floor in front of me. ‘Poor Cyril,' I say, gently cradling the stuffed toy, giving it a cuddle.

‘I said
go away
.'

And yet he sounds just that tiniest bit less angry. I head into his room, turn down Eddie and the boys, and plonk down on the foot of his bed. I hold out the hawk as a peace offering. ‘I think he'll live.'

He grunts before snatching the toy from me and returning it to its rightful place on the shelves over his bed. We both look at Cyril up on the shelf, his crooked beak almost tipping him forward.

‘Why won't you forgive Mum?'

There's a small hole along the seam of Cyril's right wing, I notice, and one of his talons is thin and floppy,
the stuffing knocked out of him. I kind of get how he feels. ‘I don't know.'

Luke snorts. ‘That's stupid.'

‘I'm trying,' I say, glancing up at his door, imagining Mum in the kitchen starting dinner or organising take-away. I'm glad she's home, even though I'm furious with her. At least I don't feel entirely like it's up to me to take care of Luke. On the other hand, knowing she's home early just makes Dad's absence more obvious. It's as if the world as we know it has been turned upside down, and only Luke and I are still facing the same way.

I sigh. I want to go to sleep and wake up with my memory erased. Or just this last bit, with some of the nice stuff still safely tucked in there. Kissing Jake before I knew about the photos. Maybe that summer night with the full moon, when Kessie and I slept under the stars, talking and singing like idiots until the sun came up. Our voices were husky for two days straight. Or that time the whole family went to Sorrento to swim in the rock pools, our skin wrinkling after hours in the icy water; Luke catching a bay trout on the jetty at dusk. Then I realise that we can't do these things as a family anymore without a pack of paparazzi stalking us. Suddenly, full erasure seems like a better idea.

I press my fingers against my temple, rubbing them like I've seen Dad do to Mum when she's had a tough day.

‘So do it!' Luke pleads. He leans back against the headboard, crossing his legs at the ankles. ‘
She'd
forgive
you
,' he adds.

I look away, pressure building inside me like a living thing. ‘I've tried,' I say, moving along the bed to sit beside him. The memory of Mum's face from moments ago etched into my brain like a scar. I stretch out my legs beside his.

‘Try again,' he says, the small voice gone now. There's an edge to his words that makes me look at him straight on for a moment. Behind those eyes there is the beginning of a man, someone who's lived a life well beyond ten short years.

We both stare at our feet, his ragged toenails that always need trimming, the sock line still etched into his skin around his ankles, that tiny small toe on his right foot that's curled in tighter than the others, almost hidden under the toe beside it. My nails all neat and trimmed, painted creamy mauve, a slim, golden anklet around my ankle – a gift from Mum last Christmas. He presses his toe against my calf muscle, then gives me a little shove.

‘I will,' I say solemnly. ‘I'll try again.'

‘I just want everything to go back to normal.'

That word ‘normal' is so confusing and wrong and …
disappointing
. It's never what you think it's going to be, and it keeps changing. Besides, it's been so long now that I can't remember what normal looks like, and I'm not sure I was such a big fan of it anyway.