Three Wishes

  "What do you think of this, girls?" asked Frank.

  He laid the brochure on the red laminated table at McDonald's and flourished his hands back and forth just like the TV ladies on Sale of the Century.

  Oh, he was hilarious, their dad.

  They were six years old, full of the confidence of conquering kindergarten. At St. Margaret's Primary they were famous, just for being triplets. At Little Lunch and Big Lunch there was always a group of maternal sixth-grade girls lined up together on a long wooden bench who had come to watch the Kettle triplets play. "Oooh, they're so cute!" "Is that one Cat or Lyn?" "It's Lyn!" "No, it's Cat!" "Which one are you, sweetie?" Cat exploited them terribly, telling them stories about how poor they were, and how they had to share just one lamb chop for dinner. She collected at least fifty-cents charity money every day.

  Oh yes. School had turned out to be a snap.

  And now here they were in the brand-new McDonald's store with Dad, eating sundaes, turning their spoons upside down, and lingering their tongues over creamy cold ice cream and hot sugary caramel. Their father's dislike of sundaes was really quite extraordinary. "Just try one teeny mouthful, Daddy," Gemma was always encouraging. "Because I know you would love it. It's like eating a cloud. Or snow."

  Maxine didn't let them eat McDonald's. They didn't tell her that Daddy let them eat all the bad-for-you food they desired. They didn't tell her that every second weekend was like a magical mystery holiday, with surprise after surprise on the itinerary and not a rule or a vegetable in sight.

  But they just bet she suspected.

  "You know what this is," said Dad, sliding the brochure over to them. "This is the fastest water slide in the whole world."

  "Really?" breathed Cat. "Truly?"

  They stared at the brochure in awe. It showed a photo of a little girl hurtling out the end of an enormous funnel, carried along by a frothy rush of water. Lyn wanted to go on that water slide so badly. For an instant, she was that little girl with her heart pumping and her hands flung high in a perfect, flat blue sky.

  "Whoosh!" said Gemma, running her fingers down the curling funnel of the slide.

  "I think you'd go faster than a car," said Cat.

  "Not faster than Daddy's car," said Lyn. "No, I don't think so."

  "You would!" said Cat, pinching her hard on the leg with her fingernails. "Yes, you would!"

  "Whoosh!" said Gemma again. She trailed her sundae spoon through the air. "You'd go this fast!"

  "This water slide is in a special place called the Gold Coast," said Dad. "And you know what?"

  "What?"

  "I'm going to take you there for the Christmas holidays!"

  Well! The excitement! Gemma's sundae spoon went flying in the air. Cat slammed both her hands triumphantly on the table. Their father smiled modestly and allowed his cheek to be kissed by each of them.

  All the way home in the car they talked about it.

  "I'm going to make myself go faster by pushing myself along," said Lyn. "Like this with my hands."

  Cat said, "That won't work. I'm going to put my hands out in front like this, like an arrow."

  Gemma said, "I'm going to do a special magic trick to make me go faster."

  "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" chanted Cat and Lyn.

  When they got home, Dad came inside to tell Mummy about the holiday.

  Lyn was in the kitchen getting a glass of water. So she was the only one to see their mother's reaction.

  She looked surprised, like Daddy had slapped her across her cheek. "But Christmas Day?" she said. "Can't you take them on Boxing Day?"

  "It's the only time I can get away," said Dad. "You know the pressure I'm under with the Paddington project."

  "I'd like to be with them on Christmas Day. I don't see how one day can make such a difference."

  "I thought their welfare was your first priority. Your words, Max."

  "I'm not saying that they shouldn't go, Frank."

  Lyn watched as Mummy's eyes looked up to the ceiling. She took a deep breath as if she were going to do a gigantic sneeze, but then the sneeze didn't come.

  It was odd.

  Lyn stared at her mother over the rim of her glass.

  It looked almost as if she were trying not to cry. As soon as the thought came into her head, Lyn knew it was true. She felt something click and slide into place. There was her mum, her normal, annoying, bad-tempered mum, and fitted neatly over the top of her was a new version--a version who got upset just like her daughters did.

  "I want to be with Mum on Christmas Day," she said, and she had no idea why she said it because she didn't want that at all; the words had tripped straight out of her mouth without her permission.

  Her parents acted as if they hadn't even realized she was in the kitchen. "Don't be silly, Lyn," said Mum. "You're going on a lovely holiday with your father."

  Lyn looked at her father. "Why can't we go after Christmas Day?"

  He reached for her and pulled her onto his lap, smoothing his hand over the top of her head. "That's the only time Daddy's work will let him go, darling."

  Lyn ran her finger around the edge of his shirt button. "I don't believe you."

  She wriggled off his lap as Cat and Gemma came running into the kitchen brandishing a Barbie doll's dismembered limbs.

  "Lyn wants to stay here with Mummy for Christmas," said Dad. "What do you two want to do?"

  Cat looked at Lyn as if she'd lost her mind. "Why are you being stupid?"

  "Why can't Mummy just come with us?" beamed Gemma.

  "Mum and Dad are divorced, spastic-head," said Cat. "That means they're not allowed to do things together anymore. It's a rule. It's the law."

  "Oh." Gemma's lower lip trembled. "Oh, I see."

  "I'm going on holidays with Daddy," said Cat.

  "I'm staying here with Mum," said Lyn. This was being pure and good, just like Sister Judith talked about in religion classes. Lyn could visualize her own shimmering sin-free soul. It was heart-shaped and sparkly like a diamond.

  Tears of panic slid rapidly down Gemma's face. "We have to be together when Santa comes!"

  They weren't together when Santa came.

  Over the next week Lyn and Cat campaigned aggressively for Gemma to join their side. Underhand tactics were used on both sides.

  "Mummy will be so sad if we don't have Christmas here with her," said Lyn. "She'll cry and cry and cry."

  "She won't," said Gemma in alarm. "Mummy doesn't cry. You won't cry, will you, Mum?"

  Mum was cross. "No, I certainly won't, Gemma. Don't be so silly, Lyn."

  "We'll go on the fastest water slide in the whole world and Daddy will cry if you don't come!" said Cat. "Won't you, Dad?"

  He sniffed loudly and pretended to wipe his eyes. "Oh yes."

  Lyn didn't stand a chance.

  The problem was it didn't seem as if Maxine even noticed Lyn's saintly behavior. She was just as cross and annoying as ever. After a while Lyn realized that she didn't have a sparkly diamond for a soul at all. Deep down she felt angry with her mother, not pure and good and loving.

  The thought of missing out on that water slide made her sick--but so did the thought of her mother sitting at the kitchen table with the tea towel over her shoulder.

  So there you had it. She missed out on both the water slide and a gold star from Jesus.

  That was the Christmas Lyn discovered the horrible pleasure of martyrdom.

  Lyn knew she knew Angela as soon as she walked into the kitchen. She had the sort of face you remembered. Almond-shaped eyes. Exotic thick black hair. Caramel-colored skin.

  Lyn's mind jumped from Brekkie Bus circles to play-group circles to Michael's work--to sitting in Cat's car watching Angela tap on the car window, her face bent down, her ponytail falling to one side.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

  How had Gemma managed to orchestrate this disaster? Quietly, she maneuvered herself behind Cat and placed one protective hand over her shoulder. Had she recogniz
ed her yet?

  "I'm Angela."

  Lyn felt Cat's shoulder become rigid and her own chest constrict in sympathy.

  Gemma, of course, had no control over her emotions and quite unnecessarily dropped a full glass of champagne on the floor.

  Lyn stared stupidly at the broken glass and tried to think calmly. This was a genuinely appalling situation. Three women in the one room who had all slept with Daniel Whitford.

  It was all so...unhygienic.

  "I'll get a dustpan," said Maxine as Charlie and Angela simultaneously bent down to begin picking up shards of glass in careful cupped hands. The rest of the Kettle family watched with interest.

  "Butterfingers!" Nana Kettle leaned over to tap Charlie on the shoulder. "Gemma is such a butterfingers! That's what we call her! Butterfingers!"

  "I'm sorry," Gemma stood staring fearfully down at Angela, as if she was some sort of awful apparition.

  "It's only a glass, sweetheart," said Frank, his eyes appreciative on Angela's legs. "I'm sure Lyn doesn't mind."

  Lyn took a breath. She couldn't see Cat's face, only the top of her head. "Of course not. Please. Leave it. Charlie...Angela. I'll look after it." It felt like a betrayal to use Angela's name. She needed to get these people out of her house.

  "We're admitting defeat on the cubby house." Michael appeared in the kitchen, followed by Dan. "Time for a drink."

  "Have we had our first breakage?" said Dan. "Let me guess the culprit."

  Angela looked up from the floor. "Danny!"

  Danny?

  Cat shrugged away Lyn's hand, stepped over the glass, and walked out of the kitchen, her face averted from Dan.

  "Crosspatch!" Nana Kettle informed Charlie triumphantly. "That's what we call that one!"

  Dan backed himself up against the fridge. He looked nauseous. "Hi there."

  "So you two know each other, eh?" said Michael. Understanding swept his face as his eyes met Lyn's and his words trailed lamely. "...how about that."

  Gemma looked imploringly at Lyn. Lyn massaged her forehead and watched Kara carefully pouring herself a very full glass of wine, one eye monitoring her father.

  "Swim!" Maddie came running full tilt into the kitchen. She was stark naked and wearing her yellow plastic floaties on each arm.

  "Lyn--bare feet!" warned Maxine at the same instant as Charlie swooped Maddie into the air away from the glass.

  "Thank you."

  "My pleasure."

  Maddie patted the top of Charlie's closely shaven head approvingly, as if he were a furry animal. "Swim?" she inquired brightly, tipping her head birdlike to one side. "Come swim?"

  "Maybe another day, sweetie," said Charlie.

  Angela had gathered her composure. "I know Dan from the Greenwood pub," she told Charlie. "I got chatting to him that night Bec and I handed out your fridge magnets."

  "Oh!" said Gemma. "That must be...oh."

  "Yes?" Charlie put a hand on Gemma's shoulder and looked at her with gentle bemusement. Maddie tapped her finger on the end of his nose and giggled.

  "I rang Cat the day I got locked out of the house," explained Gemma. She gave Cat's empty chair a nervous glance. "She said, There's a number for a locksmith right here on the fridge."

  "Ha!" Dan was obviously trying to follow Angela's jolly lead, but he was looking slightly manic, punching his fist into his palm. "I remember. It was shaped like a key. I stuck it on the fridge when I got home from the pub. Didn't even think...about it. Good idea, magnets. Yep. Get your name in front of people. Well. You owe me, Gemma!"

  Lyn wanted to smack him.

  "Not as much as I owe you," said Charlie, jiggling Maddie in one arm and putting his free arm around Gemma. He gave Dan a thoughtful, appraising look and then turned back to Nana Kettle. "Gemma is the best thing that's ever happened to me."

  Nana Kettle beamed up at him, her eyes shining though her glasses. "What a lovely young fellow! Isn't he, Frank? Maxine?"

  Maxine straightened up from the floor with the dustpan full of broken glass. "Very lovely," she said. Her eyebrows were question marks. "You certainly saved Maddie's feet from getting cut to pieces."

  "Good reflexes," contributed Michael overheartily.

  There was a contemptuous "pfffff" sound from Kara's direction.

  "Well. We'd better make a move." Charlie handed Maddie over to Lyn. "It was great to meet you all."

  "Bye everybody," said Angela. For a moment her flawless performance seemed to falter. "Bye, Dan."

  "Yeah." Dan examined his hands. "Yeah. Bye then."

  "I'll see them out," said Gemma.

  There was a moment's silence in the kitchen. The central characters had left the stage, leaving the supporting cast without a script.

  "What was that all about?" asked Maxine, shaking glass into the rubbish bin. "You were all behaving like lunatics. And have you noticed your daughter is drinking like a fish, Michael?"

  Michael looked with confusion at Maddie.

  "I think she means me, Dad," Kara raised her wineglass cheerily. "Remember. You've got two daughters."

  "Dan, shouldn't you be finding out what's wrong with Cat?" Maxine commanded.

  "Yeah." Dan seemed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He opened the fridge door and stood staring at its contents. "I'll just take her up a beer."

  "What?"

  "Oh. Yeah. I'll just take one for me then."

  He ambled from the kitchen, nearly colliding with Gemma, who looked up at him with something approaching hatred.

  "Can I talk to you for a sec, Lyn?" she said in a strained tone. "Now?"

  Lyn leaned up against the desk in her office. "Well. That was fun."

  "I feel terrible." Gemma slumped into a chair and sat on her hands.

  "It's not your fault. It's just bad luck. Although, of course, if you could have found a locksmith for yourself instead of calling Cat--"

  If you weren't always so bloody helpless.

  "Yes, I know. This is terrible."

  "Yes."

  "Charlie was talking the other night about his sister. He said she's been seeing--no, he said she's involved with a married man. That doesn't sound like a one-off."

  "Maybe it's another married man. Maybe she makes a habit of it."

  "She called him Danny." Gemma shuddered.

  Lyn picked up her container of paper clips and rattled it, hard. "Why would he tell Cat about Angela in the first place if he was going to keep seeing her?"

  "I don't know."

  "I could kill him."

  "I know. When I saw him coming out of the kitchen then, I thought, I could punch you, I could close my fist and punch you properly."

  Lyn looked down at her in-tray. There was a yellow Post-it note with a frantic message from her marketing coordinator--Lyn! Problem! Please look at before Christmas! She hadn't even seen it until now. Her stomach clenched instinctively.

  "Lyn?" Gemma looked up at her trustingly and swiveled her chair back and forth. "What will we do? Do we tell her?"

  Lyn twisted her head from side to side. I am suffering from stress, she thought. I am suffering from profound stress.

  The thought made her feel better for some reason.

  "What do you think we should do?"

  Delegate, Michael was always saying. You've got to learn to delegate.

  "I don't know."

  This was why delegating didn't work.

  Lyn said, "I think we should worry about it after Christmas. You can find out more from Charlie."

  "O.K."

  "What's going on in here?" Cat came into the study, flinging back the door and coming to lean against the desk next to Lyn. She took the jar of paper clips out of Lyn's hand and rattled it aggressively. The strands of hair around her face were damp. She must have washed her face, scrubbing away all the radiant happiness of that morning. The skin under her eyes looked sad and raw.

  "Are you O.K.?" asked Gemma.

  "Yes." Cat took a paper clip and bent and straightened it
between her fingers. She didn't look at Gemma. "You'll just have to break up with him."

  "Sorry?" Gemma stood up from her chair.

  "You'll break up with him sooner or later anyway."

  "But I like him. I really sort of like him."

  "He's a locksmith, Gemma."

  "So?"

  "So, for some reason you get off on sleeping with, I don't know--blokes. But it's not like you're going to marry one of them."

  "Oh my God," said Gemma. "I can't believe you said that. That's so snobbish! You sound like...you sound like Mum!"

  The ultimate insult.

  "I'm not saying you're better than them, I'm saying you're smarter than them."

  "Cat." Now Lyn could feel stress, like a toxic chemical, flooding her bloodstream. "You can't expect her--"

  "She'll find somebody else in five minutes. Somebody better. He's too short for her. He's not good enough for her. Besides which, she only met him because of Dan."

  "Yes, but--"

  "I want to forget about it. I want to forget about that girl. How can I forget about it when Gemma's dating her brother? The whole thing's a joke."

  On the word "joke," there was a break in Cat's voice.

  A tiny fracture of grief.

  For a moment there was silence in the room.

  "I'll think about it," said Gemma.

  Lyn put her knuckle to her mouth and breathed in deeply. "But, Gemma--"

  "I said I'll think about it." Gemma pushed her chair back in toward the desk. "She's right. We would have broken up eventually anyway. I'm going to take Maddie for a swim."

  She left the room.

  "It's too much to ask," said Lyn. "What if he's the one?"

  Cat flicked the mangled paper clip across the room. "I can assure you, there is no such thing."

  CHAPTER 11

  I've ruined Cat's Christmas, thought Gemma, changing into her swimsuit in Michael and Lyn's bathroom. I am a bitch, a witch, a klutzy butterfingers.

  "The problem with you, Gemma," Marcus used to say, "is you don't concentrate."

  She pulled up the straps of her swimmers and looked in Lyn's cupboard for sunscreen. The house was becoming hotter and hotter. Nana, to Maxine's disgust, had stripped down to her petticoat. Gemma's own face in Lyn's bathroom mirror was bright pink. She still had the piece of tinsel tied lopsided around her head, giving her a dopey, hopeful look.

  Charlie, she realized now, had talked about his sister Angela, but she hadn't even mentally noted that the names were the same. They didn't feel the same. There was Angela, Charlie's younger sister, whom he obviously adored. Then, there was Angela, evil husband stealer.