Three Wishes, Page 29

  Cat stared at her with incomprehension, and Lyn chortled. "I'm joking!"

  The guy driving the car chuckled. Cat held her napkin to her mouth and looked back out the window. Now Lyn was sounding a lot like Gemma. The world had gone topsy-turvy.

  At the entrance to the hospital, Cat got out of the car without speaking, slammed the door, and blinked at the bright lights and muted roar of activity: phones ringing, a child screaming relentlessly, clumps of people walking busily in different directions.

  Lyn seemed to have made best friends with the man from the restaurant. Cat watched as she leaned back in the window and chatted enthusiastically, before straightening up and waving good-bye.

  She held up a little fan of business cards. "He's a landscape gardener, a wedding photographer, and a personal trainer!" she said, as if this were interesting. "He was on a blind date but apparently it wasn't going too well."

  Cat shrugged.

  Lyn put the cards away in her purse. "Right, well, let's see what's happening with Gemma, and we'd better get someone to look at you. I wonder if you've bitten your tongue."

  Cat shrugged again. Perhaps she would give up talking forever. It might make life less complicated.

  "Is that you, Lyn? Um, Cat?"

  They turned around. It was Charlie walking toward them. He was wearing muddy tracksuit pants, a T-shirt, and a black beanie. He looked sweaty and agitated.

  "I'm on my way home from touch footie and your sister calls for the first time in six months," he said. "She asks me how a lightbulb works. So I start to explain it; I mean that's Gemma, right? She was always asking funny questions. But then she starts crying like her heart is going to break and says she's calling from an ambulance on the way to have a baby, and would I like to come and help her breathe, if I'm not too busy? Are you girls strange, or what?"

  "No question, we're strange," said Lyn.

  He held both palms upward in a very Italian gesture. "Man! She dumps me, she wasn't even going to tell me she's pregnant, and now suddenly she wants me to help her breathe?"

  "It's quite presumptuous of her," agreed Lyn.

  "And I don't how to do this!" An expression of pure terror crossed his face. "There are classes for this sort of thing. Books. Videos. I like to know how things work!"

  Lyn beamed at him. "Just hold her hand. Do what they do in the movies."

  "Jesus." He pulled his beanie off, ran one hand over the top of his head, and took a deep breath. "And is she O.K.?"

  "Well, there was a little accident but they're looking at her now."

  For the first time Charlie looked at Cat and her blood-soaked napkin. Cat looked at the ground and tried to pretend she was somewhere else.

  "An accident?"

  "Let's go inside and find out what's happening," said Lyn.

  While Lyn and Charlie went off to find someone official, Cat sat down on a green plastic chair and began heavy negotiations with God.

  All she wanted was for Gemma and the baby to be O.K. It didn't seem like too unreasonable a request. She simply wanted one particular action to be without consequences.

  And if God would do that, Cat would give up alcohol and every other potentially pleasurable activity. She would graciously accept that she was never going to have children herself and live a quiet, nunlike existence, thinking only of others.

  She might even consider some very unpleasant form of volunteer work.

  After a seemingly endless discussion, Charlie and Lyn came back over to where Cat was sitting. She looked up at them wordlessly.

  "Someone's coming to see us now," explained Lyn.

  Charlie looked closely at Cat. "Are you O.K.? You don't look so good."

  Cat nodded and mumbled, "I'm fine shanks."

  "Gemma Kettle's family?" An efficiently frowning nurse appeared. "She's doing well. Four centimeters dilated. Who's going to be with her for the labor?"

  "Just the father," said Lyn.

  Charlie gave a little start. "I guess that would be me."

  The nurse gave Cat and Lyn a meaningful and hugely unjust "Men!" look and said, "This way, please."

  "Rightio." Charlie handed over a sports bag to Lyn and obediently followed the nurse without looking back, his shoulders in the dirty T-shirt very square.

  Lyn sat down next to Cat and shook her head. "That man is a saint. If she doesn't hold on to him, I'll throw a fork at her!"

  At that moment Maxine marched into the hospital waiting room to find her daughters, propped up against each other's shoulders, laughing helplessly.

  She held the strap of her handbag disapprovingly against her chest. "Well, really!"

  At eight o'clock the next morning Cat held her nephew for the first time. A tightly bound eight-pound bundle with a wrinkly red face, matted black hair, and long eyelashes resting mysteriously against caramel-colored skin.

  Cat and Gemma were alone in the room.

  Charlie had gone home to change. Lyn was coming back with Maddie and Michael later that afternoon. Maxine and Frank were buying coffee in the cafeteria.

  "I'm sorry, Cat." Gemma's face against the pillow was blotchy, puffy, and suffused with joy. "I did a terrible thing to you."

  Cat shook her head and kept looking at the baby.

  Some time last night, a doctor had informed her that her jaw was broken. Her back and front teeth were now wired together. If she tried to talk, her mouth started foaming with saliva.

  She felt, fittingly, like a freak. It was her penance.

  "I thought of the baby as yours," said Gemma. "All the way along. I swear to you. And then all of a sudden, I started wanting--I wanted the baby and I wanted Charlie. I wanted everything."

  Cat placed her little finger in the palm of the baby's hand and watched his tiny fingers curl in a miniature grip.

  Soap Bubbles on the Corso

  It was a lovely day today, wasn't it? Did you have a lovely day? I bet you didn't move from that step, eh? I caught the bus down to the Corso, you know how I like to do that. I'm sure the sea air does wonders for my arthritis.

  I sat on my favorite bench there and ate my banana sandwich, and watched the families. There were some lovely young girls sitting in the shade with their children. One was a toddler--oh, she was a terror that one! They had their hands full. And there was also the dearest little newborn baby! The girls were all taking turns holding the baby. I couldn't quite tell which was the mother but they were sisters, I'm sure of it. They each rocked the baby in exactly the same way, gently swaying their bodies. Tall, graceful girls. I always wanted to be tall.

  Oh, and they had a clever way of distracting the little terror! They had one of those little bottles of detergent and they were blowing soap bubbles for her. She was running around with her hands outstretched, laughing, trying to catch them. Those bubbles looked so pretty floating and dancing in the breeze--like hundreds of tiny little rainbows. It made me cry a little. In a happy way.

  But you know one of those young girls wasn't so happy. She was really down in the dumps about something. She was doing her best to hide it but I could tell. Something about the way she held her shoulders. As if she'd lost. You know what I mean? Defeated. That's the word.

  I wanted to say to her, Oh, darling, don't be sad. Whatever it is that's worrying you will probably turn out to be nothing. Or eventually it just won't matter anymore. And one day all you'll remember is blowing soap bubbles on the Corso with your sisters. And how you were young and beautiful and didn't even know it. But she would have just thought I was a mad old woman, wouldn't she, Tabby? Yes, she would have.

  CHAPTER 25

  Cat got to the park a few minutes early and sat on one of the swings to wait for Dan.

  It was a viciously cold Saturday morning, and the park was deserted. There was something a little spooky about all that empty play equipment, the chains of the swing rattling ghoulishly in the wind, like the laughter of ghostly children.

  A wisp of a memory she felt like she was remembering for the first time floa
ted across Cat's consciousness. Maxine pushing Lyn on a swing. A yellow dress.

  "When's it my turn, Mum?"

  Lyn flying high in the air.

  She opened and shut her mouth like a fish, enjoying the glorious freedom of a fully functioning jaw.

  It was six weeks since the night of the fondue fork.

  Apparently the story was doing the rounds. Michael said he was at a work function when he overheard a guy tell a story about someone throwing a fork at a pregnant woman in a Chinese restaurant. The pregnant woman had then given birth to triplets on the restaurant floor.

  Michael hadn't bothered to correct them. "I hope you're not embarrassed to know us," said Lyn.

  "The opposite, my darling! I didn't want to show off."

  Gemma and Charlie had called the baby Salvatore Lesley after both their grandfathers.

  Little Sal was the baby from hell. He hadn't inherited his mother's love of sleep, or his father's saintliness. Gemma and Charlie had been walking around in dreamlike, sleep-deprived trances.

  Fortunately, on Tuesday Sal cleverly chose to smile for the first time at both his parents, causing them to melt into adoring puddles at his bootied feet.

  Cat kept the door to the yellow-walled nursery firmly shut and lived her life like a robot. I feel nothing, I feel nothing was her new mantra. She worked so hard at Hollingdale Chocolates that Rob Spencer felt the need to give her a smarmy little lecture on the importance of having "balance" in her life.

  She gave up alcohol for a record four weeks before saying, "I think that'll do it, God," and returning to her faith as a devout atheist.

  Dan had telephoned the day before and said he wanted to talk to her.

  "Could we get together for a drink?"

  "Tell me over the phone," she said, using the brittle, faintly mocking voice she seemed to have created especially for conversations these days with Dan.

  "I'd rather we met, face-to-face." He had a new voice too. It was formal and restrained, as if he were in the witness box. It broke her heart.

  I know the expression on your face when you come. I know how you clip your toenails, floss your teeth, and blow your nose. I know how your dad upsets you and spiders frighten you and tofu disgusts you.

  "Fine. But not the pub." She didn't want to be surrounded by happy people talking in normal voices. "We'll meet in the park."

  She kicked at the wood shavings under her feet and wondered what Dan wanted.

  They'd been separated for seven months now. The law said you couldn't divorce until you'd been separated for a full year. No trial reconciliations were allowed during that time.

  You had to prove to the government that it was more than just a little tiff, that your marriage vows were well and truly ripped to shreds.

  And here he was.

  She watched as he got out of the car and frowned up at the parking sign. He looked at his watch and then again at the sign, wrinkling his forehead. He always did have problems deciphering parking signs. You're fine, Dan. It's not after 3 P.M. or before 9 A.M.

  Finally he came loping down the grassy embankment. He saw her, smiled, raised a hand in greeting, and it came to her in a matter-of-fact way that she still loved him.

  "Hi."

  "Hi."

  "Cold."

  "Very."

  He moved toward her as if he was going to kiss her on the cheek, and she ducked her head and held a hand out at the swing next to her. "Have a seat."

  He sat down, awkwardly stretching out his long legs.

  He looked straight ahead. "How are you?"

  "I'm fine."

  Presumably, through Charlie and Angela, he knew everything about what had happened at the restaurant. Her humiliation was so complete it didn't really bother her. She had no more dignity left to lose.

  He chose Angela. Gemma chose her baby.

  "Cat."

  And for one wild, heart-pumping moment she thought he was going to say that he'd made a mistake, he wanted to come back home, fix things up, try again.

  "I'm going to France. We're going to France."

  I don't feel anything.

  "Did the Paris job come up again? I didn't know."

  It was their dream. Angela was getting to live Cat's dream.

  "They told me about a week ago."

  He was doing his best to keep his voice flat, but she could hear the underlying ripple of excitement. The celebrations they must have shared!

  "I didn't want you to hear it from anybody else."

  "Gee, thanks."

  He gave her a quick, sharp look.

  "I don't know how to make you believe how sorry I am. About everything. I wish--I never meant--I'm just so sorry."

  It occurred to Cat that Angela could one day have Dan's children. The little boy that Cat had always imagined, a miniature version of Dan, would now belong to Angela.

  That woman was going to live her dreams and have her children.

  And when Dan got home today, Angela would say, "How did she take it?" and Dan would say sadly, "Not good," and Angela would look sympathetic and pretty and large-breasted.

  In a sudden rush of movement Cat leaped from her swing and positioned herself behind Dan. That woman would not hear about the tears in her eyes.

  "Here, let me give you a push."

  "Eh?" His shoulders stiffened.

  She pushed him gently on his back and said, "Didn't your mum used to push you on the swing?"

  "Yeah, I guess."

  With her hands flat on his back, she rocked him forward. His legs dragged on the ground and he held on tight to the swing.

  I don't feel anything. I don't feel anything. I don't feel anything.

  "So, Paris! At last!" said Cat, like a charming girl at a cocktail party. "Have they got somewhere for you to live?"

  "They put us in a furnished apartment for a month, and then we'll find somewhere for ourselves."

  "And Angela? What will she do? Will she work?"

  "She's not sure yet."

  "Mmmm, and busy times, I guess! Are you selling your car? Putting things in storage?"

  "I'm giving the car to Mel."

  "Dan."

  Because suddenly she couldn't do it anymore or bear it any longer.

  She bent her head to his ear and spoke softly and urgently, in her own real voice, as if she only had a minute to pass on this dangerous message.

  "Thank you for telling me. I'm fine. Really. But could you do something for me? Could you just go now, without talking, without looking at me? Don't say anything, don't look back. Please."

  He sat very still. It wasn't his style to obey such a weird and melodramatic request. But then he put one hand up to hers and held it very tightly, and for a second she breathed in the smell of his hair. He squeezed her hand, stood up, and walked away, back to the car.

  It was nearly an exquisitely tragic moment except that as he got to the embankment, he tripped, one foot sliding clumsily out behind him.

  Well, exquisitely tragic moments weren't really her thing. Farce. That was more her style.

  Cat applauded. "Au revoir! You big klutz!"

  Without turning around, he gave her an ironic thumbs-up signal and kept walking to the car.

  CHAPTER 26

  At around 9 P.M. the night before Cat met Dan in the park, while Nana Kettle was eating a little snack of grilled cheese on toast, with a nice cup of tea and watching her favorite recorded episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a brick came smashing through a glass pane on her back door and landed with a thud on the floor.

  Nana heard a strange noise and naturally assumed it was Pop's bloody dog. She enjoyed being cross with the dog and immediately put the video on pause.

  "What have you done this time, you silly, no-good animal?" she called out querulously, as if for Pop's benefit. Yelling at the dog made her feel like Les was still alive, working away on some project in the back room. She could almost hear him calling back, "I'll see to it, love! You stay where you are."

  It u
sed to drive her mad the way Les spoiled that damned dog.

  She was on her feet, at the TV room door, muttering crossly to herself, when she heard footsteps.

  "Who's that?" she called out, annoyed rather than frightened, as she walked down the hallway. Frank and her granddaughters all had keys. But, really, it was polite to knock.

  That's when a strange person pounded toward her, somebody she didn't know, in her own house, and a tremendous wave of fear shot vertically through her body, from the soles of her feet and into her mouth.

  He came straight for her, without hesitating, as if he'd been expecting her, and punched her in the face.

  She fell. Her shoulder banged painfully against the wall.

  For a few seconds, her world turned misty red. Her eyes blurred with tears. She could feel blood coming out of her nose.

  In the TV room, the video came back on. "What do you want to do? Have a go or take the dough?" Eddie McGuire asked the contestant.

  She could hear the boy in her bedroom, pulling out drawers, touching her things.

  I bet you think I'm one of those stupid old biddies who keeps all her money under the bed, she thought to herself. Well, too bad it's all safe and sound in the Commonwealth Bank, matey!

  Later, she found that he took her purse, her best jewelry, her jar of two-dollar coins for the slots, and a crisp $10 bill she had ready on the dining room table to include in Kara's birthday card. He also took the brand-new camera that she'd won in a late night talk-back radio competition for knowing how much the colt was worth in The Man from Snowy River.

  He spent twenty minutes walking through her house, picking and choosing what he liked, as if he were bloody shopping.

  Then he walked straight out the front door, without looking at her.

  The dog appeared from wherever he'd been skulking and for a full five minutes, did nothing but run around and around in distressed circles, before stopping to lick the side of her face, panting and whimpering.

  She tried to get up, but her arm wouldn't work.

  She tried again and gave up. "Les," said Nana into the carpet.

  Around ten o'clock the next day, Bev told her husband, Ken, that it was a bit funny that Gwen Kettle hadn't been out to water her garden yet. She always watered her garden on a Saturday, and she hadn't mentioned that she was doing anything special this Saturday. Perhaps Gwen had a visitor? Although there were no strange cars out the front. What did Ken think?