Truly Madly Guilty(20)

chapter nine



The day of the barbeque

It was quiet. It was always especially quiet the moment directly after Vid left the room. It was like the moment after a band stopped playing when the silence roared in your ears. Tiffany could hear the tick of the clock. She never heard the clock ticking when Vid was in the room.

Tiffany sat at the kitchen table catching up on email on her laptop and eating Vegemite on toast. Vid had gone down the driveway to collect the paper, muttering about how he had to hunt for it each day in the garden and he was going to cancel the delivery.

‘Read it electronically like the rest of the world,’ Tiffany always told him, but although Vid was generally enthusiastic about trying new things, he was also extremely loyal, and his loyalty to certain habits and personal rituals, products and people was unshakeable.

‘Isn’t it quiet when Daddy leaves the room?’ Tiffany said to Dakota, who lay on her side on the long bay window seat, curled up like a cat in a rectangle of quivering morning sunlight. Barney, their miniature schnauzer, lay next to Dakota, his nose and paws resting on Dakota’s arm, his eyes shut so all you could see were his big, bushy eyebrows. Barney was a dog who napped like a cat.

Dakota was reading, of course. She was always reading, disappearing into different worlds where Tiffany couldn’t follow. Well, she could follow, if she could be bothered to pick up a book, but reading made Tiffany restless. Her legs started to twitch impatiently after one page. TV made her restless too, but at least she could fold laundry or pay bills while she watched. At Dakota’s age Tiffany never would have picked up a book for pleasure. She was into make-up and clothes. The other day Tiffany had offered to paint Dakota’s nails and Dakota had responded with a kind, vague: ‘Uh, maybe later, Mum.’ It was her karma for all the times her own sweet, domestic mother had suggested that Tiffany might like to help her bake something and Tiffany had apparently said, according to family folklore: ‘Will you pay me?’ ‘You were always so keen to be compensated,’ her mother said.

Well, time is money.

‘It’s quiet, isn’t it?’ said Tiffany when Dakota didn’t answer.

‘What?’ said Dakota.

‘You mean, pardon?’ said Tiffany.

There was a beat. ‘What?’ said Dakota again, and she turned a page.

Tiffany snorted.

She opened a new email. It was from Saint Anastasias, the super-posh private school that Dakota would be attending next year. Tiffany wouldn’t be able to follow her daughter into that new world either. Vid’s three daughters from his first marriage, Dakota’s three older stepsisters, had all attended Saint Anastasias, which wasn’t a great advertisement as far as Tiffany was concerned, but the school did have a stellar reputation (it freaking well ought to have for what it charged) and Vid had wanted to send Dakota from kindergarten. Tiffany thought that was ridiculous, when there was a great little public school just down the road. Year Five was the compromise.

There was to be an Information Morning in August. Two months away. It was ‘compulsory’ for all students and ‘both parents’ to attend. Compulsory. Tiffany felt her hackles rise at the email’s officious tone and quickly closed it. She wasn’t going to fit in at this place. She felt a real resistance to attending the Information Morning and even a certain level of nerves. As soon as she registered the feeling as fear she was disgusted with herself. Furious. She snapped the laptop shut, refusing to even think about it. It was Sunday. They had the day free. She had a huge week ahead of her.

‘Good book?’ she asked Dakota.

‘What?’ said Dakota. ‘I mean, pardon?’

Tiffany said, ‘I love you, Dakota.’

Long pause. ‘What?’

The front door banged. There was a mark on the wall from where Vid threw it open each time he came into the house as if he were making a grand return from an epic journey.

‘Where are you, women?’ he shouted.

‘Where you left us, you peanut!’ Tiffany called back.

‘I am not a peanut! Why do you keep calling me that? It doesn’t even make sense! Now listen to me, I have news!’ He came in swinging his rolled-up paper like a baton. He looked energised. ‘I just invited the neighbours over for a barbeque. Ran into Erika in the street.’

‘Vid, Vid, Vid.’ Tiffany rested her head on her hand. ‘Why would you do that?’

Erika and Oliver were nice enough but they were so freaking shy and serious. It was hard work. It was better to invite them over when other people were going to be there so you could pass them on when you got tired of all the seriousness.

‘You promised we’d have just one Sunday relaxing,’ she said.

She had such a busy week ahead of her: a property going to auction on Tuesday night, a fight with a local council at the Land and Environment Court on Wednesday, and a painter, a tiler and an electrician (well, Vid) were all waiting on her to make decisions. She needed a break.

‘What are you talking about? That’s what we’re doing! Relaxing on this beautiful day!’ protested Vid, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘What’s more relaxing than a barbeque? I’m going to call Drago. Organise a pig. Oh, and their friends are coming. Remember the cellist? Clementine. Clementine and her husband. What was his name?’

‘Sam,’ said Tiffany, perking up. She’d liked Sam. He had that short, broad-chested blond surfer boy look she used to go for before Vid, and he was funny and easygoing. They’d met them just the once when Erika and Oliver hosted Christmas drinks at their place last year. That had been such a strange night. Vid and Tiffany had never been to a drinks party like it. All these people standing about, talking so quietly, as if they were in a library or church. One woman was drinking a cup of tea.