Girl in Between Read online

  ‘I know,’ says Mum with a sigh. ‘It’s taken a lot out of me, this book.’

  ‘And hello to you both!’ I declare jauntily, stepping onto the back verandah.

  ‘And hello to you!’ cries Mum brightly, making me think she should definitely audition for the next intake at NIDA.

  ‘I can’t see that you both have much to discuss about me anymore!’ I say with exaggerated cheeriness.

  They remain deathly silent. ‘Do you?’ I ask, hesitant.

  ‘So,’ says Mum ignoring me, ‘when do you start with Matchstick Productions?’

  ‘Oh, Rosie!’ I say. ‘You stitched me up!’

  ‘What?’ Rosie asks.

  ‘Matchstick Productions produces matchsticks!’ I exclaim.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t!’ says Mum, starting to laugh.

  ‘I must have looked like the biggest joke in town rattling off my CV to the poor woman there.’

  They’re both giggling now. And I can’t help but be pleased to see Mum looking happy.

  ‘You’re the pits, Rosie!’ I say, and though she claims she genuinely thought it was a media production company, she’s laughing so much she’s incoherent.

  I sit down opposite them and am laughing too when I hear the familiar sound of Helen’s VW backing out of the driveway. Suddenly, my jovial air dissipates.

  It’s been three days since I last saw Oscar, although it feels more like three weeks. I’m determined not to contact him, although every second moment I have to fight the urge to send a text before stopping myself, because there’s no point getting in touch when he and Kate are probably out shopping for sheets. And besides, what would I write? G’day! Lots of love from your girl up north!

  ‘Have you heard from Oscar, love?’ asks Mum in a forced casual voice, her timing, as always, uncanny.

  ‘No, Mum.’

  ‘I had a chat with Helen when I was getting the mail this morning,’ says Mum. ‘She was telling me how busy Oscar’s been negotiating new Bev’s Buffet franchises in Sydney. She doesn’t think he’ll be up here for a few months now. And did you know Ben’s just left on some big walk through France and Spain?’

  ‘Oh yeah, he did mention he was going soon,’ I reply, looking at the pavers to avoid catching Rosie’s eye. ‘Where’s Glenda?’ I ask, changing the subject.

  ‘She was here earlier. She’s probably snuck onto your bed.’

  As Mum predicted, Glenda is sprawled on my mattress, her little white head on my pillow. The sight of her fills me with joy and I lie down on the bed and shamelessly spoon her.

  ‘If you were the Bachelor, you’d choose to end up with me,’ I say, kissing the fur between her ears. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  I must have fallen asleep, because I startle awake at the sound of a brisk knock on my bedroom door to find the room completely dark and Glenda suddenly alert.

  I look up to see Dad standing in my doorway.

  ‘I know you don’t care, but I thought you should hear it from me first,’ he says. ‘Tiffany Bloxsom just won a Logie.’

  As I tighten my grip on Glenda’s chest Dad sighs heavily, then leaves.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say to Glenda. ‘You can be assured I would choose you if I was the Bachelorette.’

  ‘Mate,’ says Rosie, walking into my room, ‘are you talking to your kelpie?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘Move over,’ she says, shutting my door and lying beside me and Glenda. ‘I know what’s going through your head, Luce, but you don’t need a Logie to be bloody awesome. And you weren’t enjoying Melbourne regardless of Jeremy.’

  I’m surprised by how totally unfazed I am at the mention of Jeremy, then my heart sinks as I think of Oscar.

  ‘Fuck him,’ says Rosie, reading my mind.

  ‘Well, I’d—’

  ‘No, you’ve got to scratch him off the list. Ben mentioned Oscar’s still seeing Kate, so he’s made his choice and you’ve got to forget him. He’s gone. Never existed. We can’t even say his name anymore.’

  I look at her glumly. ‘I didn’t have much of a list, Rosie. I’ll scratch him off it but he was the only one there.’

  ‘Ah well,’ she says. ‘My list is looking pretty blank too.’

  ‘So you think that’s that then?’ I ask, knowing deep down that it is.

  ‘Yep,’ says Rosie, adamant.

  ‘Mmm. It’s probably for the best,’ I say. ‘He can’t just click his fingers and have me.’

  ‘But he’s not clicking his fingers, Luce.’

  ‘Sometimes I wish you weren’t so good at pointing out the obvious,’ I say, and we both laugh. ‘I just don’t see how things are going to work out for me anymore, Rosie. I’m not a hot twenty-three-year-old, I don’t have my semi-glamorous TV job in Melbourne, there’s only so many times I can pass Brian and Denise off as my flatmates. It’s over. I think I’m out.’

  ‘What happened to your Japanese Zen from the Buddhist monastery?’

  ‘I left it on Mount Archer,’ I say.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I still believe in you. Look at all you’ve achieved so far in your thirty-two years. You’ve tried. You’ve put yourself out there, and that’s more than a lot of people can say. You’ve lived with your heart on your sleeve, and that can get you in strife sometimes, but for you it’s the only way to live.’

  ‘If you were a guy,’ I say, smiling at her, ‘we would have been married at eighteen.’

  She laughs. ‘Yeah, and divorced at twenty-five.’

  ‘Rosie, are you really going to London?’

  ‘Yes, and I think you should come too, no matter what Denise and Brian say. You can keep writing your novel there and get a part-time job. I’ll get work as a dentist no problems, and I looked up the UK immigration website last night and even though we’re over thirty now you can still stay for up to six months on a tourist visa. Why don’t you come and see if you can find a job and then get sponsored?’

  I close my eyes and cross my arms.

  ‘If you run into trouble, I’ll put you on as my dental assistant and get them to pay you cash in hand,’ says Rosie, poking me in the ribs. ‘We had a ball together when we lived there, Luce.’

  ‘Do you think you can ever go back, though?’ I ask. ‘Can you ever relive that first-time experience? Those Bruce Springsteen “Glory Days”?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ she replies. ‘I mean, of course we’re older, but does that mean we have to live in Rocky and be content with nine-to-five jobs and Friday Night Football just because that’s what most of our friends are doing?’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ I say.

  ‘What frustrates me about you, Luce, is that you’ve got everything going for you, but you won’t allow yourself to see it,’ says Rosie, shifting on the bed. ‘Regardless of whether leaving Melbourne was the right or wrong move, don’t you think you’ve punished yourself enough for that?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I reply.

  ‘You have to trust that you can make a plan.’ She pauses before shaking her head at me. ‘Sometimes I just don’t think I get through to you.’

  ‘You are getting through to me,’ I reply.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be London, you know—you can write a novel anywhere. You could move to New York. You could go any place you made up your mind to. You could even go back to Melbourne or try some time in Sydney … But if you go to Sydney, don’t make it about Oscar. You’ve already made that mistake with Jeremy.’

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘Just don’t stay here,’ she says, walking to the door. ‘Don’t become institutionalised like that poor bugger in The Shawshank Redemption.’

  We hear Dad talking to himself in the hallway as he passes my bedroom. ‘The two of them are curled up in there with Glenda,’ he mutters. ‘It’s all terribly unhygienic.’

  Rosie raises her eyebrows at me. ‘Know what I’m saying?’

  Rosie’s comments about me not becoming institutionalised rattle me so much that straight after she leaves I ring To
m Baker, the manager of local commercial station TROPPO FM and my first-ever employer, to see if there’s any work going. I’m surprised when he asks if I can come in straight away and greets me with a big hug, telling me my timing is absolutely perfect, and can I help him cover a one-month holiday contract because the producer he’s organised has dropped out at the last minute. Next thing I know I’ve got a job starting on Monday producing Afternoons with Desley Delaney.

  Mum and Dad are over the moon when I tell them and Rosie is so thrilled she says she’s shouting me dinner at Ribs ’n’ Rumps on Saturday night. Ironically, I’m the most focused and productive I’ve ever been as I work on my novel for the rest of the week. On Sunday arvo, I lie on the couch, my feet on Rosie’s lap, coping with yet another hangover, and Mum is sitting on her favourite armchair looking the happiest I’ve seen her in months.

  ‘Why Cher, Mum?’ I ask, contemplating the framed picture of Cher above her in the lounge room.

  ‘She’s had a hard life, love,’ says Mum, glancing up at the wall. ‘I first read about it in New Idea. All that business with Sonny and his addictions, but look at her now: strong and confident and empowering women everywhere.’

  ‘What was that concert of hers like—the one you went to back in ’84?’ asks Rosie.

  ‘Oh, it was the most marvellous night!’ says Mum, her eyes shining with memories. ‘You know she came out on an elephant wearing suspenders?’

  ‘Who was wearing the suspenders?’ I ask. ‘Cher or the elephant?’

  ‘Cher, of course!’ she exclaims. ‘The elephant had enough bling on it to open a Cash Converters, though,’ she adds.

  ‘Are you looking forward to starting work tomorrow, Luce?’ says Dad as he walks into the room and settles into his recliner.

  ‘Not really, Dad,’ I reply, eliciting a snigger from Rosie.

  ‘Well, that’s not the attitude to have, is it?’ says Dad, snapping me back to reality.

  ‘Producing is not really what I want to be doing with my life, Dad.’

  ‘You’re not really in a position to be choosy, though, are you? Tell me, honestly, how much have you got in the bank?’

  ‘When the money comes through from the Japan articles I wrote I’ll have fifteen hundred. And I’m going to save all of my TROPPO money.’

  Rosie’s attempt to stifle her laughter is dismal. I give her a shove.

  ‘Right, that won’t last long,’ says Dad, reaching down and pulling up the lever to send his legs horizontal. ‘Lucy, you might think money’s a dirty word, but you have to have it to survive, to exist. Then you can do your writing, or drawing, or whatever you want to do.’

  ‘I don’t think money’s a dirty word, Dad, I’m just trying to be true to myself.’

  ‘I know, Lucy,’ says Mum, leaning forward in her chair. ‘I know you’re very talented and you’ll do well in whatever you put your mind to. It’s just the practicalities of living in the meantime.’ She bites her fingernails. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not hard at all,’ says Dad. ‘Denise, right now, Lucy needs this job. And who’s to say something permanent won’t come up? She can write that novel in her spare time.’

  Mum nods. ‘Oh, I agree, Brian.’

  I catch Rosie nodding too.

  ‘The thing is, Luce, you’ve got to have a purpose in life,’ says Dad. ‘For a good while there I was down and out, as you know.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t really, Dad,’ I point out.

  ‘No, we had no idea, Brian!’ cries Mum. ‘And no idea about Kakadu,’ she adds under her breath.

  ‘Were you down and out, Brian?’ asks Rosie, interested.

  ‘Yes I was, Rosie. But since I joined the Men’s Shed, I feel like I’ve got something to do. I’m being useful to the community.’

  ‘Yep, yep,’ I say, ‘but producing radio at TROPPO isn’t my purpose in life, Dad.’

  ‘Well, it might not be right now, but sometimes you just have to do things you’re not that passionate about. And if you want to study medicine or vet science or whatever, you can start looking into it while you’re earning a bit of dosh.’

  ‘Are you still thinking of medicine, darl?’ asks Mum nervously.

  ‘No. I don’t think I’m cut out to treat people’s piles and ingrown toenails. I think after this month at TROPPO I’ll do an ESL certificate and teach English in Vietnam.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Rosie slaps the couch. ‘I think that’s a great plan, Luce!’

  ‘And how much would that pay?’ Dad asks me wearily. ‘You want to be able to put a deposit down on a house, don’t you? And have a family?’

  I feel the cold hands of hopelessness and despair claw my shoulders, and I look at the floor.

  ‘Brian!’ says Mum, desperate to keep me on an even keel. ‘Lucy will have lots of joy in her life, just let her take one step at a time.’

  ‘Yeah, Brian, give her a bloody break,’ says Rosie.

  Mum considers me in earnest for a bit and then asks, ‘If someone could wave a magic wand and you could be anywhere, doing anything, what would that be?’

  Bless Mum for continuing to ask me these questions, when I know my answers bring her and Dad so much anguish. ‘I wouldn’t mind presenting a travel show about tea, and finishing my book.’

  ‘I could see how a show like that would have huge appeal,’ says Mum loyally, not betraying for one second that she’d dearly hoped I’d respond, ‘I’d love to do a DipEd and marry Matt Kennedy, the local solicitor who’s always fancied me, and have babies and put a deposit on that charming Queenslander in Agnes Street.’

  ‘Tea’s the second-biggest drink in the world apparently,’ continues Mum. ‘I read in the Women’s Weekly only last night about this mum and her daughter who set up fair trade tea fields in the Gold Coast hinterland. It was quite interesting actually.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind reading that article, Denise,’ says Rosie.

  ‘Look, Lucy’s flat out buying a cup of tea at the moment,’ says Dad. ‘Anyway, all this talk is too silly. What I’d like to know is whether anyone’s putting on the kettle?’

  ‘I will, Dad,’ I say, and clamber off the couch. I feel annoyed with myself for engaging in the same old frustrating discussions. My parents didn’t try to influence my decision to follow the creative path. When I finished high school they were supportive of me studying journalism, despite their lack of knowledge about it.

  They were thrilled when I started working at TROPPO FM—having listened to it all their lives—but as I continued to pursue gigs around the country, they became ever more perplexed about the workings of the media, baffled at the industry I’d chosen.

  Bewildered, they’d shake their heads when I regaled them with stories of jobs being advertised then withdrawn; of emails going unanswered; of losing sleep about daily deadlines. Over the past decade, I’d watched their view of my profession change from one of innocence to cynicism.

  ‘Oh well, you won’t hear back from them,’ Mum would reply after learning I’d messaged a former colleague on LinkedIn, and Dad would say, less tactfully, ‘Love, that boss of yours doesn’t even know you’re alive.’

  Mum’s bugbear was when movers and shakers would tell me I was talented and that I’d ‘crack it one day’ and then walk away. ‘But what good is it?’ Mum would cry. ‘We all know you’re talented. But what does it mean?’

  By that stage I didn’t know either.

  Understandably, when I persist with ambitions of presenting TV shows or writing books, Mum and Dad harbour grave concerns. Perhaps they’re just being more realistic than me, their drifting dreamer.

  As I hover above the boiling kettle, the steam condensing in what I hope to be anti-ageing droplets on my face, Mum and Rosie appear on either side of me.

  ‘By the way, have you checked your email, darl?’ asks Mum lightly.

  ‘Today?’ adds Rosie.

  ‘What are you two up to?’ I ask, looking from one to the other. ‘If you’ve tried to sign me up to eHarmony
again I’ll delete the account.’ I whip my mobile from my pocket and tap the email icon.

  We all peer at the screen as my inbox refreshes. There are a few emails from friends and LinkedIn notifications. I continue to scroll down, wondering what they’ve been plotting.

  ‘Lo and behold it appears I have an email from … the HomeHints catalogue?’ I look at the two of them suspiciously.

  Rosie grins back at me as the email loads.

  ‘Dear Lucy,’ I read aloud. ‘We are delighted to confirm that your application to become a casual copywriter for the

  HomeHints Direct catalogue has been successful. Please find attached a list of our upcoming products for the Spring issue. As outlined in the attached information document, 200-word descriptions are ideal. Please invoice us $100 per description. We look forward to working with you. Kind Regards, Marjorie Beaumont, HomeHints Direct.’

  I laugh as I glance up from my phone to see Rosie and Mum high-five.

  ‘We saw it advertised in the catalogue when you burst in on us,’ says Mum. ‘It was after you tried to draw out that non-existent money, and we weren’t to know you’d get fill-in work at TROPPO FM.’

  ‘Yeah, and we knew you’d think it was beneath you to apply, so I hacked into your Gmail account,’ says Rosie. ‘You really should change your password by the way, Glenda1234 is ridiculous. Anyway, I found your CV on the desktop, submitted it, and here we are.’

  Rosie and Mum grin at each other and then at me. I can’t help grinning too. Tiffany Bloxsom may have her Logie, but who cares? I’m the new casual copywriter for HomeHints and my two biggest fans in the world couldn’t be prouder.

  I throw my arms around them and we group hug in the kitchen.

  ‘God almighty!’ says Dad, walking in on us. ‘What does it take to get a cup of tea in this place?’

  ‘See if you can nab us a staff discount, hey?’ says Mum, her eyes glistening as we return to the lounge room.

  Over the next three weeks I discover that my dread about going back to TROPPO FM was largely unfounded. Being among the bustle and banter of work colleagues has been really positive. I’d forgotten the comfort to be found in the ritual of turning up at a happy workplace every morning and saying hello; of making small talk while making tea; of the little nod-and-smile exchange when passing people in the corridors. The regular pay cheque is also nice, and I’ve managed to write a few blurbs for the HomeHints catalogue in the evenings and on weekends, so my bank account balance is looking much healthier.