Читать книгу Surviving Hal - Penny Flanagan - Страница 12

6.

From a parent’s perspective, Andy was a pleasing prospect. He had a good job, he didn’t say ‘youse’ and he didn’t wear thongs to dinner. But my mother has a sixth sense for people’s peccadillos.

“He’s very handsome,” she said to me later, in a way that spoke of caution. My mother didn’t trust ‘handsome’. I think it was the overlapping thing she was picking up on.

Around that time my parents were three years into living without an oven, because the one in the kitchen was broken and my father had grand plans to redesign the whole house around a new one. While it’s true that if you live with an architect you will live in your dream home, it is often a long wait. Perfectionism and grand visions go hand in hand with indecision and procrastination.

Luckily, Dad had no less than three barbecues to choose from and was currently firing up his small Weber (with retro-fitted rotisserie) out the back. He also had a full five-burner Beefeater on the front balcony plus a flat top built-in barbecue hotplate in the courtyard. The last one had come with the house five years ago and he couldn’t bear to part with it.

“It’s handy for a few dozen sausages,” he’d say, when Mum would suggest moving it on.

The house was a difficult puzzle for an architect to fix. A Federation house on a steep block with the water view out the front and a terraced garden at the back. It had been ‘fixed up’ by its previous owners in the style of a faux Spanish hacienda, complete with stucco on the walls, scotia cornices and kitschy archways with exposed brick keystones between the dining and living rooms. In other words, an architect’s visual living nightmare. (My EYES!)

Along with the problem of the faux Spanish melange, the layout was problematic. The balcony with the modest view of Little Manly beach was out the front with the kitchen marooned at the back. The living and dining were merely the incidental space between the balcony—where everyone wanted to be—and kitchen—the other place everyone always wanted to be. The dilemma was how to join one to the other without sacrificing access to the garden or the view. Dad’s plan was to completely rebuild, but how much of the original structure to retain?

“Double brick,” he’d say to me, slapping the walls with awe. “You’d be crazy to get rid of it.”

I agreed, although I also felt Mum’s pain. She was pretty much ready to hire a wrecking ball and drive it up to the house herself with the ball swinging. Decision made.

As is the way of Australian gatherings, Andy went straight out to the barbecue, and stood by it as at an altar with his bottle of beer rested just at his hip. That way he and Dad could stare at the chicken slowly turning and not make eye contact as they talked. I sat at the kitchen bench and ate all the chips while Mum made a salad.

“When are you going up north?” she asked.

“Week after next.”

“And you’re staying with Andy’s mum?”

“Yes.”

Mum made a face. My mother hates house guests. We are not a bunking-in kind of family.

“First time meeting her? That’ll be . . . interesting,” she said, making another of her judgemental faces.

“It’s a big house.”

“And the father, where’s he?”

“He lives in Sydney.”

“What’s he like?”

“Completely mental.” Mum wasn’t expecting that. She guffawed and held her hand to her chest.

“Oh Nell! What do you mean?” She was scandalised but loving it.

“I met him over lunch about a month ago.”

“What did he do?”

“Are you talking about my father?” Andy had re-entered the kitchen for more beers. He came and stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders.

“I was just telling Mum about our lunch with Hal.”

“Quite appalling,” Andy said. “Nell handled it very well.”

He kissed me on the cheek.

“Why?” Mum was loving this. “What did he do?”

“Drank too much,” Andy said, effectively shutting down any further discussion of it. Mum looked at me. She knew there was more. Then Dad started barking orders from the barbecue.

“Plate! Lynn!” He was shouting; like something was on fire and he needed to put it out. To be clear, nothing was on fire. He was just full of the urgent righteousness of he who is barbecuing.

Mum looked at me, raised her eyebrows.

“Lynn! I need a plate!” he shouted again.

“Alright!” Mum called back to him, then just to us. “No need to shout.” She handed Andy a clean plate with a sardonic flourish. “Take that out to Lord of the Barbecue, would you?”

“It’s very important work, barbecuing,” Andy said, walking out to deliver the plate. “I don’t think you womenfolk understand.”

Mum laughed. Then as soon as he was gone she asked, “Seriously, what did his father do?”

She knew there was something Andy didn’t want her to know.