Make or Break

‘Oh . . .’ Mum groaned. ‘Oh, it’s awful. Oooh nooo. Oh dear.’

‘Mum, shush, you’re hurting my brain innards,’ I whispered.

‘Oh, oh, oooooooh . . .’

‘Stop. Please stop,’ I croaked. ‘I have a hangover.’

‘Cannabis doesn’t give you a hangover,’ she rasped. ‘Oh, but I have one. Oh what is it? It’s terrible.’

I tried to sit up. Mum and I had slept on Annabelle’s pullout sofa bed and as I moved I found Wotsits in my armpit.

‘Well, what does it give you then?’ I said, tossing the limp Wotsits onto the coffee table, which had been shoved to the side of the room.

‘A low, dear. You’ve been high so now you have a low.’

I stopped moving, having made it only halfway to sitting. ‘A low? Well, that’s not great,’ I said, feeling resigned to my fate. I located and flicked away another couple of Wotsits. ‘I was already pretty low . . .’

‘Oh, oh no, I can’t sit up. Help me, please Plum?’

I tried to pull her up to the half-sitting pose I was in but only succeeded in shunting myself back down. We grappled with the blankets and pillows and each other and finally, amid groans, grunts and Wotsits, achieved sitting status.

‘Oh, I really feel awful,’ Mum said, touching a feeble hand to her forehead. ‘It must be the E-numbers.’

‘Now I know what it’s like to be a drug addict.’

‘Oh, the rubbish people eat! How do they hold down jobs feeling like this?’

‘I need the next high to stop me feeling like this.’

‘I wonder if there’s a way to purge it all from my system . . .’

‘But actually, because I know the low comes after the high, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just ride out the current low and get back to normal, humdrum, everyday, middle-of-the-road averageness so you never have to feel this low again.’

Mum looked at me with bleary eyes.

‘I’ve just talked myself out of normal averageness. I can totally see the benefits of being high now.’

‘Are you quite finished?’ Mum said.

I nodded.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now, do you think if I made myself vomit I’d feel better?’

Hunter and Katie hurtled into the living room, dressed, fresh-faced and bouncy, with the health and vitality of those who have not been up all night getting stoned and rolling in Wotsits.

‘I taught Katie a song!’ Hunter said, helping his grinning little sister up on the sofa bed. ‘Katie?’ he said. ‘Let’s show Grandma and Aunty Jess, OK?!’

Katie clapped her hands and together they sang and signed ‘The Rainbow Connection’. Katie’s words were slightly garbled but the tune and her sign language were spot on. She watched her older brother with adoration. Annabelle walked in, also dressed and fresh, and stood at the end of the sofa bed mouthing the words. Mum, her huge-framed glasses on wonky, signed along with them, her eyes moist with pride. As they sang and signed the last words Mum gave Katie a huge squeezy hug, I got a kiss sandwich, Hunter started leaping across the sofa bed pretending to be Hulk and my thoughts went to Jimmy singing that same song on Oscar the Couch, the rain battering the sand below. Oh to be back in that simpler time when my only worry was Pete cheating on me with Giselle, and whether or not Jimmy had condoms.

‘It’s nearly time to go,’ Annabelle said to the kids, signing for Katie’s benefit. ‘Get your bags, OK?’

Hunter and Katie leapt off the bed and ran out of the room squealing.

‘Where are they going?’ Mum asked.

Before Annabelle could answer, Marcus walked into the room looking formal in his woollen vest, slacks, his blondish hair combed and his face newly shaved.

‘Did you stay the night?’ I said, pulling the covers up to my unsupported chest and trying to hide my horrified judgement.

Marcus went to answer but Mum, also tugging at the jumbled covers, interrupted.

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s appropriate. It’s too soon for Annabelle.’ She pursed her parched lips, the bunched-up covers pulled tight under her chin and her wrinkled feet sticking out the other end.

‘Marcus has been staying over for the past six months,’ Annabelle said airily, while handing Marcus Katie’s portable respirator and a spare pair of bendy glasses. ‘I’m thirty-three and allowed to have sex without getting your approval first.’

Mum’s mouth dropped open and she looked awkwardly from Marcus, bristling with discomfort, to Annabelle, serene and resolute. ‘Well, I . . .’

‘But no, he didn’t stay the night, seeing as you asked. He came over early because he’s taking Hunter and Katie out for breakfast.’

‘But he doesn’t know about Katie’s allergies!’ Mum said.

‘He does,’ Annabelle said.

‘I do,’ Marcus said comfortingly.

‘But what if Hunter runs away?’

‘You won’t, will you?’ Marcus said, giving Hunter, who’d arrived back in the room with his backpack on, an ‘all right champ’ chuck under the chin.

‘Nah-uh!’ Hunter said, standing to attention, keen to have Marcus’s approval.

Annabelle saw the kids and Marcus off with Mum chipping in instructions and ultimatums should anything happen to them, then Mum showered while Annabelle pottered about and I stayed on the sofa bed googling the effect of an influx of E-numbers on a mono-mealing, recently cleansed, my-body-is-a-temple system. Once dressed (Mum), with the flat tidied (Annabelle), and with 86 per cent of the Wotsits removed from the sofa bed and a fear that Mum might collapse at any moment from toxin-related epilepsy (me), we sat in the living room in silence. I was sick to my stomach about the imminent family meeting.

Just before ten a car pulled up outside and moments later Dad came into the living room walking with the weight of his past decisions.

He stood in the doorway, his bags in his hands, looking like he hadn’t slept in days. Where usually we would have been rushing to exchanges hugs and kisses and stories, there was nothing except uncertainty. Nobody moved because we didn’t know how to be with each other.

Eventually, after what felt like an age, Annabelle got up, crossed the room and gave Dad a peck on the cheek. He looked at her with astonished gratitude.

‘Coffee?’ she said.

‘That would be lovely, Belle-belle,’ he said, touching her arm affectionately.

‘I’ll help,’ I said, trying to get out of the bed, but feeling woozy and flopping back down.

‘It’s OK.’ Annabelle waved away my offer and padded into the hall.

I stared after her. I wanted to be with my sister. I didn’t want to be left in the room with Mum and Dad. But I also didn’t trust that my ‘coming down’ legs could hold me.

After a quick glance in my direction, Mum got up and greeted Dad too. I watched from the sofa bed with a strange mix of emotions as they murmured to each other. I could only see Dad’s face; Mum had her back to me, and his expression showed nothing but love for my mother. As usual. But sorrow was at the edges – and that was new. Mum led Dad to one of the armchairs and she sat in the one beside him. They were close enough to hold hands, and when in those chairs in happier, more innocent times, that was what they usually did. By the way they rested their hands in their laps, or stiffly on the arm of the chair, I could tell that to refrain felt unnatural for them.

Dad looked across at me. ‘Plum . . .?’ He was the same man with the same voice and the same clothes and the same aftershave. But he was also completely different.

I looked back at him, fighting the urge to burst into confused, angry tears and rush to him for comfort.

‘I’m . . .’ he began. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘About the lying, or for being found out about the lying?’ I said, shocking myself by how bitter I sounded.

‘Jess,’ Mum cautioned.

Dad patted her hand but kept his sad eyes with the crinkles round the edges that showed he smiled often on me. ‘It’s OK, Greta, love. She’s hurting.’ He focused on me. ‘I’m sorry about both. The lies I’ve told and the way you found out. I—’

‘Let’s just wait for Annabelle to come back,’ I said, not wanting to hear anything without her beside me.

Dad nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said and the room became still.

Mum played with her pendant, while Dad studied me with his kind hazel eyes. Annabelle came back in and handed out coffees for everyone except Mum, who wrapped her withered hands gratefully around a mug of pungent mushroom tea. Because the sofa bed was still out and my Wotsits and I were still in it, Annabelle had nowhere to sit but the floor or in bed with me. She chose the bed, and with Dad and Mum on the other side in armchairs, we looked a weird little meeting indeed.

‘So, let’s have it then,’ I said once Annabelle had curled herself into a tiny spot beside me. ‘You met Mum in high school, you cheated on Mum in South Africa, you cheated on your wife with Mum, and then it’s been cheat, cheat, cheat ever since, with a handful of kids thrown in.’

Dad reddened.

‘Jess, what’s got into you?!’ Mum said. ‘He’s still your father and you will show some respect, my goodness!’

‘Cannabis, Mum,’ I said. ‘Cannabis has got into me.’ I gave her a hard stare. ‘Unsolicited cannabis.’

She muttered a few things in German, which I think translated to me being unstable. Dad appeared to be both confused and alarmed and Annabelle observed the banter impassively from behind her coffee cup.

Mum gave me a terse frown then patted Dad on the arm. ‘Dear, I think it’s best just to start.’

Dad sighed, rested his gaze on Annabelle then on me before turning to Mum, who nodded encouragement. ‘Let me paint you a picture—’

‘Will it be of vaginas?’ I said.

All three of them gave me a ‘you’re unhinged’ look.

‘Sorry. It’s the drugs,’ I said, shooting an accusatory look at Mum.

She let out a puff of frustrated air. ‘Oh Plum, will you rein in the crazy for just a couple of hours, please!’

Three sets of eyes waited for my response.

‘Go ahead,’ I said to my father without looking directly at him.

Dad, the pain of his forthcoming explanation weighty in the furrows of his face, began his tale.

It wasn’t too dissimilar from Mum’s, just from his point of view. They met in school, they made frequent trips to see each other while she attended university in Germany, they lived together in a flat in Angel and then Dad moved to South Africa and got busy with work. And marrying other women.

‘Your mother and I,’ Dad said with a look of desperation for us to understand. ‘We’d never fallen out of love. It was just distance. We didn’t have the ways to communicate like you do now. It made the world a huge place, and when I was in Africa there were only letters. Or a very expensive, poor-quality phone call with crossed lines and terrible delays. I don’t suppose it’s something you can imagine but it really was the dark continent back then. South Africa was my home. I got on with my life. I did what everybody does; I worked hard, I made friends. I fell in love.’

Mum flinched. As did I. As did Annabelle. It was good to know she was in there because up until then she’d been completely unresponsive and I was worried her past drug-taking had caused an emotional deficit.

‘I got married,’ Dad continued. ‘And bought a house. I had a daughter.’ He glanced at Mum, knowing his words were painful, then looked back at us for our reaction. But he hadn’t said anything that we didn’t already know from Mum and I found myself getting irritated.

‘What about us?’ I said, indicating Annabelle and myself with a flick of my index finger. ‘Why did you decide to bring children into all this?’

Mum and Dad had told me that Annabelle was such a difficult baby that they’d waited four years before trying again. But now I wondered if this was in fact true. Mum and Dad looked at each other.

‘I’d read about the pill being bad for you,’ Mum said, playing with her tiger’s eye pendant, her eyes on her lap. ‘So we moved on to . . . other methods. And they weren’t as . . . thorough.’ She looked up. ‘Annabelle, dear, you were an accident.’

Annabelle blinked. Dad’s mouth flapped and his hand rose in Mum’s direction as if to slow her progression but Mum barrelled right on.

‘And Jess dear, we always told you the reason you and Annabelle have such a big age gap was because Annabelle was a difficult baby but that’s not true. You were an accident too.’

Dad patted Mum’s hand. ‘What Mum means to say is that none of this was intentional. And accident or not, you are two of the most loved children on this planet.’

‘But we were both accidents?!’ I exclaimed.

Mum began to snivel. ‘Happy accidents.’

‘Wonderful accidents,’ Dad said, his eyes shining.

The room fell silent, save for Mum’s snuffles.

‘So what now, then?’ I said, after glancing at Annabelle, who seemed to have been shocked into a blank silence. ‘What do we do? We can’t just all continue this . . . this bullshit lie that we’re a normal family!’

Mum began to weep. Dad passed her his handkerchief and rested his hand on hers. She gripped it fiercely.

‘You’re right,’ Dad said, his voice breaking. ‘We let it go too far.’ He looked at Mum sobbing into her hanky. ‘And I’m afraid all I’ve done is hurt the people I love the most.’

I glowered at my father.

‘About six months ago, I realised I’d be retiring soon. And with my career coming to an end . . . so would the travelling between offices.’ Dad looked at us to see if we understood.

I didn’t know about Annabelle, because her face was still a picture of neutrality, but I understood nothing.

‘Which means,’ Dad continued, ‘basing myself in one place.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

I understood. He meant choosing where to live. Choosing a family.

‘And where will that be?’ I asked, my voice quiet.

I was keenly aware of Annabelle’s unmoving presence next to me, waiting for an answer. Mum and Dad looked at each other.

‘I don’t know,’ Dad said eventually.

That was unacceptable. Parents were supposed to know what to do. It was an unwritten part of the job description.

Annabelle, inert until then, had a sudden realisation. ‘Is that what you guys meant when you said it was time to live honestly and let everybody know the truth?’

I turned to her in disbelief. Had I heard something like that I would have done some investigation. I would have assumed there was a secret that needed outing, but not Annabelle.

Mum looked up from her hanky, snivelling. ‘When did you hear that?’

‘About six months ago, when Katie had that reaction and we were all at the hospital.’

‘Six months ago?!’ I cried. ‘When they were first discussing it?’

‘It seems so, yes.’ Annabelle was unfazed. ‘That’s when Mum started crying a lot and signing up for retreats and being weird.’

‘I was not being weird!’ Mum said, insulted to her twofaced core.

‘Well, that’s just great!’ I said. ‘You heard them talking about revealing some big secret and you didn’t click that it might be in any way significant?! If you’d told me what you’d heard, this could all have been over months ago!’

Mum, Dad and Annabelle looked at each other.

‘What would that have achieved that is different to finding out now?’ Mum said, her expression curious.

‘Well.’ I scrambled for a solid reason. ‘We could have found out in a better way, you know, with a therapist present or something. I dunno . . . We wouldn’t have organised this big expensive party that we now have to cancel.’

Mum and Dad looked at each other.

‘Oh no, the party will still go ahead, right Teddy?’ Mum said.

‘Yes, we should still have the party,’ Dad nodded.

‘But it’s a lie!’ I said, incredulous. ‘Everything is a lie! You’ll be standing in front of your friends and family lying. And you want Annabelle and me to do it with you?’ I looked at Annabelle for backing but she had gone back to concentrated stillness.

‘Why shouldn’t we celebrate together?’ Mum said. ‘It’s still our birthdays. It’s still our anniversary.’

I scoffed at the word.

‘We’ve had forty years together,’ Dad said quietly. ‘Nothing, nothing can make that untrue.’ He looked at me, a note of determination in his voice. ‘We should have the party.’

I looked at Annabelle. Her gaze rested on our parents, assessing the pair of them. I turned back to Mum and Dad sitting side by side, holding hands like they always did at dinner tables and breakfast tables, train rides and car journeys. Side by side like a couple of ducks. How could that be a lie? They were a couple. We were a family. It was a lie and it wasn’t a lie. They loved each other. Without their explanation I’d already known it. Everyone who knew them knew it. My thoughts shot around my head like a room full of spooked budgies. And the fact that I couldn’t pin even one of them down made me feel confused and powerless. And here were Mum and Dad talking about having a party?! I was suddenly furious. I leapt to my feet and threw my coffee cup at the wall. It smashed and the dregs of my coffee splattered on a retro lamp Annabelle had re-covered herself. Everybody jumped up, shocked.

‘EVERYTHING IS ONE BIG LIE!’ I shouted.

‘Jess,’ Annabelle said, suddenly at my side.

Mum’s bony hands clung to Dad’s arm. With Annabelle and I standing beside the sofa bed and Mum and Dad standing opposite us, their eyes wide and fearful, we were a family divided.

Dad looked at me for a moment then his chest sank like he’d been wounded. ‘Jess, the love isn’t a lie.’ He squeezed Mum’s shoulders. ‘You can’t help who you love.’

It angered me further. How could they be so selfish to think this little arrangement wouldn’t affect anyone else? Couldn’t they keep their pants on? Or at least a condom on?

‘We’re not even a family any more!’

‘But Plum,’ Mum said with an imploring look, tears trickling down her face. ‘Did you ever feel unloved?’

I looked at them both, my eyes burning with fury. My answer was simple and easy. No, I hadn’t. I’d always felt very loved. And somehow that made it seem even more of a betrayal. Tears pricked my eyes. Hot angry tears.

‘How could you?’ I shook my head. ‘How could you?!’

I grabbed my bag, flung on my jacket and shoes, and, after throwing a look to Annabelle asking if she was OK and receiving a stoic nod in return, I flew out of the door.