“I don’t want to get into a phone conversation with him,” Georgie says. “He’ll ask really stupid questions and then we’ll get into an argument and I don’t want to be stressed.”
The phone beeps back.
“See,” she says, showing Tom the message. “Stupid question.”
It is a pretty stupid question, but Tom doesn’t give her the satisfaction of agreeing.
“I’m starting up the car,” Bill says, standing up.
“See?” she says again. “Starting up the car. Are we living in the mountains where it snows, Bill? Does the car need warming up? Or are we robbing a bank?”
Nanni Grace is pretty calm when she returns. “I think we should walk anyway. It’s only fifteen minutes and she’s been a bit of a blob these last couple of days.”
Deep down, Tom is really stressed. The women are not acting the way he thinks they should be acting.
“Bill, go outside and wait for Sam and warn him that Georgie doesn’t want to be stressed.”
“Why does everyone think that all of a sudden Sam’s going to act like he’s crazy?” Tom asks.
Outside, someone has their hand on the horn and doesn’t let up.
“Bill, go outside and tell Sam to get his hand off the horn,” Georgie says.
Tom thinks it’s a ridiculous idea that they walk. Apart from the fact that he will never get over the humiliation if she gives birth on Carillon Avenue in front of his ex-flatmates, and knowing Georgie, she’ll do that to spite him, he’s scared something’s going to go wrong and he just wants her in hospital as quick as possible.
It ends up a bit of a procession, like something out of those foreign movies where they have weddings or funerals tunneling through the town. Georgie leads the way with Nanni Grace and Tom and his father, and Sam and his kid and Bill follow.
“Baby’s coming,” he explains to Sam’s kid, in case no one’s told him.
“How?”
“Sam?” Tom asks. Because he knows that Sam will be pragmatic and sensible without using the word vagina.
“I told you already, Callum,” Sam mumbles. There’s a very stressed look on his face, too. The whole walking thing isn’t working for him either.
Tom looks down at the kid. “What did he tell you?”
“A gift from God.”
Tom can’t believe that Sam would use such terminology. He actually thought Sam was an atheist. Sam gives Tom one of those threatening looks that promises a universe of pain if he says anything other than that.
“How old are you?” Tom asks the kid.
“Six.”
Tom nods. “A gift from God delivered by the angels.”
Georgie gives orders over her shoulder. “Tom, call your mother and Anabel and tell them what’s happened. They’ll want to be kept updated. Sam, you call Lucia and Abe.” They cross at the lights at Missenden Road.
“What about Auntie Margie Finch?” Grace asks.
“Maybe when it’s born. You cover the family, Mum. Sam, have you called your mother? She’ll be hurt if Grace is there and she isn’t.”
She waves to one of her neighbors, who’s walking home.
“Having the baby,” she calls out to her.
It’s long. Longer than he imagines, and it makes him think the worst. It makes everyone think the worst — he can see it on their faces, especially Nanni Grace. They have to get used to not thinking the worst. It’s so long that there are discussions about who comes and goes and if someone should take Sam’s kid home to his own mother, but then everyone decides to stay except for Lucia, who has to get home to her kids. She nudges Tom and points discreetly to Nanni Grace and Tom goes and sits with her, because he can see her hands are trembling and she won’t let Bill hold them. He knows she won’t slap Tom’s, so he takes hers in his. But then Sam’s there, hours later, with a bundle of blue hospital blanket in his hands and everyone’s crowded around him and he looks a bit shell-shocked, but he bobs down in front of his kid and shows him the baby. The kid looks at it and begins crying, because of all the attention. And then Nanni Grace is crying and it doesn’t look like happy crying either. She buckles and Tom’s dad catches her and they sit his nan down. Bill goes and gets a glass of water and Tom’s there in the midst of it all, clutching Nanni Grace’s hand because he wants to make it better. He wants to make his whole family better, but he knows he can’t.
“I want to be with my Georgie,” Nanni Grace is crying. She hasn’t even looked at the baby yet. Sam helps her up.
“And Georgie wants to be with you, Grace,” he says gently. “Can you take Callum’s hand?”
“I want to hold your hand,” the kid says, and Sam takes his son’s hand.
And it’s like no one knows how to celebrate just yet.
“What’s his name?” Dominic asks.
Sam looks down at the baby for a moment.
“Bill,” he says huskily, looking up at them all. “Bill Finch Thompson.”
When she wakes up, the first thing she sees is the humidicrib. Then she sees Sam sleeping in the armchair, holding Callum. They had both decided that his son shouldn’t miss out on any of the excitement. And for the life of her, Georgie can’t imagine wanting to wake up to more than this. Granted, she’ll want more than this during her day, but this is what she wants to wake up to.
As if he senses her, Sam opens his eyes, a half smile on his face and then a bit of pain as he tries to stretch without waking up Callum.
“Ask her for joint custody,” Georgie says, and it takes a moment of misreading his expression for her to understand that he’s actually misreading her. “I want you to move back in. We need to bring up these boys together. I need happiness. I deserve it. No more than anyone else, but I’m no good for this baby if I’m all self-sacrifice and restraint, and nor are you.”
She stops speaking, knowing the power she possesses in this moment. Wasn’t that what it was all about? Who grabs the power and holds on to it and uses it for the rest of their life? But Georgie has never seen power on someone’s face look beautiful. She’s seen it look smug and twisted, with a squint of the eyes, a haughtiness and arrogance, but never beautiful. This kid deserves beauty. Both these boys do.
“I actually wouldn’t mind getting married,” she says. “What are your thoughts?”
He doesn’t speak and when she looks up at him again, she can see Sam’s crying.
Francesca drops Tom off on Devonshire Street at Central Station and he grabs the pack from the boot.
“You’ll get a fine,” he tells her. She has a total disregard for all street signs that begin with No.
“Try to enjoy yourself, no matter how sad it is.” She kisses his cheek, unemotional and practical. She even pats him on the back and gives him the thumbs-up.
“Cheers,” he says, and walks away, amazed at how effortless it all is.
At the bottom of the stairs, he turns to look up. She’s still there and he can’t help walking back up to her, because he thinks he’ll never be able to help himself when it comes to the girls. He holds her against him and they stay like that for a long while.
“No listening to the news every hour,” he says. She nods, and he feels her tears trapped against his neck. “And tell Justine that if she doesn’t ring the violinist, I will.”
He kisses her and wants to beg her and the others to never give up on him. Ever. But he gets a feeling that he would be preaching to the converted.
He’s lying on the couch at his grandma Agnes’s flat when his phone rings. He wonders when he will ever stop feeling excited at the word Finke appearing on his screen, or taramarie in his mailbox.
“Hey,” he says and he’s grinning. Like an idiot, he’s grinning.
They haven’t spoken since the e-mail exchange about the one-and-a-half-night stand and the mayhem in-between of baby Bill.
“Hey to you, too,” she says, and he can hear laughter in her voice. “Guess what? My dad is flying me to Sydney for a couple of days for the election. I’ll be in tomo
rrow, until Monday.”
The euphoria sails out of him and frustration sets in. More than frustration. Anger at the universe.
“I’m flying out to Hanoi tomorrow with my father and my grandfather,” he says flatly.
“What time?” she asks, the laughter beginning to leave her voice. “I’m not coming in until late in the afternoon. We might be able to see each other at the airport,” she adds.
“I’m in Brisbane, Tara. I’m with my mother and Anabel. My flight tomorrow connects with my father’s and Bill’s.”
“Okay,” she says quietly and now there’s nothing in her voice.
“Shit . . .”
“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s fine. I’ll be back in six weeks . . . after Christmas . . . and we’ll have a drink. . . . It’ll be cool. . . . I’ve got to go. . . . I’ve got to go, okay.”
And she hangs up on him. Just like that. Just when he wants to say a thousand other things, but she hasn’t let him. Tom’s had enough and he lies back, refusing to allow himself to dwell on whatever he’s done wrong in Tara Finke’s eyes. Again. He vows not to give it another moment’s thought. Not. One. Single. Moment’s. Thought.
“And I promise this is the last time I’m going to bring up this situation,” he says to his mother with frustration the next day. They’re at the indoor sport center in New Farm, where Anabel is filming a mini documentary about blood sport and focusing on an indoor netball team for over-thirty-fives.
“It’s not as if I chose to go overseas at this point. How did I become the bad guy here? I think I made her cry and I don’t know what I did.”
His mother is staring at him. There have been moments when her eyes have glazed over, but he just puts that down to her being tired and not the fact that he’s gone on about this Tara thing since he woke up this morning.
“You’re a bit clueless, aren’t you?” she says. “Which is strange, because Dominic was never clueless about women. He really knows how to read people.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s fantastic with people,” Tom says. “That’s why he’s living with his sister and his parents at the moment, at the age of almost forty-three. While his wife is in Brisbane and his daughter is covering a blood feud between the goal shooter and goalkeeper of this ridiculous sport.”
People are staring and he realizes that you don’t criticize netball in a room full of women wearing pleated sports skirts with whistles around their necks.
“Tom, think about it,” his mum says patiently. “She finds out she’s coming home for a couple of days and apart from seeing her parents, she knows she’s going to see you. She can’t think of anything she wants more, and then what happens? You’re not going to be there. She cried because she’s built up this moment and it’s gone. I’d be shattered. I used to hang out at Manning because I knew where Dom and his first-year law mates went when we were at Sydney Uni. I didn’t even care if I got nowhere close to him, as long as I saw him. If he wasn’t there, I’d go back to my room at the college, crying. Because I missed out on seeing him for one night! Could you imagine if I was overseas and my one window of opportunity to see him slipped through my fingers for the next few months because of circumstances beyond my control?”
“You think she was upset because she really, really wanted to see me?”
“Oh, Tom,” she sighs. “Am I going to be playing lawn bowls with your father and still be giving you advice about this girl?”
He doesn’t know what makes him happier. The idea of him knowing Tara forever or his parents playing lawn bowls together when they’re old.
Anabel approaches with a satisfied look on her face.
“The center just called the wing attack a . . . very rude word. Perfect television.”
She senses the tension.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
Anabel looks at him closely.
“Is this about a girl?”
“No,” he lies. “Yes.”
“Is it the psycho Tara Finke?”
“That’s a very rude thing to call her,” Tom reprimands. “Did you hear what she called Tara?” he asks his mother, outraged.
“It’s what you used to call her,” Anabel argues. “I used to think psycho was some Japanese name, like Seiko-Tara.”
His mother is laughing. “Look at that deadpan expression.”
“I like her,” Anabel says, making herself comfortable next to Tom. “Always have.”
“Who?” he asks, surprised. “The psycho Tara Finke?”
“See?” she says, pointing with exasperation. “He called her that!”
“Last night,” their mother explains to Anabel patiently, “Tom received a call from Tara saying she was flying into Sydney an hour before he’s flying out to Hanoi. So they are going to miss seeing each other because Tara will be gone by the time Tom returns. And they really want to see each other.”
He was very impressed by his mother’s ability to articulate it. In his head it had been a mess of What? Why? What did I do? Shit. Fuck. What the hell?
Anabel shrugs. “Then take an earlier flight today so you get to see her at the airport, stupid.”
He shakes his head. “How bloody disrespectful is generation zed?”
It’s not as if he hadn’t thought of taking an earlier flight. But he wants to be with his mother and Anabel too. He shakes his head. “I came to see both of you. To spend time with my womenfolk because I miss you like hell.”
They’re both smiling and he knows he has said and done the right thing and that’s enough for him. Anabel reaches over and hugs him. “You’re the best brother in the world, Tom.”
He’s amazed at how sentimental she’s become. As much as she loves him, she would never have said anything that cheesy in the old days. When she pulls away from the hug, she slaps him on the cheek.
“Are you over it now?” she snaps. “Let’s go!” she says, grabbing their mother’s keys out of her hands. “I’m sick and tired of you people living interstate and overseas from people you want to be with. You’re ruining my life! All of you!”
They drive back home to grab his backpack and as he bends and kisses his grandma Agnes, she scrunches a one-hundred-dollar bill in his hand. “Buy yourself some chocolates, Tom.”
It’s what she’d say to him as a kid with a twenty-cent coin.
“I’d prefer you spend it on getting your hair set, Nan,” he says. “You look like a babe when you get it done.”
“Don’t you worry, Tom. I’ve always got money put away to get my hair set.”
At the airport, the three of them hold on to each other the whole time it takes for everyone to board the plane.
“Have I ever begged you for anything?” he asks his mum quietly.
She won’t look at him.
“I’m begging you,” he says. “Please don’t let Dad and me get off that plane in Sydney with you not there.”
Anabel walks him all the way up to where he’s the last to board.
“I’m counting on you, 99. If she tries to send you down to Sydney alone, chuck a tanty.”
“Agnes of God says tantrums are my forte,” she says proudly before throwing herself at him for a hug. Then she’s crying and he can’t handle this much crying and he’s forced to do what he vowed he never would.
“Luca Spinelli said to say hi.”
She recovers in an instant, fixing her hair as if Luca Spinelli has materialized miraculously.
“What were his exact words?”
“Say hi to your sister. . . . No, no, no . . . say hi to Anabel.”
And the memory of the expression on her face has him grinning all the way back to Sydney.
His plan was never to run through the airport like one of those scenes in the movies. Too much anticipation, leaving things open for too much disappointment. He could already imagine what would happen. Tara would look at him and say, “Oh, hi, Tom,” as if they just met up in the school corridor at lunchtime. But she’s at one terminal and he’s a
t another and then he has to get to the International one, so he starts running like a stress head, almost knocking people out of the way. He figures she’s coming from Darwin and finds the right gate lounge, then looks around to see where Justine and Francesca and Tara’s parents are. But they’re nowhere to be seen and when he turns around, Tara’s standing there in front of him, with a backpack on.
“Oh, hi, Tara,” he said nice and matter-of-fact, like they had just bumped into each other at Coles in Norton Plaza.
She stares at him with her airplane hair that looks slightly greasy and her eyes bloodshot from the cabin pressure. She’s darker and he wants to say, “Nice tan,” but remembers that she hasn’t been on holidays. He gives her a quick hug, patting her on the back, and for the whole time she looks at him, her face is on the brink of . . . something he can’t put a finger on. Say something. One of us, say something. Just because you can talk to a girl all night about everything doesn’t mean she’s going to feel the same. It’s like she’s lost her voice.
“Want me to stick around here while the others turn up?” He points to the ground when he says here. He does a whole lot of pointing and can’t understand why. He keeps his face neutral and she’s just staring at him with that look of . . . is it disappointment?
He’s miserable. There’s no coming back from this moment and they’re just staring at each other, not starry-eyed or with tears welling up in their eyes. She has that “What is your problem?” look of hurt on her face. He hasn’t a clue how to fix this. How many great love stories in history go down the gurgler because the right thing wasn’t said at the right time?
He stops pointing and holds up his hand as a good-bye. See you later. Have a good life. Not that they’ll never see each other again, because they will. Always. But she’ll belong to someone else and so will he, and the girl he’ll end up with won’t like his friends, for some reason. And one day he’ll think that balancing them both is too much work and they’ll all start seeing each other every couple of weeks, instead of every day, and it makes him feel like shit to think that. Like his insides are in revolt. Tara looks like she’s about to cry, shaking her head as if to say, “Thomas, what am I going to do with you?” But that’s all he needs. The hope that she wants him to do something. So he talks.