Neve says you can’t call women “bossy” anymore, even though she’s met his sisters.
Right now it’s seven on a Friday night and he’s at his desk getting some hours in before the family goes out to see a movie.
Budget your time.
He should skip the movie. He could spend that time more wisely. He’ll just be sitting in a theater staring at a big screen; it’s not like he’ll be interacting with his family during the movie.
“You ready to leave soon?” asks Neve, putting her head around their study door.
“Ah,” begins Leo.
“Leo.” She comes into the room. “Bridie is looking forward to this.”
“Bridie is fine now,” says Leo.
The consequence of Bridie overhearing Leo tell Neve about the prediction he would die in a workplace accident had been close to two weeks of incredibly stressful parenting: insomnia, stomachaches, tears. Bridie constantly came to them with new evidence she’d found online about psychics who had accurately predicted deaths as well as all the ways that civil engineers could and did die in workplace accidents. (Kind of sobering, to be frank.) She wanted to know if Leo wore nonslip shoes.
“Don’t shut her down,” Neve said, whenever Leo interrupted to tell Bridie there was nothing to worry about, he wouldn’t slip, most days he’s just working at his computer anyway! “Just let her work through it. By the way, do you wear nonslip shoes when you’re on-site?”
Thankfully Oli was not in the least concerned, coolly proclaiming the lady to be “a scammer,” the implication being that Oli wouldn’t have fallen for it.
Just when Leo and Neve were thinking they might have to get professional help for Bridie, she snapped out of it, losing interest like it was a fashion fad. She seemed to forget all about it. Didn’t care about her dad anymore? “Stop that,” said Neve.
Bridie’s new obsession became her forthcoming math exam, which she was convinced she would fail (she did fail) and they’d all been swept up once more in the rapid-moving current of family life: school, work, weekend sports, bills, housework and homework and finding Bridie a patient math tutor.
Since then, Leo has been too busy to give much thought to the prediction, although perhaps he thinks about safety more than he normally would when he visits the site of the city underground railway station and shopping complex that has filled his days and his dreams for the last two years. One of the most significant civil engineering projects awarded in the state this year! Exciting. Also, stressful. He needs to be on-site, and the crews complain if he isn’t there often enough, but Lilith says he should aim to be at his desk at least six hours a day, so that’s another time-management conundrum he hasn’t quite solved and none of the apps she recommends have the answer.
Neve leans against the wall next to his desk, arms crossed. “Do you want to know the most common deathbed regret for men? According to this palliative-care nurse?”
“Not especially.”
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” She says it triumphantly, as if she has just proved a point and he will now leap up from his desk and stop working so hard.
Leo says, “Those dying men forget they needed to work and that’s the reason they now have the money to pay for a nurse to listen to them bang on about their regrets. They’re also forgetting they wanted to work. They can’t actually remember the person they used to be.”
Neve considers this. One of the things he has always loved about her is that she will always stop and consider an opposing view.
She says, “Maybe you’re right.”
“Thank you,” says Leo. His eyes return to his computer screen.
“But, Leo,” she says, “you don’t want to miss seeing your children grow up.”
Well, of course he doesn’t want to miss seeing his children grow up. He’s not! He’s taking Oli to soccer tomorrow. He helped Bridie with her math homework tonight, which was extremely painful. What the hell is she talking about?
Sometimes he feels like he’s one of those stretchy rubber-man toys and his boss has one arm and his wife has the other arm and every day they pull in different directions, demanding more time, more time, more time.
“Okay, fine, I’ll come to the movie,” he says, but he doesn’t stand up.
“It’s fine.” Neve sighs. “I don’t want you sitting there fretting over work all through the movie.”
He rolls his chair closer, puts his arm around her waist, and looks up at her. “I’ll come next time.”
“Do you want to know another top five deathbed regret?” asks Neve as he drops his arm and scoots back to his desk.
“What is it?” says Leo, although he doesn’t care, his hands are back on his keyboard, ready to do more in less time, to prioritize, to group tasks based on importance, to focus on what’s important, not just urgent, except everything is both important and urgent.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.”
He grunts. Another point made. Another point ignored.
Chapter 46
When you imagine the life story of a fortune teller’s daughter, you probably imagine red satin drapes and flickering candles, colored smoke and crystal balls.
Think this instead: a white, weatherboard, two-bedroom house with red terra-cotta roof tiles on a quarter-acre block, a kitchen wallpapered with vertical rows of fat bunches of purple grapes, a tiny mint-green bathroom, a backyard with a mandarin tree and a mulberry tree, a vegetable garden, a shed for the chickens, and a shed for Dad.
Think freckled noses and screaming cicadas, fishing rods and bubbling creeks, the nose-tickling fragrance of eucalyptus and freshly mown grass, an endless expanse of hopeful blue sky.
Think suburban Sydney in the 1950s.
—
My parents met in 1946, right after the war, at a New Year’s Eve dance hosted by the Air Force Association. My mother kept the ticket, which I still have, faded and precious. It says: Dancing 8:30-1:30, Liquor permitted in hall, Novelties for all, Confetti battle. Admission 10/6 Single.
The dance was held at The Cab, which was what everyone called the Pacific Cabaret in Hornsby: an elegant, white, art deco–style building, designed so that when you walked inside it felt like you were stepping on board a cruise ship. The light fittings resembled ships’ bows. Cutout palm trees decorated the walls. The dance floor, made of tallowwood, was considered the best in Sydney.
The Cab became a roller skating rink in the 1970s.
