Eve thinks about the first bride who wore her dress. Did she get post-wedding blues? Did she know that multiple affordable expenses add up to one big unaffordable total? Probably. Probably everyone knows that. This photo print cost forty-five dollars and the frame cost sixty dollars. She’s been throwing her money around like a Kardashian.
What’s that phrase people keep using? “Cost of living crisis.” She didn’t think it applied to them. She thought it applied to people with mortgages and school fees.
She remembers overhearing her mother talking to Dom’s dad at their engagement party. “They’re like babes in the wood, those two.”
“I know,” said Dom’s dad sadly. “They don’t know what they don’t know.”
Well, why didn’t they just tell them what they didn’t know?
“You’re so, so stupid,” she says out loud to her own smiling stupid face in the photo.
“Who’s stupid?” says Dom from the bedroom door.
She drops the photo. “What are you doing back so early?”
“Last two clients canceled.”
“You’re kidding me,” says Eve. “That is unbelievable, those people are so—”
“Oh, well, I got Thai for lunch.” Dom lifts up the plastic bag looped around his wrist. “But it’s maybe got a bit cold, because, I need to tell you, I had—”
“Not from the expensive place?” Eve sits up so fast she bangs her head against the wall. “Ow.”
Dom looks alarmed. “Which one is the expensive place? I went to the one with the fish cakes you like.”
“That’s the expensive place!” wails Eve.
Dom puts down the bag. “What’s going on?”
She pulls the credit card bill from the back pocket of her jeans and hands it to him.
Dom looks at it. “This is our bill? We owe that much money?”
“Yes,” says Eve. “I feel like we’ve maybe kind of fucked up, babe, I didn’t—”
“I smashed the car on the way home,” says Dom. He sits down heavily on the bed. There is no color in his face. “And I think I forgot to pay the car insurance.”
Chapter 53
This is how I know that it took me a long time to truly comprehend my dad’s death.
One afternoon, when I was thirteen, after my dad had been dead for three years, I came home from school and my mother rushed to meet me, shiny-eyed and flushed. She said, “I have wonderful news, Cherry.”
The most extraordinary sensation of relief suffused my entire body. My legs became so weak with joy I had to sit down. An enormous weight I didn’t know I was carrying lifted from my shoulders. I thought, Dad’s back.
That’s what I truly thought, just for a second, before I came to my senses.
—
I read an article once about the dazzling pop star “Pink.” She had recently lost her father and she said (according to the article, which may or may not have been fact-checked) that her first thought was this: No one would ever love her like that again. When I read that I thought, Yes, “Pink,” I understand. Everyone loves a particular version of you and when that person is gone that version goes with them. My dad was so interested in me. Mum was interested too, but Mum loved a different version of me.
No one ever saw me the way my dad saw me, “the funniest little thing,” the way he maybe still sees me, although I don’t know if I believe in life after death. There is not enough data. But if there is such a thing, and my goodness it would be nice if there is, I wonder if Dad has ever run into Pink’s dad?
Perhaps at the breakfast buffet. A breakfast buffet would be my dad’s idea of heaven.
—
If you’re wondering, my mother’s wonderful news was that she’d saved up enough to book us a holiday at the Coffs Harbour Pacific Palms Motel so we could see the Big Banana.
This lurid yellow tourist attraction was the idea of an American banana plantation owner (who was inspired by a big pineapple he’d seen on top of a cannery in Hawaii) and at the time was the biggest banana in the world. I believe it still is. It began Australia’s obsession with “big things.” We now boast a big beer can, a big ram, a big guitar, a big apple, a big avocado, and many more “big things.” If you are Australian, you may feel proud or embarrassed about this.
Many people are convinced the Big Banana was secretly replaced by a smaller version, so much so that journalists have written articles about it, but it’s not true.
It just looks smaller when we visit again as grown-ups.
Nothing dazzles like the first time.
Chapter 54
It’s a peaceful sunny Saturday afternoon three months after the flight. Early July. A mild winter so far, which is nice.
Leo chops onions, coriander, and carrots for a curry while contemplating whether he can get a couple of hours of work in tonight, but that will mean he has technically worked seven days this week, which is an accusation from his wife he prefers to deny.
Neve comes through the back door carrying a laundry basket laden with dry clothes from the clothesline. Oli steps out of the shower after a muddy soccer game where he scored the triumphant winning goal.
The dog snores.
Bridie’s bloodcurdling scream is heard in all corners of the house and probably by the neighbors too.
