Storms and tourists blow in to this town from the north west, from over the dividing range down onto the volcanic plains where the airport perches above a river gorge.
Dr Olivia Mancini is neither a storm nor a tourist; as her plane taxis after a rough landing she has her phone out, ignoring the leaden thunderhead above, boiling and flashing its way southeast. She gets window seats to sleep against, not look out of enthusing at the many miracles of flight. That’s her husband’s thing. And their daughter’s.
People think it’s so cute.
***************
“Have you escaped?” says the cabbie as he takes the booster seat of the child in the lion onesie.
From me, a grown man in a matching lion onesie.
It’s a fair joke but I don’t laugh because it’s 39 degrees and I’m very hot.
“No, you can leave whenever you like,” says Cookie. She’s kept her hood up, with the mane and the ears. She doesn’t look fierce, just puzzled.
The cabbie chuckles like he didn’t hear that, and gets her seat installed, his epaulette shirt coming untucked as he bends over the back seat. While he grunts and fumbles, Cookie squeezes my finger, twisting her whole body about so her tail bumps against the yellow duco.
“Aren’t you a bit old for a seat anyway?” says the cabbie
“Medical mum” I say. “Booster til she’s 145cm.”
“And if you’re 145cm,” says the cabbie, leaning over to Cookie’s height, “I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
“You’re my dad backwards” says Cookie, pointing at his name badge.
Now it’s him looking puzzled. This happens.
“She means you’re Noel and I’m Leon. I’m sorry, she notices things like that.”
“Oh. Well. No apology needed. Nice to meet you, Leon.”
Noel offers a sweaty great hand.
No one shakes hands anymore.
I want to get in the car.
I shake Noel’s hand.
There’s sticky tape neatly holding his glasses together on one side. His eyes and hair are grey but lively. His hands have done some hard work, years under the sun. We buckle in and Noel starts the very unhybrid engine. The app knows the way.
“And what’s your name little lady?”
“I’m not little.”
“Less than 145cm is little I think you’ll find.”
“My name is Emilia Mancini-Cook. But my friends call me Cookie”
“Nice to meet you Emilia. Or can I call you Cookie?”
“No.”
“Oi!” I say, “Manners.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“You like lions do you?” Noel continues, pulling out of the Zoo carpark. “How were the lions today?”
Cookie looks at me.
“We didn’t see them today” I say.
“Oh,” says Noel, “were they all off sick?”
“Why do you have a Christmas tree?” asks Cookie, pointing into the baking glare of the windscreen at the pine tree hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Why did you change the subject?” says Noel, changing lanes suddenly as my pocket buzzes.
Heartbeat rhythm. Her mum. Texting.
There’s a distant whisper in my right ear, something about whether Noel is a stranger danger. But I don’t answer. I’m scrolling Olivia.
Olivia: Hey. Nearly through customs. Looks crappy out there. Should have thought of that. But we’re doing this thing, so I’ll see you at the lions.
I scroll up. It’s the text before this I need to read again. The text that arrived half an hour ago, but was written and sent a day or so before, as my wife was waiting for her plane home.
Some texts seem to know when to arrive.
The first time I read it, outside the meerkats, I went to scroll back to try and read it again and dropped the phone. And kicked the phone. And then grabbed it and Cookie and left via the gift shop.
That kind of text. I need to see it again. The long grey dialogue bubble slithers under my thumb.
Olivia: I won’t be watched like some exhibit in the zoo. On that – why do I have to get off the plane on no sleep and come to the ducking zoo? Always with the big ticket items L, not so hot on the housework. She needs to see fairness, not just man-child fun-dad. What does that leave me with? Fun police. Stop that. Don’t do that. Manners. I’m over it L. I just want to disappear. Not be watched, needed, leant on. While you and Cookie dress up like lions. Again.
Shit. It is that bad. What did I say to cop that? I scroll up to my blue.
Me: I just don’t understand why you’re so fired up about this, if you’ve got nothing to hide from me.
Hmm. I sound like a controlling prick. Scroll up again.
Olivia: I know, but I’m not everyone else. Over here I’m me, like I haven’t been for so long. This matters.
Scrolling up, the argument runs backwards, dizzyingly. Add the violent stop-start of traffic and Noel’s little tree and whatever it’s masking, and I’m starting to feel carsick. The dark grey upholstery closes in. I wind down the window to a gleeful Melbourne northerly which doesn’t help.
I just need some horizon, but there’s only apartments and wilting street trees. Darkness to my left: storms marching down from the central highlands. The boy in me would watch for lightning, off out the window and away.
But I have to keep scrolling up, to catch this venomous grey-blue snake of an argument.
And…I have to be at least half here. Cookie is going to cause an accident, she’s getting going now.
“You’ve got a tree but it’s not Christmas” she says
“No, you’re right there Emilia, it was a few months ago”
“I know. It was exactly 3 months ago because today is the 25th of March”
“Did Santa come to your house?” says Noel
“Did he come to your house?”
“I asked first.”
“Of course he came to my house, I am 8. Did he come to your house?”
“No, because there are no children at my house.”
“Are your children all grown up now?”
“I did not have children.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“I had one child, not children.”
“My mum and dad did that too.”
“And look, they got a you.”
“What did you get?”
“We got a little girl. A lot like you actually.”
“Did she like lions?”
“She liked horses.”
“Does she still like them?”
“I don’t know actually.”
“Why not?”
Bloody hell Cookie. I should rein her in but Noel’s a big boy. I look outside for relief and see we are surrounded by truckzillas in a hue our family calls Winner Grey. Same colour as the road, incredibly dangerous but easier to keep clean, looking new and aggressively expensive.
“Why didn’t you see the lions today?” says Noel.
“Now you’re changing the subject!”
“You’re right, I am.”
“Lion!” Cookie shouts, pointing out past the empty front passenger seat at a thunderhead that does in fact look a lot like a Trafalgar Square lion. We have a photo of her next to one, in raptures. High as a column, as her mum said. Smart woman. Smart little girl.
This is life with Cookie. I want to be more than half here – she’s hilarious, Noel’s clearly up for it, but in my field of vision is a rectangle of light framed by a pink silicone phone cover, Cookie’s Father’s Day gift from the Mother’s Day stall last year. In the glare of greys and browns this 24/7 pokie palace of colour in my hand won’t let up.
Leon: It’s Find My. I don’t get it. We miss you, we want to see where you are. We just want to know you’re safe. Everyone does it.
Sigh. Cue my late old man saying if everyone jumped off a bridge would you? Or was it a cliff? Scroll up again.
Olivia: Before three weeks ago you all knew, you Cookie and your mum, where I was all the time. At the hospital. At the supermarket. At school. At her million appointments. You didn’t need some eye in the sky to tell you. You disappear off to gigs, I don’t need to know where. You can walk down dark streets, you’re a man. I have to call you when I am walking to my car at night, but that’s ok with me, it’s sometimes the only time we talk anymore. Find Me? You don’t want to Find Me, you want to know what’s for dinner.
There’s a flash to our left.
“Leon!” says Cookie, pointing right across my face, “Lightning!”
“Are you counting?” I say, pushing her arm gently away.
“In my head, yes, 4, 5, 6-“
There’s an impressive crack and rumble.
“Six seconds!” says Cookie.
“About 2k away” says Noel.
“Did your dad teach you that too?” asks Cookie.
“What else do you know about storms Emilia?”
“You changed the subject again”
“It’s a good subject though isn’t it?”
There’s another flash to the left. Headlights are going on. We’ve come past the park by the Children’s Hospital, past the cemetery to our left and the university to our right, then down a long slow hill towards the freeway east. We bear left before it though, and as the sky fades to Winner Grey we pass through a trendy inner suburban village with hybrid and electric SUVs. Scooter riders watching the sky, not where they are going so much.
Storms. Not just a good subject, a Cookie Special Subject.
“Storms are what happens when warm air meets cool air, and electricity is generated as they bump together. Heavy rain can cause flash flooding, which is why you should never go in creeks or drains when storms are in the area, even if it’s not raining heavily where you are.”
“It’s raining heavily over there isn’t it?” Noel points to the north, a suburb away, where sheets of water hang from what used to be a statue of a lion. “Good thing there’s a bridge over the creek or you wouldn’t get home for dinner.”
I’m back to being half here. Or less. We’ve talked storms so many times, and it’s been a stormy summer. I watch for lightning and think of Olivia, who refuses to be tracked like some animal, turning up to the zoo in the rain, the only damp solitary adult at the lions. She can’t track us either. Won’t. I breathe deeply for the first time since the meerkats.
I’ve been a dick. I should call her.
I’m realising this as we come down the rail and road overpass, past the athletics track, and hit traffic at a standstill on the bridge over the creek that feeds into the brown river not far from here.
The first slugs of rain blat on the windscreen. I lean forward to wind the window up.
But then there’s a massive flash and a searing tearing crack like the sky just broke right overhead.
Cookie shrieks, but not with delight as usual. That’s a shitscared shriek.
She reaches blindly in my direction. Normally a parent would try to hug their distressed child through the seatbelts.
But it’s not me she’s fumbling for.
“Leon, Leon, phone, phone.”
She’s not let anyone hug her for years. She uses our phones for distraction when she’s freaking out. But I need the phone first.
“I just need to ring your mum.”
“Need it nowwwww.” Cookie grabs the phone.
“No! It’s not your phone Cook!” I grab it back.
“YOU’RE ALWAYS IN YOUR PHONE” Cookie roars. Her hands are small but fast, and the pink silicone slips out of my sweaty hands.
That’s what her mum says. Often.
“IT’S NOT YOUR PHONE” I roar back, turning my face to hers. This has happened so fast. I have never seen her so scared. I have never sounded so scary.
Cookie throws the phone out the window.
It’s a bloody good throw; it goes over the bike lane and the pedestrian barrier then bounces once on the footpath of the bridge, cartwheeling between the railings and disappearing.
I then do two of the dumbest things I have done in my life.
Firstly I open the door of a moving vehicle and step out. It’s slowing for the traffic but not slow enough for me not to fall over. In the bike lane. Approaching peak hour.
Cyclists ride around me as I hit the tarmac. There is a lot of swearing.
Then I get up, ignoring various skin scrapes I can’t yet feel and climb over the pedestrian barrier onto the footpath. I peer over the bridge railing. My phone is about ten metres away below and to my left, on a large volcanic boulder in the middle of the damp trickle of a creek. The phone’s screen is cracked but still on, blue snake and all.
So then I do the second dumb thing, which is not the second dumbest thing I have ever done.
It’s definitely the dumbest.
I jump off the bridge on to the weed-covered bank several metres below me.
I land on another volcanic boulder the weeds were hiding, and my right knee explodes. I can’t move, though again I don’t notice the pain yet. I also don’t notice that it is absolutely pissing down sideways.
All I notice is that my phone has disappeared. The creek is now running for its life, and there’s a roar from upstream.
I then notice that I have left my daughter in a moving car with a stranger to save my phone, and now I am going to die.
*********
There’s plenty of parking at the Zoo now. Even close to the front gate.
A sensibly white SUV is sensibly parked away from trees and puddles. And other cars.
Olivia kills the ignition, but keeps the clutch in and the brake pedal on, feeling the tension in her legs keeping her here, now.
The rain is easing but it still cools the windscreen so it fogs up with her breath pretty quickly. She glances in the rear view mirror and sees the space where Emilia’s seat isn’t. She twists, still in her belt, to examine the tide lines of crumbs on the velour. Then she undoes her belt to run a finger along one. It’ll never vacuum or scrub out completely. An eternal shadow of booster seat, like figures scorched into walls at Pompeii.
Why did he have to lose his bloody licence two days before she flew out? It was very unlucky, hardly careless and certainly not reckless driving. The traffic cop was bored, it was two minutes into a School Zone period when the limit instantly drops 20k. Outside Leon’s school for fuck’s sake. How many hours of earnest 4 foot bassists killing Seven Nation Army will it take to pay the fine?
Good thing one of Emilia’s parents gets paid fairly, even if Olivia pays in life expectancy for her job some days. There’s work, there’s paid work, then there’s work for which no pay can ever be enough. Public hospitals specialise in the last kind, extracting it surgically, relentlessly.
Leon comes home saying Seven Nation Army is sapping his will to live, and she believes him. But it’s just a song. And it felt like his licence loss was an act of wilful incompetence, weaponised dependency. How dare she leave?
She’s avoiding getting out. They’ll be in there, rain hail or shine. Like the Zoo, open all 365. Needing a keeper 24/7.
Was three weeks away such a good idea? A taste of life away from everything here. It’s made her hungry again. For lost flavours, sensations from Before All This.
But the ache in her now isn’t hunger. The three weeks was as terrible as it was wonderful. Wonderfully free, terribly free.
The first sob hits shortly after the rain on the roof ceases and the car is quiet. Her whole body contracts, like every muscle agrees how this feels and bunches up tight in sympathy.
There’s a rare completeness to her in this state, which only the state of motherhood approaches in comparison: Her body knows so well these sobs that use it like birthing Emilia did, and little else ever has. They reach deeper than any hug, though one of those wouldn’t go astray right now.
Time idles around 1000 rpm or so, any lower and it’d stall. It’s just her for the last time for now, and she can’t let herself go.
Then sunlight beams bright pink through her eyelids. The sun has dipped below the cloud bank and the grey-brown west is suddenly dripping gold.
One more sigh. Check eyes in the mirror. Come on then.
**************
“Who doesn’t know their wife’s phone number?” asks Noel as he pulls a U turn through a puddled gap in the median strip. We turn into a blaze of wet sunshine off every surface. I squint and hold up a hand to my eyes. I think my sunnies fell in the creek.
I am in the front passenger seat, not because I have turned into a person who sits in the front seat of taxis and gets to know the driver, but because I can not currently bend my right knee. Noel slid the seat back almost level with Cookie’s seat, so she could reach my hood and pull it over my head, as if that might help.
It sort of did. Made the whole suit feel containing somehow. Like a hug.
Noel’s cab has been sideswiped by a car that drove off and the driver’s side doors don’t open, so he had to fumble in via the passenger’s side.
It will be funny eventually I hope. Expensive funny, but for me, not Noel.
“Do you know your wife’s phone number?” asks Cookie from behind me.
She has not apologised about the phone. I have not apologised about the roar.
“I did. Before she changed it.”
“Why did-“
“Cook, leave it, Noel’s business is private”
“Nah that’s alright. We’re friends now aren’t we Emilia?”
“You can call me Cookie.”
“Thank you Cookie. My wife changed her number when she moved out five years ago, saying I had worked too hard and hadn’t been around enough for our daughter and her.”
“Were you always driving taxis?”
“I was always working in mines.”
“Oh. Are there mines in Melbourne?”
“No, Cookie, they’re all a long long way away. But the money was very very good.”
“Did you pay for a horse?”
“No, Cookie. My daughter did not get a horse. I know her phone number, but she doesn’t like me ringing it.”
“You could text her.”
“I could, that is true.”
As before, I only half hear all this, I’m only half here again. But for different reasons now. I just nearly killed myself for a phone that is now somewhere under gigalitres of mad brown creek. Or river. Or bay, maybe, I have no idea.
I am trying to stop worrying about identity theft: the phone is unlikely to be giving my life away anytime soon.
I am also fully aware of who gave it my life to give away.
Noel’s panadeine forte is kicking in. I have less pain and fewer thoughts. We waved off concerned bystanders and have agreed to sort out the costs later. For now, the golden light is everywhere and I find myself smiling properly for the first time in three weeks. At least.
Cookie knows drugs are bad. If she asks why I’m smiling I will tell her it’s the sunshine. And her. Which is also true.
If I can only concentrate on one thing right now, I think it will be my daughter talking to this kind, quick and remarkably strong old man.
You should have heard him roar. Louder than the traffic, louder than the rain and wind, louder than the wall of water approaching. I had frozen to the spot on that creek bank. The luggage strap from his taxi’s boot was somehow right beside me but I didn’t know, until I heard him.
OI LEON GRAB THE STRAP THERE NO THERE NOW HOLD ON
“I’ve got a question for you Cookie”
“Shoot, Noel.”
“You do know your dad’s name literally means lion.”
“That’s not a question, Noel.”
“It just seems a weird coincidence that you would dress up as lions AND your dad’s name is Leon.”
“My grandpa played for an Australian Rules football club called the Fitzroy Lions. When he had a baby with my grandma they called it Leon.”
“And your dad here loves lions because of that?”
“No he hates football. He’s too much of a coward for contact sports.”
I let this go because it is true.
“I reckon he was pretty brave jumping off that bridge.”
“I think he was trying to save the phone cover I gave him for Father’s Day – it’s one of a kind because I drew a lion on the back with a Sharpie. They’re permanent.”
“So you’re the Lions fan?”
“Oh I hate football too. But I’m not a coward.”
“No, the way you followed your dad was very brave. Scary, but brave. One lion after another. I had to stop you jumping off after him.”
“Everyone thinks lions are brave but they’re no braver than any other animal I think.”
“Animals gotta do what they gotta do right?”
“Like you with that really long strap like a rescue rope. I was so glad you had that.”
“So was I Cookie. So was I.”
“And those pills for your back pain that make some people sleepy but not you and they work really well. Dad does look pretty sleepy now.”
“Well we are nearly there Cookie. I really hope that lady rugged up like an eskimo who just got out of that car is your mum, because your dad does not look like he’s going anywhere on that leg of his.”
“It is! That’s Olivia.”
“Do you always call your parents by their first names?”
“Yes.”
“Except when you’re really really scared?”
“No, I never call them mum or dad.”
“Well you did on the bridge kiddo.”
“Did I?”
“You called him Dad. Again and again. Til he was safe.”
“Oh.”
*************
Olivia gets out of the way as the cab pulls up next to their car. Soon they move her precious stupid husband – literally in a stupor – from one passenger seat to another.
She slept better than expected on the plane; she can cope with a few hours in emergency. She’ll refuse fast tracking for a staff member, you save your favours for when they really count and frankly Leon deserves a few hours in the waiting room for this.
As they transfer him to the Forrester she can see the lion suit has bloody holes at the knees and green stains on the rump.
She actually married a man, she reminds herself, but then the little lion who helped move the big one looks at her in such a way that she forgets everything else.
When she remembers again, she gets Noel’s banking details and takes a photo of him and Emilia with her phone. Her daughter has still got her hood up, mane and ears and all. Like her dad.
Then two of the best things that have ever happened to Olivia happen in the afternoon’s fading firelight in that zoo carpark.
Firstly, Emilia hugs someone. That it’s the old cabbie she’s just met doesn’t matter. She hugged. Someone. Olivia wants to jump up on the Zoo wall and roar for the whole world to hear.
MY DAUGHTER CAN HUG
Then the second best thing happens, which isn’t the second best, it’s utterly the very best thing that has ever happened to Dr Olivia Mancini.
Her daughter who does not hug, hugs her.
Fiercely, completely.
____________________________
Thank you for reading this story. It is a work in progress, and I value feedback as reactions to it so far have been wildly divergent. I think this is good thing! I am learning about these characters through how they form in your mind as a reader, and it will help me do justice to them all if I find out more about their lives in other minds than my own. So please do leave a comment, or find me online via http://www.facebook.com/drmatthewwroberts or http://www.linkedin.com/in/drmwroberts
The Normal Grown-Up 