The Spill Read online

  About the Book

  In 1982, a car overturns on a remote Western Australian road. Nobody is hurt, but the impact is felt for decades.

  Nicole and Samantha Cooper both remember the summer day when their mother, Tina, lost control of their car – but not in quite the same way. It is only after Tina’s death, almost four decades later, that the sisters are forced to reckon with the repercussions of the crash. Nicole, after years of aimless drifting, has finally found love, and yet can’t quite commit. And Samantha is hiding something that might just tear apart the life she’s worked so hard to build for herself.

  The Spill explores the cycles of love, loss and regret that can follow a family through the years – moments of joy, things left unsaid, and things misremembered. Above all, it is a deeply moving portrait of two sisters falling apart and finding a way to fit back together.

  ‘Intriguing, subtle and brimful of subterranean sadness, The Spill sucked me in from the first page. A thoughtful, sensitive look at the lies we tell ourselves and the stories we tell each other, and the ways we help piece together the people closest to us.’ Jane Rawson

  ‘Brilliantly comic and tender, this is a sharp and intimate portrayal of that most mystifying of things: family. Neeme gives us a real world; of chaotic fragments drawn with charm and compassion. These are people, like us, making lives of their messes.’ Robert Lukins

  ‘This compelling, beautifully crafted story introduces us to a pair of sisters, and then peels back the layers of their history to reveal the complexities and contradictions at the heart of love. Reading The Spill feels like being welcomed into a new family and gradually making sense of their complicated dynamics. The sisters and their troubled mother are flawed, frustrating, and at times infuriating, yet relatable and deeply endearing. Imbi Neeme is a hugely talented writer with an eye for the nuances that inform relationships. The family and their history will linger on in your mind long after you’ve finished the book.’ Kerri Sackville

  ‘Imbi Neeme’s prose thrums, and her characters are so deep and richly imagined that it’s astounding to think The Spill is her first novel. This is the story of sisters coming to terms with their mother’s alcoholism and their father’s shortcomings as a husband and a parent, but it’s also a study of generational cause and effect and the ways we hurt the ones we most want to protect. I was hooked at first by the writing, but I soon found myself so invested in the characters that I didn’t come up for air until I’d finished.’ J. P. Pomare

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  After the spill

  Nicole

  Piece #1: 1984

  Piece #2: 1991

  Samantha

  Piece #3: 1995

  Piece #4: 1997

  Nicole

  Piece #5: 2010

  Piece #6: 1999

  Samantha

  Piece #7: 2007

  Piece #8: 1990

  Nicole

  Piece #9: 2015

  Piece #10: 2018

  Samantha

  The Spill

  Nicole

  Piece #11: 1995

  Piece #12: 1997

  Samantha

  Piece #13: 2009

  Piece #14: 1985

  Nicole

  Piece #15: 1999

  Piece #16: 1982

  Samantha

  Piece #17: 2013

  Piece #18: 2006

  Nicole

  Piece #19: 2001

  Piece #20: 2001

  Samantha

  Piece #21: 1986

  Piece #22: 2018

  Nicole

  Before the spill

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  For my sisters

  After the spill

  1982

  The two girls waited for their mother on the verandah of the Bruce Rock pub, which offered shade but little relief from the heat of the late afternoon. They swung their legs while they waited, slowly stirring the hot air and red dust, while the dogs around their feet lay panting, waiting patiently for their owners inside.

  The girls’ mother, Tina, was also inside, matching the locals middy for middy. It was the medicine she needed after the shock of the accident and the morning that had led up to it. The locals, in turn, were amused to have a lady from the city sitting alongside them in the front bar, like she belonged there.

  ‘My bloody husband is driving from bloody Perth,’ she told them all. ‘Because of the bloody accident.’

  One of the old guys raised his glass. ‘To the bloody accident!’ he shouted.

  ‘To the bloody accident!’ the rest of the front bar echoed, shoving their glasses in the air.

  Tina laughed and raised her glass too, like the accident was something worth celebrating.

  Occasionally, the publican would bring a couple of lemonades out to the girls, which ended up being more water than anything because the ice melted so quickly.

  The third time, Tina came out with him to give them a packet of salt and vinegar Samboys.

  Samantha jumped to her feet the moment she saw her mother. ‘Is Daddy coming?’ she asked, but Tina’s focus was on the publican.

  ‘Isn’t Bevan looking after us marvellously,’ she remarked, her consonants all soggy with the drink.

  ‘Evan,’ the publican corrected her.

  ‘Evan. What do you say, girls?’

  The girls thanked the publican in unison, diverging only when one called him Bevan and the other called him Evan.

  Evan/Bevan gave a cursory nod and disappeared inside. Tina went to follow him but Samantha grabbed her hand.

  ‘Mum?’ she asked. The question about her father was still hanging in the air.

  ‘Yes, Sammy,’ Tina replied, with a sigh, as she gently removed her hand from her daughter’s grasp. ‘Your father is on his way . . . for whatever that’s worth.’

  As she pushed the doors to the front bar open, the crowd inside cheered at her return.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be here soon?’ Samantha asked Nicole.

  ‘Yes,’ Nicole replied. As the older sister, she often felt obliged to sound more certain than she felt.

  ‘Why do you think the car flipped like that?’

  ‘I think Mum was going too fast around the corner.’

  ‘Did you ask Mum to go fast?’

  ‘No!’ Nicole was outraged. ‘Why would I ask Mum to do that?’

  ‘Because you wanted to watch Young Talent Time.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Nicole said, with a frown.

  The two girls continued to swing their legs. On Samantha’s thigh, just above the knee, a bruise was already swelling.

  ‘It’s going to go a good colour,’ she remarked, pleased. ‘I’m going to show everyone at school on Monday.’

  Nicole was too busy frowning. Samantha reached up to touch the bandage over her sister’s left eyebrow. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.

  Nicole shrugged. ‘A bit.’

  ‘Your cut’s not as big as my bruise,’ Samantha concluded, before noticing something poking out of the pocket on the front of Nicole’s dress. ‘Hey, what’s that in your pocket?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Nicole said, in a way that suggested it was definitely something.

  ‘It’s a lollipop. No fair!’ Samantha cried. ‘How come you got a lollipop and I didn’t?’

  ‘Because I got stitches,’ Nicole told her.

  After the crash, some strangers had stopped and wrapped the three of them in blankets and taken them to the Bruce Rock Memorial Hospital in the back of a station wagon. They’d had to wait for two hours in Emergency alongside the Saturday morning sports i
njuries but in the end, only Nicole had needed medical attention. The nurse had offered her the lollipop for her bravery and Nicole had accepted it, even though she was now in Year Seven and much too old for lollipops.

  ‘My bruise is bigger and I didn’t get anything,’ Samantha was whining. ‘Come on, we can share it. Lick for lick.’

  ‘That’s gross.’

  Samantha tried to grab the lollipop out of her sister’s pocket. ‘Give it to me. You don’t like them anyway.’ Her voice was rising, like a kettle starting to boil.

  Nicole sighed and handed her sister the sweet. It was always best to give in when her sister got like this.

  Samantha put the lollipop in the pocket of her dress and immediately went back to swinging her legs, like nothing had happened.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’

  It was the first question that Craig asked his daughters, before he had even said hello or asked whether they were okay.

  Nicole tipped her head towards the inside of the pub. ‘She’s inside.’

  ‘Was she inside before?’

  ‘Before?’

  ‘Before the accident.’

  Even though only a few hours had passed, the accident already felt like a lifetime ago to both girls. And the time before the accident, the breakfast of cold toast at the motel, felt like it had happened to other people altogether, to two other girls and their mum.

  Nicole scratched her head. ‘I saw her with a—’ she started to say, but then stopped herself. ‘No, she wasn’t drinking.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Craig asked.

  ‘We were going too fast,’ Samantha said.

  ‘No, we weren’t,’ Nicole snapped.

  ‘You said we were.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Girls . . .’ Craig warned. He reached out and gently touched Nicole’s face, just near the bandage, and he softened a little, like butter in the heat. ‘You okay, Nic?’

  ‘Yeah. I got six stitches. But it didn’t hurt. Not much.’

  ‘You were in the front?’

  ‘I was,’ Samantha piped up. ‘I made Nicole swap.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Nicole said. ‘Mum made us swap.’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Craig said, laying a hand on each girl’s shoulder. ‘It’s just good that Sammy was in the front. She’s too little to be sitting in the back where there’s no seatbelt.’

  ‘I got a bruise on my leg,’ Samantha continued, enjoying the spotlight. She lifted the hem of her dress to show the side of her leg. ‘We reckon it’s going to go a good colour. And I got a lollipop, too.’

  Samantha didn’t look at Nicole when she said that.

  ‘You deserve it,’ Craig said. ‘Now, you girls just wait here while I go get your mother and then we’ll head back home.’

  ‘But what about Mum’s car?’ Nicole asked. ‘And all our stuff?’

  ‘That’s all sorted,’ Craig reassured her. ‘That was the easy part.’

  Inside the pub, Craig’s entrance was met with a shriek from Tina.

  ‘It’s my bloody husband from bloody Perth!’

  ‘To the bloody husband from bloody Perth!’ The crowd roared and lifted their glasses in the air.

  Craig ignored the raucous greeting and marched over to his wife. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Piss off, I’m having a drink,’ Tina said. One of her bra straps had slipped down her arm and was hanging limply, like a flag at half-mast.

  Craig grabbed her by the elbow and firmly guided her out of the pub, amidst the cheering and jeering of the crowd in the front bar.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ Tina was shouting as they stepped out onto the verandah, even though she was laughing.

  ‘You’re hurting Mum!’ Nicole pulled at her father’s sleeve, while Samantha began to cry and all the dogs on the porch started barking.

  Tina kept laughing, as Craig’s grip tightened on her elbow. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! The circus is leaving town!’

  It wasn’t until they were all seated in Craig’s parked car that anyone realised Tina was still holding her middy of Swan Lager. She held it to her lips and started to drink it in huge gulps.

  The girls gasped. They weren’t allowed to drink or eat in Craig’s Mazda RX7.

  ‘Jesus, Tina,’ Craig said. ‘Haven’t you had enough?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘Well, I have.’

  ‘Actually, I don’t think you have, Craig.’ Tina turned to him and looked him squarely in the eye.

  Craig paused for the briefest of moments and then reached over to wrestle the glass off his wife, spilling its remaining contents all over her and his precious upholstery in the process.

  ‘No more,’ he said, as he threw the now-empty glass out the car window, where it smashed into pieces on the hot bitumen.

  ‘More,’ Tina said, now sullen.

  Craig ignored her and revved the engine loudly, like a metal lion warning its prey. Tina slumped down in her seat.

  After a few more roars, the car took off, with only Samantha’s sniffling in the back seat and the stench of spilt beer to score the long, red road back to Perth.

  Nicole

  After the burial, I found myself separated from the rest of the family. The sudden rain had sent everyone scattering and I quickly lost sight of Dad and Celine, who were supposed to be giving me a lift to the house.

  I took shelter under a large tree next to a group of people I didn’t recognise. From the way they were talking about my mother, they clearly didn’t recognise me either.

  ‘Pissing down for an old pisshead,’ a man in a wrinkled linen jacket remarked.

  ‘I don’t know why they’re bothering to bury her. Surely her body is so soaked in the sauce, it will never decompose,’ another man said.

  The women tittered, but then one of them noticed me and, nudging the others, hissed the word daughter.

  ‘Nicole, isn’t it?’ the woman said, sidling over to me. I felt my hackles rise. ‘You gave a lovely speech. We all knew your mum from school.’

  ‘Such a shame,’ said the man with the linen jacket.

  ‘You spoke so beautifully at the service,’ said the other. ‘Sorry for your loss.’

  Sorry my arse, I thought. I nodded at the group and stepped out from the shelter of the tree, preferring to get wet than listen to their false platitudes.

  As I walked through the cemetery, I marvelled at the Perth summer rain. The heavy, fat drops were falling so far from each other that it almost seemed possible to walk between them without getting wet.

  But I was getting wet.

  I thought back to a day from my childhood where we’d lingered too long on the beach and the afternoon sea breeze had whipped the sand up into our eyes. There had been a storm coming in off the Indian Ocean and lightning had fired up the horizon. Samantha and I had run to the car to take shelter, but Mum had stood at the top of the dunes, looking out at the sea, greeting the storm.

  I stopped walking and looked back over at the hole where my mother’s body now lay.

  The storm has finally passed, Mum, I thought.

  When my father saw how wet I was, he jumped out of his Lexus ES 350 and grabbed a towel from the boot.

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said.

  But the towel wasn’t for me, it was for the back seat of his car.

  Celine was in the passenger seat, busy reapplying her make-up using the rear-view mirror. ‘Got to get my face back on,’ she said brightly, as I climbed carefully into the back seat. ‘Where’s that lovely Prince Charming of yours?’

  ‘Jethro’s gone ahead to deal with the caterers,’ I said, trying to straighten the towel underneath me.

  ‘He’s a keeper, that one. You can thank me at your wedding for getting you two together.’

  I clenched my teeth and smiled politely. Jethro and I had been happily together for ten years and yet Celine was still trying to push us down the aisle like it was 1955.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.<
br />
  Even under all that make-up, Celine’s face was looking pale and puffy in the reflection of the rear-view mirror. I remembered Samantha’s theory that Celine was trying to get pregnant. Maybe she was right, after all.

  ‘Finished,’ Celine announced, twisting the mirror back around to face the driver’s side. Dad immediately readjusted it, and then moved on to fussing with the powered wing mirrors.

  We were never going to leave at this rate. I had an urge to shake myself off like a dog over Dad’s precious upholstery.

  ‘Was that Meg I saw at the funeral?’ Dad asked, as he continued to fiddle with even more mirror-related knobs.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘I haven’t seen her in more than thirty years.’

  ‘Who’s Meg?’ Celine asked, now brushing her hair, in long decisive strokes.

  ‘Tina’s sister,’ Dad replied.

  ‘Was she the one doing the ugly crying? The one that looked like Tina, but, um, much younger?’

  ‘There’s only two years between them, would you believe.’

  ‘Really? Meg must have a great skin care routine.’

  ‘Not to mention a fully-functioning liver,’ I piped up and then immediately regretted it. It felt far too soon to be making light of Mum’s drinking. ‘I thought it was good of Aunt Meg to come.’

  To tell the truth, I’d been surprised she’d flown over from Melbourne for the funeral; she’d barely seen Mum over the past three decades. But then, I knew from my own experiences that sisters were sisters, no matter the time or distance. She had as much of a right to grieve as any of us.