The Spill Read online

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ Celine said. She had now turned in her seat to give me her full attention. ‘Of course, I only met Tina a few times, but I do know this: she loved you and Samantha very much.’

  It wasn’t much consolation, being told by my father’s third wife that my dead mother loved me, especially when accompanied by the whirr of the powered wing mirrors. But I knew Celine meant well.

  ‘She wasn’t the easiest person to know,’ I admitted. I could see the back of my father’s head nod slightly, perhaps in agreement. Or maybe he was still looking at the bloody mirrors.

  Given how many career drunks were in attendance at Tina’s wake, precious little alcohol was being served. All around our large front living room, people were nursing empty glasses, their eyes occasionally darting towards the kitchen.

  ‘What’s going on with the drinks?’ Jethro whispered to me.

  ‘I think we both know what’s going on with the drinks. Or rather, who.’

  Jethro rolled his eyes. ‘I should have known. Do you want me sort it out?’

  ‘No, I’ll do it.’

  I hated confrontation but it wasn’t fair on Jethro to make him deal with another situation of my sister’s making. I headed towards the kitchen with my empty glass, but was intercepted by Aunt Meg.

  ‘Nicky,’ she said, clutching my arm tightly, her eyes wide and red. ‘Can we talk? There’s some things I really need to tell you and Sammy before I fly back to Melbourne tomorrow.’

  I knew I should speak to her but I was on a mission.

  ‘Sure thing, Aunt Meg,’ I said, freeing myself from her grip. ‘But later, okay? I just have to attend to something first.’

  In the kitchen, I asked the caterer what was going on with the drinks service.

  ‘Your sister told us to slow it down,’ she confessed, with a sheepish look. ‘She was, uh, scary.’

  I looked back through the open kitchen door at Samantha, who was glaring across the crowd at me, and swallowed.

  ‘Yes, she is scary,’ I said, as I raised my empty glass to Samantha. I knew this was a battle I wasn’t going to win. I turned back to the caterer. ‘Now, get me a teacup full of vodka. Stat.’

  Of course, the great benefit of not serving much alcohol at the wake was that all the guests were gone by seven-thirty, even Aunt Meg, who, as she was being ushered out the door, was still insisting that she needed to talk to Samantha and me before she flew home.

  ‘I’ll ring you in the morning to make a plan,’ I told her, patting her on the arm. I had barely spoken to the woman in decades, so I was fairly confident it could wait another day.

  Once the last guest had left, I kicked off my shoes and sank into the lounge next to Samantha who was sitting upright, her hands in her lap and her shoes still on.

  For a long time, we sat in silence. This was the first time we had been alone since Mum had died. I had made sure of it, ignoring the entreaties Samantha had made in her texts and phone calls, all of which had come too late, after Mum had already gone. Even now, I could only handle her being here because I had enough vodka in my system to dull my grief.

  After a while, I got sick of the silence and pulled a jigsaw puzzle out from under the coffee table.

  ‘I saved this for after the wake,’ I said, putting it on the table. ‘It’s one of Mum’s. I thought it would be a good way to honour her.’

  I didn’t add that I had planned to do the jigsaw with Jethro, who was now making himself scarce somewhere else in the house. He wasn’t exactly one of Samantha’s greatest fans.

  ‘Oh god.’ Samantha was looking at the box with barely disguised horror. ‘If it’s one of Tina’s, there’ll be pieces missing.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘There’s not much point doing it if it’s not complete.’

  ‘Life is like a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces,’ I reminded her, as I pulled the lid off. ‘And we still do life.’

  ‘Some of us do it better than others.’

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I started to separate out the edge pieces, while Samantha sat beside me, looking anywhere except at the puzzle.

  ‘I haven’t seen that photo in years,’ she said, after a few minutes. She was staring at a framed photo of our mother on top of a corner cabinet, surrounded by red roses. It had been taken in 1968, the year she met our father. ‘She looks so beautiful.’

  ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve said about Mum in decades,’ I couldn’t help remarking. ‘I’m obviously not counting the time you called her a fucking bitch at my fortieth.’

  ‘I think we both know whose fault that was,’ she said, her lips pursed.

  ‘Well, I know you think it was this fucking bitch’s fault.’ As the words fell out of my mouth, I realised that drinking all that vodka had definitely been a mistake.

  Samantha shifted in her seat. ‘I still don’t know why you invited her,’ she said, primly.

  I returned to the puzzle, trying my best to shrug off the conversation.

  ‘Is that new?’ Samantha asked me, now focusing on the cabinet on top of which the photo sat.

  ‘No, it’s just one we moved from the yellow room. It’s a heavy bugger.’ I shot her a sideways glance before adding, ‘As heavy as a Pritikin scone, one might say.’

  I had been hoping to raise a smile, but all Samantha could muster was a grimace. A million years ago, one of her schoolfriends had brought a batch of Pritikin scones to our house. Mum had tried to eat one and had used Pritikin scones as a point of reference for anything heavy ever since. Samantha never appreciated the joke but I’d always found it hilarious.

  ‘Oh come on, Sam. Try to see the lighter side of life,’ I said, elbowing her gently. ‘Get it? Lighter?’

  I held the open jigsaw box out to her as a peace offering. Samantha gave a small, tight smile.

  ‘Okay, I’ll help you,’ she said, accepting the box. ‘Do you have a board or a puzzle mat that we should be using?’

  ‘It’s fine here on the table.’

  ‘But what if the puzzle gets in the way?’

  ‘We’ll just use the other lounge room.’

  And as quickly as I’d won her over, I lost her again by reminding her that I lived in a house with more than one living area. She pressed her lips together so hard I thought her face was going to implode. For reasons I had never understood, she had a big bee in her bonnet about ‘Jethro’s millions’, as she liked to refer to Jethro’s wealth. She always said it like I’d deliberately found a rich boyfriend just to piss her off.

  Samantha held position for a few seconds, and then her face suddenly relaxed. ‘You start putting the edge pieces together,’ she told me, now focusing entirely on the box. ‘I’ll keep looking for them.’

  As I started to connect the pieces, my mind turned back to the funeral service and I realised Samantha hadn’t said anything about my eulogy.

  ‘What did you think of my speech?’ I asked her. Hot damn, this vodka was making me bold. I’d normally wait five years to get up the courage to ask this kind of question. At this rate, my next question would be why the hell she never visited Mum in hospital.

  ‘It was fine,’ Samantha said with the tiniest of shrugs as she carefully picked through the pieces.

  ‘Fine?’

  ‘It was good.’

  ‘Good?’ I was annoyed. I had spent too many hours on the eulogy for it to be just ‘good’.

  ‘Yes, good.’

  ‘You think you could have done better?’ I asked her. ‘Remember that speech you gave at my twenty-first?’

  ‘I didn’t give a speech at your twenty-first.’

  ‘Yes, you did. You said this big naff thing about us sisters being like seatbelts for each other.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I would never say something like that.’

  ‘Mum and I always used to make jokes about it behind your back.’

  ‘Mum wasn’t even there.’

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ Samantha
said firmly. ‘I should know. I was the one who did the invitation list and I didn’t invite her.’

  I was sure Mum had been there. I remembered her being there, sitting with me on the love seat in the backyard in Mount Lawley.

  ‘And look,’ Samantha continued, ‘even if she was there, and even if I had given a speech, she wouldn’t have remembered it. God knows, she was pissed almost every day back then.’

  ‘Actually, Sam, she always remembered,’ I replied, the anger rising from deep within my gut. I hated the way she exaggerated Mum’s drinking, like it was the only thing she ever did with her life. ‘She remembered more things than Dad. He was always so focused on his wives.’

  I knew I was using the word ‘wives’ like it was thirty wives and not just three. I also knew that Samantha was trying to drag me back into the ghost of an unfinished argument.

  ‘At least he loved his wives. Tina just loved the bottle,’ she said, picking out another edge piece from the puzzle box.

  ‘Who’s being a fucking bitch now?’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m “tired and emotional”. We buried Mum today.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re drunk.’

  Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed by the full weight of my tiredness. And the vodka.

  ‘Let’s not do this,’ I said.

  ‘Okay.’ Samantha stood up and started picking up empty glasses. ‘Let’s not.’

  ‘And don’t do that either. The caterers are coming back to do that tomorrow. That’s why we pay them the big bucks.’

  ‘Just let me do my thing.’

  ‘As long as your thing doesn’t involve Jethro’s record collection again,’ I said.

  ‘What kind of a person arranges records in the order that they bought them,’ Samantha muttered.

  ‘Um, someone who values his own memories?’

  Samantha gave a small hmmph and continued picking up glasses. I abandoned the puzzle and swung my body around to lie along the length of the couch. Samantha continued to clean up.

  ‘Just like old times!’ I exclaimed, but she ignored me.

  I looked back at the photo of my mother, her dark hair swept up in a way that seemed to defy gravity, her eyes clear and her smile wide. It was such a stark contrast to the Tina who had lain in her bed at Mount Hospital, hooked up to machines, her skin yellow under the strip lighting.

  The waste of it all.

  I closed my eyes again and gave in to the fatigue. And the vodka.

  ‘I’m off home.’

  Samantha was standing over me, holding a large bunch of white lilies in a ceramic vase.

  I had no idea how much time had passed. It could have been minutes or it could have been days. And for some reason, I was on the floor, a cushion under my head. Embarrassed, I pulled myself back up onto the couch.

  ‘You fell,’ Samantha informed me, her jaw tight. ‘But you didn’t wake up.’

  ‘I’m pretty tired,’ I said. ‘And emotional, don’t forget.’

  ‘No, I hadn’t forgotten,’ she said and I knew she wouldn’t have. She nodded at the vase in her arms. ‘Is this your vase?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably?’ I guessed.

  ‘You honestly don’t know if it’s your vase or not?’ Samantha was incredulous.

  ‘Why? Do you do a nightly inventory of your kitchen cupboards?’ I shot back. ‘It might have come with the flowers.’

  Samantha took a deep breath and then continued. ‘I’m taking these flowers home, if you don’t mind. Trent really likes lilies.’

  Even though my sister had been married to him for over twenty years, I had no idea that Trent was the kind of guy to have a strong preference for lilies.

  ‘Take more flowers, if you want. There’s so many of them,’ I told her. ‘Seriously, what are we supposed to do with so many fucking flowers?’

  ‘Maybe you’ll think about that the next time you’re buying flowers for somebody else,’ Samantha snapped.

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Aunt Meg rang,’ Samantha said, ignoring my question. ‘She wants to talk to us both before she leaves.’

  I let the conversation move on, although I still wanted to know what problem she had with me and flowers. ‘Yeah, I know. Maybe the Ghost Aunt will finally tell us why we haven’t seen her in over thirty years.’

  ‘Maybe. I’ve told her we’ll meet her at the Blue Duck tomorrow at noon.’

  ‘Noon? You couldn’t have checked with me first? I might have something on.’ I didn’t have anything on. Living with Jethro had turned me into a professional Lady of Leisure, much to Samantha’s eternal disgust.

  ‘When do you ever have anything on?’ she said.

  I just shut my eyes and waited for the front door to finally slam shut. And the minute it did, I realised that, despite everything, I missed her almost as much as I now missed my mother.

  ‘Has she gone?’

  It was Jethro, peeking around the doorway.

  ‘Yes, she’s gone.’

  ‘Thank god for that,’ he said, walking in with a bottle of red and two glasses. ‘I hope she didn’t touch my record collection.’

  ‘I told her not to.’

  ‘As if that would make any difference,’ Jethro muttered. ‘Anyway, enough about Samantha. I think we should raise a toast.’ He poured out some wine and thrust a glass into my hand. ‘To Tina,’ he said, holding his glass up high. ‘Whose light shone bright but burnt out way too fast.’

  ‘To Tina.’

  As I clinked my glass against Jethro’s, I noticed how the light hit the wine and made it look like a bright and beautiful jewel and nothing like the poison Samantha was always claiming it was.

  ‘To Tina,’ I said again, bringing the glass to my lips and drinking.

  I felt the warmth of the wine travel down through my body and thought of how no amount of wine could bring any warmth back to my mother, lying in that dark hole in the cemetery. I turned to tell Jethro this and, in doing so, my knee knocked the edge of the jigsaw puzzle box, sending the pieces scattering everywhere.

  And then the tears finally came.

  Piece #1: 1984

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Samantha did her best to ignore Nicole, who was looming over her while she tried to tuck a sheet in between her single mattress and the bed base.

  ‘No, seriously, Sam,’ Nicole persisted. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘I’m trying to make it look nice,’ Samantha replied. ‘Helen Millet has a valance on her bed that matches the curtains.’

  ‘Well, that just looks stupid.’

  ‘You look stupid.’

  Samantha knew without looking that Nicole was rolling her eyes, but she decided not to engage. There was too much to do before Helen Millet arrived. Everything needed to be perfect. Since she and Helen Millet had been put in the same Year Seven class, they had been hanging out more, and this sleepover was going to make them best friends. Samantha was sure of it.

  ‘There,’ she said, stepping back from the bed, finally satisfied. She turned her attention back to her sister, who was now lying on her own bed. ‘Can you at least make your bed?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought we would just pull a sheet over it,’ Nicole replied slyly. ‘You know, to make it look “nice”.’

  As Samantha felt the sharp sting of tears in her eyes, she quickly turned away so Nicole couldn’t see.

  To her credit, Tina made a real effort to get the house ready for Helen Millet. She pulled out the old upright vacuum cleaner, which Samantha had forgotten they even had, and pushed it across the worn carpets. She fluffed up the pillows on the sofa and opened all the windows to let the fresh air in, all the while singing along to the radio.

  Nicole put her hands over her ears and pretended to be embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said, but she was laughing.

  Samantha would have laughed too, but she’d already seen Tina drinking pale liquid from a tall tumbler full of
ice. Ever since the car accident three years ago, she’d felt uneasy whenever she saw Tina with a drink of any kind, even if it looked like a glass of water.

  Helen Millet arrived at five o’clock, wearing a pink backpack and holding her own pillow. Her mother, dressed in neat white slacks with a pastel yellow jumper draped around her shoulders, accompanied her to the front door.

  ‘We’re so pleased you can join us, Helen,’ Tina said, her voice as smooth as glass.

  ‘Here’s some Pritikin scones for dessert,’ Helen Millet’s mother said, handing over a Tupperware container. ‘I’m trying to keep Helen away from refined grains.’ She fished a small white card from her purse. ‘And here’s my number if there are any problems.’

  The minute the front door was closed, Tina made a big point of tucking the card into her bra. Luckily, Helen Millet was too busy taking off her pink backpack to notice.

  ‘We’re having pasta for tea,’ Samantha whispered to Helen Millet, hoping that pasta didn’t contain too many refined grains.

  ‘I love pasta,’ Helen Millet whispered back and Samantha felt glad.

  While Tina cooked dinner, Samantha and Helen worked on Tina’s jigsaw puzzle at the kitchen table. Nicole was reading one of her books in the corner. Samantha didn’t know why Nicole couldn’t read in bed like she normally did, but she tried not to let it bother her.

  The puzzle had loads of very small pieces, most of which were sky. Samantha never had much luck putting pieces together, but she loved sorting them into different colours. She kept glancing over at Helen to see if she was having fun, but Helen wasn’t giving much away. In any case, Samantha was finding it hard to concentrate. The rattle of ice as Tina took each sip of her drink was making her anxious. Eventually, she stood and picked up Tina’s glass from the kitchen bench.

  ‘Can I have a sip?’ she asked, thinking that this would make Tina realise that she knew it was alcohol.

  But Tina only laughed. ‘When you’re eighteen,’ she replied, and took back the glass. ‘You can have ice in your cordial if you want something fancy.’

  ‘Gee, thanks, Tina. Frozen water and cordial,’ Nicole said, looking up from her book. ‘Yummy.’