The Spill Read online

  ‘Suit yourselves,’ Tina said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make.’

  As she left the room, she banged her hip really hard on the side of the table, knocking the box of unsorted puzzle pieces onto the floor, but she didn’t appear to notice.

  Samantha immediately leapt from her chair and started picking them up.

  ‘You call your mum “Tina”?’ Helen Millet asked Nicole. She didn’t seem to be bothered by the pieces on the floor.

  ‘Well, it is her name,’ Nicole replied. ‘Sometimes we even call her “Teensy”.’

  ‘That’s what Dad used to call her. Nicole’s only showing off because I have a friend here.’ Samantha wanted Helen Millet’s attention back on her.

  ‘Don’t be a dick,’ Nicole said.

  ‘Mum!’ Samantha shouted. She immediately regretted this automatic response because she knew it would bring Tina back into the room and back to her glass.

  But Tina was still in the hall. ‘I’m just leaving Aunty Meg a message for her birthday,’ she shouted back.

  ‘Didn’t we do that yesterday?’ Nicole asked Samantha.

  Samantha nodded. She remembered they’d all sung ‘Happy Birthday’ into Aunt Meg’s answering machine.

  ‘I know we did that yesterday,’ Tina said, re-entering the room. ‘That’s the fourth message I’ve left. Hopefully she’ll ring back this time.’

  She stepped around all the jigsaw pieces – and Samantha – on the floor and picked up her drink.

  Samantha watched her, biting her lip hard.

  Instead of eating dinner on their laps like they usually did when Tina had a jigsaw puzzle on the table, Tina spread a tablecloth over the pieces. Samantha didn’t like it when Tina did that. She always worried that the tablecloth would disrupt her careful colour sorting, and that when they removed the tablecloth at the end of the meal, the pieces would fly everywhere. Missing pieces never bothered Tina or Nicole the way they bothered Samantha.

  Over dinner, Tina told them stories from her own childhood, including the time her sister Meg had peed her pants in primary school.

  ‘She was so upset, I gave her my own undies to wear. But then I forgot about it and did a cartwheel in front of a bunch of Grade Six boys at play lunch.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Nicole said. ‘You’re embarrassing Sam.’

  But Samantha had barely been listening to the stories. She’d been too busy worrying about the number of times Tina had refilled her tumbler with whatever it was in the bottle on top of the fridge. Since Helen had arrived, there had been six. Six glasses of whatever.

  ‘Who wants dessert?’ Tina asked, her words sticking to each other. She’d clearly forgotten about the Pritikin scones Helen Millet’s mother had given her because she pulled the ice cream out of the freezer and gave them each a spoon.

  ‘Dig in, girls!’ she said. ‘I’m going to . . .’

  And then she left the room without finishing her sentence.

  ‘My mum would never let us eat from the container,’ Helen told Samantha.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Samantha said. ‘Do you want a bowl? Or a Pritikin scone instead?’

  ‘No, it’s kind of cool.’

  ‘Mum is a true bohemian,’ Nicole said.

  Samantha had no idea what a bohemian was but she knew that if it involved eating ice cream straight from the container she didn’t want to be one.

  Helen Millet probably didn’t know what a bohemian was either, but she was now looking at Nicole, encouraging her to say more. And Nicole was more than happy to oblige.

  ‘Last weekend, she gave us Twisties and apple slices for dinner,’ she said. ‘And she once let us cut her hair. Not just a little bit, but a whole heap.’

  Helen leaned in, still wanting more. Samantha gave Nicole the dirtiest look she could muster, but Nicole kept going.

  ‘And then there was the time that Sam had no clean socks for school,’ she said. ‘Mum washed some in the kitchen sink with all the dishes and then put them in the oven to dry. They came out like cardboard and she called them Socks à la mode.’

  ‘Your mum is so funny,’ Helen said, and in that moment, Samantha saw how brightly both Nicole and Tina were shining in Helen Millet’s eyes and she became filled with fury.

  Suddenly, it felt like she was up on the ceiling, looking down on herself and everyone else.

  ‘Tina’s not funny, she’s drunk,’ she heard herself saying as she slammed her spoon on the table. ‘Here, come with me.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Nicole was sounding concerned.

  But Samantha couldn’t stop this other version of herself. This Other Samantha was filled with furious regret for having invited Helen Millet into her house. This Other Samantha wanted to punish Tina, to punish Nicole for spilling their secrets, and even to punish Helen Millet simply for being there.

  She led Helen Millet firmly by the hand to Tina’s bedroom and showed her the two Coolabah casks and a large, almost empty bottle of whisky on her bedside table, where normal people might have books or photos or ornaments.

  ‘See this? This isn’t funny or cool.’

  ‘Don’t be such a bitch, Sam,’ Nicole was hissing from the doorway. ‘Get out of Mum’s room.’

  ‘Settle, my petals,’ Tina said, appearing next to Nicole in the doorway. She was laughing.

  Helen looked on, her mouth open. Samantha couldn’t tell what was more shocking to Helen Millet: the stash of alcohol, Nicole’s use of the word ‘bitch’ or Tina’s laughter.

  The three girls brushed their teeth in silence and got into bed just before ten. Helen was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in between Samantha and Nicole’s beds.

  ‘Why is there a sheet tucked under your mattress like that?’ Helen asked Samantha.

  ‘It’s a valance,’ Nicole informed her. Samantha couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

  ‘My mum did it. She must have been drunk,’ Samantha replied. She quickly turned off the light so that Helen Millet and Nicole couldn’t see her lying face or the fake valance. She hoped that in the dark they could forget everything that had happened and they could start whispering and giggling, like girls were supposed to do at sleepovers.

  But instead of whispering and giggling, Helen just said in a small voice, ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Okay,’ Samantha said with a small sigh, switching the light back on. ‘Let’s get my mum to ring your mum.’

  After Helen Millet’s mum, still dressed in her white slacks and yellow jumper, picked her daughter up, Samantha and Nicole returned to their room and to their beds, stepping around the empty mattress on the floor like it was a corpse.

  ‘I think your bed looks nice like that,’ Nicole remarked but Samantha knew she was just being kind. The bed looked stupid. Even she could see that now.

  Nicole fell asleep quickly, but Samantha lay awake for ages, unable to sleep. Eventually, she heard the TV go off in the lounge room and the sound of Tina gently bouncing from wall to wall down the hallway and then picking up the phone.

  ‘I miss you, Meg,’ Tina said. But she must have said it to nobody at all, because Samantha didn’t hear her dial Meg’s number. There were a few seconds of silence and then Samantha heard the clunk of the receiver being replaced and Tina going into her room.

  Samantha thought about Aunt Meg and how long it had been since she had visited them. And then she thought of how she, herself, would one day live in a different house from her own sister and how weird that would be. Even though Nicole made her mad sometimes, she knew that she would miss her as much as Tina must miss Meg.

  ‘Nicole,’ she whispered into the semi-darkness, but Nicole didn’t wake up. She thought about climbing into her sister’s bed like she used to do when she was smaller, but she was worried Nicole would get grumpy with her. She decided to go to Tina’s bed, instead. She knew that Tina would be awake, reading her book late into the night.

  Tina was awake, but she wasn’t reading. Instead, she was lying on top
of her bed, fully clothed and sniffing. The minute she saw Samantha, however, she sat up, all smiles.

  ‘Hello, my little love,’ she exclaimed, patting the empty space on the bed beside her. ‘Did you have a bad dream?’

  Samantha shook her head as she climbed onto the bed. ‘I can’t sleep,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry your friend left. Sleeping over in a strange house can be really hard for some kids,’ Tina offered.

  Samantha tried to say something in response but surprised herself by bursting into tears instead.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Tina said, putting her arm around her.

  ‘No, it’s not okay!’ Samantha sobbed, as she sunk into her mother’s arms. ‘Mum, what if nobody ever likes me? What if nobody ever wants to be my friend?’

  ‘Oh, now,’ Tina said softly. ‘Sometimes it just takes time to find real friends. And I like you. I like you a lot. Also Nicole likes you. And your dad likes you. And I’m pretty certain that Helen likes you, too.’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure about that. Anyway, I just tried to eat one of those Pritikin scones and I almost broke a tooth.’

  Samantha giggled and snuggled even closer into her mother’s embrace. As she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she thought of Helen Millet’s bed with its clean white sheets and its ruffled valance, but she knew that it wasn’t any better than the place she was now. She wished that it would always feel this way.

  Piece #2: 1991

  The day of Nicole’s twenty-first party started like any other in a long, blurry chain of identical days living with Tom and Kim in Inverness Crescent. Bongs at noon, followed by Frosties and Coco Pops – this time without milk because someone, probably Tom, had put the empty carton back in the fridge. Then Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful and Fraggle Rock. All punctuated with more bongs.

  And then Samantha turned up.

  Samantha turning up was not an unusual event. Sometimes she would drop by in her tan-coloured Datsun 180B on her way to TAFE to warn Nicole of the evils of marijuana. On those occasions, Nicole would often tell her sister to fuck-the-fuck-off, but her words would then turn into crystals and fall onto the ground, and she would laugh as she tried to pick all those fuck-the-fuck-off-ing crystals up. Samantha would purse her lips, get back in her Datsun 180B and drive off.

  Samantha’s love for that car drove Nicole nuts. Samantha spent more time cleaning and vacuuming it than their father did with his new Jaguar XJ Series 3. Nicole could never understand how people could love cars that much. She didn’t even have one. Didn’t need one. The only place she ever had to go was the Mirrabooka CES every second Thursday to hand in her dole form, and even then, she was able to take the Green Mercedes there. The Green Mercedes was what Kim called the MTT buses because they were all ‘fucking Mercs’, even the ones that went to Mirrabooka. Nicole found those Thursdays exhausting. She had no idea how anybody managed to hold down a full-time job. Still, going to Mirrabooka every second Thursday gave her life some semblance of shape. If it wasn’t for the dole, Nicole would have given up on the concept of time altogether.

  As it was, she had completely forgotten it was the day of her twenty-first party until Samantha arrived.

  ‘Choose Life is here to see you,’ Kim informed Nicole. ‘And she’s brought her play things.’

  ‘What?’ Nicole had been napping on the couch and hadn’t even heard the doorbell.

  ‘Time to get ready!’ Samantha announced brightly as she pushed past Kim and headed straight for the kitchen. She was carrying her hairdryer, electric curler set and make-up case. Nicole dragged herself up from the couch and followed her.

  ‘Do you want a classic updo or do you want Big Hair like Cindy Crawford?’ Samantha asked, as she started setting everything up on the table. ‘I could even do a beauty spot, if you like.’

  ‘Do whatever you like,’ Nicole said. She knew she probably wanted an updo but she’d long since surrendered all control of the party to her sister.

  ‘Big Hair it is!’ Samantha said, plugging in her curler set.

  Nicole swallowed her disappointment.

  ‘You guys playing dress-ups?’ Tom asked as he got ready for his shift at the Dog Swamp video store. He was the only member of the household with a job but it was only because of the easy access to new releases and porn.

  ‘It’s my party tonight,’ Nicole said, pointing at the invitation she’d stuck to the door of the fridge weeks ago, right next to the handle so he’d notice it.

  ‘Oh, yeah. That thing. Have a good time.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’ Samantha asked, incredulous.

  ‘Maybe after my shift.’ He pulled an almost-finished container of orange juice from the fridge door, chugged it and then put the empty container back. ‘Later days.’

  ‘I thought he was your boyfriend,’ Samantha whispered, once Tom had left the room.

  Nicole shrugged. She’d never tried to label her relationship with Tom. They just slept together when they felt like it, which actually wasn’t that often.

  ‘Hey, you still have a scar,’ Samantha said, tentatively touching the spot on Nicole’s eyebrow where she’d had stitches almost ten years before. ‘I wonder what struck you in the car crash to make such a deep cut.’

  ‘My own razor-sharp wit,’ Nicole replied.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that crash a lot lately,’ Samantha said as she started to put the hot curlers in Nicole’s hair.

  ‘I never think about it.’

  ‘About how drunk Mum was.’

  ‘She says she wasn’t.’

  ‘We both know that’s not true.’

  But Nicole wasn’t sure if she really did know that. It didn’t matter how many times she told Samantha she’d only seen their mother holding the bottle of alcohol in the motel parking lot and not actually drinking from it, Samantha always chose to believe the worst of Tina.

  Nicole didn’t want to fight, so she concentrated on the heat of the curlers against her scalp and let the moment pass.

  Thanks to Samantha, Nicole arrived at her party at Craig and Donna-Louise’s Mount Lawley home on time and completely straight. She’d tried to convince Kim to come with them but Kim said she would come later, which was probably her way of saying ‘I’m going to get baked and watch Cannonball Run II instead’.

  Nicole grabbed a West Coast wine cooler from one of the eskies in the laundry, hoping it would take the edge off, or at least partially deflate the Big Hair that Samantha had given her.

  As she stepped out into the backyard, she was struck by how much effort Samantha had made. She’d decorated the trees with fairy lights and carefully placed tea light candles inside coloured glasses all around the garden beds. Along the back fence, she’d even spelt Nicole’s name with large letters cut out from bright red cardboard.

  ‘Do you like what we’ve done for you?’ Samantha said, appearing out of nowhere, with her boyfriend, Trent, beside her like a faithful hound. ‘Trent and I worked all afternoon.’

  Trent bowed his head. ‘Sammy did most of the work.’

  ‘I love it,’ Nicole told them, and found that she actually meant it.

  Samantha beamed at them both. ‘Anything for my biggest and only-est sister!’

  The night wore on, in a long blur of lukewarm wine coolers and inane small talk. At one point, Nicole found herself blissfully alone and finally able to get a good look at the rest of the party. She saw Craig and Donna-Louise holding court with some of the older relatives from the Cooper side of the family, probably talking about tax breaks and real estate. She saw her cousins, spoilt private school brats now doing Commerce–Law or Law–Commerce at UWA, drinking irresponsibly in the corner. She saw people from school, most of whom she’d already forgotten. She even saw some of Craig’s business associates, sweating in their sports jackets and nylon trousers.

  No sign of Kim, of course. Or Tom.

  And no Tina.

  She went to look for Samantha to ask wh
ere Tina was but found herself face-to-face with Ben Porter, her Year Ten boyfriend.

  ‘Hey, Nicky,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the invite.’

  Nicole tried not to grimace. She hated it when anyone outside the immediate family called her Nicky.

  ‘You’re welcome, Benny,’ she said, wondering why on earth Samantha had invited him. There was no way Nicole wanted him here, not after the way he’d dropped her at the Year Ten River Rock and she’d spent the entire boat trip crying in the toilets.

  If Ben remembered any of that, he gave no sign. Instead, he launched into a long story about the trip he’d just taken to Bali with his fiancée. Nicole could tell he thought he was an exciting world adventurer like Alby Mangels, instead of just a guy wearing a 96FM sweatshirt, drinking XXXX in someone’s backyard.

  ‘You should go, Nicky. It’s so exotic,’ Ben said. ‘And surprisingly affordable. I mean, Kuta is practically an outer suburb of Perth these days.’

  Nicole smiled and nodded and then someone put ‘Eternal Flame’ on the stereo and Ben asked her to dance and she knew this was probably going to be the worst night of her life.

  At the first opportunity, she broke away from Ben and sought out Samantha. She found her in a corner of the garden with Trent, away from the rest of the party.

  ‘Are you having the best time?’ Samantha asked brightly.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  There was an awkward pause while Samantha looked at the ground and Trent turned red.

  ‘I’ll get us another Pepsi,’ Trent said, and quickly disappeared.

  ‘Well?’ Nicole demanded.

  ‘She . . . I didn’t invite her,’ Samantha replied, before adding, ‘I invited Aunt Meg, but. She couldn’t make it, but she said happy birthday!’

  She smiled at Nicole as if that made up for everything. But Nicole didn’t give a shit about Aunt Meg’s birthday wishes. She hadn’t seen the woman in years.

  ‘That’s fucked up,’ she told Samantha. ‘You invited our Ghost Aunt and Ben-Fucking-Porter but you didn’t invite Mum?’