Page 39 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Lorraine looks at her watch and sees that it’s almost a quarter past nine, which means the cartoon probably finished at nine, given what TV programming is like. So Terry could be halfway to Noosaville by now if he’s on his skateboard.
‘You work him too hard.’
Lorraine jumps at the unexpected voice. Cora’s. Naturally.
‘He doesn’t work at all,’ Lorraine mutters, not turning completely towards her mother-in-law because that would be an invitation to Cora to keep talking.
‘He’s a boy,’ Cora says. ‘He wants to play.’
‘Simon is a boy. Terry is a teenager. I had plenty of chores to do at that age.’
Although Mike probably didn’t, given Cora’s opinion about adolescents and work. It’s a wonder Mike is so hardworking now.
‘But you give Simon little jobs too.’ Cora’s face shows her disapproval.
‘Helikesthem, Cora. Don’t you, Si?’
Simon gives her those pathetic eyes he’s been perfecting and Lorraine feels the queasiness that comes with thinking that your kid is betraying you to your enemy.
‘Sometimes,’ he says feebly, like his arm is being twisted.
Great – Cora’s got to him too. Lorraine is being sidelined in her own house. Perhaps she should just leave them all to it and see how far they get when she’s not there to pack their school lunches and organise haircuts and dentist appointments and presents for birthday parties. Not to mention the things she does for Mike, some of which can’t be mentioned in company.
‘Fine. You don’t like them,’ Lorraine says tersely and chews the inside of her cheek, like she always does when she’s tense. Then she starts to breathe noisily, like she’s blowing into bellows, and that’s how she knows she’s really stressed, because it’s what she used to do before exams when she was at school.
‘Are you all right?’ Cora says, although Lorraine can’t hear a skerrick of concern in her voice.
‘No.’
She doesn’t want to deal with this today. Doesn’t want Simon to take his grandmother’s side. Doesn’t want Terry skiving off. Doesn’t want Mike to be out working. It’s Sunday. They should be spending time together as a family. It’s been weeks since they’ve had Sunday lunch together, and Lorraine loves it when Mike lights the barbecue and throws on some snags and onions to make his famous-in-his-own-mind sausage sangers. Used to love it. She can’t remember the last time he did it.
That’s it. She’s getting out of here. Cora can watch Simon. Simon would probably prefer that. If Terry comes back, Cora can tell him there’s absolutely nothing for him to do because if Lorraine asks her to say he has a job she won’t. She just wants to be the cool grandma. And what Lorraine needs right now is the non-cool grandma. She needs her own mother.
‘I’m off,’ she says.
‘Where?’ Cora says.
‘Somewhere.’ Lorraine isn’t going to tell her anything. None of her business.
‘Where, Mum?’
Simon’s doing the consumptive thing again and for once Lorraine finds it annoying instead of cute, and it’s really not great, is it, when you think your own kid is annoying? If she’d been doubting her desire to get out of the house for a while, this convinces her.
‘Somewhere, Si.’ If she uses the shortened form of his name she doesn’t sound so harsh. That’s what she tells herself, anyway. ‘Nana will stay with you.’
She picks up the car keys and her handbag, and before she can blink she’s pulling up outside her mother’s house because Eumundi is just down the road. Even though Lorraine told Rose it was ‘hicksville’ when she bought there, she’s happy about its proximity now.
‘Mum,’ she calls as she opens the back door and drops her bag on the kitchen counter.
‘Hello, Loll,’ Rose says as she walks hesitantly into the room. She twisted her ankle a couple of weeks ago and still won’t tell Lorraine how.
‘Nothing to worry about, Loll,’ she’d said. Loll is what Rose has always called her. Short for Lolly, because Lorraine was, according to Rose, the sweetest little girl. As Lorraine likes to remind her, that was a long time ago.
‘Still hurting?’ she says, kissing her mother on the cheek.
Rose nods. ‘Bit. What are you doing here?’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way but I think I want to drop my family out the window.’
