Page 15 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
Then Dad was home sometimes, which was strange because the house had always felt like mine and Mum’s. Nick had moved to Sydney for uni years earlier, and Dad was always coming and going, but mainly going.
A few days after Mum left, Grandma Evelyn arrived. And this I remember clearly, through the fog of that summer. We were in the kitchen, and I was mixing her another Gordon’s gin and tonic (a slug of gin and a hint of tonic) when she shook her head and said, ‘Well, I suppose it was inevitable. All the women in our family are cursed.’
For the first time since my world had shattered, I felt something that wasn’t abject shock, misery or confusion: I was suddenly curious.
‘What do you mean “cursed”?’ I asked.
‘All the women in our family break off their engagements before they finally make it down the aisle. And then we all marry the wrong man: one who makes us miserable!’
‘Mum was engaged to someone else before Dad?’ I asked.
‘Yes. A lovely man,’ Grandma said, misty-eyed. ‘Then she met your father at the hospital, and called off the wedding. She’d fallen instantly and madly in love with your father. She was intoxicated by him...’
I processed this for a moment.
‘And you were engaged to someone else before you married Grandpa?’ I’d never met my maternal grandpa; he’d died before I was born. By all accounts he’d been a non-event.
‘Yes, I was engaged to a very handsome man. But then he was posted to England during the war and got a bit distracted by a girl there,’ she said.
‘Distracted?’
‘He married her,’ Grandma said blithely.
‘So you married Grandpa instead?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I was heartbroken and acted impulsively. He had such a nice moustache,’ Grandma said. ‘But with hindsight, that probably wasn’t enough of a foundation for a marriage.’
It hadn’t been. Mum had told me horror stories of the relationship between her parents, fuelled by disdain and whisky, when she’d been growing up.
‘My sister did the same thing – when her fiancé died, she married a fool on the hop. Your mum’s cousin too. It’s the family curse – we’re too passionate and make thoughtless decisions that hurt everyone around us.’ She daintily emptied her glass, then reached for the bottle of gin.
‘I’m a woman in this family. Does that mean I’m cursed?’ I asked, following her logic through to its natural conclusion.
‘No – of course not! You’ll do better than your mum and I did – stay in control of your life and make sensible decisions. Promise me that, darling?’
‘I promise,’ I said with the sincerity of a teenager who’d been invited to the inner sanctum of adult conversation.
‘Or maybe it’s no use and we can’t fight the curse,’ she added.
I must have looked alarmed because she reached out and wrapped her thin arms around me. I snuggled into the powdery nook between her shoulder and neck, which was different from Mum’s but similar enough.
‘Oh, darling, ignore me. You’re much too smart to listen to me,’ she whispered in my ear.
By the time we sat down to eat dinner, I’d had more than a few commemorative G & Ts while thinking about Grandma Evelyn. Grandma had died in my second year of uni. She had a heart attack while driving and crashed into a florist (only a display of jonquils had been hurt). It was the way she would have wanted to go. Mum sent the store owner flowers by way of apology, unironically.
After dinner, Mum blew out the handful of symbolic candles on the enormous sponge cake, and I realised everything was slightly blurry around the edges, a touch impressionistic.
Which wasn’t totally my fault. Despite being very aware of my nightshade allergy, Mum had cooked a lamb tagine filled with capsicum. All I’d been able to eat was some plain couscous.
‘What did you wish for?’ Hamish asked, draping his long arms around Mum then giving her a squeeze. She melted into him. Hamish adored Mum, wholly and openly. Soon after they’d met, he’d happily handed over the reins of his family’s shoe business to let the next generation have their turn at running the show. Now Mum was his full-time job, one that he didn’t seem to mind at all.
Hamish was so easy-going that Stella and I had a secret in-joke for a while where we’d offer him increasingly ridiculous drinks at family gatherings to see if we could find his limit. After he’d accepted a Blue Heaven spider as a pre-dinner drink, we’d given up. Mum, the woman who had an opinion on everything, had found her yang. Hamish was basically a sponge cake in human form: vanilla, dependable and Mum’s favourite.
‘If you tell us, it won’t come true,’ Evie said with authority, her finger poking into the cream oozing out of the layers.
‘My lips are sealed,’ Mum said, though I could have sworn she’d turned to look at me. Then she stuck her finger into the cake next to Evie’s. Evie laughed uproariously – she adored her naughty grandma. I watched Hamish give Mum a gentle kiss on the cheek before he began to cut up the cake.
‘I’m going to go outside for some fresh air,’ I announced. I stood up from the table so quickly my chair fell backwards. I didn’t miss the pointed look between Mum and Hamish.
