said.
“Know anything about them?”
Why didn’t he just ask me about my family?
“Nell?” Andy brought me into the conversation.
“Yes?” I was beginning to tire of this whole weird thing, where I was at the table but no one would speak to me directly.
“Would you like to tell Dad about your family?”
“Would you like to ask me something about my family?” I said, looking Hal in the eye with what I hoped was a steely ‘don’t mess with me, you old fucker’ gaze.
Hal chuckled.
“Ooh look out, she’s waxy.” He fussed around with the last of his prawns, sucking the juice out of the heads. His hands feathered around nervously. He realigned his plate, his glass, the salt shaker.
Andy refilled my glass. “Have some of this chardonnay darling, I think you’ll like it.”
“So, your parents, where do they live, darling?” Hal asked. He settled his napkin back into his lap, clasped his hands in front of him, then leaned forward towards me, and gave me his full attention in a forced, unnatural way. Had he forgotten my name already?
“In Manly, on the northern beaches.”
“Big house?” Hal said. “Near the beach?”
“Not . . . particularly,” I said, a bit bewildered, looking to Andy for direction.
“Nell’s dad is Paul Wylie,” Andy said hoping to score points with my father’s (obscure) fame as a residential architect.
“Oh?” Hals’ face drew a blank but he stayed attentive, sensing there was something in this worth knowing.
“He’s a famous architect,” Andy said proudly. “He’s won all sorts of awards. There’s a walking tour you can go on in Willis Cove that takes you past all the houses he’s designed.”
“Not all his,” I corrected.
Andy took a lot of license with this sort of information. The truth was, Dad had been part of a collective group of architects who had been commissioned in the ’70s to design homes for a new bushland suburb on the (then) fringes of the northern suburbs. At the time, everyone thought them a bunch of crazy arty-farty hippies and the project was widely dismissed as a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Gradually though, the mood had turned and now, the suburb and its eco-friendly, Lloyd Wright-esque homes were being hailed as progressive modern classics, houses returned to their original glory by the upper-middle-class families who clamoured to buy them. Hence the walking tour.
“Oh yes, those hippy places on the north shore. Very impressive,” Hal crooned. “So that’s how you got your job then?” He was looking at me again.
“What?”
“Dad got you in.”
“Got me in?” I repeated, not quite believing he would go this way so blatantly.
“Andy says you’re also an architect.” So he did listen. To things that might be of use when he wanted to bring me down a peg or two.
“Yes,” I said, visibly irritated. “But Dad didn’t give me a job.” This was my Achilles heel. He’d hit it perfectly within an hour of meeting me. The precision was frightening. Underneath all that mad professor blathering that he was doing, his mind was trapping facts and stashing them away for later.
“Nell works for an entirely different firm,” Andy clarified.
“But Dad must have some influence,” Hal said innocently, as though it was a perfectly acceptable thing to imply. “You said he’s pretty influential, very accomplished. He probably opened some doors for Nell. You know, proud dad, his golden daughter.”
“He didn’t open any doors for me,” I said evenly. My heart was racing with fight or flight. Come on, you old fucker! I thought. Bring it on!
“But it’s that sort of industry. Everyone would know he’s your dad.” Hal was all sincerity. Unfortunately for all my bravado, I was gobsmacked. Rendered speechless. Fuming but speechless.
“Nell’s very good at what she does,” Andy said in that same congenial voice. It was as though we were all just having a nice conversation. As if someone wasn’t implying my whole career was owed to nepotism.
“Oh! You’re very proud,” Hal said, as though it was a surprise that Andy would be proud of me and what I did.
“She’s just won a big design competition.”
“Gee!” Hal crooned. “Very impressive, a house design was it?”
“No, it was an urban design competition,” I mumbled, knowing already where this would go.
I’d been through this a number of times since winning. It never came out sounding as impressive once you drilled down on the detail.
“Urban,” he repeated, as though the word were foreign.
“It was . . . ” I was searching for a way to put it that wouldn’t sound lame. Unfortunately Andy got there before me.
“. . . for a bus shelter.”
“A bus shelter,” Hal repeated.
I knocked back my wine. Andy refilled it and gave me a ‘be nice’ smile. The waiter cleared the plates. One course down, two to go. Hal looked like he was still processing something about me, my bus shelter perhaps. I prepared my comeback based on the fact that it was a large interchange in a busy part of town. It wasn’t just some bus shelter, it was a massive structure that housed four or five major city bus routes. But Hal went in a completely different direction.
“Dad didn’t help?” Hal said to me innocently.
“What?”
“Dad, just drop it,” Andy said, his composure slipping momentarily.
“So you don’t get Dad to help out. Just thought he might give you advice, sort of work with you on things.”
“Ah, no.” It was all I could manage.
“So you’re not that close?” Hal kept on. “To your dad?”
“Yes. We are very close.”
“But you don’t discuss work?”
“Sometimes we do.”
I believe the expression is painted into a corner.
“Nell’s very talented, Dad,” Andy broke the rhythm.
“So she’s on the big money then?” Hal said.
“She’s doing fine,” said Andy deflecting the reality that architects don’t actually earn as much as people think.
“But
