So they had to come back.
And the second time they were much more businesslike and only had two or three cocktails and wrote everything down and got out the camera. And then when they were at the front door, leaving, she looked at Dad – definitely at Dad according to Bob – and said, “Which one of you two gents would care to take me out to dinner this Friday?”
And Dad laughed and said, “Me.”
I asked Bob if he could dig out any photos he had from that job and he looked at me blankly and then mumbled something about not being sure he still had them, but he made a show of looking anyway. Then he started opening drawers and shuffling around in boxes while we were talking, which made it easier to ask questions because he wasn’t staring straight at me the whole time.
So I said, “Did dad actually go out with Violet, on a date, like boyfriend and girlfriend?” and Bob said, “It would have been nicer if he had.”
I said, “What does that mean?” and Bob told me that dad kept Violet on the brink of it for years, always giving her enough hope so she’d give him money or buy him a suit or take him out for dinner or something, never saying no and never delivering either.
Bob said, “Your dad could say ‘I love you’ to a woman without even blinking, whether he meant it or not. Mostly not. He said it was the way to get whatever you wanted out of chicks at no extra cost.”
And Bob said judging by Dad’s success rate with the opposite sex, his theory worked.
My dad the stud. I was kind of impressed and appalled all at once.
“Well how come he married Mum then,” I said, “if he had Violet to pay for stuff and all these girls on tap?”
“Your mum was a cut above,” Bob said. “She was beautiful and funny and bright and she had no interest whatsoever in your father.” And he threw me a photo of Mum then, taken maybe twenty years ago. It was funny seeing her like that, herself and not herself, the same person but not the one I knew. I had to admit she was a fox.
“She didn’t even like him,” I said.
“Not at first, but he worked hard on it. He loved your mum, you know.”
“Yeah? Right.”
Bob didn’t say anything to that.
I said, “So Dad married Mum and then he didn’t see Violet again and then he disappeared and she died and that’s it?”
Bob shook his head. He said, “They didn’t see each other for years and then Violet got back in touch, apparently, and asked your dad to help her write her life story.”
“Help her?” I said.
“Yep, it’s called ghost writing.”
“He took that a bit literally didn’t he?” I said, and we both forced a laugh.
“Well, he didn’t get very far with it before Violet died,” Bob said, and then he picked up this old contact sheet and stood staring at it.
I said had he found the photos, and he passed it to me; tiny black and white shots, twenty-four of them in three rows of eight. Tiny Violets and tiny Dads, posing and grinning and wearing shades. Dad was wearing a shirt that I still have in my cupboard at home. He had dark brown messy hair like I do. He looked young and happy. I was surprised how much he looked like me. And that’s when I realised.
Maybe Violet thought I was my dad.
Was that why I noticed her in the cab office, and why she was waving her dead arms at me to get my attention?
Did she think I was Pete?
I didn’t want her to think that. I wanted her to think I was me.
I wasn’t in the mood for Mercy when I got in.
She stopped me in the hallway, all businesslike and aggressive, pulling rank.
She said she wanted to have a serious talk with me about Mum.
Mercy’s serious talks usually mean she’s finally woken up to something the rest of us have been aware of for months. They usually take place in her room, last about two minutes and are a load of crap.
I followed her upstairs in a hunched shoulder, stomping on the stairs kind of way and she shut her door behind me.
“We’ve got to do something about Mum,” she said.
“Like what?” I said, pretending not to be bothered.
“She’s depressed, Lucas, have you not noticed?”
I haven’t said much about Mercy before now. Nothing good, anyway. The truth is, that’s kind of how we are in real life. We hardly see each other, maybe at breakfast on school days (except she barely eats and always disappears upstairs to put make-up on) or on the stairs or at night if she’s come home and I’m still up. We don’t have time for more than four words each and most of them are sarcastic.
So anyway, my stranger of a sister was standing between me and the way out with her hands on her hips and obviously brewing for a fight.
She said it again, but with more outrage. “Haven’t you noticed Mum’s depressed?”
I wanted to say all kinds of things. I wanted to say that of course I’d bloody noticed, and it could be to do with her husband abandoning her with two teenagers and a baby and having no time off and no social life and always wishing she’d made different choices and never had any kids. I could have said I knew Mum’s problems intimately through stealing and reading her diary, but I didn’t say any of that.
I said, “No.”
I’m not sure why. Maybe I wanted a fight too.
Mercy threw her arms up in the air and yelled at me. “You are so selfish and out of your face! Is it up to me to look after everybody in this stupid family?”
I said I hadn’t noticed she was looking after anybody apart from herself, which was true, but badly timed. I thought she was going to punch me.
“When are you going to wake up, Lucas?”
“About eleven,” I said. I was enjoying myself. I was perverse.
“She’s got that awful boyfriend, she’s putting on weight, she’s drinking too much and she cries in the bathroom when she thinks we’re watching TV,” Mercy said. “I’m not letting you out of this room until we work something out.”
“Why don’t you offer to baby-sit for Jed or go and visit Pansy once in a while or take Norm and the dog for a walk or do the shopping?” I said to her in a way that pointed out these were all things I was actually doing.
“It’s more than that,” she said.
“Well,
