“It’s a brand of frozen quiche, donkey.”
“Rudeness is not attractive, Jenny. Are you saying you cheated?”
“Certainly not! I never told you I’d made it from scratch. That’s why I had to rush out to the supermarket at the last minute and miss half the Science Show.”
“I thought you went to get eggs.”
“You can get eggs anywhere. You can get eggs at the milk bar around the corner. You can get eggs at the 7-Eleven store at half past midnight.”
“I might be able to,” my father says sharply, glancing up from his Awfully Official Papers that are spread out over a third of the kitchen table. Mum would never let him do that. “You, on the other hand, will be tucked up in bed and well asleep by that hour.”
I sigh loudly. “Don’t nag. You know I always get back before curfew.”
“Hmph. Scraping in just under the clang of the witching hour. Speaking of which—”
“Ha, very funny.”
“Pun unintended, I’m glad to say. Speaking of which, I repeat, whom are you going out with tonight, someone I know, I trust?”
“David. You know him, and you can trust him.” Maybe.
“I know David?”
“Poppa, you’ve only lectured him on the theory of fiscal macro-dynamics or some damned thing every single time he drops in here to—”
“Ease up, Jenny. That David. Nice boy—I think. Does he know how to keep his hands to himself?”
“Poppady!” I’m shocked.
Actually I’m not terrifically shocked, because in fact I have to keep warning Davy to do exactly that whenever we sit next to each other in the movies or round at Louise’s for a video like Drugstore Cowboy the other night, so who knows how I am going to keep him cool while we snuggle up alone together at his folks’ place watching something gross? Do I really want to, for that matter? But it is always wise to sound as pure and outraged as possible when your father asks a question like that.
I think he sees through me, though.
“It’s a reasonable thing for the parent of a daughter to ask, I believe, especially a daughter whose mother currently declines to sit at the same table with us. I have to do the work for both Hattie and me, after all. Mother and father in one horrible balding bundle.” He smiles in self-mockery, which is always a happy thing to see in a grown-up.
“Currently?” I say, quick as a steel trap. The mysterious telephone mugger just won’t get out of the back of my mind.
“You know I hope to re-establish cordial relations with Hattie, sweetie.”
“Oh, don’t be a stuffy old Prof, Prof,” I tell him, feeling angry underneath my burst of fond love. “‘Cordial’! You still love her, admit it.”
“I admit it. But we are divorced, after all. Let’s change the subject, Jenny. The topic’s painful.”
“We have to talk it through properly some—”
“Not now.” He’s avoiding my eye, suddenly. He looks meaningfully at his watch. “I really do have a lot of work to finish. I think I’ll take all this stuff into the study. Leave the washing-up, I’ll fix it later.”
“Poppa!” I shout. I pound on the table. “How can you just stand there and say ‘the topic’s painful’? I’m part of the topic!”
“Later, Jenny. I mean it. I have too much on my plate right now to divert any emotional energy into this sort of draining row.”
“I don’t want a row, I want to—”
“You’re yelling, Jenny. For somebody who doesn’t wish to get into a row, you’re—”
“Oh damn it,” I yell, and slam back my chair and stomp to the front door, where the bell is buzzing.
“Madeleine,” I grunt.
“Hi. Would you rather kill me now or should I come back later with witnesses?”
I glare at her. She’s doing her retro-Madonna number. The kid’s got no taste. For once I agree with my father. Socks in three different luminous colors. Lace around her breasts, which are getting pretty spectacular these days anyway. Ballet tights, dark bracelets from her elbow to her wrist, a wonder she can lift her arms. Metallic woven jacket with bits of silk and satin and leather hanging off it, a bunch of Catholic rosaries around her neck, urchin shoes. God, she looks like a reject from MTV. No, that’s not fair. Standing there with the early afternoon autumn sunshine blasting through hair that seems to have exploded upwards after her brain went off, she looks like one of the success stories from MTV.
“My father will flip,” I tell her, giggling.
“You got no style, Jenny,” Madeleine says, coming in and slamming the door behind her. “Look at you. Worn out jeans, old school sweater, awful shoes, let’s face it, and your hair hasn’t changed since you were 10. Where’s your class? ‘Gonna dress you up,’” she sings in a thin little voice, like something out of 1985 or whenever it was, writhing as she bops down the hall. A trailing rosary catches on the handlebar of my bike and almost trips her on her face. She doesn’t appreciate my snigger.
“Got any Pepsi?”
“Come upstairs to my room, I’ve got some in the fridge.”
One of my father’s lateral thinking breakthroughs was providing me with a small refrigerator of my own, the sort they have in hotel rooms. I keep Cokes and stuff in it, and ice cream and chocolate when it’s hot, and he figures this stops me from making a mess in the kitchen. Considering that I am preparing half the food in the house these days, this is pushing his luck.
“Where’s the olds? Sorry,” she catches my look, “the old.”
“Downstairs getting some report prepared. ‘Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,’ that sort of thing.”
“Huh?”
“William Blake or something.”
“William who?”
I give up. “A poet.”
“Uh. Does he play with a band?”
“Let’s start again from the beginning, shall we? Hey, Madeleine, ah jest lahhhv yo’ clothes.”
“Whah, thank yo’, babba dorl.” She twirls, sending bits spinning outward. She throws herself backwards across my messy bed and tries hard to look like a frame from a video clip. “Music,” she cries. “Play music. I’ll go crazy if I don’t hear music.”
I switch on K-Rock but it’s doing a retrospective on the era of the Beatles and the Stones or something. Not that I’ve got anything against John Lennon, or Julian for that matter. No, Julian wasn’t one of the Beatles, was he? Anyway, it’s Mick Jagger and the Stones who’ve just been here for their first tour in twenty-three years or whatever it is.
Madeleine finds a Yothu Yindi CD and starts bouncing around the room, humming and pulling faces. “What kind of reports?” she asks, popping a big bubble of gum.
“What kind of reports what?”
“Is he writing? I mean, I never thought about it until just now. What is your father?”
“Economist,” I mumble. Maybe I’m jealous. That’s what it feels like, a nasty little stab. But I couldn’t tell you if I am jealous because she’s paying attention to Poppa instead of to the fun time we are supposed to be having, or because I want to keep Poppa to myself. Having a mind like a steel trap