Truly Madly Guilty

'How's Erika?' said Tiffany. 'I haven't seen her much lately.'

'She's fine,' said Oliver shortly, as if that were personal.

Jeez Louise, ever since the barbeque, every conversation with Erika and Oliver felt as strained and difficult as if she were talking to an ex-boyfriend straight after a break-up. A break-up that was her fault. A break-up where she'd cheated.

'And um, so we haven't seen you much since -' she broke off. 'How are Clementine and Sam?'

Oliver coughed. 'They're okay,' he said. He frowned off into the distance over Tiffany's shoulder.

'And how is -'

'You know, it seems like a while since Harry has had his bin out,' interrupted Oliver. Tiffany turned and looked at the empty spot on the road in front of Harry's house. Or Mr Spitty's house, as Dakota called him, because of his habit of spitting with disgust at all the things that disgusted him, like Dakota. Sometimes he looked at Tiffany's beautiful daughter and spat, as if her very existence offended him.

'He doesn't put it out every week,' said Tiffany. 'I don't think he creates a lot of rubbish.'

'Yeah, I know,' said Oliver. 'But it feels like it's been weeks since I've seen him. I wonder if I should go bang on his door?'

Tiffany turned back to look at Oliver. 'He'll probably just yell abuse at you.'

'He probably will,' agreed Oliver ruefully. He really was a nice guy. 'It's just that it feels like it's been a long time between abusive tirades.'

Tiffany looked at Harry's dilapidated, two-storey, red-brick Federation house. It was always kind of depressing to look at: the paint peeling off the window frames, the faded red roof tiles in need of repair. Gardeners came once a month to mow the lawns and trim the hedges, so it wasn't like it was derelict, but ever since they'd moved here, and Harry had come over to welcome them to the neighbourhood with a demand that they do something about their oak tree, it had been a sad, lonely looking old house.

'When did I see him last?' said Tiffany. She searched her mind for unpleasant incidents. A few times Harry had stood in his front yard and yelled at Dakota, and made her cry, and that had made Tiffany lose her temper and yell back at Harry in a way that made her feel ashamed afterwards because he was an old man, and probably had dementia, so she should have shown more respect and self-control. What was the last thing one of them had done to upset Harry?

Then she remembered.

'You're right,' she said slowly to Oliver, her eyes on the house. 'It has been a while since I saw him.'

In fact, she knew exactly when she'd seen Harry last. It was the morning of the barbeque. That goddamned nightmare of a barbeque she'd never wanted to host in the first place.

chapter nine

The day of the barbeque

It was quiet. It was always especially quiet the moment directly after Vid left the room. It was like the moment after a band stopped playing when the silence roared in your ears. Tiffany could hear the tick of the clock. She never heard the clock ticking when Vid was in the room.

Tiffany sat at the kitchen table catching up on email on her laptop and eating Vegemite on toast. Vid had gone down the driveway to collect the paper, muttering about how he had to hunt for it each day in the garden and he was going to cancel the delivery.

'Read it electronically like the rest of the world,' Tiffany always told him, but although Vid was generally enthusiastic about trying new things, he was also extremely loyal, and his loyalty to certain habits and personal rituals, products and people was unshakeable.

'Isn't it quiet when Daddy leaves the room?' Tiffany said to Dakota, who lay on her side on the long bay window seat, curled up like a cat in a rectangle of quivering morning sunlight. Barney, their miniature schnauzer, lay next to Dakota, his nose and paws resting on Dakota's arm, his eyes shut so all you could see were his big, bushy eyebrows. Barney was a dog who napped like a cat.

Dakota was reading, of course. She was always reading, disappearing into different worlds where Tiffany couldn't follow. Well, she could follow, if she could be bothered to pick up a book, but reading made Tiffany restless. Her legs started to twitch impatiently after one page. TV made her restless too, but at least she could fold laundry or pay bills while she watched. At Dakota's age Tiffany never would have picked up a book for pleasure. She was into make-up and clothes. The other day Tiffany had offered to paint Dakota's nails and Dakota had responded with a kind, vague: 'Uh, maybe later, Mum.' It was her karma for all the times her own sweet, domestic mother had suggested that Tiffany might like to help her bake something and Tiffany had apparently said, according to family folklore: 'Will you pay me?' 'You were always so keen to be compensated,' her mother said.

Well, time is money.

'It's quiet, isn't it?' said Tiffany when Dakota didn't answer.

'What?' said Dakota.

'You mean, pardon?' said Tiffany.

There was a beat. 'What?' said Dakota again, and she turned a page.

Tiffany snorted.

She opened a new email. It was from Saint Anastasias, the super-posh private school that Dakota would be attending next year. Tiffany wouldn't be able to follow her daughter into that new world either. Vid's three daughters from his first marriage, Dakota's three older stepsisters, had all attended Saint Anastasias, which wasn't a great advertisement as far as Tiffany was concerned, but the school did have a stellar reputation (it freaking well ought to have for what it charged) and Vid had wanted to send Dakota from kindergarten. Tiffany thought that was ridiculous, when there was a great little public school just down the road. Year Five was the compromise.