A Reason to Exist

Chapter 50

Dad called a little earlier than usual on Wednesday night. First he spoke to Tate, who was sitting at the kitchen table employing one word responses. 'How was school?', 'good.' 'How's the Mary Poppins rehearsals coming along?', 'Fine.' 'Did you learn anything interesting today?', 'Nup.' It was a tragedy to hear my father and brother's communication reduced to this. 'Are you coming to my place next weekend?', 'Maybe.' Dad cut it short, he couldn't take it any longer. Their relationship had been pushed out to a rocky ledge, one false move and it falls. 'Is Macy there?' dad asked.

Tate handed me the phone. I tiptoed down the hallway and into my room and shut the door before mum could look up from her ironing.

'Hey dad.'

'Macy, darling, how are you?'

'Good, everything is fine. How are you more importantly?' I sat down on my bed and held the phone up more steadily, so I could see dad properly. 'What's happened to your face?'

Dad held two fingers up to his cheekbone. 'Rex punched me.'

'What?'

'Don't worry, it could've been worse. He punched me and then he got over it. Amazingly.'

I screwed my eyes up and leaned into the phone so I could see more clearly. There was a bruise on dad's face from his cheekbone to under his eye.

'Did it hurt?'

'A bit.'

'Did you have to go to hospital?'

'No.'

'What did he say?'

'That I was the worst art dealer he'd ever had. That my security sucked if someone could break in and slash his paintings. He sacked me. Then he took me on again. He's desperate for the money from this exhibition.'

'The opening? It was tonight, wasn't it?'

'Yeah, it's happening right now.'

'Shouldn't you be out there?'

'My job is done already. A curator from the Art Gallery of New South Wales came in yesterday and purchased the lot. They've all got red stickers under them. All I had to do tonight was provide free booze.'

'That's great,' I said, relieved. 'Was Rex happy?'

'He's happy that the show has sold out and he'll get his money. He couldn't give a stuff what happens to his works. He paints so he can gamble. He gambles so he doesn't have to paint. It's complicated.' Dad sighed and touched his face again.

'Sorry about your face, I hope it wasn't horrible.'

'He broke my favourite pair of glasses. Otherwise it was okay. I'm a big boy. I haven't been punched since high school. It wasn't pleasant. But at least it was dealt with, in a strange way.'

I smiled. My father, the eternal optimist, the forgiver, the take-it-like-a-man, the chin up and get on with it guy.

'How's Tate doing?' dad asked.

'Don't know. We're so estranged.'

'He didn't ask anything about the gallery?'

'Not a thing.'

Dad nodded sadly at the phone. I could tell the invisible beating from his son hurt more than Rex's punch. Incognito delinquent behaviour is more brutal than a blow to the face. The bruises Tate gives to dad's heart will last longer than the bruise below dad's eye.

Dad is right. Better to have it out – better to have a screaming match, a punch to the face, than this festering resentment.

'I'm caught between a rock and a hard place,' dad said.

'I know,' I said. There was loads more I wanted to say about how I couldn't talk any sense with my brother, how I felt like I'd lost him completely. I couldn't even remember the last time we laughed or played together. I didn't say anything, though, because it was all so sad.

We were brother and sister once in the truest sense. We bickered and poked each other, we fought for the front seat in the car, we ate popcorn on the couch and when mum told us off for leaving buttery fingerprints on the fabric, we gave each other a look of support, like we were in this together, it was him and I against the world. We had each other's backs. We wrapped each other tightly in a fluffy blue blanket and timed each other's escape. It was our own game, we made it up, and we played it for hours, laughing and giggling at the brilliance of our invention. Some nights when we were camping at Torquay in the tent and mum and dad were having a drink with the neighbours and Tate couldn't sleep, I'd talk to him softly and tell him to imagine his feet getting tired, his knees getting tired, his tummy getting tired, his shoulders getting tired and eventually he'd drift off to sleep and I'd feel proud that I was able to soothe my little brother to sleep. On his first day at school, I'd spied on him all lunchtime to make sure he had a friend to play with. On my last day of grade six, at the final assembly, he'd been the first one in line to high five the grade sixes out of the school. We had been there for each other at the beginning and end of school and our love had no boundaries.

Lately, though, there'd been no love, no high fives, no wrapping each other in a fluffy blue blanket and laughing. We'd become a wasteland of distance, dismissive, out of tune to each other's needs. Drifting is vile, the unravelling of siblings the end of a civilisation. Our own clan attacked from within. When our heads of state separated, the lineage was rocked.

'Macy!' Mum yelled out. 'Speak out here!'

'Mum's calling out,' I said to dad. 'I better go, yeah? Speak to you next week. I miss you so much, dad.'

'Love you darling.'

We hung up and hopelessness descended upon me. It would be another whole week before I could speak to my father. This divorce arrangement was the pits. I couldn't wait until I was old enough to have my own phone and see and speak to my father whenever I want.