Sweeties. Leon Silver

in Abel’s head and it’s about as close to mirth as he’ll get on this calamitous day, and for many days to come, repeating in his head: twaddle, twaddle, twaddle … which had been Granny Annie’s reply when Mum had laid the separation and remarriage plans on her, twaddling it right into her daughter-in-law’s face without flinching and Abel, hiding behind the barely closed lounge-room door, had to cup his mouth not to laugh out loud … twaddle, Granny Annie said – twaddle, he told Mary and Rose who were hiding in his room still hoping for a miracle, naively believing that their last hope, Granny Annie, could change the outcome of this calamity … And in a way she had as Abel understands that twaddle is indeed a victory of sorts … Later that night of the double re-marriage, in the bed in Granny Annie’s house, Rose and Mary twig a little as to their changed circumstances, they sneak into Abel’s room as he’s lying on his back in the bed he’d last slept in a year ago when Mum and Dad had gone for a holiday with Bernie and Margaret. Now the four of them had gone away again but it’s not the same, as was made plainly clear at the over­heard drunken jibes at the party earlier: Careful, don’t call out the wrong name when the action starts … Best friends split up, marry the others, and are still best friends … so civilised – All you need is love, right? And the funniest, totally beyond Abel’s comprehension, was that his parents – the original ones – laughed heartily with all the others, but young Abel has the last laugh now as in bed at Granny Annie’s he sneers at his mother’s sharp parting look, refusing to accept her spiked accusation that weaves its way like a homing missile through the merrymakers, aimed directly at Abel’s forehead: It’s all your fault. If you had just gone to school like you were supposed to … All good and well being brave and mocking his mother earlier, but now, in bed, Rose and Mary, nervy about Abel’s long silence, try to revive their brother’s old playfulness, climbing on Abel’s stomach and asking him to make them bounce; Abel – albeit, silently – bounces them as long as he can but when he stops Mary asks, Ali, why is Dad leaving us to live with Margaret and John and Aaron and Cindy? … Ali, Rose echoes, Why is Bernie coming to live with us? Abel hopes his sisters know that discover­ing Mum and Bernie’s deed isn’t the same as actually doing it – but how can he explain this disaster to these two little girls perched on his stomach holding back tears? Abel will have to cope, he’s old enough, but his sisters are lost in a broken family, and he can’t explain to them why … He thinks back to a time when everything still made sense, a moment captured in a framed photo by his bedside, the family’s talisman. A few months after his baby sisters were home from hospital, Abel had snuck into their room and scratched their faces. Their screams woke up Mum and Dad and, when severely reprimanded, Abel had whimpered, Why can’t we go back to being just Abel, Mum and Dad and Wags like before? Mum had hugged and kissed her son, pointing out that they were now five Marvins plus dog, and taken a self-timed family photo for posterity, Abel smiling through tears, head wedged between the scratched-up twins, Mum pressed on one side holding a sign that said 5×M+D (conveying five Marvins plus dog) and Dad on the other holding puppy Wags. Abel tries to think how he’d photograph – let alone explain to his sisters – the new bastard-mix of families, but he can’t, no iconic scribbling could ever capture this mess. After that first night at Granny Annie’s, whenever Abel lay flat on his back in bed, he felt his two sisters’ ghosts clutching his neck and bouncing on his stomach and heard their little confused voices and he’d squirm; his worst predictions proved so painfully accurate, their old life, that close bond between Abel and his father, had disappeared just as Wags had in that long ago bushfire and so had his sisters’ verve in a stable family … 5×M+D was no more.

      Sweeties (part 2)

      Second week back from their group honeymoon, Abel stays with Dad and Margaret and John, while Aaron and Cindy stay with Mum and Bernie and Rose and Mary, the weekend enterprise smacking of disaster from its onset, as the minute Mum drops Abel off, Dad waves a little too fervently to his ex-wife then introduces Abel to the new dog, Sunshine, a dumb golden retriever, with watery grey eyes. Of course Abel has been many times to this house – they were best friends of his parents, weren’t they? – but on past visits he’d torn into John’s room, the two boys closing the bedroom door to keep the four smaller brat siblings outside, then checking out any new toys or gadgets, spending the rest of the time chasing, hiding and playing – why, he knows that house as well as his own. But today he feels as though he’s dragged shit in on his heels, leaving stinking smudges on anything he touches. The sojourn to John’s room lasts no more than a few silent minutes, the door staying open behind him, John, mute, slouching on the floor. When he can stand it no longer Abel goes into the lounge and switches on the TV, from the corner of his eye he sees that Margaret is about to object to midday TV watching, but Dad gives a short sharp nod to leave Abel be and he sits, watching for hours, not as a visitor, not even a stranger, or a friend, just an un-belonging person, all he sees on the TV screen are his two sisters watching in silence at the breakfast table as the sleepover announcement is floated by Mum. Not one word, not a hug, not even a crying Ali, take us with you … especially Mary, accusing Abel of desertion with each fired glance … Later with a rah, rah, rah Abel is recruited to drag a spare mattress into John’s room, to sleep on the floor next to his new ‘brother’ and as soon as Abel clamps eyes shut, he sees Mary again in his bedroom doorway, watching him pack his pyjamas and spare shirt into his backpack, making a mess of the folding under her silent scrutiny. She’s mute again, mouth pursed, no way is she going to cry, her Ali should know better than to heartlessly desert her. Rose is too upset to come into his room, bad enough that Dad has deserted them, now Abel abandons his ‘two little squirrels’ to the enemy. On his way out past the girls’ room, he feels Rose scrunched up on her bed. On the floor mattress in Dad’s new house when Dad finally comes in to rub his back and tuck him in as he did years ago at home, Abel turns his face away.

      The next morning, early, after a tasteless breakfast, Dad can’t wait to pack the two boys and new dog into the car and drive to the nature reserve and park in the street next to their house, so congenially planned and executed, that smiling Mum comes out and hugs Dad and laughing Bernie comes out and shakes hands, and Rose and Mary come out and, wailing, clutch Daddy’s legs and won’t let go … Finally, in a team effort, they manage to disentangle Dad from his crying daughters and then it’s the moment Abel has dreaded and is now seared into his brain – worse than scratching their baby faces: his sisters look up at him angrily, Mary slowly mouths I hate you, Ali with a cold and fierce stab way beyond her years – more reminiscent of Mum – an expression Abel will remember as clearly as an alien sighting years later when Mary, as payback, wrecks his life and hers … Meanwhile the man and two boys and dog shoulder their backpacks and Dad hoists the tied bundle of two tents, but Sunshine can’t manage his doggy backpack, trembling in shock, and at first Dad laughs and teases Sunshine, but after the tenth slip down of the pack Dad just takes it off and hangs onto it … Abel walks in silence, kicking loose branches while Dad explains to John the adventure’s procedure, but he may as well explain it to his son too as this is a different bush reserve, this forest is dead and silent, the leprechauns having emigrated, this trudging journey to the magical island of Ithaca is populated by mythical Greek monsters, but they’re half-hearted at best. The single eye of the Cyclops glares from behind trees, as intimidating as a paper cut-out. Bearded Poseidon waves his fist promising earthquakes and storms but Abel sneers, Bring them on. The tribe of giant cannibals raise themselves to attack positions, smacking their lips with hunger; Abel laughs in their faces … But this is nothing – mere kids’ stuff – the real danger raises its hostile head when the three weary travellers plus dog get to the sparkling cone-shaped cathedral – Dad doesn’t respect the occasion, this rite of passage to their private sanctuary has simply elapsed, Not a sign of recognition. Not even a shared grin. How could he? Abel’s last hope – the expectation that once they passed through to their private, isolated world, all would revert to what it was before – is dashed … Abel drags himself to the creek, Mary’s words I hate you, Ali weighing down his shoulders more than his backpack, and when they finally set up camp, even the fish refuse to cooperate, not one bites, whereas in previous trips Dad had to yell down into the water: Take a number, you slippery sea-creatures … Keeping up the charade they build the traditional campfire