“That’s the other thing,” said Gemma. “Cat’s going to adopt the baby.”

“Adopt it?” repeated Lyn dumbly.

“It makes sense. I don’t want a baby. Cat does. We’ve formed a synergistic partnership.”

“I knew you wouldn’t approve,” Cat said aggressively.

“I haven’t said anything!” Lyn put a finger to the healing scab on her nose. “I’m just trying to take it all in.”

But Cat was right. She didn’t approve at all.

Maxine dropped off Maddie later that afternoon.

She was fizzing. “You’ve heard about their appalling little plan?”

“Yes.” Lyn rocked Maddie’s compact little body to her. “Oh, I’ve missed you! Has she been good?”

“Not in the least.”

“Ooh, Mummy fall?” Maddie sympathetically pointed at Lyn’s face. “Whoops-a-daisy!”

Maxine tapped her nails rapidly on the coffee table. “When you were little, whichever toy you picked up, Cat wanted it. Didn’t matter what it was, the moment you wanted it, she wanted it. She’d be throwing a tantrum, screaming like a banshee—and what would Gemma be doing?”

“What?”

“Giving Cat her own doll or teddy bear or whatever! I said to her, Gemma, a baby is not a toy! It’s not something you just hand over to your sister because she hasn’t got one! She just giggled in that ridiculous way of hers. I mean really, the child is deranged! Ever since that dreadful Marcus got himself killed she’s been quite odd!”

“What does Dad say?”

“Oh, Frank is no help. He’s always been far too soft on Cat. I’m surprised we’ve only been in court with her once. We had our first argument about it.”

“Your first argument?!” said Lyn.

Maxine stopped tapping and smiled. “First one this time around.”

The Twist

I remember I was in a record shop once and I saw a woman shopping with her grown-up daughters.

The girls were probably in their early twenties. The mother was one of those grim North Shore types, sensible shoes, pursed mouth.

Anyway, the record shop starts playing some rock ’n’ roll music and one of the girls says, “This is your era, Mum!” and she starts dancing the twist. The woman says, very firmly, “That’s not right, this is how you do the twist!” And she actually starts dancing right there in the record shop and blow me down if she’s not damned good!

It was obviously out of character for her. You could see her daughters’ jaws drop. But then they start dancing with her! All three of them—laughing, swiveling their hips, imitating their mother.

It was rather lovely. Then the song stopped and they stopped and that was it.

I went home that night and asked my kids if they’d like to see me do the twist, but they just said, “Oh please don’t, Mum.”

CHAPTER 21

The breakup with Charlie happened fast, without warning, just like every time.

It was a Tuesday morning, and Gemma woke up feeling vaguely queasy and out-of-sorts. (She thought it was probably the sardines on toast she’d eaten the night before. She certainly didn’t relate it to that day six weeks earlier when she stood in Charlie’s bathroom, watching a tiny yellow ball rolling rapidly around and around the bathroom sink, as if it were on a spinning roulette wheel, until it vanished down the murky black tunnel of the drain. “Oops,” she’d said. Oops. I just got a new destiny. But she hadn’t even considered the possibility of pregnancy. After all, she’d intended to put the Pill in her mouth, and besides which, it was minuscule! It was only months afterward, sitting in the doctor’s office, that she remembered and was impressed by the power of that little yellow ball.)

She and Charlie hadn’t stayed together the night before, so she should have been pleased to have him drop by unexpectedly. Up until now, each new sight of him standing in a doorway had filled her with fresh pleasure. But today, for the first time, their hello kiss was a little perfunctory, a little rushed. He looked too businesslike and distracted. Plus, he was getting over a cold and his nostrils were pink and flaky.

He didn’t smell as delicious as he normally did. Actually, nothing that morning smelled very nice.

Gemma was in her dressing gown, her hair wet from the shower. She had an 8:30 start at a job walking around North Sydney railway station excitably handing out free “energy” drinks. Eight-thirty was too early to be excitable. People would pretend not to see her. The thought of the gritty morning odors of North Sydney station was making her feel ill.

“Angela just called me,” he said. “Your sister slashed her tires.”

“Good for her,” said Gemma. It was a stupid thing to say. She didn’t even mean it.

“Gemma! She can’t go around just destroying people’s property. She’s got to get herself together. People break up. It happens.”

Yes, thought Gemma. It happens.

It was the first time she’d ever heard him angry, and there was a pedantic, schoolteacherish tone to his voice that Gemma didn’t like. People’s property—really! Men were so precious about cars, as if they were people.

“Anyway,” Charlie had his motorbike helmet under his arm, and he was rapping the top of it with his knuckle, “Ange is upset about it obviously and she’s thinking about taking a restraining order out against your sister. I just thought I should tell you. Maybe you could talk to her. Explain, you know, she can’t do this sort of thing.”