'It wasn't a very good restaurant, so we came home early,' said Clementine. Mummy and Daddy can no longer stand to go out to dinner together. Mummy and Daddy no longer like each other very much. Mummy and Daddy might be 'separating'.
'What?'
'Sit up straight, Holly,' said Clementine mechanically.
Holly squawked.
'Please don't make that sound,' said Clementine. 'Please.'
Holly made the sound again but softer.
'Holly.'
'Yuck,' said Ruby. She picked up her spoon and held it limply between her fingertips over the plate. She let it swing back and forth. 'No fank you.'
'I'll give you "no fank you",' said Sam. 'Come on, girls. Just a little bit.'
'Mmmm, delicious,' said Clementine, taking a mouthful. 'Good work, Daddy.'
'Well, I'm not eating any of it,' said Holly. She folded her arms and pressed her lips together. 'I have too many tastebuds.'
'What do you mean you have too many tastebuds?' said Sam as he determinedly shovelled food into his mouth.
'Kids have more tastebuds than grown-ups, that's why it tastes yucky,' said Holly.
'She saw it on that TV show,' said Clementine. 'Remember? The one with the -'
'I don't care how many tastebuds you've got,' said Sam. 'You can try a mouthful.'
'Blerk,' said Holly.
'Let's see some good manners,' said Clementine.
Sam didn't look at her.
It was as though he'd just been waiting all these years for the perfect excuse to hate her and finally he'd got it. Her throat filled. The shepherd's pie wasn't as good as it normally was. Too heavy on the Worcestershire sauce.
She put down her fork and had a mouthful of water.
'I've got a sore tummy,' moaned Holly.
'No you don't,' said Clementine.
Clementine's mother thought their marriage was a problem that could be fixed with a good dose of common sense and elbow grease. Marriages were hard work! But what could they say to a counsellor? They
weren't fighting over money or sex or housework. There were no knotty issues to untangle. Everything was the same as before the barbeque. It was just that nothing felt the same.
She looked at Ruby, who sat in front of her in perfect, pink-cheeked, giggling, naughty health, and remembered how strange it had felt when Ruby was transferred out of the hushed, important environment of ICU and into an ordinary ward with ordinary patients and busy, distracted nurses. No lovely Kylie just for them. It was like going from a five-star hotel to a youth hostel. Then, after two nights in the ordinary ward, an extraordinarily young, tired doctor flipped through Ruby's paperwork and said, 'You should be able to take her home tomorrow.' Her chest was clear. She hadn't needed physio. The antibiotics had successfully fought off the chest infection before it took hold of her. Of course there would be neurological check-ups, out-patient care, she'd be monitored, but she was fine.
First world medical care meant they didn't have to pay for their first world negligence. They'd brought her home to a stack of presents and an overly loving big sister, who at intervals would try to pick her up and cuddle her, something she'd never done much of before, and would inevitably squeeze too hard and Ruby would shriek and Holly would get yelled at.
No one behaved normally except for Ruby, who clearly wanted the fuss over. She did not want to sleep in the big bed with either of her parents. She wanted her own cot. And she did not want a parent sleeping on the floor of her bedroom. She would stagger to her feet in the cot, her thumb in her mouth, and point Whisk at the offending parent: 'Go away!' she would say. So they went. Ruby seemed to sense if anyone became too clingy or sappy. Clementine sometimes sat holding her, quietly crying, and if Ruby noticed she would look up angrily and say, 'Stop dat.' She did not want to be cherished, thank you very much, unless it involved an extra biscuit.
They should have been like lottery winners. They'd got a reprieve, a last-minute pardon. They were allowed to return to their ordinary lives and their ordinary worries, to arguments over shepherd's pie. So why were they not living their lives in a permanent state of joy and relief?
'I am not going to eat one single bit of this,' said Holly. She folded her arms dramatically. 'Not. One. Single. Bit.'
'Well, in that case I'm not going to let you have one single minute on my iPad,' said Sam. 'Not. One. Single. Minute.'