Page 56 of Here One Moment

“But, Leo,” she says, “you don’t want to miss seeing your children grow up.”

Well, of course he doesn’t want to miss seeing his children grow up. He’s not! He’s taking Oli to soccer tomorrow. He helped Bridie with her math homework tonight, which was extremely painful. What the hell is she talking about?

Sometimes he feels like he’s one of those stretchy rubber-man toys and his boss has one arm and his wife has the other arm and every day they pull in different directions, demanding more time, more time, more time.

“Okay, fine, I’ll come to the movie,” he says, but he doesn’t standup.

“It’s fine.” Neve sighs. “I don’t want you sitting there fretting over work all through the movie.”

He rolls his chair closer, puts his arm around her waist, and looks up at her. “I’ll come next time.”

“Do you want to know another top five deathbed regret?” asks Neve as he drops his arm and scoots back to his desk.

“What is it?” says Leo, although he doesn’t care, his hands are back on his keyboard, ready to do more in less time, to prioritize, to group tasks based on importance, to focus on what’s important, not just urgent, except everything is both important and urgent.

“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.”

He grunts. Another point made. Another point ignored.

Chapter 46

When you imagine the life story of a fortune teller’s daughter, you probably imagine red satin drapes and flickering candles, colored smoke and crystal balls.

Think this instead: a white, weatherboard, two-bedroom house with red terra-cotta roof tiles on a quarter-acre block, a kitchen wallpapered with vertical rows of fat bunches of purple grapes, a tiny mint-green bathroom, a backyard with a mandarin tree and a mulberry tree, a vegetable garden, a shed for the chickens, and a shed forDad.

Think freckled noses and screaming cicadas, fishing rods and bubbling creeks, the nose-tickling fragrance of eucalyptus and freshly mown grass, an endless expanse of hopeful blue sky.

Think suburban Sydney in the 1950s.

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My parents met in 1946, right after the war, at a New Year’s Eve dance hosted by the Air Force Association. My mother kept the ticket, which I still have, faded and precious. It says: Dancing 8:30-1:30, Liquor permitted in hall, Novelties for all, Confetti battle. Admission 10/6 Single.

The dance was held at The Cab, which was what everyone called the Pacific Cabaret in Hornsby: an elegant, white, art deco–style building, designed so that when you walked inside it felt like you were stepping on board a cruise ship. The light fittings resembled ships’ bows. Cutout palm trees decorated the walls. The dance floor, made of tallowwood, was considered the best in Sydney.

The Cab became a roller skating rink in the 1970s.

The building was demolished in the eighties and replaced by an office block.

It’s often best not to think too much about “progress” or you may find yourself depressed.

My parents’ names were Arthur Hetherington and Mae Mills.

Arthur, my dad, was a shy, deep-voiced, tall country boy from Lismore, with a head for figures, good with his hands, a careful, meticulous, logical man. His favorite things were fishing, canoeing, and chess.

Dad served in the war as an aircraft mechanic. Most of his time was spent in hangars and workshops on the island of Morotai in Indonesia. “Oh, I think he had a grand old time,” Mum would say, as if his wartime experience was just an overseas version of the time he spent tinkering in his shed after tea. If asked about the war, Dad talked about the pilots anxiously, his forehead creased, as if he still felt the weight of responsibility for their safety. He remembered “a funny Queenslander called Gus” and “a young bloke called Les who sang like an angel.” All the pilots had superstitions. Gus always flew with his childhood teddy bear. Wasn’t embarrassed about it. Les never flew without first kicking the front tire three times.

Dad reckoned he knew enough that he could take off and fly one of the planes, but he’d have trouble landing it. People always chuckled when he said this, but I found it troubling. Landing is pretty important, I thought.

(Almost half of all men who took part in a recent survey believed they could successfully land a commercial aircraft in an emergency. It’s their hubris that makes men both so adorable and exasperating, don’t you think?)

Mae, my mum, was eighteen when they met, three years younger than my dad, and bright, beautiful, and effervescent. Her favorite things were dances, parties, library books, and the pictures. She and Dad got talking at the refreshment bar. Mum ordered a Kir Royale. Dad said, “That sounds good, I’ll have the same.” He said it was so sweet he nearly spat it out. (It must have had too much crème de cassis. I have one every year to toast their anniversary. I highly recommend, but the ratios must be correct.)

Mum introduced him to her older sister, my auntie Pat, who I’m sure was smoking a cigarette when she said, “Read Arthur’s palm, Mae. See what’s in his future.”

Mum read Dad’s palm and told him a dance was in his future.

Her flirting skills were impeccable.

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