‘Where are the snags?’ he asks, presumably of her.
‘In the freezer,’ she snaps. Where he put them when he brought them home from the butcher.
The ringing phone on the kitchen bench gives her an opportunity to step back and observe the scene playing out before her: teenage son looking at her like he wishes she’d disappear into a hole; husband’s head swivelling from side to side as he continues to look in the fridge, not the freezer; nine-year-old son sniffing as his grandmother squeezes him into a hug.
‘Hello,’ she says curtly into the receiver.
‘Lorraine?’
‘Yep.’
The voice on the line sounds vaguely familiar, which means it’s probably one of the school mothers wanting her to make toffee for the fete or whatever it is that’s coming up. There’s always something. Fundraiser, fete, dance, teacher leaving.
‘Hi,’ the voice says.
Lorraine frowns. ‘Yeah. Hi.’ Who does this joker think she is?
‘It’s me.’ The voice is meek now.
‘Who’s me?’
‘Cynthia.’
That makes Lorraine pause. Cynthia Scheffer used to be the best thing in her life. The funniest, smartest, trendiest person she knew at school; the most daring of them all even after shehad Odette. So daring she up and left for Los Angeles with that surfer she met after he caught a wave off Tea Tree Bay and found her sitting on the rocks, almost as if she was waiting for him. Because she was. She’d spied him waxing a surfboard in the car park nearby and decided he was a better prospect than her husband. Or maybe she just wanted to force a change. Either way, Pat never saw it coming.
Now that Lorraine has been a mother for fourteen years, she understands the desire to force a change. But that change took Cynthia far away from everyone who loved her and, after an initial letter-writing spree, she stopped contacting Lorraine, and eventually Lorraine stopped trying to contact her.
And the clincher was that the surfer didn’t last but Cynthia stayed over there, with Odette, and married some film producer or whatever. So Cynthia’s dad told Lorraine when she saw him fishing round at Noosaville one day. After that they started catching up for tea every now and again; they’d always got on when Lorraine was a teenager. Less so Lorraine and Cynthia’s mum, who was a little stand-offish. Wilfred hasn’t said a word, though, about Cynthia coming home. Which, given the lack of STD pips or international dialling noise, she must be.
‘Hello, Cynthia,’ Lorraine says in the most formal voice she can muster.
She glances at Mike, who was privy to her tears when Cynthia stopped writing back. Now he’s shut the fridge door and has that look on his face he gets when he’s worried that the dog has pooed on the neighbour’s lawn. He leans his head to one side, holding her gaze. She knows what it means:Are you all right?He can be sensitive sometimes. Usually when it counts. That’s why she puts up with having his mother in the house.
She smiles at him. Yes, she’s all right. Cynthia may have broken her heart but Mike and Terry and Simon glued it back together.
‘How … how are you?’ Cynthia says, her voice soft.
‘Fine. You?’
‘I’m … back.’
‘Yep. Gathered that.’
Lorraine hears a sigh. ‘I haven’t been a good friend.’
Lorraine makes a face into the phone. Useless but satisfying.
‘You’ve been no kind of friend,’ she says, although her voice is calm. She’s just saying the truth, isn’t she? No need for drama.
Silence for a few seconds. Then another sigh. ‘No, I haven’t.’
More silence.
‘But I’d love to see you,’ Cynthia goes on.
Lorraine thinks about that. What would it be like to see Cynthia again? Would she want to kick her in the shins? Or would she – more likely, she believes – want to wrap her in a hug then go back to the way things were? Because she’s never had another friend like Cynthia. No one who has encouraged her to be herself as much as Cynthia did. Lorraine knows now that friends like that are so rare that a person needs to be prepared to overlook some dodgy behaviour from time to time. Because we all make mistakes. Which doesn’t mean she’s going to let Cynthia off the hook straightaway. Lorraine isn’t a pushover. Much. Not in this case, anyway. She still loves Cynthia – you don’t stop loving someone when you’ve been as close as they were – but she’s not just going to forgive and forget. That’s for people who watch daytime soaps and think life is as easy as saying a few nice words.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she says, even though she already has. ‘I have a lot on.’
