hotplate in the courtyard. The last one had come with the house five years ago and he couldn’t bear to part with it.
“It’s handy for a few dozen sausages,” he’d say, when Mum would suggest moving it on.
The house was a difficult puzzle for an architect to fix. A Federation house on a steep block with the water view out the front and a terraced garden at the back. It had been ‘fixed up’ by its previous owners in the style of a faux Spanish hacienda, complete with stucco on the walls, scotia cornices and kitschy archways with exposed brick keystones between the dining and living rooms. In other words, an architect’s visual living nightmare. (My EYES!)
Along with the problem of the faux Spanish melange, the layout was problematic. The balcony with the modest view of Little Manly beach was out the front with the kitchen marooned at the back. The living and dining were merely the incidental space between the balcony—where everyone wanted to be—and kitchen—the other place everyone always wanted to be. The dilemma was how to join one to the other without sacrificing access to the garden or the view. Dad’s plan was to completely rebuild, but how much of the original structure to retain?
“Double brick,” he’d say to me, slapping the walls with awe. “You’d be crazy to get rid of it.”
I agreed, although I also felt Mum’s pain. She was pretty much ready to hire a wrecking ball and drive it up to the house herself with the ball swinging. Decision made.
As is the way of Australian gatherings, Andy went straight out to the barbecue, and stood by it as at an altar with his bottle of beer rested just at his hip. That way he and Dad could stare at the chicken slowly turning and not make eye contact as they talked. I sat at the kitchen bench and ate all the chips while Mum made a salad.
“When are you going up north?” she asked.
“Week after next.”
“And you’re staying with Andy’s mum?”
“Yes.”
Mum made a face. My mother hates house guests. We are not a bunking-in kind of family.
“First time meeting her? That’ll be . . . interesting,” she said, making another of her judgemental faces.
“It’s a big house.”
“And the father, where’s he?”
“He lives in Sydney.”
“What’s he like?”
“Completely mental.” Mum wasn’t expecting that. She guffawed and held her hand to her chest.
“Oh Nell! What do you mean?” She was scandalised but loving it.
“I met him over lunch about a month ago.”
“What did he do?”
“Are you talking about my father?” Andy had re-entered the kitchen for more beers. He came and stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders.
“I was just telling Mum about our lunch with Hal.”
“Quite appalling,” Andy said. “Nell handled it very well.”
He kissed me on the cheek.
“Why?” Mum was loving this. “What did he do?”
“Drank too much,” Andy said, effectively shutting down any further discussion of it. Mum looked at me. She knew there was more. Then Dad started barking orders from the barbecue.
“Plate! Lynn!” He was shouting; like something was on fire and he needed to put it out. To be clear, nothing was on fire. He was just full of the urgent righteousness of he who is barbecuing.
Mum looked at me, raised her eyebrows.
“Lynn! I need a plate!” he shouted again.
“Alright!” Mum called back to him, then just to us. “No need to shout.” She handed Andy a clean plate with a sardonic flourish. “Take that out to Lord of the Barbecue, would you?”
“It’s very important work, barbecuing,” Andy said, walking out to deliver the plate. “I don’t think you womenfolk understand.”
Mum laughed. Then as soon as he was gone she asked, “Seriously, what did his father do?”
She knew there was something Andy didn’t want her to know.
7.
If Hal was the initial hazing, Andy’s mum, Maude, was the skills-driven obstacle course that followed. To sweeten the deal, Maude and her second husband, Stan, lived in a resort town just north of Brisbane. In later years she would describe its distance from Sydney as ‘too far to make in one trip’. Like everything Maude did in the years following The Great Marital Walk-out, it was a calculated move that had Hal’s tendency toward the unpredictable in mind.
After a meandering three-day road trip north, we arrived at an ocean-side suburb called Sunshine. It was late on a Friday and the sun was in flattering uplight mode. The rows of brash, modern, moneyed beachside houses, that would normally offend me in hard daylight, seemed almost quaint in their inappropriate-for-the-climate design. When we rounded an escarpment reinforced with a honeycombed wall of grey concrete block, I couldn’t help but ‘tsk’.
“Not enjoying the scenery, my love?” Andy asked knowingly.
“Just . . . why?” Sometimes it was all I could say.
Andy’s mum’s house was stand alone at the end of a cul de sac and not visible from the street; just a double garage and gate at the entry.
No sooner had we pulled up than a jolly face appeared on high, from over the terrace railing.
“Hey ho!” yelled a booming voice. “It’s Andy!”
The figure waved his arms like a traffic controller; two arms criss-crossing back and forth, heralding our homecoming. Stan Logan was in his late fifties, white hair, stocky footballer’s build, Maude’s second husband and Andy’s stepfather of four years. He reappeared at the lower gate and ushered us inside. To my relief, the house was not brick veneer with a salmon-coloured render and a grand timber-veneer feature door at the entry, but constructed entirely from rustic, recycled chunks of timber. Set high on the steep hill, its large terrace and living areas looked straight out to the ocean.
“You must be Nell.” He leaned in and pecked me on the cheek. “Great to see you! Great to see you!” His enthusiasm surprised me.
Maude, while polite and welcoming, was less effusive at first. Not that she wasn’t pleasant, I just sensed her reticence. I could feel her sitting behind her eyes, keeping her options open before judging me to be suitable. With Andy’s eclectic romantic history of crazy women, it wasn’t surprising.
Conversely, her country-bred upbringing made her the perfect hostess, no matter how she felt inside. And after our initial eyeing of each other from opposite sides of the open-plan living space, she broke ranks and swept towards me, a Judy Dench vision in white and taupe linen.
“How lovely to finally meet you,” she said, pulling me into a pillowy hug. Then she stepped back from me and did that thing Andy does, where he looks you right in the eye.
She held me at arm’s length and appraised me, gauging my reaction to her. My score for the first challenge—‘how long will you let me look you in the eye before you glance away’—was low. The second test came soon after we had thrown our bags into the guest room. I call this test, ‘Can you guess what I really want you to do even if I tell you to do the opposite?’
Andy suggested we head out the door for a quick ale at the surf club where we could watch the sunset from the deck. Stan looked delighted. Maude not so.
“Now don’t be upset . . . ” she said to Andy, “but I’ve got Beverley coming for a quick drink,”