The Household Guide to Dying

It was possible that within three or four years he’d come either to hate the food or be bored by it. By the age of twelve he’d probably be into something cool and trendy, like only eating at places offering noisy electronic games, places with names like Radical Zone or the Shooting Arrow. Or he’d simply be able to go out on his own, or with friends. That is, without me. Without his mother. And at twelve, he could be left safely at home for hours at a time. Then I could consider Going Out. Like a date, a real date, as opposed to spending the odd evening after work at Mitchell’s bar, listening to the drifters and dreamers sucking up the oxygen while I parried their vague boozy requests for sex.

Sonny looked up at me, cutting into my thoughts. He dropped the goofy toy, frowned, and asked me what was wrong.

Nothing, I said. Why?

You look sad.

Sad?

Or angry. This last was in a plaintive sort of tone. Maybe I was still angry, maybe just a bit resentful, after what had happened earlier.

My heart twisted. Vital to bury your frustration, to put it behind you, to live in the moment, which is what children generally did. I told him I wasn’t angry, or sad, patted his free hand, the one that wasn’t now fiddling with the toy again, then took it in mine. A bold move. Eight was also when holding hands with your mother in a public place became pretty well verboten.

Then it was my turn to pay attention. He looked pale. Was I just imagining a touch of grey under his eyes? Then I noticed he hadn’t eaten his burger, apart from one bite, and was only halfway through the chips.

Hey, I said, are you feeling okay?

He shrugged. That could mean anything in eight-year-old code. Really good or exceptionally bad. I already knew that kids weren’t always aware of feeling sick, somehow just didn’t have the words to articulate what, exactly, was wrong. Could be nearly comatose with something or other but drive their mothers up the wall with unrelieved whingeing or, even more bizarrely, excessive hyperactivity.

Do you feel sick?

No.

Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.

He snatched his hand back. No way!

Go on, open your mouth, I’ll see if your tonsils are up.

He folded his arms and sat back, glancing around as if every single member of his class was waiting to leap from the corners and tease him. Being sick was not cool. Being seen to be sick, less cool. Being seen to submit to a mother’s ministrations, downright fiery.

I asked what was wrong then. That shrug again. I asked if he wasn’t hungry after all. He shook his head, pushed the food aside, looked at me, then away, then said,

Are you sure Archie isn’t my dad? Can’t he be?

Oh, that. That little big question. Guilt. Dismay. Bitterness. Helplessness. And the thousand other negative emotions the single mother was so familiar with, the reason she gave in and took her kid to McDonald’s, though it went against every principle she had.

I risked a prod at his burger. It didn’t respond. Typical. It sulked dumpily on the tray, not a bit happy. The bright orange cheese that dribbled out one side had already set into a hard blob. Just out of spite, since I was wound up and guilty over Sonny’s undeniable lack of a father, I decided to mutilate it.

He got into the spirit of the act. Children are great like that, adaptable, prone to quick changes in mood. Together we poured scorn on the thing, prising apart the dry yoyo halves of the bun, extracting the lone slice of pickled cucumber to deride it in the time-honoured tradition of every single Australian child – perhaps every child on the planet – and sniffing with exaggerated suspicion at the remaining contents, which by now bore less resemblance to a real burger than the gimmicky magnet I used to attach his latest drawings to the fridge. He suggested we take it home and glue a magnet to it and use that instead. I agreed. And it wouldn’t go mouldy, not with all the preservatives.

Our laughter lightened things, but by the time Sonny picked up the burger between thumb and forefinger and minced over to the bin with his other hand holding his nose, we were attracting dark looks from the staff, and I knew it was time to leave.

But there are worse things than McDonald’s. Had I known what was to come I would have stayed. I would have eaten there every day. I would have turned away from the dusty afternoon light in my eyes as we pushed through the door onto the highway, as sluggishly crowded as it got at what passed for peak hour in these parts, and marched straight back to the counter and ordered dozens of Big Macs, litres of Coke. And ten kilos of cardboard chips.

Seven (#ulink_f0e7c4f6-7247-5bad-a368-7875265b0c75)

Dear Delia

I’ve consulted numerous cookbooks but despite many attempts I still can’t manage to boil a soft egg. Can you help? I wonder if I should Google it?

A Bachelor.

Dear A Bachelor

You are asking me to impart one of my best secrets. Go Google all you like. I worked it out, I’m sure you can too.

I’d started another list. I should have been concentrating on the real work, but I felt an irrational urgency about this. I would finish it then put it in one of the boxes I was preparing for the girls.

Guests (needs separate list: obviously can’t be done now)

Invitations: suggest professional printers

Cake: refer to recipe (but maybe Jean?)

Dress: David Jones’s best?

Photographer: god knows. Maybe digital cameras will be obsolete by now?

Catering: Benny’s the obvious choice. But Cater Queen if not poss.

Venue: depends on time of year. Back garden perfect if summer/spring.

Musicians: string trio (students from college?)

Ideally this list wouldn’t be needed for another twenty years. Ideally, if it were entirely up to me, it would never be needed, since I was beginning to sense the redundancy of marriage. But as I didn’t feel it was right to impose my views on anyone else, even my own daughters – especially my own daughters – then it would be better than no list.

Along with everything else it offers (a chance for relatives to catch up, a good excuse for a booze-up), a wedding is a means for a certain level of bonding between mother and daughter. Fraught bonding at times (I remembered it well), but a rite of passage that should not be denied at any cost, no matter the jaded views of the older generation. No matter that the mother would not be there.

That my daughters would not need this list for many years was irrelevant. All that mattered was that they’d know I’d made the effort. And if by then they happened to be capable of organising a wedding without my assistance, then even better. In fact, I’d regard it as a significant sign that the mothering I’d managed to squeeze into the years available was successful.

Archie had recently called me a control freak. I think it was the day after I’d written that late-night list to help him get the girls to school. As I sat at my desk with the preliminary list for the wedding of my youngest daughter, who was just eight, a wedding that might never occur, and which I certainly wouldn’t be attending, I confronted this accusation. If all this wasn’t the work of a control freak, then what was? I tapped my lips with the pen and gazed out the window at the wisteria. I decided that Estelle was probably in no need of any such list, being supremely organised herself. Also of firm opinions, already, regarding matrimony. It was Daisy I was planning for, though with built-in flexibility if Estelle should turn out to surprise us all.

Them all.

I wondered if these lists said more about me or Archie. I’d spent too many mornings, more than I cared to remember, explaining to him what needed to be done: instructing, directing, losing my temper, becoming impatient, before finally doing it all myself. As if I’d been at the control centre of a military exercise, a full-scale war, instead of a partner in a marriage that included two young children. Occasionally, the children had been dressed and fed (if you counted crisps as food) and otherwise organised out of the house and off to childcare, lately school, without my help. But the fallout had never been worth it:

Daisy: I didn’t get a merit star today because I forgot my home reader.

Estelle: Miss Blake says if I don’t take my permission note back I won’t get to see the

Dreamtime storyteller.

D: I was cold, why didn’t you pack my jumper?

E: You know I hate blueberry muffins!

And so on. I tried every method available to the reasonable woman. Pointing out the lapses in a kind way (‘Darling, don’t you think Daisy should have her shoelaces tied?’). Barking out orders like a sergeant-major (‘If you don’t take them NOW they’ll be marked late!’). Saying nothing. Saying everything. Standing by pretending to be preoccupied with another task but internally writhing as Archie tried to brush hair that was still plaited or failed to understand that children needed reminding to wear sweaters even in the middle of winter. Writing lists. Not writing lists. Doing none of the tasks. Doing half the tasks, like lining up the contents of a lunchbox so that he only had to place them inside, close the lid and grab the juice bottle from the fridge. Daddy packed my lunch today.