‘I’ve been worried about you,’ her mother said, her attention drifting back to the television set.
‘What have you been up to out there?’ her father asked.
‘Don’t you know?’ Lucy said, poker-faced.
‘Stevie told us you were living with some friends. You had a job in a shop. He said you were doing well,’ her mother said.
‘I’m glad you’ve come, Luce,’ her father said. ‘I wanted to see you.
I haven’t got that much time now. I want you to know your mother and me have always really cared about you. Always.’
‘Always,’ her mother said, looking away from the television screen and back to her daughter. ‘I always did what I had to do for you, Lucy.
I made sure I looked after you. I did the best I could, I couldn’t do any more than that. I hope you know that.’
‘We’ve been worried sick about you since you left.’ Her father moved his chair a little more upright. ‘I thought, my little girl out there all on her own. Who’s going to look after her? And we never heard anything from you, except through Stevie. Not even at Christmas.’
‘You could have sent us a card,’ her mother added. ‘We wanted to hear from you.’
‘Why didn’t you come looking for me?’ Lucy asked.
‘We couldn’t, Luce. We didn’t know where to find you,’ her father said.
‘You could have asked Stevie.’
‘He said you didn’t want to see us,’ her mother said, her face slightly red.
‘It’s hard for a man, worrying about his daughter like that. My little girl, I thought, and I don’t know where she is. And she won’t tell me.
She won’t even tell me.’
The TV show host invaded the lounge room noisily and Lucy saw her mother’s attention once again drift back towards the screen. She got to her feet and turned it off. Her mother blinked a little, but did not speak. Her father stared at her with eyes that were large and bright in his worn face. She sat down again, staring at him, unable to turn away even though she didn’t want to look. It was horrible to see him like this.
‘I’m a sick man, Luce,’ he said, reading her thoughts. ‘I can’t hide it. Sometimes I think I can’t bear the pain any more. I want it finished.
When it’s finished, I’m going to be happy.’
Lucy, watching and listening to him, had no thoughts. Her feelings were thin, her mind was blank, flat like a sheet of unpainted plasterboard.
‘You have to understand that me and your mother love you. More than anything.’
Lucy did not answer, she sat there waiting. Her gaze shifted from her father to her mother and back again. Her mother kept glancing at the blank television set but she said nothing. Lucy felt weightless, with her feelings slipping towards chaos, the quiet sounds in her head buzzing like insects.
‘Luce, I’m dying, but your life will go on and you’ll do what you want to do with it. You’ll get married and you’ll be happy. And I’m glad for you, I’m glad. Because all that’s ever mattered to me is how much I’ve cared about you. All I ever did was care about you. It’s a normal thing for a father to do.’
In the midst of his illness, there was a flash of her father of old. She knew that look so well. On Saturday mornings, from her place at the cash register, she would watch him as he sold old or fatty or tough meat to his customers. He had always had that same look. Are they going to take it?
‘Did you worry about me?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Luce. I did.’
‘Did you lie awake at night worrying about me?’
‘All the time.’
Lucy waited, again chewing her thumbnail. She imagined how her father would look if she shot him in the chest now, and then looked at her mother, working through the same fantasy, bringing both images together powerfully in her mind. Under her bulky sweatshirt, her gun pressed against her midriff.
‘Did you ever lie awake and wish you hadn’t done what you did to me?’ she said.
‘Look at me, Luce,’ he replied almost immediately. ‘I’m dying and I’m dying too soon. I want us to be friends before I go. You’re home now. This is your home. There’s always a place for you here. And in my will. I’ve remembered you in my will, Lucy, I’ve remembered you especially. You can think about me one day when I’m gone and thank me for that. You can say to yourself, my old man was very generous to me in his will, he did that for me, it’s made my life easier now. Your mother and me have broken our hearts worrying about you these last few years. I’ve broken my heart worrying about you. But I’m not accusing you for that. There’s no point in accusing people for things.
Life’s a matter of give and take. Let’s be friends. Come on. Be friends with me, Lucy, before I die. Please.’
She waited in what seemed to be an endless silence, looking from one to the other expectantly, but neither of them spoke. She sat with her arms folded, pressing her gun hard into her waist.
‘You really don’t want to say anything else to me?’ she asked.
Neither replied.
‘You only have to say it once. You have to mean it, but you only have to say it once. You just have to say you wish you’d never done that to me. That’s all you have to say.’
Again there was silence. Her mother picked at her cardigan. Lucy spoke in desperation. ‘It’s not just me! There’s Mel too. What about her? Don’t you want to say … ’
Her voice dried up.
‘Luce,’ her father said, ‘I only want us to be friends. This is our last chance. I’m dying. You don’t want to put things in the way of it. Let’s just be friends.’
Lucy leaned forward in her chair and wept for some moments. She looked up, meaning to say something else and saw her father watching her, his expression still unchanged. If anything, there was a ghost of satisfaction in his eyes. She could not bear to be watched by him like this.
‘I’m going back to my room now,’ she said, ‘but you — you can’t
— You’re going to talk to me again, Dad. You are. You are going to say — ’
She stopped and stood up to leave the room, still weeping. At the door, she almost walked into Melanie.
‘Don’t you want your tea? It’s on the table,’ her sister asked.
‘Fucking later,’ she said.
‘Language!’ she heard her father say, with the remembrance of a usual reprimand in his voice.
Lucy stopped still in the doorway and spoke without turning around. ‘Don’t you say that to me.’
Then she did turn and went towards him. Her hand moved instinctively towards her waistband before she remembered to stop herself. For the first time, he seemed confused. She stood over him.
‘Don’t you ever tell me what to say again.’
Anger had made her voice almost unrecognisable. He did not speak, there was sweat on his cheeks. Everyone in the room was silent.
‘You won’t, will you? Ever again.’
He shook his head.
‘You say it, Dad. Go on, say it.’
‘No, I won’t,’ he eventually whispered.
They looked at each other.
‘I’m going to come and talk to you again, Dad,’ she said. ‘Because you owe me something. You know you do. And you are going to give it to me.’
He stared at her, showing anger and fear without any sense of disguise, and then rolled away from her, turning his back on her, refusing to speak.
Lucy left at once, moving quickly and hearing behind her as she climbed the stairs a sudden ruckus in the lounge room. The noise of her father calling out hoarsely for Melanie and the sound of the television set being turned on again.
In her room, she emptied her pack out onto her bed, scrabbling for her notebook computer, clumsy as she hurried, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. Lucy was going out on the Net to find consolation, someone
