Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Storms (29 page)

‘Okay … It was just after your grandmother die and I am in my cottage and I am alone. Very sad time. So I am lying in bed and it is the middle of night and I wake to go to the bathroom. It is very dark, but I don’t turn on light because I am very sleepy. So I walk very slowly looking for door. Like this.’ Settimio held his arms out in front of him the way people do when they are pretending to be Frankenstein or a zombie.

‘So, I am walking in this manner, trying to find door,
but I walk straight into edge of door headfirst.
Bang!
It hit me right here on my nose!’

‘Ow, so that’s why you had a cut on your nose!’

‘
Si
, and I am thinking maybe I brok-ed the nose as well.’

‘Ow,’ we all said at once. Steph was trying her hardest not to laugh again.

‘Okay, so my head, it is very sore; and my nose, there is blood. So I go to the bathroom where I have medicine cabinet. This time, I turn on light and see there is lot of blood! So first I take toilet paper and I use for the nose. I go through lot of paper in this manner, so I throw in toilet and I repeat with some more until there is not so much blood. Then I take from cabinet the cotton wool and I have some – I forget how you say, like some alcohol for making clean the wounds.’

‘Disinfectant?’ Saskia says.

‘Yes, like this sort of thing, but like spirit alcohol. Old-fashioned thing. So I put much of this on cotton wool and I hold on nose for long time, in this manner.’ Settimio pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand to demonstrate.

‘So, after much time like this I am still bleeding. I throw old cotton wool into toilet and get new one with more alcohol. I am very tired so I think I will sit down. And because I am in bathroom I think best place to sit down is on toilet.’

‘Totally,’ said Lyall. ‘I would have done that.’

‘So, I sit for a long time, maybe five, maybe ten minutes, holding nose, and I think to myself,
maybe bleeding has stopped
? So I check and I see that it has so I throw cotton wool into toilet. Then I think,
Aaah, it is all over. Now, I have a cigarette
.’

‘Ew. I didn’t know you smoked!’ I said.

‘This was the
last
time I smok-ed a cigarette, actually,’ said Settimio.

‘So
then
what happened?’ asked Saskia.

‘Well, I take cigarette; I sit back down on toilet; I light cigarette with match; I throw match in toilet and …
BANG!
’

‘Oh my god!’ gasped Lyall. ‘An explosion!’

‘Yes! Because there is so much paper in the toilet from the brok-ed nose and the paper is soaked in spirit alcohol, it goes
BANG
and there is a whoosh of flame and I burned my behind!’

We all broke into hysterical laughter, even Settimio.

‘So now, I have brok-ed the nose, I have burn-ed the behind and I fall on the floor. I think to myself that I now need to see doctor, but I can not drive and there is no one here so I crawl to the phone and I call for ambulance and they are coming to get me, so I wait for them, still on floor.’

‘Poor you,’ I say, wishing I’d never had a mean thought
about Settimio. No wonder he’d been so grumpy.

‘That’s not all,’ said Steph, laughing again.

‘Then what, Settimio?’

‘So, I am waiting on floor and ambulance come and they look how I have burn-ed the behind and how I have brok-ed the nose, and they say I have to go with them to hospital for overnight. They put me on stretcher and I have to lie on my side because of my behind. So, two men, they pick me up and have to carry me on stretcher to ambulance.’

‘That’s quite a long way,’ I said.

‘Yes, it is far. And on the way they are talking to me and they are asking me about how I injure myself in such a manner.’

Steph burst out laughing again and Settimio was laughing so much he could hardly speak.

‘So … I tell them about door and nose and about how cigarette mak-ed the fire while I am sitting on the toilet. And when I tell them how I fall on the floor … they laugh so much …one of them … he
drop
stretcher … and I fall off onto ground … and I
brok-ed the leg
!’

We were all laughing so much we could hardly breathe, and I was even worried that Settimio might fall off his chair and cause another injury.

And seeing Steph laughing like that (or as Settimio would say,
in this manner)
took me back to that wintry day
in the rose garden when Saskia and I collected petals to make Steph’s flower-essence remedy. And how I’d dreamt myself a daydream where Steph was laughing, even though no one had seen her laugh in months, especially not her own sad self. And in the end, that one little daydream had closed its eyes on itself until it woke again to the music of Mum and Carl’s favourite gypsy band, to become a brand new moment.

Settimio wiped his eyes and took Steph and me by the hand, coaxing us up off our chairs.

‘We have laughed; we have cried,’ he said. ‘Now it is time to dance.’

I did remember to include my flowchart!
See page 100 if you’ve forgotten about it.
xx NFSH

Marion Roberts always wanted to be a fashion designer, but she studied science, alternative medicine and psychotherapy instead. She also worked as a chef and taught people how to cook. Marion started writing because she wanted a job she could do in her pyjamas. Also, her friends kept saying her emails were too long, and she needed to find another place to put her stories. She was born in Melbourne, which has always been her hometown. Her first book,
Sunny Side Up
, was published in 2008.

Thanks to Oscar, John, Lucian and Ava for being the blessed people I call home. Thanks to my lovely friends (bad influence ones included). Thanks to everyone at Allen & Unwin for supporting and encouraging me through the writing of this book, in particular Jodie Webster and Susannah Chambers. Thanks to Sophie Hynes for her fabulous drawing. Thanks to my cat, Arthur, who slept and purred on my arm through every draft, and to Willow, for the very fond role she plays in my memory.