The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay (8 page)

Piece of shit cake, more like it.

At first everything goes like clockwork. We play Simon Says, we do some colouring-in, we tour the restaurant. Chris, the manager on duty, is standing in the corner with a clipboard and a pen. He even gives me two thumbs up – that's how well it's going. Until I send the kids out into the restaurant playground. A playground that usually only features monkey bars. Swings. A slippery dip. But today what I don't know is that it also features a poo. Monkey bars, swings, a slippery dip and a poo. One minute I'm sending Sally and her friends outside to play. The next minute the little girls are tearing back inside. Screaming. Screaming about poo.

‘
There's a poo
!' They scream hysterically, over and over, waving their little arms in the air like Muppets on speed
.

A quick investigation reveals that Sally's three-year-old little brother has crept into the playground, pulled down his pants and done an enormous shit on the AstroTurf. On the bright side – if there can be a bright side to poos in playgrounds – the poo looks easy to clean up. Sort of. On the not so bright side he did it at the bottom of the slippery dip. A slippery dip that just minutes ago Sally and two of her friends slid down headfirst. Headfirst into turdsville.

I try to stay calm amidst the hysteria. I look around at the little girls. Screaming and crying seems reasonable when some of their heads have passed through the poo of a three-year-old. There's poo in hair. On plaits. In hair ribbons. The other three just seem mildly traumatised by the afternoon's events. I look at Sally's mum, who is saying, ‘This has got to stop,' in a rather fierce voice to Sally's smug-looking little brother. Then I look at Chris, who is pacing back and forth, and talking into a headset. When he eventually starts writing on the clipboard again, he's shaking his head in a way that tells me that poo has no part in this restaurant's mission statement. And that I'm being marked down. This is an Act of God, I want to say. It shouldn't count against my score. That poo was beyond my control. But nobody's listening. Chris motions for me to come over. In a weary tone, he says that I should keep going with the party ‘as best I can', and that he's organised for another crew member to help me clean up. As I usher the five-year-olds into the toilets, Fiona Curtis rounds the corner with a mop and bucket.

I'm in the mother of all bad moods when I get home. I've literally had a shit day. I've been given my first-ever detention. Nick McGowan is finally talking to me again but only because he wants me to sign some stupid form. There was the whole poo thing at work. Worse, Fiona Curtis was unspeakably friendly to me as she mopped poo on the AstroTurf. I'm tired. And grumpy. And fed up with everybody and everything. And to top it all off, as soon as I walk into the kitchen I see that Mum has cooked apricot chicken for dinner. I
hate
apricot chicken. Fruit and poultry have no place together.

During the meal itself there's an added level of tension. Nick and I sit in frosty silence with the haunted look of hostages. Not that my parents seem to notice – they're too busy discussing Caitlin's latest financial dilemma in Paris, and remain oblivious to the cold war being waged around them. My mood is not helped when my mother finally turns her attention to me and orders me to stop slouching. She then tells me that my fringe needs a cut, and offers to cut it for me after dinner. I remind her that the last time I let her cut my hair she gave me an ‘economy fringe'. It was so short that I looked like a chipmunk. She rolls her eyes as though I am exaggerating. I remind her that even Dad started calling me Alvin. She says, ‘Well just push it out of your eyes' and then leans over and does it for me, brutally pushing my fringe and a fair amount of my skin across my forehead. I respond by saying, ‘Ow!' even though it doesn't hurt.

And then, in what can only be considered a blatant move to antagonise me, Nick McGowan for the second time offers to do the washing-up. Knowing that my parents will make me do it with him. Knowing that this is completely throwing my study timetable out of whack. And my parents, rather than insisting that as a guest he do no chores, revel in it. My mother, in particular, seems to be enjoying this new world order. Her response to my protests is to pour herself a sherry and say, ‘It'll take you no time at all, Rach. Nick's helping you.'

So I reluctantly get up from the table, start clearing the plates and contemplate the effectiveness of stabbing myself to death with a butter knife.

‘I cannot
belieeeve
you've done this again.' I start to scrub burnt apricot chicken from the casserole dish.

He nods. It is the nod of someone who couldn't care less.

‘Aren't you going to say anything?'

‘You missed a bit.'

I turn and glare at Nick McGowan who is pointing with a deadpan expression to some cheese still on a fork.

‘Fine.' I snatch the fork back from him and scrub it so hard I half expect the prongs to snap.

‘There.' I thrust it back at him. ‘You're pathetic, by the way.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, I'd rather be pathetic than what you are.'

‘Which is?'

‘Spoilt. I've watched you for a week and your mum does everything for you. You don't even appreciate it.'

I turn and stare at him. ‘No she doesn't.'

He rolls his eyes and says, ‘Yeah, right. She makes your lunch every day. Does all your washing and ironing. Cooks your dinner. She's like that butler on TV – Benson.'

‘Yeah? And you're like the poster boy for Benson & Hedges. At least I'm doing something with my spare time. Like
studying
. All you seem to do is suck up to my parents, eat our food, smoke cigarettes and play crap music way too loud. Last night I could barely concentrate on my English oral because you were playing some absolute crap music so loud it was coming through the floorboards.'

He looks up at me with a combined look of horror and disdain. ‘I was playing the Ramones.'

‘Whatever. We have exams in a few weeks. Exams that count towards our leaving scores. I mean, your parents—'

‘Par
ent
. Single. My mum died. So it's just me and my dad.'

I stare back at Nick, unsure how to continue.

‘When I was two. She died when I was two. So your point is?'

‘Well,' I struggle to remember the point I was trying to make. ‘Well, your dad would be paying a fortune for you to be at this school, and your biggest concern is whether or not I do the washing-up.'

‘Trust me, I have bigger concerns in my life than—'

‘Oh that's right. Like forging my parents' signatures. Just in case I didn't make myself one hundred per cent clear on the bus this afternoon, I'm not helping you. I'm not helping you drop down into my maths class.'

The phone starts to ring. Elbow deep in suds, I holler, ‘
Can somebody get that, please
?'

‘Coming, coming.' Dad appears round the corner and grabs the phone. ‘It's probably your sister.'

‘Asking for more money for the third time in a week.'

‘Just one moment,' says my father to the caller. Then he turns around and says, ‘Nick, it's Sam Wilks for you.'

I look at Nick. But unlike last time, his face doesn't go pale. Instead he just turns to my dad and says in a guarded tone, ‘Would you mind if I took it downstairs?'

Mum walks in, picks up the tea towel and takes over the drying up. As I pass her the plates we talk about my upcoming English assignment. About what we're doing in French. About Zoë's latest run-in with Mrs Finemore. And through it all she laughs and says, ‘You girls,' the way she does when she catches Caitlin and I plotting some ridiculous scheme. When the last plate has been dried and put away, she says, ‘Darling, will you bring Gipper in from the verandah for me?'

‘Sure.' I head out to the verandah to fetch our ten-year-old canary.

‘You know Nick helped me prepare tonight's dinner. And this afternoon he completely cleaned out Gipper's cage for me.'

‘Fabulous,' I say.
Crawler
, I think.

I look out to the back garden. I spot Nick's outline down by the pool. He's out there now resting his head in his hands, his phone call long finished. I stand there and wonder what is really going on in Nick McGowan's life. I think about his decision to drop down to Maths in Society, and wonder if I'm doing the right thing by refusing to help him forge Mum and Dad's signatures on the consent form. I look up at the stars and say, ‘Please don't let the rest of the year be like today.'

I turn around to Gipper and grab the cage handle.

‘Come on, Gip. Time for you to go to bed.'

When I look down into the cage I see bright blue paper with the words
Town planner
and
Dentist
and
Psychiatrist
–
all sprinkled with bird poo and feathers and husks. He's lined the floor of Gipper's cage with the career brochures I gave him.

I venture out of my bedroom at eight o'clock to give myself a five-minute break before I start on Biology. I bump into Mum in the hallway.

‘I'm about to dish up some ice-cream. Do you want some?'

‘Nah.'

‘Well do me a favour—'

‘And ask Nick?'

She nods.

I roll my eyes.

‘And remind him' – she hands me the cordless phone – ‘that it's Tuesday, and he's supposed to call his dad.'

It's a while before he notices me standing there, in the shadows, watching him smoke. When he finally turns and sees me, he seems neither surprised nor annoyed by my presence. Instead he just taps his cigarette into the mug, off-loads some ash and says, ‘You again,' before turning back to look at the moon.

‘Benson wants to know if you want some ice-cream.'

Nick McGowan turns his head and looks at me. His eyes narrow, but his lips form a wry smile. He's looking at me differently now, as though I've surprised him by making a joke.

‘No, thanks.'

An awkward silence descends.

‘Mum said to remind you to call your dad.'

I hold the phone out to him. He stares at it as though what I'm offering him is a gun. So I lay the phone down on the box beside him and turn to leave in a sudden hurry to get away.

‘I do all the cooking at home.'

I stop. Turn back around.

‘That's why I had a recipe book in my bag. I'm on a mission to find a good lasagne recipe.'

I don't know what to say. So I just sort of stare at Nick McGowan.

‘It's all about the bechamel sauce. And the layering,' he says, nodding his head, not even looking at me. ‘Yep.'

‘Right,' I say.

‘My dad likes lasagne,' he says, picking up the cordless phone and bouncing it up and down in his hand. ‘So at least I'll have something to say to my dad tonight. I can say, “Hey Dad, got another lasagne recipe for us to try”.'

His tone is sarcastic.

I start to make a move to leave.

‘Rachel?'

‘Yeah?' I turn and look him in the eye.

‘I just want you to know, I think your parents are great – you don't know how good you've got it.'