‘Just the boy I wanted to see,’ he said, gesturing at the damaged bracket above the bedroom window. ‘Help me fix these Venetians, Jackson?’
One of Andy’s fondest memories as a child was the do-it-yourself time he spent with his own father. Together, they’d magicked up handy aids for ‘gracious living’, as they jokingly called it, wherever Pamela’s consular postings delivered them around the globe. Making or fixing things was how Andy had connected with his father.
‘Which screws do you reckon fit these blinds, mate?’ Andy squatted down and began riffling through his toolbox.
Jackson lay down his cards and moved off the bed, standing rather awkwardly at his father’s side.
‘The big screws, or the little ones?’
When Jackson didn’t answer, Andy looked up. ‘You need a haircut, mate. Looks like you’ve been electrocuted.’
Had Andy levelled such a comment at Ruby, she wouldn’t have stood for it. But Jackson simply shrugged.
‘Hey, can you use those muscles of yours and pull up the blinds for me?’
Jackson dutifully moved to the window, took hold of the cord and tugged. The slats flew upward, smacked the apex with an almighty crack, then tumbled out of the frame.
Sunlight slapped the walls of our bedroom as slats scattered across the floor.
Andy leapt to his feet. ‘Why’d you pull so hard, mate?’
‘They’re really old blinds…’ I started.
Andy held up a hand of warning. ‘Jackson, I’m talking to you.’
Our son stared at the disarray on the floor, fingering the edge of his nostrils.
The silence infuriated Andy further; three audiology tests in the same number of years have proven there’s nothing wrong with Jackson’s hearing.
Andy seized Jackson by the shoulders. ‘Think first before you act, mate. It’s family rule number five. Now go to your room.’
Breaking free of Andy’s grasp, Jackson scuttled towards me.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ said Andy, shunting Jackson out of the room and marching him up to the attic.
When Andy returned, I couldn’t contain my indignation. No matter how many times I’ve told Andy that our son doesn’t mean to cause trouble, he always seems to interpret Jackson’s actions, or his inactions, as personal insults.
‘That was unfair on Jackson,’ I snapped. ‘You asked him to use his muscles to pull the blinds up, and that’s exactly what he did.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Andy. ‘He did it on purpose. He knew he was pulling too hard.’
It’s been like this for more than eight years, ever since our challenges with Jackson started. With me defending Jackson from Andy’s claims that he’s being ‘deliberately provocative’, or deflecting his unfavourable comparisons between our son and our daughters.
‘It’s just the way Jackson’s brain works,’ I countered. ‘When will you actually understand that?’
Andy glowered at me. ‘And when will you understand that I’m a different parent to you, Jules? A father is very different to a mother, you know.’
I glance up at Pamela from behind my menu, wondering exactly how Andy relayed the Venetian blinds incident to her.
‘Well, Jackson didn’t “pull down” the blinds as such…’ I begin, just as a waitress materialises at our table.
‘May I take your order?’ she enquires in a lilting accent.
‘Where are you from, dear?’ asks Pamela.
‘Argentina,’ the waitress replies.
Immediately Pamela launches into fluent Spanish, her face animated as she describes her stint as Head of Mission in Buenos Aires. It’s mostly unintelligible to me, but I hear her mention Edward, her late husband. Peter, too, Andy’s younger brother, now living in London.
As their exchange concludes, the waitress glances around the table. ‘So… that’s one champagne and orange, three mango milkshakes and…’ the waitress turns to me, ‘a soy latte for you?’
‘An almond latte,’ I correct.
‘Oh, I knew it was one of those strange ones.’ Pamela leans towards the waitress. ‘I prefer my milk the old-fashioned way, straight from a cow.’
You’re the cow, I want to say.
‘Muchas gracias,’ Pamela calls out, as the waitress retreats.
‘Mum, look!’ Ruby points at Pamela’s iPad. ‘Our waitress looks just like Selena Gomez!’
Jackson leans over to scrutinise Ruby’s claim, lowering his face until it almost touches the screen.
Why did Pamela bring the iPad to the café at all, when she’s aware of the family therapist’s advice about minimising screen time for Jackson?
I crane my neck to view the clip. An attractive Latino-looking brunette in tiny denim shorts is gyrating suggestively against a brick wall.
‘That doesn’t look very appropriate to me.’
The children ignore me.
‘Excuse me, you three. Did you hear me?’
Jackson’s gaze moves lazily from the screen, across the table, then back to the screen.
‘Please shut it down,’ I say.
‘Can’t they have a bit of screen time, just for today?’ Pamela asks. ‘On a special occasion?’
‘The content seems… a little mature,’ I say, my frustration building. ‘Please kids, turn it off.’
Ruby yanks the tablet away from Jackson and passes it back to Pamela.
Robbed of the screen, Jackson shoves back his chair, drops to the floor and pushes himself into a headstand.
Pamela’s eyes widen.
‘Not in here, Jackson,’ I mutter.
Ruby giggles and leans towards Pamela. ‘Café yoga.’
The waitress returns and sets down Pamela’s drink and my latte, eyeing Jackson nervously.
Jackson rolls out of the headstand and smiles, at no one in particular. He stays crouched on the floor, inspecting the sole of his shoe.
‘So… how are the children doing at Queenscliff Public?’ Pamela sips at her champagne flute, still watching Jackson. ‘It must be hard to gauge, in those big primary schools. You do have their names down at Clontarf Grammar for secondary, don’t you?’
I gulp a mouthful of coffee, unsure how to respond. It’s another source of tension between Andy and me; while he was schooled in the exclusive British International system in far-flung locales, I attended a local public school near Kaminski’s Dry Cleaners in Sydney’s greater west. And we both turned out all right, as far as I’m concerned.
‘I love Peninsula Secondary,’ says Milla, relieving me of the need to respond. ‘We do Pilates for sport.’
Pamela looks slightly perturbed.
‘Mum!’ Ruby claws at her scalp. ‘I’m itchy again.’
‘Oh dear,’ I say, willing her not to mention the word ‘nits’. ‘A milkshake will make it all better. Look, here they come now!’
The waitress returns with three mango milkshakes, setting them down in front of the children.
‘Stay a moment, dear,’ says Pamela, as the waitress turns to retreat.
As my mother-in-law launches into Spanish again, I feel utterly superfluous. Clearly, Pamela would rather chat to a waitress she met five minutes ago than her daughter-in-law of fifteen years.