Addition by Toni Jordan Read Free Book Online Page B

or be best on ground for the Essendon Football Club or have a son to carry his name or start his own business in his spare room, and then, lo and behold, feature on the front cover of Time . I suppose there are those people who are happy being average, living average lives, and others who despise it, rebel against it, do anything to feel different, special. My father despised it but somehow lacked the courage or the will or the reason to struggle and found himself slipping under the warm water, lulled by the movements of the waves.
    He was never angry or even grumpy. He just drifted off until you could be in a room with him and still be completely alone. This freaked out the other kids in our street. Their fathers were all ruddy, explosive men, full of beer; jolly or furious, but always present. You could see through my father when the light was right and I often found myself reaching to touch his arm, to convince myself he was real. He would startle, smile in his sheepish way and tousle my hair. When he died it was how he lived. He became paler and thinner until he was invisible, and his breathing became finer and more graceful, as if he was getting better at it instead of getting worse.
    It’s 8.20 p.m. Jill’s turn. My sister is my polar opposite: as dark as I am fair, hair curling on her shoulders as opposite to my long straight blonde. Soft, womanly curves with a va-va-voom cleavage against my angular bones. 5 centimetres shorter. No pokey brick six-pack flat for one, but an elegant Californian bungalow two streets from the beach at Hampton, a home she fills with fresh flowers and fragrant candles and the smell of roast dinners, as if her life is clipped from a decorating magazine. I always knew I wanted to teach. Jill seemed to sleep through high school, vague and barely passing, then wandered out into the world, blinking. She took a casual job at the bank, where she met Harry: older, scrambling up the corporate ladder, keen to start a family. It wasn’t until she gave birth that the fog cleared for Jill. Harry junior was a squawking, colicky child but Jill made being a mother look like Olympic ice skating. The next two, Hilary and Beth, only confirmed it. Perhaps Jill is the one who should have been called Grace. She simmers French casseroles in a cast-iron pot and freezes the leftovers, composts food scraps for her herb garden and sews matching table runners and napkins. She also volunteers at the school canteen and keeps a photo of some African kiddie she sponsors on the fridge door. Phoning me each Sunday night is another of her good works.
    ‘Hi Gracie. Has Mum phoned?’
    ‘Yep. ’ ‘She’s not feeling too well today, Gracie. You could call her occasionally, you know. We won’t have her forever.’
    ‘Uh huh.’
    The clock is swinging around to 21 minutes past. Coming, coming…Now.
    ‘Been doing anything?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘We’ve been busy. Harry’s going to China in a few weeks. He’s been invited to speak at an international banking conference.’
    Really. My brother-in-law is Jill’s height, 167 centimetres, and roughly her shape, complete with man-boobs. Mr high-powered executive, too important to spend half an hour a day walking with his kids. Harry has grey wiry hair on his head that looks like it belongs in his groin, and flabby pink manicured hands. He always wears a suit. The idea that anyone would choose to listen to Harry speak boggles the mind. A conference for Chinese insomniacs, perhaps. Or perhaps it’s an IDIOT conference: International Dickheads In Overpriced Ties.
    ‘China, heh? Are you going?’
    ‘Thinking of it. It’s only a week and the kids can stay at their friends’. I’m sure they’ll be all right. It’ll probably be good for them.’
    ‘Could you bring me back an abacus?’
    ‘Of course. Hilly wants to talk to you,’ she says. I can hear the phone being handed over.
    Hilly is my niece, Jill’s middle child. I don’t call her Hilly, short for Hilary, which is