Listening to Mondrian Read Online Free PDF Page A

dunny, and at last tips it down.
    At least today she hasn’t done number twos. (Happy Birthday, Liv!)
    But the sound of the flushing wakes Bruz, who wakes Johnno, who wakes Dannie, who wakes Dougie, and Liv storms into the back room and tries to bribe them with toast, for Mum really needs some sleep (Liv heard her up in the night nursing Gramma) and Liv is damned if the little buggers (sorry, brothers) will wake Mum before seven at least.
    But the toaster only takes two slices at a time and there are four boys and Liv only has two hands, and it’s not long before Mum comes out, her faded chenille dressing gown clutched around her. ‘Need a hand, darl?’
    ‘No, Mum, you have a bit of a lie-in, I’ll make you a cuppa in a minute . . .’
    But Mum stays anyway, pours the dregs from the teapot.
    ‘For Christ’s sake, Mum, make a fresh pot.’ I wouldn’t wish the witch’s tea on a dead dog.
    But if Liv is a saint, Mum is a martyr, and so she drinks the lukewarm leafy brew, and drinks it black, because Dougie has got to the fridge behind Liv’s back and finished off the milk.
    ‘I’ll go up the shop and get some,’ Liv says.
    When she gets back, Mum is dressed, and remembers. ‘Oh Liv. I forgot. It’s not much I’m afraid, but darl, you know how it is.’
    Yes, I know. Interest rates are on the rise. The Treasurer said so the other night on TV. So now there’s an official reason for the way this whole town hurts, and Liv’s family with it.
    Liv opens the package that has been carefully wrapped in recycled Santa Clauses. Two hair doodahs – one shocking pink and the other a kind of purple and cerise and yellow. A pair of stockings. A copy of the latest Mills & Boon. And an IOU for ‘1 pair Good Shoes’.
    ‘It’s from all of us,’ Mum lies.
    ‘Oh Mum. Ta.’ Liv’s mother has tried, and Liv knows it, but the present is for a girl who ties back her long fine hair with doodahs, for a girl who clads her long thin legs in stockings, for a girl who dreams of romance as she totters on Good Shoes to the ball; for a girl who is not Liv. ‘But if you don’t mind I’ll use the IOU for a pair of runners.’
    Mum is disappointed. Liv wears thongs in summer and an old pair of work boots in winter, and her mother has been nagging about shoes for ages. But ‘Oh well, it’s your funeral,’ Mum sighs. ‘Happy birthday, darl.’
    ‘Ta, Mum.’
    After a proper breakfast (eggs sausages bacon and tomato) has been cooked for Gordo, and the first load of washing has been hung out, Mum and Liv do the weekly supermarket shopping, carry it all the way home. (Gordo takes the boys to footy on Saturday mornings, not that Mum can drive anyway. But he could at least pick us up, Liv thinks as the plastic carrybags cut her hands.)
    Liv unpacks while Mum goes in to give Gramma her rub-down, then it’s time to change the sheets on the boys’ bunks (they’re fixed to the wall so it’s hard to tuck in the top ones; and when you do the bottom ones you always forget, and crack your head). While the sheets are in the machine, run the vac round the back room, avoiding the race track, sucking up Lego. Now hang the sheets out.
    ‘Heavens!’ Mum emerges exhausted and smelling of metho. ‘Is that the time?’
    Put the pies in the oven, the boys’ll be home from footy in a moment, skiting and starving.
    ‘Anyway, I scored a try!’
    ‘I scored two tries!’
    ‘Where’s lunch?’
    ‘Anyway, I kicked a goal!’
    ‘I’m hungry!’
    ‘When’ll lunch be ready?!’
    ‘Honestly,’ Gordo complains to Mum, ‘I can’t see why you can’t have the pies hot for when the boys get home.’
    ‘It’s my fault,’ Liv says. ‘I forgot.’
    ‘You forget every bloody week,’ Gordo says. ‘Anyone’d think it was deliberate.’
    ‘They’ll be ready any minute now,’ Mum promises.
    So the boys disappear on their bikes, and Liv rinses the worst of the mud off their footy gear and puts it in the machine, and when the boys finally get