Tom Houghton Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t have any food, Mum. Are you looking after yourself?’ The fridge was well stocked as per usual, just not with solids.
    â€˜I just haven’t gotten around to shopping yet. You shouldn’t be so fearful all the time.’ She raised her eyebrows. Touché . ‘Just because I wasn’t always there for you doesn’t mean you need to be a saint to me. How’s your play going?’
    â€˜Oh, well enough. Ticket sales are good, reviews are bearable. I’m not sure how long his stuff will be considered groundbreaking but I’m willing to ride the enthusiasm while it lasts. Never thought I’d be working this long, so every new job is a blessing.’ I took her empty plate to the sink. ‘Are you, you know, good Mum?’
    â€˜Jumping out of my skin,’ she said, a Lana-ism for I’m going okay .
    She topped up her Bloody Mary with more vodka and took it into the bathroom with her while she let the shower heat up. I shook the rugs out as best I could, squeezing my eyes shut against the dust, and placed them back where they belonged. More stains had appeared on the carpet, so I’d arrange for it to be shampooed again. It was not her apartment really, but Mal’s. He’d sold his business in New Zealand for a modest sum and bought two flats: one for himself in a quiet country town as far away from Wellington as he could get, and the other in Sydney because, he said, it was the best place to invest. Though he never got a tenant – he’d let Lana move in the day her last boyfriend kicked her out of his house. I’d only mentioned the break-up to Mal in passing on one of our yearly catch-up phone calls and he’d insisted she could live at his place until she found her feet again because he hadn’t got it prepared for rental yet and . . . Well, that was three years ago now and he’d never once asked for rent or paid her a visit to see how she was keeping the place. He asked after her without fail but I kept details to a minimum and told him she was asking after him too.
    Five Dock really didn’t suit her, she said. Was riding the cusp of urban and suburban and didn’t know what it wanted to be so she had neither decent cafés to visit, nor supermarkets that were plentiful. I encouraged her to take walks by the harbour but she just looked at me blankly and said, ‘What for?’ Despite her protestations, I knew she’d developed a small circle of friends at the local club and though she rarely had them back to her house, she often mentioned a dinner party she’d attended, or cribbage night or book club.
    I’d once made a joke about her having a new boy to kiss but she dismissed that instantly and said she was way too old for any such thing. Okie was a name she kept mentioning without clarification. I’d gleaned that he was a local builder, semi-retired. Though from my cleaning up around the place, I knew he’d been staying over on occasion. Okie took her to the movies but she didn’t go much for modern ones and he fixed the odd thing around the flat but the way she spoke about him was purely business. When I asked what he looked like, she said, ‘A builder,’ nonchalantly, and whether he was married was met with ‘twice’. Her brusqueness did not extend to her asking me questions about my own sex life, drug and alcohol intake, financial status and personal health issues . . . questions I did not mind answering in as much detail as she craved, which inevitably depended on her mood, which inevitably depended on how much she’d had to drink.
    Lana emerged from the bathroom wearing a simple green dress, her hair flat and wet against her still angular jawline. Her lipstick had been freshly applied and a hint of mascara now covered up her forever hated blonde lashes.
    â€˜Are you heading out today?’
    â€˜Okie is taking me to his bowls semifinals. Makes him look a