Page 20 of People Skills

‘On Friday night, Xavier told me he didn’t know what his next move would be, or where he was going to live, and I said he could rent my spare room for a while. I’ve been looking for a housemate since I got here. Anyway, over the weekend he asked if he could take me up on the offer and I said yes,’ I say.

Hillary blinks as she absorbs this. I’m aware I am talking a touch too quickly, my nerves are showing. I try to slow down.

‘I hope that it’s okay, and I’m sorry if it’s weird, and I know I should have talked to you first, but it was an impulsive suggestion,’ I say. ‘He’s only planning to stay a month or so.’

Hillary stands up, taps her fingers on the desk for a moment, thinking, and then smiles.

‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that. But, it’s fine. Of course. I’ve been worrying about where he’s going to stay all weekend. Better your house than his brother’s couch. It could be good actually, to have him here in town,’ she says.

I can see the wheels turning in her mind: she’ll have more access to him than ever.

‘Maybe we can even convince him to let me program him into the festival,’ she adds.

He hasn’t done an event in years, so I highly doubt it, but I nod encouragingly.

‘He might,’ I say.

‘People still love him, you know. He’ll draw a big crowd. Maybe we could do a panel on modern novels destined to become Australian classics. Or maybe it’s too much for me to be framing his book as a future classic. Do you think it would come across as nepotistic?’ She raises her eyebrows.

‘We can brainstorm,’ I say.

‘What exactly did Xavier tell you about why he left my house?’ she asks.

This is a test. Hillary likes to know I’ll be honest with her. That my allegiance will be with her over Xavier.

‘He said you tried to hack his laptop to see if he’d been writing anything,’ I say.

‘A complete exaggeration,’ she says. ‘I object to the word hack. For god’s sake. I’m his mother. I birthed him. It’s not a crime to open his computer.’

I think it might actually be a violation of some law or another, but I nod at her. ‘Absolutely not, you had every right.’

‘I just wanted to make sure he was okay. You know, this is the kind of pivotal moment where he could get pulled into online nonsense, go down rabbit holes. Listen to one of those awful podcasts that make men hate women. What do they call it? Red-pilled?’

‘You were going to look at his browsing history?’ That’s a lot worse than just checking whether he’s been writing.

Hillary pauses, as if weighing up how much of her mess she should let me see. She decides on most of it.

‘Sometimes, as a mother, you need to cross lines,’ she says.

I’m still nodding along, but my expression must give away that I’m a little less enthusiastic in my support.

She sags a little. ‘Look, I know I’m technically in the wrong. I shouldn’t have snooped. There hasn’t been a single year of motherhood where I haven’t found myself doing something that pre-motherhood me would think was completely crazy. Thirty-five years into it, and it’s no different. I can’t help myself.’

‘I understand,’ I say. ‘My mum would say the same.’

‘Well, your poor mother had twin boys. That would push anyone over the edge.’

Certainly, the most unhinged moments I ever saw from my mother related to parenting us. My childhood can be divided into two distinct periods: Pre-Twins and Post-Twins. I was five when my brothers were born, and our house went from a quiet, organised oasis to a chaotic defacto play centre. My brothers climbed things, threw things, smashed things, ate things. My mother once threatened the end of Christmas by saying, ‘I will personally go to the North Pole and destroy Santa’s sleigh and his toy factory and poison the reindeer, if you don’t stop.’ And Dom, the sensitive twin, kept asking, ‘Which reindeer will you poison?’ because he was very attached to the idea of the reindeer and knew all their names, and wanted to go through them reindeer by reindeer to ask if she would poison that one, and would it live, and surely not Rudolf, and at first she was saying, ‘Yes, I’ll poison Dasher, and Dancer, and Comet,’ but then she obviously started to feel bad and that maybe she had permanently damaged him emotionally, so she had to make up an elaborate story about having an antidote.

So yes, I am familiar with how far motherhood can push women.

‘I just want Xavier to be happy,’ Hillary says. ‘I want them all to be happy. But I can see the path that Ettie and James are on, where they’re going. With Xavier, it’s not so clear. When he came home from overseas and started seeing Lana, I was sure that was going to change things. She’s so driven, and creative. She’s exactly the kind of woman I always saw him with. But he’s done what he always does and run away from that. It’s like he can’t help himself. Anyway,’ she continues, ‘maybe he’ll have some kind of writing breakthrough while he’s here.’

‘Maybe he will,’ I say. ‘Maybe I could even help him.’

It’s an offhand comment, I am not really thinking when I say it, but Hillary latches on to it immediately, leaning forward, her eyes widening. ‘Do you think you could?’ she says.

‘Oh. Um. Possibly. I’ve helped other authors with writer’s block,’ I say. This is a wild exaggeration but the urge to impress Hillary is overwhelming until it’s confirmed she’s keeping me on.