Dinner with the Schnabels by Toni Jordan

Author:Toni Jordan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Published: 2022-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

‘Kids!’ Tansy called out, as she and Simon were leaning on opposite sides of the front doorjamb, waiting to head out to the Chees’. ‘We’re leaving in four minutes! Don’t bring too much stuff.’

‘But I want to show Lily my new pens,’ Mia called out from the bedroom.

‘Mum, Mum, where’s my other shoe?’ said Lachie.

‘Can’t you show her at school?’ Tansy called back. ‘And did you look behind the TV?’

‘No!’ said Mia. ‘I’m not taking my good pens to school! Anything could happen to them.’

‘And I want to show Tyler my rocks,’ said Lachie, as he hopped across the lounge room.

Somewhere in Simon and Tansy’s past, they had friends who were not the parents of Mia and Lachie’s friends. They must have known childless people when they were themselves childless; they invited guests to their wedding! But these days, the concept of socialising with people who didn’t have children the same age as their own seemed ridiculous. What would they talk about? And how would they manage to talk, if the children didn’t distract each other? And what would be their shared excuse for drinking too much? They had met the Chees because Mia was friends with their Lily. It was counterintuitive, but the Chees preferred socialising on school nights – Saturday and Sunday mornings were even more hectic than weekdays, what with Mandarin classes and soccer and ballet and violin and visits to the grandparents. Simon knew they were deeply in entertaining-debt to the Chees but it couldn’t be helped. The Chee kids each had their own room. The Chees had a big backyard, with barbecue. And a cupboard under the stairs just for wine.

‘I’m boiling! Do I have to wear pants?’ yelled Lachie.

‘Yes!’ yelled Simon. Then, under his breath, ‘If I have to wear pants, everyone has to wear pants.’

‘Can I bring my lizard?’ yelled Lachie.

‘No. Three minutes,’ Simon yelled back.

Before Simon had children, he hadn’t realised how a conversation could become randomised, as though each participant’s lines were written on a piece of paper and thrown into the air before being read aloud in no particular order. How he longed to have a conversation where he said one thing, and Tansy said another thing that followed logically from his thing, and they just went on like that, alternating sentences, like people on television. It seemed impossible to imagine.

‘I almost forgot to ask,’ Tansy said. ‘How was your coffee with Flora?’

‘Yeah, good,’ said Simon. ‘Wait, since when does Lachie have a lizard?’

Tansy stared at him. ‘I was just about to ask you that.’

Some things are better left for the weekend. Simon took a deep breath in, and let it out. ‘Did you speak with Naveen today?’ he said.

‘I found it!’ yelled Lachie. ‘It was in my backpack with the rocks.’

Simon was alarmed for a moment, before he realised Lachie meant the shoe, not the lizard.

‘Good work, Lachs!’ Tansy yelled. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘He was acting weird when I saw him this afternoon.’ Simon proceeded to tell her that Naveen was planning to head to work despite feeling unwell.

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