Drift by Penni Russon

Author:Penni Russon [Russon, Penni]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781741660890
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2007-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Undine poked about in the cupboard. She came up with two tins of cannellini beans, half a stock cube and in the fridge some slightly bendy carrots and a rather sad leek.

‘I can make soup,’ she said, doubtfully.

‘Okay,’ said Lou, equally doubtful. Cooking a meal had been one of Undine’s weekly chores for a few years, but Undine had never offered to do it and had never really stretched much beyond boiled pasta and sauce out of a bottle. ‘What would you like me to do?’ Undine handed her a carrot, Lou scrabbled in the utensils drawer for the vegetable peeler.

It didn’t take long to cut the carrot and leek or drain the tins of beans and once the soup was cooking it actually smelt delicious. It was Stephen who had taught Undine to cook like this, winging it with the things she found in the cupboard or the fridge, using her intuition to combine ingredients.

‘What shall we have with it?’ Lou asked.

‘If only we had a bread machine,’ Undine said, ‘we could make fresh bread every day.’

‘Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?’ Under the circumstances it wasn’t a very comfortable joke, and there was a moment’s awkward silence.

‘It was just a thought,’ Undine said.

‘We might have bread in the freezer,’ Lou said. ‘Does anyone really do that? Make their own bread every day?’

Undine opened the freezer and peered into it, her eyes dangerously misty as she remembered Stephen setting the timer on the bread machine every night before bed. She managed to excavate a brown loaf from the freezer’s deep recesses. By the time she had worked it out, past frozen leftovers and bags of peas, she had contained her emotions.

‘Well,’ said Lou, ‘looks like you’ve got it all under control. I might go and see how Jasper and Phoenix are doing.’

Undine rolled her eyes.

‘What’s that look?’

‘It’s just a look.’

‘Why don’t you like him?’ Lou asked.

‘Why do you?’ Undine demanded. ‘He’s young enough to be your … and what’s with the magic? I thought we didn’t like magic in this house.’

‘It’s not real magic. It’s just a harmless illusion. Just pretend.’

‘Like him. Like he’s pretend.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lou said.

‘I don’t trust him! I can’t believe you do. You don’t know anything about him, and he’s out there now with Jasper—’

‘For god’s sake, I’m right here,’ Lou cut in.

Undine pressed on. She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t just let it go. ‘He’s hoodwinked you. He’s made you feel admired, interesting. He’s using you, isn’t it obvious?’

‘He couldn’t just actually be interested in me? Is that what you’re saying?’ Lou stopped and held up her hands. ‘No. No. You don’t get to do this. You left. Where were you?’ Lou’s voice was climbing, thin and plaintive. ‘When Jasper couldn’t sleep, where were you? When Jasper asked over and over when you were coming home, where you had gone, if you were dead? When he was a ghost, disappearing …? When Prospero was

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