Things I Know To Be True by Andrew Bovell

Author:Andrew Bovell
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Currency Press

WINTER

MARK

The roses are bare and the sky is grey. FRAN is in the garden smoking a cigarette.

MARK: On the weekends when Dad wanted help in the garden I would climb the gum tree and hide. From up there, I could see the world.

At least I could see our world. Pip singing to a song on the radio and checking her split ends at the patio table. Ben kicking the football from one end of the yard to the other. Always running. Dad pushing a wheelbarrow of dirt around with Rosie following him with her plastic shovel ready to help. And Mum hanging out the washing before sneaking a cheeky fag behind the shed, thinking that no-one knows she’s there.

They didn’t know I was up in the tree watching and seeing everything. Not really a part of the picture and not really even knowing why.

There were two occasions on which Mum would smoke. The first was if she’d had more than two glasses of wine. She wasn’t a big drinker so this was rare. It usually happened on New Year’s Eve. She would light up after two glasses of sparkling wine and only ever smoke the one. She was also known to dance with Dad’s undies on her head, after he had taken them off for God knows what reason, so New Year’s Eve was always an ordeal for us kids. The other occasion was when she thought that one of us had a problem that she couldn’t solve, which was also rare, Mum having a solution for most problems in life. And on these occasions she could go through a pack, one after another until a solution was found. I suspect that, of all of us, she smoked the most cigarettes on account of me.

BOB is pushing a load of dirt across the yard. He finds FRAN.

BOB: What the hell are you doing?

FRAN: Sssh, I don’t want Rosie to see.

BOB: Well, give me a puff?

FRAN: No. One puff for you and you’d be back on a pack a day. Mark called. He’s coming over.

BOB: Good … I’ll get him to help me shift the garden furniture. There’s a storm’s coming in.

FRAN: He says he needs to talk to us.

BOB: What about?

FRAN: Now you’re not to go on but I think he might be gay.

BOB: Bloody hell!

FRAN: See … there you go.

BOB: Well, it’s a bit out of the blue!

FRAN: He doesn’t know we know so you’ll have to act surprised.

BOB: Well, I am. I mean why hasn’t he told us before?

FRAN: It takes some men longer, that’s all.

BOB: So this is why Taylor up and left, you think?

FRAN: I’d say so … Are you alright with it?

BOB: Yes … if he is. If it’s the way he wants to go.

FRAN: It’s not a way you go, Bob. It’s not a direction you take.

BOB: I didn’t mean that. I mean he’s thirty … how old is he?

FRAN: Thirty-two.

BOB: Exactly! He’s thirty-two. His life is his own.

FRAN: That’s right.

BOB: And you? Are you alright with it?

FRAN: Yes! … I think so.

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