The Piper's Son

Callum is delirious with laughter. It’s a frightening type of delirium. The type that will send Sam over the edge.

“Tom, did you give him lollies?” Georgie asks suspiciously.

“No.” She can tell he’s lying, pretending to be outraged that she could suggest such a thing. “Maybe one. Or two.”

Georgie hears Sam walk into the house while Bill is swearing about the force of the water coming through her pipes and how Sydney people waste water.

“Bill,” she says patiently, “Sam has a problem with us swearing in front of his son, so let’s hold back tonight.” She puts a finger to her lips.

“And I have a problem with Sam fucking up my daughter’s life. So let’s just call it even.”

“Bill,” Grace warns.

“I heard Sam say the C-word the other day, anyway,” Tom says, sitting down in front of the kid.

“What’s the C-word?” the kid asks just as Sam walks in.

“Can’t . . . say.”

Sam gives Tom a dirty look.

“If we finish eating everything on our plate, we’re going to Norton Street for gelato,” Georgie says brightly.

“Cool,” Tom says, liking the sound of it.

“Cool,” Callum repeats.

By the time di

“Eat,” Sam says firmly, and it takes her a moment to realize it’s not directed at her.

Callum looks down at his plate and shakes his head.

“I can’t fit in any more,” he whimpers. Sam doesn’t cope with the whimpering.

His stare goes on forever until the kid puts the food in his mouth but then spits it out, crying, and next minute Sam grabs him and takes him to the corner. “Now stand there until you’re ready to eat!”

He sits back down and Georgie is staring at him, shaking her head. He has a look on his face that she hasn’t seen for years. In the old days he’d deliver it and it’d make her squirm inside. A look that made her feel small. That’s what Sam was able to do back then. Make her feel insignificant. What would you know, Georgie? Yeah, like you’re the expert, Georgie.

“I can’t do this,” she says, looking over to where the kid stands. “It’s like sitting through the last five minutes of Blair Witch when they’re forced to face the wall and die.”

Wrong thing to say, but then again she knows it is. Maybe deep down she wants to pick a fight, wants to provoke him so then he can grab her and put her in the corner as well and she can fight him back. Anything but what he dishes out to her these days. Silence and tiptoeing and unspoken rules and unsaid future plans.

It’s a filthy look she’s receiving. It belongs to the passive-aggressive hall of fame. She’d prefer her family any day, all rage and fury and getting it out in the open. Fewer lacerations in the long run.

“Sam, remove him from the corner,” she says firmly.

There’s silence now. Sam goes to say something, but then it seems he changes his mind. Except Georgie knows the weight of the words he’s swallowed.

“Say it,” she says quietly.

“What?” he asks.

“What you were about to say.”

“Georgie,” Grace warns, “let’s just finish eating and clear the plates, so we can all go for a walk.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head and looking straight at Sam. “He was going to say that this is none of my business. That it’s his son. Say it, Sam. Have the guts to say it.”

Sam pushes his chair back, grabs Callum, and walks out, slamming the door behind him.

Georgie collects the plates off the table with shaking hands and then Dom’s at the sink taking them from her. “Fix this thing up with Sam, Georgie. Fix it now, or you never will,” he says.

The front door of Sam’s house is open and she walks in and can hear the crying from the kid’s room but she knows it’s not her right to go in. She finds Sam in the kitchen, where he’s standing with his back to her, hands clenching the sink.

“Do you want out?” she asks.

He turns to face her. There’s a look of bitterness of his face and she can’t help feeling that the bottom is going to fall out of her world again.

“Out of what, Georgie? What are we in?”

“Why do I have to answer that?” she asks. “Why can’t you?”

“Because words are a weapon with you. I’m scared to even open my mouth.”

It’s a controlled fury she sees in his eyes, built up over time.

“Okay, then, let’s talk about your son’s behavior tonight,” she says. “He’s a kid. Juiced up on sugar, courtesy of Tom, the village idiot. I’m not telling you how to raise him, Sam. I’m just saying that sometimes there has to be a difference in the way you punish him for not eating his food and for when he does something pretty dire. Because I’m warning you, I’m not into the pulling-the-arm-out-of-a-kid’s-socket routine and then sticking him against the wall. So you’ll have to find a different set of rules for ours.”

There’s silence for a moment and she takes a deep breath, almost relieved that she spoke, no matter how damaging the words can be.

“You never use his name,” he says. “And I know I have no right to ask anything from you when it comes to him. I know it takes an extraordinary person to love Callum under the circumstances, Georgie . . .”

“But you make me feel a little less than ordinary!” she blurts out. “You place yourself between us. You’re an interloper and you make things polite and careful. When I’m forced into being polite and careful, Sam, I find that gene inside of me passed down from Grace. The distant one.”

He’s shaking his head.

“Does it help that I enjoy his company a lot more when you’re not around?” she says, not able to stop herself. “Because that way, you aren’t watching me as though I’m going to turn into some kind of demon.”

“That’s ridiculous, Georgie.”

“Don’t call me ridiculous. And for your information? That look? The one you gave me in my kitchen? Well, I got that look a lot during the last year we were together. The one that said a bit less, Georgie. A bit more decorum, please. A bit less emotion. Our lives could be a bit tidier. Perhaps there’s someone a bit better out there!”

“You read most of it wrong!” he shouts.

“What part?” she shouts back.

There’s more crying from Callum’s room and then a knock on the front door.

“We’re scaring your son,” she mutters, walking up the corridor to where she can see the outline of Tom at the screen door.

“Na

Outside, she can see Grace and Bill and Dominic sitting on the brick fence waiting. Her family. How did they shrink to this size?

She hears Sam come up behind her, switching on the porch light.

“And you did that all wrong, back at my house,” she says, quietly to him, because she’s not finished yet. “We promised Callum gelato and if you take that from him, he’ll think I broke the promise. I don’t want to be the bad guy here, Sam.”

In defense of her family, they know how to bounce back from an awkward moment with alacrity. It was what Jacinta had complained about for years. One minute tearing each other apart, next minute everyone back to normal like nothing happened. They walk through Petersham and pick up Sam’s mum along the way and arrange to meet Lucia and Abe and their kids. They can’t find a table big enough, so they end up sitting around the fountain at the Italian Forum. Georgie puts an arm around Grace because she’s cold and listens to one of her goddaughters tell her about Ha