Read an extract from The Mother of All Calamities by Lisa Moule

Read an extract from The Mother of All Calamities by Lisa Moule.

Jenny 

The day before school starts 

The house had unravelled with summer. Sundresses, shorts, beach towels, thongs and goggles were strewn across furniture in each of their bedrooms. A game of Exploding Kittens lay dormant on the kitchen table, Monopoly on the lounge-room rug. Chance cards had fanned into a gradient, and money piles had blurred into nests. Christmas-cracker landfill collected on the sideboard, its usefulness in a sort of probation, while outside, bathers drying on the line had been pulled off and flung straight back on, having skipped the washing process for epochs now. 

The O’Donnell family had hosted a trail of countless barbecue guests on a conveyor belt, along with the necessary menus: vegetarian sausages, gluten-free burgers, vegan patties. The salad of perpetuity was simply bolstered with another can of chickpeas or a new bag of rocket. Bedtimes had been erased, and the night before they’d found Val asleep with the lights on, hugging his football, and Charlotte with a book on her face. 

Jenny and Angus fell into each other at night, waking with glasses of undrunk wine next to them (Angus had finally given up suggesting that they have a night off the wine, thank god). They’d reawakened a morning sex pattern, too. That morning when the sun pierced their shutter blades, they rediscovered the point of kissing. Softly, slowly, in a gear change, re-emerging in the touch of each other. She wanted him to relax. Wanted his full attention. She pressed herself into him as though squeezing into a memory of them before kids. He was hard in seconds. 

Angus slipped out of the bedroom. When he returned, he edged the chair against the door. ‘It’s Bluey time,’ he said with raised eyebrows, as he crept back into bed. This meant that the kids were occupied. 

She was single-minded. She pulled off his boxers and used her lips to bring him close. Then, on top, she had his complete focus. She came first, then him, like old times, only quieter. Never loud enough to drown out the faint theme music of Bluey. Afterwards, he was less intense, dreamy even. 

She rolled onto her back, gently panting. ‘Thirty seconds to spare,’ he said with a triumphant gleam in his eye. 

‘Go again?’ she joked. 

He laughed. ‘We should do more of this.’ 

She, too, had missed the way that sex allowed them to blur into each other. 

The doorknob rattled. ‘I’m hungry,’ said Valentino. ‘Hey, why won’t this door open?’ 

‘Just a minute,’ called Angus. ‘The chair’s fallen in front of the door,’ he said, a little staged. 

Jenny slid out from under the sheet, threw on her cotton robe and firmed herself to the day’s heavy lifting: tomorrow was the first day of school. ‘We’ll get you some breaky now, Val.’ 

In the kitchen, the floorboards under her feet were already warming into the day as she started to clear away plates and glasses from the night before. Angus joined in and began the eggs and bacon. She loved watching him in his boxers ease about the kitchen to ‘Fine Line’ by Harry Styles, poaching the eggs that the kids would probably not eat, but it didn’t matter because it was summer, and the house was alive with birdsong, eucalyptus warmth and cicadas playing their castanets. There was space enough for everyone’s needs. 

In the lounge, the kids were in a tangle on the sofa watching Bluey. She wrapped her arms around them and gave them each a kiss on the head, their tanned bodies already exceeding their summer PJs. Their eyes were clear, like rock pools. With all that swimming and sunshine and laughter, and especially when Val was subsumed by run-on screen time, it was possible to forget that she had a problem child. A happy moment, she thought. 

‘Okay, ten-minute screen-time warning,’ said Angus, echoing through the kitchen, beating her to it. 

She padded back into the kitchen, unpacked the dishwasher, stacked it again. Shifted partially completed LEGO worlds from the table and called to them for bacon and eggs while Angus portioned up the plates and sat down. 

Val protested from the sofa. When they were halfway through eating, he joined them at the table, his bed hair at extreme angles, complaining there wasn’t enough bacon. Jenny and Angus shared an eyeroll. What a trick, a paradox, giving life only for theirs to be dismantled one day at a time. In Jenny’s mind, the only consistently successful answer to their life’s problems was cake. ‘You can help me make cupcakes for tomorrow after breakfast, if you like?’ 

‘Yay,’ said Charlotte. 

‘No way,’ said Val. ‘I wanna play swing ball with Dad.’ 

‘We can do that mate.’ 

And then they were both eating. She loved watching them eat. And there was peace again. 

She glanced across the room. The games, LEGO worlds, unfinished towers. Weren’t we all works in progress? The kids were extreme versions of that. They were like Bambi learning to walk, with one leg longer than the others, in mismatched symmetries. Overgrown teeth in undergrown bodies, while inside their heads they were learning to juggle the trinity: emotions, hormones and empathy. 

After breakfast, Angus played swing ball with Valentino in the backyard. Jenny and Charlotte whipped up cupcakes and placed them in the oven. Charlotte went out with the boys, while Jenny prepared and ironed their uniforms and Angus’s work shirt for tomorrow. He was a teacher at Greengully High, a sought-after local secondary school. He had the perfect combination of generosity and clear boundaries, a rare blend in her experience. Being a bloke allowed him the luxury of good boundaries. Maintaining strong boundaries as a woman meant that you had to upset someone, and Jenny had only ever learned how to please. She was fully aware of the expectations of everyone around her and simultaneously powerless against them. 

She paired socks on the bed and glanced out the window. Their bedroom was at the top of the house. Below, the next-door neighbours were unpacking shopping from their car. They were the parents of Kaylee, a teenager whom Angus taught. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by Angus yelling, ‘Ouch! Shit!’ 

Oh Christ. It really was the frayed end of the holidays. Jenny saw the neighbours pause and look at each other with raised eyebrows. She strode calmly down the stairs and out the back door to see what was going on. 

Outside, Angus, facing Val, was stiff—​almost blue—​with anger. 

‘What’s happened?’ 

Angus shook his head. 

Val hit the swing ball aggressively with his bat, and the ball spun around and around. 

‘Val, put the bat down for a moment please,’ said Angus. 

Val ignored him and kept hitting. 

Angus spoke in a clear and conciliatory tone. ‘Val, stop for one second please.’ He walked into the swing ball, caught it, and gently took the bat from his son’s hand. ‘Val, you can’t bite me, or hit me, mate.’ 

Val looked at the ground. ‘I didn’t . . .’ 

‘Mate, what’s this?’ Angus extended his hand towards Val and showed him a bright red mark. 

When Val was in that mood, nothing could touch him; the whole world was flung to the wall: promises, love, everything. ‘That’s the time to put your arms around them’ was what her mum had said, and she was right. ‘It’s when they’re aggressive or in a rage that they need you most.’ 

Jenny placed a hand on Val’s shoulder, and he flinched. ‘Go away.’ 

Angus focused. ‘Val, you absolutely cannot hurt people. Do you understand?’ 

Val crossed his arms and looked away. 

‘Do you hear me, mate?’ 

‘Let me have a look at that hand,’ said Jenny. 

He lifted his hand; a semicircle in blue and red scarred the fleshy part of his thumb, Val’s bite clearly defined. ‘If only we could get him to do that for the dentist.’ It didn’t defuse Angus’s intensity. 

He threw his hand in the air, gesturing that the wound was not the problem. His face was white and pained, his eyes full of hurt. He went straight back over to Val and put his hand gently on his shoulder, his eyes imploring, and said delicately, ‘You really have to stop hurting people. Believe me, it will come back to haunt you.’ 

It was the way he said the last part that quietened every other thought. 

Charlotte peered out the back door cautiously. Jenny went straight to her with a smile. ‘What are you up to, poppet? Oh, let’s see how those cupcakes are going.’ She took her hand and led her back inside. 

Extracted from The Mother of All Calamities by Lisa Moule, out now.

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The Mother of All Calamities

by Lisa Moule

A relatable, humorous and heartfelt take on contemporary parenting culture, exposing the cracks behind the Instagram gloss.

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