Clueless

"How are you doing, Dad?" Laura asks sincerely.

"You knew? God... I've been such a fucking fool."

"Not 'knew'. Not really. Strongly suspected." She frowns. "And that's wrong thinking. You know that. You're a loving, kind, trusting man and you don't get to take responsibility for poor choices made by someone else. This is on Mum. What follows now is her consequences, not your doing. Look at me, Dad."

I look up through teary eyes to find her gentle brown eyes sadly but sincerely holding mine.

"Ages ago, Maddy saw them kissing when we were all over at Carl and Debs. You'd gone inside to help Deb with washing up and Maddy caught them. Mum said it was just a stupid thing that went too far because she'd been drinking and made her promise not to tell you. She was... convincing at the time."

"So that's what's with-"

"The way Maddy hates Mum." She nods. "All the fighting."

"Fucking... That's not fair to... Making her kids keep her dirty secrets... Fucking-"

"Yeah, pretty shit move. Anyway, we're going to give you a little space this evening. Clearly, you're going to want to talk with Mum. We've arranged to have a sleepover at Nan's place."

"Haha. She'll think it's Christmas. You three behave. You know she's a bad influence."

"A bad influence with the best choof in town." Laura agrees. "We'll be fine. Just you... You look after yourself and don't take any shit. Promise me."

She insists with a nod. "Promise me you'll be your normal kind self but I... we... Maddy and me... You're our rock. You look after you. Mum's a big woman. She can clearly make her own choices, but it would kill Maddy and me if we lost you. Don't leave us, Dad. Promise?"

Oh fucking great, now Laura is crying and it's threatening to tip me back over.

"I'm not going anywhere, kiddo." I tell her and snuggle her close.

"Just fucking stick up for yourself for a change." She grumps into my chest. "However... Whatever you and Mum work out, just... we fucking need you, old man."

"Shh... Somehow everything will be fine, big girl. I don't know how, but..."

"If you guys split, Maddy and I are getting custody of you. We already decided." She giggles through her tears and kisses me quickly on the lips then thumps me hard on the chest. "Grow a set, old man. Show us the big bad Dad that we knew would always look after us and keep us safe. And don't even think for a second about doing anything fucking stupid and trying to... Just leave Carl alone okay?"

"Fucking mess..."

"Oh... Maddy said to show you this."

Laura taps at her phone. "Find my phone app. All our phones are attached to your account. GPS is a wonderful invention. Look... Ruthven Street Motor Inn. So much for work."

And there it was in fact. My wife's phone was currently in room three at a motel while she was supposedly at the service station covering a sick colleague's shift.

.,............................

A few weeks later I was sitting in the garage staring at my bike and wondering if I was going to have to sell it if we split. The 'conversation' went terribly. Mary denied everything. Told me I was imagining things. Said that GPS can be faulty. She even threw in a line about how she had dropped costumes off, not made them as she told me because she was helping our good friend Carl plan a surprise fortieth for our good friend Deb and that I should be ashamed of imagining she could ever do anything so grotty as fuck her best friend's husband. Then she feigned outrage at my distrust of her and told me she was going to stay at her Mum's for a couple of weeks.

There had been a final warning shot as she huffed and packed her bags. "Don't even think about telling any of your stupid god damned suspicious bullshit to Debbie. You don't get to wreck their relationship just because you're a... a fucking cunt."

"Are you doubting yourself, Daddy? I know that look." Maddy hands me a beer.

"God it's just a fucking mess, hon."

"Laura told you I saw them kissing right."

I nod.

"Kick the skank cunt to the gutter with the other whores."

"Maddy..." I can't help laughing at her outburst.

"You deserve better, Daddy. Not some bitch who fucks your mate."

"Look she said..." There had been that whole thing about how 'yes' she found him attractive but 'no' she didn't act on it. 'Yes' she kissed him once when she was half pissy but it was pretty one sided. He actually kissed her and she... bla bla waffle...

"She spun a lot of bullshit because she's been caught out and doesn't like being the bad guy."

"I just don't know what's what anymore." And that's the goddamned truth.

"Well..." She sits beside me on the driveway outside the garage and opens one of my beers for herself. "When I was little, you told me that sometimes when you don't know the answer to things, to look at the things you do know until it becomes clear."

"Haha. How did you and Laura get so damn smart, honey?"

"We had a great teacher, Daddy. Now you have to turn a little bit of that back on yourself. You've been moping about for weeks now and we need you. You need you. You've been late for work twice. You're drinking more than usual. We're worried."

Watching my beer carefully I nod along. I really do need to practice a bit of self-care. It would be my first advice to either of my girls.

"Laura tell you about the missing frangers, Daddy?"

"Huh?"

"Oh... It's one of those things that we were kinda not sure of, but frangers have been going missing from our rooms over the last couple of months. That and the kissing thing... I got to hating her. How could the mega-beast do that to my daddy? What a cunt."

Instinctively, I open my mouth to chide her language but check myself. If ever there was a time for the word 'cunt' it was probably now.

"Anyhow you old mope'a'saur..." She tussles my hair. "You need to go and shower, pick out some nice clothes, make yourself all handsome and get ready for your date."

"What date, bub?" I laugh at her.

"You're taking the two best looking ladies you know out for an evening of fine dining and dance."

""You're a nutcase, honey. What have you got up your sleeves?"

"No sleeves." She looks down at her singlet top pretending to be looking for sleeves and drawing my attention by proxy to her pretty breasts and their pokey nipples. "Just we love you and hate seeing you all sad and serious. So it's counter meals and music at the Norville tonight."

"Ooh... Swishy." I laugh for the first time in ages. Maybe this is just what we need. "Sounds very posh. Should I have Jeeves fetch the limo?"

And there it is. The whole reason I am. My little girl rings the giggle bells that have driven my entire need to succeed in this world. I was pretty lost before they came along.

I met Mary when I was first apprenticed to her father. I'd always been good with motors and really shitty with school, so mechanics was a no brainer. My own dad was an alco. Mum worked to feed us and keep the flat rented. Dad drank everything she couldn't hide. He was rough until I got taller than him too.

The first time I hit him back he left.

The first stint in juvenile happened not long after that.

Mary's dad was a good man. He spoke to mum while I was off at Wolston and I started with him the day I got back with strict instructions from mum. "Don't fuck this up. This is the chance for you to get out of the shit puddle you know and make something of yourself. This is your choice. Are you going to be your father or are you going to break the mould?"

Bad boy ran deep in me though.

I got Mary pregnant when we were both still teenagers. She was the unobtainable catholic school-girl bosses' daughter and I was the out of bounds bad boy and... Well, 'hello Laura.' It was the making of me. It was hard work but we had a lot of support from our parents and made our little family work despite our youth.

Maybe that's what all this is. Her stolen young adult years manifesting in her forties.

Fucking not my circus.

"It really is not your circus Lucas." I tell myself. "Listen to your smart, grown-up big girls and look after that belted up little man down inside you who never felt like he deserved anything better because his father just saw someone other than his mother to take his drunken rage out on."

And look at me now.

In this place.

Not the shower where I follow instructions on autopilot and clean myself up for a night out with my littlies. But this moment. How did I get here? What is my part in creating it? I've always examined every low spot for my own actions to learn better. Juvey was just three months thinking about how I had got to that place and how I could get out. This mess...

Could wait.

Maybe sometimes thinking too much is the problem.

Fucks me... I've led a very simple, thoughtful life and look where I am now. Maybe the time for thinking is done. Maybe this is time for some of those youthful passions that always got me into strife. Perhaps even that holds forgiveness for Mary. Maybe she's just human. Maybe...

Fuck.

Fuck it all.

The room is steamy and warm when I turn the shower off. Tendrils stir around my limbs as I towel off. The cotton is scratchy against my skin and I feel invigorated. I shave around my goatee and inspect my face too long and with too much criticism. Old... Inside I am seventeen. Not this man. Not this man with worry and pain and frown lines.

Fuck it.

I splash some Brut aftershave on my jaw and drag a brush through my hair then pull on the suit. I haven't worn a suit since Therese's wedding ten years ago. It still fits. I've lost weight. I decide I look like a black and white movie star. I certainly feel like all the colour has drained out of my world lately.

"Daddy, hurry up. The uber is here."

"Coming Maddy."

And I open the door and just about skip a heartbeat or two. Cheese and rice, these two girls...

"Holy wow. You two look..." I frown. I have no words. "I'll just go grab a gun."

"Dad. Just grab your wallet." Laura laughs making her tits bounce in the tiny black dress and threaten to topple out of the neckline. "We're just eye-candy. You're the sugar-daddy tonight."

"Maddy... You should... Jesus..." Her dress is red and clings like glad-wrap film to her body. "If we get arrested it's your fault."

"Hahaha. Dickhead, Daddy. Chop chop... Get a wriggle on spunky." Maddy shines her big healthy white teeth at me and I'm reminded of a wolf not my daughter. God help any bloke she turns that smile on.

It's lovely.

The whole fucking thing is just fucking lovely. I've had six bourbons and eaten a lovely fucking rib fillet with pepper sauce and potato chips to fucking die for. No-one told me off for eating carbs or dissed me for wanting it medium-rare.

Maddy and Laura laugh as freely as dogs play after being let off their chains. This whole thing shames me. I had forgotten about them. It must have been killing them too. A small ball is forming inside my chest. A small ball I know.

It's a slow fury. It's a gathering ball of anger. It's my power. It's the personal power I need to protect myself and my family manifesting for me. It's the same thing that got me in trouble all those years ago because I didn't understand it.

My father taught me that violence was communication; a tool to get what you want. Becoming a father taught me that the same violence was the strength I was granted to protect my family and to work for their future. That same violence was now swelling to protect that same small kid I used to be from what my wife had done to me.

I had doubted myself. She had made me a fool. She had used my own nature against me to run decoy for her own deceit. Just last month I remember watching one night after she'd gone out with 'girlfriends' from work and come home a bit of a giddy mess. She stopped in the kitchen on her way to the shower and threw something from her handbag in the bin.

The following morning, I checked the rubbish as I emptied it. I was curious what she had to throw out. Inside a big wad of toilet paper were a pair of torn underpants. Weird... When I told her they had fallen out of the rubbish and asked about them she abused me for 'sniffing undies', 'being a pervert' and told me they were old ones from ages ago that she finally got around to throwing out.

But. But they were still wet. They were wet with 'not piss'. They were carefully wrapped up and surreptitiously discarded the moment she got home before going to the shower. And they looked stretched and broken. Surely, I was just being suspicious and jealous and weird and a pervert and doubtful and mean and... Wrong.

"Gas lighting, old man." Laura laughed when I told her about the undies. I was in no pain from the steady flow of bourbon and my tongue had loosened. It was a pivotal moment when I look back at it. It was the balancing point of childhood versus adult acceptance of my kids. It was the moment I knew these two young women were just as savvy and probably more so than I. They were grown up bitches with thoughts and prayers for a future they were building and god damn it, so damn smart.

"Gas lighting? What the fuck are you on about pumpkin?"

"Dad... If you call me pumpkin while we are in public I will stand up and yell, 'he touched me in a bad place'. Got it? No 'pumpkin'. Nada. Zilch..."

Maddy was giggling. I felt admonished. "Sorry... ah... sorry..."

"Laura works. Kiddo is also not suitable for public. I like it at home. It makes me feel safe. But no pumpkin. In public, I am Laura."

"Oooooookay, then Laura." That was the exact same moment during our silly banter that the smile on her teasing face tilted once or twice, fell quickly past her chin into an open 'o' of a mouth and morphed into a violent frown that pirates would be proud to board a ship with.

"The fucking cunt."

I followed her eyes across the crowded beer garden and found myself watching Carl and Mary engaged in a passionate kiss. There are thirteen pubs in the main street of this town alone let alone all the other licenced venues. How the fuck did they end up here? Here and now.

They were sitting beside each other at a picnic table and snogging like teenagers who'd snuck out to be together. Then they parted, straightened themselves up and moved apart a little. Mary picked up her phone and looked to be tapping at it. Carl stood and took drinks from Deb who had obviously returned from the bar.

"You want to go somewhere else, old man?" Laura asked in a growl. "We could try the Spotted Cow."

Any doubt and internal conflict I had was replaced with a resigned knowledge and resentment. The truth of it all was horrible. Mary was sitting at a table with her friend and...

"Poor Debbie." I said quietly. The ball of rage that had been building inside had swollen further.

"Don't do anything stupid, Dad." Laura warned. So we just drank our drinks quietly and waited for Madison to return from the ladies. We watched as Carl stood and held a hand out to Mary and they went for a dance on the little outdoor dance floor. Deb watched them and reminded me of myself. Her face hurt with something like suspicion then she stood and wandered off toward the ladies.

We saw her almost bump into Maddy on her way back. They hugged and Maddy pointed over at us. Deb smiled and waved to us then continued off to the toilets.

"Oh god! Awkies much?" Maddy laughed as she straightened what there was of her little red dress and perched up on her stool. "Let's blow this place. Um... The Gladstone has a band on tonight."

"S'alright Maddy." I tell her. "I'm alright. I'm having a great night with the two people I love most in the world. Let's not let them ruin it, hey?"

I watch as Deb returns from the toilets and beelines to our table.

"Hi babe." She tells me as we hug hello. "I'm sorry. Mary says you guys are having problems. I hope it all works out. If you need to talk, you call me hey? And look at you two... Holy cow. I love that dress Laura and Maddy you look like something from a magazine."

"A porno mag." Laughs Laura. "Good to see you too, Mrs Dobson. What are you guys doing tonight? We were just taking this clueless dick out of the house to cheer him up a bit."

"Bit of the same. Mary has been... Well, we just thought we'd get some drinks. This is kinda awkward. Not taking sides or anything. Just... Well..."

"Whatever happens, I'll always consider you a lovely friend Deb. Nice to see you again, we were just heading up to the Gladstone Hotel to catch the band. Say hi to..." I look over her shoulder to where I can see Carl and Mary kissing like schoolkids again. "Um, how are the kids? How did Halloween go over?"

And why the fuck am I covering for my cheating bitch of a wife? Why am I stalling to keep Deb from seeing? The fucking arseholes are still kissing. They separate and in that moment Carls eyes find mine. Rage boils inside me but I invest it in protecting Deb. I put an arm around her shoulder to keep her from turning back to see Carl and Mary engaged in fervent discussion.

There are fingers pointed towards us and Mary stands and gathers her bag, skolls her drink and stalks rapidly through the beer garden and back inside the hotel. Carl is busy tapping at his phone and I haven't really heard anything that Deb has said about the kid's Halloween dance.

"...better get back to them. Don't be a stranger babe." She leans up to kiss me on the cheek then walks back across the noisy beer garden to their table.

"Fucking cunts." Maddy says. "Why didn't you tell her?"

"My relationship is my problem. I just couldn't..."

"Just unbelievable. Bloody unbelievable." Laura shakes her head. "Shots it is."

Laura stands and wanders inside. Carl waves and stands to walk over to our table.

"Can we chat, bloke?" He looks at Maddy. "Alone."

I can't bring myself to speak. I'm standing with my hands clenched in fists at my sides.

"Fuck... It's just such a fucking mess man. I fucking love Deb and my kids. Just you can't... Don't please... Just don't wreck that man." Is he fucking crying? The fucking weak cunt. I'm not fucking wrecking anything. He's doing a great job of that all on his fucking own.

"You need to fuck off out of my face, Carl. I never want to look at your fucking head again. Do you know how easy it would be right this moment, to lose my fucking shit and kick you seven shades of shit? I wouldn't even get in trouble form your fucking cop mates when they found out what a back-dooring cunt you are. Kindly... Fuck... Off."

"And die, cunt." Maddy adds beside me. In the moment I'm aware that Carl is three inches taller and an easy twenty kilos of solid muscle heavier than me but the little ball of rage inside me must reflect in my eyes because he looks broken and defeated.

The night is cool. The streets are fairly empty. It must have rained earlier in the evening at some point because the streetlights and neons reflect on the wet black bitumen.

"Oh god, you should have seen it. Fucking destroyed." Maddy tells Laura as we walk up Russell Street away from the Norville. "Hot as fuck."

"Hot?" I laugh at my little girl. After Carl turned and went back to his table, Laura had returned with three shots of tequila. We downed those and walked straight out.

"Fucking hot. You were like The Rock on roids. He just went all jellyfish limp and started crying. I swear if I was wearing undies they'd be saturated right now."

"Madison! TMI honey. I'm your dad, I don't need to hear about..." I shake my head and laugh as the girls excitedly chat about the confrontation. It's still fairly early in the evening but we're headed to the taxi rank. A feeling like I've set down a heavy load and am almost floating has come over me.

It's the moment I remember as the point I let go of it all.

..............................

Mary moved out. Her parents had a granny flat at the back of their place. She took what furniture she wanted from home and sent me divorce papers. I agreed through her solicitors to back date the separation for the paperwork so it could be hurried through the federal magistrate's courts. She left my superannuation alone. We sold the house our kids had grown up in and split it fifty-fifty. She took her car, I kept mine (and rusty, the old GSX). She wanted the girls to move into a new house with her. They told her to fuck off.