‘I remember all of you,’ said Savannah. She dropped her chin and fiddled with the heavy green pendant at her neck. ‘I only came to this house once. My mother and I were picking up Harry from his lesson. Normally my dad did that. Tennis was his domain.’ Logan got the feeling she was unconsciously parroting someone from her past: Tennis was his domain.
‘But my dad couldn’t get his car to start. So Mum and I picked Harry up. Mum stayed in the car. She wanted nothing to do with Harry’s tennis. She thought tennis was boring.’
Logan saw both his parents flinch at the casual denigration of the greatest sport in the world.
‘I remember everything about that day,’ said Savannah. She lifted her head. ‘You shouted at me that day too, Joy. Just like you did then.’
Logan’s mother recoiled. ‘What? Why would I have shouted at you?’
‘You were wearing a denim skirt and a paisley shirt with short puffed sleeves and you had earrings like feathers that matched the red in the shirt. You looked very pretty.’
Logan saw his mother’s face change. ‘Do you mean you were the child who tried to come into the house? Through the laundry?’
‘You’re the kid who went through my schoolbag,’ interrupted Brooke.
‘Yes.’ Savannah turned to Brooke. ‘You shouted at me too. That same day.’
‘Well, you were stealing my banana,’ said Brooke defensively.
‘I was starving,’ said Savannah.
‘Still, that didn’t give you the right to –’
‘You don’t get it,’ said Savannah. ‘I was literally starving.’
Her tightly clenched tone stilled them all. A space seemed to open up around her.
‘What do you mean?’ faltered Joy.
‘Just that.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Joy. ‘You couldn’t have been starving. I know for a fact your brother ate well. He had to, to play at that level.’
‘My brother lived with my father,’ said Savannah. ‘I lived with my mother. Harry ate rib eye steak and potatoes every day. If he was going to play at Wimbledon, then I was going to perform with the Royal Ballet. That’s what my mother said. My brother needed to be strong, I needed to be ethereal.’
Her lip lifted on the word ‘ethereal’。
‘But . . . what about your father?’ asked Joy. ‘Didn’t you tell him you were . . . hungry?’
‘I tried,’ said Savannah. ‘I tried to tell my brother, too. But my mother told them I was making it up. Being dramatic. I only went to my father’s place one night a week. It had to be a weeknight because on the weekend Harry had his tennis commitments.’
She said ‘tennis commitments’ the way someone gives the name of their ex’s new partner.
‘I used to stuff myself on that one night a week at my father’s house. That’s where I perfected my binge-eating skills.’ She gave a ghoulish kind of grin. ‘Anyhoo.’
‘Oh, Savannah.’ Joy dragged her fingertips down her cheeks. All that red-hot anger seemed to have left her as suddenly as it arrived. She looked sad and exhausted and old, and Logan remembered the feeling of disbelief, as though he were witnessing a natural disaster, when his mother’s legs gave way on Father’s Day. He moved closer. This time he’d be ready.
Joy said, ‘All I remember is that you and your mother lived in South Australia.’
‘We moved there a year after Harry’s first lesson with you,’ said Savannah. A chatty dinner party guest quickly summing up her life story. ‘I didn’t see my dad and brother anymore. It was like they forgot I existed. Dad sent money. I was just an annoying bill he had to pay. Like the electricity.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Joy’s hands fluttered helplessly.
‘Oh, no, it’s fine,’ said Savannah, as if Joy had apologised for cutting in front of her in a queue. ‘I mean, there were some really bad years in Adelaide . . .’ She stopped. No longer the chatty guest.
She breathed deeply, widened her shoulders, pushed them down and back, as if waiting for the music to begin.
She said, ‘But then I gave up ballet. Best in the neighbourhood, one of the best in the state, but I was never an extraordinary dancer, the way Harry was an extraordinary tennis player. When my mother finally realised I’d never be as good at ballet as Harry was at tennis, she lost interest. So no more food deprivation – hooray!’
Logan and Brooke exchanged glances. He could see his own doubt reflected on her face. Was any of this bizarre story even true?