Short story highly commended

THE FAMILY ALBUM
By Danielle Burns

The family album is engraved in gilded cursive onto a crimson leather-bound volume. A small, square black and white photograph falls out depicting an ordinary family of four standing outside a triple fronted brick veneer on a bright summery day. The only visible flaws, a small tear in the top left hand corner where it had once been neatly secured with mounting tape to the thick vellum pages and a thickened ridge down the centre, due to becoming unstuck and folded between the pages in the intervening years. Luckily, those old prints had that thick white border. Plus the unskilled photographer took in much more of the house and front garden than was strictly necessary. So despite looking like wee elfin folk in front of a sixties-style doll house, its tiny subjects are still clearly visible.

 

It was taken the day they were all heading off to the Rotary picnic, all the way out at Eaglehawk. At the time, the family consisted of the Father, a tall thin man with glossy dark hair and a broad toothy grin; the Mother, a petite blue-eyed blonde with delicate features; the Boy, a freckled redheaded toddler with his dad’s wide grin and the Baby, a small, pale faced girl-child with tight auburn curls. Although they may not have been aware of it at the time, the Mother was probably already carrying their next issue, another girl. This one would have the Father’s dark lustrous hair, the Mother’s fine skin and her very own sense of humour. And ever after, all would regard her as the Baby. Together they lived in one of those new subdivisions that crawled like unfinished crosswords across once blank pages of the Melways.

 

The Father worked hard all week to establish his business and to provide this level of luxury for his family. It was his firmly held view that this meant he should be free to relax and enjoy his weekends. Relaxing consisted of mowing the lawns on a Saturday morning followed by supporting the local football or cricket team through the bottom of a glass in the afternoons. Sundays were usually reserved for the thirsty work of reading the papers and watching the replays on the telly.

 

However, on the odd Sunday he could be convinced, in the name of civic duty and household harmony to accompany his well-groomed family to church. The completion of this chore would be sweetened by the promise of a hearty roast dinner with all the trimmings being laid upon the table soon after their return. Later, his velour recliner, placed directly in front of the teak encased television set together with a few well-earned coldies would once again beckon.

 

The Mother saw her vocation as creating the ideal haven for her hardworking husband. She proudly kept their brand new home in such immaculate condition that everything from the voluminous velvet drapes to the wall-to-wall carpeting along with all the modcons cocooned within gleamed in glorious rivalry. The garden too was laid out with the precision of her intent. The tiered front lawn featured a brand new concrete fishpond at its centre that she planned to fill with turquoise water, fattened carp and even a bubbling waterspout. The driveway was edged with a cactus rockery, copied from the pages of one of her beloved magazines. This was all crowned by a series of small rambling rose bushes that over the years she would cajole and coax into growing up onto the fancy wrought iron balustrade of the front porch, thus completing her view of domestic perfection.

 

This picnic was therefore, an unusual event. For the Mother, it was an unwelcome break in the ordered routine of their lives. However the Father had long set his sights on this deviation of scheduled programming as a necessary interruption in order to advance his corporate climb. Upon his return from the footy the previous Saturday, the Father had both loudly and proudly announced that he had been nominated to join the local Rotary club and as such, they had all been invited to attend its annual Eaglehawk picnic.

 

The Mother had washed and set her hair the night before. On the Sunday morning, after the children had been fed, bathed and dressed to the nines, she had emerged wearing a buttercup yellow crepe mini with a white sateen trim. The new white leather boots she wore had been on layby for just such as occasion. The outfit had been hand-sewn, copied from a photo of Jackie Kennedy she’d clipped from the newspaper. The Father commented that she had scrubbed up all right. Only by the tilt of her chin in the old photo does one notice that she does seem unusually pleased with the entire effect.

 

The Father had also dressed in his Sunday best, a tight fitting tan body shirt and beige walk shorts complete with knee length socks that his good lady wife had laid out for him. Earlier, while she had fussed with the children, he’d been down the street to buy a block of ice and a dozen longnecks. Now, whistling as he worked, he chipped the ice into smaller pieces before burying his well-earned purchases deep into the esky. He was all set.

 

However, as anyone with young children knows only too well, the packing list for a days’ outing can be almost as much as one would need for a week. The Mother and the Father were both firm believers in that tried and true family lore; it was better to be safe than sorry. So with two little ones in tow this excursion would have warranted one almighty load.

 

Apart from the mint green esky and its precious contents, there was the gingham-lined picnic basket, the orange and white striped canvas deck chairs, the trusty old card table with that burn mark from the mozzie coil, the cardboard case containing the solid round barbeque hotplate with its three metal screw in legs, the hessian sack of briquettes, the floral umbrella, the plaid picnic rug, the fly-net covered bassinet and of course, the trusty old cricket set.

 

By mid morning, the boy had already been changed twice. On the first occasion, his nifty little sailor suit that the Mother had whipped up on the Singer was soaked through when he slipped in the puddles of melted ice. He had promptly been changed, given a snack and ordered to sit quietly and play with his blocks. But he had found it much more interesting to see how well the butter on his teddy bear biscuits would hold the solid chunks of his pine blocks together. By the time the Mother looked up, he was coated in a slimy, buttery sheen from the top of his ginger locks to the bottom of his navy blue shorts. So he had been washed and dressed again, this time in a pair of pale blue seersucker coveralls with a white peter pan collar. Then once a passing neighbour had snapped the family photo, he’d been promptly despatched to the garage to assist the Father.

 

The Mother had been baking all week and now carefully placed cheese and gherkin pastry pinwheel sandwiches and lightly dusted fairy cakes into separate pastel toned Tupperware containers. The Baby, clad in layers of frilled lace with white satin ribbons was propped up in her chrome and vinyl highchair blissfully unaware that she was about to witness the debut performance of a scene she would never actually remember but would have replayed to her over and over again.

 

Out in the garage the Boy was busily getting his own way, as usual. He had decided to help the Father by adding his little red wagon, a big blue rubber hopper ball, an inflatable swan-shaped swim ring and any other toy he could find into the family car. The Father was calmly removing each item as soon as he toddled off to select something else. Eventually as space got tighter in the cavernous rear of the two-tone Rambler, the Father decided he’d had enough of that game and plonked the Boy up front behind the steering wheel.

 

This did the trick and before long the Boy was busily turning the wheel and making loud broom-broom noises. He had forgotten all about his toys as he proceeded to push and pull every chromed button on the faux timber dashboard. But as the Father trudged back inside to pick up something else the Mother had decreed they couldn’t possibly leave behind, the Boy somehow managed to release the hand brake and the car slowly started rolling down the steep driveway.

 

At that moment, the Mother appeared on the patio tying her floral chiffon scarf over her freshly combed-out do and let out an ear-piercing squeal that echoed around the cul-de-sac. Hearing this unholy ruckus, the Father dropped the crystal bowl of frogs-in-a-pond and flew out the front door, shoving the Mother unceremoniously over the railing into the spiky roses below.

 

Then in a superhuman effort, never to be witnessed again, the Father leaped in through the open rear door of the wagon onto the back seat and stretched forward to pull the hand brake on just as the car was about to plough through the Mothers’ precious rockery on the edge of the lawn.

 

After the Mother had hugged and squeezed the Boy till he whined and squirmed, the Father dumped him unceremoniously onto the back seat and they set off. As they hit the Calder, the Mother commented that she had the strangest feeling they had forgotten something. Through the rear view mirror, the Father scanned the stuff crammed into the back of the station wagon in until his eyes lit on the esky. Then, wearing his customary grin, he declared that whatever it was they wouldn’t fit it in anyway. The Mother softly murmured her agreement before puckering up, skillfully reapplying her coral-coloured lipstick in her gold compact mirror and confidently smacking her lips together.

 

It wasn’t until they were trundling along the rutted dirt track leading out to the Eaglehawk picnic ground when the Mother finally turned around. There’s a long-standing dispute as to the actual reason, but she always insisted it was simply a case of Mothers’ Intuition. Although, the Father claimed it was due to the Boy launching his rubber Noddy figurine directly into the back of her head. Either way, that’s when they both finally noticed that the Baby’s bassinette, was in fact empty.

 

The Father yelled that he couldn’t be expected to do everything while the Mother sniffed and sobbed, dabbing a moistened hanky at her face in an attempt to stem the flow of liquid eyeliner running onto her expertly rouged cheeks. And, according to each and every version of the story ever told, the Boy screamed blue-murder all the way home. However, as he would have been wildly propelled across the unrestrained vinyl vastness of the rear bench seat while the Father swung the wagon full circle across the bushland and madly drove back to the suburbs like a rally driver, for once this was probably quite understandable.

 

When they all finally burst into the kitchen, the Baby was calmly sitting in her highchair with her arms outstretched. The Mother immediately began cleaning up the spilled jelly mess on the floor, while the Boy quickly collected the chocolate frogs and shoved them into his chubby cheeks before the Mother noticed. Meanwhile, the Father took his esky into the front room and settled down with an ice-cold beer to watch the cricket.

 

Just another faded memory to add to this family album.