Penguin Books Australia

FRILLS & SPILLS

Discount Dan's Lace Place, Sydney, Australia

'Look for a size twenty-six,' Mum hollered as she busily searched through the rack. 'Come on, honey. A twenty-six. In an “F”. Are there any on your side? I've got nothing but tens and twelves – all B's, and believe me, you don't want to see Nanna Joan squeezing into a twelve B.'

No kidding.

I could have done any number of things that day. I was almost thirteen. My 'thrilling things to do on a Saturday morning' list was jam-packed with inventive ways to pass the best half of the best day of the week. I could have been trading cards with Steve-o and Cam. Or working on my epic five-part graphic novel, The Adventures of Cop Boy and Special Agent Johnny Toss-pot. Or imagining I was tandem hang-gliding with Sophie Maloney, about to tandemly land on an undiscovered, mango-filled island somewhere in the South Pacific, with nothing but a picnic blanket, one of Mum's smoothy-guy love CDs, and an endless supply of romance-enhancing candles. And yet here I was, stuck in Discount Dan's Lace Place, bra shopping for my Nanna Joan.

'Twenty-six F! Undelay!' Mum said, using her replacement word for 'hurry up'. I grabbed a random garment and moved it back and forth on the chrome rack, trying to convince Mum that I, too, was looking for the oversized granny bra, but what I was really looking for was a big, fat hole to crawl into.

'And remember,' Nana yelled. 'It has to be one with an underwire, y' hear me?' Mum, who was standing an arm-length away, simply nodded. 'Cos at my age I need SUPPORT! These things won't hold themselves up, you know!'

'Oh, honey look, we're in luck,' Mum said to me. Finally. She'd found the stupid bra, and soon this lacy nightmare would be over.

'I hear you, Ma,' I said, heading for the check-out. 'Let's get out of here.'

'Oh, we'll get out of here – right after we speak to that nice-looking lady.' Mum pointed to a heavily made-up store worker to my right.'Her tag says she's a qualified bra-fitter.' I had no idea what kind of training would be involved to snag that job. 'I'm carrying an armload here,'

Mum said. 'So it's up to you, my boy.'

'What is?'

'Just go up to the counter and ask her if she has a twenty-six in one of these.' Mum slammed a big, purple, lacy object into my hand. It was four sizes smaller than the one Nanna was after, and still, I could have worn either half as a loose hat.

'Make sure you tell her I need a red one!' Nanna yelled. Nan always yelled. Her voice was raspy, and loud enough to scare the pants off the sale rack.

'Red. Support. Gotcha,' I mumbled, waiting for my powers of invisibility to kick in.

I was too young to drive, too young to vote, and definitely too young to learn the intricate details of my Nanna's boulder holders. How I missed the days when all that was expected of me when Nanna Joan came to visit was to climb onto her lap and watch up close as she took out both rows of teeth and sucked the skin off a Turkish delight.

11.20 a.m.

'That there's the street! That's my street!' Nanna called. 'You've gone past it! Turn around, Narelle! Turn this car around, girl!'

'Relax, Mother Joan,' Mum said. She'd called Nan 'Mother Joan' ever since I could remember. Probably longer. 'Everything's under control. Once we're out of this carpark we'll have you home in no time.'

'Well, you'd better!' Nanna snapped. 'My show's on in . . .' She paused to look at her watch. 'Three minutes. Today's the big wedding, you know. Claudine's about to marry that nasty Hank character, but what she doesn't know is that Hank's really . . . well he used to be her father, but now he's her half-brother, Nick.'

Nan lived and breathed Unreal Hospital. I had no idea who Claudine was, but I found myself thinking of the poor woman and the bleak future she faced, married to her creepy half-brother. Then my thoughts drifted to our sister Jess and her laughable boyfriend, BRAD. Given the events of our trip to America, the storyline on Nanna's daytime soap suddenly didn't seem so unbelievable. Nan was midway through explaining why it was necessary for Claudine's sister Stephanie's dog to undergo plastic surgery when Mum's mobile phone rang.

'What is it? I can't hear you! What?' Mum said, sounding totally confused. She was obviously talking to Dad.'Look,just slow down, Graham and start again.'She paused for a moment to let Dad speak. 'You've WHAT?' she screamed into the phone. 'Speak up, man!'

'What is it?' Nanna Joan yelled.

'It's Dad,' I said. 'He's confused. And whispering.'

'Tell him to speak up!' Nan snapped helpfully. 'He's a mumbler, that boy. Has been since the day he was born. Life's too short to mumble. Say what you need to say, an' then shut your trap. No sense mincing your words.'

'Oh, for goodness'sakes, will you two Shoooooosh!! Explain yourself, Graham!'Mum yelled into the phone. 'Graham?' She removed the hands-free earpiece from her ear, banged it hard against the dashboard, and quickly shoved it back inside her ear again. 'It's cutting out,' she said. 'I can't hear a thing. All I'm getting is . . .' And then, as if she'd just walked in on BRAD while he was in the toilet, all signs of life ran from Mum's cheeks.

'What's she saying?' Nanna Joan piped up from the back seat. She tried to lean forward, but the seatbelt had her pinned down, digging a deep trench into her impressive belly as she struggled against it. 'I tell you, it'd be a flaming miracle if someone spoke up around here. You're all mumblers. The lot of you!'

Mum seemed to have missed Nana Joan's rant completely. She was staring at the windscreen. Her head was pointing forward, which I understood to be fairly important for all drivers, but it seemed that for just a moment, someone had switched off her brain.

'What did he say, Mum?' I asked, tapping her on the leg.'On the phone,' I prompted. 'It was Dad, remember? What did Dad say?'

Mum stared ahead, giving way to shoppers and the trolley tractor guy like a pre-programmed robot. The

answer she gave me was simple.

'Emergency. All I heard him say was . . .“emergency”. '

'Emergency? Ah, now that was a show,' Nan said with a smile. If there was one thing that Nanna Joan loved, it was her television. The only time I'd ever seen her smile was when she was watching it or talking about it. Pretty much everything else just annoyed her. 'That Emergency was no Unreal Hospital, mind you,' she continued, 'but it was a good bit o' drama –'

'Mother Joan, will you please just can it?!' Mum yelled, bringing Nanna's TV smiles to a halt.

'Now listen here, girlie –' snapped Nan.

'No, you listen!' Mum said. 'My Graham's in real trouble here – anything could have happened to him – ANYTHING! I don't know what condition he's in – I just know that I have to get home to him, stat!' Mum had added 'stat' to her goofy words list fairly recently, but it was already giving 'pronto' and 'undelay' a run for their money as the urgent word of choice.

As we swooped into Nanna Joan's street, Mum spotted her house, dumped Nanna at the curb, sped off, and headed for Dad and his mysterious emergency.