It's Not You It's Me. Allison Rushby

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      ‘She’s dead, Jas.’

      His head lifts up slowly as I turn mine. The horror is already in full force. ‘Shit. Charlie, I’m sorry. Should’ve…’

      ‘It’s OK.’ I’ve known about it for some time, after all. I just didn’t need to be reminded. Like Kath had said at the airport, ‘Don’t think about…things.’ And this was one of them. One of the doozies.

      ‘When?’

      ‘Ages ago. The January after we left the apartment.’

      ‘But that was only a few months. Thought she was just sick?’

      ‘It took us a long time to convince her to see a doctor. By then it was only a matter of weeks.’

      ‘Cancer?’

      I shake my head. ‘No, not at all. It was a blood thing. A clotting thing. Technical. Things might have been a lot better if she’d just seen someone earlier. You know what she was like. She thought waving around a few sticks of incense would do the trick.’

      Jas pauses. ‘Remember that week we spent at Byron with her?’

      I nod.

      ‘Remember how she made me try that old pottery wheel? Always thought that looked so easy, but when I tried it, it felt like my hands were being ripped over gravel. She was one tough lady. And her sculpture. That courtyard. Blew me away first time I saw it.’

      I nod again.

      Jas lifts his head up. ‘Gave you a call about that time— January. A few times before and after that too. Why didn’t you call back?’

      ‘I know. I’m sorry. It was bad of me. I was busy with Mum and then, I don’t know…’ I look away.

      ‘Don’t worry. Doesn’t matter.’

      It does matter, but I don’t know how to explain it.

      ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing since then,’ Jas says.

      I think about it. ‘It’s not very exciting compared to you.’

      ‘You’d be surprised. Everyone thinks my job’s ultra-glamorous. Isn’t at all, really.’

      I shoot him a look. Oh, sure. After all, what could be more glamorous than the life of a rock star?

      ‘Seriously,’ Jas protests. ‘Spend most of my time travelling just like this.’ He runs his hand over his jacket. ‘Dressed in 1998 couture. Very good year in my opinion. So tell all. I’m waiting.’

      I pick up the last few biscuit crumbs on my finger and pop them in my mouth before I begin. I explain how I was kept quite busy after Mum died, settling her affairs, selling her house and buying myself a tiny cottage in Byron Bay.

      ‘And your mum’s sculpture?’ Jas asks.

      ‘I, um, only kept a few pieces.’ I flinch when I say this, thinking of her work in someone else’s house, but the fact was I’d needed the money to pay for medical treatment. I hadn’t had much choice.

      ‘The table and chairs? You kept them, didn’t you?’ Jas says quickly.

      I shake my head. ‘I sold them. To a gallery.’

      ‘Oh.’ I can see the disappointment lying behind Jas’s eyes. ‘And your own exhibition? How’d that go? Was one of the reasons I called. Wanted to come.’

      I busy myself drinking the last bit of apple juice. ‘That, um, sort of fell through.’

      ‘Fell through?’ Jas frowns. I pretend not to notice.

      ‘It just wasn’t the right time.’

      ‘But you’re working?’

      ‘Working, working? Or sculpting, working?’ What is this, an interrogation?

      ‘Either.’

      ‘I haven’t been able to. Not since after…’ I don’t finish the sentence, not wanting to go there. ‘I’ve been sketching a bit. Now and then.’ More then than now, truth be told.

      ‘Sketching?’ Jas knows this is what I do before I actually start a piece and that I obviously haven’t been sculpting much lately. Which is true. I haven’t.

      ‘At least you’ve got your degree now. That must be a bonus.’

      Silence again.

      Jas looks at me as if I’m joking. ‘You do have your degree now? You must have finally passed that subject. It’s been two years, Charlie.’

      More silence. Telling silence.

      But I have to say something. Explain it somehow. ‘It was just that it was all a bit much…’

      Jas butts in then. ‘Jesus. Sorry. I’m doing it again. Course it was hard after your mum died.’

      And, as this is partly the truth, I leave it at that.

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