Following his directions, Astrid picked up a brush, dipped it gently into the can he proffered, and began daubing the paint onto the wall in front of her. While her method of painting was reckless and needed to be redone later by Arnold, she proved to be excellent company as she talked through the afternoon and into the evening, her nervous monologues giving way to more relaxed conversations which Arnold could join. He was glad of her presence, and the way her voice resonated around the house and filled the void his family had left behind.
Astrid too found Arnold’s companionship a great comfort. The painting was entertaining and made an important bond between them. It filled up the silences, fleeting as they were. For Astrid the silences were still dangerous, for in them lay deep holes full of past wrongs. But Arnold had forgiven his neighbour. He appreciated her loss and her appeal for friendship in the guise of offering him help. Finally, they were on the same side.
31
Gabriel was walking around the family home, trying to figure out where to go from here. He knew now that he loved the excitement of wheeling and dealing with people, the haggling, the chat and the performance of it all. In fact, he had thrived on selling his father’s junk. But the junk was gone now and he was still here. If he didn’t get out soon he’d end up sucked into the wake of his father’s meandering path. Now was the time to carve out his future.
He reflected on his time in the army and shuddered at his stupid act of rebellion. Being in the army had put great physical distance between him and the enemy — his father’s junk — but he had quickly tired of army life, the more so as he realised that it provided no real solutions.
Well, his father’s junk had been dealt with, so where did that leave him? What career options was he left with?
He considered the bookshop, but visions of selling books made him uneasy. The serene nature of it all would kill him. Books were for women and wusses. Then again, he now knew that he enjoyed selling. He was good at it. And it wouldn’t hurt to spend some time with his mother and Vivian — traitorous bastard though he was.
Ahh bugger it, he thought, he’d give it a try. Besides it’d give him a place to live until he could find something better.
*
Bounding up the bookshop stairs two at a time and leaping into the kitchen as he headed for the fridge, Gabriel barely saw the figure stooped over her work at the kitchen table. They collided, causing both of them to crash onto the floor where they rolled together awkwardly, both struggling for composure. Gabriel was up first. He took hold of Penny as though she were a rag doll and sat her back on the chair.
‘Almost had a fatal accident there,’ he said cheerfully, trying to get a proper look at her.
But Penny was frantically trying to get back into her writing and gave no reply.
Gabriel was intrigued. It wasn’t often that people, especially women, ignored him. ‘I just didn’t see you. Amazing.’
Penny was writing again, seemingly unaware of him.
He leaned against the fridge door in silence. He’d give her time. But who was she? He’d never seen her here before. And what the hell was she writing? Her last will and testament? It might have been, for all the intensity she lavished upon it. Gabriel was miffed, upstaged by a stupid exercise book. He made as if to leave, to see if this might elicit some response. Nothing.
He sighed and was about to depart when his curiosity outweighed his pride.
‘Hi there. You look like you’re writing something pretty important there.’
No reply.
Gabriel stood awkwardly, embarrassed. He looked around the kitchen, searching for something else to say as she dropped her head until her nose almost touched the table and her hand moved swiftly across the page. Gabriel felt jilted. In the deep-freeze. He persisted, ‘Hey there. What’s it about?’
She slowly lifted her head, and gazed blankly at him.
‘Give us a peek,’ he urged. ‘Please.’
Unexpectedly she slid the exercise book towards him. Her silence unnerved him. Maybe he had stepped over the mark.
‘Can I read a bit?’
Penny tapped her biro on the kitchen table.
Gabriel skimmed through a number of pages before handing it back to her. ‘Is this going to be a book or something?’
The biro tapping went into double time.
‘Tell me about it.’ He was determined to get her to speak to him.
She continued to tap her biro.
He gawked at her shamelessly. He couldn’t help it. She was beautiful and desirable, though she clearly did nothing to enhance her looks. She wore no artifice. No make up. No revealing clothes.
She had the goods but no sense of self-promotion, he thought.
He extended his hand, ‘I’m Gabriel. Son of Helen.’ Penny ignored him. He was mystified. What was so repellent about him?
She stopped tapping her biro, opened up the exercise book and began writing again, the ensuing quiet broken only by the biro’s scratching sound as it moved across the page. It drove Gabriel nuts.
He leaned across the kitchen table. ‘And you are?’
Penny lifted her head. She realised she wanted to speak with him. ‘Penny.’ The single word shot out so fast Gabriel barely caught it. But he did catch it. He smiled; he had managed to get her to speak. He had jumped the first hurdle and he was excited.
‘Penny, Penny,’ repeated Gabriel. Drawing it out, trying to fill the void between them. For some strange reason he didn’t want to end a conversation which hadn’t even begun. There was something about her he found irresistible.
She was back to scribbling in her exercise book.
‘Well Penny, I better leave you to it. Eh?’
Running down the stairs he bumped into his mother. ‘Who’s the new silent number upstairs?’
Helen put a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh. The sound really travels.’ She walked back down the stairs motioning him to follow. At the bottom she looked irritably at Gabriel. ‘The silent number upstairs as you so put it, is Penny. A writer. And hello to you too, son.’
‘She totally ignored me,’ he hissed.
‘I don’t believe it. How could she resist you?’ she asked with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
‘I am not, I repeat not, up myself, Mum.’
‘Did I say that?’
‘You implied it. You’ve always hinted at it.’
Helen let out a breath. ‘Okay, I apologise. But sometimes, Gabriel, you need to give people a chance.’
‘I gave her a chance. More than a chance.’
‘She suffers from a terrible stutter, and she doesn’t like anyone knowing. That is why she is so quiet.’
‘What is she doing here though?’
‘I’ve sort of adopted her.’
‘Adopted her! Since when?’
‘Since three or four weeks ago.’
‘How come I haven’t seen her?’
‘Well, you haven’t exactly been around much lately … except to argue with your brother. Besides she’s hardly your type.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘She’s a writer, quiet and serious. Contemplative …’
‘Geez Mum, sounds like you went and got yourself a nun.’
‘She’s a writer,’ Helen pronounced, daring Gabriel to comment further.
He held up both arms, and backed away. ‘Cool. I get it. That’s why she was scribbling away. I read a bit of her stuff.’
Helen was dumbfounded, ‘You read some of her writing?’
‘Yeah, something about losing an identical twin.’
Helen twisted her mouth. How dare the writer show her work to anyone but her? And what was that about a twin?
Gabriel remembered why he’d come in the first place. ‘Can I move in here, and work in the shop too? I’ve had a gutful of living with the old man. Need a serious change. Nothing permanent though. And I’ll take the penthouse suite to sleep in,’ he added fatuously. He smiled at his mother, knowing her response.
Helen was taken aback but pleased. ‘It’s fine by me, but I think you should run it past Vivian, especially if he’s going to have to share his bedroom with you. Start whenever you like, but I’m warning you, the pay’s lousy.’
‘Man, I don’t get out of bed for anything less than ten grand. And I’m going to have to change a few things … But first things first — the writer.’ He turned to go, then revolved back to face his mother, smiling broadly. ‘You should see the house. Totally unreal. It’s almost empty. Pretty white-anted though. And it wants rewiring, painting, and a new roof. Nice old house though. Big too.’ He gave a short huff of pride and went back to hiking up the stairs, with each step enunciating merrily, ‘Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out.’
Helen, astonished at the turn of events, watched him disappear. The family home almost empty. And Gabriel’s observation, that it was a nice old house. Yes, she remembered.
*
Gabriel had found a cause, and a beautiful one at that. He sat opposite her at the kitchen table. And once Gabriel got talking, especially in the name of a good cause, he kept on talking, his volubility complementing Penny’s silence. He spoke of selling his father’s ventures and collections, of all the different people he had met.
Soon Vivian came in and began making coffee. Words continued to tumble out of Gabriel effortlessly, endlessly, until Vivian interjected. ‘Shut up.’
‘I was only saying.’
‘Shut it, she’s heard enough about you.’
Gabriel jerked his chair back, bounced up and looked at Vivian with an amused expression. ‘Talking about me, I’ll be working here soon. Right here in this shop. And guess whose bedroom I’ll be sleeping in? Yours! We’ll be sharing a room together. Then we can truly bond. Gimme a hug little brother!’ Gabriel flung his arms wide open. ‘I’m sorry we fought. My fault. And that’s all you’re getting from me,’ he cried, before giving Vivian an exaggerated hug which nearly saw the both of them topple.
Penny watched on, looking enviously at the two brothers.
Vivian smiled at his brother’s antics. ‘What the hell do you know about books?’
‘Bugger all,’ said Gabriel as he sat down again opposite Penny. ‘But I know how to sell.’
Vivian left and could be heard laughing as he ran down the stairs.
Gabriel was wondering where he could go from here. But as one door closes another opens. Penny spoke. ‘It.’
He repeated the word for her, ‘it.’ And then he cupped his hands together and held them out, begging for more.
‘It … i …’ Penny began, so unaccustomed to attention she was rendered shy. Oddly enough, she found this bullying young man attractive. She admired his directness, his I-don’t-give-a-damn cavalier manner. She wanted to please him. ‘It … it … it …’
Where ‘it’ was leading to Gabriel had no idea as he took in her brilliant blue eyes, her lips, her nose, her skin, and the blonde hair that framed her face so perfectly.
‘It … it … it …’
‘Say it,’ Gabriel coaxed gently. He took her hands, and looked into her eyes. ‘Speak. For me. I just want to hear your voice.’
Penny straightened up, took a deep breath and spoke in one almost unbroken ray, ‘It was interesting what you said about s … s … sell … selling.’
Gabriel knew instantly that he loved this girl before him. He leaned forward. ‘Must be a bit rough having a stutter … have you had it long?’
Penny gave a timid laugh. Gabriel smiled. Drenched in bliss he would not, could not, take his eyes off her for a second.
*
Puzzled and somewhat hurt at being excluded from Penny’s writing, Helen decided she needed a distraction. She walked through the maze. She might have wanted revenge but it was not in her nature. What’s more, Penny had really done nothing to hurt her.
Revenge was for cowboys, Helen thought wryly, coming to a standstill in front of the Westerns. She needed consoling, and reading trash was as good as eating a box of chocolate or getting drunk as far as Helen was concerned. It seemed like a bad thing to do, which was a good thing in the current circumstance.
She took a number of slim paperbacks to the front bench and spread them out like a hand of cards she’d been dealt. Their dramatic covers typically depicted brawls in saloons with bold print boasting of escapades by wild men and loose but warm-hearted women. Helen found the covers curiously captivating.
She picked up a few of the books and searched through their flimsy pages in turn, looking for the right one to read. She selected Rattlesnake Pass and started to make her way through ninety-six pages of wrong done to good folk and settled by heroic cowboys with guns, knives and honest bare fists. And in between the dishing out of cowboy-style justice there was a lot of furious drinking, whoring and gambling. There were lonely nights under bright stars and a full moon, with only the memory of the last fight and a cheap bottle of whisky for company.
She put down the finished book, her anger all but dissolved. She understood the fascination. It was another world. A good story. An easy read.
From that day forth Helen was a proponent of the Western.
Vivian, witnessing this change in his mother, suggested she try crime, or even horror. Looking suitably disgusted at these ludicrous recommendations, she told him where to go.
However the suggestion hung about. And one night when Vivian was out with Ella, she crept down the stairs, turned on the lights and went to the section marked Crime. She picked several books at random, took a deep breath and moved back upstairs with her cache.
Thus began her ascent into the genre. To Helen’s delight, reading crime novels brought her no ill affects; she had no urge to kill anyone with a .38 calibre gun and seemed in no danger of herself becoming a dismembered body, to be dumped in quicksand, never to be found again.
At the thought of reading horror, however she baulked. At some things she drew the line.
*
The radiologist was excited as she glided the ultrasound over the glutinous substance smeared over Ella’s abdomen. Ella was sombre and stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at the images on the screen. It was her second ultrasound. She wanted to know the child’s sex.
Watching the screen the radiologist gave a running commentary on the baby’s progress to which Ella remained silent before asking, ‘What sex is it?’
‘I suspect … very strongly … that … it’s … a girl,’ answered the radiologist. ‘Yes it’s a girl!’
Ella remembered what she’d read the night before. The foetus is now 18 cm long. It is beginning to make a bulge.
Her head ached. She needed to get out. Hemmed in by machinery and the radiologist, she closed her eyes trying to blot it all out.
Later, in the safety of her car, Ella realised she was becoming nervous about having the baby. She had studied her pregnancy from a scientific point of view, in awe of the human body’s capacity to reproduce until the obvious hit her hard — it was her body that was reproducing — that was making a baby.
*
Gabriel winked at the Salvation Army lady. ‘Hey, where’s your tambourine?’
She laughed. ‘Only play it on Sundays. Come along to the service if you like. Nice church.’
‘As long I get to have a bash at the tambourine,’ he grinned, and then studied the book she had put on the counter. ‘Sir Garfield Sobers, cricketer! Bit before my time though.’
‘Suppose you hate cricket too.’
‘No, I love it. Can’t drag me away from the telly in summer.’
‘Bravo! Same here,’ cried the Salvation Army lady before paying for her book and leaving Gabriel and Penny alone at the counter.
‘You know what this shop needs,’ said Gabriel.
‘What?’ said Penny.
‘Improvements. Lots of them. Advertising in the local rag. Staff wearing black aprons with the shop logo. And as for the shop. The floorboards need sanding, and sealing.’ He paused, ‘And bargain bins.’
/> Penny gave Gabriel a dubious look.
‘Yeah, I know, I’ve only been working here a couple of weeks, but you don’t have to be Einstein to see what needs doing. I’ll run it past the old lady and Vivian.’
*
Helen and Vivian sat at the kitchen table while Gabriel spoke of his ideas for improving the shop. He was persuasive.
‘Look, I’ll use my money. I saved heaps while I was in the army. Stands to reason, I should put my money where my mouth is.’
Helen felt endangered, as though Gabriel’s plans were a foretaste of what was to come. Vivian though was inclined to agree with his brother; they needed to build up the shop.
‘The floor does need doing,’ said Vivian.
‘And,’ added Gabriel with some emphasis. ‘The bookwork. Where is it? Who’s doing it?’ He paused momentarily, disturbed by the weighty silence. He pressed on, ‘How’s it all going financially?’
Vivian sat with arms folded, and silent.
‘I’m taking care of the bookwork,’ snapped Helen. Annoyed at Gabriel’s pushy manner. On top of feeling overwhelmed by the idea of change, she wasn’t about to cave in to Gabriel’s demands.
‘Astrid — wasn’t she an accountant?’ said Gabriel.
‘She’s already done enough for us. Leave the books to me,’ answered Helen.
Gabriel looked at his mother, wondering if he should pursue it further. He decided against it.
Irritated though she was with Gabriel, Helen had to admit that he was an asset to the shop. He brought a vitality and happiness that was highly infectious; customers were drawn to him.
And she’d noticed Gabriel referring to Vivian for information about books and authors. And that Vivian was more than happy to share his knowledge. This trafficking of information was strengthening their relationship. This made her happy, but she wondered where it would leave her. Gabriel was taking over. And Vivian seemed more than happy to embrace his brother’s ways.
*
Ella’s cottage had only two bedrooms, so deciding where the nursery should be was easy. She had the spare bedroom painted yellow, and insisted on decorating it on her own. It became a painstaking process. Ella was meticulous when it came to choosing the right furniture and fixtures. The curtains matched the cot which matched the baby wardrobe which matched the handmade wooden change table which matched the light fittings which matched the door handle …
The Bookshop on Jacaranda Street Page 19
