Helen smiled, intrigued that his normally rough manner was giving way to a much softer side.
Razoo though, grew timid. What woman, especially Helen, would want to go out with him? Asking her out on a date was a surefire way of embarrassing her and ruining their friendship.
‘What? Come on, you can ask me,’ said Helen half laughing, before releasing his hand.
‘Ahh, it was nothing,’ he replied apologetically as he felt his heart return to its regular beat.
*
Helen and Gabriel were sitting inside the cafe across the street drinking coffee. For some minutes they watched the heavy downpour, the way it washed the street, cleansing it before the next session of people, activity and sunshine. Once the downpour subsided Helen leaned in close to her son as he explained his plan.
‘Let Vivian and me buy the bookshop from you.’ He paused, giving his mother time to adjust to the proposal. She remained silent, waiting for the rest of his plan.
Feeling confident, Gabriel continued. ‘Vivian and I become joint owners. And you become one of our employees. I’ve already been to the bank about getting a loan. And we’d get it easy with the shop and family home as collateral. Dad and Vivian are all for it. Provided,’ he paused again, ‘you’re okay with it.’
Gabriel searched his mother’s face for a reaction. It remained impassive. He went on. ‘I’ve looked into this thing some more, the deal you did with Jim. He hasn’t got a leg to stand on. No witnesses. The barman was in and out. Jim’s a conman. And it’s time to tell him where to go. And if he complains, the shop’s in Vivian’s and my names, and we’re employing you. It’s the easiest solution in the world.’
‘Seems that way,’ Helen replied anxiously. ‘But I’m afraid … Jim …’
‘Geez Mum, the man’s a fucking bastard! He’s pissed all over us. The bookshop is a business, and this is how I do business. Especially with wankers like him. Two hundred and sixty grand is one helluva a lot of money to give away. Jim isn’t getting anything, except his marching orders.’
He went on, determined. ‘Once I’m an official partner Mum, I want to put more of my own money into it. The shop needs a new roof, and rewiring. ‘That’s why Vivian and I want to take it over — we can turn it into a profitable business. We can do it.’
‘You really think this is the best way?’
‘Absolutely.’
Helen was silent.
‘Look Mum. There’s no nice way of saying this. Brace yourself. But you’re no good at business.’ He paused to allow her to take it in, before proceeding. ‘I love you to death and … I mean, you were the one who saw this bookshop’s potential and got it going.’ His voice trailed away.
Helen was dumbstruck. Gabriel didn’t pull any punches. It would have been easy for her to ignore or deny what he was saying, but the future of the bookshop was at stake. He was right.
She felt she owed her sons compensation for having been an absent mother — her nose buried in a book all those years, mourning the loss of Leif. What’s more, they had lost an older brother too. Then, thought Helen with a pang, their parents had separated. And hadn’t they, like her, endured Arnold’s junk for two decades.
Finally, she realised that the bookshop was Gabriel and Vivian’s chance of securing a future for themselves, as well as working together. She caved in, it wasn’t hard.
‘Enough!’ she said. ‘You and Vivian can have the bookshop.’
Gabriel drew back a little. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, why not?’ She sighed. ‘We have to get rid of Jim. And I’m not exactly businesswoman of the year.’
‘You really don’t mind?’
‘No. In fact you have my blessing.’
Gabriel studied his mother, unable to believe she would capitulate this easily. But she appeared calm and relaxed. ‘I’ll go see the bank then, get the loan, that’ll take time. And we need to deal with transfer papers, stamp duty, a few other things. And when it’s all signed and sealed — we can boot Jimbo out, for good.’
‘You’ll need to borrow three hundred and eighty thousand though.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s how much I owe Astrid. I want to pay her back what she gave me.’
‘Sure thing,’ said Gabriel.
Helen examined the jacaranda in front of the bookshop. It was bare, grey, its skin dampened by a recent downpour. Like this tree she’d come full circle. A year had altered her life dramatically.
37
Ella made no concessions to her condition. She worked like a slave and drove others likewise, especially Vivian. ‘I hope that bookshop is making plenty of money.’
‘Yes. Yes it is,’ he lied badly.
‘You don’t sound so sure.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Hope that mum of yours is carrying her weight. Should have been a social worker with all those leeches.’
‘They’re not all leeches.’
‘Ha!’
‘You seemed to get on with Penny.’
‘She’s a nice leech. But as for the rest!’
Vivian didn’t want to explain his mother’s need to care for the wounded of this world. Instead he asked, ‘How’s the baby doing?’
‘Cooking,’ answered Ella as she stared impassively at her enormous moon-shaped belly, as if it didn’t quite belong to her. The baby’s birth was due soon and she was expected to mother it. What was she to do? She made an attempt to express her fears, ‘It’s me that feels crummy, Vivian. Did you ever think to ask after me?’
Vivian looked at Ella and wondered who she was. Had there been warning signs before their marriage? Signs to tell him that Ella could be this vicious?
He felt he was going underground again. He could feel the pull and the rush of air as he flew down into the cold and dark. Then suddenly with a great jolt he realised that he wanted to keep this marriage. He loved Ella, and he needed the baby.
‘How are you feeling?’ he finally asked.
‘Like crap. I’m telling you right now we’re only ever having one kid.’
Vivian blinked. Maybe it was the hormones.
‘And the baby’s being delivered on Wednesday the fourteenth of July.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I arranged it. At thirty-eight weeks I’m having the birth induced. I’m not hanging around. And she’s booked in for full-time day care as soon as she’s one month old.’
Vivian unable to contain his distress, spoke out. ‘Hey wait a minute, don’t I get a say here? It’s my baby too. I want to look after her. I’d like to be a proper dad.’
‘Then earn a decent living.’
Vivian began to doubt it was her hormones. This was mean, ugly, a venom that surely came from her soul.
He wanted to remain married to the mother of his child. And abandoning his child was simply out of the question. He had to convince himself that Ella would change once the baby was born; he clung onto this notion as a man falling from a cliff clutches onto a blade of grass.
38
Helen went through the maze following Jim’s thunderous voice; he was speaking stridently to the woman with the herd of kids. He had her rapt attention as he expounded on his theory of what makes a criminal mind.
Jim had latched onto the single mother some weeks back in the Crime section. He had ambled over to her and begun a discourse on crime. His knowledge on the subject seemed formidable; suspiciously so to Helen as she watched the middle-aged pair drool unashamedly over one another as the herd of kids tore the bookshop apart yet again.
She waved to get his attention but failed. After a few minutes she yelled, ‘Jim!’
He turned, looking mildly annoyed at the interruption. ‘Yes?’
Helen put a finger to her lips. ‘Can you please speak a little quieter?’
‘Of course.’
Helen turned to go but as Jim began to speak again the volume was unabated. She hesitated, then turned back to Jim. ‘When I say quiet, I mean quiet!’
Helen gritted her teeth as she smiled at them both. Let me show you what makes up the criminal mind, she thought. Lift the lid off my head and take a look inside.
She returned to the counter where Gabriel sat between Penny and Astrid. They looked a fine trio. Gabriel and Astrid were going over the books, talking business, discussing changes to the shop. Most days he was talking shop. Helen felt she had been given a reprieve for her past business mistakes. In fact she felt that she had been put on the shelf to gather dust, made redundant.
‘I’m going upstairs for a while.’
‘Sure,’ the trio chorused, barely looking up.
Helen vacillated, deciding she needed to say something. ‘How do you think Vivian’s going?’
They looked up at her. Astrid was bemused. Personal problems shouldn’t interfere with business. Of course, she had contributed enough of her own troubles, but was there no end to Vivian’s depression?
Penny wriggled awkwardly; she knew the marriage wasn’t going well.
Gabriel didn’t want to think about Vivian. Pushing thoughts of him aside had been easy — he’d been busy enough with his father and the shop and now, superseding all, there was Penny. His future looked fine, why would he cloud it with Vivian’s problems? ‘He’s hitched Mum, expecting a kid,’ he said, trying to assuage his mother’s anxiety. ‘Got a whole pile of stuff happening.’
‘He should be a little bit happier then,’ said Helen.
‘He was happy enough at his wedding,’ Gabriel replied.
‘Maybe he was. Right now though I think he’s miserable. I don’t want him getting depressed, that’s all.’
Gabriel went quiet. His mother was right. Vivian was miserable.
‘I’ll have a word with him,’ he offered.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Have a word with him.’
*
In the late afternoon, when the last of the sun’s rays skewered the shop and Gabriel pulled the doors together and flicked the sign to closed, he turned to Vivian who was restoring books that had been misplaced during the day.
‘How is the bitch?’ asked Gabriel.
‘Don’t call Ella that.’
‘I know what she can be like,’ Gabriel said forcefully, then stared directly at his brother before adding, ‘She giving you heaps?’
Vivian had a fleeting thought of pouring out the whole miserable story to his brother. Telling him of his wretched marriage, short as it was. Most of all, sharing his fears for their unborn child.
‘Tell me, Vivian,’ implored Gabriel.
Vivian waited for the courage to speak the truth. It never came. ‘She’s all right, and we’re good.’
‘You don’t have to fib with me little brother.’
‘I’m not. And I’d better go home.’
Gabriel watched Vivian as he left the shop, amazed at his ability to say the complete opposite of how he was feeling. It was glaringly apparent to Gabriel that things were not all right. It was in his brother’s tone of voice and the way he stood, slouching like a man facing the noose, that said, ‘My life’s shit.’
*
On the fourteenth of July, at thirty-eight weeks, after a straightforward induction, Ella gave birth to a baby girl duly named Paloma.
Vivian had watched the whole proceedings anxiously. He had seen his daughter naked for the briefest of seconds. She had arrived safely and perfect, covered in white greasy vernix, her tiny limbs trembling until the midwife quickly wrapped her, cocoon-like, in pre-warmed baby blankets.
Oddly enough the name suited the tiny infant. Paloma was like a dove. A symbol, Vivian hoped, of a much-needed peacemaker for her parents’ already wretched marriage. Ella, he realised, had chosen an excellent name for their daughter.
Ella held Paloma long enough to satisfy the medical entourage that she was a loving mother before begging a nurse to take the baby away. She needed to recuperate. Vivian sat by Ella’s bed as she drifted into sleep. He felt overwhelming love and gratitude towards her; if not for her there would have been no Paloma — the cure for his father’s grief and hopefully for his own depression. He kissed Ella tenderly on her forehead before turning to go. On feeling the kiss Ella had opened her eyes for the briefest of seconds. She was surprised by her husband’s attentiveness and unsure of what she had done to deserve such affection.
Vivian was ecstatic as he cradled Paloma in his arms. His love for her overwhelmed him, its intensity surprising him, scaring him. He studied her tiny facial features; brand new and all scrunched up but unfolding by the second. He held her tightly as tears slid down his face. It had truly arrived at last: love. Love enough for a lifetime. He felt its lightness and its weight. The weight of parenthood happily taken.
*
Arnold also held Paloma tightly, his large hands fanned around the neat bundle of blankets she was cocooned in. He held her as if afraid he might drop her. And his eyes never left her face as Vivian, Helen and Astrid looked on, riveted by her tiniest movement or sound. Together their conversation took on the tone of a forensic examination.
‘Oh, not at all underdone for thirty-eight weeks.’
‘Maybe it was a blessing she was induced.’
‘Seven pounds and eight ounces is an ideal weight for a newborn baby.’
‘And she has Vivian’s hair.’
‘And Helen’s hands.’
‘And Arnold’s nose.’
‘She ain’t got my hooter,’ protested Arnold.
‘But she has your ears, Arnold. Ja. Dainty ears.’
Arnold peeked tentatively at Paloma’s ears, and grinned with delight for she had undeniably inherited her grandfather’s ears.
‘And she has Ella’s eyes.’
‘No, Vivian’s.’
‘Ella’s, I think.’
They all crowded in closer to inspect Paloma’s eyes, and concurred that yes, Paloma had her mother’s eyes.
‘But who does she look like?’
On this the verdict was unanimous. ‘She looks just like Ella. Perfect.’
Astrid turned her gaze to Vivian. ‘And how is the mother?’
Vivian looked momentarily confused.
‘Ella?’ said Astrid, perplexed by Vivian’s slow reaction. Did he think the baby belonged to them alone, she wondered.
*
Ella eased herself out of her hospital bed. Standing a little unsteadily, she glanced at the circus she felt surrounded by: flowers, cards, a helium-filled balloon screaming IT’S A GIRL! And there in the middle of it all, Paloma, asleep in her cot.
Her fingers played lightly over the cards and she picked one up. On the front was the image of a baby’s hand resting in an adult’s hand. And the caption beneath it read ‘Baby is another Word for Love’. Rubbish, thought Ella. What idiot sent this card? Astrid. What the hell would she know? She put the card down and walked over to the cot. She looked down at her tiny daughter and felt sorry for her; sorry that she wasn’t to have an adoring mother. Sure, a mother who would provide well. But a greeting card mum? Forget it. She went back to bed and lay there quite still, staring blankly at the cards and flowers.
39
Once Helen received Gabriel’s cheque for three hundred and eighty thousand dollars she signed over the bookshop to her two sons.
She then proceeded to hunt down Jim. And found him, where she had expected to, in the centre of the book maze with his arms wrapped tightly around his girlfriend who was returning the embrace with great enthusiasm. She viewed the oddness of their intimacy, Jim hunched over, the short lady stretching up.
At the sound of Helen’s approach they had broken apart, the woman blushing and scuttling away to her brood of kids who were stomping and kicking the floorboards in the Children’s section.
For a few moments Helen stood before Jim before handing him a folded note, which he took wi
th trembling hands and opened.
On reading the note his anger surfaced quickly. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘It’s an eviction notice. Yours. First and final.’
‘What about my money?’
Helen could have punched him, but kept her cool. ‘You’ll have to see the new owners about that.’
‘New owners! And who might they be?’
‘Gabriel … and Vivian.’
Jim’s expression collapsed into one of dismay. He’d been outmanoeuvred, and knew it. ‘I deserve better than this,’ he said, waving the note in front of her face.
‘Speak to the new owners. I’m just one of their employees.’
‘I want the bookshop, this is my home.’
‘Take it up with Gabriel and Vivian then.’
‘You know they’re not going to give me my money! What the hell am I meant to do?’
‘You can make a fresh start with your new girlfriend.’
Jim looked even more startled. ‘Her? With all those kids?’
Helen held up her hands. ‘Whatever you decide — it has nothing to do with me Jim. I only work here.’
Jim shuffled out of the maze, letting his eviction notice fall to the floor as he went.
And he left the bookshop immediately, poof! Like a disappearing act. He simply walked out the door, without taking even his few remaining articles of clothing and toiletries, as if leaving a message for Helen to decipher.
Helen decided that the ignominy of defeat had been too much for him to bear. He was a pathetic conman who had been outmanoeuvred by a much younger man. She gathered his belongings, wrapped them up, and put them in a box on the top floor. She didn’t trust him. There was every chance he’d be back for them.
Helen walked around the flat, studying the places where Jim and his things had once been. Unpleasant memories lingered. The chapter that hurt. But the lessons learned were invaluable. Helen was a wiser woman for it and the Book Maze was now in better hands.
*
Penny visited Ella and Paloma quite often. She enjoyed the intimacy of Ella’s friendship and the growing bond with Paloma. At times, it was true, she did find Ella strange and erratic, her behaviour ill suited to a mother of a newborn baby, which was all the more reason to visit her. Penny recognised and empathised with fellow troubled souls, and she made it her mission to help Ella.
The Bookshop on Jacaranda Street Page 23
