It was Carol who’d encouraged her to apply for the office job and who continued to encourage her to put up her hand for opportunities to further herself in the department. She liked working with Carol in this room at the top of the stairs—our little hidey-hole, they’d often joke. She picked a fallen petal off the desk and threw it in the bin.
Keys in hand, she turned off the light and descended the stairs. Her legs ached from traipsing up and down them all day; most of her day was spent filing confidential documents, a role she took seriously. Reorganising the filing system had been her priority since starting over ten years ago, her first and only job after high school. She was quietly proud of the trust Patrick placed in her and flattered when he said how much he relied on her.
Like at Christmas time two years ago, when a red-faced Patrick urgently called her into his office and quickly closing the door, asked her what was he to do with a generous donation from Moira, the local madam. Every year, Moira invited the police, local dignitaries and businessmen to a Christmas party at her Hay Street brothel, at which Moira extracted donations. Every year she gave the money to the department for spending on disadvantaged children and their families at Christmas time. Patrick had been a priest before becoming a social worker and prior to taking this supervisor’s job, had worked up north in the Kimberleys and the Central Desert, within Aboriginal communities. It was all too much for him. She’d handled it. Discreetly removing the calico bag stuffed with money, she had organised its expenditure and no record was kept of its receipt.
Lori walked past his office, turning off the lights as she went. Her father, Alfredo, had been curious when she told him her new boss was an ex-priest, her mother, Karen, indifferent but her grandmother, Catalina, was confused.
‘How you stop being a priest?’ she asked. ‘Look at Father Richetti. Sixty years a priest.’
Her father looked for Patrick at Mass the following Sunday and not finding him, quizzed her. She rarely attended church these days and had no answers.
She switched off her typewriter, dropped the keys into her bag and headed for the door. Everyone had gone home. She had keys to the main doors and a key to the filing cabinet that held all the other cabinet keys—Patrick had a similar set. Sometimes she worried about the responsibility—all that information.
Lori entered the foyer and something on the floor caught her eye; she bent down and picked it up. It was a file note from upstairs—she must have missed it when she bumped into Mrs Steele. Thank goodness I found it before the cleaners came in. She looked at her watch. Half-past five. She needed to get home and prepare for Mrs King coming at six-thirty. I don’t have time to go back upstairs and file it, she decided. She unzipped her bag and carefully slid the sheet of paper under her purse; she’d file it first thing in the morning before anyone came in. She locked up behind her and hurried out the door.
As she climbed into her car, she laughed to herself, remembering the collision in the foyer. Poor Mrs Steele had looked mortified, but she always found such accidents funny. Mrs Steele often looked uncomfortable when their paths crossed. She remembered Kerry from high school. She had been a great runner and won at all the carnivals, then her father, Phil Smith, died in a car accident coming back from Leonora. He used to drive ore trucks at the mines. Kerry didn’t return to school. She was an only child and her mother, Irene, needed her, they said. She’d read Kerry’s wedding notice in the paper a few years later.
The next time Lori saw Kerry was when she’d led her and Paul up the stairs to Carol’s office.
She pulled into her driveway and pushed thoughts of Kerry aside as a list formed in her mind of things to do in preparation for Mrs King’s arrival. She had a dip to prepare, a pavlova to decorate, a quick run over the lounge with the vacuum to do and a look in her glory box for the white tablecloth embroidered by her grandmother. She laughed. No glory so far, Nonna. Two of her younger sisters had married their first serious boyfriends at eighteen and now, at twenty-four and twenty-six, they had two and three children respectively. She regularly deflected Nonna’s concerns while graciously accepting contributions to her dowry—not that she wasn’t interested in meeting someone, it just hadn’t happened. The men she worked with were either locals, who were married, or social workers from Perth, who usually transferred back after two years.
Except Patrick, she thought, as she opened her front door.
Dropping her bag on the little hallway table, she kicked off her shoes and slid along the polished floorboards in her stockinged feet. She’d sanded and polished them herself and it was her favourite feeling at the end of a long day. Her grandparents had lived in the house for fifty years. Papa had built it from tin and wood after leaving Italy by steamship in 1927. As the Re d’Italia docked at Fremantle, Papa had watched the sun rise like a promise and, as the overnight train pulled out of Perth for Kalgoorlie, it set on the deal he had made with life, a crimson signature across the sky. Papa never saw Italy again or his parents. He paid for Nonna to join him in 1933 and they’d raised six children in this house. He died three years ago. The following year Nonna moved in with Lori’s parents and she’d bought the house. Even with a good deposit and a public service job, her father had to go guarantor as the bank wouldn’t give her a loan.
She shook her head, remembering. She grabbed an elastic band from a hook on the kitchen cupboard and pulled her thick, curly hair up into a bun on top of her head. After watering the zygocactus on the kitchen bench, its shock of fluorescent pink trumpet blossoms emerging from long trails of ugly flat stems, she rummaged in the kitchen cupboard and pulled out a yellow Tupperware bowl quick enough to avoid its companions following suit.
Now where did she put that packet of French onion soup? Hopefully Mrs King wouldn’t be early.
Agnes turned right at the only set of traffic lights in town and drove slowly down the camel-train–width main street. She still found the lights hard to get used to after forty years of going around a telegraph pole in the middle of the road—give way to your right and around the pole. Removing it had caused a stir, not only because people missed going around the pole. It had been the focus of New Year’s Eve celebrations, a place where partying locals gathered. When the post office clock chimed midnight someone always climbed the pole.
She went once with Frank, after a dance at the Railway Institute; they ran several blocks to get there, before midnight rang in 1970. That was the first time she’d noticed Frank having to catch his breath. He made light of it. Too many schooners, Aggie, he’d said and laughed as he pointed out two young blokes trying to beat each other up the pole.
She looked up at the clock as she drove past the post office—quarter-past six. Changing gear noisily in her old Hillman, she turned the corner opposite the Town Hall and headed towards Lori’s house; she was looking forward to seeing her again. Lori had visited her twice more for a chat and a cup of tea—not a tea-leaf reading cup of tea—just a cuppa. Knowing this would continue, she smiled but as she recalled Lori’s reading, her brow wrinkled. It was unusual for her to tell someone that she couldn’t tell them everything she saw in their future. It had surprised her as much as Lori.
The reading had begun as usual.
Lori had knocked politely on her front door, the red patterns on the flywire the only sign of the morning’s dust storm. Hearing the knock, she’d drifted gently back from calling in her spirit guide. She rose from her chair and slid open the door.
‘Mrs King, is it? I’m Lori. I’ve a reading booked. I’m not early, am I?’
‘No, no, come in. And call me Aggie. Take a seat and I’ll make us a cup of tea.’
Leaving Lori in the lounge room, she went into the kitchen. She picked up the tea caddy and spooned three scoops into the willow-patterned china teapot. One for each person and one for the pot, she heard her grandmother say. Lifting her blackened kettle off the wood stove she poured boiling water onto the tea-leaves, then refilled the kettle and put it back on the stove. She opened the stained-glass cup
board doors above the kitchen bench and carefully lifted down two of her best white china cups and saucers. White was best for reading.
‘Milk or sugar?’ she called out.
‘Ah, black, thanks.’
‘Me too, like billy tea, eh,’ she laughed, filling the cups. The energy moved around her. She picked up the cups and took them into the lounge room, placing Lori’s on the occasional table in front of her. She sat on the couch next to Lori and began drinking her tea.
‘Do I just drink it Mrs—I mean, Aggie?’
‘Yes, dear, drink it and leave a little in the bottom then I’ll show you what to do.’
As she drank her tea, she watched Lori anxiously look into the cup between sips. She watched her own tea-leaves swirl and sink slowly to the bottom then took a deep breath, exhaled softly and looked closer at the woman in front of her. Strong, she thought, stubborn, sensitive, a lot of light around her. She caught glints of green down Lori’s right side and shimmers of gold haloing her head.
‘Is that enough or do I need to drink more?’ Lori asked, interrupting her sensing.
She looked at the cup in Lori’s hand.
‘No, that’s good,’ she said, watching the clump of tea-leaves shapeshift under the amber liquid. ‘Now, slowly pour the rest of the tea into your saucer and leave a little bit to swirl the leaves round your cup. That’s right, now tip it upside down in the saucer and put your hand on top. Now close your eyes for a minute and think about what you’ve come here for today.’ Breathing deeply and slowly, Agnes closed her eyes too. She looked upwards into her third eye then, feeling herself quicken, slowly opened her eyes and gently touched Lori’s hand on her cup.
Lori’s eyes shot open. She took the cup and saucer from her and placed it on the table in front of them.
‘Okay, Lori, before I turn over your cup, there’s a pen and paper on the table in case you want to write down anything that comes through.’
Lori stared back at her, round-eyed, silent.
Agnes felt herself quicken further. Breathing deeply, she picked up the cup. Lori’s energy washed over her. A jumble of thoughts and feelings tumbled around her mind until, slowly, Lori’s past, present and future emerged from the tea-leaves.
But not all that she saw was told …
A car horn disrupted her reverie, and threw her back to the present. She braked. A man in a red car glared at her. She smiled apologetically and drove on. She turned into Lori’s street and wondered again about the sudden end to Lori’s reading.
‘You have so much to look forward to,’ she’d assured Lori, abruptly turning the cup back over.
Lori, scribbling down everything she was saying, had stopped writing and stared at her.
‘But if I tell you now, all that I see in front of you, the opportunities, the journeys you’ll take, the successes you’ll have, it will be harder to accept the difficulties you’re bound to encounter along the way. Enough to know you have a wonderful life ahead of you.’ She then surprised both of them by saying, ‘You know, I shouldn’t be reading your teacup, dear, you should be reading mine.’
She smiled now as she remembered Lori’s wide-eyed bewilderment but they’d met twice since then.
Agnes turned into Lori’s street and pulled up at the kerb, grimacing as the hubcaps crunched against the cement. She could never quite judge the distance. She gathered up her handbag, tucked a handkerchief into her sleeve and opened the car door. Skirting the car, she avoided looking back at the hubcaps and hurried across the grass verge into Lori’s house.
CHAPTER FIVE
Aimee perched on the edge of her seat wondering whether this had been a good idea after all. What was she doing at Lori’s house having her fortune told? She didn’t believe in such things; you make your own destiny, she knew that. She politely declined Lori’s offer of pavlova, reaching up instead to scoop dip onto a cracker. Easier to manage, she thought. She brushed a crumb off her jeans. Lori continued around the lounge room offering slices and dip. Everyone was talking too much and too loudly.
Across from her sat Lori’s sisters, Sophia, Angela and Gina, lined up on a sofa, talking over the top of each other, teacup in one hand, waving the other, catching up on each other’s lives. Perched next to them on a stool, Joan, Lori’s neighbour, leant forward as she talked to Mrs King, the fortune teller.
Lori plonked next to her in a beanbag.
‘Are you excited? Joan’s really nervous but my sisters can’t wait. My nonna’s not impressed though. She reckons it’s the devil’s work and she’ll have to light a candle for us, eh.’ Lori grinned up at her. ‘But, you know, Dad told me my papa used to know when things were going to happen, and not to worry, just don’t plan your life by it. What do you think?’
‘Aw, look, it’s only a bit of fun, Lori, but I am a tad nervous. What happens next?’
‘Well, when Aggie finishes her tea she’ll go into my bedroom and get ready then she’ll take you in one by one. Do you want to go first?’
She stiffened. ‘No way.’
‘I’ll see if Sophia wants to then, she’s been on about it all week.’
While Lori whispered to Sophia, Aimee looked over at Mrs King. She was surprised at how tiny and everydaylike she was. What had she expected—someone tall with a pointy nose, long black hair and piercing eyes? She laughed to herself then caught her breath as she realised Mrs King was staring back. A wave of warmth washed over her and she blushed. Mrs King smiled then looked away as Lori clapped her hands for attention.
‘Okay everyone, Aggie’s going to get ready now—Sophia’s first, then Angela and Gina—Joan, do you want to go after them? Yeh? Okay, that means you’re last, Aimee, is that all right?’
She nodded.
The next two hours went by in a bit of a blur, as one by one the women went in and came out excited, full of their news and clutching their sheets of paper although Joan hardly wrote anything on hers. It was all too much, she said, trying to listen and write at the same time; she looked a bit shaken.
‘It’s your turn, Aimee,’ Lori called out from the kitchen, where she was making the others another cup of tea.
She picked up her cup and saucer and walked down the hallway to Lori’s bedroom at the front of the house; she loved old houses like this with their pressed tin ceilings and wooden floors. Her family home had been all shiny tiles and glass. Her father had embraced open plan living—vast floors of bronze quarry tiles, the family room leading out to a below-ground pool. She remembered the last time she swam in their pool: New Year’s Eve, 1973. Before she went to university. She shut out the memory.
‘Come in, dear. Take a seat.’
She peered into the bedroom. Mrs King sat in one of two white wicker chairs beside a round table. Her face appeared to glow in the lamplight.
‘Thank you, Mrs King. I’m Aimee. You must be getting tired by now. Are you okay to keep going?’
‘Yes dear, I’m used to it. And call me Aggie, everybody does. I’ll be a little bit tired tomorrow but when I’m actually doing it I never feel tired. Now, let’s have a look at your cup, Aimee,’ she said, reaching out for her cup and saucer.
Lori had shown them all how to tip out their dregs and swirl the tea-leaves.
She squirmed around on the cushioned chair. A writing pad and pen lay on the table.
‘That’s for taking notes while I read your cup, dear. I talk rather fast once I start but you can ask questions at the end. Now, sit there and relax.’
She watched Aggie shut her eyes and take a deep breath. She picked up the pen and paper and leant back in her chair, waiting, but with a sharp intake of air she lurched forward again, clutching the paper to her chest.
‘Look, I’m not interested in the past. I’d prefer not to be told anything horrible. I really believe we make our own future and I …’ She stopped as Aggie opened her eyes and peered at her. Actually she did have piercing eyes, Aimee realised—blue-green.
‘It’s all right dear, your guide has brought you here
to bring to your awareness what you already know, at another level, anyway. We all have one. Some call them guardian angels, some their Higher Self. I call them spirit guides. It doesn’t matter what you call them. It’s your knowledge I share with you tonight, not mine.’
Then Aggie turned the teacup over and began the reading.
She tried to keep up with her, writing as much as she could, but between looking at the pictures that Aggie pointed out in the teacup and taking in what was being said, it was impossible. She put down the pen and listened, trying to push back her fears.
‘You see this? That’s the present, at the bottom of your cup. The sides are the near future and further up the cup is five to ten years from now. For you the present also holds the past. See there? A square building where sadness was born. A box. See it? Look, at the bottom,’ Aggie indicated, turning the cup towards her. ‘And you keep it all in a box, the sadness. But look, see? A ladder next to it, you climb out and now you stand on top of it. See? That woman there, that’s you. Arms up, triumphant. “Yes, I did it, I succeeded,” you’re saying. You’re a very determined woman, Aimee, but also compassionate. See that heart there beside the box, see how big it is?’
She tried again to see the shapes as Aggie pointed them out. At first it looked like a brown mess then looking closer, she could make out a square shape in the bottom of the cup, and, almost, a ladder. A stick figure. Was that a woman? Then, clearly, she saw the heart. Her own softened. Waves of feeling undulated through her. She thought she might cry. She swallowed and took a deep breath, then clenching her jaw, she sat back and stopped trying to see.
The Secrets We Keep Page 3
