Mix Tape

by Jane Sanderson

  And all the time, all the time, all the time.

  With Duncan, with Katelin, with anyone, Dan was holding Ali Connor lightly, constantly, in his thoughts, and if this was hypocrisy, it didn’t feel that way, and if it was infidelity, it never seemed wrong. She’d found a way to permeate his mind, so that wherever he was, so was she. He never had to summon her; she was simply there. She formed a whole world in his head, which only he knew existed, and most of it was conjecture, and he didn’t know what any of it signified, but oh God, it was a source of wonder and delight. Nobody needed to demonstrate to Dan the power and punch of a good song, and when he’d sent ‘Pump It Up’ he’d imagined her smiling, and remembering, but only that. Certainly, he hadn’t imagined this … what was it? An intimate dialogue in music, an eloquence beyond the written word. It was genius. He should market it, invent an app or something.

  He wouldn’t have given Carole King the time of day when he was eighteen. But what a lovely track Ali had sent, what a masterclass in deceptive simplicity; he’d listened to it on the train and been blindsided by the emotional tug of her lyrics on his cynical, heard-it-all heart, because it was Ali Connor, Alison, that long-lost girl, speaking to him through this song, like solace for a pain he hadn’t known he had. Jesus, he’d thought; this was crazy. This was bad. In a good, good way. He’d listened three times to the track, wrung out from it every possible shade and nuance, then responded by sending M. Ward’s cover of ‘Let’s Dance’, for the mesmerising poetry of those reinvented Bowie lyrics and – there was no escaping the truth of this – the stripped-back, aching desire. She was ten thousand miles away; where was the harm?

  After he’d sent it, he listened to nothing at all, and found he couldn’t write either, or read. Katelin had rung, and they talked about Christmas, his family, who would sleep where, what they would eat, an easy conversation about the real world. But he wanted to talk to Alison Connor. He wanted his phone to ring again, and it be her.

  He’d stared blindly at the landscape as the train carved a path north, and let his thoughts travel to Sheffield in the bleak, black summer of 1979, and to what happened that night in July, and what he might have done differently. He thought about Duncan, and his misguided fling, unrelated and incomparable in Dan’s mind to his own feelings for Alison. He thought about Katelin, her brittle, implacable sense of right and wrong, and he thought about love in its many guises, and about loyalty, and trust. But time and again his thoughts swept back to Alison Connor, and where this was all leading, and whether he could see her again, and if so, how, and how soon. These songs were incredible, each new track the highlight of his day; but he wanted to talk to her, and he wanted to hold her again; that was all.

  Late December, two days before Christmas. Alex had colonised the living room, dragged the sofa into a front-and-centre location, reconnected the Xbox to the television and was doggedly taking Sheffield Wednesday through a sensational season in the Championship, towards the play-offs and promotion. FIFA, Career Mode: a taste of power and glory for the bruised and bloodied fans of a team under siege in the real world. This was Alex’s antidote to the rigours of Plato, Kant and Nietzsche at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Owls had never had a manager as wise, steadfast and inspiring as Alexander Lawrence. There was a well-known game hack, available via a two-second Google search, to secure an unlimited budget for the transfer windows, but Alex refused to cheat. Instead, he slogged away with the funds he was allocated, growing his squad and bringing talented youth players up through the ranks. His dad was proud of him. A steady hand on the tiller, some home-grown talent, a few canny purchases from unlikely sources, and result after result that proved you couldn’t just buy success in football, you had to nurture it. This is what Dan had just said to Katelin, after she’d complained that the boy had sat on his arse and wasted two days in the front room with the curtains closed.

  ‘That’s just pathetic,’ she said, now, to Dan. They were out with McCulloch, hunched against the cold, walking alongside the Water of Leith.

  ‘Oh, give over,’ he said. ‘Give the lad a break. It’s harmless.’

  ‘I didn’t mean Alex is pathetic, I meant you – the way you talk about a stupid Xbox game, like it’s actually happening. Home-grown talent, canny purchases, all that bollocks.’

  Dan said, ‘It’s not stupid, have you seen those graphics? Bloody remarkable. That Wednesday squad – identifiable, to a man.’

  Katelin tutted. ‘Yeah, but it’s not Match of the Day, is it? There’s no real justification for you sitting in there and actually watching, is there?’

  Dan laughed, refusing to be rattled. ‘Guilty as charged,’ he said. ‘But look, it was the derby.’

  The aim was to go a couple of miles or so, towards Roseburn and Murrayfield, but it was hard to see the point, now they were out, and even the little dog trotted glumly at Dan’s heels, with no indication of enjoyment. Dan had intended to run with him, as he did sometimes, to get the lazy little sod moving at something other than walking pace, and he’d been all ready to go, trainers on, earphones in, iPod in the pocket of his shorts, when Katelin said she was feeling stir-crazy, needed some air, and could she come too? But Katelin didn’t run, hated running, wouldn’t even run for a bus, and so here they were, trudging. Terrible weather for it, a dreich winter’s day, damp but not raining, bone cold but not clear.

  Katelin was in one of her habitual pre-Christmas funks, when the imminent arrival of his family – or, on alternate years, her own – would periodically colour her thoughts in shades of grey. She always emerged, perfectly pleasant and sociable, in time for the visit, but there was something about the build-up, the expectations, the length of the shopping list, the fridge bulging with the turkey, the veg, the beer, the wine … and the relentlessness of it all, and the inevitability, and the way it crept up by stealth, one minute October, the very next, Christmas. So annoying. Then there were the beds to make, extra mattresses for the cousins, and meanwhile the bathroom and downstairs loo – was this a universal rule? – had to be cleaner than they ever were at any other time of year, and, oh, the whole terrible festive jamboree, like a well-intentioned invasion, a three-day marathon of fairy-lit madness.

  ‘Hey,’ Dan said, putting an arm loosely round her shoulders. ‘Let’s turn back? Go home and pour a drink?’

  She turned her face to his and managed a smile. ‘I need Alex off that sofa,’ she said. ‘It’s an awful tip in that room,’ and Dan said, ‘Agreed, Wednesday’s glorious rise to eminence must wait until after Christmas.’

  ‘And there’s veg to prep.’

  ‘Alex can do it. He’ll need something to do with his hands when he puts that controller down.’

  Now, finally, she laughed, and they turned around to retrace their steps, the air around them feeling a few degrees warmer, the atmosphere palpably more relaxed. Even McCulloch looked jollier, but that might just have been the welcome change of direction, the unmistakable scent of home.

  There were ten of them for Christmas lunch. Dan, Katelin and Alex, Bill and Marion, then Claire and her husband Marcus, and their three, Will, Jack and Molly. Joe was a ski instructor in Courchevel these days. He hadn’t been home for Christmas in years, skied all winter and early spring, then ran cycling tours up and down the same mountains in summer and early autumn. Alex loved his Sheffield cousins, was never happier at home than when they came to stay. There were only these three on the English side, because Uncle Joe had never had kids, but in and around Coleraine there were lots of cousins, nineteen in all, although it was only ever five, the same five, who came to stay. Katelin had four sisters and two brothers and among the six of them, their six partners and their nineteen offspring, there were a few folk she simply couldn’t abide. The Christmases past that they’d spent in the farmhouse in Northern Ireland! Like landing in a latter-day Greek tragedy: intrigue, sibling rivalry, fights over birthright and land and money, and all of it stoked by Guinness and Jameson’s and great-great-granddaddy’s poteen, made by
Katelin’s father in a 200-year-old still from potatoes and the original recipe. Dan loved the whole scene, but Katelin wouldn’t go any more. She said she didn’t like herself when she was there.

  No such problems today among the Lawrence clan, where a Christmas meal of epic proportions had just been merrily destroyed, the turkey a ravaged carcass, the vegetables, stuffing and gravy only memories. It was late afternoon, dark outside, and sleeting in the deserted Stockbridge streets, but the house hummed and glowed with festive cheer, and the youngsters were sorting the presents into piles, for it was that time in the proceedings when gifts were given, and opened, in a flurry of wrapping paper, a confusion of thank-yous. Socks and boxers; chocolate oranges all round from Marion and Bill; make-up for Molly; scarves, gloves, cologne, calendars, all new this year, but also somehow familiar; it was always music that passed between Alex and Dan, always an LP, Kelley Stoltz this year for Alex, Fiona Apple for Dan. In the hubbub around them, they tried to talk about what they’d given, and why, and then Dan heard Katelin say, ‘Oh, Marion, great present! I’ve been meaning to read this,’ and Dan looked round to see what his wife was holding, and it was Ali Connor’s bestseller, Tell the Story, Sing the Song.

  ‘Look,’ Katelin said to Dan, waving the book at him while he tried to stay cool. ‘I heard her on Woman’s Hour not so long ago. She’s Australian now, but she’s from Sheffield. I meant to say at the time, but I forgot.’

  Dan opened his mouth to speak but his mum beat him to it.

  ‘Never!’ she said. She beamed at Dan, then at Katelin. ‘Well, I didn’t know that. I had no idea the author was from Sheffield. I just saw the book in Smith’s, and the lady said it was flying off the shelves, and I thought, Katelin might like this, because I know you like to read, love.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s great, Marion, thanks.’ Katelin picked a route through the gifts and the debris to give Dan’s mum a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘That there,’ Bill said, tipping his head towards the photograph on the back cover. ‘That there is Alison.’

  It was the first time he’d spoken since they’d all said ‘Cheers’ at lunch because Bill, through deafness and old age and his tendency towards depression, was the quietest of souls, a recluse in the family throng. So his voice had an impact, drew the attention of everyone in the room, especially Claire, who said, ‘What? Give it here,’ and took the book from Katelin. She flipped it over, and saw Ali Connor’s publicity photograph – the one Dan had seen when he first found her online and that he saw still, whenever she sent him a song. Blue cotton shirt, cropped dark wavy hair, blue-nearly-green eyes, a sensual mouth, and an intelligent, slightly inquiring, slightly amused expression.

  ‘Oh my God, it is Alison,’ Claire said. ‘She looks the same.’ She passed the book to her brother. ‘Look, Daniel. Alison Connor! Can you credit it?’

  He took it, and for the sake of appearance pretended to check out the biography on the inside front page. He didn’t read it though. Instead, he tried to formulate a sentence or two to address the look that he knew was waiting for him on Katelin’s face. She knew nothing about Alison Connor, nothing at all. By the time he’d met Katelin, he’d spent four years conscientiously forgetting her. There’d been lots of other girls, and Katelin had grilled him about each and every one. But not Alison, no. Not mentioning Alison had become a habit, born of necessity, for all of them, but especially for Dan.

  Bill, sounding more animated than he had for years, said, ‘She was grand, Alison was. A smashing lass.’

  ‘Well, I never!’ Marion said, rather uncertain now whether she’d done a good thing, or a bad thing. She looked at Dan, then Bill, then Claire. ‘Can you believe it? What a coincidence! So she’s Ali now, not Alison? And fancy her ending up in Australia!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dan said to Katelin, who was staring at him. ‘Ex-girlfriend.’

  No big deal.

  ‘So,’ Katelin said, head cocked, arms folded, ‘did you know she’d written a novel, this Ali Connor person?’

  ‘Alison,’ Bill said. ‘She was Alison then.’

  ‘No,’ Dan said, lying easily, without conscience, because to say yes would benefit no one. ‘I’d no idea she’d written a novel.’

  Will took the book from Dan’s hand.

  ‘Ey, she’s a bit of all right, Uncle Daniel,’ he said, which wasn’t helpful at all.

  Molly said, ‘Awkward,’ in that sing-song voice the kids used. And it was, a little, because Katelin was still deciding whether to be amused or peeved about this new old girlfriend. She said, ‘Well, I thought I knew of all your exes, but here’s yet another one.’

  ‘Long, long time ago,’ Dan said. ‘We were only kids.’

  ‘She was always dead good at English though, Daniel, wasn’t she? Do you remember? She kept all her books at our house, poems and that – she’d practically moved in, hadn’t she?’

  This was Claire, always so incredibly reliable at digging an even deeper hole, when everyone else had put their spades down. And Marion, trying valiantly now to haul them all out and back to safety, said, ‘Anyway, I hope you like it, Katelin love. The lady in Smith’s said it’s really smashing.’

  There was a short silence, into which Katelin said nothing.

  Then, ‘I’m glad Alison’s all right,’ Bill said. ‘I’ve been right worried about that lass.’

  15

  ADELAIDE,

  9 JANUARY 2013

  Summer in Adelaide, and day after day the city was slowed and debilitated by bitumen-melting temperatures that soared up past the thirties and into the forties, until the evenings rolled around. Then the water beckoned and people flocked to the beaches of Brighton or Glenelg, where the sinking sun put on a riotous show of colour as it took its leave. Michael McCormack disliked the beach vibe, so most evenings the household simply gathered for an al fresco dinner, where the air smelled of char-grilled prawns, seared steaks, garlic, rosemary, the Mediterranean tang of lemon and, always present, the old-fashioned scent of Margaret McCormack’s English roses, the blooms blousy and bloated with sunshine, too heavy on their stems to ever look up at the sky.

  Thea was home from Melbourne for the long summer vacation so the family was complete again and Beatriz was content, except, when they gathered to eat, or chat, or read in the garden, under the hibiscus shade of the long wooden pergola, they were often only four because inside, upstairs, lovely Stella was keeping to herself, inert on her bed, her face pale and doll-like against the fresh white pillow. She was no longer pregnant. At Sheila and Dora’s house in Quorn, the very day after telling Ali in a flood of tears that, after all, she wasn’t ready to be a mother, the girl had miscarried, as if her body had decided to spare her the cycle of tormented indecision and take matters into its own hands. It was extraordinary how efficient the process had been, how swift and thorough. Ninety minutes it had taken, and a whole heap of Sheila and Dora’s Turkish hammam towels. The shock to them all had been immense – all that blood, and the brief but searing bouts of pain, and home being so far away, and then, afterwards, the acres and acres of guilt at the terrible, quiet relief. Later the same day, Stella had been checked over by a nurse with a brisk, no-nonsense air and expert hands, which Ali watched closely as they moved over her daughter’s abdomen and inside her body, pressing, assessing. And all the while she talked, about nature’s ways and the cast-iron reasons behind just about everything that happens in life.

  ‘You’ve slipped it for a reason, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘You grow up on a farm, you soon understand that a mare slips a foal, a sheep slips a lamb, there’s always a why and a wherefore.’ Stella didn’t respond. She lay on the gurney, with her eyes closed, but when Ali’s hand squeezed hers, she’d squeezed back. ‘Right-oh,’ said the nurse, gathering her tools. ‘A scrape and a polish, and you’ll be good to go.’

  ‘That would’ve been Brianna,’ Dora said when Ali recounted the story later. ‘Bedside manners of the bush, but she knows what she’s at. Stella’s going to be fine.’


  And she was, but somehow she wasn’t. She was less Stella-like, a listless, thoughtful, much quieter version of herself. Beatriz said give her time, but Michael, a solution-finder, a fixer of problems, believed a family trip up to Burra was what was needed – just the four of them, because Beatriz hated going bush; a few weeks at Lismore Creek, just like the old days, when the girls were little and all summer could be spent swinging on the gates in the shearing shed and riding ponies alongside the stockmen and their horses.

  ‘But it’s years since we were all there together,’ Ali said, now, to her husband.

  ‘Exactly my point.’

  ‘Do we want to be inland, in the heat?’

  Michael sighed. ‘Well, I do,’ he said. ‘C’mon, I want to take some time to be with my girls. Life’s slower up there, Ali, remember?’

  ‘Yes, of course I remember – and anyway Stella and I were in Quorn not so long ago, to be fair.’

  Michael waved his hand, as if Quorn was nothing. His childhood memories of the family sheep station were gilded and rosy, frame after frame of picture-perfect scenes. The elegant homestead itself, built for his ancestors in 1866: an expansive ‘English’ country house, coach house and stables, all of them heritage-listed now; the grounds, landscaped and tamed into lawns, knot garden, herbaceous borders and a sunken bower of roses, all of this maintained and manicured by four full-time gardeners; Michael and his two younger brothers, Rory and Robert, running wild, damming the creek, driving the ute from the age of nine, racing ducks and spitting cherry stones at the country fair, trapping rabbits and shooting roos. So Ali, sitting on the porch swing next to Michael, knew this discussion was purely cosmetic. A one-way street. His heart was set, the decision made.