The Place on Dalhousie

by Melina Marchetta

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Who knows? He’d never say anything. Later, we’d sit on the rocks and discuss John Healy’s version of the meaning of life.’

  ‘I’m going to say no thanks to that baptism of male nonsense,’ she says. ‘If you want my version of the meaning of life, let’s do it over a Reschs.’

  He laughs. She glances at him, takes in the solidness of his shoulders and the power in his hands. She wants to hold them because they seem to promise something that sort of thrills her. It’s what she remembers from their time in the back seat of his Hilux after Charlie’s funeral. But there’s a part of him that’s been diminished by the sacking and she doesn’t know if she can take that on board. Because she can feel herself slipping towards something dark within herself that she hasn’t felt before. Mocking her for thinking that she could survive the death of her mother and Seb and even Charlie, who had made her work day bearable, without hurting an inch of her soul.

  ‘Is your team playing tonight?’ she asks. ‘Is that why you’re not with your dad?’

  ‘They’re not my team,’ he says.

  She figures he’s not ready to talk about it. Perhaps he can’t. Last she heard it was tied up in legals. She shivers from a touch of ice in the wind and he shuffles closer and places an arm around her.

  ‘Nothing worse than a public sacking,’ he finally says.

  ‘Jules and Alana blame the club.’

  ‘I have to take some of the blame, but it still pisses me off. Five losses in a row and then everyone forgets that you almost got them to the minor premiership twice in four years and next minute you’re hearing about the club deciding your future on the morning news.’

  ‘Do you know what Lotte Newman would have said? Durch Schaden wird man klug. A bad experience brings wisdom.’

  ‘I don’t feel wise at all. Just pissed off most of the time.’

  ‘So what next?’

  He sighs. ‘Options.’

  ‘How can options be a bad thing, Ewan?’

  ‘Because the best offers come from the UK,’ he says. ‘The next best are for being part of the coaching team for the Warriors, or a developmental role with the Cowboys.’

  He looks at her. ‘That’s how options can be a bad thing.’

  Martha meets a guy she could remotely be interested in dating, and he’s either off to England, New Zealand or Townsville.

  ‘What would Lotte Newman say to that?’ he asks. ‘Because listening to you speak German is strangely exciting me.’

  ‘Really? I actually know all the words to “99 Luftballons” if you want me to sing.’

  ‘Even more of a turn on.’

  She laughs, but then thinks of Lotte and it makes her sad. ‘Ach du lieber Gott. My mother was an Oh my God sort of person.’

  ‘You miss her?’

  How can Martha even try to answer that? She’s reminded of Lotte every single day. When she goes into the IGA at Haberfield, they play Lotte’s radio station and either Petula Clark is belting out ‘Downtown’ or The Seekers are singing ‘I’ll never find another you’. Next door she’ll see the affection between Teresa and Bianca, and she’ll remember walking to school with Lotte, arm in arm. It was the way they’d stroll together for the rest of her mother’s life. Lotte was a joy, although damaged by her childhood in the war, with its constant evacuations and bombs and death. She’d hoard groceries in the cupboard just in case, was frightened by authority and had nightmares all her life. Lotte wasn’t overly religious, but when she was dying she promised Martha that she’d be her Schutzengel. Her guardian angel.

  ‘Okay, I’ve changed my mind,’ she says to Ewan, standing up, stripping down to her undies and singlet and racing for the ocean before she can talk herself out of it. Has regrets the moment she hits the water. Sobs from the shock of icy waves hitting her in the face, and the only way she can stop her teeth chattering from the pain of it all is by screaming, and she doesn’t want to stop because the ocean is swallowing up the sound and it gives her a freedom beyond words to do something she hasn’t been able to do inside her house or out on the streets or anywhere else in the world.

  Ewan at least follows her out into the surf and she feels his arms clasped around her. Much like his father, if he notices her crying he doesn’t say. But afterwards he gets her dry and they lie huddled on the sand together in their clothes minus underwear.

  ‘You know we’re entering that age bracket where pneumonia can kill us,’ he says.

  ‘I never listen to stats about people our age,’ she says. ‘And you didn’t have to follow me in.’

  ‘I figured there was zero chance of me making progress with you if I stayed put.’

  She looks at him. ‘Progress was made, my friend.’ And they lie there glued to each other because the wind’s now cruel, but his arm around her feels good.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asks.

  ‘Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “The Power of Love” or Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is”?’ he answers.

  ‘Wrong decade, so not even close.’

  Outside the house she doesn’t see the point in putting him through any more grief. She doesn’t care who’s upstairs in her home. Her home. Her room that she shared with Seb. His room that he shared with Loredana in some shape or form before the renovation. If Martha could make love to a man with a photo of his dead wife in his wallet, she can make love to another man with a photo of her dead husband on the mantelpiece. She takes his hand and they’re about to head inside when a taxi pulls up in front of Teresa and Marco’s place. The driver removes a suitcase from the boot and a woman gets out, in her sixties, but with a walk that most women seem to leave behind in their forties, and it’s not until she’s dragging the bag towards them that it hits Martha. She feels Ewan flinch, not realising until then that her fingers are digging into his arm.

  ‘Martha?’ he asks.

  And then she’s here on Martha’s verandah and under the harsh light she looks older. Grey coarse long hair and kohl-rimmed dark eyes. She begins talking at Martha and it’s rapid and blunt. Martha doesn’t understand a word, but she gets the nucleus of the conversation. With shaking hands she unlocks the door, steps aside and lets her in.

  ‘Rosanna!’

  It’s a raspy voice. Scraped out of a throat that’s smoked thousands of cigarettes in her lifetime. Martha hears the quick footsteps down the stairs, sees Rosie there with the baby in her arms. Stunned at first and then bawling. Rosie’s a silent crier, always has been, and she’s perfected the art of expressing gut-wrenching emotion without uttering a sound. And shit, she looks young. Martha watches as rough hands grab Rosie’s face, kissing her, grabbing the baby, who is staring wide-eyed at all the drama unfolding around him and then he’s laughing with glee because, whichever side he takes after, this kid will be attracted to bedlam. Rapid Sicilian bounces off the walls, and Rosie’s grabbing the suitcase, dragging it down the corridor, scratching the hell out of Martha’s floorboards, thump, thump, thumping all the way up the stairs while the woman wails out a song to the baby, who bucks to the beat of its mayhem.

  ‘What just happened?’ Ewan asks.

  Martha can’t respond for a moment. The woman’s emotion at the front door was potent and all she could understand were two names: Rosanna and Loredana.

  ‘Eugenia.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Seb’s mother-in-law.’

  ‘Staying in your house? Why?’

  Because Martha may be living on less than two hundred square metres, but Seb’s mother-in-law is going to make sure that Rosie gets her share.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think you staying is a good idea,’ she says.

  Ewan is still holding her hand and he gently pulls her closer. ‘How can sleeping with me under the same roof as your husband’s mother-in-law not be a good idea?’ he asks.

  She laughs because she’s about a microsecond away from crying.

  ‘Come home with me,’ he says. ‘You don’t need this shi
t.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘But thanks for asking.’

  The next morning Seb’s mother-in-law is in the kitchen, looking surprised to see Martha up so early as if it’s her home already and Martha’s the intruder. There’s another serving to be had from Eugenia, this time in a hissed, hushed voice.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Martha says, although she understands enough. They want her house.

  Seb’s mother-in-law is pointing upstairs, talking talking talking at Martha until furious tears well up in the older woman’s hard wild eyes.

  ‘It’s my house as well, Eugenia.’

  Eugenia doesn’t give a shit who else owns the house, she just keeps on talking until Martha has had enough and walks back into her bedroom, locking the door.

  Later, when she hears the front door slam and footsteps and banging against furniture, she ventures out again and sees Rosie and her baby in the kitchen. Martha can’t hold back any longer, even though there’s a smidgeon of guilt that it’s the happiest she has ever seen Rosie.

  ‘I’m not going to be bullied out of this house by your grandmother.’

  Rosie stares up at her, annoyed. Dismissive.

  ‘You’re a paranoid psycho, Martha. My nonna’s come to see Toto and me. It’s not always about you!’

  That night, Seb’s mother-in-law decides that upstairs is too confined for her and takes up residence in the kitchen. Not cooking, because Rosie tends to do that, but it’s where the older woman claps loud out-of-tune Sicilian songs to the baby, who crashes his Little Tikes SUV from one piece of furniture to another in time with the music.

  When Rosie leaves the next morning, Eugenia goes for another round with Martha, demanding something from her that Martha hasn’t quite worked out. To get out of the house? To sell? God forbid, to let them stay indefinitely? And as the days pass, Eugenia and her presence spreads from the kitchen to the living area where Toto, a Damien from The Omen child, has found more corners to crash into. Martha’s place of solace becomes the exact opposite while Eugenia’s power spills out onto Dalhousie Street. If she’s not talking to Marco and Teresa over the fence as though they’re long-lost friends, she’s taking Signora De Lorenzo from the house on the corner for a walk around the neighbourhood with Bruno the dog and Rosie sulking behind her with the pram. There’s bad blood between Rosie and Signora, but now that Eugenia’s here the procession passing Martha’s house looks like a Michelangelo Antonioni film, headed by a dog. Martha’s now familiar with his work after moving away from Romanian films to Italian existential cinema.

  ‘Martha,’ Teresa calls out. ‘Come over for a coffee tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ve got a lot on my plate, Teresa,’ Martha says, her tone brisk. Her neighbour looks a bit taken aback. Martha doesn’t care because it should be Teresa who feels guilty. Martha was her friend first, not Eugenia.

  Four nights into Eugenia’s reign on Dalhousie Street, Martha needs space and finds herself driving to Ewan’s townhouse in Drummoyne.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks when he opens the door to her, and Martha wonders when kindness became an aphrodisiac. If it’s an age thing, she’ll embrace it with open arms. She’s comforted to know that she does have a place to go, because tonight she doesn’t want to be sleeping in her house. She’s about to let him know he’s going to get lucky, when she sees the wheelchair out on the back verandah.

  ‘Your dad’s here,’ she says.

  He nods. ‘We packed up his things and I’m moving him over to the nursing home tomorrow.’

  ‘How’s Julia taking it?’ she asks.

  ‘The kids are upset.’ He nods, and she can see he’s trying to contain himself. His eyes well up. ‘John played a big part in them coming to live with Jules and Alana and we don’t think they understand most of this.’

  ‘They’ve come out of the system. They probably understand more than you think.’

  He steps back, inviting her in.

  She shakes her head. ‘You need to be with your dad.’

  Sophie’s husband George is kind enough to sleep in the spare room, and lying beside her reminds Martha of being thirteen when they’d have sleepovers and talk about the evil Julia Healy and Elizabeth King.

  ‘Why did we hate them so much in first form?’ Sophie asks.

  ‘Because they were racist bitches back then. Remember, Elizabeth called you Sophie Souvlaki and me SS Martha.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Do you think Elizabeth’s punishment is the weirdo daughter?’ Martha asks.

  ‘I think bad karma’s visited her more than once.’

  Back in the nineties, Elizabeth King was the girl most likely to run the country, and married a banker from the UK who worked in futures. Martha was long out of their lives by then, but Sophie had been invited to one of the couple’s extravaganzas and, even though Sophie was a party girl back then, she opted out of going to any others. ‘Another world,’ she had told Martha. ‘A bad one.’ In 2000, Elizabeth’s husband seemed to drop off the radar and Sophie and Martha had speculated about what happened to him over the years. No one seemed to know. Whatever the truth, it forced Elizabeth back into her parents’ home in Croydon with two young kids, working as a buyer for DJs.

  ‘I think Elizabeth wants Louise to join the team,’ Sophie says.

  ‘That’ll bring a burst of joy to our lives.’

  Sophie takes the remote from her. ‘Gilmore Girls or Breaking Bad?’

  ‘They’re our options? No one in between Lorelai and Walter?’

  Scarlett gets into bed with them and they watch a collection of one-minute films she’s made using an app on her mum’s phone. Martha’s favourite belongs to the horror genre, starring the family cavalier, and it makes her laugh until she has tears in her eyes. Another reason she loves Sophie. Despite waiting forever, Sophie and George managed to produce one of Martha’s favourite people of all time.

  ‘If anyone ever calls this one Scarlett Souvlaki, I’ll smash them in the face,’ she tells Sophie.

  ‘That’s such a lovely thing to say, Martha.’

  She gets home the next day at midday and within minutes Teresa is out front.

  ‘Can we talk, Martha?’

  Martha bristles. ‘I don’t know what Eugenia’s been telling you, Teresa, but it’s no one’s business except Rosie’s and mine.’

  Teresa’s usually animated face looks pained. ‘This is hard for me, Martha, but it has to be done. So let me translate and I promise I’ll go back inside my house and not interfere again.’

  Martha’s front door opens and Eugenia is there, barking out demands to Teresa for translation. There’s contempt in Seb’s mother-in-law’s eyes that Martha doesn’t recognise from any of that generation. Her own mother and Alana’s and Sophie’s were strict, but devoted and warm. Seb had alluded to his mother-in-law’s reputation in their neighbourhood, but he respected her. She lacked hypocrisy and malice, but he warned that he wouldn’t want to cross her.

  ‘Eugenia wants Rosie –’

  Martha cuts her off. ‘I’ve lived next door to you for six years, Teresa, and you’ve seen how much work I’ve done on this house. So for you to come to my house and take their side …’

  Teresa is close to tears.

  ‘It’s not what you think, Martha. And I really didn’t want to do this at your front door, but Eugenia’s come a long way and I respect that. She’s lost a mother, a daughter and two sisters to cancer and she can’t seem to convince Rosie to have a check-up because Rosie won’t be told anything these days. Eugenia wants you to take her granddaughter to the breast clinic to make sure everything’s okay, because if something happens to Rosie they’ll have to put Eugenia in the ground with her.’

  Martha feels Eugenia’s stare. Meets it.

  ‘She knows it’s how you lost your mother and that you’d understand,’ Teresa adds.

  Martha nods, because she can’t speak, and then Teresa is embracing her and Martha doesn’t want to let go.

  ‘Marco a
nd I are worried about you, bella.’

  With the arrival of Eugenia, the ghost of her daughter Loredana joins Lotte in waking Martha up in the morning.

  Forza, Marta.

  Martha has never sensed Loredana in this house before, but she’s imagined her languorous walk down Dalhousie chatting to every second person outside their home, as they watered their plants or collected their mail. That husky strong accent attracting the foreigners, the rapid musical dialect comforting the old-timers. Seb and Loredana may have been on their own out here, but the upside was that it freed them from the angst most people in this neighbourhood had at the hands of in-laws and relatives. In the cancer ward Loredana had been indifferent to Martha, but she bewitched Lotte, with her charisma and disregard for hospital rules, even when they were dying. More than once, Martha would find them giggling together. She was jealous of that, maybe more than the fact that Loredana was Seb’s first wife. And here they both are in Martha’s ear, and together they are a force to be reckoned with.

  So she ventures outside to the beyond. Finds Seb’s mother-in-law hacking at the triffids. When Eugenia sees Martha, she calls out, explaining what needs to be done. Not that Martha understands a word, but it’s all in the tone and gestures. Eugenia holds out the sickle.

  Forza, Marta.

  And it’s how Martha and Seb’s mother-in-law spend their days. Hacking at years of failed gardening and talking to each other in a language that the other doesn’t understand. Once or twice Rosie watches them suspiciously from her window and Eugenia murmurs something to Martha.

  ‘Yes, what a little shit,’ Martha says in return and Eugenia laughs as if she knows exactly what Martha said.

  He misses driving. Not like he does with the dump trucks at the mines. Back in Sydney he’s at the mercy of public transport and other people’s timetables, when all he wants to do is get in a car and see Toto. Maybe her as well. To have the freedom of taking them places. But if he thinks of driving, it’ll remind him of the car and those never-ending highways up north. The temptations they presented.