The Place on Dalhousie

by Melina Marchetta

  Rosie explains, her face smarting from the humiliation of having to reveal that she ever went out with a Luke-type.

  ‘Not the baby daddy?’

  Rosie shakes her head. ‘And I’m not asking him because he’ll give me the money and there’s just not that much dignity left in the tank.’

  ‘Have you got enough for rent?’ Tess asks, removing a coffee cup her daughter Aurora found in the sand.

  ‘I don’t pay rent,’ Rosie says.

  ‘Well, there’s a positive,’ Yolanda says. ‘Because –’

  Rosie’s had enough. She grabs her stuff and picks up Toto. ‘Let me guess, Yolanda. You pay a shitload of rent or a mortgage, so I’m a whinger?’

  ‘All I meant, Rosie, is thank God there’s a positive in your life.’

  ‘I can lend –’

  ‘Don’t,’ Rosie says, cutting off Tess. ‘I’ll see you whenever.’

  And Rosie figures she won’t turn up again. Too much humiliation.

  At home, Eugenia’s working with Martha on the garden. They both notice Rosie and she watches them exchange a look. Feels betrayed. Like she did that time her father married Martha eleven months after her mum died. Even more, because Eugenia’s not one to be charmed, yet here she is every day digging up the garden with the enemy.

  Martha approaches. ‘Can we talk?’ she asks. Rosie can see her eyeing the way Toto’s stomping on the flowerbed.

  ‘What about? The fact that you’re selling my house?’

  Martha walks over to Toto and takes his hand.

  ‘Don’t touch him.’

  ‘He’s eating dirt, Rosie.’

  Rosie grabs Toto from her.

  ‘And if you bring another agent through the house, I’ll trash it.’

  Martha looks pissed off. Rosie likes the fact that she can still push her buttons.

  ‘What are the options, Rosie?’

  ‘You move out. That’s a great option.’

  ‘This is my house as much as yours. And there’s a mortgage, remember.’

  Rosie walks inside with Toto, but Martha follows her.

  ‘Eugenia wants you to have a breast check, Rosie.’

  Rosie feels her pulse going haywire. Even Toto reacts to it, his mouth beginning to quiver. She storms up the stairs wanting to shut the door on everyone.

  ‘Eugenia’s asked me to make an appointment for you to see –’

  ‘I don’t need you to do anything for me, Martha!’

  It’s for peace of mind, Rosie. I know how you feel.’

  ‘You and I have nothing in common, so don’t say that again.’

  Toto’s squirming in her arms because he wants to stay downstairs with the martyr and Eugenia the traitor.

  ‘How about mothers with cancer, Rosie? Don’t we have that in common?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You saw them,’ Martha says. ‘In the same ward and they had the same cancer and they died the same week. How can that not be something in common?’

  Martha has followed her up and Rosie wants to shove her down the stairs.

  ‘I’m not bonding with you over dead mothers, Martha.’

  ‘You father would have wanted you to do this.’

  ‘Since when do you care what my father wanted for me?’ Rosie shouts at her.

  ‘Go for the check-up and put your mind at ease. Loredana –’

  ‘Stop talking about my mother.’

  ‘Rosie, she’d want you taking care of yourself. Toto’s going to –’

  ‘Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.’ And Toto’s crying and hitting Rosie and she wants to smash something and Eugenia’s coming up the stairs now and she’s grabbing Toto from Rosie and pushing him into Martha’s arms and then Eugenia’s taking Rosie’s face between her hands because Rosie can’t stop shouting and crying, because she’s forgetting what her mum looked like and no one has a photo except Luke the arsehole who won’t let her get to her stuff and then she’s yelling because they won’t give Toto back to her. Just yelling, ‘I hate you!’ And then Jimmy’s there. Rosie doesn’t remember him arriving, but suddenly he’s at the top of the stairs. He’s SES Jesus from the flood, looking calm as he leans over and takes Toto from Martha, his eyes on Rosie the entire time.

  ‘I’ve borrowed a car,’ he says to her. ‘Do you want to go for a drive?’

  She hasn’t sat in the front seat of a car for a long time. Her best memories come from being in her mother’s car. She misses the talks and the dialect. Always the dialect. Her dad’s as well. At home they rarely spoke English. It made Rosie an outsider from the beginning. No preschool, so kindy was a shock. Seb and Loredana hadn’t warned her that the rest of the world spoke a different language. It was a tough lesson to learn when she was five. But there were tougher ones to come.

  She looks over at Jimmy. He hasn’t shut up the whole time and she can’t understand how that’s a comfort, but it reminds her of SES Jesus again. Because up until now, here in Sydney, something has silenced him. Maybe two years of loneliness. He’s talking about the paramedics and how he’s got to the next phase of an application, and how it was Kev who put the idea in his head after the flood, and then he brings up the Monaro. She remembers that he told her back then that the guy who sold it to him had promised it would lead Jimmy to his family.

  ‘You haven’t spoken about your father?’ she says. ‘How did that work out?’

  ‘It wasn’t so bad,’ he says. ‘He’s a sweet guy but his idea of bonding was punching a couple of cones or getting pissed, and it’s pretty much all we did.’

  ‘On a good behaviour bond?’

  ‘On a good behaviour bond,’ he says with a laugh. ‘So my choices were: don’t break the law, or hang out with my father who I had just met.’

  She feels for him. Because she knew how important it was for him not to stuff up back then. But she also knew he was on that odyssey to find his family.

  ‘I headed further north,’ he says. ‘Up to the Burdekin, and learnt how to drive a harvester, and from there I met a couple of guys who had jobs in the mines.’

  He glances at her. ‘But I’d like to see him again,’ he says. ‘My dad.’

  ‘Does it feel like home?’ she asks. ‘Here?’

  He thinks and then nods. ‘You?’

  She doesn’t know how to answer, but tries.

  ‘It feels like a very unwelcoming home sometimes. But I don’t want to live anywhere else. It’s like …’

  ‘Go on,’ he says, when she doesn’t finish. But what she wants to say sounds crazy.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Apart from when I was a baby I never lived anywhere else with my parents. So I’m scared that if I leave, they won’t know where to find me if they come back.’

  They drive to Balmain and catch a ferry. On board, Jimmy holds Toto tight because Toto seems as though he wants to leap into the beauty of it all. When they get off at Circular Quay, the stench from Toto’s nappy is gag-worthy.

  ‘I didn’t bring anything with me,’ she says.

  ‘Plenty of people with prams,’ he says, looking around.

  He approaches a couple with a baby Toto’s age and starts chatting with them, pointing back to her and Toto. And then he returns with a nappy and some wipes.

  ‘Too easy.’

  Although it’s cold and the sun’s going down, they sit on the concourse and look out at the bridge with Toto wrapped up in Jimmy’s hoodie.

  ‘Where was he born?’ he asks, pressing a kiss to Toto’s padded head.

  ‘Newcastle.’

  ‘How come there?’

  If Lachlan were to ask Rosie the same question she’d lie. She’d tell him that she liked the people of the city and that it was great being close to the beach. But she doesn’t have to impress Jimmy. He’s not a potential boyfriend and he’d pick the lie anyway.

  ‘I’d run out of money by the time I arrived there so I got temp work at a nursing home,’ she says. ‘Then I found out I was pregnant and they let me board. It didn’t make sen
se to go anywhere else.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘The job? Not really. The nursing home was sort of a miserable place. After Toto was born I had to move out and I ended up staying in the granny flat of someone related to one of the old people I took care of. So at least something good came out of working there.’

  He holds out a hand to her. ‘Let’s walk.’

  They stroll around the concourse as if they’re tourists. Once or twice she catches him looking at her and she can’t be bothered pretending that he isn’t. Toto wants out of the pram and Jimmy removes him and places him on his shoulders. And Rosie is mesmerised by the sound of her son’s joy.

  While she’s lying in bed next to Eugenia that night, Lachlan rings. Wants to know if she’d like to come to a music festival at Moore Park. Rosie says yes as though she hasn’t a single responsibility in the world. Having Eugenia here is a godsend, but it’s meant that she’s living in two worlds. One with Toto in it and one without. She knows she has to make Toto part of what she has with Lachlan, but Rosie likes pretending that she can have it all. When she switches off the light, her nonna turns to face her.

  ‘Sei anamorata,’ Eugenia says, abruptly. She thinks Rosie’s in love.

  Eugenia may be intuitive, but she’s a bit premature on this one. Regardless, the topic of Lachlan is better than cancer. Or Martha. So she tells Eugenia about how they met when Lachlan helped her with her uni application. And that when she’s with his friends, it feels good to be part of a crowd. And how she envies them for just being able to pick up and head down the coast or go to a music festival in Byron on the spur of the moment. And how he lives at home and is the type to laugh at a text his mum sends him. Rosie can’t help thinking that maybe Eugenia is right in what she’s sensing. She may not be in love with him now, but she could see herself being one day.

  She feels Eugenia’s stare in the dark.

  ‘L’altro.’

  She means the other one.

  The phone beeps at six a.m. and her hand searches for it in the dark.

  Can your nanna look after the baby

  this morning?

  Yolanda.

  Rosie sends one back.

  When?

  Now.

  She’s confused. Wonders if something’s wrong with the baby and Yolanda’s got no one else to turn to. It feels good to be relied on.

  Okay. Where?

  I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.

  Tess is with Yolanda when they pull up in the hatchback.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Rosie asks at Yolanda’s window.

  ‘That arsehole with your stuff would have to be home at this time of the morning,’ Yolanda says. ‘Where does he live?’

  Rosie’s stunned. She’s not here to help them, but the other way around. ‘Maroubra.’

  ‘Get in.’

  ‘Take the City West Link,’ Tess says.

  It’s a good guess. If Luke’s going to be home at any time, it will be seven o’clock on a Sunday morning, sleeping off a hangover. He had no concept of having a good night without getting written off. When he opens the door and recognises Rosie, he slams it shut. Yolanda places a nice manicured finger on the doorbell and doesn’t let up. They can hear someone shouting, ‘What the fuck!’ from inside and Rosie figures they’ve woken up the housemates. Luke opens the door again.

  ‘Get your finger off the doorbell,’ he tells Yolanda.

  ‘What, this one?’ she asks, holding up her middle finger. He tries to have a stare-off with Yolanda, but he must remind her of every irritating dickhead she’s taught, because she’s unfazed.

  ‘Where’s the key to the shed?’ Rosie asks.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Are you deaf or stupid, Rosie?’

  ‘Watch your tone,’ Tess says.

  ‘Or what?’

  Tess puts her finger on the doorbell and there’s more yelling from inside.

  ‘I don’t have the key!’

  ‘Then it’s a good thing we’ve got boltcutters in the car,’ Tess says, removing her finger and walking away. Rosie doesn’t know whether she’s bluffing, but Tess is heading for the car and Yolanda and Rosie follow.

  ‘I’m presuming you don’t have boltcutters,’ she says to Tess.

  ‘Of course I’ve got boltcutters. You said the shed was padlocked.’

  Breaking a padlock isn’t as simple as it looks in the movies, but the three of them take turns until finally the lock cracks and Rosie pushes the door forward. Inside there’s a rank smell and she hears Tess make a gagging sound. She searches for the light and there’s a sound behind them. Luke’s at the shed door with one of his housemates. Rosie doesn’t recognise him, but her ex-boyfriend’s not the type to hold on to friendships for too long so it could be a relatively new arrangement. She feels intimidated and doesn’t want to look at the others, in case they feel the same.

  ‘Which are yours?’ Tess asks. Rosie points to a couple of grey suitcases with brown trim, a small part of her parents’ past. It was the luggage they used when they left Sicily twenty-three years ago, obviously not purchased new because they look like relics. Yolanda and Tess help her drag them out from under a couple of broken heaters and the rusty carcass of a bike.

  And that’s how simple it is in the end. Taking on Luke with the rejects of a mothers’ group. Eighty points. An extra twenty for the Nissan Micra with a car seat. There’s a bit of manoeuvring but they manage to squeeze in the luggage with Rosie in the back. Yolanda starts the ignition, but doesn’t drive off just yet.

  ‘That first time at mothers’ group, I told my husband that you were a Lebanese girl with attitude,’ Yolanda says, catching her eye in the mirror.

  ‘I thought she was Greek,’ Tess says. ‘You all look the same to me.’

  Rosie starts laughing and doesn’t stop until she’s crying, clutching onto the side of the suitcase that still has a luggage tag from Palermo airport, written in her mother’s handwriting.

  Tess turns around. ‘Let’s rob a bank next time.’

  That afternoon she’s dancing to Diplo at the Parklife festival. And in the middle of the crowd, when Lachlan says, ‘I don’t know whether I feel like a beer just yet,’ she looks up at his earnest face and realises the truth. That she can’t be with someone who hesitates. Who might be able to get top marks for wages, enterprise and land capital, but can’t really think on his feet. And she doesn’t blame him. Because he’s decent and lovely and funny, and it makes her sad, because by going out with him she got a glimpse of what she was missing out on. Except Rosie can’t afford those glimpses. She needs to steer clear of them because they’ll force her into mistakes, and having Toto means she can’t make as many as Lachlan. Too much collateral damage. In another life she could wait for Lachlan to grow up and be responsible for something other than setting the table at six p.m. or passing an exam. But Rosie needs a functional guy and when she applies the hundred points of ID to Lachlan, he only gets as far as forty.

  L’altro. The other one.

  SES Jesus had the advantage of meeting Rosie during a natural disaster and carrying Miss Fricker in his arms through floodwaters, wearing his budgie smugglers.

  Lachlan never stood a chance, poor bastard.

  She hands in her paperwork and gets her shifts at the nursing home. It’s a beautiful place with water views and people who seem happy. Both those there and those who visit them. Martha’s boyfriend, or whatever he is, walks his dad around the grounds.

  ‘Hi, Rosie,’ he says. ‘Thanks for the recommendation.’

  And Rosie’s overwhelmed by the thought that she can influence someone about something so profound in their lives.

  ‘I’ve got to head off soon, Dad,’ he says, introducing them, and then, ‘Rosie will take care of you.’

  John Healy’s worried. He tells Rosie that he has to pick his kids up from school. ‘I don’t like the look of this weather,’ he says.

  Rosie eyes Martha’
s boyfriend and takes his father’s arm.

  ‘You know what I reckon, John,’ she says, heading back to his room. ‘Your kids are going to be fine.’

  Martha owes it to Lloyd Cole. Not that she and Ewan planned to be at his concert together. She’s there with Sophie and he’s with Alana and in the crowded foyer of the Enmore their eyes meet, and that boyish smile is charming the pants off her.

  ‘So you’re dating your sister’s partner, are you?’ she asks, buying him a beer at the bar while Alana and Sophie disappear into the crowd, because there’s always someone they know at these things. He’s wearing one of those newsboy caps and pulls off the look a thousand times better than she would have imagined. Despite the sacking and the marriage break-up and his father’s deterioration, Ewan Healy is a man very comfortable in his skin. It’s the first time he reminds her of Seb.

  ‘Hiding the receding hairline is my forte,’ he says after she removes his hat and ruffles what’s left of his hair.

  She winks at him. ‘Not your only one.’

  He leans closer to her. ‘Really. I’m blushing.’

  ‘You actually are,’ she laughs.

  Alana returns and takes a sip of Ewan’s beer.

  ‘Why don’t you two just come out and put us out of our misery?’ she says.

  They don’t respond. It’s not that Martha wants to keep it a secret. It’s that she doesn’t quite know what she’s keeping a secret. Apart from the night of Charlie P’s funeral, they haven’t managed to get anything off the ground. Alana is watching them carefully. Martha can imagine the update she’s preparing for Julia.

  After the concert, Sophie and Alana go home to their families, leaving her with him. She doesn’t know whether it’s intentional, but she doesn’t question it. There’s something endearing about her hand being held as they cross Enmore Road, where they end up having Thai and laughing about how many times they would have bumped shoulders at gigs over the years without realising. Lucinda Williams at the State Theatre, The Church at the Opera House earlier that year. They worked out that back in 1986 they were at the same Midnight Oil gig at Selina’s and John Cougar Mellencamp in 1988 at the Entertainment Centre.