The Place on Dalhousie

by Melina Marchetta

  And this time Martha responds.

  Jimmy’s worlds collide in the bakery section at Coles in Leichhardt while Toto’s enjoying a ride in the trolley and Rosie’s analysing use-by dates.

  Frankie’s there. Studying the ingredients of the pull-apart cheese and bacon bread, and for a moment he contemplates walking past, but she sees him. Smiles with surprise at first, delight when she sees Toto. And then Rosie. Jimmy’s supposed to introduce them. He knows that, but he doesn’t. He’s sure it’s as simple as, ‘Frankie, this is Rosie.’

  But he doesn’t say a word.

  ‘I’m Francesca,’ she says.

  ‘Rosie.’

  He figures it’s Italian instinct that has them kissing each other on both cheeks. Coldly. Politely.

  Frankie takes Toto’s hand next. ‘Ciao-ciao, tesoro.’

  And then she glances up at Jimmy.

  ‘I’ll see you around.’

  He got it wrong. Cold and polite wasn’t meant for Rosie. It was meant for him.

  The dog-food aisle proves to be worse than the bakery section. Rosie puts in the same ingredient analysis for Bruno as she does for them.

  ‘Are you embarrassed about being with me?’ she finally asks.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No.’ He’s angry that she even thinks it.

  ‘You didn’t even introduce us. She had to do it.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s my best mate and I don’t keep –’

  ‘Secrets. So being with me is a secret?’

  He wants to say that being with her and Toto means everything to him and that he knows that, because he spends a week away from them and the loneliness eats away at him as if he’s been away a year.

  But he doesn’t say a word.

  At netball, Rosie wants him to keep an eye on Toto while she’s playing. They’re surrounded by girls and women, thousands of them. Even Toto is fascinated, leaning forward in his pram, peering out at the world with a crease of confusion in his brow, as if he’s already worked out that the opposite sex is strange and colourful and animated and loud.

  ‘When’s your game?’ he asks Rosie as they walk between a couple of courts.

  ‘2.30.’

  ‘Then why are we here so early?’

  ‘Because Scarlett and Marley are playing!’

  He’s worked out that they’re the children of a couple of the women, but doesn’t need to be told in a tone that says, dickhead, how did you not know that?

  And nothing intimidates Jimmy as much as Martha and those mothers watching the Under 8s Dolphin team. Rosie’s one of them. ‘GET IN THE CIRCLE, MARLEY!’ This Rosie is an alien that Jimmy and Toto haven’t met before. ‘SHOOT! SHOOT, SCARLETT!’ Maybe that’s Martha voice, because Jimmy can’t differentiate between them anymore. They belong to the animal kingdom of netball mothers and associates. Tears in most of their eyes when Marley gets a shot in, but Jimmy understands. Because the look on the kid’s face, when she looks over at both her mums, is priceless.

  Mackee approaches with Anabel and a girl named Fern, who’s about six feet tall with a lot of braids and different team colours. They’ve just started going out together. Fern smiles when Anabel tells Jimmy that. In a way that maybe Rosie would smile if Jimmy told everyone that they were sort of going out together. Or sleeping together. After having a baby together. Fern has to ref a game, so Anabel sticks around with Jimmy and Mackee, and then Alana joins them because her brother is one of Aunt Georgie’s best friends.

  Jimmy likes being a netball bystander. When he’s forced to watch a League game with Will or Mackee, they talk about the players and the ref and the odds and their footy tipping. But here, Jimmy’s fascination for other people’s lives is rewarded. Today he gets the inside story of the Anabel and Fern dilemma. Fern’s parents are in denial about her going out with a girl, whereas the Mackees are accepting. The problem, however, lies with the Mackees. Anabel’s fear of being told by her school that she can’t take Fern to her Year Twelve formal is surpassed by the fear that her parents will protest and make it a big deal.

  ‘But it is a big deal,’ Jimmy says.

  ‘But not theirs. Ours,’ Anabel says.

  Alana sees herself as an expert on the topic because she’s a school principal and a lesbian. Her belief is that there’ll be no directive from the principal of Anabel’s school about who to take to a school formal. And in the space of an Under 8s netball game, Jimmy has a discussion about being teenage and lesbian, listens to Alana interrogate Tom about his teaching credentials, learns more about the family history of the Charbels and the Finch-Mackees and accepts that he will never understand team sport.

  ‘I’m going to grab a couple of sausage rolls for the kids,’ Alana says. She tells Mackee to come along with her.

  ‘Which one’s Toto’s mum?’ Anabel asks Jimmy.

  Jimmy points.

  ‘Yeah, that figures.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It just does. I like her hair. Where did you meet?’

  ‘In a flood. You?’

  ‘Here,’ Anabel says. ‘We played each other’s team on the first game of the season and during a toss up, our eyes sort of met.’

  ‘That’s pretty romantic.’

  ‘Yeah, so’s meeting the mother of your child during a catastrophic event.’

  The final whistle blows and Anabel’s on her feet. ‘See you next week.’

  And Jimmy hopes he does.

  Mackee returns with a sausage in a bread roll, looking relaxed and pleased with himself.

  ‘I think I just got offered a job,’ he says.

  Jimmy decides to go see Frankie down at the Union during one of her breaks.

  ‘It’s like you didn’t want us to meet,’ she says, putting a beer on a coaster in front of him and sitting down. ‘As if I wouldn’t be interested in meeting Toto’s mother.’

  Jimmy wants to channel Anabel Mackee and tell everyone that he’s going out with Rosie.

  ‘I’ve been staying there at night.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘We’re sleeping together.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’ she asks, and he feels irritated by her expression, but feels vindicated because this is the exact reason he didn’t introduce her to Rosie.

  ‘In what way wouldn’t it be a good idea?’ he asks.

  ‘She’s Toto’s mother, so when you break up it’ll have big consequences, Jimmy.’

  ‘Why would you instantly think we’ll break up?’

  ‘I’ve never got a sense you were interested in a relationship, so just make sure you don’t feel forced into this one.’

  ‘She’s not forcing me into anything!’

  ‘I didn’t say she was,’ Frankie says. ‘It’s you who might be doing the forcing on yourself.’

  They’re interrupted by one of the bar staff who wants Frankie to sign off on something. Jimmy waits until the guy’s out of earshot.

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at, Frankie.’ His tone is a lot more hostile than he intends.

  ‘Are you interested in her because she’s Toto’s mum or is it something deeper?’ Frankie asks. ‘Because you need to make sure you’re not getting the two confused.’

  ‘Why are you getting aggro, Frankie?’

  He can see the hurt in her expression, but he can’t stop feeling pissed off at her.

  ‘I’m not getting aggro,’ she says. ‘You are!’

  ‘No, mate. You are!’

  There’s ice in her stare. ‘Maybe I’ll be shitty if you walk away from Toto.’

  ‘I would never walk away from him.’

  ‘You haven’t been given a reason to walk away. Yet. A broken relationship would be a reason.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ she says. ‘Because it’s what you do, Jimmy. After your pop died we didn’t see you for a year. A year. And then you came back and nicked off again.’

  �
��You’re the one who told me to go looking for my mum, Frankie!’

  ‘Yes, and when that didn’t work out, you kept on going, and another two years went by and we didn’t see you! But this isn’t about us, Jimmy. It’s about Toto. Because if things don’t work out again, you can’t go looking for yourself.’

  ‘Thank you for reducing my life to a cliché.’ He sculls his beer and stands up.

  ‘I bet Mackee didn’t get a lecture when he decided to bail out on us all those years ago!’

  ‘You weren’t here,’ she says. ‘So you have no idea how hard it was for Tom, and Tom has no idea how hard it was for you. You guys are so slack and we do all the work. Siobhan lives on the other side of the fucking world and she checks in, and so does Justine. But you guys fall to pieces and don’t give us another thought. Well, you can’t do that when you’ve got a kid. That’s a game changer. That’s all I’m saying.’

  She’s crying now and he feels like shit, but he’s angry at the same time.

  ‘My mother’s depression screwed me up for such a long time, Jimmy. And it was out of her control. But I’ll never forget it. That little boy needs you, no matter what.’

  Jimmy has to get out of there, so he walks out without saying goodbye.

  He’s got laundry to collect from Mackee and Tara’s, so he heads over to Petersham. Tara’s home, and if she’s been given a Frankie update she doesn’t let on.

  Jimmy asks her for a bag to put his clean clothes in. She hands him a canvas one and he heads outside to the laundry.

  ‘Need help?’ she says, following him out.

  ‘I don’t appreciate someone telling me how to live my life,’ he says to her, because he’s bursting to say something.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Or having an opinion on who I am and what I should be doing and what my responsibility is. And that’s what Frankie did today, and she was out of line!’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ she says. ‘I have the Mackees and they’re like that with Tom. So you have to make a choice. Accept it and be subject to it for the rest of your life, or walk away. Because you can’t have the watered-down version of family, Jimmy. Not with Tom and Frankie.’

  She overhears Martha telling the netball women that her mother Lotte’s voice wakes her up each morning. Everyone seems to have dead-mother stories, except for Rosie.

  What she’s sure about is that she’s not going to wait for any gangster cancer to win. Decides to go for the blood test, to work out if she’s got the BRCA mutant gene. If this thing’s coming after her, Rosie’s going to get to it first. And because she doesn’t want to ask Martha again, or do it alone, she calls Yolanda.

  ‘It’s a blood test,’ Rosie tells her in the waiting room.

  ‘Do you want me to go in with you?’

  ‘No, just sit out here with me and then we can go for a coffee and muffin after.’

  ‘Too easy.’

  Yolanda flicks through a magazine. Shows Rosie a picture of some reality star in a bikini.

  ‘Fake boobs,’ she says, but then realises what she’s said. ‘Sorry I mentioned the boobs.’

  ‘Why? Mine aren’t going anywhere.’

  And then they’re laughing. Yolanda takes Rosie’s hand and gives it a squeeze and goes in with her, after all.

  When she gets home, Jimmy’s waiting on the doorstep and they go across the road to pick up Toto from Signora and then head back to the house.

  Upstairs, she runs a bath for Toto and figures she should tell Jimmy about the BRCA mutant thing, because she doesn’t want to be like Martha. Jimmy listens intently, nodding, and then she sees his eyes water.

  ‘Don’t be a fucking crybaby, Jimmy.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he mutters. He picks up Toto from where he’s playing in his pen.

  ‘I’ll bathe him,’ he says.

  She lies on the bed and listens to their chattering. Toto’s found the perfect companion because Jimmy can chat for hours once he loses his inhibitions.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ Jimmy asks, when Toto’s dressed in his trackies.

  ‘Anywhere.’

  What she almost says is ‘anywhere with you and Toto’, but she doesn’t want to come across needy, especially since he didn’t introduce her to his best friend. They put a hoodie on Toto because the weather’s still unpredictable and head towards the bus stop. Jimmy takes her hand, like he always does when they cross the road.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she says, because he’s squeezing so hard. He lets go, but she takes his hand again, and he presses his lips to it. They head into Chinatown for dinner and a stroll because Rosie likes the colour and the crowd and then, on the tram trip home, while Toto sleeps in his arms, they just pash the whole time.

  Back in the kitchen later that night, she grounds the beans for coffee, and Jimmy tells her that he’s got an interview with the paramedics.

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ she asks, setting the caffettiera on the stove. Toto has refused to settle down and he’s banging at the laundry cupboard where he knows his toys are.

  Jimmy doesn’t respond and she looks over at him, wanting to see his expression.

  ‘You’re going for that interview, Jimmy,’ she says.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘No maybes.’

  ‘The mines pay better than any other job I’ll get with no qualifications, Rosie.’

  ‘You don’t want to work for the mines. You want to be a paramedic.’

  ‘I just want to look after you and Toto.’

  His phone rings. He looks surprised because it’s after ten.

  ‘Yes, this is him,’ he says, picking up Toto, who is clinging to his legs. Jimmy takes him out to the backyard. Rosie’s curious about who’s on the phone, but isn’t sure how much of it’s her business. Wonders if it’s about his mother, or his father. The coffee percolates and she pours him a cup and gets him one of Signora’s almond biscuits. By the time he’s back inside, his cheeks are flushed with excitement.

  ‘That was the cops in Rockhampton,’ he says. ‘They found the fricken Monaro.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Yeah. They picked up a guy just outside town for speeding, and ran the plates.’

  There’s the sound of the front door opening. Rosie knows Martha won’t go straight to her room because Jimmy’s here.

  ‘We’re celebrating,’ Jimmy calls out. Toto gives her a ‘Marta’ shout just in case they all forget his growing obsession with her. Bruno joins in the adoration, jumping all over her as if Rosie hasn’t shown him affection for years.

  Martha joins them in the kitchen. Puts down her handbag and takes off her jacket and shoes. ‘You’ve got into the paramedics?’ she asks.

  ‘No. They found my Monaro.’

  Martha looks taken aback. ‘You lost a Monaro?’

  ‘Stolen.’

  Rosie thinks it’s funny that Martha has the same reaction as she did.

  ‘It’s how I met Rosie.’

  ‘When Jimmy met Rosie with a Monaro thrown in,’ Martha says. ‘Seb would have loved that.’ She points to the caffettiera for permission, but doesn’t even wait for Rosie’s response.

  ‘My mum would have loved it,’ Rosie corrects.

  ‘True.’

  Jimmy’s hyper and Rosie likes seeing him this way. He can’t sit still. Grabs his phone and begins to text.

  ‘Toto will love it,’ he says, crouching to hug him. ‘We’re going to have to get a car seat. A proper one.’ He’s up, hugging Rosie next and his arms are trembling. Jimmy had never gone into how much the car meant to him.

  ‘I’ve spent the past six months totally avoiding Catherine Street,’ he says. ‘’Cause I didn’t want to bump into the guy who sold it to me. He would have been cut knowing it was stolen.’

  The microwave makes a ding sound at the same time the ding goes off in Rosie’s head. And Martha’s. Their eyes meet.

  ‘Who sold it to you, Jimmy?’ Martha says.

  ‘A guy with an accent,’ Rosie answers
for him and she hurries to Martha’s room where she knows there’s a photo of her dad. Back in the kitchen, she shows it to Jimmy. This time it’s her hand shaking.

  Jimmy studies it and Rosie can hardly breathe, because it’s all there in his expression.

  ‘You met Seb,’ Martha says.

  And the three of them can’t find the words.

  ‘Dadda.’

  But Toto does.

  Jimmy crouches down again, holds him close and Rosie can see that he’s overcome.

  ‘My dad kept the car at work after my mum died,’ Rosie says. ‘Wouldn’t sell it for years. I thought he was keeping it for me … because it belonged to her.’

  ‘Why would he go and sell it then?’ Jimmy asks.

  And her eyes meet Martha’s again. Rosie can’t recall the exact words she spoke that day, but she remembers her rage. After that, she moved out with Luke the deadbeat and hardly saw her father for the rest of that year. Rest of his life. She blamed Martha for that.

  ‘We had spent too much on legal fees,’ Martha finally says. ‘Challenging the council to let us build upstairs. The irony was that we won but didn’t have enough money to finish it.’

  She points up the stairs.

  ‘That’s what the Monaro paid for.’

  Rosie and Toto’s attic.

  She lies awake for most of the night. Tomorrow, Jimmy’s going to fly back to work and in a week’s time he’ll hitch a ride to Rockhampton with one of his workmates and pick up the car. And it’s at about three in the morning that Rosie knows she needs to travel back to Sydney with him and Toto in her mother’s car. Sort of a pilgrimage. She shakes him awake.

  ‘Can you lend me money for a ticket to Rockhampton?’ she asks.

  He turns to her and they’re so close, she feels his breath on her face.

  ‘Are you and me together?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’