Only Clementine, in her usual chair at the end of the table and closest to the door, heard Miranda’s muttered answer.
‘But she can’t hear me, can she? And I’m sick of pretending she can.’
Clementine found Miranda out on the back verandah a little later. She was smoking and making no attempt to hide it.
‘Don’t get upset,’ Clementine said. ‘Dad’s just doing his best.’
‘She’s gone, Clem. She’s been gone for eight years but he won’t accept it.’
‘He still misses her.’
A flash of anger from Miranda. ‘And so do I. So would you if you remembered her better.’ If Miranda noticed Clementine’s expression she didn’t remark on it. ‘But when do we move on? Sometimes I think he enjoys it, you know. It’s like he’s been cast in a lead role as the eccentric brave father of five little motherless girls. You know what people call us, don’t you? “Those poor Faraday girls”. I had enough of it when she died and I’ve had enough of it now. I heard it again this week, in the pharmacy. “Is it any wonder that youngest one got pregnant, no mother to mind them, those poor Faraday girls”.’
‘Shut up, Miranda.’
‘I’m not attacking you or your baby, so don’t get up on your high horse and start galloping around. I’m just sick of being one of the poor Faraday girls, Clem. Do you know what I think? He’s secretly thrilled about you having this baby. He’d love us all to stay here forever, in a cocoon, living life by his rosters, carrying out Mum’s rituals at Christmas, at birthdays, at Easter. He treats those scrapbooks of hers like holy relics. He still talks about her as if she was alive. I want to say, “No, Dad, let’s remember that Mum is dead, that she is not coming back and she is not speaking to us through the supernatural medium of bits of coloured paper that she stuck into an old book two days before she —”’
‘Stop it, Miranda. Don’t talk about Mum like that. I like the rituals. I like living together like this. I like remembering Mum as often as we can. And those scrapbooks will be the only way my baby will know her. They’re important.’
Miranda didn’t speak. She stayed looking out over the verandah rail, lifted the cigarette to her lips, then moved it away again. They both watched the red glow of the tip move against the darkness of the garden. There was silence for a few minutes.
Miranda was glad it was Clementine who had followed her out. If Sadie had been there, she would have kept talking, reminding Miranda of how hard it had been for her, that she was the one who had been most in need of her mother at that time, just a few years away from becoming a teenager. Eliza, judgemental as usual, would have called Miranda a cold, self-serving cow. Juliet would have entreated Miranda to see it from everyone else’s point of view. Clementine always said what she felt needed to be said and left it there. She could calm Miranda down by her very presence.
Anyone who said there weren’t favourites between sisters didn’t have sisters, Miranda decided. Of course there were. The truth of it, though, was that the favourites changed constantly, the alliances shifting back and forth in some unspoken parody of a folk dance, two of them close for a time until a change in tempo forced them to break up and turn to different partners.
At any given time, Miranda was fighting with at least one of her sisters, sharing confidences with another and barely talking to another. There didn’t seem to be any real pattern to it either. Sometimes it all happened depending on who was first home from work or school, which sister got the first blast of post-work conversation that sometimes bred confidences or sometimes developed into a row. Five sisters, five different personalities too, regardless of how many times over the years people might have stopped their father and mother, gazed down at the girls in their school uniforms or smart Sunday clothes, and exclaimed how alike they all were, with their dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin. ‘You Faraday girls, you’re like peas in a pod.’
No, we’re not, Miranda had wanted to snap back for as long as she could remember. She started dying her hair red the moment she could afford to buy hair dye. In fact, she dyed it before she could afford it, begging samples from visiting representatives to the pharmacy.
Beside her on the verandah, Clementine shifted position. It gently interrupted Miranda’s reverie. She turned to her little sister. ‘I’m sorry, Clementine.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s just that I want more than this. Maybe I should move out. Before it’s my turn to do the washing again. I hate doing the washing.’
‘You hate doing everything except flirting and looking at yourself in the mirror.’
Miranda laughed. Her temper storms were always brief. She gathered her sister against her and kissed the top of her head. ‘Dear little Clemmie. And there I was thinking I’d pulled the wool over your eyes.’
‘Not for a minute, ever. Nor am I little. Or Clemmie. I’m Clementine, I’m about to be a mother of one, so I’m more mature emotionally and physically than you. Now get away from me. You stink of cigarette smoke.’
Miranda didn’t take offence. She popped a peppermint into her mouth, threw the cigarette butt into the garden and made an exaggerated gesture of straightening her shoulders and taking a deep breath. ‘Back into the fray we go, Clementine. You go first, so I can follow in your mature about-to-be-motherly wake.’
Clementine stopped, her face serious. ‘You won’t move out, Miranda, will you? It will change everything and I want my baby to know you all as much as he or she can.’
‘I’ll visit occasionally, even if I do move out. Fly in from Rio or some glamorous place I’ll soon be calling home.’
‘Don’t joke all the time. You keep this family together, you know that.’
‘No, I don’t.’ Miranda sighed. Her face was serious. ‘This family is kept together by gossamer threads, lies and memories, Clem. Nothing to do with me.’
‘Anyone home?’ Juliet called out as she opened the front door, took off her coat and hung it on top of the others on the rickety row of coathooks.
At least eight coats were always hanging there and no one ever seemed to wear them. It was like the shoe cupboard, full of shoes she never saw anyone wear either. Her fingers itched to have a big clean-up and throw everything out. Not just the clothes and shoes. The faded paintings. The threadbare rugs. Even the now-chipped blue-and-white crockery. It was out of the question, of course. It had all belonged to their mother’s mother in Ireland, shipped out with their other belongings when they first moved to Tasmania.
If their mother was alive, there would probably still have been a battle about getting rid of anything. It had been a source of mock-arguments between her parents: Leo wanting to buy new items, Tessa preferring the old, yet the irony was their father hadn’t thrown out a single thing since their mother died.
It had come as a shock to Juliet one day, four years earlier, when she hung up one of her father’s shirts in his wardrobe and discovered her mother’s dresses and cardigans still on the rack. She hadn’t mentioned it to the others. It played on her mind for days afterwards. Shouldn’t he have thrown them out long ago? Their mother had been dead for four years at that time. Surely he didn’t think she was coming back?
‘Anyone home?’ she called again.
She went into the kitchen and checked the roster. Her turn to cook dinner again. She spent all day cooking, she came home and kept cooking. She was too tired to do anything special. She decided on spaghetti bolognese, followed by bread and butter pudding.
She wondered where Miranda, Sadie and Eliza were. They hadn’t left any notes on the noticeboard. She knew that Clementine was out with David, on their weekly trip to the cinema. Since Clementine had announced her pregnancy four months earlier, she and David had met three times a week, regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Like old-fashioned dates, if you ignored the fact Clementine was very obviously pregnant and just as obviously very young. Juliet thought it was quite sweet. Like David himself.
‘Sweet?’ Miranda had said. ‘Sappy, more like it
. And he’s terrified of Clementine, if you ask me. Have you noticed he barely says a word when he’s here? Just stares at her.’
Juliet suspected it was Miranda that David was terrified of, even if she did secretly agree David was a bit of a sap. A very handsome one, though. If the baby was lucky, it would inherit David’s looks and Clementine’s composure. She’d always been wiser than her years. When her pregnancy started to show, they’d all had a conversation about how and what to tell people outside the family.
‘Just tell them that I’m having a baby,’ Clementine had said. ‘You don’t have to explain how it happened.’
Juliet had felt uncomfortable. She’d wanted to save Clementine from as much shame and gossip as she could. She also had a niggling feeling inside about how it would reflect on her; on all of Clementine’s sisters. Struggling to find the words, she’d been relieved when Clementine interrupted.
‘Juliet, I honestly don’t care what people think. It won’t change anything. I’m sorry if you’re embarrassed but I promise you don’t have to be on my behalf. Just tell anyone who asks that it was a big happy surprise and you couldn’t be more delighted.’
‘Or follow my lead, Juliet,’ Miranda said. ‘Tell everyone we woke up one night to find Clementine under a spotlight from a flying saucer being impregnated by aliens. And we can’t wait until the baby is born and we’ve got bets on whether it will have blue skin or scales. Honestly, it shuts people up.’
Juliet just marvelled at her sisters’ confidence, yet again. Some of it was to do with looks, she knew that. Clementine was very pretty, with her long dark hair and big eyes, but it was Miranda who was the family beauty. Feature by feature she wasn’t: her nose was too big, her skin a little too freckled, her hair was obviously dyed red and she was more gangly than elegant sometimes, but there was something about the way she presented herself that spelt style. If Juliet was to wear the same clothes as Miranda, she knew she’d feel ridiculous, like a little girl in dress-ups.
As for the other two… Juliet secretly thought Eliza would look better if she had a good haircut now and again rather than just pulling it back into that ponytail. It would also be nice if she wore something other than tracksuits occasionally. Sadie had quite a pretty face but she always seemed to look scruffy. She also changed hairstyles as often as she changed university courses. Her current permed look didn’t suit her at all.
Juliet knew she wasn’t cover girl material herself either. She was too round-faced and pink-cheeked.
The ABC news jingle played on the radio. Six o’clock. She’d better get a move on with the dinner. More haste, less speed. She’d seen that exact sentiment on a fridge magnet in the café that day. Her English-born bosses Mr and Mrs Stottington adored fridge magnets with pictures of kittens and soothing sayings. It’s nice to be important but it’s important to be nice was their current favourite.
Juliet had just started cooking the bolognese sauce when she heard the front door slam. Moments later, the kitchen door opened. Miranda and Sadie walked in. They were mid-fight.
‘Don’t even try to deny it, Sadie. I worry for your future, you know that? If you can’t even steal make-up from your sister without being so obvious about it, how are you going to get on in the big wide world?’
‘How dare you accuse me —’
‘I’m not accusing you, I’m stating a fact,’ Miranda snapped. ‘Just because you haven’t two pennies to rub together because you wouldn’t know work if it came up and bit you in the face doesn’t mean you can steal my hard-earned goods instead.’
‘Hard-earned goods? You get them all for free at work.’
‘I don’t get them for free. They are samples, rewards for my hard work.’
‘Rewards for something, at least.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Small town, Miranda, people talk.’
‘And what do they say, Sadie?’ Miranda had taken a small piece of skin on her sister’s arm and was twisting it tightly. The smile stayed in place, her voice was calm but there was a hard glint in her eyes. Juliet remained silent. It was a glint they all knew to avoid.
‘Jill’s brother works behind the bar in the hotel you always go to.’ It was the smartest hotel in the city, with a view over the waterfront. ‘He gets to hear and see all sorts of things.’ Sadie pulled away and rubbed at the spot. The colour was high on her cheeks.
‘Like what?’
‘Like married salesmen leading giggling shop assistants up to their rooms.’
‘And does he know for sure what goes on in those rooms or is he just a small-minded gossipy big mouth like someone in this kitchen?’
‘I’m just telling you what I heard.’
‘You didn’t defend me?’
‘How could I? I didn’t know the truth.’ Sadie was almost in tears.
‘You’ll pay for this.’ With that, Miranda turned on her heels. They heard the back door slam. Moments later the faint smell of cigarette smoke drifted in through the open kitchen window.
‘Don’t mind her, Sadie,’ Juliet said.
Sadie was now sobbing. ‘You should hear what people say about her. She’s getting a real reputation. And it reflects on us as well. How do you think it’s been for me around the place? Everyone already talking about Clementine being pregnant and now this as well?’
‘It’s 1979, not 1879, Sadie, come on.’
‘I’m sick of it, that’s all. It’s so unfair in this family. Miranda gets away with murder. Dad’s carrying on about Clementine as if she’s won the Nobel prize or something. “Don’t work too hard, sweetheart.” “Here, Clementine, let me carry your bag for you.”’
Juliet laughed at the mutinous expression on Sadie’s face. ‘What do you want him to do? Shave her head and make her parade down Elizabeth Street in shame?’
‘I just think she gets away with it because she’s the littlest. She always has. “Oh, Clementine is so clever. She could read by the time she was four. Top of the class every year, even after her mother died.” I was in the top five per cent of my class in high school one term but I didn’t get any special praise.’
‘Sadie, stop that. You know Dad is proud of you.’
‘No, he’s not. Makes me want to go out and get pregnant myself. It’d be the only way I’d get any attention in this house.’ She stood up. Her chair clattered. Sadie always managed to make more noise than the rest of them put together. ‘What time’s dinner?’
‘Seven, as usual.’
‘It’s not spaghetti again, is it? I wish you cooked healthier food. It’s no wonder I’m putting on weight.’ She slammed the kitchen door behind her.
Juliet breathed deeply, fighting a temptation to take the saucepan of bolognese sauce and pour it down Sadie’s fat, ungrateful throat.
Out on the verandah, Miranda took a long drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke out into the garden, still angry. She was sick of Sadie. They had never got on. Miranda tried to be kind, tried to be understanding, but there was no way around it. She just found Sadie annoying.
The most annoying aspect of this evening’s fight was that everything Sadie had said was true. Miranda had indeed slept with the married salesman. His name was Tom Hanlon. She’d been sleeping with him for the past seven weeks, each time he visited Hobart from his Sydney office. Separated, he told her, though she didn’t believe him. He’d been wearing his wedding ring the night they met at an industry dinner in the revolving restaurant at the casino. She’d sat beside him. She’d heard him talk about his wife and children to the person sitting on his other side. He’d reminded her of the big bad wolf from the fairytale. Dark-haired and heavily built. They had talked and laughed all night. She’d been aware of every one of his admiring glances.
He’d rung her the next day, at the pharmacy. Told her he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. How her hair, her face, her figure was haunting him. He had sounded quite desperate. ‘I have to see you again.’
‘Have to? Or want to?’
‘Don’t
tease me, Miranda.’
His words had given her a thrilling feeling. A powerful feeling. She’d been curious – eager even – to find out what exactly she could do with that power. What it could bring her.
A lot, she discovered. A dinner in his hotel. Urgent kissing in the corridor on the way to his room. That must have been when Sadie’s stupid barman friend had seen them. As it turned out, it was over in such a short time that she felt short-changed. Tom was so overwhelmed by the sight of her in the carefully chosen lingerie it had lasted less than five minutes. The second time was better. By the sixth time, it was becoming very good indeed.
He had phoned her ten days ago. ‘Miranda, I’ll be in Hobart again next weekend.’
‘You will? I hope you have a lovely time.’
‘I’ll be at the same hotel, in the same room.’ He named a time. ‘I want you there. Ask for the key at reception.’
If he had asked, if he had pleaded, she would have said no. It was the statement ‘I want you there’ that sold her. She told her father she was out meeting a friend. She arrived at the hotel, collected the key and went to his room. She walked in, expecting to find him sitting at the desk like last time. The room was dark. She tried the light switch, once, twice. Nothing. She felt her way across to the bed, looking for the bedside lamp. She screamed when a voice said her name and a hand reached out and grabbed her.
‘Tom, you frightened the life out of me.’
‘What if it wasn’t me?’ he said, his voice low in the darkness. ‘What if you had come to this room and a man started doing this,’ he slowly unzipped her dress, ‘and then this,’ his fingers followed the path of the zip, hot against her bare skin. He kept talking, doing as he said, all with the lights off.
It was unbearably exciting. By the time they were both naked she was desperate for the feel of him. She, or was it him, mentioned something about condoms. They’d been careful until that night. ‘Are you safe?’ he said, his lips hot against her breast. She did a rapid calculation. The last thing she wanted was another baby announcement.
Those Faraday Girls Page 3
