End of the Alphabet

by Fleur Beale

  I hugged him, laughing through my tears. ‘Let’s just see what happens.’

  They weren’t worried. Max wasn’t really part of their lives.

  We started preparing dinner. I knew Mum wouldn’t be able to eat any of it.

  Calvin got back about fifteen minutes later. He put a list on the table. ‘It’s lucky Yarrow’s not a common name. And H Yarrow is even less common.’

  I counted the names. There were six for the whole of Australia. That would still be a lot of phone calls.

  Calvin rubbed a hand over his hair. ‘We’ll ask Tessie where she thinks Hayden is likely to have gone.’

  I was dreading Mum getting home.

  Calvin went out to meet her when we heard the car.

  I heard her cry out. They came in ten minutes later and she was sobbing.

  It wasn’t an evening I want to remember. I served dinner. Mum just stared at her food and couldn’t eat. The boys were very quiet. Every now and again, they’d glance at her, their faces upset.

  I gave the boys their baths and put them to bed.

  When I came back to the family room, Mum and Calvin were sitting on the sofa. The phone was in front of Mum. She picked it up. ‘I’d best get it over with.’

  She rang the one H Yarrow in Western Australia. She thought Hayden would probably have gone there. I could hear the ring tone. Nobody was going to answer. Then a woman said, ‘Hello?’

  Mum gasped. ‘I’m trying to ring Hayden Yarrow. Is that the right number?’

  The woman’s voice was clear, even to Calvin and me. ‘Yes. Oh! You must be Tessie! Is that right?’

  Mum whispered, ‘Yes, that’s right. Has my son — has Max arrived yet?’

  ‘He’s on the flight from Sydney. It lands in about three hours.’ She paused. ‘Shall I get him to call you?’

  Mum gulped. ‘Thank you. That’s very kind. I didn’t know he was …’ She couldn’t go on.

  The woman’s voice rose. ‘He didn’t tell you? Didn’t ask? Well now, isn’t that just like a Yarrow.’ When Mum didn’t reply, she went on, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make him ring the second he gets here. By the way — I’m Linda. Hayden’s wife.’

  ‘Thank you, Linda,’ Mum whispered. She put the phone down and burst into tears all over again.

  I went to bed. I was too angry with Max to wait around for his phone call. I thought I’d still be awake when he rang, but I went to sleep and the phone didn’t wake me.

  I didn’t sing in the morning while I cleaned the floors of the superette. I swept them with hard, furious sweeps. I mopped ferociously. It’s a wonder there were any bristles left on the brush after I’d cleaned the toilet.

  Mr Grumble-guts paid me. I looked him straight in the eye and dared him to make a smart comment about me not singing. He just grunted and slapped the money on the counter. I picked it up. ‘I’ll see you on Tuesday.’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘It’s Easter. I’ll come on Saturday if you pay me penalty rates.’ I waited. He kept his mouth shut. ‘See you Tuesday.’

  I reached a decision — I would tell Mum I was moving back into my old room.

  When I got home, she was up. Calvin looked grim and Mum looked as if she hadn’t slept. We ate our breakfast in silence. Mum went through the morning routine but she was on automatic — her thoughts were somewhere else. No prizes, Ruby, for guessing where. My backbone crumbled. I couldn’t say anything about the room. Not today.

  Calvin had left before I remembered Maria and Cat. ‘Mum! I’ve got a holiday job!’ I told her about it and finished with, ‘And I can take Davey with me.’

  ‘Oh. Good. That’s good, Ruby.’ Then she burst out with, ‘I only hope Hayden looks after Max.’

  I helped Theo pack his bag. I could have told her I was running away to Brazil and she would have said That’s good. What was it with Mum and Max? ‘Mum, it’s after eight. You’d better go.’ And keep your mind on the road, not on bloody Max.

  I told Tia the Max story. She just said, ‘Good riddance. Now you can have your room back.’

  Yeah.

  I told her about Maria, Cat and the job. She cheered. ‘Yay for you!’ She poked my arm. ‘You know what this means?’

  ‘Money,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, money. But you won’t be at home to be Mummy’s little helper.’ She swung back on her chair. ‘Bloody good, I say.’

  I was glad it was the last day of term. Easter tomorrow and two weeks and one day off school. Davey and I bought Easter eggs from the superette on our way home.

  I wondered if Mr Vine would give me a discount. He didn’t. I didn’t get the smiles and jokes either. The woman in front of me did. The kid behind me did.

  I shrugged. Mr Vine wasn’t worth stressing about.

  I hoped Mum would be more together by the time she got home. But one look at her blew that hope sky-high. Her eyes were dark hollows in her face. The worry lines were deeper on her forehead.

  All the old arguments raged in my head. I can’t ask about the room. Not yet. I’ll wait till she feels better.

  I wanted her to smile at me and tell me to move back into my old room. I wanted her to see me. But she’d feel better in the morning, and she could sleep in. I’d ask her tomorrow.

  That night, it was me and Calvin who hid the Easter eggs for the kids to find in the morning. Always before, for as long as I could remember, Mum had done it. This time she sat on the couch and stared at the wall.

  She looked better in the morning and she joined the kids in the Easter egg hunt. She didn’t say anything about the room but several times, she went in there and came out with her eyes red. Okay, she needed time. I could wait.

  On Saturday, Wiremu rang up. ‘Hey, Ruby — want to come water-skiing? It’ll be the last chance before it gets too cold. Zeke and Niles are coming and can you ask your mates?’

  I didn’t ask Mum if I could go — I just told her I was going. She managed to focus on me long enough to say, ‘That’ll be nice for you, Ruby. Have a good time.’

  I was absolutely going to have a good time, and I wasn’t going to spend one second of it thinking about home.

  I got up first time on the skis. Tia did too. None of the others did, not even Niles and Zeke who’d both done it before. Wiremu was a single-ski guy. Carly gave up and rode in the boat. Megan got up the second time, but was so surprised, she let go of the rope.

  Easter zipped past.

  Tuesday morning came. I set the alarm for stupid o’clock. I was tempted to let it ring till it woke the boys. Then I’d say Sorry, Mum. Wouldn’t happen if I had my own room. But I shut it off and dressed in the bathroom so I wouldn’t wake them.

  Mr Vine greeted me with his usual grunt. The floor was pretty disgusting. He hadn’t even swept it. I rolled up my sleeves and got busy. I sang. I chose Alice the Camel and sang it over and over. With luck, it’d get stuck in his head all day. Mick gave me an Easter egg when he saw me. Old Grumble-guts didn’t even give me a smile.

  Davey and I left the house at eight to walk to Cat’s place. It was three blocks away so didn’t take us long.

  Maria beamed at us when she opened the door. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come!’

  She showed us around the house. ‘This is so pretty!’ I loved the things she had on the walls — masks with ribbons hanging from them, big fans, paintings. The furniture had bright rugs thrown over it. There were patterned mats on the wooden floors.

  She laughed. ‘I’m happy you like it. It reminds me of home.’ She pointed to a list on the fridge. ‘Our phone numbers are here. And this,’ she picked up a newspaper page, ‘is a list of things happening in town for kids.’

  Here it was — the reading problem. I’d run slap bang into it before I’d even started. I would have to tell her. I felt sick.

  ‘Maria, I have to tell you something.’ I couldn’t look at her.

  She grabbed my shoulders. ‘Ruby — what’s wrong? Are you ill?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. It’s not that. It’s �
�� I can’t read. Or write. Not very well.’ I pointed at the paper and the lists. ‘I can’t read those.’ I shook my head. ‘The numbers are fine — no problem, but the words … I just can’t read them.’ There. I’d done it.

  Her fingers dug into my shoulders and she shook me. ‘Ruby — lift your head and look at me.’ She waited until I did. I thought my heart would choke me — it was beating high in my throat. ‘Now listen to me. We’re going to do that all again.’

  What? Do what all again?

  She smiled. ‘You are going to tell me again that you have a learning difficulty. You are going to hold your head high and you are going to say it calmly. You will say it the way you’d say …’ she paused to think, ‘the way you’d say, I can’t eat peanuts.’

  Why? I didn’t want to say it again. Once was bad enough.

  She pulled me to a chair and made me sit down. ‘Listen, Ruby. You have to stop being ashamed of it. People judge you on how you judge yourself. If you are sure about yourself, if you are confident — then people will say Ruby’s a great person. She’s an inspiration. She never lets that learning difficulty get in her way.’

  I couldn’t. She didn’t understand. I looked at the clock. ‘You’d better go. You’ll be late.’

  But I found out where Cat got her stubbornness from. Her mother. Maria said, ‘Say it, Ruby. I’ll sit here until you do. All day if I have to. And I’ll still pay you.’

  Bloody hell! It was the threat to still pay me that did it. I took a deep breath. Then another two. ‘I have something to tell you. I have a learning problem and I can’t read or write.’ I gabbled the words and I looked at the wall behind her head.

  She stood up, patted my shoulder and said, ‘That’s a start. We will practise again when I get home, and every day until I am satisfied.’

  I glared at her and she laughed. I smiled — she was nice — but I wondered how she and Tia would get on, they were both so bossy. I said, ‘Would you read me what’s on today? I’ll remember.’

  There were a couple of movies we could go to and a play called Jack Climbs the Beanstalk. That could be fun. ‘I think we’ll try and see the play today.’

  She handed me a purse. ‘There’s fifty dollars in there, Ruby. Can you take the children somewhere each day? The money is for bus fares, tickets and food. Each day, you will have fifty dollars to spend.’

  I gaped at her. ‘But Maria — that is way too much!’

  She squeezed my hand. ‘My dear — we can afford it, and it’s worth it. Enjoy yourselves.’ She kissed Cat, waved to us and left.

  Fifty dollars every day? To do what we liked with? Oh, yay! But I’d be careful with it and I’d keep all the receipts to show her.

  I hoped she would forget about making me say the stuff about reading.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I turned on the telly so we could watch Fifi. I liked the fun stuff she showed kids how to make. Today, she had cardboard cartons and she painted them to look like houses and shops. We could do that on a wet day. I’d get the boxes from Mr Vine.

  The day raced along. The three of us cooked pancakes for lunch, then we caught the bus into town. We got good seats for the play and the kids loved it. I couldn’t keep my mind on it, though. I kept thinking instead about what Maria had said. Hold your head high, Ruby.

  I sighed. It was all very well for her — she was beautiful, she was rich. Life was easy for her in her lovely home. Holding my head high and saying I couldn’t read? She just had no idea how bad the whole thing made me feel.

  The play ended and it was a relief to switch my mind back to the kids. Maria was home when we got back. Cat tore into the house, Davey behind her. She called to her mother in a stream of chatter. I couldn’t understand a word of it.

  Maria laughed. ‘Gently, Catarina! Speak English, darling.’

  Cat stamped her foot. ‘No! Not enough words. I need more words.’

  I laughed and said to Maria, ‘Could she tell you all about it in her language and then we’ll go back to English? We had a great time.’

  Maria smiled at me. ‘That’s very kind, Ruby. What do you say, Catarina?’

  Cat had good manners when it suited her. She gave me brilliant smile and said, ‘Obrigada, Ruby.’ Then her tongue tumbled off into a torrent of strange words.

  Obrigada. I glanced at Davey. He whispered, ‘She said thank you.’

  Yes, she had. We waited while she told Maria the story of the play. Her eyes flashed, her voice rose and fell, she laughed and she waved her hands. I wanted to understand what she said. I didn’t catch one word that I’d learnt from the CD.

  When she finished, Maria hugged her. ‘It sounds wonderful, darling.’

  Davey broke in, ‘Cat — do you talk Portuguese?’

  Cat said, ‘Yes, I do. I am from Brazil.’ She said it in Portuguese, and Davey and I understood her.

  Davey said in Portuguese, ‘I am an American man.’

  They laughed. ‘You are not! You are New Zealand boy,’ Cat said.

  Maria asked, ‘How did you learn to say that, Davey?’

  He puffed out his chest. ‘I can say more things too.’ He told them about the CDs and how I wanted to go to Brazil.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Maria. ‘That’s very interesting.’ She turned to me. ‘Ruby — would you like Catarina and me to teach you Portuguese?’

  ‘Me too!’ Davey said.

  ‘Yes, Davey. You too.’ She tipped her head on one side. ‘Well, Ruby?’

  I found my voice. ‘Oh, yes! Yes — please.’ They laughed, because I said it in Portuguese.

  ‘Excellent!’ Maria clapped her hands. ‘We start as soon as you look me in the eye and tell me you can’t read or write.’

  She hadn’t forgotten. Damn. And it wouldn’t be a blind bit of good trying to argue with her. Oh, to hell with it! I straightened my backbone. Bloody backbone. ‘I can’t read properly. And I can’t write properly.’

  ‘Better,’ she said. ‘Go out the door. Walk back in and say, Maria, there’s something I want you to know. Then tell me. I want you to believe in your heart that it’s not important. That you are a clever and competent person. Do it, and then we start the lessons.’

  I didn’t want to but her determination felt like a wall of steel bricks.

  I did it. Not once, but six times until she was happy. And even then she said, ‘We will practise every day these holidays.’

  I glared at her and she laughed.

  She and Cat taught us the words for table, chair, room, house, bedroom, bed, kitchen, wall, light and door. ‘That is enough to remember for one day,’ Maria said.

  ‘Tomorrow you have a test,’ Cat said, clapping her hands.

  It was time to go home. Maria reminded me to bring my bank account number the next day. She was going to put my wages straight into my account.

  We walked home and cooked the dinner. I did it by myself because Davey wanted to help Calvin and Theo fix the mower. I liked having the kitchen to myself. What a day! I was earning money and I was learning Portuguese. A voice at the back of my mind repeated Maria’s words: you are a clever and competent person. Yep. That was me.

  I made up my mind to tell Mum I was going to have my old room back.

  When she came home, she went straight to the room — my room. She didn’t smile or say hello. She didn’t say anything to Calvin.

  Bloody Max! Even when he wasn’t here, he controlled my life. Well, I was sick of it. I marched into the room — my room. Mum was sitting on the bed, holding a T-shirt he’d left behind, and crying. ‘Mum. I’m moving back into this room. It’s my room and Max isn’t here.’

  She looked up. ‘How can you be so heartless, Ruby Yarrow? He’s gone.’

  I sat down beside her, took the T-shirt away and threw it on the floor. ‘Mum — he isn’t dead. He’s alive and having a ball in Australia. With our father.’

  She hunched away from me. ‘You don’t understand.’

  That was true. I stood up. ‘I have to check on the dinner.’r />
  She didn’t say anything. I walked out. That was my room and I was moving into it tonight. She could stop using it as a shrine to Max the runaway.

  I called to everyone to come and eat. Mum ate three mouthfuls before she said, ‘Ruby — you’re not moving into Max’s room. It has to be free for him if he wants to come home.’

  Calvin shook his head at me. He put down his knife and fork and said, ‘Tessie — Ruby and I are going to move her stuff after dinner.’ He held up his hand. ‘No. Don’t say anything. I’ve heard it all. You need to listen. If Max does come back, he fits in with us. We don’t turn ourselves upside down for him.’ He took her hand. ‘He will need to be part of our family, Tessie, not king of it.’

  She snatched her hand away, jumped up and ran from the room.

  Oh, great. Max was so lucky he was across the Tasman. Right then I could have pulled all his hair off his head — one chunk at a time.

  We finished eating. Calvin said, ‘Leave the dishes, Ruby. You and I have work to do.’ He looked at the boys. ‘Are you guys going to give us a hand?’

  When we finished, we came back to find Mum doing the dishes and crying into the sink.

  I shut myself in my very own room, rang Tia and had a moan to her. Bliss. And Tia had a new boyfriend. ‘Just for the holidays,’ she said. ‘He’ll be too high maintenance when I’m busy with school.’

  His name was Aaron and he was one of the kids picked to go to Brazil next year. Huh! I bet he couldn’t say Where is the table? It’s over there in Portuguese.

  Ruby Yarrow is a clever and competent person?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Those were the best holidays ever. We went to two movies, we went skating and horse riding. We cooked, and ate what we made. On the last Thursday, Davey and I arrived in the pouring rain. Cat was glaring out the window. ‘Stupid rain. I hate stupid rain.’

  ‘Say it in Portuguese, Cat,’ said Davey — in Portuguese.

  That cheered her up. They danced around the room chanting Stupid rain. We hate stupid rain in Portuguese.

  Maria rolled her eyes. ‘Good luck,’ she said as she left.

  But it was the perfect day for painting boxes and making a street of houses and shops. I’d brought the flattened boxes with me. We’d need to go into town for the paints and brushes. ‘Okay, kids — get the rain gear on. We’re on a mission.’