She noticed Noah had come to an abrupt halt up ahead in front of their house, then he turned on his heel and bolted back to his mother.
‘What’s dat man doing at our house, Mummy?’ he asked wide-eyed, pointing back to the house.
Helen looked ahead as a tall figure stepped down from the front porch. The sun was shining towards them, so she had to put her hand up to shield her eyes. She walked a little closer, and then came to an abrupt halt herself.
He smiled broadly. ‘Hey, Hel. Surprise. Happy Birthday.’
‘What’s dat man, Mummy?’ Noah said, tugging on her arm.
She looked down at Noah as tears filled her eyes. ‘Well, Noah, that’s your Uncle Tony.’
After a slightly tentative hug, Helen ushered Tony into the house. She was happy to see him, of course she was, but she couldn’t help wondering what he was doing here. Was he going to suggest selling the house? Did he need money? What exactly was going on?
Tony was taken aback by the changes to the rear of the house, particularly as it was still bereft of furniture and window coverings. It was now a large open space, unrecognisable from its former self, the floors gleaming polished timber, the walls a warm white, except for one striking feature wall in a deep shade of plum. But he was most unsettled by the fact that their father’s old darkroom had been opened up again.
‘I can still feel him here,’ he murmured, almost to himself. ‘He never found a way out.’ He was hovering by the door, reluctant to go all the way inside. ‘Your housemate, she doesn’t mind putting a baby in there?’
‘It wasn’t her father who died here,’ Helen pointed out. ‘And it was a long time ago, Tony.’
‘Feels like yesterday, being here again,’ he sighed. Then he seemed to snap out of it. ‘Especially when I look at you, Hel. You’ve barely changed. What’s your secret?’
‘Clean living,’ she quipped.
‘Mm, don’t know if that’s worth it.’
Helen filled him in on the events overnight and Tony was duly in awe of his little sister’s capacity in a crisis. Noah was captivated, as he seemed to be with most men around his father’s age. He basked in the attentions of an uncle he’d never known, which gave Helen the chance to sit back and observe the brother she wasn’t sure she knew any more.
He had aged again, which was always confronting for Helen. Only seeing him every few years meant she’d watched him age in leaps and bounds, and now he was coming to the brink of middle age, his dark hair peppered with grey at the temples, the creases around his eyes grown deeper. But he was still a handsome man, so like their father, though with more light in his eyes.
The excitement of the long morning finally caught up with Noah, and he started to nod off over lunch. He didn’t even argue when Helen suggested a nap, but he extracted a solemn promise from Uncle Tony that he would still be here when he woke.
Helen put Noah to bed and walked back down the hall to the kitchen with a certain amount of trepidation – they wouldn’t have Noah as a distraction now. As she stepped into the doorway, Tony looked up and gave her a cautious smile.
‘Another cup of tea?’ she said lightly.
He patted the table. ‘Come and sit down, Helen, we have a lot to talk about.’
She pulled out a chair. ‘So are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he said. ‘We’re touring a play here, they’ve transported the entire production. I was stage manager in London, but the make-up of the tour crew was only finalised a short time ago. They had to negotiate with the host company, give some jobs to the locals. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you till I knew for sure,’ he finished.
‘So how long will the play run?’ asked Helen.
‘It’s booked for a three-month season here in Sydney, with room to extend to four. And then we’ll be touring it to Melbourne.’
Helen was counting up the months in her head. ‘So you’ll be in the country for at least six months?’ she said hopefully, already planning a trip to Melbourne in her mind.
‘No, it’ll be longer than that,’ said Tony.
‘Oh?’
He nodded. ‘I’m not going back, Hel.’
She just stared at him. ‘You mean you’re . . .’
‘Staying. I’m home for good, Helen.’
She was still having trouble taking it in. ‘Why? Is anything wrong?’
Tony smiled sheepishly. ‘Nothing’s wrong. I just decided it was time to come home. Now that you’re on your own, I didn’t want to be so far away.’
Helen felt tears creeping into her eyes. Did he really feel responsible for her?
‘I wasn’t sure how you were going to feel about it,’ he said, watching her.
‘What do you mean?’ she sniffed. ‘Of course I’m happy, Tony, you’re my only brother.’
‘Pretty lousy one, nicking off to the other side of the world and leaving you with everything.’
‘You had no way of knowing how bad it was going to get –’
‘Stop it, Hel,’ Tony said suddenly.
Helen blinked at him.
‘Stop being so nice, Helen. You’re always so nice. But you don’t say what you’re really thinking. That whole debacle over the house, I know you thought I was looking after my own interests, but that wasn’t it, really. I was actually trying to look out for you, I just went about it the wrong way.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think about it from my perspective. I’m on the other side of the world. I didn’t know anything about David. Maybe he was a great guy, but just after you met, you’re putting Mum in a home and he’s moving in. I would have liked to see you get out of this house, Hel, build your own life. It worried me. I wanted to make sure things were watertight legally so he couldn’t rip you off.’
‘Or you.’
‘Helen, you want to know something?’ Tony said plainly. ‘I’d have signed the house over to you in a heartbeat. I always felt you deserved it. But I was wary when David came on the scene. You could have lost it all if there’d been any trouble between you.’
‘He would never have done anything like that,’ said Helen.
Tony was looking at her in an odd way. ‘Look, this might not be the right time to say this, but things changed after you got together,’ he said carefully. ‘He seemed to take over. I couldn’t get near you to talk about anything without David butting in. And to be honest, you changed as well, Helen, or our relationship changed. I thought we’d always be able to tell each other everything, but it felt like you didn’t trust me any more, and that really hurt.’
Helen remembered the hurt she’d felt too, the estrangement. David had kept insisting that Tony had left her to look after their mother, so he should have no say any more. She had begun to look at Tony in a different way, she knew she had. For the first time she had seen Tony as selfish, and she’d never felt that before. She’d always been glad he had got away: it was no use both of them missing out, and Tony’s dreams were a lot more coherent than hers had ever been.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tony, shaking his head. ‘I’ve said too much. I shouldn’t just walk in here after all these years –’
‘It’s okay, Tony,’ said Helen quietly. ‘You’re right, David could be a bit domineering. It’s funny, he tried so hard to be different from his father, but he was getting more like him all the time. He really did believe he was doing the best for everyone, the right thing. David was a very principled man, but he did tend to take control.’ She paused. ‘The thing is, I let him. He might have been jerking the reins, but I handed them over in the first place. It was just so nice to have someone to lean on after all those years on my own. He was the stronger person, and I let him take over. But after a while I lost myself, I stopped thinking for myself . . .’
She looked up and Tony was watching her intently. ‘Was everything all right, Hel, before . . . he . . .’
‘Of course it was,’ she dismissed. ‘I don’t know what I must sound l
ike, speaking ill of the dead . . .’
‘Helen, it’s me, Tony. You can tell me anything. You always did.’ He reached over and put his hand on hers. ‘When you got into trouble at school, the boys you liked . . . You even told me when you got your first period, remember?’
Helen’s eyes widened and then she covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, peeking between her fingers. ‘I did tell you that. Why did I tell you that?’
Tony was grinning at her. ‘Because you couldn’t talk to Mum about anything. She always gave you such a hard time, made you feel bad about yourself.’
Helen brought her hands down to the table again. ‘She did, didn’t she?’
He nodded. ‘She was jealous of you, I reckon.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘You reminded her of what she used to be, and she couldn’t stand it,’ said Tony. ‘I never understood how you stuck it out all these years. Did she ever get any better, any kinder at least?’
A loud, insistent knock sounded at the front door.
‘Expecting someone?’ Tony asked her as she got to her feet.
‘Not that I know of.’
She walked up the hall as Noah wandered out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
‘Sum’n’s at a door, Mummy,’ he said, yawning.
Helen opened the door to a delivery man bearing a huge arrangement of flowers. And her heart missed a beat.
‘Helen Chapman?’ the man asked.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, taking them from him.
‘Look at the normous flowers, Mummy!’ Noah exclaimed, trailing her down the hall. Helen had to carry them with both hands, so she couldn’t even look at the card till she put them down.
Tony let out a long low whistle as she went back into the kitchen and set them on the table. ‘Who’s the admirer?’
‘Actually, Noah, these are from you,’ said Helen as he clambered up to stand on a chair next to her. She showed him the card. ‘See, “Happy Birthday, love from Noah and Myers.”’
Noah was awestruck. ‘Did I get them for your birfday, Mummy?’ he said, his eyes wide.
‘Yes, you did. Thank you, sweetheart, they’re the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever had in my whole life.’
Noah was beaming as she kissed him on the cheek.
‘Is Myers the department store?’ asked Tony, confused.
‘No, sorry, it’s Myles actually, that’s just the way Noah pronounces it.’ Helen was trying to sound offhand, but she didn’t think she was fooling anyone. Her heart had been fluttering erratically since she’d opened the door and seen the flowers and realised exactly who had sent them. ‘Myles is my boss, you know, I work for him, and we called in this morning to see him, at work, of course, because I had to tell him about the baby, because Gemma works for him too, you know, and Noah blurted it was my birthday and that he didn’t have a present for me, and Myles said he’d send flowers, so really, this was for Noah’s sake, not mine . . .’
She stopped suddenly, noticing the look of bemusement on Tony’s face.
‘So what’s “Myers” like, Noah?’ he asked. ‘Is he a good guy? Is he good to your mum?’
‘Tony, he’s my boss, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘He gived Mummy a kiss,’ Noah said, giggling again at the memory of it.
‘On the cheek,’ Helen added quickly. ‘An innocent birthday kiss on the cheek.’
‘And fifty quid’s worth of flowers,’ added Tony, raising an eyebrow.
‘It’s rude to talk about the cost of a gift,’ Helen said airily. Besides, she didn’t want to think about that. David had never given her flowers: he’d thought they were an obscene waste of money, but also, he liked to point out, an indefensible misuse of resources. Flower farms relied on excessive amounts of water and pesticides to grow what was totally nonessential produce. Flowers didn’t feed anyone, heal anyone, or in fact provide anything of benefit to the community at large, according to David. But he was the type of person who thought making donations to charity in your name was the best gift he could give. And it probably was – maybe just not on every occasion.
‘So, you’re staying for dinner, aren’t you?’ Helen asked Tony, changing the course of the conversation. She had a feeling that anything she added after this would go into the ‘protests too much’ category. ‘What am I saying? You’re staying, of course, you’re staying, this is your home. You’re going to stay here aren’t you, Tony?’
‘Well, they put us up in a hotel for the first week or two,’ he explained. ‘After that we get a living allowance. Crew usually move to serviced apartments.’
‘Tony, you have to stay here,’ Helen insisted. ‘This is your home.’
‘It seems like you’ve got a bit of a full house though, Helen.’
‘No, there’s plenty of room. Noah can share with me.’
‘I don’t want to put anyone out –’
‘You’re not. I’d be put out if you didn’t stay.’
‘Look, the hotel’s already paid for,’ said Tony. ‘But afterwards, I’d really like that, Hel. And I’m definitely going to start helping out with Mum. How is she, Helen? Really?’
She leaned back against the kitchen bench. ‘She’s been stable for a couple of months now, but she hasn’t recognised me or Noah for quite a while. The best I get is that she’s more comfortable around me than other people, like I’m familiar to her, she knows I’m okay, I can be trusted.’ Helen paused. ‘I wonder how she’ll react to seeing you again.’
Tony shook his head. ‘I’m not counting on her knowing me, Hel.’
‘But she asks after you all the time.’
‘That’s a fragment of her memory stuck on rewind, that’s all. She’s not going to know me.’
And she didn’t, much to Helen’s surprise. They went to visit her the following day, and Marion actually seemed wary of him. When Helen tried to reassure her it was Tony, Marion merely insisted she had a son Tony, and he was a very successful theatre director living in London.
Tony seemed unfazed.
‘Are you okay?’ Helen asked him when they left Marion’s room.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I told you I didn’t expect her to know me. I’ve read up about Alzheimer’s, Hel. It’s a lot easier to take it in from a distance, to be objective about it. You had to watch it happen, suffer along with her. You’ve been a victim of it too, Helen. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you sometimes, and yet you stayed.’
Helen shrugged. ‘It was my choice, Tony.’
‘Was it really, though?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never said this to you, Hel, but I realised what was happening to Mum, and I bailed, I ran away from it. After Dad, it was all too much.’
‘But you’d always planned to travel, Tony.’
‘Sure, I know, and I’m okay with what I did: I reckon I was entitled to my own life. Except my freedom meant you were tied down, Hel. I’m hoping one day you’ll be able to forgive me for that.’
Helen slipped her arm through his. ‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she said gently. ‘I made choices too,’ she added as they walked out of the building and into the sunshine.
She paused at the door of the car, looking across at him. ‘What did you mean yesterday, Tony, when you said that Dad didn’t find a way out?’
He rested his forearms on the roof of the car. ‘I think he couldn’t see a way out, so he locked himself up in his own world.’
‘You think they were unhappy? I always thought Dad adored her.’
Tony shrugged. ‘Yeah, and as long as he adored her things were fine. But when he needed her, I don’t think she had anything to give.’
‘Did Mum tell you that?’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘These are just the observations of a restless adolescent. I think Dad had been unhappy for a long time and suicide was the only way out he could see. That’s why I had to leave: that was my way out.’
But Helen had stayed. She’d stayed so
long she’d forgotten there was any other way.
‘I’m glad you came back, Tony.’
He smiled at her. ‘So am I.’
Thursday
Gemma had had enough of the hospital after three days, and told her mother that, ready or not, she was going home on Friday. That put Trish into a spin, and she consequently mounted a military-style operation to finish the rooms to her own exacting standards. Helen was glad to have an excuse to escape, taking the opportunity to go into work while Noah was at preschool. She joined the team as they reviewed all the material that had been collected or compiled. Hours of footage had already been edited down to a series of sound bites, and Julie and Helen went through them and selected the best. They had also mocked up posters and print ads, and over the course of the day they whittled everything down to what they hoped would amount to an effective pitch, and then ran it all by Myles. There was still work to be done: the mock-ups had to be reproduced to a professional standard, the selected film clips collated into a punchy presentation, not to mention a myriad of other details, large and small, that would need attending to. But they all agreed they would be ready to pitch it to the client Monday week. Julie was to go ahead and make the necessary arrangements.
‘You will be here for the pitch?’ Myles asked in the elevator on their way back to the office.
‘Of course,’ said Helen.
She had finally got around to calling Jim and Noreen. Noreen had answered the phone and immediately offered to get Jim when Helen announced herself.
‘No, that’s okay, Noreen, I can talk to you about this,’ Helen had assured her.
Noreen had been a little circumspect at first, but soon warmed up as Helen got to her reason for calling. She laid out the whole scenario for her – that she didn’t expect Gemma to cope with Noah and the new baby for some weeks, even months, and although Helen was able to work from home a little, and Tony had offered to help in whatever way he could, Helen would greatly appreciate it if they could see their way clear to minding Noah at least one day a week on a regular basis, perhaps even two sometimes.
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