Willow Tree Bend

by Kaye Dobbie

  She dropped the spoon. ‘Damn it,’ she hissed, and began to mop up the mess. She went to the sink to wash out the cloth, and spoke to me over her shoulder. ‘You didn’t tell me your gardening job was at the old Dalzell house.’

  ‘Do you know it?’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  I always found it very annoying when someone answered a question with a question.

  ‘You know who they were … are? I suppose some of them are still about.’

  Her smile was tight as she returned to her task. Carefully, she tipped more oil into the spoon. ‘They were local celebrities, well known in political circles. Bert Dalzell started off in the family law firm, but then he went into politics, like his father. For a time it looked as if he might do well, but it turned out he couldn’t keep his sticky fingers out of the wrong pies. There was a scandal.’

  ‘Yes! In nineteen sixty-nine. Jason said it was to do with the Angel nightclub.’

  I waited for her reaction.

  She was observing me in a way that made me think she was playing a scientist and I was an interesting specimen of insect.

  ‘He had an old photograph he found while they were renovating. It was a bit wrecked. Dalzell was in it with some famous singer or other, but that isn’t the point. There was a girl sitting next to him and … I mean, it was pretty badly damaged, but it looked like Mum.’

  ‘And you think …?’

  ‘Maybe it’s a crazy idea, but Jason also told me that Bert Dalzell disappeared after the scandal, and went to Queensland. The photo … He and Mum must have known each other, mustn’t they? What if he saw her in the paper and contacted her all these years later, and she took off for an impromptu visit? Or maybe it wasn’t the first time. Maybe they were …’

  She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘Friends? Lovers? Faith and Bert Dalzell. Your mother was very pretty.’ Hope was standing very still, her voice oddly dreamy. Then she shook her head and snapped back into her normal, practical self. ‘I can’t see it. I mean, why?’

  ‘Because you were coming home and she didn’t want you to find out where he was hiding?’

  Hope laughed. ‘If she didn’t want me to find out where he was hiding then she hasn’t been very subtle about it, has she? And anyway, why would I care?’

  She was right, of course she was. I changed tack. ‘Did she ever mention him to you? Dalzell?’

  ‘The days when your mother and I told each other everything ended when she went to Melbourne.’

  ‘It seems such an odd coincidence.’

  ‘I think you’re jumping at straws.’

  ‘Can one jump at a straw?’

  She gave me a look.

  ‘Okay.’ I shrugged. ‘Don’t say anything to Dad,’ I said hastily.

  She forced a smile and patted my arm as if I was five. ‘I won’t. Now help me with the salad.’

  By the time people began to arrive we had things well under control, which was a first for me. Hope was using the barbecue on the back verandah, and had set up the table. She’d also lit candles and strung some lanterns I’d had since the Christmas I moved in. It looked beautiful, and actually it was quite simple if you had the knack. What that woman could do in a few hours made me marvel—clearly the trait had bypassed me. Mitch kept looking at the reflected colours as if he couldn’t believe it either.

  Lincoln arrived first, and just seeing him walking through the door in his black jeans and white button-down shirt was even better than I’d expected it to be. Although he did seem a bit edgy. I almost said, ‘I promise not to ask you to sing,’ thinking that might be the problem, but stopped myself at the last moment.

  Dad had brought Gran with him, but she’d left Pompom at home in the comfort of the air conditioning. She was wearing her dark slacks and lavender-coloured blouse, and a pearl choker. The pearls were a family heirloom, destined for me, although I wasn’t sure I would ever find an occasion to wear them. As she looked about she was smiling, and I could see she appreciated the effort Hope had gone to.

  ‘You always were a clever girl,’ she said, accepting a glass of chardonnay.

  Hope grinned. ‘Glad you finally noticed.’

  The last rays of the setting sun were beaming in under the verandah roof, and Lily took out some sunglasses and slid them on. ‘They’re new,’ she explained. ‘I found them in the magic aisle at the supermarket.’

  Hope was obviously nonplussed by the comment, so while Gran wandered off to find some nibbles, I explained. ‘She means the medical aisle. You know, painkillers and vitamins and personal hygiene. Her words get tangled up sometimes.’

  ‘Ah.’ Hope smiled, but there was a frown there, too.

  Lincoln chuckled. ‘I like it,’ he said. ‘Magical aisle. There’s a song in there somewhere.’

  Was there? I almost said I’d like to hear it, but again I bit my tongue. I was being very careful—I really didn’t want to muck this up.

  Hope and Lincoln had begun a conversation about someone they both knew, showbiz talk, so I drifted over to my father. He was bending down to give Mitch a pat, and although he’d shaved and dressed up in tan slacks and a blue shirt that matched his eyes, he looked exhausted. Handsome but haggard.

  ‘Hey, kiddo,’ he said, looking up at me. His blue eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t called me kiddo since I was a little girl. For a moment I didn’t know what to say. Honestly, I was rather shocked.

  I went with, ‘Hope’s done marvels,’ waving a hand around us. ‘For some reason, I thought she would just sit back and order us around, but she jumped straight in and got her hands dirty.’

  ‘Don’t let the fame fool you. Underneath all of that stardust she’s a Taylor girl through and through, just like your mother. They work harder than anybody else, and never complain.’

  ‘Never?’ I raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  He managed a lopsided smile. ‘Well, hardly ever.’

  I sipped my drink. My hands were looking callused and rough, and one of my nails was chipped. I was wearing my pretty floral dress and my hair was shiny and loose about my shoulders. I’d even smoothed on lip gloss and brushed my lashes with mascara, but I hadn’t noticed the state of my hands until they were beside Hope’s in the salad bowl. The comparison wasn’t complimentary, and I knew I should take more care, but our professions were very different. Not many movie stars looked like gardeners, and vice versa. I’d just have to accept that I was never going to make the front page of Woman’s Day in all my dirt- and sweat-streaked glory.

  And why was I worrying about it anyway? This wasn’t something I usually indulged in. Normally, I was perfectly satisfied with my place in the world.

  But I knew why.

  Lincoln.

  I was worrying about what he might think, seeing me beside my glamorous aunt. Would I measure up? I told myself that if I started off by approaching our friendship like that then I might as well pack it in right now. He’d have to accept me as I was or it was never going to work.

  ‘How’s Mum’s business going?’ I asked my father. ‘You know if you need me, I can always help out. I don’t mind.’

  He was still patting Mitch, who was looking at him adoringly. ‘I’m a bit concerned about the launch,’ he admitted. ‘Do I cancel it? People will need to know soon, so I have to make a decision. But if I cancel and then … I wish I knew when she was coming home …’

  His voice trailed off and I wondered if he was thinking the same as me: If she was coming home.

  I looked away and saw that Lincoln was sitting with Gran, listening intently to what she was saying. I liked him a lot for that—in my experience not many men would make the effort. Hope was fussing around the food table, checking the coverings that she’d thrown over everything as protection from flies. The insect zapper on the wall was going like crazy, but still they kept coming.

  ‘Hope thinks you should report her missing.’

  I hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that and, startled, Dad straightened up. Mitch, sensi
ng the sudden tension, shuffled closer to my bare legs.

  ‘No! Definitely not.’ He said it so loudly that everyone turned to look. As soon as he was aware of it, he lowered his voice. ‘She just needs some space, that’s all. She’ll be back soon.’

  But how could he know? I asked myself uncomfortably. Was he indulging in wishful thinking? I knew I couldn’t hurt him by suggesting such a thing.

  ‘Okay, Dad. We’ll wait.’

  ‘We just have to be patient, Sam.’

  I nodded, but I could feel my eyes stinging. He sounded as if he had made a decision to let my mother go in the hope that she would come back to him, but he couldn’t really know. Not for certain.

  ‘I’m here if you need me.’

  He nodded.

  Hope had filled a plate with dry biscuits and cheese and various other toppings and now she carried it over to Dad and me. ‘Eat up,’ she said with a smile. ‘There’s plenty to be had.’ She turned a questioning glance at me, and I felt as if I could read her mind.

  What’s going on?

  While my father helped himself, murmuring a thankyou, I answered Hope’s unspoken question with a little shake of my head. I was worried Dad would say something about reporting Mum missing, but he didn’t. The silence became awkward.

  ‘This is the first party I’ve had in a while,’ I ventured. ‘I think the last one was the house warming.’

  ‘Didn’t I send you something?’ Hope was making an effort, too.

  Had she? I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was, and I was glad when Dad interrupted us.

  ‘It was a front doormat,’ he said. ‘You gave Faith and me the same thing when we moved into our first house.’ He was holding Hope’s gaze. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘I didn’t realise I was so predictable.’

  She was smiling as if she was perfectly at ease, but I sensed there was something wrong. When I looked down I noticed that her hand was shaking. In case she dropped the plate, I took it off her, but she didn’t even seem to notice.

  ‘There were that many people crammed inside we all had to turn around at the same time.’ Dad chuckled softly at the memory. ‘It was in May, and Faith and I had been married three months.’

  Hope nodded, but she still didn’t seem herself. She glanced back towards the glass doors that led into the house, and I knew she was thinking of making an excuse so that she could escape.

  Dad’s voice went on. ‘And then there was that knock on the door.’

  ‘Joe …’ she whispered. ‘Don’t.’

  I looked from one to the other, because there was something going on. They may as well have been all alone, the past had such a grip on them.

  ‘I went to answer it. There was the poor guy from the post office with a telegram. People say they know, but I didn’t. I thought it might be someone sending some house-warming congratulations. Instead, when I opened it, it said that Pete had been killed in action, in Vietnam. I stood there and I couldn’t take it in.’

  ‘Oh, Dad!’ I stepped closer to grasp his arm, and pressed my cheek to his shoulder. Words seemed inadequate. ‘You’ve never spoken about that before. I knew your brother died in Vietnam, but not how you found out. That’s horrible.’

  Hope had folded her arms around herself as if she was cold, despite the hot summer’s evening. ‘Your mother started screaming,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah. We had to call the doctor to come and sedate her. People were sorry, but they just wanted out of there. Faith was great, she stood at the door and thanked them, and promised to let them know if there was anything they could do.’

  Hope nodded and now there were tears in her eyes. ‘She was great. I remember. Everyone said so.’

  I’d seen old photos of my uncle in his uniform, but no one really spoke about him. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder why, not until now. How painful that time must have been, and how heartbroken everybody must have felt. That was why they didn’t speak about it, not because they didn’t care but because the pain was still so raw.

  ‘I might … excuse me.’

  I was watching my father, but I turned as Hope spoke. She was walking quickly, and by the time she slipped through the door and inside the house she was almost running.

  ‘Is she all right?’ I asked my father.

  His face was even more haggard. ‘It was a bad night for us all. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

  ‘Was Hope close to your brother?’ I asked tentatively. ‘I mean …’

  ‘We were all friends,’ he said, and then shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have come tonight. Now she’s upset. I’m upset. You’re upset.’

  ‘That’s okay. Why shouldn’t you talk about it? He was your brother.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he nodded and managed a smile. ‘He was. My mother desperately wanted more kids, but she ended up with just the two of us. Pete was the one who made everyone laugh, especially the girls. The girls always loved Pete best. He had a way with them …’ He shook his head, smiling. ‘Sometimes I’d wonder: how does he do that? But even when I tried to be angry with him, it was hard to stay angry with Pete. Mum thought he was her perfect son. When he was dead we couldn’t say anything bad about him. It was as if he had been raised to some sort of super-saint status.’

  ‘Poor Nonna.’

  ‘Pete was twenty when he got called up. His number was pulled out of that lottery barrel, but his prize wasn’t a bucketload of cash, it was a one-way ticket to Vietnam.’

  ‘Lottery?’ I murmured. This was news to me.

  ‘It was called the Birthday Lottery and they ran it twice a year,’ my father explained. ‘They based it on the date of your twentieth birthday and if that date came up then you were conscripted into National Service. Down in Melbourne they used an old Tattersall’s sweep barrel and wooden balls. It was all hush-hush because of the rising stink about the whole thing. Anyway, if you won the lottery then you got a letter telling you to turn up for your medical, and if you passed that, and a couple of other checks, then you had a month before you had to present yourself for training at Puckapunyal. Three months of that, and you were ready to be shipped out to join your fellow soldiers fighting in Vietnam.’

  ‘And Pete passed the medical?’

  He made a sound that might have been a laugh. ‘Yeah, he passed it in December nineteen sixty-nine. He was a fine specimen of young manhood, tall and strong and fit. He was shipped out beginning of May and he was dead within two weeks. Some sort of offensive, thrown in at the deep end. We thought he’d come back—I mean we couldn’t imagine it any other way—and then when he didn’t … It left a hole, Sam. More than a hole, a bloody big crater.’

  He was looking at me as if he was fighting tears. I reached out and gave him a hug. His arms wrapped around me and he hung on tight.

  ‘Sorry,’ I murmured into the warmth of his skin, not knowing what I was apologising for.

  ‘Hey, guys?’

  It was Lincoln, standing behind us, clearly not wanting to butt in.

  ‘Don’t mean to worry you or anything, but … Lily said she was going to get something to show me and she hasn’t come back. I can’t find her anywhere.’

  ‘She must be here,’ I said, thinking the toilet.

  I made my way to the little room and opened the door—it was empty, and when I turned around Lincoln was behind me.

  ‘This isn’t that big a house,’ I told him. ‘She can’t just disappear.’

  We looked all over the house. It was near enough to dark now, and we even searched the yard, using a flashlight for the more out-of-the-way corners, just in case. But we couldn’t find her.

  My grandmother was missing.

  HOPE

  15 January 2000, Willow Tree Bend

  Hope took one shaky breath, and then she took another. The tears were rolling down her cheeks even before she shut the bedroom door behind her. Her emotions were in tumult. She felt like one of the strawberry milkshakes Pete used to make for her, only she was the froth
y milk, spinning and gyrating in the silver metal container. When it was mixed to perfection, he’d toss in a pretty pink straw, and then smile as he slid it over the counter.

  A smile she knew he saved just for her.

  If his mother was there she’d give Hope a dirty look and she’d have to pay, but if not, well then it was free. She’d suck up the creamy strawberry milk through the pink straw, her eyes on him as he went about his work—wiping down the counter, cleaning the milkshake machine, serving other customers.

  Now and again he’d glance at her. ‘Good?’ he’d ask, nodding at the shake.

  ‘Best yet.’

  He was a charmer, just like Lily said, and the love of her life. She realised it now, perhaps she had always known it, but as time went on, and new experiences crowded out the old, she’d let his memory slip. Too painful to hold on to. And now, suddenly, it was as if everything that happened post-Pete had melted away, and all that was left was him.

  The knock on her door brought her thoughts abruptly back to the barbecue that she was supposed to be hosting. This was the second time she’d been interrupted in her misery.

  ‘Go away,’ she croaked, and then bit her lip. She was aware she couldn’t hide in here forever; she’d have to face them all eventually. Hastily she wiped her face, taking a deep breath, and went to open her bedroom door. The light was off, so with luck the worst of the ravages would be hidden. She could always fall back on the excuse of a bad headache, an oldie but a goodie.

  Joe stood there, his face pale and tense. ‘Lily is missing. She wouldn’t happen to be in here, would she?’

  ‘Samantha already knocked and asked me that.’ She frowned. ‘What do you mean “missing”? Samantha said she was looking for her, not that she was missing.’

  ‘What else would you call it? She’s searched the house and yard and no sign of her.’ Joe’s gaze slid away from her face.

  ‘Where could she have gone?’

  ‘As you might have gathered, your mother gets a little bit confused sometimes. Faith says it’s just because she’s old, nothing serious, but lately she seems to be getting worse.’