Lola's Secret

by Monica McInerney

  She helped the two girls out, then reached up and entered the combination. The gates slowly opened. As the three of them walked up the drive, Holly wished she could blame the sick feeling in her stomach on the ice-cream and popcorn. It was the unease she felt every time she came home from a night out. She wished there was some way of knowing beforehand what she’d be walking into. A fight? A stony silence? Closed bedroom doors? Sometimes her parents slept in the same room, but not if they’d been fighting badly. Sometimes Holly wished their house wasn’t so big. If there weren’t so many spare bedrooms, would they be forced to share and forced to sort out their problems?

  Not for the first time, she tried to imagine how it would be if things were normal at home. If she and Belle and Chloe were to walk in and find their parents sitting companionably in their living room, watching TV together, or reading the paper, having a glass of wine or a cup of tea, looking up like normal parents. ‘Hi, girls! How was the film?’

  They walked in. Their mother came down the stairs towards them, still dressed in her work suit, her makeup and hair impeccable. She wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Hello, girls. How was the film?’

  ‘Great!’ Belle said.

  ‘Will we sing you all the songs?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘Not tonight, no. It’s late. Off to bed, please. Holly, can you come into the living room with me?’

  ‘But I promised to read to them.’

  ‘Not tonight. Girls, upstairs please.’

  Chloe frowned. ‘But Holly always —’

  ‘Now!’

  They ran up the stairs. Holly followed her mother into the living room, feeling that nausea again. She was so attuned to the mood in the house she knew something had happened. It wasn’t something good, either. Her father switched off the large-screen plasma TV as they both came in. He was still in his work clothes too – a rumpled linen suit – his expensive Italian shoes kicked off beside him.

  She looked at her parents. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Shut the door, please, Holly.’

  She did. They both took a seat. She stayed standing. She shook her head when her father gestured towards the sofa.

  ‘We had a visitor tonight,’ her mother said.

  Holly waited.

  ‘June. Your boss.’

  ‘June? June was here?’

  Two nods.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘That’s what we’d like to know. What have you been saying to her?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she lied, quickly.

  ‘Oh, really? That’s not what June said. What happens in this house is our business as a family, Holly. Our business.’

  They weren’t just angry, she realised. They were furious. She could see it in their body language, their expressions, hear it in their voices.

  Her mother kept talking, her tone icy. ‘Perhaps you’d remember that in future. And perhaps you’d also tell your interfering boss that much as we appreciate her taking the time to come and remind us of our responsibilities as parents, we will run this family in the manner we choose, and we won’t be bullied into anything by someone like her.’

  There was so much that Holly could have said. She didn’t dare say a word of it.

  Her father took over then. ‘Your June also went to great pains to inform us that you and the two girls were thinking about running away at Christmas. We told her it was ridiculous, of course.’

  Holly found her voice. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘We were going to run away. We didn’t want to be here for Christmas.’

  There was an exchange of glances between her parents.

  ‘Holly, sit down,’ her mother said. ‘Now.’

  Holly had just taken a seat when the door flung open. Belle, then Chloe ran in. Belle went straight to her big sister. ‘Holly, can you help us find that —’

  Their mother interrupted. ‘Girls, didn’t I say —’

  ‘No!’ Holly was surprised by the volume of her own voice. ‘Please, let them stay.’ She needed to have them near her while she caught her breath and tried to work out what was happening here tonight.

  ‘It’s nine o’clock —’

  ‘Please.’

  Chloe and Belle took up their usual positions, one on either side of Holly.

  Their mother started again, in the voice Holly had never liked, the one she used when Holly knew she was angry but pretending she wasn’t. ‘So, Belle and Chloe, I hear you’ve been planning a bit of a secret. A surprise Christmas trip away, without us.’

  Belle’s mouth opened. Chloe’s did too. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Let’s just say a little bird told us. She told us a lot, in fact. So we told her something too. That you weren’t the only ones who’d been planning a Christmas surprise. And so your dad and I think we’d all better have a family meeting and get these surprises out into the open.’

  ‘Ours is a great secret,’ Chloe said, before Holly could stop her. ‘Christmas at the Valley View Motel. For free!’

  ‘Without us, though?’ her mother said. ‘Wouldn’t you miss us?’

  ‘You can come too,’ Belle said earnestly. ‘But only if you’re good and you don’t mind sleeping in boxes.’

  Holly couldn’t take her eyes off her parents as they both pretended to laugh. It felt like she was watching a performance. ‘What was your Christmas surprise?’ she asked them, still wary.

  ‘Will we tell them now?’ their father said, looking at their mother. She nodded.

  ‘We had a trip planned for you all for Christmas too.’

  ‘Really?’ Belle said.

  ‘To where?’ Chloe said.

  There was just a brief pause.

  ‘Disneyland,’ their father said.

  ‘Disneyland!’ Both girls ran to their parents, shouting questions. When, where, how?

  Holly watched, still with that strange detached feeling, as her parents answered Belle and Chloe’s questions as best they could. As best they could when they didn’t know the answers. Holly would have bet all the money she had that they hadn’t been planning anything like a trip to Disneyland. This was a result of June’s visit. It had to be.

  She’d find out tomorrow exactly what had happened tonight. She knew they would have tried to intimidate June, not physically, but with words. She could almost hear them. ‘Oh, Holly exaggerates. She’s very highly strung. The only thing we’ve been fighting about is where to take them for Christmas!’

  Perhaps she wouldn’t ask June for the details. Watching her sisters now, so excited, begging for more details, perhaps all that mattered was that June’s visit had made even some, temporary difference.

  Belle turned back to her then. ‘Do you mind if we don’t go to the Valley Motel this time, Holly? Maybe we could go next year instead? I’m sure that lady we email won’t mind, will she?’

  Holly tousled her little sister’s hair, going along with it all too. ‘I’m sure she won’t. Not if we explain we’re off to Florida instead.’

  ‘I think we’ll go to Disneyland in France, not Florida,’ her mother said.

  ‘Florida’s supposed to be better,’ their father said.

  ‘You’re an expert on Disneyland, are you?’

  ‘It’s the main one.’

  ‘But we could base ourselves in Paris if we went to the French one. See the Eiffel Tower.’

  ‘It’s the middle of winter. It’ll be freezing. Florida will be much warmer.’

  ‘It’s a longer flight.’

  ‘Oh, like an extra two hours is going to matter. That’s just crazy. What do —’

  ‘Stop it! Stop fighting!’

  They all turned. It wasn’t Holly who’d spoken. It was Chloe. Her smile had disappeared. She now just looked upset. ‘Please. Stop.’

  ‘We’re not fighting, Chloe,’ her mother said. ‘We’re discussing.’

  ‘You’re fighting. And it gives me a stomach ache. And Belle too.’

  Holly stood up. ‘Time for be
d, girls.’ She knew her sisters too well. This would turn to tears any minute now. ‘Come on. I’ll tuck you in.’

  ‘Holly, come back down when you’re done, please?’ It was her mother. It wasn’t a request. It was an order.

  She nodded. She’d pay for telling June so much, she knew. If not tonight, then in the future. But as she walked up the stairs with her sisters, she realised something else. She didn’t mind. Something had happened tonight. A subtle, tiny shift in power in favour of herself, Belle and Chloe.

  She would come back down and face whatever it was her parents planned to say to her. If she found the courage, there was plenty she could say in return. But there was something else she had to do first.

  As the girls cleaned their teeth, she sent a text to June. Thank you.

  The answer came back immediately. June must have been waiting.

  Any time, it said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In her room, Lola resisted the urge to ring Luke. He’d had the information about Alex for four days now. Surely he’d been able to find out something? Her impatient nature was coming back to bite her and not just because Christmas was almost upon them. If this was a film, she had a horrible feeling it would end badly, a split screen of two old people running towards each other on a railway platform or an airport concourse, arms outstretched, calling each other’s names, before one of them dropped dead from a heart attack. But they were old. There wasn’t time to waste.

  She was embarrassed to admit her mind had been playing tricks on her since the possibility of finding Alex again had arisen. She’d imagined all sorts of scenarios. Calling Jim, Geraldine and the girls together to make an announcement. ‘I’m going to live out my days in Tuscany with a very dear, very old and very handsome Italian lover of mine.’ Another time she’d pictured Alex arriving in Clare, to an instant rekindling of their feelings and their instant relocation to a charming, cosy house just outside the town, overlooking a dam, three vineyards and the racecourse.

  What had happened to her? She was worse than Emily daydreaming about Luke. If Alex was still alive, he could be a long way from being well enough to travel to Clare. He could be on to his second, third or fourth wife by now. Although, as Italy was as Catholic as Ireland used to be, divorce might have been difficult. Perhaps he was still with his first wife, both of them plump from all the fine food and pasta and bread, sitting out under a vine-covered verandah surrounded by pink-cheeked grandchildren, red and white checked tablecloths, raffia-covered bottles of wine … Stop, Lola.

  But if he was still alive, if he was still well, did he ever think of her? she wondered. Had he ever sat down to write to her, or asked a computer-literate friend to try to find her on the computer?

  She couldn’t wait for Luke to come back. She’d try to do a bit of research herself. It took only a few minutes to set up the laptop and wait for what had so far proven to be a very reliable broadband connection to kick into life. The search engine page came up. Using two fingers, carefully spelling his full name, she typed it in and pressed search.

  Five and a half million results. Good Lord! Had it been this simple, all these years, to find him? She clicked on one page, then another, her mood changing from optimism to pessimism. There were thousands of people with his name out there. She didn’t have the skills to weed them out. And suddenly she didn’t have the inclination either. Before she was drawn any further into the web, she quickly clicked to shut all the pages down, and turned the laptop off again too.

  She was being silly, being so interested in Alex’s whereabouts, turning him into her knight in shining armour, her rescuer. She knew what was really going on. She was reacting belatedly to Jim and Geraldine’s news. For all her apparent cheerfulness about getting in touch with old folks’ homes, being happy to stay in Clare, the truth was … yes, the truth was she was terrified. Once upon a time, she’d relished change, revelled in it, loved moving, the adventures it opened up, the challenges and also the rewards. She’d encouraged all her granddaughters to travel as much as possible, even giving them plane tickets as twenty-first birthday presents, practically pushing each of them onto the planes herself.

  Now, though, the last thing she felt like doing was packing up and starting again. The motel was what she’d called home for the past twenty years. She knew every inch of it, literally. She’d cleaned it all often enough in the early days. She had memories of so many guests, so many parties, big and small, including her own gala eightieth. Conversations with her three girls, when they had all lived there together, moving in and out of different rooms, depending on which ones were available. So many talks with Jim, in the kitchen or out under the trees. Chats with little Ellen, too, on the park bench that looked over the vineyard-covered hill opposite the motel, in the days when Bumper, the motel’s pet sheep and in-house lawnmower, had been her constant shadow.

  So many memories of Anna too. She had died here at the motel, just two rooms away. Lola walked past it every day. It gave her another reason to remember Anna, on top of all the other memories that were sparked here every single day.

  Were Jim and Geraldine right? Was it time they all left Anna’s memories in peace, moved on, mentally and physically? Perhaps the three of them were the ones who needed that distance the most. Bett and Carrie were so overwhelmed by the present that they didn’t have the luxury of spending time in the past, though Lola knew they grieved for their sister constantly too.

  And what about Ellen? Little Ellen, who had sounded so happy to know she was coming back to the motel. Was that a mistake on Lola’s part? Or was it a good thing to bring her back one more time, before the motel changed hands and became some new family’s place of memories?

  Lola returned to the desk and turned the laptop back on. It only took a moment to send the email.

  Ellen? Are you there?

  Five minutes later there was an answer.

  Lola! Yes! Are you?

  Lola smiled. She wished it was possible to talk to Anna like this, send her occasional emails too, receive them in return, rather than relying on those imaginary conversations where she had to play both parts.

  Darling, can you talk for a minute?

  Of course.

  Was it her news to share? Should she wait until Ellen got there and tell her then? No. Act, and act now! She dialled Ellen’s number and got straight to the point.

  ‘Darling, I think you should know something important before you arrive. I could wait until you were here, but you might be upset by it. I want you to have as much time to think it over as you can.’

  ‘What’s wrong? Are you sick? Lola, what is it?’

  ‘I’m not sick, darling. I’m sorry. I should have said that at first. No one is sick. We’re all very well. It’s about the motel. Ellen, I think you should know that your granddad and grandmother have decided to sell it. They want to move from Clare and buy a business somewhere else.’

  ‘What about you? Are you going with them?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m staying here in Clare.’

  ‘Are Carrie and Bett staying?’

  ‘So far, yes. But I don’t know if that will be forever.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  ‘You don’t mind about the motel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I love being there, but it makes me sad too.’

  ‘Will it be too hard for you to come back this time? To be here without your dad? You can change your mind if you want to, if you’d rather spend Christmas in Hong Kong.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I just thought you should know before you got here. It has particular memories for you and I didn’t want you to be upset.’

  ‘I’m fine. Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘You’re a good, grown-up girl, my Ellen.’

  ‘Dad doesn’t always think so.’

  ‘Yes, he does. He just doesn’t like it when you shout and sulk.’

  ‘Don’t you start!’

  Lola s
miled. ‘See you soon, darling.’

  ‘I can’t wait!’

  Lola and Glenn confirmed Ellen’s flight arrangements the next day. She’d arrive the evening before Christmas Eve. Luke would go down to Adelaide to collect her. The hardest thing for Lola was not letting on to Jim and Geraldine, or Bett and Carrie.

  As it was, they were all so busy helping with the Christmas hampers she suspected they wouldn’t have heard her if she did mention Ellen. It was just as well the motel wasn’t booked out. Eleven of the fifteen rooms were being used to store everything. Even so, Lola wasn’t sure they would have enough hampers to supply the requests that had come in.

  Every morning whoever opened up the charity shop found a little collection of white notes waiting inside the door. Sometimes they were just facts – names, address (always with CONFIDENTIAL) written alongside, ages of children. There had been a few heartbreaking letters, people going into detail about the difficulties they were facing. It was so sad, Lola thought. From the outside, the Valley looked like the most idyllic place in the world, with its gentle hills, beautiful vineyards, stone cottages. An easy lifestyle, plenty of sports facilities, nice houses, shops … But no person and nowhere on earth was immune from heartbreak or unhappiness. Lola had learned that herself the hard way. One letter had made her especially sad. A young lone father, bringing up two children after his wife had left him for another man. There had been a lengthy discussion about his letter in the shop.

  ‘How can a woman leave her kids like that?’ Kay asked.

  ‘She might have fallen desperately in love,’ Margaret said. ‘That might have taken over all her maternal feelings. Maybe when the first flush wears off, she’ll come back.’

  ‘How can the kids ever forgive her?’ Patricia wondered. ‘Being abandoned by their own mother?’

  ‘Maybe they’ll find more solace in the fact their father raised them on his own,’ Lola said. ‘That’s a pretty good role model to have.’

  They had just sorted that morning’s requests for help into order when the door opened. It was Mrs Kernaghan. Lola half expected to hear crashing organ music and the screeching of bats. It was the first time she’d been in the shop since she’d claimed credit on TV for the Christmas hamper idea.