Lily took a cautious step towards the hole in the skirting board. Could Lonnie have actually been right? Could this huddled shape be Seely then? Perhaps come out to die? Seely had been that exact shade of dirty, brownish grey. Seal-grey. How long did hamsters live?
‘Seely?’ Lily whispered again, prodding the small still shape gently with her shoe. How creepily it sort of gave. Changed shape, became long and limp and raggy, so she saw at once it was nothing more than the wet dishcloth that Mum, in a hurry to get to work, must have lobbed at the sink, missed, and then, fecklessly (like Lonnie and possibly Hamlet) couldn’t be bothered to pick up. Lily snatched it from the floor and hung it where it should be, on the hook above the sink. The tap was dripping sullenly, it needed a new washer; she’d have to remember to buy one from the hardware store. ‘Tsk,’ she muttered irritably.
Tsk? Just like Nan.
Lily scowled. It was being the sensible one of the family that made her act in this way, filling her mind with cooking and shopping and electric jugs, making her old before her time. Something had to be done before it was too late; something totally impractical and non-sensible, the kind of action no one would expect from Lily Samson.
Like what?
Stop helping Mum with the housework? Lily pictured her mother’s tired face and knew that couldn’t be done. Run off like Lonnie? Fat chance!
Outside the sun came out. A gleam pierced through the ivy at the window and made a pool of light upon the floor. The old fridge hummed and spluttered, and mercifully began to hum again. Fall in love, thought Lily suddenly, astoundingly.
Why not? Tracy and Lizzie and Lara were always in love with someone, or about to be, or falling out of love; hopeful and eager, then radiant and happy, then crying, then hopeful all over again. What could be less sensible than that?
Fall in love, then.
But with who?
An image of Daniel Steadman glided into Lily’s mind: straight black hair brushed back from his forehead, eyes so deeply blue they made you shiver.
Why had she thought of him? She didn’t know Daniel Steadman, and he most certainly didn’t know her. Distantly she heard the school bell sound for recess. With one last disgusted glance around the kitchen, Lily headed for the door.
The sun in the streets lifted her spirits, the gloom that had descended on her back in the house began to seep away. She hadn’t had enough sleep last night, that was all. She’d had dreams, the disturbing kind you couldn’t remember when you woke but which left a kind of feeling over the day. Of course she wasn’t middle-aged! And there was nothing wrong with being sensible. Fall in love? Start thinking about some boy you didn’t even know? ldiotic, thought Lily. Ridiculous!
Just what she needed then.
Wasn’t it?
No, decided Lily. As if she didn’t have enough troubles. But ten minutes later, hurrying down the corridor towards the science lab, she saw Daniel Steadman turning into the senior common room. As she passed, their eyes caught – it was only for a second, but the tiny encounter gave Lily a strange light woozy feeling inside her head. It made her brain feel funny, like a – like a tablet fizzing, dissolving away inside a water glass.
She wasn’t sure she liked the sensation.
7 NO GRANDSON OF MINE
Up in the mountains, Lily’s pop was still in a temper. He strode round the yard, his face bright red, his black eyes glinting fiercely beneath his bristly brows. Occasionally he stopped and slapped a beefy hand against his forehead. Why did May have to bring Lonnie’s name into every single conversation? Why, when she knew, because he’d told her, time and time again, that Lonnie was no grandson of his anymore?
Stan kicked at the trunk of an apple tree. He knew why she did it, of course he did – there were no flies on him. She wanted him to make it up with Lonnie; she’d never been able to bear quarrels and fights within the family. Stan clenched his fists inside his pockets: this time she’d have to put up with it, he wasn’t giving in.
Not that May would give up easily; she was stubborn too. A few nights back she’d waited till he was asleep, and then nudged him awake. She’d wanted to know if he remembered Lonnie back when he was five, the time his dad had scarpered, and still half asleep, Stan hadn’t been able to fight off a sudden sharp image of a bony little head dug urgently into his ribs. ‘’Course I do,’ he’d answered, and then turned over and pretended to fall asleep again.
So what if Lon’s dad had scarpered? What about Lily, then? She’d lost a father, too. That shifty hippy bugger had scarpered before she was even born and Lily was all right. Lily was doing fine. And didn’t that sort of thing happen in every second family these days? Hadn’t his own dad died of flu when Stan was only seven? You got over things; you had to. You knuckled down. Only Lonnie never had. ‘And never will,’ Stan muttered furiously. Lon had been a clever little kid; you could see it in his eyes, and yet he’d never done a stroke of work at school, passed each year by the skin of his teeth and then gone off to do some kind of creative writing course, and dropped out halfway through. ‘The only thing I learned,’ he’d told Stan, ‘was that I don’t have any talent, Pop.’
‘You didn’t stay there long enough to learn even that much,’ Stan had growled.
Next he’d found a job at some fancy plant place, decorating malls and the foyers of big hotels. Two months and he’d chucked that in; off to horticultural college. Only that didn’t suit him either: ‘You have to learn the names of eight hundred and fifty types of plants, Pop, and I haven’t got the memory.’
Stan had exploded. ‘You’re twenty years old and you don’t have a memory! I’m going on eighty, and I’ve got one. Your grandmother’s in her seventies and she can remember the name of every girl in her first class at primary school!’
‘But that’s people, Pop.’
‘Eh?’
‘People’s different. I can remember people, it’s facts I’m bad about. Lists and stuff. Plants, Pop. They’re just names to me; there’s nothing you can get a grip on.’
‘Get a grip on yourself! What are you going to do now?’
‘No worries, Pop.’
No worries. What did it mean? No worries for who?
‘I’ll think of something,’ Lonnie had told him cheerfully.
He’d thought of Economics at the university. Economics hadn’t worked out either. Soulless, Lonnie had said. Soulless! That boy always had a word for it; he could talk through wet cement. The trouble with Lonnie was, he wouldn’t put his hand to the plough.
And yet, visiting Marigold’s house, Stan was disturbed by his grandson’s appearance. His face looked downright old. Dark blue circles hung beneath his eyes, and his skin had a waxy sheen. The long hair which fell from a centre parting clear down past his shoulders, that dull lank lock across his forehead seemed lighter, seemed – ‘Are you going grey?’ demanded Stan.
‘Grey?’
‘Your hair.’
‘It’s streaks, pop. Silver streaks.’
Silver streaks!
Lonnie had dropped out of Economics two weeks later.
The crisis had arrived last summer, on the long weekend when the family had come to visit. Now it was Marigold who was looking under the weather: pale and drawn, her eyes red-rimmed as if she’d lain awake all night. ‘Something wrong?’ Stan had asked her.
They were in the garden, on the bench beneath the jacaranda. From there you got a view of the whole of the valley, and the hills rising up beyond it, layer on layer of blue. Nearer home, you could see the shady corner down the bottom of the yard where the two apple trees grew, the summer hammock hung between them, Lonnie swinging slowly in it, one delicate white foot drooping, white toes brushing the long green grass.
‘Marigold?’ Stan prompted, because she hadn’t replied. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Stan had jerked a thumb towards the hammock. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? What’s he done now?’
Marigold had turned and flung herself against his chest. ‘Dad, I can’t stand it anymore!’
Of course she couldn’t. Neither could he. ‘You mean the way he keeps on dropping out?’
‘No, she’d said sadly. ‘I’ve got used to that. It’s the way he keeps on starting up again. He’s talking about doing Arts now, and I dread it, Dad. Because when he starts on something, I know, three months down the track, he’s going to –’
‘Right.’
It was at this point that Stan had gone for the axe, the shiny new one he’d bought to deal with the lantana down the back. He’d run, yes, despite his almost eighty years, he’d run to the shed and grabbed it up, and then, holding the smooth wooden handle down behind his back he’d crept stealthily down to the hammock where that delicate white foot still dangled lazily.
‘Starting another course, are you?’
Lonnie had looked up and favoured his grandpa with a calm, mild smile. ‘Yeah, Pop. English Lit. You know, I think this might be me, Pop.’
‘Might it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How old are you now, Lon? Twenty-one?’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘Twenty-two, eh? When I was your age I’d been pounding a copper’s beat for four bloody years.’
‘Yeah, I know, Pop. But –’
‘But what?’
‘It was a different world then, Pop.’ There was a kind of lazy patronage in Lonnie’s voice, as if the world Stan had struggled through back in his own youth was simple and uncomplicated, a kindergarten sort of place.
‘Now listen here –’
‘And I’m a different kind of person to you,’ Lonnie had continued smoothly.
‘That so?’
Lonnie had smiled again. ‘Yeah.’
Stan had begun to shout. ‘Take your bloody course, okay? Go on and take it! But if you drop it, if, if you –’ Stan’s voice had stumbled, recovered, ‘you chuck it in again, if you upset your mother one more time –’
‘Chill out, Pop. Everything’s cool. Mum doesn’t mind; she’s used to it.’
And then Stan had drawn the axe out from behind his back and raised it. A glint of sunlight had dazzled along its edge.
‘Geez!’ Lonnie was out of the hammock in a second, edging back, alarmed. Stan had never seen him move so fast. ‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Just try me,’ Stan had replied.
‘But –’
‘No buts.’ Stan’s voice had suddenly grown weary. ‘Just – get out of here! Give your mother a weekend without you; give us all a break! Hop it to the station, okay?’ He’d looked at his watch and then taken a twenty from his wallet. ‘If you get a move on you might just make the 4.30. Here’s your fare.’
Lonnie had drawn himself up then. ‘I’ve got money,’ he’d said proudly. ‘I work, Pop. I work part-time, at night, stacking shelves, I told you –’
‘Just get,’ said Stan.
He hadn’t seen Lonnie since, though he occasionally heard news from Marigold or May. Lonnie had started his course; he’d moved out of home, he’d found himself a room in some kind of boarding house, over Toongabbie way. Full of bedbugs, probably. Lonnie wouldn’t know what they were; he’d think he had a rash. Well, so what? Stan shook his head furiously as he circled the lawn again. He didn’t care if the kid got himself eaten alive; he’d written him off. Lonnie was no grandson of his anymore.
Lonnie had done his dash this time. You could bet your bottom dollar on that. Stan would not be moved.
Inside the house, May was dreaming of weddings: weddings in churches with bridesmaids and flowergirls, organ music and a choir singing. And afterwards long tables on a green lawn, crisp white tablecloths, strawberries and fresh cream, champagne, and flowers everywhere. And a bride in a wedding dress . . .
There’d been a dearth of wedding dresses in May’s life. She herself had been married in the austere years just after the war, in a navy two-piece she’d saved for on coupons, and a tiny little hat with a touch of violet veiling to match her eyes. As for Marigold – well, May had never known what kind of dress Marigold had worn, because she and Stan hadn’t been invited to the wedding. On the single occasion they’d met Oliver DeZoto, Marigold’s fiancé, Stan had called him a name that even now could bring a flush of colour to May’s cheeks – and that had been that.
‘What kind of wedding do you think it was?’ she’d asked Stan sorrowfully on that long-ago day, for their daughter had told them the date, even though they weren’t invited, and May hadn’t been able to stop thinking of it, all through the long afternoon.
‘Bloody hippy drug-fest, love,’ Stan had replied. ‘You haven’t missed a thing. And if I’d known the exact time and place, I’d have organised a raid.’
All bluff, May had thought, because she knew Stan felt as hurt as she did.
‘What do you think she wore?’
‘Bleedin’ gunnysack.’
They needed a wedding in the family, May thought now. Well, they needed some kind of celebration. She’d given up on Marigold marrying again. ‘No way,’ said Marigold. ‘Marriage solves nothing, Mum.’ And she’d forbidden her mother to speak of the subject again. And Lily vowed she wasn’t getting married till she was at least forty. ‘There’s a whole world out there, Nan!’ As for Lonnie, he was a dear good boy at heart, but the right girl would have to come along, and that might take some time – most things in Lonnie’s life seemed to require time.
May sighed and said sadly to Sef, ‘Not a wedding, then. At least not for a while.’ Then she blushed, as if someone had caught her talking to her friend, as Marigold had often done when she was growing up. ‘Talking to yourself, Mum?’ Marigold would say. ‘First sign of madness, that.’
‘Not to myself,’ May had replied. ‘To Sef.’
‘Sef? Who’s Sef?’
‘My –’ May had grasped a phrase from the air, and been stuck with it ever since. ‘My imaginary companion.’
‘Imaginary companion!’ Marigold had scoffed. ‘Mum, be your age.’
Sef wasn’t imaginary. Sef had been quite real, once upon a time, the big girl who’d looked after May back there in the Home: Sef in her long white nightdress, sitting on the edge of May’s bed, holding her hand and chasing the bad dreams away; Sef’s quick fingers braiding May’s hair in the mornings, doing her buttons up right. ‘All long ago now,’ sighed May.
Folding Stan’s wedding dress across her arm she got up from the sofa and went to the window, and there was Stan still pacing round the garden. She could tell by the stiff tilt of his head, the anger in his stride, the way he’d forgotten all about the mowing, that he was brooding about Lonnie. As she watched, he stopped still and stood gazing out towards the hills, into the mist, the swirling clouds of foggy dew. There was a little stoop to his square shoulders now. Like her, he wasn’t getting any younger; he’d be eighty in September.
Eighty! May drew in a quick, excited breath. Eighty was special, surely. She’d have a party for him! Not a big one, like her grandchildren’s weddings would be – this would be just family and perhaps a few old friends. In September the garden would be at its loveliest: the lawn a pure bright green, the early roses out, the wisteria round the patio. It would be warm enough to have the table on the lawn, and the white embroidered tablecloth Stan’s mother had given them at their wedding, and she’d have streamers and floaty white balloons, fairy lights strung through the trees.
‘A celebration,’ she said to Sef, and there was a kind of familiarity to the word, as if someone had said it to her, very recently. ‘A celebration,’ she repeated, and now it seemed to her that the word had the sound of bells in it. And if there was a celebration, then Lonnie would have to come. He and Stan would make it up. Of course they would. May’s soft face took on a determined expression. She would make sure they did.
8
LONNIE’S TUTORIAL
Powdery golden sunlight drifted through the windows of Dr Finch’s tutorial room, warming Lonnie’s knees through the frayed denim of his jeans, and his skinny arms through the loose weave of the big yellow sweater h
is nan had knitted for him. It felt strange to be warm again; Mrs Rasmussen’s Boarding House for Gentlemen was so cold that the small electric heater Lonnie had picked up from the Op Shop barely made a dent in the deep freeze of his room. Lying in bed at night he often pictured the small sitting room at home; its gas fire blazing, Lily doing her homework at the table, his mother deep in paperwork she’d brought home from her job, occasionally chatting with a lame duck she’d brought home as well.
Unlike his sister, Lonnie had never minded Mum’s lame ducks in the house, though these days it gave him a twinge to think of one of them snuggled up warmly on the battered sofa which had been his special place, even sleeping in his bed in the small room down the hall.
Lonnie tipped his head back to let the sun shine on his face, and stretched his long legs out till he was almost lying in the chair. When he thought of home these days it felt like he’d been cast out, and yet he knew it hadn’t really been like that: Pop might have thrown him out of his house, but Mum hadn’t chucked him out of theirs. It had been his own choice to go; he’d wanted space from them.
All of them, not just Pop. Pop thought he was useless. He said Lonnie had done his dash with him, whatever that meant. What was a dash? Lonnie closed his mind against the image of Pop’s red angry face, and a much older memory of a big warm hand enclosing his. Pop had done his dash with him. ‘He’s no grandpa of mine,’ he muttered, and didn’t notice how the girl in the chair next to his turned her head and smiled.
Yes, he’d wanted space from all of them: from Mum, who was always worrying about him and therefore made him worry about himself; from his bossy little sister, who also thought he was useless; and even from Nan, who seemed to think he was some kind of angel fallen down from heaven, which somehow made Lonnie feel worst of all. They mucked you up; you didn’t know who you were. He had to get himself sorted, he had to work out what to do.
Now the unaccustomed warmth took hold of Lonnie, his eyelids fluttered, and Dr Finch’s words on the poetry of Matthew Arnold rumbled right over him, like tumbrels on the way to the guillotine. His head drooped, he dreamed that kind of dream where you seem to wake in the place you’ve fallen asleep . . . there at the window of Dr Finch’s room Lonnie saw a tall dark-haired young woman in a long brown dress, peering in through the glass. He knew at once it was his favourite writer, Emily Bronte, because he’d know her anywhere. She was gazing straight at him, beckoning with a strong brown hand.
One Whole and Perfect Day Page 4
