‘Him!’ roared Stan. ‘’Course I didn’t mean that shifty hippy bugger! What’s come over you, girl? You going soft on me, Lil?’
Lily grinned at him. This was more like it. ‘’Course I’m not.’ She dug him slyly in the ribs. ‘But what about you, Pop?’ she said, jerking her thumb across the room at Lonnie. ‘I thought he was never going to be your grandson anymore.’
‘No good keeping up quarrels at my age,’ said Stan sheepishly. Then he lifted his head and listened. ‘Is that someone at the door?’
Lily had heard it too, a knocking so light it was almost furtive, as if the person on the other side of the door felt they had no right to be there. She followed Pop out into the hall.
He swung the door open. A small Chinese lady stood on the doorstep – no, perched on it, thought Lily, perched ready to fly away.
Except when she saw Pop she smiled, and Pop smiled right back at her. ‘I’ve had this feeling all evening someone was missing,’ he said, holding the door wide for her.
Lily felt her knees go watery as she followed them back into the living room. She’d known all along it was all too good to be true! Of course the Samsons couldn’t have a special perfect day like other families! Of course they couldn’t! Now look what had happened! Pop had gone and found himself a Chinese girlfriend. No wonder he wasn’t a bigot anymore.
Oh, poor poor Nan! Lily glanced across the room at her. Look how she was smiling, chattering away to Sef; it was obvious she hadn’t caught on yet. She didn’t know a thing.
Clara had caught on though; she was staring at the newcomer, and her face above the lovely wedding dress had gone white with shock.
‘This is a friend of mine,’ announced Pop. And then he glanced at his friend enquiringly.
‘Rose,’ she said shyly. ‘I’m Rose.’
‘And I’m Stan,’ Pop told her.
Lily stared, bewildered, as the two of them shook hands.
Not a girlfriend, then. Otherwise, surely, they’d know each other’s names? Wouldn’t they? She felt like crying, because how could you tell? In their family? How could you ever tell what was going on?
‘Mum!’ It was Clara. Clara in a blur of creamy silk, flying across the room, Clara flinging her arms around the stranger so fiercely she almost knocked her from her feet.
Okay, Lily got it now. This Rose was Clara’s Mum. So why hadn’t she come with Clara and Lon? Why had she arrived in the dark and all alone? And how come Clara hadn’t known she was coming? Why were they crying?
Dysfunctional, for sure, sighed Lily. The Samsons had acquired a second dysfunctional family. Where was Clara’s dad, for a start?
Clara’s dad was at Central station. He’d spent the afternoon in his study, pacing up and down. Every ten minutes his anxious steps would take him to the window, where he expected to see Rose, returned to her senses, coming back home again. Because how could Rose, who had always been rather shy, go off uninvited to intrude upon a houseful of strangers? A house whose location she hadn’t seemed quite sure about, except that it was somewhere in Katoomba and its occupant had the first name of Stan?
No, Rose was a sensible woman, Charlie told himself. He knew she was upset. He realised the sudden news of Clara’s engagement must have been unsettling, but when she’d had time to reflect calmly on the matter, she’d come round to his opinion: that Clara’s engagement was no real business of theirs. Rose had gone somewhere to think, he decided. She’d have gone to some quiet, leafy park, or the kind of tea-shop frequented by ladies of a certain age, where she’d calm down and realise he was right. Then she’d come home again.
The afternoon went on and on. Lights came on along the street. Then it grew dark, and Charlie knew Rose wasn’t coming home. He pictured her walking into Central station, hesitating a moment by the ticket machine, still a little unsure. Then she’d make up her mind: he saw that sudden determined tilt of her chin, the same small movement he’d often seen on Clara. Very carefully Rose would press the buttons for her destination, scoop up her ticket and change. He pictured her entering the train, standing on tiptoe to place her bag in the rack, sitting down on the seat, leaning her head back, closing her eyes. Abruptly, he remembered the fierce look she’d given him when he’d said, ‘It’s no business of ours!’
Charlie left the study and hurried down the hall. He grabbed his coat from its hook by the door and checked the pockets for his keys and wallet. Then he left the house.
At Central he found his hands were trembling so much he couldn’t press the right buttons on the ticket machine. He went to the window.
‘What can I do you for, mate?’ asked the man behind the glass.
‘Return ticket to Takoomba,’ said Charlie solemnly. The worries of the afternoon had caused him to misplace syllables; stress occasionally had this effect on him.
‘Takoomba?’ the ticket seller queried. ‘You mean, ah – Toowoomba?’
‘No I don’t. I mean, I mean, Koo, Koo –’
‘Kooweerup? Down in Victoria? Long trip, that, mate, and you’ll have to change at Melbourne. Reckon you wouldn’t get there till tomorrow afternoon.’
Charlie shook his head impatiently. ‘Not Kooweerup. Kat, Kat –’
‘Cattai Creek?’
Charlie knew the man was trying to be helpful, knew he thought this Chinese person might be having trouble with the language. Be calm, Charlie told himself silently. Think of something peaceful and perfect and soothing. He took a deep breath and slipped into the daydream he often used to send himself to sleep: he pictured his office, neat and orderly, a row of perfect clients waiting on chairs outside his door; truthful, tidy people who had all their details ready and never became angry or confused . . .
‘Are you all right, mate?’
Charlie opened his eyes. ‘Katoomba,’ he said quite clearly. ‘Return to Katoomba.’
‘Katoomba! Off to the mountains, eh?’
Charlie didn’t know what came over him. He told the man proudly, ‘My daughter has become engaged.’ He felt his lips stretching in a foolish smile.
‘Congratulations!’
‘Thank you!’
Charlie found a seat at the back of the carriage, hoping no one would come to sit beside him. Someone did come; right at the very last moment, as the train began to move. A young girl dressed in dusty black, and pregnant, Charlie saw with some alarm. Her pale face was oddly streaked, as if she’d tried to wash it without soap and only made it dirtier. In one hand she carried a battered knapsack, which she placed carefully beside her feet; in the other she held a ticket to Katoomba, and the piece of crumpled paper that Lonnie had given to her that morning. The paper was warm from her fingers, where, after reading its message and taking in the address, she’d clutched it tightly, all those long long hours till at last she’d made up her mind.
Her name was Lucy. And as the train sped westwards through the dark she had the unaccustomed feeling that she was going home.
It was almost dawn on Sunday the seventeenth of September, the day of Nan’s party for Pop. Pop would be eighty today.
Lily had woken early. Now she sat out on the front steps breathing in the heavy scent of dew-soaked grass and flowers. They had a bigger family now, she thought. Not only Clara had been added, but Clara’s mum, and even her dad, who’d arrived last night on the very last train, bringing with him – of all people – the beggar girl in black whom Pop had been worrying about for weeks. Her name was Lucy, and somehow Lily knew Lucy was with them to stay, and her baby too, when it came along. There was even talk of Sef moving up into the hills. Did a big family make things better or worse? Saner or more crazy? Lily didn’t know, and she wasn’t going to think about it today. Except – why did Clara’s dad seem so frightened of Mrs Nightingale? Why did he stammer when she spoke to him? And even once (Lily had heard him quite plainly) say, ‘Sorry, Miss,’ when he hadn’t done anything.
Then there was Daniel. He wasn’t family of course, he wasn’t even her boyfriend, not yet; but she was going
out with him next Wednesday after the Hamlet rehearsal. The weird fizzy feeling Lily had experienced that time she’d seen him walking down the corridor at school swept over her again; as if some fundamental law of Physics had been breached and she and all her thoughts were floating way above the ground. She hadn’t been sure she’d liked the feeling then and she wasn’t sure even now. Had Madame Curie ever felt this way? Perhaps she had – because it wasn’t simply fizz or air-headedness, it was as if the ordinary world had mysteriously expanded, revealing all kinds of possibilities you’d never known existed, or at least not for you.
Lily had thought she was first awake this morning; that behind her in the solid little house everyone else was sleeping. But now she became aware of a faint sound, like far-off whispered conversation, and light steps on the grass. She held her breath and listened. The sound was coming from the very bottom of the garden, from behind the shed, where there was a velvety square of lawn which Nan said had once been a croquet lawn.
Lily got up from the step and crept down the narrow path beside the hedge. She peeped round the corner of the shed and saw two old ladies in dressing gowns and slippers, dancing slowly round the lawn. It was a sight that would have made Tracy Gilman burst out laughing, and yet Lily thought Nan and Serafina’s dancing sort of fitted: fitted the beautiful garden and the whole perfect day she knew was coming after all. The sky was lightening now; in the distance the mountains were suddenly outlined with precious gold. Somewhere in Nan’s garden the first bird began to sing boldly, high up in the trees.
And from deep inside the house the telephone shrilled. At 5 am on a Sunday morning, who could this be, when all of them were here?
Lily smiled. She knew who this would be.
Not Daniel. Daniel didn’t have her number, and besides, he would wait till Wednesday.
It was someone who knew to ring here at weekends if no one answered back home at Roslyn Avenue.
Even if Pop bawled him out, called him a shifty hippy bugger or simply hung up the phone.
Someone who lived in Keene, New Hampshire, USA, where at this very moment it would still be Saturday afternoon.
Someone who was always promising to visit, and so far never had.
Someone who’d once called her ‘Lolly’; who always got her birthday wrong and then remembered three months later. Three months! Lily’s birthday had been on the seventeenth of June. Today was the seventeenth of September.
Over in the house the phone was still ringing as Lily began to sprint across the lawn.
‘Answer that phone, someone!’ Pop was roaring from his bedroom as she ran into the hall. ‘Are the pack of youse all deaf or what?’
Lily snatched up the receiver. ‘Hullo, Dad,’ she said.
ALSO BY JUDITH CLARKE
Kenny is fourteen. His dad has just died and to keep the family together, Kenny must find work. ‘Be careful going through the flatlands,’ his mother warns him. ‘Don’t stop for anyone.’ But Kenny does stop, and what happens next will define the man he becomes.
WINNER 2001 CHILDREN’S BOOK COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD FOR OLDER READERS
WINNER 2001 ARTS QUEENSLAND STEELE RUDD AUSTRALIAN SHORT STORY AWARD
‘a beautifully crafted, thoughtful and rewarding book’ VIEWPOINT
Jess was happy when they lived by the bay, but something is wrong with their new house. Since they moved, Vida is wild and furious and believes in all kinds of strange magic. Clem hasn’t even unpacked, and their mum is lying sick and silent in the room upstairs. And Jess can feel someone following her, invisible legs quietly keeping step . . .
‘a tantalising story . . . all together a really good yarn’ READING TIME
‘a spine-tingler with staying power’ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY USA
Neema’s great grandmother, Kalpana, is coming to visit. She’s been dreaming of flying again, and now she’s ready to leave her village in India. Kalpana doesn’t speak English and Neema doesn’t speak Hindi, but when they meet the flying boy, they both remember something they had lost long ago.
‘It is a very welcome talent that can create fiction light as air and refreshing as sunshine but that leaves the reader with substantial questions to ponder . . . a warm, funny novel.
’ AUSTRALIAN BOOKSELLER & PUBLISHER
‘sublime . . . a truly original book . . . Judith Clarke has done something genre-defying with this title
’ ECLECTICA MAGAZINE USA
One Whole and Perfect Day Page 21
