‘Because it’s got all these rules and conditions attached to it if you want to enter, and one of them is you have to know the person you’re painting, and that they should be well known in their field, like in politics or the arts or some other verily impressable job.’
She sank back down in the water, head tilted back, elbows propping her up.
‘And the problem is . . .’ I said slowly.
‘The problem is that you’d think if Annie was going to choose someone to paint a portrait of, someone she knows well, and is a distinguished person in his or her field, she might have, you now, chosen Dad.’
‘She didn’t?’ I said stupidly.
‘No,’ said Annabelle, ‘she chose Fergus.’
This did surprise me; I didn’t think Annie really liked Fergus all that much. Whenever his name was mentioned, she’d say something under her breath, and Annabelle said she was still cranky about not getting any glass beads.
But Frank adored him.
There were photos on the wall of the River House of him as a kid, following Fergus around, carrying his cameras, copying the way he dressed, rubbing his chin with his hands and curling his hair behind his ears just so, until Frank grew old enough to fit into his own skin.
Fergus sent Annabelle postcards from places we would race to look up in the atlas; he sent her feathers and headdresses, and envelopes filled with strange scents from a life far removed from Juniper Bay.
One night, we had been watching one of Fergus Andrews’ documentaries at Annabelle’s house, when Annie came into the room.
‘What are you watching, girls?’ she’d said.
‘Uncle Fergus’s newest documentary, he sent it to me,’ Annabelle replied.
‘What’s it called?’
‘Um, Alisterus Scapularis, King of the Parrots.’
‘King of the Wankers, more like.’
‘Annie,’ said Frank, walking in, ‘what a thing to say.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Frank, Fergus’s documentaries get more pretentious with every award he gets, you know that as well as I do.’
‘What I know,’ said Frank, ‘is that Fergus is very talented and hard-working and he doesn’t deserve your derision.’
Annie turned to look at him with her gypsy eyes.
‘You’re right, Frank,’ she said, ‘he doesn’t. I’ll save that for his little brother.’
Annabelle and I had exchanged looks, and gone back to the King of the Wankers.
The truth was I didn’t much like Fergus either.
The first time I met him was when he had come to stay a few nights at the River House. He had talked about himself all through dinner, bringing out photos and souvenirs for everyone to sigh over, and never, I noticed, my eyes flicking between the two men, asking his little brother what he had been doing.
At about nine o’clock he had stood up, stretched, said, ‘Sorry, guys, I guess I’m still on Swazi time,’ which even though I was only fourteen years old and hadn’t learnt the word yet, I still knew was a tosser of a thing to say.
He’d walked up the stairs to the guest bedroom, stopping under a huge canvas Frank had recently finished, a lawless clash of colours and collage that would one day fetch a ridiculous sum of money at Sotheby’s and said, ‘It’s very busy, isn’t it?’
Back then, Annie resented Fergus’s success, the way he seemed to be overtaking Frank, who, she said, was more talented than ‘the whole damn lot of them’.
Frank’s work was exquisite, paintings and drawings and etchings of such detail, such beauty, that people found it difficult to believe they came from a man’s hands. But Frank was erratic, his timing was always out, his studio scattered with unfinished commissions, earning him the nickname ‘Half-baked Frank’ in unkinder artistic circles.
Frank was so interested in the minor details of life – ‘Tallulah, Annabelle, quickly come in here and look at this marvellous spider’s web!’ – that it probably never occurred to him to look at the big picture, and when he did it was all too often to find he had painted himself right out of it.
This time, however, it was Annie who was painting him out, leaving for the Solomon Islands about a month later, where Fergus was filming his latest documentary. Her departure was signature Annie: erratic and hurried.
‘Keep an eye on Annabelle, Tallulah,’ she said to me the day before she left as she packed up the huge, flat wooden box that held her paints and rolled up her brushes. ‘And Frank – actually, keep both eyes on Frank.’
‘How long will you be gone for, Annie?’ I asked.
She shut the lid and looked up at me.
‘Obviously you’re not an artist, Lulu,’ she said, ‘or you would know there is no answer to that question.’ She smiled, chucking my cheek with her glittering hands. ‘I will be gone for as long as it takes me to get it right, all right, my little worrier?’
‘Actually, I was wondering how long until Annabelle’s next meal,’ I snapped back at her, surprising myself with how upset I was she was going and not quite understanding why.
‘She is perfectly capable, Tallulah,’ Annie answered, ‘of making it herself.’
It rained the morning Annie left for the Solomons, a cracking storm taking photos in the sky, leaving a snapshot of her departure, Frank barefoot and hovering beside the taxi with a huge black umbrella.
With Annie gone, a blanket of calm settled over the River House, like rain damping the dust down after a long, hot spell.
Frank roused himself out of bed each morning to take care of his daughter who needed to be, he said as he shuffled about the house ironing her uniforms and making macaroni cheese, ‘loved, fed, clothed and shod – in that order’.
Annabelle stayed over at our house most weekends for the rest of that summer and into autumn, she and Josh jostling for position at our table, and Rose, especially if she was wearing Alexis, muttered things about Annie under her breath.
The rhythm of our days shifted and settled into the new pattern, until Annie’s absence drifted into two months, then, a phone call from Fergus later, what seemed like forever.
It was after dinner on a Saturday night – I know because Harry and Rose were watching repeats of Parky – when Annabelle showed up, knocking on our front door then joining us wordlessly on the couch.
One good thing about Rose’s illness was that it made her highly tolerant of anyone else’s strange behaviour, accepting what other people might have questioned. So instead of asking Annabelle what she was doing there, she just moved over and made a space for her on the couch.
When Parky finished we went upstairs to my room.
‘Annie’s not coming back,’ she told me. ‘Fergus rang Dad and said that he and Mum’ – she spat the word out – ‘have fallen in love, and that they need to stay there together in the Solomons to “work things out”.’ She hooked two fingers on each hand in quotation marks to show exactly what she thought of that particular phrase.
‘Oh God, Annabelle,’ I said, ‘that’s awful.’ I went to put my arms around her.
‘Don’t,’ she said, flicking them away. ‘I don’t care, Tallulah, I really don’t. If Mum wants to behave like a perfect slut with Mr Fucking Khaki, then fine. Frank and I are better off without her anyway.’
Frank – my heart lurched. ‘How is he?’
‘Who cares, Tallulah?’ she said, looking completely exhausted.
Then she slept on my floor for thirteen hours.
‘But you did abandon your daughter Annabelle when she was in her senior year at high school, didn’t you?’ Maxine Mathers was asking Annie, and somehow managing to look both damning and sympathetic at the same time.
I was just off the phone to Simone and sitting on my bed, biting my nails and hypnotised by the train wreck that was Annie’s interview, watching her eyes widen as she abruptly leant forward, startling Maxine Mathers into
the folds of her chair.
‘I find it very interesting,’ Annie said slowly, ‘that you would use the term “abandoned”.’
‘Why’s that, Annie?’ Maxine asked, her hand tucked underneath her chin, her features rearranged to appear faintly amused.
‘Because, Maxine, I did not abandon my daughter, as you so dramatically put it, I left for a few months to the Solomon Islands to paint a picture, which is what I do, and very well.
‘Annabelle was with her father, and I hope that period taught her that she could stand on her own two feet, and that women do not stop being who they are once they become mothers.’
‘But you ran off with her father’s brother,’ Maxine pressed as I bit down to the quick of my nail.
Annie sighed. ‘I did not run off with him, I fucked him,’ she said, and, as the switchboard at Channel Nine presumably exploded, she added, ‘which is another thing I do very well.’
Maxine Mathers, looking like an extremely well-groomed stunned mullet, turned to the camera, her face in search of a suitable expression.
‘After the break,’ she said, ‘Annie speaks exclusively to Today, Tonight and Tomorrow about her complex relationship with her daughter Annabelle and the heart-breaking betrayal of a childhood friend.’
I got up from the bed and switched off the television. I already knew how this part of the story ended.
*
Going to sleep that night, I thought about Annie’s words, which gave the impression that she thought she’d done her daughter a favour when she left all those years ago.
It was true that for a time the wheels of the River House kept turning, and Annabelle had never said she felt abandoned – in fact, most of the time she acted as if Annie’s absence was a blessing: ‘No more bloody patchouli candles stinking up the house.’
Perhaps . . .
‘Annabelle Andrews, please see Mother Patricia. Annabelle Andrews, to the office please.’ Sister Angela’s voice crackled over the St Rita’s PA system looking for Annabelle. I had been searching for her all lunch hour, finally finding her behind the school grotto that embraced Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.
‘Shit,’ she said, smoking a cigarette and pacing. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
Her uniform was twisted to one side and down her cheek a blood-red trail glistened, still wet.
‘God, Annabelle,’ I said, ‘what happened?’
‘The Piranha Sisters,’ she spat. ‘They said Annie was a slut, which you and I both know is true because how else do you describe a mother who runs off with your uncle and sends your father stupid fucking letters that he doesn’t even read, just piles up under the table . . .’
She was trembling, her face blotchy, and taking jagged breaths from her mouth while great globs of loopy snot swung wildly from her nose.
I sat her down so she could lean her head against the smooth curve of the grotto, found a tissue in my pocket and put it to her nose.
‘Blow,’ I said, putting my arm around her shoulders.
I took some baby wipes from my bag – apart from being the only girl at St Rita’s with untouched ears, I was also the only one who carried emergency hygiene supplies – ‘You never know when you might need them, Lulu,’ Rose said – and dabbed at the blood.
‘So,’ I said, attempting to cheer her up, ‘what does the other guy look like?’ and she smiled a little cracked smile through her tears.
*
‘Frank’s gone,’ Annabelle said about a week later, on our way home from school.
‘What do you mean he’s gone?’ I asked. ‘Gone where?’
‘Wouldn’t have a clue,’ she said, grinding her cigarette into the ground. ‘Don’t know, don’t care.’
‘Well, you must have some idea where he’s gone, has he gone to get Annie?’
‘What? No, don’t be stupid, Tallulah. As if Frank could work out how to get to the Solomon Islands, the man can’t even work out the bus route.’
‘Well, how long has he been gone?’
‘Two days.’
‘Two days?’ I shrieked. ‘Have you reported it to the police?’
‘Have you reported it to the police?’ she mimicked. ‘Stop being so melodramotional, Tallulah.’
‘Annabelle,’ I said, ‘I am not being melodramotional. If Frank really is gone, you should have told me, or Harry and Rose . . . Annabelle, I just don’t . . . are you sure he’s gone?’
‘What do you mean am I sure he’s gone? He’s gone, Tallulah, as in he’s not here anymore, he’s not at the house, I came home on Wednesday and I called him and I called him and I went to every room and he’s gone, all right, as in no longer around, disapanished . . .’
‘Well, we have to do something,’ I said. ‘First of all, you have to come home with me until Frank turns up – and he will turn up; second of all, we have to tell Harry and Rose; and third of all, we have to get in contact with your mother and tell her to haul her fat, sorry arse back here.’
Annabelle giggled.
‘What is so funny?’ I demanded. ‘This is not a funny situation, Annabelle, this is not a joke—’
‘You said “arse”,’ Annabelle smiled. ‘You never say words like that.’
‘Actually, I said, fat, sorry arse,’ I corrected her.
*
Rose made up a bed in the spare room for Annabelle, bustling and fussing around in Phoebe, fluffing the pillows and opening windows to ‘let some air in’.
‘Thanks Mrs de Longland,’ Annabelle said.
‘Pleasure, treasure. Now, come on you girls, help me with these sheets,’ Rose said, billowing white cotton into the air.
Later that night, when the boys had gone to bed, Harry and Rose asked Annabelle and me to sit with them in the lounge room.
‘Not the kitchen,’ I noted to Annabelle. ‘Must be serious.’
Rose came in carrying a tray and wearing Alexis.
‘Verily serious,’ whispered Annabelle.
Rose put down the tray of tea and bickies and said kindly, ‘Annabelle, do you have any idea at all where your father has gone?’
Annabelle shook her head.
‘Well, I know you don’t want us to call the police, but Harry and I both think that if your dad doesn’t turn up by tomorrow, or if we haven’t heard from him, we really should.’
Annabelle looked out the window.
‘If he’s hurt, or in some sort of trouble,’ Rose continued gently, ‘it would be wrong of us not to. You can see that, can’t you, love?’
Annabelle nodded, an almost imperceptible shrug of her head.
‘All right,’ Rose said, ‘that’s settled then – now, the other thing we need to talk about is your mother.’
Annabelle shifted in her seat.
‘She should know what’s happened, Annabelle, and I would like your permission to call her,’ Rose said firmly.
Surprising me, Annabelle nodded again.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Can I go to bed now?’
*
I went up to my bedroom that night, thinking about Frank.
Fergus and Annie’s affair had left him, I thought, undone. He seemed incapable of finishing anything. He would walk halfway up the stairs only to turn around and go back down again; he would leave washing half-hung on the line, doors half-open, dinners half-cooked, and never had the nickname, ‘Half-baked Frank’ suited him more.
But it was more than that, a melancholy had settled around him, a quiet kind of sadness that travelled with him as he roamed the rooms of the River House looking for somewhere he felt at home.
I had gone there one Saturday morning to see if Annabelle wanted to go for a bike ride, and found Frank sitting on the front step.
‘Hello, Tallulah de Lightful,’ he said.
‘Hi Frank,’ I said, kissing his cheek, its bristles biting my sk
in. ‘You need a shave.’
‘Do I?’ he asked, rubbing his palm against his face.
We sat for a little while on the stair, me looking at Frank, Frank looking at the air around him.
‘Well,’ he stood up, ‘better get that washing on the line before the rain.’
The sky arced bright blue and cloudless above us.
‘I don’t think it’s going to rain, Frank,’ I’d said.
‘It always does, darlin’,’ he said, slipping inside the house.
All that night, I shifted in my bed, caught between awake and dreaming.
Words and pictures looped in the darkness, Frank laughing with Annie on the grass, Frank hunched over a picture, paintbrush behind his ear, Annabelle saying ‘Dad drinks’, Annie saying, ‘Keep both eyes on Frank’, and then my own face, my own voice: ‘Frank says now we are thirteen and young ladies, we need a place of sanctuary.’
I sat up and as a growing wind slapped at my window, I had an idea of where Frank Andrews might be.
Outside, the dark was giving way to light, and I got out of bed and tiptoed down the hallway to my parents room.
‘Rose,’ I whispered, kneeling on her side of the bed. ‘Rose,’ I tried again.
Rose rolled over.
‘Lulu? What is it, love, is it Annabelle? Is she all right, are you all right?’ She went to turn her bedside light on, but I put my hand over hers.
‘Sshh, Rose,’ I said, ‘I think I know where Frank is.’
Wordlessly she slipped out from under the covers and followed me out into the hallway. ‘What’s going on, Lulu?’ she said, glancing at the clock that kept our family’s time. ‘It’s half past five.’
‘I think I know where Frank is,’ I repeated.
‘You know where he is? Is he all right? I think we should wake your father.’
‘No,’ I said, still whispering, ‘Frank wouldn’t want that – he’d hate that, and he wouldn’t want Annabelle either.’
Rose looked at me. ‘What do you want to do, Lulu?’
‘I want us to go to him, on my bike.’
I’d thought it through, Rose couldn’t, or wouldn’t, drive, and riding would be faster than walking.
Walking on Trampolines Page 7
