‘Nice to see you again, Andrew.’
‘Please sit down. Do you want anything, tea, coffee, a glass of water?’
‘No, thank you, I just had a coffee at the café downstairs.’
‘Right, well, let’s get straight to it,’ Andrew Lyons said, tapping a pencil against his palm.
‘I could have phoned you with all this, Tallulah, but knowing you as I have over the years when you and I have both been a party to some of Duncan’s little imbroglios, I thought I should talk to you in person.’
I nodded my head, knowing what was coming; had known it ever since Duncan had fallen ill and begun dropping hints about my own future, intimating that I ‘wasn’t to worry’, that I would be ‘taken care of’, words that unsettled me every time he had spoken them.
I didn’t want to be taken care of, I didn’t want a single thing from Duncan McAllister, didn’t want to be sitting here in the offices of Ferris and Lyons, perched on the edge of a familiar sofa, with Andrew buzzing around me like an attentive, beige fly.
All I wanted – stupidly, impossibly, childishly – was Duncan back.
I wanted Andrew to say, ‘This might come as a shock to you Lulu but Duncan is not, in fact, dead, but is now, as we speak, relaxing on a little-known island in Melanesia so as not to meet anyone he might know, having cleverly staged his own death in a bid to avoid paying tax.’
Since Duncan had died, my feet had remained firmly on the first rung of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s famous five stages of grieving: denial, my mind running through a series of impossible scenarios about where he really might be, each more fantastical than the last, and all of them, I supposed, designed to keep me from the aching truth – that my friend was gone.
But it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up the charade in Andrew’s office, the back of my legs sticking to the leather sofa, perspiration plodding down the back of my neck, and Andrew about to tell me what Duncan had bequeathed me.
I had no idea what it would be – the man was capable of anything – and although it had been generally presumed before Duncan’s death that he was a wealthy man, no-one had any idea just how wealthy, and even Kimmy had reportedly gasped after being told of the extent of her more-than-generous slice of the McAllister pie.
Andrew excused himself and walked through the heavy, panelled door to the room Duncan had always called ‘the inner sanctum of the inner sanctum’, so I sat, looking at the degrees on his walls, wishing I had asked for a glass of water.
There was a photo of Duncan on the wall, sitting on the same sofa I now occupied, with Andrew’s children, a blurry gaggle of limbs and missing-tooth smiles, wrapped around him.
A memory of one of the last conversations I had with Duncan flitted by.
‘Lulu,’ he had said one morning when I was making up the guest room. ‘Do you think you’ll have children?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘I’d like to – but in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a distinct lack of a potential father at the moment.’
‘I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that, my dear,’ he had said, adopting one of his maddeningly enigmatic ‘I know something you don’t know’ countenances. ‘No,’ he’d chuckled. ‘I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that at all.’
Oh God, I panicked, as a thought struck me, making me sit bolt upright on the sofa so suddenly the leather ripped at my sweaty skin.
Had Duncan left me some of his own sperm?
I wouldn’t put it past him; in fact, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed, so that by the time Andrew re-entered the room, I had convinced myself he would be carrying some sort of gold-plated petri dish.
‘Sorry about that, Lulu,’ he said, ‘I just had to check on something – well, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.’
Putting his fingers to his lips, he whistled, a sharp, shrill sound that jerked though the air.
Through the inner sanctum of the inner sanctum, a familiar shaggy figure banged the door open with his mighty head and came barrelling towards us.
Barney.
Duncan had left me Barney.
Andrew passed me a letter while Barney gambolled around our feet and pressed his great head between our legs, before settling himself between us as I opened it.
Dear Lulu,
By the time you read this I WILL BE DEAD – I’ve always wanted to write that, so dramatic, isn’t it? Like an Agatha Christie novel on a wild and stormy night, everyone gathered at the mansion to hear the old boy’s will. Anyway, by the time you read this I really will be dead, and you will be in possession of one of my most treasured possessions, Barney.
I know how hard it is to find a place to live these days with an animal, particularly one who may or may not be a wolf, so I have also made arrangements, through Andrew, to house him in the sort of premises to which he is accustomed.
To that end, I have bought Barney a home of his own on Willow Island, not too far from the one where I no longer Lingalonga, which as you probably know I have left to the children.
You may not have noticed it, as it is nothing fancy, just a nice little shack by the sea with plenty of room for Barney to run around in, and lots of trees for him to claim as his own.
Unfortunately, because the archaic laws of our country are yet to recognise what we both know, which is that Barney is, of course, human, I was forced to purchase his new home in your name.
Now, don’t get all huffy about this, Tallulah, it is yours in name and legality only, in reality it belongs to Barney to happily eat his way through for the remainder of his years. In the meantime, you are most certainly welcome to visit, or indeed, as I suspect will be the case, live there for as long as you wish or as long as it takes for you to become happy.
I know you’re not happy, Tallulah, and it is my greatest wish that by caretaking Barney’s home you may find on Willow some shelter from the storm you have found yourself in.
Don’t be mad at me – I can’t bear it when you’re mad at me, also I cannot answer back, which would be more than a little unsporting of you.
Your friend,
Duncan
PS I wonder where I am, don’t you? Personally, I’m hoping for Hawaii.
‘So,’ Andrew said, ‘what do you think?’
I looked up, and the sight of Barney, his leash dragging on the ground with no familiar hand tugging at the other end of it, finally undid me.
Duncan was not swinging in a hammock strung up between coconut trees, not being spirited away in the dead of the night by a speedboat driven by a woman in a white bikini and a fishing knife between her teeth.
Duncan was dead and I knew it in the moment I saw his lost, riderless horse.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what to think, I didn’t want anything from him.’
‘He knew that, Lulu,’ Andrew replied, ‘that’s why he gave it to you.’
*
‘Well, what sort of a house is it?’ Simone asked, excited, impatient, revved up on the three coffees she had managed to inhale in the half-hour we had been sitting in the café across the road from her work.
‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen it yet.’
‘God, I wish someone would give me a house,’ she said.
‘Well, I wish he hadn’t.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lulu, besides, you already told me, he gave it to Barney, not you.’
We both looked down at Barney, rhythmically licking Stella’s shoes with his great, lapping tongue.
‘What are you going to do?’ Stella asked, nudging Barney off her right foot with her left. ‘Are you going to move there?’
‘I don’t know, I thought I’d see it first, maybe spend some time there. I don’t really have anywhere else to stay at the moment anyway . . .’
‘You know you can always stay with
me, Lulu. But you should go over – check the place out, decide what you want to do with it. Want us to come with?’ Simone asked – lately she had grown so busy, she had decided to do away with what she called ‘superfluous’ words.
‘No, I think Barney and I should do this on our own, but thank you.’
‘Suit.’
‘Stop it, Simone, it’s suit yourself, suit yourself.’
‘You knew what I meant, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Stella. ‘Anyway, let’s get back to this house business, when are you going to go?’
‘This weekend.’
‘At least let us run you to the ferry,’ Simone offered.
‘No thanks,’ I said, ‘I’ve done it a million times, I’ll be fine.’
‘When can we come and see it?’ she pushed.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I’ll call you once I’ve settled in.’
‘Here,’ Stella said, taking a small gold medal from the enormous green carry-all she was always toting, ‘take this with you.’
I looked at the bright, round circle in my palm, and found St Christopher, patron saint of travellers.
‘Bloody hell, Stella,’ Simone said, ‘who carries religious medals around in their handbag? Who else have you got in there?’
‘Um, let me see,’ Stella said, fishing around in the green abyss, ‘Therese, I think, and Jude and Florian.’
‘Florian?’ Simone snorted. ‘Who’s he? The patron saint of hairdressers?’
‘It’s chimney sweeps, actually,’ said Stella primly.
‘Oh, well, he’ll be getting a lot of work around these parts, then.’
‘Stop it, Simone,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the medal, Stella, I’ll put it in my backpack.’
‘Oh, Lord save,’ said Simone.
‘It’s Lord save us, Simone, Lord save us,’ Stella sighed.
*
Everyone, it seemed, was determined to make the first trip to Barney’s new home with me, including Rose who I visited a few days before I left.
‘I’m coming with you, Lulu,’ Rose said firmly.
‘Rose, it’s not necessary, really, I’ll be fine.’
‘I know it’s not necessary, Lulu,’ she said, ‘but I’m still coming.’
‘But I don’t need you to.’
‘Well, I need me to.’
Harry was looking on, enjoying every minute, I knew, of this battle of wills between his wife and daughter, watching Rose fight her own corner.
‘Rose,’ I said, ‘you can come later, it’s a bit of a hike, it’s not like we can just jump in the car and we’re there.’
But if we were to just jump in, I knew it would be, for the first time in a long time, Rose behind the wheel. Harry had told me that a few weeks earlier, at Rose’s request, he had taken her station wagon out of the garage, cleaned it, checked it from top to bottom, turned it over and taken it for a run around the block a few times, before Rose slid behind the wheel, turned the ignition and took off, wearing Alexis and a new hat.
Since then, she had driven a little further each day, until they discovered her licence had expired and she’d had to re-sit the test for a new one. Now it was in her wallet, where she had shown it to me, saying, ‘Can you believe it, Lulu? I don’t look too bad for an old girl, do I?’
‘You look great,’ I’d said, and we’d both sat staring at a miniature Rose smiling out at us from behind the plastic.
I was thrilled for her – and Harry – his Rose re-emerging as the laughing girl who slipped out of her dress and jumped into waterholes, who now took off in the car wearing a hat and came back brandishing takeaway dinners: ‘Just like that,’ Harry had said.
But I’d also learnt not to trust this Rose, the one in full bloom. I’d seen her like this before, watched how easily her shoulders could drop, like petals to the floor. When she was like this, she was always in a hurry to throw herself back into the family, impatient to mend the frays at its edges. Now she wanted to come with me to Willow, but I wasn’t ready for that, for her, yet.
‘Rose,’ I said, ‘I promise you can come next time; just let me go over by myself first.’
‘Fine,’ said Rose, ‘but I’m baking you some shortbread.’
I didn’t take the barge over to Willow.
Instead I went on the new ‘Day Tripper’ service, run by the deckhand I’d met in Walter Prentice’s café, the one, I remembered, who’d said I had a sweaty face.
‘It was Duncan’s idea, actually,’ he’d told me when I’d rung the number to book. ‘He said Willow needed a service for people who didn’t want all the palaver of packing up a car, or were only going to stay a day or two.’
Or, I thought inwardly, for people who are carrying so much baggage all by themselves, they really don’t need to take any more.
‘Anyway,’ the man on the phone was saying, ‘my name’s Will Barton, and I’ll be happy to take you and Barney across whenever you like,’ adding, ‘Duncan said I was to take good care of you both.’
‘Did he?’ I said, feeling, as I always did, both annoyed and comforted by Duncan, now apparently still booming at me from beyond the grave.
‘Yup,’ he answered. ‘I’ve got a boat-building and handyman service on Willow as well, so Duncan said to keep a bit of an eye on you.’
I bristled a little, and when I hung up, said into the air, ‘Duncan, I am not a three-year-old girl on a kindy excursion, you know!’ and began stuffing clothes into a backpack to take over to Willow.
How many other people had Duncan asked to ‘keep an eye on me’ over there, I wondered, but when I told Simone and Stella about it later, Simone had leant back and said, ‘Well, Duncan probably had a point, Lulu, I mean look what happens when you’re left to your own devices.’
Stella had insisted on driving me down to the point where Walter’s barge and now Will’s much smaller boat picked up the passengers for Willow. Walter had raised his hand from the deck when he saw me, and I waved back, wishing for a moment I had taken my car, if only to see his leathery face at the window saying, ‘All right, Lulu, bit of a nor’-easter coming, but we’ll be sweet.’
‘Man looks like a half-eaten pecan pie,’ Duncan always said once Walter had walked away.
Duncan.
I had not, right up until the moment I saw Walter Prentice, realised how difficult this trip to Willow was going to be. Somehow, in the midst of everyone asking me about the house, it had escaped me that this would be my first trip to Willow without him beside me or waiting for me at the gate of Lingalonga. It felt wrong, as if I had no business being there.
I put my backpack down and knelt beside Barney, letting his chocolate eyes steady me until he ran barking towards Will Barton, who was bringing his boat into the bay.
‘Hey, Barney boy,’ he shouted, ‘good to see you, mate.’ He guided the boat in and shut down the motor, dragging the dinghy onto the wet sand.
‘Hey, Tallulah,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you, want me to take the backpack for you?’
‘No, thank you, I’m used to it,’ I said, wishing I had taken Simone’s advice to sew a few badges on it. ‘So it looks like you’ve been somewhere, Tallulah.’
Barney had already leapt into the boat and settled himself across its width, and I followed him, but in a decidedly more ungainly fashion, the backpack threatening to take me with it when I swung it off my shoulder.
I don’t know why I’d bought a brand new backpack for Willow; it just seemed more appropriate than a suitcase – ‘More “islandy”,’ Stella had offered, while Simone had looked at it and said, ‘How very Lonely Planet of you.’
Now, I wished I had taken her with me, as Will started the motor and we cut across the water in a steady slap of small waves hitting the bow.
I felt strangely nervous, the intimacy of the small space we were in not helping, mak
ing me feel like I should make conversation, then finding I had none.
Will Barton filled the space between us, telling me about the house Duncan had bought me.
The owner before Duncan, Will said, had been a bloke called Terry Danvers, a big-talking, smallish man who had tried to turn it into a recreational club, the Willow Island Aqua Sports Association.
‘That’s a bit of a mouthful,’ I offered.
‘Yeah,’ grinned Will, ‘he tried to shorten it to WIASA, but it never really took off.’
Terry had spent a couple of months fixing it up, Will said, then done a runner, taking off in one of his own canoes, never to be seen on the island again.
He’d bobbed up on the mainland a couple of years later, leaving a mountain of debt his mother eventually took care of and an abandoned clubhouse in which the island kids lit bonfires and shared their first kisses.
Since then, it had stood empty, a shell of a house with the horsetail casuarinas creeping closer, and sand billowing into its corners, and people thought Duncan was mad to buy it.
Will smiled. ‘He didn’t listen to any of them, he said it had excellent bones.’
Duncan had asked Will to be in charge of the renovation, to supervise the contractors and tradies, and after it had been repainted, rewired, had the plumbing ‘sorted’ and the giant yawning holes in its walls replaced by windows, Will had realised Duncan had been right, it did have good bones.
Speaking of bones, Will went on, his last job for Duncan had been to load the new deep freezer with a supply of them for Barney. ‘You’ve got enough in there to last you for years,’ Will said. ‘I’m coming over to you if there’s a nuclear war, by the way,’ and I smiled at him. Then I threw up, over the side of the boat, and into the bay’s pristine waters.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said when I’d finished, red-faced, ‘I’m normally okay on this ride, but I’m just a bit nervous, I think.’
Nervous and undone by Duncan’s gift, at how hard he had worked to make it work for Barney and me, at how much I wished he was sitting beside me, fingers deep in Barney’s coat.
‘I miss Duncan,’ I found myself telling Will Barton, who was handing me a bottle of chilled water he’d grabbed from a nearby shelf, ‘stupid old bastard.’
Walking on Trampolines Page 20
