Walking on Trampolines

by Frances Whiting

  ‘No.’

  ‘We made hook rugs, Lulu, for a whole week.’

  I patted her arm softly to let her know I sympathised but without letting her know I had no idea what a hook rug was.

  ‘When you all had part-time jobs in dress shops or cafés or cinemas on the weekends, I did volunteer work, and after school finished, when everyone else I knew was travelling overseas or studying at university or doing some sort of amazing job, I was getting married at eighteen years old and walking up that aisle as possibly the last virgin ever to graduate with honours from St Rita’s – and don’t think I don’t know that Annabelle used to call me Virginia Intactia.’

  I nodded, trying not to smile at the nickname Annabelle had given Stella, trying not to think about Annabelle.

  ‘So,’ Stella continued, ‘I have kept my marriage vows and I have gone forth and multiplied with not one but five children, and I am still doing the flowers for church every Sunday, and I am still getting down on my knees and thanking the Lord for my good fortune every night, and I understand that has been my choice.

  ‘But you would think,’ she said, stabbing at the word in the growing darkness, ‘you would think, wouldn’t you, that this would earn me some sort of reward points, you know, or at the very least some sort of nod from Him,’ she jerked her head at the sky, ‘some acknowledgment that I have been His faithful servant for my entire life – but what happens, Lulu, what happens?’

  I knew there was no answer required, so I kept still and quiet in the dark.

  ‘People like my husband go out and screw some twenty-two-year-old rental girl, but he will be all right because he will still have five beautiful children who adore him and a stupid wife who will take him back because she loves him, and people like you, Lulu, go out and sleep with your best friend’s husband on their wedding night, their wedding night, and what happens to you? You’re given a bloody beach house.’

  This time I did flinch.

  ‘So,’ she said, standing up and brushing the sand from her jeans, ‘I think I’m done with God now.’ She walked towards the house, following in Barney’s footsteps and not looking back.

  I lay on the lawn, feeling its dampness creep through my windcheater, my body completely still, flattened by her words pouring over me in a hot rush. All the shame I had felt descended on my chest like a cloud of black insects beating their wings. She was right, I didn’t deserve this, any of it.

  A spray of rain came in from the sea, and I stood up to go inside my house of ill-gotten gain to Stella. As terrible as I felt, she would, I knew, be feeling worse, and the important thing was, I decided, that in the midst of her tirade, she had said she still loved Billy. That was something we could work on together, and what she thought of me – and God – could wait until later.

  ‘Oh, Lulu,’ she said, bursting into tears the moment I walked into her room, ‘I don’t know what I’m saying, I just hurt so much and everything’s gone wrong and I think I’m just really tired, you know, all those children, and now Billy . . .’

  ‘Shh,’ I said, climbing in beside her, ‘it’s all right, I’m not upset with you.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked.

  ‘Really,’ I said. ‘I know what I did was wrong, Stella, and I’m trying to work through it myself in the best way I can. But in the meantime I want to tell you something Duncan told me not long before he died.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I don’t know if it will help you, but it seemed to help him,’ I said, handing her one of Rose’s embroidered hankies.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘He told me that he wasn’t sure about exactly who or what he believed in, but that he did believe in something, that he had faith. He said he thought it was what we could still hear through all the shouting.’

  Stella smiled.

  ‘Then he said he wanted some chicken.’

  She laughed, her tiny chimes filling the room.

  *

  ‘Ex-boyfriends, runaway teenagers, lapsed Catholics, man, Willow Island has certainly livened up since you moved here, Lulu,’ Will was saying, peeling another prawn and throwing the shell to Barney.

  ‘Don’t encourage him, Will,’ I said, ‘that’s disgusting.’

  ‘Not as disgusting as the dead bat he tried to eat yesterday.’

  ‘True,’ I said as we both contemplated Barney now chewing on the dead crustacean’s head.

  It was the week after Stella had left, her skin flushing a deep red when Will came to the house to collect her.

  ‘Hey Stella,’ he smiled, ‘have a good stay?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, William,’ she’d answered, ‘very pleasant.’

  William? Very pleasant?

  ‘I didn’t realise we’d moved to Brideshead,’ I whispered in her ear as I kissed her goodbye.

  ‘Shut up,’ she whispered back.

  ‘It’s shut up, m’lady,’ I replied.

  Then she left, Will carrying her bags down Avalon Road, back to Billy, her six children and the Christmas Pageant Committee, and I could only pray they all knew how lucky they were to have her.

  ‘So, who’s next?’ Will was saying, ‘who’s the next visitor?’

  ‘No-one for a while I hope, I’m exhausted.’

  Will had come over to watch the cricket with me, bringing a six-pack and some prawns. I loved sitting there with him, watching the game with Barney snuggled between us.

  ‘This is perfect,’ Will announced from the couch, ‘it’s a beautiful day, I’ve got beer, prawns, the cricket’s on, Barney’s not eating my shoes, and you.’

  He smiled a tiny, lopsided smile at me, one that said, ‘There it is, Lulu, take it.’

  Warmth filled my body, like I’d just downed a shot of very good whiskey.

  This would not do at all.

  ‘Thank you,’ I told him primly, revisiting Brideshead myself.

  Julia and I were sitting on Racey O’Leary’s seat late one afternoon, trying to spot if there were any whales moseying by the island, when our talk turned to Duncan’s funeral.

  ‘I saw you there, I didn’t know it was you, of course, but I noticed you among all those people,’ Julia said, her eyes trained on the ocean. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? And now we’re friends.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Well, I’m sorry I didn’t notice you in particular, Julia, but I did notice all the Willowers.’

  The truth was, they’d been hard to miss, allotted three pews, the Willow Islanders standing out like molluscs stuck to their seats as all the glittery fish in Duncan’s life – politicians, film stars, journalists and glamorous ex-wives – swam by.

  It had been a solemn service, and while a spirited eulogy was delivered by Duncan’s first radio producer and oldest friend, James Clivedon, the morning was cloaked by an underlying sadness, as worn by the slump of his children’s shoulders.

  The wake, however, was just as Duncan would have wanted it, a party which took on Bacchanalian proportions by the end of the very long night, which saw Kimmy performing a strangely moving rendition of ‘Islands in the Stream’ to an empty bar stool.

  ‘Did you notice Will there?’ Julia was asking, still looking out to sea.

  ‘No, I did not notice Will, Julia,’ I answered, smiling.

  ‘Well, he was there,’ she said, adding, ‘Duncan loved him, you know, used to call him a loin-melter.’

  ‘A what? Oh God,’ I groaned as we both started laughing.

  ‘He said Will was exactly the sort of bloke he’d go for if he was gay, someone with a bit of marrow in his bones, not some bloke getting by in life by knowing how to pronounce focaccia.’

  We laughed again, then as the sun began to dip behind Crook’s Rock, headed back down the trail, parting ways at my letterbox.

  ‘I better get back to Boris,’ Julia said, ‘cook him some dinner – you wouldn’t know
it now but, boy, was that man a loin-melter in his day.’

  I waved her off, and then checked my letterbox before going into the house. I didn’t get a lot of mail on Willow, but today there were a couple of catalogues, and a letter. I knew the handwriting instantly; it could not have been more familiar to me.

  It was from Duncan.

  I looked around, peering down Avalon Road, then whipped my head around to the house, half-expecting to see him standing in the doorway, saying, ‘What’s the matter, Lulu? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Instead, I held one in my shaking hands.

  How had it come to me? It was so like Duncan to do this, I thought, but who had he talked into posting it? Turning the letter around to examine its front, I realised with a small shiver that there was no postage stamp. It had been hand-delivered.

  I ran inside the house into the library where I sat down on the couch, and opened it.

  Dear Lulu,

  How are you, my dear? I am fine, although a bit cold.

  Well, have you settled in? What do you think of Barney’s new home? Marvellous, isn’t it? So many questions to ask and so irksome not to be able to know the answers – unless of course I’m floating about the corners of the WIASA, and lurking behind you like Patrick Swayze at the pottery wheel. You should take up pottery, by the way, it’s just the sort of thing a young woman who moves to an island would do, isn’t it?

  Which brings me to the point of this latest missive – what are you going to do?

  I’m sure it’s all very pleasant wandering about Willow picking up seashells and the odd shipwrecked sailor – how is Will Barton, by the way? – but you’ve been there for three months now, and the time is probably coming when you’ll need to decide whether or not to return to the mainland, or stake your claim on Willow and become one of those colourful local identities they’ll write about in those marvellous local history books:

  Well worth a look is the Willow Island Aqua Sports Association, once home to the infamous Juniper Bay Wedding Shagger, Tallulah de Longland. Tallulah was a much-loved if eccentric Willower, who spent her days making rosella jam wearing nothing but a wedding veil on her head. She lived until the age of sixty-seven, when it is believed her dog Barney – once owned by the famously virile Duncan McAllister – ate her.

  Anyway, my dear, should you choose to stay, I’m sure you’ll find something useful to do.

  In the meantime, enjoy Barney’s new home – I do hope it’s not too big for the two of you, all those empty bedrooms and that enormous kitchen table with all those empty chairs just for you to sit at.

  Oh well, I’m sure you’ll think of some way to fill it.

  From your old friend to his dearest friend,

  Duncan

  PS What did you think of the funeral? Did you think Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ was a bit much? Kimmy wanted ‘Let’s Get It On’ but Kerry-Anne wouldn’t let her.

  At the top of letter was the embossed imprint, From the desk of Duncan McAllister – a vanity that had always amused him.

  ‘Love it,’ he’d say, ‘makes me sound like a ship’s captain. I wonder if I should get a set done for every room I’m in – “From the bathroom of Duncan McAllister”, “From the garage of Duncan McAllister”, “From the unmade bed of Duncan McAllister”.’

  ‘What about “From the unhinged mind of Duncan McAllister”?’ I had suggested one day, and I smiled, remembering the arch of his eyebrows.

  My eyes fell back on the page, on Duncan’s neat, precise handwriting so incongruent with the man who had guided its pen with nail-bitten fingers.

  A man should have good penmanship, he often said, it meant you cared enough to take the time to form your letters, to leave enough space between words so the reader had an easy passage through them, no matter if the words themselves were harsh – especially if they were harsh, he had said.

  I ran my finger underneath the words, tracing him.

  ‘So, from the desk of Duncan McAllister,’ I asked the air, ‘what’s all this about? Who do you want to join me at my table?’

  I knew there had to be more – with Duncan there was always more – and the answer came the next day, with another hand-delivered, extra-celestial message from my former employer, this time headed: From the unhinged mind of Duncan McAllister.

  Dear Lulu,

  My apologies for stealing your line, but I was rather taken with it, and besides we both know I’ve been stealing other people’s lines for years.

  The truth is, my mind has never been sharper and as I lie here and my own days get shorter, I feel a great sense of urgency to share what I have learnt these sixty-eight years I have been allowed to freely wander about this earth without some sort of licence.

  Don’t worry, this is not to be one of those awful ‘I wish I had danced more’ missives, the truth is I wish I had danced less, as do, I’m sure, many other people.

  I have made many friends in my life, Lulu, and many enemies as well. I have loved the wrong women and the right ones and somehow I have managed, one way or another, to hurt all of them with only one exception – you.

  Yours is the one great love of my life I haven’t managed to stuff up – I have not, I hope, ever really let you down, or kept you waiting too long, or told unimaginable lies to you.

  We have always been honest with each other, have we not?

  Well then.

  The truth is bedding Joshua Keaton on his wedding night was not your finest hour.

  I know it was partly an act of defiance against your relentless do-goodery, the manifestation of a long-suppressed wish to be a good girl gone bad.

  But it was also rather mean-spirited, and not like you at all. You are not a bad girl, Lulu, and never will be.

  And so we come, at last, to the real point of this letter.

  What I have learnt in the years allotted to me is that we can’t fight who we are, Lulu. We can’t – every time I have tried to, it has ended in tears, furtive taxi rides home, and the occasional night in jail.

  I, for example, am a borderline alcoholic with questionable hygiene habits, a know-it-all, a habitual liar, an occasional substance abuser, a secret coveter of other people’s lives, a shameless publicity seeker, a wearer of bad clothing and a serial adulterer, a man who never, ever should have married and yet, ignoring all the signs did it not once but four times, because the other indisputable truth about me is that I can’t resist a happy ending.

  This is who I am, Lulu, I can’t help it any more than you can help being an almost unnaturally decent sort of person, a hand-holder, and a believer in even the worst sort of people.

  I know you believe this is a boring sort of person to be, so I hasten to add you are also funny, sharp as a switch-knife and utterly, utterly delightful.

  So, having established who you are, the question is, what are we going to do with you, now that I am no longer there for you to fuss over?

  Well, I have an idea, a rather good one, I think. Here it is.

  Willow Island has many attractions, but nowhere decent to stay so people can enjoy them. Barney’s home is big and beautiful and crying out for people to rattle its rafters. Rose’s cakes and breads and biscuits lie idle in boxes in her kitchen and her busy hands need somewhere to put them. Harry deserves a regular holiday. You deserve a life you love.

  In short, my idea is to turn the Willow Island Aqua Sports Association into a Bed and Breakfast, a ‘B and B’, I believe they’re called by people who enjoy pot pourri.

  You would be the ideal host – brimming with bonhomie, charming, organised, efficient, punctual, not too nosey, not likely to bore your guests with long-winded tales – would that I were alive so that could be my job.

  Rose’s cakes would be devoured, Harry could fix things around the place to his heart’s content, Mattie and Sam could come in the holidays, and all the freeloaders who I am
sure will beat a path to your door will find the inn is full. The point is, Lulu, you’ve always looked after people, so you may as well get paid for it.

  Anyway, that is my idea for you to do with what you will.

  In the meantime, my greatest love to Barney, and of course, to you. I hope my letter has not upset you – I tried to put the proper spacings between the harshest words, and in case these messages from the other side are having an unsettling effect on you, don’t worry, this is my final letter.

  So, this is it, the famous last words bit.

  I wish I could think of something devastatingly clever, but all I can think of is something my mother used to tell me. She was a great gardener, Lulu, and her pockets were always full of crushed petals or leaves or seeds or bits of twigs – you could never put your hand in one of her pockets without finding something in there. She’d say, ‘I know it’s silly, darling, but I like to take a bit of the garden with me wherever I go.’

  When she died, I went into her backyard and collected all manner of green things, and took them to the undertakers with me. Then I slipped her garden into her pocket.

  I’ve never had a green thumb, so I don’t have a garden to take with me, but I do have a hand to hold, and a place to rest my weary head. When I get scared – and I do get scared, Lulu – I think of you, I think of all the wonderful years we had together, and I marvel, I absolutely marvel that I, Duncan Rowan Slattery (don’t ask) McAllister, lived long enough and apparently decently enough to be given such a friend.

  I don’t need a photo of you, or a lock of your hair to take with me – when my time comes, and it is coming, Lulu, I feel it one step behind me at each turn – I plan to close my eyes, and concentrate on you.

  You’re the garden in my pocket.

  Thank you,

  Duncan McAllister

  ‘Well, I think it’s a marvellous idea, Lulu, I really do.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Julia, I’ve never done anything like it before.’

  ‘No reason not to.’