“Hey, you, none of that!” came a voice from the wide, grand balcony above them. A man in a bow tie tapped sharply on the edge of the railing with his torch, clink. “Behave yourself.”
There was Frances, waiting for them at the EXIT. Elizabeth seized a hand of each sister, and dragged them out through all the bodies into the glare of the open street.
“Where’s Mummy?” asked Matilda, squinting to shield her eyes from the sudden daylight. She felt strange, as though while she was in the theatre she had forgotten that the world was still there, waiting for them outside.
There was a long queue of people for the next showing of the film, stretching up along the footpath. They couldn’t see their mother and Uncle Paul anywhere.
“We’ll just have to wait,” said Elizabeth. “Let’s go up here, out of the way.”
She pointed across the road at a big department store. It was closed now, it was the afternoon.
“I’m hungry,” said Matilda.
“Just sit here,” said Elizabeth. “They won’t be long.”
There was a little wall, just big enough to sit on, in front of the shop window. Frances and Matilda squashed themselves onto it. Behind the glass were men’s suits, bodies without heads and wigged heads without bodies with ties around their necks.
“Did you like the film?” asked Matilda.
“It was all right,” said Frances.
“I loved it,” said Elizabeth. She closed her eyes, smiling to herself, as though she was thinking about it.
“I didn’t like it,” said Matilda.
They waited. None of them had a watch, but after all the people had gone inside the cinema, the city was almost silent. Sometimes a bus went past, or a car. Frances chewed on her fingernails. Matilda drew little figures in the dirt on the shop window with her finger. Every now and then she spat on the glass, rubbed her picture out and started again.
“Are you girls waiting for someone?” said a lady, stopping, but they looked away because they were not allowed to talk to strangers.
“Where’s Mummy?” said Matilda. “I’m thirsty.”
They heard the chimes from the Town Hall clock. Time was passing even though they couldn’t see it.
“The Easter Bunny’s coming tomorrow,” said Matilda.
“Only if you’re good,” said Elizabeth.
“I am good,” retorted Matilda. “I’m very good.” She wished her mother and Uncle Paul would come.
A man walked over to them. “Where are your parents?” he demanded. They looked away.
At last they came, their mother and Uncle Paul. He was drunk. Their mother’s face looked as though she had been crying.
“Three little maids in blue!” exclaimed Uncle Paul.
“Yellow,” said Matilda, pointing at her daisy dress. She wrinkled her nose. “You smell awful,” she said. “Like a man.”
“And you are a grub,” replied Uncle Paul, who liked smelling like a man. “Look at you, black all over your face. What have you been doing, making mud pies?”
“These children belong to you?” said a man in a wide white hat. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. They’ve been sitting here over an hour.”
“Piss off,” said Uncle Paul.
“You should be ashamed,” said the man.
“I am ashamed,” replied Uncle Paul grandly. “I was born ashamed.”
“Let’s go,” said their mother. “Let’s go home.”
“But I want to go to your hotel,” Matilda reminded Uncle Paul. “You promised. We’ve been waiting hours.”
“I’d like to get a drink,” said Elizabeth.
“Me too,” said Frances.
Uncle Paul shrugged at their mother.
“A drink it is,” he said. “Just a quick one.”
He swung Matilda up on his shoulders in one giant sweeping movement. Now she was the tallest person in the whole world. They walked away from the beautiful theatre, down towards the harbour, the flash of blue water and the grey, curling bridge.
All the shops were closed as they wandered past on the way to Uncle Paul’s hotel. Behind the glass were Easter eggs, wrapped in wide ribbons.
“How was Roman Holiday?” asked Uncle Paul. “Did it make you cry?”
“It was boring,” said Matilda. “It was so boring.”
“It was all right,” said Frances.
“I loved it,” said Elizabeth.
Uncle Paul’s hotel was on the corner of George Street, just up from Circular Quay. He slid Matilda down from his shoulders and put his arm around their mother’s waist.
“Mind your manners, chickens,” he murmured.
The girls followed Uncle Paul and their mother inside. It was wooden and dark. The carpet was green and it smelt stale. There was a man smoking and reading the paper. He looked up and nodded at Uncle Paul.
“Is this it?” said Matilda, unbelieving.
“This is it,” said Uncle Paul.
The walls of the room were brick and there were paintings of cliffs and boats. Over in one corner there was a piano, covered with a blue cloth. There were chairs and round tables.
“Why aren’t there any people?” asked Elizabeth, looking around.
“They only come alive at night,” Uncle Paul said. “Like vampires.”
“What’s vampires?” asked Matilda.
“There’s no such thing,” said Frances.
Their mother looked so tired. She sat down in one of the chairs and laid her head down on the table in front of her, her perfect hair spreading like spilled flowers.
“Can we see your room?” said Matilda to Uncle Paul. “Where you sleep?”
“Against the rules, I’m afraid, pal,” said Uncle Paul. “No visitors.”
He went away, and came back with a big jug of lemonade and five glasses. The liquid spat like fire as he poured it out, one for each of them. They sipped their lemonade in silence through straws.
Uncle Paul took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Can you do smoke rings?” asked Matilda.
“Could if I wanted to,” said Uncle Paul.
“Remember when we went to the Basin?” said Elizabeth abruptly. “And you showed us that game with the matches?”
Their mother’s shoulders stiffened.
“I peeled that day,” said Matilda, wanting to say something in a hurry. “It was so hot. I got sunburnt. I peeled all over. Peeled and peeled and peeled and peeled and peeled.”
She remembered the long sheets of translucent skin that came off her face, her arms and legs. She had eaten some of them.
“I ate my own skin,” said Matilda.
“That’s disgusting,” said Frances, finishing her lemonade. “You’re a cannibal.”
“Cannibals eat other people,” Matilda corrected her. Even she knew that. “I only ate myself.”
The man who had been reading the newspaper at the front desk came and sat down with them. Matilda didn’t like him, she hoped he would go away soon. But Uncle Paul offered him a cigarette.
“Been to the Show yet, kids?” said the man, lighting up.
“Shhh!” Uncle Paul tapped the table. “Sore point.”
“You poor little beggars,” said the man and his eyes disappeared in crinkles.
He pushed the paper over to Uncle Paul.
“What do you think of all that?”
All what? Matilda wondered, looking down at the newsprint, all those rows of black letters. There was only one word that she could make out, a big R, a big E, and a big D—
“Ah, it’s a cold, cold war,” said Uncle Paul. He took a long draught of his cigarette and leaned back in his chair.
“What’s a cold war?” asked Frances. Her straw was soggy now, and she pushed it about in her glass.
“It’s when the whole world turns to ice,” said Elizabeth in a dreamy voice.
“Isn’t that the ice age, darling?” Uncle Paul blew smoke out from under his moustache. “Frozen dinosaurs and all that?”
The hotel was
dirty, it felt sad. The chairs made creaking sounds and smelt of old clothes. Matilda didn’t want to hear about wars. Weren’t all the wars over, now that she was born?
“My snail hotel was better than this,” she said grumpily, kicking her legs under her seat.
“Shhh, Matilda,” said their mother.
“I told you, you wouldn’t like it.” Uncle Paul waved a finger at her. “I told you it’s not for little girls.”
Sixteen
EASTER SUNDAY, 18 APRIL 1954
WHEN MATILDA OPENED HER EYES on Easter Sunday morning, she saw at once there was a chocolate Easter egg at the end of her bed!
She reached down, snatched up the egg, and bit the top off it. It cracked and she lay back and let the chocolate melt inside her mouth. Then she ate a bit more and a bit more and a bit more and then it was all gone. Matilda licked the chocolate off her teeth and skipped out into the kitchen. Uncle Paul was there, making tea.
“So, did the Easter Bunny come?” he inquired.
“Yes,” said Matilda. “I got a chocolate egg!”
“What do you know?” Uncle Paul was shocked. “And I got nuffin’.”
Matilda sat down at the kitchen table, watching Uncle Paul pour two cups of tea, out the spout of the blue and white teapot through the silver strainer. He left the room, a teacup in each hand.
“He shouldn’t be here when your father is away,” said Floreal. “I told you before.”
“What would you know?” Matilda poked out her tongue. “Anyway, Daddy’s coming home soon.”
Leave me alone, she thought. Go back into the radio and leave me alone.
Outside, the sky was grey, and the air felt damp as though it might rain. Matilda was thirsty after all that chocolate. She knelt down next to the garden tap under the tree growing under her bedroom window with the bright red berries, to get a drink from the hose. Matilda liked the water from the hose, it was cool and tasted of earth and metal. You weren’t allowed to water the garden because of the drought, but at least you were still allowed to drink.
As she gulped down mouthfuls of dripping water, she noticed the mad old man from the house next door standing on his pathway, gesturing at her.
Does he want me to come in? Matilda didn’t want to at all, not after last time. She pretended not to see. But then she heard his slow footsteps coming towards her, shuffling along, and the stick clicking.
“Ha!” said the mad old man, when he was near enough.
“Hallo,” replied Matilda reluctantly.
“Where’d you all go, yesterday?”
He said “yesterday” a funny way, it sounded like “yesterdee”.
“To town, to the pictures,” answered Matilda, turning off the hose.
“Ha!”
The mad old man came a little closer. He smelt of wet wool. He looked as though he was about to say something else, when the noise of a car skidding too fast down their steep street stopped him. They both turned and saw the sleek black car, braking noisily outside the yellow house. Two men in suits and hats got out and went straight inside.
The old man turned back to Matilda. “You know them, eh?”
“No,” said Matilda. They were different men, they weren’t the ones she knew.
“I’ve seen you,” said the old man unpleasantly. “I’ve seen you watching them.”
Matilda was annoyed. He must have been watching her watching them, if that was the case.
“I’m just being a spy,” she said. “They’re spies, so I’m just spying back.”
“Spies?” repeated the mad old man. “What do you mean, spies?”
He was very close to her now and his eyes were black and sharp, like a lizard’s.
“What do you mean, spies?” and his peeling fingers clutched the top of his walking stick. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“I saw that man on the newsreel,” said Matilda crossly, but she stepped back, not wanting to be so near. “So they are so spies!”
The mad old man said nothing then. Matilda wondered if he had even heard her. But he stood staring hard at the big pale house, as she shook her wet hands up and down in the air, scattering tiny drops all over the dry land.
Seventeen
EASTER SUNDAY, 18 APRIL 1954
ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON IT RAINED, at last it rained. Elizabeth went out for a walk, and got soaking wet. Frances lay in bed, reading and eating her chocolate egg, sliver by sliver, so that it lasted all afternoon.
Their mother went to sleep.
“Is she sick?” asked Matilda, but Uncle Paul put a finger to his mouth.
“She’ll be all right,” he said. “She’s just worried about your dad.”
On the table in the kitchen was some of her mother’s knitting. Matilda felt the wool between her fingers. It was a grey, bumpy jumper and it was for her, their mother said. It was taking such a long time to do, though, she was afraid that it would be too small by the time it was finished. You grow too fast, Mattie, their mother said. Nothing fits you any more.
Like Alice in Wonderland, thought Matilda. Only I will never be able to be small again. She could feel something sad underneath her somewhere, shifting like a little crab buried in sand.
“You grow too fast,” her mother had said to Matilda in her swimsuit, the day they went to the Basin. “Nothing fits you any more.”
“Bigger things fit me,” Matilda had said.
They were at the barbecue ground of the Basin. Her mother was sitting on their picnic blanket in the sun. They had got off the ferry and wandered up with their things to the flat grassed area away from the beach. Their father was making a fire to cook the sausages. Matilda and Frances scuttled about in the bush, bringing him back twigs. He piled them up with dry leaves in the shape of a wigwam.
“Stand back, girls,” he told them as he bent to light it.
The flames caught in moments and smoke rose up into the sky in a stream.
“A fine blaze,” said Uncle Paul approvingly.
“Why don’t you run off, all of you,” said their father, “and have a swim before lunch. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
Their mother was opening the picnic basket, to find the meat. She looked up, and said in a sharp, anxious sort of voice, “Are you sure?”
“Please,” said their father, and he bent down and took her hand and kissed it, like a prince in a story.
Then he did a strange thing. He put his arms around Uncle Paul and hugged him. He didn’t look at anyone else.
So they left him. They took off their shoes and put them in a pile, even her mother’s beautiful red shoes with the golden buckles. They picked up their towels and scrambled down the slippery rocks, Uncle Paul and their mother and the three girls, to the little curved beach to swim.
Frances and their mother dived straight in the water, swimming in circles around each other like dolphins. Matilda didn’t feel like going in. She sat barefoot on a rock near the water’s edge. She could feel her body burning, her skin was turning pink in front of her. We are white men in a black man’s country, her teacher said on hot days when she shooed them into the shade of the weather shed and they all laughed because, of course, their teacher was not a man and neither were they.
Uncle Paul, hairy like a mammoth, sat on the beach with Elizabeth. He stood burnt matches, head up, in the damp sand.
“This is my army,” he told Elizabeth. “You set up yours, come on. Anywhere you like.”
Elizabeth set up her soldiers neatly in rows. This was before she had her nervous breakdown, when she used to do what people asked. The burnt ends of the matches looked like little black helmets. Matilda remembered how she had asked her father once whether the dead soldiers would still be in their uniforms when they were in heaven, with helmets and guns over their shoulders, like the statue in town for all the dead soldiers. But he said nobody wore clothes in heaven, they didn’t need them any more. In heaven nobody needs anything at all, her father said.
Matilda liked the sound of th
at. She didn’t much like clothes and shoes and ribbons. She liked arms and legs and teeth and fingernails. She liked her feet, and her toes. She liked the feeling of the wet sand under her feet, as she sat banging the waves with a long, light, dry-leaved branch.
“Five pebbles each,” said Uncle Paul. “We take it in turns and see how many we can hit. You know, like the rifle range.”
After a while, Frances and their mother came out of the water, shivering, wrapping themselves in towels.
“The meat must be cooked by now,” said their mother. “Let’s go up.”
So they climbed up the sandy rocks back to the barbecue, but their father wasn’t there.
“Where’s Daddy?” said Elizabeth.
The food was all laid out on their blanket on the ground, warm meat and bread and tomato sauce and bottles of beer and lemonade. But their father wasn’t there. Their mother looked white, even her lips were white.
“He must have gone for a walk,” said Uncle Paul. “He’ll be back.”
“I’m hungry,” said Matilda. “Can we eat?”
They sat on the blanket and ate and their mother brought out a packet of biscuits and a thermos of tea and still their father hadn’t come back.
“What’s he doing?” said their mother and Uncle Paul answered softly, “Just let him have a bit of time.” Just a bit of time.
Elizabeth took a biscuit and walked over to the edge of the grass, looking out to the land where they lived far away. She kept walking, along the edge of the picnic ground, dragging a stick from the fire in the dirt behind her. Frances, restless, wandered away up to where other children were playing French cricket. She waited around at the edges of the game for a while until the ball came dribbling in her direction, and she picked it up and was part of it.
Then their mother said she was going to lie down in the shade and Uncle Paul said, Yes, good idea, I think I’ll stretch my legs a bit.
So they all went away and Matilda was left alone on the blanket. She lay on her side for a moment, full of food. Right next to the blanket were her mother’s red shoes that she had taken off before their swim. They glinted in the sunshine, red and gold and black.
The Red Shoe Page 8
