The Wrong Door (10 page)

Clare felt unsettled as she drove home from Susan’s. She had a lot to think about. So many of the things she took for granted in her life were changing. It made the world seem a precarious place, unstable and suddenly unpredictable.

That Mr Sanjay had gone was still unbearable. For so long he had been a reassuring presence, dispensing calm and wisdom whenever she needed it. He also provided an intellectual framework she could use to work things out. Without him she was uncertain how to respond to the whirlwind that seemed to be sweeping through her life.

The news about the Lee family upset her deeply. Throughout her teenage years they had been a
constant fixture and helped give her a sense of stability. Now it seemed they were a bunch of fakes and she was angry to have been so deceived. She hadn’t been able to express how she felt to Susan. It didn’t seem like her right so, instead, while she soothed and sympathised with her friend, her sense of betrayal sat in the pit of her stomach. Susan was the daughter, the one who had a right to feel betrayed, and somehow Clare had been relegated to being just a bit player, an afterthought.

She was annoyed by Susan’s outrage, though she didn’t know why. Clare’s annoyance was irrational and, much as she turned it over in her mind, she couldn’t understand her feelings or where they sprang from. It made her feel guilty and churlish. She was also angry with Susan’s parents. How dare Mr Lee run off. And how dare Mrs Lee be happy about it. In fact how dare they not be the perfect family she wanted them to be.

And she was confused about Marla. So she was an alcoholic. How was it that Clare could have lived at 44 Dadue Street all these years, in the next bedroom, and not know? How could Marla and Peg deliberately hide such a thing from her? Was the whole world lying to her, presenting a false façade? Was anything real?

The gloom weighed on her as she drove down Dadue Street. As she drew close to her home she noticed a black Saab parked outside Mr Sanjay’s neat Californian bungalow and she could see the outline of a person in the driver’s seat. They must be waiting for someone, probably at number 41.
They were always having parties. Not Mr Sanjay, she thought. His curtains were drawn and the house was dark. An auction sign was nailed to the neat white picket fence.
Deceased Estate,
it said, in large black letters. The auction was set for a Saturday in four weeks. Clare couldn’t bear the thought of someone buying the home and moving in. It would no doubt be a young couple who would immediately demolish Mr Sanjay’s old shed and put down terracotta paving. Clare drove past the Saab glancing at the silhouette of the driver. It looked like a woman, sitting very still. Clare looked back at the auction sign. She hoped the new owners of 42, whoever they would be, liked hollyhocks. Then she turned the little yellow Honda into her driveway, wishing the world would just slow down and stop changing so fast. She felt giddy, like she needed to catch her breath.

After a few minutes the driver in the black Saab started its engine and the car purred away, turning right onto busy Parramatta Road heading east towards the city and then the leafy north shore.

Peg was sitting in her usual spot, at the dining table, with 15,000 jigsaw pieces spread out before her and an empty bottle of red wine on the floor by her foot when Clare walked through the door just before 11 pm. Her mother’s favourite talkback radio show,
Songs To Fall In Love By,
played in the background. Usually lovers would ring in and request their special tune. The messages were mostly soppy, wishing to tell ‘Popsie’ or ‘Muffie-head’ how much they meant to the caller. The radio announcer had a deep, sexy voice and often elicited interesting stories. Sometimes the lovers were making up after a fight, or a caller had just met someone and he had them telling all of Sydney what they fancied about their new would-be love. Straight, gay, young and old, lovers of all varieties listened and called up. Peg enjoyed it because of the old songs that were often requested.
As Clare walked in she was humming along with Vera Lynn to ‘As Time Goes By’.

‘A man called John rang in to request it for his sister Pat,’ Peg told her. ‘Isn’t that nice? Apparently Pat’s lover used to sing it to her during the war and her brother used to tease her about it. He said he still liked to tease her so asked for them to play it especially for her.’

From where Peg sat she could see to the front door, into the lounge room, across to the bottom of the stairs and down into the kitchen. It was from here that she ruled her world. No-one got past without Peg knowing about it.

‘Is Marla home?’ asked Clare.

‘Yes, she’s gone to bed,’ said Peg. ‘Relax. You shouldn’t worry about her so much you know.’

‘Oh, unlike you,’ replied Clare.

‘I’m her mother. That’s my job.’

Clare sat down at the table and picked up a piece of the puzzle. It was a Swiss mountain scene in summer. There was a chalet in the foreground with lots of flowers spilling out of its window boxes. It had been a Christmas present from Clare and Marla.

Peg had been working on it in her spare time for the past week. She usually had a jigsaw puzzle on the go, except at Christmas when they needed the long table for lunch. That was mostly a raucous affair starting with sherry and presents over breakfast on the floor by the Christmas tree. Susan would come for lunch as would Peg’s best friend Viv and her husband Gerald. They were all merry before they even sat down at the table.

After she had cleaned up and Peg and Marla were sleeping it off, Clare would have a second Christmas dinner at Susan’s home where they celebrated with a much more subdued and orderly meal in the evening.

Then on Boxing Day, when the good crockery and cutlery had been washed and packed safely back into the chiffonier, Peg would polish the long dining table and sit down to start the new jigsaw that she had inevitably received from Clare and Marla for Christmas.

This 15,000-piece puzzle was her most ambitious yet. Clare had bought it over the internet from a company in England. Peg had been both delighted and intimidated by the enormous number of pieces. It had taken her right through January and halfway into February before she finished it and she had left it there for another week just to admire the final picture. Now she was doing it for the second time.

‘How did the meeting go?’ asked Clare.

‘Marla said it went well.’

‘How long has she been an alcoholic?’

Peg took her time before answering. When she did it was with obvious reluctance. ‘A while,’ she said finally.

‘Why does she drink?’

‘Because she’s unhappy. She doesn’t like who she is. Alcohol makes her feel better about herself.’

‘But why doesn’t she like herself? She’s beautiful, glamorous, funny.’

Peg smiled. ‘Yes, she is all those things. She is
also, in many ways, still a child and she isn’t good at coping when things don’t go right for her.’ Then she changed the subject. ‘How was your evening?’

Clare allowed herself to be sidetracked. ‘Oh, kind of sad actually. Susan’s parents have split up. Apparently Mr Lee has been having an affair with some woman at work for years.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Peg. Her tone indicated it was no surprise to her.

‘But the really strange thing was Mrs Lee didn’t seem so upset. She told Susan she had lost interest in her husband ages ago. She said she was relieved to see him go. Can you believe that? Susan can’t. She thought her parents were perfectly happy. They always said they were and acted like it in front of her. She’s really devastated. They’re not but she is.’

‘Marriages often aren’t what they seem,’ commented Peg, in a mild, slightly distracted tone.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Clare.

‘Nothing. It’s just an observation. Give Susan my love.’

They sat in silence for a while, trying different pieces in different spots. Peg had a system that Clare knew well. She liked to sort out all the edges, piecing together the border first, then filling it in from the outside. Next she did the major areas of detail in the picture – the chalet, the horse, the bursts of flowers in the window boxes. Then she liked to do the less obvious detail such as the tree trunk and leaves, the wooden bridge and the lake. Last was the sky and the grass, which were the hardest because there was no detail and the pieces
looked so similar. Clare found that part of the jigsaw boring. But she was pleased to settle in and help with the first part. She often sat up in the evenings helping her mother with a jigsaw. Peg was at her most relaxed and Clare felt she could ask her things.

‘What’s on your mind, love?’ asked Peg after a few minutes.

‘Marla.’

Peg sighed.

Clare heard it but proceeded anyway. She had been remembering all the mean things she had said about her sister to Mr Sanjay and she was ashamed that she had been so unforgiving. Everything about her sister and the way Peg dealt with her had to be re-examined in light of the revelation that she was an alcoholic. It changed everything and Clare was struggling to understand. Her only experience with alcoholics were the street people that slept on the bus stop near university and in Kings Cross. She had trouble reconciling that image with glamorous, well-groomed Marla.

‘Is that why she is so volatile one minute and placid the next and spends days in bed in her room?’

Peg nodded.

‘Does she suffer from migraines?’

‘She suffers from hangovers.’

Another thought occurred to Clare. ‘Is that what she did with my birthday money that she stole? She spent it on drink?’

‘Yes.’

Clare digested this new material. Lots of the
painful, confusing side of their life started to make sense. Memories came to the surface and Clare saw them with new clarity. ‘And the fight over the lemon essence? Was that part of it?’

Peg nodded.

‘She went through a stage where she used to drink lemon essence. I found a carton of it had been billed to our grocery account. When I asked her she denied it. But old Mrs Gillies at the local grocery shop told me she had ordered it in. A whole carton. Mrs Gillies thought she must have been making lemon soufflés for the entire neighbourhood. But it was a cheap way to get drunk.’

Clare shook her head in amazement. ‘I remember the fight over the lemon essence. I couldn’t work out why you were so mad at her for buying it. I thought you were angry that she had wasted the money and wanted her to use lemons in cooking instead. I’m sorry. I decided you were awfully cheap and mean, not to let her buy it when obviously she just wanted to cook lots of soufflés and things for us.’

Peg shrugged. ‘I know. I remember.’

Another memory surfaced. Clare’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And that fall you had, where you ended up getting stitches in your face. You didn’t fall did you? That was Marla.’

Peg didn’t reply. They both stayed silent for a while. It was such an ugly picture. Clare had loved Marla and hated her. But really she had had no idea about her sister. She also marvelled at the hell Peg had been through. Some of the time Clare had
blamed her mother for being unreasonable to poor Marla. Or, when Marla had let Clare down, like forgetting to pick her up from basketball practice, Clare blamed her mother for always taking her sister’s side. In truth Clare had known little of what was going on in her own home. She might have been living in a different household. For the first time she realised how much her mother had protected her. ‘But how could I not have known? I never smelled it. I don’t think I have ever seen her drunk.’

‘She went to a lot of effort to make sure you didn’t know. She is a binge drinker,’ explained Peg. ‘After the episode with the lemon essence, I made it a condition that if she continues to live in this house she is not to drink under this roof. I didn’t think it was fair to you. So when she goes on a binge, she does it elsewhere.’

‘Is that why she goes away for days at a time?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought she must have been staying out with secret boyfriends,’ said Clare.

Peg raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t condone how Marla lives her life and I do my best to encourage her to give up alcohol. I give her a home where she can live, as long as she is sober, but I concern myself only with what happens under this roof. She is old enough to conduct herself as she sees fit outside the home. I have my suspicions and obviously I would rather she stayed sober, but I can’t make her. She has to do that herself. And you can’t make her change either. So don’t make that mistake, it will only hurt
you and won’t achieve anything. She is fine most of the time but then the cravings start and she heads off on a binge. Sometimes she satisfies that craving in one night and other times she will drink for a few days.’

‘Why do you put up with it?’

Peg gave a tired smile. ‘She’s my daughter. I may not have been the best mother in the world but I would never see either of my children on the street.’

It was an uncomfortable image but Clare remembered the scene at the university house. ‘Is it so bad that she could end up there?’ she asked quietly.

Peg didn’t answer.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Clare. ‘Why does she drink? It’s like all this rage is there just bubbling away beneath the surface. Then it bursts out and she is off on a drinking binge.’

Peg looked at Clare and her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t try to psychoanalyse your sister. She has problems that aren’t your concern. And you can’t solve them for her. None of it is that simple. But you must know that it has nothing to do with you.’

‘How can you say that?’ protested Clare. ‘I live in this house and it affects everything.’

‘Maybe,’ said Peg.

Clare battled her feelings of frustration. She was an outsider in her own home. Peg and Marla kept so much from her that she felt surrounded by secrets, things she wasn’t worthy enough to share. It was partly why she had grown up with a sense of shame that she didn’t understand. ‘I only want to help,’ she said.

‘I know you do. And you do help. Just by being who you are. I’m very proud of you, you know.’

Clare was touched. She knew Peg was deliberately trying to sidetrack her but she revelled in the praise. Peg wasn’t often given to displays of emotion. Embarrassed, they both returned to the puzzle in front of them. After a few minutes Clare thought she would try again. ‘Did something bad happen to Marla and that’s why she drinks? I won’t tell Marla that I know. Please.’

Peg froze, her gaze locked onto the jigsaw piece she held in her hand.

This was as outspoken as Clare had ever dared to be. ‘I’m not deaf. I hear what you two say to each other. I’m right, aren’t I?’

Peg sucked in her breath and looked coldly at Clare. ‘As it happens, no, you are not. I have told you it is none of your business and you should leave it at that. Your sister has a right to her privacy.’ Slowly Peg set down the piece in her hand, got up from the table and walked up the stairs. There would be no more discussion.

Clare’s relaxed mood dissipated. After a few minutes she followed her mother. She was sorry she had destroyed the moment. She could hear Peg moving about in her bedroom and wondered if she should go in. She could talk about plans for Peg’s upcoming birthday, something neutral that might re-create the intimacy they had been sharing before she ruined it. She heard the click of her mother’s bedside light and realised she had missed her opportunity.

In her own room she took off her jacket and opened the wardrobe. Pasted to the mirror inside was a photo of a pair of leather shoes. It was positioned where she could see it every time she opened the door. It was supposed to remind her to smile. And it did.

The photo had been a gift from Mr Sanjay for her eighteenth birthday. The shoes were his – well worn but beautifully polished and lovingly tended claret-coloured English brogues. There was no inscription, no note written on the back. There had been no need. The picture told the story. Mr Sanjay had arranged the shoes in his precious bed of hollyhocks with a few flowers poking jauntily through the eyelets. When Mr Sanjay had given Clare the picture she laughed and laughed. The shoes looked so comical.

Leather shoes had become an ongoing joke between them. It started one day when she was about sixteen and had been complaining about something that happened at school.

Mr Sanjay quoted the eighth-century Indian yogi Shantideva. ‘The earth was covered in thorns and his feet were tender. He thought he could cover the earth in leather or cover his feet in leather. What do you think he did?’

‘Invented shoes?’ suggested Clare. ‘And that is the story of how Indians came to be such great cobblers.’

‘Oh, now you are making fun of your old Indian friend,’ Mr Sanjay said chuckling.

‘No, I’m not, I wouldn’t,’ Clare said. ‘I think Shantideva was saying that if people are annoying
you, you can go around trying to make them stop doing whatever it is they are doing that annoys you, or you can just stop being annoyed. Am I right?’

‘Yes, you are. You have a good heart Clare and a fine mind. Make sure they work together.’

From then on, whenever Clare was complaining about the way the world worked, Mr Sanjay would tease her and say, ‘Yes, you are right. Everyone should do it your way. No need for shoes. Call all the Indian cobblers. It’s a big job. We must immediately cover the earth in leather.’