As their train sped through Lidcombe, a shadow passed over Clara’s face. She shivered, and the big bunch of flowers trembled on her lap in sympathy: she’d caught a glimpse of her old school out there, and behind it, at the top of the hill, was the house where she’d grown up, and where her parents lived. She could just make out the tip of its red roof. Clara drew in a long, shaky breath.
‘What is it?’ asked Lonnie, sliding his arm around her shoulders.
‘Nothing,’ she said, twitching away from him.
‘If you’re worried about Pop –’
‘I’m not.’
‘But if you are –’
‘I said I’m not.’
Perhaps, thought Lonnie, he shouldn’t have warned her that Pop could sound a bit prehistoric sometimes. Even sound racist, if you didn’t know him –
Not that this had seemed to worry Clara at the time. ‘Bet I know more insults than he does,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t forget I’m doing my thesis on Australian slang! He’ll come a gutser if he tries anything on me!’
‘What?’
She’d grinned at him, and Lonnie had realised suddenly that his lovely Clara might well be a match for Pop.
Only now she was crying. ‘We can get out at Parramatta,’ he said. ‘No worries. Nan’ll understand.’
Clara shook her head fiercely. Lonnie squeezed her hand. ‘Look, if Pop –’
‘I’m not worried about your pop!’ she burst out. ‘It’s
my
family!’
‘Your family?’
‘I saw my house back there. It’s, oh – Mum!’ Clara covered her face with her hands.
‘Your mum? Is she sick or something?’
‘No! It’s –’ Clara took a big gulping breath and raised her damp face to his. ‘I should have
told
her. I should have rung her up and told her about you; I should have told her we were engaged. Like you told your mum! I should have thanked her for the spring rolls!’
Now he was really lost. ‘Spring rolls?’
‘She came to the Halls when I was out, and left them for me. Because they’re my very favourite. And I didn’t ring to thank her, because I was so mad she’d been there, without even telling me. And you know, I told you, how she wants to see my room, how she’s wanted to see it for months and months and I’ve put her off, and – I’m a bully!’ howled Clara. ‘That’s what I am. I’m a bully, just like Dad!’
‘’Course you’re not a bully.’
‘Yes I am!’
‘No, you’re not.’
They might have gone on like this all the way to Penrith except that suddenly Clara broke off with a short, startled gasp. Lonnie looked round. The girl in black was standing right beside their seat.
She was bigger now than when Stan had encountered her, her swelling stomach pushed out against the thin cotton of her dress, and there were pools of purply shadow underneath her eyes.
Clara had never seen her before. Living in Mercer Hall, she hardly ever travelled on the trains – but Lonnie had come across her many, many times, and he often thought of her as he lay safe in bed at night, wondering what kind of place she lived in, and if there was anything that could be done. And last night the answer had come to him like an inspiration.
Mum! Mum took in lame ducks, so why not this lost girl? And there was heaps of space at home since he’d moved out. Well, more space anyway.
Clara read the girl’s placard with big, scared eyes and reached into her purse. Lonnie fumbled through his wallet, and then the back pockets of his jeans. The girl in black began to move away.
‘No, don’t go!’ mouthed Lonnie, reaching out to touch her arm. The touch did it: she waited while his fingers searched the pockets of his shirt.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked Clara.
‘This bit of paper I had.’
‘Paper?’
At last he found it: the message he’d thought out last night, and written very carefully at the small desk in Mrs Rasmussen’s first floor room, to keep ready in his wallet for the next time he saw the girl. Even if she couldn’t speak or hear, Lonnie knew the girl could read; he was certain the big uneven writing on the placard belonged to her. He checked his message over quickly to make sure everything was there.
If you need help
, Lonnie had printed carefully,
help which
won’t muck you about, if you want to feel safe, ring Dr
Marigold Samson, at 95214378 or go to 22 Roslyn Avenue,
South Ryde.
‘Got a pen?’ he asked Clara.
‘Will a pencil do?’
‘Sure.’ Quickly, Lonnie added to his message:
And
between September 16 and 17, ring –’
He pencilled in Pop’s number, and then crossed it out, realising that if she couldn’t speak or hear, a telephone would be no use to her. He wrote Pop’s name instead, and beneath it,
Come to 16 Ridge Road,
Katoomba.
Then he folded the paper again and closed the girl’s cold fingers over it, tightly.
When they reached Katoomba station there was someone waiting for them on the platform, someone shortish and stalwart, with the kind of bristly grey crewcut that made you think of soldiers.
Pop.
Lonnie froze. He seized Clara’s hand and held it tightly. Behind them, the train waited at the station; there was still time to get back on it and ride on through the hills to Lithgow, and then all the way back into town.
Clara glanced at him. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s –’
Clara followed the direction of Lonnie’s stricken gaze. She saw a red-faced old man striding briskly down the platform towards them. ‘Your pop?’
‘Yeah.’
Clara grinned. Behind them, the train was pulling out; too late to run, too late for anything, because Pop was upon them now, the toes of his black shiny shoes almost touching the tips of Lonnie’s sneakers. Lonnie flinched. Clara’s flowers trembled.
‘Thought I’d come up and meet your train,’ said Pop pleasantly.
Lonnie stared at him, transfixed. Pop hadn’t met the train since Lonnie was twelve, the very first time he’d come up to visit on his own. Close up, he could see that the flaring colour of his grandfather’s cheeks was embarrassment, not rage. Lonnie stuck out the hand that wasn’t holding Clara’s.
‘Great to see you,’ he mumbled.
‘Same here,’ Pop mumbled back.
Lonnie squeezed Clara’s hand. ‘And this is –’
‘Clara,’ finished Pop, and leaning across the Noah’s ark of flowers he kissed her on the cheek.
Lily had finished her packing, and now she stood outside on the rickety wooden porch gazing up at the sky. The weather at least was perfect: even in busy Roslyn Avenue, sandwiched as it was between two main roads, the scents of new mown grass and early roses trembled in the air, and the sky was cloudless except for one tiny white wisp, small as an old lady’s handkerchief, which, even as Lily gazed, began to dissolve in the air. And tomorrow, according to the weather forecast, would be perfect too.
Good weather brings bad luck, thought Lily gloomily; hadn’t she read that somewhere? And it could very easily come true: up there in the hills Pop and Lonnie could already have quarrelled, and Lonnie and Clara could be on their way home again; Nan might be crying softly, or sitting out in the hammock whispering to her Sef; Pop could be storming round the lawn.
‘Lily?’ Her mother’s flushed face (she always got into a tizz when packing) peered round the edge of the screen door. ‘Lily, are you all ready?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, would you mind standing out the front? I’m expecting Mrs Nightingale any minute and I don’t want them to miss our house.’ Marigold tucked a straggling piece of hair behind her ear. ‘You know how people do.’
‘Because there’s no number on it,’ Lily informed her.
‘What?’
‘No number. It fell off the gatepost yonks ago.’
‘Oh, is that why? We’ll have to nail it on again.’
‘You mean
I’ll
have to.’ Before her mother could reply to this, Lily wandered off into the street and stood there kicking at the gatepost like a four-year-old.
‘Miss? Miss?’
Lily stopped kicking and looked round. A shiny blue car had stopped beside their house. Its window slid down and a worried little mousy face peeped out at her. ‘Is this Roslyn Avenue?’
Lily nodded silently.
‘I wonder if you could tell me where Dr Samson lives?’
Lily nodded again. It always surprised her to hear her mum called ‘Doctor’. How could anyone so vague and disorganised (someone who’d got married because she liked another someone’s
coat
), actually earn a PhD? And yet, Mum had done so. The world, thought Lily, was a very strange place indeed.
‘You
can
tell me?’ The mousy lady was frowning at a little piece of paper in her hand. ‘It says twenty-two here, twenty-two Roslyn Avenue. Only there doesn’t seem to be a twenty-two. We’ve been up and down four times.’
‘It’s here.’ Lily gestured vaguely at the house behind her and caught an expression of dismay flit over Mousie’s tiny features as she took in the unkempt hedge of cotoneasters and the sagging gate. ‘Dr Samson lives
there
?’ she squeaked. ‘We thought that place was – abandoned.’
‘It looks better inside,’ lied Lily, moving closer to the car. ‘I’m Lily, Dr Samson’s daughter. Mum sent me out to make sure you didn’t miss the place.’
‘Oh!’ Mousie’s tiny paw went to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded . . .’
‘That’s okay,’ said Lily brightly. ‘It does look a bit untidy; we keep it that way to frighten burglars off.’
‘Oh,’ said Mousie doubtfully.
‘And we’re not staying here this weekend anyway, we’re all going to Nan and Pop’s place in the hills.’
Mousie gasped. ‘You mean the arrangement’s fallen through? You’re not taking Mum after all?’
‘’Course we’re taking her.’
A male face loomed darkly over Mousie’s shoulder. ‘If we could just speak to Dr Samson for a moment –’
‘Stop all this
fussing
!’ The rear door of the car snapped open; a sharp-eyed old lady stepped out onto the pavement.
Lily and Mrs Nightingale looked each other up and down. Lily saw a tall old lady with white hair woven into a silky coronet of braids, a well-dressed old lady, she noticed with some surprise. Most of Mum’s lame ducks dressed oddly (one might almost say fantastically) in styles they’d grown fond of many years, or even decades, earlier. Others wore what Lily called ‘random’ outfits: items picked up from here and there, items that didn’t match, and often didn’t belong to them. Mrs Nightingale wasn’t at all like this: she wore a light woollen dress in a deep cool shade of green, with a brown leather belt and brown shoes of the exact same shade. The jacket she carried over her arm was in soft muted checks of fawn and lavender and green.
Mrs Nightingale saw a stocky girl with wild black curls and fierce black eyes, red cheeks, and something strangely familiar about the jawline and the way she held her head. Mrs Nightingale had experienced this same teasing familiarity with Dr Samson, so that first the good doctor, and now her daughter, reminded Mrs Nightingale of someone she’d once known and now could not remember.
The driver’s door began to open: a brown trousered leg emerged.
‘Back in the car at once, Robbie!’ commanded Mrs Nightingale. ‘Didn’t you hear me say, “Don’t fuss”?’
The brown trouser leg twitched. ‘But, Mum, your luggage –’
‘Got it!’ Mrs Nightingale pointed triumphantly to the small brown bag she’d placed beside her feet.
Lily picked it up.
Mrs Nightingale clapped her hands smartly in the direction of the car. ‘Off you go now, both of you!’
The brown trousered leg disappeared at once, the driver’s door closed, the car slid away smoothly up the street.
‘Can’t wait to see the back of me,’ muttered Mrs Nightingale, sounding rather pleased.
‘Are you quite comfortable back there, Mrs Nightingale?’ asked Marigold, slowing for the traffic light at the end of Roslyn Avenue.
‘Perfectly comfortable, thank you.’
Lily glanced at the rear-view mirror and found herself staring straight into their guest’s sharp green eyes. ‘Oh!’ she gave a small startled gasp, like Red Riding Hood must have done when she caught the wolf out in her grandmother’s clothing. Not that Mrs Nightingale seemed wolfish, exactly – it was just so strange that those green eyes looked so young! Lame duck was definitely the wrong term for her.
The light turned green, they rolled on up the highway, through a shopping centre, past the Saturday-deserted grounds of Flinders Secondary. Daniel . . . thought Lily dreamily, and then, sternly, No! Hadn’t she vowed to put him out of mind, to devote herself to Science, to be strong?
Only she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop from picturing his face: the dark eyes and the long soft lips curving into a smile – and she had to admit that Madame Curie, however admirable, was simply not the stuff from which daydreams were made. Passing the school had caused her to weaken like this, obviously. School was the place where she’d met him – if you could call passing someone in the corridors and playground a meeting; or watching his feet from the prompter’s box, or hearing his voice reciting Shakespeare’s lines. School was the only place she’d ever seen him, because he lived three whole suburbs up the railway line. She’d looked up his address in the phone book, though she’d never actually gone there, never sunk to poor Lizzie Banks’ level and pretended to be jogging past. No, she’d never sunk that low.
Perhaps Daniel didn’t live at that address now, anyway; it was almost three whole weeks since he’d been at school . . .
‘In my day,’ began Mrs Nightingale suddenly, and Lily jumped, startled, afraid that the old lady had read her mind and was about to say: ‘In my day, girls didn’t have time to spare for daydreams about boys.’
‘In your day, Mrs Nightingale?’ prompted Marigold.
‘There was nothing but crusts and papers.’
Crusts and papers! Whatever could she mean? Had Mrs Nightingale been poor in childhood? Had she come from the kind of deprived family that had only crusts to eat, and wore newspapers beneath their clothes to keep out the cold?
‘And now its all plastic and chicken bones,’ sighed Mrs Nightingale.
Plastic and chicken bones? Did she mean the children of the poor now scavenged chicken bones, and wrapped themselves in plastic to keep warm? Both Marigold and Lily felt uncomfortable. Marigold cleared her throat. ‘Chicken bones?’ she echoed.