The Other Madonna (5 page)

She hugged my head and kissed my cheekbone. She's so innocent, I thought. I felt like a total fake. Like I would know anything about romance or love. All I know is sex. Ugly Dartanian sex.

Luce made a pizza. She cooked a pizza. She delivered her pizza. Things got really busy. Tref and Elliot came back twice each. Still no Luce. Pepe cursed and looked at the clock. Colin and Jiff came to pay. Pepe insisted that Jiff's meal and drinks were on the house. Jiff insisted that he pay. Pepe refused his money and asked Jiff if he wanted a job.

Jiff smiled. ‘I'm going back to New Zealand at the end of the month. Thanks for the offer though, ay.'

‘No problem. Thanks for your help.'

Pepe reached past me to the till. ‘Here,' he said. ‘Take a card. If you change your mind, give us a call. Orright?'

Jiff pocketed the card and nodded.

Colin hugged me quickly and kissed my cheek. Jiff did the same. The skin on my back prickled and my toes tingled.

‘Nice to meet you, Madonna. Might see you again before I head off, ay.'

I nodded and felt like stamping my feet and pounding my fists on the bench. It just wasn't fair. Colin and Jiff left but they didn't hold hands. Before the door had closed completely it burst open and Luce tripped inside. If her hair was an issue before she left, it certainly wasn't now. Her cheeks and neck were red. She puffed but I didn't think she'd been running.

Pepe crossed his arms.

‘I got . . . lost. I ended up way out near Essendon. God, I'm not cut out for this job.'

Pepe smiled. ‘Don't worry, Lucia. You don't have to do it perfect first time.'

Luce froze and looked at her papa, mouth open. I covered my smile with my hand. My hand smelled like onion. I thought that of all the things I handled making pizza, onion was the one smell that stuck. Even stronger than anchovies. I thought that Lucia's hands probably didn't smell like onion.

She slipped behind the counter and did busy things – wiping, cleaning, polishing. Pepe and I had made all the orders and Luce was as guilty as hell. If she really got lost in Essendon then I'm a goldfish. After the table of bleached and dyed left, I cornered her in the bar.

‘Got lost in Essendon . . .' I coughed a bullshit into my hand.

‘Shhhh.'

‘Tell me the truth.'

She put her hand on mine. Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘He's a god.'

‘A god?'

‘His eyes are . . . green. He plays soccer and works as an accountant.'

Not exactly my vision of god. ‘What's his name?'

‘Ari.'

‘Ari?'

She nodded and held her throat. ‘Maddie, I don't think I'm a good little Italian girl anymore.'

‘Wha?'

‘Oh, we didn't do anything. Well . . . we didn't . . . you know. But I wanted to. Unghhh!'

‘You only met him two hours ago!'

She shrugged. ‘Didn't matter. Feels like I've known him forever.'

I took my apron off and washed my hands. Nearly scrubbed the skin off along with the stink of onion. All the wind had gone from my sails.

‘I've got to go home,' I said, and held my hand over my tummy.

‘What is it? Are you okay?'

‘Yeah, fine. Just a bit . . .' I poked my tongue out and puffed up my cheeks.

I told Pepe that I was leaving and he glanced around the restaurant, his eyes landing on the clock. ‘You okay?'

I nodded. ‘Big day. Six-thirty tomorrow?'

‘Better make it six o'clock. Orright?'

I nodded again and headed for the door.

‘Madonna?' Pepe called, and I stopped. ‘You're a good girl. The best. Thank you.'

I smiled but I could only think of the bath. The pissy little footbath under the shower.

I
didn't surface until midday. The flat was empty. Clean and empty. There was a pile of my folded clothes on the kitchen bench and a note to say that Dad had gone out. Said he'd be back for dinner and that he'd bring food with him so not to bother making any. Love Dad. Dad had never left me a note before. Dad had never done the washing by himself. Dad doesn't make arrangements for dinner before five in the evening. And the flat was tidy. That was the spookiest thing of all. Dad's bed had been made and the carpet in the lounge looked like it had been vacuumed. I hadn't heard a thing. When I stepped into the shower and realised that I'd left my towel in my room – as usual – I was horrified to see two fluffy blue towels folded on the towel rail. Like in a hotel. Well, not horrified. Surprised. Pleasantly surprised. I was ravenous and after my shower I couldn't decide if it was breakfast or lunch that I needed so I had organic VitaBrits
and
a wholemeal cheese sandwich. My tongue was fine. I washed, dried and shelved my eating tools. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and
watched the telly for three hours. Three hours and the emptiness of the flat crawled into my tummy. I flicked the telly off and phoned Colin.

‘Yeah?' he answered. His voice was sleep dead.

‘This is your afternoon wake-up call,' I sang.

‘Ta, Maddie. You're a good mate,' he groaned. ‘See ya.'

I thought he was really going to hang up. I held my breath. He groaned into the mouthpiece.

‘What is it, Madonna?'

‘Nothing. I just phoned up to see how you were and that. What did you get up to last night?'

‘Me and Jiff. Had a big night. I got hit in the head with a club.'

‘Whaaat?'

‘Yeah. A nightclub. Loaded with Bailey's Irish Cream.'

‘Yuk. Did it hurt?

‘Not until you woke me up, bitch.'

I laughed and the silence that was left in its shadow was heavy.

‘What is it, Madds? Something's not right.'

‘Yeah. I know. I can't tell you now though or I'll start bawling and . . .'

‘Tell me.'

‘Maybe later.'

‘C'mon, Madds. Where will we meet? Gables?'

I laughed. ‘Hippyville?'

‘Don't give me that crap. You love it.'

I looked out the window with the phone still pressed to my ear. Beyond the balcony the sky shone blue and white like Dad's favourite plate.

‘Orright,' I said. ‘Half an hour.'

‘Half an hour? I only just woke up.'

‘Have you looked at the clock?'

The phone clunked. ‘Shit. I did have a big sleep in. See ya in half an hour.'

I hesitated before I locked the door of the flat. Keys: check. Purse: check. My shoulders dropped. I didn't feel up to it. I hadn't got my head around everything that had happened so how was I going to put it into words for my friend without bawling my eyes out? I almost turned inside again but I felt eyes on me. The feeling crept over the skin of my neck and I turned to see Red leaning against the wall beside the lift. I pulled the door closed and spoke over my shoulder.

‘Hello, Red. How's your ankle this afternoon?'

No answer.

I slipped my keys into my pocket and headed for the lift. The boy just stared. I pressed the down arrow and stared back at him. His face held no expression, no feeling, but his eyes were full of something. Something weird. Unnerving. Spooky even, but not frightening.

The door to the elevator pinged and Red blinked. I stepped inside and said goodbye. To my surprise the boy stepped inside with me – no sign of a limp. He leaned against the back wall and stared. The lift stank of stale piss and beer. The special Sunday aroma when the cleaners have the day off.

‘Going up or down? Which floor?'

He stared. No answer.

I shrugged and pressed the G. I positioned myself beside Red and continued our one-sided conversation, only now I sounded more like Granny Fanny Nesselrode.

‘I think I'm deaf in one ear now, after carrying you into the lift and having you scream in my earhole.'

He looked on, unblinking. Unsmiling. Unmoved.

‘What's that? Did you say something? Here, speak into my good ear,' I said, and bent down. ‘What? You'll have to speak up, little girl. I can't hear a word you're saying.'

Red shifted feet, his expression still frozen.

‘What's that? My hair looks like fairy floss? Why you wicked little girl . . . I ought to tell your . . . I ought to tell the police! Fancy that. The cheek of children today.'

The door pinged again and I huffed in disgust and crossed my arms as I stepped onto the landing. Red's eyes followed me and as I left the building I heard footfalls on the concrete behind me.

I spun around. ‘What?'

Red jumped and squealed, and quickly regained most of his composure. Giving him a fright made me smile and eventually chuckle to myself.

The boy's lips grew tight. The ends began to curl towards his ears.

He was smiling.

‘What?' the granny me demanded.

The silence of a Sunday afternoon hung in the air. The smile hung on Red's lips and he stared into my eyes.

‘Boy,' he said, and bolted for the stairs. His stride was even.

‘Boy? What? You're a boy? I
don't
believe it. Come back here. Come back now. Prove it!'

The drumming of his feet echoed in the stairwell. I thought I heard laughter.

As I walked off to see my best friend in the world, I turned my face towards the sun and breathed. There was a smile coming from somewhere inside me. It hung behind my lips threatening to cramp my face with happiness. A cloud raced across the sun and its shadow made me shiver. One minute I'm up, next I'm down. Not so much of a roller-coaster, more like a pogo-stick ride. I pointed my nose at the footpath and walked. No point getting my hopes up, I thought. Nothing ever changes. Red had smiled, that's all. One scungy little kid smiling at me didn't mean my life had changed. Water falling into the deep hole of my being. It felt good but it didn't fill the hole.

I decided to skip the tram and hoof it along Sydney Road. I thought about running – my body needed to move – but the thought was as close as I got. The Sunday afternoon traffic wasn't running either. Cars purred by and, as I walked through the alfresco crowd in front of Igor's Coffee Palace, a tram clacked and whirred past. I decided to cross the road after Igor's. As I stepped off the footpath, I frightened a sparrow that had been feeding in the gutter. With a startled peep, it took flight. It flew low, heading for the opposite side of the road. It hit the bumper of a passing Subaru with a tiny thud and puff of feathers.

I sucked a breath.

The car spat the lifeless body at my feet. Poor thing. I picked it up and its head sagged. I cradled it in my palm. My fault. I should have . . . I should have chosen another place to cross. Its eyes were partly closed, beak agape.

I looked back at Igor's. Nobody had noticed me or seen the death of the little bird. I felt my face fill with blood. I felt embarrassed, standing in the gutter cradling the dead thing. Embarrassed? Angry. Sorry. Feelings washed into one another like pools on a rising tide.

The bird twitched.

I almost dropped it.

It blinked.

It sprang to its feet and in a
brrrt
of wing beats propelled itself to an empty table in front of Igor's. I stood with my mouth open as the bird shook then hop-peck-hop-pecked the crumbs at its feet. Only stunned, I thought. It only looked like it had a broken neck, I thought. I'd gone through all that horror for nothing.

Colin wore his Oakleys. He sat at a table for two with his legs crossed. He wore his black work shirt. He looked as seedy as my dad after a binge but quite at home amongst the ferals and yups that call Gables Café home.

‘Maddie,' he cooed, thick with sympathy. He hugged me and rubbed my shoulder. We ordered coffee. The place hummed with an industrial clanking and fog of voices that reminded me of work. It felt good to be the one sitting down.

‘So,' Colin said, pushing his glasses to the top of his head. ‘What's been going down in the world of Madonna O'Dwyer?'

I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Everything. Nothing. I feel weird. I dunno where to start.'

Colin sighed and crossed his arms.

Our coffees came. I tried to give him the shortened, objective view of my crazy weekend. It took two coffees and a shared piece of cake. I told him about Evie fighting with Dad. I told him about Red and the witch he lived with. I told him about Paolo going off at the restaurant and I told him about Lucia falling in lust. I even told him about Dad cleaning up the flat and my eyes started leaking and they wouldn't stop. My nose ran and I wiped it with a napkin.

Colin patted my hand and looked around the café. ‘You'll be right, Madds. Don't take it all too seriously. You've got a great life. Think about how far we've come since school. Hang in there.'

I nodded. It wasn't what I needed to hear but he was right. I had changed since I started work. Left a lot of my old baggage – like how I felt about the way I looked and what I let people say and do to me – caged in my school locker. I knew I'd never go back. It'd be like wearing nappies. It seemed like years since we'd left.

I paid for the coffees on my way back from the toilet. Colin was talking to a guy with dreadlocks. He introduced me then said he had to get to work. Told me to keep my chin up. It'd all work out. His words were hollow and as chilly as an icepack. He hugged me and patted my shoulder blade. Leaving Gables, I felt more alone than I ever had. I wrestled with feeling like I was going to burst into tears. Colin's words were useless. I felt like I was losing it.

4
.27 pm. Dad was already home. I got my key out and zipped it into the lock but he heard me and opened the door. A rush of cooking smells hit me. Spices: cardamom, caraway. And onion, frying. Dad hugged me like I'd just jumped off a jumbo jet and kissed me. His face was smooth shaven. He smelled of dinner and aftershave. It was all too much. I held him at arm's length and looked him up and down.

‘What?' he asked.

His shirt was ironed. So were his pants. His shoes shone. They were
new
shoes.

‘There's something going on here,' I said, and pushed him into the flat.

Dad was smiling. ‘What?'

‘Don't! Don't pull that crap with me, Dad. What is it?'

He shook his head. ‘Siddown.'

I whumped into my armchair. ‘I knew it.'

‘Hush, Maddie. Listen to me.'

He dragged his armchair over to sit in front of me.
With his hands resting on my knees, he sighed. ‘That . . . tiff . . . with Evie and her . . . you know . . . moving out, it's shaken me. Made me sit up and have a look at myself. I spent the day with Rosie next door. Told her everything. She was so understanding and gentle and all that and I felt so guilty about it all. About the grog and how much I've been leaning on you girls. She helped me clean up and that.' He looked around the flat. ‘A woman's touch. Not that you're not a woman . . . just . . . argghh. Do you know what I mean?'

I nodded.

‘I blame myself for Evie moving out. I shouldn't have hit her. It was only the dishes for Christ's sake. She did the right thing. I feel like a part of me has died and been born again. I'm a new man, I tell you.'

I'd heard that story before. I looked around the flat. There was something missing. All the clutter had gone and everything sparkled, but that wasn't it.

‘I took the curtains down. Rosie said she'd give them a good soak and a wash in her machine.'

‘The TV! The TV's gone!'

Dad nodded and pulled me to my feet. ‘It died this afternoon,' he said, and shrugged. ‘Here, I found you something.' He led me to his bedroom door. ‘You mustn't look. Close your eyes.'

I looked at him sideways. This new man was freaking me out just a bit.

‘Close them.'

He put his hand gently over my eyes and I obliged. He flicked the light on and led me into his room.

‘Right. Open 'em.'

His bed was covered with feathers, arranged in a circle like the rays of the sun. Blue, red, black and gold, spotted and striped, long and fine, short and fluffy. They were beautiful. And weird.

‘Rosie took me out in her van this morning, and afterwards I went with her up to a place . . . I don't know where . . . to pick up a load of flowers. It was near Healesville and after that we went to a sort of zoo only it's not really a zoo. One of Rosie's friends, she volunteers there, and I collected these from the stuff that they scrape out of the cages. I mean they're clean and that. Thought you might like 'em, lov.'

Big fat tears. Dropping on the bedspread.

‘Do you like 'em, lov?'

I nodded and more eye-rain darkened the bedspread.

‘Lov?'

‘They're beautiful, Dad.'

‘You're crying! What is it, lov?' he said, and hugged me tight under his arm. He turned me to him, his face cramped with worry. ‘Come here.'

I rested my head on his shoulder and seriously lost it. For the first time in years I made noises while I was crying. Big, unruly sobs. Too big for his little bedroom. Too big for the little flat, and too small for the ache in me. Dad held me the whole time and rubbed my back. Shushed in my ear. Stroked my hair. ‘It's all right, lov. Dere dere. Hush, Maddie.'

I sniffed and snotted and cried on his shoulder until you could have rung out his nicely ironed shirt.

‘Sorry about the shirt, Dad.'

‘Bah, don't be. What was all that for?'

I shrugged. ‘Everything. Nothing. I dunno.'

He got me a hankie and served dinner. Later, he collected the feathers and put them in a glass beside my bed. We sat opposite each other at the table, me with a Milo, Dad with a coffee.

‘You did a marvellous job of cleaning up,' I said.

He grunted. ‘Yes, long overdue, I think. Me and Rosie.'

He was staring at me. His big brown eyes fixed on mine. He had a strange look about him like he'd seen me for the first time.

‘What?'

He looked to his cup. ‘There are going to be changes, Maddie. Big changes.'

‘What sort of changes? I'm not good with changes.'

He smiled and his shoulders shook. ‘Positive changes. Nothing to be frightened of.'

We sipped our drinks at the same time and smiled across the table.

‘I've got a job,' he said.

‘You've what?'

‘Yes, hard to believe. A job. A real job.'

He sat there with a silly grin on his face, nodding.

‘Doing what?'

‘Oh, just a bit here and there . . .'

‘A bit of what?'

He clunked his cup on the table and sat up. ‘Why, work of course.'

‘Dad!'

‘Heh heh. Sorry, lov. It's Rosie next door. She needs someone to drive her van for her. To do pick-ups and deliveries. I told her I'm her man.'

‘You're her man?'

‘Yes. She said she'd pay me and all. She wanted to know how much and I told her we'd discuss that later. If it all worked out.'

He reached across the table and took my hand. ‘I realised not that long ago . . . well . . . in bed last night . . . that life gets away from you if you're not careful.'

He stared at my hand.

‘I stopped working so I could be there for you and Evie after your mum died. I didn't do a very good job. I'm sorry.'

‘No, Dad,' I said. It was almost a whisper. ‘You did a great job. The best you could do.'

‘Yeah, maybe it was but some time ago things must have changed. Last night in bed I realised that it's you and Evie who've been looking after me. I don't blame her for moving out. I've been like an anchor around your necks. You go out to work. You pay the bills when there's nothing left of me bloddy pension. You cook and clean and shop and everything.'

‘We do lots of those things together, Dad.'

He nodded but reluctantly. ‘Yeah . . . then when I come home from the pub you're both out working again. It's just not right, lov. I'm sorry.'

‘I don't
have
to go out to work, Dad. I love it. If I didn't have my work I would totally not have a life.'

I pulled my hand free and walked to the sliding glass door of the balcony. The action felt contrived, like I was
an actor trying to make a limp point in a soap opera. Melodramatic. Thankfully Dad didn't get up and stand in the frame behind me and talk to the back of my head. He just sat there, rocking his empty coffee cup noisily on the table. There was a dirty print on the window and I stepped closer to inspect it.

The rocking cup stopped abruptly. ‘Sometimes I think you're the ghost of your mother. You're so much alike. She'd be so proud of you.'

I rubbed my eyes and the melodrama was gone. It was the real me and the real Dad, talking the same crap we always did in our deep and meaningfuls, only this time I didn't just smile like a princess and get all thingy thinking about what Mum must have been like and what things I did the same as her.

It was a handprint on the glass door. A fresh-looking child's handprint.

‘Don't suppose there's any chance she'd still be alive, is there?' I ran my finger over the print to see if it was inside the glass or out. ‘Like for some crazy reason she's just been having a bit of a holiday from being a mum or something?'

Dad chuckled and rocked his cup again. ‘No. No chance, lov. Doesn't mean that she's not happy though. Doesn't mean that she's not looking out for you. Doesn't mean –'

‘Didn't think so,' I said, and held my fingers up to him. ‘Look at this.'

‘What? Dusty, is it? I'm sorry. I'm a bit out of practice with housework.'

‘No, it's clean. Spotless. Look at this.'

He stood up and I showed him the handprint. He wiped the glass and looked at his hand. His brow furrowed.

‘It's on the outside.'