One Whole and Perfect Day (21 page)

‘Only?’ prompted Marigold.

‘What?’

‘You said, “She’s beautiful, and nice, only –” Only what?’ ‘Oh, nothing.’

‘I can’t wait to meet her! They’re coming to the party, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, they are,’ said Lily dismally. Lonnie had told her this as she was leaving, as they stood together on the front step of 5 Firth Street, Lily clutching the white box in which Clara had placed two slices of cherry cake made by someone called Jessaline. They’d asked her to stay, but Lily had pretended an urgent school assignment; since her unrequited crush on Daniel, she felt awkward with people really in love. ‘You’re
both
coming?’ she’d asked, and Lonnie had nodded cheerfully.

‘But Pop –’ ‘Oh,’ Lonnie had tossed his long front lock back from his forehead. ‘I reckon he’ll come round. I’m still doing my course, aren’t I?’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant –’ Couldn’t he figure
anything
out? He’d heard Pop’s jokes. That one about the Chinese man and the Japanese man and the Arab – yuk! And then she saw the tiny nervous flicker in his eyes, and thought he actually might have figured it out, this time. ‘Look, I think . . .’ she’d begun, but he’d waved her words aside.

‘It’ll be right,’ he’d said.

‘You wish.’

‘Pop’s going to hate her,’ Lily said now to her mum.

‘Why should he?’

‘She’s Chinese,’ muttered Lily.

‘So?’

Her mother didn’t get it. Mum and Lonnie had quite a bit in common; they were like a pair of half-blind sailors on a leaky old ship, who couldn’t make out the dangerous rocks ahead.

‘Oh, come on, Mum. Pop’s such an old bigot! When he finds out Lonnie’s engaged to a Chinese girl, he’s going to explode!’

‘Of course he won’t,’ said her mother calmly. ‘Your Pop’s all talk.’

‘His talk is
enough
. What if he tells one of his awful jokes?’

‘He won’t.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘I just know. Having Clara in the family will be good for him.’

Lily gave up. She stomped off to her room, where she couldn’t get to sleep, where she kept on seeing Clara and Lonnie coming through the gate of her grandparents’ cottage, and Pop rushing out at them, roaring, and Lonnie and Clara running away down the hill. And then her vision of Nan’s lovely party darkened, the flowers wilted, streamers fell, the fairy lights went out in the trees. And she’d wanted so much one lovely, whole and perfect day . . .

When Mum had gone to bed Lily tiptoed from her room and crept softly down the hall towards the telephone. She lifted the receiver and laid the thin handkerchief she’d taken from her drawer across its mouthpiece (as she’d seen kidnappers do in films), then dialled the familiar number, crossing her fingers that Pop would be the one to answer the phone. She knew he often stayed up late, watching boring old war documentaries that sent Nan off hastily to bed.

The phone rang. ‘Yeah?’

It was him, and for a moment, Lily faltered. Then she thought how Nan’s party could still be perfect, gulped back her doubts, and in a low voice spoke into the telephone. ‘Sir, I’m doing a survey, on behalf of the um, the Association for Racial Harmony.’

‘Racial what?’

‘Harmony.’

‘What’s that? Something to do with music?’

‘No, it’s um, about different cultures.’

Disguised voice, thought Stan, that old trick of the hanky over the phone, and for a moment he thought the voice might be Lonnie’s. Lonnie had been up here only the other day.

‘Been
here
!’ Stan had shouted, when May had given him this news. ‘Here? When I told him to keep away? When I told him he was no grandson of mine?’

‘He came to make it up with you, I think,’ said May. ‘He left you a message.’

‘What message?’

‘He said to tell you he was sorry about old Ratbag.’

Ratbag! Stan had gone quite silent. His old mate Ratbag. Lonnie had remembered him! Lonnie had been no more than a pup himself when the old dog had died. Not a day passed that Stan didn’t think of Ratbag, imagining him – idiotically, he knew – up there in the sky somewhere, looking down at them, wagging his tail.

And Lonnie had remembered him, when everyone else except Stan had forgotten the old boy long ago! Stan had

found himself struggling against a dangerous softening of the heart . . .

‘I want Lonnie to come to this party,’ May had said, her blue eyes regarding him steadily, almost sternly.

‘Didn’t say he couldn’t, did I?’ Stan had retorted, and May had turned away and walked from the room. ‘Tell him he can come,’ Stan had called after her, and her voice floated back to him from the hall. ‘I
did
tell him. But you have to tell him too.’

He hadn’t got round to it yet.

‘Sir? Sir, are you still there?’ This muffled voice on the telephone wasn’t Lonnie; he realised that the minute he heard that familiar little catch between the words. It was Lil. When she was nervous, there was always that small catch in Lily’s voice.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Still here. Still alive and kickin’.’

‘So would you be interested in taking part in our survey? In the cause of – of peace?’

‘Peace, eh? Okay.’

‘We’re targeting gentlemen over seventy. Would you be in that age group, sir?’

‘Bet your life I am.’

‘All right, um – did you fight in the war, sir? The Second World War, I mean.’

‘No, I had flat f – I had a medical condition.’

A muffled giggle sounded over the line.

‘Sir, I hope you don’t mind me asking this next question?’ ‘Spit it out!’

‘Sir, do you hate the Japanese?’

‘No!’

‘Or other ethnic people sir?’

‘No!’

Lily’s voice was now quite clear. In her enthusiasm, she must have let the hanky slip; Stan imagined it fluttering, unnoticed, to the floor. He pictured the gloomy hallway she stood in: the ancient flaking paper on the walls, the musty odour – he was sure – of rising damp. There was a hole in the skirting board where May swore she’d once seen a tiny pair of twitching whiskers and brilliant, darting eyes. He hated that house. How could they live there? Geez, he’d like to burn it down.

‘Sir?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Sir, my next question is, er –’ ‘Get it off your chest!’

‘Sir, what would you do if a grandchild of yours was planning to get married to, um, someone of another race?’

‘I’d pin her ears back!’ roared Stan. ‘If any granddaughter of mine tried marrying
anyone
when she’s only sixteen, and hasn’t finished school!’

Lily dropped the phone.

‘Who was that?’ asked May, as a grinning Stan came loping back into the living room.

‘Association for Racial Harmony.’

‘What on earth did they want with you?’

‘Survey,’ chuckled Stan.

‘What were they surveying?’

Stan shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

He did, though. Or at least he had an inkling.

The next afternoon the inkling was more definite. He was out the back weeding round the silver beet when May came rushing from the house.

‘Guess what?’ she cried. Her face was glowing.

He could have guessed, and almost got it right, only he didn’t want to spoil her surprise.

‘You tell me.’

‘Lonnie and Clara have got engaged!’

Clara, eh? Stan remembered the Chinese woman he’d met in the park whose daughter’s name was Clara. He’d had a sort of feeling, even at the time. ‘Coincidences do happen,’ he said aloud, and May gave him a puzzled glance.

‘You mean it’s a coincidence Lonnie’s got engaged just when we were having our party?’

Stan smiled and put his arm about her shoulders. ‘That too,’ he said.

3 5 M o r e R e s t l e s s N i g h t s

It was happening again: that sharp little niggle which would wake Stan two hours after he’d fallen asleep and keep him lying there, staring at the ceiling while the niggling went on and on. Like he was a table, thought Stan, and some cranky little kid was kicking at one of his legs.

What was bothering him? Last time it had been the way he couldn’t remember the colour of Mum’s eyes. He’d sorted that one out and it had made no difference, so perhaps it hadn’t been the problem in the first place? What was the problem, then? Stan pushed the doona back and got out of bed; there was no way he’d get back to sleep.

‘You all right, love?’ May murmured sleepily.

‘Just off to get a drink of milk,’ Stan reassured her.

As he approached the fridge, Lonnie’s name stared at him from the door, and the address and telephone number too, and Stan could almost swear the figures in that number had been made larger, as if to give a gentle hint. Well, he wasn’t ringing him!

He poured the milk into a tumbler, gulped it down quickly, returned the carton to the fridge, and was confronted by the message all over again: Lonnie, 5 Firth Street, Toongabbie. Telephone 9864 5372. He’d rip it down except for the upset that would cause May. She kept on nagging, reminding him that it was now only a little more than two weeks till the party and she’d be sending out the invitations any day. And that Lonnie hadn’t dropped out of his latest course, he was working hard – and it was he, Stan, who’d lost his block back there last summer.

‘And I had good reason to,’ Stan kept on retorting, digging his heels right in.

And yet, Ratbag! He couldn’t get over how Lonnie had remembered the old dog, and remembered, too, how upset his grandfather had been.

Stan rinsed the glass under the tap and placed it on the draining board. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to – to what? Make it up?
Apologise?
The very word embarrassed him; a man had his pride, didn’t he? And whatever May said, he
had
had good reasons for writing Lonnie off last summer.

Writing him off: the phrase triggered a sudden image of that girl Stan had seen on the train; the beggar girl in black. He recalled her with enormous clarity: the thin, dusty clothes, the small mound of her stomach, the unwashed hair and grubby fingernails, the frightening sound of her voice. He pictured her sodden cardboard hideaway again; imagined her lying in it at the dead of night, listening to footsteps passing on the pavement, heart beating fast, holding her breath when the footsteps stopped. Perhaps it was the thought of her, half forgotten, which had kept waking him up at night. ‘Shouldn’t be allowed,’ he muttered.

Something should be done.

Like what? What could be done? He was old and out of touch these days, he didn’t know the city like he’d done years back when he was young and on the force. He didn’t know where such a girl might go to get help, proper help, not people who’d push her around. He didn’t know who she should see, and it made him feel useless, this being out of touch.

Who would know, then?

Marigold.

Stan padded down the hall towards the telephone.

Marigold struggled up from sleep, saw the time on the bedside clock: 2.30 – the time for very bad news
.
‘Lonnie?’ she whispered, picking up the phone.

‘
Lonnie?
’ Stan was outraged. ‘It’s
me.’

Dad. Marigold drew in a quick frightened breath. If Dad was calling at this hour, then something must have happened to Mum. ‘Mum?’

‘It’s
me
, I said!’ roared Stan. ‘How could you think I was your mother?’

‘I
know
it’s you!
’
Marigold roared back. ‘I meant, is something wrong with Mum?’

‘Why should there be? She’s dead to the world – snoring her head off back there in bed. Like I would be too if it wasn’t for this girl.’

Marigold froze. Girl? Was he talking about Clara?

‘What girl?’ she asked.

‘This kid I saw on the train. Beggar kid – pregnant, deaf and dumb, walking up and down the carriage.’ Stan cleared his throat. ‘Hardly older than Lil.’

Marigold listened in astonishment as her tough old dad, at 2.30 in the morning when he’d normally be sound asleep, went on about a girl in a black dress. ‘Thought you might know what to do,’ he finished gruffly.

Marigold gave him names and addresses, phone numbers. ‘But no matter what you do, Dad, there are kids who fall right through the cracks.’

Stan hung up the phone. ‘Fall through the cracks.’ What an expression! His mum would have hated it. It was almost as bad as ‘written him off’.

Marigold sank down onto the sofa. Lily appeared in the doorway, rubbing her fists in her eyes. ‘Who was that?’

‘Your pop.’

‘What did he ring about? Nan’s all right, isn’t she?’

‘Of course.’

‘So?’

‘You’re not going to believe this.’

Lily tightened her lips. ‘Try me.’

‘Your tough old pop is worried about this young girl he’s seen begging on the train. Sixteen, pregnant, deaf and dumb, dressed all in black –’ ‘I’ve seen that girl,’ said Lily. ‘Lots of times. Lonnie has too.’

A couple of years back Lily would have scorned that girl in black – a druggie, she’d have thought, a loser. Because how else could you get like that? Now, at sixteen, Lily had worked out that anything could happen to anybody, if there was no one around to catch you when you fell.

‘I’ve seen her lots,’ she repeated, and flung herself down on the sofa, leaning her head against her mother’s shoulder. ‘Have you?’

‘She’s scary.’ Lily paused. ‘When you said it was Pop, I thought it might be he’d found out.’

‘Found out what?’

‘Found out about Lonnie getting engaged to a Chinese girl.’

‘Lily, for heaven’s sake! I’m sure it won’t be like that.’

‘Yes it will!’ Lily stared down at her toes. They were short and stubby, like Pop’s. Somewhere in
Bestie
there’d be a feature on how to make your toes look long and slender, even if they weren’t. But she’d finished with all that; finished with crushes and all that girly stuff, finished with Daniel Steadman. Her toes would stay as they were. All she cared about now was Nan’s party, and the Samson family having a whole and perfect day. If that was possible, and Lily didn’t think it was.

‘I know exactly what’s going to happen,’ she told her mum. ‘Even if Pop and Lonnie make it up, the moment Pop sees Clara he’ll start going on, and Clara will get upset – like, who
wouldn’t
?’ Lily put her hands up to her eyes as if she could actually see these awful things happening. ‘And Lonnie will get mad and he and Pop will have another fight, and then Clara will want to go home. Who could blame her for that? And Nan’s party will be ruined!’