One Whole and Perfect Day (22 page)
‘No, no,’ soothed Marigold. ‘It won’t be like that, Lily.’
‘Yes it will! And Mum –’ Lily threw her arms out wide, despairingly, ‘it could have been this brilliant, perfect day!’
‘Lily, it will be.’
‘No, it
can’t
be.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Pop’s an old bigot. And even if he wasn’t, our family’s too – dysfunctional.’
Marigold actually chuckled, infuriating Lily. ‘Show me a family that isn’t dysfunctional!’
‘Mum! Can’t you take things seriously?’
Before Marigold could reply to this, a plump brown mouse (almost plump enough to be Seely) skidded out from behind the TV, gazed at them boldly for a second, and then darted out through the door.
Lily waved a hand after his vanishing tail. ‘See! We’ve even got rats in the lounge room! How dysfunctional is that?’
‘Very.’ Marigold chuckled again. ‘But I think it was a mouse.’
‘Makes no difference.’ Lily made another wide, sweeping gesture, encompassing their tatty rug, which never got clean no matter which shampoo you used, the battered furniture (second-hand when Mum and
he
had first been married), those scary leak-marks on the ceiling (how did you fix a
roof
?). Lily had been brought up to believe that material things weren’t important, and she still believed this, but she couldn’t help noticing that most other people didn’t. Tracy Gilman’s eyes would go big and round if she ever got inside this house.
And Daniel Steadman? Lily tossed her head. What Daniel Steadman might think didn’t matter now. Not only had she given up on him, but Daniel seemed to have vanished from the school, and Lily wasn’t vain enough to think he’d disappeared because of her. No, he’d simply left, like people do. Gone to another school, perhaps – people changed schools all the time. Someone would know: kids in his year who took the same classes, Mr Corcoran at the Drama Society, even Tracy Gilman.
Lily wasn’t asking any of them. Daniel Steadman had been a mistake and an humiliation. There were other things to do in life; there was – for a frightening moment Lily couldn’t think of anything. She’d concentrate on her schoolwork then, she decided. She’d devote herself to science; she was good at Physics and Chemistry. She’d be strong and stern and famous, like – Madame Curie. Yes! That was it! She’d be the Madame Curie of the twenty-first century!
‘Lily?’
Mum was smiling at her.
‘Yeah?’
‘Lily, I know I promised you I wouldn’t bring any more lame ducks home –’
‘Mum!’
‘But this one, she’s special.’
‘You always say that.’ Lily sat up straight and folded her arms sternly.
‘Honestly, this one is. And it’s only for a weekend, darling.’
‘What weekend?’
‘The sixteenth.’
‘The sixteenth of
September
?’
‘That’s right. Why, what’s the matter?’
Something like the beginning of a smile quivered at the corners of Lily’s lips. A moment ago she’d have thought things couldn’t get worse. Now it seemed they could, and well, you had to look on the funny side.
‘Good one, Mum,’ she said.
‘Good one?’
‘Pop’s party’s on that weekend. Sunday, the seventeenth.’
‘Ah.’ Marigold frowned as she thought that over. Lily could almost hear the neurones firing as her mum struggled to fit this new complication into her optimistic scheme of things. ‘I’m sure your nan won’t mind an extra guest,’ she said at last. The frown vanished; she was actually smiling now. ‘In fact, she’d probably love one. Don’t you think?’
‘I guess so,’ agreed Lily. Because what else could you say?
‘And I’m sure Mrs Nightingale will fit in wonderfully,’ her mother went on happily.
‘Yeah,’ sighed Lily. ‘In
our
family, I bet she will.’
Armed with Marigold’s list of helpful names and agencies, Stan travelled into the city to search for the girl in black. He rode up and down on the trains all morning: Penrith to Blacktown, Blacktown to Parramatta, on down to Strath-field and the city, where he grabbed a sandwich at Wynyard and then travelled out again. At each station he went to the doors and leaned out; scanning the platforms, getting in people’s way. ‘Watch out, Pop!’ a young voice shouted, and Stan looked round sharply, because for a moment he’d thought it might be Lon. It wasn’t, of course, only some kid who thought it was fine to call any bloke over forty, ‘Pop’. ‘Get stuffed,’ retorted Stan, and the kid gave him the finger, and Stan gave it back to him. No way he was putting up with cheek.
At half past three, slowing into a suburb west of Parramatta, and still no sign of the girl, Stan decided to call it a day. Where was he now? What station was this? The sign slid by the window: Toongabbie, read Stan, and all at once he was on his feet and headed for the door.
It wouldn’t hurt to have a gander at the place, see this dump where Lonnie lived. Since he was passing anyway. A quick shufti, that was all – for May’s sake, really. Put her mind at rest, stop her brooding about bedbugs and the like. Down the ramp went Stan. ‘Firth Street?’ he asked the bloke at the gate.
‘Two blocks down, turn left at the service station, then third right. Can’t miss it.’
‘Thanks, mate.’
The house surprised him. Lily had told them it wasn’t a squat; all the same he’d expected some kind of hovel, seedy and damp, the garden full of weeds and other rubbish. A bit like Marigold’s place, only with more people in it. He hadn’t bargained for fresh paint on the doors and windowsills and the guttering intact. ‘Not bad,’ he thought, studying Mrs Rasmussen’s well-kept front garden from the opposite side of the street.
Five minutes passed and Stan kept on standing there, shifting from foot to foot; unable to work out exactly why he couldn’t leave. It was May’s fault, of course, it had to be. Her fault for sticking that notice up on the fridge, lodging Lonnie’s address so firmly in his brain that when he saw the word Toongabbie he’d walked out onto the platform as if this had been his destination all along. Programmed like a flaming robot! Stan shoved his hands deep inside his pockets and rocked back on his heels. All the same, now he was here on the spot he might as well have a go at seeing Lonnie. Not to apologise, mind you – simply to have a bit of a chat, smooth things over before May’s flamin’ party.
What could he say to him? Stan looked up and down the street, as if the answer might lie there. He saw old houses; some neat and tidy like 5 Firth Street, some renovated, others merely old. Sure to be people his age living here, and Stan wished one of them would come outside so he could wander up and have the sort of yarn he often had at bus-stops and railway stations – about kids and grandkids, and what the hell you could do . . .
His gaze fixed on the bright blue door of Lonnie’s boarding house. Should he go over there? It was almost 4.30, the tail end of the afternoon, and Lonnie would most probably be out. If he was out then Stan could leave some kind of message, smooth the waters for May . . .
Only you couldn’t really be sure that he was out because uni students kept all kinds of hours and Lonnie could be in there. Stan rocked on his heels again and rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. Okay, so what he’d do, if Lonnie
was
home, was to act quite natural, as if his outburst on that afternoon last summer, and that stupid business with the axe, had never actually occurred.
Stan stepped out bravely from the footpath. And then stopped dead. What if Lonnie’s girlfriend was in there? And what if Lonnie had told her about that business with the axe? If he’d done that, and you could bet he had (Lon was never one to hide his troubles) then the girlfriend – this Clara – would think he was some kind of maniac. She’d shriek her head off the minute she caught sight of him.
‘Get off the bloody road, Pop!’
Stan jerked his head round and found a big red utility almost on top of him; an outraged young face glaring from the driver’s window.
‘“Sir”, to you! I’m no pop of yours, ya little bugger! Have some respect, why don’t ya!’
He got the finger again. The utility roared off. In the front room of 5 Firth Street he glimpsed a curtain twitch. Someone had been watching him!
It could even be the girlfriend.
Stan took to his heels.
Up in the hills, May walked slowly round her garden. The lawn, thanks to winter rain and Stan’s new mower, was soft as velvet underfoot; and if there was no frost this week, those buds on the wisteria might bloom early and by the weekend of the party become long mauve sprays of flowers. The last two days had been mild and sunny, the foggy dew melting away by mid-morning, the blue folds of the mountains etched clear and sharp against a cloudless sky. At midday you could feel a real warmth in the sun where it fell on your face and arms.
May hoped for two such days for the party weekend: ‘Two perfect, cloudless days,’ she said to Sef, ‘That’s what we need.’ Two perfect, cloudless days when Stan and Lonnie would make it up, and Clara would be welcomed to the family. May drew in a deep, excited breath. Only a couple of weeks to go! A wave of happiness washed over her; she felt like dancing! She had a sudden bright memory of dancing with Sef in the hall of the Home: round and round they went, hair flying, skirts billowing (Christmas, it must have been), faster and faster, the sunlit windows flying past like dreams . . .
One of the good things about getting old was how these happy moments from the past returned to you: the scents and sounds and colours, the
feel
of everything. In the bright garden May held out her arms. ‘Let’s dance!’ she said to Sef, and, slowly, because after all she was seventy-six next birthday, slowly but gracefully, back straight, head held high, May began to dance across Stan’s lawn.
Rattled by his visit to Firth Street, Stan lost his way in the back streets of Toongabbie and wandered for a full half hour. Then at the station he got confused and went to the city side. He didn’t even notice the train he boarded was going in the wrong direction till it stopped at Strathfield, and there he got out and stood on the platform, lost in a daze.
He should have left a note for Lonnie. ‘Thanks for remembering Ratbag!’ or something of that kind, enough to show there were no hard feelings anymore. Five Firth Street was a boarding house; there’d have been a place where you could leave mail . . . ‘Should have walked right in,’ mumbled Stan. ‘Should have.’
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Stan turned and saw the Chinese lady he’d met in the park last month; the one with the daughter called Clara. She was breathless, beaming at him. ‘Saw you,’ she gasped. ‘Saw you, and
ran
.’
‘Ran?’ Struth, was he
that
bad?
‘I was over there –’ She waved towards the opposite platform. ‘And I wanted, so much, to thank you –’
Eh? ‘Thank me?’
‘Remember how I wanted to go and see my daughter’s place, and you said I had a right?’
‘And you went, eh?’
She nodded.
Braver than he was.
‘She wasn’t in. But I saw her friend next door, and she said her room was just like Clara’s, so now I can picture her, you know? And if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I’d have gone! I’m going to go again! I’m going to ring her and – you know what? I think she’s got a boyfriend!’
‘Boyfriend? Look, is his name –’
A train thundered into the station on the opposite side of the tracks, drowning out his words. She whirled round. ‘There’s my train!’
‘Lonnie?’ finished Stan. ‘Is your daughter’s boyfriend called Lonnie?’
She didn’t hear him; she was running for the stairs. His own train slid to a stop beside the platform. It was dark already, getting late up at Katoomba. May would soon start to worry. Stan stepped on board.
‘My grandfather?’ Lonnie stared at Mrs Rasmussen, appalled. She’d caught him the moment he came through the front door, her face radiant with news.
‘Pop’s been here?’ he quavered, glancing nervously round the hallway into shadowy corners he’d barely noticed before. ‘
Here?
’
Mrs Rasmussen nodded happily. Lonnie could see she thought this was something to be glad about. She didn’t understand the complications of his family.
Why had Pop come? Was it to make up their quarrel? Or to bawl him out again? Had Lily passed on the news that he was engaged? Of course she had.
‘What did he say?’ he asked Mrs Rasmussen.
She shrugged. ‘Ah, nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ That didn’t sound like Pop. Pop was like Lily; when they got worked up, they went on and on and on.
‘He didn’t come inside,’ explained Mrs Rasmussen.
‘He didn’t?’
She shook her head, pointing towards the footpath on the other side of the road. ‘He stood there,’ she said, ‘and looked towards this house for a very long time, as if he wished to come in. He even crossed the road, halfway, only I think he was –’
‘What?’
‘Shy.’ Mrs Rasmussen didn’t mention how the poor old man had almost been run down. The truck had missed him after all, so why upset the boy?
Shy? Pop? Lonnie couldn’t imagine that. How could someone like Pop be shy? Perhaps Mrs Rasmussen had got the wrong grandpa; there were a lot of old people in this neighbourhood.
‘What was he wearing?’ Because Lonnie knew that on a cold day like this Pop would have been wearing his old green jacket, and the brown felt hat he and Lily had often giggled about, because surely it was left over from the days when Pop had been a cop.
‘A green jacket,’ replied Mrs Rasmussen promptly. ‘And a funny hat – like detectives wear on the TV. In those old movies they show late at night. You know?’
‘Yeah,’ mumbled Lonnie. ‘That was him.’
Right, thought Lonnie. Right.
37
HOPES, DREAMS AND A NIGHTMARE
When Stan reached home after his visit to Firth Street he found May at the kitchen table, making place-cards for the party. Yesterday she’d been making party baskets. ‘You sent an invite yet to Lon and Clara?’ he asked gruffly.
May smiled and patted a small stack of envelopes on the corner of the table.
‘Sending them tomorrow,’ she said. ‘That’s Lonnie’s one on the top. I didn’t seal the envelope, just in case.’ She picked it up and took out the card.
