One Whole and Perfect Day (25 page)

‘In the playgrounds,’ Mrs Nightingale explained, a little irritably. ‘I’ve been looking at these schools we’ve passed. I’m talking about playground litter.’

Playground litter! Of course! Mrs Nightingale had once been a teacher. Lily stifled a giggle, her mother dug her sharply in the ribs.

A little further on, Marigold slowed the car into the curb. ‘What is it?’ demanded Lily.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ replied her mother cheerfully. ‘I just need to post these, that’s all.’ She took two letters from the dashboard and handed them to Lily. ‘Would you mind hopping out, darling, and dropping them in that postbox across the road?’

Lily snatched the letters and got out of the car.

‘Mind the traffic, won’t you? Remember to look both ways.’

‘I’m the sensible one in the family, remember?’

‘What?’

‘I’m the sensible one in the family! I know my road rules, Mum. I won’t get run over.’

A muffled snort came from the back seat. Lily looked through the window and saw Mrs Nightingale’s lips twitch, almost as if she was struggling to suppress a smile. Had Mrs Nightingale, long long ago, been the sensible one in her family? Was she
still
the sensible one? Clutching the letters, Lily set off across the highway. The city-bound traffic was heavy; standing waiting on the central median, Lily glanced up at that perfect sky which seemed meant for happiness, and felt only bereft, as if she and Daniel Steadman had actually had a real relationship and then broken up. She gave a small irritated jerk of her head: honestly, she was getting as bad as Nan with her imaginary companion. Madame Curie would never have been like this!

A gap came in the traffic, too brief for Lily to cross, though she could see beyond it to the pavement on the other side – the houses, the red postbox, and – and Daniel Steadman stooping to gather up a newspaper from beside his gate.

Daniel Steadman!

Her head whirled dizzily. Surely it couldn’t be; surely she was having some kind of hallucination! The gap in the traffic closed, Daniel vanished from sight. When another gap opened, he’d be gone. Of course he’d be gone.

Only he wasn’t. He was still standing in the gateway, quite real and solid, wearing striped pyjamas, tossing the rolled up newspaper from hand to hand. The gesture seemed oddly familiar to Lily, the whole landscape seemed familiar: that house and gate, the postbox, and Daniel in pyjamas tossing a rolled-up newspaper from hand to hand. As if she’d seen it all before. How could she though? She’d never been here in her life.

Daniel smiled. At her? Lily didn’t know. She ran through the gap in the traffic towards the red postbox. A car hooted, swerving round her. She heard her mother’s voice call out, ‘Lily! Be careful!’

‘I am being careful,’ shouted Lily, gaining the pavement, thrusting the letters into the box.

When she turned, Daniel was right behind her. His face had gone a brilliant pink. That would be because of the pyjamas, Lily thought. He’d be embarrassed to be caught wearing them out here in the street.

‘Oh, hi,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ said Lily.

‘Hi’ was a simple short syllable, but the moment Lily spoke it, Daniel Steadman’s eyes widened in surprise. He knew with utter certainty that this was the voice he’d kept hearing in his dreams; the beautiful voice to which he’d never been able to put a face or name or place, except that, mistily, he thought it might have something to do with the Drama Society at school . . . with the school production.

‘It’s
you
,’ he said.

‘Me?’ Lily sucked in her breath.

Daniel nodded.

‘Me?’ she said again.

‘I kept hearing this voice,’ he said. ‘When I was sick.’

So he’d been sick. That’s why he hadn’t been at school, that’s why he was wearing pyjamas. He was thinner, she could see it.

‘I kept dreaming, you know how you do, and there was this beautiful voice –’

‘It’s not beautiful,’ protested Lily, laughing.

Daniel insisted that it was. ‘Though the funny thing is, I can’t remember ever meeting you, talking to you –’ He scratched at his lovely feathery hair. ‘It seemed to have – in the dreams, I mean – something to do with the school production, though I’ve never seen you at rehearsals.’

‘That’s because I only went one time before you got sick,’ explained Lily. ‘And you wouldn’t have seen me because I was underneath the stage.’

‘Underneath the stage?’

‘I’m the new prompter. I’m Lily. Lily Samson.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That’s it, of course.’

She held out her hand to him. He grasped it warmly. They stood there.

‘I’m Daniel,’ he said at last. ‘Daniel Steadman.’

Lily didn’t say she knew.

On the other side of the highway, beyond the rush and roar of traffic, a familiar horn blared out. ‘That’s my mum,’ said Lily. ‘I’ve got to go. We’re on our way up to the mountains, to my grandpa’s place, for his eightieth birthday party.’ It sounded so normal, she thought, exactly as if she had a proper family, who did the kind of things that other families do.

‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘Well, but – will you be there at rehearsal next week?’

‘Um, sure.’

‘So will I!’ His eyes searched her face; he seemed to be waiting for her to say something, only Lily couldn’t think what.

‘Um, so –’ she floundered.

‘So – so I’ll see you there. Next Wednesday?’

‘Not much of me,’ she answered. ‘Down beneath the stage.’

‘But after?’ said Daniel. ‘Afterwards? We could –’ The pink in his cheeks grew brighter. ‘We could go and have a coffee somewhere.’

‘Yes we could,’ said Lily, smiling.

‘Who was that?’ asked Marigold, as Lily climbed back into the car.

‘No one.’

‘No one?’ Her mother’s smile was maddening, but Lily bore it bravely. ‘Just a kid from school, that’s all,’ she said, and from the back seat Mrs Nightingale murmured, ‘Ah, young love, true love!’ A remark which normally would have infuriated Lily, but which, at this glorious moment of her life, simply made her smile again and say with great dignity, ‘Could be, Mrs Nightingale.’

‘You may call me Serafina,’ said Mrs Nightingale grandly. ‘Or, for short, Sef.’

‘
Sef?
’

Lily swung round, Marigold’s amazed eyes sought her passenger’s face in the rear-view mirror.

‘Sef?’ they said in strange shocked unison.

41
ROSE’S JOURNEY

Rose stepped from the train onto the platform at Katoomba. A sloping ramp took her down into the underpass; damp steep steps rose up into the street. Long chilly shadows spread across the footpath and she drew her jacket round her. The journey had taken longer than she’d expected; it was getting on to five o’clock, soon it would be dark. Where should she go now? She was beginning to feel silly, impetuous – perhaps she shouldn’t have come? What was she doing here? She’d never been to Katoomba before; how would she ever find Clara?

‘Ask anyone,’ Jessaline had told her. ‘Ask anyone, Mrs Lee. Lonnie told Clara that everyone up there knows Stan.’ Right.

A young man in a grey suit was crossing the busy road towards the station. Rose stepped up to him. ‘Excuse me, but I wonder if you could help me?’

The young man glanced at her nervously.

‘I’m looking for an elderly man who lives round here,’ Rose explained. ‘His name’s Stan.’

‘Stan?’

The moment she’d spoken she knew her question sounded peculiar. Perhaps it was the absence of a second name, or the fact that the town looked bigger than she’d bargained for: the road in front of them rushed with traffic, behind it a long main street of restaurants and craft shops was still busy in this last hour of a Saturday afternoon. ‘Stan?’ the young man said again, backing away a little, as if, thought Rose indignantly, she’d asked for Lucifer or Mephistopheles. ‘Yes,
Stan
,’ she repeated crossly.

‘Sorry, haven’t a clue,’ the young man answered. ‘I don’t live here. Just visiting.’ And he hurried past her and disappeared down the steps into the station.

‘You looking for Stan?’

Rose turned round. She hadn’t noticed the tiny newspaper kiosk squeezed in between a travel agent and a café, or the red-haired woman inside it, her plump freckled arms resting on the counter. ‘Think I know who you mean, dear. Red-faced old geezer? Big mouth on him? Bristly grey hair?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Rose faintly, and yet the description seemed to ring some kind of bell, especially the bristly grey hair. One of those old men in her library who sat reading the newspapers all day? No, it sounded more like that old man she’d met in the park and later on Strathfield station; the one with the soldier’s haircut who’d told her she had a right to see her daughter’s room.

‘I was only given the first name,’ she told the freckled lady. ‘His grandson told my daughter anyone up here would know him –’

The freckled lady smiled. ‘Sure we know him. Everyone knows Stan. Comes up here to get his newspaper every day.’ ‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Never asked, but it’s up that way.’ She pointed towards the main street. ‘Round that corner by the post office. Friend of yours, is he?’

‘More of – more my daughter’s friend.’

‘Well, I’m pretty new here myself, love; all the same I’ve noticed him. Noticed him yesterday. Having a party, is he?’

‘Um, yes.’

The freckled lady chuckled. ‘Thought so. He had all this party glitter in his beard. You walk on up that way; reckon you’ll find someone who knows.’

Rose picked up her bag and walked on – up the main street, round the corner to the top of a steep hill. It was almost evening now and fog billowed up the slope to meet her, fog and bleak gusts of shivery cold air. In those last few minutes, while she’d been talking to the woman in the kiosk, the place seemed to have emptied; shops were closing, lights coming on; there was hardly anyone left in the street. No one to ask where an old loudmouth called Stan might live . . .

How stupid she must seem, thought Rose – a silly woman bumbling about, asking for a man whose second name she didn’t know. She turned a corner and walked on again, the dumb motion of her feet recalling those months after her parents had died; those evenings when she’d walked and walked along the streets of their suburb, walked until she was so tired that when she got home she could sink down onto her bed and fall asleep at once.

She turned into another side street, where the front windows of the cottages were lit and curtains drawn. The long steep street ended in a reserve, beyond it, in the fading light, Rose caught glimpses of mountains, blue and creased, like a big fat quilt folded to be stored away for summer. She turned left, then right again, up and down and up and down. Now she was back near the station, she could hear the short urgent hoot of a train. Should she go back home?

A seat loomed up suddenly beside her on the nature strip: a bus-stop. Rose sat down.

Why had she come here? Because of Clara? Because she was worried about her daughter? She’d worried about Clara being lonely, yet Clara obviously wasn’t lonely; she had friends, she was engaged, she was entering another family. Surely it was Rose herself who felt abandoned, like she’d felt when her parents had died and left her on her own. Her daughter was vanishing, not abruptly, as her mum and dad had done, but little piece by little piece: first Clara had left the house, then there had come longer and longer spaces between their coffee meetings, and then –

‘Are you all right, dear?’

Rose looked up into a big square smiling face.

‘Looking for Stan and May’s place, love?’

Rose nodded. She was beyond caring how this stranger knew. ‘If it’s the same Stan.’

‘Sure it is. Old chap? Turning eighty tomorrow?’

‘That’s him.’

‘You’re Lonnie’s girlfriend’s mum, I’ll bet. Saw them go past this morning with Stan. She’s a lovely looking girl, your daughter. You must be proud of her.’

‘I am,’ said Rose.

‘Come up for the party tomorrow, have you?’

‘Not exactly. I mean –’ Rose faltered. ‘I’ve sort of lost my way.’

‘They’re down there, love.’ The square-faced lady pointed down the hill. ‘Second turn on the right. Ridge Road, number sixteen. Want me to call them for you, tell them you’re on your way?’

‘Oh! No! I’ll be fine. I got lost, that’s all.’

‘Easy to do round here. It’s a funny old place this, if you’re not used to it. Only small, but you could walk round in circles all day, specially when it’s dark.’ She smiled at Rose. ‘Sure you don’t want me to come with you?’

Rose shook her head. ‘But thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Mrs –?’

‘Petrie, love. I’m Mrs Petrie. Friend of May’s from the Gardening Club.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Petrie. You’ve been very kind.’ Rose picked up her bag.

Down the road then, second turn on the left – was that what Mrs Petrie had said? The old lady’s instructions had been simple enough, yet in five minutes Rose was lost again. She found the first left, but not the second. Could she have missed it? It was so hard to tell, with the dark coming on, and the wisps of fog sneaking everywhere, her feet hurting and the small bag heavy in her hand. Should she turn back to the station and ask the freckly woman at the kiosk to suggest some small hotel?

Standing there, footsore and undecided, Rose caught sight of a young woman standing beneath the streetlight a little further down the road. Some kind of New Age girl, she thought as she hurried towards her, noticing the long brown dress and heavy woollen shawl; a New Age girl pointing to the signpost at the corner of the road. Her face looked oddly familiar, as if Rose had seen it quite recently. In the newspaper? It had been some kind of picture, she remembered. In a book . . . of course! Last week she’d catalogued a new biography of the Bronte sisters – this New Age girl looked like Emily Bronte. A gust of fog blew up suddenly and hid her from sight. By the time Rose reached the streetlight, the Emily Bronte girl had gone, but there, in the direction she’d been pointing, Rose saw the sign for Ridge Road. In no time at all she’d found the house, snug in its garden, windows lighted, curtains drawn. She paused at the gate.

Clara would be so angry when she saw her! Clara would call her a spy.