Paper Alice (20 page)

She shrugged and gave a little grin. ‘So . . . Did you sign up?'

I shrugged, half-smiling. There were more important things to discuss.

‘I – I'm sorry . . . for saying I was your sister–'

She looked at me, brow creasing slightly.

‘Yeah, I heard about that.'

‘From Spiro?'

‘Y-ep.' A faint smile was hovering at her mouth.

I swallowed, rushed to explain. ‘It was just that . . . well, everyone was staring at me and . . .'

I stopped, shaking my head.

‘S'
Okay
.' Wilda grinned again, making a face. ‘I guessed that.'

I almost laughed with relief.

‘Was that you,' I asked, after a moment, ‘at the ball?'

She took a deep breath, nodded.

‘I thought it was you I saw in the distance, and this guy I know said he'd bumped into my double . . .' She smiled. ‘I should've come up to you on the dance floor, but the truth was–' another shrug ‘–I was shit scared.'

This time I did laugh, right out loud.

‘You! Why?'

She seemed too direct, too down-to-earth, to get nervous. Unlike me.

We looked at one another and laughed again.

‘I've been too,' I said. ‘
Shit
scared!'

‘It's not every day you meet your double.'

‘Nup.'

Almost without noticing it we'd drifted over to a nearby bench, under a plane tree, and sat down. A dead leaf seesawed down in front of us like a scrap of stiff cloth, landing scratchily in a drift.

‘So anyway,' she said after a moment. ‘What d'you reckon?'

I looked at her enquiringly. She shrugged again.

‘Separated at birth, or what?'

I gave another squawk of laughter.

‘I don't–' I started, then stopped, Dad's words that day at the pond coming back to me, yet again.

I was suddenly conscious of my own breathing.

There was another pause, then we turned to one another.

‘When's your birthday?' we asked, both at once.

Wilda went first.

‘Twenty-third of May, 1987.'

The let-down felt physical, like a jolt of air turbulence. I sighed.

‘Twenty-eighth of June, 1988.'

We laughed ruefully; shook our heads.

‘Anyway, as if!' she cried.

‘Well, we could be sisters,' I said, half-jokingly. ‘Couldn't we? Born – what? Thirteen months apart?'

‘Where were you born?'

‘Sydney,' I said, picturing the hospital card lovingly pasted in the front of my Baby Record Book. ‘At the Prince of Wales Hospital.'

She looked at me for a moment, then frowned.

‘Melbourne,' she said, ‘or so I've always been told . . .' She shrugged. ‘I hardly know anything about my mother. Apparently she died when I was only a few months old; I was brought up by my father's family.'

The word ‘apparently' hung between us like a question mark. I laughed uneasily.

‘Well,' I said, ‘I don't think she could've been my mum. We've got a whole heap of photos of Mum and Dad after they were married, in the three or four years before they had me. I don't remember seeing any pregnancy bulges!'

‘Nah . . .' Wilda shook her head and smiled; we both did. It was all too far-fetched.

A sudden stir of wind in the trees showered us with raindrops.

‘Well anyway,' I said, smiling at her, ‘everyone's meant to have a double somewhere in the world . . .'

‘And I guess,' she finished, ‘we're it!'

‘Yep.'

But she'd suddenly caught sight of something; was staring down at it, wide-eyed. And I didn't have to follow her gaze to know what it was.

‘Yeah,' I said quietly, reaching down to touch my bag, nodding at hers. ‘Really scary.'

‘Are we . . .' She trailed off, suddenly looking pale. ‘Have we entered some . . . alternative universe, or something?'

Despite my pitter-pattering heart, I felt another surge of relief. So it wasn't just neurotic me who found the whole thing so disturbing.

‘Great minds thinking alike, I guess . . .' And I told her about the woman at the markets; at which point she duly confirmed that yes, she'd bought her bag there too.

We stared at one another again. I wondered if she felt as sweaty as me.

Then we came to the newspaper article.

‘It made me sound like a total wanker,' she said. ‘I said something
jokey
about “the colours of fire and earth”, and they quoted me as though I was serious! Talk about embarrassing–'

I laughed, feeling another rush of warmth towards her. It was just what might have happened to me – in the highly unlikely event of the paper taking my photo, that is. People quite often take my flippant remarks seriously.

‘And do you get strangers coming up to you,' I asked, ‘mistaking you for me – like Spiro did? And that guy at the ball . . .'

She thought about it, tilting her head.

‘One or two people have smiled or waved at me as though they knew me, but–' Then she remembered. ‘Until here, this morning, when this chick just about hugged me before she realised!'

‘Lily,' I said, chuckling. ‘After she told me, I actually went running about the place looking for you.'

‘And now you've found me,' she said with a grin. ‘We've found . . .'

‘Each other.'

We gazed across the road, smiling. A girl walking past glanced at us in the way you look at twins, or lookalike sisters. I felt a fleeting – and ridiculous! – flash of pride.

‘So,' she said at last. ‘I s'pose this is all one giant coincidence, but . . .'

‘You really
would
think we were related.'

She nodded.

‘You know,' I said suddenly, ‘I've had braces.'

She turned and stared at me again.

‘Yep,' I said quietly. ‘I even had your gap, before–'

I stopped. Suddenly and without warning my eyes had filled with tears. One or two brimmed over and ran down my cheeks.

‘This is ridiculous!' I cried, wiping at them. ‘Sorry – it's just . . . It's all–'

Then I noticed that her eyes were watery too. She half-laughed.

We sighed; stared straight ahead again. Then I turned to her once more.

‘Your name is so . . . Is your family German?'

She frowned.

‘My mother's family were, as far as I know, but . . . I've never met any of them.' Suddenly there was a hardness in her eyes, a hint of the toughness I'd already sensed in her. ‘From what I can understand, my parents were never really a couple. It was never a real love affair, just a brief fling, of which
I
was the outcome.'

She stared away again, then gave a small laugh. ‘Weird when you think you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for some random accident.'

I didn't know what to say; finally muttered something about us all being random accidents of genes.

‘Yeah,' she said, ‘but at least you know who you are – where you come from!'

I was beginning to wonder.

‘You'd think my mum was a street walker,' she went on, ‘for all the family – Dad's family – want to talk about her.' She snorted. ‘For all I know, she might've been! There aren't even any photos of her – not that I've seen anyway.'

Something caught in my throat.

‘Almost,' I said, ‘like being adopted . . .'

Another bitter laugh.

‘Exactly! When she died there apparently wasn't anyone, or no one willing anyway, on her side to take me on, so Dad's mum and dad brought me up. Except that my grandfather had MS – multiple sclerosis – so it was always a struggle for my grandmother. I used to get shunted around quite a bit to various rellos. Like – sometimes for months or even a year at a time.
Changed schools quite a few times.' She made a wry face. ‘Like a lost parcel.'

I swallowed. Tried to imagine a childhood of not really belonging – to anyone. It made me feel all still and grey, like a sink full of cold dishwater.

‘A lost parcel they couldn't even re-address!' She gave another short laugh. ‘Much as they disowned Mum's family, no one could be bothered to change my name to theirs.'

‘But,' I ventured, ‘what about your dad?'

‘Dad?' She shook her head. ‘He seems to've been like a big kid himself – drifting around the country, not ready to take on fatherhood. I think he was a bit younger than my mother. Left it all to my grandparents.' She shrugged again. ‘He's still a bit like that really, even though he's married now, with little kids. They live in Darwin. About,' she added sardonically, ‘as far away as they can possibly be.'

‘So . . .' I was suddenly reminded of Milly, ‘You don't see much of him?'

‘Put it this way.' Her eyes had gone quite flat. ‘They haven't been about to fork out for airfares, and I certainly can't afford it, not on my student allowance. Not,' she added woodenly, ‘that I'd waste my money on it, even if I could.'

I could barely believe a father who didn't want to see his own child.

‘Your stepmother–'

She sighed. ‘You couldn't really call her the wicked stepmother. It's more that . . . she'd rather forget about my existence. I represent a part of his life she doesn't want to know about. She doesn't exactly . . .
encourage
visits.'

Once again, I was reduced to silence.

‘I haven't actually seen any of them for more than three years.'

I stared at her, suddenly remembering an article I'd recently read about orphaned babies in China – or was it North Korea – left lying in their cots all day, untended and unloved. Emotionally, if not physically, starving. I swallowed again.

‘Is there . . . anyone . . .'

‘I was fairly close to my grandparents.' She stared out across the road again. A group of students who obviously all knew one another were coming out of the building opposite, talking and laughing and mucking around. ‘But Pops died,' she went on, ‘and Nan's got Alzheimer's – she's in a home now. My auntie Bec – Dad's sister – has always been good, but she's got four kids of her own. The person I'm probably closest to is one of my cousins – Ryan – who's my age. I can always ring him up for a chat.'

I almost said that she could ring me, too, but didn't. It would have seemed presumptuous – she was talking about relatives and we barely knew one another.

Except on some level, it felt as though we did.

‘So,' I asked, ‘how come you came up here to uni, from Melbourne?'

Another quick shrug. I wondered if I did this as much as she did.

‘Why does anyone leave their home town – to go somewhere else?' She grinned. ‘Action, romance . . . adventure!'

I laughed. ‘Well, you certainly seem to be pretty adventurous. With your plays, and things . . .'

I actually found it fairly impressive that a nineteen-year-old with such shaky family ties would want to move somewhere new. If I were her, I thought, I'd probably want to stay put; cling on to what I had.

Then again, I wasn't her.

It turned out she was studying second-year communications at UTS. She'd always been young for her year at school. Before coming to Sydney she'd worked for a year waitressing, so that she'd qualify for the Austudy allowance. She was doing a bit of bar work now to top it up. And as for the writing, she told me she'd been writing stuff since she was little – poems and short stories, mainly, but plays were what interested her at the moment.

Then she started asking about me.

Funny, it felt a bit like unrolling my life and spreading it out for us both to take a look at. And what it amounted to seemed pretty damned ordinary.

I mean, here was I, raised by two parents who loved me, having been given, as that old speech-day chestnut goes, Every Opportunity, and what was I doing? Going to uni, seeing friends, returning to my safe and comfortable home – that was about it. And here was someone who had never had a proper home or family, striking out on her own in a new city, writing plays, helping underprivileged kids . . .

I sensed that she was fighting an inclination to sum me up as a typically indulged, middle-class university student. I found myself playing down or not mentioning the cushier aspects of my life – the private-school education, what my parents did, our architect-designed house, but after a few questions I could tell she'd sussed most of it out anyway.

There was nothing left but for me to lamely offer that I would be getting involved with Students as Siblings. ‘I only left without signing,' I finished, ‘because I was so freaked at finally seeing you!'

She grinned.

‘Why d'you think I bolted off early?'

We laughed.

‘Anyway,' she added, ‘you can give your details to me if you like, and I'll pass them on to Larissa.'

‘Sure.' I pulled out a notepad and pen and started writing them down. ‘Will you be–'

But she was peering at what I wrote.

‘So,' she said, ‘your name actually is Alice.'

I looked up at her in surprise. ‘Yeah!'

She was smiling wryly back at me.

‘Well, after all that mystery about your identity at the drama meeting – Alice – my sister . . . who knew who you really were!'

As I've already said, I was beginning to wonder myself.

W
e chatted for a few more minutes, and then Wilda looked at her watch and said she had to get back to UTS for a tutorial. She added that after I'd passed all the mandatory checks (to make sure I didn't have a criminal record, etc), we'd be seeing quite a bit of one another at the Students as Siblings training sessions. She gave me her number, too, in case anything came up. I think we both knew she was thinking about more than just the program.

Finally meeting my double may have been a huge relief in some ways, but it still didn't stop her shadowing me – in my mind, at least. First semester was nearly over; in less than a fortnight's time I had two major essays due plus two exams, yet for the next few days images and thoughts of Wilda trailed through my brain like writing in the sky.

It was so distracting. I'd get myself settled in the library with books and pens and notepads, look up relevant page numbers, open to one of them, and there
she'd be, popping into my head as though she were a genie, trapped between the pages. That direct, quizzical gaze of hers, her skin and hair, and that shrug that was so much like mine . . .

I'd give myself a mental shake; remind myself that we weren't identical – anyone could see that. I tried picturing her, in order to pinpoint our differences. For example, she was slightly more angular looking, and perhaps a tiny bit taller, with wider-flaring nostrils and a longer length of jaw as it ran down into her chin.

And yet all that did was to etch her image even deeper into my mind's eye. And inevitably her features would blur into and merge with mine; I couldn't separate us. It was exhausting. Even the most noticeable difference – her teeth – was a ghostly echo of my own childhood.

Leave it alone, I kept telling myself. Everyone has people who look like them – this is just an extreme case. Concentrate, as my dear mother would say, on what's important.

As in: passing first semester.

After all, we'd led completely different lives, in different places. Aside from our looks, there was nothing to really connect us, was there? Apart from our dental history, nail-chewing habit, taste in clothes, and shrug.

The first person I thought of telling about Wilda was Andy. Just to mull it over. But I couldn't, of course, no way – not after that latest unspeakable little incident. He'd think I was chasing him. And anyway, I didn't even have his phone number.

I didn't know whether I felt like telling it all to
Milly, not right then. I knew she'd be like, ‘Well, well, so tell me about her!' And I would. But how to explain to her that strange sense of . . . connectedness with Wilda – when I didn't really understand it myself? I just didn't have the energy. And anyway, she'd be sure to grow impatient and hustle me on to more interesting topics, ie – her own dramas over the past few days.

But of course my phone soon rang, and it was guess who? So I did tell Milly (briefly) about Wilda, and she was suitably interested and said the three of us should meet for a coffee some time.

Then came her news, which left me feeling quite winded.

‘You'll never guess,' she started, her casual tone immediately putting me on alert, ‘what I'm doing tomorrow night.'

‘What?'

‘Auditioning for the Arts Revue. You know . . . the one Chet and them are putting on.'

‘Oh . . .' My insides jumped, as though I'd been given a fright. ‘H-how come?'

‘To audition, of course – why else? There've been flyers about it up all over the place – haven't you noticed? But Chet,' she added, resuming her offhand, almost ironic voice, ‘actually texted me – about it.' Pause. ‘They thought I'd be perfect for a few of the sketches.'

They?

‘Oh . . .' I swallowed, a small jet of jealousy flaring in me. ‘Cool.'

I remembered that evening in Chet's kitchen, when they'd been joking about writing a skit about zombie girls in blue polka-dot shoes.

‘You should come along too!'

‘What?' I cried. ‘To audition?'

‘Yeah!'

‘No way!'

Apart from the fact that acting has never really been my thing, the thought of getting up there and making a fool of myself in front of that lot, including Andy, horrified me.

On the other hand, the thought of Milly becoming best friends with them all, and me being left out in the cold, was just as bad.

‘I suppose I could help out – if they need anyone,' I mumbled finally. ‘If you do get in. Bet you do!' I added, trying to sound generous.

As I've already mentioned, Milly's a natural in the comedy department.

Wilda and I had coffee together one afternoon, in Glebe. We sat there talking for ages, until the proprietor started moving in chairs and tables from outside, obviously wanting to close up.

It felt strange in a way – almost like rediscovering someone you'd been close to, but, due to severe amnesia, had no recollection of. Nice-strange, though.

Among other things she told me about her own experiences with the mentoring. She'd had her fair share of difficulty with her little ‘sister' – certainly to begin with at least. Eleven-year-old Tegan had spent most of her life being taken in and out of foster care, which had certainly left its scars. She'd been sullen, manipulative and aggressive in turn, and sometimes wouldn't even be there when Wilda turned up to take her out. But Wilda had stuck it out, and Tegan was
finally beginning to trust her, and look forward to their outings. Wilda had even been greeted with a hug on her last visit, which, as she said ‘kind of made it all worthwhile'.

‘But she's a fairly extreme case,' she added with a sigh. ‘Hopefully you'll be given an easier kid!'

It would be typical, I thought, for Wilda, with her own insights into suffering, to be assigned a very difficult child. Nonetheless, it seemed like pretty daunting stuff, certainly for sheltered little me, at any rate. Thinking about it all made me nervous and excited, both at once.

Then, since I had Dad's car for the day, I gave Wilda a lift home to her share house in Redfern. And when I mentioned I lived in Neutral Bay, she told me she had friends who lived there, in a house in Dudley Street.

I glanced sideways at her. ‘
Dudley
Street?'

‘Yeah, number sixty-three. Why – is that your street?'

‘No – the next one up.' I stared absently at the car in front. ‘Number sixty-three would be . . . Are they next door to a modern house with a pool?'

‘Yeah . . . yeah, they are!'

‘I'm sure that's the one I call the Creepy Crawly House!' I cried, starting up again as the light went green. ‘The back of our house – my bedroom window – overlooks it. And the backyard of your friends' house is next to it–'

‘Hey,' Wilda was sounding equally stoked, ‘That's amazing!'

Then she frowned.

‘But . . . why d'you call it the “Creepy Crawly House”?'

I laughed. ‘Because the only thing that seems to move in that courtyard is the creepy-crawly cleaner thing in the pool. Apart from the owner, this old guy who only comes out once in a blue moon.' I shrugged. ‘And he kind of looks a bit creepy himself, wearing those cardigans, and always on his own!'

Wilda stared at me. ‘But that's Jim!' she cried. ‘He's lovely! And the reason you hardly ever see him is because he's inside most of the time, looking after his wife. She's an invalid – she had a stroke or something, ages ago – right after they moved into that house. She can't walk or talk, but he's too devoted to her to put her in a home.'

‘Oh . . .'

There was a small silence. I suddenly felt like something very small and creepy-crawly myself.

‘I feel awful,' I started, but she interrupted me with a shrug.

‘You weren't to know.' Then she grinned, twisting around in her seat. ‘Next time I visit Dudley Street, I'll come and drop in on you!'

‘They need a stage manager,' said Milly, ‘so I suggested you.'

I swapped the receiver to my other ear. ‘What?'

She, of course, had romped it into the revue cast; was ringing me with the glad tidings.

‘You can be stage manager,' she repeated airily. ‘The whole thing's gunna be such a blast!'

‘But . . .' I stared out through the windows at the shadowy courtyard, my pulse quickening. A pale sliver of moon was starting to rise above Ballboy's chimney. ‘I wouldn't have a clue about being a stage manager!'

As I've already said, drama wasn't really my thing at school.

‘Oh, come on Al,' she cried, ‘how hard can it be? I mean, it'll just be common sense, won't it?' Adding cheerfully: ‘Doing whatever needs doing, I guess . . .'

‘General dogsbody, in other words!'

I thought about working with Lily, and Chet and May and . . . Andy. And Milly and the rest of the cast. Laughing and fooling about while we painted props and shifted scenery . . .

How could I refuse?

Then again, it'd be full-on. How was I going to be able to manage doing that and the Students as Siblings thing, once it got started? I suddenly seemed to have gone from being stuck in a rut to facing two new and distinctly scary unknowns.

‘Rehearsals aren't starting till the holidays,' said Milly, as if reading my thoughts.

I drew a shaky breath, then sighed.

‘O-K,' I said, ‘I guess I can try. But only if they haven't got anyone else who wants to do it – someone experienced! Will . . . you tell them?'

‘No, they haven't got anyone else.' I could almost hear her breaking into a grin. ‘And yes, I've already told them – you'll do it.'

The less said about the following week the better. By the weekend I was really beginning to panic. Stu-vac seemed to have been and gone in a haze of god knows what, and now I was going nowhere but my desk or the library, with the odd foray into other buildings to drop off essays, or sit exams.

It was like doing the HSC all over again. My room
was like a war zone, with piles of papers and folders and books all over the floor and dirty glasses and dishes lying around from my last meal or snack. I did a couple of all-nighters to get two different assignments in, which left me feeling as though I had severe jet-lag. Especially when I hadn't even had time to shower to get the essay to the drop-off place by 9 am. It
was
a bit like being on a thirty-hour flight – a kind of hell you just have to get through – though of course it all went on for a lot longer than thirty hours.

And in the midst of it all I barely had time to register, let alone enjoy, the fact that Dad finally got a job! As marketing manager for a local plumbing supplies company, as distinct from his former job as national head of marketing for a major sporting goods brand. On about half the salary, and we didn't quite have the need for O-rings and S-bends that we did for joggers and tennis racquets, but who cares? It was a job, and almost overnight Dad became bouncier and smilier again, and full of his old tricks to help me keep going through hell week.

And then it was the holidays, and we had the first production meeting. In the Cave, for all the cast and crew, about fifteen of us altogether.

I'd given Milly a lift and she typically wasn't ready when I arrived to pick her up, so we were running a bit late. By the time we arrived most people were already sitting around on bean bags or the floor, or leaning up against various bits of set. It's all black in there, and even though the door into the foyer was open and the lights were on, it somehow looked as though they were already on stage, encircled in a pool of light in the darkness. They turned to look as we came in, and
Chet said, ‘Ah, Milly, and our stage manager, the lovely Alice.'

We gave tiny waves, and Milly cried ‘Hi-i – sorry we're late!'

I hoped that not too many of them had been present the last time I was here. My gaze slid over May, and Lily and Andy, who both gave us little grins and waves.

We plonked ourselves down, breathing in that theatre smell of old greasepaint, dust and sweat, and things got under way. Chet gave the opening chat, and then everyone introduced themselves and said what they were going to be doing. Andy would be co-directing with Chet, plus acting in some of the skits; May was co-producer with Chet and also doing sound and lights; and Lily was in charge of publicity, as well as doing some acting. When it came to me I didn't repeat ‘stage manager', partly because Chet had already said it, but mostly because I didn't want to pretend I knew more than I already did about the role – which was, of course, next to nothing.

We'd all be helping make the sets, such as they were.

One or two of the actors I recognised from other uni productions, and there was also another who seemed super-familiar, until it hit me that he was the eye-rolling star of a really annoying ad on TV for mobile phones.

I glanced sideways at Milly. She was hugging her knees to her chest, her eyes gleaming. It occurred to me that this whole thing might be just what the doctor ordered for our Mildy.

And then everyone had to write down the times they weren't available over the two weeks of holidays.
I put down ‘pretty flexible', but I hoped they weren't going to have too many rehearsals at night. Seeing my last handybank receipt showed a grand total of $4.00, I desperately needed to do some Bunters shifts.

After it had been decided that the first rehearsal would be the following day, the actors left and the rest of us, plus Milly, stayed to sort out various production details. As in: who'd be responsible for keys, prompting, props and rehearsal schedules, for example. The answer to all four, by the way, was guess who?

First thing to remember if you're ever made stage manager: bring a notepad. All I had was the back of a tattered library list, so Lily gave me some pages from hers.

I was getting increasingly nervous as I scribbled away. I know everyone else was doing heaps too, but it seemed to me that it was going to be pretty obvious to everyone if, or rather when, I stuffed up.