Allegra in Three Parts, page 18
I’m glad to escape the one-sided conversation that seems to change the oxygen to nitrogen ratio in the dining room air with the excuse of taking Rick’s plate of dinner up to him in his flat.
‘It’s an especially good dinner because of Helena’s first-Wednesday visit but it’s pretty tense down there tonight,’ I tell Rick, plonking into the Jason recliner next to his TV. ‘I don’t get it . . . if I had a sister I’d just be nice to her and make sure we had fun together.’
‘Reckon you would too,’ says Rick, getting a beer from his fridge. ‘But some sorts of people . . . no matter what . . . they can’t manage to have fun together.’
‘What sorts of people?’
‘Sometimes the ones who have shared a hard past, Al. It kind of thickens the membranes that separate them.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘Well,’ Rick takes a swig, ‘you know that Matilde and Helena survived the war together, right? But what you mightn’t know is that they were the only ones in their whole family who did . . . I have to remind myself about that sometimes.’ Rick has a look like he’s suffered too.
‘When the war finished and they finally made it all the way home they found out they’d lost everyone; their mother, father, little sister Elsa, their aunts, uncles, cousins, the lot. Those two women can busy themselves with their separate lives and distractions but whenever they get together that’s the sad truth of things . . . looking them square in the face.’ Rick’s going for another beer.
‘But wouldn’t that just make you feel closer to each other, Rick – you know, because you went through all that, the same stuff, and you survived it together and you’re the only two left. Shouldn’t you understand each other’s sadness?’
‘It doesn’t always work that way, Al,’ Rick says quietly, tapping the side of his beer can. ‘Sometimes you just can’t bear each other’s sadness on top of your own.’
It’s been three days now since I got the note to Rob Paulos, but when I’ve seen him on the bus each day since, he’s looked more interested in playing corners and garter-flicking than getting a reply to me to pass on to Lucinda.
That is, until this afternoon. Rob struts down the aisle from the back row, and while I’m talking to Annabel Renshaw he casually drops his shoulder into me and lets an envelope slip from his hand onto the floor at my feet. Lucinda will be relieved . . . it has her name written on it in small scrawly letters.
Annabel Renshaw’s thick eyebrows shoot high as I scoop up the envelope and stuff it into my bag. I continue on like it didn’t happen, telling her about the runaway girls who write messages on Whisky Wendy’s back wall. Thankfully Annabel’s sufficiently captivated by that story to be distracted away from asking what I just put into my bag. She says a quick see ya – got to go to orchestra practice and gets off at the next stop.
And later, at mine, there’s Lucinda waiting with a Cherry Ripe and a Coke outside Dave’s shop. She’s been there every afternoon, looking hopeful, then disappointed when I’ve stepped up empty-handed. But now she’s beaming and mouths, ‘At last,’ as I hold up the envelope. ‘Finally,’ she exhales.
‘Yeah, finally,’ I reply, sharing her relief and a moment of preggers solidarity.
I wait in silence while Lucinda rips open the envelope.
‘Rob’s going to wag school and wants me to meet him on Friday . . . at lunchtime . . . when Mum’s at work. He reckons it could be a bit tricky but he’s got a solution in mind. Ally, don’t tell anyone, will you? You got to promise.’
‘Mum’s the word,’ I assure Lucinda.
And so I learn exactly what it means to be a Go-Between, carrying notes for the next week between the girl who had everything and the boy who doesn’t look at all like a dad, sneaking the odd peek at what each of them writes. They are counting on me – they need me in fact – and while it’s what Rick would call meddling and it’s certainly against Matilde’s rules, I feel my shadow solidify and outline thicken by being in on the plan.
Chapter Twenty-two
Lucinda Lister is missing.
The neighbourhood kids are hanging out with her brother Mark, now quiet in the garage, and their mothers are dropping off casseroles in Corningware dishes and baked slices in Tupperware containers with quick awkward hugs for Mrs Lister on her front porch.
And now Mrs Lister has crossed the road; she is standing at our door. I can hear her telling Matilde that she wants to speak with me.
‘Did she mention anything to you, anything at all, about plans to run away from home?’ The flicks and wings in Mrs Lister’s hair have dropped, matching her expression, which is lank and lifeless. She’s out of the crocheted pantsuit and into a gaberdine skirt and flat navy espadrilles. I don’t know where to look. She’s staring straight into my face, hard and unflinching, a lioness hungry for morsels of information about her cub.
‘Allegra was forbidden to have any contact with your daughter,’ announces Matilde, as though that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. ‘I don’t think my granddaughter can help you.’ She is obviously offending Mrs Lister but thankfully saving me from having to lie or, worse still, confess that I was a Go-Between. ‘Perhaps if Lucinda is missing you should contact the police,’ continues Matilde, matter-of-fact.
‘That was my next step,’ responds Mrs Lister sharply. ‘But I wanted to check with Lucinda’s friends and the neighbours first. Most of them have been very helpful but clearly that’s not the case here.’ She marches off, heading back down the path, but stops at the gate, fuming. She turns around and lobs squarely at Matilde: ‘I don’t think with your family history Mrs Kaldor, that you, of all people, have any right to sit up there on that high horse.’
If I had the saliva to speak right now I’d ask Matilde what family history Mrs Lister is talking about. Instead that part of my heart that writes a vocab list for my brain is sending up a whole lot of M words: Meddling, Meeting, Mum’s the word, Missing and . . . My fault.
Less than an hour later a police car pulls up outside the Lucky Listers’ house. The garage clears of teenagers, the porch clears of mothers, and my heart is trying to pull back from its nervous canter to a keeping-it-under-control trot. I can’t say anything to Matilde. She would be beyond livid if she knew I’d had any contact with that Lister girl – and worse still, that I might have actually played a part in her going missing. Instead I wait for Rick’s van to arrive after work and follow him up to his flat.
‘Why the gloomy face, Al Pal?’ says Rick, looking like he’s had a good day.
‘I need to tell you something.’
‘Really. This sounds serious.’
‘It is pretty serious – I think.’
‘Well, come on in, Al, step into my office, pull up a chair.’
Sitting at Rick’s Formica table I shake my head no to the can of Passiona he offers and the handful of beer nuts he holds out with a ready-to-listen grin. Instead I go on to explain that over the past week Lucinda had been dropping off envelopes for me in Joy’s letterbox and that I’d been passing them on to her boyfriend Rob Paulos, the guy on the school bus who’s – you know – the father of her baby. I tell Rick that they needed my help to get the notes to each other because Lucinda’s mother had her on a tight leash, like a dog, and she wouldn’t let them have any contact, not even over the phone, ever since Lucinda got preggers.
‘I was their Go-Between, if you know what that is, because they couldn’t see each other face to face. I was the one in the middle passing their notes back and forth, just helping them a bit, so they could sort everything out. And I know I shouldn’t have been a meddler, Rick, but I read the last note, the one from Rob right before Lucinda went missing.’
‘Hold on . . . when did Lucinda go missing?’ Rick looks up mid-nut, surprised. Worried surprised, not good surprised.
‘Her mother found out she’d gone yesterday morning, but I know that she left the night before because they were meeting down at the beach . . . down there at midnight.’
‘Crikey, Al. She went to the beach on her own at midnight? How old is this girl?’
‘Fourteen. Going on fifteen,’ I assure him, but now, looking at Rick’s expression, that doesn’t seem so old anymore, even to me.
‘Anyway . . . Rob’s dad is standing for council elections and he said that if his parents found out about Lucinda having a baby they’d kill Rob because any sort of scandal would kill his father’s chances of ever becoming mayor. Rob got the money together so they could travel to Canberra and Lucinda could have this thing called an abortion. Do you know what that is, Rick . . . the abortion thing?’
‘Yes, Al,’ says Rick, looking down at his thongs. Then, giving up on the nuts altogether he says, ‘I do know what that is. So . . . how long ago was all this?’
‘They were going to leave early yesterday morning but then Lucinda found out that her mum was taking the day off work and she wanted somewhere to stay the night before they left, after they met at the beach, so she could still get away early. I told Lucinda about Whisky Wendy’s, and that she helped girls in trouble, but I told her not to tell Wendy that she’d found out about her place from me. They were meant to be back on Wednesday night, and now it’s Thursday night and Mrs Lister is going mental.’
‘You have to tell Mrs Lister, Al . . . you have to tell her everything you know. It’s a bloody shame you got involved with this . . . jeeez, Al,’ Rick is rubbing his fists along his thighs towards his knees. ‘I should never have taken you to Wendy’s.’
‘It’s not your fault, Rick.’
‘Well, maybe not, but that’s not how someone’s going to see it.’
‘Who? Matilde?’
‘Don’t worry about that now. C’mon, we need to get you across the road to speak with Mrs Lister.’
All hell has broken loose.
Mrs Lister listened quietly at first, taking everything in and offering me a second Monte Carlo biscuit as Rick and I sat side by side on the white cane settee in their swirly yellow wallpapered sunroom and I coughed up all I knew about Lucinda and Rob’s plans to have the abortion thing. But then, when Rick said, That about sums it up, we’d better push off, Mrs Lister chucked a complete mental and now she’s following us back across the road to Number 23 – Cyclone Tracy at our heels – this time demanding to see Matilde.
‘Forbidden to have any contact with my daughter! Really . . . Really!’ Mrs Lister is wild-eyed and yelling at Matilde, who has come to the door with her apron half off and her mouth fully agape, trying to make sense of the stormy outburst.
‘So how do you now explain that your perfect little granddaughter organised for Lucinda to have an abortion? Yes, that’s right – you heard me correctly – an abortion! The hide of her! The hide of you!’
‘Now, c’mon, Tracy, that’s stretching the truth a bit . . .’ Rick is working hard to secure things to the ground. ‘Al didn’t organise an abortion, she was just passing notes between Lucinda and her boyfriend.’
‘It was more than that, Rick, you heard it yourself. She organised for Lucinda to stay at some den of iniquity . . . overnight! Whisky Wendy’s, for the love of God! Hiding my daughter from me, so she could be spirited away, and now she’s gone to Canberra with that imbecile . . . for an abortion!’ Mrs Lister looks like she’s about to suck up all the tessellated tiles on our front porch, blow off the roof and scatter our garden furniture three streets away. It’s hard to picture Matilde’s expression in the wake of all this: I can’t bring myself to look anywhere near my grandmother’s direction. But no doubt she’s shocked. She’s disgusted – knowing this time for certain that her perfect granddaughter is a Riffraff.
‘If she ends up dead like Belinda . . . Christ Almighty . . .’ Mrs Lister moves to a Category Five, ‘Your family will have not one but two deaths on their heads!’
The barometric pressure in my heart plunges. For one elongated moment things go strangely calm and my ears feel full of cottonwool. I’m no longer hearing the fury around me, I’m pulled into the eye of the storm. There’s no sound, no gusts, no squalls. But then – bang – I’m surrounded by the eyewall and circled by a ring of severe weather. The cyclone re-intensifies, unleashing a lashing for all in its path.
‘Go inside, Al. Now . . . GO!’ Rick’s voice breaks through, giving an in-case-of emergency instruction.
I run to my room, slam the door shut and slide in under my bed.
I want to take cover. I want to take cover here in this dark space forever.
What have I done? Something bad? Is it something very bad? Have I maybe killed Lucinda Lister? Why was Mrs Lister saying . . . dead like Belinda? What did my family do? How did my mother die? According to Mrs Lister that’s on my family’s head . . . Is it on my head too?
I nudge up against something hard. It’s the box of Mother’s Day stall gifts from the past seven years, sitting under my bed and pretty much forgotten from one year to the next. I’m wishing more than ever that they’d had a destination other than here in the dark collecting dust in a box. I wish they’d been given to an alive mother, unwrapped with a pretty-mum smile and gratefully received with a warm hug. Not kept for a dead mother, a dead mother like mine.
The silver figurine of the mother angel holding a baby is at the top of the box. A Mother’s Love Is Forever. I’m holding it tight and hoping that’s true but I’m thinking that if the death of my mother is on my head then I’m no angel, that’s for sure, and maybe there’s no forever either and I am definitely completely and utterly unlovable.
‘Allegra!’ Matilde is back in the house, calling down the corridor and into the kitchen. ‘Allegra, where are you?’’
‘Al.’ Rick is somewhere out the back. ‘C’mon, Al, we need to talk.’
They can keep calling all they like. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to listen. I’m staying here forever. I’m better off in the dark.
I move further under the bed and feel my quilt hanging down on the wall side touching the floor; I loop it up and tuck it under the mattress all the way along and make a tight chenille hammock. I can hear Matilde and Rick both calling out the back now, their voices moving separately from near the chook shed, behind the compost bin and down the side path. I climb into my bed, roll across to the far side and down into my new hiding pouch. It’s dark and suspended between the mattress and the wall. Matilde is still calling out my name, and now she has opened the door of my room and is looking under my bed. I’m invisible. Clutching the mother angel inside the chenille hammock it’s not hard to imagine what it’s like inside a warm dark womb yet to be born, a heartbeat other than my own giving me life, keeping me safe until I’m thrust into the world. I’m going to stay here. I’m going to sit out this cyclone, to the point where they’ll be so planet-sized pleased to find me alive that they can’t possibly stay shocked or disgusted. They’ll just go back to loving me in their own weird and separate ways.
The mother angel is warming up; she’s the same temperature as my hand. The mother angel has a pulse. It’s faint but it’s certainly there and I can feel it pressing against my thumb. Some of its beats are short dots, some are long dashes, and now a pattern is emerging. Three short dots, three long dashes, three short dots again. It repeats over and over, again and again.
Matilde’s voice is coming from the strangest direction now . . . her voice is coming from the other side of the fence, in at Number 25. For the first time in my whole memory Matilde has actually gone through the brown gate and is talking very loudly to Joy:
At Joy.
‘Well, if she is not here, where could she be? It’s nine-thirty at night and she is nowhere in the house or anywhere out the back, she has disappeared. And Joy . . . I blame you! Yes, I do, you! It is you and your crazy friends who have filled her head with all this women’s liberation nonsense and deceit and running away from home . . . you have put Allegra in danger.’
‘I don’t know what on earth you are talking about, Matilde. I would never put Ally in danger.’ Joy is clearly caught by surprise at this accusation but is firm with Matilde.
‘Yes, Joy. Yes, once again you have done it – you have pushed a young girl to have an abortion. It must have been you who gave Allegra the idea to send Lucinda to that ridiculous Wendy woman.’
‘You are speaking complete rot, Matilde, I’ve done none of those things.’
Matilde starts bellowing with a belting, blaming beat, ‘It wasn’t enough for you to take Belinda, to take her from me, my only child . . . and her baby too.’
The mother angel’s pulse is getting stronger. The dots are definite, the dashes unmistakable.
‘You are wrong, Matilde, and you are cruel. Harsh and cruel!’ Joy’s emotions are thickening the air in my hiding pouch.
‘You fabricated that explanation in your bitter head so you never had to face the facts. You pushed Belinda, you pushed her with your version of her future, her life was never her own. You made her feel that she had to make up for all the things you thought the world had deprived you of. You made her study medicine, she didn’t want that; she just wanted to be with Ally.’ It would take hundreds of coloured glass bottles to catch Joy’s unleashed emotions now.
‘You pushed and pushed Belinda until she felt she had no choice, and when she was pregnant again she just couldn’t face the thought of your disappointment, your judging and your disdain. It was you, not me, who forced her to make the decision that led to her death.’
‘No! It was you!’ Matilde is screaming. ‘You stole my only daughter and her unborn child. You killed them both. You deprived Allegra of her mother and a baby sibling.’
My heart is punctured . . . BLAMED FOR BELINDA.
I picture the dirty labelled bottles hidden away under the bench in Joy’s glasshouse. Is my dead mother on Joy’s head? Matilde thinks so . . . and that’s why she hates Joy. But I don’t want to think that. I don’t want to hate Joy. But I could have had an alive mother with a pretty-mum smile and an alive sibling, not be this kid on my own, revolving around this angry adult world. Joy has bottled all that blame but now she is blaming Matilde. Who is it? Who should be . . . Blamed for Belinda? I love Joy and she loves me. I love Matilde and she loves me. I am their flesh and their hearts and their histories. They are my left side and my right side. I am their future.
