Allegra in Three Parts, page 20
And I tell them.
‘It’s not enough that you all love me. Not anymore . . . Please . . . you have to stop hating each other.’
She introduces herself as Stephanie and tells me she’s What’s Called a Social Worker.
‘Do you mind if we have a little chat, Allegra?’ she asks.
‘No . . . that’s all right,’ I say, partly because she seems kind of nice but mostly because I’m stuck in this bed and Stephanie with her big forehead, hoop earrings and multicoloured panel skirt is standing between it and the door.
She pulls a chair in close and with a friendly smile, but awful breath, asks me if I like school, play any sport, and whether I’ve seen Picnic at Hanging Rock at the pictures? I answer yes, no, and no.
She’s seen Picnic at Hanging Rock – just last week – and she tells me, her large hazel eyes framed by clumping mascara, ‘It was beautiful, with lovely scenery and haunting music but I found it really quite spooky.’ Then she asks, as though we’re friends in the playground, ‘What’s your favourite movie you’ve ever seen at the pictures?’
‘I don’t have one,’ I say. ‘I don’t really go to the pictures.’
She seems a bit disappointed by that answer and says, ‘What about telly then, what’s your favourite show?’
I explain that we don’t have a television set at Number 23 so I can’t help her there either, and I’m starting to wonder what a social worker is exactly. But before she can fire another question at me I tell her that I have been to the Opera House, to see a ballet called Onegin, for my twelfth birthday, with my grandmother Matilde.
‘Lucky you,’ she says, sounding a bit too enthusiastic, ‘that must have been wonderful. I’ve never seen anything at the Opera House. Is Matilde the grandma you live with?’
‘Yeah, well I live in her house, I sleep there, but I go into Joy’s next door a lot too, she’s my other grandmother. And Rick, that’s my dad, he’s out the back in his flat above the garage – of Matilde’s house, not Joy’s house, even though he lived there when he was little because he’s actually Joy’s son, not Matilde’s son – but now he lives on Matilde’s side of the fence.’
‘So how do you find that, Allegra?’ asks Stephanie, who I’m guessing had a tuna sandwich for lunch. ‘Do you all get along?’
‘Yeah . . . I get along with them all,’ I say.
‘Oh, that’s good. But do they get along with each other?’ Maybe it was tuna with onion.
‘They don’t really need to get along with each other,’ I tell her, turning my head down and a little away from her line of bad breath so that now I’m facing the open window.
‘Why not?’ she asks.
‘Because . . . well, they don’t usually need to speak to each other. And if they do, they just give me the message and I take it between them.’
‘What sort of messages do you take between them, Allegra?’ This Stephanie is pretty nosy.
‘Just stuff, things they need to know . . . mostly about what each of them is doing with me, if they’re taking me places, you know, on their own.’
‘So you’re something of a go-between then, Allegra?’
How does Stephanie What’s Called a Social Worker know about me being a Go-Between? Does she know about what happened with Lucinda Lister?
‘How does that make you feel, Allegra?’ she asks.
She should have said she’s Stephanie What’s Called a Spy.
‘Allegra?’
‘I’m tired now,’ I tell her, and roll over onto my side, away from her stinky-breath questions.
Chapter Twenty-four
The nurses are doing their rounds: a white whirl of chatting efficiency; medicating, observing and recording before dimming the lights, when Rick appears with messy wet hair for just a quick visit.
He sits down in a chair at the side of my bed.
‘Wanted to pop in on my way home from a surf and say good night, Al Pal.’
But it seems like he’s here for more than that. After a while he goes on to say, ‘And also, I wanted to tell you that Lucinda Lister is back home. I thought you’d like to know.’
‘Did she have the abortion thing?’ I ask, looking down.
‘I don’t know about that. But she’s home safely, so that’s the main thing. I saw her leaving for school this morning in her uniform.’
Rick seems relieved and he knows that I’d be relieved too. And he’s right. I am relieved to know that Lucinda is home, back with her mental mum and gone-away dad, and that our family doesn’t have two deaths on its head.
And as though he’s reading the other thoughts looping through my mind Rick adds, ‘And those things Tracy Lister said . . . when she went right off. She had no right to blame you for the situation her daughter wound up in. That was never your fault, Al.’
My dad takes my hand and holds it in his, just like it might be something breakable. He holds it for more than two-hundred-apple-pie. His hand is brown and broad and sits salty around mine, giving us both something to look at before he finally says, ‘Al, I want to talk to you . . . in an adult way.’
I nod, still looking at Rick’s hand.
‘I know they sent the social worker in here to see you yesterday. She and the doctor spoke with me afterwards about their take on things, on what might have made you so crook.’ Rick lets out a long breath, as though it’s one he’s held on to for a long while. ‘So it’s probably about time I told you my take on things too.
‘After your mum died there was a whole lot of blaming that went on between Joy and Matilde – and between the two of them and me. We had different stories in our heads about what led to Belinda’s death, whose fault it was. No matter what, we just couldn’t take on each other’s point of view, let alone each other’s pain. So we were stuck. Stuck in our different corners, coping with being broken in our own different ways.
‘But one thing we did have in common was you, Al.’ He squeezes my hand gently. ‘And while it was tough living bang up against each other’s anger and grief, we all dug in and we stayed where we were, to look after you. Because you were so little, Al . . . and you didn’t have a mum.’ Rick looks so sad. ‘We weren’t really doing it together, but none of us could have cared for you on our own, giving you everything you deserved . . . everything your mum and I had hoped to give you. Everything your grandmothers believed, in their wisdom, that you needed.
‘We were all mad as hell with each other, Al, but we were mad about you, and we only ever wanted what was best for you.’
The four chambers of my heart are pounding.
Rick and Belinda
Joy and Matilde
Lub dub – lub dub – lub dub – lub dub
My left side
My right side
Lub dub – lub dub
My upper atriums
My lower ventricles
Lub dub – lub dub
‘There was this terrible tension between us but we thought we were doing a good job keeping it from you. I guess we thought if we just didn’t speak to each other then you wouldn’t pick up on it. But you were smarter than that. You are smarter than that. And I realise now that the way we did it hasn’t been good. It’s been bloody unhealthy. And it hasn’t been fair on you, Al, not one bit fair.’
It’s sadder than sad seeing my strong dad with tears in his eyes. I want to comfort him but I’m stuck too.
‘The way you’ve had to circle around us and scoot between us, trying to keep things ticking along. Loving us equally and not taking sides. Carrying messages over the fence, from one house to the other, and up to my flat – back and forth – softening them up, making them less brittle. None of that was fair. We made you orbit around our separate adult worlds rather than us orbiting yours, as we should have done, in unison.’
I want Rick to comfort me too.
Lub dub – lub dub
‘And now it’s making you sick, Al.’ Rick takes both our hands, mine inside his, up to his face. He wipes his wet cheekbones. ‘We’ve bloody well made you sick.’
Lub dub – lub dub
‘All of this should have been settled years ago, and I’m sorry, so sorry, that it wasn’t. But I’ve got a plan, Al Pal. I’m going to fix this. I’m going to fix this and I’m going to get you well.’
Lub dub – lub dub
I picture those four chambers working separately, pumping hard for survival. Receiving blood – sending blood – receiving oxygen – sending oxygen. Each blood cell has been reddened, nourished and used, over the childhood years of my life.
Lub dub – lub dub – lub dub – lub dub
And now that I’m starting to understand this poly-elliptical force squeezing my chest – with what my dad has shared through his tears in the hospital tonight – I know that my heart needs to pump with a rhythm of its own.
Lub dub – lub dub – lub dub – lub dub
And work hard to get rid of the waste.
Chapter Twenty-five
Three days on and everything outside of that hospital smells like life resuscitated; the sprinkler-wet grass at the side of the road, the sun-faded salty hot seats inside Rick’s van, even the petrol being pumped at the Amoco station by a big-bellied man into our tank. We’re on our way up the coast, just my dad and me, his board on the roof, a tent in the back and a line-up of surf tapes to play as we go.
I was in hospital for twenty-three days; one million, nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand, two hundred apple pie. And now that I’m out, with my heart settled down, Rick’s looking slightly older to me: older around the eyes, the shoulders and jaw. It’s older in a good way, in an I’m taking charge way . . . in a Maybe I should call him Father every now and again way.
When the doctor came by my bed to say that the medication finally seemed to have stabilised things so there was no need for surgery, and that he was happy for me to be discharged to go home, Joy was completely tickled pink. Matilde simply straightened her skirt and assumed the pose of a nurse ready to continue the routine and care at Number 23. But then Rick announced – just like he was the decision maker and Joy and Matilde had no say in it at all – that I wouldn’t be going home for a while because he was taking me up the coast for a bit of a break; a medicinal dose of sun, sand and sea.
After a few moments of table tennis glances between the adults, they stepped into the corridor for a word, out of earshot – my earshot – and that part of my heart that shoots invisible arrows at targets on the backs of their heads fired a few as they walked out the door, hoping to stun Matilde into being less sharp, Joy less emotional, and Rick into sticking to his Father plan.
‘What did you tell them, Rick – you know, what did you tell Joy and Matilde – when you spoke with them in the corridor outside my room in the hospital?’ I ask now, winding up the stiff window as Rick gets his driving eye in on the highway.
‘It wasn’t a long conversation, Al. I just told them straight out that I won’t be bringing you home until they’ve made their peace with each other. Simple as that.’
‘Do you think they can actually do that, Rick?’ I say, looking across at him. I’m pretty sure that they can’t and I’m feeling uneasy at the thought of never seeing my grandmothers again. Rick shifts in the seat and changes his grip on the steering wheel as though he’s not so sure now either.
‘I think it’d take a complete miracle for Joy and Matilde to be at peace with each other,’ I say, but Rick says nothing, just keeps driving until he pushes in the Morning of the Earth soundtrack and hits play. A few songs along he turns up the volume of ‘Open Up Your Heart’ to full bore.
There’s no formula for happiness that’s guaranteed to work
It all depends on how you treat your friends and how much you’ve been hurt
But it’s a start, when you open up your heart
And try not to hide, what you’re feeling inside
Just open up your heart
There’s no dreamer who’s ever dreamed, and seen it all come true
Takes a lot of time and breaks a lot of hearts, to see an idea through
And love’s just a simple word, its truth is easily lost
And sorry’s said so easily, nobody counts the cost
But it’s a start, when you open up your heart
Give your love to others, they become your brothers
You open up your heart, come on, make a start
Try not to hide, what you feel inside
Just open up your heart
‘Hang on, Al Pal, I’m chucking a U-ey!’ Rick spins the van around at the traffic lights so that rather than heading north we’re suddenly driving south.
‘Where are we going now?’ I ask.
‘Just want to let Sister Josepha know we’re going away for a while,’ says Rick.
‘Sister Josepha? But she’s not even my teacher, not anymore, she hasn’t been all year.’
‘I know, Al,’ says Rick. ‘But if we’re going to need a miracle for Joy and Matilde to make their peace, then Sister Josepha’s probably our best shot.’
Rick tells me to wait in the van while he ducks into the convent. ‘I won’t be a tick,’ he says. He’s there for about as long as a Monday Morning Assembly and afterwards walks out with Sister Josepha looking all signed up to pull off a miracle by his side.
She’s probably promised to petition the patron saint of grandmothers at each other’s throats.
Sister comes to my window and says in a thanks-be-to-God voice, ‘I’m so pleased to see you up and well again, Allegra dear. Yes indeed, I can see all the colour has come back into your cheeks.’ She pats my arm and then walks around to Rick’s side as he climbs into the van. She closes the door for him and gives a small wave. As he starts up the engine, she follows through with a nunly nod – I fancy it’s a nod of respect, and maybe one of recognition – she’s looking at Rick like he might be related to that Jesus sitting on top of the convent telly: the one who could well be a surfie.
Heading north up the highway again, Rick seems pretty stuck on ‘Open Up Your Heart’. He’s set it on repeat, so it’s coming at us through the dashboard, over and over. We listen in silence and by the end of the fourth time the words are wearing a groove inside my head and I’m getting a bit stuck on it too. It starts to strum the strings that bind my ribcage to my core and vibrates all the hairs on the back of my neck.
There’s no formula for happiness that’s guaranteed to work
It all depends on how you treat your friends and how much you’ve been hurt
But it’s a start, when you open up your heart
And try not to hide, what you’re feeling inside
Just open up your heart
Those strings loosen and lengthen and reach towards my dad across the bench seat of the van. Then he just opens right up and says, ‘Words make you think, Al . . . but music makes you feel.’ With his eyes straight ahead and his foot pressing harder to the floor, after a while he adds, ‘And when words fail, I reckon music speaks.’
‘Yeah . . . I know what you mean,’ I reply. ‘And it kind of gets the stuff above and below your mind to speak up more clearly too.’ Then something floats in from one of those places – a whispered suggestion taking hold as a question, ‘Do you think that self-knowledge is on the side of happiness, Rick?’
He takes his eyes off the road for half-an-apple-pie, and looks over at me, his expression puzzled but kind of impressed, as though he might have to work on his answer for a while yet.
We drive through the late afternoon and on past the curtain of nightfall, an appetite starting to bite at us both. ‘I could eat the horse and chase the jockey,’ says Rick. I laugh at his joke and tell him I reckon I could do that too.
Just after the Bulahdelah Bends we stop at a petrol station for a burger with the lot and Rick tells me, as though I’m a driver too, ‘Always pull over where the truckies are lined up, Al. They know where to stop for a decent feed and they’ll give you a hand if you need any help.’ He has beetroot juice dripping down his chin as he leans over the white paper wrapping on the bonnet of the van, polishing off the last bites of his burger. A truckie walks past and it’s as if he’s read Rick’s script because he gives us a friendly G’day . . . bloody good burgers, hey! He looks like he’s going inside to order three.
Back on the road I’m trying hard to stay awake and be a fit pal to ride shotgun with Rick but I feel myself sinking, jerking gently, in and out of sleep. I stretch out across the seat with my head nudging Rick’s thigh; Gear changes, road noises and Morning of the Earth music soothes me and starts to elongate time. Rick turns the music down slightly and I’m not sure how much longer we drive but I wake up with the engine off and the seat entirely to myself.
‘We’ll catch a few Zs here, Al,’ whispers Rick, covering me with a couple of towels. He climbs into the back and I sleep solidly in that van, way better than I did any night in the hospital.
I wake in the early light to Rick giving the engine a bit of choke, and we’re heading off, up north again. ‘At this rate we’ll be able to make it to the beach break just in time for Dawn Patrol. You’re going to love Crezzo, Al. It’s pure magic out there.’
The road becomes bushy at the sides and bumpy in the middle, and even though the beginnings of a salty sea breeze make Rick keen to speed up, he has to slow down to navigate around potholes and the odd fallen branch.
Then a sign announces Crescent Head and, after passing through a small town yet to begin its day, we pull up in a car park overlooking a sweeping curve of long sandy beach. It was well worth the drive. Perfect waves are rolling in rhythmically in neat lines, golden and glassy, each one with a frothy white trim. They are cooperating, not competing, and look ripe to be ridden. My dad is right . . . it really is pure magic out there.
I climb out of the car and am taking it all in with my eyes, nose and skin when Rick calls out, ‘Come here a sec, Al, I’ve got something for you. Over here, in the back of the van.’ Walking around, I join my dad as he gets out his board . . . and then another one, smaller in size. ‘I wanted to get you something special for your birthday next month, Al Pal, you know, because you’re going to be a teenager and all,’ he says, kind of shy. ‘But I’m not good at choosing jewellery or girl stuff like that, so I was at a bit of a loss, then . . . well, I thought . . . your own board might be the ticket.’
