The Sisters' Song

by Louise Allan

‘You have more freedom than me.’ Her eyes flitted around the room. ‘It’s not just freedom. It’s not wanting any of this. Not really. The house, the kids, a husband. None of it. I could get up and walk out of here tomorrow.’

  I rubbed the back of my neck and let my hand rest there. ‘I reckon you’d miss them,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she replied and shrugged again. ‘I don’t think I’d look back.’ She sat back in the chair. ‘I feel as if I’ve been given a hundred-pound weight to carry around with me. For life.’

  I kept rubbing the back of my neck, massaging the muscles that were tightening.

  ‘I know I should feel grateful and not the way I do,’ Nora continued. ‘But that’s the honest truth. That’s how I feel.’ She looked at me. ‘I know what you’re thinking. I know I have a family and you don’t. I know I have a beautiful home and Alf’s a good man, with a good heart.’ She shook her head. ‘But this isn’t what I’d have chosen. If I’d had a choice.’

  I nodded, albeit stiffly. ‘I know, Nor.’

  A rustle out in the hall made me turn. Through the crack between the door and the frame, I glimpsed red curls and two glistening eyes. They disappeared, and soft, quick steps raced down the hall and away.

  Later that night when I went to bed, Grace was quiet. She was lying still and facing away from me towards the window. I undressed in the darkness and slithered between the sheets.

  ‘I hear her play sometimes,’ Grace whispered.

  ‘Pardon?’ I said.

  She sat up in the dark, the jagged strip of light from the edge of the venetians striping her face. ‘Late at night, when she thinks everyone’s asleep, she plays the piano and I hear her. I tiptoe out and sit in the hall by the telephone so I can listen better. She plays really sad music. Then I sneak back into bed before she catches me. Which she did once. And told me off.’

  ‘She used to play all the time when she was a child. And sing.’

  She shifted closer towards me and her face was in darkness again. ‘I’d love to hear her sing.’

  ‘Oh, she was something else,’ I said. ‘She was really, really good. I never heard better.’

  ‘Why did she stop?’

  ‘She…married your Dad.’

  ‘But why did she have to give it up because she got married?’

  ‘Because that’s what you do when you get married,’ I said.

  ‘Then I’m never getting married,’ she said. The bed creaked as she slipped back between the sheets. We were quiet for a while. ‘Why did she marry Dad if she didn’t love him?’

  I didn’t know what to say. ‘She does love him,’ I said eventually. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Grace’s sheets rustled again as she rolled over. I lay still, thinking about what Nora had said that night. We were different, Nora and me, and we wanted different things. I had no idea what it was like to desire the things she wanted. But I did know how it felt to long for something and not get it.

  Each time I saw the kids, they’d grown and changed. Grace was always the first to greet me, scrambling down the steps as I arrived and whisking me inside. I laughed as I followed her, all long legs and red-gold hair, down the hall to her room. That hair! It looked as if it moved all by itself and had a personality as vibrant as the girl who owned it.

  Ben was more like his father, in looks and personality. He never said much and never complained, just did as he was asked. He grew bigger and sturdier, a clone of Alf. He seemed happy enough going to school and spending his weekends playing sport or fishing with Len.

  Len sometimes came with us to Ben Craeg. He’d bring his fishing rods, and we’d pack a picnic and Alf would drive us all out to the Ringarooma River. Nora didn’t come, but sometimes Mum joined us. Ted and Grace would soon lose interest in the fish—Ted preferring a book and Grace her doll—but Ben and Len would sit all day with their rods in their hands. They sometimes went fishing on their own, just the two of them.

  Ted became a teenager. His voice deepened and his face lengthened, but he stayed small and slight and looked as if he’d been hewn from fine-grained wood. He spent most of the time in his room, only coming out for dinner. When he did emerge, he stayed in the shadows and barely uttered a word, but his dark eyes watched everything that was going on and never lost their depth.

  Ted was the only one who didn’t seem happier during those years. Rather, he seemed to withdraw even more. He never looked directly at me, or at anyone. Sometimes I felt him staring at me, but he’d look away if I turned. It made me wonder, though, if he really did want to be so alone.

  A few times, I knocked on his door and tried to start a conversation. But he wouldn’t look up from his book or he’d answer with a look that said, Leave me alone. I’d ask how he was or how was school, and wait in silence for a few minutes before turning and walking back out again. As much as I wanted to reach him, I didn’t know how to break through the intangible wall he’d built around himself. I felt as if I was letting him down.

  I used to lie awake at night wondering how much Ted sensed. Alf treated Ted exactly the same way he treated Ben and Grace, and anyone watching on would never have guessed he wasn’t Ted’s real father. Apart from their looks, of course. But Nora acted differently towards Ted. She wasn’t affectionate with any of her kids, and she kept Ted even further away than the others. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen her hold him or even converse with him, and I couldn’t. Not since he was a baby, and even then it was only out of necessity.

  I wondered if it was because he was a reminder of her first love. If it was too painful and that’s why she couldn’t let him in. But I would never have asked her and she would never have said.

  When we visited Ben Craeg, Mum and I would catch the bus and wait outside the post office in the main street for Alf to pick us up in the fawn truck with Hill’s Joinery painted on the door.

  One day as we were waiting, Mum turned to me. ‘Remember when you were little and I’d bring you into town, and Mrs Monteath in the bakery would cut the crusts off the day-old bread for you girls?’

  I nodded and smiled. ‘And Mr Douglas would give Nora and me a candy cane at Christmas.’ I looked out over the old street. I remembered those happy days in this tiny town, back when Dad was alive and everyone was older and bigger than me. When the street seemed wide and bustling. When there were horses and traps and piles of dung in the middle of the road. And, if a car came, we all stopped to watch it pass. When a shop seemed big and bright and full of delicious and enticing treats.

  I looked around me at the now-small street and wondered if my memories were real or if they were only in my child’s mind. Then I saw that Mum was smiling, too, and knew I hadn’t imagined them.

  Ted finished school at the end of 1956. He wasn’t quite sixteen, but the Commonwealth Bank in Tinsdale employed him as a junior clerk anyway. He cut his hair short, and wore a collar and tie and polished shoes and, suddenly, he looked older.

  Alf was beaming as he told us about Ted’s job over dinner. ‘You’ll be bank manager one day, son.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe a son of mine will be working at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and wearing a suit.’

  Mum stared at Alf wide-eyed for a moment before continuing with her meal.

  Later that night as I passed the spare room, Mum called me in.

  ‘I wince every time Alf brings up Ted’s paternity,’ she whispered.

  ‘He is Ted’s father,’ I said. ‘That’s what it says on the birth certificate.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Why even mention it? As if Ted gets his brains from Alf anyway.’

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘Don’t act like that, Ida. I just say what everyone else is thinking and too frightened to mention. Does Ted know Alf’s not his real father?’

  ‘Shhh! Keep your voice down,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. And it’s none of our business.’

  ‘I wonder if Ted’s ever questioned it. I wouldn’t be surprised. You’ve only got to look at him
and Alf to suspect something. And Ted’s a bright boy and doesn’t miss a trick.’

  ‘Does it matter who Ted’s biological father is? Alf’s brought him up as his own.’

  ‘It just makes me uncomfortable whenever Alf mentions it,’ she said. ‘I’d avoid the topic altogether if I was him and let sleeping dogs lie.’

  For a couple of years, the piano stayed locked and we didn’t hear Nora play it again. Grace told me she still heard her mother sometimes, at night when she thought no one was listening. Nora kept the piano pristine; there wasn’t a fingermark or speck of dust on it. I couldn’t help but admire it—the sheen of the walnut and the way the knots in the wood formed whorls on my reflected face. I always felt the urge to open it up and let its music out, free the ghosts hidden inside. But it was always locked.

  Grace kept asking Nora when she could start piano lessons, but Nora kept delaying.

  ‘Grace’s ten now,’ I said to Nora on one of her visits to town without the kids. ‘You’d been learning piano for years by her age.’

  It was spring 1957, and Nora, Mum and I were sipping tea on the verandah. Pearson Street was quiet, just the distant hum of traffic on the main road.

  Mum coughed. ‘Yes and look at all the good that did,’ she said. I shot Mum a stern look. ‘Well, look what it caused,’ Mum continued. ‘It made Nora run away from home. As a mother, I can’t describe the anguish of not knowing where your daughter is.’

  Nora was staring at her hands and didn’t look up.

  ‘And I haven’t forgotten what happened on the mainland, either,’ Mum continued.

  ‘Shut up, Mum!’ I said.

  ‘No, I will not shut up,’ said Mum. ‘Those memories are still very much alive. For me, anyway. It’s not nice to see that happen to your daughter.’

  Beside me, Nora hadn’t moved, her head was still down.

  Mum started coughing again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I said.

  Mum’s face was red and her eyes were watering, but she nodded as she took out her hanky.

  ‘No, I think Nora’s making the right decision,’ Mum went on after a moment. ‘I see Nora in Grace and, well, I’d be keeping her away from that piano if I was her.’

  I stood. ‘C’mon, Nora. Let’s go to town and leave Mum to contemplate how to keep her mouth shut.’ I turned to Mum. ‘And while Mum’s at it, she might also want to ponder how to stop dredging up the past.’

  Mum looked affronted. Nora and I collected our hats and coats and walked up to the bus stop on the main road. I waited for Nora to mention Mum’s outburst, but she didn’t. She didn’t speak for the whole bus trip but looked out the window, her face pensive in the reflection. She stayed quiet while we did our errands and even during lunch. On the bus on the way back, she turned to me.

  ‘Does Mum think I’ve forgotten all of that? Does she think I don’t regret everything I did? Can’t she find it inside her to forgive me? To let me forget? As if I’m not surrounded by enough reminders already.’

  ‘She’s getting mouthy in her old age,’ I said.

  ‘It’s why I keep stalling and not letting Grace take piano lessons. In case she loves it like I did. I don’t want her life to turn out like mine. I just keep hoping she’ll lose interest and want to grow up and do something normal, like be a nurse or a teacher. And one day get married.’

  I didn’t answer her. Later, after Nora had left, I said to Mum, ‘I think it’s about time you forgave Nora.’

  ‘I’ve tried, Ida. But there’s a constant reminder, don’t forget.’ Her voice went quiet. ‘Every time I look at Ted I’m reminded of that day in Mrs Flanagan’s store and Nora’s petrified voice down that telephone wire.’ Mum closed her eyes. ‘It was the most heart-stopping moment of my life.’

  ‘Nora knows that, Mum. And I think she’s waiting for you to forgive her.’

  Mum glanced over at me. ‘She doesn’t care what I think and she never has.’ She started coughing again and brought out her hanky.

  ‘I’ll fetch the Senega and Ammonia,’ I said. I brought it out and trickled some of the medicine onto a teaspoon. ‘I think Nora cares about what you think more than you realise.’

  Mum took the teaspoon from my hand, taking care not to spill any. ‘We all must do our penance, Ida.’

  ‘Don’t you think she’s done enough?’ I said. ‘Isn’t it about time you forgave her? Before it’s too late?’

  Mum didn’t look at me, but winced as she swallowed the medicine.

  Chapter 24

  Mum’s cough worsened. The doctor diagnosed her with bronchitis and prescribed penicillin and bed rest. Mum took weeks to improve, and although she still looked pale and wasn’t her usual self, she insisted on visiting Ben Craeg.

  It was early November and the wildflowers were still out, dotting the roadside all mauve and pink and yellow. When we arrived, I set Mum up on the new couch and draped a knitted rug over her legs. Then Nora wanted to show me some samples of velvet for a new bedroom chair she was having made at the factory.

  ‘I quite like this dusky pink,’ she said. ‘Goes with the maroon bedspread.’

  Drifting across the hall came the glass-like high notes of the piano. Nora and I both looked at each other, then hurried out the door.

  In the lounge, Gracie was sitting tall on the piano stool, her red-gold hair tumbling down her back. The piano was open and her fingers were creeping over the keys like spiders, touching each note lightly. The music that came made me think of water droplets from a fountain.

  Mum was sitting behind her on the couch, one hand on the arm tapping the rhythm of the music. She turned as we stepped into the room and put a finger to her lips.

  Unaware of her new audience, Gracie kept playing. Her two hands were together, then apart, and then she began to sing.

  Somewhere over the rainbow

  Her voice was as sweet as a chaste kiss and I was taken back to another time and another girl sitting straight-backed at an old piano.

  Mum glanced over at us, and although her skin was pasty and wan from her illness, she was smiling and her eyes were bright.

  Nora didn’t move. Her eyes were intent on her daughter, but her face was soft, her mouth slightly open.

  As soon as Grace finished, she spun around to face Mum, beaming proudly. Mum clapped and so did I. Grace startled and looked over. When she saw Nora, she stopped smiling and sprang off the stool, her face flushing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’ She stood with her head down and her arms by her sides.

  Nora was shaking her head, her brow furrowed. ‘You know you’re not allowed to play the piano.’

  Grace’s cheeks reddened even more.

  ‘Now, Nora, Grace isn’t to blame,’ said Mum quickly. She coughed and cleared her throat. ‘It’s my fault. I asked her to play.’

  ‘Who taught you to play?’ Nora was still looking at Grace, her head shaking and her mouth still open. She looked stunned.

  Grace shifted her weight on her feet but didn’t answer.

  ‘Don’t be angry with her,’ said Mum. ‘It was my doing.’

  ‘But, Grace, who taught you to play like that?’ said Nora.

  Grace fidgeted and lifted her eyes. ‘I played when you went out. I knew where you kept the key. Under there.’ She pointed to the statue of the Holy Family on the mantelpiece. ‘So I used to sneak in—’ she looked down—‘and play.’

  Nora kept looking at Grace as if she couldn’t comprehend what Grace had said. ‘But someone must have taught you?’

  Grace looked up and shook her head. ‘No, no one’s taught me. I just kept playing until it sounded right.’

  ‘You taught yourself?’

  Grace nodded.

  Nora rubbed her forehead, the frown still on her face.

  ‘You’d have done the same thing, Nora,’ said Mum. ‘You’d have done anything in order to sing. You did do anything in order to sing. Remember?’

  Nora turned to Mum. ‘Why are you encouraging
her?’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Mum, nodding and smoothing the blanket over her lap. ‘I know I’ve not been a music lover in the past, but I want to correct that. I want to encourage Gracie—’ she looked up, her face kind, ‘—in a way I never encouraged you.’

  Nora and I both stared at her. We wanted to believe her, but didn’t dare after so many years of hearing the opposite.

  Mum coughed and cleared her throat. ‘Why don’t you sing for us, Nora?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grace and clasped her hands together. ‘Please, Mum.’

  Nora rubbed her forehead again. She still looked perplexed.

  ‘It would make my day,’ said Mum.

  Nora shook her head. ‘I can’t. I couldn’t…’

  ‘Please, Nor,’ said Mum, interrupting her. ‘It would mean a lot to me.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said and tapped her elbow.

  ‘Just give me a minute,’ said Nora. She put her hands together and brought the tips of her fingers to her lips. She closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to pray, then she stepped towards the piano. Grace moved aside to let her pass.

  Nora sat on the piano stool and the house fell silent. She laid her hands on the keys and began to play. It was like a caress, her fingers stroking the notes, and the sound was soft, like the brush of a cat’s tail against your calf as it passed.

  Then she started to sing. Her voice was quiet, soft, dreamy. It gently unfurled and wound its way around the room.

  Silvery moon in the velvet sky

  Your light shines far in the heavens

  Over the world, wandering

  Gazing in human dwellings

  I recognised the melody: Dvořák’s ‘Song to the Moon’. Nora’s back stayed straight as she sang, her eyes on the music. The song rose higher and her voice rose, too, and became richer and smoother, thick as blood-red velvet. Grace was standing to the side, her face open, her eyes not moving from her mother. Mum leant back on the couch, her eyes closed.

  Oh, moon, once in a while, stay with me

  Tell me, oh, tell me, where is my lover?

  Tell him, please, tell him