The Hope Flower

by Joy Dettman

  Posh Eva got them a table for two against a wall, a red wall, studded with tiny lights. Posh Eva removed her parka. Lori removed the camera from her parka pocket before hanging the parka, inside-out, over the back of her chair. She photographed Mavis against that red wall as she hung her parka, photographed her face in semi-profile. At the last instant, she’d seen what Lori was about to do, and glanced up. No smile, one side of her face lit by a wall light and the other in shadow, it looked posed. It wasn’t and it was the best shot yet.

  She undid her jeans zip, groaned in ecstasy, then flopped. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she said. ‘That’s the first time I’ve breathed all day.’

  ‘You won’t when you see a menu. You can see at a glance that this place is too expensive.’

  ‘They’ve given it a face lift since I was last here,’ Mavis said, then turned to a waiter offering them drink menus. ‘We’ll have two glasses of your house red,’ she said.

  ‘And a bottle of water, please,’ Lori said, and just the mention of water made her bladder ache. ‘Do you have a ladies’ room?’

  He nodded towards the back of the restaurant, and Lori walked in the direction of his nod, which was no ladies’ room. It was a single cubicle not as posh as the restaurant, but it had what was necessary and a door she could lock.

  Mavis was drinking red wine while perusing a large red menu when Lori returned to the table. She poured water before opening a second menu, big, glossy and screaming expensive. No bowl of chips on that menu, bread cost six dollars and twelve dollars bought a side salad.

  ‘There’s no proper food here for under twenty-six dollars and I’m starving.’

  ‘You would have spent another fifty on a taxi back to town.’

  ‘We’ll need one tomorrow.’

  ‘The hospital is up the top end of the city. I’ll get a tram.’ She drained her wine glass then reached for the second glass. ‘And you don’t need to sit around all day waiting for me either.’

  ‘I came down here to sit around all day waiting for you.’

  The second glass of wine was near empty before the waiter came to take their order, and Mavis ordered two scotch fillets. ‘Medium well done with the pepper sauce,’ she said. ‘And we’ll have bread and another glass of your house red.’

  The menus were gone. Lori hadn’t looked at the price of steak – as she never looked at it raw in supermarkets. There wasn’t a lot of meat she dared to look at – other than minced steak and sausages.

  She looked at Mavis. She wasn’t Mrs Mavis Smyth-Owen, subsisting on a supporting mother’s pension, not tonight. She was a blue-green moth they’d forcibly removed from her shapeless cocoon and now given one night in which to flit around the city lights. She flashed her eyes at the waiter who delivered her third glass of wine, flashed them at a group of businessmen as they were seated at a nearby table – and three glasses of wine was too many, and red wine looked more potent than white, and less than six hours ago she’d drunk two small bottles of white, and she was due for her Xanax pill, and she wasn’t supposed to mix them with alcohol.

  ‘We used to come to this place years ago,’ Mavis said.

  ‘You and Henry?’

  ‘That mean old bastard never took me anywhere.’

  ‘Shush.’

  ‘Don’t you tell me to shush! The old bitch and my father used to bring us here. He always ordered their steaks, one for him and one for me.’

  ‘You said you were twelve when he died.’

  ‘I was six the first time I ate steak with him. He loved me. It didn’t matter what I did,’ Mavis said, and she drank again and Lori poured more water. ‘We came here the day he packed that queer bitch off to England, just him and me, and he told me that I was the best thing that had ever happened to him.’

  She was becoming loud. The businessmen were glancing their way, and nothing Lori could do about it other than attempt to hide behind her hair and appear to be listening to Mavis’s tale about how her father had attempted to break up Eva’s romance with old Alice.

  ‘She was over there for six months or more and the old bitch pining for her. The first time I ever saw Henry I knew that he didn’t have a clue what he’d let himself in for.’

  She emptied her glass, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand then spoke of the wedding she’d been a part of. ‘He died six months after giving that queer bitch away and two weeks after we buried him, bloody old Alice moved into the garage flat. That pair of useless bitches never learnt to drive the car.’

  ‘Didn’t Henry have a licence back then?’

  ‘He worked. Wherever he went he could walk straight into a job – and he never missed a day. A reliable fool, poor old Henry.’

  ‘Did your mother ever find out about Eva and Alice?’

  ‘She didn’t know her arse from her elbow after my father died. She’d start drinking and swallowing pills at breakfast time and be passed out before dinner.’ She laughed, and a few faces turned to their table. If the meals didn’t arrive soon, Mavis wouldn’t know her arse from her elbow.

  ‘He caught them at it one night. Henry. He came home early and I laughed until I p–’

  And thank god the waiter brought their steaks. No chips, two miniature potatoes, a few sticks of green, a little seedy sauce and a miniature loaf of bread wrapped in a red cloth.

  Food usually silenced Mavis. She ripped that loaf in half, kept the larger portion and tossed the rest of it at Lori’s plate. There was butter in a bowl, and enough of it. Lori spread her share and her stomach thanked her teeth for their first bite since the lost vanilla slice. She poked at the steak with her fork. She’d never eaten a solid slab of it and at forty dollars a kilo had never expected to. Eddy marinated thin strips of some sort of beef for one of his internet stir-fries, but he chose it and paid for it. She cut a thin strip of scotch fillet, studied its inner pink, then placed it into her mouth – and decided that when she was rich she was going to live on forty-dollar-a-kilo steak.

  ‘What are these?’ she asked, forking a seedy thing to the edge of her plate.

  ‘Green peppercorns,’ Mavis said. Her bread gone, she was eyeing Lori’s remaining piece. At 108 Dawson Street, kids learnt early to guard their plates and to eat fast. Lori guarded her bread until the last of the steak and the few vegetables were gone, when she did a Vinnie with her crust, wiped her plate clean then ate the wipings while Mavis attempted to catch the eye of a waiter.

  ‘We’re going now, Mavis.’

  ‘I’m not. I want another glass of wine.’

  ‘You won’t be able to walk if you drink any more and I can’t carry you.’

  ‘A coffee then, and something to eat with it.’

  ‘I haven’t got enough to pay for what we’ve already eaten. I’m going,’ Lori said. She stood, slung her bag over her shoulder, her parka over her arm then waited for a waiter to come.

  ‘We need the bill, please,’ she told him.

  That was when Mavis’s eyes changed, and her tone. ‘We’d like to see your dessert menu,’ she said, her eyes daring Lori to disagree. She didn’t, just turned her back and followed the waiter to his posh counter, where she repeated her words – and lied a little. ‘We have an appointment at seven. We’re going to be late.’

  She got the bill, or had it presented to her in a leather-bound folder, as if bills and money weren’t something nice people touched or mentioned. She touched it. She read it. You can train yourself not to swear in public. It isn’t easy, but you can do it. She told herself that the steak had been truly excellent, an experience, as Martin had promised, and so it ought to have been! Those steaks had cost thirty-nine dollars fifty each and two times thirty-nine and a half equalled seventy-nine dollars, and the wine Mavis had quaffed had been seven dollars fifty a glass and they must have charged for the bottle of water, or the bloody tablecloth, or the atmosphere.

  She counted out common money to their posh counter, counted two fifties, one ten and three dollar coins. She didn’t look at Mavis, or not until she was ou
t the door – and Mavis hadn’t moved from her chair – and her expression was ugly.

  Outside, her parka on, its hood’s cords tied tight, Lori watched a waiter hovering over Mavis who must have been ordering dessert or more wine. Lori had given her ten dollars and change then Eddy had given a twenty, which should pay for some sort of dessert and coffee.

  For five minutes she waited outside the door until a large group wanted to get in. She backed off. What was she supposed to do? Stand out there in the wind waiting for her to eat a cheesecake, to drink a large cappuccino. That was not what you did in Lori’s world. She walked, walked with blinkers on, and would have missed the hotel’s entrance if not for a taxi driver unloading luggage.

  It was written somewhere that no experience is wasted if you learn from it. She’d been on a learning curve since this morning. She hit the up arrow while repeating one hundred and thirteen bloody dollars. The lift must have been waiting for a passenger; it opened its doors and she stepped in. She hit the 8 button and seconds later stepped out, then like a homing pigeon walked fast to their door where she did what Mavis had done with her card, slid it in and out of the slot and turned the knob. It took two tries plus coordination to get that door to open. She went no further than the bed where she emptied her wallet and counted what money remained. If she included her birthday money, she’d have enough for McDonald’s meals tomorrow but not for a taxi, and needing to blame someone, she reached for her mobile to blame Eddy. A flat battery saved him.

  She plugged it into its charger and a minute later it started beeping. Eddy had replied to every one of her recipe texts, which she’d almost forgotten sending. Just reading words from home calmed her, as did knowing that Martin had paid for their breakfasts. They wouldn’t starve tomorrow or on Saturday.

  Her battery was half charged before she heard Mavis attempting to open their door. She could have opened it for her, but didn’t. She moved fast to unplug her mobile charger, to drop it into her bag, to return the mobile to her pocket, then to step back to the bathroom’s open door before Mavis got the outer door open. And Lori saw why she’d had trouble with its lock. She’d needed one hand to hold up her jeans.

  ‘You mean-arsed lanky little Henry bitch.’

  If the basket of treats hadn’t been empty, she may have been content to eat herself into a coma, but it was empty and the basket flew before Lori closed and locked the bathroom door. It muffled the noise, but wasn’t soundproof.

  ‘You get out here, you spoiling bitch.’

  ‘One hundred and thirteen dollars,’ Lori replied as she dug in her bag for the aspros and the zip-lock bags of blue powder.

  The door rattled on its hinges, but she rinsed the toothbrushing glass, emptied a dose of Xanax into it, plus a little more from the emergency bag, and when water ran hot from the tap she added a little then stirred with the handle of her toothbrush.

  ‘Open that bloody door.’

  ‘One hundred and thirteen dollars,’ Lori yelled and stirred. ‘And thanks to you we starve tomorrow.’ She added cold water then to the glass, as she’d done many times at home. The pill powder altered the colour of the water a little but the lighting in hotel rooms wasn’t good. She dropped two aspros into the mix, placed the glass on the basin unit, sat on the lid of the toilet and took out her mobile, ready now to reply to Eddy – but if she could get those pills into Mavis, if she could get her to sleep off that wine, she might be okay in the morning.

  Mavis raged for twenty minutes before the television started playing, which may have meant that she’d worn herself out – and may not. Lori sat for five minutes more. She’d brought a t-shirt to sleep in, but didn’t change into it. She removed her sweater, the black high-necked thing she’d bought with Donny’s gift voucher. She folded it and placed it into her bag before unlocking and opening the door, just a little, just enough to see that Mavis was sitting, shoes off, feet on a coffee table. Lori picked up the glass and took it to her, or placed it on the table beside a bare foot.

  ‘Shove it up your mean bloody lanky arse –’

  ‘They’re your stents, not mine,’ Lori said. She sat on the edge of the single bed, close to the main door, reading the recipe texts she’d sent to Eddy. It took a while but Mavis emptied that glass.

  That Xanax would calm her, but it might take twenty minutes. Lori had watched that pill take effect many times. With luck, she’d sleep off her bad mood.

  feral

  The television played all night while Mavis chainsawed from the couch. The remote control fell to the floor at six, when Lori moved from the bed to reach for it and lower the volume before creeping into the bathroom.

  Breakfast was served in a dining room from seven to nine-thirty, and on the dot of seven, Lori crept out to the corridor. Three waiting for the lift, and half full when she entered it, others pressed in on the way down. She followed them to a dining room set up for a banquet. No black-clad waiter to show her to a table, she followed a couple to a pile of plates and did what they did, and was impressed by the hotel’s toast maker. They needed one of those at home. The couple sat at a table for four. She sat at another, alone, but ate bacon for breakfast for the first time in her life and drank pineapple juice. She had seconds too, then made more toast. Mavis was unlikely to move from her bed until she was moved, so while no one appeared to be watching, she made her a bacon and cheese toasted sandwich, wrapped it in one of the hotel’s large paper serviettes and slid it into her bag with a bottle of pineapple juice.

  Not eager to return to that room, she made a second cup of tea, ate a croissant with jam, her first croissant, then helped herself to a banana before leaving that banquet.

  Rode up with two couples and opened the door to 822 with one swipe of her card. She didn’t enter until ascertaining Mavis’s whereabouts. She was in bed, so Lori crept in and placed Mavis’s breakfast on the coffee table before easing the television’s volume higher. It didn’t wake Mavis, hadn’t by nine-fifteen when Lori woke her very gently, with a pat on an exposed bare shoulder.

  ‘It’s after nine, Mavis.’

  ‘Get out of my bloody sight, you spoiling bitch.’

  It wasn’t over. Lori stepped back. ‘We’ve got forty minutes to get to your appointment.’

  ‘Get out of my sight.’ She was up on an elbow and naked, or naked from the waist up, and her nipples looked ready to fire.

  ‘I came down here to get you to your appointments on time –’

  ‘You came down here to follow me around like a bloody guard dog, barking every time I put a foot out of place.’

  ‘Your breakfast is on the table,’ Lori said. She picked up her bag and parka, opened the door and stepped out to the corridor, where she leant against a wall and removed her birthday fifty from its slot. Buy something nice, Martin had written on that card. It would buy a taxi.

  She moved when two maids and a trolley approached, moved back to 822 where she used her card again to open the door. Mavis must have been waiting for her. The empty junk food basket flew at her.

  Couldn’t allow strangers to see her, to hear her, so through the near closed door, she tossed her fifty. ‘Get a taxi. You’ve got twenty minutes.’

  The door closed itself. She ran. She got out of that place, though didn’t go far.

  Waited for those twenty minutes in the wind outside the hotel, watching taxis arrive, watching people get into them but not Mavis. She walked then, down to a set of traffic lights and back. No sign of Mavis in or near the hotel as she walked by and up to another set of lights, where she turned again, afraid to go further.

  She’d spent most of her life afraid, or afraid on the inside. Bit by bit she’d built a hard shell around her squishy centre, but this morning that shell was cracking. She was alone in a city she didn’t know, and she wanted to howl because she had no way home until tomorrow.

  It will be an experience, Splint.

  It was cold and windy but not wet today, or not yet, and fear of her tears forced her to turn a corner. Fear o
f becoming lost turned her back to walk by that hotel again. It was the only place she knew.

  Eddy knew every inch of this city. He’d made her maps, had marked that hotel on one of them. She took them out of her bag, found his H for hotel, and found out that if she only made left turns she could walk a block and get back to the hotel, so she walked.

  She was over halfway back when she saw a Commonwealth Bank sign. It reminded her of the main reason she was in this place, to protect the bankcard she’d left at home safe with Mick. It wouldn’t be safe if Mavis got near that bank.

  She got her back to a wall and reached for her mobile, scrolled down to NELLY and hit call – then prayed that Nelly would be home.

  She picked up.

  ‘It’s me, Nelly. I can’t talk. Flat battery.’ Or a quarter-charged battery. ‘Can you get Mick to give me a quick call? Tell him it’s urgent,’ she said.

  ‘I can hear the city behind you. What’s happened?’

  ‘Just say very urgent and to call me now. Ta, Nelly,’ she said and hung up.

  If you could rely on any two people in the world, they’d be Nelly and Mick. He phoned three minutes later, and his voice from a distance sounded like a man’s.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘She’s turned feral, Mick. Get the bills paid, pay for two loads of wood, then transfer what’s left into the emergency fund.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m on a street somewhere. Move that money now, and do it fast,’ she said, then cut the call before Nelly got her hands on the phone.

  She looked for Mavis in that bank. She wasn’t in there but there were other banks all over Melbourne. She walked on, looking for the others, walked and waited for Mick to call back and tell her he couldn’t access the account.

  He didn’t call back. She might have panicked him unnecessarily.

  It was midday before she wandered into Myers. Leonie and Cathy had spoken about going to Myers. She could at least see what they’d been talking about. She rode escalators, found their frock department, found a dozen frocks she might have bought, though none for fifty dollars. She found their furniture department, ran her hand over the polished surface of a dining table, fit to furnish a castle. She looked at framed paintings that may not have been painted by great masters but were beautiful anyway. There were so many beautiful things in the world, though not for her.