The Other Madonna

by Scot Gardner

  ‘I knew you could do it!’ Evie squealed.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You were about the only one. You and Adrian.’ Jerome hung his head and thanked Evie.

  ‘God, don’t thank me. You did all the work,’ Evie said, and looked over Jerome’s shoulder. ‘Is Adrian coming?’

  ‘No. He’s gone to the city. Said he’d be home after lunch. When you see him next, though, don’t call him Adrian; call him Red.’

  ‘Red?’

  ‘Mmm. We had a little wager. Said if I landed the job he’d dye his hair bright red. Just the incentive I needed.’

  Bianca and Evie shrieked. I felt like I’d vanished. I had a picture in my mind about the kid who lived next door to Rosie, who I called Red. A little boy about six or seven. He looked like he’d been dropped in a vat of red. His hair was red – even his eyelashes. His skin was a red–brown freckle, bright red in the elbows and behind the knees where he scratched. And his sad eyes. His irises were dirty green but the eyelids surrounding them looked as though he’d pulled them back to gross someone out and the wind had changed.

  Evie took Jerome’s hand and led him into the kitchen.

  Bianca motioned with her elbow that I should follow. We sat around the kitchen table. Evie made Jerome a flat-white cappuccino. The talk was about Jerome’s new position as the manager of Ransom’s theatre restaurant in Carlton.

  ‘So,’ Bianca said, and sat up in her chair all businesslike. ‘I take it this is your formal resignation from Sapphires, Jerome?’

  ‘Um . . . well, yes. Do you need two weeks’ notice?’

  Bianca slapped his arm. ‘I miss you already.’

  Jerome finished his coffee and said he had to leave. Evie hugged him again. Bianca escorted him to the front door.

  Evie grabbed my hand and dragged me upstairs to her room. It looked like something from the cover of Home Beautiful with cream carpet and white linen. An arrangement of pillows on the bed reflected in the robe-door mirrors.

  I pulled Rainbow from my pocket and handed it to her.

  ‘There’s more stuff downstairs.’

  She hugged the rag to her face and purred.

  Rainbow didn’t fit with the décor of Evie’s new room. The room didn’t look like Evie at all. It was nothing like the room we’d shared since forever. No posters on the walls. No scent of deodorant from the pile of clothes on the floor. Just one double bed.

  ‘When are you coming home?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not. I don’t really want to talk about it.’

  I grabbed her fingers and frowned. She rubbed my back.

  ‘It’s the best thing. Finally got me off my arse.’

  I heard Bianca clomping up the stairs. Evie leaned close and whispered that Jerome may have already found her a place. I wondered if Jerome knew what he was getting himself into. Evie’s four years older than me but sometimes she’s a little girl.

  Without warning there were tears in my eyes and Evie was hugging me.

  ‘I miss you already,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Hey, I’m not far away.’

  Bianca sighed theatrically. ‘Another top-class employee lost to the competition.’

  Evie slapped my back. ‘Like you said though, boss, everyone’s replaceable.’

  Bianca looked at me. ‘How’s your tongue today?’

  ‘Fine. I can almost talk normal again now.’

  ‘Normal-ly,’ she corrected.

  ‘Normally,’ I said. ‘I’d better get going.’

  ‘First chance we get we’ll have a girls’ night in, okay? Video, chocolate and champagne.’ They hugged me goodbye on the verandah and I had to bite my lip.

  five

  I walked back to the flat. I walked and sniffed until my nose outran my sniffing and I had to bolt into a milk bar and grab a napkin. I didn’t feel sad, exactly, more beaten around and lonely. Evie had every right to have a life of her own. I hadn’t realised until she left how big she was in my life. She was more than my sister. Much more.

  I could hear the cries of a kid echoing around the basement of the block. Nothing unusual in that but this kid was in real pain. I decided to go up the lift. The kid’s screaming would be echoing up the stairwell. The heavy doors and the gently whirring lift cable would drown the cries. The boy lay crumpled on the stained concrete beside the lift. It was Red. Dirty old black tracksuit pants with white stripes up the outside of the legs. A blue shirt, pilled and stained on the arm. He held his ankle and howled. I couldn’t walk past him. I’d have to step over him. I knew a few people on the eighth floor who could step over a screaming child but I couldn’t do it.

  ‘Are you okay, Red?’ I asked. I felt my face flush as I reached out a hand to his knee. I’d lived two doors down from him since he was born and I didn’t know his real name. I guess that wasn’t entirely my fault. I’d never heard Red say a word. If he was playing and I walked past, he’d just stare. I’d heard him howl often enough, through the walls, usually after a hardcore shouting match in broken English.

  I touched his knee and he wailed like an ambulance.

  Some bloke stuck his head into the stairwell. ‘SHUT UP!’

  ‘Come on, mate,’ I said, and pressed the up arrow on the lift. ‘Better get you home.’

  Good one, Maddie. How?

  The lift bell chimed and the doors opened. I looked from the lift to the boy and back to the lift.

  ‘Can you stand up?’

  Red’s eyes bulged and he screamed until there was no air left. His mouth hung open but all the scream had gone.

  ‘Right then,’ I said, and slipped my hand under his bent knees. He let go of his ankle with one hand and sat up. He slipped one hand over the back of my neck. The lift door clicked, and began to close. I wrenched the kid off the ground and he squealed in my ear. I shushed and apologised. He was much lighter than I imagined, and bony. I scrunched my eyes against his squeal and managed to bump his injured leg on the black rubber of the lift door. I sat him in the corner and poked the button for the twelfth floor. The doors closed and locked me in with the screaming boy.

  ‘Shhh,’ I said, and put my hand over the fingers he had wrapped around his ankle. ‘What happened?’

  He stopped squealing, flicked the off switch on the siren. My ears rang with relief. He sniffed and stared at my hand resting on his. We were moving – the force of the lift rested on my shoulders like a backpack – but we didn’t move. Red stared at my hand. I stared at Red. His red hair, his blotchy red face, his red-rimmed eyes.

  The lift bell rang. Red sniffed. The door rolled open. Twelfth floor.

  ‘Can you stand?’

  He pushed himself against the wall and tried to stand. I put my arm over his shoulder and he limped into the hall.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked, and pulled my arm away. He limped heavily and screamed out. I grabbed him and he leaned into me and wailed. I bent and tucked myself under his arm. We hobbled across the hallway and past our flat, past Rosie’s, to the place where he lived. He was doing a fine impersonation of an air-raid siren that had taken a hit. The door swung open.

  A woman stood in the doorway. A woman I’d never seen before. I gasped. Her skin was grey and transparent like it had never seen the light of day. She had less hair than my dad. I could see a network of veins near the crown of her head. Her left eye stared; her right eye had no iris. It bulged like a boiled egg from slack eyelids. Her mouth was drawn into a snarl.

  ‘What have you done?’ she growled at me.

  ‘Me? I . . . I . . .’

  She grabbed Red from me, pulling him off balance and making him stand on his bad foot. Leg. Ankle.

  ‘What have you done? You bitch! You evil bitch! Get your hands off. He is only a boy. Leave him alone, bitch!’

  She slammed the door. She cursed me from behind it but it wasn’t in English. Red bawled.

  My eyes misted. I felt like I’d been punched in the guts. My lip bent and shook. The tears made my eyes sting. I understood, as the key zipped into the lock on our door,
how young women became old hags. You hit them in the heart and then you hit them again. Belt the smiles out of them. If there’s any hope still in there, you hit them again until it hurts to smile. Until everything tastes like metal. Until the only dreams she has for the future are full of shadows.

  Dad sat on a chair at the table, one hand resting on a knee with his mouth part-open. His face was ashen. I stopped and he nodded at me then coughed until the colour came rushing back to his face.

  ‘Are you all right, lov?’ he asked, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  I nodded. I wasn’t all right but there was nothing he could do about it. I felt like shoving him off his chair. He seemed pathetic and old and sick and useless. He wouldn’t have a clue about my life. I didn’t have the energy to ask him how he was. I locked myself in the bathroom. I used the last twenty sheets of toilet paper on the roll to blow my nose. There was blood on my wrist. I couldn’t find a cut. The boy must have been hurt more than I’d thought.

  The bathroom filled with steam in ten seconds. I tried to blast away the barnacles of hopelessness with hot water. Maybe not blast them away, just scrub them clean and get on with life like a crusty old humpback whale. I don’t think whales would worry too much about barnacles. Shower is good medicine. I rubbed the steam off the mirror with my shirt and dressed for work.

  ‘Hey, Maddie, your namesake is on the box,’ Dad hollered.

  And she was. The Madonna. The absolute queen of pop, oozing sex and singing something about hard surprises.

  ‘Jayzus. Why doesn’t she put some clothes on?’ Dad asked. He covered his face with his hand then peeked through his fingers.

  ‘Do you want me to get your glasses?’ I asked, and he smiled.

  ‘Nair,’ he giggled. ‘Bloddy things fog up.’

  I stood closer to the screen. Our TV started changing colour about five years ago and Madonna’s skin was green. Wrong Madonna, I thought. If she was looking out from the screen she wouldn’t see anything to envy, but looking at her hair, her body, her everything made me want to take dance lessons. Get a little bit closer so that people accidentally think I’m a goddess because we have the same name. I wondered how I’d look as a blonde.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Maddie? You look a bit pale, lov,’ Dad said.

  The cut to the adverts after the song made me jump. I screwed up my face. I put my hand on my navel and sighed. ‘Just feeling a bit . . .’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Dad said, and shifted in his seat.

  I was. I knew if I mentioned women’s stuff he’d twist and turn the conversation to safe ground.

  ‘You still going to work then?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He shook his head. ‘Yer amazing. Have I told you that? Bloddy amazing.’

  And bloddy tired and bloddy lonely and bloddy sick of my bloddy life.

  I forced a smile and wandered off to Pepe’s.

  six

  Flashing red and blue. There was a police car parked behind Paolo’s red MX5 and I started jogging. Maybe someone had broken into the pizzeria? The policeman sat behind the wheel of his car, writing on a pad. Paolo was sitting in the driver’s position in his car, too, but I could only see the spikes on the top of his head. He’d slunk halfway under the dash and I laughed out loud. I pushed my way inside the restaurant and smiled at him over my shoulder. He shouted at the windscreen and hit the wheel.

  Luce looked up from behind the counter. ‘Hey Maddie. How are you?’

  I nodded and pointed over my shoulder. ‘What’s going on out there?’

  ‘Where?’

  She stepped from behind the counter and peeked through the glass beside the closed sign. She slapped a floured hand to her mouth but it wasn’t shock she was hiding, it was a smile.

  ‘Mama!’ she shouted. ‘Pronto!’

  Bruna shuffled in from the kitchen wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Hello, Madonna,’ she said, and kissed my cheek.

  Luce pointed out the window. Paolo was storming towards the door. We stepped back and he almost bashed the door off its hinges.

  ‘Don’t say a bloody word,’ he said.

  ‘But Paolo, what happened? Why is the policeman here? Huh?’

  ‘Shut up, Mum. Piss off.’

  Bruna groaned and held her forehead.

  Lucia grabbed her hand. ‘Mum? You okay?’

  ‘Hey!’ Pepe called from the kitchen. ‘Boy, you come here. Now!’

  Paolo flicked at the kitchen door with the back of his hand and stormed off to the toilets.

  ‘Boy! Come here now!’ It didn’t sound like Pepe.

  Paolo stopped. Bruna was grabbing for a seat.

  ‘What?’ Paolo shouted, his hand on his hip, head cocked.

  Pepe kicked the kitchen door open and threw a tea towel onto the floor. ‘In here, Paolo. Now!’

  ‘What?’ Paolo said, but didn’t move.

  Pepe’s face changed shape, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. He screamed in Italian and his son slunk into the kitchen like he was five years old.

  Luce fanned her mum’s face with a folded burgundy napkin. Bruna whimpered like a beaten puppy and I had to stifle a laugh. How dramatic. He’d only told her to piss off. Luce had a look of horror on her face and kept asking Bruna if she was okay.

  ‘Madonna, can you get Mum a glass of water?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and slapped my hand over my mouth as soon as my back was turned. A little squeak of laughter escaped and I bit my knuckle – hard. Water? How about some sambuca? A double? I put ice in a glass and squirted water from the soda tap. Lucia took the glass and held it to her mother’s lips. ‘Just little sips, Mum. Little sips.’

  Bruna panted and the glass rattled against her dentures.

  Pepe shouted at Paolo. Paolo shouted that it was an accident. The phone rang. I dived behind the counter to answer it and the first customer for the evening pushed through the door. Lucia led the staggering Bruna into the kitchen.

  I seated people and took orders. I made drinks and topped a Hawaiian pizza while the DiFrescos shouted and bawled in the kitchen. I’d been scrambling around for ten minutes when I noticed that the first bloke I’d seated was smiling at me. A clean-shaven smile that lit up his whole face. I smiled back and sat opposite him at his table, took out my pad and pen.

  ‘Now, what can I get you?’

  His head rocked back and he laughed through his nose. Hit me with another killer smile. He shook his head.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re amazing.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘World war three going on out the back there and you just keep doing your job. Do you want a hand?’

  The front door creaked and a great mob of bleached and dyed heads sauntered in.

  I looked at the man. A young man, maybe twenty or so, wearing a black rugby top that didn’t look all that different from my own official Pepe’s Pizzeria work shirt, only where my shirt said ‘Pepe’s’, his had a white fern leaf.

  A new round of shouting erupted in the kitchen and something smashed. The ladies who had just come in and everyone else in the restaurant looked towards the kitchen door. A second of silence passed then one of the bleached ladies yelled ‘Taxi!’ and the others laughed. To them it was just a restaurant noise. To me, it sounded like an artillery blast and I wondered if anyone had been maimed or killed by it.

  I looked at the man again and realised that he wasn’t a man – he was a hunk. Strong, square jawline, neat brown hair and shining eyes. He pulled up his sleeves to reveal sporty forearms peppered with freckles and fine blonde hair.

  I really had to go to the toilet. I handed him my pad and pen. ‘Sit that bunch of honeys down at table seventeen and see what they want to drink.’

  He nodded and stood up.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked, and wished I had more time to think of a polite way of asking.

  ‘Jiff,’ he said. He pointed the pen at me.

  ‘Madonna.’

  He nodded
slowly. ‘That fits.’

  ‘Pardon?’ I said, but he’d started talking to the lady at the front of the herd.

  I marched to the toilet.

  For fifteen excruciating minutes, Jiff and I ran the whole restaurant while the kitchen echoed with shouting and crying. Then the delivery boys, Elliot and Trefor arrived. They were both loaded with padded pizza boxes and ready to go in about a minute.

  ‘Where’s Paul?’ Elliot asked. Lucia calls him Elliot the idiot and thinks it’s the biggest scream. I call him Elliot the ignorant. He just wasn’t blessed with imagination or forethought or charisma but he was a well-qualified delivery boy who did his job with a practised importance. To Elliot, delivering pizzas for the DiFrescos was a career.

  ‘Paul is having a meeting with his mum and dad.’

  From the kitchen, shouting. Breaking glass.

  ‘Oh,’ Elliot said, picked up his pizza bags and delivery dockets and left.

  Paolo burst from the kitchen less than a minute after the deliveries had left, his father hot on his heels. The restaurant turned to stare.

  ‘Paolo, keys,’ Pepe growled.

  ‘Get stuffed.’

  Pepe grabbed him by the arm. I could see the grip tightening, Pepe’s knuckles bleaching, Paolo’s face scrunching in pain. Paolo threw the keys he’d held in his other hand into the kitchen door. Pepe released his grip. Paolo stormed onto the street and tried to slam the door. It clunked then settled shut. Nobody breathed. They stared at the old man near the kitchen.

  Pepe forced the saddest smile imaginable. ‘Sorry,’ he said to his patrons. ‘Sorry for the disturbance. My boy, he’s a bit angry. Sorry.’

  One of the ladies grunted and knocked her drink over. Another called ‘Taxi!’ and they giggled. Then the whole place seemed to sigh and conversations picked up where they’d left off. Luce appeared, mopping her eyes with a burgundy napkin. I handed her the pasta order for table seventeen and she slunk back into the kitchen.