The Place on Dalhousie

by Melina Marchetta

  At Central he kisses her, hugs Toto and walks away. But she follows him up to the gates.

  ‘Can you tell whoever you’re sleeping with that it’s over?’ she asks. ‘Even if it doesn’t seem anything special.’

  ‘Why?’ he says with false bravado. Because he wants to hear the truth about how she feels.

  ‘You’re sort of like an ID thing,’ she says. ‘Twenty points for usefulness, twenty points for being good in bed, twenty points for being decent, and you get triple bonus points because Toto’s your top-one-hundred priority.’

  He moves closer to her. Kisses her again. Can’t stop, despite Toto trying to pull his hair.

  ‘Can you shave off points from usefulness and decency and give me extra for being good in bed?’

  She laughs, but there’s a shrewd challenge in her eyes. ‘It would have to come out of your Toto triple-bonus points.’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ he says, not missing a beat. ‘I think I’ll hang on to those bonus points.’

  Rosie spends every afternoon next door at Teresa’s, going through the photos she took back from Luke’s garage while Bianca babysits Toto and the dogs out back. Teresa and Signora De Lorenzo are the only two who know where to place most of them chronologically in an album. When Rosie looks at the images scattered across the table, she can’t help thinking that the life of the Gennaros is reduced to a size eight Hush Puppies shoebox.

  Teresa slides a photo towards her.

  ‘It’s a beautiful one, regardless of where it was taken, Rosanna,’ she says quietly.

  Rosie glances at it, pushes it away and concentrates on one where she’s sitting on the bonnet of her mum’s car when she was about eight years old. She shows it to Teresa.

  ‘Sometimes she’d turn up at school and I’d have to interpret for her,’ Rosie says. ‘She’d make me tell my teacher that I had to leave early because we had an appointment, but it was bullshit really. She just wanted to go for a drive.’

  ‘She was a cool one, your mother. Most of us would have gone crazy living in that house the way it was for years, but Loredana never seemed fazed. That shrug of hers said it all.’

  ‘Did people think my dad was a loser for taking so long?’

  ‘No. Some said he should have sold it when he was getting the offers, because he could have made a profit.’

  ‘My father would never have sold.’

  Rosie knows that there were years the house stayed untouched because they didn’t have a cent.

  ‘And then when Loredana got sick, he just didn’t have the heart to work on it.’

  The coffee’s ready and Teresa gets up to turn off the stove.

  ‘The council and the historical society would be on his back, because they said it looked like a hoarder’s house with all the material out front.’

  ‘Yeah, well, look at it now. It’s amazing.’

  ‘That house has been built by many hands, bella.’

  Rosie doesn’t want to bring Martha into this discussion.

  ‘For my mum and me and Nonna Eugenia.’

  Teresa doesn’t respond.

  ‘It’s what he used to say all the time, isn’t it?’ Rosie demands, because she wants the vindication from someone who heard those words.

  Teresa stares at a photo of the house, its front lawn packed with rubbish and building material. A skip forever out front.

  ‘È una casa per la mia famiglia,’ Seb would say. ‘A house for my family.’

  She takes Toto to swimming lessons with Tess and Yolanda, who suggest the three of them join a basketball team.

  ‘The comp doesn’t start for a couple of months, so we’ve got time to get fit.’

  ‘I haven’t played for years,’ Tess says. ‘If it’s during the day and they have a creche, I’m in.’

  Rosie likes the idea of being in a team with them. Although she knows they’re not going to bail on her, deep down she’d like to hang out with them more.

  ‘I know someone who can get us fit,’ she tells them, although she doesn’t mention Ewan Healy’s name because they might not rate a guy who got sacked from being a coach. ‘If you guys are free Wednesday nights he trains a netball team down at Nield Park.’

  Out of all the visitors at the nursing home, she sees the Healys most. Rosie shouldn’t have favourites, but John Healy goes from long periods of silence to bursts of conversation and reminds her of Jimmy.

  ‘It was a knock on for sure,’ he tells her while she’s serving him lunch. ‘And that idiot ref Frank Crombie needs a bloody pair of glasses because anyone can see.’

  Rosie thinks it’s a sad sort of peculiar that someone can’t remember the people he loves, but can recall every single detail of a game that took place almost forty years ago. When she returns with afternoon tea, Julia Healy is there with her daughter Marley who looked after Toto at the netball that one time. Julia takes a longneck bottle of beer out of her backpack and opens it, pouring a glass for her dad.

  ‘That’s not his tee-shirt,’ she says to Rosie. ‘Can you tell the nurses to stop dressing him in other people’s clothes?’

  ‘You should tell them.’

  On the mantelpiece there’s an old black-and-white wedding photo and Rosie suspects it’s John and his wife because he looks exactly like Ewan.

  ‘Where’s your mum?’ Rosie asks Julia, who is now sorting her father’s clothes and chucking on the ground anything that doesn’t belong to him.

  ‘She died when Ewan and I were babies.’

  ‘Are you twins?’

  ‘No, but we were born in the same year.’

  Marley is sitting outside on the verandah playing chess with John. Julia catches Rosie looking at them.

  ‘He was Pop John from the moment our kids came to live with us,’ she says. ‘It’s as if their hearts had met and the moment they came face to face, Marley and Samuel belonged to him.’

  Julia Healy is about to cry, which is strange because she seems the type who makes other people cry. Rosie looks at Marley and John Healy instead, sad that Toto won’t ever have that relationship with her father, or Jimmy’s crap parents.

  ‘How did he look after you?’ Rosie asks. ‘Two babies in the old days?’

  ‘I don’t appreciate the “old days” comment,’ Julia says, and she’s not joking either. ‘They wanted to put us into St Joseph’s Home at Croydon, but the Charbels moved in next door. Leila, Alana’s mum, took over. We were sort of raised with all of them.’

  ‘Were you always in love with Alana?’

  Julia eyes her. ‘You’re chatty today.’

  ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Alana was Ewan’s best friend. They were inseparable because they loved sport. I was the third wheel when we were at school.’

  One of the registered nurses pokes her head in, and then keeps on walking because Julia is the Healy most of the staff try to avoid. Julia goes after her anyway. A moment later, Marley comes back inside wanting to know where her mum is.

  ‘Hassling the nurses,’ Rosie says, grabbing the fresh sheets from a cupboard. ‘Come and help me.’

  ‘Who’s looking after your baby?’ Marley asks, starting on the pillowcases.

  ‘The lady across the road from where I live.’

  ‘Just say she hurts him.’

  ‘She won’t hurt him.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Marley demands to know.

  ‘Because I trust her.’

  Ewan arrives just as his sister and niece are leaving. He flicks Marley on the brow with a finger, and she laughs, doing it back to him. Julia orders her brother to tell the registered nurses that she wants John’s medication reduced. ‘They’re turning him into a zombie, Ewan.’

  ‘Give this place a chance, Jules.’

  When the others are gone Rosie asks him about training.

  ‘How many?’ he asks.

  ‘Three of us.’

  ‘Because I’m not interested in adding another couple of chatty Cathys to the mix.’

  ‘What’s
a chatty Cathy?’

  ‘I’m just saying.’

  He tests the heat of the mug and puts it into his dad’s hands.

  ‘And you’ll have to find someone to look after Toto because I don’t want kids and babies at training.’

  ‘It’s not Toetoe,’ she says, mimicking the way he says it.

  ‘Don’t tell someone named Ewan how to pronounce names,’ he says. ‘I’ve spent a lifetime correcting people.’

  Rosie understands Ewan’s irritation, because at training on Wednesday night Martha and the women are annoying and talk too much. Later, they go down to the pub and Rosie sits with Yolanda and Tess at the end of the table. Louise sits with them. She’s Elizabeth’s daughter and twice Rosie has seen her turn up and not get involved.

  ‘They’re always this loud,’ Louise tells them.

  ‘I’m embarrassed to be around them,’ Rosie says.

  Tess leans close to her. ‘Does the coach and your stepmother have a thing going on?’

  Rosie glances over to where Ewan is laughing at something Martha’s said.

  ‘He’s apparently slept with most of them,’ Louise tells them. She delivers everything in the same tone. Rosie hasn’t worked her out yet.

  ‘Why don’t you like Martha?’ Yolanda asks. ‘I think she’s cool.’

  ‘She stole my house,’ Rosie tells them. ‘You don’t know how it feels to –’

  Yolanda puts up a hand to stop her. ‘Don’t go there.’

  Rosie counts to ten because she doesn’t want to go around sounding insensitive or racist.

  ‘What else don’t you like about her?’ Tess asks.

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘My stepmother’s a cow,’ Yolanda says. ‘Don’t get me started.’

  ‘So now we’re going to have a competition about whose stepmother is the worst?’ Rosie asks.

  ‘I’d win, Rosie.’

  Louise is looking from one to the other.

  ‘I haven’t worked out whether you’re friends or not,’ Louise says.

  ‘We’re friends with different versions of evil stepmothers,’ Yolanda says.

  Later, when they’re leaving, Rosie tells them she won’t be at Learn to Swim.

  ‘I’m going for a check-up.’ The others are eyeing her. ‘A mammogram.’

  ‘Why?’ Tess asks.

  ‘Just to work out if I have that breast cancer gene that runs in my family.’

  ‘The BRCA gene,’ Louise tells them. ‘Everyone has it, but some have a mutant one.’

  ‘Does that mean you have cancer?’ Yolanda asks.

  Rosie shakes her head, but looks at Louise who seems to have all the answers.

  ‘If it’s the mutant gene she has a higher chance of getting it,’ Louise says, bluntly.

  That stops conversation for a moment.

  ‘I’ll come with you?’ Yolanda says.

  Rosie shakes her head. ‘Martha’s taking me.’

  ‘That’s pretty evil of her.’

  Parramatta Road is a car park the next morning as they drive to the Strathfield Breast Clinic. Four lanes of traffic and they’re stuck in the one that’s about to turn onto the M4, when that’s the last thing they want to do.

  ‘This city is a joke,’ Martha mutters, beeping her horn and trying to get into the left lane for the third time.

  ‘Are you a mutant?’ Rosie asks, doing her bit and sticking her hand out the window to stop the car coming up beside them. Martha squeezes into the lane and gives the obligatory wave of thanks.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she says.

  ‘Does it frighten you?’

  Martha doesn’t answer for a moment.

  ‘I have a mammogram twice a year and a scan once a year. I get very nervous around that time, but I tell myself that, even if they find something, they’ll catch it in time because I’m checked regularly.’

  ‘What do you think you’ll do if they … find something?’

  ‘I know exactly what I’d do,’ Martha says. ‘Without a doubt.’

  ‘Is that why you haven’t committed to Ewan?’

  Martha turns to her, stunned. A car beeps behind them because she’s driving too slow. Martha gives them the finger, without looking away from Rosie. ‘Why would you say that?’

  ‘What’s stopping you from going out properly? It’s not as if you’re both too young to date. Have you told him?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘It’s pretty obvious to me that you don’t want to commit to him because you’re worried –’

  ‘That’s none of your business, Rosie!’

  It ends any conversation until they turn off Parramatta Road.

  ‘There’s a chance you might not have the mutant gene,’ Martha says, as if the subject of Ewan never came up. ‘It skipped Eugenia.’

  ‘My nonna’s got nine lives, regardless of how fucked they all are.’

  Rosie misses Eugenia. She misses the buzz of nights in the kitchen, and belonging to someone. Without Eugenia around, she has to try harder to connect.

  ‘Your father never had a bad word to say about her,’ Martha says. ‘Despite him being furious when you went to Palermo to live with her.’

  Rosie can’t bear to think of that time. Not only because of the betrayal of her father marrying Martha, but because she wants that year back. She wants every one of those days, every hour and minute, so she can build up more memories with her father. Because the photos in the shoebox aren’t enough to tell the story of their lives.

  ‘When I turned up on her doorstep that time, Eugenia slapped me so hard across the face that she split my lip.’

  Rosie doesn’t know why she admits that to Martha, who takes her eyes off the road for a moment.

  ‘She wanted you out of there?’

  Rosie nods. ‘I remember walking past one of the bars in San Filippo Neri and this man made a gesture like he was going to cut my throat. I thought my father had got up to no good when he was younger, but I think it was Eugenia. There were heaps of rumours about her.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Rosie can’t forget the sickness in her stomach when she first heard the worst of the stories. Doesn’t know whether she wants to tell Martha, and then can’t find a reason why not.

  ‘That Eugenia was raped by more than one man and that’s how my mum came about.’

  ‘Christ! Who told you that?’

  ‘Just these dickheads I used to hang out with over there. They heard it from their fathers and uncles. That Eugenia deserved it.’

  She glances over at Martha. ‘I smashed one of them in the face for saying that, you know. He cried worse than Toto ever has.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘When my parents met, Eugenia gave my father a wad of money and told him to take her daughter away. He didn’t know where she got it from, and my mother told him not to ask.’

  ‘You reckon that’s what he used to buy the house?’

  Rosie nods. She doesn’t want to say the obvious. That if it wasn’t for Eugenia, Martha wouldn’t have a home.

  ‘Then if she knows these lowlifes, what’s kept her safe?’ Martha asked.

  Rosie shrugs. ‘She says that when you get old, men stop looking at you, but they also stop wanting to kill you.’

  ‘I have a feeling that men haven’t stopped looking at Eugenia.’

  The mammogram is the weirdest thing Rosie’s ever had done to her boobs. Like some sort of crazy sandwich press, except it’s cold and it pinches. After that, she sees the breast specialist, who asks her to remove her tee-shirt again. Her kindness makes Rosie feel safe. She thinks of Jimmy. Another one of the kind ones. Such an underrated word. Rosie wishes she had gone searching for that quality in people when she was younger.

  ‘Do you know who your mum’s breast doctor was, lovely?’

  Rosie shakes her head. ‘Martha might know,’ she says.

  The doctor asks her a whole heap of questions while she’s feeling Rosie’s boobs and then gets her to sit up.
>
  ‘All good.’

  And then she tells Rosie that nothing’s come up in the mammogram, but it’s best for her to have the test to see if she’s got the BRCA mutant gene.

  ‘My friend says it’s expensive.’ Last night, Louise had said it was.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about paying for it, lovely. It’s offered to people under fifty with a family history.’

  ‘What if it comes back positive?’ Rosie asks.

  ‘Having the mutant gene doesn’t mean you have cancer.’

  ‘But it’ll mean I’ve got a higher chance of getting it.’

  ‘How about you don’t worry about any of that now? First work out if you want to have the test, and we’ll take it from there.’

  After that, Martha drives Rosie down to Westfield and announces that she’s going to buy her a dress.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t get to buy you an eighteenth or twenty-first birthday dress.’

  ‘What’s such a big deal about an eighteenth and a twenty-first?’

  In my day it was a big deal. On your eighteenth, you had your first drink. On your twenty-first, you wrote yourself off. Coming-of-age stuff.’

  ‘I did that when I was fifteen.’

  They end up in David Jones. ‘Go on, choose something fancy,’ Martha says. ‘You can wear it next time you’re go-karting with Jimmy.’

  Sometimes Rosie wants to laugh at what Martha says, but doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction. She doesn’t want to ever let Martha know that there are things around the house that bring Rosie comfort. Like the porcelain figurine in the kitchen of the little boy in the apple tree. Or the cuckoo clock in the front room that always makes Toto chuckle. She finds a couple of things she likes and heads to the dressing rooms.

  ‘Too short?’ she asks. It’s lace with a tight bodice and skinny straps.

  ‘You’re not going to have that body forever, Rosie, so flaunt it as much as you can for as many years as you can.’

  Rosie does the rounds the next day with the teacart and finds Ewan in his father’s room setting up a big flat-screen TV. There are more photos in the room, as though Ewan and Julia are coming to terms with the fact that John’s not going home again. Alana’s mother turns up. She’s been around once or twice and calls Rosie, ‘habibi’.