But Daisy Cavallo was home and she answered the door with a glass in one hand and a long dark lock of hair across her eye, which she tossed back in a way that made Martha think of a horse rearing. Yet Daisy looked at Martha invitingly, as if she was curious enough to indulge the ridiculous reason for the visit that Martha secretly and almost shamefully held closed.
‘Aren’t you Tilly’s mother?’ she said, her eyes girlishly peeping over the top of her glass.
Martha bit back her irritation. She had probably seduced Mike with this comely behaviour. ‘Yes. I’m Martha.’
Daisy smiled. Martha smiled. The morning’s quiet wedged itself between them. Martha sniffed just to move the quiet away.
‘Well, I just came about Tilly. She says you’re giving her piano lessons. I’m just not sure that’s the right path for her.’ She felt hot, uncomfortable. She rearranged her bag over her shoulder. The skin under the strap sweated.
Daisy widened her eyes in astonishment. ‘Why not? There’s nothing wrong with the piano. Are you worried it will lead her astray?’ She tossed her head again and let out a little laugh. ‘I mean are you worried I will lead her astray. Is that the problem?’
Martha looked down. That wasn’t what she had meant to imply. She wasn’t a small-town snide. She wanted to be taken for a sophisticated, intelligent person who was above the petty-minded gossip that occupied smaller minds. What was becoming clear to her in the moment was that she even wanted to feel a kinship with Daisy, she wanted Daisy to recognise in her something different and special. And now Daisy pitied her for her small-mindedness, for her inability to appreciate music, for her stiff disregard of the artistic personality, when all this was exactly what Martha did hold in high regard.
She shook her head stiffly. ‘No, of course not. It’s nothing like that. Look, it’s more…It’s just that I’m not sure Tilly can afford it. She only works two shifts at the supermarket. And if she hasn’t any talent for it, then I don’t want her wasting her money.’
Martha withered. It had come out with the false note. It sounded awkward; it sounded exactly as it was—an excuse. She was awful. She did want the best for Tilly. It was true she didn’t want Tilly wasting her money. But actually, it was because of Arnold. When Tilly played, it made Martha think of Arnold. She was getting Arnold all mixed up with Tilly. All this nonsense about the piano was very wrong and of course Tilly should learn. She waved away a fly, while Daisy stood still, as if staring at the lie.
Martha suspected Daisy of something but also admired her for perhaps the very same thing, and this curdled into a strange sort of attraction, which she fought off with one hand and reached towards with the other.
‘Would you like to come in?’ Daisy said, finally.
Martha nodded with a thudding certainty. Suddenly she wanted to explain everything to Daisy Cavallo.
22
Ben went with Raff Cavallo and Will Rand to Turpins Falls in Raff’s mother’s car. After years on the same football team, they had found a way of extending the competition beyond the field and into games of their own invention. There were no rules. They made opponents out of whatever they could find: the landscape, its rivers, boulders, paths and caves. They played against death, to prove their invincibility. They rode motorbikes at full speed through the bush. They climbed onto the roof of the visitors’ centre at night, jumping from it to the pharmacy roof and scrambling down the back. They waited with their skateboards at traffic lights and grabbed hold of the backs of utes. They walked down the centre of the train track and leapt off when a train came, at the last second. Now that Raff could drive they could look further afield. Others apparently had done the jump from Turpins Falls before—a girl, even. Though she had landed badly and broken a rib. In Ben’s mind, it was a shame a girl had done it. It lessened the deed somehow. He was dubious because of it. But he swallowed all doubt once he saw the drop.
They all stood on the track leaning over the wire fence; the white water fell long and far over a sheer, jagged rockface. It made his body tighten with a familiar mix of fear and excitement. The girl couldn’t take it away now. He gazed down at the large dark pool of water below them. The three of them climbed over the fence without a word. They clambered, single file, towards the top of the ridge, each with a stubbie of beer in one hand. The sky was cloudless, the black pool of water as round as a gaping mouth. They stood gathering their nerves. The hairs on Ben’s arms stood up. His skin tightened around him. He grinned. Here he was, alive. The sound of the water ran through him like a cheer. He wiped the beer from his mouth. He squatted down, placing the beer on the rock ledge. His thighs tensed. He sprang out, opening his arms, his body, senseless as a stone someone else had hurled…
His forearms struck the water’s surface as if hitting hard ground. The sting of it resounded through his body as he plunged down. He fought against it; spread his aching arms. It was like falling to the earth’s core, to hell or to death. He cheered inwardly. The falling slowed. He beat his arms and legs upwards.
When he finally surfaced, he gasped, breathing in life again. He swam straight to the side, where Raff sat waiting.
‘Good?’
‘Yeah.’ Ben shook himself, paused to collect his breath and examined the underneath of his arms. ‘Killed my arms, though.’ It was the plunging down in that cold black water that had been frightening, not the jump. He stared up at Will, who was the last to jump. He was such a small figure up there on the cliff.
‘A man died once. Had a heart attack when he hit the cold water. He couldn’t swim back up. Christ it was cold.’ Raff lay back on the warm rock, goosebumps on his thighs.
Ben nodded. ‘Fucking deep too. Thought I was never coming up.’ He kept his eyes on Will. They’d left their towels up there, they hadn’t thought about the cold afterwards, only the jump.
‘Let’s go to the Res,’ Ben said. It wasn’t that the jump hadn’t been thrilling. But it couldn’t be conquered twice. He wanted to go to the Res, where there would be girls swimming. He was in the mood for it. He swung his arms. The veins throbbed. He thought happily of girls and their bodies.
Will Rand jumped, his body wriggling, trying to hold itself straight in the air. Ben cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, ‘Hold your arms in.’ Will’s flailing body looked so flimsy. When he hit the water and went down beneath the surface, it was like watching life being taken. Ben waited, watching.
When Will burst through, with one eye shut, it was not as if he had triumphed, but as if the earth had relinquished him, given them all a second chance.
Compared to Turpins Falls the Res was sleeping. It was a large flat body of water, flanked with reeds, with bush at one end and a group of pine trees leaning towards the water. The water was dark—a kid had drowned in it, snakes crossed it, kangaroos swam in it and Ben had once seen a drunk man drive his car into it. Where it met the road, there was one large straggly blue gum, which looked over a sloping clay gap in the reeds. People sat there: towels spread on the clay, little kids wading in the shallows, older kids paddling out on li-los. People perched on the large rocks, drank beers, flung sticks for the dogs, stuck their kids in floaties and prodded them forward. An old lady in a bathing cap dog paddled at the edge.
They stood watching this scene for a moment and then Raff nodded towards the pines, a long way round. That was where they would find girls. Ben swung his towel over his shoulder and pulled a cap on. They followed the walking track that circled the reservoir.
Ben had seen a brown snake here last summer. He could tell them, but they wouldn’t care. It had slithered across the path and Ben had stopped to watch it. Its power was elegant, efficient and final. Ben wanted to face that power and know it. A moment to seize and shake till it fizzed.
‘Tilly’s there,’ said Will, pointing. ‘With Alice. See?’
‘Shit,’ Ben’s triumph sagged. He didn’t want Tilly there. She must have finished her shift early. Wherever Tilly was, he instantly became the younger brother. He didn’t wa
nt to be young, and he particularly didn’t like to be seen as younger. He didn’t want to be linked to Tilly, or anyone. He intended to arrive undefined, unknown, ahead of the game.
How did Tilly get there? She wouldn’t have ridden her bike all the way in this heat. Alice’s boyfriend must have driven them. Ever since Simon Marsh had come on the scene, Alice and Tilly seemed to be sported around everywhere in his show-off car. Ben hardly knew Simon, but he didn’t like him. Simon crowed and strutted. There he was, holding the rope swing with the knot between his legs, trying to draw an audience before he jumped out. Tilly and Alice sat together beneath the pines, in their bathers, bare legs stretched out in the sun. At least there were others there and Ben could probably avoid having much to do with Tilly’s group, though he did like Alice’s smooth brown body.
But Raff treacherously left Ben and Will, without a word, and walked directly over to Tilly and Alice. He stood in front of them, his towel hanging over his shoulder. A conversation began instantly, though Ben couldn’t hear what they were saying. He considered joining them for a moment, to lure Raff back, but he decided it was better to stay away from Tilly. He would let Raff hang out with them, he probably wanted to perve at Alice and would tire of it soon and, in the meantime, Ben would have made his own conquests.
He had spied Candy Newton already, and also Kitty Hatton who reclined in her usual splendour amidst a group of others. Kitty Hatton was icy and distant. She was indisputably the best catch in town, and she was said to look like Delvene Delaney. He decided the likelihood of getting anywhere with Kitty Hatton was so slim that he was better off taking his chances with Candy Newton who wasn’t as good looking but would be much more likely to put out. He had already kissed Candy, so he had to be careful now not to give her the wrong idea. He looked at Will, who stood beside him, arms folded, eyes fixed on Raff, or probably on Alice. Will would have to come along with him; he wouldn’t be able to make his own way. Ben nodded at him. ‘Let’s go sit with Candy. Come on.’
‘We should have brought more beers,’ complained Will. He glanced up at where Candy sat higher on the bank. She was there with her older sister and she looked embarrassed about it too. ‘I’m going on the rope swing,’ he said.
In the end, Ben was left alone with Candy. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted but he settled for it. She was nervous and pulled her T-shirt down over her thighs. She had a pimple on her chin. Her hair was wet. He would have kissed her, despite all this, if her older sister hadn’t been close by. Instead, he would have to make conversation. This bored him immediately. He watched her thighs, the beads of water sitting on them. She had a nice body—rounded thighs, a soft small pouch of a stomach, breasts bigger than his hand could hold. He remembered touching them. She thought she was fat, just because she wasn’t skinny, just because she didn’t look like Kitty Hatton. Probably she would end up fat like her mother and sister, but now she was all right.
‘We just came from Turpins Falls,’ Ben said.
‘Did you swim there?’ Candy crouched over her bent legs and squinted at him.
‘No, we jumped. The water was freezing.’
‘A man died there doing that.’ Candy wriggled and smoothed her wet hair with her hand. She leaned back a bit and let her legs slide long. Ben liked her legs. She wasn’t bad to look at, even with a pimple.
‘Well, you have to pit yourself against it.’ He lifted his chest and made a sardonic grin, waiting to see if this would rattle her. He meant to enjoy himself somehow.
‘Against what?’ She pouted a little.
‘Against death.’
‘You’re crazy.’ She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t impressed.
‘But when you win, then life feels great again.’
Candy didn’t reply.
‘You want to swim across with me?’ He wanted her to take her T-shirt off. She stared ahead at the water and straightened her back. A little frown on her face as she considered. She stood up and turned to him.
‘Just so you know, I already know I’m alive, so we can keep the cheap thrills out of the water.’
Ben laughed. He hadn’t expected that. Maybe she wasn’t uninteresting after all. Her legs looked even better now she was standing.
‘I promise,’ he said.
‘Is that your sister?’ Candy was looking out across the water.
Ben looked. Tilly was in the water, over the other side, sitting astride a li-lo as if it were a horse. And Raff lay draped across the other end, his face twisted to look at her. He kicked at the water to move the li-lo on, away from the reeds. But this was done almost haphazardly, so unconsciously that Ben could tell that neither of them was even aware of the course the li-lo took as it floated at the edge of the reeds, and that they were both caught in the kind of spell that happens when two people are completely attuned, one to the other. Ben didn’t even notice Candy take her T-shirt off. Something was happening between his sister and his mate.
‘Are they going out?’ said Candy. She stood before him now in her polka-dot bikini.
Ben looked at her and then he looked back at Tilly and Raff. Were they going out? He pushed the thought out of his mind. It made him uncomfortable. He stood up. Why would Raff be interested in Tilly all of a sudden? Ben couldn’t keep admiring Raff in the same way if he went out with Tilly. What about Raff’s older girlfriend? That was more respectable, more enviable. Raff was probably just flirting with Tilly. Ben should warn her to take care. No, he should just stay clear of the whole thing. He could watch it unfold and investigate it further later. Here was Candy Newton, without her T-shirt, relaxing now, one hip thrust to the side, a tiny mole in the alluring hollow of her hipbone.
Ben shrugged. ‘Not that I know of.’ He smiled at Candy. ‘Let’s go in, then.’
23
Toby Layton was at the theatre too. He was there with his mum, Mrs Layton, and Ada had to be polite and sit next to him.
‘Did you watch a movie at our house?’ Toby said. Toby still knew nothing; he didn’t carry a terrible secret like Ada did. Everything she could say would seem hard as a shield thrown up against the real truth. She wouldn’t bother telling Toby about Gregory Peck and the happy sads. Tilly said that some sadness gets buried so far away inside that it only gets unburied by something as accidental as happiness. What did she and Toby usually talk about? She couldn’t remember.
‘Our chickens got killed by the fox,’ she said. Ada kept going, swept up in her own satisfaction at having found the right thing to talk about. ‘And Mum had to ask your dad to come and bury them for us because our dad works too far away.’
She shouldn’t have mentioned Toby’s father. Ada quickly jammed a fingernail in her mouth and gnawed at it. Toby’s father would probably cry if he knew what Toby’s mother had done with her dad. And he was a tall, kind man. He had buried the chickens and they had talked about Elmer. He had shown her and Toby the blue-tongue lizard. Her heart sank. There was nothing that didn’t lead to it, no way of talking to Toby Layton without the secret bubbling up.
‘Are you getting more chickens?’ Toby’s feet swung back and forth beneath the seat.
Ada nodded. ‘I guess so. But there won’t be another chicken like Bolshie. She used to lay her eggs in our washing basket. She pecked on the window and we had to let her in and then she jumped in and laid an egg. Mum didn’t like it because sometimes we didn’t know it was there and so Mum broke an egg on the floor.’
‘Why did she lay her eggs there?’ Toby asked.
‘I don’t know. She just did. Ben used to say, here comes Basket Case.’
Toby didn’t get the joke. He unwrapped his ice cream. It was choc-coated. Ada was always envious of Toby’s lunchboxes at school and now he got an ice cream too. Toby got chocolate biscuits so often that he was offhand about them. He didn’t even eat them at playtime, whereas Ada would have been counting down the minutes looking forward to it. She eyed his ice cream with a furious longing. Ada’s Mum said Toby got certain things that Ada didn’t because Toby
had been a child they had worked hard to get. And Ada was lucky because she had a sister and a brother. There were times when Ada would have willingly swapped her brother and sister for chocolate biscuits. Older brothers and sisters went before you all the time, in everything and there was never anything Ada could be first at. And Ben had told her the Easter bunny wasn’t true: she had found more Easter eggs than him in the hunt and he told her to get even. But she had worked out for herself about Father Christmas, because her mother used the same wrapping paper with gold candles as Father Christmas had. Ben said not to let on that she knew about that either because then their parents wouldn’t bother giving them Father Christmas presents. So then Ada had to pretend on behalf of them all and that was a terrible responsibility. She only did it for one Christmas before she let them all down. So sometimes she would just rather have chocolate biscuits in her lunch.
‘Did you know the Easter bunny isn’t true? It’s your parents who hide the eggs,’ she whispered.
Toby didn’t get the ice cream to his mouth. He stopped halfway, his mouth open like a trapdoor. For a moment he didn’t say a word and Ada watched his long face, as thoughts dashed in and out of his mind. Toby closed his mouth and dropped his hand to his lap and even let go of the ice cream.
‘How do you know? Are you sure?’ he asked. His voice was small and clip-clopping.
‘Yes. Ben told me. I’ve known for ages and ages,’ Ada boasted.
Toby’s face screwed up for a minute, as if he was trying to see the Easter bunny in the theatre. Ada instantly regretted having said it. But she couldn’t unsay it. She sucked in her breath. It hadn’t been fair that Ada had to know everything, and Toby knew nothing, but now that Ada had told him, she felt even worse. It wasn’t the right thing to have done. Ada knew it and now she would be in trouble. Toby was squirming, and the movie was about to begin. Ada didn’t know what to say. She leaned closer, panicking.
The Last Summer of Ada Bloom Page 13