Meet Lina

by Sally Rippin

  Lina sat through a Year Nine French poetry reading, a Year Eleven piano recital and a wobbly violin piece from a girl in Year Eight. The longer she sat there, the more nervous she felt. By the time it was her turn to take centre stage, all Lina could hear was the blood pounding in her ears. She stood up shakily and walked towards the podium, praying that she wouldn’t trip over on the way.

  At the microphone, Lina squinted out into the audience and took a deep breath. ‘My story is called My Heart, My Home,’ she said, her voice coming out as a squeak. Then she cleared her throat and began to read. As Lina read, her nervousness began to drift away. She had practised reading this story so many times that it spun out of her almost like a piece of music. Every rhythm, pause and emphasis fell into place, until Lina had almost forgotten she was on stage. She could have been at home reading aloud to Enzo in bed.

  As she was describing how their silly old goat had once escaped and gone clattering along the back alleyways of Carlton, the girls in the audience burst out laughing and Lina almost lost her place with shock. They like it! she thought, amazed, and added even more expression to her reading, exaggerating the voices of her grumpy old nonna and annoying older brothers. Soon the audience was in fits of laughter. When Lina reached the part where their old dog Tina had died, she lowered her voice in sadness and looked up to see a hall-full of girls brushing tears from their eyes. It was such an amazing feeling that Lina almost didn’t want her reading to end, but when it did she was met with rapturous applause that filled her with pride.

  ‘Thank you for that, Carmelina Gattuso, your adventure story was most entertaining,’ the Mother Superior said, taking over the microphone to calm down the hall of excitable girls. ‘I hope you will grace us with another one in the near future?’

  Lina nodded and made her way shakily off the stage.

  ‘Well done!’ Mary whispered, squeezing Lina’s hand as she sat back down beside her. Another girl in the row behind tapped Lina on the shoulder and gave her the thumbs up.

  Lina smiled gratefully and turned back to the stage to concentrate on breathing normally again. ‘Was it okay?’ she asked Mary, even though she thought she knew the answer.

  ‘Are you kidding? You were brilliant!’

  Lina’s heart soared.

  When assembly was over, the girls lined up in front of their teachers to be led back to class. As other girls passed Lina, they congratulated her, even girls from older grades. Mary stood proudly in line next to her. To their surprise, Sarah Buttersworth squeezed in behind them instead of loitering at the back like she usually did.

  ‘Nice story,’ she said, smiling stiffly. ‘Though I was surprised to hear you live in Carlton.’

  Lina felt the big bubble of happiness in her chest begin to deflate. Why does Sarah Buttersworth have to spoil everything? she thought.

  Sarah sniffed and turned to Mary. ‘Everyone knows Carlton is a slum. My father says it’s gone downhill since all those migrants arrived. Apparently, they’re all packed in together in tiny, filthy houses. Some of them don’t even have proper bathrooms and the toilets are outside. It all sounds a bit unsanitary if you ask me.’ She wrinkled up her pretty freckled nose.

  Mary looked at Lina in surprise.

  A burst of fury ripped through Lina like a hot wind. My house isn’t filthy! she thought. How dare she? Nonna and Ma keep it so clean. Even if it’s small, there’s nothing unsanitary about how we live.

  ‘You don’t know anything!’ she growled, pushing Sarah out of the line. She knew it wasn’t the best response she could come up with, but her head was fizzing too much to think of something better.

  ‘Girls!’ snapped Miss Spring, spinning round to rest her narrow eyes on them. ‘Is that really the behaviour of young ladies?’

  Lina and Mary quickly stood to attention. Sarah slunk to the back of the line.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Spring. ‘And I think you’ve caused excitement enough for one morning, Miss Gattuso. All right, girls, back to class.’ Miss Spring turned to lead the way.

  There had been rain that morning and as the girls crossed the playground, two rows of shiny black shoes splashed in puddles that captured the silvery sky.

  ‘Is your house really like that, Lina?’ Mary whispered. ‘Like Sarah said?’

  ‘Of course not!’ said Lina, with a flutter of panic. ‘Sarah is just making things up.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Mary said.

  ‘I hate Sarah Buttersworth!’ Lina whispered angrily. ‘And I will never, ever, ever go to her birthday party!’

  Mary nodded sympathetically. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t go either.’

  ‘But you have a new dress and everything,’ Lina said, touched that Mary was being so loyal. ‘And I know how much you love parties.’

  Mary pressed her lips together and shook her head. ‘I’m not going without you, Lina. And that’s final.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Lina said, her hand over her heart. And at that moment, she felt like the luckiest girl alive to have Mary Doveton as her very best friend.

  THE morning passed quickly and at recess, more girls came up to tell Lina how much they had liked her story. Lina walked around the school with her head high. Even horrible Sarah Buttersworth can’t spoil my day today, she thought. For the first time since I started here, I feel like I finally fit in.

  St Brigid’s was an expensive school, much more than Lina’s parents could afford, but Lina’s Year Six teacher had encouraged her to apply for a scholarship. When she won a place at St Brigid’s, nobody could have been more surprised than Lina. Especially when she realised that she would no longer be going to the local high school with all her friends but an all-girls school far from home.

  Sometimes Lina missed her old primary school. There, it really didn’t matter what you wore or who your parents were. Nobody really took much notice – they were too busy playing games that would spill out into the streets long after the final bell for the day. Games like chasey and hopscotch and the soccer matches that lasted until the ball was lost over a fence, or confiscated for breaking a window. St Brigid’s girls were much too ladylike to play soccer. Mostly the girls in Lina’s class sat around discussing fashion or movies or new records their parents had bought them. Now that Lina was friends with Mary, she sat with them, too. She tried to join in, hoping that no one would notice that she had only ever gone to the Italian cinema with her parents, and was probably the only girl in the whole school without her own record player.

  But today things were different. Girls from other grades smiled at her in the courtyard and everyone wanted to sit next to her in class. So this is what it feels like to be popular? Lina thought, and she decided she could definitely get used to it.

  At the end of the day, Lina waited for Mary in front of their home-room lockers like she always did. ‘Lina,’ Mary called out as she approached. ‘Don’t forget you said you’d come to my house after school today!’

  Lina nodded, excitedly. Now that she’d decided to go, she had found herself looking forward to it.

  ‘We should call your mum from the front office,’ Mary suggested. ‘To let her know you’ll be late home.’

  At the office, Miss Spencer peered at them coolly. ‘You have a telephone at home, Miss Gattuso?’

  ‘Of course,’ Lina said, her face heating in shame. She wondered what her parents would do with a phone even if they had one. None of their friends had telephones. If you wanted to talk to someone you just went over to their place. If they were home, great; if they weren’t you just tried another time.

  Miss Spencer raised her eyebrows, then walked out of the room to give Lina some privacy. Not even knowing how many digits she should dial to look convincing, Lina turned her back to Mary and hunched self-consciously over the squat black telephone.

  ‘Hello?’ she said loudly into the receiver, in English. She considered switching to Italian – that was how she always spoke to her mother – but seeing as Mary was really the only other person listening, sh
e decided against it. ‘Mum? I’m going to Mary’s house, okay?’ she continued. ‘I’ll be back for dinner. Yes. No. Yes. Okay. See you then.’ And as an afterthought, and for Mary’s benefit, she added, ‘Yes, I love you, too.’ She hung up and turned around to face Mary, her cheeks now on fire. ‘It’s fine,’ she said as confidently as she could manage, and walked quickly out of the front office before Miss Spencer could ask any more questions.

  The girls walked along the footpath in the lacy shadows of the winter-bare plane trees and chatted about their day: which teachers were mean and which were nice and who had nearly been sent to the Mother Superior’s office for whistling in the corridors. Soon they turned into Mary’s street. Lina couldn’t help noticing how different it was to the narrow laneway she lived in.

  Banksia Grove was a quiet dead-end street of mainly new houses, each built in pale brick and set in the middle of a wide, rolling lawn. There was a group of boys playing cricket at the end of the street with a real cricket bat, not an old plank of wood like Lina’s brothers used, and a young girl wheeling about on a shiny yellow bicycle. Mary turned into a driveway and Lina trailed behind, feeling a jumble of nerves and excitement. I never knew she’d live in such a big house, she thought. I wonder what it’s like inside?

  The front door of the house was opened by a tall woman in a pink floral dress. Her blonde hair was cut into a fashionable bob and she was wearing a necklace of pearls roped twice around her neck. Lina had never seen anyone more beautiful or more stylish.

  ‘Mum, this is Lina, my friend from school,’ Mary said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Doveton, looking surprised. ‘Is Sarah coming over, too?’

  ‘Mum!’ Mary said, rolling her eyes. ‘You know I’m not friends with Sarah anymore.’

  ‘Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lina,’ said Mrs Doveton, smiling graciously. ‘What lovely olive skin you have. Where are you from?’

  ‘Um, Carlton,’ Lina said, shyly.

  ‘No, darling, I mean before that,’ Mrs Doveton said.

  ‘Oh, um, my parents are from Italy,’ Lina offered, feeling confused.

  ‘I thought so!’ Mrs Doveton said, clasping her hands together. ‘I love Italy! Rome is so romantic!’

  ‘Come on, Lina!’ said Mary, rolling her eyes again. ‘I’ll show you to my room.’

  Lina smiled shyly at Mrs Doveton and followed Mary into an enormous sunlit lounge room. She gazed at the long, low couches in olive green and orange and the shaggy cream rug on the floor. Everything in the room matched, even the curtains and the wallpaper. It’s like something out of a magazine, Lina thought admiringly.

  Mary led Lina down a long, wide corridor. On either side of them hung large glossy photographs. Some of them were of Mary as a girl, but most of them were of Mrs Doveton indifferent outfits and different poses, each one lovelier than before.

  ‘Mum used to be a model,’ Mary explained when she saw Lina staring at the photographs. ‘She doesn’t model anymore, of course, but she still likes collecting fashion magazines. I’ve got heaps in my room we can look at later.’

  Mary opened the door to her bedroom and Lina’s heart was crushed with envy. It was so big and so pretty and Mary had it all to herself. In the middle of the room was an enormous white bed shaped like a swan and covered in a mountain of soft toys. Mary kicked off her shoes and padded over the soft white carpet towards a wardrobe that ran all the way along the far wall. ‘Let’s try on some clothes,’ she said. ‘I’ve got heaps of new stuff Dad bought me.’

  Lina perched on the edge of the big bed and watched her friend pull clothes out of the wardrobe, then toss them casually on the floor: flowery summer dresses, beaded cardigans and bright Capri pants in all different colours.

  ‘Here, try this on!’ Mary said, thrusting a shimmery green-and-blue dress towards Lina. ‘I’ll bet it looks super on you.’

  Lina ran her fingers over the satiny fabric, her breath catching in her throat. ‘Oh, I don’t think so . . .’ she said.

  ‘Try it!’ Mary insisted. ‘I’ll find the shoes that go with it.’ She passed it to Lina, who held it uncertainly while Mary wriggled out of her school tunic and unbuttoned her shirt. Her uniform fell to the carpet and she stepped over the pile of clothes in her singlet and underpants to pull out another dress from her wardrobe. This one was made of yellow chiffon and covered in embroidered flowers. She put it on and spun around in front of the mirror. The skirt billowed around her knees. ‘I wore this one to my party last year,’ she said. Then she screwed up her face at her reflection. ‘I don’t think I like it anymore. Put yours on, Lina.’

  Lina took off her uniform and folded it neatly on the end of Mary’s bed. She slipped the beautiful green dress over her head and it spilled over her narrow body like water. Compared to this, the stiff cotton dresses her nonna made for her felt like cardboard. This was a dress for a princess!

  Mary giggled. ‘It’s a bit big for you. You’re so skinny! I didn’t realise how skinny you were. I guess it’s because your school tunic is so big.’

  Lina reddened. ‘That’s because my nonna wants it to last until I’m in Year Twelve,’ she joked, even though it was partly true. She spun around in front of Mary’s dressing-table mirror and struck a pose that made Mary laugh.

  ‘The colour’s nice on you, though,’ Mary said. ‘You should get a dress in that colour.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Lina shrugged, knowing that she would never have a new dress as beautiful as this one. Even Ma doesn’t have a dress like this, Lina thought, sadly. She pulled off the green dress and slipped back into her uniform, which now felt clumsy and large. Then she hung the dress in the wardrobe and sat back on the bed to watch the rest of Mary’s fashion parade.

  Mary tried on outfit after outfit and spun around in front of Lina. She’s pretty enough to be a model, Lina thought, and all the clothes look lovely on her.

  But when you only have two decent dresses other than your school uniform and everything else you wear is a hand-me-down from your mother, your grandmother, or, worse still, your brothers, it’s hard not to feel a teensy bit jealous. Soon that little worm of envy started to eat Lina up inside until she became so fidgety she felt she might explode. ‘Let’s do something else,’ she said, standing up suddenly.

  ‘Do what?’ said Mary, frowning at having her fashion show interrupted.

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s play a game.’

  Mary rolled her eyes. ‘Aren’t we getting a little bit old for that now?’

  ‘Well, let’s make something then.’ Lina tried desperately to think of an idea that might keep Mary’s interest. In the corner of the room she saw the pile of fashion magazines that belonged to Mrs Doveton. ‘I know!’ she said. ‘Why don’t we make our own magazine?’

  ‘Really?’ Mary asked sceptically. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ Lina persisted. ‘I’ll write the stories and you can be the designer.’

  Mary looked unsure. ‘I’m not very good at drawing, if that’s what you mean?’

  ‘No, just find some pictures to put next to the articles, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Maybe I can ask Mum if we can cut up some of her fashion magazines,’ Mary said, suddenly interested. ‘We could even put advertisements in. Like in a real magazine.’

  ‘Great!’ said Lina. ‘That’s a great idea.’

  ‘And Dad has a typewriter!’ Mary added excitedly. ‘We could even type the stories so they look . . .’ she paused, searching for the word.

  ‘Professional,’ Lina finished for her.

  ‘Yes! A real, professional magazine,’ Mary said, twirling on the spot. ‘Let’s go and ask Mum for some scissors and glue.’

  MRS Doveton set Mary and Lina up at the dining table with Mr Doveton’s typewriter and a plate of freshly baked cupcakes. She seemed as excited about the magazine as the girls were and kept popping her head into the room to offer suggestions. ‘Don’t forget to have an article on hats!’ she said. ‘Pillbox hats are big in America this year. Like Jackie
Kennedy wears. And seamless stockings! They’re all the rage.’

  Lina, however, was more interested in filling their magazine with news stories. ‘I want to write articles like Stella Davis has in the Age,’ she explained to Mary. ‘You know her column? The Stories Behind the Stories, it’s called. Did you read her article about Dawn Fraser last week?’

  Mary shrugged and continued cutting out a picture of a woman in a pillbox hat.

  ‘It was brilliant,’ Lina sighed. ‘She wrote all about Dawn growing up in Sydney. And when she was only fourteen, a coach saw her swimming and knew right away that she would be a star. That’s only two years older than us. Can you imagine? Stella Davis thinks Dawn might even win a gold medal for Australia in the Olympics this year.’

  ‘Great,’ said Mary, though she didn’t sound as interested as Lina thought she should be.

  Mary and I are so different. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how we could be best friends, Lina thought, looking around the beautiful dining room. But then Lina remembered how Mary was giving up Sarah’s party for her. She is a good friend, Lina thought, pushing her doubt aside.

  Mary sat cross-legged on the plush carpet, surrounded by all her mother’s old fashion magazines, cutting out advertisements like Coca-Cola for relaxation and Brylcreem for looking well-groomed. There was even an advertisement for special bust-enhancing bras that made you look like you had two ice-cream cones on your chest! Soon they had enough pictures to cover four big sheets of paper.

  ‘Hey, that’s looking great, girls.’ A tall man in a smart suit and felt hat poked his head through the doorway.

  ‘Dad!’ scolded Mary, covering the magazine with her arms. ‘It’s not ready yet!’