by Davina Bell
‘You told me not to! You said you needed time for the actors to build trust in your directorial authority!’
‘And I thank you for giving me that space to grow into the role,’ Belle says. Then she and Matilda bend their matching blonde heads over Matilda’s iPad, turning their backs to us.
As I sip my chai latte, silently fuming, Soph leans over and whispers, ‘You never finished explaining that bad thing you did. At the auditions, remember? I just thought I’d ask in case you needed to tell someone.’
I groan. ‘That’s really nice of you,’ I say. ‘But … I’m just pretending that whole thing never happened right now.’
‘OK, well, I’m here if you need me,’ she says.
‘Right back at you,’ I tell her. ‘Hey, do you have any plans for Wednesday?’ Her birthday’s coming around super fast and we still haven’t planned anything!
She shakes her head. ‘My dad’s still away for work. And I kind of want to pretend it isn’t happening.’
‘Well, can I hang out and pretend with you?’ I ask.
‘Can we just not mention birthdays?’
‘Never again,’ I promise.
‘But can I tell you something else?’ she asks.
‘Sure.’ I lean in close.
‘I miss Maisie,’ she whispers.
I nod. ‘I miss Belle,’ I whisper back. ‘Even though she’s right here.’
‘Nothing’s the same,’ she whispers. ‘Is it?’
‘Nope,’ I say quietly.
We smile at each other, kind of sad smiles.
‘Want to go dress Lemon Tart up like a yodelling milkmaid and take pictures of her in the clubhouse garden?’ I ask. People on Instagram will go nuts seeing Sophia’s giant rabbit in a frilly apron.
‘I’ve got to finish the dances,’ says Soph. ‘And don’t you need more time for the sets?’
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I need some inspiration. Lemon Tart can be our muse.’
It’s six o’clock on Sunday morning and I’m awake because I just got a text from Tally. She sent me a picture of a painting Belle’s mum did of a pink horse in a jacuzzi. And do you know where she saw it? MoMA – the Museum of Modern Art! That is, like, a SERIOUSLY big deal. I’m so excited that I can’t get back to sleep, so I FaceTime Tally.
‘Yo, Squirt,’ she says.
‘Where are you?’ I ask. Wherever she is, it’s dark, but there are glowing lights scattered around, and there’s kind of a hum of people in the background. Is this what a nightclub looks like?
‘It’s the lobby of my hotel,’ says Tally, swinging her phone around to show me. ‘Those lights are all people’s laptops. They’re all still working here. City that never sleeps and all that. I’m finishing something for tomorrow.’ She looks serious.
‘Is this a bad time?’ I ask, even though I really want to tell her about the Cloud Town spies, and Mayor Magnus and Belle and the play. I want to ask her for advice about Matilda, how I want to like her – I do like her! – but I’m jealous of her too, all at the same time.
In the background, someone yells ‘YIP!’ and then the whole lobby yells, ‘YIPPEE!’
‘What was that?’ I ask.
‘Some really lame thing we’re supposed to do,’ Tally whispers. ‘YIP stands for Young Influencers for Peace. Get it? So we’re supposed to yell about it all the time. It’s intense.’
‘Good intense or bad intense?’ I ask.
‘Huh,’ she says, distracted. ‘You been visiting Nana Marjorie?’
‘Yup,’ I tell her. ‘All the time.’ Which might be, well, a slight exaggeration. Note to self: visit Nana Marjorie today.
‘Is that my velvet spaghetti-strap dress hanging in your wardrobe?’ Tally asks suddenly, leaning forward to get a closer look. ‘ARE YOU –’
‘Gotta go! Bad connection!’ I say, frantically pressing the ‘end call’ button.
I pull up the camera roll on my phone and scroll through old photos of my friends – at camp last year, all squashed into a giant tyre with mud on our faces, pushing up each other’s noses so we look like pigs. At Belle’s Compact Disc-o fundraising dance, where the whole town gathered to responsibly dispose of old CDs. At my birthday last year, which was a rollerskating party in Willowbank where my dad fell over and sprained both his wrists. He couldn’t drive us home in his mini-van so we got a lift in the back of Coach Jack’s old ute. We were supposed to be holding on tight, but I let go for a second to snap a sneaky picture of the others with the wind in their hair and their eyes closed, laughing into the sun. It sounds like a cliché, but you never realise how good something is until it’s gone. That’s how I feel about primary school, anyway.
So now it’s six-thirty, and the only thing that’s open at this time, aside from Buck’s general store, is the farmers’ market. Even though it’s freezing outside and I’d love to snuggle back under the covers, I force myself to get out of bed to pull on my black jeans with the white ghosts, my black lace-up boots, and the orange-and-white-diamond bomber jacket that Rishi and Tally gave me for Christmas. I clip back my fringe. I can hear Dad’s Raptor soundtrack going in the basement as I quietly open the front door. His exam must be coming up pretty soon.
Handkerchief Place is buzzing. The Christmas lights are still up, and there are people at all the stalls, stamping the cold out of their feet.
I head to Nuts About You and buy two almond croissants. I was going to get thirteen, but do you know how much an almond croissant actually is?! How have I lived so long without realising the true cost of pastries? That’s what I’m pondering when I almost bump straight into Matilda.
‘Hey!’ she says in surprise. ‘You’re up early.’
‘Aren’t you freezing?’ I ask, because she’s only wearing leggings and a singlet.
‘I came here on a run,’ she explains. ‘But I thought I’d get some things for breakfast. Belle needs some cheering up. What’s good?’
‘Well, Nuts About You has the best almond croissants in the world.’
‘YUM,’ Matilda says, wiping her sweaty red face on her singlet.
Something about the way she does it makes me like her even more. This sounds weird, but Matilda feels real – like she’s just herself. She doesn’t care that when she lifts up her singlet, you can see a little of her tummy rolls, and that the sweat makes dark patches on the grey cotton.
‘What are you up to this morning?’ she asks.
‘I’m taking these to my nana,’ I tell her, gesturing to the croissants.
Matilda grins. ‘Well, don’t tell Belle, but I was thinking of going over to Cloud Town to spy on their rehearsal.’
‘OMG – great idea! But how will you know when their rehearsals are on? Hang on – how do they know when our rehearsals are on? And is it always Pepper who shows up?’
‘Mostly,’ says Matilda. ‘And sometimes her friend with the curls and the one with those gold leggings?’
‘Lucy Coop is the curls,’ I say. ‘The worst. And Heather is the leggings. What does Belle do?’
‘At first she ignored them. But yesterday she tried to sweep them out of the tree with a broom. Then she called the council about getting the tree cut down.’
‘Eek,’ I say sympathetically.
‘I think she’s, um, feeling the strain. I guess I probably shouldn’t go over to Cloud Town. She might want to join me with her broom. I need to sit at Sookie La La and learn lines, anyway,’ she says.
‘Are you actually going to understudy every single part?’ I ask.
Matilda shrugs. ‘What Belle wants,’ she says, ‘she usually gets. And yet she’s not a brat,’ she adds. ‘I think she has you guys to thank for that. You’re a good crew.’
‘We think so,’ I say. And then I don’t know why, but I tell her, ‘You know what? Don’t tell the others this, but I had the chance to go to New York with my sister these holidays. She had a free ticket because she’s doing this Young Influencers thing. But I stayed because I wanted us to all be together.’
; ‘Whoa!’ says Matilda. ‘New York. But I totally get that. Your group ... you’re worth staying home for.’
We smile at each other, and I find myself wanting to tell Matilda everything – about Clives and my big mistake and how I have no idea about what to paint for the sets.
But I don’t, because she says, ‘I should let you go. It’s freezing. See you at the dance rehearsal?’
‘Yup. Mr Green from Sookie La La makes an amazing peach pie,’ I say. ‘It was Gracie’s favourite. Have a piece for me.’ I turn to go, and then I turn back. ‘Oh – and Matilda? Thanks for taking care of Belle these holidays.’
‘No big deal,’ says Matilda. ‘You’d have done the same if I wasn’t here.’
I know she means this in a nice way and a supportive way, but her words are like a knife in my heart. She’s right. If she wasn’t here, I’d be sleeping over at Belle’s, taking her phone away in the middle of the night and distracting her from memorising the digits of pi. She’d know I hadn’t been spending time painting. She’d be on my case. I wouldn’t be in this mess.
I have to stop myself from eating the almond croissants about seven times on the walk home. They smell like heaven. You know what smells like the opposite of heaven? Powell HQ. The moment I walk in to our house, I gag. It smells terrible. And it’s not one of Pop’s rank farts.
In the kitchen, Mum’s cutting up octopus legs, which means she’s making octopus vindaye. That’s a dish from Mauritius, which is where my parents were born, and it’s Nana Marjorie’s favourite. Between you and me, it tastes like the fake spew Rishi got in a showbag once. I know because I’ve tried both.
‘Did you actually eat this stuff when you were kids?’ I ask Mum. ‘Or did you feed it to Hutch under the table?’
‘You’re insulting your heritage,’ Mum tells me. ‘But for the record, I agree – it’s disgusting.’
‘Couldn’t we make her rougaille instead?’ I ask her. That’s a delicious spicy tomato dish, sort of like a Mauritian stew, which Mum makes when someone needs cheering up. My friends are mad for it. ‘Surely she had that in her childhood?’
‘But sweetie,’ says Mum. ‘The octopus –’
‘Reminds her of going to the fish markets at Port Louis with her grandma,’ I finish. ‘Before she came to Australia. And she came here and then she never went back to Mauritius. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it a zillion times.’ But have I ever actually paid attention to any of this stuff? I’ve definitely never asked Nana Marjorie. I usually spend most of my visits finding excuses to leave.
‘You were the same age as Pop when you came here, right?’ I ask Mum as she shoves the octopus into a jar, where it pickles while I measure out the spices. ‘So do you remember how to speak French? Or, what’s that other language – Clingon?’
Mum frowns. ‘Creole,’ she says. ‘I knew them both back home, but after we arrived here, Nana Marjorie made us speak English only. She was strict about it.’
‘I’ll bet,’ I say, washing turmeric off my fingers.
‘But when she wasn’t around, your grandpa spoke to me in French.’
‘That’s Grandpa Teddy, right? What was he like?’ I ask. ‘It couldn’t have been fun being married to Nana Marjorie.’
‘She wasn’t always as cranky as she is now. In Mauritius, she was a dancing champion. Did you know that? She was famous for her sega.’
Sega is a Mauritian dance that Tally taught herself off YouTube. She’s great at it.
‘So what happened?’ I ask Mum.
She hands me the jar. ‘You should take this to her and ask her yourself.’
I pick up the bag of almond croissants. ‘Yeah. Maybe I will.’
‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ is blaring on the stereo as I enter Sunny Heights. What the?
It turns out the Goldies are doing the Raptor moves I taught them – actually, they’re doing the whole routine perfectly! Brontosaurus jaw, T-rex move, triceratops, jazz finger wave. Most of them are on chairs, but Joel is up and doing the full movements.
‘How did you remember that?’ I ask when the song is finished.
‘Not all old people have memory issues,’ says Joel. ‘You need to check your assumptions.’
‘No, I know – I didn’t mean … It’s just that I only showed you one time,’ I stutter. ‘And you did it perfectly.’
‘We’ve been practising,’ says Edna.
‘Well, you’re really good at that routine,’ I tell her. ‘Hey, are you guys coming to the musical? Pony Soprano is going to be the star, and it’s in Sunnystream this year – at the clubhouse.’
There’s an awkward silence.
‘No,’ says Nana Marjorie eventually. ‘We have chosen not to attend.’
‘Oh, will you already be in bed by then?’ I ask.
‘Not every old person goes to bed at five o’clock!’ says Joel. ‘That’s an ageist preconception.’ Everyone else murmurs in offended agreement. Jeepers.
‘Why don’t you come, then?’ I ask.
‘How would we get there?’ asks Joel.
‘My dad could drive you,’ I say. ‘We have a mini-van.’
‘Does it fit twelve people, four Zimmer frames, five walking sticks and a wheelchair?’ asks Nana Marjorie. ‘Because all of us go, or none at all.’ She sticks her chin out, fierce and loyal. Boy, she reminds me of Tally.
‘Uh, no, it doesn’t,’ I say. ‘He could do two trips. Or does the council have, like, a little bus?’
‘Even if you found this magical bus, and somebody to drive it, and to lift us in and out, how would I get into the building?’ asks Nana Marjorie, gesturing to her wheelchair. ‘I don’t recall Corner Park Clubhouse having a ramp.’ Her eyes twinkle, like she’s trumped me. Like she’s won.
Shoot. She’s right. Why didn’t we think of that when we were fixing it up? Equal access for all seems like something that Belle would have been passionate about. This is a major oversight!
‘If it doesn’t have one now, it will soon,’ I tell her. ‘Write it in your diaries. Or add it to the electronic calendars on your iPads,’ I add hurriedly, in case I’ve offended them again. ‘Nana Marjorie, want to go sit in the garden?’ I ask, because I know that’s what she and Tally do sometimes. I lean in and whisper, ‘I brought us almond croissants.’
Outside, it’s sunny but cold, and I’m glad I’m wearing Tally’s beanie. We eat our croissants in silence. Boy, they are good.
When Nana Marjorie finally speaks, though, it isn’t to say thank you. ‘I’ve never seen you here so early,’ she says. ‘Don’t you have places to be?’
I shrug. I could make something up, but truthfully? I’m getting tired of lying. ‘I guess I’m feeling kind of lonely these holidays.’
I wait for her to say something mean. But instead she just nods her head, like she gets it.
‘Nana Marjorie, why didn’t you ever go back to Mauritius once you moved here?’ I ask as she brushes the crumbs from her lap.
‘My family didn’t approve of Ted,’ she says. ‘And if I couldn’t take him with me, well, I didn’t want to go at all. And he wouldn’t travel without me. He loved me too much.’
‘Why didn’t they like him?’ I ask.
‘My family were Indian and his were Creole,’ she says, as if that explains everything.
‘And?’ I ask.
Nana Marjorie rolls her eyes, like I’m an idiot. But instead of being offended, I have to try really hard not to smile. ‘Indians thought Creole people weren’t as good as them. They always have. Fools. Teddy had a better job here than my father ever had. He had the most beautiful manners. But that’s just the way things were back then. They never gave him a chance. That’s why we moved here.’
A family scandal! This is actually better than TV.
Nana lowers her voice so I really have to lean in to hear. ‘Teddy missed it so much, that island. And then he died of a broken heart.’
‘Wasn’t it a heart attack?’ I ask.
‘Oh, that’s what they said.’ Nana Marjor
ie shrugs. ‘But he was younger than Sunny is now.’
‘Really?’ I’m shocked. Sunny is my dad, FYI. That is really young to die.
‘I’ve never told this to anyone,’ she says, and I wonder, Not even Tally? And then I feel a little smug, and then I catch myself not paying attention, and then I feel guilty.
‘But I blamed myself,’ finishes Nana Marjorie. ‘I broke his heart when I kept him away from his home – from everything he loved. From that beautiful island. From the Indian Ocean. You’ve never seen anything like it – you wouldn’t understand,’ she says haughtily. She pauses. She whispers, ‘I still blame myself.’
Whoa. No wonder she’s a hater and Xtreme grump. It all makes sense! ‘Nana Marjorie, I don’t think that was your fault,’ I tell her. ‘You were trying to make the best of a bad situation. But things are different now. You don’t have to feel guilty. You can let it all go, I reckon.’
‘That’s what Teddy said,’ she responds. ‘That’s what he still says sometimes. In my dreams.’
‘What was Grandpa Teddy like?’ I ask.
‘Teddy?’ Nana Marjorie closes her eyes and a smile spreads across her face like I’ve never seen before. It reminds me of how I feel when I think about the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet we go to sometimes.
‘He had dimples and he knew how to use them,’ she says. ‘He had the longest legs – up to his armpits. He loved to run. People fell in love with him the instant they met him. And his smile – so cheeky!’ She giggles – Nana Marjorie actually giggles! ‘He had the Babaret hair – curly and wild.’
‘Like me,’ I say. ‘And Pop.’
Nana’s eyes snap open. She looks at me – a long, searching look.
And that’s when I realise. Nana Marjorie doesn’t hate me. I just remind her of Grandpa Teddy and his broken heart, and maybe her broken heart, too.
‘I’m cold,’ she complains. ‘Tally would never keep me out in this chill so long. Take me back inside.’
I wheel her into the living room, where there’s a fire in the fireplace, and open my bag. ‘Mum made you this,’ I tell her, pulling out the jar of octopus. ‘I hope it reminds you of happy times.’