by Helen Brown
‘So you need to hear the story?’ Aunty May said. Her tone was flat and grave.
Lisa nodded.
Aunty May raised a wrinkled hand at the two kitchen chairs that were free. ‘Mind that one,’ she said as Portia took a seat. ‘It wobbles.’
Portia and Lisa exchanged glances while Aunty May put her glasses back on and gazed at the photo of the woman and child in the locket. ‘People said my mother, Maggie, was heartbroken when things went bad at the manor. She got very sick. After Alexander left for New Zealand she kept going back there at night. Some thought she was a ghost . . .’
Nausea churned Lisa’s stomach.
Aunty May curled the locket inside her hand and gripped it. ‘But she was strong. And she loved little George. After a while she started to get better. She met a good man called Bazza. He worked in the brewery. They married and had five kids, including me.’
Lisa felt overwhelming relief Maggie’s story had some happiness in it.
‘Nobody wanted to live in the manor after what went on there. There were no cars in those days and it was miles from anywhere. It was derelict for a while. In the end, Mum and Bazza bought it for a song and moved in with us kids. When Mum died she left the place to me.’
Lisa’s family tree was beginning to look more like a monkey puzzle than a straightforward pine.
‘So Alexander was your half-brother’s father?’ Lisa said, slowly piecing the branches together.
The old woman turned the locket in her hand. The sadness of the past weighed heavily in the room. Lisa slid onto her knees and put her arms around Aunty May’s fragile waist. ‘I feel terrible for what my ancestors did to yours,’ she whispered. ‘My grandfather committed a brutal murder. You must feel outraged he was never punished. I’m so sorry . . .’
Aunty May rested her hand on Lisa’s shoulder. The old woman’s eyes clouded. ‘There are tears in every family,’ she said, patting Lisa’s back in a gentle, soothing rhythm. ‘Let go of the past. We’re family now.’
The two women wept quietly together.
Chapter 38
Shoals of BMWs pulled up outside St John’s, Toorak. Lisa stood at the doorway and watched Melbourne’s great and good spill down the aisle into the pews. It was an important occasion, but she couldn’t wait for it to be over so she could get back to Castlemaine. Scott had asked her out for dinner. Her nostrils flared at the thought of him wearing that aftershave, the one he swore was just soap. Then she felt guilty.
The coffin was smothered in red roses. On top of the narrow end where Aunt Caroline’s feet lay inside their Christian Dior shoes, sat a framed photo that couldn’t have been taken later than 1933. The subject’s gaze was dreamy and slightly off camera, as if she might be recalling a flirtation with an Arab sheik. Aunt Caroline’s lips were vermillion, the eyebrows thin and arched. There was no doubt she’d been a beauty, but one with a crafty glint in her eyes.
As the organ swelled in spooky harmonies, Lisa looked for somewhere to sit. She spotted Maxine sitting in the front row, wearing something purple and a black pillbox hat sprouting a peacock feather. The plume dipped and teased Gordon, who was sweating quietly in a suit. Their son Andrew, fresh from Silicon Valley, sat next to him, alongside Nina and her colorectal surgeon. The grandchildren, dressed in the latest Jacadi outfits, vandalised prayer books while their mother studied her phone.
Sweltering in her interview suit from New York, Lisa noticed an empty pew near the back of the church. Telepathic as usual, her sister turned and flashed a look. Maxine pointed at the pew behind her and beckoned.
‘I’m pleased I could make it,’ Jake whispered as they took their seats. ‘It was great timing.’
‘Stop saying that!’ she hissed. She wished Jake hadn’t felt the need to put on a charade of family togetherness.
Ted and James slid along the pew to sit next to them. ‘So good of you to cut your honeymoon short,’ she whispered.
‘It was nothing,’ Ted replied, squeezing her hand.
As the congregation stood to bleat ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’, Portia skittered down the aisle and slid in next to James. ‘Sorry!’ she mouthed. ‘We had a few technological hitches.’
Portia was wearing a tiara made of small blue stones and sparkles that may have been diamonds. ‘I found it in Aunt Caroline’s dresser,’ she said, patting the ornament into her hair. ‘Can I keep it?’
‘You’ll have to ask Aunt Maxine.’
Lisa wished she’d had more time with Portia after they’d visited Aunty May. She wanted to make some sense of their family history with her. But Zack had been waiting at the end of the Wrights’ driveway, ready to whisk Portia back into the city to put together the slide show for the funeral.
The vicar cleared his throat and droned on about being here today to celebrate the life of Caroline Agnes Trumperton . . . hostess, patron of the arts . . .
Gordon stood up and read the eulogy Maxine had written. He ran a finger around his collar, and his face was red and mottled like salami. His voice trembled with nerves as he spoke of the dutiful aunt who was an excellent gardener and who always attended the children’s school plays. The congregation was lulled into semi-consciousness. Aunt Caroline’s life had been as boring as everyone expected.
Then Zack appeared at the side of the altar, where a large screen had been set up. His laptop oozed Cole Porter songs while an assortment of images lit up the church: Aunt Caroline smiling over a cup of tea with the Queen, smoking a cigar with Castro, astride a camel alongside a dashing young Gaddafi.
No wonder Aunt Caroline had found the nursing home on the quiet side! ‘Amazing!’ Lisa whispered to Portia. Where did you get them?’
‘From a box in the back of her wardrobe. There was one of her with someone who looked like Mussolini, but we thought we’d better leave it out.’
The wake was conducted in the church hall in accordance with Aunt Caroline’s orders. The tea was lapsang souchong and the cucumber in the sandwiches was crisp enough to pose a danger to dental work.
Lisa watched Portia float past the butterfly cakes and lemon slices without landing on a single calorie. She tried to make conversation with a retired admiral whom Aunt Caroline was rumoured to have once been engaged to, but images of Scott kept dancing across her brain. The little crossover tooth that stopped his smile from being perfect, the scar above his eyebrow, the hair on the back of his hands . . . He was going to pick her up at seven. She’d have at least an hour to shower and get ready.
She noticed the more elderly mourners were aiming their walking frames at the door. Jake was in a corner chatting up a towering blonde. ‘Do you think we can go?’ Lisa asked, tapping his shoulder.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Bit early, isn’t it?’
‘I have to get back to . . . feed the cat.’
‘That thing can look after itself.’
Lisa smiled at the blonde, who was older than she’d seemed from across the room. Jake’s taste was improving.
‘There’s the bird, too.’
‘Honestly, Lisa, I think we should stay on another hour.’
Since when did he become Mr Etiquette?
‘It’s okay, Mom,’ Portia said, appearing at her elbow. ‘I’ll come home with you. Dad can catch a lift with the husbands.’
‘What about Zack?’ They were practically a salt and pepper set these days.
‘He’s dropping the screen back at his friend’s place, then he’s catching a lift to Castlemaine with the others.’
Lisa could hardly believe it. An entire ninety minutes alone in the car with her daughter.
Maxine was engrossed in conversation with the incoming president of the Melbourne Club. The timing was impeccable. Lisa hurried across the room, kissed Maxine on the cheek and said goodbye.
‘But wait!’ Maxine said, purple fingernails glistening on Lisa’s forearm. ‘Aren’t you coming to the lawyer’s office?’
‘Whatever for?’
‘We are her closest relatives.’
Instead, she fired up Dino and headed down the motorway. Portia plugged white wires into her ears and drifted off into a hypnotic state. It wasn’t shaping up to be the mother–daughter time Lisa had been hoping for. ‘What are you listening to?’ Lisa shouted.
‘Nothing.’
‘Are they new?’
‘You wouldn’t know them.’
Lisa felt the familiar thud of Portia pulling up the drawbridge. She turned off at Macedon and parked outside Sitka Café.
‘What are we stopping for?’ Portia asked.
‘You didn’t eat much earlier. I thought we’d have afternoon tea.’
Portia rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not going in there.’
‘Why not?’
The tiara twinkled defiantly. ‘Because you’ll force-feed me like one of those geese in France. Because you’re obsessed with food!’
‘Me?!’ Lisa hadn’t heard anything more ridiculous in her life. Though on second thoughts, she was the one with the stash of protein bars and special treats for when she couldn’t diet any more, the one who couldn’t write a sex scene without eating truckloads of chocolate. ‘I just worry about you.’
Portia seized the doorhandle. ‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ she said in a voice steeped in sarcasm.
‘But . . .’
‘You don’t understand.’
Lisa fizzed with frustration.
‘I’m not your little girl anymore!’
The words sliced through Lisa with the cruel accuracy of surgical lasers.
Portia flung the door open and stormed down the empty street.
Lisa was left momentarily breathless. Gum trees flailed against a pale sky. An exhausted sun was drifting down towards the hills. She started up the engine. As she trailed after the wild, weightless string puppet running into the distance, a vision of Emily Brontë’s coffin swam in her head. Undiagnosed anorexia had surely contributed to her early death.
Portia turned a corner. Lisa followed and curb-crawled alongside her. Portia stopped outside a house with a white picket fence and a statue of the Virgin Mary in the window. Portia’s face was pale and wet with tears, her hands clawed with anguish.
Lisa climbed out of the car and stood on the street. The women assessed each other across the gulf of a generation.
‘I know you’re grown up,’ Lisa said in a calm, even voice. She was intrigued to hear the words come from her own mouth, but the truth was, Portia was right. Part of Lisa had refused to accept her daughter was an adult, independent in every way (except financially, she would have liked to point out—not even an ant could survive on part-time waitressing and unpaid acting work, so she and Jake were always topping up Portia’s account). ‘Can we talk?’ Lisa asked.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Portia said, as remote and untouchable as an ice queen.
Lisa was beginning to think ‘understand’ was an overrated word. Even empathy was a challenge. Portia was treating her as if she’d always be there, like the sea. Lisa wanted to grab her and tell her she was fragile, too. That if life had any kindness in it at all, she, Lisa, would be dead and gone long before her daughter.
Portia crossed her arms and stared up at a dragon-shaped cloud. Her lower lip quivered. Lisa stepped on the footpath and reached out for her.
‘You don’t know how hard I’m trying,’ Portia’s voice trailed away.
‘To do what?’
‘Be beautiful . . . clever.’
‘But you are!’
Portia shook her head. ‘No, I’m not! I want to be . . . perfect.’
Lisa glanced sideways at the statue of the Virgin Mary, her hands clasped in prayer. ‘Only Allah is perfect,’ she said, aching for her daughter’s pain. Lisa’s father had once taken her to a shop where Persian rugs hung from the walls, transforming the place into a grotto of jewelled colour. His eyes blazed as he explained how every knot had been tied by hand, making every rug unique. ‘They put a deliberate mistake in every rug, Panda Bear. See?’ He’d run his hand over a crimson runner covered with flowers and diamond shapes. ‘If this pattern was regular there’d be a diamond on this side to match the one over there, but the rug maker missed it out on purpose, as a reminder that only Allah is perfect.’
‘I’m so fat,’ Portia mumbled.
‘Have you looked in the mirror lately? Your legs are like pins.’
Portia’s eyes flashed with rage. ‘Why do you always do that?!’ she yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘Do what?’
‘Comment on how I look.’
‘When I was little and even fatter, you used to tell me I was beautiful every day,’ she sobbed. ‘You don’t say that to me anymore, but everyone else does.’ Portia crumpled like a sparrow into Lisa’s arms. As she gently rocked her daughter, Lisa’s confusion tumbled into a crevasse of sorrow. The Virgin Mary, the ultimate mother, knew a thing or two about the painful aspects of parenting. The statue’s eyes were raised to heaven. ‘Darling daughter. I love you so much.’
‘I love you too,’ Portia whispered.
Lisa gulped back tears. It had been years since Portia had last delivered those precious words to her.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Portia said, wiping her eyes and adjusting her tiara.
‘You do?’
‘You think I need professional help.’
A flock of galahs swooped over their heads.
Lisa drew a breath. ‘Do you think that’s what you need?’
Portia wrapped a tangle of arms around her and convulsed into her neck.
‘Would you like me to come back to the States and help you find someone?’
‘I’m not going back!’ Portia wailed. ‘I’m staying here!’
‘What? Wait,’ Lisa said, taking Portia by the shoulders.
‘I’m moving in with Zach. We’re starting up a theatre company in the city,’ Portia said, rubbing her eyes. ‘And I’ve found a counsellor.’
As they walked back to the car arm in arm, Lisa was both overjoyed and chastened. She was elated Portia was staying in Australia and ashamed she’d misread her daughter for so long. Portia was more grown up than she’d realised.
Chapter 39
It was a date. Even Scott had called it that. Lisa had heard him make the booking for seven p.m. at one of Castlemaine’s smartest restaurants, the Public Inn. He was picking her up at 6.45.
But by the time she and Portia arrived back at the manor, her nerves were frazzled. On the road from Castlemaine, she’d had to swerve to avoid a human-sized kangaroo that sprang out in front of the car with supreme nonchalance.
While Portia disappeared into her room, Lisa dashed upstairs. She tore off her funeral clothes, dived into the shower and slipped into her lucky floral dress, over which she threw an aqua shawl. By the time she was spruced up and sitting on the balcony steps it was 6.40. Mojo, his ginger mane still fluffy from his wedding hairdo, sprang onto her lap. He butted his head into the palm of her hand and purred.
A coil of dust made its way along the main road. Her throat turned to parchment as a pair of headlights glided down the driveway.
But it wasn’t Scott’s ute. Ted and James climbed out of the Kombi with Zack and Jake close on their heels.
‘Hey, gorgeous!’ Jake said, lumbering up the steps in his funeral suit. ‘Going somewhere special?’
She tightened the shawl around her shoulders and studied the hills. Zack sprinted past on the way to Portia’s room.
‘There’s lasagne in the fridge!’ she called after him.
Jake shrugged and followed the others inside.
Lisa checked her phone. Five to seven. Scott was bound to arrive any minute. She watched a line of an
ts crawl out of a crack in the mosaic floor. The next owner would have to fix that.
At 7.15 she dialled his number and was put straight through to his cheerful drawl on voicemail. She pictured wine glasses gleaming at the empty table, a waiter checking his watch.
The ants were smaller and browner than usual. Maybe they belonged to a different colony.
Ten minutes later she sent a text. No reply.
A familiar figure appeared on the balcony. ‘Is this seat taken?’ Jake asked, lowering himself onto the step beside her.
Maybe it was the comforting click of his knee as he sat down, or the fact she was exasperated with Scott, but she was grateful for the ease of her ex-husband’s presence.
‘The boys are hoeing into that lasagne,’ he said, undoing his tie and stowing it in his pocket. ‘You look like you deserve something more upmarket.’
She ran her hand over the arch of Mojo’s spine. Jake was on a charm offensive.
‘What say we head into town?’ he asked, undoing his top button. He always did look good in a plain white shirt.
The Public Inn was bustling, but a spare table for two had miraculously come free because of a no-show. They followed a sunburnt young waiter to an intimate spot in the corner. Lisa snuggled into the padded seat against the wall while Jake took the chair facing her.
‘Best view in the house,’ he said, fixing her with a dazzling smile.
For once Lisa couldn’t think of a smart retort.
‘Great spot here,’ he said, scanning the wine list. ‘What do you say to a little French champagne?’
He hadn’t bought the real stuff for years. ‘I thought you liked prosecco?’
‘I do, but tonight’s got a special feel to it, don’t you think?’
She was tempted but, for all she knew, Jake was expecting to go Dutch.
‘Prosecco’s fine,’ she said.
He didn’t put up a fight. She ordered duck while he went for the usual steak.
‘To us,’ he said, raising his glass and clicking it against hers.