‘Of course we will, darling.’
I wanted to get nasty, tell her bluntly that if she wanted me to look after Stella, then at least she could start caring for herself again. I would shame her into it. Nana was nearly eighty when she died, but she looked good to the end. You never saw her without her hair coloured and styled, or without her lipstick. We all adored Nana. I wanted to tell Mum that her mother would absolutely hate to see her in an unironed fawn shirt, boring old thongs and a daggy haircut. I opened my mouth to say it all, but nothing came out. I just … couldn’t.
‘Tell us what you’re thinking, Peach,’ Dad said slowly. ‘Come on, sweetheart.’
‘Just come home safely,’ I mumbled again.
‘Of course we will, darling,’ they said again in unison.‘We’ll be home before you know it.’
Watching them walk out of the room talking about what we’d have for dinner, I was overtaken with an unnerving feeling that my life was about to be shaken loose from its foundations. I desperately wanted to call them back again, make them sit down and tell me again that they’d be back and that everything would be fine.
As though sensing something, Dad stopped at the door and looked back at me.
‘She’ll come good once Year Twelve starts. The new school will do the trick. Give her a fresh start.’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded.
He grinned at me.
‘Just don’t let her change her name to Beatrice while we’re gone!’
It’s after eight when I wake, the sky is already blazing and I’m alone. Stella must have gone back to her own bed. The job interview is in an hour and I have to ride there, so I haul myself up and into the shower.
I wash my hair because it will dry before I get there, but I have no idea what I should wear to a job interview on a scorching day. I end up in a short cotton skirt, a loose, black linen top and flat-heeled sandals. I tie up my damp hair in a style that says I’m a practical hard worker, which I suppose I am.
In the kitchen, I pull down the blind to keep out the sun and pull out my phone to text Cassie, who will already be there, serving the coffees and selling bread. I cross my fingers as I turn on the kettle and get bread out of the fridge for toast. It would be so cool for us to work together. I want this job.
Remind Sam-the-man that I’m his girl! I write.
Within about six seconds she replies.
Already have but be warned, he’s expecting favours!
I laugh and pop the bread into the toaster and text back.
Okay, but no sicko stuff Whips okay?
Of course, but no spurs.
I’ll let him know.
Cassie is my other best friend, along with Det. She is opinionated, short, fast and she gets things done. Always has. She started at my school in Year Nine and by the end of the first day she’d organised the class into groups of five to compete with another class to raise money for a dance competition. If a concert has sold out, Cassie can have tickets within the hour. Need something impressive to wear? She’ll find you an outfit you really love before you finish the phone call. She’s doing Commerce at uni, but she’ll end up running a business. I’m convinced of it. She loves fashion and parties and knowing where people fit in, who is important and who isn’t. Oddly enough, this doesn’t make her shallow or heartless. She’s just someone who happens to be really good at knowing how the world works, and making sure she gets a slice of the action. Det and Cassie don’t always see eye to eye, but with me in the middle, our threesome somehow works out.
Sam-the-man is the guy who runs the bakery and cafe at the Abbotsford Convent. He’s nice, apparently. When he said he needed someone reliable for the early-morning shift, Cassie suggested me, then told him a whole lot of lies about all the experience I’d had working in cafes. In fact, I’ve never even made a coffee but I have pulled beer and washed dishes, so … I suppose it can’t be that hard.
I text her again. Do I lie about the coffee?
But this time she doesn’t get back, so I guess she’s busy. Damn. I meant to get down there before now and get her to teach me on the sly.
I’m in the middle of a physiotherapy degree majoring in accidents and emergency care. Both Cassie and Det think this is hilarious, bordering on bizarre, seeing as the subjects I got the highest scores for were French and History.
‘How can you stand it?’ Det asked recently when I was settling down with the books to study for exams instead of hitting the party scene with them. ‘Learning by rote is for parrots!’
‘So a parrot will look after you when you have your bike accident?’ I snap straight back. Det rides a Honda motorbike and she knows the stats are not in her favour.
‘Touché,’ she laughed, ‘but come anyway, my serious, sweet and conscientious Peach. No fun without you.’
‘Not everyone can be an artist,’ I grumble, shaking my head. ‘I want to be useful.’
She puts one hand over her heart and pretends to topple over as if she’s been mortally wounded.
‘So cruel.’
‘You asked for it.’
‘Okay, nerd. Don’t come!’
I’m standing at the kitchen bench stuffing segments of an orange into my mouth and waiting for my toast to cook when Stella saunters in, bleary eyed and yawning widely.
‘Where did you get to?’ I ask.
‘Went back to my bed,’ she mumbles, then goes to the fridge, opens the door and stands in front of it for ages, staring in as if something in there might be the answer to all her prayers. ‘Did you know you radiate heat when you’re asleep, Peach?’
‘Really? And you don’t?’
‘Touchy this morning, aren’t we?’ She grins at me, then pulls out the milk and juice and goes for the bread.
‘What do you think they’d be doing right now?’
‘Well, it would be the middle of the night so probably sleeping.’
‘Maybe, they’re out late and as they are walking back to their hotel, some guy has a heart attack in the street and they save his life?’
‘Maybe,’ I murmur, rolling my eyes.
‘And what about my other mother?’ Stella says, shifting the packet of bread from one hand to the other as if she is playing with a ball.
Oh God, here we go. I sigh and don’t answer.
‘What do you think she’d be doing?’
‘You don’t have another mother, Stella,’ I say bluntly.
Stella gives me a hurt look. ‘I have a spiritual mother,’ she says.
‘Whatever,’ I sigh.
She looks at me as though I’m the one who is being deliberately thick.
I just shake my head, letting her know that I will not be a party to this turn in the conversation. Of course it doesn’t stop her.
‘I think she’s singing.’
‘At eight-thirty in the morning?’
‘She might be planting something in her garden and singing to herself.’
There is no real point telling her to stop this crap.
‘You think one day she’ll want to hear me sing again?’
‘Probably not,’ I say.
Stella sniffs and puts a slice of bread in the toaster and I wish for the millionth time there was something I could say to snap her out of her craziness.
‘Stella Bella,’ I say gently, ‘I’m going for that job interview at the Abbotsford Convent this morning.’
‘Hmmm?’
‘You got any plans?’
‘How long will it take?’ she asks.
‘Not long, but I’m going to wait for Cassie to finish her shift and we’re going to fetch Det and maybe hang out together for a while. Lunch and stuff.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘But what will you do?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She frowns at the cooking toast. ‘I don’t really want toast. What should I have for breakfast, Peach?’
‘What do you feel like?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Remember—’ I begin my lecture, but she grabs me aroun
d the middle and shuts me up by gagging me with her other hand. I squirm and giggle, and we chorus together, ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!’
‘I hate breakfast,’ she grumbles, letting me go, as though I haven’t already heard it a million times. ‘It’s the one time in the day I don’t feel like eating.’
I nod and continue buttering my toast. Another conversation about Stella’s intake of food is not what I need right at this moment. ‘Let’s not talk about it now, okay?’
‘Fine with me.’ Stella grins. ‘Let’s never talk about it again.’ She lunges across the bench, pinches a half-slice of my toast from the plate, stuffs it in her mouth and leans over for my mug of tea too, but I hold it well away from her.
‘Stella!’
‘What?’
‘Get your own.’
‘Oh come on, Peaches. You’re nearer.’ She giggles. ‘Please pour me a cup of tea!’
I pull a mug from the shelf and push over the pot and the milk. ‘Here. Do it yourself.’
‘So scratchy,’ she mumbles to herself.
‘What are you going to do today?’ I persist.
‘Maybe go see Ruby.’ She gives a bored sigh.
‘That’s a good idea!’ I say, too enthusastically. Ruby is one of the few friends she has left. ‘Maybe you could have a swim?’
‘Hmmmm, maybe.’
I’ve been trying to make her do something every day. She won’t swim in the local pool any more because she’s self-conscious about her size, and she doesn’t walk much any more either. Ruby lives only a few streets away and the pool in the family backyard is this little rubber thing, but at least my sister would be doing something. If I don’t nag her she’ll just stay at home in front of the television and … eat.
Stella blows on her mug of hot tea.
‘I woke up with this feeling about today,’ she says dreamily, looking out the window.
‘What kind of feeling?’ I look at my watch, go to the sink with my dishes and wash the orange from my hands.
‘That something truly amazing is going to happen.’
‘Yeah?’ I smile, shaking the water off my hands. ‘To us or to the world?’
‘To you.’
‘To me?’ I laugh. ‘Nothing ever happens to me, Stella.’
‘But today it will.’
‘Will it be good?’
She looks thoughtful and then frowns. ‘I … I think so.’
‘Don’t freak me out!’
‘It’s just a feeling,’ she says simply.
I laugh, but I’m curious in spite of myself – a touch alarmed too, if I’m truthful.
Stella operates on a different level to the rest of us. I’m not saying she is a mystic or anything like that. Only that she seems to have an uncanny ability to twig to stuff that other people miss. Mum, Dad and me acknowledge Stella as the soul of our family.
One afternoon she rang up to say she had a feeling that something had happened to Mum. When Mum got home that night she told us that she’d had a nasty prang in her car and had just missed being seriously hurt. Another time, Stella predicted that Det was going to come into some money by the end of the week. None of us even knew when the results of the grant applications were being announced. Even Det had forgotten all about it.
Stella often finds things when no one else has any idea. She found Dad’s passport recently when he’d been beside himself searching the house all day. It was tucked away inside a plastic bag, inside the lining of another bag in the garage. It just didn’t make any sense that she knew where to find it. Mum thinks Stella has some kind of gift.
‘Maybe it means I’ll get the job,’ I say lightly.
‘No no.’ Stella shakes her head quite seriously. ‘It will be far more important than that.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Her sureness unnerves me.
‘Things can be one way in the morning, Peach,’ she frowns and looks out the window, ‘and by evening they’re another. I’ve got the feeling that today is going to be one of those days for you.’
‘For me?’ I feel uneasy.
‘For you.’ And she isn’t laughing.
I wait to see if she’ll tell me more but she just sits there, sipping her tea, staring out the window.
I rush upstairs, clean my teeth, get on my bike and head off down to the end of our street. I cross Hoddle Street and ride behind the old Collingwood football ground and onto the bike track, pedalling towards the convent and thinking about Stella. It doesn’t seem so long ago that she was an amazingly confident kid at Fitzroy North Primary School, full of bounce and bravado … I can almost see her: the queen of Grade Six, dressed in pink tights, a green pleated skirt and a purple-and-green striped jumper, her thick black hair knotted up into a number of little buns at the back of her head. Mum always says that Stella knew exactly how she wanted to dress by the time she was three. On her first day of school she insisted on wearing her pink tutu with green socks and runners. Mum and Dad tried to dissuade her, thinking that she’d feel silly in front of the other kids, but there was no way Stella could be convinced. There was no uniform at Fitzroy North Primary, but the other girls turned up in nice new cotton school dresses, with white socks and school sandals. At the end of the day, when Mum came to pick her up, a bit worried that she might have been picked on for looking odd, Stella had made fifteen new best friends and wanted to know if she could stay at school for the night because she was having so much fun. On the way home she declared casually that she was glad she wore the tutu because, ‘I looked better than everyone else.’
Then, in secondary school she found her voice. Literally. Was it only two years ago that she came home grinning from ear to ear?
‘Guess what?’ she whispered dramatically.
We looked at her and waited. Her eyes were glowing.
‘I got the lead part in the musical.’
Her singing voice was outstanding, just like Nana’s. Mum’s mother had been an opera singer and Stella inherited the deep contralto voice. It’s the kind of voice that sends shivers down your spine. Not that I’ve heard it in a while.
I get to the entrance of the Abbotsford Convent five minutes early. I stop a moment to peer around at the odd collection of buildings, the trees, and the people coming and going. I’ve never actually walked through the Clarke Street gates before.
I walk in further and stare around, no idea where to go. About to check the directions board, I notice the Boiler Room sign straight in front of me. There are a dozen wooden tables set up outside with people sitting around talking and drinking coffee. So far so good. I walk towards the big brown doors and push them open.
The wonderful smell of fresh bread nearly bowls me over. Inside the large dark room, two big glass counters are filled with pies and tarts, glistening cakes and long baguettes filled with avocado, cheeses and salads. All different kinds of bread are stacked on the shelves behind. The first person I see is Cassie, serving coffee to a couple sitting at a small round table to the side of the room. There are probably a dozen of these small tables. Cassie grins and motions me towards the door behind the glass counter.
‘He’s expecting you,’ she says in a low voice. ‘Don’t say anything stupid, okay? Make sure you get the job.’
‘Okay.’
Then I see Nick serving bread. He’s a guitarist in a local band, Slick City, and I’d forgotten that he’s working here. I used to see a lot of Nick because he and Fluke are friends. We smile at each other.
There are two other people serving the small crowd: a tall guy with long blond hair tied back with an elastic band and a dark skinned girl in a headscarf. They also smile as I edge past them and through the door into the room behind. There is a wood-fired oven set into the wall down one end, a couple of big square tables covered in flour, and over by the far wall sit big containers. A small neat swarthy man sits down the end of one of the tables, drinking coffee and frowning over figures.
‘Can I help you?’ he asks in a perfunctory way.
I suddenly feel nervous.
‘I’m Peach, er, I mean Perpetua. I’ve come about the morning job.’
He stands up and holds out his hand. ‘I’m Sam. Come and sit down and tell me about yourself.’
I perch on a long bench running along the opposite side of the table. ‘Well, I’m a student at the moment,’ I say shyly, because he is taking me in now, noticing my hair and skin, my legs in my short skirt. ‘I’ve just finished first year at Melbourne Uni. I live locally.’
‘Good for you,’ he says, and I breathe an inner sigh of relief. Nothing sleazy here. He doesn’t edge closer and start telling me that I’m ‘way too cute’ to work behind a counter, or that my face should be on the front of some magazine and that he knows just the person who’d make sure it happened, or if I’m doing nothing later how about we go out for a drink and dinner. I’m not kidding. It’s the kind of crap I sometimes get from older guys. Det reckons it’s because I’m blonde.
‘So what do we call you?’ he asks, looking at my application. ‘Peach or … Perpetua?’
‘Peach,’ I say quickly, ‘definitely.’
‘Cassie says you actually like mornings.’
‘I do.’ I smile. ‘I’m a morning person.’’
‘Can you be a seven a.m. every morning person?’
‘Yes,’ I say without hesitating.
‘Good.’ He takes a deep breath and frowns. ‘Then you have the job until you don’t turn up, okay? I mean it, unless you have a very good excuse.’
‘Okay.’ I hesitate. Is this all?
‘Why don’t you go out now and learn the ropes with Cassie for a bit and then turn up tomorrow morning? I’ll be there and we’ll iron out the details then.’
‘Okay.’
And that is it. I have the job.
For the next couple of hours I hang out behind the counter with Cassie and Nick, learning the names of all the cakes and their prices, and how to make the different coffees. They teach me how the cash register works and the particularities of the warming oven and the microwave. The other guy, Max, and the girl, Yalna, are really nice about taking over the serving while I learn, until it gets on for lunchtime and it’s too busy for them to manage. But by then I feel confident that I have the hang of it all, more or less.
The Convent Page 7