Six Impossible Things

by Fiona Wood

  ‘I like their early stuff much better,’ I say.

  ‘Me too,’ she says.

  As she’s about to walk off, putting the second earphone in, she smiles and says, ‘Thanks for today.’

  20

  SO THE QUESTION IS why, just when I’ve had the smallest of breakthroughs with Estelle, do I decide to risk a third visit to the attic?

  There are two reasons. I need to find out what they were talking about in the garden. It’s eating me up. And I somehow brought an earring back on my jumper sleeve on my last visit, which I need to return.

  It’s why I’ve been sitting here waiting between the heavy and the sheer curtains in the front sitting room’s bay window looking out onto the street. The minutes drag; I would never have the patience to work as a private investigator. I’m watching for something I know happens at this time, and here it is. Estelle is walking out her front door, turning right and heading up the hill wheeling her cello case. I have a clear hour, minimum.

  The books are still off the hatch when I climb up into that other world. I have a delayed lightbulb. Having now seen Estelle’s modern interior, I realise she must have built her nest with stuff from Adelaide’s side of the attic. Welcome to my world of crime.

  I flick the torch around and open the lid of a wooden trunk. It’s full of folded clothes. As I rummage, a smell of spice wafts up. I pull out a pile of long, collarless men’s shirts, no buttons, pleated fronts, and a couple of women’s dresses made from sheer material with tiny beads sewn into it. They’re all wrapped in tissue paper. Who wrapped them? When did they expect to use them again?

  Another trunk is full of silky fabrics – it’s been rifled through for sure. This is the stuff Estelle has pinned to the walls. Beside the trunk is a huge leather suitcase, now home to woollen and mohair blankets. Whoever stored them has carefully placed lavender between each layer, so long ago now the lavender disintegrates between my fingers. All this stuff belonging to lives no longer being lived. You really don’t want to think too much about it.

  I open one more trunk, this one covered in cracked black leather, with dull brass clasps and pasted-on destination labels. There’s a huge dead animal inside. I jump back yelping with fright – an embarrassing noise in hindsight – as I see that of course it’s fur coats not a corpse. The stink that rises from them is the ghost of mothballs, not rotting flesh.

  Pushing the packing cases aside for the third time, I once again feel an overpowering surge of conscience, and, once again, I put it aside.

  Hardened spy that I am, I first place the returned earring carefully under the desk, then go straight to the most recent diary volume and scan. There’s an entry about a film Janie’s making. That must be what they needed a murderer for. I obviously didn’t make the grade. I read on. Bad news. There’s someone Estelle likes now. She calls him disc boy. Fortunate disc boy:

  He’s cute because he doesn’t have a clue he is. His hair is long and floppy, and when he’s concentrating it goes into his eyes and he does an impatient backwards flick of his head. He looks like he’s in another space.

  This must be the guy she’s taking to the social. A quick scan of our class – hmm, the description could possibly fit one or two unworthies. More likely someone from Year Ten. I feel sick thinking about it.

  The most superficial punishment for the snooper is to discover something you don’t want to know. The real punishment is living with what you’ve done. I’m getting the double whammy.

  I put the exercise book back and look around. Woah! How did I not notice that?

  Estelle has put up a whole lot of photographs where one of the silk hangings was. There are twenty: five rows of four. Pictures of the sky taken from the same window, its frame framing the images. Each one is beautiful in itself but the picture they make together knocks me out. It’s about how things can be the same but so utterly different. It’s my life – my father is still my father, only he’s gay and gone. My mother is the same, only she’s happy about ninety per cent less than she used to be. I’m the same, only I hardly remember who I used to be. Especially my heart, which now has parts I didn’t even know existed before.

  I step back to get the impact of the overall pattern of skies, and being so engrossed is perhaps why I don’t realise the man-hole cover is lifting. But I spin around fast enough when I hear Estelle’s astonished gasp.

  In her fright at seeing me, she sways slightly. Worried she might fall, I step across the space, steady her shoulders and give her a hand up. We stand, face to face.

  Is she as affected by our closeness as I am? She’s wet; tiny droplets cling to the edges of her hair. And the rain now hammering onto the slates above us is just a faint echo of the blood beating through my veins. She smells like damp jumper and flowers. I have no idea what to do next, but she does. She grabs her hand back, her clear eyes glinting.

  ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ I manage to say.

  ‘What am I doing here? Me? In my own attic?’

  ‘I just . . . don’t you have a cello lesson?’

  Big mistake.

  ‘Cancelled. How do you even know I do cello? Are you spying on me? Are you a stalker or something?’

  ‘No!’ Not technically. ‘I’ve noticed this is the time you take your cello for a walk. Is that a crime?’

  ‘Is this the first time you’ve been here?’ Her eyes go straight to the diaries, which look completely undisturbed.

  ‘Yes! I heard a noise . . . a few minutes ago.’

  Lies, more lies.

  ‘What sort of noise?’

  ‘Like a bang. I just wanted to see what it was.’

  I think she’s buying it.

  ‘You better not have touched any of my stuff!’

  ‘No. I...as if...I...of course not,’ I say, mustering an indignant tone from somewhere. ‘I haven’t touched a thing.’ A confession right now would only lead to violence. ‘I just found it . . . by accident . . . That’s my attic, there,’ I say, pointing to the hole in our shared wall.

  ‘Exactly. Your attic,’ she points. ‘My attic,’ she points again.

  ‘I’d say you’re welcome to visit my attic any time, but I guess you’ve already been?’ I say.

  She has the grace to look self-conscious, remembering all the loot she has taken from Adelaide’s side.

  ‘I figured no one was using it. Take it back, if you want.’

  ‘It might as well be used,’ I say, turning to go.

  ‘You can’t tell anyone about this place. My parents don’t know I come up here. Nobody knows.’

  ‘They must know they’ve got an attic.’

  ‘They’re not “spare junk” people. They forget it’s even here. Promise you won’t tell.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘You can trust me.’

  ‘Not after this. I feel all snooped on. We’re back to square one, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘I had to find out. It’s been killing me since I heard them talking,’ I tell Howard. ‘Don’t you understand? They were talking about me. I had a right to know what it was about.’

  He’s unconvinced.

  So am I.

  ‘Square one! I’ve really blown it. What am I going to do now?’

  Howard sighs and resettles, chin on paw, looking at me. It’s the psychotherapist look again: you figure it out.

  ‘Come on, let’s go for a run. It might do your limp some good to have a bit of exercise.’

  He gets up very slowly, stretching out first one then the other back leg with little creaky shudders.

  The next time Janie and I are on a work break together, she straightaway asks, ‘What did you do to get Stell so mad?’

  ‘What did she tell you?’

  ‘That you weren’t as nice as you seemed. That it was just as well we didn’t ask you to be in the film.’

  ‘What film?’

  That’s correct: lies and deception lead to further lies and deception.

  ‘
My film. We thought you could be the guy who kills the main character but then we decided not to use humans . . .’

  Interesting . . . Estelle hasn’t told Janie about the attic. It means that, despite what she said, she must at least trust me enough to keep her secret. It’s a crumb, but it’s all I’ve got.

  Anne comes out with semolina cakes for us, the ones with a smooth almond pressed into the middle of the diamond. She tells us to eat them up and head back inside, it’s getting busy.

  Over the next couple of weeks, school comes down to a few activities: trying to find time alone with Estelle to make amends, trying to avoid being alone with Jayzo, and trying to get Lou to agree to meet Fred.

  At home I monitor my mother, avoid my father’s calls, pick up and put down the unopened present from him no more than three or four times a day, run every night and lift the weights with increasing ease. The muscles are starting to appear, and seeing that feels better than it should. Hello, guns.

  Finally, it’s getting a bit warmer. It’s spring in a few weeks, and occasionally the mornings aren’t quite so freezing. I’ve set up the old maid’s bedroom as a television room, with a heater. So between that and the kitchen, and either being in a hot bath or in bed with a hot water bottle, the house is physically more bearable than I would have thought possible when we first moved in.

  It’s Pittney who finally gives me time alone with Estelle. She and I both go to pick up the last class copy of Maths Alive at the same time. I had it first, so I hold on to it. She glares at me, and holds on too. She gives the book a tug. That offends my sense of fair play, so I tug back. With devious timing she lets go and I go flying, landing in Jayzo’s lap. He gives me an almighty shove which sends me colliding into Estelle who falls on the floor and says with heavy sarcasm as I help her up, ‘Thanks, Dan.’

  With his own brand of oblivious logic Pittney says, ‘Right, that’s it. I’ve had enough of you three. See me after class.’

  That’s how the three of us end up being the Year Nine Spring Social steering committee.

  None of us wants the job.

  Jayzo spends the first meeting trying to get Estelle to go with him to the social. He’s too thick to realise it’s not going to happen. I finally can’t take it any more. ‘She said no, just leave her alone and ask someone else.’

  Instead of being grateful, Estelle rounds on me. ‘Who asked you to speak for me?’

  ‘Yeah, just leave her alone,’ Jayzo says with moronic delight.

  I’ve had enough of both of them.

  ‘Pittney said we have to put something on paper before we leave. And I’ve got to get to work. What’s our theme? Anyone got any bright ideas?’ I say.

  Estelle flips through a book Pittney has left for us, and reads out some lame suggestions: Then and Now, Circus, Happily Ever After, Freaks and Geeks . . .

  Jayzo likes Rubik’s Cube, because it involves people taking their clothes off.

  We end up settling on the most obvious idea: Black Tie. So we’ll be having a formal social, which sounds stupid. Perfect. Because it will be. I write it on a bit of paper and we leave.

  On the way out, Jayzo stops me, blocking my path. ‘Cake boy, how’d you like some squashed eyeballs spread on maggoty scabs?’ He then does an excellent impression of someone about to vomit. I’m unprepared, and it works. The familiar lightheaded feeling washes over me. I feel cold then really hot. Just before I black out, Estelle shoves me into a chair and pushes my head in the direction of the floor.

  ‘Leave the wuss alone, you thug,’ she says.

  Jayzo leaves, smirking.

  ‘Who asked you to speak for me?’ I can’t resist saying.

  ‘If I hadn’t you would’ve fainted again. Then I’d just waste more time looking for a teacher.’

  Fair point.

  Janie and Uyen are outside waiting for Estelle. Again I relegate myself to the other side of the road as they walk towards the shops, yakking their heads off, occasionally looking over towards me. Are they hoping I’ll go away? Are they worried I can overhear? I go into the op-shop and see Estelle heading up to the Arts Project space.

  Mrs Nelson doesn’t look exactly thrilled to see me. But then, she never does. I try not to feel sensitive about it. I haven’t broken anything since that first day.

  She asks me to tidy the magazines. This is the same job I did last time, and the time before that. It’s not that they aren’t messy, they are, but do they really need me here? The book and magazine corner is like a library to some of our customers. We sell furniture as well as clothes and house junk, and people often just settle on a sofa, a kitchen chair or a stool, and hunker down for an hour or so of browsing. Sometimes Mrs Nelson makes cups of tea for everyone and they all rave on about celebrity news. The magazines are old and shuffled, and although the lack of chronology causes some confused arguments, it doesn’t spoil anyone’s fun; it just adds to the sense of celebrities living in their own mad world.

  It’s way past time to bite the bullet. ‘Do you need me here, Mrs Nelson?’

  ‘We value your contribution, Dan. There’s no question of that.’

  ‘But do you really need me?’

  ‘I want you to know you are always needed here. You’re reliable and generous with your time, and we certainly appreciate you.’

  I try another tack. ‘If I could get more paid work, would it be a problem if I couldn’t come here any more?’

  She beams, finally getting my drift.

  ‘Not at all! Not in the slightest. I’ve got more volunteers than I can poke a stick at.’

  She might have let on a bit earlier.

  I go straight over the road to Phrenology. Ali says he can give me one more after-school shift, but he’s in one of his moods so I head for the kitchen to get out of his way.

  Anne is in there, looking grim. She cuts fiercely into a slab of still-warm poppyseed slice, handing me a piece. A vat of soup that smells like tomato and cumin is bubbling away. She nods at the pot. ‘Give that a stir will you, Dan? Make sure the lentils aren’t sticking.’ I pick up a big wooden spoon and stir.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I just reminded Ali that I’m going on my holiday with Irena. I told him a hundred times we’re going, but he never believed it.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘A gourmet tour of Southeast Asia with Tony Tan. A tour of Loire region chateaux, and then on to Florence, to stay with Irena’s sister.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next week.’

  ‘How long are you away?’

  ‘Eight weeks. I told him months ago. Has he planned for it? No!’

  I go out the back way. No point getting in the line of fire.

  Mrs Da Silva has a bag of scraps for Howard when I drop in on the way home. I tell her the Phrenology news.

  ‘What will you do with your extra money?’

  ‘Take Howard to the vet. His limp isn’t getting any better.’

  ‘No surprise there. All those long runs, Dan. He’s a very old dog.’

  ‘He never used to limp.’

  ‘And I never used to have bunions. Mind the shop for a minute?’

  I stand behind the counter and she disappears out the back into the house. I imagine Phrenology without Anne. Who’s going to do all the cooking? What if they get someone who’s no good? And they lose customers. And the business goes down the gurgler. And my job disappears. A brilliant idea strikes as I sell a kid some clinkers. My mother’s a fantastic cook. God knows she’s got time on her hands. Why shouldn’t she fill in for Anne? She needs to get out more, spend less time alone with Thom Yorke . . . Perfect.

  Mrs Da Silva comes out a couple of minutes later with some plastic food containers. Full.

  ‘I made curries this morning. Take some home.’

  ‘Thanks. What do you think about my mum filling in for Anne?’

  She smiles. ‘You’re not just a pretty face.’

  21

  COMING THROUGH THE BACK gate, I almos
t run into Oliver.

  ‘Score,’ he says, when he sees the food.

  ‘Come and eat with us? There’s heaps.’

  ‘Great. I need to talk to you about something, too. Seven-ish?’

  When I open the kitchen door my mother is singing along with Thom. I hate to intrude, but I try to sell her on the idea of running the Phrenology kitchen while I help with the rice and dhal and a salad. ‘It’s a couple of cakes and biscuits each day, and stuff like soup, some pides, and frittata for the lunches, and that’s it. No dinners. You could do it with your eyes shut.’

  ‘Who’s going to look after my business?’

  ‘Let the answering machine worry about it. If you get an order, you can fit it in. I’ll help. It’s not like you’re batting clients off with a stick.’

  Privately I’m thinking that’s exactly what it’s like, just not in the commonly understood meaning of the phrase.

  Oliver brings over hot, garlicky naan from the takeaway and some cold beer, and tries to help me persuade my mother to go for the Phrenology job. ‘You’re alone too much. It’s bad for your brain-health,’ he says. Let’s hope this sinks in.

  The thing he wants to talk to me about is work-related, too. He’s going to London for a couple of weeks for work then coming back with his girlfriend, and he wants me to look after his place.

  Am I interested in the job? Only utterly and absolutely. A world where I get paid to sit around in the best place I know, switch lights and music on and off (so it looks inhabited), and collect the mail seems too good to be true.

  Back at school, Pittney’s starting to crack it about the social arrangements. He tells us part of our task is ‘canvassing the views’ of our ‘classmates’. Does he have even half a clue about the impossible contradictions this throws up?

  ‘Socials are stupid, I’m not coming.’

  ‘Get my brother’s band or I’m not coming.’

  ‘I’m not coming if I have to wear a suit.’