‘Yes, it’s me, lovie. Lily, guess what?’
Lily was silent. How could you ever guess? Nan could ring to tell you her snowdrops were out in the bottom of the garden. Or her family of blue wrens had returned, or that her friend Mrs Petrie (a real friend, Mrs Petrie, not an imaginary one) had bought a pair of ducks. ‘Muscovy, dear.’
‘What’s happened?’ Lily asked her.
‘You’ll never believe what your pop’s gone and done!’
Lily felt a tumbling sensation deep down in her stomach. She’d believe almost anything of Pop. Got himself arrested? she thought, though she didn’t say it aloud to Nan. Perhaps there was some poor old lady up there in the hills, living in a shabby old house on valuable property that Pop had thoughtfully burned down so she could live in a brand new unit with all mod cons.
‘What’s he done?’
‘He’s gone and found his mum’s wedding dress!’
‘Pop had a mum?’ It was something Lily could imagine only with the greatest difficulty, because it meant thinking of Pop as a little boy, and that was really hard to do. All she could manage was a shorter Pop, still red-faced and piggy-eyed, the kind of kid who threw stones at girls and other humans who weren’t exactly like him: quiet boys with good manners, for instance, or little old ladies, or people who weren’t Australian . . .
‘Of course he had a mum!’ Nan said indignantly. Then her voice softened. ‘Lily, that dress – it’s so beautiful!’
‘Oh,’ breathed Lily. Back in primary school she and her best friend Annabel had been obsessed with wedding dresses, and weddings, and brides. They’d waited outside churches on Saturday afternoons, spent whole Sundays cutting out brides and bridesmaids from old magazines Annabel’s mum brought home from her job in the doctor’s surgery. They’d designed their own wedding veils and dresses, chosen bridesmaids and flowers for their bridal bouquets. All that was missing was the groom. ‘Oh, I can’t wait, can you?’ they’d whispered to each other.
But those strange sweet weekends were now very long ago. Annabel and her family had moved away, and Lily was in Year 10 and she could see through all that kind of stuff: commercialism, that’s all it was.
And yet, as Nan went on describing Pop’s wedding dress, Lily couldn’t stop a tiny sigh escaping from her lips. That was because of her stupid crush on Daniel Steadman, of course; it was turning her soft as butter. Melted butter. Lily shook her black curls briskly to rid her head of all this soppy stuff. Stuff that made you feel as if you weren’t real unless some boy noticed you. Fell in love with you. Happy ever after . . .
‘Lily?’ The little voice crackled in her ear. ‘Lily, are you still there?’
‘Yeah, Nan, I’m here.’
‘So I’m having a party, a little celebration.’
‘A – a wedding party?’ Even as she said this, even before Nan’s airy chuckle floated down the line, Lily knew she’d got it wrong.
‘Not unless one of you is planning to get married.’
‘’Course we’re not,’ scoffed Lily, though she felt her cheeks grow hot. Stupid.
‘It’s for your pop’s birthday,’ Nan explained. ‘He’ll be eighty in September, you know.’
Lily hadn’t known. Eighty! The sheer weight of it pressed in on her: half a century, with another thirty years tacked on – almost five times as long as Lily had lived on earth. Perhaps that explained why Pop was such an old bigot; so backward in his opinions.
‘I want you all to come,’ urged Nan. ‘Lonnie especially.’
‘Lonnie?’ Sometimes Lily wondered if Nan was actually a citizen of planet Earth. ‘Nan, you know Pop’s not speaking to Lonnie. You know he’s written him off. He said so. He said – ’ Lily deepened her voice so it sounded a little like Pop’s. ‘He’s no grandson of mine!’
‘He didn’t mean it, dear.’
‘Yes, he did! What about that axe?’
There was a small pained silence on the line before Nan spoke again. ‘Pure bluff, dear.’
‘Bluff?’
‘You know your pop’s all talk.’
‘Talk? ls that what it is?’
Nan sighed. ‘I’ll get rid of that axe, if it bothers you.’
‘It bothers me if Pop’s got hold of it.’
Nan’s voice went stern again. ‘Your grandpa’s not a maniac, Lily.’
Now Lily was silent, picturing her grandfather: his short square body, his red face and little piggy black eyes. The way he could be really, really nice, and then, quite suddenly, go troppo. She thought it quite possible he was some kind of maniac.
‘Lily?’
‘Yes?’
‘Could you do something for me? Could you go round to that place where Lonnie lives and tell him about the party? So I can be sure he gets the message? I can never seem to catch him on the telephone. And we really want him to come to the celebration.’
Celebration! More like a massacre if Pop and Lonnie got together. And who was ‘we’? Not Nan and Pop, for sure. More like Nan and Sef. Sef. How come Nan had chosen such a weird name for her imaginary companion?
‘Could you?’ Nan persisted.
‘Oh, all right,’ said Lily.
‘Oh Lily, thank you! You’re a treasure, dear.’
For some reason this compliment made Lily feel uncomfortable. Every bad thought she’d had about her family in the last few months surfaced like wicked sharks’ fins in a tranquil sea. ‘No, I’m not,’ she said guiltily. ‘I’m not a treasure.’
‘Don’t be silly, dear, of course you are. Now is Marigold at home?’
‘She’s still at work.’
‘At work?’ Nan’s voice became incredulous. ‘But it’s dark outside!’
Lily pictured her grandmother standing by the phone in her kitchen, turning her small face to look out the window at the garden and the thick black winter night, and the image made her voice go tender. ‘It’s winter now, Nan. Gets dark early, and Mum doesn’t finish till six, or later.’
‘That’s shocking, dear.’
What could you say to that? Nan came from a different world. ‘Mum likes her work, Nan. Really.’
‘You think I’m a silly old softie, don’t you?’ said Nan.
‘No, no, of course I don’t,’ said Lily, startled, as she always was, when Nan said something sharp and even cluey.
‘Bit of a loony, eh?’
‘No!’
‘Oh, you do. But I don’t mind. Now tell me, what are the two of you having for dinner?’
‘Dunno.’ Lily ran a hand through her hair. ‘I haven’t really thought about it yet.’
‘That’s the worst part, isn’t it? Thinking of what to cook? Now here’s an idea for you, Lily.’
‘What?’
That airy, clued-up chuckle came again. Then Nan said, ‘Why don’t you get Meals on Wheels?’
12
VANISHING DREAMS
Lily and her mum were watching a film on television. Or rather, they appeared to be watching: sitting side by side on the sofa, their eyes fixed on the screen. But if anyone had asked them who that woman in the big hat was, or what the man riffling through the desk drawers was searching for, they wouldn’t have been able to reply.
Their minds were elsewhere. Lily was thinking dreamily of Daniel Steadman, and then angrily realising how humiliating it was to be dreaming of him. It was a week now since that strange morning in the kitchen, only a week, and yet Lily felt she was becoming a whole different person, and one she really didn’t want to be. Yesterday at school she’d walked past the senior common room five whole times in the hope that she’d catch a glimpse of him. Four times the door had been closed. On the fifth it was open, but Daniel had been standing at the window with his back to her; she hadn’t been able to see his face, and he hadn’t even known she was there.
Lily squirmed on the sofa. She was furious with herself. Fancy spending a whole lunchtime walking past the senior common room! It was pathetic! She’d have been better off in the library doing her homework or writing out her grocery l
ist, or sneaking out to the hardware store to buy that washer for the leaky kitchen tap.
Marigold was fretting about old Mrs Nightingale, whose children still hadn’t found anyone definite to care for their mother while they went on their second honeymoon. Marigold felt guilty every time she saw them in the recreation room waiting for their mother to finish her game of Patience; she knew that if it hadn’t been for her promise to Lily she could have solved their problem quite easily. It was only three days, after all. Three little days. Perhaps Lily might make an exception for such a short time? And then Marigold remembered old Mrs Edwards’ stay with them (which had also been for three days), how the old lady had mistaken Lily for her mother, and cried every morning when Lily went off to school. Then there was Mr Roberts (two days) who’d kept going through their drawers and cupboards. Lily had come home to find him out in the front garden, wearing her yellow dungarees.
Mrs Nightingale wasn’t in the least like them: she didn’t wander, either with her feet or in her mind. She played her games of Patience and read her books, and she wouldn’t, Marigold knew, be seen dead in Lily’s yellow dungarees. And they had Lonnie’s room vacant now . . .
‘Lily?’
‘Yeah?’ Lily turned, and Marigold saw she was wearing that furious expression which always reminded her of Pop: Lily’s eyes were black and glittering, her cheeks had turned bright red. She looked very, very angry. Marigold drew back nervously. What could be the matter? A bad mood? Something wrong at school? Marigold didn’t like to ask, and it definitely wasn’t the time to suggest a visit from Mrs Nightingale – she’d simply be letting herself in for a lecture on being unprofessional. Instead she jabbed a finger at the screen. ‘Um, I just wondered . . . have you worked out who that woman in the big hat is?’
‘No.’
Marigold sighed and began to fret about another problem: this party her mother was having for Pop’s eightieth, and Mum’s insistence that Lonnie should be there. And how could that be, when Pop and Lonnie weren’t speaking, and any time you mentioned Lonnie’s name, Pop would roar, ‘He’s no grandson of mine!’ And Lonnie was so difficult to get hold of – Marigold had rung him several times this last week, and never once had he been at home. Which was preferable to having him lying in bed all day, doing nothing, getting older; except why was he out all the time? How long was it since she’d actually spoken to Lonnie? Heard his voice?
‘Lily?’
‘Huh?’
‘How long is it since Lonnie rang?’
‘Dunno.’ She added, disconcertingly, ‘Ages, isn’t it?’
‘How long is ages?’
‘Three weeks? Four? No, hang on – it was that time he wanted you to send his Army Disposals jacket over.’
‘But that was at the end of June. And it’s August now!’
‘So?’ Lily glared at the screen. ‘He’s okay, Mum. Or do you think his landlady’s bumped him off and buried him underneath the floorboards?’
‘Of course I don’t!’ Why couldn’t Lily be more sympathetic? It was awful never knowing how Lonnie was getting on, or what kind of place he was living in: this mysterious gentlemen’s boarding house at 5 Firth Street, Toongabbie. Marigold had occasionally been tempted to sneak over there and take a look, only, well – you had your pride, didn’t you? She wouldn’t spy, she wouldn’t stoop so low. Old Mr Parker at the daycare centre had once lived in Toongabbie, and last Tuesday Marigold had asked him if he knew Firth Street. ‘Never heard of it!’ he’d replied.
Though of course the Toongabbie Mr Parker had known was sixty years in the past . . . Still, it had given Marigold the most uneasy feeling; as if the place where Lonnie had told them he lived wasn’t really there.
And then there were the vanishing dreams. ‘I had another vanishing dream last night,’ she said to Lily when the next ad flashed up on the screen.
‘Right!’ said Lily, who’d dreamed Tracy Gilman was going out with Daniel Steadman. She’d woken feeling furious, almost on the verge of tears, and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep again. At school, Tracy Gilman had peered into her face and said, ‘Your eyes have gone all puffy, did you know? You look like you’ve been crying!’
‘Allergy,’ Lily had said shortly, because she certainly didn’t feel like telling Tracy Gilman that she’d been awake half the night. And how, groggily wiping the stove-top after the breakfast milk had boiled over, she’d squirted the can of Ezi-Kleen wrong way round.
‘I dreamed I got a parcel in the mail,’ her mum was waffling. ‘A big brown parcel like the ones your nan sends sweaters in, and I knew Lonnie was inside – it said so on the label. It said: ‘Fragile. Lonnie inside.’
‘Fragile!’ scoffed Lily.
‘Only he wasn’t inside. There were layers and layers of paper, and then – nothing.’
‘That sounds like Lon all right.’
‘Perhaps I should get him another mobile, do you think?’
‘No! He’ll lose it, like he lost all the others. Mum, you’ve got to stop worrying about him. He’s a big boy now, you know; he’s twenty-two! He can look after himself.’
‘I know,’ said Marigold. ‘It’s just that when you’re a mother –’
‘Your brain softens.’
‘Not at all,’ said Marigold coldly. ‘But you do always tend to think the worst. You lie awake, and you –’
Lily didn’t want to hear about lying awake. She thought being a mother must be like having an eternal crush. ‘If it makes you feel better, I’m going to Lon’s place tomorrow,’ she said.
‘Where? To the boarding house?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But you know Lonnie doesn’t want us to go there; he said he needed space.’
‘He’s had space,’ said Lily, who felt she had no space at all, because having a crush was also like a prison; it was like solitary confinement. ‘And I’m not going there to spy, Mum,’ – she saw her mother flinch – ‘I’m going because Nan asked me when she rang last week. She wants to be sure Lon knows about Pop’s party.’
‘Oh, that wretched party,’ sighed Marigold.
Lily understood her mother’s attitude. Parties in their family always seemed to end in fights. Or even start with them, like this one would if Lonnie came along and Pop was still disgusted with him. ‘I’m going there before school, really early,’ she told her mother, ‘so I’ll be sure to catch him in, and I’ll try and get him to make it up with Pop.’
‘Oh, Lily, do you think you can?’
‘Not really,’ said Lily. ‘But I’ll have a go.’
‘Your nan’s so looking forward to this party. And so is Sef.’
Lily stared at her mother, appalled. ‘Mum, do you believe in Sef? Do you think she’s real?’
Marigold’s face turned pink. ‘No, of course not! It’s just, I’m so used to her, you see. I grew up with Sef. She was like a sort of aunty.’
An aunty! Now Mum was getting weird. Lily shook her head sadly and turned back to the film, but she couldn’t get the hang of the story, and this time it wasn’t because she was daydreaming about Daniel Steadman; it was because she could sense Mum staring at her –
Lily swivelled round. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Just you,’ said Marigold tenderly. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Lily.’
Lily flushed, pleased and embarrassed. ‘You’d fill the house with lame ducks, Mum,’ she said gruffly, ‘That’s what you’d do. And in the end –’
‘In the end?’
‘You’d probably marry one of them.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t. Though –’ Marigold smiled slyly at her daughter, ‘I have had offers.’
‘Who?’
‘Old Captain Cuthbert asked me to set up ship with him last week.’
‘Mum, he’s crazy.’ An awful thought struck Lily. ‘You didn’t say “yes”, did you?’
‘Of course not. Though I was tempted, mind you.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you, Mum? Aren’t you?’
They settled back down to the film, and now Lily was daydreaming: she was imagining Daniel Steadman saying to her, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Lily.’
‘Do you know what they’re all looking for?’ asked her mother suddenly, nodding towards the vague figures on the screen.
‘Search me.’
Marigold giggled, and then Lily began to giggle too, and a small mouse, emerging unnoticed from behind the curtains, stared at them in surprise.
13 BOARDING HOUSE FOR GENTLEMEN
Why did he have to live all the way out here?
Lily was fuming as she made her way along the early morning streets of Toongabbie, an icy wind whipping at the hem of her school skirt, the tip of her frozen nose, the sodden corkscrews of her hair. Why couldn’t he live in the kind of place where other students lived: a hall of residence, a hostel, a shared house somewhere near the university? Why live in a boarding house? Why live way out here? She’d had to get up at six and take two trains, and after she’d seen Lonnie and delivered Nan’s message safely, she’d have to take two trains back again to school.
Lonnie would have his reasons for living here, of course, but they wouldn’t be the kind of reasons anyone else would choose. In her family, people seemed to make important changes in their lives for weird reasons, without exactly meaning to. Look how she herself had changed: become an airhead obsessed with Daniel Steadman, simply because she’d grown tired of being the sensible one in the family.
And Mum had once confessed to her that she’d married their father because she’d loved his coat.
‘Coat?’ Lily had echoed, thinking (as any normal person would) that she’d misheard.
Only she hadn’t misheard.
‘He had this lovely coat his Great-Aunt Pearl had given him for his twenty-first birthday. She’d bought it in Peru. Oh, Lily, it had the most beautiful colours – colours I’d never seen before. I was quite young, remember.’
‘Yeah, but –’
‘And the most wonderful texture!’ her mother had gone on dreamily. ‘Like a combination of rose petals and the softest sort of fur –’
One Whole and Perfect Day Page 6