found himself struggling against a dangerous softening of the heart . . .
‘I want Lonnie to come to this party,’ May had said, her blue eyes regarding him steadily, almost sternly.
‘Didn’t say he couldn’t, did I?’ Stan had retorted, and May had turned away and walked from the room. ‘Tell him he can come,’ Stan had called after her, and her voice floated back to him from the hall. ‘I did tell him. But you have to tell him too.’
He hadn’t got round to it yet.
‘Sir? Sir, are you still there?’ This muffled voice on the telephone wasn’t Lonnie; he realised that the minute he heard that familiar little catch between the words. It was Lil. When she was nervous, there was always that small catch in Lily’s voice.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Still here. Still alive and kickin’.’
‘So would you be interested in taking part in our survey? In the cause of – of peace?’
‘Peace, eh? Okay.’
‘We’re targeting gentlemen over seventy. Would you be in that age group, sir?’
‘Bet your life I am.’
‘All right, um – did you fight in the war, sir? The Second World War, I mean.’
‘No, I had flat f – I had a medical condition.’
A muffled giggle sounded over the line.
‘Sir, I hope you don’t mind me asking this next question?’ ‘Spit it out!’
‘Sir, do you hate the Japanese?’
‘No!’
‘Or other ethnic people sir?’
‘No!’
Lily’s voice was now quite clear. In her enthusiasm, she must have let the hanky slip; Stan imagined it fluttering, unnoticed, to the floor. He pictured the gloomy hallway she stood in: the ancient flaking paper on the walls, the musty odour – he was sure – of rising damp. There was a hole in the skirting board where May swore she’d once seen a tiny pair of twitching whiskers and brilliant, darting eyes. He hated that house. How could they live there? Geez, he’d like to burn it down.
‘Sir?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Sir, my next question is, er –’ ‘Get it off your chest!’
‘Sir, what would you do if a grandchild of yours was planning to get married to, um, someone of another race?’
‘I’d pin her ears back!’ roared Stan. ‘If any granddaughter of mine tried marrying anyone when she’s only sixteen, and hasn’t finished school!’
Lily dropped the phone.
‘Who was that?’ asked May, as a grinning Stan came loping back into the living room.
‘Association for Racial Harmony.’
‘What on earth did they want with you?’
‘Survey,’ chuckled Stan.
‘What were they surveying?’
Stan shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
He did, though. Or at least he had an inkling.
The next afternoon the inkling was more definite. He was out the back weeding round the silver beet when May came rushing from the house.
‘Guess what?’ she cried. Her face was glowing.
He could have guessed, and almost got it right, only he didn’t want to spoil her surprise.
‘You tell me.’
‘Lonnie and Clara have got engaged!’
Clara, eh? Stan remembered the Chinese woman he’d met in the park whose daughter’s name was Clara. He’d had a sort of feeling, even at the time. ‘Coincidences do happen,’ he said aloud, and May gave him a puzzled glance.
‘You mean it’s a coincidence Lonnie’s got engaged just when we were having our party?’
Stan smiled and put his arm about her shoulders. ‘That too,’ he said.
3 5 M o r e R e s t l e s s N i g h t s
It was happening again: that sharp little niggle which would wake Stan two hours after he’d fallen asleep and keep him lying there, staring at the ceiling while the niggling went on and on. Like he was a table, thought Stan, and some cranky little kid was kicking at one of his legs.
What was bothering him? Last time it had been the way he couldn’t remember the colour of Mum’s eyes. He’d sorted that one out and it had made no difference, so perhaps it hadn’t been the problem in the first place? What was the problem, then? Stan pushed the doona back and got out of bed; there was no way he’d get back to sleep.
‘You all right, love?’ May murmured sleepily.
‘Just off to get a drink of milk,’ Stan reassured her.
As he approached the fridge, Lonnie’s name stared at him from the door, and the address and telephone number too, and Stan could almost swear the figures in that number had been made larger, as if to give a gentle hint. Well, he wasn’t ringing him!
He poured the milk into a tumbler, gulped it down quickly, returned the carton to the fridge, and was confronted by the message all over again: Lonnie, 5 Firth Street, Toongabbie. Telephone 9864 5372. He’d rip it down except for the upset that would cause May. She kept on nagging, reminding him that it was now only a little more than two weeks till the party and she’d be sending out the invitations any day. And that Lonnie hadn’t dropped out of his latest course, he was working hard – and it was he, Stan, who’d lost his block back there last summer.
‘And I had good reason to,’ Stan kept on retorting, digging his heels right in.
And yet, Ratbag! He couldn’t get over how Lonnie had remembered the old dog, and remembered, too, how upset his grandfather had been.
Stan rinsed the glass under the tap and placed it on the draining board. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to – to what? Make it up? Apologise? The very word embarrassed him; a man had his pride, didn’t he? And whatever May said, he had had good reasons for writing Lonnie off last summer.
Writing him off: the phrase triggered a sudden image of that girl Stan had seen on the train; the beggar girl in black. He recalled her with enormous clarity: the thin, dusty clothes, the small mound of her stomach, the unwashed hair and grubby fingernails, the frightening sound of her voice. He pictured her sodden cardboard hideaway again; imagined her lying in it at the dead of night, listening to footsteps passing on the pavement, heart beating fast, holding her breath when the footsteps stopped. Perhaps it was the thought of her, half forgotten, which had kept waking him up at night. ‘Shouldn’t be allowed,’ he muttered.
Something should be done.
Like what? What could be done? He was old and out of touch these days, he didn’t know the city like he’d done years back when he was young and on the force. He didn’t know where such a girl might go to get help, proper help, not people who’d push her around. He didn’t know who she should see, and it made him feel useless, this being out of touch.
Who would know, then?
Marigold.
Stan padded down the hall towards the telephone.
Marigold struggled up from sleep, saw the time on the bedside clock: 2.30 – the time for very bad news. ‘Lonnie?’ she whispered, picking up the phone.
‘Lonnie?’ Stan was outraged. ‘It’s me.’
Dad. Marigold drew in a quick frightened breath. If Dad was calling at this hour, then something must have happened to Mum. ‘Mum?’
‘It’s me, I said!’ roared Stan. ‘How could you think I was your mother?’
‘I know it’s you!’ Marigold roared back. ‘I meant, is something wrong with Mum?’
‘Why should there be? She’s dead to the world – snoring her head off back there in bed. Like I would be too if it wasn’t for this girl.’
Marigold froze. Girl? Was he talking about Clara?
‘What girl?’ she asked.
‘This kid I saw on the train. Beggar kid – pregnant, deaf and dumb, walking up and down the carriage.’ Stan cleared his throat. ‘Hardly older than Lil.’
Marigold listened in astonishment as her tough old dad, at 2.30 in the morning when he’d normally be sound asleep, went on about a girl in a black dress. ‘Thought you might know what to do,’ he finished gruffly.
Marigold gave him names and addresses, phone numbers. ‘But no matter
what you do, Dad, there are kids who fall right through the cracks.’
Stan hung up the phone. ‘Fall through the cracks.’ What an expression! His mum would have hated it. It was almost as bad as ‘written him off’.
Marigold sank down onto the sofa. Lily appeared in the doorway, rubbing her fists in her eyes. ‘Who was that?’
‘Your pop.’
‘What did he ring about? Nan’s all right, isn’t she?’
‘Of course.’
‘So?’
‘You’re not going to believe this.’
Lily tightened her lips. ‘Try me.’
‘Your tough old pop is worried about this young girl he’s seen begging on the train. Sixteen, pregnant, deaf and dumb, dressed all in black –’ ‘I’ve seen that girl,’ said Lily. ‘Lots of times. Lonnie has too.’
A couple of years back Lily would have scorned that girl in black – a druggie, she’d have thought, a loser. Because how else could you get like that? Now, at sixteen, Lily had worked out that anything could happen to anybody, if there was no one around to catch you when you fell.
‘I’ve seen her lots,’ she repeated, and flung herself down on the sofa, leaning her head against her mother’s shoulder. ‘Have you?’
‘She’s scary.’ Lily paused. ‘When you said it was Pop, I thought it might be he’d found out.’
‘Found out what?’
‘Found out about Lonnie getting engaged to a Chinese girl.’
‘Lily, for heaven’s sake! I’m sure it won’t be like that.’
‘Yes it will!’ Lily stared down at her toes. They were short and stubby, like Pop’s. Somewhere in Bestie there’d be a feature on how to make your toes look long and slender, even if they weren’t. But she’d finished with all that; finished with crushes and all that girly stuff, finished with Daniel Steadman. Her toes would stay as they were. All she cared about now was Nan’s party, and the Samson family having a whole and perfect day. If that was possible, and Lily didn’t think it was.
‘I know exactly what’s going to happen,’ she told her mum. ‘Even if Pop and Lonnie make it up, the moment Pop sees Clara he’ll start going on, and Clara will get upset – like, who wouldn’t?’ Lily put her hands up to her eyes as if she could actually see these awful things happening. ‘And Lonnie will get mad and he and Pop will have another fight, and then Clara will want to go home. Who could blame her for that? And Nan’s party will be ruined!’
‘No, no,’ soothed Marigold. ‘It won’t be like that, Lily.’
‘Yes it will! And Mum –’ Lily threw her arms out wide, despairingly, ‘it could have been this brilliant, perfect day!’
‘Lily, it will be.’
‘No, it can’t be.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Pop’s an old bigot. And even if he wasn’t, our family’s too – dysfunctional.’
Marigold actually chuckled, infuriating Lily. ‘Show me a family that isn’t dysfunctional!’
‘Mum! Can’t you take things seriously?’
Before Marigold could reply to this, a plump brown mouse (almost plump enough to be Seely) skidded out from behind the TV, gazed at them boldly for a second, and then darted out through the door.
Lily waved a hand after his vanishing tail. ‘See! We’ve even got rats in the lounge room! How dysfunctional is that?’
‘Very.’ Marigold chuckled again. ‘But I think it was a mouse.’
‘Makes no difference.’ Lily made another wide, sweeping gesture, encompassing their tatty rug, which never got clean no matter which shampoo you used, the battered furniture (second-hand when Mum and he had first been married), those scary leak-marks on the ceiling (how did you fix a roof?). Lily had been brought up to believe that material things weren’t important, and she still believed this, but she couldn’t help noticing that most other people didn’t. Tracy Gilman’s eyes would go big and round if she ever got inside this house.
And Daniel Steadman? Lily tossed her head. What Daniel Steadman might think didn’t matter now. Not only had she given up on him, but Daniel seemed to have vanished from the school, and Lily wasn’t vain enough to think he’d disappeared because of her. No, he’d simply left, like people do. Gone to another school, perhaps – people changed schools all the time. Someone would know: kids in his year who took the same classes, Mr Corcoran at the Drama Society, even Tracy Gilman.
Lily wasn’t asking any of them. Daniel Steadman had been a mistake and an humiliation. There were other things to do in life; there was – for a frightening moment Lily couldn’t think of anything. She’d concentrate on her schoolwork then, she decided. She’d devote herself to science; she was good at Physics and Chemistry. She’d be strong and stern and famous, like – Madame Curie. Yes! That was it! She’d be the Madame Curie of the twenty-first century!
‘Lily?’
Mum was smiling at her.
‘Yeah?’
‘Lily, I know I promised you I wouldn’t bring any more lame ducks home –’
‘Mum!’
‘But this one, she’s special.’
‘You always say that.’ Lily sat up straight and folded her arms sternly.
‘Honestly, this one is. And it’s only for a weekend, darling.’
‘What weekend?’
‘The sixteenth.’
‘The sixteenth of September?’
‘That’s right. Why, what’s the matter?’
Something like the beginning of a smile quivered at the corners of Lily’s lips. A moment ago she’d have thought things couldn’t get worse. Now it seemed they could, and well, you had to look on the funny side.
‘Good one, Mum,’ she said.
‘Good one?’
‘Pop’s party’s on that weekend. Sunday, the seventeenth.’
‘Ah.’ Marigold frowned as she thought that over. Lily could almost hear the neurones firing as her mum struggled to fit this new complication into her optimistic scheme of things. ‘I’m sure your nan won’t mind an extra guest,’ she said at last. The frown vanished; she was actually smiling now. ‘In fact, she’d probably love one. Don’t you think?’
‘I guess so,’ agreed Lily. Because what else could you say?
‘And I’m sure Mrs Nightingale will fit in wonderfully,’ her mother went on happily.
‘Yeah,’ sighed Lily. ‘In our family, I bet she will.’
36
5 FIRTH STREET, TOONGABBIE
Armed with Marigold’s list of helpful names and agencies, Stan travelled into the city to search for the girl in black. He rode up and down on the trains all morning: Penrith to Blacktown, Blacktown to Parramatta, on down to Strath-field and the city, where he grabbed a sandwich at Wynyard and then travelled out again. At each station he went to the doors and leaned out; scanning the platforms, getting in people’s way. ‘Watch out, Pop!’ a young voice shouted, and Stan looked round sharply, because for a moment he’d thought it might be Lon. It wasn’t, of course, only some kid who thought it was fine to call any bloke over forty, ‘Pop’. ‘Get stuffed,’ retorted Stan, and the kid gave him the finger, and Stan gave it back to him. No way he was putting up with cheek.
At half past three, slowing into a suburb west of Parramatta, and still no sign of the girl, Stan decided to call it a day. Where was he now? What station was this? The sign slid by the window: Toongabbie, read Stan, and all at once he was on his feet and headed for the door.
It wouldn’t hurt to have a gander at the place, see this dump where Lonnie lived. Since he was passing anyway. A quick shufti, that was all – for May’s sake, really. Put her mind at rest, stop her brooding about bedbugs and the like. Down the ramp went Stan. ‘Firth Street?’ he asked the bloke at the gate.
‘Two blocks down, turn left at the service station, then third right. Can’t miss it.’
‘Thanks, mate.’
The house surprised him. Lily had told them it wasn’t a squat; all the same he’d expected some kind of hovel, seedy and damp, the garden full of weeds and other rubb
ish. A bit like Marigold’s place, only with more people in it. He hadn’t bargained for fresh paint on the doors and windowsills and the guttering intact. ‘Not bad,’ he thought, studying Mrs Rasmussen’s well-kept front garden from the opposite side of the street.
Five minutes passed and Stan kept on standing there, shifting from foot to foot; unable to work out exactly why he couldn’t leave. It was May’s fault, of course, it had to be. Her fault for sticking that notice up on the fridge, lodging Lonnie’s address so firmly in his brain that when he saw the word Toongabbie he’d walked out onto the platform as if this had been his destination all along. Programmed like a flaming robot! Stan shoved his hands deep inside his pockets and rocked back on his heels. All the same, now he was here on the spot he might as well have a go at seeing Lonnie. Not to apologise, mind you – simply to have a bit of a chat, smooth things over before May’s flamin’ party.
What could he say to him? Stan looked up and down the street, as if the answer might lie there. He saw old houses; some neat and tidy like 5 Firth Street, some renovated, others merely old. Sure to be people his age living here, and Stan wished one of them would come outside so he could wander up and have the sort of yarn he often had at bus-stops and railway stations – about kids and grandkids, and what the hell you could do . . .
His gaze fixed on the bright blue door of Lonnie’s boarding house. Should he go over there? It was almost 4.30, the tail end of the afternoon, and Lonnie would most probably be out. If he was out then Stan could leave some kind of message, smooth the waters for May . . .
Only you couldn’t really be sure that he was out because uni students kept all kinds of hours and Lonnie could be in there. Stan rocked on his heels again and rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. Okay, so what he’d do, if Lonnie was home, was to act quite natural, as if his outburst on that afternoon last summer, and that stupid business with the axe, had never actually occurred.
Stan stepped out bravely from the footpath. And then stopped dead. What if Lonnie’s girlfriend was in there? And what if Lonnie had told her about that business with the axe? If he’d done that, and you could bet he had (Lon was never one to hide his troubles) then the girlfriend – this Clara – would think he was some kind of maniac. She’d shriek her head off the minute she caught sight of him.
One Whole and Perfect Day Page 17