Evangelia knew they wouldn’t. They’d already provided it in previous weeks, yet she couldn’t seem to do anything with it. Besides, neither Terry, Gwen nor Sita were writing from personal experience, and this made them confused and uncertain of how to advise her. The best Terry seemed able to do was to ascertain time and again that she was absolutely sure there were no skeletons in her mother’s closet vis-à-vis secret professions or untold adventures? For instance, Ruth, his subject, had later gone on to train as a covert operative under the newly founded ASIO program and was she – Evangelia – completely certain her mother hadn’t done something similar? Housewife by day, enchanting deep cover operative by night? Evangelia, who now sat as far from Terry as physically possible, pictured her mother shuffling about the house of an evening with slippered feet and her hair in rollers, scouring the saucepans with steel wool and plucking the hairs from her chin in the reflection of her little hand mirror. Pickling the olives her father grew in the backyard and whooping at the neighbour’s cat for shitting in the cucumbers. No, she told Terry with certainty, her mother was undoubtedly not a spy.
In lieu of anyone offering any practical suggestions, Carole once more reiterated that there were a thousand ways to tell a story and that Evangelia would one day find her own. Evangelia nodded and pretended to take notes and began to feel a familiar glumness that would last for the rest of the evening. Then she would go home and seek out Peter, because he was bound to do something minor that would warrant her having a good loud shout.
*
A few days later Evangelia sat in the car with the motor running outside the gyros store. She jammed the base of her palm down on the horn a couple of times then turned up the heating. What was keeping Peter? It was freezing outside and she didn’t want to leave the warmth of the car. She’d convinced him to close up early but already the sky was darkening. Evangelia had always hated this time of year, her mood blackening and her patience shortening in direct relation to the proximity of the winter solstice. Lydia was the same, so growing up in their house had been a cavern of petty fights and collisions every winter as the two young women had slammed doors and thrown cutlery and hurled themselves dramatically over couch arms to weep at the slightest inclination. Her mother had always said this was because their bodies were set for the northern hemisphere and were expecting sun and sweet sea breezes instead of all this rain and gloom. Her father blamed the lax parenting of this new country and muttered about a time when children were not treated like royalty and were expected to pull their weight. They’d had no time to sulk in the village because they were always expected to help in the fields and with the animals, he’d grumbled. Whatever it was, she felt it now, as if being forced to fit her life into the shortened sunlit hours of the day made it heavy and unbearable.
She jammed the horn again, muttering to herself. He was always like this when they had somewhere important to be, no matter how much warning she gave him. She’d texted him reminders throughout the day and even set a false deadline in the hope this would compensate for his inevitable lateness, but still, here she was, freezing to death in the car in the dark, breathing in her own recirculated breath. She wound the window down a fraction, recoiling from the icy air that seeped in.
‘Petro! Peeeeee-ter!’
She honked the horn a few more times, ignoring the glances from the street.
‘Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ter! Oh, for chrissake.’
Evangelia pulled her coat around her and hurried out of the car. She threw open the front door, ignoring the little bell, and strode into the store. The staff were hurriedly busying themselves, Kat wiping the counter as Nina pretended she hadn’t just resumed sweeping the floor. The new girl was doing something awkward and pointless around the condiments which suggested the three of them had previously been gossiping. Evangelia eyed them. Peter seemed to have a way of hiring staff who managed half of what she herself could do in the same amount of time.
‘Petro! How many watches do I need to buy you before you use one?’
She burst into the back office where Peter sat hunched over the small table. Always hunched over the small table. This was what he did. For the life of her she couldn’t work out why he always seemed to be doing this, as the entire process of closing up the till each night took her fifteen minutes maximum and she could do the whole thing standing. He looked up, his thick eyebrows set in a scowl.
‘Don’t give me that look. You know we’re late. Do you want to be late? Because I don’t want to be late. Last time we were late, do you think Lydia could think of anything else to talk about for the next month? No. It was all about how we were late for the school concert and missed our own bloody children perform. After all those weeks of listening to Xanthe torture her flute, we missed the stupid performance. And do you think I’m going to miss the start of this silent bloody auction so that Lydia can talk her mouth off about it for the rest of the term? No, I am not. I am not doing that, Peter.’
Her husband looked at her wearily.
‘Why are you yelling?’
‘I’m not yelling,’ she yelled. ‘I’m simply reminding you that you were meant to be ready half an hour ago and I have been sitting in the car for the last thirty minutes waiting for you, breathing in my own carbon dioxide, but do you care?’
He held his hands up before him in surrender.
‘You think this is easy?’
He gestured to the little mounds of coins before him as if they were the controls of a spaceship.
‘I think it is incredibly easy,’ Evangelia retorted, stepping forward. ‘I think it’s far easier than childbirth, and I’ve gone through that twice with your giant Kríti babies. Go pay the staff and let me finish this.’
As he lumbered off, she sat at the desk and started counting the coins. Far easier than childbirth? Where had that come from? She knew where it came from – straight from the script of things her mother used to say. She was turning into her mother. It was inevitable. History repeating in a different set of clothes. She finished the work quickly then shut off the lights in the back room. Out the front, Peter was paying the staff from a wad of notes he kept in his pocket, releasing each one slowly as though he were selecting which of his children to offer up for sacrifice.
‘I’ll be in the car,’ she announced.
As she waited for Peter, she watched the three women leave the store one by one. Kat and Nina got in their cars, waving each other goodbye as they drove off. The new one – Ada, wasn’t it? – tugged the collar of her coat higher as she set off down the pavement. This surprised Evangelia, who had assumed someone picked her up each night. It was dark outside, yet Ada didn’t seem worried. She wore the same resigned expression that Evangelia’s mother so often had.
Evangelia was hit suddenly by the memory of her mother rising early in the morning and heading out to the factory. This had been the year her father’s back had properly given up and he’d been unable to work for six difficult months. He’d joined the Greek Army during World War II, supporting the Allies as the Greek islands became the coveted strategic point between Europe and the Middle East. He was a teenager, a baby really, but so many of them were, those burly Greek boys with their beards hiding their youthfulness. His back had been injured in an explosion up in the mountains somewhere and it caused him trouble the rest of his life, helped little by the long shifts he put in at the brickworks in order to put food on the table.
This time when his back played up he had ventured down to Heidelberg to the veterans’ hospital for treatment, only to be told to wait. Others came and went, and still he waited for hours. He’d watched them give the other ex-servicemen cups of tea and sandwiches while they waited, but there was nothing for him. He waited all day until the hospital drew to the very edge of closing time before they called him. First one there, last one seen. The doctor was quick, brisk, told him new Australians often exaggerated their pain. That it was all in their heads. Over
tly emotional and whatnot. An unbalanced equilibrium of sorts. And he had been sent off just as he’d come. The other ex-servicemen were offered taxis, given vouchers, but her father had had to take the train back into the city and then another back out to Northcote. He had returned home late in the evening, his story unfolding as he sat exhausted at the table, avoiding her mother’s eyes. He was a proud man but by the end of the story his eyes were flooded with tears, the first Evangelia had ever seen from him.
The next morning, her mother had set off early and marched through the cold dark morning to the factory and demanded she be allowed to work in her husband’s place. They had not wanted to let her but somehow she had changed the foreman’s mind, and for six months, she had risen before the sun every day, gone about her morning tasks, then set off through the changing seasons to cart sand and clay, and heft new bricks, amid men twice her size. She had woken often, tiny four-year-old Evangelia, and peered through the fogged-up window from the cocoon of her blanket to watch her mother depart, as Lydia snored obliviously beside her. And it had been that face – that face so similar to the one Ada wore now – that had bid her farewell each morning.
Evangelia sat back in the car seat, her chest heavy. She had not thought of this memory for decades – had not even realised it existed – until this moment. Here was a story, but like the others it was so full of questions and gaps that the only purpose it served was to remind Evangelia that the one person who could fill these was no longer here. And suddenly all the grief of these last few months came tumbling afresh to the surface and she bit hard on her tongue to staunch the tears. Peter appeared suddenly, his heavy figure filling the passenger side window, and he settled himself in the seat beside her.
‘You okay, babe?’ he asked, tugging at the seatbelt.
‘Of course I am.’
She started the car and they drove off in silence.
*
They missed the start of the silent auction and arrived to find Lydia laughing loudly amid a gaggle of other mums. It was a hearty laugh, visceral and deep, and it was far too soon for Evangelia.
‘We’re barely out of black,’ she whispered to Peter under her breath.
Lydia, it seemed, was done with dark shades now, arriving at the six-month mnimósino the month before in a bright red blouse and beads and forgetting to ask the priest to bless the grave. Spotting them from across the school hall, Lydia’s face lit up with faux concern and she shooed away the other women. Evangelia slid into the seat beside her and reached for the open bottle of wine at the centre of their table. It was set amid a sea of platters displaying various delicacies because Lydia believed in quality comestibles. At the front of the hall a small stage was pitched from where the principal stood reading out the winners of the silent auction, an assortment of teachers parading around the items like tired underpaid game show assistants. Darren was peering at the list of auction items, working out how long he would have to wait until his items were announced. Not that it mattered. He would most likely win them as Lydia had a tendency to hide the bidding sheets after they’d filled them in, and no one on the school committee had cottoned on to this yet. Besides, even if he didn’t win tonight, whenever they wanted something they just went out and bought it.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lydia said soothingly. ‘I bid on a stone Buddha for you.’
Evangelia stared at her sister. Why on earth would she think that was something they wanted?
‘How much did you put?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Oh, not much. Four hundred or so,’ Lydia said dismissively, dipping a wholegrain cracker into a tub of babaganoush.
Evangelia saw Peter’s eyes widen and she attempted to give him a reassuring look.
‘I hid the paper so no one else could find it.’ Lydia winked at them, and Evangelia watched Peter’s mouth tighten into an almost imperceptible point. She pushed a plate of antipasto in front of him then turned to her sister, annoyed.
‘Yes!’ Darren leapt to his feet and started pumping the air with his fists.
Lydia looked momentarily embarrassed, which made Evangelia feel a little better.
‘Win something, did you?’ she asked Darren.
He gave her a stoked grin.
‘Game of Thrones box set. Signed by one of the show runners.’
He looked around for someone to high-five but found no one.
‘Good for you,’ Evangelia said encouragingly, knowing this would annoy Lydia.
Lydia did not like anything that reminded her of the significant age difference between her and her husband. It had been a point of pride initially, when it was she who was in her thirties and he a decade younger, but now that Darren was in this position it simply made her feel old and, Evangelia suspected, vulnerable. Peter was scanning the list of items, munching on a stick of salami.
‘Look at some of these dinner packages,’ he said, impressed.
‘We bid on a bunch of those,’ Lydia replied enthusiastically, sweeping her dark curls back over her shoulders in a way that made her silver jewellery rattle.
‘Did you put our name on any?’ he asked hopefully, and Lydia feigned surprise.
‘I didn’t realise you’d want that kind of thing,’ she said.
Evangelia inhaled sharply, the nails of one hand digging into the flesh of the other. Lydia was surveying the room with eyes sparkling and Evangelia wanted to seize her, shake her, shout in her face until she remembered that their mother was no longer here and that they were meant to be bereft. She took another deep breath. Someone was wheeling the stone Buddha onto the stage. It was colossal, the folds of its huge belly peeping out from its robes in a way that reminded Evangelia of Peter circa now. She had hoped it would at least be one of those nice elegant Thai Buddhas, but it was the laughing kind, inexpertly carved so that it peered out at them with a sardonic jeer. She did not want it anywhere near her home.
‘You’ve won!’ Lydia exclaimed brightly, clapping her hands together in a pantomime of delight.
Peter glared at her, stuffing another salami stick into his mouth.
‘Smile,’ Lydia joked, and for a brief second Peter’s grimace was an exact replica of the Buddha’s.
Evangelia leant over to Peter.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll just go without picking it up. Eventually they’ll leave us alone and just re-auction it next year.’
Lydia had other ideas.
‘Let’s go up and get it now. They’re having a short break. The kids are performing a musical item.’
Up onstage, Andreas and Marina were preparing to perform, Andreas pulling his bouzouki from its case and Marina adjusting the microphone. They were dressed in some eclectic version of traditional dress, as prescribed by Lydia, so they looked like impoverished peasants preparing to busk for bread scraps. Lydia liked to pick and choose from costumes of the various regions of the Hellenic nations, because the point was to be cultural, she insisted, not accurate.
‘They wrote this song themselves,’ she said proudly as Andreas started to play, slow and dramatic.
She grabbed Evangelia by the hand and pulled her towards the Buddha.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she gushed.
‘Why don’t you take it?’ Evangelia suggested. ‘Clearly you love it.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ Lydia insisted. ‘You deserve it. Plus, it wouldn’t really go with our aesthetic.’
So Evangelia handed over the money, feeling Peter’s eyes like lasers on the back of her neck.
Lydia soon lost interest in the silent auction. She turned her back to the stage, reaching across to tap Evangelia’s arm.
‘We really do need to make sure we get the mnimósino right next time,’ she said, her voice suggesting that it had been Evangelia’s fault the Italian had not known to pray for their mother’s eternal soul. ‘The headstone should be ready too.’
Evangelia’s face fell. For years their father had lain alone in the double plot, the bare headstone beside him waiting for the time when their mother joined him. Lydia was supposed to have organised this months ago. Had promised to do it at the three months after Evangelia had been upset to find the plain white wooden cross still acting as placeholder for the real thing, then again following the six months. And now their mother had lain in the ground for nearly seven months with no proper headstone.
‘Why isn’t it done by now?’
Lydia raised an eyebrow. ‘I wanted to get it right.’
She picked a strawberry from a plate and nibbled it delicately, avoiding the leaves.
‘Besides, I can’t decide which picture to use. It wasn’t an issue with Dad because he died so young he hadn’t really aged that much. But Mum looked so different in her later years. Anyway, these are the ones I’ve whittled it down to.’
She held up her phone and starting swiping through images. They were all recent photos, their mother’s dour, aged face staring back at them. Evangelia’s own face contorted in annoyance.
‘God, when you make that face you look just like her,’ Lydia said.
‘These are terrible photos. She looks terrible. No!’
Lydia’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Why are you yelling? This is what she looked like.’
Evangelia’s hands pulled into tight fists and she struck them down upon the table.
‘That’s what she looked like when she was old and tired and worn down from living a hard bloody life. When she was sick. That’s not how she would want to be remembered. And it will look weird. There’s Dad, all handsome and vibrant, and then you want a picture of Mum looking close to death?’
She pushed the phone away from her, surprising Lydia with the force. Peter too, who was watching with interest from the other side of a meat platter. It was not often his wife stood up to her sister and he looked to be enjoying it. Even Darren, who had been lovingly cradling his box set, was looking at them with a mixture of curiosity and worry, as if he might be called on at any moment to say or do something, and he was rarely prepared for either.
The Book of Ordinary People Page 20