The Patterson Girls

by Rachael Johns

  ‘Yep. I think so. What say we all meet back here after lunch. I’m going to the supermarket to get supplies this morning. Anyone have any requests for Christmas cuisine?’ Although they hadn’t officially discussed it, Lucinda assumed that she’d be expected to play chef. Charlie would cook vegetarian food—which Dad abhorred—and Abigail and Madeleine were about as useful in the kitchen as a couple of blind wombats.

  ‘Nah, but I’ll come with you,’ Abigail volunteered. ‘It’ll be good to get out. And this place needs some Froot Loops.’

  Lucinda bit down on the impulse to tell her that Froot Loops were empty calories that would rot her teeth, and instead turned to make their coffee.

  The three sisters came together in their parents’ bedroom at precisely two o’clock. Abigail held up two packets of Tim Tams and a couple of bottles of Diet Coke (treats she’d bought on her shopping trip with Lucinda). Charlie brought carrot and celery sticks and a tub of hummus to the party. Madeleine had contemplated sneaking into the motel bar to steal a bottle of wine, but then thought maybe it was too early in the day. Lucinda brought a pile of empty boxes she’d picked up at the supermarket that morning.

  To say their mum had been a hoarder would be a gross understatement, especially where her wardrobe was concerned. Without a doubt this was going to be a mammoth and emotionally draining task. No wonder Dad had palmed it off on them.

  ‘Where do we start?’ Madeleine asked, looking to the others for direction.

  ‘Before we do, there’s something else I want to talk to you all about.’ Lucinda looked back to the door as if to check they were on their own, then she lowered her voice. ‘Last night I spoke to Mitch McDonald in the bar.’

  ‘You saw Mitch?’ Charlie’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Why didn’t you send him in to say hello?’

  ‘I did.’ Lucinda looked apologetically to Charlie. ‘He said he wanted to let us catch up. I’m sure he’ll make contact though; sorry I forgot to mention it.’

  ‘It’s fine. What is it you wanted to say?’

  ‘Well,’ Lucinda inhaled deeply. ‘The restaurant was almost empty and Mitch was the only customer in the bar, which struck me as odd considering how busy we used to get on a Friday night. He said he’d been keeping an eye on Dad and that he was a little concerned he wasn’t coping.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell us this last night?’ Madeleine’s jaw tightened.

  ‘I wanted us to have a nice dinner. And after talking to Mrs Sampson I also wanted to nose around the books and stuff today.’

  ‘And?’ Madeleine didn’t hide her annoyance. ‘What did Mrs Sampson say?’ She herself had gone back to bed after the jog and spent the morning catching up on sleep.

  ‘She was a little cagey, but she admitted she’s been shouldering a lot more of the motel responsibility since Mum died. She tried to tell me she didn’t mind but I could see how exhausted she is. She hasn’t had a day off in over a month. Apparently Dad got behind paying some of the staff wages and so a few of the casual cleaners and wait staff quit. Mrs Sampson and Rob have been doing the best they can but it’s not fair on either of them.’

  ‘Poor Dad,’ Abigail sniffed. ‘Maybe one of us should have stayed longer after the funeral.’

  ‘Right,’ Madeleine nodded, unable to rein in her sarcastic tone. ‘And you would have given up your prestigious position in the London Symphony Orchestra to cook bacon and eggs for strangers?’

  Abigail poked her tongue out but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lucinda said with emphasis that demanded attention, ‘this morning I told Mrs Sampson she needed to take a few days off over Christmas, maybe even go to Adelaide and spend it with her kids, and that from tomorrow until we leave we’ll take on her duties.’

  Madeleine raised her eyebrows. ‘What about our holiday?’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Madeleine,’ snapped Lucinda, cursing uncharacteristically, ‘stop being such a princess. Do you have a better solution? Do you even care about Dad? Or do you only care about yourself?’

  Madeleine wanted to yell something caustic back but Lucinda’s words hit hard. The truth was she wasn’t so much annoyed about having to help but about Lucinda making this decision without consulting anyone else. Sometimes she thought her sister should have been born first; she certainly acted like she was in charge of everyone.

  ‘Look, let’s not fight about this now. We can’t change the past,’ said Charlie, ever the peacekeeper. ‘But Lucinda’s right. We can at least give Mrs Sampson a holiday and take the pressure off Dad while we’re here.’

  ‘I’m happy to help,’ Abigail said, her usual chirpiness grating on Madeleine’s already tetchy nerves, ‘but—’

  ‘We know you can’t cook to save your life,’ Charlie said with a laugh. ‘If I recall, neither can Madeleine.’

  It was Madeleine’s turn to poke out her tongue. What am I, sixteen again? Being around her sisters was making her behave like a child. ‘Let me guess, we’re on room cleaning duty then.’ She knew she should have stayed in Baltimore.

  ‘We’ll work out a fair roster,’ Lucinda promised. ‘Now, shall we get started?’

  ‘Yes.’ The sooner they got started, the sooner they’d finish and Madeleine could escape to her room for a little sanity-restoring solitude.

  ‘Great.’ Lucinda gestured to the boxes she’d placed on the queen size bed. ‘I thought maybe we could make three piles. Stuff that is still good enough to give to the Salvos, stuff that should be binned and … sentimental stuff that we can’t bear to part with.’

  ‘Like Mum’s wedding dress?’ Abigail suggested, glancing up at the big white box with a silver ribbon that lived on the top shelf of the walk-in robe. Madeleine could only recall one occasion when Mum had brought it out—she’d joked about being too fat to ever use it again—but they’d always known that dress was special. She and Dad had been almost sickeningly in love, often pausing to kiss like newlyweds as they passed in the hallway or in the bar.

  ‘Yes.’ Lucinda nodded. ‘The wedding dress stays. It didn’t fit for my big Italian wedding—’ she rolled her eyes ‘—but maybe one of you would like to wear it when you get married.’

  ‘Moving right along,’ Madeleine said. If they agonised over every single item, they’d still be here next Christmas. She walked into the jam-packed robe and reached for a few shoeboxes. Their mother was a walking cliché where shoes were concerned—owning far more than she could ever possibly wear. Madeleine and Abigail had inherited this obsession. ‘I’ll start with these.’

  Madeleine took the shoeboxes to the other side of the room, figuring that this would be a quick job. Unlike her sisters, she wasn’t sentimental. She’d take a look inside and if they were broken or hideously out of fashion, she’d turf them. But the Salvos could think again if they thought they were getting any of the good vintage stuff.

  ‘Okay,’ Lucinda agreed, ‘but we all need to be mindful of Dad and each other. If we’re not sure about a decision, we consult.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Charlie and Abigail in unison.

  ‘Deal,’ Madeleine echoed, lifting the lid on a pair of pink tap shoes. Despite her desire to get through this as quickly as possible, she couldn’t help showing her sisters. ‘Remember Mum bought these when Abigail and Charlie started dance classes?’

  ‘Yes.’ Abigail shrieked. ‘She used to be so embarrassing standing at the back of the hall, copying the teacher.’

  ‘Possibly why neither of us lasted long in the class,’ Charlie added with a wry smile.

  The next hour was actually a lot more fun than they had anticipated. Madeleine relaxed despite herself and what could have been a very sad process became a kind of tribute to Mum’s individual fashion sense; a tribute to her.

  Every few minutes someone would exclaim, ‘Oh my, do you remember when she wore this?’ Then the sister in question would hold the gown up against herself and prance around the room imitating their mother as they shared memories. As with everything she did, Ab
igail took this to the extreme, actually removing her own clothes to dress up as their mother. She was wearing a nineteen-eighties blue taffeta ball gown—terrifying shoulder pads and all—when Madeleine found a shoebox that didn’t contain shoes.

  ‘Oh,’ she said as she looked into a box bursting full of greeting cards. She picked up the first one and the tiered cake on the front immediately identified it as a wedding card. ‘What do you think Dad would want us to do with these?’

  ‘What are they?’ Charlie asked, folding a fluffy white jumper as she spoke.

  Lucinda emerged from the walk-in robe and came to stand alongside Abigail who’d stopped dancing like she was some eighties teenager.

  ‘Wedding cards,’ Madeleine told them.

  ‘Ooh, let me have a look.’ Abigail bounded forward and snatched the card out of Madeleine’s hand. ‘Dear Brian and Annette. True love is a blessing. Cherish it and each other always. Congratulations on your nuptials. Best wishes, Mr and Mrs Benedict.’

  ‘Who?’ Charlie frowned.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ Madeleine said, not giving a damn anyway. Was Lucinda actually crying? Good Lord, she should have kept her mouth shut and disposed of this box discreetly. Her sisters were too sentimental for their own good.

  Abigail reached for another card and before Madeleine knew it, the others had abandoned their posts and were sitting on the floor blubbering like babies over the romantic sentiments in their parents’ wedding cards.

  She’d just decided it was time to go fetch that wine after all when Lucinda said, ‘Hey, take a look at this one. A bit weird, don’t you think?’

  Curious despite herself, Madeleine leaned over Lucinda’s shoulder and followed along as she read the card aloud. ‘Darling Annette, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the Patterson family on this beautiful spring day. We truly hope you and Brian will be very happy and that you are right in your belief that the Patterson curse is a load of codswallop. Best wishes, Aunt Victoria and Aunt Sarah.’

  ‘Who the heck are Aunt Victoria and Aunt Sarah?’ Abigail asked.

  ‘The names ring a bell,’ Charlie said, biting her lip.

  Lucinda and Madeleine looked at each other and Madeleine saw her own memory reflected in her sister’s face. ‘They were Grandpa Jimmy’s sisters,’ she said. ‘I can barely remember them. They died just after Abigail was born—terrible head-on collision on the highway—so you probably wouldn’t remember them much either, Charlie.’

  ‘We didn’t see them very often, did we?’ Lucinda looked to Madeleine for clarification.

  She shook her head. ‘If I remember, Mum didn’t like them much.’

  ‘No wonder.’ Charlie half-laughed. ‘What kind of people write about a curse in a wedding card?’

  ‘I wonder what the curse was?’ A frown line creased Abigail’s otherwise flawless forehead.

  Lucinda scratched the side of her neck. ‘Isn’t Paterson’s Curse that pretty purple flower? The one that’s actually a noxious weed that farmers hate?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘Yep, but most people round here call it Salvation Jane.’

  ‘You don’t think that’s what they were talking about, do you?’ Abigail, never one with any interest in local agriculture, looked immensely disappointed.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Madeleine snapped, wishing she’d never found this dumb box. Knowing her little sister, she’d want to get to the bottom of what was probably nothing and, knowing the others, they’d go along with it to appease her.

  ‘I’m a little curious,’ Lucinda admitted, rubbing her lips together in the way she always did when deep in thought.

  ‘Me too,’ Charlie added. ‘Maybe there’s some big family secret we’ve never been privy to.’

  Madeleine sighed, realising progress would be halted until they got to the bottom of it. ‘It’s probably nothing more than two silly women with a hyperactive imagination but if you’re all so concerned, why don’t we ask Dad?’

  Hopefully he was in the motel and Madeleine could grab a glass of wine from the bar while they indulged this excitement. Surely if the curse was worth worrying about, they’d have heard about it before now.

  Leaving the bedroom looking like a war had been fought between its walls, the four sisters hurried down the hallway and through the door to the motel.

  Chapter Five

  Abigail had always thought of her family as boring. She boasted two happily married parents who’d lived practically their whole lives in small town Meadow Brook, and three reasonably normal sisters—if you didn’t count Charlie’s new age tendencies. Thus, the idea of a family curse intrigued her. Not that she actually believed in curses, but the idea was far more exciting than the other things going on in her life.

  ‘Dad!’ She waved the card in the air as they approached the reception desk where their father was doing something at the computer. ‘Look what we just found.’

  He looked up; his smile was weary but he was trying. ‘Hello, my princesses. Sorry I’ve been a bit preoccupied today. How’s the sorting going in the house?’

  ‘We’re making progress,’ Lucinda told him.

  ‘It’s fine, Dad. We know you’re busy,’ Madeleine spoke at the same time. ‘We can come back later if you like.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head, plucked his glasses off his nose and put them down on the desk. ‘What did you want to show me?’

  ‘This.’ Abigail opened the card and put it down on the desk in front of him. ‘Do you know what they mean by the Patterson curse?’

  She held her breath as he read, hoping that maybe this would create an exciting diversion from real life for him as well. A funny expression came over his face—like he was reading about the death of a loved one. She glanced at her sisters and from the look on their faces they’d seen it too.

  ‘Dad?’ Lucinda pressed.

  ‘It’s codswallop.’ He stood and dumped the card in the waste paper basket beside him, avoiding their eyes. ‘That’s what your mother used to say and she was absolutely right. You girls are far too intelligent to believe a word of it.’

  Madeleine laughed. ‘Of course we are, but can’t you at least give us something. I know the great aunts were a bit eccentric, but a curse? What kind of curse?’

  Abigail held her breath. If anyone could get it out of Dad it was Madeleine. She hadn’t seemed the slightest bit interested back in the bedroom, but they all knew their oldest sister didn’t like being kept in the dark.

  Dad, already on his way out of reception, paused. ‘I’m sorry, but I promised Netty I’d never tell you. She didn’t believe in it, and she didn’t want you girls to ever have that kind of negativity affecting your lives. Just forget about it. Please.’

  With a sad and slightly angry look on his face, Dad walked through to his office and closed the door behind him.

  ‘Well,’ Abigail blinked. ‘Was that weird or was that just me?’

  ‘Weird,’ agreed Charlie and Lucinda.

  ‘I need a drink,’ Madeleine exclaimed, turning and heading to the bar.

  The others followed and without asking she unscrewed a bottle of McLaren Vale chardonnay and poured four glasses.

  ‘Okay, I’ll admit,’ Madeleine said after taking her first sip, ‘now I’m curious.’

  Abigail smiled. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’

  ‘Maybe we should just leave it,’ Lucinda suggested, twisting the stem of her wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Mum and Dad obviously don’t want us knowing. I trust their judgement and shouldn’t we respect their opinion?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘I agree. If we hadn’t stumbled on the cards we’d be none the wiser.’

  ‘But we did,’ Abigail pleaded, excitement thrumming through her veins.

  ‘And I for one have better things to do than spend all eternity wondering if some curse is going to strike me down dead when I least expect it,’ Madeleine said. Abigail couldn’t tell if she was taking the piss or not, but at least she now wanted to know.

  Charlie shot
Madeleine a disbelieving glare. ‘I didn’t think you’d place any importance on things like curses? Aren’t they in the same basket as palm reading, horoscopes and all the other things you take great joy in teasing me about.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Madeleine shrugged. ‘But none of those things affect me personally. This one is a Patterson curse. I think we all have a right to know.’

  Silence followed and Abigail guessed her sisters were all pondering the same thing as her. Did they have a right to know? And did she really want to know? What if the curse was something about death or bad luck or disease? She shuddered. Dad’s brother, Uncle William had died long before his time when he was caught in a rip on a family holiday to Goolwa Beach. And as Madeleine had just informed them, Dad’s aunts had died in a horrific car accident.

  And what about Mum’s bee sting?

  Sheesh! Maybe there really was some ghastly Patterson curse.

  ‘So how do you plan on finding out?’ Lucinda asked. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep pestering Dad in his current state.’

  ‘Yes, Lucinda, thank you for that blindingly obvious piece of information.’ Madeleine tapped her fingernails on the bar. ‘We could ask some of the locals who’ve been in Meadow Brook forever. Someone might know something.’

  Lucinda shook her head. ‘You’ve been living in big cities too long. Word would get back to Dad and he’d be upset we’d gone behind his back. I seriously think we should just forget about it and concentrate on the important things, like sorting through Mum’s stuff and helping with the motel.’

  ‘What do you think, Charlie?’ Madeleine asked.

  ‘I think sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous,’ she replied, which Abigail guessed was her way of saying maybe they should let this go.

  ‘But knowledge surely beats ignorance? Forearmed is forewarned and all.’ Madeleine downed her wine and refilled. ‘Ah, whatever. We’re not going to find any more answers here. I’m tired. Shall we take the rest of this bottle back to the bedroom?’