Well . . . I suppose I’d have to say it all began with Nat. Meeting Nathaniel Cummins at the beginning of the summer before the results came out. And Zoe’s father, of course, I’d never met him before, although I’d heard about him. But even that feels like it happened to someone else. In a sense it did, of course. I was someone else then, someone else entirely.
Last Summer, Melbourne
‘We saw him!’
‘Rose. Come and look!’
‘Quick. Out the window!’
Here I am at the kitchen table, minding my own business, reading the paper, drinking coffee and wondering what life in Pakistan would be like. Would a girl my age have to cover her head all the time? What if the scarf blew off ? Would she be blamed for that? I mark where I’m up to with my finger and look up.
‘Who?’ I ask, very cool and above it all.
‘Him!’
I sigh in the studiously bored way I keep for my three older sisters before turning back to the paper.
But they surround me, waiting to see if anyone knows his name. None of them do, of course, because neither do I.
‘You know!’ Hilda says in hushed reverential tones. ‘Him!’
‘Come on, Rose!’ Cynthia snaps. ‘The guy you met.’
It’s hard holding my bland, I-couldn’t-give-a-damn expression, but I manage. Just. I get plenty of practice. My sisters often get hysterical over not very much.
‘The guy I met?’ I ask with a slow frown, knowing I’m driving them crazy but unable to stop myself. ‘Hmmm . . . I wonder who you mean?’
It’s a bit like playing one of those stupid video games. You want to stop and do something more productive with your time but you can’t quite pull yourself away because you feel you’re on the point of a meaningless minor victory.
There are raised eyebrows and sighs of frustration all around.
‘Stop being so obtuse!’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know!’
‘Come and see.’
Hilda, the eldest, is very straight. She always plays by the rules and can’t understand it when other people don’t. She can usually be counted on to be a smidgen more sensible than the other two, but this time she’s joined the all-important quest to get the youngest sister – that’s me – hooked up to a guy because, get out your hankies right now, I’ve just turned eighteen and have yet to display any serious interest in males. The other two must have filled her in on the perfectly uneventful meeting I’d had the day before with a good-looking guy who lives in the big student house at the end of our street.
Very nice I thought at the time. Nice looking. Nice of him to do that for Mum. Nice guy. Just that. Nice.
After Mum had gone inside, he and I stood talking in the street for a while, mainly about Melbourne University where I hope to be studying next year. But the crazy sisters had caught sight of him, and the fact that I’d been smiling as we talked. All too stupid to even recount but they demanded to know all about him. Caught at a weak moment, I made the mistake of telling them a few snippets of the conversation. And so it’s on as far as my sisters are concerned. Good-looking, lives nearby, a student at the same university as I’m going to go to, so . . . I must be dying to see him again, right?
Well no. Sorry. Not really. Not at all, actually.
‘Don’t cut yourself off, Rose,’ Hilda says, in her self-appointed role of the concerned eldest sister taking charge of a delicate operation. Cut myself off ? ‘You have a tendency to do that, you know,’ she adds, looking around at the others for support. They nod, all eyes on me.
‘I’m reading the paper,’ I reply, turning back to the article.
‘He’s just standing there . . . waiting,’ she says.
‘Waiting?’ I croak in disbelief, and look up. ‘Waiting for what?’
‘For you to come out,’ she ploughs on determinedly, although I can tell that even she knows she’s being crazy. ‘Why don’t you at least saunter down there and check out . . . the situation?’
‘ The situation is a bus stop, Hilda!’ I say. ‘People tend to stand at bus stops because they want to catch buses. That’s probably a radical concept for you to take in, but why don’t you try?’
Hilda is the only one who doesn’t live with us any more. Not officially anyway. She is twenty-seven and married and has eighteen–month-old twin boys. But she lives only a few streets away and is always over at the family house: using the phone, dropping off the kids for us – mainly Mum – to mind, making weird, healthy concoctions for the boys that they refuse to eat, and, of course, filling us in on what David thinks about everything. Her husband David is nice enough, in spite of the fact that he is ten years older than my sister, is a stockbroker and is never home because he’s so busy making piles of money. But listen to Hilda and you could be forgiven for thinking he might be the next saviour of mankind, if only he didn’t have to work late.
‘He knows you live here, Rosie.’
‘It’s a bus stop, Hilda,’ I say again, calmly. ‘It’s very normal to wait at a bus stop.’
They look at each other and roll their eyes, all agreeing, no doubt, that there has to be something seriously wrong with me. One by one they plonk themselves down opposite me at the table. I can tell they’re about to embark on one of their confidential sisterly advice sessions, so I glare at them and turn back to my paper. There is nothing I hate more and they know it. Then Cynthia jumps up again and goes to the front window. She pushes back the flimsy curtain and peers out. Our renovated Victorian family home is built on a rise, so you can see through the trees in the front garden and onto the road.
‘Still there,’ she calls over in a meaningful whisper. ‘You could go out there now and invite him to your party.’ Cynthia is plumper than the rest of us. She has curly dark hair and when she gets serious, like now, her brown eyes seem to bore through you, as though she’s trying to mesmerise you into agreeing with her. I look away. Honestly, once she becomes a doctor, that look will freak out so many sick people.
‘I could do that,’ I say slowly, ‘if I was having a party.’
‘You have to have a party, Rose,’ she snaps.
‘No I don’t.’
‘But you’ve just turned eighteen!’ Hilda weighs in. ‘And finished with school. We all had parties when we were eighteen!’
‘I don’t want one.’
‘You’ve got big things to celebrate, Rose,’ Cynthia declares from the window, just as though she is summing up an important argument about a world-shattering event which will change the course of history for ever. ‘You’ve turned eighteen. School is over. University is around the corner. Big stuff, kiddo. Come on! This is when your adult life begins. You’ve been waiting for this all your life!’
‘I have?’
‘You hated that school.’
‘So?’
‘So now you’ve finished with it!’
‘I don’t want a party.’
Cynthia has always fancied herself as the ultimate organiser. Someone who can personally make anything happen – from the annual street party to food distribution in the Third World. I’m sure she wants me to have a party so that she has a legitimate reason to boss the rest of us around.
‘What about Zoe?’ Hilda ventures breathlessly, looking past me to the other two who nod furiously. ‘Zoe needs a party even if you don’t!’
I don’t say anything because they have me pinned here. My best friend Zoe probably would get right off on an end-of-school party. And I know there is no way her own tight-arsed mother will throw one for her. But I’m not going to give in that easily. My sisters use these tactics all the time.
Another thing. The sisters assume everything in my life belongs to them. Within a month or two of Zoe first coming over to stay at our place, it was, Ask Zoe this. Tell Zoe that. Would Zoe like to come? Zoe just about always does like to come because her own home life is so horrible. She is away with a relative in Albury this week, but when she’s in Melbourne she practically lives at our place. B
ut that isn’t the point. She doesn’t belong to the sisters.
The big point is that Zoe and I have plans for the summer already, and they don’t include formal end-of-school parties where our classmates come along dressed up in expensive clothes in order to throw up in the back garden. No way. The two of us, Zoe and me that is, are going down the coast in my van, which is waiting for me in a used car yard in Preston. Only a few more pay cheques and it’s all mine.
I can’t wait to get back out on the ocean. It’s been the thought that’s sustained me through the slog of Year Twelve. We’ll take off as soon as I have my hands on the van – probably mid-December. Stay at Zoe’s dad’s place a few days and then travel on around the coast, sleep in the back of the van, cook our meals over fires, meet whoever . . . before we both start university.
That’s the plan anyway. The fact that neither of us has any experience lighting fires or sleeping in vans, or even much driving practice for that matter, is beside the point. I’ve got my licence now. We’ll learn.
Cynthia is still looking out the window.
‘He’s so good-looking,’ she murmurs. ‘Just right for you, Rose. Have the party, invite him and you’ll get to know him.’
I shake my head. What more can I say? En masse the sisters are simply unstoppable. I go back to reading the article about terror training camps in Pakistan. But it’s hard to concentrate.
‘I give up.’ Dorothy gives a huge frustrated sigh, slumps forward and buries her face into her perfectly-manicured white hands as though this tiny domestic situation is the big calamity of her life.
‘Well good,’ I say sharply, ‘I wish you would.’
Dad intercepts this impasse by pushing his way through the kitchen door. He’s carrying his battered old bulging briefcase with one hand, and holding a mobile phone to his ear with the other. He nods to us, frowning, as he listens to whoever is on the other end of the phone. Dad’s wearing one of his court suits: dark, beautifully-cut Italian, but a bit old and rumpled. The loosened tie and the shadows under his eyes tell me that he must have been up late, working on a case. It’s unusual for him to be home this early. It’s only just on five and Dad is hardly ever home before seven or eight.
‘Hi girls,’ he says without smiling. He switches off the phone, slips it into his pocket and goes to the fridge. Dad is good-looking for someone in his fifties. Tall and a bit stooped, he has a long straight nose and beautiful deep-set brown eyes. His hair is still thick and wavy but peppered through with grey and – luckily, because we’ve all inherited it – he has smooth olive skin.
‘You’re home early,’ Hilda addresses his back. Dad says nothing as he pulls the milk carton out of the fridge and pours himself a glass.
‘You have a win?’ I ask, the way I always do. It’s our thing.
‘Winning is what it’s all about, Rosie my girl,’ he said to me when I was about ten, ‘that’s what they’re paying me for.’ I’ve never forgotten it.
‘Few days to go yet, love,’ Dad mumbles with a sigh. He stands looking out the window with his back to us. ‘So where is your mother?’ We look at each other. It isn’t like Dad to be so distracted.
‘Upstairs, I think,’ Hilda says, and then, very sympathetically, ‘Tired, Daddy?’
‘Yes, darling, I am a bit tired,’ he says in a slightly warmer way but still not turning around. Hilda gets up and switches on the kettle.
‘You want a cup of tea?’
Dad shakes his head. Hilda often calls him Daddy, which tends to drive the rest of us bananas, although on this day not one of us bothers to pull her up about it. It’s unusual for us to see our father in such a morose mood.
As the eldest, Hilda has perfected the helpless little girl number, right down to the last eyelash flutter and pout. She does the same thing with her own husband but refrains when the rest of us are around because we give her hell. Especially Cynthia.
‘Try to act like a grown-up,’ Cynthia snarls every time she hears Hilda’s breathless and innocent routine, ‘even if you’re not!’
Almost from the time I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a barrister like Dad. I’ve always adored Mum and I idealised each of my sisters at different times too, but it was Dad I wanted to emulate. When he realised that I was serious, he let me in on his world in all kinds of ways. Took me into his office. Showed me briefs. Told me stuff he never told the others about the criminal underworld, about big corporations and the behind-the-scenes world of politics and business. If he has a particularly interesting case I often go down to the courts to listen to him. When I do, I’m sometimes so proud of him that I get a mad urge to stand up and tell everyone in the courtroom that they’re listening to my father. I almost choke with pride – I’m not kidding – he’s that good.
He is never nasty when he’s interrogating a witness, never sarcastic or rude or overly personal, just sharp and logical and relentless with detail. I particularly love hearing him sum up a case. Even if it’s something I don’t understand, like a big corporate takeover or a business scam where the legal language is so technical that it’s virtually indecipherable, I still enjoy it. He walks up and down in front of the jury, talking to them quietly in exactly the same warm, intimate way he talks to us. It’s a gift, I reckon, and I’m nervous about not having it when my turn comes.
He always takes me out for a coffee afterwards or for lunch if he has time, and he’ll introduce me to other lawyers and barristers.
‘You’ll be seeing her around here in a few years,’ he tells them with a twinkle in his eyes – even when I was only thirteen and in my school uniform. They’d smile and nod kindly and pat me on the head. But Dad meant it. Then and now. He has always taken me seriously. I think he is tickled pink that one of his girls is going to follow in his footsteps. Especially with me being the ‘surprise’ and all. Not that they rub it in, but Hilda remembers Mum saying that three kids made a perfect family. Well, I’m number four. It would have been better for them if I’d been a boy, I guess . . . but here I am, a fourth girl and not much anyone can do about it.
Dad puts his glass on the sink and slips out of the room, leaving us all quiet for a moment listening to his feet climbing the stairs.
‘Mum won’t appreciate being interrupted,’ Cynthia says softly, frowning. ‘She’s trying to organise a temporary visa for that Sudanese family.’
Mum teaches English to newly arrived migrants and refugees. She brings work home sometimes and has her own little office upstairs, all set up with a phone, fax, desk and filing cabinets. But if the rest of us are home she brings her work downstairs. She likes to be right in the middle of whatever is happening.
She tends to get very involved with her students and sometimes this is a complete drag for the rest of us. She is always bringing people home. Once we had an Afghan family of six living in the front living room for nearly a month. Crying babies, wailing music, weird food – way too much, actually. But that kind of thing is an exception. Usually people stay for a few days until proper accommodation comes up, and they’re incredibly grateful and polite. So it’s no big deal.
Dad’s got this huge profile as a left-wing lawyer. He’s always being interviewed on radio and is asked to speak for different causes, like prison reform, union rights or detention centres. On the other hand, the family’s wealth comes from him representing the big end of town in their financial dealings, and he’s quite open about that. Company takeovers, industrial litigation, property developments – that sort of thing.
‘I wouldn’t be able to do the important stuff if I didn’t do the boring jobs to finance it,’ he often says, a bit mischievously. But I think he secretly loves it all. The law is endlessly interesting to him.
‘I’m off,’ Hilda stands up. ‘Got to pick up the twins.’
‘Has Ryan’s tooth come through yet?’ Cynthia asks.
‘Nope.’ Hilda sighs, her face crumbling up a bit in that exhausted, resigned smile that so many young mothers seem to have. ‘We’ve been up all night.’<
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The we would be Hilda and baby Ryan. I doubt Dave, the mighty gladiator, would be part of anything as lowly as sore teeth in the middle of the night. Not when there was a million bucks to be made the next day. But I shouldn’t be so bitchy. His work creates a brilliant lifestyle for my sister. They have the most stunning converted warehouse to live in, full of fantastic stuff. They have a beach house and they go on amazing holidays. Hilda is a fully-qualified architect and could have an army of nannies if she wanted, but she chooses not to. ‘I don’t want strangers looking after my babies!’ she tells her girlfriends who are already back at work and urging her to do the same. ‘I love looking after the boys.’ But Ryan and Cormac take their toll. Hilda is the least robust of us and she often looks completely beat.
‘I’ve got tomorrow morning off,’ Cynthia says suddenly. ‘Let me have them for a few hours.’
Hilda’s face brightens slowly. ‘Really?’
‘Of course! Plan something.’
‘I think I’ll just go to sleep!’
‘I’ll help too,’ Dorothy chimes in.
‘And I’ll be home from work in the afternoon,’ I say. ‘I can take over then.’
So you see, in spite of all our differences, when push comes to shove, we help each other out.
We can’t hear what they are saying but our parents’ raised voices are audible through the door. A bit unusual. Our parents hardly ever argue. Instinctively, the four of us wait for them to come bursting into the kitchen. But soon we hear the front door slam and, not long after that, the car starting outside. We look at each other. Dad must have gone out again but it’s odd that he didn’t come in to say goodbye. A couple of doors slam upstairs and then there is the creaking of the pipes at the side of the house as water runs into the old claw-foot bath. We grin at each other. A bath is Mum’s tried and true way to ease tension. If she gets stressed or has an argument with someone she’ll stay in the bath for an hour, and then come back downstairs completely revived.
‘They must have had a fight,’ Hilda murmurs with a wry smile.
Rose by Any Other Name Page 4