The Scent of Apples

by Jacquie McRae

  ‘Maybe so,’ he said, bending down and pulling a thorny branch out of my way with his bare hands, ‘but that’s no excuse for you to be unkind. You get one mother and father in this life, and while they may not be perfect, they love you, and you should be grateful for them.’ He raises his eyebrows to get his point across, like an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.

  I know he’s right, but sometimes I get so mad that adults get to do what they want and make all the decisions. Like when I started school and it was decided that my hair had to be braided. Now I wake up every school morning dreading the seven o’clock torture. The sleep dust is still resting in the pockets of my eyes as I trudge downstairs into the kitchen. I’m propped up on a barstool and my hair gets one hundred lashes with the hairbrush before my eyes are fully open.

  ‘If your hair wasn’t so thick and curly, we wouldn’t need to tame it.’ Mum smoothes down the bits of hair that spring free from my braids. She uses her special mixture of coconut oil for the frizz and tea tree oil to scare off any nits that might be foolish enough to come near me. ‘If you had nice straight hair like Michaela’s, we could get it cut into a bob.’

  Michaela is a girl who Mum’s desperate for me to have as a friend. I think she’s boring, and her hair looks like someone sat a bowl on her head and cut around it. Her fringe is always clipped to the side with either a pink or a yellow miniature bow. She looks like a poodle in a dog show.

  Every weekend Mum invites over someone who she wants me to be friends with. Today I have stupid Lucy. Her dad has just been elected Mayor of Molesworth district. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach when I hear the crunch of gravel on our driveway.

  ‘Quick, Elizabeth.’ Mum takes me by the hand and drags me outside to stand on the porch. She pulls lint from my jersey and rearranges the pearls around her neck.

  Lucy steps out of the car, wearing a tartan skirt and matching ribbons in her pony tails. My groan only gets halfway out when I am distracted by the sight of her mother. Lady Mayor must have got her appointments mixed up. She looks like she’s meeting the Queen. Having me standing outside, looking like a guard from Buckingham Palace, plays right into her hands. Not only does her hideous fuchsia pink floral dress have a matching belt, but her handbag is also made from the same fabric. The clingy material shows little rolls of fat, bunched up all the way from her armpits to her stomach. Her beehive hairstyle, piled high on her head, is about fifty years out of date. Luckily for Mum, Poppa is out in the orchard somewhere. I know he would suggest that we bury her in the garden and keep her head above ground so the birds can use that hair as a nesting ground.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ Mum sweeps her hands wide as she ushers them inside. The smell of freshly waxed wood in the hall is overshadowed by baking smells as we head for the kitchen.

  ‘I’m afraid our front room is being decorated at the moment, so we’ll have to settle for the kitchen.’ Mum casts a look in my direction that says Not a word, Elizabeth, not a word. ‘Have a seat,’ she says casually, pointing to the exact seats we need to sit on.

  I try not to glare at Lucy and her frilly white blouse and miniature handbag. Clearly she won’t want to climb trees in that get-up. To be fair, I don’t really know Lucy, as I go to Saint Catherine’s and she goes to Queens, a school for young ladies on the edge of town. But the way she is sitting, with her hands folded neatly on her lap and her ankles crossed over, like an adult in waiting, makes me think that I don’t really want to get to know her.

  ‘What a quaint little kitchen,’ Lady Mayor says, taking in Nan’s pottery rooster collection. Mum did banish the birds to an overhead cupboard, but Nan found them and arranged them in little groups on the Welsh dresser. ‘I was hoping to meet your husband.’

  ‘Oh yes, he was dying to meet you also, but you know how it is with these men. Work comes first,’ Mum says in a cheery voice.

  I have to shake my head, not believing what I’m hearing. Just last night, I heard them arguing in their bedroom. Mum told Dad she might as well be a solo parent: he was always either away or working in his office behind a closed door. Dad’s reply was muffled by the pillow I pulled over my ears to drown out their voices.

  Mum takes an apple and blackberry pie from the oven, and as she sets it on the bench her face is flushed. She spoons it into bowls, giving Lady Mayor an extra big helping, and ladles a pile of cream on the top.

  While we wait for our pie to cool down, Lady Mayor and Mum start singing our praises. It’s like watching some weird ping pong game where the ball is made up of words.

  ‘Lucy made us so proud last week, didn’t you dear?’ Lady Mayor grins at Lucy, who beams back. ‘She won the most promising dancer at her ballet school.’

  Mum manages a weak smile, but she has one of those unfortunate smiles that, weak or full, exposes half of her teeth, making it look more like a snarl.

  ‘How lovely. Actually, Elizabeth’s school wants to put her up a class.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. Lucy’s always been in the top class. I find streaming is the only way for the brighter children to learn.’

  ‘I absolutely agree.’ Mum takes a sip from her tea cup. The curl has disappeared from her finger and it now pokes straight out. ‘Elizabeth’s school is talking about putting her up a whole year.’

  It’s the first I’ve heard of this. Mum seems to think that there can only be a certain amount of beautiful and smart people in the world, and as I’m obviously not pretty, she needs everyone to know I’m one of the smart ones.

  I look across at Lucy, who appears to be enjoying the competition.

  ‘Come on, Lucy. I’ll show you around outside.’ I look at her shiny shoes and her socks with pink lace around the top. ‘I’ve got some boots you can wear.’

  Mum frowns.

  ‘Elizabeth, not everyone enjoys your passion for the outdoors.’

  I’m surprised that my normal running around has turned into a passion, but I’m happy to go along with it.

  ‘We won’t be long.’ I pull on Lucy’s hand, hoping she’ll get the hint that we have to escape now.

  Mum looks at Lucy’s clothes and fixes me with a steely gaze.

  ‘I’m sure Lucy would prefer to see your room. Why don’t you take her upstairs instead?’

  Lucy’s eyes sparkle at the thought of staying indoors and not having to slide her dumb socks into muddy boots. She trips on the stairs in her eagerness to get up them.

  I flop down onto my bed.

  Lucy stands in the middle of my room and scans every inch of my space. She looks at the white painted headboard, with gilt around the edges, and the matching dressing table.

  ‘Mum did my room,’ I say, in case she thinks I chose the ugly pink rosebud wallpaper and the duvet cover and lamp in the same shade of pink.

  ‘Oh my gosh!’ Lucy screams.

  I sit up so fast that it takes a moment for my heart to stop pounding.

  ‘You’ve got Swan Lake Barbie!’ She rushes over to the shelf above the window, where Mum has lined up my collection of Barbie dolls.

  Every Christmas, I peel coloured ribbons and tissue paper from the gift Mum gives me, praying with all my heart that it’s not another Barbie. But it always is. I remember the excitement in Mum’s eyes last year as she showed me how Swan Lake Barbie had wings that lit up and a golden crown.

  ‘I always wanted this one.’ Lucy says. ‘Can I get her down?’

  The hope in Lucy’s eyes confirms all my suspicions about her. ‘Yeah, I’ll get it for you. Take it out of the box, do whatever you want.’ Even if I did like Barbies, I’m sure we’re too old to play with them. I slide the whitewashed chest at the end of my bed over to the window and stand on it. The dolls are all encased in the cardboard coffins they came in. I pass it down to her and as I do, I spy Poppa out in the orchard.

  The wind blows his unruly hair around as he ducks down under the branch of an apple tree. I know if I was out there with him, even though I’m almost too big, he would pick me up by the strap
s of my dungarees and show me some treasure, like an eleven-spotted ladybird that could eat up to fifty aphids a day.

  He’d be telling me weird facts about insects and plants and filling my head with more of his theories. Yesterday, I was like the new fruit. He told me that in order to grow strong, I had to soak up everything on offer. I don’t understand half of what he tells me, but Poppa says we have storage boxes in our minds. Anything I see or hear that I don’t understand, I can just file into one of those boxes, and it might make sense later.

  I turn away from the window and sink again onto my bed. I watch Lucy as she sits on the floor and adjusts the crown on Swan Lake Barbie before placing her in a carriage drawn by a unicorn. I do sometimes wonder if I was born into the right body. I would rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick than play with dolls.

  I once tried talking to Nan about it, in our secret cubbyhole. That’s what we call the little pagoda that seats two at the edge of our garden. Poppa built it for Nan, to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. A screen of bamboo shelters it from the rest of the garden. I often find Nan here alone, and sit and talk with her for a while. This is where I found out about Patrick.

  One day she just blurted out how my sweet face and the colour of my hair were identical to my brother’s. As soon as she said it, I knew she wanted to take it back. That’s when we came up with our Pagoda Plan: no secret told here can be taken away.

  I’m always careful not to ask too many questions at once. I sit quiet and wait. While we watch the sparrows glide in and feast on the seeds we’ve scattered or take a drink from the birdbath, she feeds me little stories.

  On days when she doesn’t want to talk, I ask her about things I’m not sure of. Like, did she think I might make some friends if I pretended to like the things the other girls did? And maybe try to stop climbing trees? She isn’t always much help, saying things like, ‘I think you should do whatever makes you happy.’

  It’s fine to say that. But most of the things that make me happy seem to piss my mother off, and I still don’t really have any friends.

  The grandfather clock in the hall ticks slowly as I wait in my pink mausoleum for my visitor to leave.

  Chapter Two

  Each year as I tick off another birthday, I know Mum hopes that I’ll grow out of wanting to spend so much time among the trees. Unfortunately for her, my interest in the orchard increases on the same scale as my rapidly growing limbs.

  Just last month, Poppa helped me take the iron off the roof of my old playhouse and we replaced it with some plastic sheeting so I could use it as a hot house for some of the seeds I am collecting and trying to grow. So far my cucumber seeds are refusing to grow, but my sunflower seeds have already sprouted in their little egg-carton containers.

  I’m conducting an experiment with the seeds. Poppa laughed as I told him how I’d split the seeds into two groups. I’m talking to one lot and telling them how big and strong they’re going to grow and I’m ignoring the other lot. Poppa can’t wait to see the result.

  I learn more from Toby and Poppa every time I step out in the orchard than I do in any classroom. For the life of me I fail to see how knowing how many people live in Japan, or who the third president of the United States was, will help me make better cider here in Molesworth.

  *

  Poppa and I have been planning crazy birthday stuff for weeks. Mum likes to make a fuss on my birthday, but she isn’t a big fan of what I call fun. She’s somehow got confused and thinks that the start of puberty means I want to go shopping for girly things. I can’t tell her that electric shock treatment sounds more exciting than a day at the mall with her.

  I love Dad’s over-the-top gifts – a television, a laptop – but I’d trade them all for him staying home a whole weekend with me. He did get me a cell phone last year so I could keep in touch with him though. That’s probably his best gift so far.

  I’m making a stand this year, and refusing to be forced into a frilly dress. Every other year my embarrassment at being made to wear one has been recorded on camera. Mum always positions me in front of our rhododendron bush, its trumpet-shaped flowers in full bloom on my late-October birthday.

  I suppose to make up for the lack of excitement – or for the pain I go through – Poppa and Nan always have a side party going on. I know better than to ask any questions if I notice strange things going on in the build-up to my birthday.

  Last year on my twelfth birthday, Poppa shook me awake early. He pressed his finger to his lips and then to mine. He took my hand and led me outside. Stars still sparkled in the night sky. He gave me a torch to wear on my head and the first note of my treasure hunt. ‘Now, go find your present.’

  He had wrapped a lolly inside each clue. My hair got tangled up in branches as I climbed the oak tree, and the bottom of my nightdress ripped as I scrambled down the riverbank. I had to collect four objects along the way. The first letter of each treasure that I discovered added up to spell out where my present was. I was going to race to the barn when I found that the first object was a button, but didn’t want to miss out on the adventure. I heard Mum yelling out for me, and had to stuff a whole aniseed wheel in my mouth. The pressure of trying to hold it in there nearly made my eyes pop out. The present I uncovered at the end of the hunt – an antique flower press that Nan had found in a second-hand shop – made the whole thing worth it.

  *

  Sunday morning I wake early to help Poppa check the trees at the back of the orchard. I lay in bed last night listening to unexpected hail bombard our roof. When we think that bad weather is coming our way, we throw a light canvas over some of the younger trees to protect their fruit. The dew on the grass soaks into my trousers, as we make our way in the morning light.

  Each of our paddocks is named after something we found in them. ‘Big Red,’ the paddock in the middle of our farm, has a century-old pohutukawa tree standing guard. If you look real close, you can make out the shapes of cats and dogs and pre-historic animals in the bark. The name for the ‘Love is in the air’ paddock came about when Poppa and I were fixing some loose wires on the fence there. I had looked up and seen a huge love-heart cloud drifting by. The names are always on notice. If we find something better, we change them. Mum says the names are ‘ludicrous’ and refuses to use them, preferring to call them by numbers. If Dad is out on the farm with Poppa and me, he uses the silly names, but the moment he passes under the arch of our front door, the names change back to numbers.

  Most of our paddocks have a mixture of deciduous trees and evergreen natives planted as shelter belts. In the winter, the evergreens keep the farm from looking naked. Poppa planted hornbeam and elm trees in ‘Duck’ paddock at the back of the farm. They help slow down the cold southerly wind, but I think they remind him of home as well.

  ‘You go up first, Libby. Check if it’s safe.’

  I clamber up our oldest apple tree. It doesn’t grow much fruit any more, but as well as being one of Poppa’s favourites it makes a great look-out. I use the thick branches to pull myself up and spring onto the next one.

  ‘It’s all clear,’ I yell. ‘Nothing up here but me and a small breeze.’

  I straddle the branch and wrap my legs around it for stability. Poppa begins climbing. I wave my hands overhead and imitate the branches’ movements. A couple of spittle bugs are fighting further along my branch. One is trying to pass and the smaller one won’t give way. The big one climbs right on top and just sits there. I’d read in Dad’s National Geographic that on average a person eats about seventy insects, including spiders, during their sleep over a lifetime. I wonder again how it can be possible to swallow a bug and not know. Suddenly, I hear a branch break.

  Below me, Poppa is being whacked by branches as he crashes through them to the ground.

  I try to move, but can’t. My limbs feel paralysed. Then with a great effort, I force one leg over a branch. The rough bark and smaller branches cut into my hands as I slide down the tree. I ignore the last
couple of branches and jump. As I smash into the ground, pain shoots up my leg. My trousers are ripped and blood gushes from a cut on my shin.

  I drag myself over to where Poppa is lying beneath the tree. The silence freezes my body with fear. I look for the rise and fall of his chest but there is none.

  ‘Get up, Poppa!’

  I wipe away the blood that trickles from his nose and grab hold of his shoulders. I shake him as hard as I can.

  ‘Poppa, please.’

  I pick up his limp hand and close it around mine. I squeeze it hard and put my ear to his mouth, hoping to hear even a whisper of breath.

  Nothing.

  ‘Poppa.’

  I wait. And still I hear nothing.

  ‘Pop.’

  A faint breeze stirs the trees. I remember my cell phone, and thump in Dad’s number.

  ‘Hi Libby,’ he answers.

  My thoughts are so jumbled that I can’t get any words to form, but manage to say ‘Poppa.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Duck.’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  I lay my head on to Poppa’s chest.

  It seems to take a year for Toby and Dad to arrive.

  I watch as they try CPR. Over and over, they thump on Poppa’s chest.

  If I could talk, I’d tell them that he’s already gone.

  I limp behind them as they carry his body back to the house through the trees.

  *

  Instead of celebrating my birthday this year, we bury my Poppa.

  Chapter Three

  I drag the blankets up and over my head and pull my knees into my stomach. If I don’t see daylight maybe I can stop this day from becoming real.

  I can’t feel my body. Just numbness, like someone has packed me in ice. Mum’s shrill voice calling out to me from the bottom of the stairs is like a pick axe shattering through it.

  ‘Elizabeth, I’ve asked you to get up three times now. Just do it.’