‘But we didn’t see anything.’ The older boy sounded panicked. ‘Shouldn’t we call for an ambulance?’
‘I think it’s too late for that,’ Austin said, dramatically. ‘The agony. A searing pain shoots through me.’
Harriet felt a shiver of delight. Austin was so good at this. He caught her eye, prompting her with an expression. Whoops. She’d nearly forgotten her line.
‘Have you got a final message for all of us, Austin?’ she said, as he had taught her.
Behind them, a car door shut. Then another.
Austin raised himself on one arm, addressing the three boys. ‘I want to say to all of you, if I die here today, that knowing you, even for this brief time, has meant the world to me …’
‘What’s going on here? Austin? James? Harriet?’
They all spun around. Mrs Turner stood by her car, with a little girl beside her. Harriet noticed immediately they were holding hands.
The oldest of the three boys stuttered his answer. ‘There’s been a terrible accident. He fell off his bike …’
Mrs Turner walked over. The little girl came too. Harriet saw she was wearing a nice red dress and shoes that matched. Shoes with buckles. ‘Yes, it looks fairly terrible,’ Mrs Turner said. ‘There’s a lot of blood, anyway. Or a lot of tomato sauce, at least.’
The boys looked again. ‘It’s tomato sauce?’
‘A whole bottle, by the looks of things.’ Mrs Turner smiled at them, even while she glared at Austin, now sitting up and looking in much less pain. ‘Get off the road, Austin Turner, and apologise to these poor boys immediately.’
‘It’s just a bit of fun, Mum. You know how the school holidays drag.’
‘Do it now, Austin.’
‘So it’s a joke?’ the oldest of them said, looking relieved.
‘Yes, hilarious, isn’t it? Austin, apologise please. James, you should know better. Harriet, stop snickering.’
Austin leapt up, wiping off the excess sauce on his shorts. He put out his hand. ‘Thanks, kids, you were good sports.’
Mrs Turner apologised to them once more. ‘I’m so sorry, I promise you it won’t happen again. Don’t let them put you off going to the beach, either.’
The older boy and his brothers took off. They didn’t look convinced.
Mrs Turner looked down at the little girl standing beside her, still clutching her hand. She gave her a big smile. ‘Not quite the introduction I’d have liked, but never mind. Austin, James, Harriet, let me introduce you. This is Lara.’
While Lara was unpacking her small brown suitcase – Harriet had seen she also had a plastic bag of toys with her – James, Austin and Harriet gathered around their mother in the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry there wasn’t much warning, but I wasn’t sure until I got to Melbourne whether or not she’d be coming home with me. So please, the three of you, be kind to her. You know how we’ve talked about other people not being as lucky as we are? Well, Lara and her mum and dad have had some bad luck and that’s why we’re helping.’
Harriet liked the idea of that. It sounded mysterious. It made Lara even more interesting, she decided. She was going to be really, really kind to her.
In her bedroom soon after, Harriet was very interested in the way Lara had taken all her clothes out of her suitcase and refolded them into five neat piles. She had counted them. One for underwear, one for tops, one for shorts, one for dresses and one for jumpers. Lara was now neatly putting them away into the third and fourth drawers of Harriet’s chest of drawers, as Mrs Turner had shown her. It had taken Harriet a while to decide whether to give her the top two or the bottom two drawers. In the end her mother had made the decision, hurriedly moving the contents to allow Lara the use of two spare drawers.
‘Mum, they’re all crumpled now,’ she had protested.
‘No more or less crumpled than they were to begin with. We’ll tidy them up later. I’ll give you a hand. You’re a good, kind girl, Harriet, thank you.’
Now, Harriet perched on the end of her bed and watched Lara empty the contents of the plastic bag.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘Eight.’
‘Me too.’
As she watched her unpack, Harriet decided it was as if one of the black babies she sponsored in Africa had come to live with them. Things took on a rosy glow. Lara could be her new project. Her ‘be kind to less fortunate children’ project, the way the teacher had said last year at school, when they were doing their fundraising. Harriet had loved it. They’d saved up their pocket money and sent it away in a small cardboard box to the missions and then a few weeks later they’d got a letter back with strange stamps and a polite note. ‘Thank you for your kind and gracious generosity. We now have a new water tap in our village and we think of you every time we see the clean, fresh water.’
‘Will you be coming to school with me?’ Harriet asked her. ‘And to swimming?’
Lara sat neatly on the side of the bed. ‘I don’t know. I suppose it will depend on how long I stay here.’
Harriet was a bit surprised by her. Lara didn’t seem nervous at all. If Harriet had been a little kid arriving out of nowhere like this she would have felt really sick, she thought. Perhaps Lara felt bad inside but was good at hiding it. Harriet felt really sorry for her then and tried to think of the most kind thing she could do, like her mother would want. ‘Which bed would you like? I always sleep by the window, but if you would like that one, I don’t mind.’ She had her fingers crossed as she said it. She did mind. She minded badly.
‘I’d love to sleep by the window. Thank you.’ Lara picked up her plastic bag and went to the bed by the window.
Harriet blinked and uncrossed her fingers. That hadn’t gone how she’d expected. She tried again to be friendly. ‘When’s your birthday?’
‘May 14.’
‘Mine is May 17.’
‘I was born early,’ Lara said. ‘My mother said that for a little while they worried that I wouldn’t live.’
‘Were you sick?’
‘No, just really small.’ She showed how small, holding her two hands about a foot apart.
‘How do you know how small you were?’
‘My dad did a drawing of me once.’
‘Oh.’ Harriet didn’t know what to say about that. She knew her Dad sent lots of people away on holidays but she didn’t think she’d ever seen him do a drawing.
There was a noise at the door. It was Harriet’s mother. ‘Hello, girls, are you getting on? Good. Now, how about something nice to drink? Lara, what’s your favourite drink?’
‘Chocolate milk,’ she said.
How could Lara be so sure? Harriet never knew what her favourite of anything was, if anyone asked her. How could she choose between Coke and lemonade and orange juice?
‘We’ll have to take a walk down to the shop to get some, then. Harriet, would you like chocolate milk too?’
She was amazed. Not only was Lara going to get chocolate milk – even though there wasn’t any in the house – her mother was going to take them to the shop to buy it. This never happened. It wasn’t a matter of being asked what would you like either. There were the options – lemonade or water. Quick, make up your mind.
‘It’s nice here,’ Lara said as they walked along the beach path. The sea looked very blue. There were people on the beach, paddling, building sandcastles, setting up umbrellas.
‘The sea air is good for you too,’ Harriet said. She’d heard her dad say that the week before.
Lara looked up at Mrs Turner. ‘Mum says she always thought that until she had a month of it on her way here to Australia.’
Mrs Turner laughed. ‘Your mother didn’t like that ship much, did she?’
Harriet started feeling even more bewildered. This girl had arrived out of nowhere and yet she and her mother were talking about things she had never heard of. And how did her mum know whether Lara’s mum had liked it or not? ‘Where is your mum?’ she asked Lara, wanting to make her
look at her for a change, instead of her mother all the time.
‘At home.’
‘Is she sick again?’
‘No.’
Harriet knew her mother was giving her The Look. She deliberately glanced down so she was out of its firing range.
‘Where is home?’
‘Melbourne.’
Harriet nodded. She knew where Melbourne was at least. ‘We lived there when we first got to Australia. Before I was born.’
‘I know. My mum and dad and your mum and dad lived in the same place. We’ve got photos in our kitchen.’
That was too much. ‘Mum, how come we don’t have photos?’
‘We do. Lara’s mum and dad came out from England on the same ship as us.’
‘The Plymouth Wanderer.’
‘That’s right, Lara. The Plymouth Wanderer.’
‘Were you named after the captain too?’ Harriet asked.
Lara didn’t smile. ‘The captain was a man.’
‘I know. But I was named after him.’
‘Harriet’s a funny name for a man.’
‘No, not Harriet. His name was Harold. But Mum thought I was a man, I mean a boy, so she promised she’d call me after him because that’s where I was made, on the ship, wasn’t I, Mum?’ It seemed urgent to be the one doing the talking, the one having the proper conversation with her mother. ‘That’s why Austin calls me Harold sometimes.’
‘Which one is Austin?’ The question was directed at Mrs Turner, not Harriet.
‘The middle one. The naughtiest one. Here we are.’ They’d reached the milk bar. ‘So, chocolate milk for you, Lara. And what about you, Harriet?’
‘Chocolate milk,’ she said firmly. Even though she hated it.
Later that afternoon Mr and Mrs Turner were in the garden. While Mr Turner weeded the edge of the path leading to the corrugated iron shed, Mrs Turner spoke to him in an urgent whisper.
‘Of course some warning would have been better, Neil. But what could I do? She was begging me. Tears one minute, shouts the next. She was in a complete state. Her husband rang while I was there and you should have heard the screaming match. And the house was a mess. Chaos. It was no place for a child.’
Inside, at the window of the laundry, Harriet stood still, listening to everything.
‘The whole place in a mess, except for Lara’s little room. She had it as neat as can be. And her bag all packed in minutes. She nearly broke my heart.’
‘She didn’t mind going? Leaving her mother?’
‘She seemed to understand. I asked her about it on the trip back and she said her mum had told her she needed to go and get her dad. And that it would be easier if she could travel on her own.’
Harriet strained to hear. Luckily her father’s voice was louder than her mother’s. She heard him clearly.
‘I keep thinking of all the beers we had on the ship together. He seemed like the nicest of fellows. Not the type to do this.’
‘That’s what I thought. I asked Rose why she puts up with it and she started crying again and went on and on about how much she loves him, that he’s the centre of her universe, that he can’t really help himself, that he —’ Her mother’s voice was drowned out again by the sound of a passing car. When Harriet could hear again it was her father talking.
‘So how long does she want us to keep the little one?’
‘A week, two weeks perhaps. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No, of course not. She’ll be company for Harriet, anyway. Let me finish that up, if you want to go and make up the beds or get her settled.’
‘Thanks, love.’
Harriet slipped away up the hallway as the back door opened and her mother came into the house.
Lara only stayed five days the first time. A phone call came after dinner one night. Mrs Turner had another conversation. Harriet came in at the end in time to hear the arrangements being made. ‘Are you sure? I can run up with her. No, lunchtime is fine.’
She scooted back into the lounge room where they’d been watching TV so she’d be there for the announcement from her mother.
Mrs Turner came in and touched Lara gently on the head. ‘That was your mum, Lara, love. They’re coming to collect you tomorrow.’
Harriet glanced at her. Lara’s expression didn’t change. ‘Thank you.’
That night in bed she had a feeling of excitement, as though they were her parents coming to get her. ‘What’s your mum like?’
She almost heard Lara’s shrug in the darkness. ‘She’s shorter than your mum, and she’s got brown curly hair.’
‘And what about your dad?’
‘He’s taller.’
‘And you really haven’t got any brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
‘Do you get lonely when you’re home on your own?’
‘No.’
‘I would.’
‘You get used to it.’
They arrived at the Turners’ just after one o’clock. Harriet’s mother and father were both there. The table had been set. There were sandwiches, egg and lettuce, ham and mustard, and cheese and pickle. There were two sorts of cakes. It was all under white netting cages, used as flyguards. It was Harriet’s job to put them on and take them off. She knew it was important to make sure there were no flies trapped underneath when she put them on.
They were all in the kitchen as their mother got things ready. ‘Wouldn’t that be terrible, Mum?’ Harriet said, trying to get her attention as Mrs Turner moved back and forth between the fridge and the sink. ‘If you had put them on to stop the flies getting on the sandwiches and the whole time there was a fly trapped under there.’
‘If I was a fly that’s what I’d do,’ Austin said. ‘Sit there quietly, my wings whirring a little bit, while the sandwiches were being made. And then, in that split second, after the sandwiches had been made and the human was reaching for the —’
‘Not a human. Me.’
‘All right, Harold. When you were reaching for the flyguard, I’d set my wings whirring to five hundred miles per hour and just as the guard was about to go down, whiz in underneath and there my feast would be.’
‘That wouldn’t work,’ Lara said.
Austin turned to her, an eyebrow raised. ‘No? Why not?’
‘The noise. Flies make a lot of noise. What I would do is sneak in under the plate. Flies can run really fast, as fast as they fly, but without the noise. They could go in under the plate and sit there. There would have been plenty of time too, while the sandwiches were still being made and the human was walking back and forth to the fridge.’
‘You know, Lara, I think you’re right.’
‘So when the guard came down, even if the human —’
‘Me,’ Harriet said. ‘I’m the one with the guard.’
Lara was still looking at Austin. ‘Harriet wouldn’t see us, because we’d be hidden under the plate. And we could wait until the coast was clear and then crawl out and eat everything we wanted.’
‘Smear our germs all over the bread.’
‘Climb inside the sandwich and have a sleep,’ Lara said, grinning now.
‘We could dance on the crusts.’
‘No,’ Harriet said too loudly. ‘No, you couldn’t. I’m in charge of keeping the flies out and I would kill you both.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Lara said. ‘You wouldn’t know we were there.’
‘Lara’s right,’ Austin said. ‘We tricked you, Harold.’ He held out a hand and shook Lara’s vigorously. ‘Well done, team. The flies win.’
‘The flies win,’ Lara echoed.
After that, Harriet wasn’t so keen to meet Lara’s parents. She deliberately went into the lounge room and started watching television. She pretended she didn’t hear the car arrive, or her mother calling out hello over the fence or her name being called.
James came up after a while. ‘Harriet, lunch is on. Lara’s mum and dad are here. Come on.’
‘I don’t want to meet them. I j
ust want her to go.’
James shrugged. ‘Mum wants someone to take off the flyguards. No problem, she’ll ask Lara to do it instead.’
Harriet was up in a moment. ‘That’s my job.’
‘Then come and do it, would you? I’m starving.’
She sidled into the kitchen, staying close to the wall. Her mother was saying something about the travel agency being busy but stopped as she noticed Harriet in the corner. She gestured to her.
‘Here she is at last. Rose, Dennis, this is Harriet. Harriet, this is Lara’s mum and dad, Mr and Mrs Robinson.’
She felt shy. She hated it when adults all stopped and looked at her like this. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello, Harriet. We spoke on the phone the other night, didn’t we?’
She nodded. Lara’s mother did have brown curly hair. She also had a bruise under her left eye. It was either coming or going. Lara’s father had gone back to talking with Harriet’s father. He was tall, smiley. He had something in his hair that made it shiny and wavy. Mr Perrotti at Mass had hair like that, Harriet remembered. She always wanted to touch it, or put a marble in one of the waves, to see if it would run down. If she and Lara made jokes with each other, she would have joked to her about that.
Lara was sitting beside Austin on the bench by the wall where Harriet usually sat. Since she had arrived she had been sitting in the guest’s chair. Where she belonged. That side belonged to family.
‘That’s my chair, Lara.’
Mrs Turner’s smile stiffened. ‘Harriet, don’t worry about that. Say hello to Mr Robinson.’
‘But Lara is in my chair. I always sit next to Austin.’
‘Today’s different, because we’ve got guests so we are all sitting wherever we want to.’
That ripple of something hot and uncomfortable went through her again. Lara had gone back to talking to Austin. They were playing rock, scissors, paper. It was Harriet’s favourite game. She knew it wasn’t right, but she wanted to spoil it for everyone, the way it had been spoiled for her. She turned back to Mrs Robinson and thought of the rudest thing she could ask.
Family Baggage Page 16