Family Baggage

by Monica McInerney

‘Mrs Robinson, why have you got that bruise under your eye?’

  ‘Harriet, please. Don’t be nosy.’

  Mrs Robinson gave a loud laugh and reached up and touched the mark. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s nice to meet a curious child. I was a silly-bill, Harriet. At our house in Melbourne we have a big apple tree and last week we were pruning it – do you know what pruning is?’

  Harriet shook her head, hating that her question was now being answered, while beside her Lara and Austin kept playing their game. She didn’t like Lara’s mother’s voice either. It was too high and she kept looking over at her husband when she was talking instead of looking at Harriet. She kept doing twitchy things with her fingers too. If Harriet had been at school doing that she would have been told off for wriggling.

  ‘It means cutting back the branches and dead wood, so that all the new spring growth can come and there’ll be plenty of apples. I pulled down a big branch and thought I had it and it went ping,’ another laugh, ‘well, not so much ping as splat. It hit me right in the eye and sent me flying.’

  She was torn between her curiosity and wanting to join in with Lara and Austin. ‘Is that why Lara came to stay with us? Because of the tree?’

  ‘Harriet, please.’ It was her mother.

  ‘I couldn’t see for a couple of days and I had to go to hospital,’ Mrs Robinson explained. ‘And my neighbours were away. Your mother was a wonder to step in when she did.’ That smile again, directed right at Mrs Turner.

  ‘Why didn’t Lara’s dad take care of her?’

  ‘That is enough, Harriet.’

  Mrs Robinson was now answering the questions directly. ‘He wasn’t there.’

  ‘I work interstate.’ It was the first time he’d spoken. He had an accent like her own father’s.

  ‘But you said we were pruning.’

  ‘You’ve got a detective on your hands here,’ Mr Robinson laughed.

  ‘Or a lawyer.’

  ‘We were. Me and Lara. Lara called the ambulance for me, didn’t you, Lara?’

  Lara nodded. ‘Mrs Turner, can I please have a sandwich?’

  ‘Of course you can. Dennis, Rose, you must be ravenous. Now, sit down everyone and help yourselves.’

  The flyguards were whipped away without ceremony.

  ‘Watch out for flies,’ Harriet said to no one in particular.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Three months later, James, Austin and Harriet were in the living room watching Gilligan’s Island on TV after school when their mother came to find them. Austin was stretched out on the sofa. He was getting so tall he hung over the end of the cushions. James was in the beanbag, also stretched out. Harriet was lying on her beach towel on the carpet. She’d got it for her eighth birthday and liked using it all the time. She loved the colours, the feel of the material and especially the fact that her mum had got someone to sew HARRIET’S TOWEL in curvy letters on the bottom.

  ‘Harriet, boys, I need to talk to the three of you about something important. Can I turn the TV off?’

  They sat up immediately.

  ‘It’s about Lara. You remember Lara?’

  They all nodded. As Austin said afterwards when they were alone and talking about it, of course they remembered Lara. How often did their mother think strangers came to live with them out of the blue for a few days?

  ‘And you remember her mum and dad?’

  More nods.

  ‘I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but something terrible has happened.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘Lara’s parents were killed yesterday. In a car accident in Ireland.’

  Austin and James were straight in with the questions. How? Where? When? Harriet just sat there. There was shock but there was also a kind of excitement. She had met two people who had been killed in a car accident! It was only afterwards she thought how sad it must have been for her mother, that her friend Rose had been killed like that.

  ‘What were they doing in Ireland?’ James asked.

  ‘Rose’s mother was Irish. She died a month ago and Rose and her husband went back to Ireland to sort out her things.’

  James wanted all the details of the crash. ‘Was it night? Or was it bad conditions during the day?’

  ‘I don’t know, James. I don’t know the whole story yet.’

  ‘Were they killed instantly?’ Austin wanted to know.

  ‘I think so. I hope so, for their sakes.’

  Harriet still couldn’t speak, her mind filling with images of a car slipping and sliding on a road and then Lara’s mother and father being dead, just like that.

  ‘Is Lara all right?’ Austin again. ‘Has she been hurt?’

  ‘She’s fine. She wasn’t with them. She’s away on a school camp in Melbourne.’

  That made it even sadder in Harriet’s opinion. Would she have been killed if she had been with them? Austin got in first with the question. ‘So does she know yet?’

  Mrs Turner shook her head. ‘I’m driving there this afternoon. The police contacted me. They want me to tell her.’

  Austin frowned. ‘The police in Ireland contacted you? How did they know where you were?’

  ‘They got in touch with the Australian police who contacted me.’

  ‘But how did they know to contact you?’

  ‘Because Rose asked me if I would be the contact person while they were away. She didn’t know many people in Australia, and she knew we’d be close by if anything happened.’

  ‘It’s as if she had a premonition,’ Austin said.

  ‘What’s a premonition?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘A feeling that something bad was going to happen. Maybe even that the car was going to crash.’

  Harriet knew from the tone in Austin’s voice that he was feeling that same excitement. It was awful but it was also thrilling.

  Mrs Turner stood up. ‘We don’t know all the details yet, but what it means for now is that Lara will be coming to stay with us again. And it could be for longer than a few days.’

  Harriet felt a bit funny about that. She didn’t remember every detail of Lara’s brief visit those months ago, but she knew it hadn’t all been good. That she had wanted to be kind but it had backfired on her.

  ‘Your dad is driving up to Melbourne with me to get her. Gloria will be in soon, she’ll stay here with the three of you while we’re gone. Harriet, would it be all right if Lara stayed in your room again?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ She decided she did want to be kind again. She liked how it felt when she was. But this time she wasn’t going to offer Lara the bed by the window. All her books were on the windowsill there and she liked the feel of a cool sea breeze on her face on hot nights. But maybe they could take turns. If Lara really wanted the bed by the window she could have it now and again …

  ‘She’s going to be very upset,’ Mrs Turner said. ‘So I need you all to be kind to her, all right?’

  ‘Is she an orphan?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Yes, Harriet, she is.’

  Gloria arrived with an overnight bag. There were more whispered adult conversations in the kitchen, and then their parents drove away.

  When Lara arrived with Harriet’s mum it was immediately obvious she didn’t care where she slept. Harriet, James and Austin stood back as she came in. She was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She was clinging to Mrs Turner.

  They had talked to Gloria about what they should say to her.

  ‘Do we say “sorry about your parents”?’

  ‘Or “we’re sorry you’re an orphan”?’

  ‘Just say you’re sorry. Leave it at that for the time being.’

  Harriet tried when she arrived. ‘I’m sorry, Lara.’

  Lara turned and Harriet was frightened by the look in her eyes. She looked like she was a long way away, even though she was there in front of her. Harriet wanted to say more. She glanced at Gloria. Gloria gave a nod.

  ‘About your mum and dad.’

  That blank look again. She noticed Mrs Turner was holding her close.
Even when Harriet came back into the room a few minutes later, after her father had asked her to get some milk from the kitchen, her mother and Lara were still holding hands. Harriet wondered if they had been like that for the whole drive. Would they have sat in the back of the car, side by side, or would her mum have sat in the front while her dad did the driving? If that’s how it was, then Lara would have been in the back on her own. That wouldn’t be fair. Not for hours in a car when your mum and dad have just been killed in a car crash.

  She needed to find out. She went over to her dad, who was sitting at the table. ‘Did Lara sit in the front or in the back with Mum?’ she whispered.

  ‘What, love?’

  ‘On the drive, who sat where?’

  ‘Harriet, does it matter?’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  ‘Not now, Harriet.’

  Lara slept in the bed by the door from the first night she arrived. Harriet was relieved. She had been prepared to let her have the window bed the first night, but she was glad it hadn’t come up. Mrs Turner tucked both of them in, and then sat beside Lara on the bed stroking her head until she fell asleep. Harriet waited for her to come over to her next, but instead she blew a kiss from the doorway.

  ‘You were nice and kind to Lara tonight, Harriet, thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘But I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘I thought you did. You were very welcoming.’

  She hadn’t really been. She had got Lara a glass of cold milk but that was only because her dad had told her to. ‘I feel sorry for her,’ she said. It was the best she could do.

  ‘It’s going to be a difficult time for her, Harriet.’ Mrs Turner came over then, even though the room was nearly in darkness. Only the light from the living room was spilling in, giving her a path to follow. She crouched beside the bed and Harriet waited for her forehead to be stroked too, but her mother’s hands stayed on the edge of the bed, smoothing down the sheet. ‘I know it will be tricky for you, too. But we’ll all make it as easy for her as we can, won’t we?’

  She wasn’t sure what her mother was talking about but nodded anyway.

  ‘Good girl. Night night.’

  ‘Night night.’

  She got a kiss on the head. Not as good as the stroking on the forehead Lara had got but then her mum and dad hadn’t just been killed in a car crash.

  Lara stayed home for the first week. Harriet had to go to school, but she didn’t mind because she got to tell all her friends about Lara, the orphan who was now living with them.

  ‘What does she look like?’ her friends asked.

  ‘Like a normal person,’ she admitted. Her friends seemed disappointed. Harriet was a bit, too. In her books orphans all wore rags and had black circles under their eyes.

  ‘So if she lives with you forever, does that mean your mum and dad adopt her?’

  She didn’t know. She asked them one night. Lara had gone down to the beach with Austin. Harriet had been torn between spending time with them and having her parents to herself for a while.

  ‘Are you going to adopt Lara?’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’

  One afternoon she saw Lara go into the garden with her mother. They stayed there for a long time. Harriet wandered out after a while and tried as casually as she could to get close enough to hear.

  ‘Harriet, love, what are you doing?’

  ‘Having a look at the garden.’ She leant down to touch one of the rose bushes to back up her story.

  ‘Pet, can you leave me and Lara alone for a little while? We’re having a talk about a few things.’

  Harriet deliberately didn’t look at Lara. ‘Do you want to talk to me about it as well? I might have some good ideas.’

  ‘In a while perhaps. But for now it’s between Lara and me. So be a good girl, won’t you, and go back inside?’

  She stayed in the kitchen. There was a good view out to the garden from there. Her father came in.

  ‘Harriet, come and help me wash the car?’

  She couldn’t say she had to stand at the window and keep watch. She turned away, reluctantly.

  That night after tea her mother called Harriet, James and Austin together and told them the news. Lara was going to be living with them all the time from now on. ‘Isn’t that great?’ their mother said.

  Harriet nodded. Austin and James asked a few questions, but seemed relaxed about it. Afterwards they all went back into the living room where Lara was sitting watching TV with their father.

  As Harriet came in she gave Lara the kindest smile she could produce. Unfortunately, Lara wasn’t looking at her when she gave it.

  Over the next few months it felt like there were many new layers to the household. Before it had been Harriet and James and Austin, and then her mum and dad. There was the travel agency, the main street, Gloria, school, the house and the beach. They roamed freely back and forth and everyone was where Harriet expected them to be. Now it was all different. Everywhere it had been only her it now seemed to be her and Lara.

  People in the town knew all about them. ‘Is this your new sister, Harriet?’ they would ask when they saw them walking back from school together, or going down to the beach. Harriet wasn’t sure what to call Lara. If she was asked that, she would nod and smile, to be polite, which was what her mum and dad said she had to be as much as she could.

  ‘Do you want me to call you my sister?’ she asked Lara once.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Lara said.

  Lara called her mum and dad Penny and Neil, like Gloria and Kevin did. Harriet didn’t feel good about that when she first heard it. She asked Austin what he thought.

  ‘She has to call them something, doesn’t she? And Penny and Neil are their names, after all. Would you rather she called them Mum and Dad?’

  ‘No.’ She was sure about that. They weren’t Lara’s mum and dad.

  She heard the man in the shop next door ask her mum if she was going to adopt Lara. She heard bits of the conversation, words like guardian and legality, that she didn’t understand. She went to Gloria again. ‘If Mum and Dad adopt Lara, does that mean she can call them Mum and Dad too?’

  ‘She could if she wanted to. But I think she likes calling them Penny and Neil.’

  ‘Would I call her my real sister then?’

  ‘I think legally you’d call her your stepsister. But you could call her your sister now, if you wanted to. I don’t think they’re going to formally adopt her, though, are they? Your mum said that they’d decided on a legal guardianship, which is almost the same thing.’

  ‘I don’t know. No one tells me anything around here.’

  She nearly caught Gloria laughing. But then her face went serious again. ‘Here, Harriet, help me put these brochures in these envelopes, would you?’

  As they stuffed them – glossy pamphlets advertising the islands off Queensland and Fiji resort holidays – Gloria asked her about school. About her jigsaw puzzles. And about Lara.

  ‘So how are you and Lara getting on, Harriet?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Are you in the same class at school?’

  ‘We were at the start but she’s better than me at reading and maths, so they moved her into a different one.’

  ‘And are you okay about that?’

  ‘She is better. I don’t like maths much.’

  Lara also played with different girls at recess and lunch, but sometimes they all played in a big group. At home, they all did things together – ate their meals, watched TV, went to the beach. At least her mum and dad got Lara to do the dishes and sweep the floor, too. Harriet had been worried she would get out of it, but her mum and dad seemed to be treating her like another kid. Austin and James did too. Sometimes they teased Lara, sometimes they ignored her. Just like they did with Harriet. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  Lara started having nightmares about six months after she arrived. Night after night, Harriet was woken up by Lara talking in her sleep. Once or twice she would screa
m or wake up crying. The first time Harriet tried to help her, but it scared her. She started running into her parents at the first noise.

  ‘Ah, Lara, you poor little mite.’ Her mother would cradle Lara, do that thing where she stroked her forehead until she fell asleep again. It lasted for more than a week sometimes, night after night. Harriet would hear the screaming and go and get her mother. Each time, her mother would come, hold Lara tight. Once she stayed for more than an hour, murmuring to Lara in a voice too soft for Harriet to hear.

  There was a break of three nights and then it happened again. Harriet had had enough. She put her pillow over her head and tried to block out the crying. It wasn’t until Lara was sobbing very loudly that her mother came in.

  The next morning her mother sat down next to Harriet at the kitchen table while she was having breakfast. It was the weekend, so there was no school. Lara was outside with Austin, filling the bird feeder that hung on the plum tree. ‘Harriet, why didn’t you come and get me last night when Lara was crying?’

  She kept eating her cornflakes. ‘I didn’t wake up.’

  ‘You must have. Please, Harriet, come and get me if Lara’s upset. You know we have to be kind to her.’

  That was too much. She put down the spoon. ‘I am being kind. But you and Dad love her more than you love me now.’

  ‘Harriet, we don’t.’

  ‘Then you love her as much as you love me. And she just got here and I’m your real daughter and it’s not fair.’

  She got up and ran away. She only got as far as the beach path. The sea scared her in wintertime. The waves sounded too noisy and sometimes people would appear, just when you thought the beach was empty. Some of the kids at school said there were even people who lived on the beach. She stood for a while by the grass path, near the swings and the barbecues.

  She waited for more than ten minutes but no one came to look for her. When she slowly made her way back she saw her mum was now out with Austin and Lara, moving the bird feeder to a new place.

  They hadn’t even noticed she was gone.

  The first anniversary of Lara’s arrival came around. Their mother made an announcement over lunch a few days before. ‘I want Lara to have a special way of remembering her parents. So we’re going to have a little ceremony.’