Portraits of Celina

by Sue Whiting

  Neighbours? This is something I never considered and the reality of it stings. One of the scant attractions of moving here being the inherent isolation: the chance to be away from the sympathetic faces and the claustrophobic surround of wellwishers.

  “Sorry. I’m …” He seems far less sure of himself now that he is on dry land. He rubs his scalp, then holds his hair back off his face with both hands. “I’m Oliver. I knew someone was moving in – seen the tradesmen working like crazy, hey, fixing the place up, but I didn’t think it was ready yet.”

  It’s not, I want to say, obviously. But all I manage is, “We moved in yesterday.” Then I spy Seth splashing around the kayak, one leg over the side, trying to get in. “Seth, get out of there.”

  “He’s okay,” says Oliver. “Would you like a go, mate?”

  “No!” My voice is fierce. I grab Seth by the arm and pull him out, my jeans now soaked to the knees. “Come on,” I say. “We have to go and get breakfast.”

  “But there’s no food,” says Seth. “And Mum’s not–”

  “Shh,” I warn. I can barely breathe, filled with the overwhelming need to get back inside.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean …” Oliver starts. “I guess … I better get back to it.” He picks up his oar, pushes his kayak off the shore and slips into it with ease. “See you,” he calls and rows away.

  Seth watches him go, shoulders slumped.

  My heart thumps in my chest. I feel exposed. Vulnerable.

  Seth turns to face me. “What’s wrong with your face?” he asks.

  I touch my cheek. “What?”

  “It’s gone red and blotchy.”

  “It’s hot, okay? Come on, let’s go and rustle up something to eat.”

  “And find Mum?”

  “Yep. And find Mum.”

  I stride off, not daring to look back.

  three

  It is almost lunchtime and Mum still hasn’t made an appearance. My emotions swing like a giant pendulum from worrying to seething and back again. Sad thing is, this is nothing new: same old, same old. So much for our fresh start.

  A gust of hot wind rushes into the house. The back door slams shut, and specks of plaster and muck rain down onto the kitchen floor. The ceiling is water marked and bulging, with an ugly split right above me. I can’t imagine what the place was like before the builders invaded more than a month ago. It is barely habitable now.

  “Hey, you in the Batcave,” I call to Seth, who has spent hours inside an empty packing carton. “One box to go. What do you think is in this one? Maybe the Riddler’s hiding out. Or the Penguin. Want to come see?”

  Seth doesn’t answer. He is morose and whiny, his ears red and swollen from constant tugging and I know that with every passing minute, he is becoming increasingly anxious.

  Finally, tyres crunch on gravel. Mum. At last. The Batcave is flung to the ground and Seth shoots out the door.

  I plop onto a kitchen chair, arms folded, note the thud of the car door and Seth’s voice demanding: “Where have you been?” I don’t hear Mum’s answer. Nor do I want to.

  Mum walks in laden with plastic shopping bags; I turn my back to her in a rare act of defiance.

  “Wow, you’ve been busy. Thanks, love,” Mum says. She hauls the bags onto the bench. “There’s more in the car, Bails.”

  I don’t shift.

  “Come on, the quicker we get it in, the quicker we can organise some lunch,” Mum encourages. “Seth tells me you’ve all been starving to death.”

  I get to my feet and shove the chair back under the table. My body is rigid with hostility.

  Mum rubs my shoulders. “What’s wrong with you?” Her voice is unusually light, laced with laughter.

  “What do you reckon?” I say and shrug out of her grip.

  “My,” says Mum, her tone sarcastic, “have you been bitten by the Amelia bug?”

  “Where were you?” I say. “You disappear at the crack of dawn without leaving a note. The phones aren’t working, we have no way to contact you and you’re gone for half the day. What do you reckon is wrong, Mum? Seth’s been so worried, he’s been hiding in an empty box all morning, pulling his earlobes off. We’ve been here less than a day!” I stomp out to the car, wondering why I seem to be the parent all the time.

  I tug a bag stuffed with fruit and vegies out of the boot. Mum is suddenly behind me, so close, I struggle to turn round. “Sorry, Bails,” Mum says. Her voice is shaky. “I didn’t think I’d be this long. I ducked out while everyone was asleep to get a few things and …”

  I grab another bag, manage to wiggle past her and head to the front steps, my lips pressed together – I don’t trust myself to say anything right now. I might even speak the truth for once.

  Mum runs alongside me. “Come on, Bayley. Don’t be like that. I need your support, sweetheart. You know that.”

  Don’t I ever? Good old, dependable Bayley, always there for everyone else. I lug the bags up the stairs, push open the door with my foot and tramp inside.

  Mum isn’t finished. “I’m sorry, okay? I lost track of time. What do you want from me? A written apology? Hey, don’t you want to hear my news?”

  Exasperated, I drop the bags and rub my eyes with both hands. I hear the fragility in my mother’s voice and it frustrates me. I turn to face her. “What, Mum? What news?”

  “I got a job, Bails!”

  “Job? What job?”

  “There was a sign in a Chinese restaurant for waitstaff. Only casual. But it’s a start. I didn’t think I’d have a hope–”

  “Waitstaff?” I interrupt. “What do you know about waitressing?”

  “Obviously enough, otherwise they wouldn’t have employed me. I’m not useless, you know.” Mum shifts to the defensive.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I lie, pulling cans of tomatoes and salmon and beetroot out of one of the bags and sliding them onto the near-empty pantry shelves. “You’ve never worked in a restaurant before. Will you know what to do?” And how long will it last before it all gets too much for you? Like everything else.

  “Well, actually, I have. Admittedly, a long time ago–”

  “What? When you were at uni?”

  “Yes. Does it matter? It didn’t seem to worry the people at the Wok and Roll who have just employed me.”

  “What about designing, Mum? I thought you said you would be able to freelance. Get back into it – the things you love doing. The things you’re good at.”

  “And I will.” Mum feigns determination.

  “Mum! You promised. The whole move was our new start – to get back on track and everything.”

  “Don’t lecture me, Bayley. Besides, you’re a fine one to talk – what about you?”

  “Me?”

  “When was the last time you went running, hey?”

  “That’s different–”

  “No. It’s the same. Talk to me when you’re back training again. In the meantime, let’s drop it, okay? I will get back to design, but right now we need some regular cash – we do have to eat. Speaking of which, if you pack this lot away, I’ll get cracking on some lunch. Where’s Amelia? And” – Mum swivels round – “where’s Seth got to?”

  “I’m here.” Seth is back in his Batcave, munching on a banana.

  “Cheeky monkey,” says Mum, peering into the box. “Why aren’t you helping?”

  Seth takes a chomp out of the banana, bares banana-coated teeth and says, “Has Bayley told you about her boyfriend yet?”

  Mum pulls a surprised face at me. “Boyfriend?”

  “Her? A boyfriend?” Amelia materialises in the doorway, still in my tee, her hair snarled, her eyes blinking. “Yeah right. Pull the other one. Hey, don’t tell me we have actual real food.”

  Mum raises one eyebrow and looks from Amelia to me, but her gaze loiters on me. She grimaces. “You still have those clothes on.”

  “Yeah, and she pongs like some old dero,” adds Amelia. “Op shop chic is so yesterday, Bayley. You have no idea
, do you?”

  I rub my hands down the sides of the jeans, searching for some kind of smart comeback, some witty remark to explain myself. But all I can manage to do is sound pathetic with a “Well, why are you wearing my new tee then, if I’m such a dag?”

  Amelia counters perfectly. “Yeah. To bed,” she says, to prove my patheticness.

  “Give it a rest, Amelia,” says Mum, and then turns back to me. “Go upstairs and get changed, Bayley. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Right? What’s going on?” says Amelia.

  Mum takes a tomato and starts cutting thick slices. “Bayley found some clothes and things in her room. We think they might be Celina’s – my cousin.”

  “The dead chick? The one that got murdered? And you’re wearing her clothes? You’re seriously weird, Bayley.”

  My stomach clenches, and all I can think to do is flee, taking the stairs two at a time to my bedroom and flinging my door closed behind me.

  I yank off the jeans. Throw off the T-shirt. Ram them into the chest and pull down the lid.

  I rummage through the plastic garbage bags littering my floor until I find my favourite shorts and singlet top. Once dressed, I flop onto the tangle of sheets on my bed, my cheeks burning with humiliation.

  I know I shouldn’t let Amelia get to me like this. But her words ring in my head – The dead chick? You’re wearing her clothes? You are seriously weird, Bayley – and they sting more than they should. She always makes me feel like such a baby.

  My eyes are drawn back to the chest and I am filled with a furious urge to flip open the lid and wear whatever I choose. To hell with them all.

  “Bails!” Mum’s voice filters up from the kitchen. “Lunch.”

  With a sigh, I push myself up off my bed and head downstairs.

  “The whole bush retreat thingy might be fine for you, Mum.” Amelia’s never-ending argument meets me before I get to the bottom stair. “But I need people. A social life. Not endless fields of colourless grass and a weedy lake. And I mean, how can we even live here? There is rubble – actual rubble! – piled up at the end of the hallway. The place ought to be condemned. Not to mention that overgrown tip out the back – there could be anything in there.”

  “Put these on the table,” Mum says in response. “Seth, pour some juice for everyone, will you?” As I enter, Mum hands me a bowl filled with fresh green grapes. “Here, have a grape.”

  “Mum!” Amelia, holding a plate of sandwiches, stamps her foot in frustration. “Stop ignoring me.”

  “What do you want me to say, Amelia? ‘Oh dear, what a big mistake; let’s pack up everything and go back to our house in Cronulla and kick out the new tenants because, gee, Amelia refuses to give it a go!’ Really, Amelia, you are nearly eighteen – try acting it for once.”

  Amelia fixes Mum with a hatred-filled glare. “Try treating me like it,” she says through clenched teeth. She slams the plate on the table and walks out.

  Mum collapses onto a chair, rests her elbows on the table and holds her head with her hands. I ache for her, feel guilty about my own outburst only minutes before.

  She raises her head and runs shaky hands through her messy curls. Dark circles shadow her eyes – she looks fragile, as if sculpted from tissue paper.

  Just as she slides the plate over to Seth, Amelia bustles back in, grabs two sandwiches then bustles back out.

  “Here, have a sandwich,” Mum says to Seth. “And tell me about Bayley’s boyfriend. Not like her to be such a fast worker.”

  “Ha-ha,” I say, and bite into a cheese and tomato sandwich.

  “Ol-i-ver,” says Seth in a singsong voice.

  Mum hoists up her eyebrows and pretends surprise. “Oliver, is it? And where did he spring from?”

  “From across the lake,” I say. “He reckons he’s our neighbour. You didn’t say anything about neighbours.”

  “Well, this isn’t exactly the outback, Bails. Of course there are people on the surrounding properties. I think a kid from across the lake somewhere used to hang out with Celina a bit …”

  At the mention of Celina’s name, sharp pins prick my arms. A lump of sandwich wedges in my throat. I swallow hard and endeavour not to let my face betray my unease.

  Fingers to her lips, Mum squints, as if trying to remember something. “Now what was the property called? Lakeview or Lakeside or was it Lakelight?”

  “Do you think it would be the same family? Living there?”

  “Gee, we’re talking forty odd years here. I doubt it – farming families don’t seem to do that old generational thing much these days. Anyway, how did you get to meet this Oliver?”

  Mum’s question floats past me. Inexplicably, I am lost in a dense jungle of thoughts and questions about Celina.

  “Bails?” Mum says. “Hell-oo? Anyone in there?”

  “He was in a boat,” I hear Seth answering for me. “A rowing one. Bayley wouldn’t let me have a go and her face went all gooey.”

  “Shut up, you,” I say, and dig my finger playfully into his ribs. “Actually, Mum, it was scary. We’re pretty alone out here. I didn’t know who he was and you weren’t around and the phone isn’t working yet and we had no car or anything if we needed to escape. We really need another car …”

  “Letting that imagination run again, Bayley?” says Mum. “We’ll have the phones sorted by the end of the week and, yes, once you get your licence, we’ll talk about a car for you and Amelia. But in the meantime, I think you’ll find you’re perfectly safe here. Country people tend to look out for each other and–”

  “So who was looking out for Celina then?” The words slip out before I can call them back.

  four

  The moon glows faintly through wispy lines of cloud, its rays tracing a silvery path across the lake – across to Oliver and to Lakeview or Lakeside or whatever it’s called.

  I turn away from the window and rest up against the wall, listening to the irregular beat of frogs bleating in the distance.

  Everything seems so odd here and I can’t seem to settle. I’d give anything to be able to send a message to Loni, to tell her how much I miss her already.

  Sigh. Second night blues, I guess.

  My thoughts turn to the chest and I flick on my bedside lamp. The chest sits against the wall and beckons to be opened. Why not? I think.

  I grab my doona and stuff it across the gap between my door and floor to prevent light spilling into the hallway, then pad over to the chest and open the lid. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle. It is kind of eerie, peering into the life of a dead girl, but also strangely thrilling.

  “Peace, sister,” I say to the painted peace sign on the inside of the lid, holding up my fingers the way I have seen people in movies do. I stifle a giggle. I really am cracked, aren’t I? What would Loni think if she could see me now?

  I pull out the piles of clothes, examining them, holding them up to the light, until I decide on a cheesecloth peasant blouse and denim shorts.

  I tie the purple scarf around my head like a headband, knotting it above my ear, and examine my reflection in the mirror. Not bad, I decide: the scarf sort of suits me, keeping my curls at bay and accentuating my eyes. I make a Loni-style Sexy Pout at the Seventies me in the mirror, followed by Uber-Cool Supermodel. Ha! I am such an idiot. Grinning, I run my fingers over the embroidered yoke of the blouse. It is rather gorgeous and reminds me of pure happiness – a daisy-filled field on a perfect day – and its puffiness suggests that I actually have boobs worth noticing.

  The outfit is completed with a couple of strings of beads and the cork platforms. The buckles are tarnished with age and take some convincing before I can clip them in place and take off on a practice walk. I wobble across the room; heels are not something I am used to wearing and guilt stabs at me. Dad always chucked a mental at the mere mention of me wearing anything other than joggers or sensible grandma-style sandals – wouldn’t let me risk turning an ankle. That would have spelled disaster – hard to win the states w
ith a turned ankle. Sorry, Dad, I whisper – and nearly go over on my ankle.

  To steady myself, I prop up against the end of my bed, and stare out of the window. I take in the shadowy view through the branches of the pine tree, and ponder on how Celina would have looked at this exact same view. How she could have stood in this exact spot, wearing these exact clothes. A shiver runs through me and I have that unsettling sensation of deja vu.

  How tall would the tree have been forty years ago? Would the lake have changed much? What would Celina have thought about as she stood and took in the view? My stomach tightens. These are very strange thoughts and I know I am obsessing.

  I cast my eye across to the far side of the lake and think about Oliver, unsure if I am pleased or annoyed by the presence of such a good-looking neighbour. Loni would label him a hottie and be hooking up with him behind the barn by now.

  If only I had Loni’s spark – her knack of making the world fizz and bubble around her; her way of putting boys under her spell without even trying. But I am no fool; I know I am not the type ever to weave magic over anyone, much less someone like Oliver. Besides, once Amelia has him in her sights, I won’t stand a chance.

  Still, I can’t help wondering if he goes to Tallowood High. If he will catch the same bus as me. If he will be in some of the same classes. It might be good if there is at least one familiar face when I start at Tallowood in a few weeks time …

  Jeez, be honest with yourself, Bayley! You’d give anything to be hooking up with Oliver behind the barn right now. Loni may lament that she is already seventeen and still a virgin, I lament that at almost seventeen, the sum of my experience with the opposite sex is playing spin the bottle at Eleni Christofi’s thirteenth birthday, and I am pretty sure that accounts for zilch. But what can you do when every boy you are interested in doesn’t seem to know you exist and all the boys who seem interested in you, you don’t want to know they exist?

  Suddenly, the stillness of the lake is broken. My breath catches in my throat. Something is moving on the water again. No way!

  Gliding across the glowing track of moonlight, it is obviously a boat. I grab my mobile from my bedside table. It’s 1.13. Why would anyone be out in a boat at 1.13? Training? Yeah right! What is this Oliver up to?