‘What’s wrong?’
‘Your dad . . .’ She swallows. ‘He got money. A loan shark or something, I guess. He left enough money to cover all the loans in my name that I used to bail him out and enough to use as a rental bond on a house. And he’s gone.’
‘What do you mean he’s gone?’
‘He’s left.’
‘What do you mean? Is he okay?’
‘I don’t know.’ She wipes her eyes. ‘He texted. Said he’s heading north. Not to worry. But I do, anyway. I do.’
‘So, we’re moving out? Taylor, you and me?’
‘It’s not a flashy place. Just a rental, near Ascott.’ Mum sips on her milkshake. ‘It’ll be a bit further for you to get to school.’
‘That’s okay. It’s closer than Lockwood.’
‘You’ll have your own rooms again. And there’s a garden. A little one.’
Mum’s still crying. She tries to stem her tears with the spotty napkins that came with our milkshakes.
‘It’s not as nice as Kelly’s.’
‘It has you and Taylor. Of course it’s as nice. It’s better!’
‘I’d rather be at Fairyland, with your father,’ she whispers. ‘I know that makes me a bad mother, but I’d rather have him with us and be in debt up to our eyeballs.’
‘It doesn’t, Mum.’ I hold her hand. ‘It doesn’t.’
***
I go to Fairyland and it looks just as it always has. I try to remember how it looked before I lived here; when I saw only decay and missed all the important things that make it what it is.
‘Stella!’ I look up at Muriel, beckoning me from her front door. ‘Come in!’
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking a last look at the tomato plants, heavy with split fruit and waterlogged leaves, before following her in.
She makes me tea and hands me grocery-store cupcakes, and we stare out at the plants and the trees.
‘What’s going to happen to this place?’ I ask.
‘I guess that’s up to the owners,’ she says. ‘They might land bank it. They might subdivide or develop it. Not our business, I guess.’
‘No. I guess not.’ I bite into the cake. ‘Where are you going to go?’
‘I’ll work out something.’
‘You can stay with us,’ I say.
‘Your mum offered that, too. But I’ll work something out. There’re some waiting lists I’m going on.’ She fiddles with her cup and I know how old Muriel is and I know how long those waiting lists are.
I swallow hard. ‘Where’s everyone else going?’
‘Oh, scattering around. Reg is moving up to Queensland to work on his brother’s farm. Trisha’s . . . I don’t know about Trisha. Ginny’s going west. Richard and Zara are moving into public housing. Cora’s going to houseshare with a school friend.’
‘What about all the trees and vegetable beds and flowers?’
‘You guys have a garden, don’t you? Maybe you can keep them there in pots.’
***
The house is on Sunshine Road, between the train line and the highway. We can’t hear the river, but we can hear cars and the sound of people settling into their houses for the night.
The ceilings are freshly painted. They’ve been done in a rush, so that in the right lights I can see all the strokes, the places where the brush has been.
We set up a bed for Jube in the living room, but most nights he ends up sleeping on Mum’s bed and she pretends she doesn’t like it, but we all know that she does. I set up Mum’s sewing machine in my bedroom, and most nights Mum will come in and check how I’m going with whatever I’m working on. She doesn’t say much, but she’ll sometimes nudge me out of my chair or guide my hands or foot as I try to do something tricky. She doesn’t ever sew anything herself. I suppose she will, eventually. I suppose that all the pieces of her have been cast in strange patterns and it will take her a while to fit herself back together. Now that Dad’s not here.
Taylor frames the Judy and Charlie photo for Mum and Mum cries and puts it on her bedside table, and a couple of times at night or very early in the morning, I’ve caught her just staring at it in the moonlight.
Kelly buys me bedding. A housewarming present, she says. But it feels more like a goodbye. She doesn’t call or text or anything and I wonder if she’s left for her trip, yet. I get a text from Mary a few days after moving out. She tried xo
I text Mary back and soon we’re chatting about everything and nothing. There’s a lot we don’t mention, but there’s so much that we do. She says that Simon’s been asking after me. That he’d like to get to know me, maybe be in my life a little.
Richard brings over a bucket of split tomatoes and cookies, and Zin and Lara come over with fish and chips. Mum’s started visiting Zara in the flat by the cinemas. She’d taken all of Zara’s geraniums; there’d been no outside space for them in the flat. She fusses over them every day. She picks handfuls, wraps them in foil, and takes them over to Zara along with things that she thinks Zara will like – magazines and cookbooks. Jewellery from the op shop that Zara might want to disassemble and turn into something new. They cook together in Zara’s little kitchen. Sometimes Mum and Zara practise some English, but mostly they don’t talk very much, yet Mum always comes back very relaxed. She comes back shaking her head over what a marvellous cook Zara is.
Clem comes over after dinner. He helps me slot my special books onto my bookshelf – the one Mum found for me at the op shop. And when nobody’s looking, we press against the walls and he kisses me, and I can’t believe he’s been right in front of me, all along.
Taylor comes into my room that first night.
‘I can’t sleep,’ she says, slipping into bed beside me. ‘All those months of wanting a bed to myself and now I’ve got it and I can’t sleep.’
‘I wonder where Dad is,’ I say.
‘Who knows?’
‘Do you think he’ll come back?’
‘When he’s ready,’ Taylor says, kicking me off her three-quarters of the bed. ‘I reckon he will when he’s ready.’
***
The garden of our rental is small with a faded fence and weedy lawn, but it looks lush. Beautiful. We’ve set up vegetable beds and transplanted the trees that Clem bought with his birthday money for everyone at Fairyland.
Simon gives me cuttings of my grandmother’s roses and I put them into plastic pots out in the sunshine.
There aren’t many people from Fairyland still in Sutherbend, but Cassie comes over and tinkers in amongst the plants and so does Richard. Sometimes we all tinker out there together, re-potting and weeding and watering and planning. We’ve started inviting the people who live along Sunshine Road into the garden. We share what we grow and they help where they can. Sometimes we all just sit around and talk. Talking feels different when you’re doing it in a garden you love.
I have a notebook, now. And I stick flowers and leaves in there that I’ve pressed in the pages of our phone book. Like Kelly’s little book, but different. I label the things in my book – their names and when they grew and what they looked and tasted like. I don’t really read self-help books anymore. I figure I’ll learn what I need to if I decide to study psychology after school, and until then it’s okay to wing it. It’s okay to read about flowers and gardens and soils instead. It’s okay to read trashy romance novels and play videogames and drink coffee.
We don’t talk about what will happen when Mum, Taylor and I move house again, but it doesn’t really matter. We keep what we can in pots and otherwise we plan the garden like it’s the only thing in the world and will be here, and ours, forever.
***
At first I think that Clem’s put his arm around me for moral support, but now I feel it propel me forward. I glare at him. ‘Traitor.’
‘Serves you right for having such little faith in me,’ he says. He gazes off the pier. ‘That’s a long way down.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I want to get ice cream first,’ says Taylor. ‘
Don’t jump until I’ve got my ice cream! Okay?’
‘Okay!’
Mum glances off the side, too, frowning. ‘Is the water deep enough? She’s not going to break her neck or anything, is she?’
‘No, it’s safe,’ Mary says. She leans in very close, so that only I can hear. ‘I think, anyway.’
Monica prods Zin. ‘Dare you to jump in.’
‘As much as I love a dare, no friggin’ way. It’s as tall as a building.’ She catches my eye. ‘I mean, it’s practically that lame paddling pool Lara loves so much. Barely a puddle.’
‘Hey,’ snaps Lara.
More people come along the pier and I groan. ‘What are you lot doing here?’
‘Clem told us,’ Richard says. ‘He said there’d probably be screaming and crying. Which we obviously couldn’t miss.’
Matthew doesn’t say anything, but when Taylor hurries back and offers him some of her ice cream, he slips his arm around her shoulder and smiles. He’s been sleeping over on our couch a lot and sometimes over at Richard and Zara’s. He’s talking less and less about Adelaide.
‘C’mon,’ Mary says. ‘It’s going to be full dark soon. We haven’t got all night.’
I look down at the water. ‘It’s like a hundred metres.’
‘It’s not a hundred metres,’ says Mary. ‘It’s very definitely no more than ninety.’
‘C’mon, better make it quick,’ says Clem. ‘I hear the sharks come out after dark.’
‘I hate you all,’ I say. ‘I hate you all so much that I can’t even stand it.’
I stand there for a while longer, considering this. It’s like I can’t move. I shiver slightly and feel Clem’s arm tighten around my shoulder. ‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘No way.’
‘Bet’s a bet, Price,’ he says and nudges me towards the edge.
I jump. There’s no other choice. The water hits me like something solid, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. Then I struggle to the surface and everyone’s so high above me, and I close my eyes and think of all that air that I’ve just sliced through. ‘Traitors!’ I yell up at them.
‘I just maintained what was left of your dignity! You’re welcome!’ Clem calls. And as I’m swimming to the ladder, someone else lands in the water. And then someone else. And then someone else.
I can’t make out who they are, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s splashing and laughing. ‘I didn’t realise the beach was so close to home!’ Richard crows.
Then Mary’s next to me, cheeks red in the fading light. So similar to her broken sister and yet so different, so utterly herself. I feel a pang for Kelly. For everything I hoped she’d be and wasn’t. I think of her walled garden and overflowing fishpond and wipe salt from my eyes. I feel a pang for my dad, who loved us enough to disappear.
Do you remember the time when we all jumped off the pier at dusk?
In the end, everyone jumps in. And we’re out there, mucking around in the cool, early autumn water until all the stars come out and the streets light up.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to Lisa Berryman for being so amazing (as always!) and so supportive and patient when my brain was in the new-parent nappy bucket.
Thank you to Alex Nahlous and Eve Tonelli for your incredible editing. Thank you to James Kellow, Cristina Cappelluto, Catherine Milne and the rest of the amazing HarperCollins team for working so tirelessly behind the scenes to get books into the hands of readers. Thank you, as always, to my wonderful agent, Sally Bird.
Thanks to all the booksellers, book bloggers and readers who tirelessly champion the work of so many Australian authors – getting to know you is still my favourite thing about being a published author.
Thank you to the amazing community of Australian writers for keeping me sane and for your generosity, wisdom and insight – you know who you are!
Thank you to my family and in particular my beautiful husband and mama, who bend over backwards to give me time to write. Thank you also to the new addition, my not-so-wee baby who was in my tummy when I typed the first words of this story and is now standing, gnawing, shrieking and devouring anything remotely edible (and sometimes not) at a truly alarming rate.
Lastly, thanks to my beautiful grandmother Barb, who met so much horror with so much love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELIZA’s debut novel In the Quiet was published in 2015 as part of a three-book deal with HarperCollins Australia. It was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and was longlisted for the Indie Awards and ABIA Awards. Her second novel Ache was released in 2017 and her first Young Adult novel, P is for Pearl (2018) was a CBCA Notable Book and longlisted for the ABIA and Indie Awards. Eliza has qualifications in English, psychology and grief, loss and trauma counselling. Her work has appeared in places such as The Big Issue, Country Style, The Guardian, The Age and Daily Life. She lives on a little farm in the Yarra Valley of Victoria.
COPYRIGHT
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2020
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Eliza Henry-Jones 2020
The right of Eliza Henry-Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
Cover design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino
How to Grow a Family Tree Page 26