One Whole and Perfect Day Read online

  ‘But that’s cream cheese, Lon. We don’t use it. We need ordinary stuff, the sort you use in macaroni cheese.’

  He’d pulled a face, toddler-style.

  She’d picked up a block of supermarket cheddar. ‘This kind, see?’

  He’d wagged his head. ‘Yeah, but –’

  Lily had dropped the block of cheese into the trolley.

  ‘Okay, Lil, you know best, but –’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ He’d flicked at the heavy lock of hair that fell across his forehead. It stayed there. He’d flicked again. And again.

  ‘Oh, leave it!’ hissed Lily.

  Outside in the street it was raining. Mum had been home with the flu. Lon had just dropped out of his economics course. The fridge was packing up and the person Lonnie called Dad had forgotten to ring Lily on her birthday. Not that she cared about that – he always did it, forgot and then rang three months later, upsetting her all over again. Once he’d even got her name wrong. He’d called her Lolly. Lolly! It was strange how someone you didn’t know could make you feel as if you didn’t matter.

  A wind from the Antarctic had scoured their faces as they emerged from the supermarket, and on the median strip in the middle of the highway, perched dangerously between two roaring streams of traffic, Lon had grabbed her arm.

  ‘We needed something laughing,’ he’d said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s why I wanted it, the cream cheese. So there’d be something in the house that laughs. Even if it was only the cow on the cheese packet. “La vache qui rit.” ’

  She couldn’t help noticing how perfect his accent was, how he’d sounded exactly like Mme Bispin at school. So how come he’d failed his oral French exam back in Year 12? Lonnie was a total mystery. Trucks and cars had roared round their tiny traffic island, the rain had pelted down, Lonnie’s face had gone vague and dreamy, as if his soul had been beamed up to some distant corner of the universe and only his shell was left here for Lily and Mum to mind. When a break came in the traffic she had to tweak at his arm.

  ‘C’mon’ she’d said gently, as if he were some frail and helpless creature she’d taken for a walk. ‘C’mon, Lon, let’s go home.’

  What would Lon be having for dinner tonight? wondered Lily, dragging herself back into the present, their gloomy kitchen and the spaghetti sauce. Now he no longer shared their life and was out there in the big wide world on his own. Cheeseburgers from the takeaway? Hot chips? Pot noodles warmed in hot water in the kitchen of the boarding house she and Mum had never seen? If it even had a kitchen . . .

  She glanced up at the clock. Almost six: Mum would soon be home. What would it be like to have a dad come home from work and in the door each evening? Lily shook her head, dismissing such a fantasy, took up the knife and began to chop onions again. No matter how hard she scrubbed in the shower, she was sure the smell of them stayed in her skin and hair.

  3

  MARIGOLD

  In her small stuffy office at the daycare centre, Lily’s mother was about to turn off her computer.

  ‘Leonie!’ she called to her assistant. ‘Leonie!’

  Marigold liked to have someone right beside her when she closed down, because you never knew what might happen, did you? Computers weren’t rational, they were random. Like family life, thought Marigold. ‘Leonie?’

  There was no reply. Marigold glanced at her watch and saw that it was after six. Leonie would be gone then; she always left on the dot of 5.30.

  Marigold leaned in towards the computer, so close her nose almost touched the screen. She pressed the commands lightly, as if she feared electric shock, sucking in her breath, holding it, sharp and painful, deep down in her lungs as she waited to see if things would go smoothly, or if some terrifying message would leap onto the screen. Perhaps that nerve-racking box would appear, the long grey box of small squares where you had to wait, alert and trembling, till every square filled itself in.

  Tonight the process went without a hitch: Logging Off came up on a sky of perfect blue, the musical chimes rang out, and Marigold was free. She leaned back in her chair and yawned in sheer relief: ‘Ooooh-aaaah!’

  It hadn’t been a bad day, she reflected. No one wandering from the premises, no adventurous old person sneaking through the gates and trailing down the highway, imagining it was a Saturday night in l937 and the Roxy dance hall was just around the corner. There’d been no brawls in the recreation rooms, no accusations of theft or slander or adultery – indeed the afternoon had been so quiet that Marigold had found time to ring Lonnie’s boarding house in Toongabbie.

  She hadn’t been spying, she told herself. She hadn’t been trying to check up that he was still doing his course, still going to his lectures and tutorials, and not lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon. The idea of Lonnie lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon haunted Marigold, bringing an even more frightening vision of a middle-aged Lonnie, stubble-chinned and grey-haired, still lying there. Or an old, old Lonnie, long after she had gone. Would Lily look after him then? Would she? Marigold didn’t really know. Lily was a good girl – look how she helped around the house! Look how she did the shopping! And yet Lily could be a little hard sometimes; perhaps she’d give up on Lonnie like Pop had done, and what would happen to him then?

  So when Lonnie’s landlady had told her he was out, Marigold couldn’t help asking, ‘You mean, he’s at the university?’

  ‘I believe so,’ replied Mrs Rasmussen in the cool efficient tone that made her sound more like a wardress than a landlady; a stout, stern person with a bunch of keys chained round her waist: the keeper of an Institution.

  I believe so. It was a vague enough answer, devoid of any hard information, yet when Marigold heard it her mother’s heart had given a small leap of joy. Perhaps Lonnie would be all right after all, perhaps he was (as Marigold had been telling everyone for years) simply a slow developer, one of those people who matured late; who, in their mid or late twenties, or early thirties, or later on (eventually, anyway) discovered their true selves and dazzled everyone. Feeling oddly hopeful, almost light-hearted, Marigold gathered up her handbag and keys and headed for the door. It was 6.25, and with a little bit of luck she might be home in time to help Lily with the dinner. Not that it mattered if she wasn’t; Lily could cope, Lily could always be relied on, Lily was the sensible one in the family.

  As she walked down the hall, Marigold heard voices coming from the recreation room. A male voice, coaxing, even deferential, seemed to be pleading with someone. ‘Mum? Mu-um?’

  Marigold glanced through the open door and saw old Mrs Nightingale busy with a game of Patience at the centre table. Her son hovered beside her, a grey-haired, despondent man, who looked as if he might well keep to his bed in the middle of the afternoon. ‘Mum?’ he said again.

  ‘In a moment, Robbie.’ The old lady’s clear voice held a trace of irritation. ‘I want to finish this game.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘No buts, please. You’re spoiling my concentration.’

  Another voice, small and mousy like some tiny anxious creature from a Beatrix Potter book, (Mrs Tittlemouse, perhaps, thought Marigold) squeaked abruptly, ‘Hello, Dr Samson.’

  Marigold peered round the edge of the door and saw Sarah, Mrs Nightingale’s daughter-in-law, seated in the big blue armchair which old Captain Cuthbert always called, ‘My Chair’. He’d swing a punch at anyone who touched it and Marigold was relieved she’d heard the Captain going home this evening, shouting at his poor daughter as they passed her office, ‘You’re no daughter of mine!’

  Sarah was sorting through a lapful of shiny travel brochures.

  ‘Going on holiday?’ asked Marigold.

  ‘Oh, I hope so.’ Sarah’s eyes grew large in her little pointed face. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘If we can find someone to look after Mum. It’s a second honeymoon, see? A romantic long weekend . . .’

  Jokes were made about taking mothers on you
r first honeymoon, and obviously it was the same second time round, though Marigold found it a little puzzling that they should need a carer for so brief a time. Old Mrs Nightingale was one of the daycare centre’s most independent clients – mobile, all faculties intact, perfectly able to spend a few days alone. ‘Doesn’t she like being in the house by herself?’ she asked.

  ‘She loves it!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘She’d burn it down, Dr Samson! Leave something boiling on the stove! Or flood it! Leave the bath taps running!’

  Marigold frowned. ‘Do you think so? She seems so capable to me.’

  Sarah’s eyes grew even larger. ‘Oh Dr Samson, you don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t know what?’

  Sarah twitched her tiny nose. ‘She gets so immersed.’

  ‘Immersed?’

  ‘In her card games. Or in those books of hers! She can read all day, Dr Samson. Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On and on and on she goes. I honestly don’t think she knows she’s in this world.’

  Marigold thought of Lonnie as a little boy, curled up on the sofa, reading and reading and reading. Anything he could get his hands on, except school readers, which he left strictly alone. Marigold had once found three of them – three! – in the garbage bin.

  ‘Ticket to Outer Space,’ whispered Sarah.

  ‘What?’ Marigold was still thinking of Lonnie.

  ‘Those books of Mum’s, the way she reads. Outer Space, you know? La La Land?’ Sarah twirled a finger at her forehead.

  Marigold was beginning to dislike Mrs Nightingale’s daughter-in-law, even if disliking clients’ children was unprofessional. ‘I think it’s perfectly normal to read a lot,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Do you?’ Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘But Dr Samson, if you call her when she’s reading, if you say, “Mum, it’s dinner time, now put that book away!” she doesn’t answer! Even if you shout!’

  And good luck to her, thought Marigold, though all she said was ‘Mmm,’ before changing the subject smoothly. ‘So – this holiday?’ she asked, nodding towards the shiny brochures in Sarah’s lap.

  ‘My sister said she might be able to take her,’ whispered Sarah. ‘It’s only a “might”, mind you, because Janet’s a bit scared of her –’ Sarah’s eyes flicked nervously towards her mother-in-law, and then back to Marigold. ‘Mum can be quite sharp-tongued, you know. Comes from all those years of being a teacher, I think.’

  ‘Does it?’ said Marigold.

  ‘So – so we’re not sure yet if we’ll be going,’ said Sarah, and she looked down at the glossy brochures and sighed, the tiniest, saddest sigh that Marigold had ever heard, and which, ordinarily, would have been the signal for her to say, ‘Oh, look, if you can’t find anyone, and it’s only for a few days, your mother-in-law can stay with me . . .’

  Now she remained guiltily silent: only last week she’d promised Lily she wouldn’t bring any more lame ducks home. ‘It’s not professional, Mum!’ Lily was always pointing out. ‘And I’ll tell you something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re going to get stuck one day.’ There’d been an edge of triumph in Lily’s voice.

  ‘Stuck?’

  ‘Yes! One of those carer-kids will go away and not come back and you’ll be left holding the oldie.’

  Marigold had laughed, a little uneasily. ‘Of course they won’t.’

  ‘Of course they would. You’re such a softie, Mum. Don’t you read the papers?’

  ‘I haven’t got the time.’

  ‘Well, old people get abandoned every single day! Left on park benches! On railway stations! Without even a label round their neck to tell people who they are!’

  There’d been a silence then. Marigold might not have time to read the paper every day, but she knew from her work that this was true.

  ‘Promise me!’ Lily had demanded.

  ‘Promise what?’ Marigold had asked, though indeed she’d known.

  ‘That you won’t bring home any more lame ducks –’ Lily had paused to calculate, ‘for at least a year.’ A year and she would have got out of the habit, that’s what Lily had been thinking.

  ‘But –’

  ‘Mum, it’s unprofessional!’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Marigold had given in.

  A promise was a promise, so now she said briskly, smiling falsely at Sarah, ‘I’m sure it will work out and the pair of you will be off on your lovely holiday.’ And though poor Sarah didn’t seem to notice, Marigold thought her voice sounded false as well – brummy as a two bob watch, as her dad would say.

  4

  NIGHT-TIME

  As Marigold drove down the highway towards home, full winter night began to close about the city, creeping down from the mountains where Lily’s Nan and Pop lived, spreading an inky stain across the suburbs on the plain. Lights came on in the streets and houses: in Lily’s place and Lonnie’s Boarding House for Gentlemen; and in Mercer Hall, where, as the students returned, the windows lit up one by one until the hall of residence was a tall bright tower against the darkened sky.

  ‘Brummy as a two bob watch,’ typed Clara Lee in her small room on the twelfth floor. Clara was writing her fourth year thesis on Australian slang. ‘Flash as a rat with a gold tooth,’ she typed, and smiled. Now wasn’t that a kind of poetry?

  Her dad wouldn’t have agreed. Her dad had wanted her to study Medicine instead of Arts. Medicine was what he’d wanted to study when he’d been young, only his elderly parents had forced him to do Accountancy instead.

  ‘I want to study what I like,’ Clara had insisted, almost adding, ‘I don’t want to end up like you!’

  Her dad had given in, though he’d started up again when she’d begun her thesis.

  ‘If you’re doing Literature, why not choose something proper?’

  ‘Proper?’

  ‘Something – poetic.’ As he spoke the word a faint flush had risen to her father’s sallow cheeks. And no wonder, thought Clara, for Dad was the least poetic person you could imagine; it was even possible he didn’t possess a soul.

  ‘Poetic?’ she’d said again, teasingly. There was a boy in her Lit tute who looked poetic: tall and pale and thin, with a lock of long fair hair that fell across his forehead. His name was Lonnie Samson.

  Her father had cleared his throat. ‘Something like Shakespeare, for instance, or the Romantic poets, or even – er, Robert Burns.’

  ‘But Dad, this kind of language I’m studying is poetic. Listen to this: “Cold as a stepmother’s breath” . . . See?’

  Her father hadn’t seen. He’d kept on nagging and trying to boss her round. Clara didn’t have to take it; she had her scholarship, she didn’t have to live at home. She’d left. There was nothing to it. You simply tossed your clothes in a bag and walked straight out the door. Easy.

  Clara’s fingers stilled on the computer keys. An image of her mother’s face rose up: her soft brown eyes, that little tremble at the corner of her mouth when she got upset and didn’t want you to know. ‘No,’ said Clara. ‘No. Go away, Mum.’ She shook her head sternly and banished Mum, and then, slowly, began to type again.

  In the room next door Clara’s friend Jessaline O’Harris was checking through her notes for the test tomorrow. Every word she read made her feel sick. She hated Linguistics, hated it, hated it, hated it. Tears formed in her eyes, her thick glasses steamed up so that she could barely see. Jessaline chucked the heavy folder on the floor and reached for the book her friend Mrs Murphy had loaned her this afternoon. Mrs Murphy was in charge of the kitchens in Mercer Hall, and the book was The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book.

  ‘I think you’ll enjoy this, dear,’ Mrs Murphy had said, and Jessaline knew she would, because she loved cooking and she loved reading about cooking; even a simple list of ingredients could hold her spellbound. Yet as she opened the book to chapter seven (Treasures) Jessaline’s gaze flicked nervously towards the door, as if she expected her parents – two tall s
lope-shouldered academics with big round heads – to burst in and demand to know why she was reading cookery books instead of studying for her exam. Jessaline felt her parents knew every single thing she was doing, even before she did it. She felt they could read her mind.

  Suddenly she remembered they were both away at a conference in Armidale. Clutching Alice B. Toklas to her chest, Jessaline sprang up from her desk and threw herself onto the bed. She wiped her steamy glasses, snuggled back against the pillows and began to read: A Hen With Golden Eggs. Put a hen in a saucepan over very high heat. It should be covered with cold water, and when it is about to boil . . .

  In his room at Mrs Rasmussen’s Boarding House for Gentlemen, Lonnie was reading too. His book was a Life of his favourite writer, Emily Bronte, and the further he read, the more convinced he was that if Emily Bronte had been his contemporary, alive and young and studying at the university, he’d have fallen in love with her. But would she have returned the feeling?

  Somehow Lonnie knew she wouldn’t have. He could imagine her gaze on him, stern and clear-eyed, a little like his sister Lily’s. She’d gaze, and turn away, something that seemed to happen with girls Lonnie fancied, not at first, but after a little while. ‘It’s the way you toss your hair back,’ Lily had informed him not so long ago. ‘That droopy bit that falls over your forehead. There’s a boy at school has hair like yours, and he tosses it back – but only once, Lon. You keep on doing it and doing it, as if you haven’t got the strength. It makes you look like one of those nodding toys people keep in the back of their cars. It makes you look lacking.’

  ‘Lacking? Lacking in what?’

  ‘Just lacking,’ his sister had replied.

  The night grew deeper. The lights in Mercer Hall went out one by one and the tall tower darkened and merged into the sky. Clara slept soundly and so did Jessaline; Clara’s parents lay awake and thought about her; old Mrs Nightingale sat up all night and read the poems of Robert Burns.Wee, sleek-it, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! she read, and smiled to herself, thinking how very exactly Burns’ description of a mouse fitted her poor daughter-in-law.