Lilia's Secret (3 page)

After that Bill stayed out of the house more. He spent his time in his boatshed and garage. He wished he could sack Jorge and Manolo and all the others, so he could get time with his things on his own. His staff were always there, fussing and fixing. They spoke Spanish to each other and he was sure they were
talking about him. After all these years of work he didn't need their pity.

When he walked into the garage they didn't look up. He felt suddenly enclosed, fear replacing oxygen. Beyond him was the normal world, tidying tools, scratching a nose, laughing. He knew this feeling from when he was eight, from just after his father had disappeared. Now he needed to shake himself free and behave like a sixty-three-year-old man.

He took the keys to the Porsche from the nail on the keyboard. Jorge and Manolo paused in their conversation and looked up.

‘Señor, I drive?' Jorge asked.

Bill shook his head. ‘I'll be fine, thanks.' He lowered his head to avoid their attention and walked fast towards the coffee-coloured Porsche. He caressed the polished door before inserting the key.

‘This will pass,' he told himself.

As he put the car into gear, Jorge pressed the control for the garage door. Bill slid out and around his house and down the front drive. He considered heading into the country to clear his head. The open air would crush him though, would make him know how small he was. He turned left towards the nearest mall and headed to Lou's Fishing Hut to pick up some tackles he thought he might need now he was retired.

The shine of the mall made him feel calmer. He clicked his fingers by his sides as he walked past the drugstore, the hair-stylist and the blurs the other stores became. He clicked his fingers faster.

Across the way was a nickel and dime store so he went towards it, looking for safety in its narrow aisles. He threaded
his way around other people who seemed to be carrying on as if they had people to meet and things to buy. The turnstile into the store was cool under his palms. He breathed in, nice and slowly. He got through the entrance and heard his rubber-soled shoes squeak against the polished vinyl all the way to the back of the store, where there were tables piled up with things for two and four dollars.

He counted the pocket notebooks. Thirty-seven. He counted the pens with fluffy pink and lilac feathers on their ends. Twelve pink and seventeen of the others. Pink ones must be more popular. By the time he got to the little rubber stamps he was calmer. After that he went on to the shoe table and counted all the shoes with bows on them and then the socks with frills.

Someone yelled. A small, solid woman rounded the end of the aisle and snatched a pair of white socks with silver ruffles from his hands.

‘What are you doing?' Her face was red and her eyes were beady.

‘I'm c … counting,' he said, feeling as if he were watching the scene from afar.

‘I'll show you counting,' she hissed at him. ‘I'm calling security, you pervert.'

He shook his head. ‘I don't … I'm not …' His face flooded with heat and as he stepped back he bumped against the shelves, and several mugs crashed to the ground. The woman was glowering at him. He headed out of the store, moving rapidly through the mall, the keys in his pocket jangling against his thigh. He kept his shoulders hunched and when he got to the exit he broke into a jog out to the car park. He was
scared, and that scared him even more. He'd never let what other people thought of him affect him. But what that small, barrelled woman had said sliced through the layers of his numbness – it was as if she knew more about him than he did.

That night the candles on the dining table flickered as usual. Carole and the girls leant towards one another, talking. When he was asked he told them he'd had a good day, as usual. After dinner he went down to his den and sat cushioned in his dark armchair, channel-surfing. Finally he switched the TV off and stared at it for several minutes before he put his head in his hands.

The next day Carole passed her husband in the kitchen, the debris of his breakfast around him. She stooped to peck him on the cheek on her way out. ‘Have a good day,' she said.

‘You too,' he said, but he didn't look at her until she turned to go. He watched her over the top of the newspaper as she reached the door. She turned the handle but let her hand fall away and he dropped his eyes back to the newspaper as she turned around and came back to the table.

‘Hon, why don't you do something today?' she asked.

Bill pursed his lips and pushed his glasses down his nose.

‘After all, it's been a couple of months now.'

‘I do lots of things,' he said.

‘Something more meaningful than shopping.' She frowned at him. ‘I know you wanted to rest after working so long and so hard, but I think it may have been a mistake to give up everything at once.'

Bill held up a splayed hand to ward off her words. ‘We've been through this, Carole. I know what I'm doing.' But he didn't and maybe it had been a mistake.

She bent over the table, her palms flat against the glass surface. ‘You could do something completely different,' she said.

Bill stared at the marks her hands had left as she fished in her bag and pulled out a brochure. She must have planned this talk. So she did still think of him occasionally. He looked at the front-page photograph of a smiling, grey-haired woman sitting in front of a pottery wheel with her hands caked in a thick mud cream. The pulse at his right temple started to jump.

‘For Christ's sake, Carole. I've just finished work after forty years with only seven days off sick. I want to enjoy what I've worked for.'

‘I mean you could
give
a course, not take it,' Carole went on, her face clear and earnest. Wrinkles had started to creep into the softening around her eyes and mouth. He hadn't noticed that before. She was a determined woman, that's why she did so well at her charities. Looking at her now he wondered whether that single-mindedness was in her nature or whether it was a defence against the life she'd led. She hadn't complained for years. In the beginning she wanted to see more of him and she wanted him to be with the girls more, but they were the years when he needed to keep his eyes on the ball. And if he hadn't, they wouldn't be living the easy life they did now.

It occurred to him in a flash of understanding that Carole may have been happier with less. She hadn't wanted this grand house at first. He had insisted because of the double marble staircase. It was the kind of thing that defined your status without you ever having to say a word.

‘Well, Carole,' he said in a softer voice, ‘I don't know. I'm just tired. I don't know … I'm so tired.'

Carole spoke back quietly too. ‘Why don't you ring Tom to see if there's a place on the Blake and MacKenzie board?'

He looked up at her. ‘It's gone. I told them I wouldn't want anything for at least a year.'

‘I know, but I think you should let them know that you've changed your mind.'

He held her gaze for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Yes, perhaps I have changed my mind.'

Carole smiled back in relief. She covered one of his fists on the table with her hand and gave it a little shake.

‘Do it today, Bill. Do it today.'

He nodded.

She gathered her keys and handbag and stood above him as if waiting for something. ‘It's just an adjustment,' she whispered, then touched her cheek his and hurried to the door.

Bill's eyes watered. He wanted to call back her softness, he wanted the things inside him to spill out into her waiting arms. He imagined how easy he would feel again. But it wasn't their way.

Later that morning he was in his den slumped over his desk, counting the grains in the leather pad. He lost count three times and then forgot whether he was including the burgundy along with the browns. He rubbed his stubble hard and picked up the phone.

‘Hi Betty, it's Bill here. Bill Bixton. Is Tom around?'

Betty's voice sounded far away. ‘How nice to hear from you. I think Mr Sellers may be in a meeting …'

Bill's throat went dry.

‘Let me see.' She put him on hold. A drop of rain slid all the way down the window. He drummed his other hand on the pad, making a sound that reminded him of drums in Africa, and was about to put the phone down when he heard Betty's voice again.

‘Sorry, Betty, I didn't catch that.'

‘I'm putting you through now, Mr Bixton. Mr Sellers is in a meeting but he's going to come to the phone anyway. I hope you are enjoying your freedom. You take care now.'

Listening to Vivaldi's
Four Seasons
again, he balled his spare hand into a fist a couple of times as he waited.

‘Bill, Tom here. Good to hear from you.' The voice was deep and strong and normal. ‘What have you been doing that's kept you too busy to pick up the phone before this?'

Bill grinned. He needed to be among men, not stuck in this household of women.

‘Just kicking back, Tom. Living the good life. What about you? You got that Lipsol account snared yet?'

‘I'll tell you what, Bill – I'll tell you all about Lipsol if you'll come back to work.'

They both laughed.

‘The handicap still needs a bit of work,' Bill said. ‘I'll let you know when it's in good shape.' He took a breath and plunged on. ‘But if you need help, Tom … You've got the annual conference coming up, you might need a hand with the keynote?'

There was the tiniest slice of silence. Bill wanted to jump
back into the conversation and take back what he'd said, but he couldn't work his words up through his thick throat.

‘Thanks, Bill, but we've given that to Roger this year. Everything's set.'

Bill was supposed to say something.

Finally Tom closed the gap. ‘We did want you,' he said. ‘But you were so damned sure that you weren't going to do anything for a year; not even a newspaper interview.'

‘I was thinking I could make an exception for my old buddies.' Bill could have wept with relief that he was talking now. He sounded about right, too, bringing them both back from the brink. ‘But you've managed to get your act together earlier than usual. Good to know that something has changed since I left.'

They laughed together again.

‘Seriously, Bill,' Tom said. ‘Are you saying you'd consider the speaker circuit earlier than planned? I could make a few calls and let people know.'

There was a fraction too much warmth in Tom's voice.

‘Absolutely not,' Bill said. ‘Wild horses couldn't drag me back. Retirement is the best kept secret.' He lowered his voice. ‘I owe it to my family to stay put, Tom.' He paused for effect. ‘I didn't realise how much they'd missed out on when I was working those crazy hours. I just couldn't do it to them after I promised I'd give them a year. It's not long now; a couple of months already down. Right now, they have to come first, Tom.'

‘You were always sure of your priorities, Bill.'

Bill put down the phone with a small sigh. Tom had sounded convinced. He looked out at the rain and remembered he was counting the burgundy grains in with the brown.

I wish I could say that I'd acted better on the night Dad told us Mum had gone for good. Ellen was the only one who could hold her head high. It took her just a few seconds of shock after Dad had sunk to the floor before she was crouching at his side. He kept crying but at least she did it.

After I sneaked out of the kitchen I didn't worry about finishing the dishes or doing my teeth or anything. I crept into bed, even though it was still light outside, and listened to the pigs grunting around in the agapanthus under my window. I hated those agapanthi with their green ribbon leaves and purple spiky flowers. No matter how much the pigs rooted about in them, snorting and trampling, they survived, and I resented their ugly resilience.

I did my own hair every day from then on. Ellen and Susan cooked our meals and cut our lunches. I don't know who did the shopping. We all made our own beds, but we'd always done that. Susan did the washing on Saturdays and soon I hardly noticed that it wasn't my mother at the trough. Susan wore the same look – bitterness and exhaustion rolled hard into each other. Every now and then she'd cry out and somebody would dash to the laundry to stop the wringer and
extract her hand, which had got stuck feeding through the dripping clothes.

People say that because kids adapt to things so quickly, it's proof they're not affected. I can tell you kids go on because they have to. The isolation crushed us under the grey sky that stretched for ever.

The context of my life was scraped away when my mother disappeared, leaving everything shapeless. My dad shuffled instead of walked. He didn't sit in the kitchen anymore reciting our names.

I woke up one morning when it was still dark outside and looked over at Helen sleeping. I tried to close my eyes and go back to sleep but couldn't. I shivered in the cold and shrugged on my jumper.

The rest of the house was still as I walked through it; even the feral cats were quiet and curled up in a bundle under the single rose bush outside the kitchen door. It was really a tree, which flowered into big yellow ‘peace roses' – Mum's favourites. Things were always calmer when the roses were in bloom. There'd be some on the kitchen table and Helen and I would fill two baskets with petals and make a rose-petal path for the fairies down the front track.

The lights in the cowshed were on that morning and there was the distant hum of the milking machines. I went towards the light, the stones crunching loudly under my feet in the dark. Dolly, Dad's dog, ran up to lick my hand when I got to the shed. I hung back with her. This would be the first time I'd been alone with Dad since Mum had gone. But the longer I crouched with Dolly, teasing her with the long sleeve of my jumper, the tighter I got. When I finally went in I made sure she was by my side.

Inside, Dad was standing with his back to me gripping the metal bars of the cow stalls. I thought he was looking out over the paddocks, but I noticed Sunny and Sugar were moaning. I looked more closely at Dad and saw his back was hunched over and shaking.

I went over and detached the milking machine from Sunny and Sugar, who flicked their tails at me and seemed relieved. The other cows were dry and looked as if they'd been that way for a while, so I took them off the machines as well. And then I didn't know what else to do. Dad hadn't looked up. I'd never let the cows in or out by myself before so I went back up to the house and woke up Ben and John. They usually did the night milking but from then on one of them took the morning shift with Dad.

The boys watched over Dad but their lips set in grimmer lines. Nobody met each other's gaze over the dinner table anymore. One night when there was a storm I crept out of bed back up the passageway. There was a blackout so the TV wasn't on. Dad must have gone out to see if he could fix the power lines where they'd come down and the older kids were gathered around the fireplace toasting ham and cheese sandwiches in the jaffle iron. My first instinct was to complain that they hadn't included me. I loved holding the jaffle iron in the hot embers of the fire – it was one of those rituals that marked us out as a family. But I stayed hidden behind the rocker.

‘I don't know how long the old man is going to hold on,' Ben said.

‘He's getting worse,' added John.

Nobody spoke for a few minutes.

‘I spoke to Auntie Rose today,' Ellen said. ‘She's going to come over on the weekend to talk to him.'

‘Is she going to bring any food?' Susan asked gloomily.

‘Yeah. And Auntie Silvia is bringing over some casseroles tomorrow, Susie, so that'll be a help.'

‘Anybody heard from Mum?' Ben asked.

I held my breath. I hadn't heard her mentioned for weeks. I put my head around the rocker to see if anybody was nodding their head.

‘Get back to bed,' Ben roared at me. I fell back as if struck and raced up the passage. He'd never yelled like that before.

From then on, though, I knew that Mum still existed out there. I'm still not sure whether that comforted or enraged me.

Shortly after that Ben was proved right. Dad didn't hold on. Ben found him hanging from a tree in the gully.

‘Dad must have thought he was saving us effort by doing it down there,' Helen said to me that night while we were both lying in the darkness.

‘Yeah,' I agreed. The gully was where we dragged the dead cows and sheep to rot. ‘He mustn't have realised we'd have to get the ambulance down there.'

Mum came back the night before the funeral. She brought black ribbons for us girls to wear in our hair and for the boys to pin to their chests. We wore school uniforms to the church because none of us had black clothes. I wouldn't let her do my hair though, I took the black ribbon into my own room.

There was no sign of Robert and I don't believe anybody asked her about him.

The church was packed when we got there and my mother
marched us right up through the sea of people to the front pew. Normally the front pew was left vacant, but today it was reserved for us. People would see us up there, exposed like raw meat on a hot day. I tried to make for the wall, but my mother held me back and made me sit beside her next to the aisle. She sat with her arm around me for the whole service.

I was close to my father's coffin, which was raised on a platform and looked enormous. I couldn't stop imagining that he'd grown bigger since he'd died. I know he was in his good suit because my sisters had fussed over it for ages. They hadn't known how to get a stain out of the sleeve until Aunt Rose had come over with a special bottle of something.

The thing I remember most about Dad's funeral was that my right wrist was so itchy. Mum kept swatting my hand away, stopping me scratching it. And the other thing was that, as far as I remember, nobody mentioned the months leading up to Dad's death, nor the way he'd died – not once during the whole funeral.

At fifteen Ben was big enough to hoist the coffin up on to his shoulder, along with Uncle Jim, two cousins and two of Dad's mates from the pub. Helen squeezed past Mum and into the aisle. She raced over to Ben, colliding with his leg and making him stumble. The men had to grip the coffin to save it from crashing down. Helen clung to Ben all the way down the aisle and down the stairs to the waiting hearse. Sometimes I wonder if it had been me who'd pushed past Mum, would it have made a difference? Of the two of us, Helen has always seemed more at peace.

After Dad killed himself Mum came back to live with us on the farm. As far as I know she never saw Robert again.

If it was difficult before Dad died, it was a nightmare afterwards. There was even less money, which didn't seem possible. The older kids caught a lot of rabbits in those years. I'd always hated rabbit stew and I hated it even more after that.

Peter from down the road came every day for five years to do the milking for us in the morning. He was twenty-one years old and a little slow-minded. We were grateful to him – who else would get up at 4.30 every morning to do somebody else's milking?

Dad's brother, Jim, farmed our place as well as his, putting in wheat and barley and supervising the harvest. He was a cheerful man. He'd swing me off the combine on to the ground, even when I was ten. I don't know whether all that extra work had anything to do with it but Aunt Eileen divorced him four years after Dad died. Our two cousins came to stay with us for a few weeks and I had to top and tail in bed with Helen. At eleven and twelve we were far too big, but we didn't complain.

So, you see, I know a lot about families. They aren't safe places.

I shielded my eyes from the sun, which was starting to bite, and checked my watch. I was going to be late for work. I sat up slowly, I couldn't care enough to move fast. It took a few moments before I worked the stiffness out of my legs, then I swung my arms.

When I got home there was a note from Andrés on the bench. I smiled at the short lines and unformed curls he called writing, although few others would agree. It was one of the things I loved about him. I was glad he'd had to leave early and couldn't come on our run that morning.