The Beloved (26 page)

‘Ed, it's not just the drawings, it's the betrayal of trust – for the second time.'

‘What do you expect, Lily May? You've stopped her from doing what she loves most.'

‘Honesty,' said Mama. ‘I expect honesty. Don't make me the enemy, I'm on her side. I want nothing but the best for our daughter but she can't go around lying and cheating to get what she wants. Help me, Ed, give me some support. She's too old and too wilful for me to manage alone.'

‘I don't support you selling her bike and frankly, I don't support you banning art.'

Mama was quiet for a long time, then she said, ‘In that case, I may as well not be here.'

Dad glanced over his shoulder. ‘What do you mean, not be here?'

‘I mean I should go.'

‘Go where?'

‘Back to Canada.'

Dad turned and faced her. ‘You'd
leave
because of this?'

‘Yes.'

His eyes narrowed. ‘Oh no, Lily May, not this time. You're not taking my daughter away from me. Ever.'

‘I wouldn't take her. I'd leave her here with you.'

Dad peered at her. ‘You mean the next time she puts a foot wrong you'll bugger off?'

Mama shrugged. ‘In the normal course of things, no. But with the way things are, I'm running out of a reason to be here. Tim's all but gone and if I can't guide Lindsay, what's the point?'

‘You're not guiding her, you're railroading her.'

‘She's out of control. These are the most critical years of her life and if she doesn't knuckle down now it'll be too late. She needs substance to fall back on, and art is not substance. Roberta . . . sorry,
Lindsay
isn't Stefi. She has to work to make the grade and she must understand that dishonest behaviour won't be tolerated. If you don't back me up, my job as her mother is redundant.'

‘This is ridiculous. All over a
bicycle
?'

Mama stood up. ‘I'm wasting my breath. Look, I love my daughter and I've fought to keep this family together but I can't go on without your support.'

‘All right.' Dad drew a long breath and let it fall away. ‘All right. You have my support over the art. But the bike is her lifeline. She's getting it back and that's that.'

Chapter Twenty

Mama had emptied me out, top to toe. For all the pain she'd caused me I almost wanted her gone, but the thought of her leaving us and going back to Canada was unbearable.

My bike was returned. I could ride, I could go to Helen's, but the price of painting had skyrocketed.

Five days ago I'd shot a man. I might have killed him. Life was precious. Fragile. Full of choices. Choices that would take you down this road or that road. Decisions that would determine what kind of person you became. I had to choose between Mama and art, both of which meant more to me than anything else in the world. How could I? How could I not choose my mother? How could I not choose to paint? How long would I last? A week, a month, six months? With or without tools my mind would make pictures and my heart would hold a brush. Seven years ago Mama had put a shell to my ear at Ocean Grove. She'd urged me to fight, told me I could do anything as well as the next person – better. She'd taught me never to give up. And I wouldn't. I wouldn't give up Mama and I wouldn't give up art, and if I had to lie and cheat to keep them both, I would. Whatever it took.

Helen wasn't there when I stuck my head through the bead curtain but the room smelled of oil and paper and a painting lay damp on her desk. The detail marked it as Helen's but it wasn't like anything I'd seen her do before. It showed a young woman sitting at the edge of a pond trailing a twig in the water. About her, the purple arms of trees wound through dark thickets and a trail of pink briar roses dropped their reflections into the water. Leaves, veined and serrated, lay on the pond's surface and a red lily pad with yellow pistils glinted in a shaft of light. The girl looked like a 1920s flapper, with dark hair cropped below her ears. All you could see of her face was a dusky cheek and black eyelashes. Her knees were pulled up beneath a sheer violet gown and under it her . . .

‘It's not finished.' Helen stood in the doorway.

‘It's stunning,' I said. ‘Is it . . . ?'

‘Yes, it's you.'

My face grew hot. She'd made me look beautiful. ‘I brought you some money.' I fished in my pocket.

Helen moved into the room. ‘I seem to remember this happening once before, a long time ago.'

‘I got my bike back, too.'

She smiled. ‘That's wonderful. How are you, Lindsay? I understand you've been bailing up criminals.'

‘Who told you?'

‘It's all over town. There were at least a dozen witnesses, despite the official version.'

I put my bag on the desk and pulled out a sketch – Dave sprawled on the landing, mouth open, his eyes round and wild.

She shivered. ‘It must have been terrifying.'

‘I can't get his mouth right. I've tried to make it look like he's in pain but it just looks stupid.'

Her mouth twitched. ‘He looks constipated.'

I snorted. ‘So, how do I make him look in pain?'

‘Put the ends of his mouth up, not down. Put the
middle
of his top lip down. Lindsay, listen to me: you weren't supposed to come back.'

‘Well, I'm here.'

I'd already sketched an outline of Josie and Husband chewing betel nut and spitting magenta streams into the dirt. I couldn't wait to get started on the painting.

‘I told you last time not to come back.'

‘Yes, and I haven't been back for six weeks.'

‘You're here now.'

‘Yes. I've got my bike back, I couldn't come before.'

‘Are you deliberately misunderstanding me?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why do you keep stirring the pot? Why are you so determined? You know the risks.'

Yes.

I knew the risks.

Chapter Twenty-one

Dad put down his coffee mug and yawned. Tired after a long flight from Brisbane, he was nevertheless keen to get to the office. Two more contracts had been lost to lower bids but at least now he knew who was behind it.

‘I'll come with you,' I said, ‘and go to Stefi's rehearsal.'

‘Come up to the office when you're through,' said Dad. ‘I'll bring you both home.'

I walked up to the Arts Hall where rehearsals were being held for this year's pantomime,
Cinderella
. Stefi had the lead role. Dressed in rags, she spun and surged across the stage, as limber as a stick of liquorice. In a spectacular leap she rose into the air, her arms flung wide, hair a ginger halo around her head and for a moment I was up there with her, suspended, weightless. Then she descended on cat-soft feet and crept across the stage.

Later, as we walked up to Dad's office, we noticed an open window in Mr Breuer's room. ‘My father must be at work, too,' Stefi said.

The fans in Dad's rooms were going flat out and his bag was on the chair but he wasn't at his desk. ‘He must be with your father,' I said. ‘Let's tell him we're here.'

In Mr Breuer's reception area we could hear muffled voices and followed them down the hall. Stefi nudged open the office door. For a moment, we just stood. Mr Breuer was bent over his desk, bare arse pumping. Beneath him, with her dress hitched around her waist, was Dad's secretary, Faith Parker. Stefi turned and fled down the hall. I hurried after her and found her slumped in a chair in Dad's office. I sat beside her and took her hand. ‘I'm so sorry, Stefi.'

She pulled her hand back. ‘Doesn't matter. At least it's not me.'

‘You?' An unspeakable image rose up of Mr Breuer doing to Stefi what he was doing to Faith Parker. ‘Stefi . . . don't tell me . . .'

She shook her head. ‘No.'

‘
Stefi
?'

‘I can't tell you.'

‘You have to, Stefi. Look at me; I'm your friend. Please . . . Did he . . . ?'

‘No. Not me. I'm too pale . . . too scrawny for him. But he threatened to, if I ever told anyone.'

‘Told
what
?'

‘He does it all the time, Lindsay. Mostly with black people but . . . anybody. Even
boys
. Some of them are so young . . . only a few years older than me. In my bed, in my sheets, when Mum's out . . .' Stefi began to pick viciously at her fingernails. ‘Sometimes they cried. One girl . . . she was probably only about fifteen, she left blood on the sheets. My father told me to wash them. When I wouldn't, he said if I didn't, it'd be my blood on them as well.'

‘Ah, here you are!'

Stefi and I both jumped at the sound of Dad's voice. He stood looking at us for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between us. ‘What's wrong?'

I couldn't think of what to say.

Stefi shook her head. ‘Nothing.'

Dad squatted on the floor in front of us. ‘Come on, what gives? Something's up. Tell me.'

I looked at Stefi. She stared out the window.

‘We saw something,' I said.

‘What?'

‘Stefi's scared of her father, Dad.'

‘Why?'

‘We saw him, and Miss Parker . . . in his office.'

‘What, little mate?'

‘Having sex.'

Dad rocked back on his heels. ‘Faith
?
Konrad?
Together
? Oh . . .' He stood up. ‘Right.
Now
I get it.'

‘Please don't tell my father,' Stefi begged.

‘I won't tell him.' Dad put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I'll say I saw them myself. It won't happen again, Stefi. I'll make sure of it.'

When he was in Brisbane, Dad had discovered that his lost contracts had been let to a firm called Monte Holdings, whose registered office was Konrad Breuer's. It seemed Faith Parker had been feeding Mr Breuer information on Dad's bids.

That night Dad poured himself and Mama a beer. He raised his glass. ‘Have Faith,' he said. ‘That's what my ma used to say and that's exactly what that bastard did!'

‘Don't make jokes,' said Mama. ‘Think of poor Stefi and Magda.' But she couldn't smother her smile.

The next morning Dad went to Faith Parker's house with her bits and pieces from the office and sacked her.

At school on Monday, Stefi told me the rest. Faith phoned Mr Breuer at home on Sunday morning, demanding a job. He refused. So she turned up on the Breuers' doorstep and told Stefi's mother about their affair. Mrs Breuer ordered her off the property and told Mr Breuer to keep his mistress out of their lives. He'd laughed. ‘Mistress?' he said. ‘Faith Parker's not my mistress. She means nothing to me. None of them do.'

‘What do you mean “none of them do”?' said Mrs Breuer. ‘How many are there?'

Mr Breuer jerked his thumb towards Stefi. ‘I can't remember. Ask her. She's good with numbers.'

Stefi's mother turned to her. ‘What do you know about this?'

Stefi was too ashamed to answer.

‘Come on, girl,' her father said. ‘Speak up. Show us that bright young mind of yours. You must remember; you knew about every one of them.'

‘South pinis,' Stefi's voice was hollow.

South. Pinis. Too sad to think about. But it had to be. Mrs Breuer had kicked her husband out of the house and threatened to tell all of Moresby what he was like if he didn't go. ‘Except for Stefi,' she told Mama, ‘I'd have killed him.'

Stefi was an echo, an empty tin. Years of silent witness, lying in soiled sheets, fear and hiding had drained her. All those years I'd known her and never guessed. So much for seeing things others couldn't; I hadn't even seen my best friend's misery.

I found her huddled in the grass one day, behind the toilet block, crying. I sank down beside her and put my arm around her shoulders.

She shrugged me off. ‘Don't be nice to me. You don't understand.'

‘Then help me to understand, Stefi.'

She looked up, her face damp and haunted. ‘I should have done something. All those years, all those people, all those
kids
. I should have said something.'

‘How could you when he threatened you with the same horrible thing?'

‘I should have
told
.'

‘Some things can't be told, Stefi.'

She grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled so hard I could hear it tearing from her skull. I put my hands over hers, forcing her to let go. ‘Stop it!'

‘You stop it! Stop seeing Helen Valier. You'll lose your mother one of these days, Lindsay, over
art
. It's not worth it. You'll see. Sooner or later you'll get found out and once it's happened it'll be too late. I know what I'm talking about.'

Sooner or later, maybe, but not today.

Today was Wednesday.

That afternoon at Helen's I began a small painting that would fit between the pages of a book. A picture that I hoped would make Stefi feel better about herself.

Helen – unusually – hovered over me, as I worked.

‘What's wrong?' I said.

‘Nothing. I'm just admiring how far you've come. Remember when you turned up on my doorstep demanding to be shown how to draw Stefi dancing? Now, you're doing it. It's going to be a lovely picture.'

How far I'd come. How far she'd brought me, more like it – she and Tempe. Tempe had been right about Helen's warm and generous heart. When I thought of the paintings I'd done of her years back – Vegemite, sardines, dirt – and how awful they were, how wrong, I cringed. But I hadn't known her then, not this Helen. Much harder to paint, this Helen. I nudged viridian and Payne's grey into the corner of the picture to form shadows.

‘I hope so,' I said. ‘Stefi's special.'

Stefi was packing. Sorting through drawers, making stacks for Sydney and piles of things she'd outgrown. I sat on her bed watching each piece go to its assigned place, wondering how long it would be before I sat with her again in some place far from Moresby. The year after next, probably, at St Catherine's school. I checked my watch. Five fifteen: nearly time to go. Mama had given me a long leash to be with my friend before she left but I had a mountain of homework to get through and with exams only a few weeks away I had to be seen to be working hard. Stefi scratched around in the bottom of a drawer, tossing out pencil stubs, string, worn ribbons, old photos. She dropped an entire packet on the floor and kicked it with her foot.

‘I don't want any of
him
.'

I picked up the photos and began to look through them, chucking out any with Mr Breuer. Stefi's pictures looked carelessly snapped but they were interesting. Some were downright funny. One was a picture of a white kid chasing a black chook and a black kid chasing a white chook, and the next photo was . . . Dad and Helen, the photo I'd seen years before. Helen was standing in front of a frangipani tree with her hand outstretched and Dad was leaning towards her with a look that thickened my throat. Helen's face was as open and eager as a child's. And the way she looked at my father . . . if only Mama had looked at Dad like that, how different things might have been. Mama had it in her; I'd seen it the day, years before, when I'd gone into her bedroom and found her milking the photo of her dead lover with her eyes.

‘I want this photo,' I said.

‘To do what with it?' said Stefi. ‘Show your mother? Give it to me.'

‘No, I'm keeping it.'

‘You're crazy.'

‘You don't understand.'

‘Too right I don't.'

I didn't really understand either. But I wanted that photo. Like prodding a sore tooth, it was painful but compulsive. ‘You're a good photographer, Stefi,' I said, changing the subject. ‘Almost as good as you are a dancer.'

She dropped a Craven A tin stuffed with rubber bands clattering to the floor. ‘I'm not a dancer any more.'

‘Of course you are.'

‘I'm not. I'm through dancing. I'm not doing
Cinderella
.'

I stared at her. ‘Why not?'

‘I can't.'

‘What do you mean, you can't?'

‘People will look at me and know. They'll see my father.'

‘They will not! People will see
you
, Stefi. You're not your father.'

‘I feel dirty.'

‘You're not dirty. You haven't done anything wrong. You're beautiful.'

‘Don't, Lindsay. Don't.'

‘It's true. You
are
beautiful, especially when you dance.' I opened my satchel. ‘I've got something for you. I was keeping it for your going-away present but you can have it now.' I took out a textbook and carefully peeled back the flyleaf to remove my little picture. Over and over I'd relived Stefi's moment in the air, the moment when I'd been there with her, airborne. My picture showed her arms like butterfly wings, her body supported by ghostly hands. Stefi's dancing angel. My Helen. Someone who knows who we really are inside, who knows what we can do and helps us do it.