Authors: Bunty Avieson
‘And you mentioned a sister …?’ said Gwennie, trying to sound casual.
‘Clare. She’s a lot younger than I am. Just starting out in life. She will be the one to watch. She’s going to be a vet. And she’ll be a damn good one too.’
Gwennie felt a tingle along the back of her neck. ‘You sound very proud of her.’ She spoke as evenly as she could, trying not to betray her excitement.
Marla smiled. ‘I am. She’s turned out really good. No thanks to me. And in spite of my mother. But enough about me. I can’t believe how much I am talking. After a night at AA you can’t shut me up. It’s funny, isn’t it – I find it easier to
tell a group of strangers my problems than my own family.’
‘I think that’s probably quite common,’ said Gwennie. ‘I think it’s what makes AA so successful. The fact that you can share with other people all those things and no-one will judge you. I think it’s very healthy to talk about everything. It’s the things you don’t talk about that are the most telling and the most destructive – what you keep hidden.’
‘You talk about secrets as if they are all bad. Don’t you have any?’ asked Marla.
Gwennie looked taken aback ‘What do you mean?’
‘Is there nothing that you have kept secret all your life? Something that is just yours that you never told your partner or your husband? Sorry, are you married?’
Gwennie nodded. It was an instinctive reaction. The conversation had absorbed her so completely that just for a moment she had stopped being widow Gwennie. She caught herself. ‘Was married … my husband … he passed away.’
‘Oh,’ said Marla. ‘I’m sorry.’
Gwennie watched Marla closely for any kind of reaction and while she couldn’t be sure, she seemed genuine. ‘No, that’s okay. Please, go on.’
‘Well, did you tell him absolutely everything about your entire life?’
Gwennie thought about it. The conversation seemed to have taken an interesting turn. Did she and Pete have secrets? Funny you should ask … ‘I think I told him everything that mattered.
Everything that was relevant to us as a couple or anything that I thought would interest him,’ she said.
‘Aha,’ said Marla. ‘So anything that you didn’t consider relevant to him you didn’t bother telling him.’
‘That’s right,’ said Gwennie. She stared at the woman, feeling suddenly very suspicious. You’re Clare Dalton’s sister. Why do you want to know what secrets we might have had? What game are you playing?
Marla was looking over her right shoulder, off into the middle distance, as if picturing something there. She wasn’t seeing Gwennie. Her face was furrowed in thought. ‘So, when does what you don’t tell someone become a secret and not just something you didn’t bother to tell them because it just wasn’t relevant any more?’
The way she said it, it sounded like an excuse, a rationalisation.
So Pete didn’t tell me about the Blue Mountains because … it just didn’t occur to him? Gwennie didn’t accept that explanation for one minute. Their relationship wasn’t like that. They talked about everything. Why was Clare’s sister suggesting something so bizarre? Gwennie started to tremble uncontrollably. Why are you asking me that?
Marla looked with surprise at the change in the woman opposite her. Marla had been thinking out loud, remembering what Clare had said about growing up in ‘the house of secrets’. She had been right of course. Peg and Marla kept a lot from her. Always had. It had become almost a habit. But it
had been for her own good. Why did she need to know things that weren’t relevant to her future and might upset her? It wasn’t a decision Marla and Peg had made consciously. It’s just how things turned out. Was that so wrong? When had not telling her turned into keeping so much secret?
Lately Marla had been pondering the ramifications of all kind of secrets, both the ones she lived with at home and now, in the context of AA. She looked at Gwennie’s stricken face. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Gwennie wrestled with her emotions, trying to bring them under control. She wondered if that were true or if this woman was toying with her. Could she be that cruel? ‘What are your secrets, Marla?’ she asked.
Marla stared at Gwennie. The woman had a manic, intense quality about her that made her uncomfortable.
‘Do your secrets include the Blue Mountains?’ continued Gwennie.
Marla reeled back as if she had been slapped. The friendly, sharing mood vanished in an instant and instead she was wary and alert. She opened her mouth to say something then closed it again. She leaned forward towards Gwennie, her eyes wide and scared.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered. Then suddenly she grabbed her handbag and was racing out the door. Gwennie watched her go. Bullseye.
*
Clare slowed almost to a standstill outside Mr Sanjay’s house. A sold sticker was plastered across the auction sign. But there were still two weeks to go till the date, she thought. His family must have accepted an earlier offer.
At least it saved Clare having to watch people bid for it.
The black Saab was parked opposite Mr Sanjay’s house again. It was too dark for Clare to see inside. Perhaps it belongs to the new owners, she thought. They had been checking out the house. A Saab was a bit more upmarket than this street was used to. Uh-oh, that could spell renovations. Out with Mr Sanjay’s shed and in with the terracotta paving.
Every light in his house appeared to be on and the verandah was filled with cardboard removalists’ boxes and screwed-up paper. Whoever they were, Clare disliked them immediately. It was irrational but she didn’t care. It just wasn’t right for them to move in with such haste.
Clare parked in the driveway and sat for a moment looking over the fence. She could see shadows moving about inside. On a whim she decided to walk past and peek in. Making as little sound as possible, Clare closed the car door and tiptoed along the grass beside the gravel driveway. As she drew level with the neighbour’s window she kept far enough away that the light from inside didn’t illuminate her. She sidled along keeping her back against the wall of her own house.
The window of the Dalton’s kitchen looked over the driveway and was just out of the line of
sight of the neighbours’ living room. It was a warm night and both windows were open. Clare stood in the darkness. She could hear both families quite clearly. Peg was moving about inside the kitchen, calling for Marla to come and have dinner. Clare was surprised they were eating so late.
Barely three metres away a young woman and man were unpacking a tea chest, lifting out small items carefully wrapped in tissue and lining them up on a coffee table.
‘Marla, please come now before it gets cold,’ called Peg.
The couple next door appeared to be in their thirties. She was blonde, he was dark and they both had pony-tails. The woman held aloft an earthenware jug then deliberately dropped it on the ground, smashing it into dozens of pieces. The man laughed and hugged her. Clare thought this was extraordinary behaviour.
‘What’s wrong, Marla? You look terrible. Has something happened?’ It was Peg’s voice. Clare stopped worrying about the neighbours. She turned her attention to what was going on in her own kitchen.
‘I was asked about the Blue Mountains,’ said Marla in a shaky voice.
‘No. Who?’ Peg sounded shocked.
‘A woman at Alcoholics Anonymous.’
‘Whaaat? Who was she?’
‘She said her name was Gwennie and that’s all I know. We don’t give surnames at AA. Everybody is careful not to ask. So I don’t know anything
more than that. She was at the Glebe meeting last weekend and again tonight.’
Marla sounded quite panicked while Peg was calm. Clare stayed very still, barely daring to breathe.
‘Tell me exactly what she said.’
‘She asked me what secrets I had in the Blue Mountains. That’s all.’
‘She used the word “secrets”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, my God.’
There was silence from the Daltons’ kitchen. Clare waited, willing them to speak further. What was it about the Blue Mountains? What secrets? The anticipation was agonising.
Finally Marla spoke. ‘What should we do?’
Clare heard the word ‘we’. Obviously whatever happened included Peg. They were in this together. Clare had that familiar feeling of being left out. Somehow, in ways that Clare didn’t understand, the past cast a shadow over their lives. It didn’t include her and yet it was all around her. She felt like she was in a play where everyone had the script but her. It was annoying and unnerving.
‘You’ve never seen this woman before last week?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Does she know where you live?’
‘I don’t see how she could. You don’t give out that sort of information at AA.’
‘Well, don’t go back to the Glebe meeting. I’m sorry, Marla, but I think you would be safer if you found one somewhere else.’
‘That won’t be a problem. They’re on all over
Sydney, any time of the day. I chose the Glebe one because it was just that bit further away from home. There are plenty of others I could go to.’
‘Did anyone else hear her ask you about the Blue Mountains?’
‘No, it happened afterwards at a coffee shop.’
‘I see. You had a coffee with this woman. What did you talk about?’
‘Nothing. We were just chatting, mostly about being an alcoholic.’ Marla was silent for a moment.
Clare tensed outside the window, straining to hear.
‘I think we were talking about secrets. I was talking about keeping my drinking secret and the nature of secrets and then she looked kind of stunned. I don’t know how to explain it. She just went kind of white and then blurted out “Do your secrets include the Blue Mountains?” … or something like that.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Nothing. I got such a fright I bolted. After all these years to hear someone mention it … it was a huge shock. There I was having a coffee with this woman who seemed nice enough and all of a sudden she threw a bucket of cold water over me. That’s how it felt.’
Peg made a sympathetic clicking sound with her tongue.
‘Have you ever heard anything?’ asked Marla.
‘Nothing.’
‘Not a word?’
‘Nope.’
Marla’s voice dropped to a whisper. Clare could only just make out the words.
‘Oh God, Mum. I’m scared.’
Marla was in the city shopping for Peg’s birthday – that should take her a couple of hours. Peg was out too, visiting her friend Viv, who lived a few blocks away. Viv was a hairdresser and once a month she would ‘do’ Peg in her home. Over a couple of gin and tonics the two women would gossip about the neighbours and solve the world’s problems while Peg had the grey taken out or, as she put it, the life put back in. She would arrive home after a few hours, a little wobbly, and go straight upstairs for a nap before dinner.
That meant Clare should have the whole Sunday afternoon at home to herself. She called Marla on her mobile phone just to check she was where she was supposed to be.
‘Hi, it’s me. I just wanted to see if you have found anything for Mum.’
‘I can’t decide. I’m in the book department of
David Jones but I’m not sure what she has read and what she hasn’t.’
David Jones book department. That meant Marla was still at least an hour away. Even if she bolted to the train station right that minute she couldn’t possibly make it back to Dadue Street before 3 pm.
‘Get her the newest biography of someone she would know. There is always a queue at the library for biographies so she won’t have read it. And she loves a good triumph-over-adversity story,’ suggested Clare.
‘Mmmm. That’s a good idea. Okay, I’ll keep looking.’
Clare hung up the telephone. She had been plotting this all week, weighing up in her mind whether she should, deciding she could and finally determining a time when she would be able to. As the week drew to a close she became aware that both Peg and Marla were planning to be out this afternoon. Clare told herself it was meant to be and cancelled her own plans of shopping with Susan.
She could feel the emptiness of the old two-storey terrace all around her. She listened as her Greek neighbours called to each other from the garden. In the hallway behind her the grandfather clock ticked loudly. In the kitchen the refrigerator hummed then cut out, leaving quiet in its wake. Upstairs a tree branch scraped against the glass of the bathroom window. It was all terribly familiar, the house at rest.
The stairs creaked beneath her as she climbed
them. At the top she turned left, past her own room, past the bathroom and into Marla’s bedroom. It was in its usual state – the bed unmade and the curtains drawn. Clare didn’t want to disturb anything but it was stuffy so she opened the curtains and the window to let in light and air. What she had planned might take a while so she thought she may as well be comfortable.
As she pulled up the window she disturbed a pair of birds that had been standing on the window sill. They fluttered against the glass in fright, which made Clare jump. She stood still for a moment to steady her nerves. Marla’s window overlooked Mr Sanjay’s side fence. Clare deliberately averted her eyes. She knew her old friend would not approve of what she was about to do. She had some reservations herself, but was managing to ignore them. Everyone in this house was too self-absorbed to give a damn about her feelings so she would just have to look out for herself.
Clare looked at Marla’s huge built-in wardrobe, which ran the length of one wall and contained all her clothes. Clare had been inside it countless times but always with her sister nearby, guiding her. There was a section at the front where Marla carefully hung the clothes she brought home from the dress shop, their price tags still attached. One pair of tailored suede pants stayed in the cupboard for almost a year before Marla decided she probably had had them long enough and really should buy them. Anything in that section had always been out of bounds for Clare.
The huge assortment of hat boxes where Marla stored all sorts of exotic accessories had been Clare’s playground. ‘Up the back on the left is a rectangular black box. Why don’t you pull that out,’ Marla used to say. Filled with anticipation, Clare would gently slide out the designated box. Inside was always something fabulous – a feather boa, a sequinned cocktail frock or a fancy hat. Often Susan would be there too and opening the box would mark the beginning of an afternoon of fun with the two girls playing in Marla’s clothes. Sometimes Peg would come in with afternoon tea, see what was going on and then return with some baubles or a bridal headdress from her sewing trunk, to finish the look.
It was over a decade since those frivolous afternoons but Clare hadn’t forgotten the rules. She wasn’t allowed to borrow anything without her sister’s permission and she wasn’t to go into the wardrobe when Marla wasn’t around. The rules reverberated around the room. They were as much a part of her upbringing as knowing how her mother liked her tea.
Clare almost baulked. She made herself think of the money Marla had taken from her personal drawer all those years ago and spent on drink. Her sister hadn’t been worried about protocol and privacy then, had she? She pulled open the double doors.
Marla placed great importance on her grooming and appearance and, while the rest of her room may have been a mess, in here it was orderly and
everything had its place. She owned dozens and dozens of pairs of shoes, lined up in rows, three deep. The really expensive ones that she saved for special occasions were in boxes at the back. A Polaroid photo of the contents was posted on the end of each box. In the middle row were dressy shoes and at the front the pairs that she wore every day. The left half of the wardrobe was divided horizontally. The bottom half had skirts and pants and the top half shirts and jackets. At the right end were dresses, full-length coats and evening clothes, each individually covered in plastic. Separating the two ends of the wardrobe were three columns of pigeonholes filled with scarves, jumpers, T-shirts and jeans.
None of this interested Clare today. There was one part of the wardrobe where she had never been allowed. The top right-hand shelf, above the evening wear. A couple of times over the years, while looking for something, Clare had attempted to pull out some boxes that were stored up there. Marla’s reaction both times had been sharp and unmistakable.
‘Not those,’ she had barked suddenly, causing Clare nearly to fall off the stool in fright.
On one of those occasions Clare had glimpsed inside a shoe box. It contained a whole lot of papers that didn’t interest her and she couldn’t understand what the big deal was. But Marla’s reaction had been so acute that somewhere in the back of Clare’s mind the memory had lingered. She had always known that there was something in there
that Marla was hiding. It was where her sister kept her secrets.
Clare pulled the desk chair over and climbed up. There were half-a-dozen cardboard boxes of various shapes facing her – a couple of shoe boxes, a hairdryer box, a TV box and two large grocery boxes. She studied how the stack looked. She knew she would have to return everything exactly as she found it. There would be no way to justify her prying. Marla would be furious and so would Peg. Personal privacy was a big deal in this family.
Clare hesitated for a moment then returned to her bedroom and retrieved her Polaroid camera. Before she touched anything in the wardrobe she photographed how it all looked and lay the photo carefully on the carpet. Then she started withdrawing boxes, lining them up one by one along the floor. As she slid the boxes off the shelf she was hit by something hard and solid. She flinched as the bottle of vodka sailed past, landing at her feet. It had been wedged on top, out of view. It could have been there for a long time or it could have been placed there that morning. Clare had no way of knowing.
After all the boxes were pulled out Clare shone a torch at the back to see if she was missing anything. A row of little glass bottles glinted in the light. Clare fetched a broom and poked the handle along to ease one forward so she could see it better. She thought she knew what it would be and she was right. In her hand was a bottle of lemon essence. She pushed it back in place.
Clare took the lid off the first shoe box and photographed the contents, laying the photograph in front of her. Only then did she start to rifle through. It was the repository of all Marla’s cooking notes from the various courses she had undertaken some years ago, with a view to pursuing a career in catering.
Clare placed everything back exactly as it had been and moved on to the next box. It contained an assortment of things – some tennis balls, a large photo album, a Danish biscuit tin like the ones the Dalton family had every Christmas, hot rollers, school reports bundled up together in a rubber band and some framed prints carefully wrapped in tissue.
Clare set aside the biscuit tin. She had one just like it under her bed where she kept her photos. She unwrapped the prints. They were Japanese birds, exquisite in their detail. Clare had never seen them before and wondered why they were here and not on the wall. The birds were quite beautiful, delicate and fluid, perched on a branch of pussy willow. She carefully rewrapped them.
Then she undid the bundle of school reports:
Marla needs to concentrate more during class. Marla is a
good student but often gets distracted. Needs discipline.
Marla needs to work on her arithmetic. Marla
’
s perfor
mance has been less than satisfactory and we look forward
to more effort next term. Marla shows little interest in her
studies.
Clare smiled. Some things hadn’t changed.
The last report was for year 10. That was as high as Marla had gone at school and Clare could see why. Clearly her sister had never been academically
minded. They were different from Clare’s own reports. She had usually been top of the class. She replaced the rubber band around them, put them back in the box and turned to the biscuit tin, prising off the lid.
Inside she found a pile of handwritten letters, tied together with a white lace ribbon. Tucked under the ribbon was a small green feather. Under the letters was a sleeve of photos.
Clare felt a prickling sensation along the back of her neck. These had to be significant. Marla wouldn’t keep them tucked away unless they meant something to her. Marla had received cards and love letters over the years and had always been happy to show them off to Clare. She read them out, had a bit of a laugh, then they would lie around in her bedroom, part of the general clutter, eventually being thrown out because she had spilled coffee on them or used them as scrap paper. They were never a big deal. So why were these treated so differently?
Clare looked at the photos first. They were a series taken in succession: Marla, as a young woman, and a young man Clare didn’t recognise. They were sitting on a park bench in the country, clearly very much in love.
Clare was shocked. Not just because it was Marla with a man but at how happy she looked. Her face was radiant. Clare realised she had never seen her sister look that happy. Her body, her face, her whole demeanour was relaxed and smiling. Clare stared and stared. How beautiful she was. And
didn’t the young man beside her know it. He had his arm draped around her shoulders and was looking into her face so attentively. It was as if he hung on her every breath and couldn’t quite believe his luck that he was here with her.
All the photos showed Marla and the same man in variations of that pose. Slowly Clare looked again through the series, taking in every detail. The man was handsome and stocky wearing jeans and a baggy chambray shirt. He looked to be a little older than Marla, perhaps early twenties. She looked to be about twenty herself. Seeing Marla as a young woman she realised again just how alike she and her sister were. It felt strange to be looking at a photo that could have been of her, except it wasn’t. Clare didn’t like to think she resembled Marla. But looking at these photos it was hard to deny. It could have been Clare sitting on that park bench with that handsome young man.
Instinctively Clare felt she was getting close. The photos felt important though she wasn’t sure how. She turned the photo over. Written in handwriting that Clare recognised were the words ‘Me and Micky, 11/6/1979’. Marla would have been just fifteen. She looked older than that. Clare had been able to pass for eighteen when she was fourteen. Obviously her sister had too. Peg always said the Dalton women grew up fast. Here was proof.
Clare felt herself growing excited. That was the last year Marla had a school report and it would have been the year they moved to the city, to this
house in Summer Hill. Clare heard the telephone ringing. She wavered. She didn’t want to stop now, when it had just started to become so interesting. But it might be her mother or Marla and they knew she was at home.
She carefully put the letters and photos on the floor and went into Peg’s bedroom. She picked up the bedside telephone.
It was Marla. ‘What about a cookbook?’ she asked.
Clare blushed at the sound of Marla’s voice, instantly feeling guilty. ‘That sounds good,’ she said, a little more enthusiastically than the situation warranted.
‘Or a subscription to a craft magazine? I found one that’s monthly and isn’t all doilies. I think she might like it.’
‘That sounds good too,’ said Clare, again a touch too enthusiastically. She winced to hear herself sounding so false.
‘Well, which one?’ Marla was impatient.
‘I think the craft magazine is a great idea. She’d love it. I wish I had thought of it.’
Marla rang off and Clare checked her watch. 2.45 pm. Peg didn’t usually get home from Viv’s place till around 4 pm and Marla was still at least an hour away. She returned to her task.
There were seven letters all addressed to Miss Marlene Dayton at Rosalind Cottage, Hat Hill Road, Blackheath, New South Wales. That seemed strange. Whoever wrote these got her name wrong. All the envelopes were addressed in the same way
and none had a postmark. These letters had been hand-delivered.
Clare felt a tingle up the back of her neck. This really was prying. Until now she hadn’t found anything really to pry into. There was no mistaking the intimate nature of these letters, or the way Marla had hidden them away. But she was too far into it now. Remember the money Marla had stolen, she told herself. Don’t forget that money. This is payback. Fair and square.