The Three Miss Allens, page 6
Fun? That wasn’t Roma’s memory of her time with Addy.
Addy reached an arm around her and pulled her in close. Roma could feel Addy’s thin fingers gripping her shoulder and she realised how comforting the touch was. The quiet solitude she’d created for herself was the only comfort she’d thought she needed. But her life and her emotions were still fragile. Once crack and she didn’t know what might happen.
‘Oh, Roma.’
‘I’m okay. I’m fine.’
‘That’s not what your brother thinks.’
Roma swore under her breath. ‘Is that the reason you’re here? Did Leo tell you to come?’
Addy spun Roma around and gently pushed her out the bedroom door towards the stairs. ‘You go paint. I’ll unpack and try not to let this weird smell get into my clothes. Then I’m going to get supplies. Search for some limes. Then, we’ll talk.’
Roma spent the rest of the day climbing up and down the ladder, rolling a fresh coat of paint over the faded and shabby walls in one of the rooms downstairs. Addy had been gone for hours and the silence gave her time to think. She needed to work up to having someone with her, after three years of self-imposed solitude, and she had to steel herself for spending time with Addy.
Addy still seemed as glamorous as ever and she’d become still more enviably beautiful the older she was, with a confidence replacing the obsessiveness of her teenage years. Roma tried not to dwell on her own feelings of inadequacy about that. It had eaten her up as a teenager, that competition and that envy. And while a tiny bit of that envy still lived in her darkest heart, many years ago Roma had come to a peace with the fact that some people were simply born beautiful and that she happened not to be one of them. Whatever miraculous mix of DNA it took to be attractive, some people had it and some didn’t. She could already see it in some of the children she spotted walking with their parents at the supermarket. She’d spent a lot of time staring at other people’s kids when she’d been desperate to have a baby with Tom. It wasn’t to do with a hair colour or a physique but more with the mysterious combination of all those things that made a person seem confident and symmetrical and perfect. Those people stopped traffic, got the best jobs and the pay rises, got asked out and noticed. They were seen. They commanded attention without even knowing. People like that would never know a day when they weren’t admired and gazed upon. Addy had always been one of those people.
Roma had not been one of those people.
Roma and Leo had grown up in a world in which they were judged for their intelligence and groomed to support causes their parents were passionate about, instead of anything as illusory or shallow or random as the way they looked. The Harrises were activists. They’d named Roma after Roma Mitchell, the brilliant South Australian lawyer and social justice reformer. Mitchell had graduated in law from the University of Adelaide in 1934, winning awards as the most brilliant student, and was later the first woman in Australia to be appointed a Queen’s Counsel and then the first woman in Australia to be appointed a Supreme Court judge. They’d clearly believed that the bestowing of a name instilled in its recipient the same intellectual brilliance and success of its owner. Roma must have disappointed them tremendously.
She couldn’t remember a year when she and Leo hadn’t been dragged along to marches and rallies and demonstrations. The Harrises were the kind of family who boycotted particular brands of food because their international owners were dumping formula on Third World countries, discouraging breastfeeding. They shopped at small supermarkets, not the corporately-owned stores, and boycotted certain petrol stations over oil spills in the world’s oceans. Roma couldn’t remember an issue on which they didn’t have firm opinions.
Roma had felt their look of disappointment when she started to politely refuse to march for this cause or that outrage. It wasn’t that she disagreed with the ideas that her parents cared so passionately about, it was simply that she was done with nailing her colours to the mast at every turn. She didn’t want to end friendships because people felt differently about things than she did. Sometimes she was hungry and tired and just wanted a burger and fries without first checking the hiring practices and labour relations record of whichever fast food chain she passed on the way home.
She’d grown up around opinions and was tired of having to come up with one on every issue at a moment’s notice. For Roma, things weren’t black and white, now more than ever.
She had never lived up to one-tenth the promise of her namesake. She’d done well at school, but not brilliantly. She’d been at a loss as to what to do after she’d completed high school and had half-heartedly chosen an arts degree. She’d mentioned something vague to her parents about using that as a base from which to do International Studies, so she could apply for a position in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and their eyes had lit up with enthusiasm and excitement. She’d never intended to do anything more than complete her degree and find a job locally. That’s how she’d met Tom, when they were both studying. He’d laughed at her jokes and wasn’t into causes—the only things he was passionate about were football and cricket—and she decided that was enough. He was her first boyfriend and they married two years out of university. Tom had gone on to study a Diploma of Teaching and had become a primary school teacher. She’d been accepted into the graduate program of the public sector and had won a job in a government department. Her parents’ world had been full, of causes, of politics, of opinions, of like-minded people with outrage in their hearts and determination in their souls.
Her world, from the outside a perfect world, had always been small. Home. University. Tom. Work. Her family. Tom’s family.
And now, her move to Remarkable Bay had seen it shrink even smaller.
But she couldn’t get lost in a little life.
Later that day, as the sun was setting in the western sky and colouring it with late evening swirls of pinks and purples, the two women sat out on the balcony, swathed in blankets, sipping their gin and tonics. Addy had done a decent grocery shop while she was out and had thrown together a meal of grilled chicken and salad while Roma showered, and Roma had scoffed it gratefully and hungrily while Addy did the dishes and cleaned up. Now, they were taking in the view, sitting in silence. They were both dressed for bed: Roma in loose-fitting pyjamas and ugg boots, and Addy in a silk kimono she’d pulled tightly around her, covering a chemise underneath. Her feet were bare, and she’d tucked them under her perfect arse for warmth.
In the distance, the bay was darkening from blue to black as the sun set, and the evening breeze had dropped. Seagulls on spindly orange legs gathered in the park across the road, as if staking out their positions for the discarded food from the next day’s picnics. It was peaceful and quiet and Roma felt a swell of something warm and remotely familiar, something that felt like family. Leo had been in Sydney for years. Their parents were both dead. Tom was dead. She hadn’t seen Addy in so many years and now, there were so many regrets about that she could hardly articulate them.
She leaned across the small table separating them and clinked glasses with Addy. ‘This is great gin.’
‘It is.’ Addy sipped and then plunged two fingers into her tall glass for the slice of lemon. She put it in her mouth and sucked on it noisily.
‘I see you found a lemon,’ Roma noted.
‘That I did.’
‘And I’m glad because one can’t indulge in mother’s ruin without a slice of lemon, you know.’
Addy pulled out the rind from between her teeth, and looked perplexed. ‘Mother’s what?’
‘Mother’s ruin,’ Roma repeated. ‘That’s what gin used to be called. Men could always handle their liquor, apparently, but it would do outrageous things to women.’
‘Like what?’ Addy laughed.
‘Well, people believed that gin would lead women down the path of debauchery and hedonism. Perhaps it might even encourage them to …’ Roma dropped her voice to a whisper and leaned in to Addy. ‘Have sex.’
‘I damn well hope so!’ Addy exclaimed. ‘Although I’m not liking my chances in Remarkable Bay.’
‘And then,’ Roma lifted her glass to the sky, ‘By god and damnation, if they had sex they’d be corrupted and shamed and no better than common prostitutes. All when they should be home protecting their children and everyone else’s morals.’
‘Sounds exactly like my kind of drink.’ Addy slurped what was left in her glass. She crunched the ice between her teeth and poured herself another with a slosh.
Roma held out her glass to Addy, who reached her fingers into the ice-filled Tupperware container on the table and tossed a couple in to Roma’s glass. When she poured some more gin, it splashed up on to her fingers and she licked them slowly.
Roma shifted in her chair. They hadn’t addressed the elephant in the room. Now, she was finally ready to ask.
‘So, are you going to tell me the real reason you’re here and what Leo told you about me?’
CHAPTER
7
Addy sighed and stared at her bright red fingernails for a moment. She knew that if she didn’t tell Roma the truth, Leo would. Her bossy big brother Leo. The big brother Addy had always wanted for herself.
‘It’s true about the film being postponed. I really don’t know if they’ll ever get the money and at the moment, I couldn’t give two shits, to be honest. But,’ she continued, waving away the thought, ‘Leo called me.’
‘You said. So what did he say?’
‘He’s worried about you.’ Addy figured paraphrasing Leo was probably better than quoting him. He thinks you’ve gone nuts.
‘That’s not news. He tells me that too, every Sunday when he calls.’
‘You talk to him every week?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wow. That’s such a big brother thing.’
‘I know.’
‘And you’re lucky to have one, although I’ve always kind of thought of Leo as being my big brother, too. An annoying big brother, but still.’
Roma frowned. ‘So he asked you to come and check up on me, huh?’
‘When I called my mother to let her know I was going away, in the slim hope she’d care, she took delight in giving me the benefit of her very firm opinion. She insisted that this isolation, down here in the middle of nowhere, isn’t good for you and is, quote, not a recognised part of the grieving process, unquote. And she blathered on something about you throwing yourself off a cliff.’
‘There are plenty of cliffs along this part of the south coast.’
‘Yeah, there are.’
‘I’m so pleased everyone thinks I’m holding it together,’ Roma said dryly.
Addy poked Roma with a stiff finger. ‘C’mon, Romes. You know my mother. She’s convinced she has some magical insight into everyone’s head.’
Roma looked at Addy. ‘She is a shrink.’
Addy scoffed. ‘She’s never managed to have any insight into her only child, as you very well know. So, when Leo called me, I suddenly realised there was no place on earth I’d rather be—except on a film set with Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman playing strippers—than here with you in Remarkable Bay.’
‘Strippers …’ Roma said wistfully.
‘Now that’s a movie I’d pay to see,’ Addy said.
‘Me too, sister.’
Sister. The word drifted over to Addy and lodged right behind her breastbone.
‘Just for the record, Addy, I’m not entertaining suicidal thoughts.’
‘Good to know,’ Addy said, surprised to hear her own voice cracking just a little. And then she summoned up every piece of advice she’d ever given an actor on the brink of panic, a producer on the verge of drink or a director on the verge of locking herself away in a dark room and rocking back and forth until everything was over.
‘You can do this, Roma. I know you’re going to be okay.’
Roma looked sharply at Addy. ‘Now you’re sounding like your mother.’
‘Ouch.’ Addy sucked on a piece of ice. ‘You’ve always been the smartest and most responsible person I know, and I trust you to be doing exactly what you need to be doing to get over Tom. Even if that means moving to Remarkable Bay. God, I don’t think I’ve known you to do one single, frivolous thing in your whole life. Even your car is sensible.’
‘It’s a Subaru. It’s good car.’
‘The thing is, I hope you’re not going to be so sensible that you don’t make room for someone else in your life.’
She could see Roma stiffen. Her mouth hardened. Oh no, she’d gone too far.
Roma’s voice was quiet. ‘You think that’ll help me get over Tom? Another man?’
‘Sorry. Too soon?’
‘Your question or men?’
‘You’re young, Roma. You could still have children if you wanted to, couldn’t you? It’s been three years. Have you ever thought about meeting someone else?’
The look on Roma’s face told Addy she hadn’t, which Addy thought was sad in a million different ways. Tom was obviously her person. Roma was one of those people who were just good at relationships. She’d found Tom young and they’d been so happy. Addy had seen it at their wedding, the way they’d gazed at each other, delirious and oblivious to anyone else there. They were young but no one doubted what they were doing: it had seemed right. They’d married in a beautiful and simple ceremony at a winery at McLaren Vale and they’d even written their own vows. They’d made a life together, so easily and simply that Addy had envied them. They were what happiness looked like. The house, the dog, the sensible Subaru in which they would drive off and spend weekends away wine-tasting in the Barossa or the Clare Valley. Good, regular jobs. She wondered why they hadn’t had any kids, but knew better than to ask. There were lots of reasons why people didn’t. Perhaps they wanted to maintain that perfect life by not having children. That was always the impression Addy had got on the rare occasions she saw them. They were always happy, just the two of them in their perfect little bubble of a life.
They’d never seemed to want Addy in it and she’d taken the hint, and stayed away. Their lives had diverged after all. Singles never quite fitted into couples, did they? Especially perfectly happy couples like Roma and Tom.
Addy had never found her person. And she’d looked.
Roma sighed. ‘Have I thought of meeting someone else? No. It’s too hard …’
‘Losing them?’ Addy said, filling in the end of the sentence when it appeared Roma couldn’t.
‘Yes,’ Roma said quietly, looking distracted and far away. Then she seemed to snap out of her memory. She turned to Addy. ‘What about you? Leo told me you were seeing some famous director or something.’
Addy suspected that if Roma had never heard of the hot young actor du jour Josh Kruger, she would never have heard of Jack Andersson, either.
‘All over red rover.’ She fought the urge to vomit.
‘You’re not together any more?’
‘No. It’s the business. It’s hard to keep anything going. He’s in Melbourne working on a TV show.’
‘You okay?’ Roma asked her suddenly, concern on her face. ‘You look—’
‘Me? I’m fine. I’m great, as a matter of fact. Look at this. The night. A bottle of gin. My cousin seven times removed.’
‘I think we’re four times removed.’
‘Whatever we are. We’re right back here in Remarkable Bay, the scene of so many teenage misadventures. Skinny-dipping off the rocks. Kissing boys in the bushes down there off the Harbour Master’s Walk.’
Roma clicked her tongue. ‘You may have been skinny-dipping and kissing boys. Sadly, I wasn’t.’
‘You were too!’
‘Nuh uh. Not me.’
Addy thought about it. ‘Didn’t you hook up one year with that guy, the cute one with the dreadlocks?’
‘That was you.’
‘Oh yeah. It was me.’
‘On that note, I think I’m going to bed.’ Roma stood, folding her blanket over her elbow.
Addy liked it out on the balcony. The cool air was refreshing. The darkness mysterious and calming. She could disappear into it if she had to. ‘I’ll be in soon. I think I’ll have another drink in the glamorous moonlight.’
Roma slipped the blanket around Addy’s shoulders and went back inside, calling out, ‘G’night.’
‘Sweet dreams,’ Addy whispered.
Addy hadn’t wanted to tell Roma, but parts of her house smelt strange. Musty, old man strange. Even out on the balcony, with the chill breeze from the ocean sweeping up and caressing her face, it was strong, as if those musty, old man smells were slowly leeching out of the place, like the ghosts of the past, finally free.
She poured herself another gin, filling the glass with ice. She of all people shouldn’t be surprised that old buildings held odours as well as secrets. She’d once tagged along with a set designer to a decrepit city hotel to assess its potential as a movie set and it was so disgusting inside she’d walked out and almost vomited. There were used condoms under the bed, a shower black with mould, and she hadn’t been able to figure out how the pungent smell of urine had somehow seeped into the peeling wallpaper. Perfect for a movie about inner-city drug addicts which, funnily enough, was what they were scouting for.
Compared with that, Roma’s new home was more than bearable. Oh, Addy had made a minor show of being slightly disgusted, wrinkling her nose and raising her eyebrows, because that’s what people expected of her; of someone who’d met movie stars and famous directors, who went to film premieres and drank champagne and avoided the after-party drugs. Nothing but the glamorous life for Addy McNamara, right?
She stared out into the darkness and wished, for a long moment, that it would swallow her up. Thank god for dodgy financing deals, or she would be right back there in the production office tomorrow, not knowing if it was daytime or night outside, wrangling and cajoling and pulling rabbits out of hats and doing the impossible on an hourly basis: dealing with actors demanding they change hotel rooms because ‘this one doesn’t have the right feng shui’ or another insisting on a new personal trainer because the first three hadn’t helped him lose the magical ten pounds he needed; and the outrageously talented young director and arsehole who had been fucking the barely legal actress who was now going to be a huge star.
