The Sisters' Song Page 2

  She clipped me over the ear.

  ‘Now, Ida,’ she said. ‘Remember that your grandmother is a lady, so for the Lord’s sake, can you act like one, too?’

  We stepped into Grandma’s lounge. Nora clung to me so tightly I thought our legs would tangle. The room smelt old and stuffy, as if it had been closed for a long time. Maroon drapes hung long at the window, and the room was cluttered with old-fashioned furniture. It was the opposite of the sparse, bare home we’d just left. The chairs were covered in velvet and the tables strewn with trinkets. A piano stood against the wall, its lid closed. Sitting upon it, in an ornate silver frame, was a photo of a grave looking man with a bushy, white beard that reached as far as his bow tie. From somewhere in the house I heard the deep tick of a clock.

  ‘Ah! You’re here.’ The voice was slow and came from the other end of the room, where an old lady sat on a chaise longue next to the fireplace. She looked like a photo I’d seen of the elderly Queen Victoria. Her mouth was turned down, and her hair was parted in the middle and pinned in a bun on top of her head. She wore a long, ink-coloured skirt and high-necked blouse.

  ‘Come along now,’ she said.

  Being the eldest, I took the first step. Nora clutched my hand and stayed so close behind me I could feel her breath on my neck. I trod deliberately, lest I bump a table and send a trinket crashing. Slowly, we made our way towards the straight-backed figure by the crackling fire.

  ‘You have your mother’s beauty and your father’s height,’ she said to Nora. ‘And you are the image of him,’ she said, turning to me. She reached out and pulled me closer. Her lips felt hard and dry against my cheek, and her fingers dug into my shoulder. I could smell her old skin and see the dandruff powdering her collar, but I liked that she held me—no one had done that since Dad had died.

  When she let go, she pulled a hanky from her sleeve and dabbed at the wet lines on her chalky cheeks.

  Nora and I shared a room. That night, after we’d slid under the covers, Nora started to cry. I rolled closer to her in the bed and slipped my arm under her head.

  ‘I know you wish we were back in our old house,’ I whispered, ‘with Mum and Dad. The way it used to be.’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘But you still have me.’ I stroked her hair and let it curl around my fingers. ‘You’ll always have me.’ Her breath blew warm against my cheek. When it became as regular as a slow-ticking clock, I slid my arm out from under her, then lifted my plait to my mouth and cried. I, too, wished we were back in our old house with Dad alive and Mum happy, all of us a family again.

  Grandma was already dressed each morning when we woke—we never saw her in her night clothes, nor glimpsed any part of her skin apart from her head and hands. In the mornings, she tied an apron over her dress and hummed to herself as she swept and scrubbed the house. We had our jobs, too—fetching the still-warm eggs and collecting kindling for the fire.

  After lunch Grandma would prepare dinner, and the smell of stewing onions and roasting vegetables would creep through the house. Then she’d remove her apron and change into her ‘afternoon dress’, which wasn’t a dress at all, but a long skirt and a tight, high-necked blouse that squashed her bosom so it looked big and round. After that she’d spend time in the garden, or sit on the chaise and hum while we played cards on the mat in front of the fire.

  The mat was so thin that the cold from the floor seeped through, freezing the cheeks of our bums until they turned numb. The house was always cold, but we could only have a small fire because the wood had to last the winter. We’d inch ever closer, jostling for its measly warmth and complaining if the other was ‘hogging it’.

  ‘Now, now,’ Grandma would say. ‘It’s time we had a song.’

  We’d jump up and join her around the piano. We’d forget about the cold as she played songs we knew and some we didn’t. She’d tell us to make up a song, so we’d sing about kangaroos and lions, and zoos and jungles. Grandma would play the notes, finding them slowly with her right hand, until her left hand could join in, too. Note by note and chord by chord, she’d build it up until her old hands were bouncing over the keys, transforming our songs into music.

  Even back then Nora’s voice stood out as clear as a stream, and sometimes I stopped singing just to listen to her.

  The days were short and overcast, as if the night was never far away, but lingering, waiting to creep back in. Some days the mist didn’t lift. I’d gaze out the window in the late afternoon, at the hanging fog and the grass still wet with dew, convinced the weather understood our sorrow.

  Before dinner, Grandma would drink a sherry, sometimes two. One night, she drank three and pointed to the photo on the piano, the one of the stone-faced man with wavy, silver hair and a beard so bushy his lips were barely visible. She told us he was her father, and he’d been a Member of Parliament and very dignified. Stern but dignified. When Grandma and her sister, Florence, would hear the gate click and his heels on the path, they’d race down the hall, straight to their seats at the dining table. He’d stride in and sit at the head without a word, expecting his dinner in front of him.

  ‘He didn’t like my choice of husband,’ she said. ‘But I was in love. And I didn’t realise what I was giving up.’ She cast her eyes down and cleared her throat. When she looked up again, she was smiling. ‘That wood has to last the winter, mind, so off to bed.’ She called each of us over for a kiss. ‘Oh, you are a bonny delight,’ she said as she squeezed our cheeks. ‘Doing your mother and your dear, late father proud.’

  At night I’d lie in bed with Nora’s arm across my chest while I sucked the end of my plait. It tasted like stiff straw and wasn’t very comforting anymore. Out in the lounge, Grandma’s sherry glass would tinkle. Later her door would click shut, and the bed would creak as she climbed in.

  We’d passed another day. That’s what we were doing—passing the days. Rising each morning, going to our new school, then coming home and waiting for the night to blow back in.

  As soon as the winter frosts began to clear, Grandma showed me how to prune the roses and trim the ivy. We prepared the soil for the vegetable garden, digging the ground and stirring in the manure.

  ‘Dig the soil deeply and turn it well,’ said Grandma, as she hacked the dirt with a hoe, ‘to keep it in good heart.’

  We put soil in pots, made holes with our thumbs and planted seeds. Grandma labelled each one so we’d remember what it was—carrots and cucumbers, lettuce and parsley—and set them on the windowsill.

  ‘Allow the water to warm in the sun before you sprinkle it on the seedlings,’ said Grandma. ‘Or you’ll startle them.’ So I’d sit the jug on the sill beside the tiny plants until the water was warm and gentle enough not to alarm them.

  I kept asking when they’d be ready to plant.

  ‘They need to be a bit sturdier yet,’ Grandma would say, ‘or they’ll perish. They need nurturing until they can survive on their own. Just like children.’

  A few weeks later, we finally planted them in neat rows with pegs and string, and I was proud of our work.

  Mum joined us at Grandma’s one Friday in spring. It had only been three months since I’d seen her and six months since Dad’s death, but it felt like years since we’d been a real family. As soon as I heard the putt-putt of Uncle Vernon’s ute, I shot out the door and down the steps two at a time, Nora close on my tail.

  Aunty Lorna was the first to alight. ‘Mind your mother, now,’ she said, the sunflowers in the brim of her hat bouncing as she bent down to open the passenger door.

  I squinted and craned my neck, trying to glimpse Mum through the opening. Finally, she stepped out and gawked about as if dazed. Her hair was curled and brushed, and she had a dusting of powder on her cheeks. She looked smaller, more fragile.

  I felt my heart rise in my chest. I wanted to race over, throw my arms around her, and tell her how much I’d missed her. To say how sorry I was for my behaviour and for causing her to go to the asylum. Inst
ead, I stood straight as a fence picket, smiling and squinting into the sun. Nora stood slightly behind me, as if she was hiding from Mum.

  Aunty Lorna took Mum’s elbow. ‘I’ve got you, Alice,’ she said. ‘Easy now. Careful with that case, Vernon.’

  ‘We’ve been good,’ I called. ‘Very good.’

  Mum stopped and looked over. I stood taller and puffed my chest, hoping to show her how much I’d changed. ‘You don’t have to be leaving us again,’ I called. ‘I’m well behaved now.’

  ‘Shhh,’ whispered Nora.

  Aunty Lorna nudged Mum’s elbow and together, they stepped forward.

  ‘I’m much better than before. Truly,’ I went on. ‘Grandma says I’m doing you and our late father proud.’

  ‘Shhh,’ whispered Nora again.

  ‘Ida,’ said Aunty Lorna and fixed me with a glare straighter than her eyebrows. ‘Hush! Don’t be upsetting your mother.’ She nudged Mum’s elbow again and they kept moving. ‘Mind the puddle, Alice.’

  They walked up the muddy path, the grass either side blunt and sparse from the winter frosts. Uncle Vernon trailed behind with the suitcase.

  ‘Watch your step,’ said Lorna as they climbed the stairs to the verandah.

  Grandma waited by the door, already in her afternoon dress although it was only morning. Mum stopped when she reached her. Grandma took Mum’s shoulders and pulled her close, just as she’d done to Nora and me on the day we arrived. She kissed Mum’s cheek.

  ‘You can have Edward’s old room,’ she said.

  Mum’s back was to me so I couldn’t see her face and I didn’t hear what she said.

  ‘No need to thank me,’ Grandma said. ‘You’re family and welcome to stay as long as you need.’

  Mum and Aunty Lorna disappeared inside, and Grandma turned to us. ‘Just wait outside, girls, until we get your mother settled.’

  So Nora and I sat on the front steps, plucking onion weeds and sucking on their stalks. Every now and then, one of us would peer down the hall at Mum’s closed bedroom door and will it to open. We waited all morning, glancing up each time Aunty or Grandma stepped into the hall. But they’d just disappear into the kitchen and reappear a while later carrying a tray or a bottle of medicine, or a bowl and towel. We watched with envy each time they entered Mum’s room without us.

  I stood and kicked at a plank on the verandah. ‘This is stupid.’

  Nora didn’t answer, but plucked another stem of weed and began sucking. She looked as unhappy as me.

  ‘This is not how it’s meant to be,’ I went on. ‘Mum’s meant to be back to normal, and we’re meant to be a family again.’

  Nora looked up at me, her eyes sad, curls tumbling around her six-year-old face. ‘I don’t think she likes us very much anymore,’ she said.

  Later, Grandma called us inside for lunch, and as we sat down to our sandwiches, she said, ‘Now, girls, you’re not to pester your mother, mind.’ She finished tying her apron, then ran water into the sink and collected a couple of spuds from the hessian bag behind the kitchen door. ‘She needs to rest.’

  ‘Can’t we see her?’ I asked.

  ‘Give her a day or two to adjust.’ Grandma began to scrub the spuds.

  ‘But she might have missed us,’ I said. Nora looked up at me and put a finger to her lips, before picking up the sandwich from her plate.

  Water dripped from Grandma’s hands as she carried the potatoes to the table and placed them on a board. ‘No doubt she has.’ She smiled, then picked up a spud and gouged an eye with the knife.

  ‘Can’t you ask her if she wants to see us?’ I said. Nora glanced at me again, frowning and shaking her head.

  ‘We won’t pester her just yet, eh?’ said Grandma. She began to peel the potato. The skin coiled and fell to the board in a spiral. She sliced the potato into halves and then quarters. Each time, the knife crunched hard against the board.

  Throughout the afternoon, the smell of stewing onions and carrots crept through the house but, for once, it didn’t warm me. At dinnertime, Grandma took Mum’s food in to her on a tray while we ate on our own in the kitchen. Although steam rose from our plates, the food tasted cold.

  That night in bed I slid under the blanket and wept into the mattress. Mum was back, but it wasn’t the same. There was no laughing, no cuddles, no joy.

  Nora rolled over. ‘Why are you crying?’ she whispered.

  ‘I just want to be a normal family again,’ I said.

  ‘Crying’s not going to bring Dad back.’

  ‘I know but I can’t help it,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve got to be good, Ida.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ I whispered.

  ‘You’ll have to try harder. Or Mum will go away again.’ She rolled back to face the other way. ‘And she mightn’t come back.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ I whispered. I felt my chest tighten at the idea of losing Mum. Then we would have lost everything—our home and our parents, both of them.

  Mum didn’t get up the next day, or the next, or the one after that. I tried to be good and not pester Grandma, but each day I asked if Mum was ready to see us yet. Each day Grandma’s response was the same: ‘Just have patience.’

  On the fifth day I asked again. ‘Why can’t we see her?’

  Grandma was setting up the meat mincer on the kitchen table. ‘Be patient.’

  ‘Is she dying, too?’

  Grandma stopped and regarded me with her kind blue eyes. ‘Of course not, dear.’ She wiped her hands on her apron then patted my shoulder. ‘Wait here.’

  Nora and I waited outside Mum’s room while Grandma went in.

  ‘Alice, your children would like to see you,’ Grandma said.

  The sheets rustled and Mum muttered something inaudible.

  ‘They’ve already lost their father. They can’t lose their mother, too.’

  There was silence for a while, then the door opened and Mum stood in the light. She was pale and dishevelled and wobbly. Nevertheless, she was standing and trying her hardest to smile.

  ‘See, she’s fine,’ said Grandma, smiling, too.

  Chapter 3

  From then on, Mum started coming out of her bedroom in the afternoon.

  ‘Good afternoon, Alice,’ Grandma would say each day.

  But Mum wouldn’t answer—she’d just sit in the chair by the fire and stare at the rug by her feet. She seemed to be fading away before our eyes, and I didn’t like seeing her so still and silent. One day, I inched my way across the rug until I was right by her shoes. I wriggled about until I was in her line of sight, and when she didn’t move, I called to her in my softest whisper. ‘Mum…Mum…’

  Her face twitched and she turned. Her eyes found mine. I smiled and said, ‘It’s good to have you back,’ in the gentlest voice I could make.

  She didn’t return the smile, but I tried again the next day.

  ‘I’m good now,’ I said. ‘I help Grandma in the garden. I squash the caterpillars before they eat the spinach, and I collect the eggs.’

  Each day I told her something new and nice in the hope of sparking her to life again. It didn’t seem to help much, but at least she noticed me.

  After a couple of weeks of Mum’s silence, Grandma decided to set up one of Mum’s old hat blocks by the fire. Next to it she laid a large piece of felt and Mum’s sewing basket. As soon as Mum saw it, she stopped.

  ‘I thought you might show me how to make a hat,’ Grandma said quickly. ‘You used to make beautiful hats.’

  Mum kept looking at the dome of wood, the firelight shining over its surface.

  ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what to do,’ Grandma went on. ‘Would you explain it to me?’

  Mum turned to her chair and picked up the felt lying across it. She sat, placing the felt on her lap. Slowly, she ran her fingers over it, spreading and smoothing it. It was a wide circle of fabric, a couple of feet in diameter and the colour of dark mushrooms.

  ‘I’d need a kettle and a flat iron,’ she sa
id, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat and she sounded stronger when she spoke again. ‘And a good rag and some drawing pins.’ She looked up, and although her skin looked sallow and her eyes looked pained, she smiled. ‘Yes, I’ll show you how to make a hat.’

  It cheered us all to see Mum perk up again—to watch her fingers massaging the wet felt, stretching and smoothing it over the wooden block. Her eyes lost their distance and became intent as she steamed and measured and trimmed. The room smelt of warm wool, the sweetest smell in the world.

  Mum’s health improved over the summer, and she began getting up earlier and staying up longer. After a while, it felt like nearly all of her had come back, except that she hardly smiled and we never heard her laugh. Each afternoon when she sat with us making her hats, her mind still seemed to be in another place.

  Mum had always been prone to moodiness, and we were used to her snapping at us if we got in the way. All of that sharpness returned, and more. Sometimes, she was as brittle as a dry twig. No warning, just snap, and my ear would be ringing. Like the time I asked her what she did with Frances.

  ‘Who?’ she said.

  ‘Frances. My doll.’

  Her hand clipped the back of my head. ‘How am I meant to know what happened to your doll?’

  There was no Dad to buffer the hurt anymore.

  As Mum came back to life, Nora grew quieter. It was as if she was frightened to speak lest she say something that might upset Mum.

  Nora also started wetting the bed. Mum began waking her in the middle of the night to use the potty, and when that didn’t work, she stopped Nora from drinking anything after dinner. But that didn’t help either, and most mornings I woke to a wet mattress and the smell of pee.

  Mum would take to Nora’s behind with the switch and make her haul the mattress outside to the verandah, where it’s tea-coloured stains told everyone walking past that Nora, at six years of age, still peed the bed.