Lola's Secret (22 page)

Not for the first time, she tried to imagine how it would be if things were normal at home. If she and Belle and Chloe were to walk in and find their parents sitting companionably in their living room, watching TV together, or reading the paper, having a glass of wine or a cup of tea, looking up like normal parents. “Hi, girls! How was the film?”

They walked in. Their mother came down the stairs toward them, still dressed in her work suit, her makeup and hair impeccable. She wasn’t smiling.

“Hello, girls. How was the film?”

“Great!” Belle said.

“Will we sing you all the songs?” Chloe asked.

“Not tonight, no. It’s late. Off to bed, please. Holly, can you come into the living room with me?”

“But I promised to read to them.”

“Not tonight. Girls, upstairs please.”

Chloe frowned. “But Holly always—”

“Now!”

They ran up the stairs. Holly followed her mother into the living room, feeling that nausea again. She was so attuned to the mood in the house that she knew something had happened. It wasn’t something good, either. Her father switched off the large-screen plasma TV as they both came in. He was still in his work clothes too—a rumpled linen suit—his expensive Italian shoes kicked off beside him.

She looked at her parents. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Shut the door, please, Holly.”

She did. They both took a seat. She stayed standing. She shook her head when her father gestured toward the sofa.

“We had a visitor tonight,” her mother said.

Holly waited.

“June. Your boss.”

“June? June was here?”

Two nods.

“But why?”

“That’s what we’d like to know. What have you been saying to her?”

“Nothing,” she lied, quickly.

“Oh, really? That’s not what June said. What happens in this house is our business as a family, Holly.
Our
business.”

They weren’t just angry, she realized. They were furious. She could see it in their body language, their expressions, hear it in their voices.

Her mother kept talking, her tone icy. “Perhaps you’d remember that in future. And perhaps you’d also tell your interfering boss that much as we appreciate her taking the time to come and remind us of our responsibilities as parents, we will run this family in the manner we choose, and we won’t be bullied into anything by someone like her.”

There was so much that Holly could have said. She didn’t dare say a word of it.

Her father took over then. “Your June also went to great pains to inform us that you and the two girls were thinking about running away at Christmas. We told her it was ridiculous, of course.”

Holly found her voice. “It’s true.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We were going to run away. We didn’t want to be here for Christmas.”

There was an exchange of glances between her parents.

“Holly, sit down,” her mother said. “Now.”

Holly had just taken a seat when the door flung open. Belle, then Chloe ran in. Belle went straight to her big sister. “Holly, can you help us find that—”

Their mother interrupted. “Girls, didn’t I say—”

“No!” Holly was surprised by the volume of her own voice. “Please, let them stay.” She needed to have them near her while she caught her breath and tried to work out what was happening here tonight.

“It’s nine o’clock—”

“Please.”

Chloe and Belle took up their usual positions, one on either side of Holly.

Their mother started again, in the voice Holly had never liked, the one she used when Holly knew she was angry but pretending she wasn’t. “So, Belle and Chloe, I hear you’ve been planning a bit of a secret. A surprise Christmas trip away, without us.”

Belle’s mouth opened. Chloe’s did too. “How did you find out?”

“Let’s just say a little bird told us. She told us a lot, in fact. So we told her something too. That you weren’t the only ones who’d been planning a Christmas surprise. And so your dad and I think we’d all better have a family meeting and get these surprises out into the open.”

“Ours is a great secret,” Chloe said, before Holly could stop her. “Christmas at the Valley View Motel. For free!”

“Without us, though?” her mother said. “Wouldn’t you miss us?”

“You can come too,” Belle said earnestly. “But only if you’re good and you don’t mind sleeping in boxes.”

Holly couldn’t take her eyes off her parents as they both pretended to laugh. It felt like she was watching a performance. “What was your Christmas surprise?” she asked them, still wary.

“Will we tell them now?” their father said, looking at their mother. She nodded.

“We had a trip planned for you all for Christmas too.”

“Really?” Belle said.

“To where?” Chloe said.

There was just a brief pause.

“Disneyland,” their father said.

“
Disneyland!
’ Both girls ran to their parents, shouting questions. When, where, how?

Holly watched, still with that strange detached feeling, as her parents answered Belle and Chloe’s questions as best they could. As best they could when they didn’t know the answers. Holly would have bet all the money she had that they hadn’t been planning anything like a trip to Disneyland. This was a result of June’s visit. It had to be.

She’d find out tomorrow exactly what had happened tonight. She knew they would have tried to intimidate June, not physically, but with words. She could almost hear them. “Oh, Holly exaggerates. She’s very highly strung. The only thing we’ve been fighting about is where to take them for Christmas!”

Perhaps she wouldn’t ask June for the details. Watching her sisters now, so excited, begging for more details, perhaps all that mattered was that June’s visit had made even some temporary difference.

Belle turned back to her then. “Do you mind if we don’t go to the Valley Motel this time, Holly? Maybe we could go next year instead? I’m sure that lady we email won’t mind, will she?”

Holly tousled her little sister’s hair, going along with it all too. “I’m sure she won’t. Not if we explain we’re off to Florida instead.”

“I think we’ll go to Disneyland in France, not Florida,” her mother said.

“Florida’s supposed to be better,” their father said.

“You’re an expert on Disneyland, are you?”

“It’s the main one.”

“But we could base ourselves in Paris if we went to the French one. See the Eiffel Tower.”

“It’s the middle of winter. It’ll be freezing. Florida will be much warmer.”

It’s a longer flight.”

“Oh, like an extra two hours is going to matter. That’s just crazy. What do—”

“Stop it! Stop fighting!”

They all turned. It wasn’t Holly who’d spoken. It was Chloe. Her smile had disappeared. She now just looked upset. “Please. Stop.”

“We’re not fighting, Chloe,” her mother said. “We’re discussing.”

“You’re fighting. And it gives me a stomach ache. And Belle too.”

Holly stood up. “Time for bed, girls.” She knew her sisters too well. This would turn to tears any minute now. “Come on. I’ll tuck you in.”

“Holly, come back down when you’re done, please.” It was her mother. It wasn’t a request. It was an order.

She nodded. She’d pay for telling June so much, she knew. If not tonight, then in the future. But as she walked up the stairs with her sisters, she realized something else. She didn’t mind. Something had happened tonight. A subtle, tiny shift in power in favor of herself, Belle, and Chloe.

She would come back down and face whatever it was her parents planned to say to her. If she found the courage, there was plenty she could say in return. But there was something else she had to do first.

As the girls cleaned their teeth, she sent a text to June.
Thank you.

The answer came back immediately. June must have been waiting.

Any time
, it said.

I
N HER ROOM
, Lola resisted the urge to ring Luke. He’d had the information about Alex for four days now. Surely he’d been able to find out something? Her impatient nature was coming back to bite her and not just because Christmas was almost upon them. If this was a film, she had a horrible feeling it would end badly, a split screen of two old people running toward each other on a railway platform or an airport concourse, arms outstretched, calling each other’s names, before one of them dropped dead from a heart attack. But they
were
old. There wasn’t time to waste.

She was embarrassed to admit her mind had been playing tricks on her since the possibility of finding Alex again had arisen. She’d imagined all sorts of scenarios. Calling Jim, Geraldine, and the girls together to make an announcement. “I’m going to live out my days in Tuscany with a very dear, very old, and very handsome Italian lover of mine.” Another time she’d pictured Alex arriving in Clare, to an instant rekindling of their feelings and their instant relocation to a charming, cozy house just outside the town, overlooking a dam, three vineyards, and the racecourse.

What had happened to her? She was worse than Emily daydreaming about Luke. If Alex was still alive, he could be a long way from being well enough to travel to Clare. He could be on to his second, third, or fourth wife by now. Although, as Italy was as Catholic as Ireland used to be, divorce might have been difficult. Perhaps he was still with his first wife, both of them plump from all the fine food and pasta and bread, sitting out under a vine-covered verandah surrounded by pink-cheeked grandchildren, red-and-white checkered tablecloths, raffia-covered bottles of wine …
Stop, Lola
.

But if he was still alive, if he was still well, did he ever think of her? she wondered. Had he ever sat down to write to her, or asked a computer-literate friend to try to find
her
on the computer?

She couldn’t wait for Luke to come back. She’d try to do a bit of research herself. It took only a few minutes to set up the laptop and wait for what had so far proven to be a very reliable broadband connection to kick into life. The search engine page came up. Using two fingers, carefully spelling his full name, she typed it in and pressed Search.

Five and a half million results. Good Lord! Had it been this simple, all these years, to find him? She clicked on one page, then another, her mood changing from optimism to pessimism. There were thousands of people with his name out there. She didn’t have the skills to weed them out. And suddenly she didn’t have the inclination either. Before she was drawn any further into the Web, she quickly clicked to shut all the pages down, and turned the laptop off again too.

She was being silly, being so interested in Alex’s whereabouts, turning him into her knight in shining armor, her rescuer. She knew what was really going on. She was reacting belatedly to Jim and Geraldine’s news. For all her apparent cheerfulness about getting in touch with old folks’ homes, being happy to stay in Clare, the truth was … yes, the truth was she was terrified. Once upon a time, she’d relished change, reveled in it, loved moving, the adventures it opened up, the challenges and also the rewards. She’d encouraged all her granddaughters to travel as much as possible, even giving them plane tickets as twenty-first birthday presents, practically pushing each of them onto the planes herself.

Now, though, the last thing she felt like doing was packing up and starting again. The motel was what she’d called home for the past twenty years. She knew every inch of it, literally. She’d cleaned it all often enough in the early days. She had memories of so many guests, so many parties, big and small, including her own gala eightieth. Conversations with her three girls, when they had all lived there together, moving in and out of different rooms, depending on which ones were available. So many talks with Jim, in the kitchen or out under the trees. Chats with little Ellen, too, on the park bench that looked over the vineyard-covered hill opposite the motel, in the days when Bumper, the motel’s pet sheep and in-house lawnmower, had been her constant shadow.

So many memories of Anna too. She had died here at the motel, just two rooms away. Lola walked past it every day. It gave her another reason to remember Anna, on top of all the other memories that were sparked here every single day.

Were Jim and Geraldine right? Was it time they all left Anna’s memories in peace, moved on, mentally and physically? Perhaps the three of them were the ones who needed that distance the most. Bett and Carrie were so overwhelmed by the present that they didn’t have the luxury of spending time in the past, though Lola knew they grieved for their sister constantly too.

And what about Ellen? Little Ellen, who had sounded so happy to know she was coming back to the motel. Was that a mistake on Lola’s part? Or was it a good thing to bring her back one more time, before the motel changed hands and became some new family’s place of memories?

Lola returned to the desk and turned the laptop back on. It took only a moment to send the email.

Ellen? Are you there?

Five minutes later there was an answer.

Lola! Yes! Are you?

Lola smiled. She wished it was possible to talk to Anna like this, send her occasional emails too, receive them in return, rather than relying on those imaginary conversations where she had to play both parts.

Darling, can you talk for a minute?

Of course.

Was it her news to share? Should she wait until Ellen got there and tell her then? No. Act, and act now! She dialed Ellen’s number and got straight to the point.

“Darling, I think you should know something important before you arrive. I could wait until you were here, but you might be upset by it. I want you to have as much time to think it over as you can.”

“What’s wrong? Are you sick? Lola, what is it?”

“I’m not sick, darling. I’m sorry. I should have said that at first. No one is sick. We’re all very well. It’s about the motel. Ellen, I think you should know that your granddad and grandmother have decided to sell it. They want to move from Clare and buy a business somewhere else.”

“What about you? Are you going with them?”

“No, I’m not. I’m staying here in Clare.”

“Are Carrie and Bett staying?”

“So far, yes. But I don’t know if that will be forever.”

“That’s all right, then.”

“You don’t mind about the motel?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“I love being there, but it makes me sad too.”

“Will it be too hard for you to come back this time? To be here without your dad? You can change your mind if you want to, if you’d rather spend Christmas in Hong Kong.”

“No!”

“I just thought you should know before you got here. It has particular memories for you and I didn’t want you to be upset.”

“I’m fine. Thanks for telling me.”

“You’re a good, grown-up girl, my Ellen.”

“Dad doesn’t always think so.”

“Yes, he does. He just doesn’t like it when you shout and sulk.”

“Don’t you start!”

Lola smiled. “See you soon, darling.”

“I can’t wait!”

L
OLA AND
Glenn confirmed Ellen’s flight arrangements the next day. She’d arrive the evening before Christmas Eve. Luke would go down to Adelaide to collect her. The hardest thing for Lola was not letting on to Jim and Geraldine, or Bett and Carrie.

As it was, they were all so busy helping with the Christmas packages that she suspected they wouldn’t have heard her if she did mention Ellen. It was just as well the motel wasn’t booked out. Eleven of the fifteen rooms were being used to store everything. Even so, Lola wasn’t sure they would have enough boxes to supply the requests that had come in.

Every morning whoever opened up the charity shop found a little collection of white notes waiting inside the door. Sometimes they were just facts—names, address (always with CONFIDENTIAL) written alongside, ages of children. There had been a few heartbreaking letters, people going into detail about the difficulties they were facing. It was so sad, Lola thought. From the outside, the Valley looked like the most idyllic place in the world, with its gentle hills, beautiful vineyards, stone cottages. An easy lifestyle, plenty of sports facilities, nice houses, shops … But no person and nowhere on earth was immune from heartbreak or unhappiness. Lola had learned that herself the hard way. One letter had made her especially sad. A young lone father, bringing up two children after his wife had left him for another man. There had been a lengthy discussion about his letter in the shop.

“How can a woman leave her kids like that?” Kay asked.

“She might have fallen desperately in love,” Margaret said. “That might have taken over all her maternal feelings. Maybe when the first flush wears off, she’ll come back.”

“How can the kids ever forgive her?” Patricia wondered. “Being abandoned by their own mother?”

“Maybe they’ll find more solace in the fact their father raised them on his own,” Lola said. “That’s a pretty good role model to have.”

They had just sorted that morning’s requests for help into order when the door opened. It was Mrs. Kernaghan. Lola half expected to hear crashing organ music and the screeching of bats. It was the first time she’d been in the shop since she’d claimed credit on TV for the Christmas care packages idea.

“I do apologize for my absence. I’ve had to deal with a number of pressing engagements. How is the appeal going?”

Lola tried not to react as she felt a pinch from Kay on one side and a nudge from Patricia on the other.

“We’re inundated, Mrs. Kernaghan,” Margaret said. “It’s shocked us all how many people in our area are in need.” She held up a bundle of the slips. “These are just today’s.”

“Don’t believe all of them, will you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me. Don’t believe all of them. It’s important to check each request for authenticity. I know human nature. If something is going for free, you can bet people will cheat and lie to get some of it.”

“Mrs. Kernaghan!”

“I wish it wasn’t true, but it is,” she said firmly.

“You’re wrong in this case, I’m afraid,” Lola said. “We’ve had the sorrow of reading so many of the requests. I don’t think people would stoop that low.”

“Then you don’t know people as well as I do. We held a charity fundraiser in one of our fashion stores several years ago to raise money for a local woman whose child was dying of cancer. More than ten thousand dollars was donated. Photos were taken. The local TV station even did a story on her. It turned out it was all lies. The child didn’t have cancer at all. The mother had half starved him and shaved his head, just to con people into giving her money.”

“I think that’s an urban myth,” Kay said hesitantly. “I’m sure I read that same story on the Internet.”

“Me too,” Patricia said. “I thought it happened in America.”

Mrs. Kernaghan looked a little flustered. “One’s memory plays tricks when one is as busy as I am. But the principle is the same. People will do anything to get something for free and I would bet—”

“Ten thousand dollars?” Lola offered.

“—that not all of your cries for help are authentic.”

“And what do you suggest we do, Mrs. Kernaghan?” Lola asked. “Call around to each of the addresses and ask to see their bank accounts? Check their fridges for food? Their cupboards for Christmas presents? Make sure they really do need help before we give them anything?”

Mrs. Kernaghan either didn’t notice or chose to ignore Lola’s sarcastic tone. “Let me see some of those requests. I’ve gotten to know a lot of people since I moved here. I’m sure I can help sort the wheat from the chaff.”

“No.” The other three spoke in unison.

“I’m on the committee too.”

“This is a sub-committee,” Lola said, fighting an inclination to hide the slips of paper down the front of her dress. “We’ve sworn confidentiality. People’s pride is at stake.”

“Don’t believe everything you see, hear, or read. That’s all I’m saying. Be vigilant,” Mrs. Kernaghan said, picking up her handbag and sweeping out again.

“Maybe she’s right,” Kay said, once they were all sure she’d truly left. “How can we know that everyone who’s asked for help really needs it?”

“If they don’t, the fact they’ve stooped to pretending they need charity shows they need some kind of help,” Lola said. “And if they do get a package, they’ll surely have a better Christmas than they might have had. Which was the whole idea, wasn’t it?” But she could still see Mrs. Kernagan had planted a seed of doubt. Damn her, Lola thought.

L
OLA WAS
in her room watching the news that night when there was a knock at the door.

“Luke!” she said. “What a lovely surprise.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t ring before. I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Can I come in?”

“Of course.”

He had his laptop under his arm “I’d use yours but this one’s even faster. Not that I’ve given you inferior equipment.”

“Of course you haven’t. Have you got some news for me?”

“Something to show you, rather than tell you.”

She watched, impatiently but admiringly, as he set up the laptop, clicked on the keyboard, and surfed on the Internet until there, on the screen in front of them both, was a photo. An unmistakable photo. But one she’d already seen. Alex, in his eighties.

“That’s the one I gave you, isn’t it? Have you done an even better job with that program?”

“It’s not your photo, Lola.” Luke was smiling from ear to ear. “It’s the real thing. I’ve found him, Lola. That’s him, isn’t it? Your Alex.”

Lola moved closer. It was clearly him. The same-shaped face, kind eyes. Brown skin, with many lines. Of course there were lines. He was an old man now, as she was an old woman. “But how did you do it? So quickly? Luke, I can’t believe it. Where is he? Rome? Tuscany?”

“Moonee Ponds.”

“
Moonee Ponds?
” It was a suburb of Melbourne. An ordinary suburb of Melbourne. “How did you—? Where is—?” She had so many more questions now, she couldn’t complete a single one.