Lola's Secret (27 page)

“O
NE
,
TWO
,
THREE
, four, five … How many of us are there, Really-Great-Gran?”

“Thirteen, darling. Oh, you’ve done a lovely job folding the napkins, Ellen, thank you. Are they swans or pigeons?”

“Lola! They’re bishops’ hats.”

“Sorry, darling. My eyesight has got so bad lately.”

“If you take off those glasses you might be able to see better.”

Lola took off the diamanté-framed oversized glasses she’d been wearing for the past hour. They’d been a Christmas gift from Carrie. Lola thought they went very well with the feathered and jeweled fascinator hat Bett had bought her. They’d all opened their presents to each other just that morning, as soon as Daniel had arrived back from the airport with their guest of honor, Ellen. The dining room of the motel had been a hubbub of noise since, filled with every member of the family: Jim, Geraldine, Bett, Daniel, Zachary, Yvette, Carrie, Matthew, Delia, Freya, and George—and Ellen, of course. Lola had reveled in every squeal, shout, and exclamation, content in her chair in the center of the room, with the perfect view of the Christmas tree in the corner and the blue sky and vineyards through the window.

It was as if Ellen had been there with them for weeks. She’d fitted back in so quickly and easily. She was taller, thinner, growing more like Anna every day. Her face was as beautiful as ever, the scar barely visible these days. Ellen was certainly no longer self-conscious about it. She was like a little dragonfly, Lola thought, flitting from person to person, playing with her cousins, talking to her grandparents, hanging on to her aunts’ hands, coming back to Lola herself each time. “I’m not even tired, Lola, and I’ve been awake for hours!”

Later, when it was a bit cooler, they’d all go to visit Anna and have their customary glass of champagne in her honor at the graveside. For the time being, Lola was keeping Ellen busy setting the table under the trees, on the spot where she had planned to serve the Christmas lunch-that-never-happened. She hadn’t told her family about her thwarted plans. The less said the better, she’d decided. They’d all started watching her like hawks as it was. As if she was going to take a notion to get herself locked into a sun-baked yard again.

Not that such a thing would ever happen again. The day after Boxing Day, once word had spread around town about the robbery and what had happened to Lola, the shop’s handyman had been in to repair the broken door and to fit a different bolt to the yard gate. Lola herself had been interviewed by the police. The computer equipment hadn’t been found and wasn’t likely to be, unfortunately. Whoever had stolen it, locals or otherwise, would have already sold it or were using it themselves, the police thought. Just as unfortunately, the loss wasn’t covered by any insurance. The committee had made a decision not to take out contents insurance the previous year. It hadn’t seemed worth it—the only contents were secondhand goods, after all. But less than a week after the robbery, before the shop had even reopened after the Christmas break, every piece of equipment had been replaced, free of charge. Margaret had taken the first of the calls, then Kay, then Patricia. Person after person ringing to donate computer parts and equipment. They’d unanimously put Luke in charge of everything. He was their computer guru, after all.

For the time being, Luke was storing everything at his mother’s house. It was already taking up most of one of the spare bedrooms: a nearly new computer, a secondhand camera, a printer, and a scanner. “We got a new one for Christmas. You’re welcome to this old one,” one of the donors had said. The donations had kept coming in, even after they had more than enough to rebuild the charity shop setup. So many donations, in fact, that it looked like they’d be able to set up another Mission Control in the local old folks’ home and possibly the library as well.

Lola had been to the old folks’ home the previous day, allegedly to inspect a location for the computer equipment. The truth was she had been inspecting possible new living arrangements for herself.

She knew Jim would have been horrified if he’d known. The day he and Geraldine had returned from their driving holiday—two days earlier than expected—Jim had come to her room to see how she was.

“Darling, you know how I am. You’ve rung five times every day.”

He’d told her that he and Geraldine had seen several guesthouses they’d been interested in, but that they had decided to put their moving plans on hold.

“Why?” Lola said, already suspecting the answer.

“After what happened to you, we just don’t think we need to be in any hurry.”

“What nonsense,” she said. “If anything, it should give you more reason to move. The Valley is clearly a hotbed of crime.” She took pity on him then, and smiled. “Darling, nothing happened to me. How many times do I have to tell you? Please, go ahead with your plans. Move tomorrow, if you find the right place, and I’ll manage the sale of the motel for you. In the meantime, I’m having great fun trying to decide where I’ll rest my weary bones once you’re both gone.”

She’d spoken to the sister in charge of the old folks’ home. She’d even read their brochure, from cover to cover. It had a great deal going for it. It was clean and bright and she knew lots of people there. She had been on the verge of having her name added to the waiting list when Margaret arrived at the motel for an afternoon game of cards in the dining room.

Between games, Lola told her everything about Jim and Geraldine moving. “I’m thinking the best place for me is the old folks’ home,” Lola told her.

Margaret had immediately disagreed. “I can’t see you there at all. You need your independence.”

“For now, perhaps. In a year or so, all I’ll need are waterproof sheets and a bib.”

“Lola, stop it. I’m going to ask you something and I want you to think about it, not just say no immediately. Why don’t you come and live with me? I’ve plenty of room in my house. All at ground level, too. No steps. I’d love your company.”

“Margaret, I’m an old lady.”

“I’m headed that way myself.”

“I’m not getting any younger. Or sprightlier.”

“Thank God for that. I have enough trouble keeping up with you as it is.”

“But you’ve lived alone for years. An occasional visit from me is one thing, but as a permanent fixture?”

Margaret laughed. “Lola, I’m not a student asking you to come and share my room. I’ve
heaps
of space.”

It was true. Lola had been to Margaret’s many times. It was a large house with four bedrooms, in a lovely part of town, looking over hills and vineyards.

“You want to be my landlady?”

“Yes, and I’d inspect your room every Sunday. Lola, of course not. We’d be housemates.”

“Like Felix and Oscar in
The Odd Couple
?”

“I hope not. You’re not obsessively tidy or extravagantly messy, are you?”

“Neither. I’m extremely housetrained.” She’d had to be, all these years of living in motel rooms and having to be ready to move out at a moment’s notice if a paying guest wanted the room. “I’d pay you rent, of course. At the going rate.”

“What on earth would I do with rent money? Spend it on drugs? Lola, you could contribute toward the food and the bills, but why would I charge you rent? Seriously, isn’t it the perfect solution?” Margaret launched into a very persuasive sales pitch. They were old friends. They were both widows. They had plenty in common—books, music, people, their soon-to-be-launched Baby Squad. The house had two living areas, a large garden. They also knew each other well enough to be able to say if something was annoying them about the other, surely?

She’d told Margaret she wanted to sleep on it. She’d gone to her room, lain on her bed, talked about it with Anna, had a quick nap, and then rung Margaret to accept her offer. She’d move in at the end of January, they decided. It would give Jim and Geraldine the freedom to really plan their next step. She’d tell everyone after the new year celebrations. For now, she and Margaret would keep it to themselves.

“What would you like for the entrée, Lola?” Ellen had now finished folding napkins and was in waitress mode, going from family member to family member taking orders. “Prawn cocktail or melon and ham?”

“Prawns please, darling. Thank you.”

Lola watched, smiling, as Ellen went over to Bett and Carrie next. The two sisters had been talking and laughing most of the morning. It was good to see them getting on so well. It wouldn’t last, of course, but a ceasefire, however temporary, was always welcome. Perhaps once the Baby Squad got into full swing they might use some of their new spare time to meet for coffee. Lola doubted it, mind you. In her experience, from her own time as a young mother and many decades of watching other mothers at work, spare time was a thing of the past until the children were in their twenties.

“Cold drink, Lola?” It was Geraldine. She had been surprisingly solicitous since her and Jim’s return. The thought that Lola had nearly died? Or the knowledge that freedom was just a few weeks away? A combination of both, perhaps.

“Tonic water would be lovely, thank you, Geraldine. I don’t really like the taste, though, so perhaps you’d put a drop or two of gin in it as well. And some ice. And some lemon.”

Lola could have sworn she nearly saw Geraldine smile.

See, Anna. I’m trying. So is she.

Good girls
, Anna said.

Jim came in, carrying the portable phone. “Call for you, Lola.”

Ellen frowned. “We’re about to have lunch. You won’t be long, Really-Great-Gran, will you? Who is it?”

“It’s her boyfriend,” Bett said with a smile.

“He rings every day. Sometimes twice,” Carrie said.

“Boyfriend?”
Ellen’s voice went up an octave.

“Wrong word, Ellen. Sorry,” Bett said. “He’s too old to be her boyfriend.”

“Her old-man-friend?” Carrie suggested.

“What’s he like?” Ellen said, eyes shining. “Is he cute?”

Lola ignored all of them and took the phone over to a corner of the room.

“Hello, darling,” she said.

“A
RE YOU OKAY
, Lola?”

She smiled at her son sitting on the plane beside her. “I’m fine, darling.”

“Not too tired? It was an early start.”

“I enjoyed it.” Bett and Carrie had collected her from Margaret’s house at six
A
.
M
. The sun had started to rise as they came into the town of Auburn, around the sweeping bend of the road, sending shafts of soft light onto the vineyards and the olive trees. They hadn’t spoken much. In the backseat of the car, by choice, Lola had enjoyed the quiet murmur of their voices.

Jim and Geraldine were waiting at the airport check-in. It had been less than an hour’s drive for them from their new guesthouse in the Adelaide Hills. They’d been there for six weeks. They hadn’t sold the Valley View Motel yet, but this new opportunity had been too good to pass up. They’d leased the motel for the time being. Lola had driven past it that morning on the way to Adelaide. She hadn’t felt sad to see it. She’d said her good-byes three months earlier, shed several quiet tears, and then turned her energy to making her new house her home.

It was the first flight she’d taken in ten years. It was so beautiful to look out the window, see the sky, the land, the sea, the incredible blue sea, as they lifted off from Adelaide airport.

After a while, she rested her head back and shut her eyes, thinking over all that had happened in the past few months. That’s why it was important to live for as long as you could, she thought. You never knew what might happen to change everything, for good or for bad.

Beside her, Bett squeezed her hand.

Lola patted her hand in return. “Dear Bett,” she said.

She reached down to her handbag and unfolded a piece of paper from inside. It was an email from Ellen that had arrived the previous night. Her Top Ten Tips for a Carefree Flight. If anyone was qualified to give that advice, it was Ellen. She’d taken more flights in her almost thirteen years than all of them put together. Most recently, less than a month ago. She and Glenn had come back to Sydney to live. Lola had been so happy to hear the news. They’d get to see Ellen not once a year, but once a month at least. It was just a short flight from Sydney to Adelaide.

Ellen had already been back to the Clare Valley since her new year visit, staying for a week in February when Glenn first got news of the job in Sydney and was over for meetings. He was now in charge of the entire Australasian operations of his advertising agency. It felt right to come home, he’d said. Ellen had stayed at the motel while Glenn went house hunting and school hunting. He’d found a house with enough room for four. Denise wouldn’t be moving in immediately. She had her own business in Hong Kong to wind down first, and she also wanted Lily to finish her school year.

They’d all been concerned about Ellen’s reaction to the news. “It will be absolutely fine,” she said when Lola asked her, and when Bett, Carrie, and Geraldine asked her too. She’d picked up the saying from Lola, they all knew that.

“If you keep saying it often enough, it usually comes true,” Lola had told her.

She’d had trouble getting Ellen’s email off her computer the evening before, but Luke had called around and in that calm way of his, fixed the problem, downloaded the email, and gotten the printer working again too. Lola and Margaret both had computers in their rooms. It made sense. The last thing they wanted to do was fall out over who got to spend more time online.

Emily had come with Luke. They went most places together these days, whenever Luke was back in Clare, which seemed to be more and more often. He’d been offered a job in the town’s main electrical shop, setting up his own computer department.

“It’s all going well between you?” Lola managed to ask Emily when Luke went out to his car to get a spare cable.

Whoosh.
Her face turned red.

“I’m glad to see it,” Lola said, smiling. “So it’s serious, do you think?”

More color rushed into her face. She nodded. “It’s like he’s my best friend, except he’s a boy,” Emily said, with a kind of amazement. “We can talk about anything.”

“What a lovely way to be,” Lola said.

Patricia approved of Emily, Lola had been glad to see. As the mother of an only son herself, Lola knew better than most how she might feel about Luke’s first serious girlfriend. “I like her a lot,” Patricia confided. “Not that I’d say anything if I didn’t.”

“We don’t need to say anything,” Lola had said, then laughed. “We do it all with meaningful glances, apparently.”

Lola had reported it all back to Margaret after Luke and Emily left. The pair’s budding relationship had been just one of their many conversation topics these past few months. Their living arrangement had worked out better than either of them might have hoped. There had been occasional glitches, of course. Only to be expected, they’d agreed. Two independent women under the same roof. They’d hit on the best way of dealing with them early on. A note left on the kitchen table. “I’m just no good at confrontation, Lola,” Margaret had said. “If I had to say it to your face, I’d get in a tizz.”

The problems and the notes had been very mild so far, Lola thought. Their main issue was that Lola was, well, just a little more untidy than Margaret.
Please don’t forget to put the milk back in the fridge after you’ve used it
, Margaret had written once.
Please put the phone back on the cradle after you’ve finished talking.

“You’re going to find me a challenge when I really start losing my marbles and forgetting things, Margaret. I can see the notes now.
Lola, please remember to dress yourself before leaving the house. Lola, have you got your teeth in? Lola, please don’t start on the gin before breakfast
.”

Lola had left Margaret only one note, a month after she’d moved in. She’d woken up, gazed out of her window, and realized that she felt happy. Safe. Content.

Thank you so much for having me. Sorry about the milk
, she’d written.

She’d liked the view from her motel room. The view from her new room at the back of Margaret’s house (“It’s our house, Lola,” Margaret kept saying, but Lola wasn’t used to saying that yet) was twice as beautiful. A glimpse of a dam. A sweep of hillside. A stretch of gum trees. At nighttime there was the sound of kookaburras. In the morning there were magpies. There was a willy-wagtail that played on the lawn each night. She and Margaret liked their own company, and both had plenty to do outside the house between the Baby Squad and their occasional shifts at the charity shop, but they liked each other’s company too. They kept to themselves in the morning, but often met for lunch, and if they felt like it, they’d spend the evening either watching TV or reading or listening to audio books. More often than not, though, they were entertaining.

They had a lot of visitors. Margaret’s gate had a slight squeak so they always had warning. Margaret offered to oil it, but Lola stopped her. She loved the sound of it, the anticipation, not knowing who was about to arrive. “If I can’t have a herald blowing a trumpet to signify a new arrival, the squeaky gate will do just fine,” she said.

She’d also had her own phone installed in her room. She’d spent a lot of time on the phone recently. Alex had rung most nights. Sometimes just to say hello. Sometimes to tell a story. Sometimes she rang him.

Early on, they’d cleared the air completely between them. There had been more apologies and explanations from Alex. Acceptance from Lola. There could have been anger, perhaps. She knew that. She could have asked him more questions. “Why didn’t you come back for me?” But they were too old for that. They’d had their lives. Good full lives. What more could either of them have asked for?

In another call, Lola asked him to list all his physical ailments. “This will be the only time I ever want to hear about them, so please do feel free to go into as much detail as you like.”

He did. She heard that he had hip problems, was on three different sorts of tablets, had had a couple of skin cancer scares, and his hearing wasn’t the best these days. She’d sympathized and then told him, in warm but firm tones, that she never wanted to waste any more talking time on medical matters. “That’s why God invented doctors, Alex. To keep friendships like ours alive.”

He read to her sometimes, or she read to him. She was halfway through reading him a Robert Ludlum thriller. He’d sent it to her for her eighty-fifth birthday in February. She was enjoying his reading of an Agatha Christie novel.

He knew all about her family. About Anna’s death. About Carrie and Bett’s relationship. About Lola’s relationship, or lack of relationship, with Geraldine. She knew about his family. That Rosie worked too hard. That Lucia was having a few marital problems. They talked about their friends. He asked about Margaret, Kay, Patricia, and Joan. She asked him about the weekly gatherings at the Italian-Australian Association. Their conversations weren’t always long. Sometimes they lasted less than five minutes, or even shorter. “Lola, it’s me. I’m doing a crossword. What’s a six-letter word for a wading bird?” “Alex, it’s me. What was the name of that opera you were telling me about?”

They hadn’t met in person. What was the rush? they’d decided. Why go to all the bother of flights and driving and sitting in airports just so they could see each other and talk? They already knew what each other looked like. Yes, perhaps they would like to have held hands, perhaps even kissed, but really, at their age, what else?

“Talking is the new sex,” Lola said to Bett. Bett looked quite shocked.

“There’s plenty of room for him to stay here too,” Margaret said, the week after Lola moved in with her. “If you want him to come and visit. There’s another spare bedroom.”

“He wouldn’t need it. He’d sleep with me.”

Margaret had looked a bit shocked too. What was it with these young people?

Lola had enjoyed telling Alex about the Baby Squad too. Not that she was in charge of it anymore. They’d been meeting at the charity shop one afternoon to see if any of the other retired ladies or even a few of the men might like to become squad members, when Mrs. Kernaghan swept in. She’d become very vocal with her ideas, suggesting that they think about copyrighting the name Baby Squad and drawing up a list of rules and regulations. One week later, they’d opened the
Valley Times
to find a long article and interview with Mrs. Kernaghan extolling the virtues of the squad, how it was all about the older generation sharing knowledge with the younger generation, fostering community links, and adding to the health and well-being of generations of women. “Charity is all very well, but it has to start at home, literally,” Mrs. Kernaghan was quoted as saying. “What could be more important than giving the young mothers and children of our beautiful Valley all the help we can?”

Bett hadn’t known anything about the interview. “I think she wrote the article herself,” she said.

Bett was still working at the newspaper one day a week. She’d come to a paid arrangement with her neighbor Jane to mind the twins while she worked. The Baby Squad still did regular housework raids on her house, though. Daniel was full-time at his job. The new setup was doing them both good, in Lola’s opinion. Bett was herself again, bright-eyed and happy. When she spoke about the twins, it was to share funny stories, and not with a look of fear and panic. She still complained about Carrie. But then Carrie still complained about her, too.

“Can’t you just complain directly to each other?” Lola said once. “Cut out the middleman?”

Carrie and Matthew were fine too, Lola knew. A marriage on traditional lines, Carrie the housewife, Matthew the breadwinner. It wouldn’t have been Lola’s choice, but it seemed to suit them. In the past month, Carrie had also started selling makeup on the side. “Marvelous idea! Play to your strengths,” Lola had said when Carrie called around to Margaret’s—to Lola and Margaret’s—to give them a free demonstration of the products. She’d been a bit too light-handed, Lola had thought—what was the point of wearing makeup if the effect was subtle and “barely there,” as Carrie had put it, reciting the lines. Lola had reapplied a few more layers after Carrie left.

In recent weeks, the weather had started to turn cooler. After the long hot summer, the autumn was spectacular, the vines bright red and orange. She’d described it to Alex. They often spoke about the places they’d both lived in and visited, cities he’d been to around the world, or towns in Australia that she and Jim had worked in. Places they’d both like to visit. “Where will we go this week?” she’d ask. She’d pick a city, Venice or San Francisco. Next time they spoke he’d have a few facts about each place to tell her.

In the past month they’d spoken more about meeting up in person. In the Clare Valley or in Melbourne? Melbourne, they decided.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to go to Brighton one more time?” he’d said. “Reenact that day we had, perhaps?”

Alex told her that his daughter Rosie had said she’d collect Lola from the airport and drive her and Alex anywhere they wanted to go. Rosie had said the same thing to Lola, when she answered the phone once. Lola liked the way she called her father Papa. “Papa always met me whenever I came home from any trip, and he always drove me to any place I needed to go, too. It’ll be good to return the favor.”

The flight to Melbourne was only an hour long. She should have come long before today. Should have, could have, would have. Didn’t. And there it was. She couldn’t change anything. She couldn’t make time stand still, go backward or slow down and let her savor good times. She just had to go where it took her.

“Stop saying sorry,” she’d said to Alex during their fifth, or perhaps it was their sixth, phone call. “We can’t change anything. Let’s just be glad we’ve got this chance to talk again.”

But if it was possible, of course there were things she would change in her life. Anna’s death, first and foremost. If there’d been anything she could have done to stop that happening, she’d have done it. It still made no sense. Nothing had ever seemed so unfair, for Anna, for Ellen. For any of them.