The Secrets We Keep (12 page)

Chapter 25

Other than my dad and Bridge, nobody I know has seen the flat yet. But the following afternoon, I'm waiting for Ellie to turn up and I'm pacing around feeling extremely embarrassed. Or nervous. Or both. Not that I think Ellie is the kind of girl who'll judge me. But compared to her place, this flat is like a boring cardboard box.

I've cleaned my room about twelve times. Okay, it takes three-and-a-half minutes to clean, so it's not exactly a big deal. But still, the bed looks like I've ironed it and there is nothing on my floor. I also put away all the dishes in the kitchen and I've made pancake batter in case Ellie's hungry. It's lumpy. I don't know how to smooth it out, but I figure Ellie probably won't care.

I fluff one of the cushions on the couch, but it doesn't look any different. It's another charity donation from one of Dad's friends. The stitching has started coming away, so the filling is escaping. I turn it around the other way and sit down.

My legs won't settle. I stand up again and go to the kitchen. On the fridge I see the list of all our things that burned. I scan my side and notice my running shoes are missing. So I grab a pen from the drawer and add them to the bottom.

It's 4.05pm. Ellie should be here any second. In fact she should have been here five minutes ago. But I'm not giving up on her yet! I turn the radio on and then off again a couple of times, unsure of whether music is the way to go.

I've just switched it off again when I hear a loud knock on the door. I jump. It's my first new friend arriving at my new flat!

I'm smiling as I open the door.

But my smile dies fast.

‘Hey, Clem.'

‘Mum.' I say it automatically, like a robot.

She reaches out for me but I step back. I want to slam the door shut, but she keeps coming and blocks the doorway. I don't want her to come in any further so I stand in her way.

‘Honey, you didn't answer my letter …'

What do I say?

‘I'm sorry to just turn up …'

She looks the same.

‘But I need to talk to you …'

Except that she's smiling.

‘Did Dad explain?'

Her voice is so soft.

‘Clem?' She looks like she did. BTF. Long before. Back when she was happy.

Her hand comes towards me like it's going to take mine and I see it shake, just slightly. And it's like her shake is shaking me because my head starts to move, telling her to go, telling her to leave, and then Ellie's suddenly behind her and I see her and I see Mum and I can feel it all crashing in.

‘Hey, Clem.' Ellie's voice sounds so normal.

‘Hi,' I say, but all I'm thinking is,
how am I going to get out of this?

Mum turns and sees Ellie and I can hear her introducing herself and I can see the look of confusion on Ellie's face as she flicks from me to Mum and back to me and then turns and runs away from the flat without even coming inside to see how clean my room is.

I don't say anything. I just reach up and hit the door hard enough for it to slam in my mother's face, answering her without a single word.

Chapter 26

‘Clem? You awake?'

Dad has already tried three times to lure me from my room with food, a movie, and even ice-cream. I've ignored him.

Until now.

I roll over, my eyes stinging from unshed tears. He looks as bad as I feel.

‘She says she didn't start the fire, Clem.'

‘Well we all know that's not true, don't we?'

‘Do we?'

‘Oh, Dad. Please.'

He comes into my room and sits on the edge of my bed. I stay where I am. In all my clothes,
under the doona, like I'll never get warm
again.

‘She says she lit the candle … but that's all. She didn't know what would happen.'

‘I don't care, Dad.'

‘Yes you do. Read the letter.'

He leans down, kisses me gently and says, ‘I love you.' He stands up and a bit of bark falls from his hair onto my pillow, like he takes the garden with him wherever he goes.

‘Read the letter.'

I hear Dad shut the door, but I can't get up. It's like that day again, that first day after everything in my life burnt and I had to watch it. When I couldn't get off Bridge's bed for hours.

I just can't believe Mum was actually on my doorstep.

And she looked normal. Her eyes weren't dark rimmed and sad. She was wearing clothes that fit, not that horrible oversized men's jumper I hated. And her hair was short and clean. I think she might even have had make-up on.

What must Ellie think? I'm sure if I have to, Dad will let me change schools so I can avoid her. But I can't think about her right now.

The letter is shoved into the back of
Harriet the Spy
along with the photo of Mum and me when I still believed in Santa.

I take it out and unfold it. My hands are shaking worse than Mum's were. I take a deep breath and read.

Dear Clem

I rang and asked your dad if I could write to you. He said yes. I hope you don't mind.

I want you to understand something about the fire. That night I couldn't get out of bed so your dad offered to pick you up from netball training and grab some dinner on the way home. After he left I lit a candle. I often did that. Sometimes it helped. But that night, I fell asleep. And when I woke up there was fire all around me.

I panicked. And I ran. I didn't call the fire brigade. I didn't try to put it out. I just ran.

I'm sorry, Clem. I'm so, so sorry. Everything did burn because of me, but I didn't intend for it to happen. I just couldn't do anything about it after it had started. I think I thought that Jack would call the fire brigade and it would all be okay.

I've had some help since that night. I was in hospital after the fire and now I'm seeing a really good doctor. My head is clearing a bit. I'm feeling better. In fact, I'm starting to feel like me again.

I hope one day you can forgive me.

Love Mum

I stare at the word ‘love' for so long my eyes sting. I close them and the word is still there, behind my eyes. Imprinted.

Even if the letter is true, what does it all mean? Does it change anything? My home is still gone. My stuff is still gone. And my mum is still gone.

Nah, it doesn't make much difference at all.

I slide back down into my bed and pull the doona over my head.

There's pasta on the table when I finally crawl out about three hours later. It's in a steel pot with a tight lid so it's not too cold. Dad offers to reheat it, but I tell him it's fine. I dump four scoops into a bowl and join him on the couch. He's watching some nature documentary. That's his sort of thing.

Like Maggie, he doesn't try to talk. He just lets me eat.

On the screen there's a debate about which animals are the ugliest. Images of all kinds of creatures flash across the screen. The camera freezes on a proboscis monkey. If you haven't seen one, then Google them. They have the most bizarre looking noses. Apparently, for mating, the bigger the nose the better, but the presenter is arguing that their noses are ridiculous-looking flaps that make them the ugliest animal around.

‘That's not ugly,' argues Dad.

‘Almost makes your nose look in proportion,' I joke.

Dad looks at me and raises an eyebrow.

‘You've inherited this nose, Clem. And yours will keep growing.'

‘So, are you saying that I'll be this small size for the rest of my life but with an enormous bulbous nose?'

‘You're saying that. Not me.'

I scrape my fork around the pasta bowl, deliberately making the noise Dad hates. He glares at me and returns to his show. They've now moved on to a supposedly ugly insect.

‘Good dinner,' I say, almost licking the bowl.

‘Did you read the letter?' He doesn't look at me. Just slips the question in while staring at a stink beetle.

I'm debating whether to answer when he flicks off the television and leans back so he can see me properly. I'm feeling duped into this conversation because I at least thought I had until the end of the show before we would ‘talk'. The fridge is buzzing like it's warning us that it won't be around much longer, and I can hear someone singing along to a song down the hall. Just the normal sounds of a normal night in my not-so-normal life.

‘Yeah.' I clear my throat and add, ‘I read the letter.'

‘And?'

I pull my shoulders up as far as they will go and drop them down again to make sure he categorically knows that I'm shrugging.

Then he says quietly, ‘Do you believe her?'

‘It doesn't matter if I believe her. It matters if I care.' I bang my bowl down on the coffee table and the fridge stops buzzing for a second before making a shuddering noise.

‘Come on, Clem. Of course it matters. She either lit the fire deliberately or she didn't. You have to have an opinion on that. Nobody else can tell you. You either believe her or you don't.'

I stare at him, feeling a charge through my body. ‘She still ran away. She let
our
house burn down by running. It doesn't matter whether it was an accident or not.'

My dad rarely gets angry. Even when Mum was bedridden, when she was crying all the time and not eating, he didn't get angry. Not once. But now there's this steely look in his eyes that I've never seen.

‘No. I won't accept that, Clem. It matters. To me it matters. And it should matter to you, too.'

‘Yeah? Well it doesn't.'

I stomp out of the room and slam my bedroom door, causing the wall to rattle. It doesn't make me feel any better but at least it tells Dad that I think he's wrong.

Sometime in the night I wake up. It's dark and I'm still in my clothes. I can hear my dad crying on the couch. And I hate my mum more than I've ever hated her before.

Chapter 27

There's no packed lunch waiting for me this morning. Clearly my dad is trying to send me a door-slamming message of his own. I take an apple and a muesli bar instead.

I'm not even sure why I'm going to school today, but it's better than staying in the flat where Mum might just turn up, so, even though I'm fully expecting some sort of fallout from Ellie, I walk through the gates like it's just another day.

I find Tam waiting for me at my locker with a delighted face that says she knows I lied. I don't bother trying to smile at her because I know there's no point.

Tam takes less than five seconds to start her attack.

‘So your mum rose from the dead last night, did she? Good for you.'

I kneel down, open my locker and shove in my stuff.

‘I knew you were trouble that first day,' she says in a smug voice.

I pull out my folder and pencil case, pretending I can't hear her.

‘But I can't believe you lied to Ellie.'

If I were ever going to swear, then now would be a good time to really let loose. But I'm not. So I swallow all the angry words, stand up, look Tam in the eye, and then slowly walk past, brushing her shoulder just enough to make my point.

I walk into the learning neighbourhood and see Ellie sitting in one of the red armchairs. She stares at me. Her eyes are so sad I have to look away. I can cope with Tam's anger, but Ellie's sadness is harder because it's partly my fault.

‘Bell's gone, guys, grab a seat,' says Rebecca, walking in with a cup of tea.

I take a chair as far away as possible from Ellie and look everywhere else but at her as the other kids sit down. Is it just my imagination or are there dirty looks flying my way from every corner of the room?

Rebecca starts reading out the roll so I wait for my name to be called.

‘Clem Timmins?'

‘Here,' I reply softly.

From across the room I hear Tam laugh.

After marking everyone off, Rebecca asks us to pair up for a project on how glass is made. I feel like groaning.

I wait for everyone to find a friend, hoping there's someone other than me left over. As the pairs start to leave the room to work at the tables in the learning neighbourhoods, I see Ellie still sitting in her chair. Tam is standing above her and whatever she's saying is making Ellie shake her head.

‘Clem, have you got a partner?' asks Rebecca, loudly enough for everyone left in the class to hear.

‘Um …' I reply, just as Ellie jumps up and says, ‘Yeah. Me.'

Tam swears under her breath and storms out of the room.

‘Okay. Well get to it, then,' says Rebecca.

Ellie walks over, sits down next to me and stretches her long legs out.

I wait for her to say something, but she doesn't. She just opens her folder, takes out a fresh page of lined paper and starts writing.

After a while she asks, ‘What do you know about glass?'

Do I try to be funny? Maybe it will help. ‘It breaks if you drop it.'

She actually writes this down, so I keep going. ‘You melt sand to make it. It can be coloured. It's transparent. I wasn't allowed to drink out of one until I was four because I was so clumsy.'

She doesn't write down my last point, but adds other facts of her own. As I watch her attempts to stay on the lines with her crooked handwriting I'm compelled to say something true.

‘I'm sorry, Ellie …'

She shrugs like she doesn't care. But she must. I lied to her. Big time.

‘You know the athletics carnival is on tomorrow,' she says, doodling on the page.

‘Yeah.'

She looks up and I see sparks in her eyes. ‘I'm going to thrash you.'

I don't know how to answer so I start fiddling with the earring in my right ear.

Ellie hands me her piece of paper and stands up. ‘I'm going to go and work with my real friend now. I'm sure you'll be fine on your own.'

I watch her walk out of the room and imagine how pleased Tam will feel when she realises Ellie has dumped me for her.

*

Running home from school is becoming a bit of a pattern. I'm pretending that it's because I'm training for the athletics carnival tomorrow, but the truth is I'm looking for a speedy escape. From everything.

When I get back to the flats I don't want to risk talking to anyone, so I duck straight out into the courtyard. The plants Dad and I put in have started growing and it already seems greener and fresher than it did. I sit down at the edge of the paving and try to relax my legs. But they feel coiled up like a snake.

I watch a posse of ants running crazily in all directions and I wonder if something in their world is wrong. Something I can't see.

‘You hiding out here?'

I look up and see Maggie walking out with a mug in her hand.

I half shrug and Maggie laughs. The sound is so unexpected that it makes me want to tell her something. ‘Yeah, sort of.'

‘I have chocolate biscuits reserved for days like this. Hang on while I go inside and grab them.'

I watch her disappear into the block of flats and I consider disappearing myself. I don't really want to be around anyone tonight. Not even Maggie. But she's back before I can decide what to do.

‘If I don't hide these in my cupboard then I eat them all in one go.' She holds her hand out, victoriously brandishing a packet of Mint Slice. ‘I don't think we need to bother with a plate, do you?'

‘No. Definitely not.'

Maggie sits down next to me on the paving and places her mug of tea on the ground causing the ants to scatter. She rips open the packet, slides out the tray and I greedily take two biscuits: one for each hand.

‘Okay, now you can tell me why you're hiding,' says Maggie, nibbling the chocolate and mint off her biscuit.

‘Actually I'm fine,' I say.

She nods and leans back, looking up and smelling the air. ‘I think it's going to rain.'

And just as she says it, a heavy raindrop lands on the end of my nose. I can't help but giggle because of the timing. ‘Well that explains the ants moving so strangely,' I say as a few more drops fall.

Maggie looks up at the sky, like she's challenging the clouds to wet us.

‘Animals are very clever creatures. I sometimes think they're much smarter than us. Probably because language gets in the way of understanding,' she says quietly, dropping a few crumbs onto the ground. The ants gather around our feet like little kids rushing at Santa.

I nibble around the edge of my second biscuit as my fingers become covered in melted chocolate. ‘Is that why you have fish?' I ask.

As she turns to look at me, she scrunches up her nose and I see how many freckles she has, just like me.

‘Put Put died this morning,' she says quietly.

I gasp. ‘No.'

She reaches for my hand and pats it gently. ‘Yep. I found him floating at the top of the tank.'

‘But … he was my favourite …'

‘I know. He was mine, too. But he was old and fish don't live as long as other animals. I thought we could bury him somewhere out here in the courtyard. What do you think?'

I feel a heaviness in my chest as more and more raindrops fall onto my head. Within seconds the sky has opened up and we're covered in tears from the clouds.

Maggie makes a run for it up the stairs to her flat and I follow without even thinking.

‘Here you go, Clem. Dry yourself off,' she says, handing me a fluffy green towel.

As I rub the towel over my hair and face, I can't help but look over at the tank to the hollowed out patch that Put Put was madly digging the last time I was here. And that's all it takes for everything I've been holding inside me to break. The tears start to fall and I'm crying.

‘Come on, honey. Come sit down at the table. I'll put the kettle on.' Maggie steers me over to a chair.

Like my tears, I can't stop the words from bubbling up inside me. I feel like my chest is going to explode if they aren't released. I take a ragged breath and splutter, ‘You know how I told you my friend's mum died?'

Maggie nods.

I rub at my eyes. ‘Well, I didn't know Ellie's mum was sick when I first met her. But I told Ellie my mum had died,' I say, sniffing and wiping my nose with my sleeve.

‘And?'

I shudder as I realise Maggie doesn't know anything about my mum. ‘My mum's not dead. I made it up.'

‘Oh,' she says, placing an old-fashioned china cup down in front of me. ‘Why?'

This is the tricky part. The secret I haven't really admitted to anyone. Even myself. I wipe my eyes and sniff away the last of my tears. ‘After our house burnt down, I was really angry … I thought Mum had deliberately lit the fire because she was so sad. Maybe she did. I don't know. But while Dad and I were watching the fire brigade try to fight it, I had this horrible thought that if Mum were inside and she burnt, too, then …'

I can't say the rest. I drop my head, too ashamed to look at Maggie to see what she thinks of me.

‘Then?' Maggie prompts.

‘My life would be easier.'

Maggie picks up her cup of tea and takes a sip. It clinks as she places it back down on the china saucer. ‘So you lied to your friend?'

I nod and bite into a chocolate biscuit, trying so hard not to start crying again.

‘Why would it be easier if your mum died, Clem?'

‘Because she was always in bed and crying and sad and I didn't understand why she couldn't just be like other mums.'

Now it's Maggie's turn to nod. ‘She was depressed.'

‘I guess. Yeah.'

‘Depression is just like being physically sick. She didn't choose to feel like that, Clem. She just did.'

‘I guess.'

‘What would happen if you told your friend the truth? The girl who lost her mum?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You could try. Try explaining and see what she says.'

I shake my head, imagining Ellie's reaction. ‘But her mum was really sick. She died. Mine didn't.'

‘But you wanted her to …'

‘Yeah. I did.'

When I look up, I hide behind my messy hair. I can just see Maggie watching me and I'm relieved that her eyes are still kind and not full of judgement.

‘How about a game of Scrabble?'

The question throws me for a second. Could Maggie know that I used to play with Mum and she'd patiently explain why ‘cathedral' wasn't spelt ‘catherd' or that sometimes she'd just let me go with my imaginative spelling, even if it meant I scored nearly 100 points in one go and won the game?

But then Maggie says, ‘Do you know how to play?'

I nod. ‘Yeah.'

Maggie's Scrabble set is really old. The tiles are wooden and the board has a strong crease down the middle from being opened and closed so many times.

I pick up seven letters and place them on the rack. Looking at the tiles and touching them in my hands is pulling me back to Mum, to our old kitchen and to playing board games in winter with cups of hot chocolate. And it reminds me that Mum wasn't always sad. We used to rug up in Dad's pyjamas and play on the floor in front of the
heater, giggling as she'd try to teach me to spell her
favourite words.

‘You go first, Clem.'

I rearrange my tiles, trying to escape my memory. Then I see a word that I've made: ACHE. And I feel like Mum is with me, in this flat, in my head and, all of a sudden, I really need to see Dad.

‘Sorry, Maggie, but I have to go. I'll see you another day,' I say, leaping up quickly and tipping over the rack of tiles.

Maggie starts to follow. ‘Oh, Clem. Are you okay? I'll walk you back …'

I hear the concern in her voice, but I run out the door, down the stairs and back to our flat. I try to put the key into the lock but my hand is shaking. I steady it with my other hand and finally the door swings open.

Dad's asleep on the couch again. Only one of his muddy boots is on the square of newspaper in the kitchen, the other is still on his foot. I bend down to untie the laces and try to slide it off without waking him, but it gets a stuck. I'm just about to give up, when I hear him cough.

‘Clem, your hair's wet,' he says, sitting up.

I pat it, feeling the frizz caused by the rain. ‘Yeah. A little.'

‘The plants will be happy. Hasn't rained like that for a while.' Dad gazes out the window.

My heart is pounding as the words take shape. ‘Dad …' I start. Then all of a sudden they burst out of my mouth. ‘I think I'm ready to see Mum.'

Dad looks back at me and slowly starts to nod. ‘Okay,' he replies.

Only ‘okay'? I'd expected a hug at least or something to show me that he understands how hard this is for me. I slump back against the couch, still on the ground, still looking at the bottom of Dad's muddy boot. I can see all the little tucks and grooves underneath it, where seeds and grasses have been trapped, like they are hoping if they hold on tight enough they might get a free and exciting ride.

‘I'll get started on dinner now. Okay, honey?'

‘Okay.'

I feel Dad's rough hand pat my damp hair as he gets up from the couch.

But I'm not hungry at all.