Times of Trouble (7 page)

I was tempted to sit
at Picasso and say my final goodbyes with our favourite Mozart, but
when I went into the living room, mum was taking her turn to bid
the piano farewell. She was carefully cleaning and polishing,
buffing and waxing each key, making his shiny black top sparkle
like glass. So I did something I hadn’t done for years; I went into
Sophie’s bedroom.

Unlike Sophie, mum
preferred everything to be in its place, so the room didn’t look
anything like it did when Sophie lived here. Mum had packed up all
her things and put them away neatly in every possible storage
space. Her double bed was still where it always was, in the corner
under the window, taking up most of the room. But now it had a
plain quilt cover, suitable for the guests we never had. The only
other pieces of furniture were a large built-in cupboard, made of
dark wood, stretched across one wall, and a big desk and chair
which were bulky and mismatched. The posters of The Beatles were
gone; there were still chips in the paint where mum had peeled off
the Blue Tack. The room seemed bigger when Sophie was here, either
because I was smaller then, or because her things were always
strewn all over the floor and the bed, on top of the desk and
spilling out of the cupboards. Maybe a bit of both.

I remembered the
closest mum and I got to talking about Sophie since she left was
about four years after we last heard from her. Mum was cleaning my
room and commented on how little space I had, not even room for
anything other than a bed and the built-in wardrobe. She suggested
I might like to move into Sophie’s room, since it was so much
bigger than mine. I quickly refused, hoping she wouldn’t mention it
again. Sophie’s room was her room; what would she think if she came
home to find me in it? I must have still been hoping she would come
back, not yet ready to admit she was gone for good.

The cupboards were
still full of her clothes, and the shelves above packed with old
school books, novels and even toys. You only had to glance at the
rack of dresses, now hanging neatly, to see Sophie was a
‘colourful’ person. Not ‘colourful’ in the sense of using bad
language or being gay or whatever, but literally colourful. One of
the dresses had splashes of yellow on top of pink and blue flowers.
Another was white, with pinstripe lines of every colour imaginable.
Sophie always made her clothes look like they were the height of
fashion or she was setting a new trend. She mostly bought them with
her pocket money at op shops; mum certainly didn’t buy them for
her. And I had a recollection of her sewing, to make them fit, or
to take up a hem. She probably could have been a fashion designer
if she wasn’t so set on becoming an actress. I never asked to
borrow her clothes, even when we were still friends. I simply
couldn't pull them off.

I sat down at the
chunky desk chair and traced my finger along the grooves where
Sophie had doodled. She was always good at finding anything to do
other than homework. She didn’t doodle like most teenagers did,
with
I luv michael
or
school sux
. Her
doodles were mostly the lyrics to The Beatles songs, and quite
amazingly lifelike drawings of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Mum
always thought she would grow out of her love for The Beatles, but
Sophie’s preoccupation passed through the description of ‘phase’,
and turned into ‘obsession’. She didn’t just dabble in things; she
turned them into her passion, letting them grab hold of her and
drag her through the mundane parts of life. I guess I did this with
the piano, so maybe we were more alike than I realised.

More out of boredom
than in an attempt to go through Sophie’s things, I wriggled open
the drawers on the side of the desk, and flicked through the piles
of paper and envelopes. Mum really was a hoarder. She must have
gone through all this stuff and decided it was worth keeping. There
was everything from report cards, to invitations to eight year
olds’ birthday parties, to stories written in the semi-illiterate
scrawl of a five year old. Near the bottom of one of the drawers
was a large envelope, with thick cardboard mounted photos inside.
They were Sophie’s class photos throughout her entire time at high
school. I stared at the rows and rows of faces; most were
strangers, but a few I recognised. The girl standing next to Sophie
was Tina Gianopoulos, Sophie’s best friend. Suddenly an idea sprang
into my mind; Facebook!

Back before I became
a virtual recluse, one of my friends invited me to join Facebook. I
had heard of it many times since. Even my youngest piano student,
Alice, who was only 13, was a member, and talked about it all the
time. I remembered telling her I wished she spent as much time
practising piano as she did updating her Facebook profile. I had,
so far, never bothered to sign up. What was the point of
‘networking’ with people if you couldn’t bear the thought of them
asking about your life? If anyone I knew saw me on Facebook, their
first question would be ‘so how is your piano stuff going?’ and my
response would be... to log off! But this could be my best chance
to get in touch with Sophie. Liam didn’t seem to be getting
anywhere. Maybe I could be some use.

I hardly ever used my
email account. There was no point, when I never contacted anyone.
It didn’t take me long to scroll through my old emails to find the
one inviting me to join. Within moments, I was officially part of
the Facebook universe. I typed Sophie’s name into the search,
wondering for the first time whether it was possible she married
and changed her name. Much to my amazement, there were over 2,000
Sophie Goddards; I had forgotten Facebook was an international
site. I scrolled through the photos for what felt like hours, but
was probably only minutes, and none of them were my sister. There
were a handful of profiles that didn't have a photo, but the
profiles said they lived in the US so were very unlikely to be
Sophie. Determined not to hit a dead end so soon, I decided to see
if I could find Tina Gianopoulos. Just because Sophie lost touch
with me and mum, didn't mean she had ditched all the people from
her past. I grabbed the school photo from the bedroom to check the
spelling of the last name and typed this into the Facebook search.
Thankfully there was only one result, but the photo only vaguely
resembled the teenage Tina in the class photograph. I clicked on
the 'send a message' button underneath the tiny photograph, and
wrote 'Hi Tina, are you the Tina Gianopoulos who left Marryatville
High School in 1999?' As I clicked send on the message, I wondered
if she would remember me. I was just Sophie’s annoying little
sister to all her friends, but my name would still ring a bell with
Tina, wouldn't it? I sat back deflated, all the excitement now
drowned out by impatience. I had only just started investigating,
and was already learning it wasn't as easy as it looked. I had no
tolerance for the whole one step forward, two steps back
thing.

‘
Mum, have you heard
of Facebook?’

Mum was still
polishing Picasso. She didn’t look like she was doing a chore; she
appeared to be enjoying herself.

‘
Yes, I have heard of
it. I read an article about it in the paper a while ago. What about
it?’

‘
Oh, I just thought
I’d join up, do some fishing around to see if Sophie was on there.
I couldn't find her but then I thought we might be able to get in
contact with someone who went to school with Sophie, to see if they
have heard from her since she moved to London.’

I tried to play down
my self-congratulatory tone. I had been tempted to tell mum I was
amazed Liam hadn’t thought of it, but mum wasn’t reacting well to
insults to Liam. She straightened up, stretching out her
back.

‘
That’s a great idea,
love. I’m sure it couldn’t hurt.’

‘
What do you mean, it
couldn’t hurt?’

Mum went to say
something, but then stopped herself, a sure sign she was trying to
come up with a less confrontational way to explain something to
me.

‘
You’ve read the
emails Liam sent. This search for Sophie isn’t just based on
curiosity, or my wish to be reunited with her.’

‘
Of course it’s not,
mum, I know that, as well as you do. But how could it hurt for me
to send an email to a girl she knew 10 years ago?’

Mum sighed and
started to rub her temple with the side of her hand. ‘Liam
explained that he doesn’t want to endanger us as well. I just don’t
want you to get too involved. I’m worried sick about Sophie as it
is.’

If I were to be
honest with mum at that moment, she would have got very angry with
me. She didn’t realise how much I doubted Liam. She hadn’t caught
on that I thought he was a total liar, who was stealing as much
money as he could. But last time I came close to suggesting this,
mum looked like she was going to snap. So I stayed off the subject
of Liam.

‘
Mum, what on earth
could happen to us in little old Adelaide? I have absolutely no
idea what this danger is, or how it relates to Sophie, so I find it
really difficult to take it all seriously.’

‘
I can see
that...’

‘
And apart from
everything else, I’m bored! Bored bored bored! I can’t just sit
around and pretend to be reading or watching TV, when all I can
think about is Sophie and Liam and the money and Picasso. It’s
driving me nuts!’

My voice had grown
louder and louder until ‘nuts’ was so shrill and drawn out that I
must have sounded like a four year old warming up to a tantrum. I
stood with my hands on my hips to complete the scene. Mum stopped
polishing again, and looked at me, her eyes asking me to speak
sensibly.

‘
If you are finished,
maybe I'll play for a while?’

‘
Would it help you to
calm down?’

‘
You know as well as
I do it works every time.’

‘
Ok then. I’m
finishing up anyway. Why don’t we put together a rehearsal schedule
like we used to, and I can choose all my favourites?’

Mum’s favourites were
the same as mine, so it sounded like an excellent send off for
Picasso. And a time consuming diversion to fill the rest of the
morning for me.

Before I sat down on
the stool, mum lifted the lid to empty out the contents, since the
stool would be going with the piano. There were some old music
books I had forgotten about, along with some loose sheet music, an
electronic metronome, and an old broken piano wire that was
replaced a couple of years ago. Mum neatly packed all the books
onto the shelf along with the hundreds already stored there. While
her back was turned, I coiled the wire up, and put it in my pocket.
It was the only piece of Picasso I could hang onto.

Chapter 7

Vince poured himself
a glass of red wine as he waited for his visitors to arrive. They
were five minutes late already. He hated waiting. This was their
first visit to his beach house. They were no doubt unused to the
dirt road that took them out of the town, winding around the back
of the sand dunes which kept each house secluded. He had known as
soon as he saw this house it was where he would live in Australia.
He couldn’t buy it; it wasn’t for sale. If it was, he would have
paid cash for it immediately. But he could lease it, and that would
have to do. He didn't know how long he would be working in
Australia, but his business interests were growing so fast, it was
hard to think of a good reason to leave. And from all accounts,
things in London were moving along nicely as well.

This house made him
feel right at home. It wasn’t just its private location he
appreciated. The deck leading straight onto white sand dunes was
handy. The private beach beyond made him feel safe. As if he could
share his secrets with the sea and no one else. The towering glass
panelled walls, tinted to provide protection from the sun, made it
feel like a fortress. He could see out, but no one could see in.
Exactly how he liked to live. The giant, sparsely furnished living
area was at the centre of the house, the open first story gallery
making it visible from every other room. And the master bedroom was
ample space for Melissa to inhabit. She could stay out of his way,
and he could stay out of hers. As long as she wasn’t needed for
something. The house made him feel powerful and secure, which meant
it was worth its weight in gold.

He wouldn’t let his
visitors use unfamiliarity with the location as an excuse for
lateness. All his employees quickly learnt no excuses were
tolerated. It was better just to apologise when at fault, and say
nothing more.

When the car arrived,
he could hear it was driven in a panic. He watched through his
glass walls as it skidded to a halt, leaving a cloud of sand behind
like a rally driver throwing up dust. His visitors scurried to the
front door, and knocked quickly; he could almost feel them
quivering through vibrations in the floor. This was exactly how he
liked visitors to be; firmly on the back foot, unwilling to
contradict him. Before he got up to open the door, he yelled to
Melissa to go upstairs into their bedroom. If there was one thing
he hated it was when his visitors perved at his girlfriend. She
lived in a bikini whilst at the beach house, not by her own choice,
but by his. She was already half way up the stairs by the time he
ordered her there. She knew as soon as she heard the car he would
be having a ‘meeting’ she was not to be present at.