Lola's Secret (3 page)

It was as if Belle had read her mind. “Let’s make a wish each. Me first. I wish we could see snow this Christmas.”

“We’ll sing ‘White Christmas’ anyway, I promise,” Holly said. “And ‘Jingle Bells’ especially for you, Jingle Belle. Your turn to make a wish, Chloe. Can you put a carol in it somehow?”

Chloe gave a little jump as something crashed to the floor outside. “I wish we could have a silent night this Christmas.”

She was trying to make a joke but none of them laughed. Holly leaned forward and turned up the volume on the radio beside the computer, hoping the cheery pop song might drown out the argument that was now following the smashed vase or glass or cup. “Congratulations, Chloe. Your wish has just come true,” she said firmly. “Let’s do it, will we? Head off somewhere and have our own quiet Christmas? Tell Mum and Dad we’re not coming back until they stop fighting?”

Two little faces looked up in amazement. “Could we? Really?”

Could they? Really? She thought quickly. She had her driver’s license. She’d got it as soon as she turned sixteen. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t supposed to be driving without a fully licensed driver in the car with her, but, strictly speaking, children were supposed to have happy Christmases and not be thinking about running away from their endlessly warring parents …

Was she actually doing this? Thinking about running away with her two sisters for Christmas?

Yes, she was. And for the first time in weeks, the tight feeling in her chest lessened a little bit.

“Wouldn’t that be an adventure?” she said to Belle and Chloe. “A proper Christmas adventure.”

“But where will we go?” Belle asked.

“That’s where the adventure begins,” Holly said, as she typed the words “hotel” and “Christmas” into the search engine.

Before she pressed Send, Belle hopped off her lap and ran into her bedroom. She was back moments later holding the bear-shaped moneybox Holly had bought her for her birthday five months earlier. She’d found it in a charity shop for ten cents. All it had needed was a bit of a clean. Belle loved it. She not only kept every bit of spare change she ever found or earned inside it, she also slept with it in her arms each night.

Now, though, she pulled at its belly until a gap appeared and a tumble of coins waterfalled onto the floor. “Let’s use this money. I’ve been saving up for something exciting and this sounds perfect.”

“I’ll get mine too.” Chloe was back minutes later with her savings, kept in a little pink purse covered in red hearts. That had been a present from Holly too, also bought in a charity shop.

Holly didn’t have the heart to tell her sisters that all their money, even added to Holly’s own small savings from her job in a bakery in the center of the city, wouldn’t pay for lunch in a motel, let alone a night or two. But they were so happy she didn’t have the heart to stop the fun yet.

“Great,” she said brightly. “But we’ll use my money for the boring things like motel rooms and food, and your money for ice creams and chips only, okay?” They both clambered back up beside her, their little bodies pressed on either side. “Now, what are your ages again? I’ve forgotten.”

“Six!” Belle said.

“Eight!” said Chloe.

“Which equals fourteen. Right, then. Let’s choose the fourteenth motel on this list. You both count for me.” Down they went, bypassing motels in Queensland, Tasmania, Melbourne, Mildura, down, down until they reached number fourteen. Holly nearly laughed. Some adventure. They’d chosen a motel less than two hours’ drive away. Still, she’d go along with it.

“The Valley View Motel,” Belle read aloud. “Click on it, Holly.”

“Click on it, Holly,” Chloe echoed.

Up came the motel website. “There’s a pool!” Belle said. There was, only a small one, but it looked blue and inviting. The photos of the interior showed a brightly lit function room and a cheerful dining room.

“What would we have for our Christmas lunch?” Belle asked. Belle was very interested in food. She’d told Holly that when she grew up she was going to open a chain of bakeries called Belle’s Buns. Holly had found it hard not to smile.

Holly clicked on the sample menu and read it aloud.

“Yum,” Belle said, sighing at every description.

“I hate prawns,” Chloe said, looking worried.

“I’m sure you could have something else. Vegemite on toast, maybe?”

“On Christmas Day? No way!”

“That’s a poem,” Belle said. “On Christmas Day, no way, hooray!”

The two girls laughed. Chloe pointed to the screen. “Is that where you book? Go on, Holly, please.”

Holly couldn’t stop their fun yet. She scanned the website. There was a Christmas special on offer, three nights’ accommodation and a Christmas lunch. She’d send off an email and then later tell the girls that she was sorry, the motel was so good it was already booked out, but they’d have a pretend motel themselves here on Christmas Day. She’d set it all up herself, with a little counter for them to check in at. She’d make up their twin beds to look identical like they would in a motel. She’d even pretend to be their waitress and cleaner if she had to …

She filled out the online form. “They’ll probably give us a family room,” she said, now wishing it was all for real. “With a big TV. And a big bed for me and tiny beds in cardboard boxes for you two.”

“I’m not sleeping in a cardboard box,” Belle said. “Chloe and I are going to sleep in the big bed with you.”

“Maybe Mum and Dad can sleep in the cardboard boxes,” Chloe said. “But only if they’ve stopped fighting and we’ve told them they’re allowed to come. It’s a secret till then, anyway, isn’t it, Holly?”

“It sure is,” Holly said. “Now, who’ll press Send?”

Both girls did, their fingers on the mouse together.

“Right,” Holly said, standing up. Her sisters slid off the seat beside her. “Enough computer for today. Homework time.”

Holly was in her bedroom helping Belle with her reading ten minutes later when Chloe came running in. The fighting had stopped in the living room. Now there was just something that felt like a cloud of hostility and anger in the house, like a fog leaking into corners. Holly smiled at the funny expression on her little sister’s face. Her cheeks were red, her eyes were wide, and yet her mouth was clamped tight. “What’s up, Chloe?”

She said something but with her hand over her mouth.

“Chloe? What is it? Good or bad?”

“Something on the computer,” Chloe said, in a whisper. “Holly, hurry. Come and look.”

Holly followed her, puzzled, with Belle close behind.

Chloe had already opened the email that had come in. The message was up on the screen. The subject line was
CONGRATULATIONS!

I
N
H
ONG
K
ONG
, the temperature outside the high-rise building was a warm twenty-two degrees. Inside the luxury apartment on the twentieth floor the air was cool and the mood frosty. For the fifth time, Glenn knocked on his twelve-year-old daughter’s bedroom door.

“Ellen, please. I’m begging you.”

Silence.

“Just say hello. A quick hello.”

Silence.

“She’s dying to meet you again.” He winced even as he said the word dying. The wrong choice. So very much the wrong choice. “Please, darling. Talk to me.”

Ellen didn’t actually need to tell him how she was feeling and why she wouldn’t come out of her room. For the past six weeks she’d taken every opportunity she could to tell him how she felt about his new girlfriend and how she felt about his new girlfriend’s daughter. “I don’t care that you think you love her. I don’t care that her daughter is the same age as me. I don’t care if you think she’s been lonely, too. I don’t want to meet her again, or meet her stupid lonely daughter, and if you cared about me, you wouldn’t be going out with her either.” That conversation had ended with a slammed door. Another day of silence.

He’d seen a counselor. Tried to explain the situation as succinctly as possible. “My wife—Ellen’s mother—died almost five years ago. I thought Ellen and I had a good relationship. I’d seen other women in that time, Ellen knew that, but when I met Denise, it was different. I followed all the guidelines, didn’t bring her home to meet Ellen until I knew it was serious between us.”

“And what happened at that first meeting?”

It had started well enough. Until Ellen noticed how affectionate Glenn and Denise were. She stood beside the photo of Anna that was center stage in the living room.

“I don’t need a new mother,” she said to Denise, ignoring Glenn.

Denise had glanced across at Glenn before smiling a little nervously. “I don’t want to be your mother.”

“Good. I don’t want you living with us either.”

“She’s still sad, still grieving,” the counselor said. “You just have to be patient.”

Glenn had been as patient as he could. Loving. Understanding. But he’d also been lonely. Ready to meet someone new. He’d tried everything he could to ease the way with Ellen, to talk about his dates as friends, to mention casually if he was going out to dinner. She seemed fine if it was casual, if he saw anyone once or twice. But the change was immediate if he even hinted that it was more than that.

“You’ve forgotten about Mum already? You told me she meant everything to you. If you lied about that, how do I know you won’t lie to me about everything else?”

Was it just that she was nearing her teenage years? Would that account for the transformation from his sweet little Ellen into this outspoken, sometimes downright rude brat? Time and time again he was tempted to shout back at her. Slam doors as loudly as her, too. He’d been forced to seek advice from female colleagues who were also the parents of teenage girls. “Don’t rise to her bait. You have to stay the adult in the relationship.” Easier said than done. He’d even joined some online forums for single parents, but retreated quickly when they seemed to be thinly disguised dating sites. Finally, he’d resorted to asking his elderly mother for advice. Calling her in her luxury retirement home in Queensland (paid for by him) she’d been blunt, as always. “Chart a steady course and always tell her the truth. Teenagers can sniff out a liar a mile off. What trouble you save yourself now will only come back tenfold to haunt you.”

Tell Ellen the truth? How could he, when he’d been lying to her since Anna died? He was already having enough trouble with his daughter. If he told the entire truth, who knew what monster he might unleash? Because what Ellen didn’t know, and perhaps never should or could know, was that he and Anna had been having serious marriage problems before she died. Not just usual day-to-day issues. They had been on the verge of separation, moving swiftly toward divorce.

It had been going wrong between them for years. Perhaps both of them had been too busy, Anna with her voice-over career, Glenn with his rising status in the advertising world. Perhaps they hadn’t paid each other enough attention, their daughter giving them enough conversation topics to paper over the cracks. But then Ellen had been badly hurt, bitten by a dog while playing in a nearby park. Anna had been with her, her attention diverted as she took a phone call. It had happened in an instant, a jagged gash on Ellen’s cheek, screams, shouts, blood, a rushed trip to hospital. The subtle tension between Glenn and Anna erupted immediately into full warfare. It was Anna’s fault for being distracted. It was Glenn’s fault—he was never home and when had he ever taken Ellen anywhere? The atmosphere between them had turned to ice. The bad scar on Ellen’s cheek was a constant reminder, not just of the incident, but of the gulf between them. As home life became tense, he’d spent more time at work. He found himself drawn toward a colleague, and with an ease and swiftness that surprised him, he’d started an affair. He wasn’t proud of his behavior, but it seemed to him that Anna didn’t care what he did any more. Ellen had still been their only talking point, but the blaming and guilt loomed beyond any polite surface words. Separation and divorce seemed the only possible outcome.

He could still remember how he’d felt the day Anna phoned him with the news of her cancer diagnosis. She had been in South Australia, at the family motel. She’d been there for weeks by that stage. Officially, it was to give Ellen a break from difficulties at school. The other children had been teasing her about her scar. Unofficially, they had both known it was a trial separation. Their personal animosity had been pushed aside in that instant. He had done all he could to make her final weeks peaceful and to make life as calm for Ellen as possible. He’d been truly devastated when Anna died, grieving their broken marriage as much as her passing. But as time went by, his feelings slowly changed. He saw the situation more clearly. Their marriage had been coming to its end. He knew Anna had found love elsewhere too, with a man she’d met while staying at the motel. If she hadn’t become sick, if she hadn’t died, what would have happened to their marriage? Would they have still been together now? He seriously doubted it. They’d learned too many ways to hurt each other. It was difficult to admit, but it was the truth.

But not a truth he could share with his daughter. Not now, perhaps not ever. What was the point? Ellen was only twelve years old. She’d already experienced more pain than any child should. He couldn’t expect her to understand the complexities and intricacies of her parents’ marriage.

Yes, when he was alone, he could reason it all out easily. It was only now, when he found himself shouting into a slammed door, his blood pressure rising, his fists clenched—in frustration rather than anger—that it was hard to stay calm. He counted to ten. He tried to keep his voice low and measured.

“Ellen, please. Think about it. I’d like us both to have Christmas with Denise and Lily. It would be fun. I know it.”

“Go ahead and have fun. But I’m not coming.”

“I can’t leave you here on your own.”

“I don’t care if you do.”

“Right. Sure. As if I would leave a twelve-year-old girl on her own on Christmas Day.”

“It’s obvious you don’t care about me, so you may as well.”

“Fine, then. I’ll do exactly that. Leave you here for the day alone. And what will you do? Stay locked away in your room? Starve?” He winced again. Why was he choosing all the wrong words today? For two days last month, after another fight about Denise, Ellen had stopped eating. Worried she was on the verge of an eating disorder, he’d been about to coax her to the doctor when she’d started eating normally again.

She was silent for so long now he thought for a moment she’d moved away from the door, climbed into bed perhaps. About to walk away himself, he heard a smaller, softer voice, muffled but still audible.

“I want my mum.”

All his anger fled. His shoulders slumped, his hands unclenched, he leaned his head against the door. “I know you do, sweetheart. I know.” He could hear her sobbing begin. “Ellen, open the door please. Come out here and talk to me. Let me give you a hug. Denise and Lily will be here any minute—” The wrong thing again.

The sobbing stopped. “I don’t care, I told you. I don’t want to meet them again and I don’t want to spend Christmas with them. Ever!”

His temper flowed back, patience and understanding instantly wiped away. “Fine. Fine, Ellen. You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. You’ve made your bed, and now you can lie in it. Neither of us will have Christmas with Denise and her family. You win. We’ll stay here and we’ll have a horrible lonely time and I hope that will make you happy, because nothing else seems to!”

His shout was met with silence. He felt a rush of fury combined with self-loathing. Oh, yes, he was really being the adult in this relationship. He placed his hand on the door, took a deep breath, spoke again, in quieter, calmer tones. “Ellen, I’m sick of this. Day after day, all this fighting. But I can’t do it any more tonight. Stay in there, Ellen. Stay in there until you realize just how hurtful and selfish you’re being”— he hesitated for just a moment—“and how much your mother would hate to see it. Think about that.”

He heard her gasp, followed immediately by more sobbing. He’d gone too far. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Ellen?” No answer. “Ellen?” Nothing. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for saying that. But—” He ran out of words then, too. Holding his hand against the door for one more minute, knowing there was no sense knocking again, no sense trying to talk reason to her, even less chance of stopping her crying, he had no option but to walk away, to go and sit in the living room and stare out across the skyline.

Denise was due any moment. He’d promised her everything was going to be all right with Ellen, that she was just going through a stage. He’d sensed Denise’s subtle withdrawal from him recently, perhaps a slight doubt about him, about them, the thought that perhaps it was all too much trouble, more trouble than it was worth. It was then he’d realized how much she meant to him. He didn’t want to lose her. He didn’t want to upset Ellen. But he was in an impossible situation. It seemed he couldn’t please one without upsetting the other. And what a mess he’d made of it all just now.

For God’s sake, he thought, standing again and pouring himself a glass of wine from the bottle chilling ready for Denise. He was a businessman. He had a staff of forty working efficiently and profitably for him. He’d managed equally successful offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney. He was renowned for his quick decision-making, his strong work ethic, for being tough but fair. He had enviable client lists, more work than his agency could handle. Yet he was no match for a twelve-year-old girl, even if she was his adored daughter. What else had his mother said to him in her recent pep talk?
Think of it as a campaign, darling. Step by step, battle by battle, you’ll both get to Armistice Day eventually.
If he had just won this latest battle, it was a hollow victory.

The doorbell rang. Finding a smile from somewhere, he walked over, trying to decide how to break the news of this latest setback to Denise.

I
N HER ROOM
, Ellen didn’t know whether she wanted to stop crying or sob even louder. She didn’t know whether to feel good that she’d made her dad lose control like that, made him actually apologize to her, or to feel guilty that she’d upset him so much that he had lost it. She didn’t know how she felt about anything anymore. It was like a whole mass of feelings was all churning inside of her, out of her control, like a volcano inside her body that erupted again and again, without warning. Always at her father. She picked up the photo—a copy of the one in the living room—and put it on her bedspread, stroking the glass softly. Her mother smiled up at her. She was smiling in all the photos Ellen had of her around the apartment. Ellen only wanted to remember her mother as being happy. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she would remember other things about her too. The games they played. The stories Anna read her. And then, no matter how much Ellen tried to block out the memories, she would remember her mother when she was so sick, in those final weeks. Ellen remembered it all. The whispering, at first. Everyone kept whispering and they would stop talking if they saw Ellen was listening. Then one day she was taken to her and Lola’s favorite spot at the motel, the bench that looked over the vine-covered hill, and her dad and her auntie Bett told her everything. That her mother was very sick and that she wasn’t going to be better and the time they had now was very precious and special.

Ellen wasn’t sure anymore if she remembered the actual funeral or all the times she had replayed it in her mind, adding little details here and there. For the first two years after Anna died, Ellen and her dad had gone back to the Clare Valley on the anniversary of her death. But not the third year. Ellen had been sick with tonsillitis and they’d agreed it was best to stay home in Singapore. On the fourth anniversary, they’d been in the middle of their move to Hong Kong, for her dad’s job. There had been many conversations between Lola and Glenn, and as many conversations between Ellen and Lola.

“Do you think about your mum every day, darling?” Lola had asked.

“Of course,” Ellen answered.

“Where?”

“Wherever I am. At school, at home, in the park.”

“You see, darling. Your thoughts happen inside you, no matter what’s outside you. Perhaps it’s time for you to start your own special ceremony for Anna, wherever you are at the time, rather than thinking it can only happen here, at her grave, or at the motel where she died.”

Ellen liked that her great-grandmother wasn’t scared to use words like “grave” and “died.” Too many people used strange words with her when they heard that her mother was dead. Passed away. Gone to heaven. In God’s arms. Final resting place. Lola had also gently explained that, in her opinion, Anna was far, far away from the Clare Valley now, in any case. Part of the sky, the stars, the moon, even. “That’s the wonderful thing, Ellen. Your mum can be wherever you want her to be, because she’s wherever you are, in your thoughts.”