The Olive Sisters Read online

  Lauren cups her ear. ‘Hark! A moonstruck bushie? Or the ghost of Jack Bennett, come to haunt you for misrepresenting him as a dead person?’ She laughs, throws back the last of her wine and goes into the house – to update her friends on this latest drama, no doubt. Within moments I hear her shrieking with laughter, then a door being kicked shut, then silence.

  This is what it will be like when she’s gone. Dark and empty. I make myself experience it. I try to summon my inner warrior; the one who allowed me to speak on podiums to hundreds of people, negotiate million-dollar contracts across polished board tables and command a whole army of people. It seems my inner warrior has been replaced by my inner wraith. I’m slowly withering away.

  The grass is already damp with dew as I make my way across to the gate that divides the garden from the murky world beyond. I hold fast to the gate to prevent myself being sucked into the blackness, and hear myself howl into the empty night. Even my howl sounds tentative, though God knows I’ve plenty to howl about.

  It’s barely light when I’m woken by a series of thuds and shrieks as Lauren, sitting up in bed, hurls her shoes across the room. Noticing I am now awake, she turns her attention to me.

  ‘That was a disgusting little disgusting mouse! This place is totally grotesque! I’m going home tomorrow, even if I have to catch the train. I have to look for a job, anyway,’ she sniffs, getting out of bed.

  Not quite awake, I sit up and look out the window. Rain beats a steady rhythm on the tin roof and it has formed a pale silken curtain around the house. I feel trapped.

  Lauren calms down after a shower. Water soothes her, as it does me. I can hear her humming something smooth and bluesy.

  ‘Tooooast?’ she yodels. I’m forgiven. Toast is the mainstay of our relationship. For us it’s a meal rich with tradition and infinite variations. Our darkest moments are redeemed by the hot, crisp, buttery comfort of toast. Sweet puddles of raspberry jam make us sigh with familiar relief. It’s one of the few things we do for each other. We say ‘Toast?’ instead of ‘Sorry’.

  I had the foresight to bring my espresso pot with me rather than pack it. I hear it getting up a head of steam and the fragrant promise of fresh coffee lures me from my bed.

  ‘What’s the plan, ma’am?’ says Lauren, as I totter into the room. Chirpy now, she sits down at the table.

  ‘We need to clear some space for the stuff the truck will bring. We’ll just zoom through Jack’s boxes, make sure there’s nothing important and then chuck the lot.’

  ‘How is all your furniture possibly going to fit?’

  ‘There really isn’t much. Most of it was leased.’

  She opens her mouth, closes it again and finally says weakly, ‘That’s lucky.’

  The air inside the house is damp and stuffy, almost claustrophobic. ‘What season is it?’ I sound like a bad actress feigning amnesia but I really have lost track somehow.

  ‘Hmm … I saw the other day that there are only thirty-five shopping days till Christmas. So it’s late spring? Early summer? Sprummer?’ says Lauren, spraying toast crumbs everywhere.

  The living room is dark, even with the lights on. If I know anything about Jack, we won’t find a bulb over 40 watts in the whole place. We decide to drag one of the two sofas outside onto the front verandah and carry the boxes out there so we can work in some light and comfort.

  After much getting up and down and rearranging things, we are finally settled side-by-side on the sofa with a stack of boxes at each end. The rain has eased and the air is cool and fresh, like a tonic. We sit in silence, lifting handfuls of papers, old newspapers, clippings about mining and dredging operations, mineral sands analysis reports and the like from the boxes, flipping through them and sorting them into Keep and Throw categories.

  ‘Look at this. It’s your mother’s birth certificate,’ says Lauren. ‘Listen. Child: Isabella Margherita Martino; Mother: Adriana Carmela Martino; Father: Francesco Giovanni Martino. Oh my God! We’re Italian!’

  ‘We’re not Italian, my mother’s family were. You only have to look around the house to work that one out. That dining table, the china cabinet – all straight out of some Neapolitan nonna’s front parlour.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me? Is it a secret?’

  ‘I don’t know if it was a secret, exactly. My mother didn’t look Italian; she was quite fair. You and I look more Italian than she did. I’m not sure she was ashamed of it, but she certainly wasn’t overt about it. I don’t think I ever heard her speak the language.’

  ‘How cool is this?’ cries Lauren. ‘I’ve always wanted to be Italian!’

  ‘You’ve always wanted to be Italian? Since when?’

  ‘Italian or French, or something exotic. Just not nothing.’

  ‘We’re not nothing – we’re Australian.’

  ‘You know what I mean. It’s like we’re camped here on someone else’s land. Anglo-Saxons don’t have ethnic pride. We don’t have any songs.’

  ‘What about Waltzing Matilda?’

  ‘Billies and billabongs – hardly an anthem to inspire all humanity,’ she says loftily. ‘The problem is, we haven’t suffered enough repression.’

  ‘I’m sure that could be arranged,’ I say irritably. ‘Why don’t we take a break and go for a walk or something?’

  I get the withering look. ‘Mother – it’s raining, the grass is wet and the whole place is probably teeming with snakes. Let’s just get this done. You go through this document box and I’ll handle the other big ones.’

  When did my daughter take charge, I wonder? Perhaps she’s always been in charge; she was a bossy little girl. She often seems to feel that life has gypped her; she has the idea that other people have what she wants, or what should be hers. When she was about four years old she insisted her then-nanny was stealing her dreams, and began to follow the poor woman around, spying on her, until she got spooked and left, as they all did eventually. Her boyfriends are the same. They never stay long; she runs them ragged. Perhaps the same could be said of me. I’ve been told, by more than one man, that I am ‘high maintenance’ – whatever that means.

  The document box is smaller than the others, an old hat-box with a lid. There are a few dog-eared photos like the ones in the hallway, some of myself as a baby and others when I was older with my mother; she looks unhappy in every one. I’m ashamed to admit I never noticed. Beneath the photos I find some technical drawings of a piece of machinery that appears to be for crushing grapes. My birth certificate and my mother’s death certificate are also here, and a small box made of polished wood, hinged on one side. I open it. Inside is a letter and a black-and-white photograph of a woman. She’s laughing and her mouth is wide open, showing off her beautiful teeth. Dark eyes sparkle with mischief. A thick braid of black hair rests across one shoulder. There’s something about her I’ve seen before, some quality that reminds me of Lauren at her happiest.

  The envelope is addressed to Miss Rosanna Martino, 74 Riley Street, Adelaide. The postmark is 5 August 1956. I was two years old. The address has a line through it and ‘Return to Sender’ scrawled across the envelope. I turn it over. The sender is Jack Bennett, 3 Cromer Road, Broken Hill. I take out the letter and unfold it.

  Darling, darling Rosa,

  I can’t live my life without you. I’ve tried and failed. You are a part of me I never knew existed. You are my life and I will never stop loving you. I miss you every minute of every day. Please write, please come. I am waiting for you.

  All my love, Jack.

  It’s so strange to see my father’s familiar hand express such foreign emotions. I’m shocked. Bewildered. I simply don’t know what to make of it. The bastard. The shit. He has reached out from the grave to disappoint me one last time. Did my mother know? She must have. No wonder she never mentioned having a sister. She was a secretive woman anyhow, never gave much away. She always described herself as ‘private’, as if she imagined herself to be somewhat enigmatic. It was the same thing in my eyes. The doo
r to her inner world only ever opened a sliver, and you only saw what she wanted you to see.

  I haven’t been lucky in love myself. Judging by this letter I would have to say that I have never really experienced love. I’ve never known the sort of passion that renders people powerless. I’ve never understood how people can abandon husbands and children or cross the world to be with their lover. I can’t imagine what it is like to be prepared to die – or kill – for love. The letter is so raw and honest it hurts to read it.

  I sit there looking with new eyes at the photograph and there comes a slow, dawning realisation that Rosanna is part of my life. Who is she? Where is she now? Without my ever knowing it, she has undoubtedly played her own part in my relationship with my father and, perhaps, even in our eventual estrangement. As a child I thought I was the source of his unhappiness; that I was somehow the catalyst for his discontent, his angry restlessness. I thought he never stayed long at home with us because of me. Later I thought perhaps my mother just didn’t hold onto him tight enough. It seemed to me then that my mother was unfathomable and my father unattainable. Not just to me, but to one another.

  ‘Are you crying?’ Lauren sounds alarmed. Crying is not something I do.

  ‘Of course not,’ I say, quickly slipping the letter back into the envelope. ‘It’s just a sad business cleaning up other people’s lives.’ I used to be more honest with her but lately there’s been a lot I’ve hidden, lied about even. Things I don’t want to talk to anyone about, let alone to someone who judges me as harshly as Lauren does.

  She reaches out and takes the photograph off my lap. ‘This is Rosanna, isn’t it? She’s got my eyes.’ She gives me a brilliant smile and flutters her eyelashes.

  ‘But you’ve got her teeth,’ I smile. I’m going to miss Lauren when she goes tomorrow, which I have no doubt she will. ‘You can take my car back to Sydney when you go,’ I say on impulse.

  ‘Really?’ she throws an arm awkwardly around my shoulders in a burst of affection. ‘But what will you do?’

  ‘Mrs O said there’s a bus down to the village. Surely Jack must have had a car. I wonder where it is. Will you stay just one more day?’ I implore. I hate the wheedling tone in my voice. My generous offer is instantly denigrated to the status of premeditated bribe. But she agrees.

  It’s almost dark when we hear the removal truck come bumping and splashing up the long driveway. It pulls up covered in purple jacaranda blossoms, with a large branch perched on the roof.

  ‘Yer wanna get yer trees trimmed, missus. Truck’s just had a bloody paint job,’ says the driver, springing from the cab. He’s a nuggety little fellow of indeterminate age. Blue eyes burn from a face baked as shiny as a glazed bun. He nips around to the back of the truck, unlatches the double doors and slides the ramp down before his offsider – a good-looking twenty-something boy in a white cowboy hat – has even made his way to the back of the truck.

  Cowboy brightens up and looks a bit keen when he sees Lauren. I watch him taking in her hipster pants and bare midriff. His eye snags for a moment on the ring in her belly-button. He tilts his chin a little; the eyelids droop slightly. It looks like something he’s practised in front of the mirror for hours, along with his Elvis impersonations. In that infinitely delicate way that young women hone their mastery of men, Lauren snubs him. There’s a glance, a dainty sniff and an almost imperceptible flick of her glossy bob of dark hair, culminating in a bored gaze into middle distance. The poor chap is visibly crushed. She’s got it down to a fine art.

  The two men work tirelessly, lugging box after box of the remains of my life. ‘Where does this go?’ and ‘What about this one?’ is the extent of the conversation. The driveway is wet and muddy and soon the verandah and floor are tracked with dirt.

  Lauren moved out of the apartment a month before I did, so I have no one else to blame for the abysmal labelling of boxes. I actually have no recollection of doing it, lost as I was in a dark miasma of my own making. Finally, it seems a better idea to direct all the boxes into the shed, which appears dry and safe enough. I can leave stuff in there that I don’t want to unpack. I won’t be staying long. God knows where I’ll go, but I simply cannot stay here.

  From the depths of the shed I hear Lauren give a scream dramatic enough to land her an instant role in a B-grade horror flick. I run outside to see her standing on the front steps screaming and flapping her arms madly. As I get closer I realise she is pointing to her bare belly, on which there is a big black slug. Repulsed though I am, I do try to flick it off for her. It’s stuck.

  ‘It’s a leeeccchhh!’ she shrieks. ‘Get it off!’

  I can’t touch it. I cannot put my fingers on this thing. Where are my rubber gloves when I need them? Unfazed by Lauren’s yelps, Cowboy opens the cab door, grabs a small salt container from the dash and sprinkles a bit on the leech. It releases instantly and rolls fatly down Lauren’s leg and onto the ground, where it disgorges dark-red blood into the mud. As I lead her inside – she’s still shuddering and hyperventilating – Cowboy gives me a broad grin and a slight lift of the eyebrows. Says it all, really.

  It’s midnight before we get to bed. I’m desperate, desperate for sleep. On the other side of the room Lauren is asleep already – worn out by all the excitement, no doubt. The room smells musty and dusty despite our cleaning efforts. I suddenly feel ill with despair. I used to be so tough, so fearless – nothing touched me. Where is my courage now? Perhaps it wasn’t courage, just bravado. Perhaps I’ve always been a coward.

  I think back to Lauren screaming about the leech and I can’t help smiling. A hiccupy sort of giggle bubbles up. It’s probably nervous exhaustion but suddenly I’m helpless with laughter. I put my pillow over my face to smother the noise. My whole body shakes with laughter, tears stream from the corners of my eyes. As I gasp for air I realise that, for the first time in months, I’m breathing. It feels good. It feels really good.

  Two

  ROSANNA AND ISABELLA were like two shells of the same nut – two parts that when joined fitted perfectly. Isabella – three years older – was serene and as elusive as a promise. Rosanna – curious, intense and volatile – ran towards life as though it were running away; Isabella watched with interest, dusted her sister off when she stumbled and fell, but seldom cautioned her.

  ‘Matta!’ their father would call Rosa when she defied him. Crazy. He and Rosa would argue until they forgot what they argued about or which side they were on. Isabella rarely defied her father but often, when Rosanna was in full flight, a smile would play around the lips of the good daughter.

  The two children lined up their dolls on a blanket under the shade of the mandarin tree. Isabella sat cross-legged on the rug as she carefully stitched pieces of satin cloth together to make her doll a gown. Bored by delays in the game, Rosanna climbed the tree. Clinging to a precariously fragile limb, she plucked the hard green fruit and hurled it down at the recumbent dolls.

  ‘State attente! Presto! Falling rocks. Chiama un medico!’

  ‘Rosa, we did not agree to play emergency. The princesses are going to the ball and if you don’t help yours prepare, there will not be any princes left for them to marry. It will be a great disgrace for the kingdom,’ cautioned Isabella, without lifting her gaze from the needle and thread.

  ‘Perhaps they can marry the doctors instead?’

  ‘No. Only nurses can marry doctors. That is a different game.’

  Rosa climbed down and lay spread-eagled on the rug, consumed by boredom. ‘Why are princesses always English?’ she demanded.

  ‘Well … I’m not sure. I think because the English are very upper-class people. And they have lots of palaces and castles for the royal people to live in.’

  ‘So are Australians English?’

  ‘Sort of, I think. But they don’t have any palaces, so, of course, there aren’t any princesses.’

  ‘So wogs can’t be princesses.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can even let that ugly word come out of y
our mouth, Rosa,’ said Isabella, intent on her work.

  ‘Wogs and dagos. Dogs and wagos. You pretend you don’t hear, but it doesn’t make any difference. We’re wogs.’

  ‘There, I’ve finished,’ said Isabella. ‘Doesn’t she look beautiful?’ She got up and took the doll into the sunshine. She smiled a dreamy smile and danced the doll on the breeze, admiring the play of light on her creamy gown.

  Franco and Isabella stepped out of the searing afternoon sun and stood inside the dirt-floor barn that served as the Duffy’s Creek stock and station agent. Franco made his way to the counter while Isabella wandered behind, looking at the high-piled sacks of feed, dog food and fertiliser. Around the walls hung coils of ropes, bridles, wet-weather gear and hats.

  The man behind the counter was intent on his paperwork. Franco tried to attract his attention with a greeting. The man grunted but didn’t look up.

  ‘I want to buy the fer-dil-liser, please.’

  The man looked up slowly. His smirk made Isabella’s chest feel so tight she could hardly breathe. She wanted to run, to fly up into the rafters where she could perch unseen.

  ‘Whaddaya want, mate?’

  Again Franco placed emphasis where there was none. ‘I want the fer-dil-liser,’ he asked. ‘Please.’ Isabella heard him relinquish his last vestige of power in one pleading note.

  ‘Can’t work out what yer saying, mate. Why don’t youse learn English? That’s what we speak hereabouts.’

  Isabella moved closer to her father. The man’s eyes slid across to her, challenging the child to compound her father’s humiliation by speaking for him. His eyes were dull with some sort of nameless hatred she found impossible to understand.

  ‘Come on, Babbo. Let’s go,’ she murmured.

  ‘Good idea, girlie.’ The man abruptly went back to his paperwork.