The Last Summer of Ada Bloom Read online

  Both Ada and Tilly had heard the talk about these two women, and while it spiked Ada’s interest it had the opposite effect on Tilly, who looked at Raff as if he was a criminal.

  ‘Of course, there’ll be boys,’ Tilly said. ‘It’s Gwendolyn Bell’s party.’

  Tilly was not explaining things properly, not in the way Ada wanted.

  ‘Who is Gwendolyn Bell?’ Such a name. Ada pictured her with windswept hair and a silver goblet in her hand.

  Tilly made a tiny frown. She was bored with the conversation. ‘You always want to know everything. Gwendolyn Bell—there’s nothing particular about her, she’s just having a party. I hardly know her. She’s finished school; it’s her twenty-first. They’ve got a horse in their paddock. That’s all I know to say about her.’

  ‘Then why are you going to her party if you don’t know her?’

  Tilly gave a withering look. She even sighed to show that the conversation had become tiresome, as if she had more important thoughts to attend to. Ada rolled her eyes to make a matching or even bigger bored expression, but then she realised she still wanted to know the answer and her eyes opened wide.

  ‘Oh, Snug, it’s just that everyone’s going. It’s that kind of party. You’ll see one day. It’s not like a kid’s birthday party. I don’t even know if I truly want to go. I’m not even sure I like those sorts of girls with those sorts of bedrooms, you know, where things match and there are standards.’ Tilly paused, and her hands drummed at the bench. ‘It’s too hot to think. I’m going to ring Alice. You’ll have to play on your own for a while.’

  Ada didn’t get a chance to ask what standards. Tilly heaved herself up from the bench and with this one movement was gone from the kitchen and all that was left was a waft of cigarette smoke.

  Ada watched the late-afternoon light stream in the window. It was golden and velvety, and caught the hovering motes of dust so that they sparkled as they turned slowly in the air. She drifted into a tender, sad mood because of the way the light and dust slowed time to a halt and opened up a soft hole of memory, and she had the sense that something had happened and would never happen again. She tried to think what it could be. It was the dying light that made her sad, because time died over and over again. Each day threw out its one last lone note of beauty like a plaintive howl, and then it was finished. Dead forever. Passed over. She sank onto the stool with a quiet thud. The clock ticked loudly and wickedly, the vine leaves on the veranda drooped and the enamel water jug gleamed on the bench as if basking in its own splendour. For a moment life was so deep and still that Ada felt she had dissolved all her Ada-ness and had become part of everything. She was a golden mote of spinning dust.

  Ada had not forgotten the small pain of Tilly’s party. She resented it and she resented Gwendolyn Bell. The party was what was changing Tilly. Now Tilly composed herself carefully with her mind shined to a point, and she no longer crawled in the garden and she shunned the tyre swing and the wild, stumbling, searching beat of how things used to be. Tilly had just finished school, and in the lead-up to her final exams, she had begun to do homework instead of lying about outside by the trampoline. Either that or she played the piano. Ada had never seen any determination in Tilly before and she felt excluded by it. Tilly had become sharper, arrow-like and perhaps she even became thinner, slipping through doors quietly, as if she was deliberately fading herself out.

  Ada’s heart flung itself into the gap between how things used to be and how they were becoming and strained to drag everything to one place. Soon there would be a breaking or a snapping or an ending. What would end she didn’t know.

  She stood up and pressed her face to the window. The grass outside bristled beneath the weight of another day of scorching heat. The sun had squashed it down to pale straw colour. The cherry tree stood dead and stiff and as bare as a skeleton, with its branches reaching up as if it longed to wrench itself out of the ground and fly up to the heavens. Ada didn’t want to look at it all the time and think about how it had died. What was it like to die, for a tree? Ben was supposed to cut it down.

  Ada could still smell Tilly’s cigarette. If their mother smelled it Tilly would cop it. But their mother was in Melbourne visiting their granny and her friend Glenda who had a sadness disease. Glenda wore long black dresses and had small round glasses and was given to staring mournfully into the distance and eating tim tams on the sly. Whenever Glenda got the sad sickness, Martha went to stay with her, and then she often came home with something new: a book or new clothes for herself. Ada was glad her mother wasn’t home, sniffing for clues. Old Sherlock, they called her. Ada could take all the fruit she wanted and not get told off for being greedy.

  She leaned over the fruit bowl to see what she’d eat next. But there were only apples left and they were floury, and some had patches of brown rot. No wonder the flies were going at them. She should go and see what Louis and May were doing next door, see if they were watching television. But then she remembered that she hated Louis and she had told everyone that he was the meanest person in the world because he had punched her. Tilly said Ada had probably done something first to upset Louis. She always stuck up for everyone else.

  Ada flung open the flywire door and let it bang shut. She went straight to the cherry tree and put her hands on it. Perhaps there was still a trickle of life in it, a little hum going up and down the trunk. Ada listened; she listened so hard, her face turned red.

  Ben was never going to get round to digging it up. It would stand there dead the whole summer.

  6

  It was almost dark, and their father was still not home. Ada sat at the kitchen table sorting her rock collection. She was hungry. Every now and then she glanced up at the sunset: a luminous smear of silvery pink sinking behind the dead cherry tree. She felt obliged to watch. If she ignored a show like that, if she didn’t watch things that were splendid and final, she would adjust to magnificence as if it were nothing. She didn’t want to watch it. If only it would be done with, so she could concentrate on her rocks. The flies had stopped buzzing and the heat was now a thick dullness that seemed to have enclosed everything.

  Tilly appeared again, wearing their mother’s best shoes: high-heeled silver ones with a strap round the ankle.

  ‘Mum will really kill you if she finds out,’ said Ada.

  ‘She won’t find out.’ Tilly stood staring down at the shoes, willing them to not be found out, forcing the fact with the bones in her shoulders hunching up under the straps of the dress. Louis and May’s voices sang out from next door. May shouted crossly. Louis had thrown a plum at her. A sprinkler hissed. The garden sighed beneath the twilight sky. It was going to be a stinker of a night, and now Tilly was making everything worse by wearing those shoes.

  Their father came in and slumped onto a kitchen stool, making a show of his hard day. He tugged at his green tie and wriggled his neck out of the shirt collar. He specialised in life insurance and had to wear a suit nearly every day, so he was sometimes dissatisfied with life and plainly sick of death. Ada knew, too, that he was once a handsome man. That was what her mother said when she told the story of why she married him in the first place. Then her mother always said, ‘And what a fool was I,’ and smiled with her teeth, to show it was only a joke.

  Mike glanced up at Tilly, who sat on the other stool in her shimmery blue dress, doodling with a pen on the electricity bill. She was showing off the high-heeled silver shoes, with her ankles crossed over.

  ‘Are you going out?’

  ‘I already told you I am.’ She sat waiting, her head tilting to examine her drawing.

  Their father shrugged. ‘Okay, okay. Where’s Ben?’

  ‘He’s not home,’ said Ada, pleased that Ben could be in trouble. ‘He’s probably at cricket training.’ Ada was sorting her rocks into piles: piles of ones she liked the most and ones she didn’t like as much, and ones that she would give away to other people if they wanted one, and ones that didn’t belong anywhere. For these unbelonging one
s she had some sympathy.

  Their father squinted as he sorted through the information. He rubbed at his face, glanced at his watch and bounced up out of the chair.

  ‘Well, I need a shower.’

  ‘What about dinner?’ Ada burst out. She held a pinkish piece of quartz and couldn’t think to put it in any pile now, even though it was a piece she had always had strong feelings about. She was too hungry and too tired to reason with either the rock or her father.

  ‘Dinner?’ Mike looked at Tilly helplessly.

  But Tilly wasn’t going to help him. She was going out. She sailed her gaze out the window again to show it, and Mike sank back down onto the stool and began to frown and rub again at his head. He was like a crumpled shirt trying to be ironed. Even his hair didn’t sit straight, and now his leg bounced up and down, one hand tapping at his knee. He looked as if he’d arrived in someone else’s life. ‘Well, I forgot about dinner,’ he finally admitted.

  ‘Can’t we get fish and chips?’ Ada dropped her pink rock and rushed forward, hopping on one leg in front of him. All was not lost. They never got to have fish and chips. If their mother was home, it would be hard-boiled eggs, but their father couldn’t boil an egg.

  ‘I suppose so, if it’s still open.’ He fished his wallet out of his pocket. Ada thought he was going to say he didn’t have any money, but he looked inside it and nodded at her. ‘Come on, then.’

  At the door he turned to Tilly—Tilly, with her mermaid legs, lost in her own promise of adventure. He frowned. He had to win something back, whatever it was he had lost. ‘And you need to be home before twelve,’ he said with an uncharacteristic sternness.

  Tilly grinned as if she didn’t care what he said.

  Ada wished Tilly would care more. Then her father would feel special. And then Martha wouldn’t be at everyone about everything, and Ben wouldn’t be the only one, the only one who—Ada couldn’t remember what. She was tying her shoelaces and getting ready to go. If only Tilly behaved better. If only everyone was like the nice people in the Gregory Peck movies. Instead, life was unsteady, sometimes prickly, but slow and dreary too. She could never be sure whether it really was what you thought it was or if it was a theatre show, all slipping behind the curtain of pretending.

  ‘Wait, can I get a lift?’ Tilly erupted, dropping her pen. ‘To Farnsworth Street.’

  ‘Did you hear me? Home by midnight.’ Mike was insistent.

  ‘I heard you.’ Tilly hardly looked at him when she spoke.

  Mike looked like he wanted to get angry but couldn’t be bothered. He plunged out the door, and all Ada could do was scamper after him.

  Tilly’s heels, which were really their mother’s, tapped along the path. That was the fine-chiselled sound of sophistication, and one day it would be her clicking down the path on her way to a party. The party had made the night different from other plain old nights—now it shimmered like Tilly’s dress. It was hot and nearly dark, and the air was heavy and lurking with feelings of mystery and promise. She would get to see where the party was, see its glittering guests, and hear its bright, muffled sounds. She would stick her head out the car window. Tilly’s good time would become hers as well. Ada wriggled close to Tilly in the back seat of the car. Tilly’s perfume smelled as false as a pink lolly.

  Ada watched the streets pass by. The shops all looked different: emptied and lonely, unimportant now. But the pubs were lit up, the footpaths outside them glowed under the awnings. Windows were squares of inviting gold light. The movie theatre looked the best; everyone sat outside at tables, slumping in or leaning back, probably laughing and talking about parties. Above them was a dotted line of globes lit up like stars hung on a clothesline. The theatre rose up all rickety and regal. It was not only a theatre, it was also a place for music and dancing. All this was a world closed off to Ada, thrilling to the heart and forbidden. And it had caught Tilly. Her head was turned to the other window, her fingers stroked at her own bare neck. Tilly was sly as the night.

  ‘You shouldn’t have worn those shoes of Mum’s,’ Ada said. She wanted to be taken seriously. ‘If you get them dirty, then she’ll know. Old Sherlock.’

  Tilly didn’t turn to reply, but she grabbed Ada’s hand as she pressed her other hand to the window. ‘There’s Ben, look! Ben’s at the theatre.’ As soon as she said it, her hand flew to her mouth. But their father heard, and he pulled the car over.

  ‘Oh, for godsake!’ he said, and he sat there for a moment before he opened the door and got out.

  Ada craned her neck to see past Tilly. Ben was slouched back, with a beer in one hand. Next to him was a girl with red beads and a white dress. She sat up straight, like a little animal who had just popped out of its hole. She also had a drink and she was talking and talking without stopping.

  ‘Don’t tell Ben I dobbed him in,’ breathed Tilly.

  Ben was tall enough you might think he was eighteen, but he wasn’t. He was only fifteen and fifteen-year-olds weren’t allowed to drink beer. When he came loping after their father, his hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were hooped up in a shrug as if he was responsible for nothing. He got in the front seat, smelling of beer and cigarettes.

  ‘You stink!’ Ada said.

  ‘Yep.’ He let out a little laugh and turned and grinned at them both. Ben had a winning smile. ‘Going out, Till? You’re all spiffed up.’

  ‘She’s going to a party,’ said Ada. ‘Were you drinking beer?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Tilly murmured, giving Ada a shove. Tilly didn’t want to aggravate their father. He was stiff and silent and hunched, just a mound of darkness in the front seat.

  Tilly leaned forward. ‘Dad, you can just drop me at the top of the street.’

  Later, Ada thought Tilly had done that just to spite her for saying about the shoes. But Ben said it was because no one wants their entire family dropping them at a party. Either way, the feeling of the night was ruined; the inside of the car tightened, and everyone was silently straining and none of the glitter of darkness could get in. And when Tilly slammed the door, it had a deadening thud and the inside of the car seemed tomb-like and forever cut off from the night’s mysteries. Ada watched Tilly in the pale blue dress and high shoes walking through a pool of streetlight straight into the swallowing mouth of night. She felt a tiny stab of terror. All that was left was the empty pool of light and the fading sound of Tilly’s steps.

  7

  Fish and chips were always only ever good for a minute. Ben’s tongue was greasy and his insides too. Ada was always happy to scoop up the rest. Ada or PJ, they were both labradors. Another beer would be pretty good; it would cut through the grease and ease him into the night, but there was no chance of that. Beer was not something he wanted to mention to his dad now. Best not remind him. In fact, he’d try to keep Ada around as long as possible to avoid any grilling about the theatre. Though once the chips were gone, Ada would scoot off.

  ‘Your mother would be really annoyed if she knew you had been drinking.’ His father was going for it anyway, Ada or not.

  ‘Was Ben drinking beer?’ Ada was kneeling up on her chair to get better access to the pile of chips.

  ‘It was only one. Everyone was.’

  ‘I don’t care what everyone was doing. I care about what you were doing. If everyone jumps off a bridge—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Ben. They trotted that line out every time.

  His father sighed. ‘I don’t think we should mention it to your mum.’

  ‘No,’ Ben said, trying to show a remorse he didn’t feel. He was grateful to his dad for keeping the lid on it, as long as Ada didn’t blab. Even better, it made him feel sort of chummy with his dad—they could share a secret together. The beer secret.

  ‘We’re playing the Old Blacks tomorrow.’ He intended to capitalise on their new complicity.

  His father nodded. He was still stiff, but he was bending.

  ‘You opening?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep, with Sam.’ He w
as opening batsman—that should square the deal. Ben wasn’t someone who sweated under pressure. He felt good after that beer. He could handle anything. He had been handling it all, even Kitty Vickers in the white dress.

  ‘Tilly saw you outside the theatre,’ said Ada. ‘She saw you first.’ He knew Ada wanted to bring it all back to there, so that there would be more trouble for him. Little beast. She was a vulture at the roadside of his accident. He could play that game too. He wasn’t opening batsman for nothing.

  ‘You’re going to make yourself sick if you keep shovelling chips in like that.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Hey, that’s enough,’ Mike said.

  Enough what? Enough chips for Ada? Enough arguing? He didn’t really care which. Ada had ruined his chance to get in with his dad. If she hadn’t been there, they would have been men together sharing cricket experiences. Now he was being told off as if he was a kid.

  He stood up. ‘I’ve got homework,’ he said.

  ‘You never do homework,’ said Ada. She was right.

  ‘You wouldn’t know,’ said Ben. ‘Anyway, I’m going outside.’

  His room was the bungalow out the back. He had convinced Martha to let him have it. Tilly had been mad and jealous. But it was his idea, and Tilly wouldn’t have coped. It was cold out there in winter. She’d be scared too. She just acted as if she was hard done by, when really he was the only one who could manage that room. He loved being out there on his own. He lay on his bed, the night at his window, the slice of moon, the shiver of branches. PJ was the only one allowed inside. And his mates.