Shoals of BMWs pulled up outside St John’s, Toorak. Lisa stood at the doorway and watched Melbourne’s great and good spill down the aisle into the pews. It was an important occasion, but she couldn’t wait for it to be over so she could get back to Castlemaine. Scott had asked her out for dinner. Her nostrils flared at the thought of him wearing that aftershave, the one he swore was just soap. Then she felt guilty.
The coffin was smothered in red roses. On top of the narrow end where Aunt Caroline’s feet lay inside their Christian Dior shoes, sat a framed photo that couldn’t have been taken later than 1933. The subject’s gaze was dreamy and slightly off camera, as if she might be recalling a flirtation with an Arab sheik. Aunt Caroline’s lips were vermillion, the eyebrows thin and arched. There was no doubt she’d been a beauty, but one with a crafty glint in her eyes.
As the organ swelled in spooky harmonies, Lisa looked for somewhere to sit. She spotted Maxine sitting in the front row, wearing something purple and a black pillbox hat sprouting a peacock feather. The plume dipped and teased Gordon, who was sweating quietly in a suit. Their son Andrew, fresh from Silicon Valley, sat next to him, alongside Nina and her colorectal surgeon. The grandchildren, dressed in the latest Jacadi outfits, vandalised prayer books while their mother studied her phone.
Sweltering in her interview suit from New York, Lisa noticed an empty pew near the back of the church. Telepathic as usual, her sister turned and flashed a look. Maxine pointed at the pew behind her and beckoned.
‘I’m pleased I could make it,’ Jake whispered as they took their seats. ‘It was great timing.’
‘Stop saying that!’ she hissed. She wished Jake hadn’t felt the need to put on a charade of family togetherness.
Ted and James slid along the pew to sit next to them. ‘So good of you to cut your honeymoon short,’ she whispered.
‘It was nothing,’ Ted replied, squeezing her hand.
As the congregation stood to bleat ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’, Portia skittered down the aisle and slid in next to James. ‘Sorry!’ she mouthed. ‘We had a few technological hitches.’
Portia was wearing a tiara made of small blue stones and sparkles that may have been diamonds. ‘I found it in Aunt Caroline’s dresser,’ she said, patting the ornament into her hair. ‘Can I keep it?’
‘You’ll have to ask Aunt Maxine.’
Lisa wished she’d had more time with Portia after they’d visited Aunty May. She wanted to make some sense of their family history with her. But Zack had been waiting at the end of the Wrights’ driveway, ready to whisk Portia back into the city to put together the slide show for the funeral.
The vicar cleared his throat and droned on about being here today to celebrate the life of Caroline Agnes Trumperton . . . hostess, patron of the arts . . .
Gordon stood up and read the eulogy Maxine had written. He ran a finger around his collar, and his face was red and mottled like salami. His voice trembled with nerves as he spoke of the dutiful aunt who was an excellent gardener and who always attended the children’s school plays. The congregation was lulled into semi-consciousness. Aunt Caroline’s life had been as boring as everyone expected.
Then Zack appeared at the side of the altar, where a large screen had been set up. His laptop oozed Cole Porter songs while an assortment of images lit up the church: Aunt Caroline smiling over a cup of tea with the Queen, smoking a cigar with Castro, astride a camel alongside a dashing young Gaddafi.
No wonder Aunt Caroline had found the nursing home on the quiet side! ‘Amazing!’ Lisa whispered to Portia. Where did you get them?’
‘From a box in the back of her wardrobe. There was one of her with someone who looked like Mussolini, but we thought we’d better leave it out.’
The wake was conducted in the church hall in accordance with Aunt Caroline’s orders. The tea was lapsang souchong and the cucumber in the sandwiches was crisp enough to pose a danger to dental work.
Lisa watched Portia float past the butterfly cakes and lemon slices without landing on a single calorie. She tried to make conversation with a retired admiral whom Aunt Caroline was rumoured to have once been engaged to, but images of Scott kept dancing across her brain. The little crossover tooth that stopped his smile from being perfect, the scar above his eyebrow, the hair on the back of his hands . . . He was going to pick her up at seven. She’d have at least an hour to shower and get ready.
She noticed the more elderly mourners were aiming their walking frames at the door. Jake was in a corner chatting up a towering blonde. ‘Do you think we can go?’ Lisa asked, tapping his shoulder.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Bit early, isn’t it?’
‘I have to get back to . . . feed the cat.’
‘That thing can look after itself.’
Lisa smiled at the blonde, who was older than she’d seemed from across the room. Jake’s taste was improving.
‘There’s the bird, too.’
‘Honestly, Lisa, I think we should stay on another hour.’
Since when did he become Mr Etiquette?
‘It’s okay, Mom,’ Portia said, appearing at her elbow. ‘I’ll come home with you. Dad can catch a lift with the husbands.’
‘What about Zack?’ They were practically a salt and pepper set these days.
‘He’s dropping the screen back at his friend’s place, then he’s catching a lift to Castlemaine with the others.’
Lisa could hardly believe it. An entire ninety minutes alone in the car with her daughter.
Maxine was engrossed in conversation with the incoming president of the Melbourne Club. The timing was impeccable. Lisa hurried across the room, kissed Maxine on the cheek and said goodbye.
‘But wait!’ Maxine said, purple fingernails glistening on Lisa’s forearm. ‘Aren’t you coming to the lawyer’s office?’
‘Whatever for?’
‘We are her closest relatives.’
Aunt Caroline had lived like a pauper. She’d spent the past thirty years collecting string and used wrapping paper. Every Christmas, she sent Lisa and Maxine a five-dollar note inside a card. Lisa couldn’t face the thought of sitting in a lawyer’s office arguing over the old girl’s pressed-flower collection.
Instead, she fired up Dino and headed down the motorway. Portia plugged white wires into her ears and drifted off into a hypnotic state. It wasn’t shaping up to be the mother–daughter time Lisa had been hoping for. ‘What are you listening to?’ Lisa shouted.
‘Nothing.’
‘Are they new?’
‘You wouldn’t know them.’
Lisa felt the familiar thud of Portia pulling up the drawbridge. She turned off at Macedon and parked outside Sitka Café.
‘What are we stopping for?’ Portia asked.
‘You didn’t eat much earlier. I thought we’d have afternoon tea.’
Portia rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not going in there.’
‘Why not?’
The tiara twinkled defiantly. ‘Because you’ll force-feed me like one of those geese in France. Because you’re obsessed with food!’
‘Me?!’ Lisa hadn’t heard anything more ridiculous in her life. Though on second thoughts, she was the one with the stash of protein bars and special treats for when she couldn’t diet any more, the one who couldn’t write a sex scene without eating truckloads of chocolate. ‘I just worry about you.’
Portia seized the doorhandle. ‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ she said in a voice steeped in sarcasm.
‘But . . .’
‘You don’t understand.’
Lisa fizzed with frustration.
‘I’m not your little girl anymore!’
The words sliced through Lisa with the cruel accuracy of surgical lasers.
Portia flung the door open and stormed down the empty street.
Lisa was left momentarily breathless. Gum trees flailed against a pale sky. An exhausted sun was drifting down towards the hills. She started up the engine. As she trailed after the wild, weightless string puppet running into the distance, a vision of Emily Brontë’s coffin swam in her head. Undiagnosed anorexia had surely contributed to her early death.
Portia turned a corner. Lisa followed and curb-crawled alongside her. Portia stopped outside a house with a white picket fence and a statue of the Virgin Mary in the window. Portia’s face was pale and wet with tears, her hands clawed with anguish.
Lisa climbed out of the car and stood on the street. The women assessed each other across the gulf of a generation.
‘I know you’re grown up,’ Lisa said in a calm, even voice. She was intrigued to hear the words come from her own mouth, but the truth was, Portia was right. Part of Lisa had refused to accept her daughter was an adult, independent in every way (except financially, she would have liked to point out—not even an ant could survive on part-time waitressing and unpaid acting work, so she and Jake were always topping up Portia’s account). ‘Can we talk?’ Lisa asked.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Portia said, as remote and untouchable as an ice queen.
Lisa was beginning to think ‘understand’ was an overrated word. Even empathy was a challenge. Portia was treating her as if she’d always be there, like the sea. Lisa wanted to grab her and tell her she was fragile, too. That if life had any kindness in it at all, she, Lisa, would be dead and gone long before her daughter.
Portia crossed her arms and stared up at a dragon-shaped cloud. Her lower lip quivered. Lisa stepped on the footpath and reached out for her.
‘You don’t know how hard I’m trying,’ Portia’s voice trailed away.
‘To do what?’
‘Be beautiful . . . clever.’
‘But you are!’
Portia shook her head. ‘No, I’m not! I want to be . . . perfect.’
Lisa glanced sideways at the statue of the Virgin Mary, her hands clasped in prayer. ‘Only Allah is perfect,’ she said, aching for her daughter’s pain. Lisa’s father had once taken her to a shop where Persian rugs hung from the walls, transforming the place into a grotto of jewelled colour. His eyes blazed as he explained how every knot had been tied by hand, making every rug unique. ‘They put a deliberate mistake in every rug, Panda Bear. See?’ He’d run his hand over a crimson runner covered with flowers and diamond shapes. ‘If this pattern was regular there’d be a diamond on this side to match the one over there, but the rug maker missed it out on purpose, as a reminder that only Allah is perfect.’
‘I’m so fat,’ Portia mumbled.
‘Have you looked in the mirror lately? Your legs are like pins.’
Portia’s eyes flashed with rage. ‘Why do you always do that?!’ she yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘Do what?’
‘Comment on how I look.’
‘When I was little and even fatter, you used to tell me I was beautiful every day,’ she sobbed. ‘You don’t say that to me anymore, but everyone else does.’ Portia crumpled like a sparrow into Lisa’s arms. As she gently rocked her daughter, Lisa’s confusion tumbled into a crevasse of sorrow. The Virgin Mary, the ultimate mother, knew a thing or two about the painful aspects of parenting. The statue’s eyes were raised to heaven. ‘Darling daughter. I love you so much.’
‘I love you too,’ Portia whispered.
Lisa gulped back tears. It had been years since Portia had last delivered those precious words to her.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Portia said, wiping her eyes and adjusting her tiara.
‘You do?’
‘You think I need professional help.’
A flock of galahs swooped over their heads.
Lisa drew a breath. ‘Do you think that’s what you need?’
Portia wrapped a tangle of arms around her and convulsed into her neck.
‘Would you like me to come back to the States and help you find someone?’
‘I’m not going back!’ Portia wailed. ‘I’m staying here!’
‘What? Wait,’ Lisa said, taking Portia by the shoulders.
‘I’m moving in with Zach. We’re starting up a theatre company in the city,’ Portia said, rubbing her eyes. ‘And I’ve found a counsellor.’
As they walked back to the car arm in arm, Lisa was both overjoyed and chastened. She was elated Portia was staying in Australia and ashamed she’d misread her daughter for so long. Portia was more grown up than she’d realised.