Michael had invited a couple of his friends for dinner, people Ali barely knew: Moira Thiemann, a newly appointed consultant paediatrician at the hospital, and her husband Greg Golding, who was something high up in the state’s Environment Protection Authority. So that it wouldn’t just be the four of them, Ali asked Cass to come along, and, as Cass was currently without a boyfriend, she asked Tahnee Jackson too, so the numbers wouldn’t be odd.
‘Tahnee Jackson?’ Michael said. ‘That’s a bit passive-aggressive.’
Ali said, ‘Why, because your mother will be spinning in her grave?’
‘No, because you’re pissed off that I don’t like your philanthropy scheme, which you’re determined to plough ahead with anyway.’
‘Michael, I didn’t invite her to score a point,’ Ali said, trying to keep her voice level. ‘I asked her because she’s become a friend,’ but Michael only laughed and said, ‘Sure, right.’ Then Ali told him to change his tone because it sounded ugly, and he said well, he couldn’t say anything right, so what the hell.
This was how things often were these days with Michael, and this was why: Ali had gifted a trust fund to an Arts South Australia scheme to support indigenous musicians, and had also, as well as this, begun funding Tahnee’s career, while at the same time Stella had officially withdrawn from her place at NIDA and was now planning a year’s travel in Europe; and to each of these developments Michael was vehemently opposed. He had passionately, volubly opposed them – but then had to deal with the novelty of failure when his opinion hadn’t prevailed, which was tough for him, because he wasn’t used to dissent; he’d had very little practice, by and large. Sure, Stella had given him a run for his money these past couple of years, when, on turning fifteen, she’d been inhabited by a rebel version of her own sweet self, but from Ali he’d only ever had agreement, even if sometimes it’d been lukewarm. All their lives together she’d tended to bend softly to his will, give way to his point of view. Now, though, she was standing her ground, defending her own plans and Stella’s, and giving their youngest daughter all the support she needed – which wasn’t much, in fact, because Stella was resolute.
‘Ah, Dad, chill, I’ll just apply again,’ she said to Michael blithely. ‘They’ll take me another time if they like me that much. They’ll like me even more with some life experience behind me.’
She was leaving for Italy soon, now she’d made her mind up to bail on NIDA, and there was no one in Adelaide she wanted to hang out with any more anyway, no one she even wanted to bump into in a chance encounter in the mall or at the beach. There was a year group party coming up in late February, a lavish formal event at a house in the hills, and it was her ardent wish to be long gone before the photos hit Facebook. This made no sense to Michael, who repeated with futile persistence that drama school in Sydney – surely, surely – would take her far enough away from her demons in Adelaide? But no, Stella said. No. She wanted continents between herself and her mistake; she wanted a hemisphere between them. The boy – the one she still wouldn’t name – had bragged about his conquest at Victor Harbor, Stella had told Ali that much at least. Bragged about it and, by so doing, unleashed a scandalfest, a gossip free-for-all, and the peculiar, odious, judgemental piety of a whole bunch of seventeen-year-old girls towards their erstwhile friend. ‘I hate them all,’ Stella said. ‘They’re mean and petty, and I want to start all over again, as if none of it had ever happened. I want to erase them all.’
‘You can do that in Sydney, darling,’ Michael said.
‘Dad, no!’ she said. ‘How many times? I can’t do that in Sydney, I need to escape, I need somewhere completely different. Mum understands, don’t you, Mum?’
Ali nodded. ‘Totally,’ she said.
‘What a surprise,’ Michael said.
Ali and Stella stared at him and Ali opened her mouth to speak, but then the doorbell rang, and it was Moira and Greg, here in the McCormack home for the first time, bearing flowers and wine and wide smiles, so the subject was closed.
Oh, but it all felt wrong, from the start. In the first instance, there was the perennial difficulty of how to explain Beatriz, because it was always so hard to find the right tone when introducing her to new people. Michael tended to say, ‘And this is Beatriz, she’s the real boss around here,’ which somehow always seemed to imply the opposite: that if there was a boss, it was probably him, and it certainly wasn’t Beatriz. Ali’s favoured introduction was: ‘This is Beatriz, she lives with us here,’ but this still left unclear the matter of why Beatriz should share their home; was she a lodger? Had she been taken in off the streets? Tonight, the questions hung only briefly in the air between guests and hosts before Beatriz herself made it clear, in a long and convoluted greeting, that she was uniquely useful to this household. When Moira and Greg arrived she’d been heading out to a church social, swathed in purple chiffon, but she stayed on, half in and half outside the house, to offer an expansive explanation of how to make authentic piri-piri chicken and then to give Michael unnecessary instructions for the slow and steady grilling of said chicken, how to apply the sauce to the cooked meat – with a bunch of parsley, never with a brush – and finally to urge and insist that all washing up should be left for her return, this last being the only one of her instructions that would be roundly ignored. There was a brief hiatus after she’d gone, as there might be following a small earth tremor, then Ali said, ‘So, congratulations, you’ve been well and truly Beatriz’d,’ and Moira and Greg laughed a little uncertainly. Then Cass showed up, already slightly merry, waving a clanking bag from the bottle shop, and Tahnee appeared just afterwards, straight from the airport, and so Stella – who hadn’t realised Tahnee was coming – asked if she could join them for dinner, which of course was fine, except that Greg turned out to be in charge of the radiation protection division of the EPA, and Stella had done her Year 12 research project on the continued contamination at the Maralinga nuclear-testing sites, and Tahnee’s grandfather – it transpired, as the conversation blundered on – had been among the scores and scores of indigenous people hounded off their ancestral land in the fifties and sixties by white men in army vehicles, so that the area could be experimentally nuked by the British government.
Michael stood at the barbecue, listening to the steady unravelling of the evening he’d had in mind. He waited for Tahnee to finish what she was saying, then cleared his throat. ‘This chicken’s done,’ he said. ‘Just needs the sauce now. Hope everyone’s hungry.’
They were seated outside, under the hibiscus pergola, and there were tea lights in small tin lanterns, flames dancing like fireflies down the centre of the table. Tahnee, who was a thoughtful young woman possessed of a quiet, watchful confidence, said, ‘These are difficult subjects for such a lovely gathering,’ and Greg looked fractionally less uncomfortable. Michael began to anoint the chicken with piri-piri sauce, carefully, meticulously, with his surgeon’s concentration and the big bunch of parsley Beatriz had left for the purpose.
‘They were such different times,’ Moira said. She’d shown a tendency this evening to speak in platitudes, but Greg looked at her now and nodded sagely, as if her remark showed great insight.
‘They were,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Stella said. ‘Very different, if it was OK for Britain to turn a piece of South Australia into radioactive wasteland.’
‘Indeed,’ Greg said, ignoring her combative tone. ‘Cold War values.’
‘Australia sucking up to the Brits, more like,’ Stella said, ‘and nobody’s ever been held properly accountable for it.’
‘It’s all been cleaned up, y’know, Stella,’ Moira said.
‘It has,’ Greg said. ‘More than once, and, sure, there’s still a low-level risk, but we’re well within international guidelines these days.’
‘I spoke to a fella who told me plutonium’s considered dangerous for about a quarter of a million years,’ Stella said. ‘Hashtag, just saying.’
‘Stella, will you fetch the salad?’ Michael said.
She shot him a look, but stood at once, and went into the kitchen, and Tahnee said, ‘My grandfather seemed to know that without any understanding of atomic science.’
‘How do you mean?’ Cass asked. She was having a far better time than she’d expected. She liked a tense dinner table, it made a nice change, and these McCormack occasions clearly benefited from a nuclear-powered rocket up the metaphorical arse. Cass didn’t really mind Michael McCormack, he was a bit of a stuffed shirt, a bit pompous and entitled, but the wine he served was always first rate, and he was a big improvement on that old scoundrel, McCormack Senior. But still, she much preferred having Ali to herself. Every time. Any day of the week. Cass waved the Pinot Noir at her friend, and she smiled regretfully and shook her head, because she’d promised Tahnee a lift back to Port Adelaide later, but Greg pushed his glass forwards for a refill, and Moira frowned and said, ‘Ah, I see, I’ll drive then.’
‘I mean, my grandfather totally understood the land was toxic,’ Tahnee said. ‘They all did, all his family, even years later, after it’d been declared fit for hunting. He used to tell me the kangaroos had yellow insides.’
Ali said, ‘Where did your grandfather go?’
Tahnee shrugged. ‘They were all moved to a mission. Whole new set of problems there.’
Stella said. ‘It’s all in my paper, Mum.’ She was back with the salad.
‘Jeez,’ Cass said. ‘Yellow roos.’
Greg said, ‘Look, I’m not an apologist for what happened out there,’ and Michael, coming to the table with the platter of burnished grilled chicken, said, ‘Of course you aren’t, Greg, and anyway it was nineteen fifty-six, way before your time, mate,’ and Tahnee cleared her throat and said, ‘Well, our way of life was destroyed long before nineteen fifty-six, Michael,’ and he said, ‘Sure, yeah, yeah, of course. Well, dig in, help yourselves.’
‘Michael, this looks just wonderful,’ Moira said. She was stick-thin though, her chest almost concave beneath her flimsy dress, and she only looked at the chicken, then didn’t take any. Instead, Greg helped himself to double, and sent the platter on its way round the table.
The scent of garlic and chilli rose provocatively into the night, and Cass said, ‘What’s not to like about Nando’s?’ but only Ali and Stella laughed.
‘Beatriz always says we should eat it with our fingers,’ Stella said. ‘But Dad draws the line at that, don’t you, Dad?’
‘Hey, suit yourself, Stella, that’s how you go now, isn’t it?’ Michael smiled as he spoke, but they all heard the edge in his voice.
Ali glanced at her husband and saw his mouth was set in that hard, thin line indicating dissatisfaction. She felt a pulse of guilty responsibility at having asked Tahnee and Cass to dinner when Michael had intended it as a getting-to-know-Moira-and-Greg event, but then, almost at once, her guilt was replaced by defiance. She’d had every right, and if Greg was getting a hard time, well, he was an adult doing a grown-up job, and more than capable of defending himself. He looked perfectly content anyway, tucking into the chicken a little too soon, before everyone was served. Moira had placed only salad on her plate, but she looked happy enough too. No, it was really only Michael who was suffering tonight, and Tahnee wasn’t the cause, nor was Cass; it was Stella.
‘You see, I’ve decided not to go to drama school in Sydney,’ the girl said now to the assembled diners. ‘That’s what Dad’s referring to there, when he said “suit yourself” like that.’
Moira said, ‘Ah, really?’ and looked politely between Stella and Michael, but received no further clarification from either one.
‘Travelling in Europe,’ Ali said into the void. ‘It’s a change of plan.’
‘It’s folly, is what it is,’ Michael said.
‘Italy, France, Spain, Portugal,’ Stella said, ticking the countries off on her fingers, which were sticky with piri-piri sauce. ‘Maybe the Greek islands. Maybe Morocco, actually.’
‘Morocco?’ Michael said. ‘Since when?’
‘Since just now.’
‘Beautiful,’ Moira said. ‘Fascinating country, isn’t it, Greg?’
He nodded, feeling, correctly, that it would be more politic to have no opinion about Morocco just at this moment.
Tahnee said, ‘You’re right to spread your wings, Stella, see the world, experience different cultures. I’ve never been outside Australia.’
‘Well, that’s going to change,’ Ali said. She put an arm around Tahnee’s shoulders, and said, ‘Tahnee Jackson, a rare and special songbird. Watch this space, everyone.’
Moira said waspishly, ‘Oh, Greg’s watching all right,’ which was quite true, and he immediately looked away and grinned sheepishly. But he wasn’t the only one; they all saw Tahnee’s allure, the hypnotic quality that drew and held the attention.
‘Tahnee, are you going to sing for us?’ Moira asked.
‘She’s a guest, Moira, not a turn,’ Stella said, and Michael and Ali, united by their daughter’s rudeness, both said, ‘Stella!’ and Stella held up two hands in surrender and said, ‘All right, don’t drop your bundle. I’m sorry – sorry, Moira.’
‘I’d gladly sing for you,’ Tahnee said, ‘but I’m feeling all sung out from last night’s set.’ She smiled at Moira, who seemed to relax a little under her soft gaze. ‘It was pretty demanding. Another time, though, for sure.’
‘Where’ve you been?’ Michael asked, and then felt, suddenly, that he ought to know this, that Ali must already have told him and he – through lack of any real interest – hadn’t listened. Again. But Ali let it pass and Tahnee just said, ‘Oh, I played a little festival out beyond Melbourne. I have a few lined up this year.’
‘I wish I’d gone,’ Ali said. ‘Next year, maybe.’
‘She won’t be playing little festivals next year,’ Cass said, ‘it’ll be the States for Tahnee, or the UK tour,’ and Tahnee smiled and said, ‘Hasty climbers have nasty falls,’ and Ali said, ‘You’re very wise, my girl.’
Tahnee blew her a kiss and Michael, watching them, wondered at this surging affection between them, a sisterly connection springing tall and strong out of thin air, Tahnee so comfortable at his table and Ali treating her like a lifelong friend.
Moira and Greg left early, just before half past nine, clutching a signed copy of Tell the Story, Sing the Song, and promising to look out for Tahnee’s debut album, when the time came.
‘Well, they’re sweet people,’ Ali said to Michael, not meaning it at all, because she thought them dull, Moira certainly, nibbling on lettuce and covering her glass with a prohibitive flat hand when the wine came anywhere near.
Michael just poured himself another glass of red and said, ‘What a shame, then, that they were given the Exocet treatment,’ and Cass, who’d had way too much to drink, said, ‘Aw, c’mon, Mike, don’t be a mardy arse,’ which helped not a jot. Michael picked up his wine and excused himself to make a start on the washing up, and Cass sniffed the air and asked in a stage whisper if anyone else detected a whiff of burning martyr. Ali told her to put a sock in it, then suggested to Stella she should go help her dad and cheer him up while she was at it – it’d be atonement, Ali said, for behaving so badly at the table.
‘Not badly exactly,’ Stella said, airily, ‘just controversially,’ but she followed Michael into the kitchen, because all the McCormacks, even the youngest member, were always keen to beat Beatriz to the dirty dishes, and the old lady would be back any time soon.
‘Greg,’ Cass said. ‘What a total dill.’
‘He was more fun than Moira,’ Ali said. ‘At least he recognised a plate of good food when he saw one. I’m sorry, Tahnee, that wasn’t my best idea, dragging you along tonight.’
‘Hey, I was fine,’ Tahnee said. ‘It was … interesting.’
‘Did you see her plate?’ Cass said. ‘Two lettuce leaves, a semicircle of cucumber, and a slice of tomato, no dressing. Was that anorexia in action at your dinner table?’
Ali shook her head. ‘No idea. Looked very much like it.’ She’d delved into her pocket for her phone, and she scrolled through the notifications as she spoke. ‘Serious self-control, at the very least.’ There was nothing from Dan, and by her reckoning four days had gone by since she’d heard from him. It was kind of hard to keep track, given the crazy time difference that made his today her yesterday, but anyway it seemed as if too long had passed without a song, without a reply to the Pretenders, and she was more troubled by this than she dared to acknowledge.
Cass and Tahnee were chatting now, about the festival, and the others Tahnee was playing later in the year in Sydney and Perth. She had a new management team behind her, a professional machine to carry her career forward in a measured way, a tried-and-tested process. It was weird, she said, years of coping on her own and now there was Donal and Darcy, and cheerful roadies to pack up her kit, and Ali, distracted by the absence of Dan, with only half an ear on the conversation, said, ‘Hmm? Darcy?’ and Tahnee said, ‘Donal’s assistant,’ and Cass said, ‘Donal?’ and Tahnee laughed: ‘My new manager,’ she said.
Cass said, ‘Girl, you really are the ant’s pants these days,’ then she looked at Ali and saw the shadow of concern on her face. ‘All good?’ she asked.
Ali looked up from her phone, then slipped it away again. ‘Yeah, sure, sorry,’ she said, thinking, Dan Lawrence, speak to me.
Tahnee yawned, and stretched like a cat, spreading her arms, arching her back. ‘I’m whacked,’ she said.
‘Come on, honey,’ Ali said, and she stood up. ‘You’ve had a long day, it’s home time.’
Cass, in search of further fun and company, begged a lift to Hindley Street, then Ali and Tahnee drove on in easy silence, westward-bound down the Port Road towards a different world, one Ali had loved since she first came here, of ships’ chandlers, wharf-side warehouses, the ghosts of the city’s maritime past. Ali had always felt at home in Port Adelaide, more so than in the genteel complacency of North Adelaide; something about this place – the industry, the spirit of endeavour – spoke to her urban soul. But Michael had laughed when, many years ago, she’d suggested they buy a place here, something run-down, something with lofty ceilings and tall windows overlooking the water, something they could restore and make their own. This was before his father and mother died, when sharing the parental home had seemed, to Ali, an unnatural thing to do, a strange, co-dependent, vaguely infantilising existence. In the end, he’d seen she was serious, but he still wouldn’t countenance Port Adelaide, so they’d settled on Norwood, a very different proposition but good in its way, probably better than the port, full of young families and funky cafés and wide streets where Thea and Stella learned to ride bicycles and played skipping games with the neighbours’ children. The house hadn’t been majestic or colonial or expansive, just exactly the right size, and Ali had loved it there, but only for a short while, only three years, because in that time James died, and Margaret began the process of dying, and Michael missed the grand bluestone house, he missed the gracious proportions, the sweeping staircase, the gardens, the pool. Someone must live there, he said, and he didn’t want his brothers to have it, or – God forbid – a stranger. It was closer to the girls’ school, he said, and didn’t Thea and Stella prefer it in North Adelaide, with their own swimming pool and the parklands nearby? Put like that, the little girls had to agree, and Ali, out-manoeuvred, had bowed to the inevitable. They’d sold the Norwood single-storey and trooped back to where Michael belonged, and at least Beatriz had been there, waiting for them with the steadfast patience of a woman who’d known they would come home. And look, it’d hardly counted as a sacrifice, going back to the McCormack family seat; Ali knew she couldn’t complain. She didn’t complain. She would never be so crass, or ungrateful. It was only that sometimes Michael’s rock-solid certainties gave her the sense that she’d led someone else’s life instead of her own.
Ali dropped Tahnee off at her building, and watched until she was safely inside, then she swept the car round in a U-turn to head back. In the well of the driver’s side door, her phone gave its muted buzz, and she knew it’d be Cass saying Call me right now, so she didn’t rush to check the screen and instead waited until the next red light to pick it up. Dan Lawrence sent you a message, she read. Liquid golden relief washed over her and right through her, startling in its purity, and at the same time she knew she shouldn’t have doubted him; like Beatriz, she thought, she should trust in a higher power, practise the healing art of steady patience. She pulled over and parked to look at his message, feeling good, feeling light and bright, thinking she’d play the song, whatever he’d sent, and let it accompany her home, but there was no link to a song, only a message. Hey, Alison, I’m at the bar of the Exeter Hotel in Rundle Street, saving you a seat xxx.
The world outside – cars, shops, petrol stations, pubs, people – hurtled backwards into infinity, rushing and streaming away from her like falling water, retreating entirely, until she was quite alone on the Port Road, hands shaking, heart banging, staring with disbelief at his words, but they didn’t alter, they didn’t mutate or melt away to prove themselves a figment of her imagination. They remained exactly as they were and the time beneath the message showed 22.17, and now it was exactly twenty past ten, just three minutes after he’d written them, from a bar stool in a pub on Rundle Street. He was here, in Adelaide, and he was here for her.
Don’t freak out, she told herself. Don’t freak out, don’t mess this up, don’t hide, don’t run, don’t let him down, don’t, don’t, don’t forget to breathe.
There was no decision to make, but she didn’t reply to Dan. She sent Michael a text to say she was still with Tahnee, she’d be late, they had stuff to discuss, and this perfectly plausible lie came so easily she knew she should be ashamed, when all she felt was a kind of elated determination. She’d conquered the involuntary shaking, she’d held the steering wheel of the stationary car and made herself take long and steady breaths, she’d checked her appearance in the rear-view mirror, and now she was simply responding to the dictates of her heart and his, filled with resolve, shining with the clarity of her purpose. She was returning home. How Dan came to be here didn’t cloud her mind, the risk he’d taken, the folly of turning up unannounced. No: there was no questioning the ins and outs, the whys and wherefores of an inexorable force, and after all, the world could be crossed in the course of a day and a night, and they had to see each other, of course they did; they had to be in the same city, in the same room, they had to talk and to touch, they couldn’t simply spend the years they each had left trading songs across cyberspace. This certainty sustained her for the twenty minutes it took to arrive at the East End, and to park and get out of the car, but then, as she approached the familiar tatty splendour of the fine old Exeter Hotel she thought: Hang on, Daniel Lawrence is in there, and for a few moments she simply froze, even though her hand was already reaching for the door. She stood there on the step, paused in time like a woman spellbound, and a young guy behind her said, not unkindly, ‘You coming or going?’ then stepped round her and pulled open the door, and Ali could see Dan, saw him at once, knew him at once, although he didn’t see her because there was live music playing and he was watching the band, not the door: watching the band, holding a pint, waiting for Alison, as if he’d been doing this for ever.
She felt so sure of him. She walked through the open door and up to him where he stood, leaning with his back against the bar, and he turned his head before she spoke as if he’d sensed her there, and he smiled at her. Just that, a smile, but it was so completely familiar to her that she laughed. She was filled with love and wonder. Daniel put his glass down on the bar. They stared at each other, and his eyes roamed her face.
‘Look at you,’ he said, and he took her face in his hands, tipping it up towards his so that he could kiss her, very softly, on the mouth, a careful, tender placing of lips on lips. ‘There,’ he said, and drew away to look at her, but she pressed close to him, so close that their bodies connected, and she reached for the back of his head, pulled it towards her until they were kissing again; then, when it ended, she rested her head against his shoulder and inhaled the smell of his warm skin, and he wrapped his arms around her, and there they stood for a while, like survivors, happy just to be alive.