The House That Was Eureka (4 page)

‘Why? What?’ It flashed through Evie’s mind that if Mum had had a bad night too, then it could’ve been something real, like burglars maybe, or maybe people having a fight next door.

‘The car broke down,’ Mum said. ‘Just out of Liverpool. It took poor Ted ages to fix it, we only just got here.’

‘It took poor Ted ages to fix it,’ Ted mimicked, ‘because poor Ted didn’t have the right tools, did he, because someone who’d unpacked the boot had gone and unpacked the toolbox too, instead of leaving it there, as anyone with a grain of sense would’ve done, as anyone with a grain of sense knows that the toolbox never comes out of the boot.’

‘Oh,’ Evie said. She was the someone who had unpacked the boot. As Ted well knew.

‘Please knock it off, darl…’ Mum piled food onto Ted’s plate. ‘What’s done’s done. All’s well that ends well. We’re home now and none the worse.’

‘None the worse, except that we were up all night with no bloody sleep and I’ve gotta start on the new job today and you’ve gotta go to work too, while Miss Brilliant here twiddles her thumbs.’

Evie said nothing. Began to make herself a piece of toast. Evie-Peevie. She knew she had her peeved look on.

‘Seeing as you’re up, love,’ Mum said, ‘you might go and unpack the trailer, and then Ted can go straight to work when he’s through with his breakfast.’

Evie pointedly took her half-cooked toast off the griller. She’d starve.

‘Is there anything, Ted,’ Evie said too politely as she retreated into the diningroom, ‘is there anything that’s in the trailer that shouldn’t be unpacked?’

Ted ate on and said nothing.

‘I was just asking, because after all
you
said last night to get
everything
out of the boot, and…’

‘Skoot!’ Mum slammed the diningroom door after Evie.

‘You have to understand, darl,’ Evie heard Mum say, ‘she’s a very young sixteen.’

‘Better than being a fat, old forty-three-year-old,’ Evie muttered to herself.

A couple of hours later, after Ted had gone, Mum thanked Evie for arranging the photos so nicely on the mantelpiece. Mum always did that sort of thing. Stuck with Ted when he was there, and then was specially nice to Evie behind his back. Mum had always been like that, ever since she’d got Ted, when Evie was five. It was as if she was so scared of losing Ted that she’d put herself down, and put Evie down, just to keep him.

‘You’ll be okay today, love, with the girls,’ Mum said. ‘You might find out where a park is, and take them there, but don’t let Jodie or Ree go off on the bike, not till they know the roads round here, and careful with Sammy, with all the traffic.’

‘What were you planning to do today?’ Mum added as an afterthought.

‘Oh, I thought I might find out where the CES is, see if there are any jobs going.’ Evie had no intention. Not today. She was exhausted after last night. But it sounded good to say that, to butter Mum up. ‘Or go right into town, to the Youth Job Centre.’ Piling it on now, with jam and cream.

‘Oh well. Leave it go till Monday. The kids will be at school then. One day won’t hurt.’

(As if a million days would hurt!)

‘By the way, love…’ Mum was nearly out the door now, on her way to work, looking groomed and smart despite no sleep. ‘Do be careful about doors. It’s not like Campbelltown here, you know. When we came home this morning, you’d left the kitchen door wide open.’

Oh really? Evie thought.

It being Friday, Noel thought he might go to school. He tended to do that on Mondays and Fridays. He lay there in bed a while, thinking he might skip it, and go investigate those new people next door. But considering seriously, there’d be all weekend for that. And presumably six months, for it must be a six-month lease. Unless they got scared, and broke the lease.

Noel laughed, then stopped laughing, considered it seriously, then laughed again.

He sometimes wondered. It was true that tenants didn’t tend to last long next door. Six months, a year maybe, and one lot had broken their lease. But how much it was due to something weird, and how much to the odd bits of weirdness that Noel sometimes put on; and how much it was due to the house being cruddy, and how much to the despot being a shit of a landlady, Noel just didn’t know. Plus there were factors such as general high mobility in inner-city areas.

The weirdness, though, had started seriously. Or at least seriously in Noel’s mind. When he was about six, Noel had overheard tenants in the despot’s room, complaining. They were a young couple, with no kids, just starting out.

A bell rang. Ring-ring.

Run and run, Noel
.

Fetch and carry
.

Run in and see, Noel
.

You might be needed
.

Run and run, Noel
.

The bell has rung
.

Noel climbed out of bed, making himself take his time, forcing himself to relinquish the speed he’d been trained to; then put on his duffle-coat as a dressing gown and obeyed the despot’s call.

The first thing Noel noticed as he walked into the room was the light. There was a lot more of it than usual. It poured in through the window, illuminating the despot on her bed. The blind was right up. Usually she only had it up a fraction. Sometimes days would go by when she wouldn’t allow it up at all. Noel couldn’t remember ever seeing it right up.

‘Good morning, Nanna,’ Noel addressed the despot. ‘We’ve got the blind up so we can perve on the new neighbours, have we? It’s a shame we can’t see more...“Backyard Glimpses”, I think that’s how they’d describe it in a real-estate ad. Like “Harbour Glimpses”. Though I must say there’s a panoramic view of the scullery roofs.’

The despot had the back bedroom, the room that Sammy had in the house next door. Her high, hard, narrow bed was pushed up against the window so that she could peer out if she wanted to and check that no one was coming in her back gate and down the side passage. Though she could see a bit of her own yard, and a bit of 203’s, most of the view was of the flat corrugated-iron roofs of the two adjoining sculleries, a metre and a bit below her.

‘But what did you wish, oh Grandmother mine?’ Noel continued, looking curiously at the despot. There was something about her this morning.

The despot said nothing, but kept her eyes fixed on Noel. She was as Mum would have left her before going to work: propped up on her three pillows, fully dressed and lying on top of the neat counterpane. Fully dressed right down to stockings and shoes, though she wouldn’t move all day except to go to the toilet. The toilet was right next to this room, and the despot officially hadn’t gone further than that since the last stroke, five years ago.
Officially
hadn’t, according to what Mum and the doctors believed, but Noel had surprised her a couple of times when he’d lobbed into the house unexpectedly.

Once he’d found her downstairs, pottering on her two sticks through the gloom and junk of the scullery.

Once he’d found her up on the balcony, staring down into the street.

He hadn’t told Mum: what was the point? If Mum knew she sometimes wandered, Mum would spend all day every day at work imagining broken legs or a stroke on the stairs.

Similarly, he didn’t tell Mum that she could talk. If Mum knew about the little conversations, the whisperings with the despot’s mates, Mum might think she was going loopy, and worry more. Of course, she wasn’t just
going
loopy, in Noel’s opinion: she was over the hills and far away. In Noel’s opinion too, she’d always been like that, even back before the stroke. But she always presented a very sane aspect to Mum and the doctors. Grumpy, but sane. Perhaps afraid they’d put her away. As if Mum ever would!

‘Oh, she’s cunning, isn’t she,’ Noel murmured too softly for her to hear, ‘the old Lucrezia Borgia.’

The despot fixed her eyes hard on Noel now, and pointed to her writing stuff on the bedside table. She could easily reach it herself, but Noel handed it to her. It was a thing called a magic-pad, that kids use: a sort of soft slate that you write on with a special pen, and then you lift up the transparent cover-sheet and all the writing disappears.

‘
THE BLIND
’, the despot wrote in big capitals, like someone writing an anonymous hate-letter. She showed it to Noel, then lifted the transparent page and erased it. She always erased immediately. Before Noel got her the magic-pad she used to use ordinary pen and paper, and then as soon as the notes were read she’d tear them into tiny shreds and Noel would have to spend ages picking up all the confetti from the floor.

Noel smiled, and took the pad from her. Though she could hear perfectly well, he sometimes conversed back with her by notes. Just for fun. A dose of her own medicine.

‘
THERE’S NONE SO BLIND
,’
Noel wrote, ‘
AS THOSE WHO WILL NOT SEE
.’ He gave it to her.

‘Nor so dumb,’ Noel said, ‘as those who refuse to speak.’

The despot erased angrily.

‘
IMPERTINENCE
!’ she wrote. Showed it, erased, then wrote: ‘
FIX THE BLIND
.’

Noel looked up, and realized that not only was the blind all the way up, but that it was caught there, stuck there because the cord had got cobbled round and round the roller. She must have yanked it up so hard that it flew away from her.

‘Scuzey-moi,’ Noel said.

He climbed onto the bed, up over her, then stood on tiptoe on the window-sill to reach up and untangle it. It was difficult, he was so short.

‘I wonder when we did this.’

Noel strained and grunted, nearly toppled onto her, then did it.

‘There we are.’

Noel was back on the ground. ‘Any more little services? We’re only too willing to oblige.’

‘
WASH YOUR HAIR
,’ the despot wrote.

Noel smiled, erased it for her.

‘
REMOVE THE BREAKFAST
,’ the despot wrote. She waved her ring-hand at the electric food-warmer beside her bed. Mum always made her a good breakfast and left it there before she went to work. It would be eaten by the time Noel got up, and one of his before-school duties was to take the empty plates down and wash them. His midday duty was to come home from school and warm up her dinner and take it up and put it in the food-warmer. His first after-school duty was to remove the empty dinner plates and take up the afternoon tea. The despot loved her food.

Noel opened the food-warmer for the empty plates. But the porridge bowl was full under its silver lid and there were two eggs and bacon under another lid and four slices of toast under a third. That was a new one on Noel: the despot off her tucker.

Noel put them on the tray without comment. The cup had been used but the teapot was nearly full: only one cup instead of her standard three, and she’d drunk it without milk.

As Noel headed for the door, there was a croak behind him.

‘
Noh!
’

The sound the despot made for his name. She had a different, two-syllable croak for Mum.

Noel turned. The despot was holding up her pad.

‘
THE NEIGHBOURS
.

WHAT ARE THEY LIKE
?’

‘I dunno.’ Noel wasn’t a spy for her.

The despot shook her head and impatiently erased.

‘
THE GIRL
.

HOW OLD
?

DESCRIBE HER
.’

‘Ravishingly lovely. Spunky as hell. Just the right age. I’m head over heels already.’

The despot gave him a look. Those narrow dark eyes, like Noel’s own, impenetrable. Noel waited, balancing the loaded tray. Till the angry erase, the next message.

‘
TELL YOUR MOTHER

I COULDN’T EAT
.’

‘Have a nice day.’ Noel beamed and was out the door.

Of course Noel wouldn’t tell Mum. The old girl was just bunging on an act. ‘There’s a little surprise though, waiting for you, my lady.’ Noel ate the bacon, but put the porridge in the fridge instead of the bin.

Next door, Maria and Jodie were moving from the Weeties stage to the toast stage and Sammy wouldn’t eat her Weet Bix with cold milk.

Evie put some milk on to warm, and the night came back to her. That feeling in the cupboard. Evie wasn’t used to something so sharp.

The milk boiled over, burnt and stank.

Damn Sammy and her hot milk.

Evie put some more on. Felt her mind drifting off, burnt the toast but caught the milk just in time.

‘It’s too hot!’

Evie poured some cold in.

‘I only like it how Mummy makes it!’

‘Stiff!’ Evie put some more toast on.

‘Evie, you said a rude word,’ Sammy complained, delighted.

‘I did not!’

‘You did too!’ Maria said, just to make Sammy worse.

‘I did not too.’ Being with the kids, Evie found she went down to
their
level. One day, she’d leave. As far as Evie had an ambition, that was it. She peanut-buttered some toast for Sammy. She could hear Maria now, clunking around in the scullery.

‘Get out of my room!’

‘
You
go in
my
room!’

‘Come and do the washing up!’

‘Do it yourself!’

Maria raced off and out the back gate. Well, that had got rid of Maria for the morning, anyway. And Jodie was getting ready to go, pumping up Ree’s bike in the diningroom. Ree’s bike used to be Evie’s. It wasn’t a BMX, and Ree despised it.

‘Jodie, Mum says you’re not to ride the bike, no one’s to ride the bike, not till you know the roads around here.’

‘Yes,’ Jodie said pleasantly, wheeling the bike out into the hall, out the front door.

So it was just down to Evie and Sammy. That was better. Unless Sammy was in one of her tough moods. She was far more strong-willed than Evie.

‘Evie-Peevie,’ Sammy said happily, ‘this is lovely toast. I love my toast like this. I love it when you make my toast like this. This is lovely breakfast.’

When Sammy was in this mood, she made Evie happy too.

‘We’ll find a park this morning,’ Evie said.

‘With swings?’