The Other Madonna (3 page)

I
took the stairs. They were empty except for the guy with the oily ponytail and tattoos. He sat smoking, like he always did, in an old plastic school chair on the eighth-floor landing. He smiled as he watched me pass and I realised that he was the major reason I took the lift. His skin was sickly and his tattoos homemade. He'd been there forever. Never said hello, just perved.

It was a short walk from the top of Sydney Road to Bianca's place. Brettas Street was narrow with bluestone gutters and plane trees on the nature strip that were as old and gnarled as some of the houses. Bianca's place wasn't gnarled. The brick walls that separated her terrace from her neighbours had been painted white. A glossy white that made number seventeen glow. The cast-iron cobwebs on the second-storey verandah had been painted lavender, as had the window trims and the guttering.

The front gate didn't squeak. The square front yard was a sea of white pebbles with one small tree standing neat and proud in the centre. Two shiny blue urns filled with
little purple flowers sat at either end of the single step that led to the heavy timber front door. A bronze angel hung over the doorbell and seemed to guard the button. Not like she'd bite your hand off if you weren't welcome, more like she'd come to life and fly through the house calling a warning if the wrong person rang the bell.

I rang the bell. God, even the bell was classy. It didn't sound like a game-show jackpot. It didn't sound like you'd got a question wrong. It didn't torture any classical music. It went ding and then it breathed while the hallway filled with sound and then it went dong. The two sounds flew together like sonic butterflies. If I lived here, I thought, I could stand on the step and ring the doorbell just to make me feel good. Half an hour, every morning.

‘Iiiiiii've got iiiiit,' came a voice. She sang the words and they became the lyric to the music of the doorbell. Bianca, I thought. Bianca the singer stage princess. The door clicked and flew open and Bianca was already smiling. She grabbed me and squeezed and kissed my face and patted my hair and moaned in my ear that it was sooo good to see me. She smelled like a thousand exotic flowers.

She asked if I was okay but didn't wait for an answer. She took the pack from my back and led me into the hallway. A floor of polished wood. The ceiling was so high that it wouldn't be visible on an overcast day. Huge oil paintings of flowers owned the pale walls and my runners squeaked as I followed Bianca towards the kitchen at the back.

‘Evie! Your gorgeous sister is here.'

Evie jogged down the stairs and hugged me at the kitchen door. Her lip was swollen, her eyes blank.

She hugged me but she wasn't there. Her fingers patted my back and her chin stuck into my neck. ‘Thanks for coming over.'

It sounded more like a goodbye than a welcome. She broke away and stepped into the kitchen. ‘Can I get everyone a coffee?'

‘Yes please,' Bianca said.

‘Cappuccino, Madds?'

I shrugged. ‘If it's not too much trouble.'

She patted a gleaming silver coffee machine on the kitchen bench. Just like the one at Pepe's but a third of the size.

I raised my eyebrows and whistled. She began clunking and banging at the machine like a practised waitress, grabbed the milk from the fridge and sloshed some into a stainless-steel jug.

Bianca rested her hand on my shoulder. ‘Sheer poetry, isn't it? Watch carefully, Maddie; this is the dance of an addict.'

Evie looked up as the machine farted steam into the milk jug. There was a strained smile on her lips and her eyes were pinched. Evie didn't drink much coffee at home. She drank Pepsi. Dad drank stout. I drank apple and guava juice in pay week and water when my money ran out. Evie wasn't moving like an addict, she was thumping and bumping like an employee.

The hallway was filled with sweet sound and I realised that someone had rung the doorbell. It sounded even better from the inside.

‘Iiii've got iiiit,' Bianca sang. I stepped into the hall so
she could glide past. Evie was at the hallway door with two cups of coffee. She was trying to see their visitor over Bianca's shoulder. She handed me my cappuccino and I thanked her. Looked more like a flat white with chocolate sprinkled on top. At last, I thought, something that I can do better than my sister. My time at Pepe's may not have given me much but it had certainly given me the know-how to make a great cappuccino with a mountain of froth.

Bianca was kissing and hugging a man on the doorstep. Not like tongue down his throat and squeezing his butt sort of thing, just a big hello. She led him inside and I nearly fainted. What a god! Tall and tanned and dark and all muscles under his shirt, like he'd been carved out of some exotic wood and come to life.

Evie handed the other coffee to Bianca and threw her arms around the man's neck. They kissed and laughed. He lifted her off the floor with one arm, spun her around and dropped her on her feet.

‘Maddie, this is Jerome. Jerome, this is Evie's sister, Madonna.'

He carried a small folder under his right arm and he put it on the hallstand next to the phone so he could shake my hand. My cup rattled and we both whoopsed and laughed.

‘Yes, same killer looks,' Jerome said. ‘Nice to meet you, Madonna.'

He looked right in my eyes and I felt all weird. Might have been all the blood rushing to my face and other places. God, how tacky was that? I looked at that man,
probably my sister's boyfriend, and I went all Mills and Boon.

So, I thought, Evie really is a big girl now. I wanted to sneak out the door and never come back. She had absolutely everything! Nice place to stay, friends, a cappuccino machine to use (even if she couldn't use it properly) and now Jerome.

‘I knew you could do it!' Evie squealed.

‘Yeah, yeah. You were about the only one. You and Adrian.' Jerome hung his head and thanked Evie.

‘God, don't thank me. You did all the work,' Evie said, and looked over Jerome's shoulder. ‘Is Adrian coming?'

‘No. He's gone to the city. Said he'd be home after lunch. When you see him next, though, don't call him Adrian; call him Red.'

‘Red?'

‘Mmm. We had a little wager. Said if I landed the job he'd dye his hair bright red. Just the incentive I needed.'

Bianca and Evie shrieked. I felt like I'd vanished. I had a picture in my mind about the kid who lived next door to Rosie, who I called Red. A little boy about six or seven. He looked like he'd been dropped in a vat of red. His hair was red – even his eyelashes. His skin was a red–brown freckle, bright red in the elbows and behind the knees where he scratched. And his sad eyes. His irises were dirty green but the eyelids surrounding them looked as though he'd pulled them back to gross someone out and the wind had changed.

Evie took Jerome's hand and led him into the kitchen.

Bianca motioned with her elbow that I should follow.
We sat around the kitchen table. Evie made Jerome a flat-white cappuccino. The talk was about Jerome's new position as the manager of Ransom's theatre restaurant in Carlton.

‘So,' Bianca said, and sat up in her chair all businesslike. ‘I take it this is your formal resignation from Sapphires, Jerome?'

‘Um . . . well, yes. Do you need two weeks' notice?'

Bianca slapped his arm. ‘I miss you already.'

Jerome finished his coffee and said he had to leave. Evie hugged him again. Bianca escorted him to the front door.

Evie grabbed my hand and dragged me upstairs to her room. It looked like something from the cover of
Home Beautiful
with cream carpet and white linen. An arrangement of pillows on the bed reflected in the robe-door mirrors.

I pulled Rainbow from my pocket and handed it to her.

‘There's more stuff downstairs.'

She hugged the rag to her face and purred.

Rainbow didn't fit with the décor of Evie's new room. The room didn't look like Evie at all. It was nothing like the room we'd shared since forever. No posters on the walls. No scent of deodorant from the pile of clothes on the floor. Just one double bed.

‘When are you coming home?' I asked.

‘I'm not. I don't really want to talk about it.'

I grabbed her fingers and frowned. She rubbed my back.

‘It's the best thing. Finally got me off my arse.'

I heard Bianca clomping up the stairs. Evie leaned close and whispered that Jerome may have already found her a
place. I wondered if Jerome knew what he was getting himself into. Evie's four years older than me but sometimes she's a little girl.

Without warning there were tears in my eyes and Evie was hugging me.

‘I miss you already,' I said.

‘Yeah. Hey, I'm not far away.'

Bianca sighed theatrically. ‘Another top-class employee lost to the competition.'

Evie slapped my back. ‘Like you said though, boss, everyone's replaceable.'

Bianca looked at me. ‘How's your tongue today?'

‘Fine. I can almost talk normal again now.'

‘Normal-ly,' she corrected.

‘Normally,' I said. ‘I'd better get going.'

‘First chance we get we'll have a girls' night in, okay? Video, chocolate and champagne.' They hugged me goodbye on the verandah and I had to bite my lip.

I
walked back to the flat. I walked and sniffed until my nose outran my sniffing and I had to bolt into a milk bar and grab a napkin. I didn't feel sad, exactly, more beaten around and lonely. Evie had every right to have a life of her own. I hadn't realised until she left how big she was in my life. She was more than my sister. Much more.

I could hear the cries of a kid echoing around the basement of the block. Nothing unusual in that but this kid was in real pain. I decided to go up the lift. The kid's screaming would be echoing up the stairwell. The heavy doors and the gently whirring lift cable would drown the cries. The boy lay crumpled on the stained concrete beside the lift. It was Red. Dirty old black tracksuit pants with white stripes up the outside of the legs. A blue shirt, pilled and stained on the arm. He held his ankle and howled. I couldn't walk past him. I'd have to step over him. I knew a few people on the eighth floor who could step over a screaming child but I couldn't do it.

‘Are you okay, Red?' I asked. I felt my face flush as I reached out a hand to his knee. I'd lived two doors down from him since he was born and I didn't know his real name. I guess that wasn't entirely my fault. I'd never heard Red say a word. If he was playing and I walked past, he'd just stare. I'd heard him howl often enough, through the walls, usually after a hardcore shouting match in broken English.

I touched his knee and he wailed like an ambulance.

Some bloke stuck his head into the stairwell. ‘SHUT UP!'

‘Come on, mate,' I said, and pressed the up arrow on the lift. ‘Better get you home.'

Good one, Maddie. How?

The lift bell chimed and the doors opened. I looked from the lift to the boy and back to the lift.

‘Can you stand up?'

Red's eyes bulged and he screamed until there was no air left. His mouth hung open but all the scream had gone.

‘Right then,' I said, and slipped my hand under his bent knees. He let go of his ankle with one hand and sat up. He slipped one hand over the back of my neck. The lift door clicked, and began to close. I wrenched the kid off the ground and he squealed in my ear. I shushed and apologised. He was much lighter than I imagined, and bony. I scrunched my eyes against his squeal and managed to bump his injured leg on the black rubber of the lift door. I sat him in the corner and poked the button for the twelfth floor. The doors closed and locked me in with the screaming boy.

‘Shhh,' I said, and put my hand over the fingers he had wrapped around his ankle. ‘What happened?'

He stopped squealing, flicked the off switch on the siren. My ears rang with relief. He sniffed and stared at my hand resting on his. We were moving – the force of the lift rested on my shoulders like a backpack – but we didn't move. Red stared at my hand. I stared at Red. His red hair, his blotchy red face, his red-rimmed eyes.

The lift bell rang. Red sniffed. The door rolled open. Twelfth floor.

‘Can you stand?'

He pushed himself against the wall and tried to stand. I put my arm over his shoulder and he limped into the hall.

‘You okay?' I asked, and pulled my arm away. He limped heavily and screamed out. I grabbed him and he leaned into me and wailed. I bent and tucked myself under his arm. We hobbled across the hallway and past our flat, past Rosie's, to the place where he lived. He was doing a fine impersonation of an air-raid siren that had taken a hit. The door swung open.

A woman stood in the doorway. A woman I'd never seen before. I gasped. Her skin was grey and transparent like it had never seen the light of day. She had less hair than my dad. I could see a network of veins near the crown of her head. Her left eye stared; her right eye had no iris. It bulged like a boiled egg from slack eyelids. Her mouth was drawn into a snarl.

‘What have you done?' she growled at me.

‘Me? I . . . I . . .'

She grabbed Red from me, pulling him off balance and making him stand on his bad foot. Leg. Ankle.

‘What have you done? You bitch! You evil bitch! Get your hands off. He is only a boy. Leave him alone, bitch!'

She slammed the door. She cursed me from behind it but it wasn't in English. Red bawled.

My eyes misted. I felt like I'd been punched in the guts. My lip bent and shook. The tears made my eyes sting. I understood, as the key zipped into the lock on our door, how young women became old hags. You hit them in the heart and then you hit them again. Belt the smiles out of them. If there's any hope still in there, you hit them again until it hurts to smile. Until everything tastes like metal. Until the only dreams she has for the future are full of shadows.

Dad sat on a chair at the table, one hand resting on a knee with his mouth part-open. His face was ashen. I stopped and he nodded at me then coughed until the colour came rushing back to his face.

‘Are you all right, lov?' he asked, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

I nodded. I wasn't all right but there was nothing he could do about it. I felt like shoving him off his chair. He seemed pathetic and old and sick and useless. He wouldn't have a clue about my life. I didn't have the energy to ask him how he was. I locked myself in the bathroom. I used the last twenty sheets of toilet paper on the roll to blow my nose. There was blood on my wrist. I couldn't find a cut. The boy must have been hurt more than I'd thought.

The bathroom filled with steam in ten seconds. I tried to blast away the barnacles of hopelessness with hot water. Maybe not blast them away, just scrub them clean and get on with life like a crusty old humpback whale. I don't think whales would worry too much about barnacles. Shower is good medicine. I rubbed the steam off the mirror with my shirt and dressed for work.

‘Hey, Maddie, your namesake is on the box,' Dad hollered.

And she was.
The
Madonna. The absolute queen of pop, oozing sex and singing something about hard surprises.

‘Jayzus. Why doesn't she put some clothes on?' Dad asked. He covered his face with his hand then peeked through his fingers.

‘Do you want me to get your glasses?' I asked, and he smiled.

‘Nair,' he giggled. ‘Bloddy things fog up.'

I stood closer to the screen. Our TV started changing colour about five years ago and Madonna's skin was green. Wrong Madonna, I thought. If she was looking out from the screen she wouldn't see anything to envy, but looking at her hair, her body, her
everything
made me want to take dance lessons. Get a little bit closer so that people accidentally think I'm a goddess because we have the same name. I wondered how I'd look as a blonde.

‘Are you sure you're all right, Maddie? You look a bit pale, lov,' Dad said.

The cut to the adverts after the song made me jump. I screwed up my face. I put my hand on my navel and sighed. ‘Just feeling a bit . . .'

‘Oh, I see,' Dad said, and shifted in his seat.

I was. I knew if I mentioned women's stuff he'd twist and turn the conversation to safe ground.

‘You still going to work then?'

‘Yep.'

He shook his head. ‘Yer amazing. Have I told you that? Bloddy amazing.'

And bloddy tired and bloddy lonely and bloddy sick of my bloddy life.

I forced a smile and wandered off to Pepe's.