Chapter 39 Lottie
LOTTIE
NOW, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
‘Hello, Lottie.’ Mary waves me inside her cottage. ‘That’s a bit of bold colour you’ve got going on there.’
She is smiling at my skirt: a mid-calf A-line in emerald-green with a mustard trim.
My shirt is a pink silk with plum-coloured fabric buttons.
I have been educating Phyllida and Mary in colour mixing to try to jazz up their wardrobes.
Phyllida’s dress sense is quite staid, mainly navy, grey and cream with an odd floral shirt thrown in.
Mary’s is just shabby and haphazard as if she really does not care.
Which, to be fair, she probably doesn’t.
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘Beer?’
‘No, thanks.’ I get myself a glass of water and sit down at the table.
This place has always been a third home to me.
During my childhood, I was often at Phyllida’s house and then popping over here; running a cup of flour across if Mary was baking, or eggs from Mary’s chickens to Phyllida, or a herbal mix Phyllida had made with a list of instructions for Mary on how she must take it.
‘I’ve been thinking about when David died,’ I say, sitting at the battered Formica table that has been a feature of Mary’s kitchen for as long as I can remember.
‘I feel as if nobody has ever told me the truth about my father or what happened back then. Mum is being weird and that letter Phyllida left me is doing my head in.’
Mary turns off the television.
‘I need to know.’
‘Never did no good, love, slogging through old muck. Better to focus on the future. Good to have something on the horizon, you know?’ She shuffles the tarot deck that is a constant feature on her kitchen table.
‘I never worked out why Phylly didn’t learn to read the cards.
She had the right temperament for it.’ We sit, silently contemplating Phyllida, and her temperament and her overdose.
‘I should have checked in on her earlier that night,’ Mary says. ‘She’d been odd.’
‘How do you mean?’ I ask.
‘For a couple of weeks, she was just … distant. I thought maybe the thirty-year anniversary of David’s death was part of it. But she didn’t want to talk about it.’
‘You saved her life, Mary. You can’t blame yourself.’ I reach over and squeeze her hand. ‘And I hadn’t noticed anything odd at all.’
‘Followed my gut, Lottie. Never ignore your gut. I said to myself, Mary, something’s up.
She’s been tidying out cupboards like a demon and she only ever does the basics in tidying.
Doesn’t go in for it usually. Says it wastes good book-reading time.
So, I had an excuse at the ready. Took her some chocolates. I was only just in time too.’
There’s a heavy silence.
‘Mary, I need to know what happened after David died. I found all the ledgers for the shop since 1977 when Phyllida opened it. But I can’t find anything between 1995 and 1997.
Then I found some letters she wrote to someone called Francis, which I’m pretty sure is the Francis she asks me to find in the letter.
And they point to something strange, which makes me think it’s all something to do with David. So I need to know the full story.’
Mary shrugs and continues to shuffle the tarot deck.
‘Did she stop trading in the shop for those years?’ I ask.
‘It seems a long time to stop working.’ I take a breath and, when she doesn’t answer, I continue.
‘I want to know more about David too. Mum won’t tell me much.
And I’ve never pressed Phyllida, but what if she doesn’t regain enough strength to tell me more about him?
I mean, she’s woken up, but what if she relapses?
She barely has enough energy for a few sentences at the moment. ’
Mary puts the cards down. She sighs and stares at her beer.
I want to shake her and say, Tell me the truth about David! And what does this all mean for me? But you have to let Mary take her time. She’s never one to be rushed.
‘Mmmm,’ says Mary. She takes a sip of her beer. She sighs. Takes another sip.
‘It feels important,’ I say.
‘Your mum and David did love each other. A lot,’ says Mary. ‘It was mad love, like a sickness for both of them. They couldn’t be apart. It was short-lived, of course. Only a few months.’ She gestures to the tarot deck. ‘Shall we ask the cards? What Phylly is wanting you to know?’
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘Better than digging into the past, with those letters and ledgers, love. That’s unhealthy.
’ She deals the cards and flips one over.
‘Ten of Swords.’ She exhales. ‘That sounds right. Endings. Something that’s been holding you back, maybe.
You’re keeping people at a distance so they can’t hurt you.
Time to let that go, love.’ She flips another one.
A figure is pouring water. There are stars above it in the sky.
‘Renewal,’ says Mary. ‘Time to use your intuition to heal yourself. Stop fiddle farting around and make your own dreams come true, love.’
I give a sharp laugh and she flips again. ‘Queen of Cups. Yep. That’s Phylly and her intuition. She’s no pushover but she’s tired of carrying the burdens. She just couldn’t say it.’
‘What the hell does that all mean?’
She doesn’t look up. ‘The wounds echo, Lottie, and looking ahead, you’ve got work to do, love. But Phylly knows how strong you are. You’re going to be fine.’
I have an overwhelming urge to curl up in a ball and sleep. I feel all the energy draining out of me.
‘Tarot’s like cleaning your teeth,’ says Mary. ‘Same as why I’ve got my generator in the garage hooked up to the beer fridge, ready for when the power goes out.’
I furrow my eyebrows in question.
‘It’s proactive.’
I smile, because you can’t help but smile at Mary’s particular brand of wisdom.
‘You got a nice smile, love. Seems like I haven’t seen it in a while.’
When I blink back tears, she says, ‘What happened with that nice bloke of yours? Thought you might pop out a couple of sprogs with him. Good-looking ones they’d be too.’
‘Why does everyone assume I’ll automatically want kids?’
Mary shrugs. ‘Beats me, love. The natural order, I suppose.’ She takes a sip of her beer. ‘Not that I ever followed the natural order.’
‘Did you want kids?’
‘Not sure. But I had an abortion when I was sixteen, love. Couldn’t have any after that, they said. The pipes were damaged or some palaver.’ She falls silent and there’s a moment when she isn’t the Mary I know but someone young and vulnerable.
‘I don’t want kids,’ I say. The words just slip out.
Mary shrugs, as if I haven’t just admitted my most frightening truth; something that’s been niggling away at me for years. I am only now admitting it out loud, but I know it drove me to end things with Hugo even though we never talked about it openly.
‘I mean, aren’t there lots of good things about not being enslaved to kids for your whole life? Not being penniless because you have to buy them shoes and vitamins and, like, Pokémon cards?’
‘Sure,’ she says.
‘I can travel any time of year. I can sleep all night. I can have actual conversations that don’t involve poo colour or the types of food I shouldn’t have eaten.
’ I think of my friend, Lisa, with her three-month-old baby, Willow.
She spent most of our last phone call talking about how chilli affects her breastmilk and the various shades of Willow’s nappy contents, and even though I’m happy to have those conversations with my friends, I don’t want them to be conversations that take over my own life.
‘Good point,’ says Mary, fetching another beer. ‘Won’t hear any argument from me.’
‘Plus, I won’t be tempted to manipulate my kids and force them into spending their life as family negotiator. Like I am with Miriam and Phyllida.’
‘Fair play,’ says Mary.
When she doesn’t elaborate, I sigh, thinking about why I’m actually here. The information Miriam gave me in our last conversation about Phyllida’s shady past has to be related to the suicide attempt. But I’m not sure how to ask, so instead I say, ‘Why don’t Miriam and Phyllida get along?’
‘Ask your mum,’ says Mary.
‘I asked her already and she can’t seem to tell me anything useful. And Phyllida isn’t well enough to tell me right now. I need to know what happened.’
Mary regards me as if she is trying to make up her mind about something. ‘They had a falling out on that Sunday when David died,’ she says eventually. ‘Miriam was … not in a good frame of mind. She did a number on Phylly. But death does odd things to folk. The grief, you know?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your mum sort of took over with David when he got sick. Fair enough. She was his girl, I guess.’
‘How did Phyllida cope with that?’
Mary takes another long sip of her beer. ‘Well, you might say, she didn’t.’