Stairway to Heaven

by Fahrig

Gabrielle Fairway leaves her grandparents to live with her parents, but with change comes bad...

2. Chapter One: Mother

"STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" by Alessandra Azzaroni

© 2002 by Alessandra Azzaroni aazzaroni@hotmail.com http://au.geocities.com/vcastairwaytoheaven/index.htm

STORY LAST UPDATED ON 06/12/2002

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Written in Australia. This story has been adapted from an original novel of mine, under the same title. Please send me an email if you would like to know when this story is updated.

CHAPTER ONE: MOTHER

The name Gabrielle Fairway was famous around Greystone Secondary College. This was because I was the school's first published writer. Author? I didn't have the stamina and motivation to ever complete a work of fiction, except for schoolwork. Journalist? I could never just report facts - I just happened to have been born with an opinion.
I was some kind of opinion writer. I'd sent in a piece to the Victorian Eye newspaper early in the year. They were so impressed there that they took me on as a freelancer. Didn't get paid too much, but I wasn't too fussy. I just liked the thought that people were reading what I had to say. My grandparents were decently loaded, so I never had to worry about money.
It was November, and I was in Year 10, when things started changing. It was November 1, to be precise…

The train ride from Greystone to Carltrain took twenty-three minutes, as always. It was a disgrace to public transport, in the way that it was always on time. In fact, sometimes it was a little early. Lucky for me, I usually arrived at the station ten minutes before my train was due. In the afternoons, the trains were separated by about twenty minutes.
Carltrain was up near Mt Dandenong. My particular suburb was the epitome of a mountainous little town. It had a number of semblances to the bush. You heard right - the bush, one of Australia's three stereotypes. The beach stereotype was set for Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales. The outback stereotype was set for the Northern Territory and some parts of South Australia. The bush stereotype was for Victoria, and maybe Tasmania. Who knows about the Australian Capital Territory - it was surrounded by New South Wales, and NSW only. Like San Marino, which was surrounded only by Italy.
The house that I lived in with my grandparents had eucalyptus trees in both yards, front and back. Our house also seemed a little swallowed by wattle at times. And believe it or not, sometimes we actually found koalas in some of our eucalyptus trees. It felt like the complete stereotype of the Australian bush was right on our property, and it smelt like the entire place was drenched in eucalyptus oil.
Our house was a two-storey homestead, with the drive-in garage and recreational room on the lower level, and everything else on the upper. There was a veranda, and two balconies up top, one facing the road, and the other facing the back fence - one to the north and one to the south.
It was a bit of a difficult walk from the Carltrain station, which was set low. It was uphill for about ten minutes from there, until you turned right and went steady for a bit. Then you turned left onto my tarmac driveway and went up until you reached the large black stones, and you walked up them until you were at the top. By this time, you'd have reached the upper level, so turned right onto the wooden decking and went through the front door. Needless to say, by the time I got home in the afternoons, I was usually stuffed.
This particular afternoon was no different. It would be a four-day weekend because of Melbourne Cup Day on the Tuesday, but luckily I didn't have a lot of homework, so the walk wasn't too bad.
I went straight through the front door, past the lounge, dining room and my grandparents' room, and when I reached the kitchen, I turned left, then right, then left until I was in my bedroom. I shut the door behind me, dumped my bag down, pulled off my shoes and lay on my bed. The weather had been quite warm all day, which had put me on edge, so I needed some relaxing time. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. In these kinds of situations, I was always more aware of everything around me, particularly sounds, so I could hear my grandmother's voice clearly.
It sounded like she was in the kitchen. She'd been talking on the telephone since before I got home, I guessed, though I hadn't really noticed. And in my position at that moment, I was at the point where I was trying to focus on everything except my thoughts; so all sounds were vital for my concentration. And so I listened closely to everything Leanne, my grandmother, said.
"So you saw her article, then - what did you think of it… Frightfully observant, I know… You want to what? But that won't… She'd never agree to that, you know what she's like… Alright then, you don't know what she's like, but…"
I got up then. I'd always hated it when I knew people were talking about me behind my back. Why couldn't people just talk with me instead of about me?
So I trundled myself off to the kitchen, where Leanne was on the cordless. I tried to ignore her talking, and went around opening cupboard doors and such.
Leanne ended the call quickly. "You know what you should and shouldn't do. Good-bye." She pressed a button to disconnect, chucked the cordless onto the counter and then collapsed onto a nearby couch with a heavy sigh. The kitchen area was in one section of the room, while a mini-lounge was in the other.
I called Leanne, and Greg, my grandfather, by their first names. I'd lived with them and them only for all the years of my life. It was kind of like they were my parents, but I could never call them Mum and Dad. But we were far too close to be like grandparents and granddaughter, so we used first names instead. It was easier.
You may ask why I wasn't living with my parents, but the way I see it, they were the ones not living with me. They weren't dead or anything. In fact, I was pretty sure they were alive out there somewhere.
The truth is that they just left me. Leanne and Greg could have done some fabricating, but instead they told me the truth. You know all those stories you hear about babies being left on doorsteps? Yep, that's what happened to me. Leanne and Greg really were my grandparents because their daughter, my mother, left me on their doorstep wrapped up in a blanket in a little carrier thing with a dummy in my mouth. Cute little me, just out of hospital and already a sorry case.
They left me with a whole lot of baby things - endless bottles, nappies and clothes. And my mother left a note. I still had it. I'd stuck it in a fancy black metal-like photo frame, and it sat on my chest of drawers.

Mum and Dad,
Sorry about all this. Take care of her, all right? I'll keep in contact with you, I promise. Oh, her name is Gabrielle Alana.
Thanks!
Your daughter

Not even a name, just "your daughter". It was as though she knew that I would read that note and knew I'd be curious, so she hid her identity.
Leanne and Greg hid her identity, too. There were no photographs of their daughter in their house. At least, there were none that I knew of. They could have been hiding photos and mementos of her somewhere, but I just wasn't born to be a snoop.
So my mother (or someone else) had named me before I came to live with Greg and Leanne. That was okay. It was nice of my mother to give me at least something I could keep.
Still, I kept the note as something I could learn from. Maybe that it was okay to offload your responsibilities onto someone else. Or to remind myself that if my own parents didn't want me, then other people probably wouldn't be interested in me, either. So I should never just assume that everything would always be right.
That's probably why I grew up to be so bitter, sarcastic and sceptical. I didn't really seem to have anything to believe in. Or anyone to believe in. Sure, Greg and Leanne did take me in, but who's to say it wasn't out of guilt, or pity? More to the point - who could resist a peaceful, silently sleeping baby in a carrier on their doorstep? (They told me that was how they found me. Who knows? It could've just been a lie. An innocent, sleeping child makes a better picture than a cranky, crying one.)
I always wondered (when I gave myself the liberty to ponder it on my more depressive days) why I was given away like that, though. Could it have been something I'd done? Or had my mother not wanted a child, but couldn't be bothered going through all the paperwork and interviews to give me up for adoption? Why wasn't I just aborted? But then I remembered a law of the state that said you could only abort if letting the child grow within you could physically or mentally hurt you and/or your child.
Everything had a motive, I thought, so I cast a cynical eye upon whatever came into view. Sure, it made me seem like a shifty person, but so be it. I had my morals, and so I stuck to them.
Mind you, this was all kept inside my twisted little mind. What was I on the outside? I loved having a laugh, I liked having bitching sessions, I liked getting my point across and I liked to write. If you say things, there's a high chance that you'll either be interrupted or ignored. And that's to your face. With writing, people can just simply choose to stop reading. And you don't even have to witness that.

"Looking for something, Gab?"
I turned my head from where I was staring into the open pantry. "No, not really." I leaned back out of the way, and closed the pantry door.
"Any mail?" Leanne asked.
"Didn't check. I'll go look." Because I was more comfortable now that I'd had a break since making the walk home, I'd be fine to walk down the steep, slightly curved, smooth driveway.
I went back to my bedroom first, to get changed. I was still wearing the navy-and-white checked summer dress that was part of Greystone S.C.'s school uniform. As I pulled off my knee-high white socks and hunted down some comfy socks, I got a glimpse of the framed note atop my drawers, staring back at me, taunting me. It always told me that people would leave me in life. So I tried not to care too much about anyone, minus Leanne and Greg.
I was changed, outside and then back in the house within the space of five minutes. Walking into the kitchen with the contents of the letterbox in my hands, I asked Leanne, "Where's Greg?"
"Still at work. I think he's got appointments until five."
Greg still worked as a veterinarian in the local area. He was about sixty-five years of age, and could've retired ten or so years ago if he'd felt like it. But he was still healthy, and he enjoyed doing what he did, and so he kept up with it.
Leanne used to be a primary school teacher some years ago, but she'd long since given that up. She filled her time by making soft toys and baking goods, and then selling them off. She went to the local craft fair in Carltrain every second Saturday, and she sold off her foods at a café up near the lookout.
It may not have been technically a lookout, but that's what I called it. There was a place not too far away from where we lived where you could look down at the suburbs and little bushland. Tourists came by, and newlyweds. A street or so away from the lookout had a motel, a knick-knack shop, a milk bar and the café, the Hillview, where Leanne sold her foods.
At the counter, I divided the mail into separate piles - junk mail; things for Greg; things for Leanne; things for both Greg and Leanne together; and things for me. Usually the only mail I got was from readers having a bitch about my articles. I replied to every letter I received. Usually if I got bitchy mail, I'd reply with something along the lines of:

Dear You,
Because you don't seem all that happy about my writings, I reckon you could benefit from just not reading them, skipping on to read something else.
Best of luck to you in your endeavours,
Gabrielle Fairway

I didn't like my surname sometimes. What was I, a bloody golf course? Could've been worse, but overall, my name sounded like I was a nice person. Whether I actually was a nice person or not was not of concern.
When I was sorting, I couldn't help but notice something strange. One of the letters Greg and Leanne got together had neat cursive handwriting on the envelope, handwriting that matched an envelope addressed to me.
Leanne got up off the couch to collect her pile, and her and Greg's pile. I collected mine and went off to my room. I shut the door behind me, jumped into a comfortable position on my bed and selected an envelope. I chose the one with the neat cursive handwriting in black pen. I flipped the envelope over to read the sender address.

Melinda Metzelder
59 Bridgegate Avenue
Belden
VIC

So the sender was in Victoria. Fair enough. I did write for the Victorian Eye, after all. And I, too, was in Victoria.
I knew of Belden. It was on the train line, closer to the city than Carltrain. Belden was a rich kind of suburb; with pretty buildings I could see from the train. I never got off at the Belden station, though. If I went that far, I usually went all the way to the City Loop, the underground railway stations in Melbourne City, and beyond to Spencer Street and Flinders Street.
Right, so this Melinda Metzelder person obviously had a bit of money if they lived in Belden. And quite possibly were upper class, because of the fancy writing. But if they were writing to me about one of my articles, why were they writing to Leanne and Greg as well? Maybe I just had it wrong, maybe the two envelopes were written by two different people, and the handwriting just looked the same. It happened. Every woman over the age of seventy in Victoria seemed to have the same handwriting. But this envelope didn't look like it was written by one of those seventy-year-old Victorians.
The white envelope had sticky tape around the seal. I did that sometimes, especially if I was putting a letter in a really old envelope I found in a kitchen cupboard somewhere. I usually didn't put sticky tape all around the seal, though, just at the sides, and a tiny bit on the far edges of the long, horizontal side. The envelope before me didn't look old, though. Therefore, I figured that whatever was inside was important, like those "Private - Top Secret" documents that were super-sealed. Crikey, how did those things ever get open?
I couldn't be bothered getting up for scissors, a knife or a skewer to open the envelope, so I peeled at the sticky tape and soon had the envelope open, albeit with a few rips along the way. I pulled out and unfolded the sheet of paper inside, which also had the same neat cursive handwriting. I liked that. It showed that the person cared enough to handwrite the letter instead of just computer-generating one. Of course, the chances were that maybe the writer didn't have access to a computer, but in my arrogant little mind, I chose to believe that the writer cared enough about me to add a personal touch with proper handwriting.
I began to read the letter, but then suddenly stopped. I stared down at the lettering, and the words began to merge into messy, unreadable clumps, like sparse grass on a deserted country highway. What was I reading? Was this someone's idea of a twisted little joke? Maybe someone had found out how upset and bitter I was about not having parents with me that they decided to send me this little concoction of theirs. I so desperately wanted to believe what was in front of me, but I couldn't help but be sceptical. Other than Leanne and Greg, no one seemed to give a hoot about me, so why should this writer?

Dear Gabrielle,
If you've checked other mail in your letterbox today, you'll probably have noticed that the handwriting you are reading now is identical to the writing on the envelope of a letter addressed to Greg and Leanne Fairway, your grandparents - and, in all honesty, my parents.
I'm not some aunt you've never heard of. My parents only had one child, and that was I. Gabrielle, I am your mother. You can choose to believe it or not, but it is true. I've just recently moved back to Australia, and I'm not alone.
I've come back from Germany, where I've been for about sixteen years. Took me ages to catch onto the language, but I've finally got a grip on it. Why Germany? Your father, that's why.
Have you heard about Prince Fredrik of Denmark? During the Sydney Olympics, he came down and met Mary Donaldson, a Sydneysider who was a real-estate agent. That's kind of what happened when I was eighteen. I worked in a pub in the city, and these rich German folk came by. They were in media and telecommunications. Your father was one of the sons of a particularly loaded media honcho - still is - and we met in the pub. One year later, your father still hadn't left Melbourne, and I'd just given birth.
I don't want to go into details now. Ask your grandparents, and I'll tell you all that happened once we meet. And we will meet. That's why I came back home, family in tow. It's about time you meet us, live with us, get to know us and - dare I sound cheesy - be a family with us.
As I said, we'll talk details later. We'll talk on the phone, or write letters or e-mails if you'd prefer. But believe me, Gabrielle; we will get in contact.
I have written to my parents - your grandparents - to set up a meeting with all six of us. Don't run away - I'm expecting you to be there. The answers to your questions will be revealed. And there's something that you'll find quite surprising, I'm sure.
You don't have to write back to me now. Just talk to your grandparents.
Thinking of you,
Melinda Metzelder

I threw the page and its envelope onto the creamy carpet, and swept the other envelopes off my bed. I lay fully flat, and my eyes travelled over to the framed note on my drawers.

Mum and Dad,
Sorry about all this. Take care of her, all right? I'll keep in contact with you, I promise. Oh, her name is Gabrielle Alana.
Thanks!
Your daughter

I wondered how Leanne and Greg felt knowing that their daughter was back. I wondered how I felt knowing that my mother was back.
I didn't know.