chapter 26
Nothing to lose. They were already laughing. Who cared anymore? But there was still Toby. The spotlight blurred Steven's vision through a mist of tears. Like sun in his eyes.
"First off, I got an important announcement. If anyone knows where janitor Billy Jackson is, he's gotta get to the vet's in Settler Point immediately. Toby's seriously ill."
He never saw Billy, idly leaning against a wall to take a well earned break after helping shift some scenery, turn deathly white and drop the plastic beaker of warm coffee. Never saw the so many worried expressions in the audience (everyone in Summer Bay knew Toby, Summer Bay Primary's adopted cat) or Penny Bryant, the principal of the primary school, impeccably dressed as always, today in neat trousersuit and matching chiffon neckscarf, leap from her seat, not caring that her carefully cultivated image of mystique and control was shattered when she dropped her car keys, losing an ear-ring and ruining her new hairstyle as she retrieved it from under the seat, in her haste to help Billy out.
He saw something else.
He saw the golden sun of yesterday and the neat little house with its pristine white front door and brass-plated number 27, the corner of the seven splashed with a careless blob of white paint; his father mowing the lawn and his mother pruning the roses.
He never heard, as he began playing the tune that had haunted him ever since his parents' deaths, a silence descending as the audience's laughter gave way to tears and smiles. All that he heard were long ago voices carried on the breeze...
Sniffling back tears, Pippa curled Sally's hair round her fingers.
And when she went down to breakfast next day there was Mrs Martha sitting in the chair.
"Mrs Martha wasn't meant to be here till your birthday but she couldn't wait to meet you," Brenda said, folding up the knitting pattern and smiling at the rapt look on her small granddaughter's face.
Not a whisper breaks. Nothing but silent tears and silent smiles and strumming guitar. Gentler now. Memories of lullabies and being in the crook of a mother's arms.
...And Sally had felt warm and safe. She didn't remember her mother but she remembered when she used to sit Sally on her lap and her breath would gently tickle her neck. Where Pippa's breath had tickled.
The guitar picks up speed. Faster, faster. There are mountains here. Mountains and rivers and freedom. There is room to grow.
"Frank. Son, listen to what I say. That's loser talk and I don't want you being no loser."
Music was the only thing that calmed him. Somehow, though he never told them because he refused to speak unless he absolutely had to, they found out...
Frank wiped his eyes where, to his embarrassment, the tears were in free fall. Jenny smiled and held him tight.
The music slows. A lonely sadness creeps into the air. Shadows cast from the narrow high windows where sunlight glances only briefly and hurries on by.
And somewhere in the world a child is crying.
"Scotty! Scotty, you 'wake?"
"Sshhh, ya -------drongo, he'll hear us!"
So they listen. Listen to their mother's beating, to their drunken father's footsteps on the stairs, trying not to breathe and draw his attention. Too late. He hears an involuntary cry of fear and storms into the room, lashing out, ignoring their terrified screams.
Guitar notes like teardrops fade into memories. First days at school, first days at Uni. Memories of home, of brothers and sisters, of Mums and Dads. Protecting.
"Now listen to me," Brian Fletcher said. "This kind of thing is always going to happen unless you know how to defend yourself. Judo is the answer."
"Judo!" Mrs Fletcher exclaimed as she dabbed poor Tom's bloodied nose. "I don't know, Brian. He's such a small, skinny thing."
"Exactly the reason the kid needs to learn judo," Tom's father said decidedly. "I've enrolled you for ten lessons at the community centre starting this Saturday."
Tom gulped. But he had to do something about the bullies. He couldn't go on and on getting bashed because he was an easy target. But judo...? As it happened, his father was right. Learning judo turned out to be the best thing he ever did...
Music. Universal language of love. Each listener in the audience wrapped in their own moment. Home. Reaching out when no one else does. Family. Your heart, my soul. Everything we are, everything we become.
Mum had put her arm round her, kissed her hair and said, "My little angel Lynn! Always the quietest. How could I have missed my little angel?"
What really amazed Lynn was that, as well as Pippa, Tom and her foster brothers and sisters, her own Mum and Dad had visited her in hospital! And not just Mum and Dad either, but two of her four sisters and three of her six brothers (the rest being too young)...
The music speeds again. Skimming chattering brooks, running across flower-strewn meadows and flying with the playful clouds. Chocolate flavoured candy, balloons and Xmas, fairytales and fairyfloss! Jokes and fun and hope! So much hope!
Sally clasped a hand over her mouth and sprang to her feet.
"Milko!" She gasped.
"What's he up to now, sweetie?" Pippa asked in amusement.
"He's dancing on the stage behind Steven," Sally said in an awed whisper. "Because he knows no one but me can see him."
"I can," Carly said loyally, affectionately tugging at Sally's hair, grinning at Pippa.
"Carly, tell me where it says that family just give up on one another. Because I never read it anywhere." Pippa spoke to her as tenderly as though she were talking to little Sally. "Sweetheart, family is about having a home and a place where you belong."
The blubbering kid was rocking her town hall seat again but somehow it wasn't annoying her anymore. In an odd kind of way, it was even strangely comforting.
Stella had deliberately blotted out the memory when the brat had innocently whispered to her all about Milko. It was just another story to fill up the papers, for readers to mock and laugh at this dysfunctional family living in its fluffy bunny town. After all, it was a cynical world. Dog eat dog, everyone out for what they could get. But, listening to the guitar music, the vague pulling at Stella Nolan's cold heart couldn't resist any longer and gave a mighty tug.
"We're paying a fortune for your private school education. How can you expect to get a good career if your math grade isn't up to scratch?"
"But my English paper..." Stella blinked back hot tears of disappointment.
She was eight years old, with braces on her large crooked teeth, curly, carrot-coloured hair and thick glasses. The exam papers hadn't been proper exams, just another of the many tests they were always having to take, but, all the teachers agreed, in the whole twenty year history of the exclusive private school, nobody had ever produced such a brilliant English paper ever before and Stella well deserved her mark of 98.
"That's all very well." Mummy sighed impatiently. "But, Stella, darling, Math is REALLY important. You don't want a dead-end job , do you?"
"YES!" Stella yelled defiantly. "Yes, yes, yes, I DO!"
Of course she didn't. She wanted to go to Uni and have a career and earn heaps of money like Mummy and Daddy said she should. But it wasn't fair! No matter how well she did in anything, they found fault.
She was ace at writing essays, for instance, but her parents said imagination didn't matter, what did matter was her grammar, spelling and punctuation. Sometimes the teacher would choose the best essay-writers to read their story out to the class and the other kids always loved Stella's more than anyone else's. It still didn't make them want to be friends - she had to march straight up to kids who were jumping rope or playing House and MAKE them let her join in. But it was how her parents told her she should be. Being nice wasn't how he'd got to be a top TV executive, Daddy said, and Mummy said her insurance firm would never been half as successful if she'd listened to sob stories and paid out.
Her parents looked at her now, disgusted by her outburst. "I suggest, young lady, you go to your room and practice from your math text book. I'll check how well you've done later," Daddy said sternly.
So Stella stomped angrily upstairs, knowing it meant her grounding would be extended, but what did she care? The other kids didn't like her much anyway and nobody bothered calling for her if she didn't turn out to play. Sometimes she wished she still believed in Bunny. See, Buddy...
Well, Buddy was an invisible teddy bear. He'd been exactly the same height as Stella because he was four, exactly the same age, with exactly the same birthday, and he always agreed with everything Stella said. Sometimes he liked to sit in Daddy's favourite arm-chair and two or three times Daddy nearly sat on him but Stella screamed a warning and Buddy managed to get up just in time. Mummy and Daddy said not to be stupid and Bunny didn't exist, but Stella knew better. Or thought she did then.
Now she was eight, she too knew Buddy didn't exist though she wished he still did. She'd been about five and not long started school when one day Buddy got mad because she had other kids to play with now so he walked out the door and she never saw him again.
Hadn't even thought about him in all these grown-up days, when she was considered a beauty by everyone she met, when she dyed her hair chestnut, wore contact lenses, and braces had long since straightened her crooked teeth. No longer the lonely little girl who invented Buddy to compensate for having parents who thought that all a child needed to be happy was money. Never, from them, the games and random hugs and silly moments that she saw other kids enjoying with their Mums and Dads and that little Stella yearned for; they were far too busy building successful careers and making their fortune.
And they'd taught their daughter to grow up as cold and emotionless with her own child as they'd been with herself. To her amazement, Stella suddenly found herself wiping her eyes and thinking about how much she was missing her small son.
The guitar solo spiralled to a climax, echoing in a ringing crescendo all around the hall. And into a void of silence.
Steven drew a deep breath and blinked at the spotlight, waking from the music and suddenly aware of where he was again. God, he must have been so bad that nobody was even going to bother clapping! He made to slide off stage as unobtrusively as possible when, like a sudden downpour, rapturous applause broke out, accompanied by loud cheers and whistles.
"And so ends our talent contest," a delighted Donald Fisher was shouting - or trying to shout - above the hubbub. "If everyone could put their votes in the envelopes found under the seats and, after the interval, they'll be counted up to find our winner."
As though in a dream, Steven made his way through the clapping, whistling, cheering crowd. Lance slapped him on the back, a broad smile on his good-natured face.
"Think you've walked this one, mate! Well done!" There was no jealousy that his crown had been stolen. Lance's words and actions were genuine as was Kathy Murray's smile.
"Ta." Steven said, feeling unusually shy.
Proudly, the Fletcher family gathered around him, Carly and Lynn leading the applause, Sally showing Mrs Martha and old Lizzie how Milko was dancing on the stage, Tom and Pippa's faces wreathed in smiles.
Frank grinned, his generous nature, as always, winning out over his temper. "Guess payback backfired on me big style, bro! Bloody hell, mate, that was brilliant!"
"Thanks," Steven mumbled warily. Praise from Frank was rare indeed.
"I didn't realise you were a musical maestro," Tom remarked."What else have you been keeping from us? Like how come you're so filthy? You been under an engine or something?"
"It don't matter." Steven shrugged off the memory of how the smoke from the fire had blackened his clothes and himself. "Something else does." He looked down, unable to live with his guilt any longer. "But...well...there is something else. Tom, Pip, I...It wasn't Sal trashed the room. It was me."
"I know," Pippa said quietly.
"So do I." Sally had been standing there so quietly that nobody had even realised she was listening. "But we're mates now 'cos we swapped me being scared of the sea and you being scared of fire, didn't we? Steven, everybody likes you! Think you might have a girlfriend soon!" She added knowledgeably.
"Thanks, Sal!" Steven blushed, both at Sally's acute perception and at her generous dismissal of the mean trick he was thoroughly ashamed of now. As for the girls' attention...the Steven of old, the love 'em and leave 'em type, would have expected as much, taking it all in his conceited stride. This Steven was someone quieter. A nicer guy, he realised.
"Steven, why didn't you tell us you're still afraid of fire?" Pippa asked gently, squeezing his shoulder. "We're family. We care about you."
He bit his lip. "I didn't want to cry," he muttered huskily. It seemed such a stupid reason now, especially with emotional tears glistening in his eyes.
"Everybody has the right to cry, mate," Tom said.
"Yeh, I know that now. I used to think...to think I had to keep up the macho act." Steven looked round at his family. His family, who'd always be there for him, where he belonged.
"I'm Pippa," she says. She has kind eyes and a motherly smile.
"Tom." His new foster father offers his hand, but he holds back, inhaling the canvas smell of the green rucksack clutched tightly to his chest. Since yesterday, all that he has left in the world.
He draws another shuddering breath and glances apprehensively at his social worker as they hear voices outside. The other foster kids arriving home from school. Pippa lightly rests her hand on his shoulder as if she understands all the trembling hidden inside. Tom doesn't take offence at his slight, but pulls open the door.
"Okay, guys, this is Steven, your new brother. Let's see how fast we can make him feel at home."
Happy that everyone else was, little Sally was skipping round the aisles in her excitement, and unwittingly making people laugh. And, after all his earlier efforts to get rid of her, Steven realised he never wanted Sally to go. She was part of his family. His kid sister.
"Pip, there were these people. Spanish people. They were after taking Sal..."
But he got no further because Sally suddenly screamed...
