At last Clancy cast a despairing glance around the foyer, grabbed a chair and propped it in position to hold the doors open in case Ginger changed his mind, then ran after Tash.
They found Pa in the big lounge room with the other residents. He was sitting in his wheelchair in front of the television, with his head drooping onto his chest. He seemed to be dozing, not watching the ancient movie that was playing on the screen.
‘Whatcha watching, Pa?’ Tash swooped in with a quick hug and a kiss. ‘Is it The Great Escape again?’
Pa blinked at her in confusion, and shrugged. When he saw Clancy, he pulled a surprised face, and reached out his left hand to give hers a squeeze. His right hand lay unmoving in his lap. Since his stroke, he hadn’t been able to use his right arm or hand, and he couldn’t speak, at least not much. He could say yes and no and bugger, and that was about it. And although he could stand up on his right leg, it wasn’t much use for walking.
A tiny wrinkled lady in the next chair gave a fretful groan.
‘Bye, Myrna!’ said Tash cheerfully as she pulled Pa’s wheelchair out of the semicircle. Clancy trailed behind as Tash pushed Pa down the corridor to his room. It was big enough for a bed and a cupboard, and he had his own bathroom, but the window looked out onto a dull view of a corner of the building, and Pa often kept the curtain shut.
‘Sp-sp-sp?’ Pa gestured to Clancy and Tash, eyebrows raised. He held up three fingers, then two.
‘I don’t understand, Pa,’ said Clancy.
‘Sp-sp-sp!’ He held up his left hand in midair, and waved it in the general direction of – somewhere.
‘Sorry, Pa,’ said Tash. ‘I don’t get it either.’
He thumped his fist on the arm of his chair. ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ He pointed to the group of family photos on the wall beside the bed. Tash scrambled up, pointing to one picture, then the next.
‘No,’ said Pa. ‘No …’ Then, triumphantly, ‘Yes!’
It was a photograph of all of Pa and Nan’s children as teenagers: Mark with a broad grin and crazy hair; Tim all spotty and sulky, hiding behind a floppy fringe; Polly, hair neatly combed with a worried expression on her face; and the identical twins, Pip and Bee, much younger than the others, long dark curls tumbling over their shoulders.
Clancy recognised them vaguely, but apart from Polly, she hadn’t met most of them for years. After Nan died and Pa had gone to live at The Elms, the siblings had drifted in all directions and hardly saw each other anymore.
Tash took the photo down and Pa put his finger on Polly’s face. ‘Sp-sp?’
‘Where’s Polly?’ guessed Tash. ‘Why didn’t she come this morning?’
‘She’s gone to Sydney,’ said Clancy. ‘Didn’t she tell you?’
Tash frowned. ‘It’s supposed to be a secret.’
‘Even from Pa? It’s not like he can tell anyone.’ Clancy perched gingerly on the edge of the bed. She felt slightly better now that another adult knew about Polly abandoning them, even if the adult was only Pa. Tash and Polly had agreed there was no need to worry Tim and Harriet by telling them about her little trip. ‘You’ll only be alone for one night,’ said Polly. ‘Two at the most. What could possibly happen in a couple of nights?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ Tash assured her.
Clancy supposed they were right. Probably. And Pa didn’t seem too worried. But Pa didn’t know about Mark being arrested in New Zealand. Tim and Harriet and Polly had all agreed it would just upset him. It wasn’t as if he could do anything to help. Polly had told him Tash and Clancy were staying with her just for fun. No wonder he was confused.
Clancy swung her legs back and forth and tried to think of something to talk about. Conversation with Pa was hard work, because it was so difficult for him to talk back.
‘Want to look at photos?’ Tash reached into a box at the top of the cupboard and pulled out an album. Clancy knelt on the bed so she could peer over Pa’s shoulder while Tash turned the pages.
‘There’s your old house, at Rosella. Remember when me and Clancy were little and we all lived with you there, and you and Nan used to look after us while Mum and Dad were working?’
‘Yes.’ Pa smiled.
‘No,’ said Clancy sadly. She’d been too young; she could hardly remember the Rosella years at all. The family had lived with Nan and Pa until Clancy turned three and Bruno was born, when they’d moved to the apartment. But they’d still visited Rosella often, and always had Christmas there, though Harriet’s family were upset about that. Rosella had sometimes felt more like home than their actual home did.
But now the house was rented out to pay for Pa’s room at The Elms, and they couldn’t even visit anymore.
‘Look at me! How cute was I?’ Tash studied a photo of her younger self with satisfaction.
‘Sp-sp-sp.’ Pa tapped the picture with one finger.
‘Yes, that was my first footy,’ agreed Tash.
‘I was just as cute as you,’ muttered Clancy, eyeing a photo of herself in a high chair, with something that looked like pumpkin on her chin.
Pa turned a page and sighed as he stared at photos of his garden. It had almost been a wilderness, a bush garden, to attract the birds that he and Nan had watched from the deck.
‘Is that Nan?’ said Clancy, and for a moment they all paused silently to gaze at the photo of Nan at the beach, laughing and holding onto a big sunhat that framed her round face like a halo. There weren’t many photos of Nan, because she had usually been the one behind the camera. Clancy found that the tighter she tried to hold onto her memories of Nan, the blurrier they became.
‘Sp-sp-sp.’ Pa touched Nan’s laughing face gently with his finger.
Clancy picked up the album and some loose photographs fell out. ‘What are these?’
They were strange photos, wheels of light above a dark horizon. ‘Sp-sp!’ explained Pa, gesturing upward. He mimed clicking a camera, and waggled his fingers.
‘Did Nan take these?’ asked Tash.
‘Yes!’
‘They look like those paintings. You know, that guy—’ said Clancy. ‘That Vincent guy?’
‘Sp-sp-sp!’ said Pa, excited.
‘I know what they are!’ said Tash. ‘Star trails! Time lapse star photos. Is that it, Pa? Is that what Nan was doing?’
‘Sp-sp-sp!’ Pa launched into a long story, none of which the girls could understand. Seeing their blank faces, he banged his fist on the arm of his chair and let out a roar of frustration. He hit his forehead with his hand. ‘Aargh!’
‘Don’t, Pa, don’t!’ begged Clancy.
Pa slumped in his chair. ‘Sp-sp-sp,’ he said gloomily. Never mind.
There was a short, bleak silence.
Tash changed the subject. ‘Hey Pa, do you remember the day we moved out, and I went missing, and no one could find me? Everyone was freaking out. Mum crawled under the deck looking for me, Dad went up on the roof, Nan knocked on all the neighbours’ doors, Bruno was screaming in the pram, Clancy was bawling—’
‘I was not!’ said Clancy.
‘Yes, you were. You don’t remember,’ said Tash dismissively. ‘But Pa, you ignored everyone else, and you went down the road to that patch of forest that joins onto the national park, and you found me there hiding under the trees. And I said I didn’t want to move into the flat, and you and I should live in a cubby in the forest forever, just the two of us. Remember that?’