The Listmaker Read online

  Also by Robin Klein

  People Might Hear You

  Hating Alison Ashley

  Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left

  Games …

  Laurie Loved Me Best

  Against the Odds

  Came Back to Show You I Could Fly

  Tearaways

  All in the Blue Unclouded Weather

  Dresses of Red and Gold

  Turn Right for Zyrgon

  Seeing Things

  The Sky in Silver Lace

  Barney’s Blues

  THE LISTMAKER

  ROBIN KLEIN

  VIKING

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Australia)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Books Australia, 1997

  Copyright © Haytul Pty Ltd, 1997

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Cover design by Karen Scott © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Cover illustration by Catherine Cordasco

  www.penguin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228462-0

  For Brontye Cahill

  1 ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

  Moving-day checklist

  At old address

  Don’t let Aunt Dorothy sit on any of the packed boxes in case of breakages.

  Ring vet to make sure Horace isn’t too upset about being left there. Remind him Horace won’t eat any dried cat-food except kitten formula.

  Pack separate box of afternoon-tea things for removalist people: instant coffee, teabags, biscuits, electric kettle, milk, sugar, teaspoons, cups, tea-towel – put in car boot. Also pack personal items needed while waiting at the new address for the van: something to read, fruit to eat (plus toothbrush and toothpaste for cleaning teeth afterwards), sweater in case of weather change, cleaning stuff (soap, sponge, broom, detergent, plastic gloves), tissues, memo pad and pen.

  Drive to new address with aunts. Don’t let Aunty Nat get out of the car even for one minute! She’ll just skip around planning where to arrange the furniture. Send her right back immediately to previous address to finish off all the odd jobs there.

  At new address

  Sit Aunt Dorothy down somewhere out of the way. (NB Make sure she hasn’t sneaked cigarettes in.)

  Unpack box of afternoon-tea things. (NB Scrub down kitchen bench first.)

  Check that water, gas, phone and electricity have been connected.

  Ring vet to make sure Horace’s condition hasn’t changed since last call. (Remind him Horace might like a whisked egg for breakfast tomorrow morning as a change from kitten formula.)

  ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

  There was no sign of Aunty Nat, even though it was an hour after the fixed time. She’d dropped us off at Avian Cottage so someone would be on hand for the furniture van when it arrived. ‘Us’ was me and her sister Dorothy. Aunt Dorothy was about as much use as a ladder without rungs, but I thought uneasily that it might have been better if they’d both gone back to the old address to make sure nothing was left behind. Then Aunty Nat wouldn’t be on her own to deal with any emergency. Vacuuming, checking cupboards and saying goodbye to old neighbours shouldn’t be taking her so long …

  ‘I expect it’s just some kind of trouble about fitting everything in the van,’ Aunt Dosh said. ‘No need for jitters yet, Sarah.’

  ‘Who’s jittery?’ I demanded crossly. ‘And there’s no point unpacking the afternoon-tea things yet, not until that bench dries. I’ve just given it a good scrub with pine detergent. You can’t be too careful about germs in a house that’s been empty for months.’

  I liked things to be tidy and hygienic. The most absolutely disgusting sight I ever saw was enlarged dust mites on a TV documentary. It upset me so much I bought a plastic mattress barrier, because Aunty Nat refused to give me one as a birthday present. She said that unless you were asthmatic, dust mites weren’t anything to worry about. But then, she’d actually thought they looked kind of cute in that TV documentary – like herds of little grazing buffalo! Probably every surface in this old house was swarming with little grazing buffalo. I’d have to put up with them, too, for the whole of the summer holidays, because of staying with the aunts while Dad was overseas. He was often away on long business trips. Most term holidays and weekends I spent with the aunts, and the rest of the time I boarded at school, which I’d been doing ever since I was eight years old. For a couple of years before that, Aunty Nat had looked after me. There wasn’t anyone else; my mother had died when I was five years old.

  ‘Those biscuits are supposed to be for the removalists – if they ever get here,’ I scolded Aunt Dorothy. ‘If you’re going to nick any, don’t leave a trail of crumbs.’

  You had to tidy up after her all the time. Both the aunts were exasperating in their own separate ways. Soon, though, things would be different. When Dad came back from this particular business trip he was getting married to Piriel Starr, and we’d all be moving to a city apartment. (Just us three, I mean. Not the ancient relatives – they’d be pottering around in this rackety old house Aunty Nat had bought.) Things would be different, and wonderful. I wouldn’t have to board at school any more because it was fairly close to our apartment. I’d just be an ordinary student there from now on, coming home every afternoon. And I’d have the most glamorous new stepmother in the world, too. Piriel Starr – even her name was more distinctive than other people’s! It was hard to believe that such exciting changes were about to happen in my life, and although I could hardly wait, I was also feeling a little bit nervous about the whole thing. It wasn’t surprising, really. A set routine that had been going on for years was difficult to break, and deep down, I was secretly relieved to have a few more weeks with the aunts before my lifestyle changed.

  ‘Eating sugar out of the jar!’ I nagged. ‘And you’ve gone and spilled some on the floor, Aunt Dosh.’

  ‘I’ve got to do something if I’m not allowed to have a cigarette. Or even one lousy biscuit. They’ll be tramping in with the furniture soon, so I don’t know why you’re fussing about a few little grains of sugar, Sarah. When I had my caravan, I only used to sweep it out once a week.’

  Years ago, before moving in with Aunty Nat to keep her company, Aunt Dosh had been living in a tacky caravan park. At least Dad had said it
was tacky. I didn’t see it personally, because he’d never let me visit her there. (Come to think of it, neither had Dad.) He thought Avian Cottage wasn’t much better than a caravan, either, and couldn’t understand why they both wanted to move from Aunty Nat’s comfortable brick unit. They’d been out on a drive, seen this old house for sale, and just decided on the spot that it was their dream home. Or at least Aunty Nat’s ideal home – Aunt Dorothy floated around in a permanent dream of her own and didn’t seem to mind where she lived.

  I went out on the front porch to see if the furniture van was in sight yet. That porch looked like a battered old mantel clock. It had curly posts on each side with all the paint flaking off, and a name plate spelling out Avian Cottage in gold squiggles. (And in case you didn’t know that ‘avian’ means birds, the metal doorknocker was shaped like a budgerigar to get the message across.) There was still no sign of the van, though having Aunty Nat underfoot when you were trying to load up a pile of furniture might account for it being so late. Neither of the aunts were what you could call efficient.

  Three examples (out of hundreds!):

  Aunt Dorothy went into shops and couldn’t remember what she’d wanted to buy in the first place.

  Aunty Nat sometimes took her apron off and found another one underneath.

  Once they’d gone to New Zealand for a holiday and it took them a couple of days to realise they had to adjust their watches.

  But even for the most disorganised person, it was still only a half-hour drive at the most from the old address … I began to bite my nails.

  Strangers were coming up the footpath. There was a man and a woman carrying an old swing-couch between them, and a kid about my age following behind with a stack of plastic cushions. They were talking to each other in that kind of shorthand people who belong together use, where you feel an outsider just by listening.

  ‘Should have come back for the trailer.’

  ‘Someone else might have got there first. Bit of a find, right on the holidays.’

  ‘Can’t it go in my room?’

  ‘You’ve got enough junk in there already. The veranda, or maybe down under the ash tree. Get off, Corrie, you dag!’

  ‘Carry me home the last bit. Go on, Dad, be a sport.’

  ‘Let’s park her out the front with a freebie sign.’

  ‘No takers.’

  ‘Plenty of takers. They’d think she was a garden gnome.’

  Their hands touched as they put the load down and hoisted it up again. Their voices overlapped, blending into each other. You could tell they were a family, even without eavesdropping. The girl had one of those cheerful faces, all beams, big front teeth, and cheeks pushed up into shiny apples. I’d always found kids my age who looked like that a bit depressing. It was as though they were shining a torch right in my eyes. They hadn’t noticed me on the front steps, and I was glad about it. If they were neighbours, I might have had to say hello, and I wasn’t very good at stuff like that.

  There was no sign of the van or Aunty Nat, so I occupied my mind by making a list. Lists were excellent therapy for any stressful situation. Like a visit to the dentist, for instance; an alphabetical list of clothing, multiplied by five, seemed to be just the right length for a dental check-up. By the time you’d got to windcheater, waistcoat, waterproof coat, Wellington boots and wristband, the dentist had usually reached the stage of telling you to have a final rinse and spit. X, Y and Z were a bit of a challenge as far as clothing went; so were K, I and Q. But even after I’d managed to think up some new articles to meet that challenge, like X-ray gown, yashmak and zircon ring, Aunty Nat still hadn’t come. I switched to an alphabetical careers list, sitting on the porch steps, where I could watch the road.

  Admiral, baker, carpenter, dancer, engineer, factory worker …

  Aunt Dorothy worked on a factory assembly line, putting electrical goods together. She’d been doing that same job for years, and never complained that it was boring. (Probably she liked it because microwave ovens and blenders didn’t expect you to make conversation with them.)

  Gardener, hairdresser, inventor, jackaroo, kindergarten teacher, laboratory technician, manager …

  Dad was a section manager at the firm where he worked. I wasn’t sure what he did exactly; it was something called marketing analysis. But I did know that to get promoted to section manager, you’d have to be highly organised and also punctual – not like Aunty Nat, who was an hour and a half overdue by now!

  Naturopath, optometrist, police officer, real estate agent…

  Piriel Starr was a real estate agent – and I bet she would have made it all the way to being an admiral, too, if she’d ever thought about joining the navy instead. Perhaps I’d be a real estate agent/business executive like her when I left school, then I could have smart little cards with my name printed on them. When I’d mentioned that to Aunty Nat, though, she said twelve was far too young to be worrying about a profession, and that I should just ‘light up’ and enjoy myself more. (I think she really meant ‘lighten up’, but she often got trendy phrases wrong. I was pretty sure she wasn’t referring to cigarettes, as she spent a lot of time trying to persuade Aunt Dorothy to give up smoking.)

  ‘You’ve found a nice little possy, Sarah,’ Aunt Dorothy said, clattering outside and sitting down beside me. ‘You know, I think I’ll go nuts if I don’t have a cigarette!’

  ‘You can’t while you’re wearing those nicotine patches. It said so on the packet.’

  ‘The rotten things don’t work like they claim they do.’

  ‘Don’t you dare peel it off! You’ve lasted since breakfast, so you can hang on a bit longer.’

  ‘Maybe the chemist gave me a faulty batch …’

  ‘They wouldn’t sell people faulty ones, so don’t make excuses. All you’ve got to do is think about something else. For instance, do you think twelve’s too young to plan a career?’

  ‘Can’t say I ever thought about careers much when I was your age. Homework was enough of a hassle to get through.’

  ‘Piriel knew she wanted to be a businesswoman when she was still in primary school,’ I said. ‘She told me how it started. She auctioned off her Barbie doll collection and made over a hundred dollars. Charging extra for the ones with special features like Hawaiian suntan or crimped hair, of course. Then she put the hundred dollars in a high-return investment account. Don’t you think that was smart for someone still in primary school?’

  ‘She’s a very smart cookie. I guess she’s just one of those people who know how to get it all together,’ Aunt Dorothy said, not sounding as impressed as she should have been.

  Piriel was now one of the top sales people at an inner-suburban real estate firm which handled expensive townhouses, renovated warehouses and beautiful Edwardian mini-mansions. She knew just about everything there was to be known in the real estate business, just as she knew a lot about everything else, too. She could manage any situation with fingertip control.

  The aunts didn’t ever seem to be in control of situations – they just muddled through whatever was happening. Aunty Nat had even mucked up a simple little job like getting herself out of one house and into another! Maybe, though, something had gone seriously wrong and it wasn’t her fault … Perhaps the removalists hadn’t been sure of the way, so she’d volunteered to drive in front and show them. (Those removalists weren’t even a proper professional firm out of the telephone directory, either. They were just a couple of unemployed nephews belonging to someone in Aunty Nat’s card-playing group. She was doing them a good turn, so they’d have extra money for Christmas. The van was just a hired one, too.) There were a lot of steep roads in Parchment Hills, where Avian Cottage was. Maybe … maybe the van’s brakes had failed coming down one of those hills and pancaked the little car the aunts shared between them to save on running costs. I suddenly saw objects littering a roadside, all in sharp detail, as though someone had just handed me a high-quality photograph. An embroidered spectacles case, a floral chiffon scarf,
one shoe lying all by itself in the gravel, a handbag patterned with a big tyre mark …

  ‘Stonemason, travel consultant, university professor, vet, weather forecaster, X-ray technician, yachtsman, zoologist,’ I gabbled feverishly under my breath.

  ‘If I’d had the choice of a career, I would have picked gardening,’ Aunt Dorothy said. ‘Oh look, there’s a nice little clump of blue irises down there in all the weeds.’

  She jumped off the porch to inspect them, and I went back inside to check that the phone was connected. Its last owner had decorated it with blue-wren stickers. They couldn’t be peeled off, as I found after I’d dialled and waited a long time for someone to answer at the other place. No one did, which meant Aunty Nat really had left. She just wasn’t capable of ignoring a ringing telephone. She loved an opportunity to chat to anyone at all, even telephone sales people. (Dad claimed that he’d once overheard her earbashing someone who’d made an obscene phone call. Aunty Nat was kindly suggesting a whole lot of social clubs that creep could join, and also offering advice about where he could get counselling.) This time, though, the phone just rang and rang. If she’d already left, I thought anxiously, where was she now?

  I hung up, debating whether to ring Piriel next. She’d given me one of her business cards, so I had her office, mobile phone and flat numbers. But I felt uncomfortable about bothering her. She might get the impression that her future stepdaughter wasn’t capable of dealing with a small hiccup like a lost elderly relative and a missing truck full of furniture. Like Dad, Piriel had a low opinion of people who couldn’t cope. The first time I met her was at a restaurant. Dad had arranged a special lunch to introduce us. When it was over, while he was paying the bill and Piriel and I were in the ladies’ room, she’d smiled at me in the mirror and said, ‘I don’t particularly like children, Sarah; I might as well be frank about it. But you seem so sensible I just know we’re going to get along very well indeed.’ It felt like the highest kind of compliment, and I didn’t want to risk damaging it now by sooking out my worries to her over the phone.

  Actually, I’d already had plenty of training at being sensible and self-reliant from four years of boarding school. Not that everyone who boarded there automatically developed those traits, of course; some of those girls were just as dizzy as the aunts! Because there was no one there I felt close to, I’d learned how to cope with day-to-day problems on my own. Just as I’d learned not to make a fuss about weekend treats being cancelled at the last minute because Dad had to work unexpectedly. He took it for granted I wouldn’t complain about things. It was flattering, really, the way he treated me almost like another adult.