Lola's Secret Read online

  She’d just opened the folder of spreadsheets in front of her when she heard the sound of an incoming email. She looked up at it. The subject line was CONGRATULATIONS!

  Guests 5, 6 and 7

  In her bedroom, Holly pulled her two younger sisters close. Not close enough. The shouting outside their door was still audible. The shouting, the swearing, the blaming. It had been going on now for almost thirty minutes. Yesterday it had lasted only ten. The day before that, more than an hour.

  ‘With any luck they’ll lose their voices soon,’ she said, in the most cheerful tone she could find.

  Belle was already crying. Once she started, Chloe usually followed. Sure enough, within a minute, both of Holly’s little sisters were crying.

  ‘Did I show you that Christmas card on the computer?’ she said brightly. ‘It’s like magic. Come and look.’ Perhaps the sound of the electronic carol would block out the sound of their parents’ arguments for a few minutes.

  The distraction worked, at first. Holly urged her sisters to follow the on-screen directions, clicking here and there, helping to build a virtual snowman, giving him a carrot for a nose, coal for eyes. Ludicrous, really. Outside, the Adelaide sky was bright blue. There was as much chance of snow as there was a chance of their parents talking nicely to one another and making Christmas something fun rather than a battleground. She tuned in for a moment to their fighting. It was about money, by the sound of things. Unpaid bills. Who worked harder. Who earned more. Who was lazier. Who was fatter. Who did more around the house. Shouts and accusations, getting louder and louder.

  Holly pulled her sisters in even tighter beside her. ‘Come here, littlies.’ They were much younger than her. Holly was nearly seventeen, Chloe was eight and Belle had just turned six. The large age gap hadn’t been by choice, Holly knew. Her mother had talked to her about the four miscarriages, how much she had wanted each lost child, how she’d thought Holly might be her first and last child and then Chloe had arrived, followed two years later by Belle. Sometimes Holly wished that all those other babies had survived too, and that she lived in a house filled with brothers and sisters. Perhaps if the house was full of kids, her mother would have been happy. Perhaps if there hadn’t been that long gap between her and Chloe and Belle, her father wouldn’t have started working so hard. Perhaps. If only. I wish.

  It was as if Belle had read her mind. ‘Let’s make a wish each. Me first. I wish we could see snow this Christmas.’

  ‘We’ll sing “White Christmas” anyway, I promise,’ Holly said. ‘And “Jingle Bells” especially for you, Jingle Belle. Your turn to make a wish, Chloe. Can you put a carol in it somehow?’

  Chloe gave a little jump as something crashed to the floor outside. ‘I wish we could have a silent night this Christmas.’

  She was trying to make a joke but none of them laughed. Holly leaned forward and turned up the volume on the radio beside the computer, hoping the cheery pop song might drown out the argument that was now following the smashed vase or glass or cup. ‘Congratulations, Chloe. Your wish has just come true,’ she said firmly. ‘Let’s do it, will we? Head off somewhere and have our own quiet Christmas? Tell Mum and Dad we’re not coming back until they stop fighting?’

  Two little faces looked up in amazement. ‘Could we? Really?’

  Could they? Really? She thought quickly. She had her driver’s licence. She’d got it as soon as she turned sixteen. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t supposed to be driving without a fully licensed driver in the car with her, but, strictly speaking, children were supposed to have happy Christmases and not be thinking about running away from their endlessly warring parents …

  Was she actually doing this? Thinking about running away with her two sisters for Christmas?

  Yes, she was. And for the first time in weeks, the tight feeling in her chest lessened a little bit.

  ‘Wouldn’t that be an adventure?’ she said to Belle and Chloe. ‘A proper Christmas adventure.’

  ‘But where will we go?’ Belle asked.

  ‘That’s where the adventure begins,’ Holly said, as she typed the words ‘hotel’ and ‘Christmas’ into the search engine.

  Before she pressed ‘go’, Belle hopped off her lap and ran into her bedroom. She was back moments later holding the bear-shaped moneybox Holly had bought her for her birthday five months earlier. She’d found it in a charity shop for ten cents. All it had needed was a bit of a clean. Belle loved it. She not only kept every bit of spare change she ever found or earned inside it, she also slept with it in her arms each night.

  Now, though, she pulled at its belly until a gap appeared and a tumble of coins waterfalled onto the floor. ‘Let’s use this money. I’ve been saving up for something exciting and this sounds perfect.’

  ‘I’ll get mine too.’ Chloe was back minutes later with her savings, kept in a little pink purse covered in red hearts. That had been a present from Holly too, also bought in a charity shop.

  Holly didn’t have the heart to tell her sisters that all their money, even added to Holly’s own small savings from her job in a city-centre bakery, wouldn’t pay for lunch in a motel, let alone a night or two. But they were so happy she didn’t have the heart to stop the fun yet.

  ‘Great,’ she said brightly. ‘But we’ll use my money for the boring things like motel rooms and food, and your money for ice-creams and chips only, okay?’ They both clambered back up beside her, their little bodies pressed on either side. ‘Now, what are your ages again? I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Six!’ Belle said.

  ‘Eight!’ said Chloe.

  ‘Which equals fourteen. Right, then. Let’s choose the fourteenth motel on this list. You both count for me.’ Down they went, bypassing motels in Queensland, Tasmania, Melbourne, Mildura, down, down until they reached number fourteen. Holly nearly laughed. Some adventure. They’d chosen a motel less than two hours’ drive away. Still, she’d go along with it.

  ‘The Valley View Motel,’ Belle read aloud. ‘Click on it, Holly.’

  ‘Click on it, Holly,’ Chloe echoed.

  Up came the motel website. ‘There’s a pool!’ Belle said. There was, only a small one, but it looked blue and inviting. The photos of the interior showed a brightly lit function room and a cheerful dining room.

  ‘What would we have for our Christmas lunch?’ Belle asked. Belle was very interested in food. She’d told Holly that when she grew up she was going to open a chain of bakeries called Belle’s Buns. Holly had found it hard not to smile.

  Holly clicked on the sample menu and read it aloud.

  ‘Yum,’ Belle said, sighing at every description.

  ‘I hate prawns,’ Chloe said, looking worried.

  ‘I’m sure you could have something else. Vegemite on toast, maybe?’

  ‘On Christmas Day? No way!’

  ‘That’s a poem,’ Belle said. ‘On Christmas Day, no way, hooray!’

  The two girls laughed. Chloe pointed to the screen. ‘Is that where you book? Go on, Holly, please.’

  Holly couldn’t stop their fun yet. She scanned the website. There was a Christmas special on offer, three nights’ accommodation and a Christmas lunch. She’d send off an email and then later tell the girls that she was sorry, the motel was so good it was already booked out, but they’d have a pretend motel themselves here on Christmas Day. She’d set it all up herself, with a little counter for them to check in at. She’d make up their twin beds to look identical like they would in a motel. She’d even pretend to be their waitress and cleaner if she had to …

  She filled out the online form. ‘They’ll probably give us a family room,’ she said, now wishing it was all for real. ‘With a big TV. And a big bed for me and tiny beds in cardboard boxes for you two.’

  ‘I’m not sleeping in a cardboard box,’ Belle said. ‘Chloe and I are going to sleep in the big bed with you.’

  ‘Maybe Mum and Dad can sleep in the cardboard boxes,’ Chloe said. ‘But only if they’ve stopped fighting and we�
�ve told them they’re allowed to come. It’s a secret till then, anyway, isn’t it, Holly?’

  ‘It sure is,’ Holly said. ‘Now, who’ll press send?’

  Both girls did, their fingers on the mouse together.

  ‘Right,’ Holly said, standing up. Her sisters slid off the seat beside her. ‘Enough computer for today. Homework time.’

  Holly was in her bedroom helping Belle with her reading ten minutes later when Chloe came running in. The fighting had stopped in the living room. Now there was just something that felt like a cloud of hostility and anger in the house, like a fog leaking into corners. Holly smiled at the funny expression on her little sister’s face. Her cheeks were red, her eyes were wide and yet her mouth was clamped tight. ‘What’s up, Chloe?’

  She said something but with her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Chloe? What is it? Good or bad?’

  ‘Something on the computer,’ Chloe said, in a whisper. ‘Holly, hurry. Come and look.’

  Holly followed her, puzzled, with Belle close behind.

  Chloe had already opened the email that had come in. The message was up on the screen. The subject line was CONGRATULATIONS!

  Chapter Three

  In Hong Kong, the temperature outside the high-rise building was a warm twenty-two degrees. Inside the luxury apartment on the twentieth floor the air was cool and the mood frosty. For the fifth time, Glenn knocked on his twelve-year-old daughter’s bedroom door.

  ‘Ellen, please. I’m begging you.’

  Silence.

  ‘Just say hello. A quick hello.’

  Silence.

  ‘She’s dying to meet you again.’ He winced even as he said the word dying. The wrong choice. So very much the wrong choice. ‘Please, darling. Talk to me.’

  Ellen didn’t actually need to tell him how she was feeling and why she wouldn’t come out of her room. For the past six weeks she’d taken every opportunity she could to tell him how she felt about his new girlfriend and how she felt about his new girlfriend’s daughter. ‘I don’t care that you think you love her. I don’t care that her daughter is the same age as me. I don’t care if you think she’s been lonely too. I don’t want to meet her again, or meet her stupid lonely daughter, and if you cared about me, you wouldn’t be going out with her either.’ That conversation had ended with a slammed door. Another day of silence.

  He’d seen a counsellor. Tried to explain the situation as succinctly as possible. ‘My wife – Ellen’s mother – died almost five years ago. I thought Ellen and I had a good relationship. I’d seen other women in that time, Ellen knew that, but when I met Denise, it was different. I followed all the guidelines, didn’t bring her home to meet Ellen until I knew it was serious between us.’

  ‘And what happened at that first meeting?’

  It had started well enough. Until Ellen noticed how affectionate Glenn and Denise were. She stood beside the photo of Anna that was centre stage in the living room.

  ‘I don’t need a new mother,’ she said to Denise, ignoring Glenn.

  Denise had glanced across at Glenn before smiling a little nervously. ‘I don’t want to be your mother.’

  ‘Good. I don’t want you living with us either.’

  ‘She’s still sad, still grieving,’ the counsellor said. ‘You just have to be patient.’

  Glenn had been as patient as he could. Loving. Understanding. But he’d also been lonely. Ready to meet someone new. He’d tried everything he could to ease the way with Ellen, to talk about his dates as friends, to mention casually if he was going out to dinner. She seemed fine if it was casual, if he saw anyone once or twice. But the change was immediate if he even hinted that it was more than that.

  ‘You’ve forgotten about Mum already? You told me she meant everything to you. If you lied about that, how do I know you won’t lie to me about everything else?’

  Was it just that she was nearing her teenage years? Would that account for the transformation from his sweet little Ellen into this outspoken, sometimes downright rude brat? Time and time again he was tempted to shout back at her. Slam doors as loudly as her, too. He’d been forced to seek advice from female colleagues who were also the parents of teenage girls. ‘Don’t rise to her bait. You have to stay the adult in the relationship.’ Easier said than done. He’d even joined some online forums for single parents, but retreated quickly when they seemed to be thinly disguised dating sites. Finally, he’d resorted to asking his elderly mother for advice. Calling her in her luxury retirement home in Queensland (paid for by him) she’d been blunt, as always. ‘Chart a steady course and always tell her the truth. Teenagers can sniff out a liar a mile off. What trouble you save yourself now will only come back tenfold to haunt you.’

  Tell Ellen the truth? How could he, when he’d been lying to her since Anna died? He was already having enough trouble with his daughter. If he told the entire truth, who knew what monster he might unleash? Because what Ellen didn’t know, and perhaps never should or could know, was that he and Anna had been having serious marriage problems before she died. Not just usual day-to-day issues. They had been on the verge of separation, moving swiftly towards divorce.

  It had been going wrong between them for years. Perhaps both of them had been too busy, Anna with her voice-over career, Glenn with his rising status in the advertising world. Perhaps they hadn’t paid each other enough attention, their daughter giving them enough conversation topics to paper over the cracks. But then Ellen had been badly hurt, bitten by a dog while playing in a nearby park. Anna had been with her, her attention diverted as she took a phone call. It had happened in an instant, a jagged gash on Ellen’s cheek, screams, shouts, blood, a rushed trip to hospital. The subtle tension between Glenn and Anna erupted immediately into full warfare. It was Anna’s fault for being distracted. It was Glenn’s fault – he was never home and when had he ever taken Ellen anywhere? The atmosphere between them had turned to ice. The bad scar on Ellen’s cheek was a constant reminder, not just of the incident, but of the gulf between them. As home life became tense, he’d spent more time at work. He found himself drawn towards a colleague, and with an ease and swiftness that surprised him, he’d started an affair. He wasn’t proud of his behaviour, but it seemed to him that Anna didn’t care what he did any more. Ellen had still been their only talking point, but the blaming and guilt loomed beyond any polite surface words. Separation and divorce seemed the only possible outcome.

  He could still remember how he’d felt the day Anna phoned him with the news of her cancer diagnosis. She had been in South Australia, at the family motel. She’d been there for weeks by that stage. Officially, it was to give Ellen a break from difficulties at school. The other children had been teasing her about her scar. Unofficially, they had both known it was a trial separation. Their personal animosity had been pushed aside in that instant. He had done all he could to make her final weeks peaceful and to make life as calm for Ellen as possible. He’d been truly devastated when Anna died, grieving their broken marriage as much as her passing. But as time went by, his feelings slowly changed. He saw the situation more clearly. Their marriage had been coming to its end. He knew Anna had found love elsewhere too, with a man she’d met while staying at the motel. If she hadn’t become sick, if she hadn’t died, what would have happened to their marriage? Would they have still been together now? He seriously doubted it. They’d learned too many ways to hurt each other. It was difficult to admit, but it was the truth.

  But not a truth he could share with his daughter. Not now, perhaps not ever. What was the point? Ellen was only twelve years old. She’d already experienced more pain than any child should. He couldn’t expect her to understand the complexities and intricacies of her parents’ marriage.

  Yes, when he was alone, he could reason it all out easily. It was only now, when he found himself shouting into a slammed door, his blood pressure rising, his fists clenched – in frustration rather than anger – that it was hard to stay calm. He counted to ten. He tr
ied to keep his voice low and measured.

  ‘Ellen, please. Think about it. I’d like us both to have Christmas with Denise and Lily. It would be fun. I know it.’

  ‘Go ahead and have fun. But I’m not coming.’

  ‘I can’t leave you here on your own.’

  ‘I don’t care if you do.’

  ‘Right. Sure. As if I would leave a twelve-year-old girl on her own on Christmas Day.’

  ‘It’s obvious you don’t care about me, so you may as well.’

  ‘Fine, then. I’ll do exactly that. Leave you here for the day alone. And what will you do? Stay locked away in your room? Starve?’ He winced again. Why was he choosing all the wrong words today? For two days last month, after another fight about Denise, Ellen had stopped eating. Worried she was on the verge of an eating disorder, he’d been about to coax her to the doctor when she’d started eating normally again.

  She was silent for so long now he thought for a moment she’d moved away from the door, climbed into bed perhaps. About to walk away himself, he heard a smaller, softer voice, muffled but still audible.

  ‘I want my mum.’

  All his anger fled. His shoulders slumped, his hands unclenched, he leaned his head against the door. ‘I know you do, sweetheart. I know.’ He could hear her sobbing begin. ‘Ellen, open the door please. Come out here and talk to me. Let me give you a hug. Denise and Lily will be here any minute —’ The wrong thing again.