The Blooming Of Alison Brennan

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The Blooming Of Alison Brennan - book excerpt

Chapter 1

Stella Goodall

Tuesday, 2 February

She stepped into my office and looked around.

Later I would learn that this was a habit of hers. She took in the details of spaces.

Today was the first day back at school after the summer holidays, and already the sun beat with a headachy glare against the window. I’d drawn the blind, and warmed some drops of sandalwood oil in a burner. The irises I’d bought on the way to work stood stiffly in a vase on my desk. Their pointy sapphire buds would open by the afternoon.

The office was in the original sandstone building at the front of the school, and its north-facing window framed hectares of green playing fields.

In my first week here, I had consigned the dingy school-issue brown chairs and stained yellow rug to a remote storeroom. At the Salvos in Glenferrie Road I found two heavy, seventies style armchairs. They were wide and solid, big enough to curl your legs up, and to support your back and neck. Joe, the caretaker, collected them in his van and wrestled them inside, dabbing at his sweaty face with a big handkerchief. They were now covered in a soft, sky-blue fabric.

From home I brought the faded circular mat from my study. It was thinning in places but it had a lovely traditional design of interlinked flower-like splotches of rich cobalt and mauve. At the same Salvos store I found a kitschy, fake-marble, art-deco coffee table in a wavy rectangular shape. Its blue-grey undertones picked up the blue of the chairs. Against the back wall was my desk, again standard issue, and it held my computer, diary, a telephone and current files. It wasn’t the main character in the room.

Under the window there was a low fridge where I kept cold water, and on top was a jug and some mugs for tea and coffee. There was one framed print — a 1950s watercolour of the curve of the Yarra, east of Princes Bridge, looking towards the city. Just the one print. The boys and girls I saw in this room didn’t need to endure happy snaps of my family.

Alison Brennan.

I knew from her file that she was sixteen. She was of medium height, slim and athletic. Her long, glossy, brown hair was tied back with the regulation red and white ribbons. She was very pale, obviously nervous. The paleness emphasised the unusual blue, almost navy, of her eyes. Her school dress was freshly pressed, and she wore her white socks and school shoes with the easy grace of someone who didn’t know she was beautiful.

‘Good morning, Alison. Please sit down.’

I brought two glasses of water to the table and pushed one towards her. I noticed her looking at details — the straight, neat irises, the print, the colourful rug. She took the water in both hands but didn’t drink. I wondered if she regretted making the appointment.

‘So, Alison, Year Eleven?’

She nodded.

I knew from her file that she was a good student, a good all-rounder really. Her main strengths were in the humanities, but she kept up in Maths and Science. She was in the middle school girls’ swimming team. There were no prefect or SRC positions listed on her file, but she had never been in trouble — no suspensions, disciplinary meetings or concerned letters to her parents.

Her school fees were paid by her grandfather, Judge Colin Brennan. I knew him by sight from his attendance at the annual Parent Information evenings, at which I was obliged to speak, and I recalled that he was rather formidable.

That was all. In her four years at the school, Alison had never drawn attention to herself.

It was difficult to get past her nervousness. She held the glass of water close, like a shield.

‘How can I help you, Alison?’ I sipped my water and waited until the silence became too heavy. ‘You have two big years ahead. Are you worried about the workload?’ It was a common concern at this time of the year.

‘Yes,’ she said, very softly.

‘What worries you about it? You’ve always done well at school, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, but it’s more important now. I have to get a good ATAR score. I have to get into uni.’

Her vehemence was surprising. At the beginning of Year Eleven, most students didn’t talk about getting into university as if their entire life depended on it. The options were still fluid.

‘But that’s possible; your marks have always been good.’

More silence, then again, ever so softly, she practically whispered, ‘I can’t study at home.’

She looked ashamed, as if she had blurted out something sacrilegious. Her face was red. She stood up suddenly and walked towards the print on the wall, standing with her back to me, examining it.

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ I remarked.

‘Yes, it’s restful. It looks as if it was a hot day, something like today.’

‘Melbourne before Southbank and the Casino.’ I sounded inane, even to myself. I waited for her to sit down again.

‘Why can’t you study at home? Is it too noisy? Too crowded?’

‘It’s crowded all right,’ she muttered. She stared at the floor.

Again I waited. I knew that she had no brothers or sisters.

Finally she looked up, looked at me directly. She seemed to have decided that she would let me help, but I could see that she had to dredge it out of herself. She’d take my help for now, but if I wasn’t careful she’d close down.

‘You see, Mrs Goodall … um, well … it’s my parents.’

Again she blushed. Was it shame, embarrassment, or something else?

‘They’re not like other people.’

‘Oh?’ I queried, puzzled and eager to learn in what way.

She took a deep breath. ‘Our house is very dirty. More than dirty, it’s filthy. There are fleas, cockroaches and rats. My parents never throw anything away and they never clean. There’s rubbish piled up everywhere, in some places to the ceiling. There’s nowhere to sit, no table to eat at. Everything is covered high with junk. Even my room. They even use my room to store their junk. I have to climb over it to get to my bed.’

She began to cry then, big sobs, as if her resentment, confusion and anger had burst a dam.

I put a box of tissues on the table close to her. ‘They’re hoarders?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I’ve read about it. It’s a mental illness. Not that Mum and Dad understand that. They’re embarrassed about it, but they don’t seem to be able to help themselves. It’s disgusting, and … dangerous.’

‘How long has it been like this?’

‘All of my life, but I hide it. I never have friends at home. I’m too embarrassed. The neighbours talk about us. You can’t see the house for the weeds and junk in the front yard.’

She’d stopped crying now, but her eyes were red and swollen.

I could imagine how hard this was for her. At sixteen, girls were constantly in and out of each other’s homes, sleeping overnight, making snacks in the kitchen, studying, calling friends, watching TV and movies, giggling in front of social media.

‘We can’t cook in the kitchen because there are cockroaches in the oven, and the stovetop is used as another shelf for junk. I know there’s rotting food in the fridge because I can smell it, but I can’t bear to open it. The hot water service broke down two years ago and my parents are too embarrassed to get someone into fix it, so we don’t have hot water. The bath is full of rubbish like everywhere else, and the shower is blocked. When you flush the toilet it floods on to the junk on the floor. Everything smells. The washing machine is full of mould.’

I had to conceal my horror. I didn’t want to scare her off. ‘How do you eat and keep clean?’

‘I work out at the gym most mornings, and I have a shower there. I get a coffee and toast at the gym, and then I come to school. I buy lunch at school, and for dinner we get takeaway. The litter just gets added to the pile. We haven’t put the bins out for over a year. So yeah, there’s so many rats?’ She was crying again. ‘I’ve even been bitten by rats, and every day I have new fleabites. They’re in the beds and in all the rubbish.’

‘How do you keep your clothes clean?’ I asked. She was immaculate.

‘Once a week I take all my washing to the laundromat. I dry it and press it there. There’s one cupboard up high in my room where I can keep my clothes. It’s the only one in the house that’s not full of rubbish.’

‘Sheets? Towels?’

‘I wash my own once a week.’

‘Sorry for all the questions. It helps if I have some details. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘How did you manage when you were younger? When you couldn’t go to the laundromat or the gym by yourself?’

‘I didn’t manage. But I thought it was normal. I never went to other houses. It wasn’t until Grade Six that I began to realise how different our house was from other peoples’. I must have smelled. I had fleas in my hair.’ She touched her shiny hair, remembering. ‘I had a friend that year, a Vietnamese girl. I went to her house a lot, and I picked up things from her — how to wash my hair, to have a shower every day, how to keep my clothes clean. She never judged me, and never asked questions. Her name was Lo-an. Then she went to a different high school and we lost touch.’

I didn’t know what to say. Now I was the one to stand, to walk about, and look through a chink in the blind to brilliant red and white geraniums in beds along the path that led to the playing fields.

What an effort she has to make, I thought, to come to school clean and fresh, her hair brushed, her clothes pressed, her socks white and her shoes shiny. She has to keep up the charade of a normal life with her classmates and teachers, and now she has the VCE workload to contend with.

With my back to her, I indulged for a second a wild fury with her parents. But my feelings were not the point. I had to help her to find ways to cope in that horrible environment.

‘See what I mean about getting a good ATAR? If I can get into a uni in the country, maybe Gippsland, Bendigo, even Wollongong or Armidale in New South Wales, I can move away and live in student accommodation.’

I sat down again, and faced her. I resisted taking her hands. It was not my job to be motherly.

‘Don’t get the wrong impression, Mrs Goodall. You know, they’re great parents in lots of other ways. They’re kind, and they’re very proud of me. I know they love me. They just don’t cope with life. I don’t know why.’ She hesitated, and then challenged me, clear-eyed. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

‘Of course not. We’ll work on this together, Alison.’

Chapter 2

Alison Brennan

Tuesday, 2 February

I didn’t tell her even half of it.

I didn’t tell her about Grandpa, about how I hadn’t seen him for four years because of the fight he had with Mum last time he came to our house. It was at the end of Grade Six. It was a Saturday, and he turned up without telling them. When he saw the house, he went crazy.

He yelled at Mum. ‘What’s wrong with you, Bernadette? How can you live like this? What about Alison’s safety?’

That was the first time I realised that our house was dangerous, as well as dirty and smelly.