Page 1 of Nothing Without You

Prologue

Beaudesert – 1977

Evie sucked on a lolly as she lingered in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom, her gaze moving from one end of the room to the other. The sweet chocolate filled her mouth as she bit down, her teeth crunching the orange coating of a Jaffa. She strolled into the room, picking up some items of interest before helping herself to a couple of her mother’s possessions.

A thread of guilt ran through her, but she justified her actions. It wasn’t really stealing; it was just sharing family belongings. She secreted the items into the pockets of her school uniform, her mind flitting between the stolen treasures and the impending life-changing events scheduled for that evening.

She swore as she dropped the last Jaffa meant for her mouth, the lolly bouncing on the timber floor before rolling under her mother’s bed. No one else in the house ate lollies, and the last thing she needed was for anyone to suspect she had been in this room and home on a school day. The consequence of wagging would be a grounding, which she did not need on the eve of the most important night of her fifteen-year-old life.

She bent down to see if she could rescue the lolly, no doubt its coating now covered in dust. As her eyes landed on it, the sound of a key sliding into a lock, followed by the creak of the front door opening, made her heart pound and she froze where she stood.

Her mother’s laughter echoed along the hallway. A man said something she couldn’t understand. Confused for a split second before moving into action, she slid under the bed and pressed herself against the wall. Wriggling under as far as she could, she held her breath as her mother and a man whose voice she knew but had trouble identifying, entered the bedroom.

Chapter One

Beaudesert 1968

Evie first laid eyes on Chris McIntosh on her very first day of primary school in 1968. She remembered it vividly because on that particular day—and that day alone—her mother walked her up the dirt road that ran past their house, turned left, and holding Evie's hand tightly, guided her through the main entrance of Beaudesert State School.

A large wooden archway with the school’s name emblazoned on its gable left Evie feeling as tiny as the insects clustered on top of a dead cockroach near her shoe. She sidestepped a group of yellow ants that wriggled and scurried around the larger insect, a few working together to drag the bug somewhere else. Perhaps they were trying to get it out of the line of mothers and children streaming into the school.

She wanted to stop and watch what happened to it, but her mother tugged at her hand, pulling her under and through the archway into the school grounds. She looked up at the sign that declared the school's name and a number, which she later learned said ‘Established 1887’.

When they stopped for a moment, Mother undid the hair clip in Evie’s hair and adjusted it to where she thought it should go. She tugged gently at Evie’s plaits, squinting at them to ensure they were even. Father had stopped Mother from cutting Evie’s hair the week before. ‘Leave it be, Maya,’ he said, using his firm voice. ‘It’s beautiful and nearly down to her waist.’

Mother had continued to brush it. ‘It’s a pity she didn’t inherit my blonde colour or your black hair. She’s in the middle. Dark brown. Definitely got your eyebrows, though.’ Father had won, and Evie’s plaits remained neat and long.

At last, Mother was satisfied with them, although she must have noticed a stray hair in Evie’s eyebrows because she licked her finger and then ran it over the top of both. Lick. Left one. Flatten. Lick. Right one. Flatten.

When Evie jutted out her chin and pulled her head back from her mother’s hand, she received a head shake in return. ‘Stand still, Evie. Let me check how you look.’

Her feet hurt and she scuffed them in the dust, annoyed that she had to wear the new shoes her mother had bought. She wasn’t used to anything on her feet, and she noticed that some of the other kids had bare feet and weren’t wearing stiff, black shoes that pinched their toes. ‘Why do I have to wear these shoes?’ she asked her mother, pointing to an older girl who walked past them. ‘She doesn’t have any on.’

Her mother made that tut-tutting noise that meant she wouldn’t answer the question. Instead, she pulled on Evie’s hand before walking quickly up the path to where a group of mothers, similarly holding fast to their children’s hands, were listening to a lady. The lady, who she later came to know as Mrs Montrose, was her year one teacher.

Evie scrunched her toes inside her shoes, the confines of the leather restrictive and tight. It was as though her feet were in jail, and she didn’t like that she had to do something she didn’t want to do. She stomped her foot, then tapped the toe end on the ground, scuffing the leather. Her mother made a growling noise and propelled her forward as Mrs Montrose started to call out names from a list she held in her hand. A boy beside Mrs Montrose held other pieces of paper, passing the teacher a page when she asked for them.

‘Thank you, Chris,’ the teacher said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Evie stared at the boy, and he must have felt her eyes on him because he stared back, unsmiling, as he shuffled his bare feet on the concrete pathway. He wasn’t much taller than her, his blonde hair short and neat. Like the other boys, he wore shorts and a T-shirt, his skinny legs moving up and down as he struggled to stand still.

‘He doesn’t have shoes on,’ Evie said. She must have spoken too loudly because her mother yanked her hand and told her to be quiet. Her complaints continued about wearing shoes, but she stopped when the boy poked his tongue out at her. It was an automatic response to poke hers back at him, and for a while they exchanged looks, their tongues poking out and then quickly back in when Mrs Montrose spoke again.

‘Thank you, Chris. You can go.’ No one seemed to notice the tongue-poking-out exchange; they were all too busy talking. The boy glanced at Evie again and poked his tongue out one more time, before turning on his heel and walking away. She watched him as he moved along the path, joining another group of boys gathered around the racks where the bicycles were kept.

Her attention was drawn back to the people around her, and she stared intently at the other kids starting year one. At least they were suffering the same shoe problem as her, each wearing some sort of footwear. A girl standing nearby offered a friendly smile. She wore brown sandals with silver buckles that kept them in place. At least she hadn’t poked her tongue out. Evie smiled back.

As an only child, Evie didn’t have the company or security of brothers and sisters to look after her. Some of her friends who lived on her street were attending the same school, but they were either a few years older or a bit younger than she was.

There had been discussions at home about making friends. ‘Just tell them your name and say you want to be their friend,’ her father advised, tweaking her plaits and sweeping her up in his arms. He cuddled her tight. He had a sweet, warm smell that she loved. When she pushed her head into his chest and closed her eyes, the familiar scent of his aftershave lingered in her nostrils and sometimes she could still smell it on her clothes a long time after he held her. The smell always comforted her, as did his voice, his words spoken quickly but softly, with an accent different from anyone else she knew. Sometimes, he reverted to his native language, Italian. This usually happened when he was excited, sad, or argued with Mother. Father was a calm man though, so fortunately arguments didn’t happen very often. The best thing about him was he always told her he loved her. Mother never said those words, but Father said them to her at least once a day, sometimes more.

All the love she needed came from him. He said his love for Evie came all the way from Italy. ‘It’s from your nonnas and pappas. Even though you can’t see them and they can’t hug you, they are sending their love.’

Carlo migrated to Australia in the 1950s, travelling alone and leaving behind his entire family and friends. ‘I wanted a new life. I had dreams for this land of opportunity I had heard about,’ he told Evie. ‘I cut cane in North Queensland and met new friends. There were mosquitos as big as bumblebees and snakes longer than my body. Fa molto caldo. They call it humidity here. The heat was something else. We worked hard though, and made good money. When I came to Brisbane on a holiday, I met your mother. She was beautiful and made me laugh back then.’ His face fell with a wistful look, as if he wanted those old times back again. ‘She was looking for a husband, and I a wife. We bought this house, and I soon became Queensland's top vacuum cleaner salesman.’

She loved that story, even if she had heard it a hundred times before. Father’s voice was smooth, and his pronunciation of words differed from others because he spoke in his second language, English. Some people laughed at his accent and made fun of how he talked. Once she had even heard some people in the corner store say bad words about her father. He had been at the counter asking for milk while Evie dawdled behind. She had slid her feet along the shiny lino floor as she looked at the food on the shelves for sale. Father moved to the cash register, and she smiled as she listened to him talking while he paid. His words were eloquent, and he even threw in one of his own words, ‘Graci’, to thank the young girl behind the counter.

A lady and man were in front of Evie as she looked longingly at the chewing gum display, the imagined taste of Juicy Fruit rolling around her mouth.

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