“Did someone mention a drink?”
With a clatter and a stumble, Bella arrived back from the pub — and she was already full as a bull.
Hoki took one look at her and with compressed lips announced: “Perhaps it’s time to go home, Skylark dear, before certain persons make public spectacles of themselves.”
Hoki’s disapproval set Bella off. All the way back to Manu Valley, she kept roaring with laughter, finding something funny everywhere she looked, and singing at the top of her lungs. Vodka fumes filled the car. Hoki kept on apologising for her sister’s behaviour, but everybody else was hanging out the windows trying to breathe. By the time they arrived back in the valley, Hoki was seething — but Bella, blissfully unaware, was snoring her head off.
“I’ll help you put Bella to bed,” Skylark offered.
“Thank you, dear,” Hoki replied. “That’s definitely the last time I’m going to let her loose by herself.”
She didn’t realise that Skylark had another reason for wanting to be alone with her — and was surprised when, after they’d tucked Bella up for the night, Skylark let her have her question right between the eyes. Whenever there were questions Skylark needed answers to she had always gone on the offensive. She hated not knowing.
“I want to know what’s going on with those seabirds,” she said firmly.
Hoki took a step back. Looked frightened. The girl had caught her on the hop.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said.
Chapter Three
What with the fuss about Bye Bye Birdie, Cora claimed all of Skylark’s time next morning. Mum could be such a diva. Off on her own planet, her specialty number had escalated to a starring role. Up at ten, she was already putting on her makeup as if for a performance. By the time she finished, she looked like Bambi on beta-blockers.
“Mum, it’s only a rehearsal,” Skylark said, laughing.
“Yes, honey, I know that. But the rest of the cast are seventh formers and I don’t want to appear — well, too mature.” Which was Cora’s synonym for old. “Now don’t just sit there. Get the wagon.”
Secretly, Skylark was pleased that her mother’s time in Tuapa would be taken up with something she was excited about; all Cora’s anxieties about being stuck in the wilderness would evaporate. She started the station-wagon and waited. Hoki was at the window of the homestead, telephone in hand.
“I’ll deal with you later,” Skylark said to herself.
“Hello?” Hoki said into the telephone. “Is that you, Arnie? Skylark and her mother are coming into town. I want you to do me a favour —”
Skylark drew up outside Tuapa College for Cora’s first rehearsal. It was midday. The poster advertising Bye Bye Birdie now had a banner pasted diagonally across it: With Special Guest Cora Edwards
She saw a tow truck come to a stop on the opposite side of the road. Was it Lucas? No, it was Arnie. What was he doing here?
Ronnie Shore bustled over. “It’s so good to see you, Cora,” he said. He had assembled the headmaster, music teacher, head of the art department and the main cast of the production to greet her. The usual sycophantic sucking-up stuff began.
“I’m out of here,” Skylark muttered. She gave Arnie a look as she put the station-wagon into first gear.
“Yeah, and I love you too, babe,” Arnie said to himself.
Skylark didn’t know Arnie was following her until she turned left into Tuapa’s main street; he turned too. When she parked at a phone booth just outside the video rental shop, Arnie’s tow truck stopped as well. But she had no time to worry about him right now. She took out her telephone card and inserted it. She hesitated only a moment before dialling.
The telephone clicked and a voice came down the line. “Hello?”
“You sleazebag,” Skylark said.
“My favourite little girl,” Zac laughed. “So you thought you could sneak away in the night and take my woman from me. Don’t worry, I’ll find you. How is she, by the way?”
“I’m not ringing you to discuss my mother,” Skylark said “It’s the Jeep. I should have known not to take it. It’s a death trap and we could have been killed in it.”
“My heart bleeds,” Zac mocked.
“Listen, you no-account jerk! You have two weeks to get out of the apartment. I don’t want you there when we get back.”
“Is that what Cora wants?” Zac mocked. “Or is that what little daughter has decided? You do that to me, Skylark, and you’ll be the one who pays. You kick me out, and Cora loses a lover and her supplier. And you, little girlie, you just might lose a mother.”
Skylark tried to disguise her fear. “Zac, sweetie, if we promise to miss you, will you go away?” Then her tone hardened. “Mum’s been in rehab for six months now. She’s doing good. It’s only when you keep coming back into her life that she goes back to her old ways. She doesn’t need you any more. Pack your bags and get out. If you don’t, I’m calling the police.”
“But Skylark, I’m Cora’s salvation,” Zac laughed. “I’m the resurrection and the life. I saved her when she was down. I brought her to life again.”
Salvation? Skylark thought back to that terrible night, five years earlier, when Cora had been fired from her position as weather girl. Nobody knew that she had already begun on a cycle of drug dependency. Her boyfriend at that time, Harry, had been a camera operator. They did a little coke here, a little coke there — but didn’t everybody in the entertainment industry? The trouble was that Cora started doing it just before appearing on camera.
That night, Cora was on her mark when the light came on in Camera 3. The cue card came up: Cue Weather Report.
The camera started to roll. Cora breathed in deep, polished her smile and got ready to beam its 300 megawatt perfection out to the whole of New Zealand. Cue Music.
The recorded music came on. Lovely, slow, rhythmic, bringing images of an MGM movie in which Gene Kelly danced along a wet rain-streaked street.
For tonight’s weather report, Cora had dressed in a plastic red raincoat with a hood on it. She was twirling an umbrella. Viewers adored her style. Sometimes she wore beachwear. Other times she held a tennis racquet or a golf club. She laughed, clowned, sometimes sang a short refrain from a popular song before launching into the weather information. Cue Ms Edwards.
The words to the song Cora planned to sing began to roll down the autocue. Action.
Cora began to skip to the beat of the music. She started to twirl her umbrella. The camera zoomed in on her as she sang:
“I’m singing in the rain …”
All of a sudden the coke hit, and before she could stop it Cora was laughing and laughing, pointing at the camera as if all the people watching from the comfort of their lounges were a hilarious joke. She dropped the umbrella and went waltzing around the set. The camera followed as she kissed anyone who happened to be standing in the wings. She was happy, so happy.
Then she tripped. Fell over. Wasn’t that funny, viewers? Wasn’t that simply the funniest thing you had ever seen?
The producer frantically signalled to get the cameras rolling on John Campbell. “Whatever Cora is on,” John quipped, “I’ll have some of that.”
He took over the weather report, and television glided over the moment.
Cora was fired the next day. Boyfriend Harry didn’t last much longer either.