Magenta McPhee (2 page)

‘Well, you have a good time, girls,' Dad said as he dropped us off at Polly's house.

‘Are you sure you'll be okay?' I asked for the third time. I felt bad leaving him all alone on a weekend after we'd written about his problem. He'd probably be twice as depressed – all alone on a Saturday night.

‘What's all this sudden concern?' Dad dropped a kiss on the top of my head. ‘Think I can't order takeaway noodles without you?'

‘See,' Polly hissed as he drove away, ‘reliance on fast food. Jane says interest in food wanes with depression – either that or binge eating.'

‘Dad likes takeaway noodles,' I said. ‘We had them on Saturdays even when Mum and Dad were still married.'

‘Well, there you are, he's not moving on, is he? I bet your mum doesn't still have them.'

‘No, we go out to the Thai because Trib loves it.'

‘See, your mum's moved on – Thai and Trib. What more evidence do you need?'

‘That's true, but the noodles told us nothing.' Sometimes I have to fight hard against Polly's mania for evidence. She can get things wrong, but it's hard to remember that because she's so smart most of the time.

‘Whatever. They are part of a pattern. Patterns are important. I'm exploring patterns at the moment. I'm ... but this is a dark secret, Magenta, you mustn't tell anyone.'

‘You've got a secret you haven't told
me?'

‘It's very recent. I only started doing it last night and I could hardly ring you at ten o'clock, could I?'

We sat down on Polly's bed. She had a purple doona with silver stars scattered over it. There were no teddies or stuffed toys. They were just traps for dust mites, Jane said. A large bookcase on one wall had books in it two deep. They were all arranged, first by category and then by alphabetical order of author's surname. She had a big, L-shaped desk with a computer, printer and scanner on it and nothing else except for a dozen tea light candles. Nothing had changed.

‘What's the secret, then?'

‘I think I'm a witch!' she said, paused and then looked at me, her brown eyes so wide I could see the whites all round them.

‘A witch?'

She nodded. ‘I don't see why patterns in words can't be as important as patterns in numbers. And patterns in numbers make things happen. Take your times table, for example. All that is, really, is a pattern of numbers, right?'

‘I guess...'

‘Well, the same with words. If you start repeating words in spells, then the pattern itself might be enough to make it happen. If you have the right kind of brain.'

‘The right kind of brain?' I knew I wasn't sounding particularly smart but this whole conversation was bizarre.

‘I may have the right kind of brain,' Polly said, smoothing the doona under her fingers. ‘Last night I put together my first spell – a simple pattern of words, repeating one main word in different combinations. Want to hear it?'

‘I guess...'

‘Okay, but I'm going to say it normally rather than as a spell because it's worked once and that's enough.'

‘Okay...'

‘Jinx Jeremy, Jeremy Jinx. Bitter is the taste he drinks. Jinx Jeremy, Jeremy Jinx. Drinks he bitter inks. Inks Jeremy Jinx. Bitter is the taste he inks. Jinx Jeremy, Jeremy Jinx.'

‘Right.' It sounded good, even when said normally. I didn't know what it meant, except that Jeremy was Polly's little brother and sometimes he got too much for her, so I assumed the spell was against him in some way.

‘So, I said that, right? But in the spell way, as an incantation, if you want to know. I looked it up on the Net. And guess what happened?'

‘I can't.'

‘Jeremy Drank The Ink!'

‘What ink?'

‘The ink on the kitchen bench.'

‘Why did he drink ink?'

‘Because of the spell, you twit.'

‘Did he know it was ink?'

‘I told him it was ink and not to drink it. Then I said the spell in my bedroom where he couldn't hear me. And he drank it. Against my express instructions.'

‘Was it in a glass? Or in the ink bottle?'

‘I'd put it in an ice-cream sundae glass.'

‘Maybe he didn't think it was ink?' I was feeling confused. First Polly had told Jeremy not to drink the ink, but then she'd told him to drink it in a spell he couldn't hear. ‘Maybe he thought you were trying to trick him into not drinking something that was good, by calling it ink? What colour was it?'

‘Violet,' Polly said, ‘Jane's violet ink. It's very beautiful. Jeremy's tongue went purple. Probably his pee did, too, but he wouldn't show me.'

‘Euch, that's disgusting.'

‘Anyway, there you are. I think I might be a witch. So I'm going to practise a lot. Jane's having a barbecue tomorrow and I'm doing a rain spell. I hate barbecues. They just don't cater for vegetarians, I don't care what Jane says about fake sausages.'

‘But you aren't a vegetarian.'

‘I am mostly. I'll become a total proper one if I'm a witch. Except for Hawaiian pizza. It's to do with loving all nature. You can't kill your familiars. Anyway, this isn't solving your father's problem. Let's get down to business.'

‘If you were really a witch,' I said, ‘then you could just cast a spell for my dad and he'd be fine.' A bit of me didn't like the idea of Polly being a witch. It gave her a lot of power, somehow.

‘I'm not that powerful yet,' Polly said quickly. ‘I think against something like depression – which is like an epidemic in today's world – you'd have to be a very experienced witch. I'm just a beginner. No, I think we have to use twenty-first century remedies for your dad.'

‘And they are?'

‘Well, I asked Marcus if he'd ever been depressed and he said he was all the time.'

That didn't surprise me. Polly's father was an artist.

‘So I asked him what he did to get over it,' Polly continued, ‘and he said work, but your dad doesn't have any work, so I asked him what else and he said, love.'

‘Love?'

‘That's right,' Polly nodded, ‘and he must mean Jane because he's always cursing me and Jeremy – in an interesting way, of course, and not to be taken seriously. So I don't think we can save him from depression. In fact, we probably plunge him into it, more than anything else.'

‘How can we find Dad love?'

‘Easy peasy,' Polly said triumphantly, ‘the Internet, of course!'

‘What?'

‘Oh come on, Magenta, everyone's doing it these days. There are newspaper articles all the time – I met my husband on the Internet, romance on the Net, finding a partner online, cyberlove. You can't pretend you haven't heard of online dating!'

‘But Dad's too old!'

Polly crossed her arms and looked at me. ‘My grandma's on Two's Perfect,' she said slowly, ‘and she's talked to lots of guys ... I mean, men. She's had five dates in as many months and she's in the Really Old bracket.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, ‘I didn't realise. I thought it was all ... you know...'

‘There are genuine lonely people out there looking for soul mates.'

Polly should have been aiming at advertising as a career rather than changing the world. She could be annoying.

‘Okay, okay, forget the guilt trip. How are we going to find my dad an online date when he hates technology these days?'

‘Simple.' Polly was utterly confident. I stared at her. ‘We set it up,' she said and spread her arms out wide as though I should have guessed that was all we needed to do.

‘I don't get it.'

Polly had already moved to her computer, turned it on and was typing in the password as I spoke. ‘We log
into an online dating site pretending to be him and then engage some likely partners in conversation.'

‘So we're matchmaking? On the Internet? For my dad?'

‘Yes, that sounds about right.'

‘It sounds awful,' I said, thinking about it. ‘Polly, it sounds really awful. As though he isn't old enough to make his own decisions. And as though we are. We can't pretend to be him. It's ridiculous. Also, it's probably illegal.'

‘Either this or he goes downhill. That's what is causing his depression, Magenta, it's lack of love. Look at it. When did your mum leave – about three, four years ago? Yes? She's got Trib. Your dad has no one and he's recently been retrenched from his job. He needs someone to love. He's lost it all.'

‘He's got me,' I said indignantly.

‘You're around no matter what,' Polly said coolly, ‘you're a given. That doesn't mean you're not important,' she said quickly, catching my gaze, ‘just that you don't necessarily alter the outcome.'

‘Gee, thanks.' I'd hoped she would catch the sarcasm in my tone, but she didn't look up from the keyboard.

‘Now we have to create his profile. You know, work out what makes him attractive to women.'

‘I don't know. That's kind of disgusting, isn't it?'

‘Head out of the gutter, Magenta. It means, is he kind
to animals? Does he love his children? That kind of thing.'

‘I don't like it and I don't think he would either.'

‘Well, what are you going to do then?' Polly asked reasonably. ‘Wait until he's a basket case and it's too late, or strike while the iron is hot?'

‘Okay,' I said reluctantly, ‘what do we write?'

‘You're the writer,' Polly said, ‘that's your job.'

‘You're joking! How would I know what to write?'

‘We'll do some research,' Polly said, sitting down in the computer chair. ‘It's got to be simple, thousands and thousands of people do it.'

Suddenly we were on an Internet dating site, watching photos of random people popping on to the screen. Some of them in couples with big smiles, others were single, but still smiling. ‘Meet Melissa or Joe or Bridie,' the captions read. ‘Click here.'

‘We do a search,' Polly said, ‘for men your dad's age.'

‘This is tacky,' I said, watching her fill in the details. ‘Really, Polly.'

‘Are you calling my grandmother tacky?' Polly was too busy typing to be really annoyed.

‘No –
us
doing this is tacky.'

She shrugged. ‘You won't be saying that if we find your dad someone,' she said.

‘They all more or less say the same thing,' I said, reading over her shoulder.

‘Then it should be easy to write. You ready?'

Actually, it was harder than we expected. Finally we decided that we'd be halfway honest and I'd write up Dad's profile as though he'd asked me to.

‘Decided to get my daughter to write this,'
I wrote,
‘after all, she's known me for the longest time.'

‘What about his mum?' Polly said. ‘She'd have known him for longer.'

‘She's dead. Anyway, you wouldn't want your mum filling in this kind of stuff,' I said.

‘Yeah, that's true. What are you going to say?'

‘Okay – how does this sound?
My dad's a terrific friend, always good in a crisis. He's someone you can tell anything to because he really listens. He's into important things like saving the planet and gardening. But why don't you see for yourself and contact him?
Do you think I should say something nasty about him so it sounds more real?'

‘No, none of the others we've read have. I think it sounds great. Now, let's fill in the rest. What kind of music does he like?'

The rest was surprisingly difficult. For a start we just said old music and hoped that would work. I had to skip the book section altogether because I couldn't remember anything Dad read, except books on World War Two and we both thought that would be against him.

‘We can always go back and change it,' Polly said, ‘when we do more research. Plus, we'll need a photo and we'll have to set up a Hotmail account for him.'

‘We won't be able to contact anyone,' I said after we'd gone back and looked at the rules. ‘We can't afford to buy these stupid stamps or whatever they are.'

‘No, we can't, but if someone sees your dad and likes the look of him, she might contact him.'

‘I don't think this works,' I said gloomily, ‘it's just stupid to think that there are people checking into this every day hoping they're going to meet someone. I mean, your grandmother's one thing, she's really old. But anyone else? I don't think so.'

‘Don't you ever read the paper?' Polly asked. ‘There have been articles on how many people have met online and got married. Got married!'

‘You know I don't read the paper. Anyway, half the stories are exaggerated.'

‘Look,' Polly said, sounding exasperated, ‘you have to have a bit of faith, Magenta. You're getting as gloomy as your dad. In fact, you're the one sounding depressed, if you ask me.'

‘I'm not, honest. I just don't see how...'

‘Have some faith,' Polly repeated. ‘Come on, Magenta. Let's look up love potions – just in case.'

By the time I got home from Polly's the next day it was raining. I was going to ring and congratulate her but didn't want the power going to her head. Still, it was uncanny.

‘Do you believe in magic?' I asked Dad after breakfast.

‘Magic?' Dad repeated. ‘As in magicians?'

‘As in witches.'

‘That's a tough question. I do think strange things happen that defy logic or science. Perhaps there are people who can focus these events in some way. Of course, in the old days people were called witches just for having some herb lore or healing skills. Mainly women. They burnt them at the stake.'

A brilliant idea came into my mind. I could include a witch burning in my novel. Perhaps Lady Rosa would intervene at the last moment. It would add drama. My novel lacked drama.

‘Of course, some would argue that women have
always been punished for exercising any power...' Dad was still talking. I stifled a yawn and tried to look as though I was paying attention. I could make the witch a little like Polly, I thought. She'd be an apprentice witch, rather than a real one.

‘You can look up the Salem witch trials on the Internet,' Dad was saying, ‘and the library would have material on them, too.'

‘Great,' I said, tuning in. It could be useful if I wanted historical accuracy.

‘Job day,' Dad said, and he sounded a little gloomy. Dad spent Sunday applying for jobs. It was his system. Dad loved systems. He reckoned they made life work. I didn't think that was necessarily true. I'd overheard Mum telling Trib that Dad even had a system for keeping their marriage together. That clearly hadn't worked.

Back in those days all Dad's gadgets had beeped and buzzed at regular intervals, keeping his systems intact. These days, of course, he had downsized and our house was mercifully quiet. He wrote important dates in the Guide Dog calendar that hung in the kitchen. I suppose that counted as a low-tech system of sorts. He had a high-tech watering system for the vegie garden that involved the bath water and the rain tank. A library book rotation system that kept the overdue fines at bay, too.

I also had a system. While Dad spent Sundays applying for jobs, I wrote my fantasy novel. I was handwriting it in a great thick notebook my mother gave me. On the front page I had written in my best writing:

And on the first page inside I had written the cast of characters:

‘Well,' I said, ‘we'd better get busy.'

‘Still writing the Chronicles? Thinking of putting in a witch?'

‘Maybe,' I said. ‘There might be too many pages of description at the moment. I seem to have spent a lot of time describing clothes and things. I need some action.'

Dad nodded. I didn't show anyone the Chronicles, especially not my mother. She was an English teacher and I knew she'd try to correct my grammar and punctuation. Still, I didn't mind talking about them.

Dad sat down at the computer and I went into my room, retrieved the notebook and stared at the next blank page. I got up and rearranged the ornaments on my dressing table. I went back to my desk. I filled my fountain pen. I had got a special fountain pen for Christmas and I used it all the time for the Chronicles. Dad had bought it because he regarded fountain pens as sustainable technology, as opposed to biros which were throwaway consumer items. I liked trying different coloured inks. I had three bottles of ink but my favourite was an emerald green.

I doodled on the blotting paper on my desk. I made some green flowers and some stars. Then I drew a face surrounded with tendrils of curls. I put a tall hat on her, a medieval hat with a wispy veil coming out of the top.

What would I call my witch? I wanted a name that was sort of like Polly and sort of not.

I wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge door. What would we have for lunch, I wondered.

‘Hungry already?' Dad asked. ‘Magenta, you've just had two crumpets.'

‘I was checking, that's all. I think I have writer's block.'

‘Ahh,' Dad said, ‘try a glass of milk.'

‘Dad! As if. I probably need chocolate.'

‘There isn't any, sorry.'

‘I don't think I can work properly without chocolate.'

‘Well, Magenta, you might have to do something else then. I can't go to the shops, I'm too busy.'

It was no use arguing with him when he used that tone of voice. I sighed heavily so he had to hear me, but then I gave up.

‘Polly, Molly, Colly, Holly...' Hmm. Holly sounded good and it had a plant reference, too. I turned back to the first page and added

to my cast of characters.

Then I turned back to the blank page and wrote

with some curly bits around the C and the T. The first chapter, which had taken me four Sundays, just introduced my central character and her dog. I described the castle in a lot of detail as well as the three changes of clothes Rosa tried on, in which she was to greet Lord Treece and, more importantly, his younger brother, Ricardo.

Now I had to make her meet him and also meet the young witch, Holly.

‘Rosa!' her mother called and Rosa sighed at her reflection. Perhaps she should have worn the midnight blue after all. The green velvet clung to her as she walked and the large collar, decorated with thousands of little pearls, framed her heart-shaped face, but did the colour make her look a little tired or even – horrors! – a little yellow?

‘Rosa!' her mother called again.

It was clearly too late to change. Green would have to do. She swept from the room and started down the main staircase which led to the entrance hall of the castle. All eyes were on her as she made her way gracefully down. She felt herself blush as she saw Ricardo among the onlookers.

‘There you are' her mother said rather peevishly, ‘at last! Come and greet your stepfather-to-be!'

Rosa held out her white hand and bent her head over a slight curtsy as she had been taught. ‘Lord Treece,' she murmured in her pleasant, low voice.

‘Lady Rosa,' Lord Treece barely clasped her hand, ‘you are looking very beautiful today.'

‘Thank you.' Rosa turned to Ricardo but was afraid to look up in case her features betrayed her interest in the young man. ‘Ricardo.' She extended her hand again.

Ricardo grasped it in his and touched it with his mouth. ‘My lady,' he said, ‘charmed again.' His voice was warm.

I won't wash that hand, Rosa thought, not for days.

I wasn't sure that they washed much anyway in the Middle Ages. However, I decided to leave it. I wanted the reader to know how much Rosa is in love with Ricardo.

That made me think of a great idea. What if Rosa seeks Holly out to buy a love potion? That would be a way of introducing the witch. Oh, I was definitely a genius!

The thing I really like about fantasy is that you can put some real life into it without anyone knowing. No one would know that Polly and I had looked at love potions yesterday on the Internet. No one would know that the dashing Ricardo was based, just a little, on Trib's nephew, Richard. Not that I had a crush on Richard. It was just that I liked seeing him. He was funny.

‘Show Ricardo around, Rosa. I have made up a room in the West Wing for him and his valet.'

‘Yes, my lady.' Rosa's heart beat so fast she thought she might faint. Her cheeks coloured and she couldn't look at Ricardo but instead inclined her head and began walking towards the passageway that led to the West Wing. Despite her long skirts, she moved fast.

‘My lady,' Ricardo said, ‘are you trying to lose me? You might slow down so we can talk. We are to be related in a day or two. We should become better acquainted.'

‘Yes, my lord.' Rosa slowed her pace.

‘These are beautiful hangings,' Ricardo said, gesturing to the fine tapestries that lined the passageway hanging over the grey stone. ‘Your mother has fine taste, my lady.'

‘Thank you, my lord, actually my father had them made. Before he went away.'

‘Before his unfortunate death?' Ricardo asked.

‘Before my mother declared him dead,' Rosa said, a steely note coming into her voice.

Polly had told me that if someone went missing for long enough you could legally pronounce them dead and remarry. It was one of her fascinating facts. This had started me thinking about writing the Chronicles. Rosa's father, Lord Burgundy, disappears for years while on a voyage of exploration somewhere. Then her mother, Tamsin Burgundy, meets Lord Treece and falls in love. But in order to marry him she has to declare Burgundy dead. Rosa hates her for that, of course. She doesn't believe her father is dead. The marriage goes on, anyway, and then, at some stage later in the story, Lord Burgundy comes home.

It took a lot of writing to even get Lady Tamsin married. I'd slaved for four Sundays and she and Lord Treece were no closer to the altar. Which was just as well now I had a new character to put into the story.

I wrote more about Ricardo and Rosa walking through the castle. I decided that the reader should know what he was wearing so I gave him some dark knee breeches and a shirt of the softest silk. I wondered if he should have a moustache – or even a little beard. How did men shave in the Middle Ages? Dad had kept his electric shaver even though he'd sold the microwave. He claimed the electric shaver was the only thing that could get rid of his whiskers. I had argued that the microwave was the only thing that could make popcorn, but then Dad had shown me the old-fashioned way of making it in a saucepan.

Thinking about popcorn made me feel hungry so I went out to the kitchen again.

‘How's it going?' I asked Dad.

‘Not bad, not bad at all,' Dad said. ‘There's one job here I wouldn't mind getting.'

‘That's great, Dad! I hope you get it.'

‘They probably want someone younger,' Dad said. ‘Everyone does these days.' He seemed to be relapsing into pessimism.

‘Not necessarily,' I said, ‘you bring experience to the job.'

‘Employers don't seem to want experience,' Dad said. ‘They want energy and dynamism, neither of which they detect in old codgers like me.'

‘Dad! Don't get depressed.'

‘I'm not depressed,' Dad said, ‘just realistic. How are the Chronicles?'

‘You know what I reckon about fantasy? I reckon fantasy books are always long because the people have to walk everywhere or go on horseback. They can't drive anywhere, so it takes ages to just get them from one place to another. And the castles are big, too. I've just spent hours marching Rosa and Lord Ricardo through the castle to the West Wing. Did castles have wings? I don't even know. I really need to visit a castle. For the atmosphere.'

‘Right,' Dad said, ‘start saving your pocket money!'

I rolled my eyes. ‘As if. The other thing is that you have to keep calling them my lady and my lord. That gets really boring. My lady this and that and the other thing. I wonder if they did that all the time in real life. I'm going to have to do some research.'

‘Good idea,' Dad said. ‘I bet the library has some excellent books on this kind of thing.'

‘I'll look it up on the Net,' I said. ‘No one goes to the library anymore, Dad ... that's so last century!'

‘As if,' Dad said. It was his turn to roll his eyes. At least he didn't sound depressed anymore.

I was always worried on Sundays. As if job day wasn't enough, Sunday was changing of the guard as well. It was the day I went to Mum's. That was great in some ways. She's got broadband, for a start, and because she's a teacher, I'd have a lot of opportunity to get on the Net and check out any progress on Two's Perfect while she was out. Also she's a more consistent cook than Dad. Dad starts with great intentions, goes to the market, buys strange vegetables or picks some of our silver beet and borrows cookbooks from the library, but he's into improvising. So, for example, if we're out of ordinary potatoes, he'll substitute pumpkin. Cheese, bacon and pumpkin pie turned out not to be as good as the cheese, bacon and potato pie from the fortnight before. I was getting sick of silver beet, too. Bitter melons were – guess what – bitter!

I worried about Dad when I wasn't there. How did he cope? What did he do all day?

‘What do you have on this week?' I asked. ‘Anything exciting?'

‘Nothing much, might go and see a movie. What about you?'

‘Who would you see a movie with?' I asked, curiously.

‘You can see movies by yourself, you know,' Dad said. ‘It is allowed.'

‘But that's so sad,' I said. ‘You wouldn't have anyone to discuss the movie with.'

‘I don't mind,' Dad said.

I knew he was lying. No one likes seeing movies by themselves.

‘Oh Dad,' I said, and when we said goodbye at Mum's I gave him a great big hug and told him I loved him.

‘I love you, too, Magenta,' he said. ‘You have a good week, okay?'

‘You too,' I said. ‘Don't be lonely.' I waved until his car turned the corner at the end of the street.