Fake ID (3 page)

‘What's with the keys?' Luke jingled the bunch. ‘You gunna be a locksmith or something for work experience?'

Last week, our school told us to start organising a fortnight's work experience at the end of term, so it's something we were both thinking about. Luke wanted to work in a computer shop or for Hockey Galore, the sports gear shop, because he thought they might have a few free samples of sticks or hockey balls. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to work in Maccas or for the White Ladies Funeral services.

‘The keys should open most doors and drawers in the house. Mrs Donna said to check for a hidden will. My job to find it since Mum's not here. And she said something about a file being left for me. It's around the house somewhere, but Mrs Donna hasn‘t seen it yet.'

‘I'll help you look for it. You did an OK job at the wake,' Luke said. ‘Those olds ate more than me. All those sausage rolls and ham sandwiches went really fast.'

I watched as he put the broom and the spade back in the tool shed next to the garage where Gran's car was parked. Was Luke trying to be nice because I was Gran-less? Or did he mean it?

The funeral people provided ‘light refreshments' for what Mrs Donna called the wake. Weird! So quiet. The whispers guests made wouldn't wake up any dead person. They thanked me for ‘the cuppa' which I hadn't organised. Offering curried egg or shaved ham (since when did pigs shave?) sandwiches saved me having to say important stuff like, ‘Did you know if my gran had another life?'

Maybe someone there did know more about my gran, but I didn't know who to ask or what to say. Besides, they treated me as the left-over grandkid, as if I were about six and feeling grown-up because I was allowed to hand around the sandwiches.

‘Are we looking for an envelope?' Luke opened the back door, which then slammed behind us.

‘Probably.' I had no idea. No labels on the keys. Not even colour tags or purple nail polish like I put on my second Hedge High locker key

‘Or a computer file?' suggested Luke. ‘That's what I'd look for.'

Since Gran went hi-tech only a few weeks ago, the will was more likely to be in a drawer. Anyway, it had to be witnessed and you couldn't do that on a computer. I held up the keys. ‘Try the locked drawers first. Let's see which keys fit.'

Checking for important documents and valuables is normal after a death, Mrs Donna says, but it's creepy going into an empty house, which still has a feel of the owner. I don't believe in ghosts, but there's still a sense of Gran about the place that's really hard to describe. It's not a smell, just a flavour of her clinging to the rooms. Her furniture. Her colours. Her mess. And a sense of her personality. I don't mean a ghost or anything spooky, just her.

For a moment, I wondered what I'd leave behind if I died. Would there be a sense of Zoe anywhere? Mum and I never lived in the same place long enough for any house or flat to be ‘infected' or even affected by us. Even on the farm where we house-sat for the owners, we were very temporary and the owners' belongings were still around.

‘Sometimes old people hide jewellery under the mattress…or in the freezer,' suggested Luke.

‘Uncomfortable to sleep on, or wear!' I say. ‘Cool!'

Gran was
not
the world's best housekeeper. I'd always liked that. She didn't fuss. But that's also why I had to live with Luke's super-organised mum. Since Luke trained for the same club, that made the pick-ups and drop-offs easier. Very different women. While Luke's mum recycled everything, fast, Gran was a bit of a hoarder. There were newspapers in piles. Old envelopes. I checked them all. Empty. And stacks of canvases against the walls of the hall, with one painting hanging.

‘Hey, isn't this the picture of you? The one where you had to sit still for hours?' Luke called out.

‘Twenty hours.' That's when I used to dream of playing hockey for Australia's top women's team to fill the time. I'd get the only goal in the final minute of the second half and everyone in the international crowd would cheer. I'd be on the TV sports channel. But all I got was eye-ache from having to stare at a corner of the room and not move. You wouldn't think it was so hard to do nothing. Being an artist's model was not for me, either. So I wouldn't try and get work experience with an artist, especially a portrait painter. Been there, done that.

The picture was crooked. You know how some people can't bear crooked pictures? Luke is one of them. So he tries to fix it.

Trying to balance, one foot on the sofa arm, Luke reached up towards the portrait, wobbled and accidentally knocked ‘me' off the wall. Crash! The painting fell on its corner frame, which splintered just as Luke wobbled back the other way.

‘Look out!' Off balance, Luke put his foot heavily on my painted face. His sneaker heel went through my painted canvas mouth. The canvas broke and a hole appeared.

‘Idiot!' I grabbed at him and he twisted his foot out, but the sneaker hole was still there. Realising what he'd done, Luke paled. ‘Can't we use supa-glue or something? Or a band-aid on the back?' He ran his fingers around the jagged hole in the canvas, and tried to make the splintered wood fit back.

‘Like first aid for Gran's painting?' I started to laugh and then it changed into crying. ‘I don't think that will mend anything. Gran's gone. No one else will want my painting…or that one of Bark. Who would want to look at a dog and a bone on their wall forever? Only Gran really liked Bark.'

I wasn't sure why I was crying. I never liked that painting anyway. I pulled stringy, third-hand tissues from my pocket. Tears leaked through. My nose ran. My eyes dripped everywhere.

‘Sorry, Zoe,' Luke stood up. He didn't touch me. ‘Your gran probably thought it was special. Although, up close, the face doesn't look much like you. Maybe we could stick it up in your bedroom at our place? Then no one else would see the hole. Or we could put a patch on it and then paint over the patch.' Luke squinted at the painting. ‘No one would know the difference, would they?'

‘Forget it.' I sniffed, and my nose was still all runny. I felt such a wet mess. Everything was going wrong. And I was the only one left to fix things.

I tried to lift the portrait, but it was too big to balance. ‘Let's leave it. I'll tell the Trustee about this later. Or maybe he won't notice?' I leaned my portrait against the wall, but Luke flipped the canvas over. ‘Hey, there's another painting on the other side.' He stood back and half-closed his eyes the way he imagined experts did. Then he kneeled and squinted at a blob in the corner. ‘Looks like your family tree with faces on branches, and squiggly initials. Must have taken ages to paint. Easier and quicker to do family trees on a computer program. Are you on here?'

‘Dunno. First time I've seen it.' I peered at the tree painting, which had a few brown branches. ‘Look.' I pointed.‘Up the top, on a little branch. There's my face and a Z.' I looked further down, at the back of Luke's sneaker hole. ‘Can't read what's here on the tree trunk.'

I squinted at the bottom name. ‘It's been signed
Dagmar
. Why would she sign it with a different name? Artists like to be known for their work, don't they?'

‘Sure it's not Magda and the writing's hard to read?' Luke said quickly.

‘Maybe Dagmar was her real name? Or one of them,' I suggested. ‘Not Magda.'

‘Same letters, except for the r. Different order,' said Luke.

That was true. Luke's mind was different from some people's. I felt a little curl of excitement. ‘Dead right.'

‘Gross,' said Luke, just as I realised what I'd said. So many sayings had ‘life' or ‘death' in them. But you couldn't stop using death words just because your gran died. But I could keep wearing my black gear after the funeral. No choice about that.

Where should we start looking? In the sitting room, there was a tape still in the player. Kat bought it for Gran last Christmas to record her favourite docos. Gran's docos, that is, not Mum's. My mum only likes wildlife programs about birds or icebergs, but Gran was interested in people and history and all that old stuff. She'd watch anything about the past. ‘What you call history used to be current affairs for me,' Gran said once.

I hit EJECT. Out slid the black tape. Written down the side, in Luke's writing, was
Hungary 1956.

‘Did you write this label?' I knew his writing by now, but what I really meant was why did he do it for Gran.

Luke loped into the room.‘Yeah. She asked me to work the player to record some SBS foreign language television program. Lost her glasses, so she asked me to write a label in case it got mixed up with the other tapes.'

‘What's the doco about?' I turned the black cassette over as if it was a clue.

‘Some Hungarian Revolution in 1956. She kept using the freeze frame. I think she was looking for someone in the crowd.'

‘D'you think she was there?' Maybe this was a clue to her past? I remembered the newspaper clipping date.

‘In Hungary? Showed her some Hungarian links from the Dead Person's Society. She was pumped about that.' Luke paused, thinking about my question. ‘Or do you mean was she in the video?' He fiddled with the pile of old videos, checking the labels.

‘Both. Hey, this
Missing Millions
label here is in your writing. What's that?'

For a minute I wondered if she'd taped her will, but then I realised.

‘TV show about people who leave money and no wills. Finding who should get it. Your gran wanted the presenter's phone number.' Luke explained.

The
Missing Millions
date was only a few weeks ago. ‘What about the date?'I ask.

Luke thought I meant the Hungarian video. ‘Well '56 is a bit of a clue. The Olympic Games were in Melbourne. Saw that on Foxtel
Olympics Flashbacks
a couple of times.'

I knew, for a different reason. Pa was in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Then he stayed here and never went back to Hungary or even went on holiday outside Australia. He always said that home was good enough for him. I thought it was because he liked Australia so much, but maybe it was because it was dangerous for him to visit some other places.

‘D'you reckon your gran watched SBS and the foreign docos to find out about her old life? Wouldn't her passport be stamped to say when she came into Australia?' Those glasses were not chick-magnets, but sometimes Luke's brain connected with his mouth. He often asked questions that led to more questions.

‘No passport so far.'

I pushed the tape in, hit PLAY and stared at the war images of protesters marching. The Revolution. More grey backgrounds. Maybe there was a link with that creased photo. ‘Just a sec.' I rummaged in my backpack for the photo. ‘D'you reckon this was about the same time? Does the guy look like anyone here?'

‘Dunno,' Luke took a quick look. ‘Might be. Same war-type background. They all look a bit the same unless you know the person.'

I hit REWIND, then checked frames for face matches. Lots of dark hair, uniforms and beards. Like clones. Why was she so keen on Hungary? Just to help with my assignment? Until Mr Grant gave us that project, I knew she'd come to Australia in 1956, but not much else. You think of your gran as always old; you don't think about her ever being a kid or even a girl your own age. Gran was just Gran, and she was old.

Wait. A similar face with a subtitle in English.
Activist Tibor.
I hit STOP and the frame was frozen. The activist Tibor was captured on video, but what else could be done with him?

‘Forgot training.' Luke glanced at his watch. ‘Mum's offered to drive us if you want to go. Said she was sorry she couldn't make it to the funeral. Had an urgent delivery the other side of the city. Triple rates.'

‘Did she send you instead?' I asked. Luke's mum ran a courier business that was just making a living. She delivered envelopes and packages all over the city and suburbs. There wasn't a lot of spare cash in the Warne family, but they managed. So I understood she couldn't turn down urgent work.

Luke shook his head. ‘Nup. Just thought I'd come. Show my respects, Dad says it's called.'

‘I feel so unlike training tonight,' I said. ‘Your mum won't be mad at me, will she?'

Luke shrugged. ‘Maybe. We'd better go tomorrow if we're going to try out for the team. Dad's not keen on players missing training.'

Since I'd been boarding at Luke's place, his family had been great. His mum ran Just Couriers, and his dad was an electrician. Because they worked for themselves, they had long shifts, so whoever was there got a meal, and often they ate really late. At first, living with the Warnes had been like getting an older brother. Lately, things had been a bit different. Luke was a techie, but sometimes he looked at me as if I wasn't a computer screen.

‘If we're not going to hockey, let's check out these files.'

Luke opened Gran's computer. ‘If Gran left you a file, she didn't mean one for your nails. Let's look at the places she visited last.'

‘Don't you need a password?' I asked. I had trouble remembering the different ones for my different schools. It was worse than replacing the locker keys.

So Luke and I mucked around to find out Gran's password. Since Luke had helped Gran with her computer at the beginning, I thought he would have put the password in for her. But he hadn't. So we had to try combinations of bits of her life.

‘Most people use birthdays,' said Luke. ‘But your gran wasn't like other people.'

Gran's password wasn't her date of birth. Well, not the date of birth of Magda. It wasn't her name either.

‘Try Pa's name.' I put the tape in my backpack. Luke often recorded Foxtel footy on top of anything handy. If I wasn't careful, the semi-final of the night game might just wipe out the Hungarian Revolution or the
Missing Millions
.