Growing Pineapples in the Outback

by Tony Kelly

  ‘The dogs were particularly bad last night,’ I add.

  ‘When are they not?’ Diana replies.

  I get home from work and Diana’s inside watching Letters and Numbers. I feel the need to be outside, and decide to give the garden a water. I’m halfway through the backyard when Beck pulls into the driveway. She looks flat.

  ‘You okay?’ I ask.

  ‘Luci and Max are over. She called me from Utrecht.’

  ‘Shit. How is she?’

  ‘Sad. She couldn’t talk at first, she was crying that much.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, I suppose. I’ll fill you in later. I’ll go check on Mum.’

  Feeling glum, I move around to the front yard. We haven’t done much planting on this side of the house; mainly we’ve tried to bring the hedge back to life, keep the lawn vaguely green and grow pots under the frangipanis. It’s very exposed, and the early onset of summer has already given it a caning.

  I watch two kites circling in the early evening thermals and listen for the call of the koel that’s made a temporary home in the Moreton Bay fig in the park across the road. It’s still morning in Utrecht. I think of Luci with her broken heart facing the long day ahead alone.

  Beck and Diana come out onto the verandah with cups of tea in hand. Beck throws me a lolly. ‘Gotta look after the help,’ she quips to Diana.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Diana joins in. ‘Don’t want the help complaining.’

  I threaten them with the hose.

  After dinner Beck and I go for a walk. We have a set route. Down the length of the park towards town. At the end we turn right and walk to the service road that runs adjacent to the Barkly Highway. We always marvel at the house on the corner with the big, jungly garden, especially the pawpaw trees dripping with plump fruit. Six months ago we planted two pawpaws next to the ramp. They grew quickly and lushly at first and started to fruit, and then suddenly they withered and died. Beck thinks it’s our mongrel clay soil, which doesn’t drain properly. Although they like a lot of water, pawpaws don’t appear to like wet feet.

  From the garden house we walk the length of the service road to the First n’ Last Store, and then right again along Milne Bay Road to the start of the park. From there it’s a few hundred metres back home. This route is relatively free of snarling dogs lunging at fences, and consequently it’s Beck’s favourite.

  ‘I wonder if one of us should try to get to Utrecht soon,’ Beck says as we walk. ‘I think Lu will get really homesick and shut down from the experience. She’s already saying she wants to come home early.’

  I’m amazed at Beck’s ability to tap into the emotional world of the girls so acutely. Her empathy and clear thinking has helped both of them navigate the fraught waters of relationships and growing up. I’m concerned, though, that Beck will overly worry about Luci and internalise her pain. I’m tempted to downplay it. Tell Beck that Luci will get over it quickly, and not to worry. On the other hand, a trip to Europe at Christmas doesn’t sound too bad. In my mind I’m almost there.

  At the side gate we stop and look at the clear sky. The air has a silky texture to it. ‘Luci will be okay,’ Beck says. ‘She’s strong and smart. She just feels things so deeply.’

  ‘No one needs to rescue her?’

  ‘Nah. But give her a call in the next day or two.’

  ‘I will.’

  Neither of us need to do a mercy dash to Utrecht, but I know when Diana dies our place is back in Melbourne, close to the girls and their lives, at least until they’re ready to leave on their own terms.

  15

  The End

  Rebecca

  Leonard Cohen has died, and Mum has spent the week listening to every program about him on the ABC. She asks me when I first heard his music.

  I start to tell her about the Canadian I hung out with in Pokhara, in Nepal, in early 1988, but Mum butts in. ‘Is he the one who helped you out when you were sick in Kathmandu?’

  ‘Yep,’ I say.

  ‘Are you still in touch?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I wonder what happened to him.’

  I don’t answer. She knows I’m no longer in contact with the Canadian – she’s asked me this before. These are standard questions from Mum. She asks me if I’m still in touch with every person I have ever known or spoken about. I find it infuriating. ‘Do you want to hear my story in Pokhara?’

  She nods.

  ‘It was early evening, and we were walking along a dusty street looking for somewhere to eat. I heard “So Long, Marianne” coming from a cafe—’

  Mum interrupts, ‘That’s the song about the Norwegian woman!’

  She’s obviously been listening very carefully to all the Leonard Cohen stories in the news. She hums a bit of the tune. I wait until she finishes. ‘Go on,’ she says.

  ‘I loved the song but didn’t know the singer,’ I say, ‘and my friend said—’

  ‘It was Leonard Cohen – he’s Canadian!’

  ‘Yep,’ I say.

  ‘Was that before or after you became sick?’ she asks.

  ‘Before,’ I say.

  ‘You were very sick,’ she says.

  ‘I was,’ I say, ‘and my Canadian friend looked after me. He lent me some cassettes to listen to – Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot.’

  But Mum’s not interested in Gordon Lightfoot.

  She has always had a very retentive memory, and once she takes an interest in a particular subject she quickly becomes an expert of sorts. Many years ago, Mum watched so many wildlife documentaries about sea creatures she said that she could easily be a midwife to a walrus. We all thought this was hilarious, but there was probably some truth in it.

  The current special subject is Leonard Cohen. She knows about his time on Hydra with George Johnston and Charmian Clift, his various relationships, the names of his children and grandchildren.

  ‘Do you know who Rufus Wainwright is?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Did you know that he has a daughter?’

  ‘I think I read that somewhere.’

  ‘Her name is Viva, and Leonard Cohen’s daughter, Lorca, is the mother.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I say. ‘I remember reading that.’

  ‘Rufus,’ says Mum, and the way she says his name makes it sounds like she knows him personally, ‘is married to a man called …’ She falters. ‘Look up Rufus’s husband’s name on the Google,’ she says.

  I am forever the obedient daughter, and look up Rufus Wainwright. ‘Jörn Weisbrodt,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Jörn’, says Mum. ‘How do you spell that?’

  ‘J, O with an umlaut, R, N,’ I say.

  ‘Must be German. Is he German?’

  I’ve shut my laptop, so I open it again and confirm that Jörn is in fact German, but he lives in Toronto with Rufus. I shut my laptop again.

  I am a bit blown away by how much time Mum must have spent over this past week just sitting in her chair, listening to the radio. As usual, I feel slightly guilty about the fact that I haven’t done more with her.

  But she seems positively chipper with her new knowledge of Leonard. She tells me that only days ago he released his most recent, and now last, album.

  She tells me, with incredulity in her voice, ‘He was eighty-two!’

  I can’t work out if she means that eighty-two is too young to die or if she’s amazed that someone of eighty-two was still touring and making work. When I ask her, she says, ‘Both!’

  ‘Do you know the song “Dance Me to the End of Love”?’ she asks.

  ‘I love that song,’ I say.

  Mum hums a couple of bars. She has it down pat.

  ‘Impressive!’ I say when she stops.

  ‘Not really,’ she says. ‘I’v
e heard it so much over the past week that there would be something seriously wrong with me if I couldn’t retain the tune.’

  She may not be walking properly, she may be having problems with her heart, but there sure is nothing wrong with her memory.

  ‘It reminds me of Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night”,’ she says.

  ‘Yes,’ I agree, ‘there is something similar about the notion of the journey’s end.’

  Mum nods. We sit for a moment in silence.

  ‘Have you ever seen Leonard Cohen in concert?’ she eventually asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. He was so charming and elegant. He had these backup singers called the Webb Sisters, who sang beautiful harmonies and did a cartwheel as part of their choreography!’

  ‘A cartwheel!’ Mum says. ‘Were they wearing trousers?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I say.

  ‘They must have been,’ she says.

  I don’t say anything. It amuses me that Mum finds this particular detail interesting.

  ‘Can you do a cartwheel?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Michael could do cartwheels,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘And walk on his hands, and do headstands and handstands.’

  I smile and nod. Mum has been talking quite a bit about Michael of late. She seems to have forgotten all the bad bits and only talks about the good things.

  ‘Remember the time he and Julie drove the children across the Gunbarrel Highway?’ she asks.

  I nod. They were towing a trailer and the axle broke out in the middle of nowhere, and Michael and Julie managed to fix it by themselves. When they were good together, they were excellent. We are momentarily lost in our thoughts.

  ‘Have you met Leonard?’ Mum asks.

  ‘No, Mum,’ I laugh. ‘Unfortunately Leonard couldn’t fit in a rendezvous with little Becky Blister when he was last in the country!’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ she says. ‘He seemed like a nice man.’

  I look at her and see no hint of a smile, and I realise she’s being serious. We’ve been having a few conversations like this. They are almost on point, but also slightly off-kilter. To an outsider, they would just seem like quirky conversations, but they worry Tony and me. Mum is alert and engaged, but something else is happening, something I haven’t seen before. I feel I need to ask her a few practical questions and see how she responds.

  But when I look over at Mum in her huge vinyl recliner, I notice she’s lying right back with her eyes closed. She’s gently humming ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’, and I realise our conversation is over.

  Tony

  I’m on the bus back from a meeting in Camooweal, and my old boss from Melbourne rings. ‘Are you submitting an application for the director of policy and development?’ Austin asks. ‘It closes tomorrow.’

  I’ve been toying with the idea, as it would be a significant promotion from the job that’s on hold for me until April. But I’m hesitating, as I know that even if my application is successful, I won’t take the job if Diana is still alive. Diana has had some seriously bad days in recent weeks and it feels like she could go at any time, but then a day or two later she’ll be completely fine and it feels like she’ll live for another ten years.

  At Austin’s prompting, I do the maths. It’ll take weeks for a selection panel to be assembled, and another week or two to select a shortlist. It seems likely that by the time they start scheduling interviews, it’ll be so close to Christmas that key people will be away and they’ll have no choice but to put the whole thing off until the New Year. I quietly lodge an application.

  I feel guilty, as if I’m betraying Beck and Diana, and potentially setting up another unnecessary decision crisis. But I don’t want to take the risk that Diana will die while the recruitment process is afoot. I want it all. Two days later, the HR manager rings me to schedule an interview for the following week. ‘Yeah, sure – that’s great,’ I lie.

  I don’t have too much time to think about it, as in ten days I have a large meeting planned, at which the decision on the gas pipeline will be made. The negotiating team, made up of senior representatives of the key families, believes we’ve negotiated a good deal, but there’s an outstanding question as to how the financial compensation will be distributed. Some families feel they are entitled to a greater share than other families, as they believe they are the ones who speak for the country over which the pipeline will be laid. Others want it shared evenly between the families. Others think it should be used for community development. Some want it put into trust for scholarships for kids and medical emergencies. I’ve been harangued on an almost daily basis by some people, who keep giving me their bank account details and requesting their share be paid to them straightaway – this is even before the deal has been agreed to, let alone any money transferred.

  Fortunately, the negotiating team agrees with me that we don’t have time to sort out how the money will be distributed before the group has to decide whether to accept the deal or not, and that all we need to do for the time being is agree to put the money into a trust; a proper consultation process will occur in the new year to determine what to do with it. I know this is risky. It might take years to sort out the money.

  Rebecca

  I’ve barely slept. I quietly open the door to the bedroom where my brother Paul is sleeping, and peek in. He arrived a few days ago from Florida. He hasn’t even bothered to get under the sheets – clearly he just hit the sack and stayed there all night. It’s been stinking hot, he’s got jet lag, and he only has a small fan in his room. Tony and I have the luxury of the splitty, but even with that we’ve not been sleeping very much. I close the door and let him sleep.

  The night before, Tony, Paul and I all went to bed wondering if this was it. Would Mum be with us in the morning? She had not had a good twenty-four hours. In fact, this week has been very up and down. She’s been bright enough and her conversation more or less on track, but she’s seemed weak and slightly discombobulated.

  Last night the plan was that she and Paul would come with Tony and me to a community Christmas carols event. Tony and I were singing with the community choir, and though I’m ambivalent about carols and feel like a hypocrite when singing them, I do like singing with our funny little choir. Mum loves carols and a community event, so a singalong under the stars seemed liked a good way to spend an evening. But I could sense hesitation from her about going, and there seemed to be an inordinate amount of discussion about logistics for what was really just a small outing.

  Eventually, we all decided that Tony and I would go to the carols in Tony’s work car, and Paul would take Mum in the Prius. Paul would bring the wheelie walker and Mum would use it to get into the showgrounds where the carols were being held. Our friends Majella and Shane had offered to get to the event early in order to grab a good spot for us so that Mum could be close to the gate and the stage. After the concert, Tony and I would go to dinner with Majella and Shane, while Paul and Mum would come home. Phew!

  It’s so good to have Paul here with us, both for his company and to share in what’s happening with Mum. We’ve been waiting months for this visit. He had planned to come earlier in the year, but unexpectedly discovered he had heart problems and had to have triple bypass surgery. I had to keep this information from Mum for weeks, and it was a relief when the surgery was successful and he was out of the danger zone and I could tell her. Of course, Mum had worked out that something was wrong. She had heard snippets of my phone conversations with Paul and his wife, Belinda, and put two and two together. Now, months later, he is fighting fit and happy to be here.

  One evening after dinner I suggested a drive to the lookout.

  ‘Only if Mum comes too,’ Paul said. Mum hesitated, and Paul added, ‘We can stop at the roadhouse and get ice creams.’r />
  ‘Goody!’ said Mum. She was out of the chair almost before Paul had finished speaking.

  Paul has brought a new pep and energy to the house. Not that we had been lacking in pep, so to speak, but having a fresh face here has definitely given us all a boost. Paul is generous by nature and interested in all sorts of things; in fact, his disposition is very similar to Mum’s.

  ‘It’s so good to have you here,’ I told him when we got to the lookout. We’d left Mum at the picnic table happily eating her ice cream. ‘Mum’s so pleased to have you around. You’re like the prodigal son.’

  ‘You and Tony have done all the hard work,’ he said, ‘and I just waltz in and get all the praise. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?’

  I caught his eye and we both laughed. I don’t think about it like that. I’m just happy to have him around. There’s an exercise that I sometimes do with participants when I’m running mental health groups. I ask, ‘If you were in a situation and had to get rid of a body, who would you go to for help? Who would you ask who would be able to just get on with the task without judgement, discrimination or questions?’ The exercise always leads to great discussions and laughter. Most people have one or two key people they could ask.

  I would ask Paul. He would hate doing it – he hates anything illegal, hates any form of violence or abuse, and is a non-drinker, non-drug taker and general all-round good citizen – but he’d do it. He’d get on with the task and ask questions later. And the task at hand last night was getting Mum to the carols.

  In the afternoon she had a shower and put a few rollers in her hair to prepare for the outing. I discussed with her what she was going to wear and if she needed anything ironed.

  ‘I don’t think I can go,’ Mum announced just before it was time to leave.