A Lifetime of Impossible Days

by Tabitha Bird

  ‘So you remember our brick house in the city?’

  He nods. ‘But we live in Boonah now and our whole house has changed. Daddy thinks I’m playing pretend, but I’m not, am I?’ Thank goodness Eli remembers things the same way I do. Seb is a bit too young to communicate what he remembers, but he talks about the ‘new this’ and the ‘new that’.

  I stroke Eli’s face. ‘No, you’re not pretending. It’s just that this place … It wasn’t a home,’ I say, looking around.

  Eli looks hurt. ‘But you live here with us. We are all here together.’ He pulls something out from under his shirt. ‘Grammy said you need one of these.’

  A newspaper crown. Written on it are the words Pantagruelian (adjective): Enormous. Eli puts the crown on my head.

  I stroke his red curls. ‘Grammy gave that to you?’

  ‘Uh-huh. She came over but she said not to wake you up. Don’t you want to be in our new castle with us?’

  He’s jumping about, thinking this is a big adventure. Of course I can’t tell him how scared I am, how this house isn’t the adventure he imagines it is.

  ‘A castle? Oh, honey, sorry. I love being with you. I’m only saying this house wasn’t a home when I was … Never mind.’ I can’t find the words to tell a six-year-old that this place can never be a castle, much less a home.

  Sam walks into the room, sits next to me on the bed and puts Eli on his lap.

  ‘Everything is okay, Mummy. You’ll see. Let’s have jam drops for dinner.’

  Sam is quiet for a moment and then says, ‘I’m sorry, Willa. This house is too much for you. Let’s take the boys and, I don’t know, move into a caravan? Camp somewhere till I can afford another place for us?’

  Eli whimpers. ‘I don’t want to camp in the cold. We’ll all die of the mumonia.’

  I cup his chin. ‘Pneumonia. And we’re not going anywhere.’

  I know the state of our finances, that we are barely scraping by.

  ‘At the very least I can park your father’s truck down the side of the house. Or have it towed, if you want?’

  ‘I … I don’t know what I want.’ I decide to stop talking about our house and to reassure Sam that I’m fine, that I’m simply tired. But my mind is something I’m becoming afraid of.

  I usher Sam out of the room with what I hope is a good-enough smile. I can hear Eli join Seb in the hallway to play with their toy cars.

  Alone again in the bedroom, paper crown still in hand, I listen to the house as I try to gather myself. I imagine ringing Grammy and telling her everything. Telling her how I can still hear sounds in these walls: screaming, fists banging. How I’m not okay. How even if we had eternity, Eli’s singing or Seb’s laughing wouldn’t seem right inside this house.

  But I can’t stay inside this bedroom forever. My old life has been ripped off my body, and I have to pick up this new one and try to put it on because it’s all I have left. I walk to the bedroom door. My childhood home is a simple house, upstairs and downstairs. Not a classic Queenslander, but of a similar style. Butterfly stairs at the front of the house lead up to a front verandah. The yellow front door to the side of the verandah opens to a small entryway then through to a dining room, living room at the back and kitchen in the middle of the house, which are really all one large room. After I walk though the kitchen, with its lemon benchtops, I see a hallway to the master bedroom, and two smaller rooms and the bathroom. The room Lottie and I shared is painted the colour of sunshine. It made me happy once.

  Everywhere I look, the house has broken bits of my memories sticking up like bones under excavation.

  The other bedroom, where Eli now sleeps, is wallpapered with bold flowers in greens, oranges and off-whites. This was eventually Lottie’s bedroom in her teens. All the boys’ own furniture and their rugs, toys and books are here, though.

  The stairs are at the back of the living room and lead down to the laundry and office.

  Only the front half of the house is built in underneath because, as with most house blocks in Boonah, the land slopes. I cannot go down those stairs; instead I follow Eli’s singing through the living room and onto the back deck. The boys rush past me with their toy trucks and a jar.

  A gust of sea breeze. I see Seb and Eli with a jar full of water under my mango tree.

  ‘No!’ I race down the back steps, but it’s too late. Eli dumps the water everywhere until the sand is wet and the ocean-garden begins to grow seaweed and shells.

  ‘Woah,’ Eli says, as he tries to gather up crabs.

  ‘Get inside!’ I pick Seb up from under the mango tree, dropping my crown, and run to the back door. Eli shrieks and runs in after his brother. I slam the glass door and walk down the steps again, then stand alone in the backyard, panting. Seb’s blanket lies in the wet sand. But I can’t go over to the tree again.

  A little girl stands under my mango tree, a swing set beside her. She wears cowboy pants with fringes on them and gumboots.

  ‘Wanna swing?’ she calls over her shoulder.

  Someone behind the tree says, ‘On what?’

  ‘The swings, silly.’ I remember being so happy when my father put that swing set in our ocean-garden.

  A child creeps out from behind the tree. Thick black curls, beads around her neck, a doll under her arm.

  ‘Lottie!’ I breathe. My little sister, full of life, no track marks on her arms. I drop to my knees on the grass.

  She’s too busy looking at the swings to notice me. ‘I can’t do that swinging thing. It’s too hard. My legs don’t work.’

  ‘Of course your legs work, silly. Watch me. I am Suuuuper Wiiiiilla. See my cape?’ Every bit of her is singing, and I know that’s because she wants to drown out thoughts of anything else.

  ‘You don’t have a cape.’ Lottie pouts.

  ‘Look harder. Look with your eyes closed. See me? I can fly.’

  Lottie closes her eyes. I close mine, too, remembering how I would rock back and forth, my red gumboots pushing me higher and higher. The air was cold, like water splashed in your face.

  I open my eyes and look up, watching her swing. No matter how impossible this moment is, I want to be lost within it. With Lottie.

  Super Gumboots Willa calls out, ‘I’m a bird. A rocket ship going to the moon. Wheeeee!’ Above her a wedge-tailed eagle flies high with stringy clouds in the afternoon sky.

  ‘Oh, yeah. I can see a rocket ship. You’re make-believing.’ Lottie laughs.

  ‘Try it yourself,’ Super Gumboots Willa says.

  But Lottie has seen me. ‘Who are you?’ She points, lips beginning to wobble. Her big sister jumps off the swing, hand protectively on Lottie’s shoulder.

  ‘Hey, I know you,’ Super Gumboots Willa says. ‘You’re the lady with the little boy who nearly fell down the stairs.’

  All I can do is nod.

  Behind me, I hear the back door open. Little feet walk up behind me across the grass. ‘Mummy? Are you okay? Who are your friends?’ Eli and Seb stand together, sniffling. The brothers facing the sisters.

  I don’t know what to say. Are there words for how to introduce your children to your younger self?

  ‘Why did you shove us inside and yell at us?’ Eli hands the dropped crown back to me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I croak out.

  Eli walks right over to the girls, belly pushed out. ‘I’m Eli. That’s Seb.’ Then he sees the swings. ‘Oh, wow.’

  ‘I’m Willa and that’s Lottie. You want a turn?’

  ‘Huh. My mum’s name is Willa, too.’ Eli skips over to Seb, who has collected his blankie and is already trying unsuccessfully to put his sandy foot on a swing.

  I should stop them. Rush the boys away. But Lottie. I can’t take my eyes off her.

  ‘Look.’ Super Gumboots Willa takes Lottie to the other swing. ‘Sit down. Go on. It won’t hurt you, I promise.’

  ‘Pinkie promise?’

  They link fingers together. Noses touch. On my knees, I watch. Lottie. Our pinkie promises.


  Then I remember Lottie at twenty-three.

  She came to my house, broke in to Eli’s nursery. Baby Eli was wailing in his cot, then there were the sudden sounds of banging and her stumbling about. I raced to Eli’s room.

  ‘I’m cutting myself.’ She showed me her wrist, but I pushed her to the front door.

  ‘You’re drunk.’ I stared into her face with its scratches and fingernail pickings.

  There were too many moments between us. Our childhoods. The way she admitted she wasn’t coping. The way I pretended I was. But I was also a mother. Someone other than Lottie depended on me.

  We screamed at each other. Didn’t she want to be more than a junkie? She couldn’t be in my life like this.

  She yelled back, ‘Well, aren’t you a fucking impostor? Do you think you have a better life just ’cause you’re a mum? You think you can keep our past out of your neat little home if you don’t let me in?’

  She knew me. I was a woman who chose to dress up her fears in a wife’s dress and a mother’s uniform. Even before this moment, every time I saw Lottie, I saw who I really was, and I detested us both. But there was also an admiration for Lottie. She had the guts to swear, fight and bleed. I wouldn’t admit it, though. Wouldn’t admit that I wasn’t okay. And I used Eli as my excuse not to heal my past.

  That day I slammed the door in Lottie’s face, and Lottie stood on the other side, spluttering. I thought perhaps she was going to knock again, but she didn’t. When I opened the door, she was gone.

  I have left her over and over again. It’s my fault she is now with my father.

  Little Lottie now sits on the swing and places her feet carefully on the ground. Lullaby-rocking. Slowly, like we used to do in Grammy’s chair.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say so she can’t hear.

  Eli helps Seb onto the swing beside her.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Super Gumboots Willa asks her sister as she starts to push her, higher and higher.

  ‘Um. Can you go places on swings?’ Lottie says.

  ‘Sure – to the treetops, through the jungle, to the ocean. Where are you going?’

  ‘To a mermaid’s party!’ Lottie says.

  ‘You’re going under the waves!’ Eli says as he pushes Seb. ‘Here comes the sea.’

  I hear waves, rumbles of them rising, and I see their tips white and foamy. But when they splash over the kids, I see the waves are made of clouds and no one gets wet.

  ‘Woah!’ Eli says again. Seb kicks his legs.

  ‘Wanna turn?’ Super Gumboots Willa asks me.

  Slowly, I walk over. Swinging. I remember swinging.

  ‘I …’ I want to hold on to the sisters with all I have. I also want to run from them with everything in me.

  Lottie jumps off her swing. ‘Go on. The swings won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Swoosh, swoosh. Watch out for cloud moosh-moosh,’ Super Gumboots Willa sings, flying through the cloud-waves. ‘Come on, sing with me.’

  Lottie’s eyes dart about. ‘Somebody will hear us.’

  ‘So what? Are the Singing Police gonna arrest us?’ Super Gumboots Willa pokes her tongue out.

  They laugh. It’s so nice, Lottie’s laugh, drifting among the cloud-waves. I remember it all. And I’m laughing, too, crying and laughing. I won’t ask questions of this moment; instead I bundle myself up inside it.

  A plump Chihuahua comes running through the ocean-garden, tail wagging.

  ‘You know her, Frog?’ Super Gumboots Willa says.

  Frog Dog. She’s not much of a dog, but she snorts like a bullfrog. She licks my hand, but I don’t dare to pick her up. I can’t. If I touch her a tsunami of memories will engulf me, and I can’t let them. Not in this moment, watching these little girls.

  They run and chase and collapse in the sand. Super Gumboots Willa places a clover chain on Lottie’s head like a crown and puts the glittery play glasses on her face. They slip off her nose.

  ‘You’re a mermaid. A mermaid with slippy-off glasses!’ Eli says.

  Lottie pokes out her tongue and blows raspberries.

  ‘Imagine if we really could be mermaids or astronauts. Or the king of a castle.’ Super Gumboots Willa looks back up the tree.

  I draw a breath. Inside me something haemorrhages. And I think I might bleed internally until – simply until.

  Sam steps out into the backyard. ‘It’s getting late. Thought I’d call the boys in for a bath. Hey, what are you guys all playing? Looks like fun.’

  Eli runs to him. ‘We found swings and new friends.’

  Sam laughs. ‘You boys have such great imaginations.’

  I say nothing. The ocean breeze blows and the sand begins to dry.

  The sisters wave, and then they are gone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  2050

  Willa Waters, aged 93

  Eden said I’m not to go into the kitchen. Why, I can’t think. She’ll be back soon. Or was it later? Is it today or yesterday? The clocks start leaking minutes again. Time, time. Always so much time. Always so little time. It could drip and drip and never empty itself. It could suddenly leak everywhere and be gone in an instant.

  My eyes close, I can’t help it, and my head rests back in my chair. I don’t know how long I doze, but when I wake the shadows have collected in the corners, so it must be afternoon again.

  ‘I have something for you.’

  I jolt.

  Eden stands before me. ‘Sorry, did I give you a fright? I didn’t want to wake you earlier, but you’ve nearly slept the day away.’

  ‘Eden, oh. I didn’t cook, pinkie promise.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. That was a few days ago.’ She sits beside me and produces large red gumboots out of a plastic bag.

  ‘Ta-da,’ I say in a monotone voice.

  ‘After all the fuss lately, I thought they might make you happy. And you’ve been talking about red gumboots, brave and bold. Did you sleep well last night? You’ve been quite stressed since that massive day, you poor thing.’

  I had a massive day? Women my age have minuscule, muddling days. But I very much want to have a massive day.

  She sets the gumboots beside my feet, but I don’t put them on. ‘Tell me again what happened?’ I say.

  Eden takes a seat; the couch moans and she yawns. She tells me all about that massive day. It’s like a bedtime story with real adventure. Apparently, we are lucky. The oven was left on, but only it was burnt, along with some of the wallpaper, and one overhead cabinet had to go. Eden came home right as the fire was starting. It’s terrible to think what could have happened. I cluck and tsk as Eden tells me all about it. I wonder who did that?

  Eden picks up a pencil and pad of paper. On it there is a picture of a woman with a wide oval mouth and scratched black letters inside a speech bubble next to her. The letters don’t make words. They are angular and jumbled, the way a scream would look if you could see it. I like the drawing immediately.

  ‘Did you draw that?’ I ask Eden.

  She shakes her head and picks up the boots. ‘What about some crushed tomatoes on toast and mint tea for a late lunch? Doesn’t that sound nice?’

  We’ve got a new microwave thingy now because the oven is ruined. Eden has red gumboots on, even though it hardly rains here in winter.

  When she leaves the room I write under the drawing.

  Dear Super Gumboots Willa,

  You must be sad, but I know what to do. Sing. Dance with gumboots on. And make carrots that taste like ice cream.

  From Silver Willa. (You know, ’cause I have silver hair.)

  P.S. Did you plant the ocean? Isn’t it fabulous?

  Later I will take the letter out to the tree and leave it there. I have to find Super Gumboots Willa again. It says so in my notebook.

  ‘Eden, did you take that other letter I wrote out to the mango tree? And can we buy some red gumboots?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Though heavens knows what you want to stick a letter up a mango tree for. And you already have
gumboots!’

  ‘Okay, you’ve only got to tell me once. I don’t forget.’

  Eden sighs. ‘You have red gumboots. I bought them … Oh, never mind.’

  ‘Yes, but I need some ladybug-print ones in a child’s size.’

  Eden doesn’t answer. A breeze billows the curtains. Air that smells like sea spray, a cold tang. Then the scent changes to overripe fruit that somehow reminds me of stories. I think of the mango tree in my backyard, twisted and rotting, its leaves a sick yellow.

  ‘Eden, bring me the strawberry jam jar. It’s inside my yellow gumboots. And do you think I could have some crushed tomatoes on toast?’

  ‘No requests for jam drops this evening, then?’

  ‘Not for lunch. People don’t eat biscuits for lunch.’

  She throws her hands in the air, still smiling. ‘I can’t keep up!’

  ‘Wait. Hear that?’

  Humming.

  Eden adopts a quizzical look and then walks back to the kitchen, returning with my food tray.

  ‘That song! I used to sing it on the swings. Do you know the words?’

  ‘What song?’ She places a napkin on my lap.

  ‘The one you were humming.’ I put a big forkful of crushed tomatoes in my mouth.

  ‘Let’s turn your radio up, hey?’ Then Eden says ‘Radio up’ to a box on the wall. And then to me, ‘Drink your tea while it’s warm. At least you haven’t pulled the place apart today looking for something.’

  I say, ‘Radio down!’ It’s like training a puppy. I still don’t understand technology past the 2020s. ‘Now, what was I looking for?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? You were missing the stars.’

  ‘No, it’s not the stars, Eden. It’s the swings.’

  She laughs and flops back into the other chair. Suddenly, I notice she is drinking tea. Tea for two.

  Eden says she has to go out for a bit. Mrs Jane can’t come by today, but it’s all right, Eden won’t be long. The oven’s been disconnected so I can’t get into trouble. Mr Hume is going to collect it on his truck later.

  ‘Doesn’t he have one, dear?’

  ‘Have one what?’

  ‘An oven.’

  ‘No, people don’t use ovens like that these days.’