A Lifetime of Impossible Days

by Tabitha Bird

  ‘Oh. That’s why he’s taking mine, then.’

  It wasn’t a question, but Eden answers. ‘Could be, Mum. Could be.’ Her rubber boots squeak as she gets up. A truck has parked outside. Neither of us are expecting one right now, unless Mr Hume is desperate for an oven. Perhaps he is. A farmer clomps to the front door and waves his hat in the direction of something outside. He seems to be talking about this truck parked out front. I bet it doesn’t look the same as the ones I remember, with lights and bells and whistles. Fully automated, Eden tells me, but why do we want everything automatic? Don’t we want to do anything for ourselves these days? The farmer mumbles, and there’s a faint smell of hessian and hay. Eden talks some more. They laugh a bit. He tips his hat to her. An akubra hat, wide brimmed and made of felt. Then the truck leaves.

  Eden comes back with her arms folded. ‘Did you buy some Belted Galloways off the radio?’

  ‘Whatever are they, dear?’

  ‘Cows. Did you buy some cows off the radio?’

  I look about the room. ‘Honestly, Eden, you’ve been asking the strangest questions lately. Where would I put cows? In the living room, perhaps?’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘Mr Hume will be here about four o’clock and I will meet him. No doing anything for the rest of the day. Enjoy the radio. And don’t ring in. Promise?’

  ‘Pinkie promise.’

  ‘Then we have to talk about moving. I’ve found a place with music therapy. Doesn’t that sound fun?’

  ‘Can I bring an ocean to the Plastic-Sheet Home?’

  She flings her bag over a shoulder. ‘It’s called a nursing home, and you know what, if you can pack it in a box then you can take it.’

  ‘Hmmm. Maybe I will, then. But I don’t think the ocean would work without the mango tree. If I leave, Super Gumboots Willa can’t find me. I need her help. Besides, I’m not going. They have continence advisory implants in those homes. Is that what you think I need? Why not get me an artificial organ and bionic eye while you’re at it!’

  ‘So, you read the brochure? Mum?’

  I wave her away then clap. ‘Radio up! Chop, chop!’

  She puts a jam jar on the table beside me, shaking her head on the way out the front door. Smiling, I put on my glittery glasses. If I find Super Gumboots Willa she can help me.

  2. Stay out of the nursing home.

  Chapter Twenty

  1965

  Willa Waters, aged 8

  Daddy sits at the table, head in his hands, his skin all dried up and tired. His hands sleeping monsters. Are they sleeping tonight? It’s not okay until I can work out if he’s the Daddy under the stars or the Daddy who drags and stomps, his fists bigger than Mummy’s head.

  ‘Sit up straight, Willa.’ He jerks my chair closer to the table when he sees me watching him. ‘What the hell are you wearing?’ He pulls at the jumper I have on over my pyjamas.

  ‘It’s Gr–gra–Grammy’s.’ My words come out wrong ’cause my tummy is all worrying about what I did to make Daddy mad.

  ‘It looks stupid on you.’

  I stand up to take it off.

  He yanks me back to my chair. ‘Take it off after dinner.’

  Tonight he is not Daddy under the stars. I quickly remind myself of the rules. Elbows off the table. Head over my plate. Don’t talk. No slurping. Don’t drop any food off my fork or let the fork slip from my hands and land on the floor. Too-many-bloody-females. Don’t ever say the word bloody.

  Daddy stops chewing.

  Did he hear me think that swear word in my head? Frog Dog hides under my chair. Lottie holds her fork still. Mummy keeps eating her carrots and potatoes.

  Daddy snorts, then he puts his knife down and stares at the top of Mummy’s head. She’s not looking up. He growls at her, ‘Why are there only carrots and potatoes? What happened to the peas? Or more interesting things like asparagus?’

  ‘I don’t want to eat grass,’ Lottie says. Daddy glares at her and she squishes herself down into the chair.

  ‘Why am I served the same boring crap each night? I work hard all day and this is what I come home to? Ebony? Say something, woman! Even my mother cooked more interesting meals than this.’ He shoves his plate across the table.

  Mummy loads another spoonful of carrots and potatoes. ‘I’m not your mother. If you don’t like it, give it to the damn dog.’

  That’s not very nice, is it, Frog?

  Frog huddles under my chair like she heard her name. We both know she’s not going to eat Daddy’s food. She might lick the gravy but she doesn’t eat veggies. Not even interesting ones, I don’t think.

  Daddy thumps his fork on the table and I shovel food in my mouth. Eat. Get out of here. I kick Lottie under the table. Ready? We’re gonna have to run. Somewhere between him yelling about squash and the plate getting hurled across the table, we slip from our chairs and creep off.

  We scurry out into the garden under the mango tree. Lottie stands there shivering.

  ‘Crap!’

  ‘Don’t say crap, Willa.’ Lottie rubs her arms.

  ‘I never remember the damn blanket.’ I stamp my foot in the sand. I didn’t even remember the jam jar or my gumboots. I kick the mango tree. My toe bends back and I’m glad when I feel the pain. I deserve that.

  ‘Stop it – you’re scaring me!’ Lottie squats down in the sand.

  Look at me. Just a bloody female. I want to scream the swear word for everyone in Boonah to hear.

  I want a daddy. No, not the daddy inside. I want Daddy under the stars. When he draws or paints and I watch him through the slit in the shed window. I want that Daddy.

  ‘Sorry. Lottie, I’m sorry. Come here.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lottie watches me taking my arms out of the jumper.

  ‘I’m putting us inside Grammy’s jumper together. Crawl in here with me. There’s room.’

  We huddle up inside the jumper. The night getting so cold our breath makes clouds. Our teeth rattle, and I can’t tell stories. I don’t know how long we shake like that before we fall asleep at the bottom of the mango tree holding each other.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  1990

  Willa Waters, aged 33

  You’re invited to a midnight tea party

  Bring: Eli and yourself

  You know the house and, of course, the time

  Grammy’s invitation to midnight tea at her house in Boonah arrived with a postscript at the bottom: ‘You don’t seem yourself lately, poppet. Are you eating enough jam drops?’

  How I used to love midnight tea. Seb is a bit too young yet, but Eli was thrilled to tell Grammy that he and I could come. I asked, trying to be casual, if she had heard from Lottie; my voice was threadbare. She hadn’t.

  Eli wears a beanie, a pair of burgundy pants and a button-up shirt, with a dinner jacket over the top. He even borrows Sam’s tie, which is too long but entirely appropriate for the evening.

  Eli is wide-eyed as he walks up the garden path. Timid steps, a bouquet of clover in his hands. Grammy’s neighbour and friend, Harry, has looked after her lawns since my grandfather passed away years ago, but Grammy was never much for gardening. She believes gardens should grow as they please, weeds and all.

  We stop on the path so I can collect stones. There is a hush, a waiting, like one that falls over an audience before a great performance unfolds.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Eli asks.

  Hurling a stone at the tin roof, I say, ‘I’m arriving.’

  Grammy’s old Queenslander still has the corrugated-iron roof that Lottie and I used for rock-throwing practice as children.

  He nods. ‘You’re very good at that, Mummy.’

  ‘Shh. Whisper.’

  Quieter now, he says, ‘Why did you do that anyways?’

  ‘It’s an old game that lets Grammy know we’re here.’

  Eli clicks his tongue. ‘Or we could knock at the door.’

  ‘No, we couldn’t. Not if we’re going to have a midnight tea party.’r />
  At the front door, I can hear the ticking inside, clocks from all corners of the globe. Then, on cue, they welcome midnight. The song of Grammy’s house echoes around us. There are mantel clocks from parts of America that chime almost like doorbells, two Swedish Mora clocks with pot bellies and bulbous heads that ring like bicycle bells. There are several cuckoo clocks sending out the call of their birds, a long case clock with its deep church bell gonging from a lover in Britain, and a French carriage clock with its persistent ding ding. Each clock has a dubious story of origin that changes with each of Grammy’s tellings: who it belonged to, how it came to live here in Grammy’s house.

  Eli skips across the boards on the verandah. I follow. The door is open, and he runs through. Grammy doesn’t take well to locking things. Even in winter, she prefers rugs to closed windows.

  ‘Start locking people out and you’ll really ferhoodle things up, Willa. That can be the word of the day. Ferhoodle: to confuse or mix things up. Don’t do it. Or if you’re going to, stay mixed up with people instead.’

  I walk into the farmhouse kitchen.

  ‘Eli? Grammy?’

  The kettle is warm to touch, a welcome in itself.

  ‘Grammy?’ Down the hall I peek into her bedroom. The bed is unmade. There’s a pile of shoes and crumpled clothes in the middle of the hall, a straw hat laid out with a purple sweater. Grammy is still her fabulous messy self.

  Eli’s clover bouquet is already in a glass vase by her bed.

  Grammy’s voice calls, ‘We’re out here, poppet. Bring the fruit loaf when you come.’

  Out the back door I find Eli and Grammy on the back verandah arranging grapes on a metal tray. I know immediately that she’s preparing dinner for her possums, something she’s been doing since that first midnight tea. Since I was a little possum myself. The outdoor table is set with mismatched teacups and a crocheted tablecloth.

  Stars drape the night on all sides. That’s one thing about the country: the nights sure show off the heavens.

  ‘I heard your rocks on the roof,’ Grammy says.

  Kissing her cheek, I go back inside and return with a jar of honey and the fruit loaf. I stand next to her and ease slowly into the night, watching Grammy. She wears her white hair tied up in a brightly coloured scarf. In the soft evening light I see all the ways life has wrinkled and lined her face, and her age, seventy-three, makes me feel slightly unsafe. As if every movement with her should be bottled and well preserved.

  Lanterns with candles hang from the jacaranda that looms over the verandah. In late spring the tree is a grand display of purple-blue goodness and all that is right with the world. In winter, its leaves fade and collect dew.

  Grammy drapes a blanket about Eli’s shoulders and stokes the outdoor fireplace. ‘Harry cut wood for us, that sweet man.’

  I raise an eyebrow at Grammy, but she doesn’t expand on it. It’s good she’s found friendship with Harry. Maybe even a little love. I imagine them holding hands, grey heads touching. I wonder if Sam and I will see out our twilight years in the same way.

  Our breath makes little clouds in the night air. I remember how cold it was that night when the ocean arrived in a box. Perhaps it really did happen. What if I let myself believe that now?

  Grammy shows Eli how to pull apart the bread and drizzle honey over the top. ‘They’ll be along shortly, my boy. You watch. Pour the tea, Willa?’ It’s not a midnight tea party without a cuppa.

  ‘Good for the soul,’ I say, because Grammy taught me that tea was a medicine all of its own.

  ‘Oh, look!’ Eli squeals.

  Several creatures with padded paws and eyes like shiny black marbles crawl down the branches of the surrounding gums and over to the jacaranda, with its branches that reach all the way to the verandah. Possums join us, one after the other, brush tails curling around the legs of the table, noses and whiskers twitching.

  ‘When I pop off this earth, promise me you’ll check in on Harry. And have midnight tea and feed my possums?’

  Eli nods enthusiastically. Grammy looks over at me.

  ‘Hand on my heart, I solemnly swear. And no popping off this earth anytime soon,’ I say.

  Possums large and small sit on the verandah railings.

  ‘Big Old Girl devours those grapes and she’s got another baby with her. He’s such a tiddly thing, hanging off his mama’s back. You’ll see him come along in a moment.’

  Big Old Girl is the name of her favourite possum, an old female with patchy fur. ‘An unknown skin condition,’ Grammy tells us over tea, ‘that is best treated with fruit loaf and honey. And grapes.’

  Perhaps she shouldn’t feed them, but how would we stop her? Why would we want to? Grammy’s midnight tea party is a five-star possum dining experience and they know it. Harry has screwed metal plates along the railings for the possums’ food. He’s even fastened an umbrella there so the rain won’t blow in and wet them while they eat.

  The warmth of the fire envelops us. In Grammy’s world we are all her adorable possums.

  ‘Jam drops are just the thing tonight. Good for the soul.’ Grammy puts a large plate in the middle of the table.

  Different flavours of tea are brewed, and Eli takes careful sips of them all. The air smells of mint, lavender and even chocolate tea. And, of course, jam drops are served.

  ‘Take some home with you when you go, poppet. I made too many because I needed to use up some eggs. My chickee girls are out to break some record. I’ve got eggs by the truckload.’ She waves in the direction of her chicken coop. Something crows.

  ‘Your rooster crows at midnight?’ Eli’s eyes widen.

  ‘Darren the Seventh does.’

  We all chuckle at that.

  At precisely 1 am it begins to rain. Only a mist at first. Grammy takes Eli’s hands and dances in the backyard under the tree. Possums watch, grapes in paws. Eli should be tired, but the night’s excitement keeps him awake.

  Look at the moon. Don’t step on the toads. Ah, midnight tea. I should be worried about my son catching a cold, but tonight I’m not. Instead I join them. This night with Grammy is a unique wildness in a world that otherwise believes in boring facts, like the earth being a sphere and revolving around the sun. In Grammy’s world, jam drops, and those you share them with, are the centre of the universe.

  As the rain dissipates we settle back at the table to dry our hair and coats by the fire. Not that we’re that wet; it only rained for a moment or two, and it was mostly drizzle.

  Grammy crosses her legs, warming her slippers by the fire. Her choice of footwear bothers me because she used to love heels. Shoes with glitter, bows and patent leather; peep-toe shoes and jewelled stilettos. I’ve watched her wear them out to dinner, vacuuming the house and watering the garden. Now she wears slippers. Our culture doesn’t tell you what to do when you love someone with greying hair. Age is supposed to be a thing we’re ashamed of, shut away in homes. We colour our hair and make up our faces, and then one day, we can’t be made up anymore. Or we don’t want to be. Grammy might have once cared about lipstick shades and perfumes, but now she wears her grey hair long around her shoulders and gets about in slippers. I wonder if my mother will do the same one day. I doubt it. Mother likes fashion, money, and money to spend on fashion. Men with money to spend on her and fashion.

  Grammy likes to say, ‘Don’t fight age as if it were a battle, poppet. When I’m done with my seventies I will wear my eighties like a crowning glory.’

  Once Eli has dried off, he follows the possums into the tree.

  Grammy turns to me. ‘Now, Willa, I didn’t invite you here to talk about my possums.’

  The glow of the fire, now burning low, surrounds her. She has always been beautiful, still is, but I can’t consider giving her permission to be old yet. That would mean there will be a world without her one day, and that’s unthinkable.

  I’m quiet. Maybe it’s the tea, maybe it’s the thought of midnights without grandmothers. Mother isn’t speaking with Gra
mmy. I’ve tried over the years to figure out the why of it all. Perhaps Grammy wasn’t the perfect mother, but she has loved me with every ounce of her perfect imperfections.

  ‘I’m sorry I don’t say enough how much your tea parties mean to me, Grammy.’

  She stares at me. ‘What nonsense, poppet. Grammy knows these things.’

  Quietly letting that thought wash through me, I wonder what else she knows. Perhaps Grammy would know if there is some way to reach back through the ocean and change Lottie’s tomorrows. I watch a possum pick up a grape and sniff it carefully before cramming the whole thing in its mouth, juice dripping down its paws.

  There are important words to be said here tonight in Grammy’s backyard. I could tell her I’m harming myself. No, I couldn’t. Who can tell their Grammy that? I want one person in this world to look at me like I might be strong. Like I might have scaled my past and moved mountains and all that crap. I want the fairytale, even if only in my grandmother’s eyes.

  I’m harming. I’m not okay. I think perhaps I saw myself as Super Gumboots Willa the other day. I think I’ve met little Lottie. If those words are in my head, I don’t have the courage to say them. I came here for my grandmother to know me, and then I cheat us both out of truth. Really, I’ve come here to let her make me tea and call me poppet. To help me pretend my past isn’t swallowing me. For a long time, that’s what I do. Bathe in the reassurance of Grammy. The velvet night warm around me.

  As the lantern lights begin to flicker, my watch says it is close to 4 am. Eli sleeps, curled up on Grammy’s lap. Soon we will lose the moon to dawn.

  Grammy leans over and says, ‘A little girl once knew what to do with a certain jam jar.’

  I stare at her. ‘What do you know about the ocean?’

  ‘It’s wet.’ She snickers.

  ‘Grammy!’

  ‘Okay, okay. You told stories to Lottie in your garden.’ She tucks Eli’s head under her chin. I remember sleeping on her lap like that, too.

  ‘They weren’t real then, only stories?’ I ask.

  Grammy taps a finger on the table. ‘Well, poppet, I think that depends what you mean by “real”. You see, men like your father want their ears boxed, and if I had known what was going on … If your mother had told me the truth … I wouldn’t have let you live there, poppet. I would have done something. Your mother made sure I stayed out of it. Told me I was making things worse. And that was the last thing I wanted for you and Lottie.’