‘What are we going to do with them, Mum?’
‘We’ll sew them together to make a rug.’
‘We’ll need hundreds.’
‘Yes, but we have time.’
The nurses brought her wool, half-used balls all in different colours and textures, some fluffy mohair, others she called crepe, and even thick wool, like heavy jumpers. Some squares had three or more colours. We used any little remnant we had.
Sometimes Mum did a fancy stitch, twisting the needles around to make a pattern, but for the time being I stuck with a plain stitch.
‘Soon,’ she said, ‘I’ll show you a purl.’
We didn’t talk much, just knitted — square after square after square. They piled up around us, and I thought of the rug they would become.
Chapter 53
Colin Brennan
Friday, 17 June
I was at another meeting with Sarah Soliman in the stuffy visitor’s parlour.
‘Bernadette’s made very good progress, and we need to plan for her transition from in-patient to out-patient,’ she said. She wanted to continue to see Bernadette weekly, but claimed that it was time she began a ‘structured’ return to daily life.
Dr Soliman loved her jargon.
‘What do you mean by structured?’ I asked.
‘Weekend visits home for a time, then full-time supported living with her family, and finally moving to independent living, if that’s what is necessary.’
I wasn’t surprised. Hospital beds were scarce even in private institutions. But I was alarmed. There was nowhere for Bernadette to go. Her home was a pile of rubble, even now being cleared so the land could be sold. Leo’s house was out of the question, and although I had an appointment with an agent to inspect a three-bedroom unit on St. Kilda Road that afternoon, I had nowhere to offer her yet. I was also sceptical about Sarah Soliman’s assessment of Bernadette’s progress. According to Leo, who visited her weekly, she was still evasive and withdrawn.
‘How do we tell her that her partner’s in jail, and that he burned their house to the ground? That she has nowhere to go?’ I asked.
‘She has to be told, and arrangements will have to be made for her,’ the doctor responded. ‘Very soon there will be no reason to have her here as an in-patient. It is imperative that she be helped to return to life in the community.’
I almost smiled at the sheer unrealism of that particular goal. Bernadette was terrified of the community.
Dr Soliman thought for a while, and then continued, ‘We could organise a bed in a nursing home for a month or so, but I don’t advise it. It would mean disrupting her twice, and as you know, Bernadette doesn’t cope well with change. She needs to go home.’
‘And where precisely is home for Bernadette, Dr Soliman?’ I asked. The woman was infuriating.
‘That’s for you and your family to decide, Colin,’ she said, standing and gathering her notes.
Once again I was dismissed.
I dreaded living with Bernadette. The mess, the lack of initiative, the inability to care for herself, but I would never, ever, leave it to Alison again.
No, Bernadette will have to live with us.
Chapter 54
Leo Brennan
Friday, 17 June
It fell to me to tell Bernie about Harry.
‘Thanks Dad,’ I said sarcastically when he asked me to do it, but I knew it had to be me. So the doctor sat in Bernie’s room with us while I outlined every detail: Harry’s crime; his confession to manslaughter; his torching of the house on the morning he was arrested; and his eighteen-year sentence.
She was as impassive as ever. Did she already know some of it? Perhaps she no longer cared what happened to her. She only asked one question. ‘Where am I going to live?’
‘With Dad and Alison. Dad’s buying a place here in Melbourne.’
That was new territory for me. I had no idea what was in Bernie’s mind. She showed no grief for Harry and expressed no desire to communicate with him. There was only, what seemed at the time, a resigned acceptance of the arrangements.
‘Would you like to ask me anything, Bernie?’
‘No, everyone’s been very kind,’ she said.
Later, when I remembered those words, I realised they were a stock phrase. Mum had taught her to be polite.
Then she looked across at the doctor. ‘Well, I suppose that’s all,’ she said.
She wanted me to leave, and I was glad to get back to my car and the agenda of the afternoon. Clients to see, accounts to be sent, and maybe I could carve out some creative time during the coming weekend.
Now I tortured myself about that relieved exit. I too had stared into the dark abyss, and through some force not my own, I had resisted its seduction. I should have stayed longer, insisted that she talk to me, prised open her feelings, made her angry, anything to prevent what she did …
Chapter 55
Bernadette Brennan
Friday, 17 June
They think I’m weak in the head.
Leo told me about Harry, as if I was a half-wit. See, they thought we didn’t talk, but we did. We only had each other. And Alison too, but we knew we’d lose her, especially when she left us and went to Daddy’s house for the holidays. Yes, I knew then. As soon as she could, she’d be gone, and why not? It wasn’t much of a place for a girl to live.
I never met Harry’s father, but I knew about him living in the park. Harry told me. And I knew he went there sometimes.
That Sunday he left in the middle of the day, he was tired of me. I wouldn’t get out of bed. He was sick of the house, and Alison was away. We had a fight. He called me a dirty, fat, lazy slob, and left.
‘Where are you going?’ I called after him.
‘To get some air.’
He didn’t come back, and then Alison came home, and when I told her there was no water, she wanted to get a plumber, and I screamed at her, and then she called Leo and I screamed at him too. Then those people came, and I struggled, but they stuck a needle in me, and that’s when I ended up in here.
Just once I saw a newsbreak about the murder of the homeless man at Enterprise Park. I was groggy from the sedatives and the pills they had me on, but even so I knew it was Harry who’d done it. I’d seen that white-hot rage plenty of times, and he was in a black mood when he had left home that day. It would have only taken one flare-up, and the old man wouldn’t have stood a chance.
But burning the house! I didn’t know about that. All Mummy’s things gone! There was nowhere for me to go. Now I was the one who was homeless.
Well, it made it easier, really.
Leo was all concerned and considerate with his story, but I didn’t trust them — once, maybe Allie, but not now. There was a time when I told myself that she and I would always be together, that she’d take care of me and I of her. We’d live together, just the two of us. I knew now that that would never happen. She was strong-willed, and I could see that she was determined not to be like me.
She’ll make her own way.
I knew when she went to Daddy’s place without asking me that I’d already lost her.
Sarah had left me alone. I told her I wanted to sleep. They thought I was getting better, so the nurses weren’t spying on me so much. I gave them a few smiles … and the knitting.
They think it’s good for me. They like it when Alison comes. Soon enough, they think, they’ll be packing me off and there’ll be someone else in this room.
I had been thinking about this for months, maybe years. I stopped wanting to live a long time ago.
I’ve left a letter and the knitting for Alison. But now it’s time. I won’t live with Daddy, him hovering over me, being oh so kind, and pushing me to be someone else. His impatience. Allie’s made her choice, and I won’t be a burden. I’ve longed just to disappear. I’ve daydreamed, fantasised about it. Just nothingness. Darkness and rest.
It was quiet now. The nurses wouldn’t come for an hour or so, and I should be able to sne
ak past the front desk.
I’ll wait till there are a few visitors in the lobby and slip out through them. I would have done it with pills, but they watch you like a hawk until you swallow them. No, this is better. Just a block to walk and then onto the highway. I won’t step onto the tracks until the very last second. It will be quick.
Chapter 56
Colin Brennan
Friday, 17 June
I was sitting in my car waiting for the estate agent to arrive when the newsflash came over the radio. At the time it just seemed like a strange coincidence that I had been on that highway in Box Hill that morning, consulting with Bernadette’s doctor. Leo had called me and reported that his sister had reacted calmly to the news about Harry, and that she was now resting. She had agreed that it was best that she live with Alison and me.
‘We can make this work, Dad.’
Those were Leo’s words. There was no reason for concern, so I met with the agent, inspected the property and made an appointment to bring Alison to see it at the weekend.
Now every word of that newsflash rang in my head.
A middle-aged woman has been hit by a tram on the Maroondah Highway in Box Hill. Paramedics arrived on the scene in minutes, but the woman could not be revived. It is believed that she was a patient at a nearby psychiatric hospital. The tram driver is being treated for shock and trauma. ‘She just stepped in front of the tram. There was nothing I could do to avoid her,’ he told police. Passengers on the crowed tram have been offered counselling. More details in our afternoon bulletin.
Chapter 57
Alison Brennan
Four Months Later
Monday, 3 October
I’m always dreaming about houses.
Last night it was a big, empty double-storey house. I was dancing in the space, twirling and jumping to some music in my head. Then lots of people came with boxes of stuff, and furniture, and clothes and bedding. I had to unpack and sort it. The people just sat around, doing nothing. They were talking and laughing about me. As soon as I had one box unpacked and everything put away, there was another and another, until I knew I would never finish. I just sat there in all the clutter. I couldn’t get through it.
I woke from those dreams with my heart beating fast, and it always took a few minutes for me to remember where I was.
There was another dream. One day in the newspaper, I read about a little removable house they called the Shacky. It was like a doll’s house, just big enough for one person. You could move it anywhere. In my dream, I moved it to a high cliff overlooking the ocean, and I lived there all alone with the wind blowing through it.
Grandpa and I now lived in this apartment on the seventeenth floor of a block on St Kilda Road. It was just a short tram ride to school. I liked it right away because it was empty — empty and clean. The kitchen was all stainless steel and I had my own bathroom. The big windows in the living area showed a view of Albert Park Lake and the golf course, and beyond that a glimpse of the bay. There was not much furniture, just what we needed. Grandpa brought some things from Golden Beach, and Leo and Trent stocked the kitchen as a housewarming gift.
There was a spare bedroom, the one Mum would have had. But I couldn’t go in there. Not yet.
I loved cooking in the kitchen, but I cleaned it obsessively.
‘That’s enough, Alison,’ Grandpa always said.
But I had to do it. Maybe it was a way of filling the emptiness that was there instead of Mum. Mrs Goodall said that she understood why I felt guilty. She said that family members usually did feel like that after a suicide, but that it was not my fault. ‘Your mother made her own decision,’ she said. ‘Nothing you did would have stopped her.’
In my room I had my bed, Grandma’s desk and a bookcase. There was a huge built-in wardrobe where everything else was stored. Leo called it ‘spartan,’ and then gave me his latest little gift. Today it was an oil burner with some sandalwood oil, because he knew I liked the smell. It was burning gently in my room now.
Schoolwork was the easiest part of my life. When I was studying, I could forget everything for a time. I loved the feeling I got when I worked through a task and it was finished and I knew it was good. That was why I hadn’t given up on my schoolwork. It let me be somewhere else.
When I was studying, I didn’t hear in my mind the sounds of the tram thwacking into her soft body. I didn’t see her blood and broken bones, her dead face. If I didn’t find distractions, the hollowness and emptiness inside overtook me. So I studied. I moved from one thing to the next, never stopping for long.
Everyone in my Year knew that my mother had died. The Co-ordinator must have told them on one of the days I was away. They were kind. There were hugs and offers of support. Kids who’d never spoken to me before gave me little gifts, a chocolate, a card or a flower. Rosa never left me. In all the classes we took together, she saved a seat for me.
Every day for the first week she brought me something delicious for lunch — rice paper rolls or a slice of quiche. ‘Dad sent it for you,’ she’d say. She gave me her notes from the classes I’d missed and came to the apartment so we could do homework together. She didn’t want anything from me. She didn’t ask for details of Mum’s death and I didn’t tell her. I’m learning from Rosa how to be a friend.
One day in my first week back, Mr Jordan asked me to stay for a moment after class. I hoped he didn’t want to talk about Mum. I was shy, and sometimes I found people’s sympathy embarrassing.
But he just said, ‘I’m so sorry about your mother, Alison.’
Don’t cry, don’t cry, I warned myself.
‘I know you like poetry. I have something for you.’ He went to his desk and brought me a book of poems called Border of a Dream, by Antonio Machado. ‘He’s a Spanish poet who wrote during the 1920s and 30s,’ Mr Jordan explained. ‘I love his work. There’s one I’ve marked for you.’
I turned to the page to where he’d inserted a bookmark, and I began to read the poem. Mr Jordan had underlined some passages.
Traveller, the road is only
your footprint, and no more;
traveller, there’s no road,
the road is your travelling.
Going becomes the road
and if you look back
you will see a path
none can tread again.
When the goldfinch can’t sing,
when the poet’s a wanderer,
when nothing aids our prayer.
‘Traveller there’s no road
the road is your travelling…’
Step by step, line by line.
‘At times in my life when I don’t know what direction to take, I read that poem,’ he said. ‘It gives me courage and insight to keep going. We make our own path, one step at a time. As the poet says, “there’s no road; the road is your travelling.”’
How kind he was. I was a real person to him, not just one of the hundreds of students he taught every week. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Thank you, I’ll bring it back in a week or so.’
‘No, Alison, it’s yours. Keep it. I can get another copy.’
‘But it has your notes in it.’
‘And now you can add your own notes.’
That night I sat on my bed and read Machado’s poem aloud over and over again.
Yes, I thought, I can make my path by walking. One step after another. And one day I will have learnt not to look back to the path that no one can tread again.
Grandpa and I were walking, step-by-step, making new, happier, paths.
We were hesitant, and then Nadia came.
Chapter 58
Colin Brennan
Saturday, 8 October
For the first two months, Alison and I were like two shipwrecked sailors, bobbing on the ocean in an untrustworthy lifeboat, unable to control our direction. We passed each other in the big, sparsely furnished apartment like stunned survivors of a disaster.
Then Nadia came, bringing a bright rush of colour into our
beige dwelling.
‘What a wonderful view,’ she exclaimed, sweeping across to the big windows. ‘I can see right to the bay.’
Then she commented, ‘But Colin, it’s empty. Where is your furniture?’
‘Oh, you know. We’re making do.’
‘Making do? You’re camping! Where do you eat?’
I pointed to the two armchairs that I’d brought from the house at Golden Beach. They were positioned in front of the window, and they were the only furniture in the large living area. ‘We’re living rather casually.’
Nadia was horrified. ‘You’re eating on your laps? Oh dear. And only two armchairs. Where is a visitor to sit?’
I was a little embarrassed. In the weeks after Bernadette’s funeral, I had focused all my attention on Alison. Understanding her horror at the conditions in which she had lived with her parents, I had decided not to overwhelm her with possessions that I alone may consider necessary.
Nadia would have none of it.
‘But Colin, this is not civilised. We must go shopping. Show me the rest of the apartment.’
She gasped at the space in my bedroom with its single fold out bed and small table on which my neglected memoirs sat. She tut-tutted over Alison’s room with its one bed against the window, Mary’s desk the only other furniture.
The Blooming Of Alison Brennan Page 18
