by John Clanchy
‘After the shouting and the beating and when I still said nothing, I was strapped down to a table and electrical wires were put on my breasts, into my vagina. I did not believe such pain could exist. I must have screamed. They stopped and asked me again. And again I said no – it was the only word I could speak, remember. This went on and on. A day, a night. Another day. And then, when I had fainted again, they left. And I could hear the screaming from the cell next door, and for a moment I thought it was still myself. Still me screaming. When I realized it wasn’t, I was glad. I had no feeling for the other person. All I knew was that if they were screaming, I was not. When they came back, they took the wires off me, and then they abused me, one after the other. I could feel their hatred, their fear, with every thrust. How they hated us. The sweat and stink of their hatred I will never forget. At one point the bag slipped upwards, and I saw one of their faces. It was someone I knew, a young man, a soldier from one of the barrios near the market where my father had his stall. I had even spoken to him sometimes, said good morning. Now his face, above me, was filled with such hatred, such fear. He spat in my face, ripped the cloth-bag down over it again. Even now, today, I mark his name, that young man, I mark his face. He finished with me, and I knew I was bleeding. He must have noticed as well. ‘‘Pig whore,’’ he hissed in my ear. ‘‘Pig whore. You know what we do now?’’ he asked. ‘‘You know what we do with this?’’ Something scraped over the bag on my face, and I knew it was a knife. “We open you up so you menstruate every day of your life.’’ I knew then I would live at least, but I knew the child would already be dead.’
Ohh –
‘But it was not. I was left in the cell, still naked, for two days with only water. I think they must have forgotten me, for when they came next time, it was a different voice I heard, and they sent for a doctor. I was given clothes, a smock. ‘‘Doctor,’’ I whispered when he came, ‘‘what of the child?’’ Somehow I knew Raul was dead. That is why they had left me alone. ‘‘Perhaps,’’ the doctor said.
‘I was sent to a woman’s prison north of the city. This was Santiago I am writing about now. I was in a dormitory with fourteen other women, and they saved me. They were beaten bad as I was –’
‘As badly,’ I remember to say. From a dry mouth.
‘Pardon. As badly as I was. But after two months, when I began to show, they forgot their own pain. They nursed me, gave me extra food. They saved my life, the child’s. ‘‘Do not hate,’’ they said, ‘‘you must not hate. The child is yours, not theirs.’’ They did not know about Raul. I did not tell them. It was the safest thing. ‘‘The child is yours,’’ they kept telling me over and over, ‘‘yours, not theirs. Not the Fascists’. It is your child, not theirs.’’
‘When the baby was born, we called her Esperanza, for hope. And the cell, even in winter when it was so cold the water froze in the bowls, became a happy place. Even one or two of the guards – the hardest women – found they could not keep up their hatred, their fear of us. They would smuggle hot water through the corridors to us and each morning as the light came up, before the cells were inspected, we would rise with it and all together bathe the child, dry her, wrap her in the few rags we had, pass her between us. Hold her up above our heads so the light from the window reached her face. Esperanza.
‘Eso es todo, that is all,’ Maria said. ‘That is my story.’
‘Is there … is there anyone who … would like to ask Maria a question?’
‘Why?’ said Shamila.
‘Why?’ Maria repeated after her. ‘Why what?’
‘Why are you here? Where is Esperanza? Where are your grandchildren?’
‘Esperanza went to a convent school,’ Maria said. ‘It is the best I could send her. When she is nineteen …’
‘Was nineteen, Maria.’
‘When she was nineteen, she tells me …’
‘Told me.’
‘She told me she has met a man. Who is this man? I ask her. She is vague. I find out. He is the nephew of one of the generals.’
‘Ohh –’
‘I leave Chile the day before her wedding. I live here in Australia now.’
‘Ahh.’
‘This Maria,’ they said. And sat, for a moment, breathing, before one of them remembered and they began to clap.
Grandma Vera
Prick Philip. The Greek. Well, he is a prick. The Duke of Something Something. Horse prick. Those head things. My God, busbies. Now, how did I ever remember that?
‘Busbies,’ I say to Miriam, who is unpacking the tin things on the kitchen thing. ‘Busbies,’ I say again. ‘Busbies.’
‘Hmm? Busbies?’ says Miriam. She’s not looking at me. She’s reading the label on one of the things. ‘No, not busbies, Mother.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ I tell her anyway.
‘Busbies are … well, they’re kind of hats, head coverings … you know, like the Queen’s guards wear. What do they call them, the Grenadiers, or something. Or the Horse Guards.’
‘Prick Philip,’ I say.
‘Mother, please.’
Well, he is a prick, I think to myself.
‘Little people,’ Miriam says, ‘have big ears.’ She means Katie. Katie is six. We were reading, Katie and me, when Miriam came back from the shops, carbolishing everything. ‘And Philip’s not Greek,’ Miriam says. ‘You know that.’
‘Katie is six,’ I tell her.
‘Yes, Mother, Katie is six. That’s quite true,’ she says, and sighs.
‘Six.’
‘Don’t keep saying that, Mother.’ She’s banging the lids on the boardcup now as she puts the lid things away.
‘So … ?’ she starts to say, and stops. She’s angry, she’s red with me. ‘What have you two been up to while I’ve been shopping?’
‘We were reading,’ Katie says.
Katie’s six. Six.
‘Reading? That’s good,’ Miriam says. ‘What were you reading?’
‘Well,’ Katie says, ‘first we were reading my new picture book …’
‘The horse one?’
‘Yes.’
Six.
‘But now Grandma Vera is just started …’
‘Has just started,’ Miriam says.
‘Has just started reading me about Alice and the Queen of Hearts.’
‘Really?’ says Miriam. She comes to the the the … place in the wall and looks at us. ‘And what was it about?’
‘Well,’ Katie says, ‘the Queen, you know the Queen? Well, she made some tarts, and … here, Grandma Vera,’ Katie says, as she puts the the the … thing with words in my lap. ‘Read it out for Mum. Read out the poem. Here,’ she points, and I start to read.
The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer day.
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts
And took them quite away!
‘That’s wonderful,’ says Miriam, standing at the place in the wall. Just for one moment I think she has tears in her eyes. She is shaking her head. ‘That’s just wonderful.’
‘What’s a knave, Grandma?’ Katie says.
‘Knave?’ I say.
‘In the poem.’
‘Well, he is a prick,’ I say to Miriam. ‘Always was.’
‘A prick?’ says Katie. ‘Prrr-ick.’
Miriam is taking out the lid things again. Banging them on the cupdork. She has her back to us.
‘Prr-ickk!’ says Katie.
Miriam
I never know how much Mother really understands, and how much is pure malice. Some of it’s malice, I’m sure. This absurd charade she goes on with about Philip being Greek, about his wanting to send her away, lock her up in a home. Unless she really does think Philip is Stavros. But how could she? They couldn’t be more different. Stavros is huge, muscled, a body builder – or he was then – tanned, dark, slow, and Philip is small – my size – slim, fair, bookish, verbally quick. They’re nothing like one another.
No, it’s malic
e, that part of it. It has to be. She wants to see just how far she can push me.
She wants, Dr Lazenby says, constant reassurance. She wants to hear that you love her. No matter what. So, why can’t I tell her that – that I love her? Why can’t I say something as simple as that? Katie and Laura can say it, even Philip. Well, almost. Philip says, ‘But, Mother, we love having you here,’ when she accuses him of wanting to send her away. To put her in a home. But it’s me she’s waiting to hear it from. God knows, I used to be able to say it. Once.
Can I go shopping with you?
Do you love Mother?
Yes.
Say it.
I love you, Mother.
There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
Can we see Santa? Can we talk to Santa?
Do you love Mother? …
I can’t take her shopping anymore, I can’t risk it. Or not shopping where I can’t be watching her every moment. It’s not just that she wanders. It’s not just the eggs for pegs, the buttons for bacon, the peanuts for pasta that go flying willy-nilly into the trolley and mean that every aisle in the supermarket has to be visited twice. It’s not even her habit, when her mind clears – as it does, unpredictably – of showing how hard she is trying, and how triumphant she feels when the clouds part and she can get a grip on something she recognizes, some simple, domestic reality. I know she’s desperate with panic at such moments, but so am I. Like when she stands in front of the freezer shelves in the supermarket and shouts:
‘Milk!’
I can hardly pretend I’m not with her.
‘Milk, Miriam.’
‘Yes, Mother,’ I say. Projecting my voice, calmly, across three aisles.
‘Mi-lk.’
‘Yes, Mother, it’s milk. We don’t need any more milk at the moment, Mother.’
‘Milk!’
‘Can you move on now, please, Mother? You’re blocking the way.’
‘Milkkk.’
‘People are trying to get to the –’
‘Milk.’
None of this bothers me, really. None of these small public humiliations. People understand. They smile at me, shrug, skirt around us. It’s more the effect on Katie that’s the problem. Not that Katie’s innocent. If anything, she encourages Mother …
‘Is that all?’ the boy on the checkout says. He’s bored, he’s watching a girl on the fruit-stall as he bip passes bip the last of the items in front of the coding machine.
‘Hmmm?’ I say back, trying to think cash or card. It’s Friday, the end of the week, and it’s been a long afternoon of classes. I can hear Katie and Mother giggling together somewhere behind me. ‘I’ll pay by card,’ I say to the boy.
‘Is that all?’ he says again in a different voice, and I look quickly at the empty conveyor belt and the trolley packed and waiting in front of me.
‘Yes, that’s all,’ I say, and wonder whether the boy is ill. He has a cold sore on his bottom lip and where before his eyes were glazed and dull, they’re now bright and round and actually rolling in his head. At me.
‘Is something wrong?’ I say.
His eyes continue to roll. His head is jerking now to indicate something behind me.
‘For goodness sake,’ I say. And turn to hush Katie who’s giggling so loudly now she can barely speak.
‘She’s got –’ Katie manages. And I look.
‘Oh, Mother,’ I say, and I see two other shoppers with full trolleys behind her assessing the situation and moving away to other checkouts.
‘Mother, what have you got under your coat?’ I concentrate on the coat because I do not wish at this moment to look at what she has on her head.
‘It’s a cricket bat,’ giggles Katie.
‘Katie, please be quiet,’ I say. ‘I can see it’s a cricket bat.’
‘And stumps.’
Anyone could see it was a cricket bat, the long red rubber of the handle protruding from the top of Mother’s coat and lying, like an obscene periscope, along her neck.
‘She’s got –’
‘Katie, that’s enough.’
‘Well, she has.’
‘Will you excuse me a moment,’ I say to the boy. Whose eyes have stopped rolling though they continue to round. ‘I’m sorry to hold you up like this.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ he says. ‘It’s …’ he starts to say, but is too young to think of a word to describe what it is that he’s seeing.
‘We’ll just be a minute,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll just put the bat back. And … anything else,’ I say, raising my eyes to her head.
‘And the bananas, don’t forget the bananas,’ Katie shouts. ‘Grandma’s got all these bananas under her –’ she says.
Before I slap her.
Philip
Love me, love my mother. Miriam’s never actually said it, but that’s the rule around here. And the reason she’s so fierce about it, of course, so absolutely relentless, is that she can’t love her herself. No matter how hard she tries. It took me a while to work this out. When we were first married, we had to go over there, to Mother’s place, for Sunday lunch, week in, week out. I was happy enough to fit in, the lunch was always fine, but it was Miriam who came away with gritted teeth and a tearing headache:
‘Oh, that woman –’
‘Then why do we go?’ I once asked.
She looked rather than spoke in response, and I didn’t ask again. Just waited until her teeth unlocked with the motion of the car, the sun on the glass, the prospect of home. By the time we crossed the water, her hand lay on my knee, and she released the first smile of the day. Miriam again, ghost-like, but released.
‘Welcome back,’ I said.
She reached up, both arms behind her head, and with one motion pulled the pins from her hair. With her hair up, her face was stretched, stark, her eyes full of an animal alertness. As though an attack might come at any moment. But as her hair fell about her shoulders, her skin softened, and all the tension went out of her face. The headache apparently with it.
‘Let’s just leave it,’ she said.
‘For another week?’
I knew then she went there to prove something. To her mother, to herself. Something to do with the whole Stavros thing. Which I was happy to stay out of.
‘She’s alone here now,’ she said. ‘And,’ she added, ‘I don’t know what it is, but there’s something wrong with her.’
‘How do you mean, wrong?’
‘She’s so … dogmatic.’
‘She’s always been dogmatic,’ I said, ‘as far as I’ve known her.’ I didn’t say, just like you.
‘Yes, I know. But as people age, they normally mellow, don’t they, become less fixed, less certain? She’s got worse. She insists on things even though I’m sure she knows they’re wrong. Stupid things. Like that stuff about the weather yesterday.’
‘It could have stormed on this side of the bay. With big bodies of water like this you often get –’
‘Philip, it didn’t. I checked especially before we came. It was a perfectly sunny day. Balmy, the Bureau said, an Indian summer. I mean, look around. If there had been a storm …’
‘Then why?’
‘She remembers a storm, I’m sure of that. But when?’
‘Maybe she’s just being cantankerous.’
‘You mean just because I said the weather had been so lovely?’ ‘It’s possible, isn’t it? You and she have always been –’
‘Yes.’
The storm, of course, as we’ve now learned, was in her own head, where it’s raged ever since. And what a tempest it’s been. And so quick. Twelve months ago, she was still able to cope, look after herself. She forgot things, wandered a bit, spoke like a sybil on occasions, but most of the marbles were still in the bag. Now, Jesus, you could shake the bag till Kingdom Come and you’d be lucky to hear two cat’s-eyes clicking together. It’s weird, really. With some things, you’d swear she was normal. Katie puts a book in her hand and away she goes, reading like the clappers. She�
�d never stop if you didn’t tell her to. And yet, if you ask her what she’s just read, it’s obvious she hasn’t understood a bean. She’ll gaze at you as if you’ve just stepped out of a space rocket and say, ‘How do you mean, read? And if you point to the book on her lap, she’s just as likely to say ‘Oh,’ and start off again wherever her eye lands and not stop until you tell her to. And you realize then the whole process is on automatic pilot, that it’s voiceactivated without reference to the brain whatsoever. Not that it seems to matter. Kids Katie’s age never seem to tire of hearing the same story over and over. If I’m reading to her, I always want to find something new. But Katie gets stuck on favourite things. At the moment it’s Alice, and we’ve had the Queen of Hearts every night for a month. It’s as though Katie’s hearing it for the first time, which is fine for Mother, I guess, since she is.
‘Which one do you like best, Grandma? The Queen or the Knave?’
‘Knave?’
Do you?’
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘Oh, Grandma. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten al-reddy. Here, you naughty girl, you’ll just have to read it all over again.’
Katie understands things that none of the rest of us seems to. Even Miriam. Little things. We were watching television one night – Lassie III or some other kennel tragedy – and after an hour or so there was a news break.
‘Where’s he gone?’ Mother started crying and patting her hands against her cheeks. ‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Who, Mother?’ Miriam said. ‘Where’s who gone?’
Mother was twisting and turning in her chair, her eyes roving around the room. ‘Where’s he gone?’ she kept saying.
‘He’s here,’ Miriam said. ‘Philip’s here with us. See, he’s over there, he’s reading.’
‘No, no –’ Mother threw her head from side to side. ‘Where is he?’
‘Is it Dad?’ Miriam guessed. ‘Are you missing Dad?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘Yes,’ said Miriam, ‘he’s gone.’
‘Is he coming back?’
Miriam was suddenly upset herself. She couldn’t answer. She looked at me.
‘Mother, please …’ she said finally.
