Blindsight

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I said. ‘And you’re not seeing him.’

  ‘And your mother – she’s not well, I know that, but a woman can’t be any good to a man –’

  ‘Don’t you dare say my mother’s name.’

  Mrs Imrie made lip-bitten sounds of grief; and again, on that day, I felt some pity. I took half a crown from the till and went to her.

  ‘Here. You can catch the bus.’ I looked at my watch. ‘There’s one in fifteen minutes if you go quick.’

  ‘I’ll need … I’ll have to get a taxi in Auckland. I can’t – all this.’

  She meant the dresses and suitcase.

  I took another half crown from the till. For the second time that day I put the closed sign on the door. I helped Mrs Imrie to the bus stop and left her sitting there with the scrapings from her marriage. She looked at me blindly, wanting comfort, but I had none to give. I walked away, in a trough of my own at the pain everyone – yes, everyone – must feel. But when I looked back from the corner she had taken a mirror from her purse and was fixing her eyes and smeary mouth. She changed her flat shoes for a high-heeled pair from the string bag.

  The bus driver came down the steps and helped her with her suitcase.

  I opened the shop again and worked through the afternoon. Then I rode my bicycle home and found my parents hand in hand on the sofa and Gordon humming a tune as he stirred the stew.

  Mother was having her menopause and doing it hard. What’s the usual length of time for that bungled dispensation of release – six months, two years? Mine came like a humid breeze, bothering me, and went away after a while, leaving me cool. Hers continued for three years. Halfway through, Father had his fling – more a flutter – with Mrs Imrie.

  Mary Ferry had been Mary Blythe, a Loomis girl. Her father worked in the sawmill and her mother, wiry, aproned, fag in mouth, worked at home. Slaved at home. Six children. A betting, boozing husband. She put her hands on her hips: ‘It makes you laugh,’ she said.

  I’m sorry I lost my grandmother. She probably had other things to say.

  The Blythes shifted south in 1937 when sawmill jobs opened up down there. I was eight. ‘Here, Tuppence, buy something nice,’ Grandma said. She put a shilling in my palm. I never saw her again.

  When Father was courting Mother, he called her Merry Blythe. It got even better when they were married: Merry Ferry (and Mary Fairy now and then). She was a nurse. She dragged herself up from the six-kid family in the two-bedroomed house with coal sacks nailed over broken windows and a dunny full of wetas out the back behind a hedge. When she spoke of her mother there was always a poor-Mum sigh at the end. Of her father she said: ‘Least said.’ I can’t remember her ever being merry. Helplessness was missing when she laughed, and any snort or giggle of completion. It was as if she decided: That’s enough.

  She acquired gentility along with nursing skills. She rounded her vowels, learned how to groom herself, took up tennis. The barefoot girl in the washed-out dresses, girl with flea-bitten ankles and stringy hair, became the rather elegant Miss Blythe. High-heeled shoes, cloche hat, gloved hands at ease on a patent-leather purse – I dress her from photographs but can also move around the back: stocking seams as straight as plumb-lines, curls under and over on her neck. Then I put Mary Blythe away and remember Mother: standing on a chair to dust the light-shade, blacking the stove, with her tongue stuck out. She hangs the Monday wash on the line with a peg in her mouth. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t put merry in.

  Mother put on weight. She refined her gentility, matching it with Father’s tender-heartedness. She claimed that it was nursing people injured or sick that made her so anxious for our safety – but I believe she was afraid by nature. A slow car fifty yards away would make her clutch Gordon and me by the hand. She taught us to shake our shoes before putting them on in case a katipo spider had crawled into the toe. She ran matches under the tap after blowing them out, hid the axe behind the wash-house door so it wouldn’t tempt the delivery man. But she was more afraid of things she could not name. She was afraid of losing everything.

  There were times in her menopause when husband, children, house and all possessions slid into a fog of unbeing. Some of this came from the phenobarb her doctor prescribed. But there were spells when her alertness, and small measures of happiness, came back. They sometimes lasted several weeks before depression dragged her down into despair and the doctor put her back on her narcotic.

  Father confessed his unfaithfulness in one of the times when she had made some steps back to knowing us and knowing who she was.

  He left the door open and sat on the bed. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. Gordon listened. No one ever asked him what business he had.

  Father made allowances for himself. He made a rambling progress through the seduction, left bits out, I suppose, put bits in to show how unfairly he was tempted, but the end was plain: there was a bedroom, and there in the bed was Mrs Imrie. Immovable among his circumlocutions and euphemisms, there was sex. He told her it was only once. He fell. A single time. But it was over. It was her, his wife, his Merry Ferry, that he loved. There would never be anyone else.

  From the moment she understood what he was saying, Mother keened. The sound was enclosed at first, like the humming of a bumble bee in a pumpkin flower. She never denied what she was hearing. She never flashed in anger or burned him with her eyes. He held her hands tightly, one in each fist, and she made no attempt to pull away. But the sound she made grew into a wailing. Then she fought for breath, in throaty gasps.

  Gordon ran in. No, not ran, Gordon stepped – like marching, he told me, to the beat of a drum (that drum his heart). He took Father’s shoulders and shifted him from his seat on the bed.

  ‘Gordon, she’s choking,’ Father said.

  ‘No, she’s only crying,’ Gordon replied. He marched Father out of the room and sat him on the living-room sofa. ‘Wait there, Dad.’ (Called him ‘Dad’.) He went back to the bedroom door, turned and pointed his finger: ‘Don’t you move.’ Then he went in and closed the door.

  Gordon cemented them together. He put Mother and Father square with each other – almost square, like two bricks jolted apart in an earthquake. He said the things apologists for straying husbands say: Men are like that – he couldn’t help himself – it isn’t a betrayal, it’s just a weakness, a misstep – he’ll never do it again. And much more. Nothing wise. Nothing deep. But always he returned to the essential thing: ‘You love each other, Mum.’ (Yes, ‘Mum’.) ‘He loves you.’ He told her they were strong enough to step around this pot-hole in their marriage (making her smile – a fleeting smile) and move on. She must be the strong one. Wasn’t that what she had always been? (Gordon telling lies.) And after all, they loved each other, remember that. They weren’t just anyone, they were the Ferrys – he folded his hands together – they were like that.

  Father crept across the living-room to the door. Gordon flung it open and pointed at the sofa: ‘Get back there or go and dig in the garden.’ He smiled at Mother when he came back. ‘Dad’s a bit of a drongo,’ he said.

  ‘Why did … Why did he …?’

  ‘Because she’s got whoppers, Ma.’ (‘Ma’ now.) ‘Like this.’ He demonstrated the size of Mrs Imrie’s breasts. ‘And men like that. They’re suckers for it. Mum, I promise you, it won’t happen again. You’re getting well. You love each other. He loves you.’

  It wasn’t easy. It took time. Father made tea and tried to bring it into the bedroom on a tray. Gordon sent him back to the sofa. He helped Mother into her dressing-gown and slippers and into the living-room. Shifted a cushion, sat her as close to Father as he dared.

  ‘Mary,’ Father said. ‘Merry. Are you all right?’

  ‘Don’t let that tea go cold,’ Gordon said, looking back from the door. Mother was stiff and Father leaning at her, repeating her name in a wheedling tone. Gordon smiled at them as if they were a picture he had painted – but that’s unfair. He had just about used himself up. He went
outside, walked to the back of the section, climbed to his boyhood seat in the macrocarpa hedge, sat there shivering and weeping. He made big gulping sobs, letting out his tension and his grief.

  The macrocarpa smell was like a medicine for colds, bringing back memories of lying in bed as Mother read his temperature, one hundred and two, and Father measured doses in a spoon. He saw the neat rows of silver beet in the garden, the back lawn with its border of pansies. And there were the rainwater tanks on their stand, where he had wallowed on summer days after Orchard Street was linked to the Loomis water supply. He had climbed the roof like a mountaineer and shouted down the chimney to Mother shovelling ashes from the living-room grate. The little knot of Loomis town lay beyond the creek, with orchards and farms spreading out to the ranges, which stood like the rim of a blue-painted bowl.

  Gordon thought: I suppose I’m grown up now.

  When he was emptied and restored he went to the house. He walked into the living-room as though nothing had happened.

  ‘Hello, the pair of you. You look cosy.’

  He took the tea tray to the scullery. He chopped steak and kidney for the stew and made a custard pudding from a recipe book.

  When I came in I saw that Gordon was new-made.

  I found the strain of Mother being brave hard to bear and was relieved when her menopause claimed her again. She went in, came out, went in for several years. It shifted my attention from Father’s adultery, which I’ve never thought about properly. I can’t see it as much more than stealing sweets. Yet I understand the importance of trust. We must take the greatest care not to damage it.

  Mother’s trust was damaged beyond repair. Bravery at first, then long-suffering, took its place. Father no longer trusted himself – I don’t mean not to stray; I mean to be honest, manly, honourable. He began to soften and shrink like a last-season’s apple at the back of a shelf.

  But they stayed together. They were always kind. They tried to make each other happy. There’s no way of measuring what they achieved. The failure of the shop gave Mother a more active role. They turned a corner into that new trouble, putting the old out of sight. She worked out ways they might survive. But over several years the flash new chemist shop in Imrie’s Buildings took Father’s customers away. He sold his stock and closed up, and soon after that sold the Loomis house. They rented a bungalow in Westmere. Father worked on wages in a Queen Street pharmacy. Mother became a doctor’s receptionist.

  Gordon kept on insisting that they were all right. And, in a way, they were. But if he had not helped them set up a balance they could sustain, what would have happened, where would they have gone? I imagine them sinking and drowning, their hands just out of each other’s reach. Conversely … But it’s idle speculation. I usually conclude that they were lucky Gordon came home early on that day.

  He and I completed degrees. He trained as a teacher and went off to do his country service. I went to work for the DSIR.

  Chapter Three

  It makes no sense to stay in this house. After two near-accidents I’ve given up driving my car. The Wadestown bus puts me down at the top of the hill, then I must walk half a kilometre and climb another steep hill at the end. The final thirteen steps to my gate make thirteen cliffs, thirteen tests of my endurance. I steady myself against the rock wall, or clutch an amputated branch of the tree fern by the gate to keep my balance. If I let go I’ll tumble backwards down those thirteen steps, down seventy-three years into oblivion.

  Yet I’m no cot case. My great-nephew Adrian calls me a fit old dame. That’s dated slang from a boy of nineteen. (‘Where did you get it?’ I asked. ‘My grandma,’ he replied. ‘She used to call herself a crotchety old dame.’)

  I’ve met none of this family except for the boy. Adrian Moore is his name. (I sometimes wish he’d be Adrian Less.) He knocked on my front door one day late in summer; came on foot up the steep streets from the city, and has refused to go away.

  It was the morning of my second near-accident in the car. I had not bothered to close the garage door and the wind blew straight in all night, bringing Pinex dust down from the ceiling and making the windscreen difficult to see through. I pulled the water-squirting lever and ran the wipers, and while that was going on drove through a pedestrian crossing without looking. I saw the woman yank her child out of the way. When I stopped to apologise she called me a stupid old bitch. I don’t quarrel with that. Remembering the incident makes me wring my hands with distress. I almost killed a child. I said: ‘Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll put my car in the garage and never drive again.’ I was not being humble but reasonable. I drove home shakily and have kept my word. And I don’t feel reduced too much, or impoverished. My concentration might be impaired but memory and mind are as sharp as ever. I’m not ready to manage growing old the way my husband Neville did – by becoming interested in the process – because I’ve got decisions to make and things to do: Adrian to head off at the pass.

  He’s a boy who either smiles or scowls. He’s not deep or devious but he’s persistent. Doesn’t beg for information, doesn’t plead or bluster, but keeps his curiosity on show or blackens his brow. I have to stay alert to turn him aside. I can do that, but must not let him wear me down through proximity.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, when I answered the door. ‘Are you Miss Ferry?’

  ‘That depends,’ I said.

  I’m A.⌘M. Ferry professionally and in the telephone book but most people know me as Mrs Kite. A.⌘M. Kite appears in the phone book as well. (Actually I’m Doctor but I don’t include that or people would be phoning for medical help.) What interested me was where this boy had got ‘Miss’ from. It presupposed knowledge, which presupposed intent of some out-of-the-ordinary kind. A glance told me he wasn’t selling anything or doing a survey or promoting some religious belief – no satchel, no clipboard in his hand – and a closer look at his face detected no influence of drugs. One must watch for that. His clothes were unintentionally comic: beanie hat, baggy T-shirt, sneakers like boots, and jeans with the crotch at the level of his knees.

  ‘On who you are,’ I said, meaning that’s what it depended on.

  He took it as yes – took a handful of his beanie and pulled it off. He smiled at me.

  ‘My name’s Adrian Moore. We’re related.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. I have relatives descended from Mother’s brothers and sister, but although I’ve met one or two by chance over the years none are known to me now. ‘Unless you’re a Blythe. I’ve lost touch.’

  ‘What’s a Blythe?’ he said.

  ‘My mother’s family. So you’ve made a mistake. I don’t want to seem rude, but you’d better go away.’

  ‘No, we are,’ he said, smiling again. It’s a nice smile, not wholly innocent, knowing its charm. ‘If I can come inside for a minute …’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve got a photo that will prove it.’

  A photo would be quick. It would end the argument. Also, one must look – experience the sudden blast unknown faces bring of singleness and multiplicity, of other life.

  I said: ‘Show it to me here. You needn’t come in.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, unwilling. ‘I’ve looked for you for a long time. Keeping me on the doorstep’s kinda rude. Anyway, I’m thirsty. I got pretty hot walking up here.’

  ‘There’s a tap,’ I said, pointing along the garden path. ‘You can drink there.’

  ‘Miss Ferry,’ he began, but I cut him off.

  ‘How do you know I’m Miss?’

  ‘Do you mean you’re not? Nah, you’re her. You’re Alice, right?’

  I said nothing. I can be still, stony-faced, while churning inside. It’s a gift.

  ‘I’ll give you some orange juice but that’s all,’ I said.

  I led the way into the kitchen, breaking the rule: Never let strangers in your house. This one had stepped around it by saying my name. He nipped me with his fingers, small but tight. I had the premonition of a terrible closeness.


  I took a packet of juice from the fridge and poured him a glass. His throat beat like an artery as he drank.

  ‘I needed that,’ he said. He wiped his mouth, then looked around the kitchen, delaying things. ‘I’m kinda nervous, Miss Ferry.’

  I almost told him to call me Alice but kept it back, thinking that although I could not deny my name I could use it as a place of retreat.

  ‘Show me this photograph,’ I said.

  ‘You’re not in it,’ he said, bringing an envelope from the pocket of his jeans. ‘But I guess you know who the people are.’

  He opened the envelope and took a photograph out but seemed unwilling to surrender it. Instead he turned it round and held it in front of me with the top edge nipped between his finger and thumb.

  I looked as though through a window at a world with the colour taken out; kept my mouth in its elderly line, although it fought to tremble and cry; said: ‘I don’t know them. Is this a joke?’ But then had to add: ‘Let me see.’

  He let me take it from his fingers but stayed close, ready to grab. My eyes might hide the truth from him but told it to me: my brother Gordon. He was wearing a sports jacket and an open-necked shirt and had his arm around a pretty girl in a party dress. I knew her too. I knew the year: 1959.

  ‘They’re nice-looking people,’ I said, ‘but I don’t know what they’ve got to do with me.’

  ‘Come on, Miss Ferry.’

  ‘Well, I don’t. She’s a sweet-looking girl. This boy seems to like her all right.’

  ‘They’ve got names,’ he said. He took the photograph and turned it over. I read: Gordy and Marl at Barb’s party, September 1959.

  ‘Marl’s a fertiliser,’ I said.

  ‘It’s short for Marlene. She was my grandmother. Marlene Wilkinson was her name. And Gordy is Gordon. He’s Gordon Ferry. He was my grandfather.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said.