by Mary Moody
I saw my role as teaching Fedema everything she needed to know to make the transition as smooth as possible. I was to go home in a few weeks and I hoped she would have settled in by the time I left. We chatted amiably as we got on with the various tasks at hand and I discovered that she had left behind a husband and four children in the Philippines. She proudly showed me a photograph of her lovely family. The children ranged in age from three to ten.
I could barely contain my dismay. It should have been obvious but it hadn’t occurred to me. Fedema was making an enormous sacrifice, living without her husband and children for two years, to try to improve their lives by gaining Canadian residency. She told me that two other family members had done the same thing, and both of these women now lived happily in Vancouver. Neither of them had children to leave behind, but they too had been through this same trial period before being accepted into the country.
I was very troubled by the situation. I knew full well that Ken could only keep Margaret at home if she had a live-in carer. And I also appreciated that this might well be Fedema’s best chance at making a new life for her family in a more affluent society. Yet it seemed a tragedy to me that the world worked this way. A woman from a Third World country had to leave behind her precious children so that people in a wealthy country could have affordable aged care. I was appalled and deeply saddened, and that night in bed I wept not only for my sister but also for Fedema, even though she seemed so happy to have this opportunity. It was not lost on me that she had already been away from her children for two years, in Hong Kong, before she came to us.
From the first day Fedema fitted into the family and exceeded our expectations, although there were some interesting adjustments to make. I hadn’t anticipated that she would never have cooked European meals, and while we all loved Asian food, Fedema needed to learn the basics of some simple meals that Ken and Margaret are more accustomed to eating. I started by teaching her to make chicken soup with vegetables and then shepherd’s pie and sausages with onion gravy. She was used to eating rice three times a day so I tried to include several rice dishes along the way. We stocked the shelves with chilli sauce and various Asian condiments so she could prepare some of her own favourite meals as well. One night I roasted a chicken with bacon and bread stuffing and lots of crispy baked potatoes and gravy. Fedema loved this, and wrote down every step in great detail so she could prepare the same meal for the family after I left. She also enthusiastically offered to assist Ken in planting out his spring vegetable garden and helped me weed the ornamental garden I had planted with bulbs and perennials to give Margaret some cheer. Fedema had never gardened before, but took to it immediately. Indeed she was willing to do anything and everything to help, and her attitude was unfailingly positive and supportive. I could tell that her presence would make a tremendous difference.
28
David learned to operate a computer less than five years ago, and before that time he relied on various production assistants or members of his family (mainly me) to type his correspondence for him. So I was tremendously relieved when he decided to master keyboard skills. It lifted a burden from my shoulders and also made him much more independent, running his filmmaking business from home. Communicating by email has in fact made life easier for us both, given that we both travel so much and spend so many months of the year apart.
Initially, David’s emails to me were very brief and to the point because his typing was still very slow and laboured, but gradually he gained speed and confidence and long messages seem to flow effortlessly from his computer into mine. While I was with Ken and Margaret it was wonderful for me to have someone to talk to about the difficulties I was experiencing in dealing with the situation. I usually waited until the evenings, after Margaret was settled, to write to him about how the day had gone. In particular I needed to express my feelings – the sadness I felt, the fears I had for the future and the pain of coping with a state of affairs that was only going to get worse as time went on:
The new medication makes a tremendous difference but it’s quite brutal – what Ken was dreading. A ‘subdued’ wife. Easier for all of us BUT! This afternoon I lost her for a few minutes – I tried not to panic. Then I found her sitting, knees tucked under her chin, on the cold tiled floor of her old art studio. She looked frightened and was happy to see me – smiled and reached out her hand. My heart lurched of course.
It was with great relief that I let David know the new medication had been dropped:
Margaret is much better since the morning medication was dropped. This afternoon she wanted to go out (she goes and sits in the car) and I suggested an outing for her benefit to Ken. While he was getting ready I put my arm around her and said, ‘We’re going to the pharmacy then to Mitchel’s farm for vegetables and afterwards we’re going to the pub to dance on the tables’. Poker-face she said, ‘That’s dreadful’ – as a punchline.
Tonight she suddenly felt unwell in the middle of dinner. She went and lay down and I went to sit with her. I said, ‘How are you feeling, Margie?’ She just opened her eyes and looked at me and said, ‘Not like an alive person.’ As I keep saying, she knows . . .
David had been my sounding board throughout, and the person who really understood what this journey had been like for me. For many years he was long-winded in letters when someone else was typing them for him; now his missives were concise and went straight to the heart of the matter. They kept me sane, they made me laugh at times and they also comforted me enormously. I told him so:
I just want to say that a very strange thing has happened. Because we now communicate via email – not that different from old-fashioned letters – I have fallen in love with you all over again. It’s such a strange thing – the way you wrote letters to people used to drive me demented because you were so verbose and repetitive. But learning to type and communicate via email has fined down your writing and I have, in a strange way, rediscovered you. The ‘spare’ you. The ‘say it only once’ you. The clever, funny, witty you that has always been there (and that I love) but that has been buried by the anxious you. Communication via writing is a powerful tool which is why people fall in love over the internet (say no more). But for me, it’s been a lesson in rediscovering an old love and it makes me very happy.
A few years ago I read a very moving article in the New Yorker magazine, written by an elderly man who had just lost the love of his life, his wife of fifty-four years. He was lamenting that he had nothing tangible from her; no letters or even notes that spoke of how much she loved him or how wonderful their relationship had been. They had been side by side for all their lives and there had never been a need for letters to be exchanged. Unlike couples separated by work or war, where heartfelt greetings and words of love travel back and forth, this couple had never written to each other at all. Not once. And now he was distraught that there was nothing he could hold in his hands, nothing to read and read again, to comfort him in his time of grief.
This article stayed with me, and I thought of it while David and I were writing to each other every day, week after week, month after month. I realised that our letters were a valuable part of the healing process in our relationship. That reading his thoughts, expressed so simply, had made me feel closer to him once again. I can’t explain it any more clearly. I saw aspects of him I hadn’t noticed before. I appreciated his constancy and devotion, against the odds.
The internet has certainly changed the way we all communicate. There is an immediacy about it – you can respond instantly and know what the other person is thinking and feeling. For me, David’s letters were a lifeline during this troubling period, and when I got home I intended to print them out and treasure them always.
On the day I turned fifty, I was living in a small French village, revelling in the life of a single woman with a gang of new friends and a stimulating social life. I had been exploring the glorious countryside, discovering fascinating new villages almost every day, acquainting myself with the joys of shopping
for food in the local markets, and generally indulging myself in a carefree, self-focused lifestyle.
To celebrate my birthday, I was taken out to a five-course lunch in a rustic village restaurant, then spent the afternoon partying in my friend Jock’s courtyard, breaking open several magnums of French champagne and generally behaving in an outrageous fashion.
My fifty-eighth birthday found me in an equally beautiful part of the world, but my sense of recklessness and irresponsibility had long since departed. It had been a busy and rather chaotic morning at my sister’s farm, with workmen arriving unexpectedly and disrupting our demanding routine, so I was feeling more than a little frazzled by the time I managed to coax Margaret from her warm bed and wrangle her into a deep, hot bath for a relaxing soak.
I was gently massaging her legs under the water as she floated dreamily, lost in her own world, when I remembered.
‘Guess what, Margaret? It’s my birthday today.’
Her face instantly changed. She opened her large, pale green eyes and looked up at me with her beautiful smile. She wanted to say something, but was struggling to find the words.
‘Well, Merry Christmas to you,’ she beamed.
Ken believed that Margaret should be encouraged to continue with as many of her old routines as possible. He still took her shopping at the supermarket and, although she sometimes seemed overwhelmed by the large numbers of people and all the activity, on the whole I thought she still enjoyed these outings. She would push the trolley while we did the run of the aisles as quickly and efficiently as possible. A strange thing had occurred as part of her illness – she had developed a sweet tooth. It’s not uncommon, according to the specialist. All her life Margaret had avoided overeating sweets and desserts, yet now she craved them and in the supermarket her eyes lit up at the sight of the cakes and biscuits and tarts.
Indeed Margaret’s appetite had increased to the point where she was gaining weight and many of her clothes had started to become very tight around the middle. She was by no means fat – still a small size 12 – but I had to start moving buttons and slipping some extra elastic into waistbands so that her clothes would still fit.
Margaret could no longer dress or undress herself and her arms and hands became uncoordinated and very stiff and awkward. Getting clothes onto her could be very complicated and when I found myself doing this alone I invariably got into a terrible tangle of arms and legs. She looked exasperated and I was generally covered with sweat by the time I got her dressed in the morning. Fedema and Margaret’s part-time day carer, Bev, had much more success and I started leaving it to them whenever I could.
Fedema or I took Margaret for a walk at least twice a day. Until recently she used to stride out confidently, but now she tended to shuffle along slowly, as though her feet were no longer connected to the rest of her body. She was often reluctant to go, but once we were out of the front gates she became a little more motivated. I linked arms and sang to her as we walked along, songs I knew she would remember from childhood. Songs I knew my mother would have sung to her as she later sang them to me when I was growing up. There was no doubt Margaret connected with the lyrics and tunes, no matter how bad my rendition. She seemed particularly taken with the songs of Paul Robeson that I knew by heart from an old family record album. She didn’t sing along, but she smiled as we wandered in our lurching fashion past farms and woodland.
Last thing at night, after dinner and a wash, once she was dressed in her pyjamas, I sat with Margaret as she settled into bed. I massaged moisturisers into her face and she obviously loved this little bit of pampering. What we all wanted was for Margaret to feel safe and well loved. This next part of her life must be comfortable and trouble-free.
Leaving Margaret and Ken had become increasingly heart-wrenching, but I knew that I needed to get back to the family and finish various work projects that had been temporarily put on the backburner. I also believed that Fedema must be allowed to manage on her own for a while, to gain her confidence and put her own stamp on this job she has embraced so enthusiastically. Back in the Philippines, Fedema’s mother was caring for her children while her husband worked every day in a factory. Here in Canada, Fedema was caring for my sister and holding it all together until I had a chance to come back.
I still found the whole concept sad and difficult.
29
This long journey back from Canada to Australia was my seventh over the last three years. I sometimes feel as though I’m on a merry-go-round, jumping from one continent to the next. Every time I return home there’s a period of adjustment – whether it’s my home at the farm with David, my home in the village in France, or my sister’s home in Canada. I have to get my head around everything all over again and settle myself in. Depending on how long I’ve been away, I sometimes forget where things are kept or how to use basic appliances or gadgets. I rummage through drawers and cupboards trying to find where things have been stashed in my absence. And I face the continuing challenge of having to adjust to driving on a different side of the road. Right-hand drive in France, left-hand in Australia, then back to the right when I am in Canada. I also leave clothes in all three places, which can cause problems. I have often spent half an hour looking for a particular pair of shoes to go with an outfit, only to remember that I left them in the bottom of the cupboard in France. So I spend a lot of my life reorientating.
I also have to adjust to being with David again, sometimes after separations of three months or more. The initial reunion is always exciting for us both. We fall into each other’s arms and, if he’s picked me up from the airport in Sydney, we talk non-stop all the way back to the farm. There’s so much to catch up on, from family news to quite mundane information. How much water is in the house tank? Have the chickens been laying? How bad are the snakes this summer?
After a few days, we inevitably go through a difficult patch. David has been running the place in my absence and he finds it hard to relinquish control when I return. I am accustomed to organising the domestic side of our lives, especially in the kitchen, which I regard as my domain. Conflict arises when I put things back the way I like them or change anything in the routine he has established in my absence. It becomes a bit of a power struggle, but eventually we manage to work it out. It seems hilarious that at this stage of our lives, after thirty-seven years of being together, we are nitpicking about what should go into the compost bin or whether the eggs should be kept in or out of the fridge. It’s the nature of long-term relationships, this constant renegotiation, and I try to laugh about it rather than get cranky.
Often when at home, I have intensive writing to complete and I escape to a motel for a week or ten days so I can concentrate on nothing but getting on top of the task. The first time I did this, during the writing of Last Tango in Toulouse, I didn’t tell David. I knew I needed solitude, some quiet writing time without interruption, so I waited for him to go to the gym then packed my computer in the truck and drove to the Big Trout Motor Inn at Oberon, where I bunkered down for eight days. He’s now accustomed to this eccentricity of mine, running away to write. If I’m working on a section of a book that requires complete focus, I simply can’t stay at home because of all the distractions. The meals, the garden, the animals. They pull me away from the essential task at hand. In a motel I have an easy routine. I get up very early and start writing while still in my nightie, drinking tea and eating toast. I don’t stop until late afternoon when I go for a walk, have a bite to eat at the local pub, followed by an early night. It’s amazing how much writing I can get done in just a few days, and once I gain momentum it’s easy to keep it going, even when I get back to the farm.
Over time my grandchildren have also grown accustomed to my comings and goings. When Miriam’s older boys were little I was at home most of the time and saw them on a regular basis. Indeed, when the family lived in Bathurst I would see them virtually every day. I would often pick them up from school and bring them out for a swim in the wading pool and afternoo
n tea. I really missed this when the family moved to Adelaide, so I fly down there as often as possible, and I also try to plan my year so that for at least one of the school holidays I’m at the farm and we fly them up for a week or more. I enjoy these extended visits, even though these days I find keeping up with four lively boys can be exhausting.
I used to see a lot of Isabella and Caius when they lived with us at the farm for two years, even though I was travelling so much. This constant contact has created a deep bond which survives the fact that I’m not around as much these days. Isabella spends a lot of time in hospital so I organise for Caius to stay overnight as often as possible. He calls these visits ‘sleepovers’ and absolutely adores being an only child for a day or two. I make him special meals, we go for long walks and he loves to help in the vegetable garden and with the poultry. At night he sleeps on a single mattress on the floor of our bedroom. The house is large with long hallways and lots of empty bedrooms, and he’s not quite ready to brave one of the spare bedrooms alone.
Hamish and Ella often come over from Mudgee when I’m at the farm, and sometimes I have them for part of the school holidays. If their cousins are also staying I can have up to seven children living-in at a time, and this requires super organisation and a cool head. I am quite strict about certain things, and they totally accept the ‘rules’ at the farm. No computer or console games; no lolling around in front of the TV; no eating in front of the TV . . . in fact they are only allowed to eat at the table unless we are having a picnic or sitting out on one of the verandahs. They have to help setting the table and clearing up after a meal and I encourage the older ones to get involved with the cooking, too. Eamonn makes a delicious meatloaf and Sam likes decorating the pavlovas. They eat mountains of food – literally a fridge-full every day – and David is constantly alarmed at how many trips he makes to the supermarket when the kids are staying. One full trolley a day is not uncommon.
