by Nick Earls
I tell her things are okay, that I’m looking after myself.
I eat my dinner in front of the TV.
thirty-two
It’s as though there’s a change in me.
You’ve brought this about. I’m not what I was.
I can’t stand this house when you’re not here. When you’re here it’s a different place. When you aren’t it’s my past. It’s all those other summers. The cricket, the swimming, the long days in the company of people who are now long gone. Like an old writer’s early days remembered at some distance, made into a film in the colours of nostalgia. Pride and simplicity and everything out of date. I’ve seen those movies at the Schonell, My Father’s Glory, My Mother’s Castle. That’s what it’s like, even though I left this past so recently. What I’m feeling moves in my head like a drug, wild and unreasonable and slow and warm.
My mother talks to me like a voice scratching away at sleep, but I can’t hear her for the wind lifting through the broad bright leaves, can’t see past your close face.
Tomorrow, tomorrow. She’ll be here tomorrow. I must make time for her tomorrow, my mother.
Fortuna.
As if I’ve ever had this kind of luck.
What happens with you? How long does this last? What do you feel? What happens now? And then what?
Outside you’ve changed the trees, the sand, the whole coastline.
thirty-three
She calls me early.
I’ve got to go to Noosa, she says. Do you want to come?
Yeah. What are we doing?
Taking a load in the ute. Things for galleries up there. On the way home we could swim.
She turns up in an hour with boxes stacked in the back of the ute. I’m on the veranda, waiting already. She sees me when she gets out and she waves. Hi, she says when I’m closer, and she makes eye contact only for a moment and tucks a wandering strand of hair back from her cheek.
We get in.
Just throw my towel on the floor in front of you.
We start driving north, and I think we are both wondering how to begin a conversation. She’s sitting there, watching the road just as she should, changing gears, taking corners. I’m sitting there, watching the road, watching her watching the road, through the flat brown-house suburbs of Bokarina, Wurtulla, Warana. No one could ever start conversations in these places.
So, what exactly are we doing? I ask her.
Well, we have to see this guy called Lionel. He’s got a couple of gallery shops and he sells Dad’s stuff. And we have to go the coast road. My father, this won’t surprise you, my father has a philosophical opposition to toll roads, so we can’t go that way.
That doesn’t surprise me. Mine’s the opposite, very much a user-pays kind of guy. I guess that fits too. He showed me a map of the toll road before it was built, and he explained to me its many advantages. I’m still happy with the scenic option.
Fortuna executes the complicated manoeuvre that allows us to avoid the toll road and we work our way through Mooloolaba and Maroochydore and the hinterland cane fields, towards and then past Mount Coolum on the coastal side, the road winding over hills and round headlands and through scrub, past resorts and golf courses and clusters of beach houses and blocks of units with the ocean and the morning sun to our right.
We’re meeting Lionel at eleven, she says. So we should be okay for time.
We drive into Noosa from Sunshine Beach, through the roundabout and up the hill and suddenly the sea is ahead of us, slipping in from the east and moving away up the coast in the wide curve of Laguna Bay. We fit ourselves into the tourist traffic and make slow progress towards Hastings Street.
Bloody tourists, Fortuna says, and looks at me and smiles. They only come here on holidays and they think they own the place.
If it wasn’t for tourists you’d be eating off those plates.
But today I’m not one of them, not moving along with the ambient cool of Hastings Street, like some less cool passenger. Today I’m here on business. Here in an old ute loaded with boxes sitting between a BMW and a Landcruiser waiting to move through the roundabout. Fortuna winds her window down and turns the radio up. At least the ute has FM, so we’re listening to Triple J. Stone Temple Pilots doing ‘Vasoline’. She sings along.
We turn into Hastings Street, where the cars move even more slowly as people look for parks.
Nearly there, she says.
She flicks the indicator and when the traffic allows turns right and drives under a building. We park and walk up stairs to street level, past a boutique with a very lonely designer look about it and into the elegant Galleria da Costa. A large balding man with a neat beard and a tropical shirt gives us a wave and walks over.
Oh Fortuna, you’ve brought a boy to meet me. How nice, he says, giving me a substantial smile.
This is Alex. Alex, this is Lionel.
Alex, it’s a pleasure. He shakes my hand. Come and I’ll show you both what I thought we’d do. He takes us to the far end of the gallery where two of Cliff’s plates are on display. I thought we could do something with them here. What do you think, Fortuna?
Here would be good. So what do you want, a couple more open and a couple stacked in boxes, maybe with one of the open ones leaning against the ones on top of each other? Maybe some of the grass around it all?
Oh yes. A sort of casual, country, tropical thing. Nodding away. You have your father’s eye, don’t you?
He comes with us down to the ute and helps carry the boxes to a storeroom.
You see, Alex, he says to me, as though Fortuna isn’t there, Fortuna’s father is a very talented man. A bit of a rough diamond, but what a gift. I want to be the only person in Noosa who sells him, or at least the only person selling these wonderful plates. We have an agreement where I pay him quite a lot and he makes them only for me. I have a couple of outlets here, so I think we’re both happy with the arrangement. He turns to Fortuna. Your father’s happy with me, darling?
Of course he is, Lionel.
Oh good.
When the ute is empty and the boxes stacked where he wants them she gives him an invoice. He tells me it was lovely to meet me and shakes my hand again. We leave him looking through the plates, working out which ones to take upstairs.
I think Lionel’s always slightly disappointed when it’s me bringing things up here, Fortuna says when we’re on the street again. He’s got this thing for Dad. He thinks he’s very special. And Dad wouldn’t even notice, of course. Lionel invites him to gallery openings, as though Mum doesn’t exist, and Dad of course thinks those sort of things are for wankers so he doesn’t go. And that means Lionel has this idea of him as a recluse, that he’s Dad’s only access to the outside world. It’s strangely romantic. Of course Lionel never leaves Noosa, so he never sees Dad selling plates at the Caloundra markets. For Lionel the world is a very beautiful place between Sunshine Beach and Tewantin.
And Cliff is a sort of rough fringe-dweller.
Exactly. It’s crazy isn’t it. But Lionel’s a nice guy, and he’s good for business.
We stop at Peregian, at a place Fortuna says makes great fish and chips, and we sit on the grass eating off the paper. Around us other people are doing the same, and there are families on blankets unpacking food, a baby misjudging an ice-cream, smearing it across its face and not caring, pointing at birds instead.
I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be a fish and chips person, I say to her.
Only sometimes. She smiles. Special occasions, you know. And she loads a chip into her mouth with a particular elegance.
My mother’s coming up tonight.
For the weekend?
Yeah.
Do I still get to see you? I mean, you should spend some time with your mother, I suppose.
I still want to see you. I’d really be qu
ite happy if my mother didn’t come up this weekend.
You’re probably not supposed to say that.
No. No. But I want to spend time with you. It’s like any time I’m not with you I’m just waiting till I am again.
I’m going red. I can feel I’m going red and my heart is speeding up and I’m feeling a little nauseated. I only just made it to the end of the last sentence, which sounded particularly stupid. Just when I wanted eloquence. She is looking at me, giving me an intense obscure unsmiling look and not looking away. I wonder if she is concerned that I might be unwell.
I know, she says and puts her hand on my hand and squeezes the fingers down into the grass.
We both look at the hands. In this very public place this seems to be all we can do, look at our hands till they make some discreet smoke. I’m squeezing back, she’s squeezing, and either we want each other very much or we’re arm wrestling. Or the planet has sprung a leak and we’re the only people who can save it. The whole moment has the hidden intensity of the look that seemed to begin it.
Let’s go, she says. I want to go.
So we bundle up the last of the chips and throw them in the bin and walk to the car. And all the time she has a tough, puzzled look about her. She turns the radio down.
Sometimes I want to be somewhere where it’s just us, she says. Where that’s all we have to think about. Where we don’t have to deal with orders for Lionel, or parents, or you and bloody uni.
I’ve never felt closer to her than right now, and all I can do is watch her. I can’t say how much I sometimes want this ideal world of just the two of us. This is ridiculous, out of control, all too much. The low trees pass in a blur, Mount Coolum comes and goes.
Your mother, she says, has she had other relationships?
What do you mean?
Since your father.
I don’t know.
You don’t know? If she did you’d know, wouldn’t you?
I guess so. So maybe that’s no. Maybe she hasn’t. I can’t think of anything like a relationship. She has friends who are men, but most of them are married, I think. When people come round to dinner it’s mainly couples.
Except for your mother.
Well, yeah. But I’m included now, so the numbers even up anyway.
So you go as your mother’s date?
No, I’m just there. She doesn’t have a date.
Why?
I don’t know.
I think about this. I have never thought about it before.
I don’t know.
How long has she been single?
Years. It’s been quite a few years since the divorce came through. For a while maybe she didn’t feel like being in a relationship.
But all those years? I think about it for the first time, trying to make sense of it, and maybe she decided just to look after me. She’s focusing on me, and I’m just taking it from her. Maybe that’s what’s been happening and I’ve been so busy with school and things, my things, I didn’t even know. Maybe she hasn’t had a relationship, hasn’t even tried, in case I don’t cope well. And she’s put everything into making sure I’m okay. She said to me once, Don’t let this put you off relationships, what’s happened with me and your father. Sometimes they work out, and you never know till you try. And she hasn’t had one since, since she said that a few years ago and it embarrassed me, and I haven’t wondered why she hasn’t had one since. I haven’t even thought about her that way. It never occurred to me that she was single, just that she wasn’t married anymore.
Maybe I’ll talk to her, I tell Fortuna. Just so she knows it’s fine by me. I should spend some time with her.
You should. But you should also spend some time with me.
We stop in at a supermarket at Kawana on the way home, and I buy the ingredients for bread.
Later Fortuna calls me and reads the recipe over the phone.
Your mother will like this, she says. It’s a good thing to do.
thirty-four
So I make bread, though it doesn’t seem like much to offer.
I sift and I mix and I stir and I knead, and I know when she’ll be here, round about, and I want it to be baking when she arrives, making the house smell like baking bread. My mother, who perhaps does not receive many gifts, will like this. I hope it works out. I am concerned about the imprecision of aspects of the recipe, such as until it forms a manageable but soft dough. I’m not sure I have the expertise to judge the manageability of dough. Still, even if I give her a loaf of bread baked with all the sophistication of a house brick she will thank me and tell me it’s the thought that counts. But this time I don’t want her to settle for that. I want her to like it, and I want her to have a good weekend. I think that thought has not previously crossed my mind in my entire life.
She will go home after work to change and pack a few things, and she will be here as the sun is setting.
She turns up, right on time and dressed like someone who has just come from the beach. Hi, she says, and before she’s finished her face has changed. What’s that? The smell?
Bread. Remember I said I was learning to make bread?
It smells good. It smells great.
She walks to the oven with her bag still in her hand, and opens the door to look.
It’s nearly ready. But I shouldn’t tell you that. It’s your bread. She’s pleased. I can tell she’s pleased. So when are we going to eat it?
I hadn’t thought of that. When do you want to eat it?
Well how about for dinner? We could make something to go with it. What do you think?
Sure.
What about pumpkin soup? It’d be good with pumpkin soup, do you think?
Yeah.
I’ve got some pumpkin up here, unless it’s gone off or you’ve eaten it.
I haven’t eaten it.
And I think I’ve got a copy of Uncle Paul’s recipe up here somewhere.
Paul is her brother. He’s a lawyer in Sydney now, and his pumpkin soup recipe is highly regarded. She finds it in a cupboard, a photocopy of the recipe in his handwriting on law firm letterhead paper, folded and left in an exercise book with other recipes.
So we go to work, as a team, even though we’ve never done this before. I start to peel the pumpkin with a very sharp knife, but this means my mother, concerned for my fingers, is unable to do anything but watch me and fidget. I give her the very sharp knife and the pumpkin and I peel potatoes instead. And after simmering and blending and straining it looks like we’ve made Uncle Paul’s pumpkin soup, and while it’s heating again my mother cuts pieces of the bread for us to try. It’s fine, a lot like warm fresh bread should be. She tells me it’s great.
When we’re eating the soup, she says, as though it’s nothing, So, how was your week?
Good, really good. How was yours?
Fine. How’s Fortuna? How’s that all going? I say nothing. I had not prepared an answer for this. I had concentrated on bread, and besides, I can’t even describe it to myself. I’m your mother, I can ask these questions. You can tell me.
It’s great. We’ve had a great week.
You like her then?
Yeah. Sure. She’s great. I like her a lot. Is it possible for you to keep that to yourself?
She gives me a look. Of course it is. Of course I can keep it to myself. What big secret have you told me anyway?
Nothing. There aren’t any big secrets to tell, but I’d still like to get back to Brisbane without everybody knowing things in advance. When people say How’s your holiday? I’d be happier if they didn’t already know the answer.
So I’m still not forgiven for the Juliet business?
No, that’s not what I meant. I’m just working all this out. I’d rather it wasn’t public knowledge.
Okay.
I can understand that. Are you coming back for your offer?
I don’t think so.
For a while she says nothing. I can see she’s trying to work out a diplomatic response.
I think I’ll stay here, and buy a paper on the twentieth.
Okay. Is that because you’re less stressed about the result now?
Well, I can’t affect the result now. I think I’ve finally come to terms with that. And I’d really rather not go through the stress of being there with everyone. I still want the result, but it’s not the only thing in my head any more.
Good. I think that’s good. That’s really good if your perspective’s changed a bit on that.
If I get Law, I do Law. If I get something else, I do that and see how it goes. Law would be good, I think, but it’s not everything.
I used to try to say that to you.
Yeah, I know. I didn’t listen. Anyway, it’s what I think now.
You’re still going to uni aren’t you?
Yes.
Good. You had me worried for a moment there.
Uni isn’t everything.
But you are still going?
Yes. I just said it isn’t everything.
Right. But it’s a good idea. It would be a sensible thing to do.
I know. That’s why I’m doing it. Besides, I don’t have any other skills. What else could I do? I’m trained to go to uni.
She is eating her soup very slowly, carefully, deliberately, and thinking about every word. Every word she speaks, every word I speak. As though this conversation determines my future.
Everything’s fine, I tell her. Nothing’s any different from last weekend, or a month ago. My plans are just the same.
You seem different.
I’m just the same.
Good.
So stop behaving as if this is all so weird. I’ve just been having a good time. Entirely within the law and within the bounds of reason. If I told you every detail, which I’m not inclined to do because you’re looking at me like I’m an alien, there is not a moment of which you would not approve.
