Goodbye Sweetheart

by Marion Halligan

  Anyway, she said, have a look, and see if you can make any sense.

  Ferdie and Lynette drank coffee, and he was eating nougat, which he loved, he thought it began with the edible rice paper which had so intrigued him as a child, and they looked through the lists. Most of the things Lynette had to do. There was a lot of telephoning. Aurora cleared the table, put the plates and glasses in the dishwasher, wrapped up the ham in its cloth bag. Lynette began ringing up. I spend my life on the phone, she sighed. Ferdie went and got firewood from the shed by the garage and stacked it beside the fireplace in the sitting room. He began to sweep the back terrace, but Lynette said, Never mind that, I’ve got the gardening man coming tomorrow. Aurora fossicked around and found in William’s study a big engraved silver cup which some long-ago Cecil had won for singing and arranged her flowers in it, putting them in the middle of the kitchen table. Ferdie remembered William intoning, Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Of course these weren’t festering yet. It was getting dark. He brought in the washing and was folding it when the doorbell rang.

  HELEN COMES HOME LATE

  The winter night had come suddenly. Fallen, yes, that was the word. There’d been almost no twilight, it seemed, and now it was dark. Helen didn’t care for being out in the dark. She always arranged it so she was home before the light went. Shopping at the organic vegetable shop had taken an inordinate amount of time. She was cross, with the night, with Ferdie, with herself. Why had he gone off with Aurora? Why had she let him? She could have said, Darling, do wait and come down with me, and he would have, he did like to please her, but always she did this, pushed him to go when she wanted him to stay, and got angry when she had made what she didn’t want happen.

  And now her street was full of parked cars. She could always get a spot outside her house; not tonight. Somebody must be having a party. On a Monday evening. She had to park several hundred metres away, and carry the food, and books, and marking, and walk. The footpath was old, cracked and bumpy; she made her way carefully, fearful of tripping. The street trees were strange bushy creatures, surviving in the sea winds, with many trunks and spiky leaves and half-dead branches.

  There was somebody hiding in one. Crouched up against the prickly branches. Grey in the night dark, formally draped, one of the kneeling angels from the cemetery, head bent, grieving. Neither man nor woman, the angel sex. Helen was hurrying past, not looking, remembering what she’d said to Ferdie about them obliging people to join them—had she meant that?—when a clear voice said, I know I dropped a shilling here.

  Not very encouraging, since you could think only ghosts would talk about shillings, but Helen stopped. The babble of the party came from a house over the road.

  A shilling, the voice said. I don’t suppose it’s very much money for some people, but it’s a shilling. The shape moved. Helen saw a pale old face in the gleam of light that is always there in cities. Pale and old but childlike too. The voice wasn’t querulous, it was patient.

  Shall I have a look? said Helen. She put her bags down and bent over; she wouldn’t kneel. I don’t know, she said, I think it’s too dark. Maybe you should come back in daylight.

  Do you think so? But what if somebody else finds it first?

  I don’t think that will happen. It’s quite a secret place. Hidden from an idle passerby.

  I suppose it is just a risk.

  You could go home and come back early in the morning. Which house do you live in? Shall I walk with you?

  Ooh, I don’t know. I don’t live here. Do I?

  Helen didn’t know. Years she had lived here but people kept to themselves. She supposed.

  Can you stand up? she asked. Then you can tell me where you live.

  It took a bit of doing. The old woman, that’s what she was, seemed reluctant to move, but it was because she was stiff from crouching. She had to lean all her weight on Helen to get upright. She had a kind of blanket around her shoulders; Helen decided it was a throw, the kind of thing you see cast over sofas in House and Garden photographs, that was what had fallen into a drapery as she squatted in the bush.

  Helen had trouble organising her vegetables and books and marking in one hand so she could free her other arm to support the old woman.

  What’s your name? she asked.

  The woman thought. Ruth, she said.

  Hello, Ruth. I’m Helen. Where are we going?

  Ruth had tottered several steps. Now she stopped. Don’t you know?

  Helen said, Is it one of these houses? Do you live in a house in this street? Do you have a bag? A purse?

  I had a shilling. I lost my shilling.

  They were walking towards Helen’s house, but at this pace it would be a while before they reached it. It was really dark now, but the street lights seemed to be working better. More people turned up for the party. Helen wondered how you found out the identity of an old lady alone in a dark suburb. A car came past, driving slowly; it stopped, backed, double-parked. A man and a woman got out and came hurrying up.

  Nellie, Nellie. What are you doing? the man said, in a kind but exasperated voice, an aren’t-you-a-naughty-child voice. Helen and Ruth looked at him.

  She’s dementing, he said.

  She’s Ruth. Maybe if you called her that.

  She’s called Nellie. Come on, Nellie. Time to go home.

  The old woman clung to Helen’s arm. Helen said, How do I know you’re not trying to kidnap her?

  As if, said the woman from the car.

  We’re from the Strawberry Springs Retirement Village. Nellie’s always wandering off. Looks totally decrepit but you’d be surprised how far she can get.

  Helen wondered if the old woman was Nellie, or if she was Ruth. Maybe Ruth was who she wanted to be.

  Ruth, she said.

  The old woman turned her head and looked at her.

  Do you want to go with these people?

  She’s got to. She’s already missed her tea. We can’t stuff about all night. The woman from the car was chewing gum, she moved it noisily about her mouth. She said, Who’d want to kidnap an old girl who’s more trouble than she’s worth? Come on, Nellie, get a move on.

  Cindy, easy does it. The man pulled back his parka and pointed to the name badge on his sweatshirt. It said ‘Strawberry Springs Retirement Village’, with Troy in big letters.

  We do have to get her back, he said.

  Ruth, are you going to go with Troy?

  Oh, Troy. Hello. Nice to meet you.

  We’re going in the car. You like the car. He held out his arm.

  Ruth looked from him to Helen, and back, then let go of Helen’s arm and took his. Are we going on a trip? she said.

  You wish, said Cindy, opening the back door. Ruth took a bit of getting in, but not because she was uncooperative.

  There, said Troy, that’s nice and comfy.

  I didn’t find my shilling, Ruth said.

  Helen said, I’ll look tomorrow, when it’s daylight.

  Helen went home to her dark cold house. Ruth, or maybe Nellie, was going back to warmth and lights and people, but Helen preferred her own darkness and cold. There was leftover chicken and she had bought some beans to cook. She put on a warm cardigan and turned on the television. She sat on the sofa and ate with her fingers. The beans were luxuriantly green and crisp. The television was dull, so she turned it off and got her book, along with a pot of tea, and wrapped herself in a rug. She thought of Ruth. I suppose it is the kindness of strangers, she said to herself. It is likely we will all come to it. And gratitude will not be a consideration. The phone rang.

  Hello, Ma. Just thought I’d ring and let you know I’m here safely.

  Oh Ferdie. How lovely to hear from you. Did you have a good trip?

  Ferdie described it, and Helen knew there were other people in the room.

  I’m staying at Lynette’s, he said. She sends her love.

  Oh.

  They talked on for a bit. Helen knew she was cold in manner, though she trie
d to be warm. Ferdie said, Lynette says she’s glad I’m here. There’s a lot to do. Tomorrow we’re planting olive trees.

  Olive trees? At a time like this?

  Well, they were arranged before. So we have to do something with them.

  Life goes on.

  I suppose so. Tell you what, I could bring one back for you. Plant it in your garden.

  Whatever would I do with an olive tree?

  Eat olives?

  They take months of processing. Even I know that.

  When she hung up, rage possessed her like a tremor, complete with tidal wave that gushed through her, annihilating all in its path, and then washed out again, leaving her trembling and weak. The tea was cold, so she boiled more water to heat it up, and sat on the couch, wrapped in the rug, drinking this hot sweet companion of so many solitary days. Lynette sends her love. Planting olive trees. Life goes on. She went to bed and slept and dreamt strange dreams, and woke and recalled the perfusionist recording the dreams that occur when the heart is taken out of the body, and thought, I know what I will do, and slept some more.

  In the morning she rang up school and said she was ill and wouldn’t be coming in. She never was ill, she had a lifetime of sick leave accrued. She knew how difficult it was to replace a teacher, that her colleagues would have to do extras, spend their free periods minding her classes. She’d done a great many extras in her time. She hunted through the recycled paper bin and found the flyer she was looking for. She had automatically thrown it out, but registered it nonetheless. She made tea and drank it with toast and Vegemite, all the while staring at the glossy page on the table in front of her.

  She took down from the mantelpiece the tarnished cloisonné box that had always sat there. In it were pins, buttons, a newspaper announcement of a death, useless coins. As she had hoped, she found a shilling. She walked around to the Strawberry Springs Retirement Village. Cindy answered the door.

  When Helen asked for Ruth she said, What? Oh, you mean Nellie. She took her to a big room with four beds. The old woman sat in an armchair, a blanket over her knees, her hands folded. Cindy shouted, Nellie! A visitor for ya.

  Nellie, if she was, gazed at the two women in wonderment. In the daylight you could see her hair, thick and white and twisted in a long schoolgirl plait over one shoulder. Her cheeks were pink and softly crumpled, her eyes grey, wide open and looking at the world. Helen said, I’ve brought your shilling.

  Oh, you can’t use those any more, she said. Then added, as if remembering her manners, Thank you, it’s very kind.

  Helen asked, Shall I call you Nellie?

  The woman gazed. Helen said, Would you prefer I called you Ruth?

  Ruth. Yes. Ruth died. Her eyes looked sideways for a moment. She smiled.

  So Helen still did not know what to say. Cindy had gone off. To Cindy she was Nellie. And to Troy. Helen would have liked to call her by the name that made her happy.

  Who was Ruth? she asked.

  I’m Ruth. Isn’t it a pretty name?

  Yes, Ruth, it’s a lovely name.

  There was a silence. Helen said, And how are you this morning? You didn’t take cold from your adventure, I hope?

  Oh no, I never take cold. It’s warm here. Very cosy. Central heating, you know.

  She unfolded her hands and began to turn her gold wedding ring round her finger. Her hands were age-spotted and elegant, the fingernails manicured and painted pale pink.

  Helen couldn’t think of any more conversation to make. She thought, at least it is companionship, my sitting here.

  Shall I come and visit you again?

  Oh yes, dear, that would be lovely.

  Helen felt baffled in her good intentions. She did not know how to talk to Nellie-Ruth, nor what to understand from her. Last night, in the dark, the cold, huddled by the bushes, the lost shilling, the difficulty of standing up, the tottering steps: it had all been simple compared with the near-empty dormitory and this pretty, limpid-eyed, mysterious woman.

  Helen put the shilling on the table beside the bed. On the way out she met Cindy, and tried to talk to her. She’s dementing, Cindy said. Nothing to be done.

  Does anyone come to visit? Any family?

  There’s a daughter. Once a year if you’re lucky. But then, why bother? It’s not as if she knows anyone. Could be Britney Spears for all she’d know.

  Helen walked along the street and round several corners to the cemetery. It was a high blue day, the sun warm, the world still. The coarse bright green seaside grass was thick and cushiony, soft to walk on. The graves sloped to the sea cliffs, since that was the lie of the land, but the headstones, the obelisks, the angels, the draperied urns, mostly turned their backs to the ocean. The marble of the angels was white and smooth, unaged, except for occasional drastic accidents, an arm broken off, a wing snapped and lying on the ground. She didn’t pay attention to names, to the deaths of babies, to the intricate family connections to be read on the headstones, or the puzzling gaps in the narrative: why is that adoring wife, that dear son, not buried here? Where are the other three children? What happened to the loving daughter? There was space to walk between the graves across the slope, but up or down you had to look for paths, for the graves pressed against one another like terrace houses in a street. Helen walked along these streets and looked at the intense blueness of the sea, the different intense blueness of the sky. Just that azure was the colour of the glossy brochure she had rescued from the recycling bin, the colour of promise, the colour of hope. The angels patiently gesturing on their plinths would not have looked out of place on that shining paper. The angels, ghostly and not placid, who slipped out into those other streets, of the suburb, in the dark, and drew you to them, called you and carried you back, made you one of them; she had thought that might be a pleasant thing. If you were so lucky. It was so still in the graveyard; you knew the teeming city was all around out there but you did not need to hear it or see it. A stout woman in a thick black coat knelt on a grave, pulling out weeds. She had brought a pickle jar of flowers, straggling winter blooms and evergreen leaves. There was nobody else in sight. The cushioning grass, the soundless sea, the marble and limestone and concrete, the one black obsidian figure she knew was there though it was out of sight, all hung poised in the blue silence of winter midday.

  Helen walked to the bus stop and sat on the seat. She would not see Aurora on the bus today. It was not the right time. Of course, she was in Canberra. Helen thought this with a detachment that suddenly seemed angelic. What did it matter? She got off at Market Street and walked up to David Jones. She was thinking about how much money she had. Her salary was good, she had no mortgage, her meals were frugal, her clothes old, her car ancient; she hardly ever spent any money. It was time that she did.

  BARBARA PAYS A VISIT

  Barbara decided not to take her bike. After school she caught the bus to Manuka and then walked the route she’d planned from a map. The house was behind tall iron gates, which stood open; a paved drive forked and went around either side of the spreading brick building. Which way? She went to the right. Steps led up to a narrow terrace and French windows, but that didn’t seem to be the entrance, there was a sofa halfway across the door. She kept on. More steps, lined with tubs of white camellias in bloom, and this did seem to be the front door.

  She rang the bell. A young man answered, tall, with dark soft hair falling half across his face.

  I’m looking for Mrs Cecil, she said.

  Oh yes, he said. Won’t you come in?

  She wondered about his accent. Very posh, it was, upper class. He stood back, and pointed to the seat against the side wall of the hall. It was like three rush-bottomed chairs put together, with carved cockle shells on its wooden back and cushions in Provençal Indian prints. I’ll tell Lynette, he said.

  Lynette was on the phone. Bring her in here, she muttered with one hand over the receiver. Ferdie supposed she knew who the visitor was. Lynette flapped her hand and grimaced; the person on the other e
nd was doing all the talking.

  Ferdie said, Shall I make some coffee? Barbara said thank you, and Lynette nodded. She had her eyes fixed on the great silver singing cup of flowers. Barbara looked at the flowers too. They were different sorts of lilies, with a powerful smell. Then she looked about the kitchen. It reminded her of her old house in Ainslie. The same sort of space, full of things, plates on dressers, jugs, copper bowls, saucepans hanging, a kitchen for serious cooking and eating. Plus odd curious things that were antique objects, useful once, decorations now. Thank god I have left all that behind, she said to herself, remembering with a pang the pale emptiness of her flat. She sat very straight on her chair and looked out of the corners of her eyes at Lynette, the searching gaze of the mistress at the wife, as though there are questions whose answers will be found in her mien. Small and plump, short dark curls, an urchin face under its overlay of tiredness and sorrow.

  She’d practised her opening lines on the bus. Hello, Mrs Cecil—may I call you Lynette? (Nobody, nobody, said Mrs any more; the plumber, the bank person, should you find one, the flight attendant, all said Hello Barbara, yes Barbara, no cheques please Barbara, have a nice day Barbara.) I know about you, but I expect, it’s quite likely, you won’t know about me. The thing is . . . In the bus she wasn’t sure what to say the thing was, and here she didn’t have any better idea; she supposed she was hoping that Lynette would say something and they would go on from there.

  Lynette said, Look, I’ll have to ring you back, and put the phone down. Sorry, she said to Barbara. Barbara knew she meant, Sorry for being otherwise occupied, and also, Sorry, but who are you?

  Barbara said, My name is Barbara . . . At that moment a girl came into the room. Barbara stood up, dropping her handbag from her lap. She put her hand over her mouth and stared at the girl. No sounds came, even muffled, from her mouth. Her eyes bulged. The girl looked at her with a frown.