Stella and Margie

by Glenna Thomson

  I push my legs over the edge of the bed. My feet don’t quite touch the floor. I see the pilled ugly trackpants; how baggy they are.

  ‘Margie?’ she says softly. ‘Tell me what you really want to do.’

  ‘You decide. You’re in charge, not me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  And she turns and leaves me, and I sit dumbfounded, unsure if I’m going or staying. Or if she’s forgotten her offer to bring me breakfast in bed.

  Chapter 11

  Stella

  ROSS is a big lump on my dining chair and won’t move. He is proofreading the application and working too slowly. Whenever he sees something, he asks me questions – annoying things like checking I have the ABN right. We’ve only got thirty minutes to upload and I can’t handle it.

  ‘Get off my bloody chair,’ I say.

  ‘Settle down.’

  ‘It’s my application.’

  ‘You asked me to do this.’

  ‘But not this slow.’

  ‘You want it done properly?’

  My breath is short; I’m tense.

  ‘Go and find something else to do,’ he says.

  But I don’t leave. I sit beside him, my hands flat between my legs, leaning in, watching.

  He works through the pages, checking I’ve filled the required fields. He skips the irrelevant pages – I’m not Indigenous or working with an auspicing organisation. He reads the project summary and gives me a wink. ‘I’ll be going to this little show,’ he says, then asks, ‘Why do they want to know which federal electorate we’re in, when it’s state funding?’

  ‘Beats me,’ I say.

  ‘Isn’t Amber only seventeen?’ he asks. ‘Do you have a Working With Children Check?’

  ‘She’ll be eighteen by the time the production is on.’

  ‘It’s bullshit, all this suspicion.’ He puts his arm around my waist and pulls me in as he scrolls down the budget template. It’s balanced and too late to change anything now.

  I frown. ‘I’ve spoken to them and explained I’m uncertain about the marketing costs. I’ve put in five thousand, but I think it’s too much.’

  My arm is across his shoulder, and we’re both staring at the screen, like we’re expecting a tragedy, or a good ending – neither of us knows. He sees I’ve got every member of the theatre group’s CV, the references from the council, the confirmation from the Benalla Town Hall where the performances will be held, what is donated in-kind and what is to be paid for. There is nothing Victorian Rural Arts will not know about his project. The detail is professional, yet extraordinarily bureaucratic.

  ‘We’re done,’ Ross says.

  He lifts himself out of my chair. And I sit. He stands back and watches me upload the application, the written proposal, budget, MP3 files, photos, support letters. It’s all there.

  We glance at each other. ‘Send it,’ he says.

  The curser over Send. I click the mouse.

  The internet isn’t too bad today. We watch the upload. It takes less than five minutes, which is good for here.

  ‘Call them,’ he says. ‘Tell them you’ve sent it. So they don’t ignore it because it’s late.’

  So I do. And am told they can see it. I want some reaction, a hint that I will be successful, but I’m off the phone in a few seconds. I don’t know exactly when I can expect to hear back.

  ‘A coffee would be good,’ Ross says.

  I glare at him.

  ‘You’re in with a chance. Now go and make coffee.’

  I grind beans then froth milk in a metal jug until I can’t bear the heat on my hand. When it comes to coffee, I’m still a waitress in this house. I can do ferns and love hearts with the crema. Once I did a teardrop to let Ross know I was upset about something, and he pulled me onto his lap and let me talk through the problem. He says my lattes are the best, that he can’t do them himself, yet I’ve never seen him try. But I don’t mind; it’s all part of the things we do – most days he makes our bed, and once a week he changes all the sheets and puts them through the wash. And he cooks half the time: mostly barbecues, although he does a good lamb roast.

  Ross opens the dining-room door to the courtyard. I’m holding two mugs and teaspoons. We sit on the concrete bench. A Manchurian pear is turning, but only on the west-facing side where it gets the afternoon sun, so there’s a panel of red among green, sparkling gold leaves at the top. The sun is warm and the sky is high; a few thin clouds are scattered. A helicopter is droning far away, getting closer. We look up and wait. I can’t see it – the sound is confusing, it’s everywhere, and not where Ross points. Then I see it, now passing high over the blue spruce, the rotors a dark, gauzy circle. I turn away before Ross does.

  ‘Ambulance,’ he says. I think of the accident that’s happened somewhere to cause this emergency flight to Melbourne. And I bet Ross is thinking he’d love to be up there flying it. He knows the chopper model, everything about it.

  Hospitals and patients – and I remember the call from rehab in Wangaratta. ‘They said they had a bed for your mum.’

  Ross nods, good.

  ‘I spoke to her,’ I say. ‘She’s staying here.’

  He jerks around to face me. ‘Don’t be bats. Of course she’s bloody well going.’

  ‘No. I’ve spoken to her.’

  ‘What the hell? Why didn’t you speak to me? We’ll never get rid of her.’

  ‘It’s till she gets better and can look after herself.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘What’s it to you? I’m the one who runs around after her.’

  ‘Stell,’ he says. I’m looking at his lovely face; he’s got the first show of grey in his sideburns. Behind him is a soft pink rose with dense layers of petals; a butterfly flits by. ‘Because she judges everything here. She’s always belittled you and she does it now. And I can’t stand the way she’s always looking around. She hates our food. She hates the way we live.’

  ‘Margie hates everything.’

  ‘Then what the hell?’ He raises his hands.

  ‘She’s got no one, Ross.’

  He starts scraping the inside of his mug with the teaspoon to get the last of the froth.

  ‘She told me your dad wasn’t easy to live with. That she had to do things his way to keep the peace. What’s that about?’

  ‘I’m not going there,’ he says.

  ‘Tell me, I want to know.’ My voice is hard, impatient – because he’s still scratching the inside of his mug with the bloody teaspoon and it drives me crazy.

  ‘Why are we even talking about this shit?’ he asks.

  It is the rolling of rubber on wood, or the hard puff of breath, that makes me turn. Margie is hurrying away, pushing the wheelie walker. Flat grey hair, the leaning line of her spine, her orange cardigan. In her haste to cross the veranda to the front door, she limps badly. Wisteria drapes along the eaves, its new shoots spring outward and its trunk winds around the post; for more than a century they’ve forged into one strength, together holding up the veranda.

  I hear the slap of the wire door.

  ‘She heard us,’ I say.

  ‘I can’t believe you knocked back the bed at rehab.’

  ‘We should be looking after her.’

  ‘Stell, you’re not listening. She’s better off with the professionals looking after her. Not you. And you’ve got to get on with all the work producing the play.’

  ‘I don’t like you for this.’

  Ross stands. ‘What the hell have I done?’

  I stand too. ‘I want you to go and sort this out with her, Ross. Tell her you want her to stay.’

  ‘But I don’t want her to stay.’

  He has that defiant look – it’s the shift of his eyes – and something seems to tighten inside him, making him taller, harder and indifferent. He puts his coffee mug on the bench and walks away. He will go down to the shed, or a paddock, to do some hard-jawed job that will fill his mind until he has reasoned all the arguments, and only then will we be able
to talk.

  Margie is sitting in the centre of her room on the wheelie walker’s chair. The white paper-and-wire globe – bigger than a beach ball – is right above her head. Originally, I had thought this room would be a good place for me to write my play; its proximity to the kitchen and family room meant I could hear what was going on. But the dining room kept drawing me back. That space felt better. So even though I’d gone to the trouble of painting it, putting the light fitting up that I’d had in my Brunswick bedroom, I didn’t like the vibe in here.

  Margie has one arm behind her as if to relieve pain in her back. Her lips are tight.

  There’s nothing for it, so I ask her if she heard our conversation.

  She dismisses me, a wave of her hand. ‘Call the Wangaratta rehab people,’ she says, ‘and arrange for me to go. I don’t want to stay another minute here. It was an error of judgement on my behalf to come in the first place. I don’t fit into this household, not at all.’

  ‘Margie –’

  She raises the palm of her hand. ‘Don’t. Just call.’

  I can’t see a solution. She is hurt and determined, and if I was her I’d be the same.

  My phone is in my pocket. I dial. The rehab administrator answers, and I explain that Margie has changed her mind and would now like to take the vacant bed.

  There is a pause. I glance at Margie. Her eyes are wide, staring, waiting.

  I’m told the bed has already been taken. I shake my head. ‘Okay,’ I say to the administrator, who tells me that he doesn’t know when another bed will be available. But there are some in Albury, or something can be found in Melbourne. And if it’s an emergency, the local hospital will possibly be able to receive her.

  When I hang up, I tell Margie what I know. ‘I’m not driving you two hours to Albury,’ I say, ‘or two hours to Melbourne when you’ve got a perfectly good bed here. The funding application has gone through. I can now look after you properly.’

  She stares at the dull oak floorboards. Then slowly turns to the window as if she’s heard something.

  Chapter 12

  Margie

  THERE’S an eastern rosella outside in the Japanese maple. Its song is quite different from that of the crimson rosella, but for years I had them confused. And I had the king parrot mixed up with them as well. The problem wasn’t in identifying the species, but in connecting each song to the right bird because they must be sighted while singing.

  I used to study birds while gardening: their voices, habits, breeding. I read various bird books and wrote my own lengthy notes. It was a private daily ritual to record what birdlife I’d seen in the garden each day.

  Stella is leaning against the doorframe. She has a predicament; we all have a predicament. But I will not do what I feel like doing – implore her to let me stay. I am practised at controlling rage and despair. I’ve got decades of experience at holding it in, swallowing, feeling its weight in my chest, forcing myself to breathe. Early on in my marriage to Norman, I discovered that walking fast everywhere – doing my daily housework, gardening, meals, laundry – I could somehow escape my problems; that while I stayed on the move, my thoughts and feelings were hard to catch because I was distracted, I was busy.

  But that is irrelevant and no use. I cannot move quickly anymore.

  Ross is a disappointment. In fact, the whole business of motherhood has worn me down. Mark is dead. Caroline rarely calls me. And here I am, beholden to this woman who’s wearing jeans with holes in them and a jumper that is too big for her, the neck falling over one porcelain shoulder.

  My life has come to this. I feel my breath; it’s even and shallow. I lick my lips and shift my weight in the seat. If this is a fight, I have no strength and few options.

  I deliver my message to Stella. ‘Tell Ross that in order to stay out of his way, I will not leave this room, except to use the bathroom, until another bed becomes available in Wangaratta. And I want your word that when that happens, you’ll take me there immediately.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous, Margie. You can’t lock yourself up in here. I think we all just need to chill out and take one day at a time. And don’t worry about Ross.’

  I will not be counselled by her. So I stand and twist around and push myself to the bed.

  ‘This library book is overdue,’ I say, pointing at Maggie Smith’s face on the bedside table.

  I hate these dramatics. Stella watches me sit down, swing my legs around and push back against the pillows. The sheets could do with changing, but I don’t mention it. I lean forward and pull the bedding over me. And there: I’m in bed and here I will stay.

  I close my eyes to let her know she is blocked out; for me she’s not in the room. I wait for her footfall, the click of the door closing, but there’s silence. Minutes pass and I’m sure she has somehow gone without making a sound, but when I open my eyes she’s standing there with her arms crossed, looking out the window.

  ‘I’ll give the room a vac and quick dust,’ she says. ‘It’ll be nicer in here for you. And maybe if I change the position of the bed, you could see out the window into the garden.’ Then she looks at me, a shift in energy; her voice changes. ‘Actually, I was going to put you in the other guestroom, Mark’s old room – it’s bigger and much nicer than in here. But I thought it might be upsetting for you. I’ve painted it and changed it around, and if you’d like I can move you in there now. The bed is queen-size and you’d be looking out at the climbing rose, and there’s a really nice shade tree. You’d see the birds, not just hear them. Would you like that? It’s quieter than in here and closer to the bathroom.’

  I turn my head to face the wall. The idea of Mark’s bedroom touches me greatly, that special place, and I cannot think of anywhere else I would rather be.

  ‘Well?’ She is looking at me, bending down. The neck of her jumper gapes; I see the soft sponge of her breasts above the cup of a hot-pink bra. She should notice this herself, pull it back and straighten up. But she is touching my hand.

  I curl my fingers away. I don’t want to be touched; even after her kindness I want to uphold a semblance of dignity, some poise, which only the appearance of aloofness provides. But she must see through me. She passes me a tissue so I can wipe my eyes. My tears are leaky and tepid, and I had not properly felt them, but there they are. I blow my nose.

  A few minutes later, Stella brings me a mug of tea and a biscuit. She is hurrying, doesn’t speak, just puts it on the bedside table with The Weekly Times. ‘Give me half an hour,’ she says. ‘I’ll make up the bed and give the room a quick going-over.’

  And as she’s leaving, I hear myself, so quiet and pathetically defiant. ‘I still want to go to rehab.’

  Then she is away. I hear the hum of the vacuum cleaner, but not for very long, not enough for a good going-over.

  There is another bird calling now, too distant to properly hear. But if I had to guess, I’d say a black-faced cuckoo-shrike.

  Jemima comes in and announces that the spare bedroom is ready.

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘Did you know this used to be my storeroom?’

  ‘What did you store in here?’

  ‘Bottled fruit and preserves.’

  ‘What’s preserves?’

  I tell her, but she just stares at me as if I’m making it up.

  ‘We didn’t go to the shops like people do today,’ I say.

  ‘Why?’

  It gets tedious, all this explaining. ‘Never mind.’

  I push the walker down the hallway. Ross is probably outside, but just in case he’s somewhere in the house, I move as fast as I can manage. The floors are a disgrace, so I look up. The cornices have always been pretty, a design of leafy swirls – they need repainting, everything does; it was overdue even when I was a permanent resident here. And that’s what is obvious to me: how much money and work is required to preserve an old place like this.

  Stella and Ross’s bedroom door is wide open. Of course, I know the room very well and don’t want the memories, not
now, not ever. I’m surprised to see that the old fireplace is exposed, with its scalloped oak mantel and inlaid ceramic brown tiles. The oil heater I put in after Norman died has been removed, the plaster pulled away, yet some of it remains as if deliberately cut into a curved shape. Whoever did this, it’s not a good job. Their bed is unmade; a white doona plumps like a cloud. There are clothes on the floor. Shoes scattered.

  I keep pushing myself down the long hallway, past the girls’ rooms. The front door is ahead, panelled in red and green stained glass. I turn left.

  Mark’s bedroom is now the colour of avocado dip: a little too dark, perhaps, but the cream above the picture rail is a good contrast. The frayed fawn and crimson Persian rug that fills the large space between the bed and wardrobe was always in the family room, at the end where the television stands now. I find it disconcerting to notice things that have been moved around, as though I’m always trying to solve a puzzle. I recognise a green-cushioned cane chair from the enclosed front veranda and a glass-top table I’ve never seen before, with a lamp and an empty vase sitting in the centre. The double windows are open and the lace curtain puffs into the room with the breeze. The bed is against the back wall with a direct view outside. It is quite different to when Mark slept here, but similar enough. I lie on the crisp sheets and prop myself up on the pillows. It’s quiet here, at the front of the house.

  I exhale, and smile.

  The piano starts.

  My room shares a wall with the front room. The tick-tock of a metronome, and Isobel’s fingers are racing through scales and arpeggios. Up and down the keys, the tempo increases. I’d not thought of this; perhaps Stella didn’t either. The noise will disturb my peace and pleasure at being in this lovely private part of the house.

  Isobel keeps playing without seeming to tire. I’m anxious and clench my jaw. When I was about her age I had piano lessons for a short while, but I don’t have good memories of them: the teacher’s stained teeth, gasping at my errors as she leaned forward and scrawled lead pencil on the sheet music, her little dog on her lap.