He laughs with no sound. ‘Give me a fucking break.’
‘Listen,’ I say.
He pauses, looking unsure.
I’m naked in the bath and this isn’t the place to meet him head-on with this conversation. So I pause, stand and reach for a towel. But in my hesitation, he’s out the door.
‘Not now,’ he says.
‘We have to talk this out.’
He’s gone.
I relax back in the bath, let my muscles loosen. I drift into a memory, and in that embryonic state, I see Mum, Grace. She’s on the phone while frantically mashing potato. Everything is urgent: getting dinner, and the apparently life-or-death problems of whoever she’s talking to. She stabs a pointer finger out in front as if the caller is standing there. Sausages are spitting fat in a pan on the stove. Mum makes faces at me, waving and air-jabbing for me to attend to them.
I don’t move because my stomach aches, deep and low. I’m scared and need her. At school I found a bloodstain in my undies. I think I’ve put the pad on the wrong way; adhesive is sticking to my skin. Mum is multi-tasking. She stops thrashing the spuds and rolls the sausages in the pan, while still talking to this person and gesturing to me to help. I want to cry. With the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder, she pulls out plates and serves dinner. There’s a long backwards-and-forwards exchange about year-end bonuses and being over budget. Something about Sammy being a lying prick who for certain has fudged his numbers to max out. I don’t know who Sammy is, but he’s more important than me.
The call ends, and she turns to me. ‘Why the hell didn’t you get off your lazy backside and help with the dinner?’ she yells. Normally she’s beautiful, but now she’s ugly, the way she squints and stares, her neck craned forward.
I stand, stooped with a cramp, and walk towards my room.
‘No dinner for you, then,’ she says.
I hear the clang of the rubbish bin, the scrape of a fork on crockery.
So, the bath isn’t the balm I need. I dry myself off and dress, and the rest of the day falls into its routine. The girls step off the bus, climb into the car and come home. Autumn calving has started and Jemima goes to see an orphan. Isobel heads off to the piano and I wonder if it’s a joy for her; it seems more of a self-imposed duty, something I don’t understand a child having at that age.
A month ago she woke with a blood mark in her pyjama pants. We hugged and talked quietly, and she asked about my first period. It seemed right to share, but I didn’t spoil the moment. The embrace I said my mother gave me was a lie; it was six months before she realised I was menstruating.
Margie stays in her room and receives my offerings of tea, a plain salted biscuit with cheese, and the local newspaper. She doesn’t say thank you. Through the wall we hear Isobel playing a slow sonata; I think it’s Beethoven’s Opus 13. If I go in and watch, her shoulders will stiffen and she’ll lift her fingers off the keys.
‘How do you find the piano playing?’ I ask Margie.
‘She seems very dedicated,’ Margie replies, and I don’t know if that’s a compliment.
I don’t get a chance to speak to Ross until everyone else is asleep – the house is quiet and we’re alone. Ross is staring into his iPad, moving his shoulders, uneasy. He’s been withdrawn all evening; he knows what’s coming and I won’t let him avoid it.
The wind gently rattles the windows in their frames. The air is still warm.
I’m sitting opposite him, three placemats between us, the Stock & Land newspaper, Isobel’s drink bottle. I lean forward, my hands in front, making a speech like an actor on a stage, telling him how it feels to lose a child. And how Margie had a tough marriage and then Mark died. That he should remember how it was for us when we lost Harry.
He slaps the table. ‘Stop.’
I sit back.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says.
‘Tell me, then.’
Ross looks sideways, as if to get the nod from someone else. He is tired; I feel sorry for that.
‘Mum took an overdose after Mark checked-out. And when she came home from hospital, she moved into the front porch. For more than three years she slept there, till Dad died. I was younger than Isobel is now. She hardly came near me. Caroline wasn’t living at home. Keith Sanders was more of a parent to me than anyone. So give me a break. Don’t tell me you love my mother or how I should feel about her.’
I’m hurt because this is all news to me. All those precious times in bed at night when we’ve whispered our secrets and confessions to the ceiling. Those long-distance drives when there’s been nothing to do but talk. I knew about the drink-driving brother. And that Keith Sanders was ‘a good bloke who helped me a lot’. Ross went to his funeral a few years ago, somewhere down past Geelong in one of those seaside towns.
‘I’ve had a gutful of this,’ Ross says.
The chair scrapes; he stands. He looks sad as he leaves the room, and he’s stiff in his back. A pause while he pulls on his boots, and the back door slaps.
It’s past eleven and I don’t know where he’s going. I listen for a motor, some clue what he’s doing.
Through the window I see him sitting on the concrete bench, the outline of him, arms tightly crossed, head tilted to stare at the sky. We’ve sat there together hundreds of times, looking into the vast universe, the shimmer of stars in the darkness, feeling the scope of things.
So that’s what happened. Margie tried to take her own life. And for three years slept in the front enclosed porch; it’s where we put broken-down things that really should be taken to the tip. The first time I saw that room, it did have the feeling of once being lived in. The little television angled towards the striped divan. The row of chairs. An electric heater. But I can hardly believe any of this. She’s always been above the indignity of bad and shameful things. At least, that’s what I’ve always thought.
Chapter 18
Margie
SLEEP, when it comes, is always a blessing. During the night I’m thankful and surprised if I have more than three unbroken hours. When I wake I know the time by the tone and feel of light, the depth of silence, and my guess is almost always confirmed by the digital clock. Usually it’s around 2 am when I first stir, but tonight it’s not even midnight. Ten past eleven. I relax and breathe through the yoga exercise, visualising my resting body. This is what I learned from the classes I went to with Dot. Sometimes this helps me sleep. Tonight I’m impatient and go straight to my left foot, working through the toes, but my mind flits away. I’m hungry.
I sit up, twist around and put my feet on the floor. There’s a lethargy in my movements as though I’m dragging something heavy inside me. It’s no use just lying here, restless, thinking about random useless things. I went to bed too early, that’s the problem. At 8 pm a breeze was puffing out the curtains, magpies were carolling, Isobel was practising a melodic piece over and over. I felt so confined in this room I even hoped Jemima might pop in again to update me on a village she’s building on her iPad. The point is, I confused boredom for tiredness.
I turn the lamp on. Stella’s play is on the bedside table, but I resist picking it up. I’ve been reading it off and on and am almost finished Act One. My opinion is that the children are disrespectful, and I don’t understand the mother, why she bothers trying to explain herself. The jokes seem far-fetched, but then I’ve always been a serious person so perhaps I don’t understand them properly. And the vulgar language seems entirely unnecessary: to me, it’s evidence of a mind too lazy to find a better word to express oneself.
So here I am; it’s not yet midnight and I’m wide awake. I stand, pull my dressing-gown on and leave the room. Down the hallway, I push the walker to the kitchen. Two nights earlier I made this same nocturnal trek to the fridge, where I carefully pincered a cold sausage off a plate. Tonight I’m hoping to find the chocolate-chip muffins Jemima baked: she offered me one after dinner, but I declined. My steps are small and slow and I feel like a burglar. I could walk anywhere
in this house with a blindfold on, but tonight there’s enough moonlight to see; it illuminates the floorboards. And as I approach the family room I see the light is on, the door slightly ajar.
Ross’s voice, so like Norman’s – the cadence, measured and deliberate; the way he takes a breath or pauses between each sentence. I hear the word ‘overdose’ and it takes a moment for me to realise that it’s me my son is referring to. I’m suddenly hot, as I was during the menopause years. I glance around, thinking I should return to my room, but his words keep coming through that small gap in the door.
They are discussing me and I can hardly breathe. She’s imploring him to understand what it’s like to lose a child. I don’t know who Harry is.
Now Ross is saying – as though admitting to a shameful thing – that I slept out in the front porch for three years and hardly went near him. ‘Keith Sanders was more of a parent to me.’
And immediately those desolate years return. Mark. Chester. The only happiness in the house was the fake clapping and laughter coming out of the mindless television game shows that transfixed Norman; his eyes eager with anticipation.
‘Don’t tell me you love my mother or how I should feel about her,’ Ross says.
So Stella thinks she loves me. I’m warmed and horrified by this intimate revelation. Why would she think that?
She is naive. Ross is right to despise me. After his brother’s death, and things ending with Chester, and not being able to endure one more minute of Norman, I did withdraw – not just from Ross, but from everything. Keith Sanders and his wife took Ross on, a casual arrangement where they often had him over for meals. One year they took him on a holiday to Queensland. Keith died a couple of years ago without me ever acknowledging his kindness to Ross, or his quiet acceptance of our family troubles and working discreetly within those limitations.
Ross is angry now, saying he’s had a gutful.
My hip throbs, or I imagine it does. Sometimes I think it hurts, but when I concentrate it’s more of a phantom pain that I strangely welcome. The more physically disabled I am, the less likely they are to send me away – back to Bishop Street, entombed inside those silent rooms. It suited me once to live in exile, allowing Ross and Stella to get on with running Maryhill. But there’s no doubt I have an attachment to this place, which is quite different to anywhere else. Being in Mark’s room is special. Listening to the birds here is different from how it is in town. I appreciate little Jemima’s visits. Isobel’s agreeable piano playing. And Chester is close, coming to the house for the indulgence everyone allows Stella to have with her play. And Stella herself, as inappropriate as she is, hasn’t wavered in her service to me. Because she was a waitress in Melbourne, she does have experience in bringing food and taking away dirty dishes. But she also fluffs my pillows, checks if I’m too cold or hot and has a general demeanour of worrying about me – perhaps she missed her calling and should’ve been a nurse.
But I’ve worn out my welcome. Ross will insist I leave. Perhaps I should?
A chair scrapes; someone is standing. I’m afraid I’ll be found eavesdropping, so I scurry towards my room like the frightened old woman I am. I pass the girls’ bedrooms; their doors are wide open. I keep moving and now my hip really is hurting.
At the end of the long hallway, I hesitate. Ahead is the rarely used front door; red and green stained glass is on either side. To the left is the passageway to my room and to the right is the way to the enclosed front porch – the place where I retreated for three years, which included three long winters. Of course, I still ran the house, performing all the functions of a good housekeeper and gardener, but the porch was my sanctuary where I spent my spare time. Ross’s grievance against me is legitimate because I didn’t attend to him very well, not in the nurturing way of a good mother. My doctor wanted to give me pills for a depressed state. But I refused because in my own way I wasn’t unhappy – more like relieved because I had found a kind of peace in my separation from the family. I wasn’t capable of giving any more than I did.
If I return to my room I won’t sleep; there’s too much rattling around in my mind, things I must examine and put away again. So I push the walker towards my old haven. The doorknob is stiff and for a moment I think it’s locked, but with a little shove it clicks and creaks open. I shut the door behind me.
The porch smells of trapped dust and mice. The cane blinds are raised and moonlight filters through the closed glass louvres. I feel for the light switch and flick it on, but the bulb must’ve blown.
I look around. Yes, I know this place. Three cane chairs with green cushions are lined up underneath the windows. The fourth one is in my room. My old 32-inch television is on the floor; reception was often poor because the bunny-ear aerial was useless and had to be constantly moved around – but I managed to watch Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s wedding on it. A few times Ross came out and sat with me to watch the grainy images, but we didn’t like the same shows so he stopped coming.
Against the interior wall is a waist-high built-in bookcase with old hardbacks collected by the Ballantines over the years. I have read all of them. Most were gifts to Freddie from Evelyn; the inscriptions are in blue ink in her fine cursive handwriting. I cleared the top shelf for my bird books and notepads, but it’s now empty; they’re all at Bishop Street. But the Irish poet’s book is still here. I reach across and pick it up – the unclean feeling of mice – and hold it against my chest. I don’t need to open it; the words come and still speak to me. A cripple has to learn their own way of living. That was me when I moved in here, and in many ways is still true of me now.
From outside comes the mellow piping of a butcherbird. I turn, but of course I cannot see it.
My old bed is on the left – it’s more of a divan, upholstered in faded provincial stripes of pink, lemon and green. The folded pink quilt at the end was stitched by my mother and given to me when I turned twenty-one. I’d forgotten all about it. I leave my walker and shuffle to the bed, and sit. It’s very soft and I remember how it felt to lie down on it, the spongy cushion moulding to my shape. Tonight is unseasonably warm; during the three winters I spent in this south-facing porch, it was bitterly cold. I had an electric heater, a hot water bottle, layers of thermal underwear and thick socks, most often a pink beanie with a small pompom. I managed well enough.
On the other side of the room, Ross or Stella has dumped things: an old vacuum cleaner, thick laminated cylinders, a stack of padded blankets, a leather armchair with only one arm. I remember that chair when it was in one piece; it used to be Freddie’s office chair. Norman used it, too.
And so. Here I am in this old porch. This faraway room where I once found peace and rest. That Ross remembers this with such emotion shouldn’t be a surprise.
And that leads me to an unwelcome memory of Ross, how he came to be. I didn’t want more children after Caroline because submitting to Norman became increasingly intolerable; his demands were unspeakable. He would mock me, saying I was a prude – which, of course, was proven to be untrue because my experience with Chester was always intense and joyful in every way. In the end it was easier to surrender to Norman than be hurt. And there they are, low-flying black cockatoos, their tiny beating hearts, and I imagine myself flying too, being free. Ross was born in late March, just as the autumn calves began to drop. It only took one look at my new baby to see how like Norman he was: the shape of his eyes, his expressions, the brown curly hair. Mark was much more like me.
However, it’s no good going on about the past; remembering doesn’t change a thing. Part of it, I suppose, is about making sense of the decisions I made – and all that’s left is regret that I ever married Norman in the first place. It took Mark’s death to have Norman leave me alone. And Chester, too. He’s a Catholic and said he was bound to Laura for life. Perhaps he loved her. I used to grind my teeth while pondering if a man could love two women at the one time. We never seriously considered that we’d have more than what we did. Divorce was also
inconceivable for me. I didn’t then and wouldn’t now have the strength to withstand the public scandal. Besides, I had no money, nowhere else to go, and no training or skills except running a house. But, above all of that, my identity had been moulded here at Maryhill, and after twenty-four years of sharing a bed with Norman, I ended up in this strange enclosed front porch, my private sanctuary.
I ease myself off the divan and turn to the door. A visit to the toilet is required and a cup of tea would be very nice. Perhaps I’ll find the chocolate muffins. Ross and Stella will be in bed by now, so I’ll head to the bathroom, then on to the kitchen.
The moonlight guides me as I edge my way to the door, my hand along the bookcase till I grab the rubber handle of my walker. Then to the door. The knob is a little wobbly and I know it is stiff to turn. I twist and pull and it doesn’t open. I try again and rotate harder. The door remains closed and I’m baffled. I turn anticlockwise firmly, determined that this is how the door will open, but it stays shut. Backwards and forwards I turn and twist and push in and out – I just need to find the way this door wants to open.
It doesn’t budge. I stand back, breathing hard, trying to remember. No recollection comes of this door being a problem.
I think to call out, to bash the door and bring Ross or Stella to me. But I don’t because I’m already a burden, and I don’t want the fuss it will cause.
I go to the other door, which leads down wooden steps into the garden where the line of hydrangeas starts. It’s locked, the snib shifts, the door opens and I’m now free to step outside. But the wooden steps are quite steep and I feel unsure. I place my right foot on the top step and it moves, rotten and unstable. Across the garden, a nursery-rhyme moon is at mid-distance. The wavering rustle of leaves, the flickering of insects. The birds are sleeping.
I step inside and shut the door. Then I go back to the interior door, and I twist the knob once more, inhaling, hoping that it will simply unlock. It doesn’t move.
Stella and Margie Page 14
