Painted Love Letters

by Catherine Bateson

  ‘Let’s take your bag,’ Mum said, ‘you’ll have to share with Chrissie.’

  ‘That’ll be great, won’t it Chrissie. You don’t mind, do you darling?’

  I didn’t mind at all even though I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor. It was comfortable because I would wake up in the night and hear Nan snoring her faint, wet, snuffly snores. In the morning she’d get up with me and do the things Mum used to do, make my breakfast, make Dad a cup of tea and cut me sandwiches for lunch all while she talked, almost as though she was talking to herself, but out loud.

  ‘I knew,’ she said, ‘I knew when Keith died — it came to me like a blow that this was all we had, this one puny life and we’d better make the most of it. But raising a child by yourself, worrying about decisions — I lost it again.’

  ‘What did you lose, Nan?’

  She sat down at the kitchen table. Dad was watching her, drinking his tea slowly.

  ‘The knowledge of life,’ she said, and when she smiled directly at Dad, she looked so like Mum I nearly dropped my toast.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, hearing my voice whine upwards.

  ‘You have to be true to yourself,’ Dad said, nodding.

  ‘Boldly,’ Nan said, ‘without worrying what other people might think or how they’ll judge you. Like you and Rhetta, Dave. You’ve always grasped your dreams.’

  ‘That’s what you hated about me,’ Dad said, ‘you wanted Rhetta to marry some up and coming accountant.’

  Nan nodded, ‘Of course I did. I was wrong, though, wasn’t I? You’ve made her very happy.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Dad raised his mug of tea at her, ‘I have tried. I am sorry its ending like this.’

  ‘So am I, for both of you.’

  When Dad and Nan talked like that together, I hated it. It was as though between them they were inviting death into our house. They discussed it so calmly, at the kitchen table of all places, where you sat eating toast and honey. Mum didn’t like it, either.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ she said one day, before she hurried off to work. ‘Look at you, sitting there on your second pot of tea and the washing-up’s not even done yet.’

  ‘I’m learning that washing-up isn’t that important,’ Nan said, ‘why don’t you take the day off, Rhetta? Do you have to rush off like this?’

  ‘Yes! Yes I do! Of course I do! Stupid question!’ and Mum stalked off muttering.

  Sometimes it seemed as though she was just plain angry at Nan spending time with Dad.

  ‘What do you talk about?’ she’d ask Dad, ‘what do you both talk about?’

  ‘Just stuff, Rhetta, just stuff. Sometimes money stuff, sometimes the past. Sometimes we look at my art. She wants a coffin too, but she wants to paint it herself. She’s going to get Bodhi to measure her up.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Mum said, ‘it’s like a different world here. At work they’re all worried about — I don’t know, pimples, half of them, and boyfriends and whether or not they are or want to be, pregnant, and who got engaged. And I come here and it’s all coffins.’

  ‘You don’t have to work, Rhetta, she said she’s going to sell the house.’

  ‘I do have to work,’ Mum said, ‘of course I have to work. I couldn’t cope if I didn’t work.’

  Nan joined a yoga class and started Italian lessons. Some afternoons when I got home from school she’d be doing exercises in the lounge room or she and Dad would be sitting sort of together, sort of apart with their eyes closed and all you could hear was their breathing, Nan’s steady and regular, Dad’s all ragged and noisy.

  ‘What are you doing? Can I have some cake? I’m starving.’

  ‘Meditating,’ Dad said, ‘that’s what we’re doing. Sitting quietly listening to nothing. Counting our breaths. Stilling the chattering monkeys.’

  ‘What monkeys? Can I have two pieces?’

  ‘One only, don’t want to spoil your dinner.’ Nan stood up, ‘The monkeys inside our heads, Chrissie, the ones that chatter on about all life’s trivia. We want to be still enough so we disappear into our own hearts.’

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ my mother said, come home from the afternoon shift. ‘I thought she was supposed to be here, helping? How can she help if she’s never home?’

  ‘She cooked dinner,’ I said. ‘Look — lasagne.’

  ‘Where did she go, Dave?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dad said, ‘yoga or Italian probably. Or maybe to the movies with that old bloke she’s met?’

  ‘What bloke? Why doesn’t she talk to me? Why doesn’t she tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘You’re not home, Mum,’ I said, setting the table. ‘How can she tell you anything when you’re not here?’

  ‘Thanks, Chrissie, thanks a lot. That makes me feel very good, I don’t think. I have to work you know. I have to work.’

  ‘You don’t,’ Dad said softly reaching out to her, ‘you don’t have to work, Rhetta. Your mother’s offered us money.

  ‘You don’t understand do you,’ and Mum jumped up from the table. When she came back later she’d washed her waitressing make-up from her face and her hair hung loosely around her face.

  ‘I’m just not used to a mother who goes to yoga and speaks in Italian.’

  It was true Nan was starting to talk in little bits of Italian. She had a cassette tape she played. She had to answer the voices on the tape. It sounded like rain. The words lilted away from me, I could hear them but I didn’t know what they meant and I was always a little bit disappointed when Nan explained that she’d just asked where the nearest supermarket or railway station was.

  ‘Not to mention, goes out with a bloke,’ Dad said, watching Mum.

  ‘I’ll have to talk to her,’ Mum said.

  ‘That would be a really good idea, Rhetta. That might make things a lot easier for both of you.’

  ‘About the bloke,’ Mum said, ‘that’s all, Dave, just about this bloke.’

  ‘Have you changed, Nan?’ I asked when she got home late that night.

  ‘Good heavens, Chrissie, I thought you’d be sound asleep. What do you mean have I changed? I’ve still got my good trousers on.’

  ‘No, other stuff. Like inside.’

  She didn’t talk for a while. The room was filled with other night-time noises, her zipper being pulled down, the rustling sound of her shirt, Dad coughing down the hallway and Bongo dreaming of rabbits.

  ‘Yes,’ she said finally, ‘yes, I think I have changed. I should have done all this years ago. It’s too easy to get caught up in the stupid little things of life, to make them all that matters. It shouldn’t take death to make us see that, but often it does. Do you know, Chrissie, when I first met your mum’s father, we’d drive off in his car, he had an MG then, very smart, and we’d drive down to Watson’s Bay or Coogee. We’d sit for hours watching the waves. Sometimes we’d kiss, but a lot of the time we’d talk, planning our life. We were going to have five children, three boys and two girls. We were going to build a big house somewhere and I was going to have a garden full of roses out the front, vegies out the back. I was going to have chooks, too I loved chooks. He was going to drive off every day and come home every evening when the children would be all rosy from their baths. We’d sit in the evening and read, or listen to the radio.’

  ‘But you only had Mum, you didn’t have five kids.’

  ‘No, that’s right. In the end I could only have one child. We didn’t need a big house after all. Keith drove off every day, and came home as he promised and there were his girls, that’s what he called your mother and me, and Rhetta would be all rosy from her bath, but we didn’t sit together in the evening because there was always some work to do. And then Rhetta went to school and I did this and that. She grew into a leggy girl with a mind of her own, always shouting at me. And then Keith keeled over, just crumpled up one day.’

  ‘Oh Nan,’

  ‘Don’t cry, Chrissie, that’s not the point. The point is that once upon a time, I was a dreamer and somewhe
re along the way I forgot how to be. Your father’s helped me find that girl again.’

  ‘Is it true that you’ve met someone?’

  Nan laughed and bent right down to my mattress and slipped her arms around me, lifting me into a hug, ‘I’ve met a lot of people,’ she said, ‘I’ve met my yoga teacher, I’ve met my Italian teacher. Do you know, I’ve talked to more people this past month than I do all year round in Sydney?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’ I could smell her perfume. It wasn’t the powdery scent that clung to her during the day, but a deeper smell, with roses.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have met someone.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve bought jeans? Mum said she’s never seen you in jeans ever in her entire life. Dad said that was a shame, because they looked good on you.’

  ‘That was nice of your dad and no, I didn’t buy jeans because of Badger, I bought them because I’ve never worn them and I wanted to, just to see if I liked wearing them.’

  ‘Is Badger the bloke? And do you like wearing them?’ I was feeling sleepy now. I’d felt sleepy the moment Nan had put her arms around me, as though her perfume was a spell, a sleeping spell winding into my brain.

  ‘Yes, Badger’s the bloke, and yes, I like jeans. Good night, Chrissie, good night.’

  Badger came round after that, for dinner. Nan fussed in the kitchen with all Mum’s cook books spread across the table. She wasn’t used to it, she said. In the old days she would have just cooked a good plain roast but now we were all vegetarians, it was difficult. Mum got home and instead of heading straight for the shower and spending hours in there, washing the grease out of her hair, she put on her apron and made soothing noises at Nan as they both mixed and stirred. They made ravioli, just like they did in Italy, Nan said, and the kitchen smelled peaceful and warm. It reminded me of Nurralloo, when Mum would let me help her cook, but I didn’t really want to help this time. I just wanted to sit watching Mum and Nan.

  Badger arrived with bottles of wine, flowers for Nan and Mum and some tiny, brightly coloured fruit, nestled like little ornaments in a box like a chocolate box.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Marzipan fruit,’ he said.

  ‘It looks so real,’ I said sticking out my finger and delicately nudging a miniature apple, ‘what’s marzipan?’

  ‘Almonds,’ Nan replied, ‘and sugar. What a treat, Badger.’

  Badger looked pleased. He was a tall old man, older even than Nan. His hair was dark grey and stood up like a brush all over the top of his head. On either side of his mouth were deep lines that looked as though they’d swallow his smile, but when he did smile, they just vanished into the other, smaller creases on his face and his pale grey eyes seemed to darken all of sudden and I felt I had to smile back, quickly in case he turned away from me before he could see that I was glad he was there.

  ‘Why is he called Badger,’ I asked Nan later, ‘it’s weird.’

  ‘He’s a bit like a badger, I suppose,’ Nan said. She was doing her yoga in the lounge room. ‘Look at this, Chrissie, remember how stiff I was when I first started?’

  ‘What do you mean, like a badger?’

  ‘You’ve read The Wind in the Willows?’

  ‘When I was little,’ I said, ‘and anyway, that’s just a story.’

  ‘Well, badgers are private, shy creatures. They’re interesting, intriguing and very attractively striped.’

  ‘Badger hasn’t got stripes.’

  ‘No,’ Nan said, and smiled, ‘but he is very attractive.’

  ‘Nan’s in love,’ I told my mother when she came home from the afternoon shift, ‘she’s in love with Badger.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mum said, ‘they’re friends, that’s all.’

  ‘She said he was very attractive and she smiled in that way.’

  ‘What way?’

  ‘The way people smile when they’re thinking about kissing.’

  ‘Oh, Chrissie, you do make things up, you silly girl.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Dad said, coming up behind her and kissing her neck. ‘They’re in love, isn’t that great? Fancy walking into a senior’s yoga class and meeting someone who makes you smile because you can’t help thinking about kissing them. It’s a beautiful thing, Rhetta.’

  ‘It’s disgusting,’ Mum said, and she spent a long time in the shower and when she came out she was all shiny, as though she had been polished.

  ‘Why is it disgusting?’ I asked Dad, ‘Why does Mum think its disgusting, Nan and Badger?’

  ‘Your mother’s sad,’ Dad said, ‘and when you’re sad, everything’s hard, even kissing.’

  ‘Are you sad?’ As soon as I said it I could have bitten off my own tongue, but the words were out, hanging still in the air, like a sky message.

  ‘Of course I am,’ Dad said, stroking my hair, ‘I’m sad about leaving you all behind. Some days I feel so sad I can’t bear it. But it’s easier for me because I’m the one going on. Each day my body gives up a little more, so it becomes a little closer and I can feel another little piece of this life slipping off me, slipping away. My body is teaching me how to leave. You don’t have to understand that, Chrissie, but remember it, remember that while my heart is sad, it’s also being slowly taught to say goodbye. And I’m very pleased Nan’s here, too, you did the right thing. You’re a brave girl and that makes me feel good, knowing how brave you are. You really are your mother’s daughter.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ I said.

  We had conversations like that, my father and I, and Nan and I. We had an agreement that when I wanted to, I could stop them talking. When it got too much I could go to my room. Or I could walk right out of the house, with Bongo and we’d go down to the river and muck about until we both smelled of river mud and were so dirty we’d have to hose off out the back before we were allowed in the house.

  ‘You would never have let me get that dirty,’ Mum said when she came home to find Nan hosing me.

  ‘No,’ Nan agreed, ‘how stupid of me, Rhetta. I wanted you to be perfect, to show the world what a good mother I was. I am sorry. I felt if I could keep you clean and neat, you’d be safe. I didn’t know what else to do, how else to protect you.’

  ‘And you would never have hosed me down outside. You’d have smacked me hard, then you would have dragged me into the laundry and you’d have scrubbed until every inch of me was rubbed red. You were a terrible, terrible mother. You hated small children. You hated the mess I made. Why are you so goddamn wonderful now? Why do you have to be such a perfect mother to her, when you were never, never good to me?’

  The hose dropped and Nan went over to my mother and held her. I stood there dripping but they didn’t care. Mum was still shouting but the words were all muffled because she was shouting into Nan’s shoulder, and I couldn’t hear and I didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Were you a terrible mother?’ I asked Nan that night, ‘Did you really hate small children?’

  ‘I loved my house,’ Nan said, ‘It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the one we were going to build, Keith and I. I loved it because it was ours and it was perfect. And that’s how people judged you then — you were a good wife and mother if your children were clean and neat and your house was pretty and spotless. And you had to be able to make a good sponge.’

  ‘I wasn’t a natural housekeeper,’ Nan said, leaning back into her pillows. ‘I didn’t like having to do the same thing over and over and have nothing to show for it but an absence; an absence of dirt, an absence of mess. I had to force myself to do the floors every day and to dust every day and to tidy every day, and so, yes, I don’t think I was any fun as a mother.’

  ‘Mum was fun,’ I said, ‘in Nurralloo. We used to cook together, you know? She didn’t seem to mind how much flour went on the floor. Dad sketched us at the table.’

  ‘I’m sure Rhetta is a much, much, better mother than I was,’

  ‘She’s changed, and you’ve changed, and its gone topsy-turvy,’ I
said, squirming round to look at Nan, ‘Mum’s gone so hard, she snaps like a really fresh gingernut biscuit and you’ve gone soft.’

  ‘Apart from my thigh and calf muscles,’ Nan said laughing. ‘Don’t worry, Chrissie, your mother will stop snapping. She’s got a lot on her plate, more than anyone should have.’

  ‘She needn’t,’ I said, ‘Dad said she doesn’t have to work that hard.’

  ‘Maybe she does have to, just for a while, for herself. You don’t always work for the money. I wish I’d been able to work after Keith died. You know, when your mother went to school, I used to just go back to bed. I used to go back to bed and try to sleep for as long as I could, just so I wouldn’t have to feel so alone.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get a job?’

  Nan shrugged, ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘So did you sleep all the time?’

  ‘That’s what it felt like. A whole year, maybe two, of sleep. Like Snow White.’

  ‘And Badger’s woken you up?’ I snorted, thinking of Badger leaning over Nan, kissing her awake.

  ‘I think I’ve been slowly waking up, inch by inch, over the years. And this, not just Badger, but this whole thing — Dave, yoga, your mother and you, Chrissie, have been the final wake-up nudges.’

  ‘Will Mum sleep when, I mean if …’

  ‘No, she won’t sleep. She has to stay awake for you, Chrissie, and that’s why she’s working so hard now.’

  I didn’t understand everything. It didn’t seem likely that Nan really slept for that long but I also knew just how tired you could get being sad. Sadness rested over our house the way I had seen clouds sit on top of mountains, and some days we seemed to move slowly through it, as though the cloud had turned into leaden fog and each movement we made required just a little more effort than we could bear to make. Only Nan seemed to step through these times lightly. Maybe it was the yoga, I thought, strengthening her legs or maybe it was because she had done all that sleeping those years ago when Mum was a shouting teenager.

  One night Nan came home with Badger and they both looked smiley and secret. He whispered to her, in the hallway outside our room, ‘Do you want me to stick around?’