Ripples on a Pond

by Joy Dettman

  ‘John phoned.’

  She waited for more, but the message given, he returned to the couch. She looked at her watch, determined to be at the crèche when the hands reached the four and the twelve. Plenty of time.

  ‘He’s worried about you,’ she said. ‘Do you know how lucky you are to have a brother to worry about you? Mummy’s brother didn’t even fly over for her funeral.’ He’d sent a cheap bunch of flowers and a condolence card.

  ‘She’s not coming back, Daddy. Get over it.’

  No response from the couch. ‘People die every day. They die everywhere. Planes fall from the sky, buses full of tourists crash, mothers and their kids die on the roads. Dying is a contagious disease most of us fight against catching, and you have to start fighting it. Robin needs you.’

  His hand was picking at something on his knee. She sucked again on her cigarette, waiting for his fingers to stop picking at whatever they were picking at.

  ‘Remember the night you and Mummy told me about Jenny and Woody Creek? You told me that Jenny’s town was a Pandora’s box?’

  Maybe he remembered. He’d stopped picking at his knee.

  ‘You were right. You were probably right about a lot of things,’ she said. ‘I close the lid on that town, but its spring is hinged. Its lid won’t stay shut.’

  May as well talk to the man in the moon but she had time to fill so persisted.

  ‘Jenny’s stepdaughter is in a women’s prison down here. Raelene, the one who lives with – or lived with – Dino Collins.’

  That lifted his chin. He remembered Collins – and remembered why John had phoned.

  ‘Miss Robertson is in hospital. A fall,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  Her question confused him. Where else but at Amberley? ‘She was on the floor.’

  ‘Is she all right?’

  He shook his head. She wasn’t, or he didn’t know.

  ‘Mummy carried her,’ Cara said. Her butt dropped into her ashtray jar, she screwed down the lid and placed the jar into its corner. It was time to get Robin.

  She phoned John once the two were in bed. They’d found the old lady unconscious on her kitchen floor.

  ‘A stroke, either last night, or the night before,’ John said.

  Cara hung up the phone and it rang. She snatched it before it disturbed the sleepers.

  Georgie, and tonight she could find nothing to say to her. ‘I won’t talk,’ she said. ‘I’ve just learned that an old friend is seriously ill.’

  Went to bed to toss and turn. Tossed until two when she rose and crept into the bathroom to steal one of Robert’s Valium pills. He’d kept his painkillers in the bathroom cabinet at Amberley and had placed their replacements into her mirrored cabinet, and tonight she needed something to turn off her brain.

  And that bottle poured only three pills to her palm.

  How long since she’d had the prescription filled? She stood staring at those three pills, then at the bottle. The date on its label told her how many pills Robert had been swallowing each day to maintain his zombie state. Ten days ago that bottle had contained fifty.

  Knew now why he’d knocked on the bathroom door this afternoon, not to use her loo but to get a pill. Knew why he was having difficulty forming sentences. Knew he needed a pill supervisor.

  Myrtle had taken charge of his painkillers after his knee operation when he’d clung too long to his familiar pain. Cara hadn’t been supervising – and didn’t want to.

  In England, she’d told Morrie to find a nursing home for Bernard. In England she’d possessed a functional mind. In England she swallowed only contraceptive pills.

  She wasn’t in England. She was here, and somehow she had to get her head together so she could cope with Robert’s out of control head. She dropped two pills back into the bottle and stared at the third, knowing it would give her sleep – and how do you get your head together when you can’t sleep?

  She stole five hours of wipe-out sleep that night and would have stolen more had the alarm not woken her.

  He was asleep when they left the unit at eight thirty. He was awake when they returned and he snatched at his full bottle of zombie pills like an ill-mannered kid.

  ‘They’re killing you, Daddy.’

  Watched his shaking old hands struggling to remove the lid. Robin watched him. Cara filled a glass with water. She picked up five spilt pills.

  One had rolled beneath the refrigerator. She retrieved it with her bread knife later and ear-marked it for herself.

  At nine, ready to shout herself a longer night of wipe-out sleep, the phone rang.

  Please God, not Georgie.

  John. Miss Robertson was dead. She hadn’t regained consciousness, and Cara’s initial response was annoyance. She’d bathed, brushed her teeth; she wanted her bed, and Miss Robertson had named her and Myrtle her executrixes, and there was no more Myrtle.

  I am an island, an island of sand, and the waves are washing me away.

  Placed the pill back into the bottle and for minutes stood looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and her face looked as grey as Robert’s.

  Walked out and stood a moment looking down at his unshaven face before shaking his shoulder.

  ‘Miss Robertson died.’ His response may have been envy. ‘We’ll have to go up there, Daddy.’

  ‘John will–’

  ‘We will. You and Mummy were her family. Her family will bury her.’

  He tucked his head again into the pillow, pulled the blanket around his ears.

  ‘There’s a new nursing home in Ballarat. Cathy is looking into getting you a bed there. If you don’t want to fly up to Sydney with me and Robin you can move into the nursing home before we go.’

  ‘Just leave me be,’ he said.

  ‘The nursing home staff will leave you be. They’ll give you bed baths, bring you bed pans, won’t make you get out of bed. They’ll stuff you so full of your zombie pills you won’t know if you’re alive or dead – and they won’t care. I care. Robin cares.’

  No comment.

  Gave up and went out to the balcony in her pyjamas, leaned over the railing to blow smoke into the night, her mind circling from Ballarat to Sydney, from funerals to vacant units. If she let Miss Robertson’s and Robert’s units, the rent she received from the two would balance the loss of Robert’s pension, which would go to pay for the nursing home, so Cathy had said.

  Plane tickets to Sydney cost money. She had none, or minimal. Robert’s cheque account would have to pay. Couldn’t see him flying up there. Couldn’t leave him alone down here either.

  At midnight he was up and heading for the bathroom. She was waiting with his chequebook and a biro when he came out. He signed a blank cheque and she helped herself to a pill.

  The travel agent near the school booked three return flights, leaving at four fifty on Friday and returning on Monday evening – and maybe Robert wouldn’t use his return ticket. John was his brother. He had Beth, sons, daughters. Just get Robert up there. Let John make the decision on what to do with him. She couldn’t.

  She collected Robin from the crèche at three forty-five and asked him to guess where they were going after crèche on Friday.

  ‘To the big shop with the car rides.’ He liked those cars that gave one-minute rides when a coin was dropped into a slot.

  ‘Guess again.’

  He guessed all the way home, was still guessing when she unlocked the unit door.

  Her nose warned her.

  ‘Sit down on the steps, Robbie. Papa has been sick.’

  He could smell it too. He held his nose and backed off. Didn’t see his Papa lying in his own vomit, or the open pill bottle on the kitchen sink.

  Cara saw, from a distance, then placed a greater distance between her and the couch and dialled triple zero.

  They put her through to a voice that asked questions. She didn’t know if he was unconscious or dead. Didn’t know how many pills he’d taken. Didn’t know when he’d taken them. Did
n’t know how many pills his stomach had rejected.

  Left the phone off the hook and found out how many pills when she upended the bottle. Placed it beside the phone, and her hand covering her nose, her mouth, she went to the mess of him.

  ‘He’s breathing.’ She picked up the dishcloth, used it to wipe the stubble of his face, make it clean enough to slap. Slapped again.

  And Robin came to the door. ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Go back to the steps!’

  Slapped, shook him.

  They came, in minutes that seemed like hours, two men in uniform, with bags and a stretcher. They loaded Robert onto the stretcher, and when Robin saw them carrying his papa from the unit, he fought those men as he hadn’t fought the ones who had carried Nanny away. He stamped his feet and screamed for his papa. He fought Cara when she gathered him into her arms, then, broken-hearted, he howled on her neck as Robert disappeared down the stairs.

  Cara watched them go, knowing she should follow the ambulance to the hospital. That’s what people did – or what they did on television.

  I am an abandoned island, she thought. I am a rocky island. Robin sobbing in her arms, she went inside, closed the door and unlocked the balcony door.

  ‘Sit out here, Robbie, while Mummy cleans up the mess.’

  Not a tear in her. Anger? Plenty of that. She stuffed Robert’s blankets, his sheets and pillow into a garbage bag. Wiped the worst of the mess up with newspapers, stuffed it into the same bag then ran it down to the bins.

  She scrubbed then, the couch, the carpet. She dragged and pushed the couch back against the wall, then washed it again with vinegar, washed the floor with vinegar, and when the mess was gone from view if not from the air, she turned on the television and sat Robin down on her lone easy chair to watch that flashing screen while she fought to open windows she’d never previously opened. Opened every window wide.

  And how dare he? How dare he do this to her and to his grandson?

  She rang the hospital at six. That’s what people on television do. He was alive. She rang John. Beth picked up the phone.

  ‘Dad’s in hospital.’

  ‘Is he okay?’ John’s voice.

  ‘They say so.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Miss Robertson’s funeral. We’ll take care of it,’ John said.

  ‘Robin and I will be up tomorrow night,’ Cara said.

  ‘You stay down there and take care of your dad, love,’ he said.

  ‘The hospital is taking care of him. We’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Slept without needing pills that night. Slept with the windows and her balcony door wide open. You can’t lock yourself away from trouble. It surrounds you. There comes a time when you have to get your back to a wall and fight.

  *

  Cancelled one flight before school. She’d get Robert’s money back, or some of it. Called the hospital from school. Her father’s condition was stable. Visiting hours were from two to four this afternoon and from seven to eight thirty this evening.

  He’d have no visitors. The plane left at four fifty. They’d drive from the crèche to the airport and by seven, they’d be in Sydney. She offered John’s Sydney number to the woman, told her she could be contacted at that number until Monday.

  She had no sympathy for those who took – or attempted to take – their own lives. To Cara, suicide was a narcissistic act, a final, filthy punishment for those who had failed in their duty of care. If not for the stench of vomit, Robin would have run ahead into the unit to turn on his television show. Robert had given no thought to what might come later nor to the one who’d have to clean up the mess he’d left behind. That day she gave no thought to him.

  Flew away from her problems at four fifty, her big boy at her side, and by six thirty they were at Amberley, having a fish and chips picnic on the floor beside Myrtle’s open camphorwood chest, Robin giggling at tiny singlets he’d once worn, at the embroidered gowns and hand-knitted cardigans, saved by Myrtle for future grandchildren.

  ‘Boys don’t wear dresses,’ he said, his mouth full.

  ‘Boy babies do, when they’re little enough to wear nappies,’ she said.

  His stroller, still in service at the time of Myrtle’s death, made him ask how long since Nanny went away. He was much too big to ride in it now. He was too big to sleep in a baby’s cot.

  ‘I’m bigger,’ Cara said. ‘If I sleep in your cot, I’ll have to stick my arms and legs out through the bars.’

  ‘You can sleep in Papa’s bed.’

  ‘Papa’s bed is like Father Bear’s. It’s much too hard.’

  ‘Why did he get sick, Mummy?’

  ‘He misses Nanny.’

  ‘We didn’t get sick.’

  ‘Maybe we got a little bit sick, but we’re better now, and the hospital and the doctors will make Papa better.’

  Maybe.

  Didn’t know what was going to happen with him, but he was down there and she was up here to bury an old lady she’d known all of her life – and it felt like a holiday.

  ‘How many days when we go back?’ he asked.

  ‘Tonight, tomorrow night, Sunday night, then on Monday night we fly home.’

  ‘And Papa will come home?’

  Maybe so. Maybe not.

  Tucked her boy into his cot late that night and just for fun, they sang ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ and ‘Baa Baa, Black Sheep’, and they giggled so much they had to have a drink of milk and a proper song. He liked ‘Doggie in the Window’, and knew all of the words. They sang it together, then he showed her how big he was. He put his arms through the bars and his toes too, and she kissed his toes and it tickled and he giggled again.

  A happy night. They could be so happy together, just the two of them.

  *

  Late before she used Miss Robertson’s key. Not a happy task, the searching through private papers for the name of a relative or friend who should be informed of the Monday funeral. John and Beth had organised it. She found many old letters, a few from England, posted twenty, thirty years ago. Nothing new.

  Little in that two-bedroom unit was new. A dining room setting with a small extendable table was in new condition, but not new. She extended it to use as her working table. A pretty two-seater couch and matching chairs were also not new, but unworn, and doubtlessly chosen by Mrs Collins. Miss Robertson would have bought something brown or navy blue.

  The bedrooms had been furnished with ex-Amberley dressing tables and single beds. Not the old robes. Modern units had built-in robes. Miss Robertson’s smelled of the Amberley of Cara’s childhood. The aged cardigans and skirts hanging neatly behind that modern door may have been the same cardigans and skirts that once had hung behind aged timber doors.

  Found a photograph of a First World War soldier hidden between the pages of an ancient hymn book. Perhaps he was the old lady’s brother, or a friend, perhaps the love of her life she’d remained true to forever.

  No family to mourn her passing, only a landlady who had deserted her, only the landlady’s husband who had envied her – and the landlady’s daughter. Not a lot to show for the almost eighty-seven years of Matilda Dorothy Robertson’s life.

  *

  It wasn’t much of a funeral. Miss Robertson had attended that church every Sunday for forty years. More than a handful should have come to say goodbye. She’d taught at a Vaucluse girls’ college until the late fifties. Too long ago to be remembered.

  Myrtle’s service had been at the same church; the same minister had officiated. It was a very different funeral. Myrtle had a grave, a headstone so she might be remembered. Miss Robertson’s will had stipulated an inexpensive coffin, cremation, and for her ashes to be scattered from the Harbour Bridge. Perhaps the handsome soldier from the hymn book had been lost at sea, and in death they’d ride the waves together.

  Freed from Robert, Cara’s mind was creating. My Soldier Boy, she thought. She could do it too – if she had time.

  *

  No time on Tuesday. Ten minu
tes after she’d settled her rabble, she took a phone call. A brief call.

  ‘Never feel safe in bed, you fucking, schoolmarm bitch. I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do–’

  Cara hung up on Raelene and returned to her class.

  At lunchtime Cathy rang to tell her there was a bed for Robert at the nursing home.

  ‘He’s in hospital, Cath. I’ll get back to you.’

  Then home to a unit still smelling of vomit and old age. She sprinkled carb soda on the carpet and told Robin to stamp it in. She’d vacuum it up later. At eight, a man-hungry Marion rang. At ten, the phone rang again. Probably Georgie. Couldn’t talk to her tonight. Only after the caller had given up did she consider that it may have been the hospital calling.

  Too bad. They had John’s number.

  Slept with the windows and balcony door open, slept well until a dream of Myrtle woke her at five, woke her with the knowledge that she couldn’t run away from the responsibility of Robert.

  Take him home. She’d have no rent to pay at Amberley. If she gave up work, she’d have no crèche fees to pay. She could live on Robert’s pension and pay the rent from three units on the loan – and she could apply for the single mother’s pension if need be. She deserved it more than Raelene, who hadn’t paid a cent in tax in her life.

  She’d have time to write.

  Thought of Raelene, free in July and no doubt moved into a taxpayer-subsidised flat with her mop-headed baby.

  Thought of the day she’d gone to Woody Creek, and wished to God that she could take back that day.

  *

  Linda Watson called on Thursday. Cara learned that Raelene had not only lost her prison privileges but one of her perfect front teeth. Back in the main prison, a runt of a girl, she’d come off second best in a fight. A pleasant woman, Linda, a listener, and easy to speak to. Cara told her that her father was in hospital. Didn’t tell her why, or that she hadn’t been near him since he’d been carried down those stairs. She spoke to her for fifteen minutes, and before the phone was placed down, she’d made an appointment to meet her on Monday morning at ten.

  They met across an office desk, and Linda looked exactly as she’d sounded on the phone, one of life’s innocents, gentle, trusting and a few years to the right side of middle age.