by Joy Dettman
She slept well that night and by eight she was out, jogging safe streets to the corner shop where the old guy knew her and her brand of smokes. He tossed a packet at her as she walked in the door. ‘G’day there,’ he said. ‘Long time, no see, dear.’
She didn’t need the cigarettes, not today, but she’d need them tomorrow so she bought them, and a tub of yoghurt. She spoke a while of Melbourne and her flat and her job, and he spoke of Lakeside and his grandkids. Then he said, ‘Did you hear the news? Three kids and their mother murdered last night.’
‘In Melbourne?’
‘Yeah. They’re looking for the father.’ He offered the Herald Sun. ‘It’s on page two. A taxi driver reckons he saw the tail lights of the bastard who did it. Poor little buggers, never had a chance. Killed in their beds.’
Sally added the newspaper to her purchases, handing over ten dollars and receiving fifty cents change. Then she remembered laundry detergent and bought a packet. Spent money like water every time she came home.
By midday the musty smell was leaving the flat as the more familiar smells of smoke, coffee and lemon-scented dishwashing detergent ousted it. This place was home. She knew every cupboard, every corner, every rip in every chair. All morning she remained there, washing machine chugging, dryer turning, laundry ironed as it dried to be hung or placed in the linen cupboard.
At two o’clock she locked up and left for the hospital.
‘She’s in the old building. Oh, and Dr Sleiman left a note. He wants you to give him a call, Sall,’ Deb said.
‘Are they sending her down to Melbourne again?’
‘I think that’s an option.’
Sally walked on, plastic bags slapping at her legs as she hurried down the enclosed walkway that led from the new building to the old. It was narrow, ceramic tiled, glass domed. Her footsteps echoed strangely there. Matt Marsden, they sang. Matt Marsden. Magic words, they lifted her chin, helped her pin on a smile for Mummy.
Nothing in this ward to smile about. Four beds, and the three heads on the other pillows were grey, toothless ones. One of them was Karen Matthews’s grandmother, ninety-nine not out. Her mother, propped high on pillows, was glancing through a magazine. Her hair hung limp and too long; she wore a sexless blue hospital gown that gaped at the armpits, flaunting her broomstick arms and her scars.
‘Hello, beautiful,’ Sally said. ‘Just love your gear. Where did you get it?’
‘It’s easier for the sisters.’ The reply was defensive, petulant.
Sally took a gown from one of the plastic bags, the salmon pink. ‘Sit up and I’ll help get you out of that shroud.’
‘Leave me alone.’ No precious girl today. The three sleeping grey heads couldn’t hear her.
‘If you look good, you feel good, and believe me you do not look good. Up you get and no arguments, Mummy.’ With little help from her mother, she dressed her in salmon pink, quickly buttoning the bodice, hiding the stick-like arms. ‘Now, sit up while I fix your hair and we’ll go down to the lounge for a while.’
‘I’m not well enough.’
All afternoon the woman refused to move from the bed and Sally remained with her. She trimmed her mother’s too-long nails, painting them salmon pink to match the gown. She fussed and brushed the lank hair.
Still no Ross, but each footfall in the corridor turned her head. How was she going to tell him she’d been here all night? She should have called him.
Teatime came early at the hospital and he still hadn’t arrived. Karen Matthews had been chasing him for years – maybe he’d started jumping his fence like his bull.
Her mother wasn’t eating her meal. Determinedly Sally fed her the vegetable broth, loading the spoon, offering it, offering the buttered bread, pushing her mother to eat as she pushed the voices on the phone to buy. Eventually the mouth opened.
She’d lost so much weight. Probably starving herself, thinking she was punishing her daughter for leaving Lakeside. The sisters gave efficient professional care but they didn’t play feeding games, didn’t watch her every move. And down this end with the old ladies, God only knew what she’d get up to. Mummy was a sly one, and the sooner they got her out of this ward, the better.
‘Why did they put you down here, Mummy?’
It was the opening her mother needed. ‘You know why. I’m dying.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Sally stood and drew the curtain screens, creating a false barrier as other visitors wandered in to sit beside other beds. She could still hear them. Wills and pills and priests. This ward was bad for Mummy.
Sally overrode the voices with her own. She told wild tales of work, mimicking Ratsus’s accent; she spoke about Sue.
‘She’s nice, really nice, and kind-hearted, but she hides it beneath a hard exterior. She dresses like a dork, but she’s smart. Did two years of university, but she dropped out and got a job when she married her ex. Her parents have got a mansion out past Doncaster. I drove her out there one day for her mother’s birthday. She didn’t take a present, said her presence was present enough. She had an interview for a job at Myer on Friday. I hope she gets it.’
‘I was sent to work there when I was barely fifteen years old,’ her mother said.
‘I wouldn’t mind working there – they get a staff discount. I’ve always loved that place, Mummy, ever since that Christmas when you and Daddy took us to see the window. I thought it was magic.’
‘Don’t!’ A hand was raised. ‘Don’t.’
‘Sorry. Anyway . . . anyway, I saw the most gorgeous blouse there last week. It was white satin, and it had embroidery all over the front and collar, and even up the sleeves, but the price was out of this world.’
An unfamiliar sister entered and Mummy patted Sally’s cheek. ‘This is my precious girl. This is the one I wait for all week,’ she said. ‘Such a happy girl. Such a joy to me.’ Her timing was still good.
Sally offered her mother a spoonful of apple mush.
‘I can’t eat, darling. Sister understands.’ Then sister was gone, taking Mummy’s smile with her. ‘There’s a letter for you in the top drawer. Mrs Jenner brought it in.’
‘Who is it from?’
‘An invitation to something.’
It had been opened. Sally’s mail had always been opened before she got to it. A pity Mummy didn’t show the same interest in her own bills. She glanced at it – an invitation to Gina and Rob’s baby’s christening on Sunday week. Another present to buy. The card dropped into her bag. ‘I wrote to Raelene a while ago. Haven’t heard from her. I think they must have moved.’
‘Who?’
‘Raelene Mason.’
‘I don’t know the name.’
‘Of course you do. Our old neighbours. When we lived in Geelong. I wrote to her for years when I was a kid.’ Her mother’s head was shaking. ‘They lived next door to us in Geelong. Raelene Mason. She had a little brother, Jamey, and a little yappy dog that used to drive you . . . everyone up the wall with his barking.’
Glenda shrugged her bony shoulders. She looked tired, or bored. Sally picked up a magazine, flipping pages while thinking of Raelene and Carol Rigg, seeing them in her mind’s eye as they had been back then. Carol, pudding-faced with glasses. Raelene, thin with long black hair. Probably married now, with kids.
Fatso Carol Rigg, swinging that last day. Singing.
Stare, stare, monkey bear.
Everybody knows you swear.
Her forced smile slowly disappeared as she looked away, looking through the magazine and back, way back. Sad, that old swing noise. Squeak-squawk. Squeak-squawk. Memory stung, and she allowed her mind to wander in search of better days.
Daddy. He’d bought the swing-set. Its squeak-squawk had been a happy sound back then, as if it had been laughing along with her and Shane and Raelene.
The next-door garage had been built on the fence line, an easy climb up to its roof from the trellis, but a long jump down. She and Raelene hadn’t been allowed to climb up there. But Sally had climb
ed. After Daddy had died, Sally had climbed often.
‘I see you for a few hours a week and you sit there reading magazines.’
‘I come here to visit you and all you want to do is lie in that bed. I’ve run out of conversation.’ She turned another page. ‘He’s a hunk, isn’t he?’ She offered the magazine. ‘He looks a bit like a guy I met in Melbourne,’ she said. Her mother turned her eyes away.
‘Melbourne. It’s all Melbourne. What about me?’
‘Okay. What about you? Want to get dressed and go down to the pub for dinner? Have a couple of glasses of wine and get happy.’
‘Stop tormenting me.’
Old memories raised old anger, a creeping anger. It wasn’t good. Anger got her mouth going, led to a black hole that could swallow her up. She could wallow in that hole for days, reliving the accident, going mad with trying to alter in her mind what had happened that night. If she’d kept her seatbelt on and helped Daddy watch the road like Mummy used to . . .
Watch it, Bren, Mummy would say. That car is turning, Bren. Slow down. Check that the back window is locked, Bren.
If she hadn’t climbed over the back. If she’d reminded Daddy to check the back window. That’s what she should have done. Should have left Teddy in the back –
She stood abruptly and poured a glass of water, tossed it down and forced a smile, searching her mind for a place to go, a lifeline to hold on to. Only Ross. Only the farm. She should have gone out there last night. Should have.
Guilt and anger now. A bad, bad mixture. She played with her cigarettes, sat again, foot tapping as she glanced at the magazine.
Matt. Matt Marsden.
‘He’s a financial adviser, works on the fourth floor of my office block. If you could take the best of a young Sean Connery and add a dash of a young Richard Gere, then you might end up with something like Matt. He’s dark, and tall – not too tall, and he dresses like he stepped straight from the pages of a fashion magazine.’
Her mother’s hand waved the words by as she looked at the curtain screen that hid the door. She was waiting for Ross. She liked him well enough. Not a great talker but he knew how to listen. There were things she wanted to discuss with him today.
‘I changed your sheets, did the kitchen and bathroom floors. I’ll finish it off tonight, so you’ll have a nice clean place to go home to this time. You might feel like staying there for a while.’ Sarcasm wasn’t good. Watch it, she warned herself and she rattled her cigarettes, wanting out. Out in the air. Space.
‘I won’t be going home.’
‘Has Sleiman said anything to you about going to Melbourne?’
‘He knows that I’m dying.’ Her mother nodded towards the right. ‘Her kidneys have shut down. She’s only got days. And old Mrs Thomson. Mrs Matthews. This is where they put you to die. Everyone knows it.’
‘People don’t die of starvation overnight. It takes years. Give it up, Mummy.’
‘Shock can bring the cancer on again. It’s come back on me.’
‘Cut the crap.’
‘I’m in constant pain. It’s gone to my liver.’
‘It was in your liver two years ago, wasn’t it? You’re still here.’
‘This time it’s different. I can feel it.’
‘Right.’ She reached for her cigarette packet, caressed it with her thumb.
‘There’s some of Bren’s insurance left in the National Bank, and my pension is paid into the Commonwealth. It will be barely enough to bury me.’
Sally tapped her foot, keeping time with her tapping fingers on the packet. This time it was different. Next time it would be different again. But it had never been any bloody different. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll put you out for recycling and spend the money on a trip to the zoo. Come on. Out of that bed, Mummy.’
‘I haven’t made a will. It might be better to close the insurance account while I’m still alive.’
‘Oh Jesus, Mummy.’
She’d heard it all too many times before and she didn’t want to hear it any more. Bloody insurance money. Daddy and the boys’ blood money. She’d hated it then and she hated it now. It had given her mother the means to keep moving, not moving on, just moving the same hell and Grandma’s dining room suite and china to an even greater hell.
Her stomach growled. Anger or hunger. She forced it down with cold water. Down. Down. She needed a smoke. Had to get outside, have a smoke. A cigarette made the intolerable almost tolerable.
‘I want to make a will.’
Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty black birds baked in a pie.
And when the pie was open –
‘There is no will!’
‘My goodness. And you with all of your millions. Tut tut, Mummy. You have been remiss. We must get onto that.’
‘I want to see a solicitor. I want to put my last wishes in writing. You won’t waste any time on me when I’m dead.’
‘Then get out of that bloody bed and go and see a solicitor. I’m not stopping you. I’ll make an appointment for you. You can write it in your diary.’
That got her mother up on her elbow. It raised her voice above the petulant whine. ‘You’re cruel. You’ve got your grandfather’s cruel, selfish streak in you.’
‘That’s why I’m up here. Change the subject, please, or I’m gone.’
‘I knew it the day you were born. You’re him all over. You run away when the going gets too hard, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, and this is too hard.’ She walked to the door and her mother’s eyes narrowed.
‘Don’t you bury me in this cemetery. I want to be with Bren and my boys.’
‘Can’t you see that this bullshit has got no impact, that it no longer gets past the outer ears, Mummy? Don’t you know that we can all see right through your games? Get out of that bed and let me take you home.’
‘You want me murdered in my bed? It’s not bad enough that I’m dying.’
‘There was no intruder. He’s in your mind. He’s always been in your mind, Mummy. We spent half our lives hiding under a bloody bed from your imagination.’ Sally was at the door and the old ladies’ visitors were looking at her. Mrs Matthews stared, and old Donald Thomson. She ran her fingers through her hair, scanning the corridors for Ross. Where was he? She couldn’t stand being here much longer. She was going to blow.
‘It will be over soon, and no trouble to you. All you’ll have to do is fill in the date.’
‘Hey, did you hear the joke about the hypochondriac who finally died at the ripe old age of a hundred and fourteen? She’d preordered her tombstone too, had it engraved. And you refused to believe me when I told you I was dying.’
She was back at the bed, an unlit cigarette in her mouth, willing Ross to come, to save her from her tongue, but he wasn’t coming.
‘Two of a kind. Selfish. You always were and ever will be. You never thought of anybody else but yourselves.’
‘Two of a kind, all right. You and me, Mummy. Two crazy bloody peas locked into a dried-out pod. Shrivel up and die in here if you want to, but I’m not dying with you.’ Her mother’s tears began their trickle. ‘Stop that. I’m sick of your tears and your act. I’m sick of feeling guilty every day of my bloody life. I am not coming home. I – am – not – coming – home, Mummy.’
Then they were both weeping. Her mother could always squeeze a few more tears out of Sally. For twenty years, tears had been their mother and daughter togetherness.
Ross walked in and found them howling. He stood back until Sally wiped her eyes and walked away to stand before the window, then he sat on the chair close to the bed.
‘How’s it going then, Mrs De Rooze?’
She took a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. ‘I’m dying, Ross. Why is everyone trying to keep it from me? Dr Sleiman has said something to you.’
‘He said you’re dying of starvation, that’s about all. Wrap yourself around a pie and chips and you’ll be a new woman.’ He looked at Sally.
But Glenda De Rooze had a listener, and she demanded her listener’s undivided attention. Her sharp little salmon-pink nails gripped his arm. He turned his eyes to her.
Tears trickling, she told him to take the withdrawal forms from the second drawer of her locker, and she told him to close the National Bank account and to withdraw her pension each fortnight to put it in his account for her funeral.
‘And sell the furniture, Ross. The dining room suite is worth thousands, and the ornaments. I won’t see the end of this year.’
He offered a dry tissue, then moved his chair back, creating distance as he searched for and found the bankbooks, the withdrawal forms. ‘It’ll be worth seeing. I was reading the other day that they reckon this millennium bug could close the banks, send our accounts into cyberspace, ground all air traffic.’
‘What have I got to live for? My own daughter can’t stand to be near me.’
‘You know that’s not true. Sally’s up here every weekend, running herself ragged. She’s getting damn near as scrawny as you.’
‘I’ve become a burden to her and to you,’ she said.
Ross couldn’t bring himself to deny that one, so he scratched his chin and looked at his shoes.
The clouds were trying to rain. Sally pressed her face to the glass. Cool glass. She watched a rain tear hit the window, and she reached out a finger to it, her other hand wiping at her own as she listened to the same old thumbscrewing crap she’d been listening to since she was eight years old.
‘So, what’s your doctor saying about this last effort?’
‘Will you listen to what I’m saying?’
Ross stood and rubbed at his jaw, then he took his mobile phone from his pocket. ‘I’ll go and give Sleiman a call, love,’ he said. ‘Excuse me a tick, Mrs De Rooze.’
Sally walked to the bed and whipped the yellow screens back against the walls. Ross was in the doorway, his ear to the phone. He raised a hand. ‘Doctor.’
‘Out of that bed, or I’ll drag you out. And you know I can.’
Her mother’s hand found the buzzer and she buzzed it. Buzzed it long as her feet moved, burying themselves beneath the bedcover, trying to run faster to her tombstone in Geelong.
