Morning in Melbourne

by Nicole Taylor

  After that, Louise didn’t even bother to keep her own room clean. It was true that she worked fairly hard at uni; but she had a lot of fun, too. Her parents engaged an after-school mother’s help, and far from expecting Louise to help at all around the house any more, she was discouraged from even finding a part-time job and consequently finished her degree on time, and with a decent grade point average.

  *

  Since then, Mary and Louise had grown apart. Mary shifted her focus to her younger daughters – the boys were Jim’s domain – and Louise came to realise that her parents had never guessed how much her labour had contributed to the comfort of the whole family while limiting her access to the extra-curricular activities enjoyed by other girls her age.

  But now her mother, barely 65 years old, was an old, frail woman. She had smoked from the age of 17 and only given up the habit when she was 57, having developed full-blown emphysema. Her previous beauty was now evident only in old, faded photos and she could barely walk to the car without exhausting her strength. The canister of oxygen she had to lug around after her, attached to a wheeled trolley, limited her movements and Mary rarely felt cheerful anymore. “Gasping for breath and waiting for death” was how she described her life to her daughter.

  It shocked Louise to realise that she wasn’t really sympathetic about her mother’s illness, and she didn’t feel good about the organ donation, either. How could she hope that some innocent person they didn’t even know, who happened to be the same size and blood type as Mary, should fall off a ladder or dive into a shallow pool and become ‘beating heart brain dead’? Louise couldn’t.

  She remembered begging her mother to stop smoking from the time she turned 11. Every Christmas she had asked her to quit instead of giving Louise a Christmas present. Before she had gotten married, she had tried to book her mother into a health farm for three weeks. She could only afford three weeks if the rest of the family chipped in for one of the weeks – it was hideously expensive, and probably full of TV celebrities who were trying to lose weight or dry out, Lou thought when she saw the price.

  But her father had flattened her hopes of finding a way to get her mother to give up smoking. “Look, Lou, send your mother to a health farm if you like. But even if she gives up smoking while she is there, she’ll take it up again.” He sighed. “I’ve been trying to get her to give up for 20 years.”

  Louise knew he had. So, she dropped the health farm idea and within 3 years her mother was officially dying of a well-established lung disease.

  And although it was awful watching her mother struggle to breathe, she knew that her ill-health was completely self-inflicted. It wasn’t an illness as the result of an accident, or a birth defect, or even a single misjudgement or bad decision at a critical moment. Her mother had been a heavy smoker for 40 years, and only then had her poor body given up the battle to detoxify itself after hour upon hour of poison was purposefully and irresponsibly infused into her body every day. This had been a choice Mary had made, every day of her adult life.

  What sort of daughter had these feelings? Louise wondered if she really loved her mother after all. Did other people have rational feelings like this towards their mother? Who do you love more than your mother? Would she feel this way if it were her child?

  At least Mary still had some mobility, and the canister of oxygen lasted an hour or two at the most so she was able to leave the house for that long. When she was at home, Mary was connected by breathing tubes which ran from her nose to a large, vibrating machine that hummed and throbbed as it generated the life-giving oxygen into Mary’s now defunct lungs.

  Louise knew that being in Melbourne wasn’t the only reason Mary had chosen Louise’s home as her new base. Now that she was separated, and Jeff safely living overseas, Lou was the only one who was single, and therefore much easier to deal with than a woman with a husband. Louise had noticed that generally people visited her home more frequently than they had when she was married. A married couple was far more self-sufficient than a single woman with kids. She was deemed to be always in need of company.

  But Louise’s kids were company, and she was in control. It was lovely, actually. All three of her kids were now old enough to look after themselves in many areas; yet still young enough to do as they were instructed. She didn’t require or desire another person in their household, but she could see that her mother needed her.

  Louise was long past the age when she let other people organise her into doing things she didn’t want to do. Refusing to accompany her husband on his return to the United States had proven that to herself and relevant others. So, she was careful to be quite specific with her mother.

  “Certainly you can move in with us,” she’d agreed when, after months of hinting, Mary had finally broached the topic with her daughter. “You can stay with us from May to August.”

  Mary had not been expecting this limited invitation. “Why August?” she asked.

  “Because that is when James starts his VCE exams,” Louise explained. “And your oxygen machine makes a lot of noise, 24 hours a day. We will have to position it in the kitchen, which is beside James’ bedroom, so he will have to listen to it all night long.”

  “Oh, he’ll get used to it,” Mary insisted. “You don’t even hear it after a few days.”

  But Louise was firm. “And, of course, it is unfair to expect Camille to share a bedroom – and a bed – with her mother. She is a teenager now and she needs her privacy.”

  It was unanswerable, but Louise knew that Mary saw the August deadline as negotiable. “Well,” thought Louise, “she will discover that it is not negotiable, but we needn’t have it out now.” And Louise hated to think of it, but a lung transplant – soon – was the only alternative to her mother’s imminent demise.

  *

  Jeff called the kids every Saturday night. If they were out, he would call on Sunday, but he spoke to the kids every weekend and they saved up things to tell him.

  “Nana’s coming to live with us,” Camille told him. “And I’m going to sleep in Mum’s bed with her!”

  Should she have told the kids to leave this piece of information out of the weekly news round-up? But secrets were a burden. What was the point of being free from marital ties if you were going to weigh yourself down with secrets?

  *

  John the builder sent Louise a text to invite her to dinner. They’d already been to the movies together. He had taken her to see ‘The Da Vinci Code’ in a Gold Class cinema, and it had been a lot of fun. This time he was cooking her dinner at his house in Ringwood.

  “I’ll pick you up at 6.30,” he offered.

  “But if you pick me up, you will have to drive me home!” Louise had thought she would drive herself to his house.

  “And if I pick you up and drive you home, you can have a drink with your dinner,” he explained.

  Louise smiled. “That’s very thoughtful, John.

  “I’m just a nice guy,” he agreed.

  “But then you can’t drink!” Louise thought she had found the flaw in his plan.

  “Yes, I can,” John insisted. “I can drink a standard glass every hour and still be under the limit. It’s all about weight.”

  “Oh, right,” said Louise. She was still smiling.

  When they arrived, Louise saw a small but charming weatherboard cottage set back from the road on a corner block. The garden was mature and well maintained, and John had strung lights through the trees. “John!” she exclaimed. “This is gorgeous! Did you do this for Christmas?”

  John smiled. “I did it for you,” he said simply.

  They entered the house and John proudly showed her the kitchen he had remodelled; the updated bathroom and finally, the chicken coop in the backyard. There were half a dozen Bantam hens, all asleep now, but Louise could tell by the fresh smell that that coop was clean and tidy.

  “That is so lovely, John,” she said, inspecting the coop and the shrubs he had planted beside it. “My grandparents had a
chicken coop and they had a lemon tree in the middle of it. It made the coop smell better. It was my job to collect the eggs whenever I visited their place, and then Nana would wash the eggs and write the date on them in pencil.”

  John nodded. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I might have to start doing that.”

  He had cooked beef stroganoff and had her favourite wine – champagne – already chilled.

  Louise was really touched. The champagne was kicking in and she was feeling relaxed and well fed. “How old are you, John?”

  “Here it comes,” he smiled and looked at the ceiling, giving his head a slight shake.

  Louise laughed. “Fair’s fair! You were at my 46th birthday party so you know my age! It’s only fair that I know yours.”

  John sighed. “Why does it matter?” he asked.

  “John!” Louise was insistent. “Obviously you are younger than I am. Now tell me your age!”

  “I’ll be 40 next year,” he said.

  “What month?”

  “November.”

  “So, you are 38 now.”

  John nodded and shrugged. “I guess I am,” he agreed..

  “That makes you eight years younger than I am.”

  “So? I’m taller than you!”

  Louise laughed. “But wouldn’t you rather go out with a girl your own age, or even a couple of years younger than you are?

  “If they were as nice as you I might,” he smiled at her. He kissed her. “Why does it matter so much?” John asked.

  Louise sighed. “It isn’t the age difference alone,” she explained. “It’s the life stage we are each at.” She indicated their surroundings. “Look at this lovely home you have made. All it needs is a woman and a little Johnny to fill it up and play with the chickens.”

  “Can’t I make a home for myself?”

  “Is that what you want? To live alone?” Louise shook her head at him. “Even though I could have another baby” - Louise wasn’t giving up the whole ground -“I’ve already been through that phase of my life. I’m 5 years away from downsizing and you, my friend, are 5 years away from choosing a kindergarten.”

  John nodded. “I would like a kid,” he admitted.

  “And you should find a woman who is ready to have one with you!” Louise finished her drink and rose to leave. “You’d better take me home, John,” she said. “This was a lovely evening. You are a sweet man and very hunky. I feel silly though.”

  “Just one more kiss?” he dragged her back to the the couch.

  “Oh,” Louise weakened. “alright….”

  Chapter 11 – Show me the money

  It was Tuesday night after the Certificate IV class and they were at the Box Hill Rissole. Even the teacher, John, was there. The larger group were discussing their marks on the latest assignment, and John was looking hunted and trapped and sorry that he had agreed to join the class for this “relaxing” drink. He checked his watch and said ‘no’ to another glass of beer, while making attempts to disengage himself from yet another disgruntled adult student.

  Katherine had sidelined Louise and, as soon as they had their drinks, asked her bluntly, “So, what’s your story?”

  Louise blinked at her. “What do you mean?” She wondered if Katherine was asking her about her mark on the assignment but somehow knew she wasn’t.

  Katherine shrugged. “Well, are you separated or divorced?”

  “Separated.”

  “Are you getting divorced?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “What happened?”

  Louise laughed. “What ever happens? I don’t know. I don’t think my husband liked being married. I was his third wife.”

  “His third!” Katherine laughed her shock.

  “Yes; and I’m pretty sure that the only reason our marriage lasted 15 years instead of one was that we had the three kids to look after. He liked – likes - being a dad; just not a husband.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Well, he wanted to move back to the States, but the kids and I wanted to stay here, so he moved and we stayed.”

  Katherine was nonplussed. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “He really left! You didn’t have to kick him out or anything!” Katherine had had the locks changed to convince her own ex-husband that the marriage was really at an end once she’d caught him out with “the other woman”; and had struggled for a long and painful period before finally arriving at that decision; and then she’d struggled financially for an even longer period until their financial settlement was finalised.

  Louise smiled. “Not with a bang but a whimper,” she said.

  “So,” asked Katherine, “did he set you up financially before he left?”

  Louise had expected that question. Every divorced woman over forty with a family was concerned with one another’s financial situation, and it seemed that those with professional careers were particularly concerned with this element of the marital breakdown. Watching their husband’s professional careers prosper magnified this focus; starting again in their mid-forties required forethought and planning.

  “He left a couple of hundred thousand dollars in the joint account.”

  “What about child support?” Katherine wanted the whole story.

  “I just take what we need from that account,” answered Lou.

  “Did you put it in an account in your own name?”

  “No – it’s in a joint account.”

  “You need to transfer the whole amount into an account in your name alone, Louise.”

  “Oh, no, it will be fine,” said Louise.

  But Katherine would have none of it. “Louise – stop. Listen to me. Take the money. You won’t be able to for much longer. He will move it into another account.”

  “He wouldn’t,” insisted Louise.

  “Louise!” Katherine was becoming quite stern. “Take the money.”

  “I can’t!” wailed Lou.

  “Take the money! I’m going to call you every day until you move the money. Look – if it is no big deal, it won’t matter!”

  “What?” Louise was confused.

  “If you are right, and it is not a big deal that the money is in a joint account, then it won’t matter if you transfer it into an account in your name alone.”

  Louise thought about that. “I suppose that’s right,” she agreed.

  “Do you have a mortgage?”

  Louise laughed. “Yes! I have a $330,000 mortgage!”

  Now it was Katherine’s turn to laugh. “So, you are working full time and he is not working at all. You have all three school aged kids to look after and he is giving you no child support. He has left you living in a 40 year old, dilapidated townhouse, with a huge mortgage, and $200,000 in the bank. How old is he?”

  “Sixty,” said Louise.

  “So, he is at the end of a long career, as an?”

  “Investment banker,” Louise filled in the gaps.

  Katherine’s eyes popped. “An investment banker! Well, we all know that he probably has a million in super and more than that in investment accounts all over the world!”

  Louise began to see Katherine’s point. “Actually,” she said, “I could save $14,000 a year on mortgage interest alone if I just transferred all the money onto the mortgage.”

  “Now you are talking!” Katherine sounded much happier.

  “And I earn enough to live on, especially if I only had a mortgage of $130,000.”

  “You shouldn’t have any mortgage, Louise!” Katherine was insistent. “You are pushing 50 and have to focus on saving up for your retirement – not paying down a mortgage. Transfer the $200,000 onto the mortgage tomorrow; then - ask him to pay off the rest. Just do it!”

  “Right,” said Louise. “You’re absolutely right. That’s what I’ll do.”

  Louise’s legs shook as she walked to the local branch of her bank the next day. Her breathing was fast and shallow. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked herself. “Why am I so shaken up over this? Even if Jeff
gets angry, what’s he going to do? He lives on the other side of the world!” She set her handbag down and filled out the little funds transfer slip peculiar to banks. “I’m doing the sensible, responsible thing. I will save $14,000 each and every year in interest payments alone by doing this.” She signed the transfer slip, gathered up her bag and stood in the queue. Her heart was still fluttering nervously. “If I am responsible enough to raise three kids on my own, I’m responsible enough to make a financial decision with marital funds.” Louise stood up straight and braced her shoulders. “It isn’t really my money too unless I have ownership and control of it.” She gulped. “It isn’t enough to have my name on the joint account; I have to be able to spend the money if I see fit. That’s the control part.” She handed the slip to the bank officer. Louise watched the numbers being keyed into the computer, and waited while her receipt was printed and handed to her. “Thank you,” she smiled, then, to herself as she turned to leave, “Katherine.”

  Chapter 12 – Memories

  “Who are you going to vote for?” Louise was hosting the Friday drinks this week because Julia was at a work function. Jack had brought his adult son David over to Louise’s. The men hadn’t eaten, so Louise quickly fried a few chicken schnitzels and chips and served it to them with gravy. Her own kids demanded Mackas on Friday night and had already eaten.

  “Not the other Julia, that’s for sure!” Louise was decisive in her answer.

  “Really?” Jack asked, wondering if she was joking. They had previously identified each other as Labor supporters, although Louise called herself a swinging voter, having voted Liberal once and Greens once.

  “Absolutely! I’m not voting for Big Ears either, though. I think I’ll do what I usually do when I can’t stomach either leader: Vote for the Sun Ripened Tomato Party.”

  “What?”

  Louise could tell that Jack had never heard of them. She frowned. “Oh – maybe they are a Canberra phenomenon; only local government. Don’t you have the Sun-Ripened Tomato Party here in Victoria?”