Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life

by Maureen McCarthy

  It was an odd feeling passing the turn-off to our house, wondering when, if ever, I would turn the steering wheel right and head up that road again. Would I ever be welcomed back into the house I’d always assumed was mine?

  My father never spoke lightly. He prided himself on being a reasonable man. That lovely place on the hill, all its lights blazing. I felt sliced through, as though my body had been physically damaged. I was floundering around in the cold now. Alone. I felt like a newborn baby. Out in the cold air, torn away from the warmth, the ease, of the perfect bath. Would my parents still be standing where I’d left them?

  I went on, out to the McCaffrey farm. There didn’t seem to be anywhere else I could go.

  NANCE McCAFFREY LASTED THROUGH THE night. Everyone took turns to sit with her. Even me. Sometimes there were ten of us in that little room, all these bodies draped around the floor, on chairs and the bed: her sons, her husband, Carmel, Jude, me. All in various stages of exhaustion, talking quietly to each other, and listening to her rasping breath fill the room. It was amazing to see that dying was actually this very practical, down-to-earth business.

  Carmel and Vince did most of the nursing, positioning pillows, lifting up the frail body for sips of water, wiping her brow. The doctor had left at midnight and said he’d be back again at seven in the morning. The boys had pulled a fold-up bed and a little couch into the bedroom, and we all arranged ourselves wherever we could. At various times during the night, Carmel and her brothers went out to sleep for a while in the lounge room. But no one stayed out there long.

  Mrs McCaffrey was unconscious most of the time, her breathing heavy and uneven. But a couple of times during the night she woke, whispered the names of her children, and held out her hands for her boys. The older ones would come forward and hold her hands tenderly, whispering.

  ‘It’s me, Mum. Anthony.’

  ‘It’s Vince, Mum. Your troublemaker.’ The fleeting smile on her mouth told us she’d heard him.

  Their gentleness was painfully moving. I hardly spoke at all because my throat seemed to be permanently constricted. I think I was in a state of shock, shot through with a sense of unreality. But then I don’t think anyone else there was operating on a normal plane either. That night was somehow quite outside ordinary experience.

  ‘Here I am, Mum. Bernie . . .’

  ‘Mum. Mum, it’s Gavan . . .’

  ‘And where are the twins?’ she would ask fretfully, ‘You’ve got to look after them . . .’

  ‘They’re here.’

  The twins crawled onto the bed on either side of her, which seemed to comfort her. She muttered a few incoherent things to them and then fell back into sleep or unconsciousness, her tiny, claw-like hands resting on their heads.

  When they weren’t lying next to their mother, the younger boys seemed drawn to me. They would sneak up to me, and I would casually throw an arm around each of them, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. They would edge in nearer and eventually slump asleep against my shoulder.

  ‘You’re good with them,’ Carmel said softly. ‘They like you a lot.’ I nodded, pleased, but unable to utter a word.

  I saw the morning come in through the window. A pink sky at first, and then pale light streaming into the room like gold dust. I was surrounded by people breathing evenly, the only one awake in the room. The life force of the woman on the bed seemed to be beating about the room like a huge, injured bird. During the night I had almost felt the shadow of her wings over me at times, awkward and troubled, looking for release. I watched the light get stronger, and when I saw that it was shining straight into her face I gently loosened my hold on the twins and got up to pull the curtain across.

  ‘Have I told you that you look like your mother?’ came a clear whisper behind me. I turned, startled, clasped her cold hands, so pleased that she knew who I was. With me gone the twins had moved back in beside her, half asleep. I covered them with a blanket; their fresh, troubled little faces pressed into their mother’s side. I was filled with outrage. She couldn’t die. It wasn’t fair!

  ‘Where’s my Carmel?’ she suddenly said quite loudly, her eyes wide open and darting about, looking at me in distress. ‘Get me Carmel and Vince . . . and the other boys!’ She had begun to gasp and twist around where she lay, half sobbing, her hands clawing and punching at the air in front of her as though she wanted to sit up.

  ‘My Carmel . . . and my little ones! Get them. I need to . . .’

  ‘The twins are right here, Nance,’ I said, distressed myself. ‘Please don’t worry, the twins are right here.’

  I hurried out to the kitchen where Carmel, Jude, Vince and a couple of the other boys were lying around, half asleep.

  ‘She wants you,’ I said. They woke quickly and followed me back down to the bedroom. Carmel went to her mother. Jude and I held back near the door, unsure if we should be there. Somehow, because it was now morning, it seemed more appropriate just for the family to be around her. But Mr McCaffrey, who’d been sitting in the same spot all night, sleeping most of the time, was adamant.

  ‘Come in, girls.’ He waved from the other side of his wife’s bed. ‘Come on in, now. You’re welcome.’

  Jude and I moved tentatively back into the room. ‘I’m here, Mum,’ Carmel said. ‘It’s me. I’m here.’ Her mother settled a little.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ Carmel asked, looking up at Vince for some clue as to what was the matter. He glanced at his watch.

  ‘The doctor will be here soon,’ he whispered. ‘Give her another shot.’ Mrs McCaffrey began to heave around the bed again, her eyes jerking from one person to another, only half focused.

  ‘Sing for me, Carmel,’ she said in a loud, hoarse voice. ‘Sing.’ Jude and I saw Carmel gulp in surprise.

  ‘What would you like me to sing?’ she asked. But her mother had resumed her slow breathing, her eyes closed again.

  Carmel began to sing an old hymn. It had a nice melody, but the words were sad. Full of longing. She sang softly, sitting on her mother’s bed, holding her hand. But she had only got through the first couple of lines when her mother became agitated again.

  ‘Not that!’ Mrs McCaffrey managed to say. ‘Not all that old stuff!’

  Carmel stopped singing in surprise, then looked up at Jude and me.

  ‘Sing one of your new songs, Carmel,’ her mother cried in a pained whisper. ‘Like when you were on telly . . .’

  ‘A Spanish song?’

  ‘Yes. The one you sang on telly.’

  Everyone began to quietly laugh.

  Jude disappeared and came back with the guitar. Carmel patted her mother’s bed, but Jude was reluctant.

  ‘No!’ she whispered, trying to make Carmel take the guitar. ‘She wants you.’

  ‘Play, Jude,’ Carmel ordered. ‘Come on! And I’ll sing.’ Jude nodded, and with eyes downcast she began to pick out some notes.

  ‘This one is about poor people in Chile,’ Carmel explained. ‘They have no houses, so they squat on disused land. Once the police came to clear them away and shot a little girl . . . by mistake.’ Carmel looked at Jude anxiously. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yep,’ Jude said, without looking up.

  ‘Sing it, Carmel,’ her mother said crossly, beginning to toss her head again from side to side, ‘I want to hear you sing.’

  Carmel opened her mouth and began the song. Of course the rest of us didn’t understand a word, but it sounded good anyway. Very plaintive and sad. When it was over, Mrs McCaffrey turned to her husband with a faint smile. ‘We were lucky, Nev,’ she said. ‘We had the land, didn’t we? Not much else, but we had the land, didn’t we?’ He leant over and touched her face with his hand.

  ‘That’s right, love, we’ve been lucky,’ he said softly. Carmel and Jude went on singing more songs in Spanish for about an hour, until it was clearly morning outside. Mrs McCaffrey seemed to love one of these, because she opened her eyes when they’d sung it through once, asked Jude what the wo
rds meant, and then demanded that they sing it again.

  Sigamos cantando juntos

  atoda las humanidad

  que el canto es una paloma

  que vuela para alcanzar lejos

  estalla y abre sus alas

  para volar y volar . . .

  Let us continue to sing together

  To all of humanity

  For a song is a dove

  Which flies to reach afar

  Exploding and spreading its wings

  To fly and fly . . .

  Jude translated the words of the first verse and then they both sang that part through together. Between each verse Jude continued to play guitar, stopping to translate the next few lines to come. I suppose because we knew what this one was about, it was very moving.

  My song is a free song

  Which wants to give itself

  To anyone who wants to hold out a hand

  For anyone who wants to soar . . .

  At the end of the song, Mrs McCaffrey reached for Carmel’s hand.

  ‘I like that song, Carmel. Will you sing it again for me?’

  ‘Of course, Mum,’ Carmel said gently. She looked at Jude and they smiled and played it a third time.

  For most of the time Carmel’s mother lay quiet, listening and peaceful, a faint smile of enjoyment on her face. But after an hour she became distressed again, so they stopped singing and put the guitar away. Very soon after that she slipped back into unconsciousness, resuming the deep, erratic breathing of before.

  A car pulled up out the front of the house and we all looked up when we heard the door slam and footsteps coming towards the house.

  ‘That will be the doctor,’ Carmel’s father said dully. ‘What about a few of you getting some breakfast going?’ Jude and I immediately volunteered. But Bernie and Gavan got up, too. ‘I’ll come and show you where everything is,’ Bernie said. ‘Need to stretch me legs.’ We followed them out to the kitchen, passing the grave-faced doctor on his way in.

  The little boys were still lying next to their mother on the bed, and Carmel, Vince, Anthony and their father stayed in the room to speak with the doctor.

  I spent the next couple of hours cooking and cleaning. The doctor left, and the priest came again, and then the nurse. Jude and I managed to produce enough toast and eggs for everyone. When breakfast was over, the whole family went back in to be with their mother, and I stayed in the kitchen, determined to get the place into some kind of order.

  I washed and dried all the dishes, then I cleaned out the cupboards under the sink and reorganised them. I snuck around with a little spray bottle of cleaning fluid I’d found and zapped grime, on the stove, on the walls, on the windowsills and skirting boards. I’d never done this kind of thing before, but I found it so satisfying I wondered wryly if I’d missed my real calling in life. I also wondered whether I was going mad, because in the middle of all this drama, I was concentrating on the splodgy run of sauce stains on the cupboard under the sink. I found a bucket in the laundry, filled it with soapy water, and began to clean the kitchen floor. Occasionally some of the family members surfaced from their mother’s room. They smiled at me and excused themselves as they passed through on their way to the fridge or the toilet. No one seemed surprised that I was cleaning their house; no one said anything much at all.

  I think it was about ten o’clock. The twins had come out to see where I was. I’d settled them at the sparklingly clean kitchen table, and had just finished feeding them some chocolate milk and biscuits. They were both very quiet and watchful, but I could see that neither of them quite believed that their mother was going to die. Jude was out the back collecting washing from the line. Then a strange stillness descended on the house. The twins stopped their chatter and I stopped what I was doing, standing in the middle of the kitchen, listening. But there was no sound. At least nothing specific. And yet every background noise seemed somehow magnified. The minute details of that kitchen, the worn design on the lino, the bright light coming in through the window, the crack in the table, the sound of the dogs barking outside – seemed to converge in one almighty rush. And then everything slowly drained away.

  I knew what had happened without being told. I stood still in the middle of the room and waited. Vince and Carmel walked in as I waited for the last bits of the million tiny particles that were flying around in my head to subside.

  ‘She’s gone,’ Vince said simply, his face soft with pain. He shook his head a couple of times as if he couldn’t quite believe he’d spoken the words, then went to stand next to the twins at the table. He put a hand on each of their shoulders. ‘Mum’s gone.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling weak. ‘When?’

  ‘Just before. A few minutes ago,’ Carmel replied. ‘She just . . . stopped breathing.’

  I moved towards Carmel then, holding out my arms. As I hugged her I felt that enormous rift between us slide away like a piece of very complicated machinery on a conveyor belt. Effortlessly.

  Jude came in from outside, as though she, too, had somehow sensed what had happened without being told. The other boys filed down the hallway, one after another, then their father. His face was ashen, filled with the enormity of what had happened. There was a lot of hugging and quiet crying. Jude and I stayed out of it. I took my cue from her. As I watched her busy herself by putting on the kettle and moving chairs back around the kitchen table so that everyone could sit down, I decided that my role would be with the twins. They were staring around, wide-eyed with apprehension as they watched everyone, not fully understanding what had happened. I took each of them by the hand and walked across to Vince.

  ‘Do you think they should go and see your mum?’ I said to him softly.

  ‘Yeah.’ He gave me a small, strained smile. ‘Come on, guys. Let’s go and say goodbye to Mum.’ I watched them disappear into the hallway and I thought I would faint when I looked at the backs of their two heads, the littleness of them, the ears and the small necks. Joe’s feet were in old wrecked sandshoes and he didn’t have socks on. Shane’s legs were skinny and white in shorts that would have been more suitable for summer-time.

  Who will look after them? Make sure they clean their teeth and have clean clothes and . . . ?

  When they came back out both of them were crying. Their father, who had been sitting silently at the table, held out his arms when he saw them. The boys fell into them, burying their faces in his shoulder. The rest of us stood around and tried not to watch as he soothed them and began telling them things.

  ‘Mum’s suffering has ended now, boys . . . she’s with God, you know. Be brave now. You know how proud she was of you.’ All in this quiet, gentle voice, rubbing their backs with his rough hands.

  Vince and Carmel began to make a list of all the people they’d have to call. I walked outside for a breather.

  It was an unbelievably beautiful day, crisp and bright with a clear, pale-blue sky and a small tug of wind that made the trees rustle every now and again. The fresh smells, of trees and grass and animals, filled me with a sense of wellbeing. In spite of the chaotic, messy atmosphere of the McCaffreys’ backyard, I was conscious that so much about me was alive and growing. Even the intermittent barking from the dogs in their makeshift kennels up near the shed seemed wonderful, so full of push and shove. Half a dozen hens picked around the dirt near the rusty old back gate, their combs bobbing up among the high grass like blobs of blood. And there were cows, too, on the hill near the house, feeding peacefully. Why her? The mother of a big family? Why not that chook out there scratching around for worms? Or the tree? Why not me?

  I sat down on the back step of the verandah and looked around. There were lots of things piled about haphazardly, the grass on the lawn was worn away in patches, and there were boots and brooms and bags all about me, but instead of thinking what a dump it was, as I had the first time, this time I liked it. I liked the ordinariness of it. The lack of concern people had for how any of it appeared. How that woman would have hated leav
ing all this: her house, her chooks, all those children, her life . . .

  I must have stayed out there for about twenty minutes, but after a while my baggy pants and man’s long shirt weren’t enough. I felt chilled through, in spite of the sun.

  The back door slammed. I looked around. Vince smiled as he headed towards me proffering a cup of tea.

  ‘You want this?’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ I said, and took the cup. He then pulled an old sweater from over his arm.

  ‘I brought this out for you . . . Carmel thought you might be cold.’ It was a tatty old work sweater, oil stains and holes in each elbow. Even smelt a bit, but I put it on gratefully.

  ‘Thanks . . . I was starting to feel really cold,’ I said shyly. I could feel his awkwardness, too.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ I suggested.

  ‘Okay.’ He sat down, leaving some space between us.

  ‘They tell me you’ve been kicked out of home.’ He grinned at me. Quick and easy, as if we were conspirators in something funny.

  I nodded nervously and glanced at his profile. Jude must have told them. My God, I hope she hasn’t told them why. Vince’s directness was disconcerting. I felt exposed. When I turned to face him his eyes were so blue and shrewd and . . . it was impossible to look at anything else in his face, so I turned away.

  ‘Er . . . yes,’ I muttered. ‘It’s not too good.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he laughed. ‘Happens to the best of us. They’ll get over it.’

  ‘Did you ever get kicked out?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘More or less,’ he laughed. ‘I was away for about twelve months after the last fight!’

  ‘Did you just . . . turn up? After being away?’ I was curious about him, but I didn’t really want to get into this kind of conversation. He might start asking me questions. For some reason I wanted Vince to think well of me.

  ‘Yep.’ He nodded and grinned. ‘Just turned up like nothing had happened. They welcomed me with open arms.’

  ‘But I bet you didn’t do anything . . . too bad,’ I said quickly, looking straight ahead. I could sense him turning to me, smiling again, and the heat rose to my face. A shiver of shame ran down my legs as I remembered Jules’s note.