by Ilsa Evans
MONDAY
Phone calls – Library, C/Cleaners, Dennis, Mum, Cam, Diane, Thomas, Uncle Laurie & Auntie June
Morning – Shopping: baby present, new d/gown
– Milk, bread, rice, muesli, corn chips, box of chocolates
– Visit Bronte
– Get some videos
Afternoon – Drop the chocolates off at Stephen’s to say thanks
– Relax/watch videos?
– Do my tax return?
– Start reading Gone with the Wind?
Evening – Fergus coming over
Looks perfect. I’ve had Gone with the Wind sitting by my bed since Christmas and still haven’t got around to reading it. As for the tax return, that’s been on top of my ‘to do’ pile for the past month. So now is my chance for both maybe – and plenty more. Yes, it should be a nice, relaxing day but there’s nothing like careful organisation. This is something that I learnt (read: was drummed into me) during the three years I spent in the armed services before marrying Dennis. The six p’s: prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance. And if there’s one thing we heroes can’t tolerate, it’s piss-poor performance.
This is going to be just great.
MONDAY
1100 hrs
Flaming hell! Why does nothing ever go the way I bloody well want it to? I slam the gearstick back into third and scream around the corner onto Burwood Highway. Some bloke in a Falcon ute honks at me impatiently but I ignore him because I refuse to indulge in road rage. Normal rage is more than enough for me at the best of times – and today is one of those times. From a great start, my morning thus far has turned out to be a severe trial. The carpet cleaners can’t come until tomorrow morning, by which time my carpet should be permanently set in tie-dye pink moss. My ex-husband is on a cruise with one of his string of blonde girlfriends and so can’t be contacted. My best friend, Camilla, had already left by the time I got through to her number and then, when I rang my mother, somehow I found myself agreeing to pick her up this morning and take her with me to the hospital to visit. Which means, knowing my mother, that I’ll probably end up having her with me for the whole day.
Then, by the time I finished with all these calls and finally rang Diane, not only had she already heard the happy news but she’d passed it on to the rest of the family and was on her way to the hospital as we spoke. Literally – as I rang her on her mobile. Diane is Camilla’s eldest sister as well as the mother of Bronte’s fiancé, Nicholas, so therefore the new baby is a direct descendant of hers as well as mine. I suppose we’re all almost related now. Diane has four boys, of whom Nick is the eldest, and twin baby girls, which probably means she won’t be putting her hand up much for babysitting duties. I grimace as this thought hits me because I doubt I’d be much chop at babysitting either, but for very different reasons. Diane is a born mother whereas I . . . well, I’m not.
In fact, I don’t even particularly like babies. When other women, and quite a lot of men too, start gurgling over bunny-rug occupants, I just feel a tad bewildered. Sure, they’re cute and rather appealing – in a shrink-proof wrapping kind of way – but, let’s face it, what can you say about a developmental stage wherein your appearance is actually enhanced by a state of total baldness? And don’t even get me started on babies at restaurants, and the way they get all the good parking spots at the shopping centres. Then look at what they do to your figure, your stress levels and your bank balance. No, I don’t get it.
In fact, if it weren’t for a rather literal misinterpretation of exactly what the rhythm method entailed, Bronte herself wouldn’t ever have made her appearance twenty-odd years ago. And it wasn’t like I had an awful lot of time to decide whether I wanted kids now, later, or ever, as I’d only been married twelve and a half minutes when she was conceived.
I’m not exaggerating – I went into the reception bathroom to freshen up before the wedding photographs and my new husband, obliging soul that he was, came in to give me a hand – or whatever. So, with the background encouragement of Carole King, one thing led to another, the earth moved and we got into a rhythm that was made all the easier by my hoop-style wedding dress, which flipped up neatly over my head. When, eventually, I readjusted the hoops and went out for photographs, all the while, unbeknownst to me, Dennis’s little tadpoles were displaying a total lack of appropriate wedding etiquette and swimming frantically upstream. Nine months later – voila! Baby girl.
Not that I don’t love Bronte, I do – very much. But it was never the bells clanging, whistles blowing, life-altering, instantaneous, maternally magical experience that I’d read about. Rather, it was a slow process that started with more of a sense of bemusement at her birth, and culminated about four months later when once, during a night-feed, I looked down at her nestled against my breast and suddenly realised oh-my-god, I love her. And that I’d just die if anything happened to her. But that love didn’t make me think twice about buying a book which detailed what the rhythm method really entailed, and then going on the pill as well just to make doubly sure. And not having any more children certainly didn’t count as one of my regrets when the marriage shuddered miserably to a halt about nine years later.
Also, that love has certainly been put to the test this morning. Even apart from the matter of giving birth on my carpet and then telling everybody about it before I could, there was also the fact, as I discovered when I finally managed to get out the door, that Bronte had parked her pink Volkswagen right behind my car when she arrived in the middle of the night. And, as she left with Bill and Sven, of course the pink Volkswagen was still there. I had to execute a seventy-eight point turn and run over my new rosebush in order to extricate my Barina and head off to collect my mother.
I put my blinker on and coast into the left-hand lane in preparation for turning into Forest Road. Several vehicles already in the left-hand lane honk furiously so I take one hand off the steering wheel momentarily to send them an appropriate gesture. Then I try to crank the car back into third – but it won’t go, so I look down quickly and realise the car is already in third. No wonder it was making all those complaining noises coming down the highway. I look back up just in time to brake before colliding with a bus that, very rudely, has pulled out right in front of me, so I honk to let him know his actions haven’t gone unnoticed. A couple of teenagers in the rear of the bus copy my earlier gesture but I ignore them blithely and turn up Forest Road towards Ferntree Gully Central.
Then I close my eyes and take a deep breath in an attempt to clear my body of residual stress. When I open them again I’m in Ferntree Gully Central, so I slow down because the little township is a positive mecca for elderly people, and running over a stray one would really not help this day pick up. Within a few minutes I’m turning into my mother’s street, and then into her driveway.
I park on the terracotta cobblestones and, leaning back to wait for her, feel myself start to relax as I contemplate the weatherboard house before me. I don’t think it matters whether you live across the world or across the street, most people experience a sense of coming home, of revisiting roots, whenever they visit the house they grew up in. I know I do – but I also know that, in my case, the days for this are numbered. The rambling white weatherboard I grew up in is far too big for my mother alone, and the block it squats on is far too big not to attract a wealth of developers as soon as the house hits the market. Which means that, sooner or later, in this spot I’ll be staring not at a gracious old weatherboard starting to feel her age, but at a row of pea-in-the-pod brick units.
I press down on the horn impatiently and an elderly gentleman who is planting a series of wilting daisies in his lawn next door looks up and frowns at me with annoyance. The front door of my mother’s house opens wide and, a few seconds later, my mother herself comes bustling out and down the brick path to where it intersects with the driveway. She is wearing a loud floral pinafore over a purple skivvy, thongs and a huge smile.
‘Teresa, darling! How lovely!’
‘Sorry I’m late, Mum,’ I say as I give her outfit a cursory glance. ‘You wouldn’t believe the day I’m having!’
‘Of course I would, honey. You aren’t a liar – never have been.’
‘Oh. Okay. Hey, you’re not wearing that are you?’
‘What?’
‘That –’ I gesture at the pinafore ensemble ‘– to the hospital.’
‘But you said eleven o’clock, Teresa!’
‘It is eleven o’clock. Actually, it’s a quarter past.’
‘Already?’
‘Yes. So could you get changed – quickly?’
‘Eleven o’clock!’ Mum shakes her head with amazement and wanders back up the path still repeating the time in a disbelieving voice. She slams the door behind her and I roll my eyes and settle down to wait.
When I was a small girl, I firmly believed height had a direct correlation with intelligence. That is, the taller a person was, the smarter they were. And vice versa. I hadn’t just plucked this theory out of the ether either, because in my household there was very good reason for believing it. My father was a six-foot-four criminal lawyer who, when he was home, generally wandered around muttering unintelligible sentences and radiating intelligence. Then there was his assorted family, with not one adult non-tertiary educated or under six foot, and all the children rapidly approaching that mark. My older brother and I were in the same mould – both tall, bright and precocious. And then there was our mother.
She is, to be blunt, an idiot. And a tiny idiot, at that. With heels she might break the five-foot barrier, but they’d have to be pretty decent. I don’t want to know what it says about my father that he, in his thirties, married a minute eighteen year old with the IQ of a damaged gnat. Obviously, he was one of those men who are fatally attracted to dumb blondes – the dumber the better. And with my mother he hit the jackpot.
Age doesn’t appear to have made much difference either; nowadays she’s so vague that sometimes even entire conversations seem to pass her by. But, total twit or not, her huge, warm personality more than makes up for her lack in other areas. She is one of the most non-judgemental, kind-hearted, truly generous people I’ve ever met and, as much as she might frustrate the hell out of me at times, I love her dearly. She did a marvellous job of bringing us up and our snug, loving, secure childhood home was due in no small part to her warmth and family devotion. Even today, I know she’s always there for me whenever I need her.
And she’s also still beautiful. Petite, fine-boned, fluffy and blue-eyed – sort of like a pocket Barbie doll – with her hair now an artfully tinted blonde to hide the encroaching grey. Although, personally, I don’t know that I’d bother – if she left it alone then at least she’d have some grey matter around her cranial region.
Funnily enough, the predilection for clouding the gene pool must pass through the male gene – because my brother certainly did his utmost to better Dad’s choice. Needless to say, I don’t get on terribly well with my sister-in-law but I’ve got to admit their marriage seems blissfully content. Just like that of our parents, who worshipped the ground the other walked on until my father died five years ago. Now Mum just worships the ground that covers him.
I run my fingers through my hair and then glance at my watch, deciding it might be prudent to go inside and hurry her along. The odds are she’s forgotten I’m even out here and is having an early lunch or something. Just as I get out of the car, the front door opens again and there’s my mother, now dressed in a pair of tailored black pants and a lilac cable-knit jumper, and carrying a brightly wrapped gift.
The gentleman planting daisies pauses as she walks past and doffs his hat politely. If I were on the receiving end of such a gesture I’d stop dead in shock, but she is so used to that sort of reaction she just smiles sweetly back and then walks over towards me. She might be a kangaroo short in the top paddock but, even at the age of sixty-four, men seem to fall all over themselves to protect her. I only wish I had half her good looks and the small bones to go with them. Nobody ever gets an urge to defend you when you’re built like one of Wagner’s Valkyries. And clothes just don’t seem to hang the same either.
‘Shall we, honey?’
‘Of course.’ I get back into the car and start the engine as she settles herself neatly on the passenger side. I reverse deftly and we head off in the direction of the William Angliss Hospital in Upper Ferntree Gully.
‘You must’ve moved pretty quickly,’ I say, looking at the gift in her lap. ‘I mean, I only rang you a couple of hours ago.’
‘Oh, I didn’t get it this morning!’ says Mum with a laugh. ‘I bought this gift months ago! It’s a baby monitor set but I’ve already told Bronte so she didn’t double up. What did you get her?’
‘Um. Well, nothing yet. Because I want to wait and see what she really needs.’
‘Very sensible.’
‘Yes, I thought so.’
‘And what chilly weather we’re having,’ says Mum conversationally as I whip around a string of cars driving very slowly. ‘What a lovely surprise.’
‘Well, it is winter – so it’s sort of expected, I suppose.’
‘Not the weather.’ Mum smiles jovially at me. ‘I watched the news last night.’
‘The news was a surprise?’ I ask as I find myself right behind a big black hearse and realise that all the slow cars were actually driving that way for a reason. ‘Why? What happened?’
‘When?’ Mum looks at me with a frown.
‘On the news. The surprise.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I only watch the weather.’ Mum opens her window a fraction and the icy wind whistles straight across and zeroes in on my left ear. ‘Why? Did something happen?’
‘Mum . . .’ I take a deep breath and try to focus. ‘You just said that it was a lovely surprise. What was the lovely surprise?’
‘Why, you, honey.’
‘I was the lovely surprise?’
‘Yes, of course – you turning up like that to take me to see the new little baby.’
‘But, Mum, we just arranged it this morning!’
‘Yes, I know. But the baby was a trifle early, and then – well, so was eleven o’clock. Hadn’t you better put your lights on?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it’s only polite when you’re in a funeral procession.’
‘But I’m not – all right.’ I lean over and flick my lights on. ‘So how’s Tom? Have you heard from him recently?’
‘Yes, I rang this morning to tell him the news. He was thrilled. And they’re all fine.’ Mum pauses and a slight frown puckers her porcelain brow. ‘Although I do worry all the time about that Kleenex Clan and what they might do to him. And to little Bonnie.’
‘Mum. Number one – it’s the Klu Klux Klan. Number two – last time I saw him, Tom was white, Protestant and heterosexual. The combination of which renders him fairly safe. Number three – the Klu Klux Klan aren’t the be all and end all they once were.’ I put my blinker on and try to get out from behind the hearse but the semitrailer on my right refuses to let me in. ‘And number four – the only way they’d be a threat to Bonnie would be if they have a branch that’s involved in straightening out spoilt brats.’
‘Nevertheless, I worry.’ Mum folds her arms across her chest and looks at me sagely. ‘I’ve heard things, you know.’
I try not to laugh because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. My brother, Thomas, who specialises in corporate law, was sent by his firm over to Atlanta, in the US of A, on a two-year contract ten years ago. The chief reason he is still there is Amy, his southern-born wife whom he met and married during the first year of his contract and who steadfastly refuses to live anywhere else. Bonnie is their very spoilt five year old daughter.
‘Any plans to visit us in the near future?’ I decide to change the subject because this isn’t the first conversation we’ve had regarding the Kleenex Klan and the likelihood of them doing something drastic to Tom or Bonnie. Like forcing them to ma
nufacture illicit, substandard toilet tissue in some sweatshop, I suppose. Amy doesn’t really enter the equation – after all, if she were nabbed by the Klan, Tom would be free to shift back to Australia with his daughter in tow and visit his mother a trifle more frequently.
‘Actually, he thought he might have a meeting over here in a month or so.’ My mother turns and looks at me excitedly. ‘Wouldn’t that be lovely?’
‘Yes, it would,’ I reply with pleasure, ‘but aren’t you due over there this Christmas anyway?’
‘Am I? Let me see . . . ’ She frowns with concentration. ‘Yes, I am! I stayed here last year, so this year it’s my turn for America! I’d forgotten – what fun!’
‘Yes, what fun,’ I reply dryly, wondering how it is possible to forget that, for the past ten years, you have spent one Christmas with your daughter and the following with your son. I make another attempt to get out of the funeral procession but all the cars in the right-hand lane contain extremely selfish drivers and not one will let me in. We lapse into silence but it’s not an uncomfortable silence. It never is with my mother because I’ll say one thing for her – she’s definitely not the type of person who feels they have to fill every conversational gap with inanities. In fact, she’s extremely comfortable with long silences and some of my happiest moments with her have been spent without a word being uttered.
I put my blinker on to turn into the road leading to the hospital, and so does the hearse in front of me. Accordingly I resign myself to being lead mourner in the funeral procession all the way through Upper Ferntree Gully, which is indeed what happens. At least it means that, for once, all the other users of the road pay me some respect. And I even have a few elderly gentlemen doff their hats as I drive past. I try to look suitably bereaved but it’s difficult with my mother sitting beside me beaming and waving cheerfully at the hat-doffers.
Finally I turn off into the hospital car park and the funeral procession continues on up the hill. Now for the fun part. The William Angliss Hospital is renowned for its lack of parking and is subsequently an extremely rewarding hunting ground for the city’s parking inspectors. We drive around and around for half an hour before finding a space which is about four foot shy of being a decent car park. But this is where having a Barina pays off. I let Mum out before manoeuvring the car in with a series of dexterous movements. Then I throw her the keys so she can open the boot and I lock both doors from the inside before clambering over into the back seat, and from there into the boot and out. I dust myself down and lock the hatchback.
