by Joy Dettman
‘That place isn’t home. This is home, I said.’
There is a hopeless feeling in the house now, the kids have tried so hard to hold it together but it’s all coming to an end, and they are watching the end come for them, come slow, just waiting for Mavis to fall down again. Every time they hear a noise, they run in, expecting the end. Every time she gets up to go to the loo, they don’t think she’s going to make it to her feet. Alan doesn’t want to be stuck in that house, watching the end come. Every day he nags about going to school.
‘You’re not going to school. You’re going back to Eddy.’
‘I’m not. Can’t you get that into your thick head? I’ll go to whatever place they send you and Mick and Jamesy.’
‘You belong in Melbourne, with Eva.’
‘Yeah, like a lost dog with a disease belongs there. That’s what I was to them when I went back, Lori. They shampooed my hair with special stuff to kill fleas, then they made me take deworming syrup. I couldn’t take my shoes off or they’d get this long-suffering look on their faces, and if they weren’t around, Eddy would start singing, “Put your shoes on, Sticksville, cause your stinking feet aren’t pretty”. Then Alice got that stuff and every day for a week they made me soak my feet in it.’
‘You can’t blame them for that, Alan!’
‘Can’t I just? Well, I do.’ He looks at his bare feet, then up to her eyes. ‘Do you think that Eddy and I are the same person now you’ve met him?’
‘Don’t be stupid! Of course you’re not. Except in looks – until you get close up.’
‘Eva and Alice don’t even want to tell us apart. It’s always boys, do this; boys, do that. They make us get our hair cut the same, and they buy two of everything so we can dress the same, and if we’re going some place and we put on different shirts, one of us gets sent back to change.’
‘You’re nearly twelve years old. Just refuse to change your shirt.’
‘I did, but Eddy always says, go with the flow, Sticksville. He changes his shirt.’
‘Well – it’s still got to be better than this. Like living in that house, getting new clothes and money thrown at you all day.’
‘And getting treated like Eva’s matching pair of toys that she keeps in a box and only takes out when she wants to show them off. It seemed all right before, I suppose.’ He sighs, looks out the window, sucks in a big breath. ‘It’s different now. It’s like one half of her pair got carried around England in its velvet-lined box for a year and the other half got . . . got picked up by a wild mob of kids who nearly wore it out playing with it all day long and sort of . . . sort of loving it.’
Lori loves him all right. She gets a lump in her throat with loving him, though she’s not going to say it, not exactly. ‘Only just sort of,’ she says, and gives him a punch, turns away fast to hide her eyes. She doesn’t want Alan to go back, anyway, never did. Doesn’t say one more word about it either.
Two letters come from Mr Watts, Eva’s solicitor. Mavis isn’t interested in letters so Mick opens them. It’s just more threats about court cases and stuff about separation being detrimental to the twins’ wellbeing. And who cares what they think?
Then on the Friday, two weeks after he left, Eddy phones, and waits on the phone like he’s a millionaire, which he is, until Nelly comes over to get Alan. The twins talk for ages. Eddy rings again on Saturday, then twice on Sunday night.
‘I don’t care whether we’re allowed to go to Tasmania or not, so stop making Nelly run backwards and forwards getting me over here. I am not going back to that effing place, and you can tell them that too,’ Alan yells and he hangs up the phone.
So it gets to the next Tuesday. Everyone is in bed except Mavis, who hasn’t slept in her bedroom since the night she fell, like she’s too scared to leave that couch. Somehow she gets herself out to the toilet, but not often, though she’s usually got the brains to go out there before the kids go to bed. They watch her, wait for her to heave herself back.
It’s got to be after twelve when Lori is dragged from her sleep by the blinding light of a torch directed into her eyes.
‘Is she down?’ She swings her feet to the floor, still half asleep, doesn’t know where the torch came from, but as her eyes evade the light, she thinks she sees Alan behind it.
‘She’s in the brick bathroom.’ Then the torch is off and the lounge-room light switched on and Alan doesn’t sound like Alan and he isn’t even dressed for bed and he’s wearing Eddy’s snakeskin headband. ‘I’ve got a plan, Lori,’ he says. And maybe she’s dreaming this, maybe she’s sleepwalking, because that’s not Alan standing there.
‘Are you both as bloody mad as rabbits?’ she says. ‘What the hell are you doing back here?’
‘I’m not here. I’m on that school camp in Tasmania,’ he says, leading the way to the brick room where Mavis is sitting on the loo and sort of slumped against the corner wall, which is the only thing that’s stopping her from falling.
‘Mick! Mick! She’s dead!’
‘Stop your yelling. She’s not dead.’
Mick comes hopping out, Alan behind him. They stare at Eddy, like, what the hell is going on here? Eddy just leans against the doorframe waiting until they wake up enough for him to explain what he’s doing back here.
‘Alan told me on the phone that she’s dying. Right? You all know that, but you keep stuffing food into her. Right? Now stop and think of what you’re doing to her – and to me. You’re actually murdering my natural mother, and when she’s dead they’ll pack all of you off to homes or hostels. Am I right?’ They don’t argue, just stare at him and scratch heads, yawn and scratch ribs. ‘What I’m proposing to do is to put her on a diet. She gets to live, you mob get to stay free and I get to come for a visit from time to time.’
‘You moron. As if we haven’t tried that. As if Henry didn’t try that.’
‘Alice and Eva will be up here tomorrow to get both of us now,’ Alan says.
‘No they won’t. I’m on that camp for ten days.’
‘How come she changed her mind?’
‘I told you that having Mave kidnap us would work, didn’t I? Anyway, that’s where I am tonight, so we’ve got ten days before they start chasing me and ten days to try something different.’ Lori is staring at him, shaking her head. ‘She can’t walk as far as the bedroom, Alan told me. She can hardly walk out to the toilet. Right? So what if we lock her in here and she learns to eat what we give – ’
‘You’re even crazier than you look, you moron. The camp people will have told Eva that you’re missing. She’ll already have a search party out looking for you.’
‘No she won’t. It’s all under control. The school has still got her note saying that we’re not allowed to go. I went into fretting for Alan mode again and Alice actually suggested I go to Tasmania. They wrote another letter and gave me a cheque to pay for it – and two hundred dollars for emergencies, so stop worrying about me and them, and listen for a minute. I was looking at that brick room when I was up here before. It’s rock solid, it’s got a toilet and a washbasin – ’
‘You can’t lock people up.’ Lori is at the door, staring at Mavis, who definitely isn’t dead because her head has fallen back and she’s started snoring. ‘She wouldn’t just go to sleep sitting there like that. There’s something wrong with her.’
‘No there’s not, or nothing that is beyond my control.’
‘Stop talking like a smartarsed snob. What did you do to her?’
‘I’ve been here since nine . . . I came on the bus . . . I mashed a packet of Mum’s Xanax tablets on the way up . . . , then put them in the custard powder . . . as soon as you lot went to bed.’ Eddy is looking around, stepping from foot to foot. ‘I stirred it well.’ He’s trying to look confident but he’s sounding a lot more confident than he’s looking.
And how the hell did he think of doing that? Lori thought of doing that same thing with Valium ages ago. What the hell made him think of doing that?
‘Wh
at’s Xanax?’ Jamesy has joined them.
‘Tranquillisers. They’re similar to Mavis’s Valium . . . or so it says on the Internet. She looks tranquil.’
‘How much custard powder was left?’ Lori yells, loud enough to wake the house. Mavis doesn’t move, doesn’t interrupt her snore.
‘Plenty. She only uses one tablespoon. I watched how she made it when I was here the last time.’
‘One heaped tablespoon,’ Jamesy says.
‘How many tablets?’ Alan asks. He’s picked up the custard powder packet and he’s peering into it.
‘A new packet. Fifty.’
Then Jamesy has got the packet. ‘There’s a ton of custard powder left. She probably only got five tablets worth and the last Valium packet says two tablets three times a day and two at night if she needs them.’ He’s eyeing the empty couch and liking what he’s seeing.
‘And who says she only made one lot of custard?’ Lori yells.
Mick is back. He’s put his brace on. Neil wanders out, pulls a face at Eddy – only because he’s pleased to see him.
‘It’s just another game to you. You go back in ten days and we have to live with her when you’re gone,’ Lori says.
‘I might decide to stay for a while. They can’t make me go back.’
Lori is staring at him. Mick is checking the level of two milk bottles in the fridge and he’s concerned. ‘She’s got to have made two lots of custard, Lori. He’s overdosed her.’
‘I didn’t make the custard, Mick. I didn’t make her eat it – ’
‘Yeah, well, someone better go over and get Nelly to ring the doctor, that’s all I’m saying. There’s too much milk missing for just one lot of custard.’
Lori is leaning against the open door, staring at Mavis, or at her exposed thigh, which is bigger around than most men’s stomachs. She’s not dead, but she just as easily could have been dead. Lori wouldn’t have heard her if she’d fallen in the loo. She probably would have died, due to she can’t breathe properly when she’s lying flat out.
And how come Eddy thought of the custard powder idea? How come? How did such a crazy idea get planted in two separate brains? It was her original crazy idea – that or mixing the crushed pills in a tin of condensed milk.
‘You can’t even think about doing it, Lori,’ Mick says.
‘Just let me think. Just everyone shut up and let me think for a minute.’
They all shut up for a minute, then a minute more as they stand and lean, watching the sleeper. She looks unusually peaceful.
‘She’s killing herself. What’s the difference between her killing herself with food and Henry hanging himself?’ Jamesy says.
Lori looks at him. It’s true. There is no real difference. If the kids had seen Henry cutting the clothesline wire, they would have stopped him. She picks up the old quilt and walks into the brick room, places it over Mavis, tucks it between her shoulders and the bricks. Mavis doesn’t move and Lori returns to the door. It’s a strong old door, made of thick, long boards with other boards going across it like a double Z, and it’s got huge old-fashioned hinges. She has seen them tested, has been behind that door when those hinges were tested.
‘We put her couch in there, give her the television – ’ Eddy starts, but Lori pushes by him, walks into the kitchen. The boys follow her, Eddy behind them, his snakeskin now being drawn backwards and forwards between his fingers.
‘Okay. I know we’re still thinking about it, but think for a minute on this. The doctor gives her Valium for her nerves and antidepressants for her brain and that other stuff for something. She won’t take her medicine so we lock her in the brick room and give her the pills in her food. The doctor told Alice to do that with Eva’s pills when she was going out of her brain that first time Mavis got Alan. It cured her enough in one week to get her on a plane to England, so the ten days I’m on the camp should be enough to see if we can cu . . . improve Mave.’
‘And if it doesn’t, you go home and we’re worse off than we were,’ Lori says.
‘As I see it, if she’s no better, then you’re no worse off, and if she is better, then I might stay for a while – but I’m not staying if she’s sitting in this kitchen, stuffing her face, smelling like a sweat factory and ruining my lungs with smoke.’
‘It’s just another joke to him, Lori. She’s something to laugh about – ’
‘Dying of lung cancer is no joke. Think of the little kids,’ Jamesy says.
‘Shut up, you. You’re as mad as he is,’ Lori says, and suddenly realises what she has said, realises it’s true. Jamesy is a bit like Eddy. Not in looks, but in other ways.
He’s talking again, or still. He’s a big talker. ‘We move a bed in for her. Put her couch in there, and the television. We feed her three normal meals a day. What’s wrong with that? All she does is smoke, eat, watch television, and go to the toilet. If she’s got it all in one room she won’t have to walk up and down that step and end up falling over. And if we put enough furniture in there, there won’t be room enough for her to fall over.’
‘How do we fit her bed and couch in?’ Lori is still thinking of the custard powder, and thinking the only difference between her and Eddy is, he had the nerve to do what he was thinking; she was too chicken to try it.
So now it is done and it’s scary – like some accident, where people are just driving along a road looking at the view, then suddenly, without any warning, they’re all dead. She’s standing in the kitchen and her stomach is jumping and she’s thinking of how things went from Henry’s good to something so bad that it couldn’t get worse. For weeks she planned to mix the Valium in condensed milk and pour six packets of pills down Mavis’s throat while she was asleep – murder her. That’s what she was planning to do back then. All Eddy is planning to do is to get her out of the kitchen, make her take her pills, put her to sleep at night instead of letting her eat. And maybe save her life.
Lori only stopped planning murder when she got control of the bankcard and things got a bit better. She began to think life was almost okay when there was money for food and shoes and stuff. But it isn’t okay. It’s surviving, not living, it’s keeping things going from one pension day to the next and waiting for Mavis to commit suicide with food. It’s waiting until the house falls down.
And it’s going to fall, this week, this month or this year.
Then they’ll all be split up and they won’t be a family any more. Having families split up isn’t okay. Having Alan – and even Eddy – back in the family is. And that’s the truth, though she wouldn’t ever tell Eddy.
Maybe he’s right. The doctor wants Mavis to take those tablets. Maybe they should give them to her the best way they can. Would it really matter if they had to lock her up to do it? Who’s to know, anyway? No one sees her, except the kids – and Nelly.
They’d have to tell Nelly. She’d be okay with it. She’s not like a grown-up.
Jamesy has decided to go with it. He’s trying to drag the couch out of the wall. Mick is measuring how many heaped tablespoons of custard powder are left in the packet and he can only make six and the last one isn’t really a heaped tablespoon, either.
‘She’s probably made two or three lots, Lori.’
‘If she’d taken five in the first lot of custard, then she wouldn’t have been able to make the second lot, Mick, so she’s probably made a big serve, that’s all, and even if she made two lots, it would take a heap more than ten Valium to do much harm. There’s a lot of her.’
They walk out again, stand beside the green door and stare at Mavis. She doesn’t look blue like she did that night she fell. Lori looks at the door, at the bolt on the door, knowing that for some reason she is the one who has to say yes – or no.
She has to say no. Of course she does. Now. She has to say it now. She can’t just stand here looking at that door all night.
If she says no, Eddy will go back to St Kilda in the morning.
She turns to him. She’s missed the laughing sinc
e he left. Ten days of laughter, ten days of his mad cleaning lady routines. Ten days without Mavis in the kitchen. They could look on it as a sort of holiday. None of the kids has ever had a holiday.
She shrugs, closes the green door and her hand reaches for the slide bolt Martin fixed high. It probably won’t slide. It hasn’t been slid for over a year. It’s probably gone rusty and jammed.
But it slides eagerly into its keeper. So easy.
Like it was meant to be.
Brick Walls
In the kitchen Jamesy has been waiting for that signal. He drags the old couch free. Eddy is up on a chair pulling down dusty packets of pills. There are eight packets of Valium, some ancient, the packets faded, but the pills are still sealed up tight inside the bubble packs. There are two packets of Aropax, which are antidepressants, two lots of fluid pills, a container of Slow K, just potassium, and three other types of pills, which Lori knows nothing about and Eddy hasn’t got his Internet to find out what they’re for. Behind those pills and beneath them, like a dusty mess of scrap paper, are the prescriptions, some curled, some faded, some nibbled by silverfish and probably out of date, but some brand new. There is one for Aropax. It’s got a heap of repeats and there’s a whole mess of Valium scripts – not that they’ll need any more of those.
‘At eight Valium a day and one Aropax, we’ve got enough pills here to keep her going for about sixty days,’ Eddy says.
‘So we give her a two-month sentence for child abuse,’ Jamesy says.
‘She’s on remand for ten days,’ Judge Eddy says.
Alan is standing back shaking his head. Mick is shaking his head too but he’s picked up a packet of Valium and the instructions say one tablet three times a day. Neil is trying to help Jamesy push the couch across the vinyl and the metal legs aren’t doing the vinyl any good.
‘That packet is out of date, Mick,’ Lori says. ‘The new packets all say two tablets three times a day and two at night, when necessary.’
