Warm Honey

by Dave Cornford

  “It’s great food Gracie,” I said, noting the relief in Dad’s face.

  “She makes it all from scratch, don’t you love”? Dad was flitting between us, nervous as a sparrow.

  “It’s the only way,” said Gracie, “None of that jar stuff.”

  “Where do you get your spices Gracie?” asked Charis.

  “The Re Store.”

  “Really? Me too, though you make yours taste heaps better.”

  “It’s all in the stock,” said Gracie, “Brown the onions, garlic and celery before you add the spice. Get that right at the start and you’re halfway there.”

  The relief on Dad’s face as Charis and Gracie set about talking their favourite spices and combinations slowed him down, and he sat back relaxing a little, stopping to tell Jesse to sit up straight.

  “It’s great to have you over son,” he said a bit unsurely under their conversation. This was new territory for him and he was exploring it gingerly as if he was scared to confront a beast he hadn’t prepared for.

  “It’s great to be here Dad.” I said, and it seemed to make him at ease.

  The kids jumped around like they do when visitors turn up, yo-yoing between their rooms and the kitchen to show us stuff; school paintings, Star Wars figures and dolls. Dad seemed proud of his kids, but soon tired of their buzzing around.

  “Sit and have your tea!” He clicked his fingers. I remembered that clicking and the things that went with it. “Go to bed!” “Eat your tea!” “Do it now!” He trotted out his old jokes like I knew he would and like I’d told Charis he would. Gracie had grown quieter, like she was listening in to what Dad and I were saying. The kids were laughing, bouncing off the familiarity between their dad and this stranger.

  “Let’s go through to the lounge,” said Gracie, “Coffee?”

  We’d go through the meal and she hadn’t let her guard down once. No angry words to the kids, no questions too personal.

  The lounge looked cheap, like it had all been bought at Red Dot or Thingz; silly clocks, cheap vases, and one of those singing fish. Mum would have hated it all. I wondered if Dad did. He certainly wouldn’t have liked that sort of stuff when he was with Mum.

  “Whatever the house is like, we can make it look classy,” Mum used to say, and she’d fill it with ornaments and sideboards, with throw-rugs and runners on the stuff that looked too plasticy.

  Now here was Dad surrounded by stuff Mum would have gotten rid of at a garage sale, that’s if it had ever made it into the house.

  “Have you ever seen these?” said Dad, getting up suddenly, and going over to the fish. Gracie walked in with the coffee just as Dad was switching it on.

  “Spare them Billy Bass Phil,” said Gracie, as if she’d said it a few times before.

  “Ach, he’s hilarious, Just listen to this.”

  I looked at Charis and she had the same smile on her face that I think I had on my mine.

  “Go on Dad,” said Jesse laughing. Hero worship. I recognised it.

  Gracie got up. “I’ll start the dishes,” she said evenly. The fish began to warble even as Dad realised he’d picked it wrong.

  “I’ll give you a hand Gracie.” Charis got up and walked into the kitchen. Lauren and Jesse went with her, Lauren holding onto her arm.

  “Kids, get ready for bed,” called Gracie.

  “Aww Mum!”

  “Lauren! Jess! Now!” said Dad clicking again. “Kids don’t change do they?”

  “Charis seems real nice,” Dad said finishing his coffee. He said it awkward, almost apologetic as if he wasn’t sure he had the right to say it.

  “She is, we get on great.”

  “How’s your Mum with her?” His tone lowered as he said it.

  “Great,” I said.

  “I still do my framing, I framed all of these,” he said, pointing around the room to some prints; a photo of Elvis when he was young and thin; and a couple of those prints of dogs dressed up in clothes and doing stuff like playing pool and cards in pubs.

  “Great,” I said, getting up to look at them. I realised I was saying ‘great’ a lot, stretching it out and making it fit everything. The picture-frame joins weren’t as tight as I’d remembered them being when I was young, or maybe that had been the same hero worship I’d seen in Jesse a few minutes back. I was starting to feel warm and foggy, too much food and drink.

  “I’ve got a little set-up out the back, want to have a look?”

  “Yeah. You never thought of doing it full-time like before?”

  The night air cleared my head and it was good to finally be alone with him.

  “I thought about it once or twice,” said Dad, as he opened the shed door. “Never got around to it. Don’t know if I had it in me to be honest.” I wondered if he ever thought back to that first attempt. Maybe it was just his mulligan, the shot that didn’t count and now he was teeing up the real deal and he sure as hell wasn’t going to pull it into the rough this time. Dad flicked the flouro and I caught the smell of compressed pine-dust and glue from years back. Rolls of prints were stacked on the table, there were racks of frame samples on the wall, a radio on the desk and a couple of stools. Dad stroked his mitre saw like it was a favourite pet.

  “Your cave,” I said, imagining the kids sitting there watching while he worked.

  “Eh?”

  “You know, your cave, the place you escape too.”

  “We sit out here and have a coffee, Gracie and me,” he said, “listen to talk-back. There’s some wackos out there eh?” I couldn’t tell if he was making sure I knew where things were at, that things were okay between him and Gracie, or that he was just saying it because that’s just what they did.

  The shed was cold and the harsh buzzy flouro was wearing off the warming effects of the curry and the inside banter. I could feel the conversation cracks widening.

  “It’s getting late, we need to get going,” I said, “We’re both working tomorrow.’

  “It’s been great having you over son, the kids really liked it too.”

  “Thanks for having us.”

  “Gracie and Charis got on well, she’s a lovely girl, you’d be a fool to let go of a girl like that.” He’d pushed it a bit too far and he knew it. “Anyway son, I just want to see you happy.”

  “I am happy Dad.” I was surprised at my candour, but it seemed to be the thing that he’d been looking for all evening. He flicked the lights off and locked the shed. In the sudden dark I could see Gracie and Charis in the treacle glow of the kitchen. They had all the over-done hand movements and head-nods of people who don’t really know each other, but have met at a social engagement and are being friendly.

  Then suddenly it was over. We were going out the door and the porch light was on and we were all standing there talking loud and laughing loud, and we were getting into the car and winding down windows and they were waving us off in the dark, Dad with his arm around Gracie more than her with her arm around him. Soon they would be lying facing each other and talking about it the way lovers do, or they’d be back to back in silence in the dark, each with their own thoughts.

  “You did good,” said Charis, her arm around my headrest as we turned the first corner.

  “Could have done better, I felt awkward at times. You got on good with Gracie?”

  “Fine,” she said, “It was good to be part of something, something that matters, that breaks a circuit.”

  We drove on in silence and her stroke on the back of my neck through the headrest gap felt like comfort. Everything seemed really vivid: the sick green glow of the dash, the indicator tick, the hum of the road, and the rhythmic swoosh of traffic and blood.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The phone went to answering machine at six one Saturday morning. It went through again, and even threatened to again before I heard Benny’s sleepy and grumpy “What?” He crashed my door, stumbled into my room, holding the phone in one hand and two ends of a towel that was wrapped round him in the other.

  “Y
our mum.” His eyes were puffy and half-closed from his night before. “Get a mobile,” he muttered, walking out.

  I was awake.

  “Robert.” I could hear it in her voice already, though I didn’t know what “it” was yet. Still I could feel myself going trembly, a mixture of the sudden waking and the anticipation.

  “What is it?”

  “Vicki phoned, Bevan’s in hospital.”

  “What happened?” Mum sounded like she might have been crying, I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was just croaky morning-voice. My mind started to race. It would have to be a car accident or something, what else would it be at this time of the morning?

  “He’d been in a lot of pain the last couple of days. He went to the doctor and got some tests, but Vicki took him in to Royal Perth last night because it was getting worse.”

  “What kind of pain?” Mum was circling around as if she couldn’t land on exactly what she was trying to say.

  “We don’t know, he’s had some tests done. Look dear, I’m going to the hospital in a couple of hours, I’ll come by and pick you up.” She said it like it wasn’t an option. I was going to say I had stuff to do and I’d get in later, but thought better of it. We were one of those enmeshed families relationship counsellors talk about, great for birthdays and Christmases, not so good for hospitals and court.

  Bevan wouldn’t want us all there. He’d be embarrassed by it and Vicki would be sitting there muttering under her breath like she did. She’d done her best to keep Bevan away from the rest of us over the years. That’s how mum saw it and how she told us she saw it. But they weren’t married and as far as mum was concerned until they were Bevan was still her property. I’d signed some paperwork for him once and he’d put Vicki down as next of kin.

  “I’d rather have Vicki phoning mum to tell her if something happens to me, rather than the other way around,” he’d offered by way of explanation.

  Mum thought Vicki was a bit of a snob and for what it’s worth so did I. She’d gone to a top-notch private school and still caught up with a group of her school friends twice a year with their partners who were all lawyers and doctors. Bevan said the girls were all the same, blond bobs, expensive labels and small handbags, full of air-kisses and bullshit. And Vicki could bullshit with the best of them, especially when the topic of what Bevan was doing for work came up.

  “Bevan’s in the construction trade,” he’d mimicked to Chris and me once after too many pints. There was a touch of spite in how he’d said it. I wondered if he’d ever brought it up with Vicki or if it was simply a small price to pay for having a willowy blonde ex-private school-girl with cashed up parents and a beach-house share his bed.

  Charis was at my place by the time Mum came. Mum looked tired and worried. Charis hugged her, the first time she’d ever done that, and Mum’s eyes filled up as she let herself be encircled by her arms.

  “I’ll drive Mum.”

  “Thanks dear.”

  “Where to?”

  “RPH, he’s got a ward, I’ve got the number somewhere. Vicki’s there.”

  What about Chris?”

  “Working, he says he’ll get in later.”

  Mum said that when she was nervous she talked a lot, and since she always talked a lot we figured she was nervous most of the time. She kept up a constant pace from the back of the car all the way to the hospital.

  “Remember that time you nearly drowned in the John Forrest National Park not long after we came to Australia?”

  “Can’t forget it mum, not allowed to!”

  “I haven’t heard this one before,” said Charis turning around from the front seat and giving mum all the leeway she needed.

  “He was playing in a rock pool on the river’s edge, and slipped in his thongs and got washed away. I jumped in to save him even though I couldn’t swim.”

  She was off. I knew the story off by heart, but not from her telling it but because it had stuck in my mind like a burr. I remember slipping and then being swept away by the river swollen and black with spring rain. As I raced along on my back I could see the sky made jagged by the overhanging trees and the spumy bubbles at the river’s edge. And then there was mum. She was above me, walking first as if sizing up the situation. Then jogging. Running, finally, trying to keep up with me. Even as the water dragged me along and down I could see the look of fear and determination on her face. Then she flung herself at me. She sailed through the air, her skirt and petticoat parachuting like Mary Poppins, before landing beside me in the river. As the water sucked mum clung to me and I could hear her yelling, a mighty manly shriek, fierce and anguished at the same time. Then suddenly the rushing away stopped as a third person, a man in his twenties grabbed hold of mum’s waist. By now she had hold of my waist and like some reverse congo-line we pulled together against the river’s flow. We got back to the rocks and scrambled panting and heaving back up to the path, me shaking and bawling my eyes out with shock. Mum was thanking our rescuer and Dad, who couldn’t swim either, was looking sheepish and going for towels and rugs to keep us warm. I remember the heater on in the car as we drove home, Mum sitting on a towel in her still damp petticoat, her skirt wound into the window flapping itself dry at a hundred kilometres an hour.

  “All these years later and I still can’t swim,” said Mum, as we pulled into the hospital car-park.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs McEvoy, I won’t let him near the water.”

  “Oh he can swim now,” she said, then laughed catching Charis’s humour. “I’d still jump in to save him though.”

  Bevan didn’t look so good, drained and tired, his face reflecting the blue-grey walls of his room. Vicki was sitting on the edge of the bed. She stood up when we came into the room. Her hair was shoved on top of her head and she had no make-up on. She looked worn out.

  “Knock, knock.” Mum poked her head round the door then marched past Vicki to the bed. “Hello love, how are you?”

  “We’re fine, now,” Vicki said evenly, like she was holding it in. “They’ve given him some pain relief.”

  “G’day mum.” Bevan sounded like he did when he was drunk. It was weird seeing my younger, stronger brother lying in a hospital gown. Mum bent down and kissed him, coming up crying again. Vicki sighed, sounding pissed off.

  “Aww mum, don’t, you’ll start us all off,” he mumbled. Mum’d never say it of course, but Bevan was her favourite. He’d be the one to come around and fix a tap or put back a few tiles if the wind blew them off. He was the next best thing to a husband she could find for little jobs like that, probably even better than Dad had been. I was useless at all that household fixing stuff.

  “Hi mate.” I squeezed his shoulder and he winced.

  “That’s where it’s sorest.”

  “Sorry.” I lightened my touch.

  “My shoulder and my neck. It’s got the crick from hell in it.”

  Apart from horsing around there’d never been too much physical contact between the four boys. Despite the pain I think he could tell my gesture meant something.

  “Robbo, Charis, Mum,” he said, waving lazily at the chairs in the corner. “I got Vicki to get a few extra, they only give you one.”

  The room was standard public hospital; built in robes with cheap handles; speckled industrial lino; and those panels of gadgets and call-buttons that have been pushed a thousand times by all types of illnesses, some fatal, some not.

  ‘What are they saying?” whispered Mum, sniffing. She was a hospital whisperer. Some visitors are hospital shouters, talking and laughing louder to their friend or loved-one, trying to stave off infection and death with hale and hearty. Mum whispered, scared to wake death up, or draw his attention from another room.

  “Not much, they’re doing some tests,” said Vicki, “Just have to wait and see.” She was trying to close Mum down, but Mum was ignoring the cues.

  “When will you get the results?”

  Vicki sighed again.

  A bloke who didn’t look any older than me
walked in with a stethoscope around his neck, saving us from what seemed headed for an argument. College hair-cut and stylish black-rimmed glasses. Under his white coat, quality labels. Country Road, Blazer I thought. Expensive, but conservative. Textured tan shoes. Wedding ring, good watch. Probably lives in City Beach, about to sit his specialist exams. He looked to Vicki and she nodded.

  “I’m his mother,” whispered Mum offering her hand.

  “I’m Dr Stafford.”

  I remember thinking how young he sounded. Too young to put Mum at her ease.

  He went over to Bevan.

  “How are you feeling?” His voice was Bedside Manner 101.

  “Sore, but better with the drugs.”

  I could tell Mum was waiting for him to do something reassuring, like fill in a chart, but he just sat down on the end of the bed.

  “I’ve got your results. Are you okay with everyone in here?”

  Mum and Vicki both took a deep breath and looked at each other, as if each was waiting for the other to leave the room. They seemed not to notice Charis and me.

  “We’re all family here,” said Bevan. Vicki shot an involuntary look at Charis, then tried to turn it into a sweep of the room after catching my eye. That was the thing with Vicki. She had no mask.

  Charis put her hand on my arm. I could feel my heart pounding like when I knew it was Mum on the phone that morning.

  “I’ll get straight to the point. Your tests indicate your body is producing too many immature white blood cells called blasts and they’re building up in your body - your blood and bone marrow. Your white cells stave off infections, but they’re not maturing. That’s why you feel like you’ve got the flu of the century.”

  The word “flu” seemed to reassure Mum, but Charis gripped my arm.

  “At the same time your red cell count is low. Basically we need to get your white cell count down, the unhealthy ones at least, and your red cell count up - and quickly.”

  “There’s a name for this?” demanded Vicki.

  “It’s a form of leukemia, a pretty aggressive one called acute myeloid leukemia.”