by Belle Brooks
“Oh, me. Yes, me,” I finally reply after my observation. I love Mar-Mar’s meatballs. Nobody cooks them quite like her.
Her pale pink nightgown wraps around her ankles as she spoons leftovers into a cooking pot already on the gas stove. Stirring gently, she says, “Now the trick is to reheat on a low temperature and increase it bit by bit. People these days are always in such a hurry for everything, they ruin so much.”
Again, her observation is spot-on. When did the world become crazy impatient? I know mine has. I want everything to be perfect right now. I never stopped to think that life sometimes just takes time.
“I was expecting you for dinner. What took you so long? Road works?”
“A flat tyre, a tow truck, a bus, and a taxi.” Mum giggles.
“Interesting journey.” She continues to stir.
“You can say that again.” I roll my eyes. Interesting, my arse.
“Well, you’re here now. That’s the main thing.” Taking the spoon out from the pot, she blows against it gently and then places it to her tongue. “Needs a little more time and it will be perfect.”
Maybe I just need a little more time. Maybe then I’ll be perfect.
“So, Abigail, are you giving your mumma a hard time, young lady?”
“Well, no...okay, probably yes, but not deliberately. You see, Mar-Mar, so much has happened over the last twenty days it’s left my head spinning, my heart broken, and my soul destroyed.”
Mar-Mar tuts. “Rubbish. Pure hogs wallop, Abigail.”
“Hey, come again.”
“Nobody’s soul can be destroyed.” Her lips press down when she glances at me. “Now a heart can never be fully broken, slightly fractured perhaps. Your head is spinning? Well, I’m going to agree with this, because from what I’ve been told of late you’ve been consuming a bucket load of alcohol and that’s bound to make anyone’s head spin on a dime…so yes, rubbish.” Mar-Mar glares at me, but her hand keeps rotating in a clockwise motion, sticking to its ever so gently pace.
“Okay. Maybe you’re right. So let’s say my heart is fractured, my soul is injured, and my head is alcohol spun.”
“Right, see, now that’s more relatable. Well, are you going to tell me why this is?”
“Mar-Mar, do you remember a man called Marcus Klein?”
She immediately stops stirring, the spoon drops from her grip, and her head drops.
“She knows, Pamela?” Her words are only a whisper.
“Yes,” Mum replies just as quietly.
“When?”
“A few weeks now.”
“Oh.” Turning off the burner, Mar-Mar grabs two bowls from the avocado-coloured cabinetry above the stove. Long strands of spaghetti are added to these bowls before a decent helping of lava red sauce and chunky meatballs follows. I become winded, air now knocked from my lungs.
Mar-Mar knew about Marcus. Of course she did. She knows everything.
“Well, this visit makes perfect sense. How come you didn’t tell me on the phone last week, Pamela?”
“I thought it would be okay.”
“I see. Well, we have a lot to talk about. But not tonight. Tomorrow we will work on your pile of shit, Abigail, and tomorrow we will set you both back on track. For now, you will eat spaghetti and meatballs and then you will both get a good night’s rest and that’s that.”
Mum and I nod simultaneously as our bowls are carefully placed on the table in front of each of us.
“Eat up.”
Words of Wisdom
A gentle breeze laps at my cheek on awakening. The breeze drifts in from the partly open window of the room Mum and I shared last night. Two king-sized single beds sit either side of a small bedside table, one that has a vase a quarter filled with sand and sea shells placed decoratively inside. The room is just what you’d expect of a small beach cottage. It has wooden navy and red anchors hung on the wall, and netting gathered across the corner where the two walls meet near the window. The netting is empty apart from a pink teddy. My teddy. This observation has me smiling as my arms outstretch and a yawn escapes me. Nothing says tranquillity like the smell of salty ocean air first thing in the morning.
Sliding my feet along wooden floor boards, I wrestle my twisted pyjama bottoms to sit straight on my hips. The smell of pancakes greets my nose from the bathroom. Nobody makes pancakes quite like Mar-Mar does. A helping of ice cream, a dollop of cream, icing sugar sifted as a light coating, topped with chocolate shavings. Mar-Mar is a self-made chef.
“Good morning, beautiful girl.” Mar-Mar has removed her rollers and perfect grey curls sit on the top of her head as she smiles upon my entry.
“Morning, Mar-Mar.” I kiss her cheek as I pass by her at the stove. Retrieving a jug of water from the fridge and a glass from the cupboard, I settle in.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes. I slept like a log.”
“Good. Your mother?”
I watch her flip a pancake back into the pan. How in the world does she do that? “Still out for the count. Snoring like a champion.”
“Good.”
Sitting on the same seat I sat at last night, a large oval plate is put in front of me along with a knife and fork. “Your favourite.” Her cheek presses to mine as her hands wrap over my collarbones.
“You are the best, Mar-Mar.”
“Don’t I know it,” she says before making her way back to the bench and grabbing her plate to join me.
Every bite has my taste buds exploding in an orgasm. I think I’m going to move here and live with Mar-Mar Ilish. It’s carefree, peaceful, and the food is out of this world. A girl can be happy in a place like this.
“After breakfast put something comfy on. We are going for a walk, you and me.”
“Okay,” I say with a mouth overstuffed with chocolate, icing sugar, ice cream, and pancake.”
“Oh dear God, where are your manners?”
“I left them behind,” I mumble.
“Stop it, at once,” she scolds.
I nod. Nobody messes with Mar-Mar. Her rules, her way or you’ll get a spanking. I actually believe even this close to twenty-five she’d have no hesitation whacking me with her trusted spoon Henry. Henry still hangs proudly on the wall in the kitchen. He’s made of wood, long handled, and stings like a bitch against skin. My bad behaviour deterrent when I was younger.
“Morning.” Mum wipes what I assume is sleep from the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. “Pancakes, thank the heavens.” Serving herself, Mum sits in the chair beside mine. “I had the best sleep,” she confesses. “Did both of you?”
“Slept like a log.” I lick at each finger, removing any escaped remnants of my sugar filled breakfast.
“I had a peaceful sleep. One free of worry, stress, and pain,” is how Mar-Mar describes her night.
What an odd answer.
“Off you go. Comfy clothes and sneakers. Did you bring sneakers?”
“Yep.”
“Good girl. I’ll get changed, too.”
“Okay, Mar-Mar.”
“What are you two up to?” Mum places her fork on her plate as her head moves from Mar-Mar to me.
“Going for a walk and a talk,” I reply.
“Well, I’ll come too. Just let me finish up.”
“No, you won’t. You’re staying here.” Mar-Mar disappears for a couple of minutes before dropping a novel beside Mum on the table and putting an oversized sun hat on her head. “You are going to lie out on that back deck, watch the ocean waves pummel the shore, and read. You need to relax, my girl.”
“Really? Even better.” Mum leaves the hat where it was placed and smiles as she chews. I think Mum needed Mar-Mar Ilish just as much as me.
By the time I exit the room and change then turn back around and briskly walk into the kitchen, I find Mum washing the dishes at the sink. She’s still wearing the oversized sun hat.
“Summer pyjamas and hats like that should be the new fashion, Mum.”
“Yes
. Comfy and sun protected.” She giggles. “Where did you get those Capris?”
“Not sure. I’ve had them a while.”
“I need a navy pair. If only you had a little more flesh on your bones, Abigail, I’d be able to borrow them.”
“Mum, they’d probably fit you. Have you seen how skinny you’re getting?”
“Really?” Her cheeks go pink, causing my head to shake.
Mar-Mar soon returns with a cap in hand. “For you, Abigail.”
“Why, thank you,” I reply before pulling it onto my head, ripping back the Velcro at the back to allow my ponytail to go into the hole provided. “Are you ready?”
“Just one more minute. I’ve got to put my shoes on.” Mar-Mar opens the bi-fold doors to the rear patio and sits down onto a deck chair. She must be slipping on her shoes.
“Before you go, petal, could I get you to rub some sunscreen on my shoulders?”
“Sure, Mum.”
Mum scurries away with a newfound bounce in her step.
We should both move here.
Mar-Mar stands by the front door with a beach bag hanging from her forearm and a floppy straw hat on her head. Mum returns with sunscreen in hand, wearing her togs and a black and pink sarong knotted around her waist. Scooping her hair to one side, I squeeze the tube and begin rubbing thick white paste into her skin.
“Hey, Mum?”
“Yes, Petal.”
“Have you had this mole on your shoulder checked out before?”
“No. What mole?”
I press my fingertip into it. “The one right here.”
“I’m not sure.”
“It looks funky. You’d better get it checked.”
“Here, let me look.” Mar-Mar shuffles to my side. Her head zooms in close. “Yes, this needs a medical inspection. I’ll get you an appointment with my doctor.”
“Okay, Mar-Mar.” Mum seems to brush it off.
Living right on the beach has its benefits, but I’m also sure it has many disadvantages. Like always feeling like you live in an oversized child’s sandpit. The smell of spawning coral would be very unpleasant. Not to mention the storms. They can’t be much fun being this close to the water. But Mar-Mar doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, I’ve never seen her so content. The sun shines over us as we walk along bike paths away from the water. Where are we going? Huge mansions sit perched on cliff faces, surrounded by dense bushland. As I hear Mar-Mar cough, I flick my head towards her and see the rays of light creating the effect of a halo over Mar-Mar’s head. I joke, “You an angel, Mar-Mar?”
To which she supplies, “I am, Abigail.” She’s right she is.
“So tell me everything,” she finally puffs as we hunch over, taking the big hill and moving farther away from the shoreline.
“Where do I start?”
“You always start a story at the beginning, Abigail. You never skip any of the middle and you should always be satisfied with the end.”
“Right.” Sometimes Mar-Mar is crazy. “Well, last time I came down to visit, Mike and I had parted ways. I was doing great. I really was.”
“You were handling things quite maturely. I agree.”
“Well, I don’t know if it was just everything piled on top of my shoulders all at once, or if maybe I wasn’t doing as well as I thought, but the walls I’d built to keep me safe came tumbling down. Bombed without my permission.”
“I see.”
“Mar-Mar. I think I love Marcus. Actually, I’m pretty sure I do. I have never been so mad at anybody in my life. Not even when I learnt about my sister, and Dad cheating. Not when Dad died. Not when Mike got engaged again and not even when Bella died. Marcus would have to take the cake in regards to what’s made me the most pissed off so far in my life.”
“Why has he made you that mad, though, Abigail? Is it because he left you after the accident or is it because he didn’t tell you for so long?”
“It’s because he lied, Mar-Mar, and deceived me and he’s pure evil. I think I’m in love with the devil himself.”
“Pffft. What rubbish. Marcus isn’t the devil. He’s a good egg. Plus, we all lie, Abigail. Any person who can’t admit to a little white lie here and there is doing just that, lying.”
“Yeah. But Marcus did worse. He paid Mike to leave me.”
Mar-Mar stops walking and turns, taking both my arms in her hands. The way she looks into my eyes tells me I’m about to hear a truth I probably don’t want to. “Abigail, he paid Mike to end it. This you know for sure?”
“I do. He told me so.”
“He did. Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t you be mad at Mike? He’s the one who accepted payment. He’s the one who left you. I mean, if he loved you truly, no amount of money or persuasion would have him leave. Trust me. I know these things.”
“But who does that? I mean, who destroys someone’s future for their own selfish reasons?”
She laughs. “That would be someone who knows that their soul mate is not where they are supposed to be. Divine intervention, you could say.”
“Mar-Mar, you’re wrong.”
“Abigail, have I ever been wrong?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widen. Her mouth pinches tight. “When?”
“When you didn’t tell me about Marcus five years ago, just like everybody else.”
She scoffs before she begins to walk once more. “Abigail, that was not my decision to make. I did what I was asked to do and honestly at the time it was the right thing. I never had to worry. I knew that you would be where you belonged one day.”
“Pffft. You’re saying that I belong with Marcus. That we’re soul mates and I just have to forgive him for all of the crap he’s pulled and love him. No way. Uh-uh, not a chance. It’s too awful. What he’s done is disgusting.”
“No, Abigail, what he’s done is what people who are crazy in love do. He walked away that day to save you. He came back again to save you…I also believe he’s come back to save himself, but let’s just focus on you.”
“Save me from what?”
“From your death, Abigail. From yourself.”
“My death. Mar-Mar, you’ve lost your marbles.” I giggle after I say these words, because they’re the exact ones The Captain said to me after the plane came down. I’m not going to die. I’m invincible and Mar-Mar is getting senile in her old age.
“Abigail, I’m telling you, if you keep up your bullshit, you’re going to end up dead.”
“Mar-Mar, how well do you know Marcus?” I change the subject, mainly because I’m inquisitive as to how she knows so much.
“Very. I see him a lot actually. He has come to visit many times. When he came to tell me that he was staking his claim to you and that he would make you remember if his last breath depended on it, I told him that if he followed his heart everything would always work out.”
“So you knew he was coming for me?”
“Yes. I just didn’t realise he already has. Until last night, that is.”
“Well, Mar-Mar, I never thought I’d see the day you’d betray me in such a way.”
She laughs. She fucking laughs.
“Abigail, turn around.”
“Why, so you can stab me in the back again, this time for real?”
“No, Abigail, so you can appreciate the beauty of life that you’re failing to see, my girl.”
Turning on my heel, I huff, then scoff before spitting what I believe to be some type of insect from my mouth.
“Abigail, really? That’s very unladylike.”
“It is what it is, Mar-Mar.”
My widened eyes make contact with the view, causing my jaw to draw slack and my mouth to gape open in awe. “Wow!” The horizon has no imperfections. There are no clouds, or specks, or birds. It’s a perfectly painted brilliant blue that goes on for kilometres. The sun is nowhere to be seen, yet light beams down. The ocean is calm, the calmest I’ve ever seen an ocean. Only small ripples move t
hrough it, silently. The sand that lies at the shore is the palest of yellows. It’s perfectly picturesque. “Mar-Mar, it’s—”
“Heavenly.”
“Yes.”
“Every storm that passes through, every flaw that fills a picture, Abigail, is only a mere moment in time. It can’t always be perfect. How you see a situation is always unique and decided by the eyes of its beholder. You can keep running, my girl, you can keep denying what’s meant to be, or you can find the beauty and create your own perfect images. You see, this is your decision alone. Nobody can ever see the world in the way that you choose to. It is a choice. Now your mother tells me you believe you are cursed. If that were true, don’t you think this view right now would have at least one flaw for you to find?”
My head whirls from the words of my grandmother and the view laid out before me. There is not a single flaw. There is not a single grain of sand out of place. But how can that be?
“Come on, I have one more thing to show you.” She hands me a water bottle, and I gulp from its spout, while my eyes stay transfixed on the horizon.
I swear this moment right now is only something one can see from Heaven. But here it is, in life, for me, an image I will never forget.
As we make our way with caution back down the hill, I take Mar-Mar’s arm in mine, and we don’t speak another word. Crossing the road, we find ourselves back where we started, at her cottage that skirts the beach.
“We are going to take the path up farther, okay?” Her finger points, indicating our next destination.
I nod.
Sitting on a small green painted bench seat, we remove our shoes. Mar-Mar always says that sand belongs between our toes and massaging at our feet. Mar-Mar says a lot of things, but somehow they always make sense. Placing our shoes at the bottom of a sand dune, I notice wayward debris and even some rubbish people have left behind on the sand. There are a few beer bottles and an old stomped out fire pit. Taking a few steps, it’s then I see the wrappers just scattered aimlessly, probably moved by the breeze.
