Back to Broady

by Caroline van de Pol

  Nigel stood there, tall and toned, hovering above us, his hands deep in the pockets of his open coat.

  ‘Can you help?’ It was my own voice but it sounded strange, unsure of what he might discover.

  ‘You said you were in Queensland, when was that?’

  ‘I’ve only been back a few weeks. I was living with my brother.’

  ‘I think it could be Ross River Fever. But we will run a few tests. You get it from mozzies,’ Nigel said.

  ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘It can be but we can treat it with antibiotics.’

  Let it be that, I prayed as I thought about her erratic behaviour, the lethargy. At least it’s got a name.

  ‘But we may have to do an internal,’ he added as he walked behind the curtains separating us from the next emergency patient. I sucked at some air, trying to catch my breath. An internal? What for? Memories of my own recent medical interventions, following complications in my pregnancy, made me dizzy.

  ‘Why an internal? ‘I asked, but Nigel ignored me and turned to my sister.

  ‘Could you be pregnant?’

  ‘No.’

  My little sister dominated my thoughts as I drove back to the farm that night. I’d left her flat with her promising to follow up with her own doctor. As I drove I rolled my neck around and around to ease the tension. A sharp pain in my shoulders persisted whichever way I held my neck. I tried the radio, turned the dial and found Roberta Flack and ‘Killing Me Softly’. Was there something I was missing?

  A few weeks later Margie called again, in a high state of anxiety. She was in emergency at the Austin Hospital in Heidelberg. It was early December with Christmas fast approaching. James was nine or ten weeks old by then, fast asleep as I bundled him into the car and raced from the farm to be with her.

  ‘Your sister is very unwell,’ the doctor said when I arrived in emergency. ‘She needs medication’. Just like that. No discussion, no ‘maybe’, no suggestion of what was wrong. I was confused. Margie, for her part, wouldn’t have a bar of it. ‘I’m okay. I’m just a bit sad,’ she told me.

  I knew there had been some dark periods for her since Mum had died. Anxiety about her future, where she would live, what she would do with her life. There had been some good times too, like the job at The Herald and then her time in Queensland and even before then, when she moved to Torquay to live with her brothers, Andrew and John and Matthew. She kept herself busy driving her younger brothers to the best surf spots in the bright yellow Mini Minor Jon found for her. ‘I love sitting on the cliffs at Jan Juc, watching them surf. There’s something really peaceful about water and following the waves into the shore,’ she told me. Margie also loved cooking and caring for them. I don’t know how but she even managed to get them out of football training when they lost interest and the coach called to find out where they were. Six days a week Margie made sandwiches at Sylvia’s cafe at the new Surf City on the Torquay road, ‘White or brown bread? Butter or margarine? Pepper and salt with that?’ She would mimic herself and the other staff as well as some of the customers, putting on a show for the boys and me, just like she used to at McIvor Street. And when she wasn’t serving her brothers or the staff from Rip Curl and Quiksilver she was practising her lines for a lead role in the play, Once a Catholic. It was the highlight of her time there, rehearsals and then the live shows with her best friend, Cathy. If only Mum and Dad could have seen her then, centre stage in the packed theatre. I was in tears watching her, and missed most of the storyline. Where did that girl go?

  Margie was restless, always moving, never settling. Why? She exhausted and confused me. What was she looking for?

  ‘You change your home more than most people change their toothbrush,’ I joked with her one time not long after Mum died, when she announced she was heading up to Nowra, and was back home two days later. Then, soon after, she moved in with Jon’s sister, Jo, in Albury, and enjoyed the role of babysitter for young Jack. But a week later she was home again.

  As the doctors at the Austin played with a cocktail of medication for Margie, my mind wandered to those early signs of something unravelling. Since Mum’s death we had spent a lot of time together. I was proud of the way she managed her study, her work and paying the bills. But there were those phones calls. Confused. Sometimes irrational. ‘I’m thinking of changing jobs,’ she’d tell me, after she’d worked so hard to get a job. Or, ‘The girl I live with is mean and rude,’ she’d say, a few days after she’d told me how great the new place was. Most of the time Margie shared houses with other students, sometimes she knew them and sometimes not, but the houses never seemed to work out. She was always looking for something that felt more like home. For a while she would live with Jon and me but she was always keen to find her own place again. I counted thirteen houses, rooms or flats in three years – an average of four a year, but some of them only lasted a week or two and others longer. They were all inner-city Melbourne and ranged from a bedsit in South Yarra to a huge house in Drummond Street, Carlton and there was even a stint as a live-in nanny out past Ringwood.

  ‘I’m not staying,’ Margie said, once she was admitted and the doctor had left the room. Tom had joined me at the Austin in Heidelberg and I could tell he was as worried and confused as me. I suddenly felt hot and dizzy and pushed the pram and James outside for some fresh air, searching for some space to think. Margie sat on the bed, pasty and thin, her brown hair swept into a bun with the fringe dripping into her eyebrows. Her green eyes dark, almost black, eye sockets smudged with mascara.

  The hospital ward looked more like a motel room than a psychiatric unit. It’s just what she needs, I thought, a good rest, someone to care for her, a bit of peace and quiet, and she’ll be okay. But Margie wanted out.

  ‘I told you I’m not staying here,’ she said when I returned to her bed. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’

  ‘Maybe you could just have a bit of a rest here.’ ‘They want me to take more tablets. A new antidepressant drug. Tablets won’t help. I think I can work it out myself. I’m just tired.’

  ‘You’ve been working so hard. Maybe the doctors can help.’

  ‘Take me home. I’m not staying. They don’t know anything here.’

  Tom tried to talk to her. ‘They said it would be just for a while, until they can work something out for you.’

  ‘More tablets? They make me feel sick. They don’t work. They didn’t work for Mum.’

  I couldn’t argue with that. I didn’t want to upset her any more.

  ‘I’ll bring some things in for you, shampoo, toothbrush. What else do you need?’

  Margie moved from the bed to the pram, hesitated with each step. ‘He’s beautiful,’ she smiled at James as he woke with a tiny cry. ‘Can I hold him?’

  ‘Of course you can. You are his godmother.’

  ‘And I’m his favourite aunty.’

  ‘Maybe just a few days,’ she said as I passed James to her. ‘Can you bring in a pen and notebook for me, please?’

  Back at the farm I run a bath, breathing in the vanilla-scented crystals Margie gave me for my birthday.

  I need to think. I need to understand. I scan through the little blue book on mental illness the hospital has given me, although they say it’s too soon for a diagnosis. I search for clues. She had just started a new job, after weeks of searching and interviews. She was renting a great flat in Carlton, sharing with a nurse in the Grattan Street complex. Was it stress? But Margie seemed to like her office job at Georges, the most exclusive store in Melbourne. I would often meet her there on her lunch break when James was only a few weeks old and small enough to carry in a sling. He slept his way around the Paris end of the city.

  At Georges, Margie looked like she was in a movie; the perfect secretary. Beautifully groomed, glamorous, with Audrey Hepburn’s twinkling eyes and Grace Kelly’s cool elegance. Margie loved expensive clothes but cleverly mixed contemporary with classy recycles from local bargain stores to create her own personal st
yle. Her laughter was infectious. She made me laugh at myself. ‘Why the frown?’ she would smile. Or copy my anxious voice so that I heard myself loud and clear. ‘Make sure you cook some vegetables. Did you put your university forms in yet? Careful of that boiling water.’

  Now, as I climb into the bath, water covering my ears to drown out voices, I cannot bring back any of the laughter. Just the phone calls. How did it fall apart so quickly? Or was it always heading this way?

  The Treasury Gardens shimmer in sunlight. It’s the middle of the day and the city workers in shorts, singlets and running shoes make their way through the meandering paths, sweating.

  The small pond by the children’s garden is one of my favourite spots and I find a seat under a large elm where I can park the pram out of the sun. James plays with a rattle and I watch him focus on the coloured balls in front of him. He giggles at my silly noises and it feels good. Peaceful. Why can’t it always be like this? I enjoy my trips to the city, pretending I’m still part of the workforce, while freelancing for The Herald. It suits motherhood. My life. But too soon, it’s time to pack up and head to the hospital.

  I’m running late for the appointment with Margie’s doctor. I search for coins to feed the parking meters, load up the pram and strap James in. Perhaps it will be time for Margie to come home.

  ‘We need to move your sister,’ the attractive doctor in the leather miniskirt tells me.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We think she needs more specialist care. We can’t give it to her here, we’re not set up for long-term.’

  ‘Long-term. What do you mean?’

  ‘She has schizophrenia. We need to get the medication right.’

  I don’t know how to respond. I had spent the day imagining she would soon be home with us. I’d set up the spare bedroom, planned our days with a bit of shopping, cooking, gardening and of course, time for her to spend with James. Now she was giving it a name, giving Margie a label.

  ‘Which hospital?’

  ‘Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital. It’s the best one for her. They have good programs there. Here, we only have a small psychiatric unit.’

  I take my time to respond. So she is sick, sick enough to stay in hospital, a psychiatric one this time. I have not spoken about it to anyone – only Jon and my brothers – even then there has been the attempt to play it all down. You know, it’s just a bit of a setback, a rest and she’ll be good as gold again. I don’t want to be disloyal to my sister. I worry people will judge, maybe they just won’t understand. I guess I don’t even understand.

  ‘I think your sister has been unwell for a while. Do you realise when she came in here she was suicidal? You are lucky she called for help.’

  ‘I knew she was struggling. She kept saying she was feeling sick. We went to doctors, but no-one seemed to know what it was or what to do.’

  I consider the confusion of the last few months. Sometimes Margie was sad about Mum, or Dad. Other times she said she was lonely but then withdrew and wanted to be alone.

  ‘I was glad when she finally took herself off to see our doctor,’ I say. ‘She knew our mum too and she gave Margie some antidepressants. It seems they haven’t worked.’

  ‘No, they haven’t. We will give her something stronger, an antipsychotic drug. At least at Royal Park they will monitor her response and she will have a great support team.’

  I hesitate. Tears threatening.

  ‘What is it? Are you okay?’

  James is sleeping now and I put my hand on him as if it to remind myself to stay strong for him. I nod.

  ‘There’s one problem,’ I say. ‘Margie doesn’t want to go to Royal Park. She tells us she is feeling much better. She just wants to go home and back to work. What do you think?’

  ‘Your sister needs help. She’s at risk if she’s left alone.’

  Under the light cotton sheet, James stirs and I am glad of his warmth. I’m shaking, trying to concentrate.

  ‘We need you to sign some papers.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if Margaret refuses to go, you will need to commit her.’

  ‘I have to speak to my brothers.’

  Twenty

  I used to feel sorry for my husband – stuck with me, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Having to introduce me to his parents, way back in 1982, and them asking awkward questions like where I was from. Why is it I still blush every time someone asks that telltale question? Perhaps I worry that their notion of the ‘broad meadows’ of my childhood might be too judgemental, recognising the suburb as a working-class concrete jungle rather than the expansive green fields the misnomer suggests. But Jon has turned it into a bit of a game, almost setting people up. We might be at a dinner party or a cocktail evening and someone will absently say something derogatory about Broady – ‘a bit boganville or rough around the edges,’ they suggest – and he’ll say, smiling, ‘my lovely wife is from Broadmeadows…’

  These days I feel something close to pride when I tell my young students of my heritage, my early Broady years and the roundabout way I came to be lecturing at a university.

  ‘My mother said to say hello,’ Ruby said as I was gathering up my books and pens at the end of a lecture on public relations and reputation management. She was the kind of student I needed in the class, someone who occasionally responded to my attempts at discussion. We’d been role playing a PR disaster following the sacking of a company CEO accused of sexual harassment. ‘Mum went to school with you.’

  ‘What’s your mother’s name?’

  ‘It was Fitzgerald then.’

  ‘Of course I remember her. Tall. Blonde. Great netballer.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ Ruby laughed.

  I pictured my school friend, Cathy, the one always in trouble with the nuns, as the menopausal mother of the delightful Ruby and smiled.

  ‘Well give her my best and let me know if you need any help with anything.’

  No special favours of course, I told myself. But I do like to reward those students who contribute. It certainly makes my job as a teacher, facilitator much more enjoyable. Sometimes I wonder at how I came to be an ‘accidental’ academic. Me, the kid who didn’t own a book until I was fifteen and played truant a little too often for my own good. But I’m glad it happened, unexpected and unplanned, a bit like my leaving journalism for public relations. My school friend, Fiona, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, would you be interested in working with my mother in corporate communication?’ Then, years later, my colleague, Maree, from the Herald Sun, called me about a vacancy at RMIT in the school of media and communication, which opened up a whole new experience for me in learning and teaching, and gave me some confidence to start writing again.

  It was my brother Tom who came from work to the Austin and signed Margie’s. committal papers with me. I followed Margie, who was in the ambulance, to Royal Park. James was tucked safely in his baby capsule. Tom was in his station wagon behind us, following one another like a funeral procession. I hated what I was doing. All the doctors said we must do it, but what if we said no. What if I just got her out of the ambulance and put her in my car and took her home with me?

  ‘They must be right,’ I told myself, over and over, like a broken record. But when we reached the hospital I wasn’t so sure. Like something out of a movie, I half expected to see Jack Nicholson creeping towards me. There were heavy iron bars on windows and tiny peepholes on the doors of the John Cade assessment ward. Margie called it the John Cage ward and we managed to laugh. Waiting to see a new doctor, we watched the people around us. Some muttered, some stared at us, some looked into empty space. A middle-aged lady in her quilted dressing gown came up and yelled at us, asked me if I took her baby. Then, a tall skinny man who seemed the most normal sat next to us. He was looking for dope.

  ‘Don’t leave me here,’ Margie pleaded with me.

  I wheeled the pram to the door.

  ‘Please Cally take me home with you. I’ll take the tablets. I pro
mise.’

  ‘Wanna see the little birds?’ she said as we walked around the hospital gardens.

  It was a couple of weeks later and Margie had leave for the afternoon and we spent it at Queen’s Park in Essendon. Margie took James from my arms for a cuddle. She pressed her lips into his fine baby hair, spreading kisses across his face. His pale blue eyes mirrored the summer sky.

  We wandered past the children’s playground and stopped at the small pond in the middle of the gardens, yellow daffodils in bloom.

  ‘Look James, a mother duck. Quack. Quack,’ Margie giggled, imitating the noises coming from the water. ‘She’s looking for a new home for her babies. Everyone needs a home.’

  The irony of househunting is not lost. I wondered where Margie would find a home when she finally left the hospital. She had been in there nearly five weeks and I was hoping she would be home for Christmas. I had seen an improvement. She was getting involved in some of the group sessions and activities. She liked the art classes, found swimming relaxing and she had even joined in a bus trip to the beach. The doctors felt the medications were working. The pimozide, they suggested, helped her thought processes while the new antidepressant helped lift her mood. She was making progress, they said.

  James wriggled and rolled on the picnic blanket, content in the warm sunshine. Margie looked at me, grinning.

  ‘Want to hear something funny?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You know how Paul comes to visit me at the hospital every day.’

  ‘Every day.’ I nodded and broke up the lemon slice to share with her,

  ‘It’s usually in the afternoon before he picks Luke up from school. He rides his bike down when he’s finished work.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Well, yesterday someone said to me, how come your brother’s in here too.’

  ‘What? They think he’s a patient.’

  Margie nodded and laughed. It was nice to hear that sound again.