‘I guess they would. I bet he knows all their names.’
‘Better than me. Maybe he will move in.’
‘You know Paul, he would love that they all like him.’
‘At least it’s cheap rent.’
It’s hot in the car as I check my watch, impatient to get out of the heat, the steering wheel burning my hands. Margie has been in the hospital for six weeks now and is preparing for life outside. As the office workers dressed in Melbourne’s corporate black make their way to air-conditioned cafes, I wait with hope. Margie has a job interview.
‘I didn’t even make the interview stage. I made too many mistakes,’ Margie mumbles as she slides into the passenger seat beside me. Slams the car door shut.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The typing test, there were too many mistakes.’
‘Is that what they said?’
‘No. They don’t tell you. They just sit you in a room with the other girls and you get called in if they want you for an interview. I didn’t get called in.’
Margie’s hand is shaking as she moves to put the seat belt around her waist.
‘Maybe you should have asked how you went.’
‘I missed out. Okay.’ She looks away and brushes her full dark fringe from her eyes. ‘I knew I would.’
‘Well, why did you even bother?’
There, I’d said it. Pent up frustration boils over as I feel the anger bubbling away, taste the weight of it in my mouth. ‘Your hands were shaking even before you went in there.’
I watch out the window, alert for parking officers ready to pounce.
‘You look tired and pale. They must notice too.’
I am sick of being the mother, the strong one. I feel useless.
Her eyes dart from me to the dashboard as if she has read my mind. Pupils large and dark against her creamy skin. Small red spots spreading across her chin. She nibbles on a chocolate bar.
‘Why do you do this to yourself?’ I shout, confusion pushing me for answers. ‘You only make it worse. You call me. I rush down. Run around the city. Find some clothes for you to wear, drive around in the heat, sit here and wait for you. And then you tell me you had no chance of getting the job anyway.’
‘Don’t bother coming again,’ Margie cries. ‘You don’t have to do it. I’m not asking you to do anything.’
Straight away I wish I could take it back. But I mean it. And then I don’t. I can’t do anything right anymore.
I regret it. Do I? I have such a big mouth. I should learn to keep it shut.
Our shouting wakes James as he stirs in the capsule in the back seat. A wet towel draped across the straps, cooling him. He’s upset; maybe he’s hot, hungry? I reach over the seat to comfort him. Should have bought a dummy. Don’t give him a dummy, they told me. Rot his teeth. But he hasn’t got any teeth. His teeth will be rotten and bucked and he won’t give up the dummy. Still I wish I had a dummy right now.
The crying gets louder, it’s contagious. The three of us howling as James’s volume goes up and down as if someone is stepping on a squeaky toy. I can’t look at Margie, sobbing into her hands. I feel such a selfish bitch. I can’t stand watching her suffer any more. This isn’t how it’s meant to be. The job was everything, it would help her get well again, get her life back. The candles I lit at St Francis Church, the Novena I whispered as I waited while she did the interview. They were to bring her a little luck. That’s all she needed. But they didn’t work. Nothing seemed to work. And now I’d lost my temper and made everything worse.
The air conditioner gives up. The air inside the car is stifling. It’s nearing the end of a long, hot summer and I’m exhausted. Motherhood is still so new for me. When I hold my little boy or when I play with him I am deliriously happy. When I watch him with his dad, so calm and relaxed, I am grateful. So much has happened since Mum died. Weddings and babies, a new start in new places for most of my siblings. But for Margie there’s an overwhelming grief that’s descended like a fog, engulfing her. And for me, I’m scared of what might happen next.
Perhaps I should take Margie home with me. With a mixture of guilt, sadness and fear I decide to drive straight past the hospital turn off. We will go to the farm, make pesto and pumpkin soup, her favourite. Get some iron into her. Jon will give us a job. Always plenty to do there, with the calves and the chooks and dogs to feed, trees to water and grass to mow. Just a little bit of peace and quiet for Margie, time to relax and read and chat.
Instead, I do a U-turn and steer the car along Park Street, past the grand old mansions back towards the hospital. I doubt myself, my ability to care for her.
English elm trees line the roadside with shiny dark green leaves now faded and burnt by the sun. The heat is taking its toll. The sky is an endless stretch of brilliant blue with no sign of any clouds offering rain.
‘I’m sorry,’ Margie says as we stop outside the main entrance at the end of a long driveway. The hospital is in the middle of open parkland.
‘I shouldn’t have dragged you down here. I’m not ready for work. I just wanted it so bad and now missing out on the job only makes me feel worse.’
I hug her; try to stop her hand shaking as I hold it in my own. ‘I’m sorry too. All I meant was that you shouldn’t push yourself too hard. You need to slow down, get well. You’ll get a job. I know you will.’
Inside the hospital at the back of the administration and acute care building, I wait for Margie to sign in.
We walk to the residential unit, this time the Nightingale Ward. Once she’s settled into one of the sofas in the common living area I hand James to her.
She sings as she cuddles him, ‘Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?’ She looks up at me and laughs. ‘I told him I was the black sheep.’
I need to go to the toilet. I need to go quickly, but I hate the toilets in the hospital. The low walls between the cubicles have no privacy. The old cisterns don’t flush and the cold broken tiles are a hazard. I hold on.
When I can’t wait any longer I head to the nearest toilet. The corridor is dark and echoes with the clatter of the nearby kitchen. I pass Frankie, a guy Margie has introduced me to, and we nod and smile. He’s about twenty-four, my sister’s age. Nightingale is for younger patients in transition, preparing for a return to the outside world.
I wonder when Margie will be allowed to come home with me. I know she’s not ready yet but pray she will be home for Christmas.
Twenty-one
Music flows from the bathroom, drums and guitars playful. Above it all, above Goanna’s ‘Solid Rock’, Margie is singing. I can’t see her but I can hear her, the happiness infectious. I sing along, swinging James around in my arms. Margie steps out of the bathroom, transformed. Her already big green eyes enlarged, with the dark mascara making her lashes longer. She’s even applied a pretty plum colour to her lips.
‘You look gorgeous. What are you wearing?’
‘I was thinking your blue silk dress with the cute Peter Pan collar?’
‘Perfect. I’ll go get it. Such a great colour on you. It’s nice to dress up for a change. I wish it were me.’
‘Do you? Do you really want to swap places with me? You can go to the nightclub and I’ll stay home with James.’
‘No. No, I’m glad you’re going out. Let’s find that dress. Go and enjoy yourself.’
When Margie leaves I head outside into our backyard and wander past the firewood towards the old caravan. Margie’s latest home. I am still getting used to the idea and hated it at first. I wanted her back inside the house with us. But after coming home from hospital, she wanted to move into a place of her own. Without work, the caravan was the best compromise.
Tonight the sky is full of stars that feel comforting, like someone is watching. I peer inside the van and am drawn into her world as I step inside. It’s cramped, with worn-out brown cushions on the seats that double as a small bed. She could sit on the bed and rinse dishes in the sink at the same time. Yellow and white cu
rtains that Margie made add a little colour to the window. The small bench is covered in books and pieces of paper.
Picking up a notebook, I glance at my sister’s writing. Margie’s scribbled words rise from the paper. Big bold letters, curved and loose; words running into each other fill the space. Margie’s messages to herself. Musings over a long day at the hospital, lists of appointments, jobs to do, people to call. I feel like a sticky beak and put the book back where it belongs, by her pillow.
Later that night, a loud ringing wakes me. Is it a smoke alarm? Jon snores through the distant sound.
Check James. He’s in his cot beside me. Asleep.
Sitting up in bed, I sniff the air to check for fire; peer into the darkness. The ringing starts again, like a bell somewhere at the other end of the house. It’s the phone. It’s after midnight. Who would be ringing at this hour? Fear flows through my body, my arms and legs, heavy, my neck clammy. It churns in my stomach as I pick up the phone on the kitchen wall above the kettle.
‘Caroline?’ A voice I don’t immediately recognise.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you come and pick me up, please?’
The voice is almost a whisper. ‘It’s Margie.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m scared.’
I hear half the words, the reply muffled by the loud music in the background.
‘Where are you?’
‘At the Star Hotel.’
‘What happened?’
‘I just got a bit frightened that’s all.’
‘Wait inside at the door, get someone to wait with you, I’ll be straight down.’
‘Jesus Christ, what the hell’s wrong with you, Margie?’ I shouted into the windscreen of the car as I raced down the highway towards Melbourne.
‘I had thought you were getting better.’ Rehearsing what I would say, I kept talking to myself. ‘You’ve been doing so well, going out more, talking about going back to uni again. What’s happened? What the hell’s wrong with you?’ It was on repeat in my brain. I caressed the steering wheel for strength as I battled the voices in my head. ‘This can’t go on. I can’t keep pretending it’s okay.’
Maybe Margie should have stayed longer at the hospital. But making her stay was harder than giving in to her pleas to come home. Besides, she’d convinced the doctors she was ready to leave.
As I reached the city hotel, I pulled up and watched Margie and her girlfriends. Laughing and chatting, she looked relaxed. Was she playing games with me? I almost turned the car around and drove home. Was I going mad?
Margie and her girlfriends climbed into my car. They chatted and gave directions to their inner city homes in Carlton, Ascot Vale and Brunswick. After I dropped the last of the girls Margie refused to speak. It was a long, silent trip down the freeway and the dark dirt roads back to the farm. Here we go again. You call. I run.
As the engine slowed and the car stopped in the driveway, our timber farmhouse stood before us, quiet and still, waiting. Finally Margie spoke.
‘You remember when I told you I felt sick. I had a heavy feeling down below.’ She mumbled and fidgeted, pulled at the seat belt.
‘Kind of,’ I said. ‘You mean when we went to the Women’s that night?’
She nodded. ‘Well, lately it’s been worse than that night.’
‘Worse? What do you mean?’
‘Sometimes I think I’m changing into a man. I’m growing things on my body. One time my fingers turned into knives. Sometimes I’m too frightened to touch anyone. I get too scared to hold James.’
She blurted it out, not quite finishing her thoughts. Margie talked on through her tears.
‘The other day I thought I was half man and half woman, I kept thinking it was real. I must be crazy to think like that. It was disgusting. It felt like I was growing a penis. But it felt so real. I wanted to die. And now it’s happening all over again. I can’t look into a mirror or a shop window. Strange faces look back at me.’
Where’s the moon? I looked into the black night. I had to concentrate on something real. Margie sobbed, her shoulders heaving, head down, unable to look above her lap. I wanted to take her in my arms, wanted to hold and comfort her. Would she want me to touch her? I just stared out the window.
As I listened, perhaps for the first time since she took herself to the Austin Hospital, Margie’s unpredictable behaviour began to make some sense. The frantic phone calls, the insomnia, lack of appetite and the restlessness. The half-truths, the veiled explanations, began to add up.
‘Why couldn’t you tell me?’ I asked, unbuckling my seat belt and turning to her.
‘I felt ashamed. Embarrassed. I thought you would think I was sick or mad. I couldn’t tell anyone.’
Outside there was a scratching noise. I was grateful for the distraction of our dogs, the little stray mongrel, Buddy, and Wally, the crazy black Labrador.
‘The social worker told me your body can play tricks on you when you are under stress,’ Margie said. She picked the skin from around her fingernails, picking and peeling skin until she bled.
‘I know that’s all it was, just stress. But I built it up in my head. I thought I was bad and crazy.’
‘You’re not crazy and you’re anything but bad.’
I lifted her face so I could look into her eyes, red and swollen from crying. I searched her eyes for hope.
‘I have heard of this kind of thing before,’ I told her. I was thinking more about the little blue book the hospital had given me What is Schizophrenia? Remembering the way I’d reached out to it, looking for answers to Margie’s worrying behaviours, restless, unpredictable, irrational. ‘I’m sure I’ve read about it. It happens sometimes. But I can’t imagine how frightening it would have been. I would have been just as scared if it happened to me.’
‘You would?’
‘Yes. I guess it’s kind of like hallucinating. Like when you see or hear something that’s not really there. It would freak me out.’
‘It’s not the first time. It’s happened before but that was the worst.’
‘Did you tell them at the hospital?’
‘I tried to tell one of the doctors. I only saw him once but he seemed to understand.’
‘Well we should try and see him again. We could ring tomorrow and see if he can see you.’
Later, as I toss and turn in bed, I go over our conversation. That is a heavy confession. I am angry that Margie has suffered in secret and kept silent for so long. Why couldn’t she tell me? Maybe we aren’t as close as I think. But then I have my secrets and fears I keep inside me and would never ever share.
I turn to Jon, inching closer to his warm body and draping my arm across his stomach. More than my rock, Jon is my saviour.
‘Everything okay?’ he whispers.
‘Yes. Fine,’ I say.
But we both know it is a lie.
It feels as if I hardly sleep at all. Weird dreams spinning in my head, wind howling outside. Broken shutters banging. Dogs barking. Half-awake I stumble towards James, stirring in his cot. He wakes at every sound now. For days now he has been fussy. Crying, feeding, crying. I will go crazy if I don’t get some sleep. I rock him back to sleep and pray for a few hours for myself. Then it starts again, the same routine. It’s as if he senses all is not well with his floundering mother. Crying, feeding, changing, rocking. Is he too hot? Too cold? I change his nappy again. I scan the childcare books searching for clues. I’ve been shading in a daily clock, using different colours to record his sleeping and feeding patterns. Jon shakes his head in despair at my paranoia. Tells me he has never seen me like this, so particular, so analytical, so methodical. I’m shattered and so scared.
I tuck James in my bed beside me and we sleep together until the first strands of daylight stream through a small gap in the curtains. Leaving Jon to sleep, I put James in a carry pouch and wrap him close to my chest. We shut the front door and wander up the driveway to the dirt road as I search for space to think in the morning
quietude. Sheep are dancing in the distance and we listen to the cries from lost lambs. James smiles up at me. This is how it’s meant to be.
Walking and daydreaming. I remember a time not so long ago when Margie was well and I was pregnant and James was nothing more than butterfly kicks. I was excitedly preparing for his arrival, working at the Herald newspaper writing feature articles. There was one sad story I did about a little girl called Laura who had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. Her mother told me Laura was never invited to parties, never asked to play with friends. As she talked to me, my hand automatically went to my stomach, rubbing my growing bump and praying that all would be well with my unborn baby.
Sometimes it’s not the thing you fear most that brings you undone. Motherhood I might eventually master, but Margie and her battle is another thing altogether.
A long wait followed the revelation from Margie and her consent to see a new doctor as an outpatient of Royal Park. Mental health services were always stretched and the government’s emphatic push towards community care was sometimes misguided. We were just one family struggling to be heard.
During the waiting and hoping I was often drawn to the caravan, and to her writing. One afternoon, when I’d finished filing a story for work and James was finally napping, I hovered over the pages scattered on Margie’s bed. She had raced to Melbourne for another job interview and I admired her tenacity. She never gave up.
Alone with just her thoughts and the emotions she tried so hard to hide, I read them aloud. Cascades of words. Some crossed out, written over, turned on angles, spiralled along the side of the page. Dark and light letters. Soft and hard.
More pages in a folder, neater handwriting this time and in black ink. Words pushed hard into the rough paper towel, like blotting paper. Coarse and thick, what you might use to soak up grease and coffee spills. The kind of paper we wiped our hands on in the hospital toilets. I was scared of what I might find and skimmed it quickly before stopping at one of her poems.
The flowers in the vase turned into knives
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