by Mandy Hager
I nod, swallowing hard. Why is it so much harder to hold back tears when someone’s being nice? ‘Yeah. Thanks.’ I scoop up my school bag, sling the strap over my shoulder and make to leave.
‘That’s an extraordinary painting,’ Ms R says. ‘I take it it’s the first of your Van Goghs?’
I glance back at the canvas, only now realising how spookily like Vincent’s Self-Portrait with Felt Hat it is. Near on identical brooding colours. Same suspicious stare. Even the stippled brushstrokes look the same.
‘Maybe. I hadn’t consciously thought of it.’
‘You’ve got a really good likeness.’
‘Pardon?’
She studies me as if I’m taking the piss. I’ve seen that look on teachers’ faces a thousand times, but never before directed at me. ‘Come on, she has your hair, your eyes, your lips. She even has the same elegant neck.’
I stare at her in horror, my mind flashing rope-burnt skin, and clap my hand over my mouth as I bolt out the door.
‘Tara, wait!’
She gives chase but is stymied by a horde of Year Nines milling in the corridor. I dash into the toilets and throw up, aware the other girls in here will probably think I’m up the duff. After I’ve splashed water on my face, I head for my next class. But as I approach the classroom door, I balk. I can’t face pretending nothing’s wrong. I veer away, walk out of the building, across the courtyard and out through the gates.
AROUND HALF AN HOUR later, I find myself outside the ugly faux-marble entrance to Twilight House. Whoa! I’ve not taken in a thing between school and here. It’s like my mind slipped a cog — I didn’t even bring my bike. This is ridiculous. It’s hours before I’m due to start my shift. The trouble is Mum will be up by now, so I can’t go home.
I spout some bullshit about study leave to my manager and offer to weed the patients’ courtyard garden in exchange for lunch. It’s a surprisingly pleasant place, with a fish-filled contemplation pond beneath a mass of ladder fern and nikau palms. The beds of roses, so fragrant when they’re in bloom, are carpeted by small ground-covering flowers and herbs — whoever designed the garden had a real flair.
The deal turns out to be a pretty one-sided bargain; there are hardly any weeds. But it’s nice to sit out here and chat with the residents who prowl the compound. At twelve I lend a hand with lunch. There are never enough aides to help with spoon-feeding while the food’s still hot. It’s good to have something to take my mind off Van.
Once we’ve cleared the dishes, I take my sketchbook outside to the pond. I’m trying to capture the fall of light on the surface of the water when I hear someone cough behind me. The Professor rolls up in his wheelchair and leans over to look.
‘You’re very good.’ He takes out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up. Waves it at me, warding me off. ‘Don’t say a word. My daughter’s set the whole damn place against me.’
I lay down my pencil and block the sun from my eyes so I can see him properly. His skin looks like the bark of a silver birch. ‘It’s not for me to judge. They’re your lungs.’
He’s studying my bruised face. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, Tara, is something wrong?’
I don’t want to lie to him yet can’t bear to admit the truth. ‘As Vincent would say, I exhausted myself with hopelessness.’
‘Ah, I see.’ He extends the cigarette pack. ‘Then perhaps you’d like to indulge? I find they help to smooth the sharp edges.’
‘No, thanks. I hate the smell.’ I shrug. ‘Sorry, no offence.’
He nods. ‘None taken. I appreciate your honesty.’
I feel myself blush as he moves downwind. He puffs away in thick silence as I shade in the ghostly outline of a fish. It’s hard to concentrate. The acrid smoke stirs up more memories of Van. God, the wars she had with Mum and Dad: she’d come home reeking then wonder why they’d blow their stacks. Total hypocrisy, of course. Dad smoked right up until he had the stroke and Mum still sneaks one when she thinks I can’t see. I sometimes wondered if Van used it to hide the fact that she was into dope — they never seemed to notice when her eyes were tinged with red.
A tear plops onto my sketch pad. I smear it with my finger, aware the Professor is still watching intently.
‘I’m sure you know our friend Vincent believed art had the power to console,’ he says. ‘To bring light to the darkness. Do you agree?’
A lump forms in my throat. I nod, and swallow hard. ‘I’ve read all his letters,’ I deflect. ‘I wanted to know what he was thinking when he painted. They’re beautiful. Pictures in words.’
He stubs the cigarette out on the wheel of his chair and flicks the butt into the garden. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school feeding that clever brain?’
‘Mental health day,’ I say.
‘Indeed. Most wise. You know Martin Luther King used to say that the ultimate measure of a man — or woman, of course — is not where she stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where she stands at times of challenge and controversy.’
‘Well, what do your dead philosophers say about someone who doesn’t tell the truth?’
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘One of life’s eternal questions: what is truth? You know I’m not sure about dead philosophers, but my therapist once said that if we try to bury truth underground, it will grow until one day it bursts into the open and explodes everything in its way.’
I snort. ‘No kidding.’ There’s something about his calm presence that makes me feel safe. ‘It seems my mother didn’t think it necessary to share the fact my sister killed herself. She told me Van died in a crash.’ Anger floods back through me. ‘Five years she’s kept this little nugget to herself. I found out by accident last night.’
He’s clearly shocked. ‘Lord protect us from the foolishness of misplaced love.’ He lights another cigarette and takes a deep drag before he speaks again. ‘Have you spoken with your parents? Asked them why they made this decision?’
One blurted revelation is enough — I don’t have the energy to explain about Dad as well. I shake my head. ‘Not yet. I’m scared of the reaction.’
‘Most wise. It pays to give oneself some time …’ His gaze slips past me. I turn to see a boy juggling a paper bag and two takeaway cups. He’s tall, though stooping with the awkwardness of someone who’s self-conscious of his height. His hair’s the same shade as the burnished kauri table we used to have at home.
‘Hey, Opa!’
I gather up my sketch pad and scramble to my feet. ‘I’d better go.’
The Professor reaches out and stays me with his hand. ‘Wait. Meet my grandson Johannes. Johannes, this is Tara — the young lady I spoke of yesterday.’
Johannes offers me his hand. ‘Hi.’ His fingers are long and thin, nails bitten to their quick.
‘Hi.’ I duck to hide my tell-tale eyes. ‘Excuse me but I’d better go. I’m nearly due to start my shift.’ I’m not sure I can stand the sight of their wholesome embrace.
Once I’m officially on duty it turns out to be one of those afternoons when all our craziest residents choose the same day to perform. Maybe there’s a full moon. We have two attempted breakouts and a shouting match between two old girls who both insist that Cedric is their husband, and the greasy cheese omelette for dinner gives three of my poor dears the raging shits. By the time my shift is over, the smell of eggy faeces has soaked into my skin and up my nose.
Without my bike, it’s a long walk home. Every extra minute steals time from my showdown with Mum. I’m going to lay it on her straight, not pussyfoot around her like I usually do. For once I’ll show some guts.
But when I finally reach home there’s less than half an hour before she has to leave.
‘You’re late,’ she greets me, her gaze sweeping the bruising on my cheek. She waves her hand towards the fridge — ‘Your supper’s there’ — and turns back to the pile of bills on the kitchen table. Damn. That always puts her in a mood.
I brace myself against the chair opposite her. Swallow down regurg
itated afternoon tea. Here goes …
‘I know about Van.’
Her head shoots up. Fists clench. ‘What exactly do you think you know?’
The mulish condescension in her voice undoes me. Twenty-four hours of accumulated anger wells up, and all my plans, every bloody combination of accusing words I’ve practised walking home, dive for cover. My mind goes blank.
Dizzy with fear that I’ll chicken out, I squeeze my hands around my throat and loll my tongue in a cruel mime. Blood leaches from my mother’s face as she jerks up from her chair. She lunges across the table and swipes me hard across my mouth. I reel back, tasting blood, eyes tearing. I truly hate her.
‘How dare you?’ she shouts. ‘May God forgive your wicked soul!’ Two burning comets brand her cheeks.
‘Me? You lied to me! You said it was a car crash. All those years!’
‘Does knowing make it any easier? What would you’ve had me say?’
‘You should’ve told the truth.’
She crosses to the kitchen bench. Swings around. ‘It’s truth you want? I’ll give you truth. She did it out of spite.’
Her words hit me like a volley of bullets. I clutch my stomach, feeling real pain. ‘Shut up! The way you talk about her’s disgusting. She was your daughter. You and Dad should be ashamed—’
‘You leave your father out of this, do y’hear? Your sister dug his grave — don’t you dare seal the lid.’
Enough. I won’t listen to her blame Van yet again. I turn and flee her poison for the refuge of my room. I’m shaking, but what the hell did I expect? That she’d welcome my need to know with open arms? Clasp me to her unmaternal bosom?
Well, if she’s so hell-bent on her precious silence, then from now on that’s exactly what she’ll get. I throw myself onto my bed and mash my face into the pillow. I have to get away from here. On that point, at least, Van was right.
3
We sometimes feel rather lonely and long for friends, and think we’d be quite different and happier if only we found ‘it’, a friend of whom we say, ‘this is it’.
— VINCENT TO THEO, PARIS, JANUARY 1876
I DECIDE TO WAIT until Mum leaves for work before I read the other papers in the envelope. Right now I’m too exhausted. Just the sight of Van’s handwriting stings my heart. I’m grateful she reckoned email was too impersonal though, insisted Mum keep her letters as a record of her time away, or I wouldn’t even have these painful scraps. One day, she said, she’d write her memoirs: Confessions of a Crazy Mixed-Up Kid. You wait, Miss T, then everyone will want to read my letters, even Mum.
She was such a contradiction, pushing against every convention Mum, Dad and the Pope tried to impose. Yet still she pined for an old-fashioned fantasy, where families talked and parents practised unconditional love. It’s a nice dream.
I found her in her bedroom once, crying as she wrote in her journal.
‘Why write if it upsets you?’
She’d shrugged. ‘To distract me from the crazy shit that whirls around inside my head.’ Much as I use my painting now.
‘What kind of shit?’ I’d asked.
‘Mind your language, young lady. You have a reputation to uphold.’ She’d picked me up and swung me round, and when she stopped I’d urged her to keep going. So she’d started up again until we both were laughing till the tears ran down. We often laughed. Frequently cried.
She said that more than anything she loved to feel her pen gliding across the page, loved building different worlds inside her head. She used to write the most amazing stories for me: brave, handsome princes rescuing imprisoned damsels; flying horses that could circle the globe in a night. Always there was an underlying yearning. Always a universal truth.
Year after year at primary school she topped the class. Her trouble coincided with the start of her period at twelve. Overnight Dad turned from strict protector into jailer. He couldn’t stand the thought that she was growing up. And Mum colluded, allowing him free rein — and reign he did. Of course Van fought back with a vengeance, refusing to be grounded as a world of new adventures opened up. The more they pushed her down, the more she fought for air.
When she started wagging high school, they never thought to ask if she was unhappy. Instead they gave her school carte blanche to Make Her Pay. It turned into a game for Van, trying just hard enough to raise her teachers’ expectations, allowing glimpses of her full potential, before she’d pull the plug. It drove them nuts and meant that by the time I reached Year Seven, I had no choice: I was enrolled in a private school. Not, of course, because it would extend me. Oh no — they were hedging their bets against further shame. Funny how it’s all so clear now.
That was the year we moved to this godforsaken house. The banks dangled cheap money like piñatas and my parents never could resist wielding a stick. When the cost of a major renovation landed on Mum’s shoulders, along with our already crippling loan, she started nursing full-time to pay my fees. Did she ever let me forget it? Not for one bloody second of one single day.
I liked the school. Its structure and security were a refuge from home — even better, it introduced me to the world of arts. I soaked up every lesson, word, experience. I even made it to top of the class — no easy feat while trying to resist the religious brainwashing. The irony was that the more my vocabulary and confidence expanded, the more they both resented it — and me. Especially Mum.
Their downfall really came when Dad’s big stroke coincided with the property market collapse. I’m sure the two are linked — hell, our mortgage is double what the house is worth — stress enough to blow anyone’s brain.
To give her credit, Mum fought a damn good battle before we sank. She juggled bills. Tried everything from mortgage holidays to slowly selling off the contents of the house. But in the end the health system screwed us over too. They said Mum earned too much to qualify for state help. Eventually things had to give — my school, Mum’s day job, extra home support for Dad.
A knock on the door sets my heart clattering. I scrape away tears as Mum edges into my room. The rims of her eyes are swollen and red.
‘Listen, Tara,’ she says, her chin tucked tight against her neck. She’s cradling her handbag like a shield. ‘You took me by surprise, okay?’
‘You? What about me?’ I back against the wall, knees hugged to my chest.
‘Let’s talk it over properly at a more appropriate time.’
Yeah right. ‘And when would that be, Mum? Tomorrow morning, in the ten minutes I have free before I go to school? Or what about a quarter of an hour next week? Or in five more bloody years?’
Her nostrils flare. ‘Don’t you use that tone with me. If you can’t discuss this without resorting to abuse—’
‘Me?’ I can’t contain a snort. I know she’s tired and stressed but I still can’t forgive her. ‘What about the way you always slag off Van? You failed her, not the other way round … Mothers are supposed to keep their children safe.’
‘How dare you? You’ve no idea what I’ve been dealing with. I had your father to look after, the house to keep afloat …’ Oh great. She’s bolting through the starting gates now on her trusty hobby horse. Ungrateful children … don’t know how lucky … if we’d been raised in Belfast … blah-de-blah. ‘And, hear this, Tara McClusky, it’s not as if your sister was a friggin’ saint …’
‘Jesus Christ, Mum. Just for once, I’d like to hear you say you loved her. That you miss her too. Is that so hard?’ I snatch my pillow up and press it over my ears.
‘Fine then.’ She shouts so I’m forced to hear. ‘If you can’t discuss this rationally then forget it.’ She stalks away, slamming the front door as she leaves.
Damn, damn, damn. That was not the way to break through her defensive wall.
I work my way through Dad’s bedtime routine in silence, too numb to speak. Later, my hands are still shaking as I slip one of Van’s letters from the bulging envelope and start to read. Okay … Bad food, crap weather, Belfast’s ugly an
d rundown … It ends with a grovelling plea to Mum to let her come back home. The next one too. And the next. It’s clear she felt abandoned and alone. What’s weird is that I recognise the letters’ urgent, wheedling tone but not the content. Not at all.
Hold on. I have read that tone before, though not from Van. It’s how Vincent used to grovel to his poor brother Theo. To his father. To Paul Gauguin. In fact, to anyone he thought might salve his pain. Jesus.
The next letter’s from Uncle Royan, addressed to Mum. Okay, so it’s a sin to pry — but how else will I ever learn the truth?
My dear Kathleen,
Me and Shanaye were gutted to miss your call. I really need to talk with you. The plain fact is you need to get your girl home fast. She’s ailing and fretting about all sorts — has got herself in over her head and can’t get out. We tried to sit her down and talk but she won’t hear. Now I’m no expert but I don’t need to remind you, Kathleen, how Billy went. Your girl’s the same — jumpy and nervy as hell.
She’s got some fella she met at the pub — twenty-four or twenty-five, long hair, not the marrying type — we’re sure she’s smoking wacky baccy with him too. Did you know she’s broke? We’ve given her as much as we can spare but I tell you, Kathy, the poor girl’s skint. She said she asked you to send money for a ticket home but you refused. Have you a problem there? We tried to tell her she’s a real fine girl with more brains than all of us put together — that a job will come — but she’s lost all faith. She needs your help, Kathy, there’s no two ways. Just get her home. Shanaye, me and the kids will miss her but she’s just not right.
In friendship, and with love to my poor brother too, Royan.
I snatch up another letter, tearing the envelope to get it out. This one’s from Van, the same month she died.
Yeah, so I got your latest letter, Mum. Please don’t be angry but isn’t it already bloody obvious that I’m trying to stand on my own two feet?? I’m not sure you appreciate how bad things are. There are no jobs — and though you clearly don’t believe me, I’ve really, really tried. This place is in recession. Don’t you watch the news?
