This isn’t going to be easy.
I’m forty-one years old and my mother is dying. We both know it. I sit at her bedside in the nursing home, holding her hand.
When did those hands get so bony? So blue-veined and fleshless?
I remember being a little boy, no more than three or four, and our positions are reversed. I am in bed and she is holding my hand. I have woken with a night terror and she has come to comfort me. I drop off to sleep but wake again in fright. Each time I wake, she is there, holding my hand.
What a privilege it is to be here, holding hers now.
I know she is afraid but she will not tell me because it is her job to comfort me, to stop me from being afraid, not the other way around; this is how she thinks. I brace myself for the hour that she tells me, finally, that she is afraid.
I will know then that the end is very near.
She asks me to close the venetians, which I do. Her once-lively interest in the world contracts on an almost hourly basis. Just a few weeks ago the clock-radio on her pink laminate bedside table would have been barking a political debate. Mum, eyebrows knit in concentration, would offer observations of such pithy accuracy that they took your breath away.
So sharp, this woman, a spitfire all her life but now she is leaving. Receding, not so gradually. Her world has shrunk into a single room where she lies dying. She is only interested in what is going on in the room. It’s all about the room. This nurse coming. That nurse going. How much apple juice is left.
She turns and holds me with her watery gaze. There is such love in her look that I can hardly bear it.
‘I’m glad she’s here,’ says my mother.
‘Who?’
‘Up north,’ she answers and I realise she means my birth mother. I take a deep breath to stop myself from bawling. All I can manage is, ‘Oh Mamma.’
It occurs to me that I will not know such fierce unconditional love again. I have not yet learned that it will not die with her; that it will travel with me all my days.
28
You are sitting on the couch, cross-legged, attempting the lotus position. Your knees ache and there’s a weird twinge in your left hip but you are doing your best to meditate as instructed by Doctor Maurice. You are trying to observe (not attach to!) your feelings of abandonment when Wendy comes through the door with the shopping so you unfold yourself and help her unload the car.
After you’ve unpacked the groceries together, Wendy says she needs to talk to you about finances. You nod but for some reason you do not feel the usual rush of dread. The loan from Ingrid has helped through the last months but the money is running out again. You’re back to the old discussion about generating more income or selling the house. At least you no longer have Declan’s school fees to worry about.
You tell Wendy about a phone message from the Rat-tat-tat editor at the Herald, the guy who talks without pronouns. You’re not exactly sure what he wants but he has asked you to lunch at a fairly swanky restaurant in the city. You are now officially the last person on earth to leap to optimistic conclusions, but you’re guessing it could be about writing for a movie website that the paper is launching. You’ll also try to step up the freelance work and failing that, the local grocery store is looking for night stackers again.
Wendy takes your hand and strokes it.
‘How are you?’ she asks.
‘A bit better, getting better.’
‘Yeah, I can tell.’
‘Sorry I’ve been so useless.’
‘It’s been pretty horrible, hasn’t it?’
You lift her hand and kiss it. ‘Thanks for sticking with me.’
She shrugs and gives you a crooked smile.
‘Why do you?’ you ask. ‘Why do you stick with me?’
‘You’ll come back,’ she says, ‘and I’ll be here.’
Another letter comes from Mount Karver addressed to Rosie. This time there is no joyful dancing, only quiet trepidation. You and Wendy watch your daughter read her letter. She looks puzzled and then her mouth curls into a smile.
‘I’ve got a second interview!’ she declares.
Wendy can’t make the interview because she is about to leave on a two-day conference. She asks Rosie if she wants to try and move the interview day but Rosie says, ‘No, Dad can take me, can’t you, Dad?’
You nod manfully but privately baulk at the thought of managing her terrible disappointment if it all goes pearshaped which, let’s face it, it probably will.
Two days later you are back in the school’s administration building, waiting in the long corridor and not in the anteroom to the headmaster’s office. Elsie Schmetterling offers no explanation why she has placed you here. You interpret this as a bad sign.
Elsie reappears and says, ‘She’ll see you now.’
She?
Rosie shoots you a look as you head south down the corridor instead of north towards the headmaster’s office.
‘Where are we going?’ you ask.
‘The deputy’s office,’ answers Elsie, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
A sense of doom sinks like a lead weight in your gut. You were hoping that Wendy’s session with the headmaster might have improved his disposition towards Rosie. But the gutless turd is getting his deputy, Sabina Smith, to do his dirty work for him.
Sabina Smith is a sturdily built woman with a mean face that belies a kind and friendly spirit. She’s the ideal person to inform Rosie of her rejection, and negotiate her way through parental outrage on the school’s behalf.
Ms Smith’s office is almost hilariously austere compared to the splendour of Ignatius Quinn’s. She stands to greet you, shakes Rosie’s hand and then yours. Rosie sits in one of the two chairs opposite her desk just before Sabina Smith says, ‘Please, take a seat.’
Rosie says, ‘Oops!’, leaps to her feet and sits again, all in one motion. The deputy chuckles. You settle into a chair too and brace yourself in the crash position.
‘Well, I have to say that was a very impressive letter, young woman.’
Ah, you think, she’s using one of those positive-negative-positive strategies. Start off with something nice, then deliver the bad news, then end with something warm and effusive.
‘Full of commitment and passion,’ she continues. ‘You’re exactly the kind of girl we want at Mount Karver.’
Huh? You wonder if it’s a trick. But it’s not.
‘Thank you!’ says Rosie. She turns and beams at you. You smile back.
‘Well that’s great news,’ you say.
Rosie chats happily with Sabina Smith about starting dates and extracurricular activities. At the end of the meeting the deputy opens the door for you and you file out.
‘Your limp has almost gone, Mr O’Dell. It’s barely discernible at all,’ she says.
This surprises you because:
(a) you weren’t aware that you were limping anymore, and
(b) you weren’t aware that Sabina Smith had been tracking the progress of your limp.
On the way home Rosie hits her phone, texting everyone she’s ever met in her entire life. You swing by Macca’s for celebratory chocolate thickshakes, half expecting your trusty physician, Doctor David Wilson, to stride disapprovingly through the doors and whip the beverage from your chubby hands. You’ve been avoiding mirrors lately but you know if you looked you’d find yourself doing an alarmingly accurate impersonation of an over-stuffed sausage.
A girl in a McDonald’s cap stands on the table of the booth next to you, hanging tinsel from the ceiling.
‘Bit early for Christmas decorations,’ you comment to no one in particular.
By way of reply, Rosie lets rip with a mighty burp and adds, ‘It’s almost December, old man. Get with the program.’
The girl in the McDonald’s cap titters.
29
Before your lunch with Rat-tat-tat, you place a phone call that you have been meaning to make for some time. You call Maxx and tell him that you are no longe
r writing your book on the decline of Australian cinema. You haven’t abandoned the idea altogether but you are putting the project on ice. Maxx doesn’t even pretend to be surprised. He says he hasn’t been in touch because he didn’t want to guilt you into writing something you weren’t ready to write.
This last part is a fib because you know via a mutual friend that Maxx has been in despair, drinking heavily and showing up intermittently to his ever-shrinking office. Maxx hasn’t been in touch because the last thing he needs is another book he can’t sell. Most forms of old-school publishing are spiralling down the toilet while Maxx, like every other publisher in the known universe, scrambles to harness the power of the mighty internet to flog his stories. Maxx asks you whether you have any soft porn narratives for the mature female market up your sleeve. You both laugh the same hearty-but-hollow laugh.
You tell Maxx in what you hope is an unpatronising tone that you know times are tough and that you will do your best to return the book advance as soon as you can. Maxx, bless him, screeches, ‘Oh don’t be so bloody ridiculous, darling!’ You’re relieved he refuses because, although you feel it’s the right thing to do, you have no way of repaying him. ‘What are you going to do? he adds. ‘Rob a bank?’
You hang up and offer up a brief prayer of thanks that Maxx has graciously released you without fuss. You feel so relieved, you sit down and tell Egg about it. Egg listens intently, occasionally licking your hand. Then you sneak into the bathroom where you wash your licked hands (surreptitiously so as not to offend Egg) and head out to lunch with Rat-tat-tat.
Someone or something has been most unkind to Rat-tat-tat since you saw him last. The man sitting before you is very different from the confident, shiny creature you met a few months back. Today he has dark bags under his haunted eyes and, no longer too busy and important to cater to the pedestrian demands of traditional syntax, he even deigns to employ the occasional pronoun.
Almost as soon as he sits down he launches into a list of woes about the Herald. Plummeting circulation. Cutbacks and redundancies. He is in the middle of telling you that no job is safe when his phone rings and he excuses himself to the balcony of the restaurant. You watch his silhouette pace against the blown-out backdrop of the sun-kissed city and think, Gawd I hope he’s not asking me if I know of any jobs. For a frightening moment this makes complete sense. Why would he be spending money on you in a fancy restaurant if he didn’t want something from you?
You look around. This is indeed a fancy restaurant. The other impeccably dressed patrons belong to economic strata high above yours. The minimalist, hand-crafted blonde wood furnishings, the five-o’clock-shadowed waiters in crisp white aprons, the Scandinavian cutlery—all tell you that a lot is at stake here for Rat-tat-tat. Ditto the wine list.
Holy fuck, the wine list! You can buy a bottle of wine here for seven thousand dollars!
When he returns to the table you restrain yourself from blurting, ‘What do you want?’ which is lucky because Rat-tat-tat tells you anyway. Louisa Orban, his star reviewer, is going on maternity leave. It will only be for one year, but he’d like you to replace her.
‘Me?’
‘Yes,’ he says, adding, ‘Big workload these days, what with all the online content as well.’
You order your face to arrange itself in a calm and dignified manner.
Do not grin like an idiot.
Do not grin like an idiot.
Do not grin like an idiot.
‘Also, I’m thinking it might be time to add a little yin to Lou’s yang,’ he says with no acknowledgement that he is quoting you from your previous meeting.
‘And the…um…?’
‘Salary? Same as before, I’m afraid things are pretty tight.’
You order yourself not to leap, weep or hug anyone.
Do not shout yippee.
Do not shout yippee.
Do not shout yippee.
‘Can I think about it and get back to you?’ you ask as if you were a grown-up.
‘Please don’t make me beg, Michael.’
‘Pardon?’
‘There’s a lot riding on this for me. Pete [the editor-in-chief] isn’t happy with the arts supplement. My neck is on the line. They want you back. I need to get you back.’
There’s a lot that’s surprising about this admission:
(a) the frankness about his fragile position,
(b) the insertion of all appropriate pronouns, and
(c) you thought Pete hated you.
You can see the poor guy needs a break just as much as you do. ‘When do you want me to start?’ you say.
Which is the same question that Wendy asks when you call her from the car to tell her you have a job. ‘A month,’ you say, and she says, ‘Well done, my darling, well done.’
Wendy puts water on to cook some celebration pasta and joins you and Declan in the living room where you are watching television. She hands you a glass of chilled white wine and you clink, holding each other’s gaze. This is a custom you acquired on a holiday in Italy before you had children. You can’t remember the consequences of not holding each other’s gaze while clinking but you remember they’re not good.
Lowering herself into one of her shabby-chic cane chairs, Wendy inadvertently sits on the remote control and changes the channel. Instantly realising what she has done, she remedies the situation with the push of a button. A howl of protest from Declan transforms into a woo-hoo of joy.
If only it were always that simple.
Egg, who has been curled up asleep, gets to his feet, shakes himself down and rushes to the window, madly wagging his tail. Moments later he moves to the door as Rosie bursts in with the news that Eva Pessites is definitely going to Mount Karver next year.
The three of you express your horror in unison. Declan even turns off the telly. Rosie says she’s okay, that she’s talked it through with Eva and she thinks it might work out.
‘You talked it through with Eva?’ says Wendy, voicing the collective astonishment.
Rosie tells you about overhearing a group of Eva’s friends talk in the locker room about Eva going to ‘Special K’ (Mount Karver). It’s the last week of school and there’s an unusual air of camaraderie leading up to the Christmas holidays, so Rosie felt emboldened to ask these friends to ask Eva if she would be open to discussing their predicament. During recess, word came back via Maddie Peacock’s younger sister, Milly (who is mates with Eva’s cousin, Claudia), that Eva was open to dialogue.
Between science and modern history, Rosie saw Eva in the corridor and Eva nodded at her. After a brief discussion, they agreed to meet in the library at lunchtime.
The library at Boomerang occupies the old dormitory wing that once housed the nuns who lived and taught there. Up until the 1960s nuns represented the majority of the teaching staff although today only one ancient nun, Sister Anastasia, lingers in the art department. At some point during the nineties, the sisters’ dormitory was converted into a state-of-the-art library. The stained-glass windows remain preserved in their neo-gothic stone arches, pouring ecclesiastical light over such subversive atheists as Anton Chekhov, George Eliot and Arthur C. Clarke.
As well as the books, heretical and otherwise, there are also elegant pods made from white moulded plastic, designed to house the latest computer technology. It is here that Rosie comes when the lunch bell rings. She waits seven minutes before Eva walks through the door and pauses to look around the library. Rosie stands so that Eva can see her. Eva makes her way over and sits in the pod opposite Rosie without exchanging a word. Once they sit, they cannot see each other but begin to communicate by typing, messaging back and forth on the library’s computer network.
Rosie types We don’t have to be friends but we don’t have to be enemies either.
Eva types Agreed.
Rosie types Just because we don’t like each other doesn’t mean we can’t be cool when we see each other at Special K.
Eva types Agreed.
Rosie types
This feud thing is lame. Let’s drop it and go our separate ways.
Eva types Agreed. And then she adds Also we don’t talk about each other behind each other’s backs.
Rosie types Agreed. Especially at Special K.
Eva types Agreed.
Mrs Millington emerges from 440-448 to see Rose O’Dell shaking hands with Eva Pessites. She is so surprised that she almost drops Les Ravels sur la plage, a charming story about the Ravel family’s day at the beach that she intends to read to her Year 8 French class. Eva leaves and Mrs Millington makes a beeline to Rosie to find out what on earth that was all about.
Rosie tells Mrs Millington about the truce she and Eva have just declared and Mrs Millington gives her a hug. She tells Rosie how impressed she is by her maturity, and her innovative methodology. ‘And I’ll tell you this for nothing, Rose: You’re going to make a spectacular adult.’
As your daughter tells you this, you look over at Wendy and she’s wearing the same expression that always transformed your mother’s face in moments of extreme maternal pride: she looks like she’s going to crow.
And you want to crow with her.
Then Declan says, ‘She’s right, Rosie. You are spectacular,’ and the moment becomes as perfect as a moment can get. You mentally high-five your wife. You may be a fuck-up but this is one area you have not fucked up. What are you thinking? Sweep this thought out of your mind! You are inappropriately gloating about your children. The universe will hear you and find you and beat you with a big humility stick.
Ah, your old friend the Universe.
Fuck you, Universe, I’m going to gloat and delight and dance on the inside. I might just dance on the outside as well.
There is a hissing sound from the kitchen as the pasta water boils over onto the gas cooktop.
‘Oh shit, the water!’ cries Wendy.
She shoots to her feet and rushes into the kitchen.
30
Christmas draws near and tension in the household rises as you wait for Declan’s examination results. The day before they are due, news comes that the education department’s computer is in catastrophic meltdown and the results won’t be available until January. Declan is frustrated and Wendy is annoyed on his behalf, but you point out that this could be a good thing; at least you won’t be managing disappointments over Christmas.
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