by Ky Lehman
Another strange tradition in my Nanna’s family is that if you are a girl, you inherit your mother’s maiden name, so centuries of females on that side of my family tree all carry a version of our ancient ancestress’s name. But, if you are a boy, you inherit your father’s last name which could be anything. So, if Mum had had a boy with my father, at least I would have had a surname to start my search with.
I learned from a very early age not to ask about my father. Many wordless reminders still scream that you shouldn’t miss what you never had. And I had Georgie Pa, the best grandfather anyone could ask for. He was all I needed and then some. But not knowing where my ballistic curls, my dimples, and my near-sightedness have come from has been a hard thing to put to rest.
Since Aunt Romey first rushed me out of the school office, all of the imaginary snapshots I’ve taken of my father over the years have been picketing my thoughts. What set it off this time was seeing a concerned dad help his green faced, bucket hugging son from the school nurse’s station to their mud splattered four-wheel-drive as my aunt relentlessly dragged me towards her pristinely neat, silver shoebox on wheels.
My delusional Dad album refuses to shelve itself when my head should be swarming with thoughts of Mum. I find that disturbing, until I think of my favourite depiction of him. It appears that knowing Mum is alive has resurrected the unlikeliest of my hopes along with her.
I close my eyes and will that idyllic image of my father to hurry forward. The long line of lesser portrayals respectfully part as I excitedly watch my warmest fabricated memory take centre stage.
There he is. Wavy, toffee-brown hair speckled with grey. Eyes, clear blue like the summer sky, twinkling behind rimless glasses, and a big white smile framed by weekend stubble. Although he is of average height, his broad frame stands tall. He is home, relaxed and happy, wearing old tracksuit pants, a t-shirt made up of more holes than cotton, and work boots, all sweaty and mud splattered after spending a warm Spring day working in the garden alongside Mum. Without warning, he swoops Mum up into his arms and plants a sloppy kiss on her lips. He doesn’t see the small watering can in her hand until it’s too late. As the cold water runs down his back, he shudders, gasps, and grins. She knows she’s in for it. She squirms and squeals. They laugh. Then it’s over.
Unlike my other imaginings, some of which can take up an entire afternoon, this one is too short and bittersweet. Over the years, I have tried to add to it, but it feels like I am ruling straight lines through a Picasso. So, I’ve decided to accept it for the misshapen, brightly coloured snapshot that it is. It is my favourite image of him, of them, because it always tricks me into believing that I’m in the presence of the love that brought me to be.
I happily sigh as Mum’s lively face finally comes to the forefront, and then nearly jump out of my skin when Aunt Romey barks in my ear, “For God’s sake, Renay!”
I turn and throw open my eyes to find hers boring into mine. I had completely tuned out and she doesn’t like repeating herself. Thankfully, the traffic light has just turned green so she can’t keep staring me down with that face-melting look.
“Sorry, what did you say?” I splutter.
“I said that Uncle Craig has left work to sit with Georgie Pa. There’s no one at my place so we’ll go there,” she snaps.
“OK,” I answer, my tone appeasing even though I would have rather have screamed it, but I know I’ve already poked the bear enough today.
When Aunt Romey first told me about Mum being alive, the one, very loud loaded question I have asked so far was answered in record time. Switching like a chameleon, she threw the gaping school administrator a reassuring smile, and to prevent the scene we could both see coming, she gave my notorious doggedness the titbit it needed to quickly get us out the door and away from prying eyes. “Your mum is not in the country, but she’s OK. She is staying with family. And I will explain what I can to you once we get the hell out of here,” she half growled, half murmured.
It worked. And although we both know my insolence will come back later to bite me in the arse, that scrap of information was enough to get me in her shiny little car, promising to hold my tongue like a good girl while we drive the ten minutes across town to Aunt Romey and Uncle Craig’s house. But, now we are on the road, she has given me another reason to stay quiet. To keep us and numerous innocent bystanders out of harm’s way, the last thing I want to do is to distract her any more than she already is.
For the first time I’ve ever witnessed, my Aunt Romey is racing and weaving through the light, early afternoon traffic like the ‘bloody moron’s’ she usually mutters her disgust at. I am also eager to get to her place to talk about Mum, but my usually poised aunt is scaring the hell out of me behaving like a normal person, one who is actually letting strong emotion rattle her. Strangely, her current state reminds me of Edlee when she’s got something so phenomenal to tell me it can’t wait, or she’s got something so bad to say that she better do it quick before she loses her nerve.
But, how does it get more phenomenal than hearing that after ten months of believing your mother was dead, she is alive and kicking? And, no matter how bad things have gotten, I have never seen my aunt lose her nerve.
We pull into the driveway. She wastes no time getting from her car to her front door.
“Come on, Renay! You’re as slow as a wet week,” she snaps.
“Right behind you,” I grumble, trying to coax my jelly legs to step out of the car.
She bustles us inside and disarms her house alarm. She grabs my hand, leads me straight to the navy blue comfy couch and gestures for me to sit. “Drink?” she asks.
“No, thanks.”
She goes to the kitchen and gets me a tall glass of water anyway.
Then everything goes from strange to downright bizarre when she sits down, squishes in next to me, puts her arm around my shoulders and rests her cheek on my hair. I am wedged in-between her and the armrest: I couldn’t move if I tried, and I honestly don’t want to. Hugs from my one and only aunt are like sunny days in the winter. They are rare. They are warm. They smell of cream and cinnamon. They go by too quickly. And you know you’ll have to wait a while for the next one.
“Look at me, Renay,” she gently commands. Bleary eyed, she carefully scans my face and sighs.
It seems she is already regretting what she is yet to say. A chill of forewarning forces a shiver: it sets my heart pounding and my legs that have finally regained feeling start to twitch and shake, preparing to run. She senses my panic and holds me tighter, and starts to softly hum a familiar tune that Nanna must have used to calm her down too. Slowly, the dread resides and the warmth returns. My stiff posture thaws allowing me to slump into her side. Realising she has been given the green light, she takes a deep breath and starts talking.
Aunt Romey has never been one to beat around the bush. Simple English. No fluff. The bare facts followed by her opinion of them. But this time, the candour I usually appreciate brings with it a realisation that hits me so hard, that, for the first time since the bomb went off, I am relieved the undercooked takeout chicken kept me home that night.
Bedtime stories that once lulled me into sweet dreams now leave me feeling cold, heavy and sick.
Horrifying truth gives a voice to the intoxicated mutterings of a grieving husband and father.
Nanna’s fairy tales.
Georgie Pa’s drunken rants.
All of the frayed strands and loose ends I’ve obliviously left hanging tangle and weave into the blood stained tapestry that is Aunt Romey’s history lesson.
Three versions of the same unfathomable story, each with its own conclusion.
The fairy tale ends in hope.
The drunken rant ends in fear.
And the history lesson will only end with the death of the Three Roses, who my newfound enemies believe are Nanna, Mum and me.
Surrounded by the ghosts of our ancestors and their vindicating screams, I cling to the only olive branch within reach.
Mum may be on the run, but she is alive and well.
But the sinewy little branch is not strong enough to bear the weight of centuries of lost life. It snaps, and I limply fall into large, familiar, bloodstained hands that carry me off into the black quiet.
Chapter 3
“Renay?”
Even though my blurry senses have me feeling like I am underwater, I slowly start to figure out where I am and why I’m here.
“Renay? Ren?” My names continue to come in gentle waves as a warm hand smooths my hair away from my face.
“Renay, can you hear me?” I’m thankful Aunt Romey is whispering because my head is killing me.
“I can hear you, and I’m OK,” I groan, trying to sit up. The room spins forcing me to flop back down on the couch.
“You’re in shock. You need to sip this and rest,” she says. She covers me with another blanket and hands me a warm mug. “It’s boiled water with lemon. Go on, sip it,” she presses, and positions herself at the other end of the couch and pulls my feet onto her lap. Then, out of the blue, she giggles.
“What?” I ask, stunned. Aunt Romey doesn’t giggle at the best of times.
“It’s nothing,” she says with a dismissive wave.
“What is it?” I shout, wincing as my headache growls at me to settle down.
“You’re not the only one who’s in shock, Renay,” she says flatly. I nod, acknowledging that she’s in the same hell. “Bad news usually makes you throw up, not faint,” she adds with a smirk.
In response, I huff, and she mimics me. I tsk and roll my eyes and she mimics me. I turn my back on her and pull up my legs. She stands, seemingly to leave me be, but then she creeps up behind me and blows in my ear.
As out of character as all this is, I know what she’s doing and seeing that I’m now on the cusp of pissed off and smiling, it’s working. She is using Georgie Pa’s old tactic: a once tried and true way to snap me out of a foul mood.
With Georgie Pa now at the forefront of my mind, I think on what he would say about this “pickle we’re in.” He’d place a firm hand on my shoulder, look me straight in the eye, take a deep breath and say, “Ren, you need to climb the golden staircase of optimism to get to the clouds with the silver lining.” No, no, he’d say, “Sanguine eyes cry tears of joy before tears of sorrow.” Or is it sorrow before joy? I forget. He has so many sayings. All I know for sure is that when it comes to sorrow, my family has cried more than its fair share.
xxXxx
Unfortunately, the comforting, playful Aunt Romey doesn’t waste any time morphing back into the obstinate, infuriating woman I know and currently want to strangle. On this one all important piece of information, she won’t give me an inch. She has always been a hard nut to crack, but after what feels like hours of screaming, crying and jumping up and down hasn’t even come close to putting a dent in her resolve.
I stomp off to the bathroom to get away from the overly primped, steel faced, tight lipped pain in my arse. For added effect, I slam the bathroom door so hard it nearly comes off its hinges.
“Hey!” she yells.
“What the freaking hell do you expect?!” I yell back, the echo ricocheting off the walls of my porcelain cocoon.
I slump onto the cold floor and curl up in the foetal position using her baby blue, fluffy bath mat as a pillow. When we firstly got to her house and I sat next to her on the couch she talked and talked like there was no tomorrow, and on this one detail she’s giving me nothing?
I’m so worked up I don’t stay down for long. It takes some pacing and gouging through four pink, rose-shaped soaps with one of her hairpins for a flicker of clarity to finally reveal the obvious.
Aunt Romey has never been one for hysterics. Until today, I thought that was one of the main reasons why she chose not to have kids. That, and Uncle Craig was scared she might eat them.
Now the penny has finally dropped, every muscle that can clenches and shudders in frustration. I see now that she is waiting for me to finish my hissy fit before she says anymore, but I don’t feel even remotely close to being done.
But, I also understand that the time for waiting has almost expired for all of us.
Any sense of control I had when I woke up this morning is now unrecognisable to me, but I know I have to try and find it amongst the scattered, blubbering mess I have been reduced to. I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions, and if I try and fake it, the dragon lady will see straight through my best efforts in a second. I decide to take a closer look at the unstable mix of emotions that sent me marching off to this pokey little blue bathroom in the first place, hoping that I might be able to pass one of them off as composure.
Angry…well, that’s a given...
Actually, it’s more like furious...
And even though I feel like I’m boiling over…I’m shivering like I’m cold...
Kind of like a fever…
A sickness…
A disease…
A blood-related disease…
A blood-related, soul sucking disease…
That makes me doubt myself…
And everyone around me…
That makes me cry…
Scream…
Rage…
And hate…
Until I feel completely lost...
And scared....
And alone…
And empty...
And beaten...
And broken...
And tired…
So tired…
Begging for those large hands to carry me off into the black quiet.
Tired. Using my tiredness is my safest bet, and I have to go with it soon before it completely drags me under.
Three to one against her interpreting my exhaustion as some sort of self-control, I trudge out of the bathroom and plop down next to her on the couch.
“At least tell me if you know where she is,” I ask, deadpan.
Aunt Romey eyeballs me, pauses, sighs and says, “Yes. I know where she is.”
A glimmer of hope lifts my weary head, but then it gives way when I realise that was all too easy.
“But, you won’t tell me,” I growl with the scrap of defiance I have left.
“No. Not now.”
“When?”
“When they say I can.”
“And when will that be?”
“When they want you to join her.”
“They. They, they, they,” I seethe.
They are Nanna’s family, and although their - my - cursed name seems to only bequeath the promise of an unnatural death, they do have a point. While the Bloodstones believe that two out of the Three Roses are dead, Mum and I are safe, for now.
“So, now what do we do?” I ask.
“Act,” she states.
“How?”
“By following the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Your truth.”
“My truth?”
“Yes.”
“But I’ve already told you. I don’t know what it is,” I groan.
“You need to find it.”
I answer her by throwing my head into my hands, but she pries my fingers away and folds them in hers. She insists I look up at her before she says anymore. Feeling her stare boring into the top of my head, I force myself to lift my eyes to hers.
“Your truth is who you were, who you are now and who you will be, all rolled into one,” she says. As I try and process this, she lets go of my hands and purposefully stands. “Let’s start with who you were,” she announces and strides towards the kitchen phone.
She’s been talking to the person on the other end of the line for ages, in French. Not being able to understand a word except for “Bonjour!” I tuned out after the first few sentences. The pigheadedness I’m known for, together with the after-effects of this phone call, are like a pair of tooth picks propping my heavy eyelids open.
To help keep my focus, I’ve been going over what I do know for sure, pushing anything
with a question mark over it to the side until Aunt Romey finishes speaking in tongues. Sadly, there are only a handful of truths left for me to mull over, and, as always, the one that’s demanding the most attention is my father.
My favourite image of him and Mum together in her rose garden has now been shot to hell. A neatly trimmed beard may have hidden his face, and the dark contact lenses and hair dye may have changed his colouring, but now I know exactly who and what he is, all I see when he comes to mind is red.
Red like their spilt blood.
Red like the heat of the fire.
Red like my loathing.
Red like his enduring sin.
When Aunt Romey first told me that it was my father’s job to kill the three of us, she tried to soften the blow by extenuating that he was the one who pulled Mum out of the car window before the bomb went off. Apparently, he tried to get Nanna out too, but that window of opportunity was too small to save them both.
He tried to kill them, had a change of heart, tried to save them, and failed us all. He has made our lives a living hell, so why shouldn’t the evil bastard bleed and burn in my pyre of hate for the sins he has committed against my family?
Then my aunt went on to say that she’s not surprised my father risked his life to save Mum. That he loves her. ‘Always has. Always will,’ is what she said. And, apparently when my Bloodstone father was reunited with Mum, Nanna, and Aunt Romey, he tried to convince them of his true motives.
But, what Aunt Romey couldn’t confirm is if the good Father turned his coat before or after he came to town, or if he really has at all.
I try and make my aunt understand that even after her little speech, when it comes to that man all I feel is hatred followed by nothing. She says that when my heart makes some room the rest will come. I vow to her that I will never again let that man share space with those I love.
