by Cowley, Joy
“I can’t, Mum,” he said. “I really need to stay with Dad.” Then he left before the other women could see he was crying.
* * *
He hoped that Maisie would be at the bus stop again, but didn’t really expect it. She had warned him that he might not see her again. He walked up the hill and long before he reached the gates of his house, he saw the red-and-white FOR SALE signs. Too fast, he thought. It is all happening too fast.
Winston was waiting for him at the door. He was dressed in shorts and a floral shirt, and his breath smelled of drink.
Jeff hated the whisky smell that seemed to him to be a mixture of petrol and perfume. “Did you go to work?” he asked.
“I did, indeed.” Winston swayed. “But I came home for my son. Yeah. I did. Couldn’t have you, you know …” He paused, groped for words, “… come home to an empty house.”
Jeff thought, but I usually come home to an empty house, and then he decided it was wrong to even think it. His father was trying to be friendly. He said, “I saw the sign.”
“We’re looking up,” said Winston. “Son, I think we’ve turned the corner. Two bits of news! The land agent thinks this house will go in days. Unique, he said. One of a kind! He’s got Asian buyers. Waiting for harbour views. While he was here, that lanky detective called. You know something? That lowlife Julius Clarke, he didn’t go to England. No. He’s been seen in Morocco. They’re on to him.” Winston paused, then said in a tired voice, “You’re a good son, Jeffrey.”
Jeff looked around the room. It had been tidied.
Winston went on, “You’ll be sad about the house being sold. But mark my words, there’ll be another. Just as good.”
“I liked the old place we had before,” Jeff said. “It was cosy, like a real home.”
“That’s the kind of house we’ll be renting. Four bed, two bath, neighbours over the back fence! Not for long, though.” He poured himself another drink. “Let’s go out and celebrate. Dinner at Dockside!”
“I can cook something,” Jeff offered.
“No, no! If a man can’t take his son out for a meal, there’s something wrong. Get changed. Comb your hair. While you’re at it, give your mother a call. Invite her too.”
Jeff said, “I don’t think she’ll come.”
“She might. She might not. We don’t know unless we ask.” Winston smiled. “She’ll get over it. It’s happened before. Emotional! Women don’t think the way men do. Tell her we’ve got good news to celebrate.”
“Dad, I’m sure she won’t come.”
“Shall we see who’s right?” Winston winked at him.
Jeff was right, and by the time Helen had answered the message with R U joking, Winston was asleep in one of the recliner chairs.
About nine o’clock, Jeff opened a can of spaghetti and had it on toast.
* * *
The land agent’s prediction was correct, and before the week was out, a couple bought the big house with its view across the harbour. The settlement date was the fifteenth of May, which would allow Winston four weeks to find a rental house in town and call in a removal company. There was enough furniture to fill a normal house plus two garages, so some of it would have to be put in storage.
As for everything else, it seemed to Jeff that the changes had ceased. It was like that game of statues, where everyone dances about while the music plays, and freezes when it stops. Events that had happened in rapid succession, one change after another, had become stuck in one place.
He counted the stuck-ness on his fingers. One, the police had no further news. Two, Helen was still in a motel and wouldn’t communicate with Winston except through a lawyer. Three, Andrea’s life was full of a man called Mark and she had not yet been to see Beckett, although he’d been in Auckland nearly two weeks. Four, Winston went to work each day and came home early so no one could say that Jeff was left on his own. Five, school was the same, kids staring, whispering.
Jeff got used to it, the ebb and flow of each day, currents moving in set patterns.
Although Winston opened the newspaper at rental properties, he didn’t do anything about finding a house. He was more concerned about Helen and her lawyer. Helen stayed on at the motel because, she said, she got a discount through the travel agency and there were no suitable properties at the moment.
The only thing to happen in that week was Andrea’s interviews. She missed both waitressing jobs but found work packing shelves in a supermarket. When Jeff met her in the car park, she was wearing a pink uniform. “It’ll do until something else comes along,” she said. “There’s not much work around.”
He wondered if there could be a vacancy for her in Argonaut Travel.
“Ask my mother for a job? I’d rather scrub toilets! No, I’m fine. I’m earning money and that’s important because I can’t be a burden to Mark. His ex is a dentist and she makes a mint. But he still has to pay maintenance for the children.” Anger burned in her eyes. “She’s an awful woman. I don’t know why he married her.”
Jeff felt uncomfortable with this new Andrea. He asked, “Have you heard from Beck?”
“Who? Oh, Beck! Yes, he wrote last week. He addresses all my letters care of Marlena, but she’s still at school. I didn’t get it for several days. He’s fine. It’s that new prison. He’s glad to be back in New Zealand.”
For Jeff, this wasn’t enough. Had she forgotten her promises? But he tried to sound reasonable. “Did Beck say anything about us going to Auckland go see him?”
“That’s impossible right now. No money.” She examined her purple painted nails. “Really, he’s fine. Look Jeff, I’d better go. Mark will be home soon.”
“Wasn’t there any news?” Jeff pleaded. “Did he write about the flight back? What happened at the airport? You know? TV cameras and reporters? He must have said something.”
“It was all okay. He said he might be helping out in the kitchen.”
“What kitchen? The prison? Andy, I want to see his letter.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“What?”
“I mean I haven’t got it now.” She waved her hands at him. “Don’t bug me, Jeff!”
“Then, please, please, tell me the address! I’ve got to write to him. Seriously, Andy! I know I have to –”
But she was in too much of a hurry. “I’ve forgotten, but I’ll write it down for the next time I see you. Promise. Bye, Squidge.”
* * *
Saturday morning was the beginning of the school holidays. He knew what he had to do. As usual, he counted the steps down the hill to the bus stop, and waited; but this time he took the bus that went through Newtown. Maisie had given the address as Aurora Council Flats, but in the white pages, it was listed as Aurora Retirement Village, and since the street was the same, that had to be it. He got off the bus in the Newtown shopping centre and walked to the road. It was short and had no exit. From the corner, he could see the word AURORA over an open gateway. It was impossible to miss.
Inside there were two rows of green painted units wedged together with carports, a small garden in front of each. Along the drive were a few big trees standing in their fallen leaves. Everything was wet. He walked along the B row, stopped outside the door that had a large 7 on it and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again and again.
The door of Number 6 opened and a man crouched over a walking frame said, “No one’s home. That’s empty.”
“I’m looking for Mrs Eleanor May Caldwell. I think this is supposed to be her flat.”
“It’s Miss,” the man said, “and she’s been moved to the hospital wing.”
Jeff’s breath caught on the word hospital. So she was sick. How sick? He stepped back. “Thank you. Can you tell me where it is?”
“Down the end. You’ll see it.” The man waved his hand and then backed into the unit, dragging the walking frame after him.
Jeff walked along the drive in front of the other B units, twenty-eight in all. The concrete was cracked and uneven,
with holes filled with gravel. He needed to watch where he trod. The air held drops of moisture that were more than mist and less than rain, and his ears were cold.
The hospital was also an old green-painted building, but designed like a large house with a turnaround drive and wheelchair access. When he opened the door, there was a blast of warm air, and he walked into a reception area with a floral carpet and three chairs opposite an alcove where a large woman sat behind a counter. “Hello, dear,” she said. “Are you looking for someone?”
Her friendliness warmed him. “Yes. Miss Eleanor May Caldwell.”
“Who?” She looked puzzled for a second and then her face cleared.
“Oh, you mean Maisie!”
“Yes!”
The woman consulted her computer. Her smile faded and she folded her hands. “Are you related, dear? Family?”
He nodded.
“Is anyone with you?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Mum’s working.”
“You know she is poorly, don’t you, dear. Twenty-four-hour care. You can see her if you want to, but she won’t recognise you. She’s in a coma.”
He wiped his hands on his jeans. “I’d like to see her. She – she’s special.”
“Come with me, dear, and I’ll take you down. It’s lovely of you to come. Are you her grandson? No, you’ll be a great-grandson. When was the last time you saw our Maisie?”
He counted. “Nearly two weeks ago.”
“Then you’ll know what to expect. What’s your name, dear?”
“Jeff.”
“Down this way, Jeff. Maisie is quite a character. We thought we were losing her a few weeks ago, but she made a remarkable recovery.” She paused, her hand on a doorknob. “This time, though, she is slipping away.”
The door opened inwards. “Come in, Jeff.” It was a small room, hot and stuffy and smelling bad. Maisie lay on her back on a narrow white bed, only her head visible. Without the usual hat, it was the small head he’d seen under the gum tree. There were wisps of grey hair and a thin face that reminded him of a bird. Her mouth hung open in a downturned crescent, and her eyes, half open, had rolled back so he saw only the whites, which weren’t white but a greyish yellow. He could hear her breathing.
Beside the bed, a nurse sat in a chair, knitting red wool. She looked up and the kindly woman who’d brought him in said, “This is Jeff. He’s here to see his great-grandmother.”
The nurse smiled, gathered her knitting, and stood, indicating the chair for Jeff. “Doesn’t she look nice?” she said, nodding at the bed. “So peaceful.”
For a moment Jeff and the two women stood looking at Maisie. Sunlight penetrating grey mist caused a patch of pale light to fall through the glass, marking a window shape on the bedcover. Under it, Maisie’s body made a mound so small that she looked already half gone. Jeff knew it wasn’t Maisie. Eleanor May Caldwell had left this body more than a month ago, and now the dream-keeper was struggling to free itself. He knew all that, but he still felt sad. In his mind, Maisie and the dream-keeper were like the same person.
The nurse said, “You can talk to her if you like. She might still be able to hear you.”
“She doesn’t have long to go,” the receptionist said. “Hours, days. Not long at all. Jeff, we’ll pop out for a few minutes. If you need us, press this buzzer.”
They went out quietly, and he sat in the chair next to her, counting the uneven breaths. She did look peaceful, but she was in some place far away and she wouldn’t come back. Tears burned in his throat. Everyone was now at a distance, Helen, Winston, Andrea, Beck, the kids at school. Or maybe he was the one who was far away, like that astronaut in the white suit, tumbling head over heels into the blackness of forever.
He said aloud, “I still don’t understand that dream-keeper story. I think I do, but I don’t. I came with more questions, Maisie, but it’s too late. I’m really pleased for you, because I know you want to go. I know you’re not Maisie but I need to call you something because you’re my friend and you have to have a name.”
Beyond the words, his mind was still counting the rise and fall of air from her mouth, two distinct sounds that sometimes got caught in her throat, one hundred and twenty-seven, one hundred and twenty-eight.
“Maisie, I think you can hear me.” He leaned closer and there was that familiar pressure in his ears. “You know why I think that? I can feel the Light in you. Well, I suppose it’s Light. I’m not sure what to call it. Something in you like – like energy. Only not as strong as before.”
He was reminded of the Fitzgibbon basement, and Paul playing a song called “The River of Life”. The title hadn’t meant anything to Jeff, but now it came to him as images of water, little streams becoming rivers and rivers flowing towards the sea. Near the end of its journey, a river had a lot of salt water in it. How did people know where the river ended and the sea began?
He wanted to hold Maisie’s hand, but her arms and hands were under the covers. There was only her head, barely denting the pillow. So he stood up, leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
An amazing thing happened. Her eyes opened wide, dark and focused. She smiled, her mouth curving up. She was conscious, looking directly at him. She knew him! Those eyes black as coal, shone with silent laughter. It was a miracle!
“Maisie!” he said.
She didn’t speak. The smile slowly faded, her eyes rolled up, the eyelids came down, and it was over. The breathing continued, steady but loud, air-in high-pitched, air-out deep and rough.
Outside, the mist was clearing and the sunlight fell across the bed, shining on the pillow, her face, her hair. He realised that he had stopped counting her breaths. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to hold her by counting. Something better had happened.
He remembered two things underlined in his notebook. They were important, she had told him. Now he said those words aloud. “It’s up to you, Jeff. Hold on to the Light.” He turned from the bed and walked to the door.
There was no one in the corridor. He glanced back at her and saw the slight movement of the covers as her breath continued. He would leave the door ajar so that a nurse would see he had gone.
The reception desk was also empty. Maybe they were having a lunch break. Lunch was his next plan. He would get a bus to the train station and walk across to the wharf to where Helen would be waiting with a plastic box of sandwiches. They would throw bits to the seagulls and pigeons and watch boats move through the inner harbour. He walked past the line of retirement units, his shoes crunching gravel. Life is like a river, he thought, trying to remember the tune and the rest of the words.
He felt sad and he felt happy, the two things at once, and both were good. It was as though Maisie had stopped the astronaut’s fall into endless space.
* * *
Lunch with his mother disturbed his peace, for she was still angry – with Winston for selling the house, and with Andrea for making a fool of herself. “She’s not happy,” Helen said. “I can tell. It’s not working out, which doesn’t at all surprise me, and she’s too proud to admit it. What is wrong with my children? You were all such sweet babies.”
He tried to avoid her anger by saying nothing. Anyway, his mouth was busy with the food, curried egg sandwiches, and the sun was warm on his legs. The mist had lifted and sorted itself into small cloud shapes, white against blue, and there was no wind. Boats moored by the wharf were twinned by their reflections in sea as smooth as oil.
“If she had any sense,” said Helen, “she would use the school holiday period to catch up on the work she’s missed, and she’d go back to college next term.”
He ripped a crust in two and tossed it to a gull. Instantly there was a flock of birds at his feet, gulls, pigeons and two of the ducks that had been swimming by the Dominion Post ferry. There was a great screeching and flapping and he didn’t see what happened to the crust.
“Don’t encourage them,” said Helen. “They are full of disease. You should talk to your sister,
Jeffrey.”
“I do,” he said.
“You know full well what I’m saying. Point out that she’s throwing her life away on this – this worthless infatuation. She’s more likely to listen to you than to her mother.”
“Andy’s in love.”
“Love? She doesn’t know the meaning of the word. She’s seventeen, for heaven’s sake. That man should be put in front of a firing squad.”
The birds hopped closer, eyes alert. He wanted to throw them the rest of the sandwich but didn’t dare.
“What’s happening to you over the holidays?” Helen asked.
“Nothing much. We’ve got football trials, but I might do hockey this winter.”
“You father – what’s he doing? What’s happening to the house?”
“He’s working from home for the next two weeks.” He put the half-eaten egg sandwich back in the lunch box and closed the lid. “I don’t know about the house. Why don’t you ask him?”
She didn’t answer, and when he looked at her, he saw her mouth was tight. He started counting the birds in front of him, but the numbers kept changing. Finally, he said, “Good lunch, Mum.”
Slowly she turned, looked at him and smiled. Then she combed his hair with her fingers. “When did you last get a haircut?” she said, and her face looked normal again.
* * *
On Sunday afternoon he went with Paul Fitzgibbon to the new Batman movie. Afterwards, Paul invited him back to the house, but he made the excuse, “I’m making dinner for Dad.” That was the truth, but it was about more than dinner. Winston drank whisky every night and sometimes he forgot things, like leaving a cigar burning on the wooden table instead of the ashtray, and turning on the microwave when there was nothing in it. Jeff needed to be there in the evenings, no two ways about it. Also, after the movie he didn’t think he could cope with the usual Fitzgibbon noise and Paul’s father feeling sorry for him because the house was sold.
