by Cowley, Joy
That night he took out Andy’s letter with the prison address and wrote five long pages to his brother.
* * *
Helen took leave from work and, although she didn’t stay at the house, she came up each morning to organise things. In the afternoons they went to the hospital to sit with Winston.
For the first two days he was in the intensive care unit, in a network of tubes connected to machines and bags of fluid. He was sedated but he knew they were there. Helen sat close to him and held his good hand. “Sweetie, I need to know if you have booked a removal firm. Can you squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no.”
They all saw the hand move twice.
“That’s two for no. Can you do that again to confirm? We don’t want to double book. Excellent! Another no. We’ll arrange it. Now, can we do the same for storage? Did you organise that? One for yes, two for no.”
The doctor had told them that Winston was likely to get his speech back in a few days. In the meantime, his active hand was their means of communication. Helen slowly read a list of furniture removal companies. His hand did not move. “Does this mean you have no preference?” Yes.
“Should I choose?” Yes. “Good, sweetie. Now here are the storage companies. The cheaper ones are out of town.”
Jeff thought it strange that this should be the first conversation between them after the weeks of silence, but he was glad that Helen had taken over, and he guessed it would be a relief for his dad.
Back home, they were all in a frenzy of cleaning out cupboards and drawers. Helen had bundles of plastic sacks, black for rubbish and green for things to go to the Salvation Army. “We are not paying storage for stuff we don’t want!” she said. She stuck a timetable on the fridge, what each person had to do and when, to get ready for the movers next Thursday. There was no time off except for sleeping, eating and hospital visits, but at least Helen’s focus on the house meant there was no dwelling on past arguments. The only negative comment came when she was tired, and it was small criticism. “I can’t believe that you and your father did nothing,” she said to Jeff.
Nothing? Was she talking about washing cups and sweeping floors? We were not doing nothing, he wanted to tell her. We were surviving.
* * *
Winston was moved into a ward with other stroke patients at various stages of recovery. He was still connected to a monitor but the rest of his tubes had gone. When they walked in on Wednesday afternoon, he was propped up in bed, a cup in his right hand. He drank the tea through a straw because his mouth was still partially paralysed.
He was always pleased to see them, but when he tried to talk, the words struggled to free themselves from a thick tongue and saliva ran down his chin.
Helen wiped his face with tissues. “You’ve got some new flowers. They’re beautiful, sweetie. Where do florists get roses and tulips this time of the year? Did the staff send them from work?”
“Esha,” he said. “Esha.”
Jeff saw a card with the bouquet. “They’re from Eddie. You know. The gardener.”
“Eddie? Oh.” Helen dabbed at Winston’s mouth. “That’s nice.” She put the tissue in the waste bag. “Well, we’ve finished. The house is clear for the removal people tomorrow. Tonight we’re staying at the motel. We’ll go back on Friday morning. A last flick of a duster, then I’ll take the keys into the land agent. You have nothing to worry about. It’s done.”
He put down his cup and took her hand. “Shanku.”
“The phone will be disconnected on Friday. I’ve cancelled newspapers, and, oh yes, Henry Sorensen is happy because he’ll be continuing with the new owners.”
Winston turned his head to Andrea and this time the word was clear. “School?”
She didn’t know how to reply. She grinned awkwardly and said, “We’re working on that, Dad.”
When Winston smiled his face became a drama mask, one side comedy, the other tragedy. Jeff focused on the smile. He said, “Did Mum tell you the skinny detective came around yesterday?”
Instantly alert, his father turned to Helen.
“They’ve got him,” she said. “Julius Clarke alias Warren Staunton-Jones was arrested in the south of France. He was wanted for fraud in several countries.”
They did not tell Winston the rest of the news. The detective had said there was very little chance of recovering the money.
* * *
On Friday morning, Jeff stood by the low wall looking over the harbour that had small wind ruffles shimmering like blue silk. The garden furniture had gone but the rest of the garden was unchanged, small trees growing in concrete tubs, roses, herbs, the cactus bed, the swimming pool now with its cover locked down, the taller trees near the road neatly trimmed. The cut in the eucalyptus tree by the gate had healed over, but he still looked at it every time he went through, remembering the branch and the bundle of wet clothing with a white foot sticking out. That seemed years and years ago, but it was less than two months.
The morning was clear, no cloud to hide the fresh snow on the Kaikoura mountains on the other side of Cook Strait. The inter-island ferry crawled in the outer harbour. From this height it was like a white toy in a bathtub and he felt he could almost lean over the wall to pick it up. He would miss this view, but he would not miss the house. Now that all the furniture had gone, the house seemed to be its true self, an empty shell. It no longer had beds, tables and chairs and it did not have to pretend it was supposed to enclose people. The white walls, white arched ceilings and floors of white marble flecked with black all echoed emptiness. He wondered how the new family would fill it.
The Market Motel was okay. He and Andrea had been there with Mum for two nights. He slept in the living area and they had twin beds in the bedroom. In the morning, they tripped over each other’s bags, took turns in the bathroom and ate peaches with a spoon out of a can. It was messy and reminded him of the Fitzgibbon’s place. As well, the motel unit had just one car park, so the two cars had to fit one behind the other. Fortunately, Andy’s Toyota Vitz was small, but when the front car had to go somewhere, the back car had to let it out. He counted the number of times that happened.
He knew they would be in the motel until Winston was ready to come out of hospital. That could be several weeks, Helen said, because rehab took time. He had to learn to use the left side of his body and that didn’t happen overnight. “Even when he does come out, he won’t be fully mobile. Far from it! But you know your dad. He’s very determined. He’ll make it.” Helen clapped her hands as certainty. “The house we buy will need easy access. No stairs.”
Jeff noticed she no longer talked about “her house”. She didn’t mention any of that. It was as though the huge row had never happened. He was glad of that but found it very strange.
The inter-island ferry was now out in Cook Strait and Andrea was calling that it was time to go. Jeff turned. He didn’t need to walk through the house. Instead he walked around it, seeing the garden for the last time, and at the gum tree by the gate, he stopped to say goodbye.
* * *
The changeover went smoothly. Being right-handed, Winston could sign the papers in the rehab ward, and when the full payment for the house came through, he reinvested his clients’ money in safe deposits. Doing that made a big difference to him. Helen remarked that it was as though he had dropped the world off his shoulders. He tackled his exercises with new energy and he was working on sentences rather than isolated words.
The other accountants from the office came to see him after work most days. They brought him work news and offered to smuggle in a good pinot noir or a bottle of single malt. Jeff hoped they were joking. His father had consumed no alcohol since the stroke and even the droopy eye was clear.
Helen brought him library books, but he could not concentrate for long and he preferred Time magazine, newspapers and some magazines about golf that Andrea bought for him.
One night, Andy announced out of the blue that she had changed her mind about law and wanted to do
nursing. “Don’t tell Dad,” she said to Helen and Jeff. “He really wanted me to be a lawyer. I don’t want to upset him.”
Jeff shrugged. He thought their father would not be the least bit upset. He remembered when Maisie was under the gum tree, how Andrea had checked the old woman’s pulse and told them to call the ambulance. His sister would make a great nurse.
* * *
Mrs Wilson was in fine form after the holidays. She bounced around the classroom telling the boys how much they had aged in the last two weeks without her, and how she had become younger without them.
“To get your grey matter working, here’s a maths problem for you. It should appeal to the eggheads like Paul and Jeff.” She leaned on her table. “There were three travelling salesmen who got caught in a storm. The road was flooded, they couldn’t go on, and there was only one motel in the town. The sign outside said accommodation ten dollars.”
“Ten bucks?” said Salosa. “That’s unreal, man.”
“This was years ago,” Mrs Wilson said. “So the men asked for three rooms. The motel manager said, sorry, he had only one room left but it had three beds in it. It was better than nothing, so they each paid ten dollars and they were shown to the room.”
Jeff wanted to laugh. Three people in one unit? Mrs Wilson must be telepathic. Bet the salesmen were falling over each other, and there was a TV as big as a laptop screen on the wall!
“The manager was a decent bloke,” said Mrs Wilson. “He looked at the thirty dollars and thought it was a bit much considering the men were all in one room. So he called the bellboy.”
“What’s a bellboy?” someone asked.
“He rings the school bell,” someone else replied.
“He’s the porter. He carries luggage and runs messages,” said Mrs Wilson. “He calls the bellboy and gives him five dollars. He says, take the five dollars to the salesmen as a refund. But as the bellboy is walking to the room, he thinks, five dollars for three people is silly. He will give the men three dollars and keep the other two for himself. So in his pocket go two dollars. The other three go to the salesmen. Have you got that?”
“And that’s a maths problem?” queried Paul.
“I haven’t finished yet,” she said. “Each of the men gets a dollar refund. They are very pleased. This means they’ve paid only nine dollars each. So here now is the problem. Nine times three equals twenty-seven. The bellboy has pocketed two. That makes twenty-nine. Where is the other dollar?”
“Huh? Will you repeat that, Mrs Wilson?”
She was enjoying this and her smile was huge. “Three men have paid nine dollars each. Twenty-seven dollars. The bellboy has two dollars. Twenty-nine. There is one dollar missing. Where is it?”
There were puzzled noises around the room, but Jeff knew the answer. He put up his hand. “The problem is the problem itself and the way you presented it,” he said. “Even numbers can tell lies if they are worked out the wrong way.”
* * *
Jeff went to the hospital after school. Winston was in a wheelchair by the window. His speech was still blurry, but he showed Jeff how he could squeeze a soft ball in his left hand. His walking was coming on, too. He could walk in the pool, and the physio nurses had him taking steps between two bars. “I’ll be out of here soon,” he said.
He had lost weight. When Jeff hugged him, he felt the bones of his father’s shoulders and spine. He stood against the window and told Winston about school and Mrs Wilson’s trick question. His father laughed, wiped his mouth and then asked about Helen. What time would she finish work? When was she coming? He saw her every day but he still asked. Jeff thought that maybe anxiety was part of the stroke.
There was something in Jeff that made him want to touch his father. He wanted to put his hand over the fingers that held the squeeze ball, straighten the collar of his pyjamas, put slippers on the feet softened by hospital living. They had never touched much before, but now that was different. Maybe it was the Light thing. Gladness filled Jeff when Winston reached up with his strong arm, put his hand over his son’s head and dragged him over so that for an instant, their cheeks were pressed together.
This was the moment. Jeff said, “I’ve got a letter for you, Dad.”
“Letter?”
“Can I read it to you?” He reached into his backpack.
“Sure. Go ahead.” Winston wiped his mouth and tilted his head towards Jeff, who unfolded some handwritten pages.
Jeff moved closer. “Dear Dad, Jeff told me about your stroke. I wanted to see you. I tried to get compassionate leave but my application was turned down. It failed, thank God, because you weren’t dying. You were getting better. I want you to know that I miss you, I love you. You’d better believe that. Sometimes you have to go through hell to know what heaven is like. I’m sorry about the Sydney business. What a bummer! The good news is that I’m up for parole next year and if it’s granted I’d like to be back somewhere near my family. I don’t know how you feel about that …” Jeff stopped reading and looked at his father.
Winston wasn’t looking at him. He wasn’t looking at anything. His shoulders were shaking and water was running out of his eyes.
Slowly, Jeff laid the letter in Winston’s lap. At that moment, it seemed to him that the hospital room was filled to the ceiling with Light.
11
PROPERTIES OF LIGHT: Light will behave as waves in interference experiments, with two sets of waves interacting with each other to form a new pattern, just as ripples on a pond interact. In other experiments light will behave as a stream of fine particles called photons. In particle physics, photons are responsible for the electromagnetic force that we experience as light. Some matter – called dark matter – is believed to be unaffected by electromagnetism. This would mean that dark matter does not have a charge and does not give off light.
Andrea was not going back to school. While she was wondering if she could, Helen phoned the school principal and was told, quite definitely, a return to class would not be possible. “She talked as though she had a mouthful of glass marbles,” Helen said.
Jeff watched his sister. The old Andy would have fired up, but all she did was nod and continue to trim her fingernails. She had moved from packing shelves at the supermarket to working at the fresh fish counter, and this meant she had to have nails short and clean, her hair tucked under a white cap. She didn’t seem concerned that she wasn’t wanted back at college. “I’ll do an online course,” she said, examining her thumb.
“Such as?” asked Helen.
“Something that might be useful for nursing.”
It turned out to be an online course on Community Health that Andy could manage with her supermarket job. “The topic is endless,” she told Jeff. “There are so many factors – cultural, environmental, income, educational, age. I mean, you hear about child abuse, but did you know about elder abuse?”
Jeff thought of Maisie. Was it elder abuse for a dream-keeper to keep an old worn-out car on the road? He wasn’t sure. There were a lot of things you couldn’t put into words. Some of them, though, he was sure you could tell in a story.
* * *
Paul came to school with an announcement. The Fitzgibbons’ dog had pups during the night. It had never occurred to Jeff that the mutt was a she. After all, its name was just Dog, which was quite original when you came to think of it. Not many dogs were called Dog. He went to Paul’s place the next day, and in the laundry at the back of the house, Dog lay in a blanket-lined clothes basket with three squirming pups about the size of guinea pigs. Their eyes were closed and they made squeaking noises as they groped for the teats on Dog’s front.
“Be careful,” said Paul. “She’s very protective.”
But Dog looked at Jeff with clear, smiling I-know-you eyes and when he put out his hand, she licked his fingers.
“It’s her first litter,” Paul explained. “That’s why there are only three.”
Beck’s number, thought Jeff.
“We don’t know
who the father is. Each one is different. The bigger black one was born first. Then came the one that looks like Dog, only she’s got a black patch over one eye. The last was the black-and-white pup. Which do you like best? I like the big one.”
Jeff squatted down by the basket. He studied the third pup with little white legs and stomach and a black saddle over its back. The fur was so short and fine, it showed pink skin, and the paws had tiny translucent claws. Number three, he was going to say. But then the second pup, the one most like its mother, crawled away from its food supply and blindly nuzzled his fingers. It was such a soft touch, he laughed with surprise.
“She’s chosen you,” said Paul.
He pulled his hand away. “I can’t ever have a dog.”
“I didn’t mean that. But if you wanted her, it would be fine. We have to find homes for them.”
Of course, he wanted her. All his life he had wanted a dog, but that was like wanting the moon. “We’re in a motel.”
“But you’re going to be in a house, and the pups won’t be ready for at least four months.”
“It’s not that. It’s my parents. They’ve never had animals and they –” He stopped. The topic had a history too heavy to bring up in conversation. He was glad when Paul’s mother came to the door to tell them she had taken some empanadas out of the oven. Were the boys hungry?
They sat at the kitchen table with Rosa and Teresa, and Mr Fitzgibbon came in, wiping rain off his glasses, saying he’d been at the post office when a whiff of empanadas had called him home. He took off his wet jacket and sat down, but before he bit into the hot meat pastry he said to Jeff, “So you’ve seen the puppies?”
Jeff knew then that the idea of him having one of Dog’s puppies had already been discussed. A great sadness squeezed his chest. “They’re nice,” he said.
Paul looked at his father. “Jeff’s not allowed to have a dog.”
Mr Fitzgibbon did not seem surprised or disappointed. He simply changed the subject. “Your dad’s doing well. He thinks he’ll be out in a week or two.”
