by Susan Duncan
‘Bus trip?’ I repeated, flummoxed.
‘One of those outings organised for old people,’ she explained.
‘And, um, who organised this blind date?’
She gave a casual little wave, as though it meant nothing. ‘His carer. The one who helped me before I had my heart attack, when I lived in my unit.’
‘Oh.’
She went all dreamy again. ‘He has skin like a baby. Smooth and soft. Not a wrinkle anywhere.’ I couldn’t think of anything to say. She continued: ‘It may sound strange but we enjoy each other’s company. And he’s very, very fond of me. Which doesn’t hurt a girl’s ego a bit.’
‘Jesus, Esther, I thought you were past all this sort of stuff.’
‘Hah. You’re never past it. Trust me on that one, kid. He gave me a painting the other day. Christ on the Cross. Well, a print. Not a painting. Gruesome. I hid it.’ She pointed in the direction of the chest of drawers.
‘Why don’t you throw it out if you don’t like it? Or give it to someone who’d appreciate it?’
‘Can’t. He comes to my room occasionally.’
‘Eh?’
‘Pish tush, hold your horses. I know what you’re thinking.’ Nightmare summed it up. Quickly replaced by, Maybe they’ll get together and she’ll be off my hands.
‘How old is he?’ I asked brightly, but also fearing something I couldn’t quite define.
‘Ninety-nine.’ The dizzy notion of freedom evaporated in a flash.
‘So, um …’
‘I invite him for a meal and have it sent up from the kitchen,’ she interrupted. ‘Mostly, his carer takes us both to lunch at the RSL.’
‘Ah, great. Sounds like terrific fun.’
‘She plays the pokies while Stefan and I talk. We have a lovely time. He’s a real gentleman. He insists on paying for me. Although I pay my way, too. I’m like that. I never take without giving back.’
‘Of course not. Wise move.’ I was catching up. ‘So he’s mobile, then. That’s amazing for his age.’
‘Oh no, he’s in a wheelchair. But his carer takes care of all those details. She’s very good to me, too. A wonderful woman.’ I waited. ‘Just like a real daughter.’ Snap.
‘Right. Sounds excellent,’ I said.
I couldn’t deny there was a new lilt in my mother’s voice, slightly less of a shuffle in her step. She took more care with her lipstick. Smelled again, of Red Door – her favourite perfume. She was more rigorous in her choice of jewellery and clothing. Plus, her health seemed to have improved remarkably. She’d shed the tippy-toddler walk, the shaking hands, little grunts, brow-smoothing gestures of distress. But it wasn’t until she told me she needed a dentist’s appointment and new shoes that I understood this new romantic attention had lifted her out of the doldrums and given her a reason to make an effort. I should have been thrilled. I was furious. I felt I’d been conned again.
Towards the end of January my mother launched her campaign. It began, as usual, with: ‘I don’t want a birthday party this year. Just a phone call will do.’
‘Yeah. Right. How many people and where do you want to hold it?’ I asked. She fluffed girlishly and made self-deprecating noises. I quickly added: ‘No more than twenty and how about we have it in the sitting room of the village? It’s a gorgeous spot.’
‘Boring. We see it every day. And there’ll be about eighty guests, as long as we’re all still alive come March 21. Should fit on your verandah easily. The eighty includes your Pittwater friends, of course. We need some young blood around to balance it out.’ Young blood? Us? I sighed. It’s all relative. As American millionaire Bernard Baruch once said, old age would always be fifteen years ahead of him.
‘You’re sure you want to have the party at Tarrangaua? It’s not the easiest place to get to and you’re not exactly fit.’
‘Piffle. The ferry trip is delightful. And you’ve got the truck for anyone who can’t manage the steps.’
‘Like you, you mean.’
‘I’ll have you know that most of my friends are quite fit.’
‘I’ve met your friends, Esther. Remember?’
The logistics of holding a ninetieth birthday party at Tarrangaua for a group of thirty octo and nonagenarians, including Stefan, were terrifying. My mother, in typically Pollyanna fashion, insisted it would be fine. Bob and I fought hard against the plan and then capitulated.
‘It might be her last big bash,’ I said.
‘As long as no one ends up leaving in a body bag,’ he responded. He wasn’t joking either.
Two weeks before the big event, during lunch at the restaurant at The Point, my mother sipped a bourbon and cola. ‘Finger food is best,’ she said. ‘Old people like to have lots of different treats but all of them small. After a certain age, you don’t eat much, you know.’
‘Ok,’ I said.
She ordered the seafood pizza. Tackled it with gusto. I had the kid’s spaghetti bolognese. The waiter made an Italian-style fuss of her, kissing her on the cheek, flirting outrageously. A stream of offshorers walked past, on their way to pick up their mail.
‘Have you met my mother, Esther?’ I said. They showed an interest in her age, her health, complimented her skin and hair. Her outfit. Jewels, of course, and plenty of them. She fluffed like a broody hen.
‘I’m doing ok,’ she told me in an almost flirtatious aside. ‘Not bad for almost ninety.’ In a quiet moment, she asked, ‘What band have you booked?’
‘Band?’ I asked, failing to get her meaning.
‘Music. For dancing.’ She used her fingers to try to break threads of melted cheese. The last piece of a pizza meant for two disappeared down her throat in a tangled mess.
‘Well, I hadn’t thought of a band. What would you like? Rock and roll? Jazz? A string quartet?’ I was being sarcastic. It skated way over her head.
‘As long as there’s a singer.’
‘Right,’ I said, exhaling on the word.
A week later the phone rang. My mother asked, ‘What florist have you booked?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Esther, who do you think you are? The Governor-General?’
‘No carnations or lilies. They bring bad luck and death.’
I found a local singer and accompanist who lived on Scotland Island and were savvy about the challenges of offshore living. Decided to arrange the flowers myself. Worked out a finger food menu that was easy to eat – smoked salmon sandwiches, sausage rolls, bite-size quiches, chicken sandwiches, smoked trout pâté, and then little lemon curd tarts, lemon cake and a chocolate birthday cake so rich it was guaranteed to whack up the blood sugar levels to rock-and-roll levels for anyone with a hint of hubris left in them. All the bases, I believed, were covered.
Late March is generally a soft, autumnal time of the year, but my mother’s birthday dawned with a clap of thunder powerful enough to rattle the house. Quickly, a storm and seas of such ferocity developed that even the ferry service considered cancelling. Coupled with a very low tide, the party was turning into a life-threatening event.
‘Let’s shift the venue,’ I said in an early-morning telephone call. ‘Bob and I will transport the food and wine to the sitting room in the village. I’ll get someone to light the fire and we’ll have a cosy, safe and easy time.’
‘No!’
‘God, Esther. Just think about it for a second. Stefan is nearly one hundred years old and in a wheelchair. Everyone else is almost as vulnerable, including you. If the ferry trip doesn’t damage them beyond repair, getting soaked to the skin will.’
‘No way! People our age don’t get the chance to have many adventures,’ she said, cutting short the call. Running true to form and blind to the long-distance picture and horrendous ramifications. It wasn’t until the smartest guests rang to say they couldn’t make it that my stress levels dropped. Only the really tough and strong ones will attempt the trip. It will be ok.
At the height of the storm, Bob and I stood on the verandah and watched the ferry loom out
of the spume and rain, riding whitecaps side-on. Almost corkscrewing. ‘There’ll be blood on the decks,’ I mumbled, unhappily. ‘And that’s if we’re lucky. Otherwise, broken legs and arms. It’s a full-on catastrophe.’
Without a word, Bob pulled on his wet-weather gear and headed off. I caught sight of a tinny skimming the white caps. Almost airborne. Tarps flapping. The musicians were on their way. In that moment, I loved offshorers with a passion I couldn’t begin to express. Don’t let the weather hold you back. A local maxim.
Rainwater gushed down steps from the clothesline like a fountain, flowed onto the driveway and found its way into a long ribbon of spoon drains. Broken branches, fallen cabbage palm fronds, twigs and leaves were banked up, creating rubbishy little dams. ‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered to no one but myself. Bob backed our truck – no roof or even canopy – on to the track. Deep, rutted and so steep people sometimes screamed involuntarily travelling up or down. Once, Esther was almost catapulted head-first into the bush when the truck hit a ditch – dubbed forever after, the ‘Esther Bump’. And that was on a fine day.
A few good, lean men with weather-beaten faces, wearing shorts, boat shoes and red, yellow and blue jackets slick with rain, swept past cheerily and grabbed umbrellas. I apologised for sending them out into hard conditions. They laughed, those friends who’d come to help. Wild storms were the oxygen, the lifeblood of boatmen.
In the kitchen, Lisa and Fleury assembled neat trays of smoked salmon sandwiches, easy on the horseradish cream to accommodate tender stomachs.
‘It’s bedlam out there,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Someone’s going to be dead by the end of the day. I guarantee it.’
Lisa laughed from deep in her belly: ‘You’re not going to get rid of your mother that easily. She’s made of iron, that woman.’
My mother and her boyfriend copped a drenching that would have felled weaker spirits, but as soon as they arrived at the house, Esther left him in the capable hands of his daughter and her husband. Soaked, her skirt clinging to legs, her newly styled hair dripping wet, her eyelashes heavy with droplets, she scurried through the kitchen to the sitting room, furiously ripping her walker out of the way of obstacles.
‘She’s checking on the flowers,’ I whispered to Fleury.
Esther reappeared minutes later: ‘I’d get rid of that florist if I were you.’ I caught Fleury’s eye, raised an eyebrow, and we both bent double and guffawed.
The first guests appeared on the verandah, wet through to the skin. I rushed to find towels to dry them off. Insane, I thought, this is completely insane. I am nearly sixty years old. It’s time I learned to say no to my mother. Bob, water running off his jacket in thick rivulets, went to check the radar and returned with a worried face. Worse was on the way. Due around departure time.
My mother’s two hairdressers, practical women, went into immediate damage control. ‘We need hair dryers,’ they said. They manned the hallway hosing hot air over wet clothes. As soon as word of their rescue operation spread, the queue became quite long. Meanwhile, a freezing wind whistled the length of the verandah. Cane chairs and cushions, sad flapping tablecloths, were all sodden. The idea of a gentle, civilised party in the balmy open air was well and truly a washout. The musicians set up in a cramped corner of the sitting room and made the best of it.
We wrapped the almost centenarian snugly in a faux fur blanket and lifted him from the wheelchair to an armchair by my mother’s side. The new outfit she’d bought for the day couldn’t be quickly dried, so I found a red satin Chinese-style jacket that fitted her quite well and striped red trousers that needed to be rolled so she didn’t trip on the cuffs. Considering I am five feet ten inches and she has shrunk to barely five feet one inch, she looked quite resplendent.
A fire roared. The heating was turned to the max. The singer sang old jazz numbers. A few creaky hips swayed. The sandwiches were scoffed in minutes. There was a run on tea and coffee, which we’re not used to on Pittwater. Pink returned to grey cheeks. The sausage rolls, a warm concoction of lamb, cumin, coriander, mint and pine nuts, disappeared in two circuits.
‘God, we might run out of food,’ I wailed.
Lisa looked at me as though I was mad. ‘There are three more courses of savouries and three desserts. You’ll be fine.’ I learned that day, that even though my mother bucks the trend, most elderly people scoff in a rush but peak quickly on very little. It’s as though their blood sugar drops and they need a quick hit to prevent them from hitting the floor.
‘Are you going to make a speech?’ I asked Esther when the musicians were having their lunch. She shrugged, just a little coquettishly. ‘Come on,’ I urged. ‘Everyone’s made a huge effort to get here. This is your big moment.’
So we hoisted her from her chair, dusted the crumbs off her chest and positioned her in the centre of the room. A still silence descended. I said a few utterly inadequate words. Unable to waffle on sentimentally, even though I knew she’d adore it. I stuck to the truth: despite our often difficult relationship, love abided and always would. ‘Your turn,’ I said, giving her the floor.
My mother, always the entertainer, the master of slick one-liners, who lived to be the centre of attention, shrugged her shoulders and held out her hands with the palms facing the ceiling: ‘Thank you for coming. I love you all.’
‘When were the best times?’ I prompted, to get her rolling.
Like an actress who’d momentarily forgotten her lines, she suddenly launched into long, rambling stories about my brother. The good times they’d shared. The bond between them. The same brother, I thought with a cynical smile, who’d banned her from his house after he married. The same brother who, on his deathbed, begged me to promise to keep my mother out of my life. ‘She’s evil, she’ll destroy you if you let her,’ he whispered. It was the morphine talking, I thought. But afterwards, I was never again as oblivious to the sly digs and put-downs as I’d once been.
She mentioned unforgettable times in her ninety-year history. Her wild accounts of traipsing in Africa, tap dancing in London and tantrum-throwing in Rome, coming on assignment with me to document the relocation of over-friendly polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba. Stories the other inmates had already heard but had treated with suspicion. Today, though, I was there to lend credibility.
As it turned out, she wasn’t a good storyteller. Left huge gaps. Made nonsensical leaps. After a while, the room grew restless. I brought the speech to an end. ‘We still have dessert to serve, the birthday cake to cut, and a ferry to keep track of,’ I said.
‘I wasn’t finished,’ Esther grouched when she was back in her chair, scrunched down deep in the feathered cushions like a gnomish clown in my clothes.
‘I saved you,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she replied, understanding flooding her face. It was a rare moment of humility. My mother, I realised, rarely put herself on the line. She preferred to criticise from the sidelines. That way, she never lost the upper hand.
We brought out the cake with a blizzard of sparklers (that melted the chocolate icing), singing ‘Happy Birthday’ at the top of our lungs. Even Edwina’s black-and-white spotted mutt, Moe, joined in. Off-key but enthusiastic.
Two hours into the party, the oldies conked out and began heading for the ferry wharf. The rain was still torrential. The wind icy. In the south-west corner of Lovett Bay, the waterfall was a foaming white curtain. I suggested Esther spend the night with us and go home when the weather eased in a day or two, but she refused. She wouldn’t desert her guests. Still wrapped in the white fur blanket, we loaded Stefan into the truck. He looked radiant. So did my mother. They’d be soaked through again by the time they reached the ferry. They didn’t seem to care. Bob and Michael from the Lovett Bay Boatshed stayed onboard to help offload at the other end. The ferry was already running one-and-a-half hours behind schedule and the day wasn’t over.
From the verandah, we offshorers watched the ferry surfing the seas back to The Point. No body bags. Relieved, we bolted
inside, filled our wine glasses and settled in front of the fire.
‘Is he really your mother’s boyfriend?’ Edwina asked. I grinned an assent. ‘She never mentioned you once,’ Edwina added. ‘Not even a thank you for throwing a great bash.’
Hah, I thought, payback for not waxing lyrical about her devotion as a mother. I hadn’t even noticed. Later, I regretted my behaviour enormously. It would have cost nothing to recall her good deeds and thank her for them.
The same week, two guests died (in their sleep) and one was hospitalised with life-threatening pneumonia (his family was called to say final farewells but, mercifully, he survived).
In a phone call to tell me the news, my mother, who didn’t even suffer a sniffle, twittered: ‘Better to go out with a bang.’ Surely she meant it was better for other people to go out with a bang? Who’d risk open-heart surgery at her age unless they had an iron grip on life? I heard a faint cough, clearing of the throat, as though she’d recognised the double standard. ‘Oh, by the way, I like the jacket you loaned me, so I’ll keep that. But your trousers were too long. You can have them back.’ Attack – always the best form of defence.
On our next lunch date, we made our way to the car.
‘Picnic or pizza?’ I asked.
‘Picnic.’
Taking the walker from her to store in the boot, I said, ‘Why wouldn’t you let us move the party venue to the Village?’ She tackled the car seat from an angle that would end in disaster. ‘Bum first, remember? Bum first when you get in the car.’ A groan. Grunt. Plenty of wincing. So she hadn’t escaped her birthday celebrations completely unscathed. Her bottom sank at the wrong angle. ‘You need to move further forward.’ She made little sobbing sounds. ‘Are you alright?’ I asked. With that, her bottom found the seat. She flopped back, eyes closed. ‘You’re not about to die, are you?’ Using a joking tone.
‘’Course not.’ She managed to get one foot inside. The other refused to move. After a while, I lifted it for her. Closed the car door. Went around to the driver’s side and attached her seatbelt.
