Magnolias don't Die

by AJ Collins

  ‘Sorry. I thought I’d drop in and see him on the way.’

  I don’t tell him that I was secretly hoping Snap would somehow give me a miraculous sign to let me know if I’m doing the right thing or not. Not a chance. He was still lying there with that hissing machine breathing for him. If I’m honest, I’m pretty sure he would say I was crazy if I didn’t go ahead.

  ‘Any change?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Poor kid,’ Harry says, and there’s the flicker of annoyance I get when he uses that word ‘kid, kiddo’. Sometimes he seems like an old man in a young man’s body. He thumps the roof of the car. ‘Pop the boot.’

  I point to the back seat. ‘It’s just these boxes.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looks surprised.

  ‘You said not to bring bedding and stuff, yeah?’ I don’t tell him that most of the stuff in our apartment belongs to Snap.

  ‘Yep. All taken care of.’

  Harry tries to open the rear driver’s side door, but it’s locked.

  ‘Hang on a minute.’ I reach behind my headrest and pull on the lock. ‘Gotta love old cars.’ Snap’s not wrong when he calls it a bomb. A late 1990s silver Honda Civic. But it gets us from A to B in one piece.

  Harry yanks the door open and pulls out two of the boxes. I grab a third and we trudge them up to the lobby lift. It feels weird, as if I’m actually moving in with him. Only, he’ll be catching a plane to Sydney on Friday to meet his ship. Then I’ll have to get used to being in a strange place and working with strange musos.

  Harry insists the gigs will round out my experience, get my confidence up, because I can’t always stay in my comfort zone working with him – as if the stage is ever a comfortable place for me. Stop. Think positive.

  The boxes he’s carrying are heavy – my books probably. His face is red by the time the lift doors close. I smile to myself. He’s trying to impress me. When we get to his front door, he presses the boxes against the wall for support and tries to reach for his pocket.

  ‘I’ll get them,’ I say.

  ‘Would you mind?’

  I put my box down and start digging around in his pants pocket. His face goes redder and so does mine. Awkward. I pull the keys out and unlock the door, propping it open while he lumbers past me down the hallway. I retrieve my box and follow. I pass a little table with a polished wooden dish on it and pause to drop the keys into it. I guess that’s where I’m going to be leaving them for the next six weeks. New habits.

  He turns right, through a doorway. ‘You okay?’ he calls.

  ‘Yep, right behind you.’

  He dumps the boxes just inside and moves back into the hallway. ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll get the last one.’

  I start to object, but he’s already gone. I check out the space. I only had a quick glance at it a few days ago, after he first offered it to me. Now it feels way different. Suspiciously fresh. Like everything is shiny and new. The room also seems to come with its own cat. A black and white boofy creature that’s sitting on my bed.

  ‘Hello. And who might you be?’

  It reminds me of a Boynton cat, with its head looking strangely too small for its plump body. Its intense yellow eyes defy me to dethrone it. I stand hands on hips, hoping an authoritative posture might show it who’s boss.

  ‘Where did you come from?’

  It licks its fur a couple of times, then curls up, its head resting on its paws, still keeping an eye on me. It wins the staring contest – I relent, sit next to it and stroke its short fur, softer and thicker than I expected. I’m immediately rewarded with a tractor engine purr. It’s a nice sensation. The only felines I’ve known in the past were Samuel’s cat, Smith, who didn’t like anyone except Samuel; and the farm cats – mean, lean, feral, rat-catching machines that growled if you got too near.

  ‘I see you’ve met Mr Pink.’ Harry says. He’s hovering in the doorway, holding the last box.

  I stand and take it from him, place it on top of one of the others.

  Harry points to a chair beside the bed. ‘May I?’

  I shrug. ‘It’s your place.’ Then it occurs to me, this is my bedroom ... for the time being.

  He sits and looks accusingly at the cat. ‘You traitor, Pink. She’s only been here a few minutes, and you’ve deserted me already.’

  I return to sitting on the bed. ‘He’s a big smooch. How come I’ve never met him before?’

  ‘He comes and goes as he feels like it. Usually doesn’t venture into the rest of the place. Makes a furry mess of the bedding though. I had to replace it.’

  Ah, that explains the newness of the doona cover. Mr Pink responds by lifting his back leg and licking his bits.

  I laugh. ‘You have classy friends.’

  ‘He’s not my friend. I don’t actually know who he belongs to. But he’s well fed, judging by the stomach on him. I wouldn’t recommend leaving any food uncovered in the kitchen. Little bugger helped himself to a hot chicken I left on the bench once. Foil pack and all.’

  I laugh again and stroke Mr Pink’s head. He responds by lifting his chin and closing his eyes. ‘Mr Pink. That’s such a wack name for a beautiful beast like you.’

  ‘Wack?’

  ‘You know ... lame.’ Now I’m thinking how lame I sound, trying to use street-speak from the pub. And my swearing? Harry’s still on my back about it. He says I’m above it. That I used to have a better vocabulary. But that was a lifetime ago. Just because he doesn’t swear ... actually, now I think about it, not even back in Wineera. Tough. I like swearing. I mean ‘fuck’ – that’s a whole world of expression: fuck, fucked, fucking, fuckitty-fuck, fucker. It conveys everything I want to say in one word. Economical, I call it. I’m trying to substitute freakin’ for fucking, but I doubt I’ll ever get there. Fuck feels so good rolling off my tongue. Crap. Will I ever get the hang of being the ‘new me’ Harry wants? It’d be so much easier just to be the ‘real me’. Fuck it.

  ‘Don’t know his real name,’ Harry says. ‘But the first time I saw him, he reminded me of Steve Buscemi. You know – the actor from Boardwalk Empire. And Reservoir Dogs. Tarantino. Have you seen the movie? It’s a cult classic.’

  I shake my head. It’s probably another one of those ancient Mr Miyagi movies. He was never this retro back in Wineera. Is this part of his new ‘jazz persona’? I bet he wants me to watch it.

  ‘Dark humour. If you’re into that kind of thing, I’ll play it for you one night.’

  Bingo.

  He points at Mr Pink. ‘See how his eyes kind of bulge a little around the edges?’

  I can’t. Mr Pink’s face is buried in his butt again.

  ‘Well ... they do. And he always looks a bit startled. Reminds me of Steve’s character in the movie. Mr Pink.’

  Harry leans forward and rubs Mr Pink’s exposed stomach. He’s rewarded with a swift belt from a paw. Mr Pink jumps off the bed, struts over to the window and disappears behind a curtain.

  ‘Is that his favourite spot to sit?’

  Harry walks over and pushes the curtain aside, revealing a pet door built into the lower section of the window. ‘Must have been the previous owners. I haven’t bothered removing it. I can block it up though, if you don’t want a visitor in the middle of the night.’

  ‘No, no leave it. He’ll be good company while you’re away.’ I stand next to Harry at the window, and I’m surprised to see a decent-sized balcony outside. During rehearsals, I haven’t ventured much further than Harry’s music room, lounge room, kitchen and toilet.

  In the courtyard below, there’s a well-maintained grassy common area. ‘Where the hell does he come from? We’re three storeys up.’

  Harry points to a fourth storey apartment. ‘Up there, maybe. I’ve seen him walking along their balcony. Then again, he could just be an opportunist and visit anyone and everyone for food and attention.’

  ‘It’s dangerous, though. What if he slipped?’

  Harry shrugs. ‘That’s Mr Pink for you: a thief who gets
away with shit.’

  ‘You said shit.’

  Harry smiles. He’s still gazing out the window. I smile too; I must be rubbing off on him. We’re standing close, and I catch the scent of musky deodorant and fresh sweat, and there’s his dark-blond beard. I want to touch it. To feel if it’s soft or scratchy. He looks down, and I’m swept back to another moment, a lifetime ago. The impulse is there to repeat it, but I remember how it ended. Instead, I stand on my toes and peck his cheek. His beard tickles my lips, prickly.

  ‘Thanks. For this,’ I say. ‘It means a lot that you trust me.’

  Harry steps back. ‘Sure. I’ll leave you to unpack. If there’s anything you need just holler. I’ll go move your car into the parking lot. The tenants next door don’t own one, so you can use their spot.’

  I sit on the vacated bed and run my hand over the doona cover. It’s silky and cool. New. He must have bought it especially for me. My tattered boxes look foreign in these polished surroundings, the contents jaded. Maybe I should just throw everything out. Start anew. My old self included.

  11. Consanguinity

  Her house is a single-fronted weatherboard with a struggling, skeletal magnolia tree crowding the courtyard. Number twenty. Snap’s age. I’m still surprised by how easy it was to find her address online. All I did was type in her phone number, and it came up. That just seems wrong. S Gilling.

  I rest my hand on her picket gate as I stand shivering. What if she’s horrible? What if she gets upset, or breaks down, and I don’t know what to do? Come on. I need to deal with it, else stand here and freeze. I should have brought a jacket, but it was warm when I left home.

  I lift the catch, expecting it to be stiff because everything about today seems hard, including running out of coffee this morning. The gate glides open. The concrete path is neat and, even though I know it’s silly, I’m careful not to step on the dividing cracks – gotta please the good-luck gods today.

  There’s no screen, no doorbell, just a hefty-looking wooden door that looks as though it’ll hurt my knuckles. A radio must be on somewhere down the back of the house, and I wonder if Snap’s gran is one of those women who leaves it on as a burglar deterrent when she’s out. I rap on a frosted glass pane to the side of the door. There’s a scrabbling noise inside, the yapping of a small dog, and muffled shushing. A fuzzy pink figure appears behind the glass.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Mrs Gilling?’

  ‘Yes. Who is it?’

  ‘Hello. I’m a friend of your grandson, Snap ... I mean George. Can I speak to you for a minute?’

  The woman falls silent, but the dog still barks. She shushes it again. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘He’s had ... an accident.’

  The door opens a fraction. She’s solid, short, and her face is soft with undefined features like silly putty. Nothing sleek or cat-like about her. Nothing like Snap. Not even in her youth, I suspect.

  ‘What’s happened? Is George okay?’

  The greying muzzle of a fox terrier pokes through the gap in the door. The dog snuffles, and the woman pushes it away with her foot. ‘Get back, Georgie.’

  Georgie. Really?

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but he’s in hospital. He’s had a stroke. We don’t know if he’s going to wake up.’

  ‘George? Oh, that’s terrible.’ She blinks.

  I have no idea what to say next and even less when she suddenly closes the door in my face. What the hell? I’m conscious my hands have formed fists. I want to bash on her bloody door, yell what a disgrace of a grandmother she is, but then there’s the metal-on-metal sliding sound of a door chain, and the door opens again.

  ‘You better come in.’

  She stands back for me to enter, then pushes one of those sausage draft stoppers against the back of the door as she closes it. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Lauren.’

  ‘You know his mother’s passed on? It’s just me and little Georgie now.’ Georgie gives a yap at the mention of his name. ‘Come on, I’ll put the kettle on. I’m Shirley.’

  I follow her shuffling progress, which is aided by a walking stick. The hallway has an elaborately patterned carpet runner, and we pass a couple of bedrooms with floral bedspreads and antique-looking furniture. Her lounge room is at the back of the house, next to the kitchen. She motions me forward. ‘Take a seat.’ Her furniture is covered in those multi-coloured woollen rugs made up of crochet squares, just like I imagine a grandma’s house ought to look. There’s a real fire going in the grate, not one of those fake gas things. I make a beeline for the recliner next to it. For a moment it takes me back to Wineera, Samuel’s house, and something sharp pinches in my chest.

  Shirley disappears into the kitchen for a few minutes, then returns with a plate of sliced Swiss roll — the jam variety. She passes it to me. ‘Here you go. Tuck in. Tea won’t be a minute.’

  I’d kill for a coffee, but I’m afraid she’ll probably have something thrifty like International Roast. When did I become such a snob? She goes back to the kitchen, accompanied by the sound of Georgie’s paws tapping on the tiles. He whines as Shirley chatters to him over her tea-making. This can’t be the same grandmother Snap mentioned. She’s too sweet.

  Shirley returns, carrying a tray with cups and a cosied teapot, her walking stick hooked over one arm. Her hands shake with the effort, and I reach to grab the tray as her foot catches on a rug. She pauses to take a breath, steady herself, and I put the tray on a little table in front of the fire.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, collapsing into the armchair opposite me. She looks relieved to be off her feet. ‘Tell me. George is here in Melbourne? Is he in a bad way? Where’s his father?’

  ‘Yes, George is here. We’re not sure how he his. He’s still unconscious. His dad is back home.’

  ‘Ah, so you’re from Wineera too?’

  I nod, tell her everything I know, watching her carefully. She’s hard to read, saying nothing until I mention the hospital has tried to call. Then she looks embarrassed.

  ‘It’s a new answering machine. I have no idea how to use it, so I ended up turning the sound off. It’s always telemarketers anyway.’

  She smiles, and I notice how her pink lipstick looks a little lopsided. I guess she can’t see well enough to apply it evenly.

  A thought seems to suddenly occur to her. ‘You’re not his girlfriend?’

  I hesitate. Snap made it clear early on she never accepted him being gay. I should probably shut up, but I’ve come this far without him knowing, I may as well go the whole hog. ‘No. Just a good friend.’

  ‘Oh, he’s still a poof then?’ She chuckles, making a little snuffling noise, and I’m reminded of that saying – how owners often reflect their pets.

  I want to laugh – the word ‘poof’ coming out of her lady-like mouth like that. ‘Um. Yes. That’s not likely to change. I mean, it’s who he is, no choice really. Is there?’

  I wait to see how she responds to my challenge. She leans forward to pat Georgie, then pours the tea.

  I fill the awkward silence.

  ‘So, George lived here when he was little?’ I ask.

  She nods as she busies herself with milk and sugar. ‘Yes. After his mother got sick.’

  She hands me a cup, then gets up and moves to the fireplace. There’s a trinket box on the mantelpiece, which looks like redwood. She takes it down and strokes the lid. ‘Melissa. Well, what’s left of her. I scattered the rest under the rose bushes in the back garden.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I struggle for what else to say.

  She replaces the box and sits again. Georgie jumps up and rests his wiry head on her lap. Her hand automatically rubs his back.

  ‘George’s dad wouldn’t let him come to the funeral. Said he was too young. I think it’s a shame. It was a beautiful service. We had a big row over it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Demitrius hasn’t come?’

  I assume she means Snap’s dad.
‘No, like I said, he’s back in Wineera. He’s in a wheelchair, Snap ... George says. Some sort of accident.’

  ‘Good riddance to that fucker, I say.’

  I nearly choke. Shirley smirks and taps her head. Grey roots show beneath her brown curls. ‘Something wrong upstairs with that one. Joined a religious cult after he married my Mel. He wanted to move Mel and Georgie to America. Then Mel got sick.’

  ‘So, she moved in here, with you?’

  She nods. ‘Watching your own child die is the worst thing a parent can endure.’

  ‘It must have been awful.’

  ‘Yes, it was. That mongrel didn’t even want her to have pain relief. Some religious mumbo jumbo. I couldn’t let her suffer like that. Not for months on end. No mother could.’ Her face sags with the memory. ‘I had to help her.’

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask what happened, but if I do, it’ll break the spell. Instead, I squish a piece of cake into my mouth, and listen. Georgie’s eyes follow my motion, and I have this insane picture of a thought bubble over his head: Are you going to eat all of that?

  Shirley is staring into the fire, oblivious, her mouth pursed. ‘Death is a strange animal. It makes you do things you never thought you could.’

  I’m too frightened to ask what she means, and I wonder if she even realises what she’s saying, to me, a stranger. Then I think of Mum wasting away in the hospice. Would someone ‘help’ her eventually? Would I be brave enough to?

  ‘Demitrius went off his rocker after Mel died. Took George. Broke my heart when he won custody.’

  ‘So, you wanted to keep George?’

  Shirley looks at me as though I’m crazy. ‘Of course. I loved that little tyke. But Demitrius wouldn’t let me see him. When they moved away, I started sending money. He didn’t refuse it. I only hope George got some benefit from it.’

  ‘And ... it doesn’t bother you that George is gay?’

  Shirley stares at me for the longest time. ‘He’s blood.’

  Later, as I’m standing on her porch, saying an awkward goodbye, I notice the magnolia tree’s twiggy branches are budding. Strange for this time of year. I read once that sometimes, old trees can suddenly, and madly, blossom in their dying throes.