I watched her get the cups, untangle the string on the teabags, pop the milk carton open. Her knuckles were large and her hands seemed to clasp and claw at things but her body seemed fluid, for an older woman. It scares me now to think that at that time she was only sixty-two, the same age I am now, yet that day I saw her as ‘elderly’. Is that how others see me? Not in here, at least.
She turned the gas off and the whistle faded.
‘I’ve been wondering how you are,’ I said. ‘Whether you’re getting along alright.’
She looked at me sceptically. We were both still standing.
‘What you see is what you get.’ She turned her back and opened the pantry. ‘Was there anything in the mailbox?’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘Milk?’
‘Milk and one.’
She poured it in and the teabag swirled. I hate the milk going in before the bag is taken out. Why soak the teabag in milk? I took my cup and removed the bag. There was a clean kitchen tidy under the sink.
‘So what do you want with me?’ she said.
‘Like I said, I just wanted to see how you are, after all these years.’
‘Thought I’d be closer to death, no doubt. I bet you’re wondering about my will.’
‘No. I never thought of it.’
‘You wouldn’t expect me to leave you anything, would you?’
‘No. I really didn’t come …’
‘There’s only the flat and I’m giving it to Russell Stuart.’
‘Russell …’
‘Stuart. You don’t know him. Where’re you living?’
‘Ceswick Hotel at the moment. Very comfortable. I like it.’
‘Cheap?’
‘Not too bad. Not bad for long-term residents.’
I remembered Heather.
‘I used to be married,’ I said. ‘Separated a while ago. But that’s OK, it’s life I suppose. I’m OK.’ It wasn’t what I meant to say; I didn’t expect sympathy.
‘Any sugar?’
‘One. Just the one thanks.’ Her knuckles bent around the lid of the sugar jar. It’s a horrible thing, arthritis.
‘I’ve got two kids as well,’ I said. ‘Lisa and Chris.’
‘I know. Teenagers.’
‘You know?’
‘Chris rings up sometimes.’
‘He does? When? I didn’t …’
‘Only when he feels like it.’ My mother put a single chocolate biscuit on a plate. I wanted to sit down but it seemed impossible to just drag out a chair and plonk down the way I might have twenty-three years ago.
‘How are your legs?’ she said.
‘Fine. Good as gold.’ I suddenly realised she knew all about me. I couldn’t get over the idea that Chris had phoned.
‘Has Chris been out here?’ I said.
‘A few times.’
I took a step back.
‘When?’
‘Whenever.’
How could my son have been to visit without telling me? I knew he was troubled - he had always been a troubled boy. And I knew he felt a real loss when Heather took up with a new man. But why didn’t he tell me he’d visited my mother? She sat down at the laminex table but I kept standing. Perhaps I wanted her to think my legs were as good as ever. A lawn mower started up and a dog barked.
‘What happened to Sammy?’ I said.
Serious creases formed on her brow.
‘Good God, boy! He must have died twenty years ago.’
Our eyes met again.
‘You’ve been gone a long time, haven’t you - will you please sit down?’ she said. ‘Sit down.’
I took a chair and the vinyl squawked.
‘Did you bury him?’
She looked at me across the table.
‘Bury him? Christ, I don’t know. I suppose so - you never liked that dog anyway.’
‘Yes I did. I used to take him out …’
‘No you didn’t. Kitty did. It was your sister who watched out for him. She’s the one Sammy used to follow around.’
I could have pressed the issue but the last thing I wanted was an argument.
‘Heard anything from Dad?’ I said.
‘He’s dead too.’
‘Dead?’
‘Dead.’
‘But he’s not that old.’
‘Old enough, obviously.’
‘Where … in Melbourne?’
‘Sydney.’
‘Which … do you know the cemetery?’
‘What, you planning on visiting him too?’ She pushed the plate with the chocolate biscuit towards me.
‘No. I … I was just interested in the history, that’s all.’
‘You won’t get any history out of your father.’ She looked at me. ‘You’re history repeating itself, Jack. You know that, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘History. Man has two kids, a boy and a girl. Then he gets kicked out.’
‘I didn’t get kicked out, I left of my own accord, just like Dad.’
My mother snapped a look at me.
‘Don’t be a fool, Jack. I booted that good-for-nothing out. It was all a woman could do in those days.’
I let the words sink in.
‘Because he wouldn’t be your idea of a husband or father? I’m a good father, you know.’
My mother seemed to stare at me a long time. It was the first time I really looked carefully at her. Such a small face, the grog over the years seemed to have embalmed her and loosened the skin on her delicate cheekbones. My mother at sixty-two; I could hardly recognise her, but then I wonder if I ever really did.
‘You knew about Kitty, didn’t you?’ she said at last.
‘Knew what? I know everything about her.’
She hesitated.
‘You knew about the trouble? When she was little?’
‘What trouble?’
She paused again, took her cup in both hands and sipped.
‘Your father was molesting her.’
A bomb went off in my head. Had I heard her right?
‘What? He was not!’
‘Yes he was.’
My father? Molesting? Molesting Kitty? It was a lie! Was my mother losing her mind? Was she being vindic-tive? After all these years was she now trying to justify her own appalling effort at motherhood?
‘That is not true,’ I said. ‘I know Kitty better than I know myself. I know everything about her. And she knows everything about me - we keep nothing from each other. It’s all we had to survive … We were never out of sight of each other!’
‘Of course you were, Jack, don’t be ridiculous. You were in different forms for a start. You used to ride your bike home. But when Kitty started high school your father picked her up every night, for her own good.’ My heart went into overdrive. I put my elbows on the table. My mother stood up.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it can’t be true.’
‘Back in a sec.’ My mother went into the bathroom. I heard the door slide and the latch click. With that tiny sound a wave of unpleasantness descended. How odd that such a small action could trigger such emotions, a slide of a door and a latch-fall. My father; my own father! I wanted to kill him. I’d go and find the bastard and beat him senseless - if he was still alive! I got up and walked around. Suddenly I found myself in the lounge. I saw a big glass ashtray on a table near the door. I remembered it! Embedded in the thick glass was a picture of an Ansett airliner. My father. A fibre optic lamp with a clock in it sat on the mantle. I recalled the heirloom clock that Kitty and I pawned when we first left, when we ran away for good. She’d have told me: if my father was doing anything to her she’d have told me. Wouldn’t she? We spent half our lives protecting each other.
The toilet flushed and the sliding door banged open.
‘I think I need to get going,’ I said.
‘Righty-o. How is Kitty?’
‘She’s fine, I think. Haven’t heard for … it’s been a while.’ I realised she hadn’t phoned in ages. We were los
ing contact.
‘Tell me, Jack. Why’d you run away?’
We stood in the passage between the kitchen and the lounge and I tried to think of an answer.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘Because Kitty wanted it.’
‘No, that’s not true. We both wanted it.’ I thought again of Kitty and our father. He was long forgotten by then but perhaps not so for Kitty.
‘Would you have gone if Kitty didn’t want to?’
I couldn’t think of anything to say. My mother stood in front of me.
‘She takes after my sister, that girl,’ she said. ‘Can’t be tied down, likes the risk, always restless. You’re different, Jack.’
‘Different? How different?’
‘You live in your own world, a world you created yourself. But it’s not real, Jack. It’s all in your head.’
I walked past her to the front door, my runners squeaking on the floorboards - she’d had the old carpet lifted and the boards polished. Something must have happened in those twenty-three years, something to make her clean up her life. Perhaps somewhere along the line she’d met someone, perhaps the Russell Stuart she mentioned. I unsnibbed the flywire.
‘You know your Aunty Deb is sick?’
I turned. ‘Sick? Is she dying?’
‘Dying? What’s all this stuff about dying? I said she was sick.’
‘I meant …’
‘Ever since she fell off the ferry platform.’
‘Fell? When?’
‘You know; ages ago. About ‘75.’ I began to feel very annoyed. Was all this the truth?
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ I said.
‘She was coming back from Double Bay, missed her footing and went straight into the drink. Got her picture in the paper and all.’
I began to feel nauseous. Where had I been? Why didn’t I know these things about people I cared for? Perhaps I didn’t care at all. Obviously I didn’t. Was I just a selfish middle-aged man who was watching life pass me by? No, not watching; I hadn’t even seen it happen.
‘Anyway, your Aunty’s sick. Why don’t you go and visit her as well. While you’re on a roll.’
I walked out onto the little porch.
‘Jack,’ my mother called through the flywire, ‘Just want to say, I’m sorry, boy.’ I could just see her in the shadows.
‘That’s OK,’ I said.
‘It’s just that some people aren’t cut out to be mothers. It wasn’t like today, Jack. We didn’t have contraception in the forties.’
Somehow I think she imagined that the comment would make me feel better.
I walked out onto the street and just then the tilt-a-door opened on the garage. I turned and an old bloke in overalls was standing there in the shade under the door. He had hold of a wheelie bin. He just stood there and watched me until I was half way down the street.
Kitty likes the risks; you’re different Jack, she said. I never said I wasn’t different. Differences attract. Maybe that’s why Kitty and I got on so well - we complemented each other like the Yin and Yang that Chris talks about. Why didn’t I know Debbie fell off the ferry platform? Why hadn’t Kitty phoned me about Aunty Deb being sick? Is it possible she didn’t know either? My father molesting her? I felt a desperate urge to go to Sydney.
I want to get on with my story, yet I am constantly distracted by the absurdities in this place. We’ve just been ordered via the intercom to make sure our toiletries are taken back to our rooms. Apparently, someone is drinking the shampoo - it smells fruity and apparently a resident thinks it’s a margarita. Meanwhile a woman by the name of Glenys came to the dining room without her teeth. Of course she announced they had been stolen. But the good nurse Stinson knew exactly where they were - in Mrs Zanoni’s mouth.
So we now have shampoo cocktails and false teeth as the two abiding subjects at the dinner table. Mrs Zanoni wears other people’s, Clem takes his out and licks them and Skeleton Joe dunks his in his tea. I don’t know why I can’t take my dinner elsewhere. Why is it only the bed-ridden that get to eat alone? At least I don’t have Craig’s problem, left to lie alone all day in the sitting room or parked in some alcove off the passage.
Most of the elderly in here remain nameless because of the dementia. I recognise two main conditions, Alzheimer’s and stroke. Naturally there is no point calling most of them by name as they don’t recognise it. There are several others that I’ve been introduced to. One is Valda, who has her arm in a sling. Another klep-tomaniac, she is in the habit of stealing dolls and teddy bears. Jim says she was coming out of someone’s room with an armful of soft toys when she tripped. As she fell she refused to relinquish her cache and as such, broke her arm. Even in pain she would not loosen her grip on those fluffy toys.
Another in here is called Harmony. I assume that is her actual name. Whenever I come within shot of her she says, ‘Who are you? Who are you?’
‘Father Christmas,’ I tell her.
‘Liar!’ She says. ‘All liars, you men are. Liar, liar, liar.’
Then there’s Patricia in the wheelchair, the woman who asked me to assist one of the demented. She doesn’t seem to be a lot older than me. But she has no special feature that I can see and just sits and reads or sometimes sews. Voodoo dolls? Part witch, I think, she often looks my way, perhaps giving me the ‘evil eye’.
The ‘bath’ procession continues. This morning at 6.30 I was woken by poor Clem being dragged down the passageway. I went to the toilet and endured the sounds of the vigorous ablutions, interjected by commands from the unrelenting Osborne. Then all went quiet. Poor Clem succumbed to despair, like curling up in the seat of a falling aeroplane.
Tonight I told Jim about it when he came over for yet another nightly visit. Tapped on my door at 8 p.m. I nearly didn’t answer - always these interruptions when all I want to do is write my story. The old man seems to think that stripping off in front of Osborne and being forced into a hot bath is the conventional wisdom, no doubt because he’s the cause of it all.
‘You are still learning the ropes!’ he says. ‘Consider it a compliment, young fellow.’
Young fellow, further evidence that I do not belong here.
‘The nightshift do the easy ones like you and me first,’ he says. ‘Takes the burden off the day staff who have to deal with the hard cases.’
Easy ones like us? I see he wants to be regarded as able-bodied and normal.
‘I don’t see why they can’t let me take my own fucking bath,’ I say.
‘They call it Duty of Care, Jack. They’re worried you might slip and fall.’
‘Kee-rist!’ I say. ‘Just because I choose to ride a wheelchair doesn’t make me one of the cripples!’ Then I look at Jim in his wheelchair. ‘Not implying anything. No offence.’
He just smiles.
‘Jesus, Jim. It’s just not … I mean, what about a man’s … dignity?’
‘Ah, dignity. Let me tell you about dignity.’ He wheels in a bit closer - too close for my liking.
‘When I was at home I owned some very beautiful things. Like paintings for instance: one watercolour was from the School of Gainsborough. And I had a big library with a collection of rare books. And in that library I also had an eighteenth-century German mahogany wall clock, one of the most beautiful things in the world. Bought it in Austria and had it packed and transported all the way back to East Melbourne. Made sure I was home in time to receive it. But when I came here - to Eden - I lost the lot; everything went.’
He looks at the floor.
‘Break your heart, Jack. Break your heart. There’s no room, you see. Have to leave all those precious things in the past.’
He looks up at me with his watery eyes.
‘Dignity’s one of them, Jack.’
‘Well, I don’t subscribe to that, old man; I’m not ready to just drop everything.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ he says. ‘I know.’
Despite his very ugly skin cond
ition and advanced years, I think Jim is alright. In fact I’m beginning to like him in a father/son sort of way. I might even give him a haircut if Chris should ever bring my scissors and clippers. But on that score I am still waiting. He promised me tomorrow, which is Father’s Day. But he also said he’d be over on Wednesday, yet that day came and went without a word.
A visit from Lisa! She arrived after lunch and much appreciated. She brought my Wahl electric clippers, attach-ments, combs and scissors! Though she did not bring my other things as asked. Instead I got a ‘Father’s Day’ present - a carton of B&H, some new socks and underpants. All very welcome. She gets the smokes wholesale as Carlos is a tobacconist on Sydney Road. The shop’s most interesting feature is a collection of pipes from around the world. Smoking has always been universally practised and I have found references to the ancient Greeks putting burning leaves into a pipe, though it is believed the habit may go back much further. Carlos has a North American peace pipe, opium pipes from China and some very early English pipes. Though the last time I was there the whole lot had been pushed out of the window for a double row of different-sized bongs.
When Lisa arrived all started out well until she informed me that this week is also the anniversary of her mother’s death. With that big downer the visit de-teriorated badly. Lisa said something about the year we moved to Melbourne. And suddenly I remembered a little strip of photos that Heather and I took one day in a parlour booth at Luna Park.
‘I did love her, you know,’ I said.
‘I know you did.’
‘I really want my box of photos, Lisa.’
‘I’ve started arranging them into an album, Dad. They’re looking great, I think you’ll like it.’
‘Lisa, I can put them in an album. Why won’t you bring my photos and let me do it?’
‘Come on, Dad. You’ve had them for years and never done a thing about it. If you want to put up some photos in here I can get copies for you.’
‘Copies? Why don’t you keep the copies and let me have the originals?’
‘And who is going to see them in here, Dad? Don’t you ever think about your family, your grandchildren and what will be important to them when they grow up?’
Smythe's Theory of Everything Page 11