The Feel of Steel

by Helen Garner

  On a craft stall I bought her a new one, crocheted, with an unusual dark red border. I unwrapped it in front of her. She stared numbly past it. I stashed it in her cupboard and rushed back to work: I’d name-tag it tomorrow. Famous last words. Within twenty-four hours that rug was gone. No label? No leg to stand on.

  Who’d think of labelling spectacles? She only took them off to sleep. But she’d been stumbling around in a foreign pair of hideous, huge, thumb-smeared eighties bifocals for days before anybody noticed. Her own glasses – small, elegant, gold-rimmed? Gone with the wind. No owner was ever found for the ugly ones. Dad had a new pair made. Angrily he sticky-labelled their side-piece. That was the day a nurse asked him if Mum’s false teeth were labelled. Then somebody knocked off her lambswool slippers, for God’s sake – the only things her swollen feet would fit into. But always the intensifying trauma of Alzheimer’s – her stupefied bewilderment, her hallucinations and her sobbing, paranoid rages – made us feel trivial for caring about these indignities.

  Then one day my friend Penny told me that her mother had recently died. ‘She was demented,’ she said. ‘We’d had to put her in a nursing home.’ She named the institution.

  ‘That’s where my Mum is,’ I said. I took a breath, eager to compare notes on the variable nursing care, the fast turn-over of regular staff, the stream of agency fill-ins – but Penny turned to me, suddenly hot-faced, and blurted out: ‘Watch the jewellery!’

  It had started small – a birthday present, left by Penny for her sister on a high shelf of their mother’s cupboard. Gone. When they reported it, the floor supervisor said that theft was ‘in the industry’, and that worse things had happened – for example, an old lady on the same floor as Penny’s mother had had a valuable ring replaced on her finger by a cheap substitute, which no one, least of all the suffering old woman, had noticed for some time.

  Should they have taken this as a warning? ‘But my mother’s rings,’ said Penny, ‘were part of who she was. She loved them. It was unthinkable for us to take them off her.’

  Two months later the old lady died in the nursing home. ‘Sitting by her body,’ said Penny, ‘I thought I should take her rings off. I noticed that her sapphire engagement ring was out of shape at the back, and that it was yellow gold instead of white. But I was vague with grief – I thought, Perhaps it’s just worn. Later, when we were putting her wedding ring back on her finger, I looked at the sapphire one properly. It wasn’t her ring. It was a fake.

  ‘It had an oblong piece of blue glass and little chippy bits like diamonds. It wasn’t a hasty job. Someone had time to do it properly – to have a really close look at the ring, and then to search for a replacement similar enough so that at a quick glance you wouldn’t have noticed.

  ‘The most contemptible part is that it must have been someone who was pretending to care for her. Mum was confused, but she was never hopelessly irrational. They would have had to trick her – to say, “Let me wash them for you.” ’

  Penny told the supervisor that she was going to the police. The supervisor said that after the other old lady’s ring was stolen, the police had fruitlessly interviewed all the staff. She declared that it was definitely not anyone on the inside.

  ‘It’s drug addicts,’ she stated. ‘They work in gangs.’

  Junkies? Organised? Oh please. Penny almost laughed. ‘That defies belief.’

  ‘Well, you’re welcome to take whatever measures you think necessary,’ said the supervisor, ‘but it’s no one on my staff.’

  Penny hasn’t been to the police yet. Why? ‘I don’t know. It’s just the unbearableness of it.’

  I called Dad at his place. ‘Where are Mum’s rings?’

  ‘In the strong box here. Why?’

  ‘Oh . . . just checking.’

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. I didn’t want to see the disgust on his face. My parents have always taken a sceptical view of human motivation. This is a story that would richly vindicate, once again, their suspicions about the ways of the world. The only thing I’m grateful for, ironically, is that Mum’s already too far gone to know.

  Baby Goes to the Movies

  So the baby’s father will be running a Groovathon up at the snow? But of course the baby’s mother can still go to the opening night of the Melbourne Film Festival! Of course the nanna will babysit! Where else is the meaning, the joy of her life? And hey – didn’t she bring up the baby’s mother with her own bare hands, back in seventies Fitzroy when people slung their kids on the back of their pushbikes and zoomed away? Leave it to nanna! It’ll be a breeze! The baby’s mother can just express some milk, put on a wispy little dress and coat, pick up her friend and go!

  The nanna arrives on the night with a journalist friend from Sydney, now an honorary auntie, in tow. Ah, look, the gorgeous little baby. How often does she have a feed? What? Which movie is opening the festival? It’s not one of those bloody great four-hour extravaganzas, is it? You mean this will be the baby’s very first bottle feed? Is that the milk? That tiny little packet? Shouldn’t it be tipped into a bottle right now? What was that screech in the bathroom? Is that milk, on the tiles behind the basin?

  Brusque change of plan: the babysitters have to come along. Four women cram into the car with the baby and speed into the city. The baby starts to grizzle: the auntie furtively shoves a knuckle into her mouth. By Bourke Street, she’s asleep.

  In front of the cinema a limo has just pulled up at the roped-off red carpet. The onlookers include a tall, wolfish junkie in rags and beanie. His knees keep sagging and his eyelids sliding shut: only his curiosity about the stars in the limo is keeping him upright. The women push past him and rush up the stairs to the lobby, where they establish a beach-head against a wall. The baby sleeps in her capsule on the floor. Casting many a backward glance, the baby’s mother and her friend disappear into the throng.

  No public demeanour has so far been established for women in the position of the nanna and the honorary auntie. How are the mighty fallen! Critics who have kicked major butt in national publications, they now sit anonymous on the couch with their hands folded in their laps, waiting anxiously to be useful. They try to salvage some status by mocking in low tones the outfits of the passing festival-goers. The lobby clears fast. Now there’s nobody out here, on the hectares of hideous carpet, but the sleeping baby and her two daggy bodyguards.

  And the baby wakes up. She takes a look around the vast empty lobby, opens her mouth wide and begins to scream, her pink tongue as curved and rigid as a spoon. The auntie inserts the knuckle. The nanna, suddenly amateur, dithers with the cold bottle.

  Then out of the lollyshop and the bar pours a line of very young Village workers in name-tags. They head straight for the yelling baby and stand around her in a respectful curve, leaning forward from the waist. The boy behind the espresso machine runs up with a metal jug of hot water. In a flurry of collective activity, her guardians warm the milk and get some of it into her. She gulps crossly, then spits out the teat. The nanna takes her wet nappy off and she lies there on her back, bare-bummed and cheerful, kicking her legs and staring. The staff contemplate her in silence.

  ‘She’s pretty cute,’ says one of the boys. ‘Whose is she?’

  ‘I’m going to have kids,’ says another boy, ‘definitely.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for the pain,’ says a girl, ‘I’d have a hundred.’

  ‘I have to finish my criminology degree first,’ says a second girl.

  ‘Are you going to tell her when she grows up,’ asks a third, ‘that she once lay in the Village lobby with no pants on?’

  Two hours later, when the cinema door bursts open and the baby’s mother rushes out with arms extended, the nanna and the auntie estimate that maybe twenty minutes have passed. All the way up Bourke Street to the carpark at 11 p.m., the baby lies alert in her capsule, her eyes glistening under the neon.

  The ragged junkie from the limo crowd is leaning against a rubbish bin outside the video arcade.
He sees them coming and steps forward.

  ‘C’n Oi’ve a look?’

  The baby’s mother is startled, but they pause.

  The junkie bends his basilisk stare into the capsule, feasts his eyes, then sighs, and with a tormented smile goes ‘Aaaaaaaahh!’

  Charlie’s Match

  When we got out of the car at Keysborough ovals, the clouds were low and inky, the cold turf very green. A woman clutching a swaddled infant to her chest ran past us, shouting hoarsely at a herd of smallish boys who thundered by at an angle. A ball shot out from among their legs and they flung themselves after it. A bell clanged in a stand of dark pines and a groan went up: ‘Draw!’

  This was of no interest to us. My brother’s eldest boy was playing centre half forward in the Under-Twelves’ Grand Final: all we wanted to see was him. He was sequestered in the rooms. My father was coming, escorted by one of my ex-husbands. My brother’s ex-wife would also be present. His new partner removed herself to a discreet spot near the scoreboard. Rain began to sprinkle.

  My nephew’s team ran on. He was number one, dark hair, tight shorts. The bell rang but the play was so far away that I couldn’t pick him out. My brother confidently roared out names and encouragements. My ex-husband wandered up. My father, coatless, stood with his back pressed against the trunk of a spindly eucalypt. I was losing concentration.

  A woman called out my name. It was my brother’s ex-wife. We kissed; our glasses clashed. She pointed out her son, my nephew, near the goal: ‘See him? Standing despondently?’ We uttered nervous laughs, and admired his classic footballer’s thighs: long and smooth but sort of chunky.

  A surge on the field brought the play close to our spot on the unfenced boundary. We jumped aside – and there was my nephew, bursting out of the pack, right in front of me. I could practically hear him breathing. He snatched the ball and, running in a smooth inward curve, sank his boot into it and sent it sailing over the mess of scrambling boys. I saw his face as he kicked: still, dark and focused. At that moment I forgot about family history and entered football. By half-time our boy had kicked two goals. Our team was ahead.

  I ran with the crowd to the rooms. Rain hammered briefly on the roof. This close I could see the freshness of the boys’ faces, how frighteningly young they were. My nephew was crouched on the end of the bench, his legs smeared with mud, his forearms across his knees. At home he was a quiet, thoughtful boy. Now, glistening with liniment, he was unreachable, heroic, a different being.

  ‘Forget the first half,’ said the coach. ‘That’s over. Forget the score. Pretend you’re just starting. You’ve got to be in front! And I can’t hear you talking out there! You got to talk and help! Talk and help!’

  The boys’ eyes went hard and bright. They leapt to their feet and clattered out of the rooms.

  The sun came through and the trees sparkled. But something was slipping. The other team was finding its strength. Even from our distant boundary we could see their long kicks, their marks. By the final quarter our boys had begun to flail and strain. Near us one went down. He lay on his side, stunned, one hand against his temple, unnoticed as the pack trampled away. Far off in the goal square I saw my nephew drop, stagger up and slog on. ‘It’s all over, Red Rover,’ said a woman with a video camera, and laughed as she turned away.

  The bell clanged and everyone dashed on to the ground. While the victors yelled a tuneless anthem, our team milled mutely round their coach. The air was thick with gasping. Parents forced water bottles into the hands of their distracted sons. Several boys were crying.

  ‘Now,’ shouted the coach, ‘we’re gonna shake hands with these guys.’ The circle opened out and became a line. With a formal, manly decency the two panting teams mingled.

  But one very small, very slight boy stood still, hands on thighs, bowed over in a curve, and sobbed. His teammates spoke his nickname and touched his heaving shoulders as they passed. Even a boy from the winning team laid an arm across his back and bent down to him in concern. The child wept on and on, exhausted, overwrought, grief-stricken. At last he straightened up, tears still streaking his face, and limped after the others to the presentation.

  Behind the pines shimmered a blurry pastel rainbow that no one saw. A man made speeches. The winners punched the air. Their captain raised his medal and kissed it. The losers clapped bravely. I am a bookworm, brought up among girls. I am not used to this.

  Tess Bows Out

  The blue heeler at my daughter and son-in-law’s place is sick.

  Last week she had a couple of what they think were strokes, where her legs slid out from under her and she lost control of her bowels and bladder. Since then she’s rallied somewhat but my son-in-law is dark round the eyes and very quiet. The old dog lies on her side on the floor, eyes open, breathing fast and shallow. They know she’s probably dying, but the thing she dreads most in the world is going to the vet. If she can’t cross over on her own, they’re going to call a roving vet to bring the lethal hit to the house, rather than drag her against her will to her final moment.

  Believing they’ll have to make this call before the day is out, they drive her down to the banks of the Maribyrnong for a last outing. When they get home their faces are puffy. ‘She couldn’t walk,’ says my daughter, ‘but she lay on the grass and looked around and sniffed the air. We think she liked being there.’

  That evening the Western Bulldogs are playing the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba. I’m invited over to watch, but in my anxiety about the heeler I don’t make it till half-time. Two couches plus a row of kitchen chairs are packed with Bulldogs fans. They’ve eaten pasta and are drinking beer.

  On the floor at their feet the dog lies on a folded blanket, with her head on a clean white pillow. They’ve laid alongside her her favourite toy, a metre-long stuffed caterpillar knitted in many colours. The dog’s breathing hasn’t changed: a steady panting. Her eyes are open. She doesn’t seem to be in pain. She looks at me when I crouch down to greet her, but soon her gaze slides past me and out into the ether of dying.

  The third quarter starts and soon the room is roaring and groaning. A fault in the TV distorts the players: they look stumpy and foreshortened, almost dwarfish. Things are going badly for the Bulldogs. The neighbourhood naturopath, a tall curly-haired woman, refuses to lose heart, but most of the men in the room have abandoned hope. Like wounded lovers they begin to console themselves with tart comments and fantasies of violence.

  ‘He looks like a cassowary and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘He’s in pain, which is good.’

  ‘I want Libber to scratch someone. That’s what I really, really want.’

  ‘Come on! Hurt somebody!’

  ‘Oh, why doesn’t he just give them the ball on a velvet cushion?’

  During the first quarter the naturopath has given the heeler a special herbal potion which, she says, can help the spirit of a dying creature to free itself and depart. From time to time someone will get down on the floor to sit by the dog, to stroke her head or squeeze some water into her mouth with an eye-dropper. She rouses herself to drink, then flops again.

  At three-quarter time the pudding is served. The Lions are all over the Doggies. The vibe in the room drops steadily. ‘My optimism is leaking away,’ says the naturopath. The old dog suddenly tries to scramble to her feet. My son-in-law leaps up and helps her stagger out of the room into the front garden where she casts herself into a refreshing bed of violets. It’s a cold night and the foliage is wet with dew.

  Inside, the Doggies are getting a bath. There are long moments of despondent silence. People are already collecting the plates when the final siren goes. I put on my coat and scarf.

  ‘Say goodbye to Tess,’ calls my son-in-law. Under the Bulldogs beanie his face is strained.

  The heeler is lying in her chosen spot in the dark garden, head up, lungs labouring, neck hair bristling in its soft ruff. She dismisses me with a kind, mature look. Dying is hard work, and the way she’s doing it accords wit
h her character: fearless, sweet-tempered, uncomplaining.

  Along the street, hazard lights are flashing. Is it the police, or just a taxi? The level crossing bells strike up their rhythmic clangour. I get into my car and turn on the ignition: the radio bursts into Beethoven’s Fifth. Everything around me is seething with meaning, if I can only work out what it is.

  Pie Boy at the Fracture Clinic

  On Thursday I lose one of those shameful power struggles that break out from time to time in the family of a person who has Alzheimer’s. This one is about Mum’s most recent broken bone, and which of us will wait with her for four hours while she has a checkup at the Alfred Hospital. To add to my troubles, my brother’s youngest boy, nine years old, has Curriculum Day and needs a minder. With bad grace I agree to coordinate all this at the Alfred Hospital Fracture Clinic, on the other side of the city.

  My taxi skids into the main entrance of the Alfred at 8.29 next morning, one minute before Mum’s ambulance is due from the nursing home. She will need me to be there when she comes through the door. But which door?

  No one’s around at Fractures. I draw a blank at Emergency. Transit Lounge likewise. I’m starting to panic. I trot inanely back and forth along the polished halls. At nine-thirty I run her to ground: they’ve already X-rayed her and parked her wheelchair in the Radiology waiting room. She’s the only person there. It’s five degrees outside. Her swollen feet are bare except for a pair of summer sandals. I rush up to her in dismay.