Where We Begin

by Christie Nieman

  Bette waited until Hessel had gone and then she sat down with her hand over her mouth and giggled like a girl.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What?’

  But Bette was almost beyond speaking, she was laughing so hard, tears in her already watery eyes. She reached out and grabbed my hand. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said between wheezes. ‘I’m just so glad.’

  I spent the morning with Bette, cleaning. I couldn’t think. I felt like my original plan was in tatters, torn to shreds by the chaos inside the house. But every time I tried to get a new plan of action happening in my head, my mind skittered off. So I cleaned – it was straightforward. Cleaning was something that so obviously desperately needed doing. So I did that. I even managed to get some satisfaction from it. I found a brush and tray in the laundry and discreetly disposed of the dead mouse. I swept up all the mouse poo I could see in the kitchen and did the same with that, hiding it all under the breakfast scrapings.

  Again I wondered how they could live like this. Perhaps they couldn’t see it? Perhaps their eyesight was poor? I had read about that. About some elderly people living in squalor simply because they couldn’t see it. It was an interesting question as to whether it was physical or psychological.

  And why wasn’t Mum here, helping them?

  That was an interesting question, too. It sat uncomfortably, inside, at the back of me somewhere, somewhere I couldn’t look at it directly. Because she’s Mum, I thought to myself. And fucking hopeless. And that almost answered it.

  I filled a bucket with hot soapy water and located a decrepit old mop in the laundry-bathroom, which, yes, was the only bathroom in the house. Bette just seemed to accept my industrious cleaning without question. It was as if her granddaughter turning up in the middle of the night and setting her house right was exactly what she had been expecting. She stood mildly washing the dishes at the kitchen sink, looking out of the open window, absent-mindedly picking up again on my idle question about the cairns, taking her time to explain them to me properly.

  I was on my hands and knees under the table, using my fingers to rake up stray papers, readying the floor for the mop while Bette detailed the way the boulders had been pulled from the earth when the settlers – ‘Our ancestors, Anna, the great pioneers’ – first cleared the area, removing all the scrub and grassland to make way for cropping and pasture. I was only half-listening, but Bette was quite invested. ‘The hard work of our forefathers that was,’ she said with pride, describing how, with only rudimentary equipment, they had managed to rip the hulking stones out of their prehistoric resting places so that the ploughs wouldn’t snag on them, and then pile them into the mounds. She talked about them as though they were the pyramids of Egypt, a wonder of the world. ‘Our forefathers,’ she said again. ‘Your forefathers, Anna.’ And she scrubbed Hessel’s coffee cup with zealous vigour.

  When the floor was mopped and the poo was gone and the breakfast dishes stacked and dried and put away, Bette put the kettle on. ‘Thank you, dear,’ she said, sitting. ‘You didn’t really have to do all of that, you know.’

  I let that pass. Obviously someone did.

  Bette poured tea, and I said, ‘Grandma, would you mind? I have some things I need to do,’ and she waved me away with a flapping hand. I took the brimming cup into Mum’s old bedroom and placed it on a box, closed the door behind me, as much as I could, and sat on the edge of the bed. I sat. I just sat.

  What was I doing here?

  All that movement. All that momentum.

  To find myself here. Here.

  In my mother’s old life.

  16 January 1996

  The day before that day

  Cathy remembered it like this.

  She had been sitting with Becky in her bedroom trying to decide whether to smoke. Ridiculous, in hindsight, but there it was. They were discussing her new bedspread – a light blue crochet cover from Miss Shop at Myer that Cathy had saved up for and ordered in, and that had looked all vintage hippie-cool in the magazine but then somehow managed to look just too country-style and dowdy on her own bed. But that was what she had really been thinking about: whether or not to smoke.

  Becky had come over to watch her try on her new bathers. Cathy had seen them in Miss Shop and they’d reminded her of a photo she’d seen of Winona Ryder, so she brought her mum back with her and pleaded and Bette gave in and bought them for her. They had low-waisted black bottoms and a red tartan bikini top. Cathy wasn’t quite sure what look she was giving off with them, or what it might mean. But Winona had got Johnny Depp when she was only seventeen – Cathy’s age – and when he was a grown-up-and-gorgeous twenty-six. Cathy certainly wasn’t trying to turn the heads of the local seventeen-year-old boys. In any case, even though it hadn’t lasted between Johnny and Winona, the tartan top made her tits look nice, so that was something.

  ‘Will you be allowed out in that?’ Becky said, when Cathy had got them on and was striking various Dolly-cover poses around her bedroom.

  ‘I dunno,’ said Cathy brightly. ‘What if I don’t ask?’

  Cathy was an expert at doing what she liked, despite rules and opposition.

  The window was open, not only because it was so damn hot, but also because Bette had been through the house in her usual neat-as-a-pin, nothing-out-of-place cleaning whirlwind and Cathy’s room stank of Domestos. It was the perfect smoking moment really – it was dark outside, Becky was over, and Cathy’s parents were out. But whether to smoke or not was actually a difficult question now because smoking had been cool, but it seemed like maybe it wasn’t cool anymore; it was right on that edge where Cathy couldn’t quite tell. Madonna smoked in Desperately Seeking Susan, which they had watched last night with the girls at Jennifer’s retro film night, but Cathy also read somewhere that Madonna didn’t like smoking, that she was just posing.

  But god she looked so great while she did it.

  ‘And besides,’ Cathy said, ‘Mum bought them for me.’

  Becky looked shocked and Cathy nodded, enjoying Becky’s surprise.

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I know! Isn’t it great?’ said Cathy. It had been a long time coming, but Cathy and Bette could be a bit of a team now – when they needed to be. Cathy could trace it back to the Secret Cake Days. That was where they’d first found their sweet spot.

  ‘It’s really great, Cathy. It makes me really happy to see you two getting along. I like Bette.’

  ‘I know you do.’

  Cathy pulled out the cigarette packet hidden in her bedside drawer and the decision was made. She tapped one out and offered it to Becky. Becky smiled and took one. They smoked hanging out of Cathy’s window and waving their hands about to clear the air. They tried different cigarette holds and practised drawing back without coughing. Cathy, still in her bathers, struck magazine poses, though of course Dolly would never have someone smoking. Maybe she was just more hardcore than Dolly – that was a surprisingly pleasing thought.

  ‘So. Important business,’ said Becky. ‘Madonna.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Old stuff or new stuff?’

  They discussed this at length. Becky had really liked Desperately Seeking Susan. It was interesting to see Madonna so young, she said, and her music so poppy and different, and maybe she even liked it best. But Cathy thought it was nothing compared to Bedtime Stories, Madonna’s latest album, which had been on high rotation on her player all last year. Madonna had really evolved as an artist, Cathy said. Cathy had pretty much listened to that album nonstop since Danny got it for her the Christmas before last through a special pre-purchase order from Hannerby Music and Hi-Fi in Bendigo – he had connections there, some music mates. It was actually pretty sweet of him because he was usually such an indie dickhead about her music, pick-pick-picking at her about it. Mind you, he had also got her The Cranberries’ second album, the one they worked on with the producer of The Smiths: he said it was his attempt at drawing her step by step – not in a NKOTB kind of way,
yeah, ha ha – into what he called ‘a better class of music’, by which he meant his maudlin indie grunge crap and the slightly bearable Britpop. He’d been trying to rope Leonie into teasing her too, but Leonie was way too nice to join in, and besides, she liked lots of different music herself. Cathy thought The Cranberries were okay, but they were no Madonna. You certainly couldn’t dance to them. Danny would not have coped with Becky’s eighties pop preference.

  ‘Okay then,’ said Cathy. ‘Next order of business: Johnny Depp or George Clooney?’

  ‘Johnny,’ said Becky. And then quickly rethought. ‘Well, unless gorgeous George-ous brings his scrubs.’ They both leaned back into the room to look at the particularly dashing poster of George Clooney in his Doctor-Doug-from-ER scrubs that Cathy had put up in prime viewing position over the bed.

  Cathy took a moment to appreciate it anew. ‘Yep. Good call.’

  Becky leaned back out the window and blew a plume of smoke and they watched as it drifted upwards, the warm light of the bedroom catching it and making it glow against the deep background of stars.

  ‘So what happened after that stuff the other night?’ Becky said, overly nonchalant. ‘That stuff with the car and the highway, after the film?’

  ‘Oh, you know, everyone was upset about it. In their way.’

  Becky looked uncomfortable. She picked a bit of cracked paint off the windowsill.

  ‘So,’ she began, hesitantly. ‘You know, I’ve said it before –’

  ‘Oh god, not this again, Becky,’ Cathy said.

  ‘I just feel like I have to say it. I just think you should think about it, that’s all.’ Becky turned to face Cathy, her arm still hanging out of the window holding the cigarette. ‘It’s really not normal, Cat.’

  ‘You’re being extreme and dramatic,’ said Cathy, turning away from her to blow smoke out of her nose. ‘It’s just not that bad. It’s actually fine.’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Becky, leaning her elbows back on the windowsill, and then she gave a sly smile. ‘I think in your situation Madonna would do something.’

  Cathy had always enjoyed the strange, pleased expression Becky got on her face when she’d said something that Cathy laughed at. Especially when she made Cathy snort, as Cathy did now. It didn’t happen all that often – Becky’s humour successes were hit and miss. Often, she seemed surprised by them herself.

  ‘We don’t always have to do everything Madonna does, you know, Becky,’ Cathy said, still laughing.

  ‘Really?’ Becky said, mock innocently. ‘We don’t? Better cancel my pointy bra then.’

  Cathy snorted again and then leaned out and squashed her cigarette end on the underneath of the windowsill, where it wouldn’t be seen by Bette. ‘You still good for Secret Cake on Tuesday?’ she asked Becky. ‘Danny and Leonie are in.’

  ‘Wait, let me check my busy social calendar,’ said Becky, leaning out of the window herself and stubbing her cigarette in the same spot as Cathy’s. ‘Yeah, nah, should be fine.’ She grinned and then hitched up her skirt and began to climb out the window.

  ‘You know you don’t have to go out that way when no-one’s home,’ Cathy said.

  Becky shrugged. ‘I like it.’ She pulled herself out and dropped down onto the grass on the other side. ‘So, your bathers look totally cool. Jen won’t be able to match them. Tomorrow at the res?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cathy had said to her, hands up and ready to slide the window down behind her. ‘See you tomorrow, Becks.’

  She’d watched Becky walk off down the path to her bike, then slid the window sash down with a scrape and a thud.

  It seemed incongruous now. That that was what she had said about that day. That day.

  See you tomorrow, was what she’d said, and she’d said it like it was just any other day. And to her, just then, at that time, it was.

  Tomorrow was just another day.

  9

  I sat on Mum’s old squeaky bed, my tea on the box growing cold, feeling paralysed again. Inert. I’d used up all my energy fighting off that other inertia – the panic-stricken urge to put my head in the sand and do nothing when those two stripes had hollered at me from that little plastic stick. But I hadn’t done nothing then. I had mustered some strange energy from somewhere and I had done something instead. I had acted. That had to be good, didn’t it? Doing nothing would have meant this thing taking off on its own, continuing this process it had begun in the middle of me, growing and swelling until I couldn’t touch my toes, until it became a baby, of all ridiculous things. No, I had acted. I had put a plan in place. A package was on its way here. I had got myself here to meet it. The plan was sound.

  I pulled my knees up and hugged them to my chest, as if to remind myself that I still could, and, looking at the chaos and filth surrounding me, tried to summon that enthusiasm again.

  I still hadn’t managed it when I heard the car. Standing and peering through the grimy glass of the little bedroom window I watched a small white hatchback drive in – too fast, it seemed – and pull up suddenly in the gravel patch on the driveway. The car door opened and a short woman with a neat dark ponytail stepped out. She retrieved a small grey toolbox from inside the car and headed towards the back door of the house.

  I could hear Bette’s and the woman’s voices in the kitchen outside my door. They were talking softly, too softly to hear what they were saying. Nearly whispering, in fact.

  I sat for a while longer and then ventured to the bedroom door and opened it. I leaned my head out. Bette was sitting on the bench seat with her arm on the table, and the woman, maybe about Mum’s age, maybe a bit younger, sat on a stool pulled up opposite her. There was a lamp on the table angled down onto Bette’s arm, and the woman had her face bent over it. Bette looked up and said slowly, ‘Hello, love. You hungry? There are some biscuits in the cupboard, take whatever you need.’

  ‘No, I’m okay for now, thanks, Grandma. Just getting a glass of water.’

  As I crossed the kitchen to get a glass, the woman looked up. ‘So you’re Anna?’ she said.

  I startled a little at her use of my name.

  ‘Yes, oh, hello.’ I held my hand out to shake. But the woman gestured with her head to her hands, which wore pale blue sterile latex gloves and were busy with dressings and tape. ‘Nurse hands,’ she said.

  ‘Oh wow, Grandma,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  Bette’s arm, for the first time since I had arrived, was out of its shirtsleeve, bandages unravelled on the table beside them. A white dressing stained sticky red and brown took up most of Bette’s forearm. ‘Oh nothing. Just a stupid thing. A careless burn.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said.

  The nurse must have seen something eager in my eyes, because she said, ‘I’m giving her a new dressing. Do you want to watch?’

  ‘Um, actually, I’d love to,’ I said. ‘Is that okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ said the nurse. ‘If that’s fine with you, Bette?’

  Bette seemed strangely vague. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Why on earth not?’

  The nurse looked up at Bette sharply. ‘You took some pain relief, Bette? Maybe a bit too much?’

  Bette didn’t answer and leaned back and closed her eyes.

  The woman motioned for me to sit to the right of her, out of the light. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I find this sort of stuff really fascinating. I’m going to study medicine.’ The nurse looked at me and gave a half-smile, which seemed warm enough, if a little reserved. ‘Hoping to, at least,’ I added. ‘99.95 pending.’

  The woman nodded and smoothed a sterile sheet under Bette’s arm. Bette kept her eyes shut. The nurse began pulling back the edges of the dressing, but soon stopped; it seemed stuck. She used long tweezers to dab cotton wool into a bowl of water. ‘Saline,’ she said to me, and dabbed it on the dressing until it was soaked.

  As I watched, all my panic, all my inertia, drained away. Everything I had been feeling was replaced by pure fascination, a warm humming in my mind as I looked for the different layers of
skin being uncovered and wondered at the brilliance of the body’s inflammatory response, the healing beauty of serous exudate . . .

  Bette began to quietly snore. I stood and arranged a pillow behind her head. The nurse bent in closer over her work. And as she did so I tried to place her look, to guess at her heritage. There was no accent to go by – part African? Maybe Indian, or Sri Lankan? I was surprised to see someone from a diverse background in such a white-bread rural area.

  ‘So, what brings you here all by yourself, Anna?’ the woman asked me.

  ‘Not much, just a visit.’

  The woman chuckled and shook her head to herself. ‘“Just a visit.”’ She laughed quietly. ‘Yeah, you and Bette are family alright.’

  I had no idea what she was talking about. I frowned and, I guess because of my silence, the nurse lifted her head and looked at me, then gave a surprised look, a remembering-herself look. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I forgot you’ve never met me. You look a lot like your mother. I’m Leonie,’ she said.

  ‘Leonie?’

  There was an expectant look on the woman’s face, and then it wavered. ‘You haven’t heard of me?’

  ‘Um, no. I’m . . . sorry?’

  The woman looked a bit shocked. ‘Your mother really said nothing about me? Or about . . .’

  The end of her sentence hung in the air.

  ‘Um, no,’ I said. And then, feeling the compulsion to explain further: ‘She’s not a big reminiscer, Mum, so I don’t know much about her life here with Grandma and Grandpa. So, all this –’ I waved my hand about airily, indicating the house, the paddock and everyone it might encompass. ‘All this is new to me,’ I said.

  The woman, Leonie, looked straight at me then, her shock deepening into something else, a deep crease appearing between her eyebrows, almost anger. Quickly, another expression appeared on her face, and it looked like the exact opposite – soft and sad and resigned. And tired.

  ‘How is your mum?’ she said. ‘Is she okay?’