Last Chance Café

by Liz Byrski

  Vinka makes her way slowly up the stairs, wondering how much longer she will be able to manage this. In the last year or so she has become uncomfortably aware of her vulnerability as a single woman of eighty living on the top floor of a building with no lift, where the rubberised trim on the staircase is dangerously loose. She has recently taken to holding tightly to the banister and counting the stairs, each one a step closer to safety. Today as she pauses for breath at the third floor, her handbag hooked over her shoulder and a bag of vegetables from the market in her free hand, the door of one of the three flats is flung open and a man steps out and takes the bag from her.

  ‘Vinka, I am waiting for you,’ he says. ‘Come in, please, and I make you tea. We must talk,’ and he ushers her into the gloomy hallway and through into the kitchen where a kettle is whistling on the gas stove. ‘Sit down, sit down,’ he says, gesturing towards the kitchen table. ‘Rest while I make the tea and then we go to sit in comfort.’

  Glad of the chance to sit Vinka perches on the upright chair, thinking how fortunate she is to live in a place so reminiscent of what she remembers of old Europe. This building with its twelve small flats, three on each of the four floors, is a community of people of different races. Stanislav, who is currently pouring water into a small silver teapot which once stood on his mother’s sideboard in Moscow, has lived here since the seventies, and is just a year younger than Vinka herself. Some of the flats have been empty for a while now. There is a young Greek couple on the ground floor, alongside them a Frenchwoman in her sixties. Opposite Stan is Mal, a former shearer whose daughter and her family live in the adjacent street, and upstairs on one side of Vinka is an alcoholic English poet and, on the other, Mrs Lee, Chinese – a widow since her husband died not long after he’d fallen on the stairs last winter. It is Mr Lee’s fall, his broken hip and the subsequent and fatal pneumonia, which has made Vinka so painfully aware of her circumstances.

  ‘Come,’ Stan says, placing two glasses of tea on the tray and indicating to Vinka to follow him into the sitting room. ‘Sit, please. We must talk.’

  The room is crammed with mementoes of Stan’s family, his late wife, his parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and the living – a son and his wife and family who have returned to the new Russia with all its apparent opportunities, about which Stan is more than a little sceptical.

  ‘O’Connor has been here today while you are out; we are given notice, Vinka.’

  ‘Notice?’

  ‘The building, he is selling the building. It is to be converted into apartments.’

  ‘It is already apartments,’ Vinka says, taking the tea from him. ‘Apartments is flats, same thing.’

  ‘Luxury apartments,’ Stan says. ‘One on each floor. Four only, in the whole building. Imagine it, Vinka, where we have three flats there becomes one apartment, a whole floor. Imagine that.’

  Vinka doesn’t want to imagine it. She wants only to imagine what she has always imagined – herself living out the rest of her life here in this place where she has lived for more than thirty years, where she has planned to stay until she is carried out feet first.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘It is our home, Stanislav. He cannot sell it.’

  ‘But it is done. We have until the end of January, six months, so they give us time.’

  ‘Time!’ Vinka says, the hand that holds her cup shaking angrily. ‘This is no time, we are old, what are we to do?’

  ‘But he’s right, you know,’ Stan says, rubbing both hands through his wiry grey hair, leaving it standing up like a wild halo. ‘By the law he has only to give us one month’s notice.’

  Vinka knows this is correct, and she has seen many old buildings in the inner suburbs demolished to make way for offices, or renovated to provide housing for wealthy young professionals. ‘He left these,’ Stan says, handing her a large brown envelope with her name on it. ‘From the department of something or other. It is for aged care accommodation, for us to apply.’

  Vinka takes the envelope and slides out some leaflets, some forms and a brochure with pictures of pleasant leafy gardens where elderly people play bowls and croquet, and wave to each other as they wander along the paths that weave between small houses, each one exactly the same as those on either side of it.

  ‘We are entitled, O’Connor says, as Australian citizens, it is our right.’ Stan waves a hand, shaking his head. ‘Look at it, Vinka, we must go tomorrow, you and I and Mrs Lee, to put our names on a waiting list. The others I don’t know. Arthur doesn’t answer his door – drunk, I suppose. The Dimitriades are young. Madame Velly says she will move to her sister in Williamstown. Mal is not here.’

  ‘This is my home,’ Vinka says.

  Stan nods. ‘I tell him this, but he says there is world crisis of finances, and everyone is affected. He is losing money, he must offload assets, losing money hand over wrist.’

  ‘Fist,’ Vinka says. ‘It is hand over fist that he loses money. And we lose our home.’

  ‘When you lose your home you lose who you are.’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘we have known worse in the war. We don’t lose ourself.’ But as she says it Vinka wonders if she believes it. Vulnerability on the stairs is nothing to this. She has become what she has most feared but refused to face: a homeless old person, living on a pension, with only one relative, and she is very, very frightened.

  THIRTEEN

  Margot tries to ignore the hammering at the door, just as she has ignored other callers and telephone messages in recent days. She stares harder at the computer screen, focusing on the words, but it’s no good, whoever it is this time is not giving up and she sighs, pushes her glasses up onto her head and wanders down the hall. She looks a wreck, still in her pyjamas and dressing gown, sleep-mussed hair sticking up in unattractive tufts, socks with a hole in the big toe, and she’s totally lost track of time – again.

  ‘At last!’ Laurence says when she opens the door. ‘Where the hell have you been, Margot, I’ve been ringing you for days.’ He notices the pyjamas. ‘Oh lord, you’re sick. I’m so sorry, why didn’t you call? What can I do to help?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Margot says, opening the door wider to let him in, ‘just haven’t had time to shower this morning.’

  ‘It’s afternoon,’ Laurence says, glancing around the kitchen, taking in the washing up piled in the sink, the rubbish that hasn’t been taken out. ‘Half past two, in fact.’

  ‘Really? How time flies. How’s Bernard? Is he back yet?’

  Laurence hesitates. He should tell her now, but this is all so weird. ‘What’s happening here, Margot?’ he says instead. ‘The place is a mess, you must be sick.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Margot says. ‘I’ve just been busy. Do you want tea or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee please.’

  ‘How’s he enjoying Ho Chi Minh City?’

  ‘In all the years I’ve known you, including those when we lived together,’ Laurence says, desperate to change the subject, ‘I’ve never known you to leave dishes in the sink or miss a rubbish collection. And I have certainly never seen you in your pyjamas at this time of day except when you’re sick, so what’s going on?’

  ‘Like I said, I’ve been busy,’ Margot says. ‘I still am but I probably do need to have a shower and get dressed. It won’t take long. Can you make the coffee? I’ll be back in a minute.’ And she disappears out through the lounge towards the bathroom.

  Laurence, who arrived fearing the worst after his calls had gone unanswered, is not quite sure what’s hit him. Carefully he loads the dishes from the sink into Margot’s half-size dishwasher, noting as he does so that these are not just the breakfast dishes but those from several meals, all of which appear to have been toast and cereal. When he has cleared the sink and rinsed it, he ties up the garbage, takes it outside and returns to put a new bin bag in place. Then he rinses out the coffee plunger, dries it and makes the coffee. There is no milk in the fridge; in fact there is not much of anything in there – a few sad looking v
egetables, a cube of dried-up cheese, three eggs and some sliced bread. It is all totally out of character for Margot.

  Laurence catches his breath and hesitates by the fridge door. How long has this been going on? he wonders. Could he have missed the first signs of dementia? He was, after all, away for a longish time, so what other strange things might have happened in his absence? He will have to get her to a doctor; there will be assessments, specialists probably, she will need someone as her advocate. Laurence takes a couple of deep breaths as he braces himself for the task; Margot, he knows, would do the same for him if the situation were reversed.

  ‘Ah! You’ve cleaned up,’ Margot says from the doorway. She is dressed now and obviously showered; her hair is still damp and she looks like her normal self. ‘That’s nice of you. Where’s the coffee? Was there any milk?’

  Laurence shakes his head and Margot goes to the pantry and pulls out a carton of long life.

  ‘This okay? Or will you have it black?’

  ‘Milk please,’ Laurence says, gesturing towards the carton. ‘Margot, do you think perhaps we should sit down and talk about this? I mean, how have you been feeling lately? Your memory, for example – is it okay?’

  ‘My memory’s fine,’ she says, watching as he pours the coffee from the plunger into two mugs and then struggles with the milk carton. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, well look at you, look at this place … the washing up, the pyjamas, and then there’s the phone, you haven’t been returning calls.’

  A flash of understanding crosses Margot’s face and she laughs. ‘And you think I’ve lost it! Poor old Margot, she’s finally flipped. No, Laurence, I’m fine, it’s just that, as I said, I’ve been busy, totally absorbed and ignoring everything else.’

  ‘Busy with what?’

  This tone of disbelief infuriates Margot. It implies that it’s unthinkable for her to have something so involving and important that it can keep her from washing up and returning phone calls. But she holds her mug between her two hands, sips the coffee cautiously, and reminds herself that she is behaving somewhat out of character. ‘Delicious,’ she says. ‘Thanks for making it – my first today.’

  ‘Your first? You always said you couldn’t start the day without two cups of strong coffee.’

  She grins. ‘Seems I was wrong about that. I don’t think I had any at all yesterday. I’m writing, you see.’

  ‘Writing? I thought you gave up on writing years ago.’

  ‘I did but now I’ve started again and I can’t seem to stop, At least not for trivial stuff like housework and cooking.’

  Laurence is not reassured. ‘So it’s back to the notebooks then?’

  ‘No. I began with them. I actually started a new notebook by writing a sort of catalogue of my failures as a mother and as a writer. Then I realised that all those notebooks were just like that, total self-indulgence. All those Moleskines are about me, Laurence, the fiction, the poetry, the non-fiction – all of it is all about me.’

  ‘Aren’t most writers always writing about themselves?’ Laurence asks, beginning to relax now.

  ‘Not in this way, not like me. Boring, pathetic self-indulgence. So I tore out those pages.’

  ‘What, all of them? All the notebooks?’

  ‘No, no, the old notebooks are useful. I just tore out the new ones.’

  ‘You can’t tear pages from a Moleskine, it’s sacrilege. It upsets the stitching.’

  ‘I know, but I did it,’ Margot says. ‘I had to, you see. When I read what I’d written I saw that it was what I’d been doing all my life. A whingeing journal just written in different genres, designed to convince myself I was doing something worthwhile. So I tore out the pages and sat down at the computer instead. Which reminds me, I must call Grant and get him to help me choose a new computer. Mine is old and slow. I need more of those byte things and more RAM. He’ll know what I need.’

  ‘I see,’ Laurence says, nodding. ‘Well, that’s good, I suppose. Is it? Is it good?’

  ‘I hope so. It’s good for me, but whether what I’m writing is good I don’t know, not yet. I just know I have to do it, from the minute I wake up until I get stuck and then I eat something, and sometimes I get dressed but yesterday I didn’t.’

  ‘And what is it that you’re writing?’ Laurence asks.

  ‘A novel. A novel of contemporary life.’

  ‘Not your life, I hope.’

  She laughs. ‘It’s okay, you’re not in it, although I guess bits of you may appear in some other guise, but you won’t know it. The characters are figments of my imagination, although I guess that everyone I’ve ever known is in there somewhere. Life is the seed capital for fiction, isn’t it? So you’re all there but none of you are, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘But it does seem to have taken me over. I’m compelled to keep at it and I don’t have much time or energy for anything else at the moment. So what were you calling for?’

  Laurence takes a gulp of his coffee. ‘Emma,’ he says. ‘We need to talk about Emma. This stuff with her face, and she’s in financial trouble. That girl has more handbags than Imelda Marcos had shoes. I don’t know what the problem is with her, Margot. She’s obsessed. I think she’s harming herself. She’s in debt to the bank, and she’s had to give up her flat because she can’t pay the rent. She’s moving in with Phyl on Friday.’

  ‘Well that’s a really good idea,’ Margot says. ‘They get on well and Phyl can do with the company at present. I totally agree with you about the cosmetic stuff, it’s very worrying. Poor Emma.’

  ‘Poor Emma? Is that all you can say? Poor Emma!’ Laurence says, raising his voice. ‘We have to do something about it, we have to help her. Get her into counselling, fix it; we have to get her out of trouble, Margot, for god’s sake.’

  Margot sips her coffee slowly, looking at him over the rim of her mug, then she puts it down, adds more coffee to it and drinks again. ‘So you’ve just noticed have you, Laurence? For the past three years Emma has been teetering on a knife edge, and for the past three years I have been talking to her, trying to help her, telling you I’m worried, asking you to speak to her, to help me, and you’ve just noticed?’

  Laurence has the grace to blush. ‘Well I knew there was a problem but I thought you …’

  ‘You thought I would fix it, like I always do. Well I tried and I can’t. I tried everything I know. Emma doesn’t listen to me. It makes not a bit of difference whether I scold or cajole or comfort or criticise. I’ve been pouring my efforts into a black hole and all it’s done is make her hostile and angry. She listens to Phyl and she might listen to you, but neither of you listen to me either. So if, after all this time, Laurence, you are really worried about our daughter, I suggest you go and talk to Phyl and the two of you can see if you can do anything together.’

  ‘But you can’t just opt out.’

  ‘I’m not. If you and Phyl can succeed where I’ve failed I’ll do whatever you tell me is needed. But I am sick of being the one who’s supposed to fix things. I’ve been doing it far too long, and obviously not particularly well. None of my fixing seems to work so right now I am following Lexie’s example and yours, I’m taking time out for myself, for things I want to do. I’m not opting out, just not accepting responsibility. It’s different.’

  ‘Well I know you’ve worked very hard but –’

  ‘There is no but!’ Margot cuts in. ‘I’ve not only worked hard, I have been self-sacrificing to a sickening degree and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s not a very attractive quality. So, no more! I am becoming what I should always have been, a writer. Lexie reminded me that Mary Wesley was seventy when her first novel was published. I intend to beat her so I haven’t got long. So now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to my work. Give me a call and let me know how it goes with Phyl and Emma. I’ll try to remember to pick up the phone.’ And leaving Laurence standing open mouthed, Margot heads out of the kitchen. ‘Take care and don’t
forget to close the front door when you leave,’ she calls over her shoulder, and Laurence, hesitating still in the kitchen, hears the faint sounds of the keyboard as she returns to her work.

  As they stand by the lifts in the vast marble foyer, Dot is feigning nonchalance. In fact she is in the grip of the same potentially paralysing grip of nervous anxiety that she has always experienced on entering the corridors of wealth and power.

  ‘They might not give us anything,’ Alyssa says as they wait for the lift. ‘I suppose they get heaps of people in here looking for sponsorship, and they just walk away empty handed.’

  ‘True,’ Dot says. ‘But let’s not forget that we didn’t pursue them, they invited us.’

  The fact that this is a friendly invitation to CASE from the sponsorship department of the bank doesn’t make Dot any more at ease than she has been in the past when fronting up to meet government ministers, boards of directors, editors in chief or even a couple of archbishops. She is way out of her comfort zone, and would be much happier on a soapbox in front of a heckling crowd than she is in this intimidating building surrounded by men and women in suits talking into their Bluetooth headsets. She had inherited a reverence for and fear of traditional authority from her hard-up working class parents, and while she has learned to junk the reverence by talking tough, she has never managed to rid herself of the fear. What she has learned, though, is that fear is at its most destructive when it is sensed by others, and she resolved very early in life that she would never let it show, and never allow it to limit what she would do nor whom she would challenge or confront. Even so, it’s always there eating away at her, especially in places like this. And it is largely because of Dot that they are here in the first place.