The Olive Sisters

by Amanda Hampson

  Later I managed through Annabelle Challis to track down the hotel where Rosanna had worked, which turned out to be a country pub outside Adelaide. Ron, the manager of The Royal, remembered her well – she was famous for putting pasta on the pub’s menu in 1965. She worked there on and off for many years, leaving once to work as a cook for a shearing gang and again when she was poached by the owner of a new restaurant in the city. But neither of these suited and both times she returned to her old room and her kitchen at The Royal. He had no idea she had ever been married, however briefly. She had mentioned a sister, but he didn’t think they kept in touch – she didn’t seem to know where the sister was living. She had retired from the kitchen ten or so years earlier and had planned to travel as far as her pension would take her. That’s all he knew.

  ‘If you’re ever over this way, drop in,’ he said. ‘We still have pasta on the menu. In fact, the restaurant’s still called “Rosanna’s”.’

  One winter afternoon, walking back from the river as the mist started to curl across the paddocks, she sang for me. Her voice rose, as clear as a girl’s; when she fell in love it would be forever. She sang from the heart into the darkening sky. And I believed her.

  ‘You still know all the words,’ I said in astonishment.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my memory,’ she replied crossly. ‘I just get muddled sometimes. Not as muddled as you – you tell me one thing one day and another the next.’

  Fair comment. The path of least resistance is bound to twist and turn. Rosanna was more than muddled, though. During that year she had several more tiny strokes and began drifting backwards down the corridors of her own life. Sometimes she would look into the rooms she was passing and see the ghosts that inhabited them but more and more they were wisps that eluded her grasp. Fragments of memory, familiar faces without names, scenes that puzzled and disturbed her.

  Time and place began to shift for my mother and I soon learnt there was no point in correcting her. I found myself playing imaginary games I never played with my daughter. It took me a long time to accept that I had to be a part of Rosanna’s world for her to be a part of mine. She always played herself and I played all the other roles. Often, late in the day as the light began to drift away, she would call out anxiously, ‘Bella, where are you?’

  ‘I’m here, Rosa,’ I’d respond from wherever I was. ‘I’m right here.’

  In some strange karmic turn of events I ended up becoming a mother to my own mother. It wasn’t easy. Rosanna could be delightful and fun, endearing and affectionate, but she could also be fractious and defiant. She once threw her dinner across the room and instructed me to tell the kitchen staff they were fired. She would leave taps on and run us dry of water. There were times she nearly drove me mad with her stubborn, difficult behaviour – on one occasion I packed her bag, flung it in the ute and ordered her into the car, determined to take her back to the nursing home. She simply refused to get in. She folded her arms and sat on the verandah steps, watching me fume from a comfortable distance. So then I called Joy and, because I was feeling very sorry for myself, I phoned Joe as well. And they came, both of them, and they made us tea and talked us down.

  Whenever she saw I was upset, Rosanna would always say she was sorry, even if she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was she had done to get me so hot and bothered. I’d tell her I was sorry too and she’d hug me tight, press her cheek against mine and say fiercely, ‘I love you too much.’ She was easy to forgive. I knew she couldn’t help herself. I knew that above all else, she did love me.

  What possessed me to bring her home in the first place? Whatever made me think I could be a carer when I was clearly such a lousy mother? They were questions to ask oneself in the middle of the night, and the answers eventually came. I did it because I was lost. Confused. Lacking any purpose in my life. But I also did it for her. I did it because, even though it wasn’t my thing, it was the right thing. And there is no doubt in my mind now that it was the right thing. Despite our occasional struggles, despite her own frustrations, she was happy here – deliriously happy in the way a child is happy just to wake up every morning. She loved feeding the chooks and weeding out the vegetable garden and talking all day long to Ernie, who was never far away. The farm, with its familiarity and memories, was her saving grace. The fruits of her childhood memories had been preserved here for leaner times, and she was nourished by them.

  It was raining hard the day of her accident; the sort of weather I thought would keep even Rosanna inside. I sensed the eerie silence that always meant she had left the building, and I went out onto the back verandah to find her lying on the ground. She must have slipped on the step and taken a tumble.

  ‘Get Joy!’ she shouted when she saw me coming down the steps; her catchcry whenever she was in pain. Never mind that Joy hadn’t been a nurse for thirty years; she always felt better when Joy administered the Panadol.

  We were both wet and muddy by the time I got her inside, our hair plastered to our heads. Rosanna was crying but couldn’t seem to locate the source of her pain. I called Joy, who called the ambulance.

  When we arrived home late that night, the rain had stopped and the sky was clear. Rosanna had her ankle in plaster and was nursing a broken rib. Joy and I made her comfortable in her bed but she wasn’t herself. Perhaps it was the shock of the fall, or the confusion of being taken away, but it was as though the spark had gone out of her. It was as though she had seen a glimpse of the future.

  She was confined to bed for a week or two to allow the bones to knit, a restriction she refused to accept. She only stayed in bed as a prisoner of pain.

  Up until then, despite swimming all winter, she hadn’t had so much as a cold. Now, lying in a warm bed, she caught a virus that sped quickly to her lungs. Within days she had pneumonia. Increased medication seemed to have no effect.

  She hardly spoke in the last couple of days. It was as though she had willed this illness on herself and needed all her strength to see it through. I knew better than to leave the room. I sat and held her hand, patted her face with a damp cloth. I waited and waited. But this time my vigil was not a lonely one. Joe came and stayed. He brought me tea and toast. He held my hand and told me that he loved me. Joy came and brought with her the distant sounds of the washing machine and the aroma of shepherd’s pie. Margaret brought lavender from her garden. Ernie lay at my feet.

  There was a moment when it seemed as though the life had flooded back into Rosanna. She squeezed my hand and when she opened her eyes they were clear and bright. She looked at me for a moment and said, ‘Let Jack know where I’ve gone. He’ll be looking for me.’

  When Isabelle died so many years earlier, I was frightened and angry. My eyes were dry. I went out in the world in a sort of rage. I lived my life at full pelt. I studied and worked into the nights, utterly determined to succeed at everything I did – to prove I had a place in the world. I constructed a hard shell around me and I was, in many ways, quite heartless.

  When Rosanna died I was just plain sad. For weeks I cried when I thought of her. I missed her. I missed her presence in the house. Her laughter. I missed dancing around the living room with her. I missed her coming into bed with me when she was afraid in the night. I was sad she was gone but I knew that the layers of that hard shell around my heart had been gradually peeling away, simply by loving her and by being loved by her. Far from feeling exposed, I felt freed. I discovered that my mother was wild and courageous and as flawed as any other human. I discovered that I am my mother’s daughter. I left her room with a different sort of determination, with a second chance and a sense of what needed to be done.

  I asked Joe to walk with me in the olive grove. As we wandered beneath the clouds of silver olives, now in summer flower, I told him that I was, at last, ready to dive into the green depths of those dangerous eyes of his and take my chances. I asked him to come and live at the farm with me, to share my life. He kissed me softly and said, ‘It takes a pretty special w
oman to get Mohammed down off his mountain. But heck, I’m up for it if you are, sweet thing. And, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to build you a really topnotch self-composting toilet to mark the occasion.’

  What more could a woman ask for?

  During those last days sitting in Rosanna’s room I thought a lot about Lauren. I have written to her many times. They have come back marked ‘Return to Sender’, every one. She’s unaware of the irony. I have heard from Sarah that she is finishing her degree and has been promoted. She has a nice boyfriend and a flat in Ealing. I hear everything third-hand. It’s two years since we’ve spoken. How did I let that happen? How did I let things harden? Why didn’t I see the pattern of our family? Perhaps because I never really thought of Lauren and myself as a family; I saw myself as some sort of heroine taking on the world, smart and tough, and she was just there, tagging along behind. My sidekick. In Rosanna’s room I thought a lot about the things Lauren said to me and she was right. My business was my hungry, demanding firstborn. It needed me and it gave me a level of respect that mothering could never hope to offer. Lauren couldn’t possibly compete. I was a hopeless mother. I treated her like one of my projects. Little wonder she doesn’t like me.

  After Rosanna died, I wrote to Lauren. The truth. I told her I was wrong; that I was sorry. I told her just how much I love her.

  I send her the same letter every week now. Each time they come back to me unopened I scrawl ‘Try Again’ across the envelope and send it back. It’s all I can do. I haven’t heard a word but I won’t give up. I won’t ever give up. She’s my girl and I love her more than I can say.

  My life now is very far from the way I thought it would be. It’s not glamorous and no one admires me for the work I do around here (much of which is sheer drudgery.) Money is in short supply. And sometimes it feels just all too hard. But while it’s not all sweetness and light, there are days like this that are so perfect: the magpies chortle, my morning coffee tastes good and the shimmering grove beckons. There are evenings in front of the fire with Joe and a glass of our own rough red. There are people I love in my life every day. I know this is home and for the first time in my life I feel safe, no longer held hostage by my own unhappiness.

  I wish Rosanna could have been here today of all days. I’ve wondered many times if the work of resurrecting the grove was too much for her. God knows it nearly killed me. Joe worked with Rosanna and me and a couple of local lads with chainsaws all that first year, rigorously pruning the trees back into shape for this year’s harvest. The years of neglect, far from being detrimental to the trees, should actually improve the crop because of the composting effect of the olives left on the ground. I’m something of an expert on the subject of olives these days. Who’d have thought, eh?

  After Joe moved in, he sold Mohammed’s mountain and we built a new shed where the old one had stood. Made of galvanised iron with a cement floor, it doesn’t have the character of the old one but it houses the olive mill and a processing area. Two of the Leeton boys (compliments of Mrs Leeton) helped Joe construct the stone mill. Built to the specifications of the drawings made by my father and grandfather, it has two great granite wheels attached to a central rod that runs through the centre of a large metal basin that will contain the olives while the wheels grind them into a paste. Beside it sits the press that holds the stack of mats on which the paste will be poured and then pressed to exude the oil into a barrel. An ancient method of producing unfiltered olive oil – simply the juice of the fruit.

  On this frosty winter’s night we have an eclectic gathering of friends, pickers and even a couple of food writers from the city here to celebrate the launch of our business. It’s been a long journey to this night, from my grandfather’s dream to the pressing of the first oil, and it won’t stop here. Our label honours Isabella and Rosanna, the two sisters reunited, arms entwined, finally delivering their father’s dream to the world. I may not have the suits but I still have the skills to create a brand identity for our oil and to get it out in the marketplace. I still have that spoon from my brief foray back into the board room – I souvenired it. I’ll be putting it to good use taste-testing something I believe in, something I’m passionate about.

  It’s a big night for us – bigger than Ben Hur, I suppose you could say. The shed is transformed, lit by dozens of candles propped in jars on the exposed framework of the walls, and with glowing braziers placed around the room to warm our many guests. On the tables, buckets, tins and jars overflow with silver branches from the olives and the festive gold of wattle. The tubs of olives, picked and cleaned today, are stacked along one wall of the shed.

  A hush slowly falls over the gathered friends as Joe and I lift the first tub and tip it into the crusher.

  ‘Let there be oil!’ calls Joy and we all cheer wildly as Joe presses the button and the grinding wheels begin to slowly turn.

  It’s warm in the shed now and our guests, discarding their coats and jackets, begin to nibble at the food and help themselves to wine while we wait for the olives to be crushed and pressed. An hour later the chat has reached cicada pitch when Joe calls out: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, charge your glasses for a toast – I give you “Olive Sisters’ Cold Pressed Extra-Virgin Olive Oil”!’

  And, sure enough, a steady stream of pale green silk flows from the spout of the press into the stainless-steel container. A cheer goes up and there is a buzz of excitement as we hand around bruschetta (spread with a hint of garlic and a sprinkling of sea salt) on the end of an olive twig for guests to toast over the braziers. Joy and Diane move among the crowd drizzling a little of the fresh oil on each bruschetta. Diane looks quite the part, sporting a pristine pair of RM Williams chisel-toe boots.

  I kneel down beside the flow of oil. I want to drink straight from the mountain stream. We’ve worked hard for this. So many people have waited so long for this green oil. There’s a fleeting moment when I feel someone kneel beside me, but when I look there is no one. I slide my fingertip under the last long drips of oil and place my finger in my mouth. It tastes sweet, like freshly mown grass. No, not exactly like it; it tastes like freshly mown grass makes you feel.

  There is cheering and catcalls in the crowd as our entertainment for the night – The Bush Brats – arrive, almost unrecognisable in beanies and winter coats. While the band sets up we move the tables and the braziers back against the walls. The room hums with conversation and the candles exude a strangely intoxicating scent.

  From the first twanging chords of a country waltz, people are drawn to one another, people who have known their partner forever and people who, I’m almost certain, have only just met. There are some unlikely combinations: Joe (wearing Jack’s boots, I see) steps right up to ask Mrs Leeton to dance. Annabelle and Diane both dance with surly olive pickers. Deirdre (there is no escaping that woman) and Walter are cheek-to-cheek, of course. Margaret and her husband John are tall and elegant as they swan around the cement dance floor. Soon almost everyone in the shed is part of the colourful swirl. I have glimpses of people I’ve never seen before. A couple of chubby, pink-cheeked women dance together. Both are dressed in satin, and one wears a red-velvet hat. A good-looking fellow with glossy black hair laughs as he whirls a beautiful honey-blonde woman around the floor. I quickly lose sight of them as they disappear into the crowd.

  At the far end of the shed I notice a young woman with long dark hair enter, and a young man trails behind her. I can’t think who they might be. They both wear heavy coats and I see Joe, obviously having quickly dispensed with Mrs Leeton, cross the room to speak to them. He shakes both their hands. He takes their coats and hangs them over the back of a chair. The man puts a protective arm around the woman’s shoulders. All three glance in my direction but in the low light I still can’t make out who they are. Intriguing.

  Without further ado, Joe takes the young woman in his arms and they begin to dance, turning this way and that, always tantalisingly out of sight. A great well of emotion rises up in me. The long hair
had me fooled, but I’m almost sure … Suddenly they’re in front of me, and Joe is looking particularly pleased with himself as he swings his partner towards me. She turns with a smile, glittering tears of light in her eyes. It’s my girl. My girl’s come home. Without a moment’s hesitation we put our arms around each other. I press my cheek to hers and our tears mingle. Blood brothers, tear sisters, our skin as one. I feel the earth under my feet, the solid flesh of my daughter’s body in my arms. We’re laughing and crying and spinning with the dancers, spinning and weaving the past with the future. We dance like angels, we dance our way back to each other, and now I know I have everything I need. At last.

  Acknowledgements

  To my muses – Jane Symons, Su Furolo, Pam Owen and Tegan Mitchell – thank you! Without your endless encouragement, this book would never have been written. Thank you also to the many others who read later drafts and offered support and criticism: Betty Palmer, Catherine Hersom, Elise Wynyard, Olivier Gonfond, Bronwyn Wall, Marian Henderson, Mavis Bates, Jan Reggett, Tracey Knowles, Nic Price, Thalia Goldspink, Darren Gittins, Colleen Kennedy, Harold Hampson and Kim Hampson.

  Thanks to Gigliana Caris and Joseph Furolo for help on all things Italian; John Sydney Griffith (Griff) for generously sharing his family memoir of his career as a mining engineer; Richard Goldspink for information on business liquidation; Robyn Barrows for checking information relating to olives; Mark Holland for sharing his knowledge of olive oil; Uwe and Gaby Studtrucker for information on the Taggiasca olive and Julie Pride and Bryan Duffy for sharing personal experiences with me.