by Peggy Frew
John was very happy. June’s smiles, her wobbly head-lifts, her triumphant rollings-over; the tidy house, the repertoire of boring recipes Helen had grudgingly mastered; Helen herself, returned to her usual size, her appetites no longer colossal, waiting for him when he came home—his joy at these things was so simple, so childlike, so straightforward as to be enviable.
If she had been the kind of person who looked for such things, perhaps Helen might have seen it then, the fatal mismatch, which was not in temperament, not really, but more a matter of pace. John was a stayer, but Helen, who had escaped something—her childhood—now seemed compelled to move through life on a forward tilt, her mouth always watering for more.
Things eased, in time. June settled and by three months was sleeping through the night, as most babies did in that era of closed bedroom doors and ignored crying. Helen returned to work four days a week, and felt less desperate. She began to fill her weekends with activities—pottery classes, life drawing, yoga—during which John was happy to stay home with June. A balance was struck, between John’s contentment and Helen’s restlessness, and like two acrobats they gripped one another and leaned and reached and resisted in all the right places, and together held the pose.
Then came Anna. Not a mistake, but not planned either—because there was no plan, nothing was being mapped out, things were just happening—a fact that John accommodated readily, unquestioningly, happily, and Helen was unable to accommodate at all, and so tried to disregard. Beneath Helen’s eternal busyness, her headlong onward rushing, there now lay, faint but definite, the queasiness of someone who has bitten off more than she can chew.
Anna was easier than June. She was not freakishly easy—she was just a regular baby, who cried at times but was generally able to be settled, and more or less relied upon to sleep—but in comparison to June she was easy. And Helen fell in love with her. Perhaps it was because of her unexpected easiness, because she was so responsive, where June had bawled and fought and so often held herself stiffly against any embrace. Perhaps there was something deep and primal and psychological going on, to do with Helen not identifying with this second-born child in the same way she might have done with June, and therefore being free to simply love her. Whatever the reason, Helen delighted in Anna, in her sandy-pink wisps of hair, in her creamy skin, in her creases and folds and her snuffles and cross-eyed gazes, in the warm and miraculous weight of her, the cushioned feel of her bones through her flesh.
It was not that Helen hadn’t felt wonder and delight at newborn June, and it wasn’t that Helen didn’t feel wonder and delight at June the toddler, with her sturdy legs and her conscientious frown and her pointer finger fatly extended as she stood over a tower of blocks, commanding: Ookit my done, Mama. Helen loved June as much as any mother loves a child—but it was, as some loves are, at times painful and murky and hampered. And Helen’s love for Anna—even as Anna grew into a twitchy, contrary, worrisome child—was not ever anything but huge and clear and swooning. It was like the pleasure Helen took in food and sex, and Helen would, from Anna’s birth until Anna’s disappearance—and even beyond, into Anna’s absence—turn to it in the same way she turned to these other pleasures, compulsively, blindly, heedlessly.
Helen’s father died first, in that hospital in which his large and rough-skinned feet were so mercilessly exposed. He had gone in because something was wrong with his heart, but when they anaesthetised him for exploratory surgery he, as if in reaction to the undignified nature of the whole business, did not regain consciousness. There were no goodbyes. Helen was told by a nurse, over the phone—her mother not able to speak—and then left the children with John to go and help, by which time her father’s body had been put in a coffin and the lid put on. She did not ask to see him.
There was a funeral attended by many, and a wake attended by very few. The wake was at the house behind the surgery, which was smaller and shabbier and darker than ever. Helen’s mother insisted on catering, assembling sandwiches at the kitchen bench and baking a cake. The pitiful turnout resulted in an atmosphere of awkward intimacy. There were the Parkers—the Dysons had moved to America long ago—and there was the driver of the local ambulance. There was the priest, who was young and new, and had given an apologetically vague eulogy at the church. Then there was Mrs McPherson, who suffered a great many maladies and had been a regular visitor to the surgery since Helen was young. Mrs McPherson had not changed—her legs were still vast and bumpy, and she wore the same navy sack-like dress, and the same hat that was a not-quite-matching navy, topped with a spray of semi-disintegrated yellow felt flowers. She was supposed to have trouble with her blood sugar and therefore watch out for sweet things, but two slices of cake vanished while she was standing alone at that end of the table, nodding and sighing and glancing around.
These five were the only guests. A bunch of flowers and a typed card had arrived from the company that supplied the surgery with medical equipment. There were no speeches.
Helen went alone into the kitchen and found a plate of shortbread biscuits on the bench—brought, presumably, by the Parkers—and crammed two in her mouth before bringing the rest out to the dining room.
I really shouldn’t, said Mrs McPherson, but out went her dimpled hand and a number of biscuits appeared to fly up into it.
I hope you have been well, said Helen. She was not sure if Mrs McPherson even knew who she was. Mrs McPherson, who had icing sugar on her nose, didn’t answer, but turned to retrieve her handbag and then went lumbering off.
There was a whiff of something sweet and fumy, and Helen realised it was alcohol, and at the same time thought she heard a sloshing sound coming from some part of Mrs McPherson or her bag as both exited the room.
Helen’s mother would not sit down. She poured tea and cut the cake and passed out cups and plates and cake forks and napkins, and offered sandwiches, and, once some had gone, rearranged the remaining sandwiches on the serving platters, and refilled the teapot and the milk jug, and swept up into her hand and threw into the fire a little pile of sugar that the priest had accidentally spilled, and poked the fire, and put more wood on it, and gathered up empty plates, and brought out more whipped cream, and put the kettle on to boil one more time, and again emptied the teapot and filled it with fresh leaves.
Mrs Parker hovered like a mosquito. Now let me, she said, and, I’ll do that, but Helen’s mother ignored her and went on with her work, frowning faintly, as if listening out for something or someone.
The ambulance man ate a sandwich and drank a cup of tea and then slipped away. Mr Parker made conversation with the priest, eyeing the young man’s modern, dark suit and understated collar. Can’t tell ’em from us normal fellers these days, he whispered to Helen, reaching for the milk.
And I believe you’re married, Helen! said Mrs Parker. And have children! Her teeth were crooked—Helen had never noticed, never been close enough to see.
Yes, said Helen, who had biscuit stuck in a paste against her gums.
Then Mrs Parker did an extraordinary thing. She leaned nearer and tapped Helen on the wrist. Your mother is very proud of you, she said. Of your career. She’s always telling me—
But there was a sound, a call, and Mrs Parker broke off, and threw back her head like a dog scenting the breeze, and the call came again and suddenly everyone was rushing from the room.
Helen went last, out into the hallway, which had become very crowded. They all had their backs to her, and were clustered around the entrance to the downstairs toilet, and Helen caught sight of a pair of large, pale legs stretched out on the floor. It was Mrs McPherson—she had fallen, and was now making strange, airy noises that sounded more joyful than despairing.
She’s hit her head, said someone.
Hit the bottle, said Mr Parker, out of the corner of his mouth.
Oooh, oooh, called Mrs McPherson.
They got her up, and onto the sofa in the sitting room, and asked her questions such as, Do you remember what happened? a
nd, What’s the date today? and, Can you tell me who the prime minister is? Mrs McPherson lay with a half-smile on her face, nodding and sighing and looking off into the distance.
It occurred to Helen that Mrs McPherson might not be capable of answering these questions at the best of times—and it seemed that everyone else had the same notion, because nobody pressed the issue.
Perhaps a cup of strong black coffee? said Mrs Parker, but there was no coffee in the house—Helen’s father had not approved of it.
Mrs McPherson was brought a cup of tea, and she drank it, and eventually rose quite gracefully from the couch and walked in a skating sort of way to the front door, and left.
The priest went soon afterwards, and then it was just the Parkers. Mrs Parker took Helen’s mother by the shoulders and said, Now, you are going to go upstairs and lie down. Helen and I will do the dishes.
Helen’s mother, surprisingly, allowed this. Mrs Parker went up with her, and Helen had a vision of her mother being helped into her white nightdress and having her knot of hair undone and plaited for her. She pictured her mother lying in bed like a child, being tucked in.
Mr Parker went out to his car and returned with a newspaper, and settled on the couch. Mrs Parker reappeared, and she and Helen went into the kitchen, where Mrs Parker washed and Helen dried and put away.
You wouldn’t remember, said Mrs Parker, but Mrs McPherson wasn’t always like that. She had a husband, a builder, he fell from a roof. Your father was called out. His back was broken, Mr McPherson. Lay in bed, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move his arms or legs. There’s a word for it.
Quadriplegic, said Helen.
Yes, said Mrs Parker. Well, he died, eventually—there were more things wrong than the broken back. She shook her head. A terrible mess. She looked at Helen. She was a small woman, with large breasts so firmly strapped in that they looked as if you could rap your knuckles on them. We can’t know what it’s like, she said, you and I, to be without someone you have come to depend on. She puffed out her cheeks and made a weaving motion with her head. What am I trying to get at here? What am I trying to say to you? Ah! She nodded, and narrowed her eyes. I don’t think your mother is going to go to pieces, Helen. But I think she will seem different, from now on, to us. She will in fact become a different person. Do you understand?
Helen nodded, but she didn’t understand.
Helen’s mother, as far as Helen could tell, did not become a different person. Not at first, anyway. She appeared to go on being the same person, living her life in service to Helen’s father, as if he had not died but gone away for a while, and would return. The surgery was shut down, but Helen’s mother continued to live in the house. It was not clear what she did in there all day.
Mrs Parker somehow acquired Helen’s phone number and began to ring her up, not often, as long-distance calls were expensive, but perhaps every few weeks.
She’s cut herself off, said Mrs Parker. I keep inviting her to things but she doesn’t want to come.
Oh, said Helen.
It’s a worry, said Mrs Parker. I think she should be getting out more, seeing people.
Yes, said Helen.
In another call Mrs Parker said, I think I’m beginning to be a nuisance to her. Yesterday she didn’t answer the door, but I knew she was there—I think she was hiding from me!
Oh, said Helen.
Do you think you should come? There’s only so much I can do.
Really? said Helen.
Well, you are her daughter, said Mrs Parker.
Helen sighed. I’m not sure I’d be welcome, she said.
Helen was certain that the sense of relief she’d felt when she finally left home for boarding school had been shared by her parents. The house behind the surgery had, she was sure, only ever been meant for two—she had been an appendage which they’d tolerated, and it had seemed right that she should, when the time came, remove herself and leave them alone.
When Helen called, her mother sounded the same as she always had, which was quiet and unforthcoming, and uninterested in Helen and John and their children. There was even the same very subtle tone of irritation, as if Helen was interrupting something.
How are you? said Helen.
Well, thank you, said her mother.
At this point, when Helen’s father had been alive, Helen’s mother would say something like, Your father has been very busy, or, Your father has had a cold, or, Your father’s had to cut the lemon tree down because it was full of borer. But now she didn’t say anything more, she just stopped.
What have you been doing? said Helen.
Washing the shelves in the supply room, her mother might say, or, Making marmalade, or, Tying up the runner beans.
Nothing seemed to have altered, other than that Helen’s father was no longer there. During these exchanges Helen felt the way she always had during phone calls with her mother, which was claustrophobic and agitated. Afterwards she would go to the fridge and drink milk straight from the bottle, or get a knife and cut a small chunk of butter and put it, salty and slippery, on her tongue, or open the jar of muesli and pick out fat, sticky raisins, or find John and slide her hands up under his shirt, or if she came across one of the girls, ply her round cheek with smacking kisses, take her compact little body onto her lap and squeeze it.
Nothing had changed, and Helen was still rushing headlong through her life—her adult life, which was never supposed to have had her parents in it—but there was a tiny little thing that sometimes came flitting in at her from far off to one side of her consciousness. It was to do with what Mrs Parker had said at the wake, about her mother being proud of her.
It was Mrs Parker who rang to tell Helen that her mother had ‘taken a turn’, and was in the hospital. This was three and a half years after Helen’s father’s death.
Helen had not done as Mrs Parker suggested and gone to visit her mother—since the funeral she had not visited at all, and Helen’s mother had not visited her. They spoke on the phone every few weeks, and the phone calls always took that same course, with Helen making unrequited enquiries and receiving brief and reluctant-seeming domestic reports. At Christmas Helen’s mother always claimed that she had ‘people’ coming, and would be terse when Helen rang, excusing herself as quickly as possible, saying she must get back to the pudding, or the mince pies, or the ‘bird’ that was in the oven.
Mrs Parker must have given up on Helen, because her phone calls had petered out within a year of Helen’s father’s death. Helen didn’t know if Mrs Parker had also given up on Helen’s mother.
She’s taken a turn, said Mrs Parker now, over the phone.
Oh, said Helen. Is it her heart, or … ?
It’s a turn, Helen, said Mrs Parker meaningfully.
A turn, repeated Helen, failing to understand. So do you think I need to … Should I … ?
You will need to come, yes.
When Helen arrived at the hospital Mrs Parker was there. Helen’s mother and Mrs Parker were sitting side by side on two chairs in a private room. The bed lay empty, its sheet tucked smoothly in.
Why aren’t you in the bed? said Helen to her mother.
Helen’s mother did not respond, and did not look up.
She won’t get into the bed, said Mrs Parker. Will you, you silly thing? As she said this Mrs Parker put her hand over Helen’s mother’s, and gave it a couple of light, almost playful pats.
Then Helen’s mother said, in a strange, girlish voice, We’re going to learn three dances, and Helen understood at once what had happened. A number of things that she had been holding at bay came slopping down onto her—things that her mother had said, over the phone, during the preceding six months: that she was bottling peaches from the tree; that she needed to go and wash her red crepe dress; that Eileen Mackie had come to stay. But there wasn’t a peach tree in the garden of the house behind the surgery, and Helen had never seen any sign of a red crepe dress, and Eileen Mackie—Helen remembered now, although she hadn’t a
t the time of the phone call—was not even a friend of Helen’s mother’s, but a moderately famous singer who had occasionally given recitals in the town, long ago, when Helen was a small child.
We’re going to learn the waltz, said her mother, in her new, strange, lisping voice, and the foxtrot. And there’s another one …
Helen thought that she might be about to have diarrhoea. She sat on the end of the bed, clenching against the loose, watery feeling.
What is the other one? What is it? said Helen’s mother, her voice craven, whining, her head still lowered.
Never mind, murmured Mrs Parker.
Helen organised for her mother to go into a home. She and Mrs Parker cleared out the house behind the surgery, finding shoes in the oven and biscuits under the mattresses, and, on the desk that still stood in Helen’s father’s old consulting room, a plate holding a mouldering fried egg, and a cup of tea that had grown a floating disc of rank-smelling green curd.
The house and surgery were sold, and the money was enough to pay for the home, for at least as long as it would take—which, as it turned out, wasn’t very long.
Helen did visit, now. Once a month she drove the three and a half hours, sat with her mother for forty minutes, and then drove back again. It would have been more practical to have chosen a nursing home in Melbourne, or at least somewhat closer to Melbourne. But Helen had not done this, and her justification was vague. It was so that her mother could be in familiar surroundings, she told John—but this didn’t make sense, since the inside of the nursing home was not familiar to Helen’s mother, and since once she was in it she did not leave, so never again encountered any of the parts of the town that had been known to her. When John questioned her further Helen said, at last, that she simply felt that her mother belonged in the country, in the town she’d lived in for more than fifty years, that it ‘felt right’ that she stay there. John pointed out that if you didn’t know where you were then you probably didn’t mind where you were, and said that it would be easier on everybody to have Helen’s mother closer. Helen would not be swayed. She belongs there, she said. What she really meant—and she did admit this, but only to herself—was that her mother belonged away from her. That the two of them must be kept, cleanly, apart.