Transformation of Minna Hargreaves, The

by Beale, Fleur

  And then they were gone.

  ‘What was that?’ Noah again — not sulky, not grumpy — but covered in bird shit which might not do much for his temper.

  I focused in on Dad. He wore a selection of bird shit globs too, but he was staring at the meat. I focused on that and started to laugh. ‘Behold! The great meat disaster of Isolation Island!’ I zoomed a shot along the line, taking in the straggly remnants that had survived the wind blast, and lingering on those that wore globs of bird shit. Not one paper cover remained.

  I jumped up and walked the length of the line. ‘Nine pieces left intact and without decorations,’ I said. ‘You want to keep them, Dad?’

  I got a great shot of his face — fed up, disbelieving but then he let loose one of his rip-roaring belly laughs. That did it. All three of us ended up rolling on the ground laughing till our sides ached.

  Then we went inside, cleaned off the damage with water that must’ve just got a whole new sprinkling of bird shit and we cooked dinner together. Rice, tomato sauce and tinned fish. Not the best meal ever, but not the worst either.

  I didn’t tell Dad about the bread. I gave Mum a cup of tea and a water cracker. Another day down. Would Mum be well enough to travel tomorrow? Would we go home tomorrow? Not if that hell wind kept up.

  sixteen

  The hell wind still raged in the morning. Dad dug out an anemometer which he reckoned would tell us the wind speed. He held it in his hand out in the wind, the little arms on it whirred madly and the dial showed that we had a wind of 95 kilometres an hour.

  Dad and Noah couldn’t work outside; Dad had tried and it blew him flat. I wanted him to do it again so I could film it. He declined, but what do you know? — Noah said he would. We took off and left grumpy father in the house with sick mother. Maybe they’d talk to each other and maybe pigs would fly.

  Noah pointed to a spur halfway up the hill. ‘That’s where Dad bit the dust.’ I dropped behind, the camera trained on him as he jogged upwards, came out of the shelter of the spur — and wham! The wind knocked him sideways, flat on to the ground. He crawled back towards me, grinning. ‘Let’s make a land yacht. Man, it’d move!’ He stood up. ‘We can work on it today — in the shed.’ He gave the last word just a touch of emphasis. Aha! I’m not stupid, I could work out that it had to be the shed where I’d bashed his plants to pulp.

  We ran back to the house and I beat him because I was so excited about doing something different, getting away from the house and Mum lying there looking like death. Stupid me. Why did I think Dad would let me escape?

  He kept on washing the breakfast dishes, didn’t even pause. ‘No, Min, I’m sorry, but you have to stay here.’ A meaningful glance at Mum.

  ‘No way! If somebody’s got to stay, then it’s your turn or Noah’s.’ I headed for my room. I’d even put on the disgusting overalls — anything to get out of the house, to do something different.

  Dad’s voice hauled me up short. ‘Minna, you are to stay and look after your mother. End of story. No arguing.’

  I wheeled around, ignoring the whimpers from Mum’s direction. That’s what you think, Father dearest. ‘Why?’ I eyeballed him. ‘Explain to me just why that is fair. Why me and why not you or Noah.’ I stamped a foot, remembered the cameras, strove for calm and said, ‘You said we weren’t going back in time.’ Another deep breath. ‘Keeping me in the house just because of my gender is out there in old-time land, wouldn’t you say?’

  One thing I have learned in my fourteen-odd years of life is that if you’re a parent, you don’t have to fight fair.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘and that’s final.’

  He walked out, followed by Noah who grinned at me.

  I whirled around, snarled at Mum, ‘Don’t think I’m staying around to hold your hand. You dropped yourself — no, actually, make that you dropped us into this horror story, so lie there and enjoy it.’

  I didn’t look at her, tried not to listen to her as I left the room. Let her lie there with the cameras recording every last tear. Served her right.

  Boredom and the cold drove me out of my bedroom after what was probably only half an hour, but felt like a million half-hours.

  Mum was shivering. I fed the fire, filled her a hottie, got her a blanket. God, I was a good daughter and she’d better remember it for all the rest of the days of her life if either of us managed to survive this incarceration.

  I cooked — didn’t want to for a good number of excellent reasons, but (a) it gave me something to do, (b) I got hungry and (c), which I wasn’t about to broadcast to the entire nation, I got a buzz out of it. Minna Hargreaves was turning into a domestic goddess. Who would have thought it? Not Jax or Addy or me in my wildest dreams and I would never, ever admit it to Lizzie, not even if she threatened to cut off my hair with nail scissors. Seb would be impressed — a hot girlfriend who could cook. That had to be an attractive package.

  I made soup out of the dried stuff in the pantry which didn’t use up a lot of my time even though it took hours to cook. The smell upset Mum. I opened the sliding door. Cold, it seemed, was preferable to sick.

  Cooking gave me plenty of time for thinking and plotting. Bloody Dad was not going to get away with making me a prisoner and a slave. And he could bloody talk to me about The Situation. What, Why and How were things I’d like to know. I glanced at Mum and tried a How question on her. ‘Mum, how come you went off with another man?’

  A sigh and a twitch of the eyebrows doesn’t constitute a satisfactory answer in my opinion.

  I took her a cup of tea and tried a What question. ‘What’s going to happen when we get back home?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you, Min.’

  She drank a third of it then let the rest go cold and scummy — which was appropriate, cold and scummy being a good description of our island paradise.

  I ate soup and superior bread for lunch. Mum ate a teaspoonful and said it was good, a judgement I didn’t agree with, but she muttered, ‘Salt,’ and that cheered it up astonishingly.

  I gave up being snooty about the Edmonds book. I discovered you could make pudding out of rice and dried milk powder.

  Dad and Noah powered in all happy and charged up from their day of fun in the shed.

  ‘Have you finished the yacht?’ Dad would have to let me ride on it, and what a blast that would be.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Dad. ‘It’s going to take time.’

  Noah grinned at me. ‘Complicated. A girl wouldn’t understand.’

  I got my own back. He got less of the lunchtime soup than I did and I made sure he knew it. The pair of them chowed it down then shovelled in the rice delicacy.

  Dad: Excellent, Min. What a trooper you’ve turned out to be.

  Noah: Any more?

  ‘Thank you, Min.’ A whisper from Mum but she managed a whole tablespoonful. I grabbed some off Noah’s plate in case she felt like it again the next day, then I eyeballed Dad.

  ‘Dad, we need to discuss this whole, entire, sucky, stink pus-filled situation. Starting now.’

  He leapt up from the table as if he’d sat on at least three species of poisonous cacti. ‘Not now, Min. Time for the listening watch. Noah, do the dishes.’

  I wasn’t fooled, not for a second. ‘The watch isn’t for another ten minutes. But okay, afterwards will do just as well.’

  He yelled at Noah again to get him moving, glared at me and grunted, ‘I’ve said, no point in discussing anything till we get home.’

  I inhaled long and deep. ‘Dad — that’s the whole point — what’s going to happen when we get home? Who will live where and with whom?’ And I hoped my beloved English teacher would register my correct usage of whom. It didn’t impress Dad though.

  ‘Leave it, Min. There’s no point.’

  ‘There is a point,’ I said. ‘I want to discuss it. It’s important.’ I took myself over to where he sat at the radio and I prodded his shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise the shape of the tip of my index finge
r.

  He shook me off. ‘For Pete’s sake, Min. Accept it — there’s nothing to discuss. We’ll sort it out when we get back. Leave it.’

  ‘No!’ I hollered. ‘And while we’re at it, let’s talk about the miserable life you’re making me lead when there’s absolutely no good reason for it.’

  He shoved back the chair, stood up, said very calmly and patiently, ‘You can do the watch — I know you enjoy it.’ And wham! He was out the door and striding off into the windy darkness.

  Noah sat at the table and sniggered.

  Over the next couple of days nothing changed. Minna Hargreaves, prisoner of Isolation Island. Each night the pair of them came back to my home-cooked delicacies, including a pavlova that I had with huge patience whipped by hand, and reported that no, the yacht wasn’t finished yet but who would have thought that a purée of tinned peaches would be as good as cream on a pav? Well done, me.

  On the fourth day, the wind dropped and I put into action the plan I’d brewed during the days of wind. I ran out of the house before Dad and Noah had finished eating the toast made from more of my magnificent bread. ‘I’ve got food, I’ve got water and I’m not coming back all day,’ I yelled as I escaped.

  I had the camera too. I filmed a bucketload of stuff that would bore Cara to death — leaves, twigs, birdholes, trees, grass, weeds, etcetera, etcetera. I went to the shed and filmed every aspect of the yacht. Looked to me like it had old pram wheels. ‘I’m guessing it’s the sail that’s complicated,’ I told the camera. I panned over a variety of scrappy boards lying on the ground. ‘These would appear not to have worked.’

  After that excitement I spent hours lying on the grass in the sun thinking about Seb and about my friends. I thought too about The Situation. I’d tackle Dad again tonight — make him talk to me about what the hell was going to happen when we got off this jail. When I started thinking about school I figured it was time to get up and do some more filming.

  I only went back to the house when the sun dipped low enough to make the air too cool for comfort.

  Dad smiled at me when I came in. ‘Enjoy your holiday?’

  I sent him an I-can’t-believe-you’re-serious look. ‘What’s for dinner? I’m hungry.’ Which was a cunning repetition of how they greeted me each evening.

  But Dad just smiled again. ‘Egg foo yong, coleslaw made with our very own cabbage, and scones.’

  I ate and I was impressed. ‘Hey Dad — this is excellent. Let’s rotate duties — you know, take it in turns to stay in the house and …’

  ‘No,’ he said. End of conversation. End of smiles. ‘And keep an eye on the garden, Min. I’ve weeded it but you’ll need to do it regularly and keep it watered too.’

  I ignored him.

  ‘There’s a slug in the coleslaw,’ Noah said. ‘No — make that half a slug.’

  ‘What did you make for Mum?’ I asked, wishing I’d examined my coleslaw before I’d scoffed it down.

  Silence.

  ‘You didn’t make her anything?’ I asked. ‘Did you give her a cup of tea any time today?’

  ‘I did,’ Noah said. ‘She drank half of it.’

  I scraped back my chair, glared at the father person busy filling his face and said, ‘I can’t believe you! You belong in the ark and I hope you fall overboard and drown.’ I squatted beside Mum — lying on the sofa without a rug. ‘Want something?’

  ‘Piece of bread. Cut very thin. Thank you, Minna.’

  I cut the bread so thin it looked like lace. I made a cup of tea.

  ‘Thank you, Minna.’

  I helped her out to the facilities and then to bed. Dad ran water into the sink and ignored me. He looked around for Noah. Scarpered. Gone. Absent.

  ‘Dry these, will you, Min?’

  This, I decided was an admirable time for The Talk. I’d read several well-researched articles that said doing dishes together provided family bonding time. Accordingly I ambled across to the sink. ‘Dad — what’s going to happen when we leave here?’

  He wriggled his shoulders and splashed around in the suds. ‘We go back home.’

  ‘All of us? To 95 Tiber St?’

  A pile of cutlery hit the draining tray. ‘No. And get busy, Min. I’m running out of room here.’

  I swiped at a plate with a fairly grey tea towel. ‘So who will live where and with whom?’

  He snorted, or it might have been a water pipe spluttering. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll sort it out.’

  He was getting terse and snippy, but damn it, this was important. I dealt to another couple of plates and persevered. ‘That’s all very well for you to say. You can decide your own fate but we have to do what you say. Or Mum. Have you talked to Mum about it?’

  He let the water go, then turned a full-bodied glare on me. ‘There. Is. Nothing. To. Talk. About. Accept it, Min. You’re getting tiresome. Leave it.’

  ‘But Dad …’

  He cut across me. He gave me the full dose of calm and patient and a stronger dose of determined. ‘Watch this.’ He snatched a cup from the draining board and hurled it on to the concrete hearth surrounding the woodburner. It shattered into a million pieces. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is what your mother’s actions have done to our marriage. Now do you understand that it’s over? It can’t be glued back together— not with talking, not with patience. Nothing.’

  I thumped a hand flat on the bench in a puddle of water. Drips flew out and splashed him. ‘I’m not talking about your dumb marriage! I’m talking about the other stuff …’

  He wouldn’t let me finish. ‘There’s no other stuff we can decide right now. We’ll have to wait till we get home.’ He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘So leave it. Okay?’

  I pushed his hand away. ‘Why won’t you listen?’ I pointed a dripping hand at the shattered crockery. ‘That is what my heart feels like! Do you understand that’s what the pair of you are doing to me?’

  But he wouldn’t budge. ‘I’m sorry Min. I didn’t create this situation, remember. You’ll just have to learn to accept it.’

  I wiped the tea towel over the bench, over and over. ‘No. I won’t. I hate it. I hate you not even looking at her.’ Thump crash on the horrible red Formica. ‘I hate you not helping her when she’s so sick. I hate the way you turn down your mouth and say your mother like it was my fault she’s my mother and you had nothing to do with it.’ Thwack. The cloth hit the deck.

  Stalemate. What else did I expect?

  He just said, ‘I’m sorry about the your mother thing. I’ll refer to her by her name in future.’

  I gave up, turned away from the sink without finishing drying — and nearly walked smack-bang into Mum hanging on to the door frame. Tears dribbled down her face.

  The next day was back to normal — if you can call being stuck in a house with a sick mother normal. Dad, the yellow-bellied slug, got up extra early and left the house before I could pull another swifty on him. Noah slept or at least stayed in his room, making the most of Dad’s absence. I thought about disappearing but, really, there was no point because there was only more of the same to disappear to.

  So I did the chicken chores and the Mum chores and I cooked. I made eggs with cheese and spinach, which was silver beet, but Mum reckoned it would work.

  Not the greatest success as a meal, but Dad and Noah ate it and didn’t moan. I ate the eggs and tried not to wish it was the chicken I was eating. Izzie, Bizzie and all the rest — I couldn’t eat them, not even if somebody else chopped their heads off and pulled out all their feathers.

  I concocted some weird combinations. The menu for the second day of calm after the wind was stuffed baked potatoes and pancakes.

  I looked up at the camera. ‘See this, Gran Hargreaves? You’ll be so proud of me.’

  I thought about that and shook my head. ‘No, you won’t. You’ll say it’s about time I learned to look after myself — and your ditzy son.’ I shook a finger in the general direction of the camera. ‘And seeing we’re pulling each other’s reps to bits here
, let me tell you that I don’t think much of the way you brought up Dad.’ I stomped off to the big pantry to grab the spuds, dumped them in the sink and talked back to the camera. ‘People, Gran — that’s the important bit. Why didn’t you teach him how to talk to people? Like me? Huh?’

  Mum murmured from the sofa. ‘Don’t, Min. It won’t help.’

  ‘And what you did will?’ She winced like I’d chucked water in her face.

  Crap. But it served her right. I cooked her a magnificent mash of spud.

  I gave Mum the potato and watched her eat a teaspoonful. If only I could decide which one of them to be mad at it would help.

  No, it wouldn’t help. What would help would be knowing why and how come and who. And I might find all that out sometime in the next millennium, but probably not seeing as how Dad wouldn’t talk and Mum couldn’t hold a conversation longer than about five words.

  The next morning I had the bright idea of getting Mum out into the sunshine. I pulled the mattress off the window seat and dragged it out to the verandah. I had to help her lie down but she smiled and murmured, Lovely.’ Birds wandered up to her to investigate. A couple of little lizards raced around. ‘Better than telly,’ she whispered. ‘It’s good to look at the sea too.’

  I sat beside her and filmed the wildlife. When I got tired of that, I took one of Mum’s sheets of drawing paper and made a calendar.

  ‘How many days in August?’ I asked.

  ‘Thirty-one,’ she murmured.

  ‘Crap. Trust Dad to dump us here in a long month.’ I drew squares. I numbered them using every coloured pencil in Mum’s extensive collection. The things you do when there’s nothing else to do. ‘How long have we been here? Other than a hundred years already?’ But she didn’t know.

  I did the listening watch that evening. ‘Maritime R — what’s the day and what’s the date? I’m living in a timeless land.’

  Maritime R chuckled. ‘Minna on Motutoka, you are so lucky. Today is Saturday, twelfth of August.’

  I coloured in twelve squares. ‘This,’ I said, giving the camera a chirpy grin, ‘will be another daily task. It will not do to lose track of the days.’