Lois looked scornful and unconvinced by that argument. Undaunted, Ginger went on, ‘Don’t look at me like that! My ma had nothing. She had so many children and the last one killed her. I couldn’t risk ending up like her. I just couldn’t, Lois. My poor ma – she resembled an old woman, even in her twenties. She had nothing! I didn’t want that life for myself. You’ve no idea how unmarried women were treated back then. Spat at in the street, treated like filth. You think there are easy answers for why people do terrible things, but there aren’t. The war changed everything. Times were hard and people grew harder to match them. That was the reality of life – it wasn’t like some glamorous old-fashioned black and white film. Not in Surry Hills it wasn’t, anyway.’
Ginger stopped, and sighed. ‘Lois, I can’t give you an answer that will make up for it. I can’t take back the past, but I can try to change the present and the future.’ She indicated baby Rupert. ‘Can’t you see this new grandson of yours as a bridge that might help us to connect?’ she pleaded. The two women locked eyes.
‘No,’ Lois snarled. ‘How dare you try to use this little baby like that, to wipe out what you did. You abandoned me, Ginger. You lied to me. Don’t go holding your breath waiting for me to forgive you. All your excuses mean nothing. Where were you when your granddaughter was born? Trying to advance some pathetic acting career? And now you want to use my daughter to advance your failed career. Go to hell!’
Elizabeth studied the hands of the two women as each gripped the edge of her son’s crib. Their expressions and profiles were almost identical as they glared at each other. She had never seen her mother so angry, so animated – and so alive.
‘I won’t give up on you, Lois,’ Ginger said. ‘You’re going to be proud of me, you’ll see. I’m an inspiration for older women. I’m going to be in Playboy.’
Lois made a disgusted sound and Ginger quickly continued, ‘I’m sorry, I was just trying to lighten the mood – I’m not good at this sort of thing. Please, don’t turn your back on me now, Lois. Not with Rupert Junior as witness. Give me a chance to make amends. If you can’t bring yourself to forgive me, think of Elizabeth. Now she has a little baby, she needs you more than ever. Don’t repeat my mistake. Every time I’ve shut my eyes over the years I’ve seen your face and wondered what you looked like. You’ve haunted me more than any other memory of Currawong Manor. And here you are now – all grown up, and looking at me with my ma’s eyes like when she was disappointed in me, as if I’m a lost cause. I know I deserve it, Lois! But forgive me for Elizabeth’s sake, I beg you.’
As if sensing that Lois was beginning to weaken, Ginger went on with renewed determination. ‘And I’m going to be in your daughter’s beautiful book – just wait until you see her nudes of me in that. They’re very arty and tastefully shot. You’ll be so proud of your mother! And Rupert Senior’s work will be re-evaluated and the Flowers’ contribution to art will be taken more seriously. I’ll make you proud of me, Lois! I won’t give up on you. You can push me away as much as you like, but I’m going nowhere this time!’
Lois’s eyes were blazing. ‘For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt unloved and unwanted! Passed around like some parcel nobody cared for. You’ve not only ruined my life, but you damaged the relationship I might have had with Elizabeth! It was impossible for me to love her in the way she deserved. I was too afraid to let her into my heart. You’ve spent your life selfishly looking after number one, Ginger! Don’t think a few letters can reconcile us now.’
‘Mum, listen to her. Give her a chance,’ Elizabeth pleaded, choked up by her mother’s startling admission of her own failings. ‘I love you, Mum. You may not have been perfect, but I understood why. Please show Ginger the same forgiveness. Don’t push her away.’
Ginger spoke up, her voice trembling. ‘It’s alright, Elizabeth. I can take it. And I know I deserve your fury, Lois, but I’m not going anywhere, my darling daughter.’ She shrugged off Pip, who had stepped forward to take her arm, attempting to calm her. ‘So many times over the years I thought of trying to contact you, but I was afraid of disrupting any peace you might have found with your adopted family. I didn’t think I deserved to find you and try to explain about your birth. I told myself I had to pay the penalty for giving you up. I’m not making the same mistake again. I love you, and I’m damned if I’m going to leave this world without you knowing how much I wanted you with me. I’ve never stopped thinking of you over the years. I’ve seen your face first thing every morning and last thing at night. I was never able to look at young girls in the street because the pain was like a knife. If I’m damned to hell for what I did back in the forties, no punishment could be more severe than having to go through life without you. I made a terrible mistake and I’ve paid for it. Don’t push me away, my daughter, I beg you.’
‘Don’t hold your breath, and don’t you dare call yourself my mother,’ Lois repeated.
The air around the two women seemed filled with angry ghosts. But Elizabeth noticed with a tiny flicker of hope that despite her mother’s evident rage, neither woman moved away from Rupert’s crib.
33
The Peppermint Tree
Glebe, Sydney, April 2004
Lois opened the car door, glancing at Elizabeth with an exasperated expression as Ginger fumbled with her belt. Both women had to resist the impulse to assist her, knowing she would only snap that she wasn’t so senile she couldn’t undo a seatbelt by herself. Pip’s unexpected death in the winter of 2003 had sapped her of her past vitality, and nine months later she hadn’t bounced back. She was happiest when reflecting on the past, and in particular her time at Currawong Manor.
After years of tentative requests and suggestions from Elizabeth, Ginger had finally decided to visit Wanda in her nursing home in Glebe. Previously she had displayed no interest when Elizabeth asked if she would accompany her on a research visit for the book. At the time, Elizabeth hadn’t pressed the point. Nursing homes were anathema to her grandmother, who believed the worst manifestations of old age would somehow be transmitted if she even entered one.
‘I’ll just come in with you to the desk,’ Lois offered, but Ginger shook her head in her usual stubborn manner.
‘No need,’ she barked. ‘I can deal with a few nursing sisters. Stop fussing and go and enjoy the gardens with Elizabeth.’
‘Do you have to be so pig-headed?’ Lois said. ‘Can’t you let someone help you for a change?’
Ginger gripped the crutches Elizabeth had retrieved from the boot. ‘I’m perfectly capable of seeing Wanda by myself. I don’t need either of you gawking. I’m only on crutches, and I don’t want the pair of you acting as if I’m some infirm old fart – anyway, how do I know you won’t try to sign me into this bloody place while I’m here?’ She waved one crutch at the admissions office of the Tudor-style brick facade of the Peppermint Tree Aged-Care Nursing Home. Several large peppermint and paperbark trees flanked the driveway. Nurses were wheeling or walking residents in the gardens, and some of the residents were tending to small plots at the side of the home.
‘Bloody place gives me the horrors just looking at it,’ Ginger muttered. ‘It’s a holding pen, that’s what it is. A hostel for people waiting to die.’
‘Shh,’ Lois said warningly as two passing staff glanced in their direction. ‘Don’t be such a drama queen. It’s a beautiful home, with a good reputation and superb gardens. It doesn’t just cater for geriatrics, there’re also young people here with different conditions, like multiple sclerosis. Believe it or not, there’s a long waiting list of people wanting to come here.’
‘We’ll just come in for a few minutes until you sort out where she is,’ Elizabeth offered, hoping the pair of them wouldn’t start squabbling. She had already had to endure them fighting on the drive over. Lois had wanted to play Andrea Bocelli in the car, but Ginger insisted there was no decent music past the forties. Over the last few years Elizabeth had become accustomed to her role as peacemaker to her mother and grandmother.
Lois and Ginger would bicker over whether black was white. They were more alike than either would care to admit, and both enjoyed an argument. But Lois, although she did everything she could for her mother on a practical level, still remained bitter over how Ginger had taken so long to admit the truth of her parentage. Lately, too, she had been constantly on edge about the upcoming movie of Flowers of the Ruins, and how Ginger was going to be portrayed.
‘Leave it,’ Lois said to her daughter now. ‘If she wants to do it all herself, let her. If you fall over again, you can stay here,’ she warned her mother, who made a face at her tone of voice. ‘Come on, Elizabeth. We’ll go and have some lunch while we’re waiting. You may as well enjoy your Rupert-free time. Ginger, will you call us when you’re through?’
Ginger nodded, and without glancing back at her daughter or granddaughter, began slowly navigating her way up the small flight of steps towards the grey-painted door.
‘Thanks for dropping your lives and bringing me here today on my latest wild-goose chase,’ Lois said under her breath. ‘Christ, she’s maddening. I honestly don’t know why we bother with Lady Muck. I can’t stand the way she expects everyone to run around after her.’
‘Come on, Mum. Let’s go find a table so I can call the childcare centre and see how Rupert is faring. I’ll shout you lunch.’ Elizabeth grabbed her mother’s arm before Lois worked herself up again. ‘You know Ginger, she’s at her spikiest when she’s anxious over something. The thought of seeing Wanda again in this place has got to her. She’s a total control freak and can’t stand it if she’s not running the show. The crutches are driving her mad.’
‘What’s her excuse the rest of the time, then?’ Lois grumbled, but allowed her daughter to lead her into the gardens.
***
Ginger paused at the top of the stairs, feeling her heart beating uncomfortably hard. Once she could have skipped up those stairs without a second’s pause. Now she spent most of her waking hours having to navigate everything with frustrating slowness for fear she would fall again. She could almost feel her spindly, fragile bones ready to crack if she put any pressure on them. She was falling to pieces from within, crumbling slowly and silently to dust.
Ginger watched Lois and Elizabeth disappear behind the stone gate leading to the garden cafeteria. Already she regretted her harsh tone to them, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She felt so prickly, defensive and angry these days. Life, as well as her old brittle bones, was collapsing on her. Pip had been able to pick her up from her self-pity and make her laugh at herself. Since his death, Ginger had found it more difficult to cope. Rather than abating as the months went by, her grief seemed to have intensified. They’d had a lot of laughs and had been busy planning their cruise to Antarctica on the Orion when he had had his heart attack. Life just wasn’t as much fun without a man around. Three-year-old Rupert Junior was the only person who made her heart sing these days. With him, she could have a laugh and get a cuddle. Men were always easier than women, no matter what their age! As much as she loved spending time with Lois and Elizabeth, it wasn’t a harmonious relationship with either woman. She was often abrasive with Lois because she felt so damned guilty, and there was so much tension between the three of them that nobody could ever fully relax.
The middle-aged secretary at the reception desk had cropped silver hair and a soothing manner. The sudden manifestation of an elderly red-haired woman with full make-up, including false eyelashes, and wearing a bright yellow top with a turquoise scarf, didn’t appear to faze her one jot, although visitors and other staff had turned to stare.
Ginger was used to attracting attention wherever she went. Even now, people asked to photograph her whenever she appeared in public. Some of them had recognised ‘the Ginger Flower’, especially since the publicity the Playboy cover had generated. Others just loved her sassy style. Right now, though, she was oblivious to the smiles and turning heads. She felt apprehensive of witnessing Wanda’s condition. The nursing staff had informed her over the phone that Wanda had recently had a mild stroke and that her worsening dementia would make it unlikely that she would recognise Ginger. Would Wanda be nothing but a wrinkled, saggy, drooling shell?
With a feeling of dread, she followed the receptionist’s instructions and made her laborious way through the maze of disinfectant-smelling corridors. The Peppermint Tree home was every bit as lovely as its glossy brochures boasted, but the smell lingering in the air affected Ginger terribly – a very un-minty odour of regret, failed dreams, loss, fear and pain mingling with pine-scented cleaning products. The few residents she saw through open doorways, shambling along corridors on walking frames or escorted by nurses or relatives made her spirits plummet further. Is this what life led you to? These dribbling, twisted and broken old bodies? Many of the people she saw were sitting in their pyjamas, as if even getting dressed was too much of an effort. She prayed she wouldn’t find Wanda perched on a bedpan in a flannelette nightie.
Ginger finally located the pleasant, light-filled common room where she had been told she’d find Wanda. She paused at the doorway watching a couple of schoolgirls leading dogs around for the residents to stroke. Several of the old people were patting the dogs, and one old lady was openly sobbing as she clutched a young girl’s hand. A few other residents were squabbling over a chess game, and a couple of women sat knitting peacefully side by side. Nursing aides handed out refreshments from a trolley.
Slumped in a chair, awaiting her turn to pat a dog, was Wanda. Ginger’s breath caught painfully in her chest. She hadn’t expected to recognise her old friend immediately. Yes, she was wrinkled and infirm, but her lined face was still beautiful despite the stark evidence of age upon her. The nurses had made an effort with her clothes and hair: a fake frangipani was pinned to her silver-grey locks and she was wearing a pink cardigan with a string of fake pearl beads and pink lipstick. Once Wanda would have despised that shade, but it was still reassuring to see that she was being so well cared for. The dog was now led to stand in front of Wanda’s seat. She made no move to pat it but seemed to enjoy looking at its cheerful, panting face.
Ginger made her way across the crowded room, moving carefully on her crutches. She was surprised to discover how emotional she felt, but she understood where it came from. Wanda was the final link to Currawong Manor. She was a living part of Australian art history, and yet she was condemned to spend the remainder of her days trapped in her own body, wearing the wrong shade of lipstick. Ginger wanted to scream at the unfairness of life that brought people to holding pens like this.
‘Hello, Wanda,’ she said when she reached the old woman’s chair. ‘It’s Ginger, Wanda. Do you remember me? It’s Ginger Flower.’
Wanda stared straight through her, her pink mouth working away as if she was chewing something.
‘Ginger, from Currawong Manor,’ Ginger repeated, already knowing it was hopeless. Wanda’s house was vacant. Where had the feisty, sparkling, sneering temptress Wanda gone? Did old age have to be this cruel?
Ginger sighed and sat down awkwardly on a neighbouring chair. One crutch fell over and a nurse retrieved it for her. She looked around her, depressed by the stagnant atmosphere in the room. Puppies were all well and good but this place needed cheering up, it needed some razzle-dazzle! She spotted a piano in the corner and an idea came to her, inspired in part by her recent argument with Lois on the drive over.
She addressed an assistant who was preparing a tepid beaker of cocoa for Wanda. ‘Does anyone play that piano?’
‘A retired music teacher comes in once a week to play a few tunes for them. Her mother is a resident here. The older people love hearing the old tunes.’ The young girl tied a large bib around Wanda’s neck. ‘Come on, Wanda, dear, drink it all up, love. Then you can chat with your visitor.’
Ginger thought she would weep at the sight of Wanda being fed like a baby. For several minutes she sat and studied the piano through narrowed eyes, blinking back angry tears, unable to witness the humiliati
ng sight.
‘The monkey.’
The creaky old voice startled her. The assistant had moved on to feed her next large, wrinkled baby, and when Ginger glanced back at Wanda she was thankful to see she no longer wore her bib.
‘He liked you posing with the dirty monkey,’ Wanda said, still chewing.
Ginger nodded, tears coming to her eyes for a second. ‘Yes, my dear.’ She sighed. ‘He certainly did. He was always fond of that rotten monkey. Poor old Rupert. He never let me forget how I’d insulted him when we first met.’
As Ginger leant over and touched Wanda’s hand, the old woman looked through her with mild curiosity. ‘He was a wonderful man, wasn’t he?’ Ginger said, then added, ‘Next time I visit, I’ll bring you a tube of Chanel lipstick in a nice orange-red shade like the one you used to wear. You’ll love it,’ she promised, rubbing Wanda’s wrinkled hand. Wanda gave no response, and the moment of recognition seemed to have passed. It didn’t return for the rest of Ginger’s visit.
But her initial brief visit to the Peppermint Tree launched Ginger on her next and final career change. Through the home, she contacted the retired music teacher, whose name was Amity Blade. With the help of Elizabeth and Lois, who took turns running the pair around wherever they needed to go, Amity and Ginger created their act, ‘Ginger Flower Sings the Oldies and Goldies’. With regular performances in nursing homes around Sydney and the Blue Mountains, and a repertoire of classic songs such as ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’, ‘Stormy Weather’, ‘As Time Goes By’ and ‘I Remember It Well’, and a sprinkling of Edith Piaf, Ginger dazzled in an outrageous wardrobe of sparkly vintage evening gowns, charming residents and staff alike.
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