Wild Chicory

by Kim Kelly

  The first of the Boszko babies came along in February 1960 – that was Shane – and Tim came in a screaming hurry after him in November ’61. When Tim was born, Shane hit him over the head with a bottle of Johnsons baby powder, and things between them stayed fairly much that way from then on. Nell called them Whack and Wail. Diane and Dave only ever intended having the two, and as soon as Shane was in school and Tim in kindergarten, Diane went back to work herself, doing the accounts for Taubman’s paint in York Street, in town, because they let her knock off at three. Diane was a diligent planner – neatest handwriting of anyone on earth, that girl – and she’d put all her pay away as if she’d never got it, money they would use to take the kids travelling one day, to Ireland, to Poland, and to get a proper inside bathroom put into their old and rickety Marrickville house; maybe a swimming pool for the backyard, too. Diane always had a long view.

  She didn’t see her surprise coming, though. Luck of the Irish and Poles combined to send her an unexpected daughter, born in September 1966. Diane, in her ever-practical, get-what-you’re-given way, hadn’t even picked out a name.

  ‘Mum,’ she said, ‘why don’t you choose?’

  Nell had never felt so honoured in her life. She’d never seen such a pretty baby in her life, either, and she’d seen a lot of babies. This one had her mother’s wide blue wondering Kennedy eyes but her father’s dark hair, and his creamy skin that would tan in the summer. She looked like a little pixie plucked from a field of flowers on a hillside above Ballymacyarn. This one would be the last of her grandbabies, Nell O’Halligan had no doubt. There was only one name for her then, and that was Brigid Danielle – after Nell’s own mother and father and the place where she was born, the place where her own heart began.

  ‘Brigid.’ Diane nodded at her tiny daughter, and at the memory of her grandmother. To Diane, Brigid Kennedy had been a statuesque figure always in black, a capable woman, strong and stern – until she smiled, passing sweets under the table to anyone who was glum. Grandmother Kennedy had a laugh that was sparingly used, but when it was it shook the world. Diane Boszko smiled at her own mother now down this centuries’ long chain of love: ‘Brigid, it is.’

  And as that chain goes along and along, Nell often had cause to worry about all her daughters’ ways over the years. She thought Jeannie spoiled her Jane, Matt and Jason too much, always saying yes to them; she thought Carole gave her Sarah and Greg too many high-and-mighty ideas; she thought Beverley let her Brad, Jen and Karen spend too much time at the beach; she thought Diane was too hard on her Shane, Tim and Bridge, such high expectations of homework and minding manners. But Nell didn’t say anything to any of them in criticism. They were all doing their best, and their best was always better than any mistake they might have made. Most lovely of all, she would sometimes catch the look of wonder in Diane’s eyes when she looked at her young Brigid’s schoolwork, or the funny little stories she’d write on random pages in exercise books. Diane kept every scrap: folding all of it carefully into the Z pockets of her concertina family-document files, year after year.

  All the while, no matter where Nell went, whatever she might have on her dance card for the day, be it a sports match or a performance at one of their schools or shopping for uniform fabric in town, she’d make Stevie his sandwiches before he left for work. She made them out of pipe-loaf bread, the best white bread, roast beef and sweet pickle. These special loaves were made by the once-famous Abbco bakery, but as the years rolled on they fell out of fashion; you couldn’t get them at any general grocers, only at certain shops, and Nell went all the way to Town Hall station twice weekly to get her supply for Stevie’s lunch. Circle sandwiches, one of the grandchildren once called them, she’d forgotten which one, but circles they surely were: circle after circle of unbroken devotion.

  And every morning still, Stevie O’Halligan kissed his wife when he left for the day; he kissed her again in the evenings, when he returned. Stevie and Nell never made any great pile of money, they never bought a house or a car – they missed that boat, Stevie would always say, and always with a wink. He never went past doing the accounts for the Dairy Co-op at the Fairfield warehouse; it was a safe job, and safety was all he wanted, after the things he’d seen of life’s privations and cruelties. The highest up the ladder the O’Halligans ever went was to be the first in their little Petersham block of flats to get the phone put on, back in 1949, and that was all for safety, too. Humble they might have been, but their family never went without. Love. Food. Laughter. The comfort of a warm heart on a cold day: what else is there?

  When Stevie was getting ready to retire, what little pile of money they had they used to build a small flat over the back of Diane and Dave’s in Marrickville, in 1973. It was good for everyone, all round – especially Diane, for she could work until five pm now that she would have unhired help at home in the form of her mum. Marrickville was a bit of a shock at first, with all the Greeks and Italians having moved in there, but Nell soon discovered a liking for veal scaloppini at Papa’s Italian Bistro on the corner of Illawarra Road, and made friends with the Greek yia yia, Vicki Angelopoulos, next door.

  Stevie was seventy-two years old and still not quite retired at Christmas, 1975. He’d received a beautiful silver watch from the Co-op in anticipation of it, though. The new bookkeeper they had employed – a fellow called Terry Barnsley who was studying accountancy at night at university, and who Stevie had interviewed himself and recommended to the board as a bright young bloke – couldn’t cope if ever it got busy. The place would be in a mess in five minutes, with suppliers unpaid, and deliveries delayed. Stevie was beginning to think he’d backed the wrong horse – his heart had always been soft, but maybe his mind was getting soft, too. This young fellow had seemed keen to get ahead, but maybe he was too keen to do that without too much actual working.

  As it was, it meant Stevie was back at the job straight after Christmas, on December thirtieth, to rescue Terry from himself when the orders rushed in between the public holidays.

  For the first time ever, as he got ready that morning, he wondered if he could be bothered. The earth wouldn’t stop turning if he didn’t go in. The lad would just have to learn to stand up to the job.

  He sighed as Nell handed him his lunch bag, packed with his sandwich and a peach, today. He kissed her as he always did, and winked as he’d wink a hundred times: ‘I’m not going to do this again.’

  Nell laughed – at him. She said at the door: ‘Take your raincoat – it’s going to rain.’

  He shook his head. ‘I won’t shrink if it does. See you about seven, I’d say.’

  It started raining at about eleven that morning and it rained on and on nonstop all day. Unlike the usual summer rain, which came in crashing, evening bursts, this was more like a midwinter drizzle. It was oddly chilly, too. Nell had felt her spirits dampen with the weather, and although she’d meant to pay a visit to her brother Dom, who was nearing eighty, half-deaf and fading fast, she couldn’t imagine getting on the train and going all the way to his house in Epping. She’d felt stuck to her chair in the kitchen, and all day her head ran through with morbid thoughts. Five of her brothers were gone now – in order of disappearance, Pat, Mick, Dan, Chris and Frank; two of her friends from mass had died in the last month, too. She lit yet another cigarette, as if it might push death away.

  It was nearing six o’clock, and she felt her stomach churning over and over, round and round – nothing, she told herself. I’m a silly old woman. Steve’ll be home in an hour or so. In between the decades of her rosary meditations, round and round prayers for each of her babies, she concentrated on letting the sound of her husband’s laughter run through her mind. She smiled at a memory of Christmas just gone: over a beer, he and Leon had been discussing the fors and againsts of communism, and when Stevie had wondered if Gough Whitlam’s trouble had been that he went too far or didn’t go far enough in making laws fairer for ordinary people, Leon had replied that Gough Whitlam wouldn’t know com
munism if it confiscated his silver spoon. Stevie, who always seemed tuned in to Leon’s jokes, laughed so hard at that one, the sound seemed suddenly now to fill the room.

  Only to fall as suddenly quiet once more. She listened to the rain hitting the window. She listened to her grandsons Shane and Tim knock something over downstairs – possibly one of the dining chairs. Little Brigid shrieked out: ‘Stop it!’

  Diane must have been busy somewhere else in the house, so Nell got up to investigate. Halfway down the stairs, she heard a knock at the door.

  Then she heard Diane open it.

  As Nell stepped into the hall at the foot of the stairs, she saw the policeman standing there, asking her daughter: ‘Is Mrs Ellen O’Halligan here?’

  IRISH COFFEE

  I wake up with the afternoon sun making a hot line of light across my face, and I’m confused for a minute. I’ve fallen asleep on the sofa, and I didn’t realise I had. My pen has stuck to the side of my face. I didn’t get very far with my story, I know that. My book has fallen down the side of the sofa, between the cushions, and I pick it up to see I’ve only drawn a peacock feather on it, while I was thinking about what to write. I’ve done the floaty, stringy bits of the feather in green ink, and a little circle of red at the top, waiting to be coloured in blue. My pen is a clicker pen with the four colours – red, green, black and blue – and the blue has run out. I’d like another one, but they’re expensive. Grandma would get me one, if she knew I needed it, but I don’t want to ask her for a silly thing like that, not today. She won’t want to go to the newsagents now anyway. I’ll ask to borrow her blue pen, later.

  She’s still sitting in her chair, on her side of the table in the kitchen. I don’t have to look up and turn around to check she’s there. I can see her cigarette smoke swirling through the air: it always swirls along in the same direction, from the kitchen across the sofa and towards the radiogram, which sits by the door that leads out to the back steps that go down into the yard. Granddad’s door. He’d always leave and come home by that door, never the front door downstairs. I’m only nine, but I know Grandma is waiting for him now. It makes me want to cry, but I know I should never do that.

  Maybe we should watch some TV. Yes – that’s a good idea. I should ask Grandma if she wants to watch Columbo, the detective show – there’ve been repeats on at half past three every afternoon all week, I’ve checked the guide in the paper. It’s one of my favourite things to do with Grandma, just us, watching her grown-up TV shows, while Mum’s still at work in town. ‘Don’t tell your mother I let you,’ Grandma says as she pulls me to her whenever she lets me have a sneaky look in the holidays. Mum doesn’t let me watch commercial TV – not because of the shows, but because of the ads. She doesn’t want them getting into my head to rot my brain. I don’t watch the commercials, or the shows that much, anyway. I never get the clues and guess the murderer in Columbo – the stories are always much more complicated than my Nancy Drew mysteries, and you don’t get a chance to read back over things to see where you are – but I listen to the sounds Grandma’s stomach makes as we snuggle on the sofa together. It’s always talking, her stomach: it’s never still or quiet. I’m still not sure if I should interrupt her now, though. She puffs out her cigarette smoke with a swoosh that sounds like she’s angry, but it’s only her concentrating sound. The sound she makes if she’s puzzling over a new sewing pattern, or the cryptic crossword.

  But now I look behind me, over the armrest of the sofa, and under the edge of the tablecloth I see the crucifix of Grandma’s rosary swinging against her pink skirt, as she pinches and pushes the beads through her hand with her thumb.

  There’s something not right about this. I don’t know what it is. She’s going too fast through her prayers, she is pinching the beads too hard, like she really is angry. I sit up now. I don’t blame her that she’s angry, she must be angry, but you can’t be angry when you are saying your rosary. It’s not right. You’re supposed to be contemplating the Blessed Mysteries – the Joyful Mystery, the Sorrowful Mystery, the Glorious Mystery, and the Luminous Mystery. I don’t even know what those mysteries are yet, but I know if you’re angry, you spoil the whole thing – that’s what Grandma has told me herself, as well as Sister Gabriel at school, who knows everything. Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. It’s supposed to bring you peace and soothe your worried mind. But Grandma is so angry, she doesn’t even notice me stand up right in front of her now.

  I notice she’s washed up our lunch things and made her coffee – she always makes a cup of Instant Café at four o’clock – but she’s left it on the side of the sink to go cold. This is wrong. She’s still staring and staring out the window, towards town. Just staring, staring, staring, over the yard and out at the city. I have to find a question to ask her, something to make her look at me. Her lips are pressed together too tight as she keeps pushing and pinching at the beads in her lap. She’s frightening me. I have so many questions going around and around in me. Where has Granddad gone? Does heaven really exist? What is a stroke? Did Granddad slip and hit his head in the rain? Is that what hurt him? But I can’t ask any of these questions that might only make her sadder. Angrier.

  Instead, I look at the coffee again. Maybe I should make her a fresh one. Or a whiskey. She always has her coffee at four o’clock, but she always has a whiskey at six – she lets me suck the peppery ice cubes when she’s finished. Grandma loves her evening whiskey; just the one. Her little silver nip measure sits by the biscuit tin on the kitchen bench; the whiskey is at the top of the tall cupboard next to it. Maybe she’d like an Irish coffee; Mum sometimes has one of them after dinner – that’s black coffee with whiskey in it, topped with a dollop of cream. But I don’t know how to make it, not really – Mum’s coffee is proper coffee, whatever that is, made in a pot on the stove, somehow. I don’t even know how to make an everyday Instant Café from the tin. And that makes me want to cry again. I can’t do that.

  ‘Grandma.’ Her name smashes from me like I’ve dropped a plate, and I ask her: ‘Can you show me how to make a coffee?’

  For one horrible second I think she can’t hear me, that she’s really gone somewhere very far away, but then slowly she turns her head and she sees me. Her big blue eyes look at me like she didn’t catch what I said, but then she asks me: ‘Coffee? Why do you want to make a coffee? That’s not for little girls.’

  I point to the cup on the sink: ‘Your coffee. I thought it might be cold sitting there. Do you want me to make another one for you?’

  ‘Oh?’ She looks at the cup there, too. She says: ‘I’d forgotten I’d made that at all. I’m getting old.’

  ‘Can I help make another one?’ I ask her, and I beg her with my own eyes: you’re not old. You’re beautiful – more beautiful than anyone else’s grandma. When I grow up I’m going to dye my hair the same colour as yours. Grandma turned seventy on New Year’s Day; we didn’t have cake or presents, but I love the shape of that number – I hid my drawing of it inside my Scooby-Doo colouring book.

  And she looks at me with a little frown, but with a small smile, too: ‘I suppose you can help me make a cup of coffee. You’re big enough that you should know how to pour hot water safely.’

  She puts her rosary back in the pocket of her skirt, and she puts the kettle back on, too, and as she moves around the kitchen, I keep trying to find more questions to ask, to keep that little smile coming back onto her face.

  ‘What’s coffee?’ I ask her next, picking up the tin of Instant Café. ‘The smell of it is so nice.’ And it really is.

  There’s a small smile in her voice now as she says: ‘I’m not sure how much of that is coffee. Coffee beans are very dear, but this stuff isn’t – you wouldn’t know what was in it.’

  ‘What would be in it if it’s not coffee?’ I keep up my asking.

  ‘Sawdust and nail filings,’ Grandma says, rinsing out the cup.

 
‘No. That’s not true.’ I know she’s pulling my leg. ‘What do they really put in it?’

  She looks across her shoulder at me and there’s even a little bit of a smile in her eyes as she says: ‘Chicory. During the war it was just about all chicory that went into coffee tins, but it’s probably got more coffee in it now than it did then.’

  I know not to ask about the war – I’ve been told that a hundred times, from Mum and Dad. If any of my grandparents mention it, you just shut up and listen and don’t ask any stupid questions. Granddad did something in the jungles in New Guinea, shooting at Japanese; Papa Leon went to prison for trying to blow up Germans in Warsaw, in Poland, but he got caught – that’s what Shane told me. So I ask Grandma next: ‘What’s chicory?’

  ‘Chicory? It’s a plant, with a tall, pretty blue flower and a great long root like a witch’s finger.’ She wriggles her finger at me and I can feel my smile like sunshine all over my face. She smiles back, a proper smile with all her wrinkles showing, and she tells me now: ‘They dry the roots and grind them up into a fine powder – the people who make chicory powder, that is, not the witches.’

  I laugh and she tells me more: ‘Once upon a time, your great-grandmother Brigid loved the stuff. Just plain chicory, mind you – no coffee at all. There was no such thing as pure coffee in Ireland back in those days. Only specks of coffee sprinkled into chicory – but mostly only plain old chicory. It came in a paper package, and it was always sitting above the stove in our cottage, on the farm, in Ballymacyarn – and it was a luxury in itself, imported from America. Mother Kennedy drank it every winter when I was a little girl. But it’s out of fashion now. Now, chicory is just a weed.’

  ‘What’s a weed?’ I ask her, and I’m only asking because I know it’s the stupidest question.

  ‘You’re a little weed.’ My grandmother plays along with me, and I’m so happy, I want to squeeze her to me round her pink skirt, to keep her with me.