It would usually be Simon who would first say that he’d had enough. That we should get home.
And do what? I would ask.
Have something to eat, he would answer.
I would look at him.
Stale wholemeal bread, cheese and a few limp radishes in the fridge. Compared to the next-door neighbours’ biscuits and cake, it was hardly enticing.
Pulling at a few sweet-smelling twists of jasmine, honey-tipped nasturtiums and daisies, I would start picking flowers for Mrs Hastings.
And Simon would help.
Roses, geraniums, marigolds; we would raid each of the gardens leading down the hill to her front door, until by the time we let ourselves in through her gate, our hands were filled with an extraordinary array of colours.
Mrs Hastings lived on her own. I do not know what happened to her husband. Perhaps he died, perhaps they were divorced. She seemed old to us, terribly old, but now I realise she must have only been in her fifties.
We did like her. And the very first time we took her flowers, our reasons were not self-serving.
We were taking them home to Vi, coming back up the hill with our stolen bouquet, when she stopped us. Leaning over her fence, she told us that daisies were her favourite.
It was Simon who offered them to her.
And she asked us in, filling our now empty hands with the sweets that she kept in her cupboard. Sugared mint leaves, jubes and caramel buttons. Sticky in our fingers.
She had a house full of things. Ships in bottles, wind-up toys, old magazines, different-coloured wool, clutter collecting dust in every corner.
She showed me how to crochet with an old cotton reel.
She gave me bottles of perfume that she no longer used.
And each time we went to leave, she would ask us to stay a little longer, to have some tea, to make sure that we came back soon.
And we did.
Picking the flowers a little more hastily on each occasion, the bunches a little scrappier, a little more wilted, a little less colourful, until one day Simon stopped me.
You can’t do that, and he looked at the few leaves and weeds that I was holding in my hand.
I couldn’t see what the problem was. It doesn’t matter, I told him, impatient to get going.
He wouldn’t move. He wasn’t coming. It was wrong.
I just rolled my eyes and walked off without him, heading down the hill, wanting the sweets she gave us, and any other small treasure that might also fall my way.
But when I got to the gate, I stopped. In my hands, the leaves had begun to wilt, the one dandelion head, white fluff, had blown away leaving only a dry stalk between my fingers.
And as I let them all fall to the ground, I turned around and headed home.
In the weeks that followed the funeral, Simon and I did not talk much.
I don’t think either of us knew what to say.
Each time I would find myself about to speak, about to lean forward and say something, the words would dissolve and I would pull back again, open-mouthed and silent.
It was not even possible to ask him the mundane questions I had always asked him. I would try, but in the light of all that was still unsaid, my words would wither in their inanity, leaving me speechless.
Once, closing the front door to my mother’s house and stepping out onto the street, I saw Simon walking towards me in the early evening light. I watched him as he slowly made his way up the hill, the afternoon paper tucked under his arm, his too small parka, pale grey and dirty, zipped up to his chin, his eyes fixed on the ground.
He looked up, just as my bus came around the corner, and in the slowness of the moment that followed, I didn’t let the bus just go past and stay to talk to him; I turned towards the stop and started walking in that direction, not looking at Simon, but seeing him, his hand frozen in the air, waving at me as I turned my back on him. And as the doors closed with a thud behind me, and the bus pulled out onto the road, I could not bring myself to look back to where he still was, there on the footpath watching me disappear from sight.
I knew then that this was the worst place to which we had descended.
But it was not only him to whom I could not talk. I could not talk to anyone.
I tried with Lizzie, as she drove me home from the clinic. Once again, I found myself without words. Overwhelmed by the enormity of my brother’s revelation, I could not bring myself to repeat it out loud. And I changed the topic. Skipping from what I had begun to say to something else, anything, with a speed that made me stumble mid-sentence, and left her looking at me, confused.
What are you talking about? she asked.
Nothing, I said, and she did not question me any further.
I also tried with Marco.
Late one night, after spending the day with Vi, I came home and saw the scrap of paper on which I had written his number on the floor by the side of my bed.
I dialled without thinking.
It rang eight times.
And just as I was about to give up, he picked up the phone.
He was surprised to hear from me.
How are you? We both asked each other the same question at the same time, and we both responded with the same words: fine, good, our sentences synchronised in an awkwardness that made me want to hang up without going any further.
He told me he had moved. He told me he had a new job. And he told me he had recently started seeing someone; his words a jumble, a rapid-fire of facts with little behind them other than a desire to let me know that he had been doing well, never better, since we had seen each other last.
And how about you? he asked.
I looked up at the ceiling. Just the same, I said. Just the same.
And I knew then that I wasn’t going to tell him, not even when he asked me if I was calling for any reason, for anything in particular.
No, I said, I just wanted to see how you were.
And he told me he was fine, again, and he asked me how I was, again, and I, too, told him I was fine; all our words seeming to have done little more than take us back to where we began.
We hung up, without me having told him a thing.
I sat on the edge of my bed and I looked at the telephone there on the floor.
Apart from Bernard, there was no one with whom I could really speak.
And I needed to talk to someone.
I still do.
I just don’t know who to go to. I just don’t know who I could tell.
Because I am worried about Simon.
And I do not know if Vi should know.
thirty-nine
Mari’s picnic is arranged for today.
I offered to make a salad and then wished I hadn’t. As usual, there was nothing in the fridge. I am not, as my friends often tell me, very good at taking care of myself.
In the twenty minutes before they are due to arrive, I decide to go up the street and buy something, but just as I am about to close the door behind me, the telephone rings.
It is my friend Lester.
He is calling to let me know that he has finally pulled together the money he needs to make his film.
Where have you been? he asks me. I keep leaving messages and you never get back to me.
I tell him I am sorry, I have been busy. Snowed under.
He is excited. He wants to give me the lead. You’re perfect for it.
I am surprised. Really? I ask him.
Absolutely, he tells me.
He has talked about his film for so long that I have never really thought it would happen. We arrange to meet tomorrow, and when I finally hang up, I realise I have no time to go to the shops and nothing to take with me.
I am standing by the open fridge door, looking at the few scraps of food and wondering what to do, when I hear him coming down the path.
Simon.
And seeing him walking towards me, the excitement I felt at Lester’s news evaporates and the heaviness descends.
Are you ready? he asks, b
arely looking at me as he stands, awkwardly, on my doorstep.
I tell him I will be a moment. Come in, I say, and he does, although it is clear that he would rather stay where he was.
How is she? I ask him, referring to Vi, who has had a bad night, and he shrugs his shoulders as he tells me she is just the same.
When I first learnt that my mother was ill, I found it difficult to believe. I could not remember her ever having been sick.
It was Mari who told me, some months ago.
Vi, she said, has emphysema.
It was her hesitancy, rather than the words themselves, that alarmed me.
I’m telling you because your mother is acting like it’s nothing. But I thought you should know.
I sat on my bed. I looked out my window. And I asked her how it had happened.
The cigarettes, I guess, and there was a slight break in her voice.
I did not know what to think. I had always equated emphysema with old men, asbestos, mines; an illness closely linked to a cause that Vi would fight, not something that would actually affect her.
I’ll come over now. It was all I could think of to say.
Mari told me it was okay. She just needs to stop smoking, and to rest.
She spoke calmly, but I could hear the distress in her voice.
I told her I would move home. If she wanted. Tomorrow, I offered.
She laughed. Truly, she said. It’s all right. But thank you.
And although the illness has dramatically altered Vi’s life, it has not meant the immediate death that I had originally thought. It is a state that we are all learning to live with, a little more each day, sometimes even allowing ourselves to believe what the doctors have assured us is true: that she will be around for a lot longer, that she is not going to die just yet.
Bernard recently asked me if I had discussed all that had happened with Vi, and I shook my head. How can I? I asked.
I wanted to know if he thought she knew. If he thought she had always known.
I’m not sure, he said, and when I looked at him, silent, questioning, he became angry. Honestly, he said.
He wants me to just let it go. He believes that bringing it up now will not achieve anything.
And in the nights I have sat with my mother, watching bad Hollywood movies, or talking about Evie, I have done as he advises. I have not said a word.
But then Simon comes home.
And when I see him, standing at the door as we talk, or waiting as he waits now in my flat, I do not know if my silence should continue.
I am trying to find my shoes when I tell him that Mari has been concerned about him, that she has noticed he has been taking time off work. I ask him whether he is all right, but I am not looking at him as I speak.
I’m okay, he tells me.
He is leaning against the doorframe, staring out across the garden. I cannot see his face, but I can see his hand and it is shaking as he brings his cigarette to his mouth, the ash long and slender, trembling on the tip.
Are you sure? I ask as I come towards him, pulling the door closed behind me.
He is wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, and in the awkwardness of the moment, I do not know what to do. I reach for him and he pulls back, losing his balance, one foot in the garden, as he slides slowly down the wall until he is sitting on my front step, his weight straining against his best jeans, his face red and hot.
Oh, Simon, I say, and it is all I can say, over and over again.
I’m okay, he tells me, trying to pull himself up.
But he can’t. He stays where he is, knees to chest, head in his hands.
I am about to speak, I am about to say something, but then I see them all, Evie, Mitchell, Simon, and once again, the words just seem to disappear, and I am taking my hand off his shoulder before I know what it is that I am doing, and I am telling him that I do not know what I am supposed to do, my voice louder than I had intended, sharp and harsh.
I can’t deal with this, I say. I can’t.
And I can see his shoulders shaking, as I keep talking, telling him that I wish he had never told me, telling him that it isn’t fair to expect me to carry this too, telling him that it is too much; all the wrong words coming out as he pulls himself up again, and without looking at me, turns, heading away from the path, and through the morning glory, through the lantana, trying to get away, stumbling as I run after him, chasing him.
Wait, I am shouting. Wait.
But he doesn’t. It is his ankle, caught in the knotted vines, that slows him down, that gives me a chance to catch up.
And we both stand there. At the bottom of the garden, where the stairs lead down the cliff to the sea, smooth and flat under the morning light.
This shouldn’t have happened, I think to myself. Not today.
I’m sorry, I say.
He is trying to free his foot, unknotting the twisted leaves and purple flowers that wind their way around his ankle, and I know I have only a few moments to put this right.
Please, I say. We can’t be like this. Not today.
He does not look up.
I shouldn’t have said what I said. And I reach forward, slowly, carefully, to try to help him.
The breeze from off the ocean is cool, and as our fingers brush, I can feel him calm. Just slightly. Together we untwist each of the strands that hold him still, stuck in this spot, piece by piece, until his foot is freed, and we both stand upright and face each other. With his back to the morning light, it is difficult to see his expression, it is difficult to make out the hurt in his eyes, the uncertainty in his mouth, but I know they are there.
I am, however, in full view. My face before him and I want him to see, I want him to know, that the anger has gone, that it is all right. But as I try to keep my eyes on his, I find I can’t. I find I am looking at the ground, unable to give the complete reassurance I had wanted to show.
They’re waiting for us, I say.
And as he follows me back through the garden and up to the road, I think to myself: I am failing you.
No matter how hard I try, I am failing you.
forty
I do not know what really happened. Not all the details.
Sitting by the side of the road after the funeral, Simon told me he had been driving. That much I do know. That much I can hold to be truth.
The rest I can only guess. Filling in the gaps, imagining how it happened, imagining the chain of events leading up to the car tumbling, turning upside down, toy-like, there at the bottom of the hill, there in the creek, wheels rocking back and forth, back and forth, body crushed like tin, and somewhere inside, Evie, dead on impact.
I was in the bath when Mitchell suggested that they go for a spin.
Come on, he urged, she’ll never know.
Simon, no doubt, would have been hesitant. But wanting to please, wanting it to be just him and Mitchell again, he would have eventually agreed.
He hadn’t counted on Evie. Running after them, running across the garden, shouting that she wanted to come too, refusing to take no for an answer, perhaps even saying that she would tell if they left her behind.
And so he let her in. Opening the car door and telling her that she had to be good. She mustn’t say a word. Cross your heart. Hope to die.
I guess he thought they’d just go up and down the dirt road a couple of times.
Nothing too risky in that.
Nothing too dangerous.
But that was not how it was.
That was not how it happened.
Mitchell wanted to go further. He wanted to go all the way into town, to buy beer at the pub, to head out along the back roads towards the coast, pulling over to stop and drink; and then he wanted to keep going, to where the surf crashed on the beach, white and salty in the last of the afternoon light.
When Mitchell asked Simon if he wanted to have a go, to get behind the wheel, Simon didn’t say no. Light-headed and bleary-eyed from the sun and the alcohol, he turned the key in t
he ignition.
The road was empty. Twisting between the hills, he took each bend slowly at first, but as his confidence built, he began to pick up speed. They had the tape player up loud, the windows open, and the wind was fresh and sweet as they rounded each corner, faster, faster, foot down, screaming with the exhilaration, screaming as they hit each bend, screaming as they neared the next and the next.
And screaming as they tumbled.
As they rolled.
As they hit. The rocks.
There at the bottom.
Wheels still spinning.
And everything silent.
I look at Simon now, sitting next to me in the back seat of Mari’s car, and that is what I keep seeing. That afternoon with him as he was then, behind the wheel. All those years ago.
And what is worse is that all I have imagined, the chain of events I have made up for myself, may not even be correct. It may, in fact, have been Simon who suggested they take the car, it may have been Simon who wanted to stop at the pub, it may even have been Simon who insisted that he drive for a while.
I don’t know.
And I look away again, staring out the window, trying to stop myself from seeing, eyes fixed on the road, as Mari talks. She knows there is something wrong, and she is angry with us. But she is not going to snap. She is not going to lose her temper. She is not going to let the entire day be ruined. Instead she directs her conversation at Vi, who taps her fingers intermittently on the dashboard, trying to find a use for her right hand now that it can no longer hold a cigarette, her left resting on a pile of clippings, advertisements for houses in the mountains. And as Mari describes each of them, I know the day will be as I had expected it would be. An attempt to make our mother believe that a move would be good for her. Despite the fact that it is clear Vi will not be easy to convince.
For God’s sake, she says as Mari asks her to smell the air for the fifth time. You know how much I hate fresh air, and she pats Mari’s leg to let her know that it is a joke. Just.
Whether you like it or not, it’s what you need, and it is evident from the tone in her voice that Mari is offended.
Vi laughs, the throaty laugh she has developed in the last few months, and tells Mari that at sixty-five, she believes she is old enough to now know what she needs and what she doesn’t.
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