After Cleo: Came Jonah

by Helen Brown

  The more saintly my vegetarian, meditating, caring daughter became, the more tainted and self-centred I felt by comparison. Sometimes when she sat with us at dinner, carefully skirting the bolognaise sauce (traces of meat), for the salad and spaghetti, spikes of tension radiated from both sides of the table.

  Philip and I felt judged for not selling our house and donating the funds to an African village. He shifted uncomfortably when Lydia suggested he might have a more rewarding career working for a non-profit organisation. I felt equally awkward when it was hinted I could do more charity work.

  She wasn’t the only one doing the judging, of course. Sometimes we thought she’d set herself apart on a throne of untouchable purity. On other occasions Lydia and I seemed engaged in a game of chess – with her three moves ahead. Her selfless behaviour made her invulnerable to criticism. Her ideals were impeccable. The work she did was invaluable, underpaid and hardly recognised by society.

  And yet in my darker moments – and this puts me in such unflattering light I hesitate to commit it to print – watching her with the wheelchair-ridden, wiping and wheeling, carrying and cajoling, I couldn’t help wondering if looking after the weak gave her a power kick.

  ‘Where shall we go today?’ she’d ask brightly, aware most of the unfortunate souls in her care had no hope of answering. ‘I know a place where they sell the best custard tarts in the state. It’s just a two hour drive away. Let’s go!’

  Her disabled charges were in no position to argue. They had to comply with being wheeled into the bus and carted off. But who was I to have an opinion? If the only alternative was to be shut away in front of television all day, a custard tart odyssey would’ve been fantastic.

  Some of Lydia’s clients unnerved me, but their courage and, in many cases, intense love of life were inspirational. Compared to them I felt pathetic worrying about shortness of breath and whether cancer cells were still lurking inside my late middle aged body. They were superheroes on wheels. Meeting her younger clients, I felt heartache for their parents.

  That said, I sometimes begrudged the way I’d get lassoed into Lydia’s good works. On a searing hot Saturday two weekends after Rob’s wedding, she asked if she could bring a group of elderly clients around for morning tea.

  ‘How many?’ I asked.

  ‘Five or six. We’ll bring our own food and drink, so don’t go to any trouble,’ she said brightly. ‘We can go to a park and have a picnic there if you’re busy,’ she added, tuning into my reluctance.

  They couldn’t possibly eat outside when the temperature was predicted to reach 40 plus degrees.

  Katharine rolled her eyes. Visits from Lydia’s clients could be very draining.

  I made a pancake mix. The pancakes curled in the pan, transforming into something previously unknown to mankind. The doorbell rattled. I opened the door. Heat exfoliated my face.

  When I saw the broken humanity huddled on the front porch my chest lurched. I hurried them inside where the air-conditioning laboured ineffectually. Lydia introduced them one by one. Lawrence’s body was so stiff and shrunken he could barely walk. Agatha’s matronly form was mobile, but her eyes were devoid of life. Ellie, white-haired in a wheelchair, was eerily talkative. Sofia didn’t talk, but nodded and smiled too much for comfort. Bert introduced himself erroneously as the boss.

  Jonah bolted upstairs.

  I was relieved Lydia had an assistant, Emma. Together with Katharine, they helped the visitors hobble down the hall, where cake and sandwiches were set out on plates. The pancakes were surprisingly successful. Aware that some of the women would’ve been consummate homemakers in their day, I apologised about forgetting the baking powder, but nobody seemed to mind.

  Conversation didn’t exactly crackle. Ellie chattered away but her subject matter scattered like torn-up pieces of paper. She changed mid-sentence from knitting to tram timetables.

  I nudged Katharine and told her to fetch her violin. She reluctantly complied.

  Lawrence touched his hearing aid when he saw the violin. Music hurt his ears. Katharine moved her music stand to the other end of the hall.

  ‘Music! ’ cried Sofia, hurrying to join her. Patting the music stand, she pointed at Katharine and said, ‘Play “Silent Night”.’

  It was two months since Christmas, but nobody was counting.

  As the first notes floated down the hall, ancient voices warbled tentatively around the melody they’d known since birth.

  The ghosts of close to 500 years of Christmas memories hovered around the table. Promises of Christmases to come were severely limited. I reached for a paper towel to dab the tears.

  After they’d sung more carols and stayed on for lunch (because it was in the picnic basket anyway) our visitors became restless. Bert wanted Katharine to improvise some jazz on her violin. He jiggled with irritation when she explained her training was classical. Lydia and Emma escorted the others one by one to the bathroom.

  ‘Do we have a bucket and mop?’ Lydia whispered. ‘Agatha’s had an accident.’

  When it was time to leave, Lydia assembled her clients inside the front door. They needed to get down the path and into the van as quickly as possible. The wind had come up and it was unbearable outside. There was an ominous tang of smoke on the breeze.

  Lydia assured me she’d be dropping her clients home to shelter from the heat straight away. Before opening the front door, she conducted a swift search of Agatha’s handbag to discover one of our candlesticks and a tube of my Lancôme face wash. Lydia laughed and said we’d got off lightly. Whenever they went to town, Agatha had a habit of snatching food off people’s plates.

  Waving our visitors goodbye, I clutched the paper towel. Lydia’s clients always gave more than they took.

  Embracing the Enemy

  A cat is not always a reliable host

  ‘Guess what?’ said Lydia, her tone unusually bright.

  I was wary of this particular tone. It usually meant I was about to be bullied into something and I wasn’t in a very obliging mood.

  ‘What?’ I asked distractedly. A ‘general knowledge’ crossword puzzle was driving me nuts, asking for the Christian names of rock singers I’d never heard of.

  ‘My teacher’s coming to stay.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said. ‘Who’s he staying with?’

  I hate it when I have to look up crossword answers in the back of the book. But how else was I going to get ‘Metal with atomic number 22’? Ah yes. Titanium.

  ‘Us.’

  My pen rattled to the floor. Jonah snared it between his teeth and disappeared.

  Her monk? That man! Staying with us?! My mouth opened. No words came out . . .

  ‘He can’t,’ I said at last. ‘We don’t have room.’

  ‘He can have my bedroom,’ she replied. ‘I’ll sleep on the couch.’

  It was our home, not a religious retreat house.

  But then it was Lydia’s home, too.

  ‘How long do you want him here?’

  ‘I was thinking a month,’ she said matter-of-factly.

  A month taking care of a man who thinks he’s a god?

  ‘Too long,’ I said.

  Assuming the subject was closed, I went in search of Jonah and my pen.

  ‘Three weeks?’ she called after me.

  If Lydia knew anything at all about me, it’s that I’m a reluctant hostess. If anyone was coming to stay for an entire month, I could think of several thousand others I’d feel more comfortable with than the man beaming from the photo frame in her bedroom.

  ‘Don’t monks stay in monasteries?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, he has been invited to stay at a big house in the country where they’ve built a house specifically for him, but he says he’d rather be close to town.’

  If the guru stayed with us, his hold over Lydia would tighten. He might even start trying to convert the rest of us. Besides, I was still angry at him for luring her away to Sri Lanka when I’d been unwell.

  ‘He
can’t come here,’ I said.

  ‘But I want him to!’ said Lydia, her eyes round and moist like Bambi’s. ‘He won’t be any trouble. I’ll look after him and I’ll cook all his meals. Not that he eats much. Can’t he stay for at least a night or two?’

  Taking a stand against my Taurus daughter is useless. Refusing to let the monk over our threshold would only drive her more defiantly into the folds of his robes.

  ‘I suppose he can stay one night,’ I sighed.

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Oh all right,’ I muttered, hardly believing what I was saying.

  Having a monk to stay, even for two nights, is a daunting prospect. A monk is too holy to share a bathroom with mere mortals. He needs a bath, shower and toilet all to himself. While Lydia was more than happy to donate the upstairs bathroom to the cause, her sister wasn’t so keen.

  ‘I thought monks were all for the simple life,’ grumbled Katharine, transferring her towel and toiletries to the downstairs bathroom. ‘What makes this one so special?’

  Jonah, always sensitive to change, was on high alert. Like a clockwork toy on steroids, he bolted up and down the hall, meowing non-stop. Shadowing Lydia, he leapt on and off her bed while she smoothed fresh sheets over the mattress and laid out clean towels. I checked her room for items with potential to offend our ethereal visitor. A photo of Lydia and her school friends laughing in bikinis at the beach, a print of a bare-breasted woman, copies of Madam Bovary and Anna Karenina left over from school.

  The monk’s dining needs were specific. He would eat two vegetarian meals a day – alone in his room. And due to religious requirements, nothing would pass his lips after midday.

  It was also important we refrained from touching him. Handshaking, arm-around-the-shouldering and hugging were out of the question. The robed one hadn’t even arrived yet but was already proving to be more high-maintenance than our lunatic cat.

  I’m not proud of my inability to stick to rules. The harder I try not to cause offence the worse it gets. Whenever I’m introduced to a devout Christian, for instance, ‘Jesus!’ and ‘Christ!’ spring out of my mouth every second sentence. It would’ve been safer if Lydia hadn’t told me not to touch the monk. My hands were already itching, begging to wrap themselves around him.

  I began to wonder if it mightn’t be easier for us to move into a hotel while he was in residence. But Philip was adamant. He wasn’t shifting out of his house for anyone. I suggested Rob and Chantelle might like to cancel their usual Sunday lunchtime visit, but they were curious to meet the man who had rearranged Lydia’s head.

  Even our more broad-minded friends raised their eyebrows. A daughter converting to Buddhism was on the verge of interesting. Having a monk come to stay in the house was weird. Dusting and (much to Jonah’s distaste) vacuuming, I started to get nervous.

  ‘Are cats okay?’ I asked Lydia.

  ‘He doesn’t particularly like cats.’

  Jonah shot her a disdainful glower from the top of his scratching pole.

  ‘But don’t Buddhists love all living creatures?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t that why they’re vegetarian?’

  She was too busy unloading packets of tofu and noodles to answer.

  The monk arrived that evening in a flurry of charisma. Locking my hands together safely behind my back, I stood in the doorway smiling and nodding like those toys people used to put in the back windows of their cars.

  Philip was behind me, so I couldn’t see what he was doing – something non-committal, no doubt. Katharine stood to one side, smiling warily. Jonah pushed forward, flung himself at the monk and emitted an ear-shattering yowl.

  To my astonishment, Lydia bowed deeply. I hadn’t imagined my wilful, stroppy daughter possessed the appropriate muscle sets to perform such an exaggerated gesture of respect. In this man’s presence her back straightened and her demeanour became demure and subservient.

  The monk beamed benevolently through his gold-rimmed spectacles. He was as smooth-faced as he’d been the last time we’d met five years ago. While he claimed to be in his sixties, he could just as easily have been thirty-five. As a de-aging programme, religious life was clearly more effective than plastic surgery.

  As our guest sailed down the corridor, Jonah and the rest of us followed. I was keen to understand this man who was so important to my daughter. I would’ve liked to ask his views on the war in his country, and what, if any, plans he had for Lydia.

  After sinking into a chair by the fireplace, the monk chatted about his travels. He was charming, self assured and, in every sense, untouchable. A man from another world, he unnervingly referred to Lydia as his disciple. I worried we weren’t treating him with the reverence he was accustomed to. Still, since Lydia was kneeling on the floor beside him, hands passively resting on her lap, she was undoubtedly making up for the rest of us. Jonah, too, seemed enthralled.

  I was relieved it was after dark, so we wouldn’t have to worry what to feed our guest. As the monk told us about the fundraising programmes and lectures he was giving while he was in Melbourne, Jonah circled his chair, meowing and trying to snare his attention. Whether it was the glamorous drape of his robes or the exotic smells from far-off countries, Jonah was fascinated – and appeared to be attempting a charm offensive. I watched uneasily as he disappeared under our visitor’s maroon hemline.

  ‘Shooooo!’ the monk hissed, delivering a well-aimed kick.

  Jonah flew out from under the robe. Astonished, he blinked and shook himself. Once he’d regained composure, Jonah sprang on top of his scratching post, and with loud clicking sounds proceeded to lick his private parts.

  When people don’t eat or drink there isn’t much to keep them up late. Lydia escorted her teacher upstairs while we put ourselves nervously to bed. With any luck Lydia’s room was monastic enough to make him feel at home – though not too at home, hopefully.

  I woke early next morning to find Lydia rummaging through the fridge. She’d arranged a plate of rice and vegetables on a tray to take upstairs to the guru, and was now placing a separate bowl of food beside the plate.

  ‘Who’s that for?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s for the Buddha,’ she replied solemnly.

  ‘The Buddha’s going to eat that?’ I asked, incredulous.

  ‘It’s an offering,’ she said, looking at me sternly.

  There it was again. That feeling of being lowly, and somehow wrong. Yet I wasn’t trying to make fun of her or her new-found belief system. I was more than willing to confess ignorance. Having a monk under the roof was just a case of too much too soon.

  A stream of disciples, mostly Westerners, flowed through the house to sit in his presence while he regaled them with updates on the monastery-building programme. A new kitchen was keeping the nuns happy, but his plans were much grander. He hoped some day to erect an enormous statue on top of the hill above the monastery.

  In between visitors, I asked the monk about his background. He told me that after growing up poor in a village, he’d become attached to a great teacher. He showed me photos of the man, a dignified-looking monk who he said had lived well into his nineties.

  As a young monk, our visitor had spent several years meditating in a cave, the entrance of which was ultimately transformed into a cottage. He’d since moved to more comfortable accommodation further up the hill. The cave cottage was currently occupied by a younger monk, an equally fervent meditator. It remained the central point of the monastery.

  We took the monk to the botanic gardens that afternoon. As we stared out over the lake, I asked him about differences between Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Tibet. The answer was long and convoluted, and included unflattering asides about Philip’s potential for Enlightenment, which I hoped could be put down to the language barrier. Philip was mercifully out of earshot, engrossed in conversation with a black swan.

  Changing the topic, I told the monk how I’d seen him sitting on the end of my bed not long after my surgery. He threw his head back and laughed with delight.


  ‘I did that thing!’ he declared, waving a hand in the air. ‘Yes! I did that!’

  So, global self-transportation was in his repertoire. I wasn’t sure who was crazier – him for thinking he’d done it, or me for having seen him.

  On the second day, a rare diversion from normal practice was announced. The monk would be willing to do us the honour of having lunch with us downstairs at the oak table providing, of course, it was fully vegetarian and occurred before midday.

  Being Sunday, Rob and Chantelle were due to come over. I sent them a text, warning them to show up early if they wanted to be fed.

  I have to say it wasn’t one of our more relaxed family gettogethers. Having a monk at the end of the table did change the ambience somewhat. Nevertheless, everyone did their best, politely offering plates of salad, bread and stir-fried beans to each other. At one point I caught Rob looking longingly at a plate of ham in the fridge.

  Jonah, thank heavens, seemed to have recovered from his previous night’s obsession and was behaving semi-normally.

  With our plates filled we raised our forks and were about to tuck in, when the monk reminded us it was time to give a blessing. Our forks clattered to the table and we lowered our heads.

  ‘Does he mean he wants to say Grace?’ I whispered to Lydia, who was embarrassed by our crassness. But honestly, who were we to know whether Buddhists said Grace? Though, come to think of it, the blessing of food is probably a universal religious practice.

  The monk’s blessing was particularly elaborate. He blessed the earth our food had come from this day, the rain and the sun and the farmers who’d grown it. We nodded agreement and lifted our forks, but the blessing hadn’t finished. We lowered our forks and studied our plates as he blessed the people who’d transported the food to the city . . .

  Awkward silence hovered over the table. The silence ballooned into a presence that filled the room and pressed against the French windows. Rob flashed a glance at me from across the table. Philip, on his right, appeared to be engrossed in some complicated mathematical equation. Katharine, sitting next to me, rested her chin on her chest and looked neither left nor right. Only Lydia and the monk seemed entirely at ease with the impenetrable absence of noise.