‘I know you have travelled overseas and now live in a young group home. When I was your age, I was feted in London and New York as the new young exciting artist. A newspaper article said, “This enfant terrible has talent to burn.” I know the temptations of the world, the hedonism, and the ego. I have no ego now. I am just here to be a servant to the Lord. Lord, I say, my talents are for you to use. I am ready to be persecuted for Christ. The other photographers say insulting things about me, but I am ready to be a fool for Christ. Can you believe that they are afraid to speak about Jesus? It threatens them to know the real love of Jesus and what it is to live in His footsteps.
‘There is nothing that threatens the so-called intellectual more than to see the vacuity of his soul. How can we call ourselves a freethinking nation when there is one thing we are afraid to talk about? Guess what it is. Aussies will all happily talk about the footy for hours but one mention of Jesus and they are running scared. That’s what I said in my manifesto to each of my colleagues at the National Photo Gallery. I wrote it and printed out a copy for each one and put it in their pigeonholes. They complained and the director asked me to tone it down. Tone it down! He said it was unprofessional! I could have been represented by the most important galleries in Australia, but they want me to tone it down!’ His voice droned on. He kept his eyes on the road, never turning around to look at me. The pattern had been set since childhood – Maria, Patsy and I would sit, mute, in the back while Dad talked in the driver’s seat. I would try not to listen, but most of the time I did, transfixed. He would talk of how God tested him, and, if Mum was not in the car, of the trials of being married to her. He told us how Satan tries harder the more you turn to Jesus, how he suffered as a child, how he gave up fame and the temptations of the world for Jesus, how the world will persecute you for this. He talked of great truths, and wisdom, he taught us a new word for the day guaranteed to enthral, he quoted the bible, himself, poetry; he shared his visions. Once, when we had stopped at the lights at the intersection near our local supermarket, he told us that he saw a devil standing by our side, as tall as the power pole in front of us.
How long had Dad been talking now, I wondered. I tried to focus on the passing scenery. We were back in the broad streets and hills of the eastern suburbs. In front of us the six-lane bitumen road rolled up and down in a black band out to the horizon. When we first came to Australia, Dad would, to our delight, turn off the engine when we reached this road and let the car cruise all the way home. Coming up each rise, the car would go slower and slower until we feared it would not make it. Going down again we went faster and faster until we feared the car could not stop. ‘Where else in the world can you do this?’ he would say.
Something he said drew my attention back. ‘The behaviour of the little girl in church this morning was 100 per cent natural,’ he said. ‘You see, Natasha, even at that age, they are very aware and know how to seduce.
‘It’s been very difficult, Natasha. Your mother is a saint. I cannot bear to see her suffering. She stays awake at night with gas in her stomach. All the time I have to be ready to get her a drink, pull the blankets up, turn the heater off, talk to her and hear her complaining. Her suffering is terrible. It has made her illogical. Your mother must ask God for forgiveness for her jealousy. There can be no interference with the great miracle that will happen. Did Caroline say anything about me? You see, even at my age, many women find me attractive. I am not a young, handsome man. I am not slim and strong. You know what it is? It is my intensity they find attractive.’
He had stopped talking and I realised he was waiting for me to answer his question about Caroline. ‘No, she didn’t say anything,’ I said.
‘She was moved, I know it. You know, we all have the power to touch each other’s lives,’ he said.
What was it about me, I thought, that made him feel he could talk at me like this? I felt sickened. The car entered our driveway and Dad braked. I scrambled out of the car and took a deep breath.
Inside the house, Mum, Patsy and the ladies were still praying. Mum called from the lounge room for me to join them. Maureen, the formally dressed and perfumed leader of the group, bade me to sit. ‘We will finish up by reading from the words of the evangelist Katherine Kuhlman,’ she said.
Maureen opened the book and read aloud, ‘“What is in the mind of God? There comes a time when we love Him so completely that we do not say anymore, there is God’s will and there is my will. There comes a time when it will be impossible to miss the will of God. When you do not have a will separate and apart from God. When you have no will of your own. The very son of God had to give up his will … Not my will, but Thy will.” Now repeat the last sentence with me three times.’
‘Not my will, but Thy will. Not my will, but Thy will. Not my will, but Thy will.’
*
The ladies had left, Patsy had taken the bus back to her student lodging, Dad was in his studio and Mum had woken up from her nap on the couch. I handed her a cup of tea.
‘Isn’t it great you joined us for prayers?’ she said. ‘The ladies were so happy to see you again.’
‘Can we talk again about your childhood?’ I asked, taking out my notebook.
‘My father was a very good man,’ she began, without any resistance. She seemed to want to talk.
‘Mum, you’ve talked about your father before. How about your mother?’ I said. Her stories of her father seemed to be the only childhood memories she would volunteer.
‘He was so holy,’ she continued. Her brow softened, her eyes lit up and she smiled. ‘You know the first thing he did when he got home from work? He knelt down and prayed. On the staircase landing, we had a little altar and crucifix. He knelt there for at least one hour.’
‘You and your sisters had to kneel there too sometimes for punishment, didn’t you?’
She did not even pause. ‘You know the war? The Japanese came to Hong Kong. The British ran away. All their houses and shops just empty. Everyone stole from them. But not my father. He tried to stop people from going into their houses. My dad was ARP. You know what that is?’
‘Yes, Air Raid Precaution. You’ve told me. Did you talk much with your father?’
‘He was my father, of course we talked. Some ARP were bad, take bribes. But never my father. Everyone looked up to him.’
‘What was your parents’ relationship like?’
She sighed. ‘They were husband and wife all their life, why ask silly?’
‘Your sisters said your mother spent too much time playing mahjong for money.’
The smile stayed on her face. ‘My father liked your dad very much. You know I had too many suitors. It was so hard to choose.’
I had heard Mum’s relatives tease that every second man in Hong Kong had proposed to her. Her sister Monica’s husband had first proposed to Mum and been rejected. So too her cousin’s husband. Whenever Dad boasted that he had married the belle of the island, she told him to be quiet, sensitive to how it would seem to them.
‘I met your father at church after he became Catholic. He was at every mass, always kneeling. He sang in the choir, so loud and so out of time! He was very funny too. You know what he did? Other boyfriends give me jewellery and flowers – but not your dad. One day the postman came to my house. He is laughing loud. All the neighbours too are laughing. The postman gave me a big picture – this big.’ She stretched her hands out as wide as they would go. ‘It was from your dad. He made a cute picture of himself carrying a big bunch of flowers!’
Mum laughed and her eyes grew wistful. She loved him. There was no doubt about it.
‘I didn’t know whether to marry your dad. When I met his family, I thought, “Oh dear! What ruffians!” But I prayed and prayed. One night Jesus put it on my heart to marry him. I heard the name Paul in my heart. So isn’t that good, Natasha? Praise the Lord.’ She paused. ‘Not my will, but the Lord’s will. Like we prayed today – not my will, but Thy will. Not my will, but Thy will.’
SIGNS OF THE TUM OUR IN MUM’S SPINAL CORD had appeared about nine months before it was diagnosed. She and Maria had been with me in Darwin at the time. It was Mum’s first visit there.
Maria and Mum stayed in my bedroom while I moved onto a bed set up on the verandah. My housemates were kind about the visit and agreed to be discreet about drugs and partners for the ten days.
When we plonked Mum’s suitcase on my bed and opened it, slippery synthetic blouses and skirts frothed out and the fragrance of her floral perfume tinged with mothballs filled my room. Digging underneath the clothes, Mum pulled out a round pink tin of Quality Street chocolates, three packets of Emperor herbal chicken spice and a plastic drink bottle filled with clear liquid. She handed them to me. A piece of masking tape stuck to the bottle had Holy Water on it in purple texta in Dad’s handwriting.
‘The holy water was blessed by Father Lachlan for you. We can bless your house with it,’ Mum said.
I returned the bottle to the suitcase. ‘Thank you, Mum, for the presents, but you keep the holy water,’ I said.
‘No, take it. What did I bring it all the way here for?’ She took it out again, walked over to my bookshelf and placed it there.
‘No thanks, Mum.’ I put it back in the suitcase.
She sighed loudly and turned her back on me to unpack. Then she swung around. ‘It is time you came home. It is the family’s home. This year everyone must have Christmas there together.’
‘I am coming to see the family at Christmas. Just not in your home.’
‘So silly. So stubborn. What for like that?’
‘I’ve told you before – it’s just better that way between Dad and me. His house, his rules.’
For the first few days, we did the kinds of things she enjoyed. We took early morning walks along the foreshore before the sun grew strong; we went several times to Darwin’s only shopping centre, where for hours she was content to wander in and out of the same shops as in Melbourne, only smaller; and I dropped Maria and her to the Darwin Charismatic meetings they knew about through their links in Melbourne, although I didn’t go in myself. I spent those hours with Jason, making up for the nights we couldn’t sleep together while they stayed.
It was the first time Mum had met Jason. We had been going out for eighteen months, the longest by far that I had gone out with anyone. I sometimes wondered why it had continued when all my other relationships had ended after a few months. It took Jason about six months, and a lot of agonising about what he truly felt – whether it was just attraction, infatuation, or a mutually beneficial relationship, and what was the meaning of it all anyway – before he said that he loved me. His whole body shook when he told me. I felt that I could trust him. That when he was no longer interested in me, he would tell me.
Mum did not want to be overly friendly with him, or encourage our relationship, because she knew he was an agnostic. Still, I thought she liked him. ‘He seems a nice, quiet young man,’ she said. ‘Very simple.’
‘What do you mean by simple, Mum?’ I said.
‘You know, look how he dress, that kind of thing.’
Jason spent a few days with us, and it must have seemed as though he was just hanging around aimlessly. He’d turn up in a torn, sour-smelling T-shirt, cut-down jeans and thongs, and not say much all day. He had taken time off work to spend time with Mum and Maria, but he wasn’t one to tell them that he had so much work as a graphic designer he had to turn clients away.
For the last days of their Darwin visit, I had in store a special trip out to the bush. Although I had planned the visit to Daly River weeks earlier, I told Mum about it only the day before, in order to minimise the time she had to worry. The drive was only three hours, I said. I described the beautiful virgin bush and termite mounds that we would see on the way, the hot spring that only the locals knew, and the Daly River Aboriginal community where we would stay for two nights with my friend who worked in the art centre.
Mum pursed her lips and frowned. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. That’s all she said: Are you sure? If she didn’t want to go or had concerns, why didn’t she just say so? I could have grabbed her by her synthetic blouse and shaken her.
Jason started laughing as soon as we were out of earshot. ‘You don’t really think she’s going to like it out bush, do you?’
‘It will be good for her to see the real bush,’ I said. ‘She might just love it. It might be a revelation to her. You have to give these things a chance.’
‘Ze vill go and ze vill love it,’ Jason said, giving me a Nazi salute.
The next day, Mum, Maria and I turned off the highway towards Daly River. Bitumen soon ran out into dirt road and then there was nothing but dirt, trees and sky. Twisted scrub continued in a monotonous line below an empty blue expanse. The occasional gum tree raised itself over the scrub, its thin, old branches forming a spindly calligraphy against the sky. I drove on further and absorbed the surroundings. They did not manipulate with grand vistas, spectacular heights, majestic trees or verdant colour. My spine loosened and my breathing deepened in deference to this harsh, low land.
I looked at Mum in the seat next to me. Although our windows were up, the fine dust of the road was swirling through the door gaps and air vents. We could not talk above the hammering of the van over the ruts in the road. Passing cars threw up clouds of dust so thick that I had to stop the van or else continue blind. Mum’s jaw was clenched shut, her eyes bloodshot and tense.
It would be okay. The clearing was a few kilometres away. We would stop there and I would show Mum. I imagined how I would bring her up close to the small hidden treasures: she would see the delicate uncurling fronds of the cycad, the fresh yellow of the kapok flower, the textures of the woollybutt tree and the stone-age presence of the termite mounds. I pressed on the accelerator to get to the clearing faster, but the banging over the ruts only became more violent. I was forced to slow back down and let the ruts resume their rhythm.
We finally reached the clearing. None of us moved for some seconds after the van had stopped, mesmerised by the silence and stillness. I opened my door and suggested we take a look around.
‘No, you go. I will just sit here. I don’t feel well,’ Mum said. Maria and I tried to help her out of the van to get some air. It was when she stepped out that she suddenly shrieked and bent double.
We turned back for Darwin immediately. The trip back was hellish, every rut in the road a punishment, every piece of bush a menace. She writhed in pain the whole way, her eyes shut tight, her face contorted. Her mouth moved and I knew she was praying, though I could not hear her words.
When they returned to Melbourne, the pain in Mum’s back receded, leaving a numbness in her arms and legs that wouldn’t go away. The doctors decided it was a pinched nerve. Eight months later, the pain came back and one morning she woke up unable to move her legs. This time they found the tumour and a spinal biopsy confirmed that it was cancer. Cancer cells were also found in her large intestine and liver. The cancer had metastasised. Four weeks later, I quit my job and left Darwin to be with her. She was treated urgently with steroids and radiotherapy to relieve the pressure on her spinal cord. This was to be followed by three cycles of chemotherapy. Surgery was not an option. The cancer had spread too far.
*
Mum was to have her second dose of chemotherapy at 12 p.m. today. She was quiet after breakfast, pursing and unpursing her lips, frowning into the distance. She took up a pen and laid a piece of paper on the kitchen table. Hunched over the page, she scratched out one painstaking letter after another.
She seldom wrote, not even shopping lists. I knew her writing from the birthday cards I’d received each year in Darwin. Dad’s blessing and call to surrender to Jesus would flow in a stylish and bold script over both pages on the inside of the card. In the bottom-right corner a childish, shaky hand would say, ‘Love from Mum’.
‘You must do what it says,’ she said handing me the piece of paper. I glanced at it. She had written: 1. Vomit bucket must
leave on chair next to bed, not floor or how I can reach it? 2. Take plants outside house at night. 3. Throw out leftover food – otherwise sun voo kay. 4. Soak dried prawns for Dad’s noodles. 5. Open all windows before sleep.
‘Make sure you do it, okay?’ she said. ‘Last time after chemo I was too sick to remember. You must take the plants out at night, okay?’ When I nodded without enthusiasm, she glared at me. ‘Don’t you know they suck up the oxygen? Don’t tell me you don’t know that? Don’t you know?’ she said, and would not leave it alone until I agreed.
The Come To Jesus drama group was arriving in half an hour for practice. The CTJ performed evangelical plays written by Dad, who was also the director, choreographer and music composer. They had performed in community theatres, in churches and in the Bourke Street Mall. Two years ago, CTJ dissolved. No one in the family would tell me why, but I remembered the arguments Mum and Dad had, even before I left, about his attentiveness to the prettier girls in the group. When the cancer was diagnosed, however, Dad had persuaded Mum to let him revive the CTJ. He said that the Lord was calling on our family to serve Him sixfold, even tenfold. That way we could show the world that in hardship our faith would not only continue but strengthen, and we would be a testament to His power. The group was to perform at the healing party.
Maria arrived at the front door, wearing baggy jeans and a shapeless windcheater. She was Dad’s helper on the CTJ, recruiting members, picking them up, and doing the general running around. She was also one of the actors. Something clicked over when Maria was performing – she would be loud, excessive and funny. She turned sideways to get in the front door, her arms laden with shopping bags.
The Healing Party Page 6