The Healing Party

by Micheline Lee

  When the last bushy corner was mown, we turned off the cutter. The racket stopped and the white spinning slowed until the blades could be seen. We surveyed our work. The back garden looked flat and open and somehow smaller, emptied of its dangers and mysteries, like a pool with the water drained. All that remained were the ten cacti lining the back fence. Dad had planted them about thirteen years ago, at two-metre intervals. They were potplant size back then. Now they were taller than the three-metre-high fence and so wide that their stems tangled with each other.

  ‘We should finish up now,’ I said, but Ed was determined to keep going. Covered in sweat and smeared with dirt and grass, he picked up the saw and strode towards the first of the four cacti that Dad had marked for removal. I left him there while I went to have a shower and take the brush cutter back to its owner. We planned to go out for dinner after I got back.

  *

  When I returned to the backyard an hour later, only a few cactus stems were shorn off and tossed on the ground, and Maria stood next to Ed at the back fence. She was doing all the talking. She spoke with half-closed, dreamy eyes. A smile played gently upon her lips. I caught a few words before they noticed me coming: ‘… the unconditional love and truth of Jesus … break the chains of anger … spiritual healing …’ Her voice was rich and self-possessed.

  Maria saw me, and the dreamy look left her. ‘Oh, I’d better let you get on with it,’ she said. ‘Thanks for talking.’ She gave Ed a radiant smile and walked inside.

  Time had flown while they were talking, Ed said. He wanted to finish removing the stems from one cactus before it got dark. I left him to it and walked back inside to look for Maria. She, Mum and Patsy were at Mum’s window, watching Ed work.

  I went straight over to Maria. ‘What were you talking about with Ed?’

  ‘He was interested in joining my Agape group. He’s searching for spiritual healing of his past.’

  ‘You mean you were poking and prying. Trying to find out people’s problems as usual. So you can preach,’ I said.

  ‘Tsk-tsk-tsk, don’t be like that, Natasha,’ said Mum.

  ‘He wanted to talk. Can’t we just talk?’ said Maria.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘As soon as you see someone you think might be vulnerable, you just home in!’

  ‘Maria talks with people so she can help them,’ Patsy said, her voice trembling. ‘What about you? What were you doing with him at the faith rally?’

  ‘What are you going on about?’ I said.

  ‘Why did he ask you out? Were you at the rally to flirt?’ said Patsy.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Patsy?’ I said. I could have said, Are you jealous? but that would have been too mean; we all knew she had never had a boyfriend or even a male friend. Instead I gave a patronising shake of my head. She stood there in her pinafore, prim, prudish and furious.

  ‘Tsk-tsk,’ Mum scolded again. ‘Anyway, he’s a very polite, Christian man. Very good in the garden too.’

  We all watched him in silence for a while. He was stretched up on his toes, reaching for the higher cactus stems with the saw.

  ‘Where are you going tonight? Don’t let him take advantage of you, okay?’ Mum said.

  ‘Mum, did you really have to say that?’ I said.

  ‘Pity Jason wasn’t a Christian. He seemed like a good man,’ Mum said. ‘Why didn’t you get engaged? So long you have been together. Must never have sex before marriage. Why marry if they can get what they want?

  ‘Jason was nice,’ said Maria.

  ‘I know,’ said Mum. ‘Anyway, now you will go out with a Christian man. Don’t be a srut, okay?’

  ‘Mum!’ Patsy, Maria and I said.

  *

  Ed showered at our home and put on a good shirt that he had brought with him. I had on a collared shirt under a black wool jumper. At the last moment I took off the collared shirt and put the black jumper back on so there was nothing under it but my bra, and my cleavage showed at the V. I covered up with a jacket before leaving my room. Ed suggested he book an Italian restaurant on Lygon Street, but I didn’t want it to seem as though he was taking me out on a date. I insisted it was my shout after all his work in the garden, and told him I preferred something tasty and quick, like Vietnamese in Richmond.

  It was dark by the time we got to Victoria Street. I was immediately excited by the smells, the food and the bustle. Everywhere were Vietnamese restaurants with menus written on tiled walls and plastic chairs and tables, filling up with hungry diners. Walking along the footpath, we skirted around people and the wares and crates of produce spilling out of the shops. Anglo Australians towered over the Vietnamese. A couple of older Vietnamese walked around in pyjamas, as they did in Hong Kong. Ed walked close to me, so that occasionally we bumped shoulders.

  ‘Crowded around here. I’d better not lose you,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t tell us Asians apart?’ I said, and he laughed and seemed to be more at ease.

  Ed liked the look of a restaurant that was only half full, but I persuaded him that a crowd was a sign of good food. I was enjoying myself, and feeling confident enough to say what I liked. I remembered the easy excitement at the start of a new relationship – how effortless it was to be thrilled at each other, the pleasure of feeling immersed. Before Jason, all my relationships had lasted a few months at most. They started with a bang and petered out as more and more self-doubt crept in. I became pathetic, constantly trying to second-guess what was expected of me.

  But right now I felt I could do no wrong. I pulled Ed into a crowded restaurant. We squeezed into the only available table, ordered, then went outside for a smoke.

  ‘Your father and mother on stage at the rally – they really moved me with their faith,’ said Ed. ‘I wanted to come to the healing party. And I wanted to see you, too. I didn’t want to use the party as an excuse to see you, or to confuse the two things. That’s why I decided to ring and ask you out. I thought that if you said no, then I wouldn’t make you feel uncomfortable by turning up to the healing party.’

  I didn’t feel flattered or wonder what he had seen in me. I knew that sometimes guys liked you for reasons that had nothing to do with you.

  When Ed was not talking or engaged, his gaze kept shifting around. I took the opportunity to look at him while he rolled a cigarette. He had a sharp, cultivated face and dark liquid eyes half hidden under heavy, long-lashed lids. I liked his eyes, his long hair and his nose too, which had a bulbous drooping tip and saved him from handsomeness. Bending his mouth to the cigarette, he licked the length of the glue-lined paper and looked up at me through his lashes.

  An old man came up and asked Ed for a cigarette. A minute later a youth who looked like he had been sleeping rough asked Ed if he could spare some change. With each of them, Ed obliged with a warm courtesy and found something to talk about before they went their way.

  Through the restaurant’s glass front, we saw the food arrive at our table. We stubbed out our cigarettes and went back inside. I ordered a beer but Ed, looking down at the table, said he would stay with the tea. The waiters zipped around, unerring with their hot, heavily laden trays. I thought he was being over-polite, stopping them to ask how their day was and to thank them. I liked the way he ate. He divided stuff up, pushed portions over to my side and said to me, ‘Eat.’ Some men, like my father, ate with an eagerness that bordered on desperation. Others, like many Anglo men, ate with a disdain for the food, but Ed ate well and with ease.

  ‘Your family are really funny and nice,’ he said.

  ‘Funny and nice. I’m glad you said that and not “inspiring”, which makes me want to throw up.’

  ‘They are, though. Something about the way your father talks makes you feel there are exciting possibilities in this world and you can be part of them. And your mother is beautiful. And your sisters are very interesting. And your cacti are out of this world and inspiring … I can’t believe I’m slaving away for that ramp your father made. Worst piece of woodwork I’ve ever s
een.’

  We laughed, but his eyes were moist and I thought, Oh no, he has fallen for my family.

  ‘What would you normally do on a Saturday night?’ I said.

  ‘There’s a meeting at the Christian Life Centre in North Fitzroy. Tonight there’s a preacher from South Africa. Would you like to go to that? We could catch the end of it after dinner.’

  I shook my head. ‘You must have the wrong idea about me. I was only at the faith rally for my mum.’

  ‘Were you ever into it?’

  ‘For about two years when I was twelve years old and my parents became born again,’ I said, then changed the subject. The last thing I wanted was to swap conversion stories.

  After dinner, I wanted to go to the Tote for a drink. It was only a few blocks away, I remembered. I had not been there since Bonnie and I would sneak in when we were seventeen. Ed was not keen, but in my assertive mood, I persuaded him to go.

  He drove the couple of blocks, past a bluestone school, boarded-up warehouses and rows of toy-like wooden cottages, and we saw the tired old pub on the corner.

  We felt the thumps before we entered the narrow door. It was half dark, crowded, fuggy and smoky; a punk band screamed from the low stage.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ Ed shouted in my ear.

  ‘A vodka and soda. I’ll be over there.’ I pointed to the gyrating throng in front of the band. Ed made his way to the bar. I squeezed closer to the stage and soon I was jumping in rhythm with the group next to me. Some minutes later, I turned around to a tap on my shoulder. Ed handed me my drink and gestured that he would be on the other side of the room. He looked too serious. I emptied the glass, closed my eyes and bounced around some more to the beat. Then I left my space near the stage and went looking for him.

  He sat with his back against the wall in a corner near the door. His jaw was held at a weird angle and his eyes, surveying the room, looked agonised.

  ‘Why aren’t you drinking?’ I shouted at him, almost angry.

  ‘I’m an alcoholic,’ he shouted back.

  Of course I knew. The realisation had been growing since I’d met him – the way he seemed so lost and vulnerable, his eyes that were always on the alert, his careful courtesy to others, his reluctance to drink or go to the pub.

  Without talking, we walked outside and found the car. In the car he pulled me to him, pushed his lips against mine so fast and hard that our teeth clashed. He poked his tongue deep into my mouth. With one hand gripping my neck and the other my back, he clasped me to him, his heartbeat frantic at my breast. I kissed him back, caressed his hair, his back, stroked down towards his hips, his groin.

  He pushed me away. His breath was ragged. ‘I’m sorry. I want to respect you,’ he said.

  ‘You are respecting me,’ I said, and moved back towards him. He yanked open the car door and stepped out. With quick steps he walked to the corner and back, then got in and started the car.

  He smoked one cigarette after another as he drove. On the freeway he asked me, ‘Do you believe in God?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘An abstract one.’

  ‘I knew you did,’ he said.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you before becoming Charismatic?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, in an abstract way, too. I think it was beauty I was looking for, rather than God. But adoration of beauty causes pain. I remember looking at the sky as a child, seeing its blueness and crying because I couldn’t hold it in my hands.’ He glanced at me and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘And now?’ I said.

  ‘Now I find Jesus is tangible,’ he said. ‘Have you ever experienced Jesus in a real way?’

  I put on my mock American preacher voice. ‘Sister, have you experienced Jesus in your life?’ I looked at his face and immediately regretted my gibe. ‘I’m sorry, I know it was a genuine question,’ I said. He picked up my hand from my lap and squeezed it. I stared out the window at the road and concentrated on answering his question. ‘Earlier this year, in Darwin, everything seemed to be going wrong and I kept trying to get on top of it, find solutions, change, but it just made me more and more anxious. Finally, one night I was having a kind of panic attack. I felt like my head would implode. Then I just let everything go. I gave up control and suddenly felt God or some kind of peace or infinite power fill the space.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he said.

  Blondie’s ‘Atomic’ came on the radio. ‘I love this song,’ I said, and turned it up. My heart thumped with the urgency of the rhythm as it lifted off, the synth, her moans and the lyrics: Uh-huh, Make it magnificent/ Tonight … I thought about the healing party a fortnight away, and of the magnificent efforts of my mother, my father and my sisters, and I felt so proud and desperate that I could have sobbed.

  Ed dropped me back home and I saw him every day until the healing party. Each day, after he finished the early shift at the old folks home, he would arrive at my parents’ house and do battle with the monstrous multi-limbed cacti. He would take to the thick, tough stems with an assortment of saws, axes and spades, starting with the outer layer and working towards the centre. He learnt to wear goggles after a thorn stabbed him near the eye, and he discovered that the white slimy cactus juice would infect the cuts that multiplied on his arms and legs. When the stems lay hacked and weeping on the ground and there was only stump left, Ed would dig, ram and saw into the ground to remove the cactus’s massive root ball, buried deep and knotted in the earth.

  THE COVER OF CLOUD HUNG AROUND ALL DAY, neither brewing into rain nor dispersing. Silver-grey and implacable, it filmed over our heads, too high, it seemed, to give the clear sign my family asked of God that all would be fine for tonight’s healing party.

  On the left side of our house, a cladded-steel gate blocked the driveway that gave access to the backyard. It had rusted shut, but we wanted to open it for the party, so people could enter without going through the house. Ed and I put our shoulders to the gate, rocking and pushing until the hinges screeched and it cracked free. We then moved behind the gate and pulled it open until we were sandwiched between it and the side of the house. Hidden behind the gate, we kissed.

  How happy Ed seemed, working in our backyard. He had removed several years’ worth of junk and wild growth. He’d tamed the lawn, vanquished the cacti and set up the ramp, even decorating it with fairy lights, all with an inordinate amount of pleasure and purpose. Not for the first time, I felt a twinge of sadness for him. What emptiness possessed his heart that he was so content to serve someone else’s dream?

  The guests were arriving at about six o’clock, just over an hour away. The drama group, musicians, friends and church people had been coming and going all afternoon, laden with crates, props, instruments, ice, eskys and trays of food.

  Dad was sleeping in his studio to build up his energy. ‘Wake me at five o’clock, or if there is an important call,’ he had said. Mum was lying down in her room. The dozen or so members of the drama group were still rehearsing, directed by Troy, a priestly young man Dad had made his second in command. Patsy and the music ministry had set down their instruments and were bringing out the plates and glasses. Anita, in full director mode, could be heard snapping out orders in the kitchen and all through the house. She was clear and good-humoured with the ten or so mainly middle-aged ladies volunteering in the kitchen, the same ladies you saw preparing the refreshments at all the Charismatic gatherings. Out of their earshot, however, she would be terse, giving tongue-lashings to Charles and her sisters. Maria was well out of the way. She had been given the job of doorknocking the neighbours to remind them our street would be full of cars and visitors tonight. We had letter-boxed invitations a couple of weeks earlier and hoped their sympathy for Mum would lead them to be tolerant.

  ‘Get off from there, you might fall,’ I told Will and his friend, a neighbour’s five-year-old daughter. They were crawling up the ramp, which took centre stage against the back fence, flanked by
the six remaining cacti. Ed had put in hours of cutting, sanding and reinforcing to improve the ramp. Still, it remained what it was – a few pieces of timber knocked together by Dad, a rough and ready makeshift gangplank leaning against the fence at an odd angle. The ramp was attached about three-quarters of the way up the fence, low enough so that it wasn’t too steep to climb, and high enough so that Mum, in fulfilment of the dream, could jump over the fence. But who would do that unless they wanted to break their neck in the deep fall to the alley on the other side? All the same, there was something precarious and grand about it. You could imagine the ramp as a platform to raise you into the sky, maybe.

  Neither Will nor his friend got off the ramp as they were told, so I strode over to them. Will sat halfway up the ramp with his legs out in front of him as though he were on a slide. The little girl, giggling, crawled up the ramp, past Will, then raised herself to a standing position and looked down her nose at me. ‘Is Mrs Chan going to get up out of her wheelchair and run up here? That’s what Will said!’

  ‘Did not!’ said Will. ‘I only said she might!’

  ‘Well?’ they both demanded.

  I realised I was exhausted. ‘We can only hope,’ I said.

  They scrambled down and ran off, no longer interested, and I went back inside. The double doors between the lounge and family room had been pinned back to create a large open area. Furniture and effects had been removed and jammed wherever there was space in the other rooms. The floor had been cleared, but Dad’s pictures stayed on the walls, taking on an even greater prominence. The house had the look and feel of a public gallery waiting to be filled.

  I went to see if Mum was ready to get up. This was, of course, a different kind of party, but we couldn’t help but compare it with the many Dad and Mum had hosted in the past. Mum should have been out there, taking charge of the kitchen and house, whipping up her dishes, counting the guests, calculating how much food and drink was needed, sorting out the serving, getting stressed and curbing Dad’s excesses. A few times she had ventured out of her room to join in the preparations but had been distant and abstracted, and hardly able to string sentences together.