HOUSE of BOOKS
PENELOPE
ROWE
Disreputable
People
This edition published by Allen & Unwin House of Books in 2012
First published by Random House, Australia, in 1998
Copyright © Penelope Rowe 1998
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
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Penelope Rowe was born in Sydney in 1946. Her first novel, Dance for the Ducks, was published in 1976. She is the author of five works of fiction including the critically acclaimed Tiger Country. In 2005, Rowe's moving account of life with bi-polar disorder, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, was published by Allen & Unwin, co-authored by her daughter Jessica Rowe.
contents
faith’s way
fish food
the great divide
now melt into sorrow
kazinczy utca, budapest
pillow talk
the kennedy family photo
eric’s phantom date
fortune
god’s little tadpole
the birthday party
the feminist
the crafty women’s association
colonel clint’s campaign
old dixie
means to an end
miss pewsey gets a hard-on
disreputable people
one more, for the road
With grateful love
to
Great-Aunt Nola who hopes I’ve written
something happy this time
and
Grand-Aunt Lois who is, quite simply, grand.
faith’s way
‘Bald is beautiful,’ said Robbie.
This is the story of Faith who is dead. I moved in with the family over the long dying, and I want to tell you her story. She and John had four children, Rob, Ellen, Evie and Luke. It was when Faith was breastfeeding Luke that she discovered the first lump. She had to have both her breasts and all her lymph glands removed immediately and she got over the physical part of this astonishingly quickly. It took her longer to come to terms with the concept that in the presence of such fecundity and plenty, something as sinister as a cancer could lie hidden and creeping. A serpent had entered her Garden of Eden.
What I found hard to accept was that in all likelihood I was going to outlive my daughter. It’s not right. Parents should not outlive their children. Not, of course, that any of us spoke about dying at the start. We had the usual reactions. Denial, anger, how could it happen to a young mother with four small children?, et cetera, then the determination to battle it on all fronts. John and Faith read everything they could get their hands on, they quizzed the doctors and used perfumed oils and even dolphin tapes, although Faith did comment once with a smile that she wouldn’t mind getting in touch with her inner orang-outang, and giving him a good belting.
We’re going to beat this thing and meanwhile let’s all get on with our lives was our philosophy. Having retired I could be on hand whenever Faith needed a break or a babysitter, and I have to admit that it gave me enormous pleasure to be needed by my beautiful, independent, flamboyant girl.
As soon as she was able, Faith was back in the garden nursery beside John, but the most arduous task she could perform was planting out the seedlings into pots, sitting up at a high bench in the greenhouse to do so. When I worried that even this was too tiring for her, she told me that she must have a sense of normalcy or she could not get well. Whether the sense of normalcy ever did return I don’t know, because three months later it became very obvious that something was seriously wrong again. Faith went into the hospital and this time came out minus one lung, with the other lung badly diseased. She had a shunt implanted into her chest and from time to time through the day she had to pump it to ease the fluid pressure that built inexorably up. At the same time she undertook a hideous course of chemotherapy. Her rich chestnut hair fell out in great clumps almost at once.
She was referred to the oncology annexe where the ancillary staff suggested that she have a wig made and that she give them a little clump of hair before it all fell out so that the wig might be a good match. This seemed to me to be an excellent idea but to my horror Faith airily dismissed the suggestion.
‘Can I have one of those posters instead?’ she asked. ‘For home.’ She pointed to a poster of a totally bald person, man or woman I couldn’t tell, and the words: BALD IS BEAUTIFUL.
‘Oh no, Faith dear,’ I said. ‘Bald is not beautiful. Think of the children, think of John.’
‘Come on, Mum,’ she said. ‘You know me. I have to do things my way. Wilful, you used to call me.’
‘But, dear, it will make it so much harder for them.’
‘Maybe,’ she said carefully. ‘But I’m still me if I’m bald. I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not. And being bald is like, like a trophy from the battle. I’ve earned my scar. I want to be proud to have done so.’ Typical Faith, facing things headlong, doing it her way.
She took the poster home and stuck it up on the fridge door. The children drew a moustache on it and a pair of specs and that was that.
One night soon after, Faith insisted on taking John and I out to what she termed ‘the next-step dinner’.
‘There’s no right moment to say what I have to say,’ she said when our dinner had been served. ‘Remember, Mum, how you used to remind me how we only get one go at living so we must make the best of it? Well …’ she paused and her eyes filled with tears and she spread out her hands and grasped John’s and mine passionately, ‘… well, it follows that we only get one go at dying. I want to make the best of it, too.’ John seemed to flinch in pain.
‘Don’t talk like that,’ he begged. ‘Please don’t. We mustn’t give up hope. You never …’ Faith leaned over and put her finger on his lips, blocking off the disclaimer.
‘I’ll never give up hope,’ she said. ‘But hope is in the realm of miracles. Miracles don’t happen very often. Let’s proceed in the realm of reality. That we can rely on. And if a miracle comes along, then, whoopee.’ John and I sat staring in anguish at her.
She tried to ease the intensity then, I remembe
r. She pulled some pamphlets from her bag.
‘Want to see the latest additions to the miracle cures?’ she asked. ‘Look here. An old bloke gave me this outside the hospital today. It says his dog had cancer and he changed its diet from Pal to Good-O and the dog is cured and …’ she shuffled the scraps of paper awkwardly, ‘I found this one outside the Inspirations for Inner Health shop. It suggests that I dig a pit toilet right down the back of the yard and …’ It became too much of an effort even for her. She stopped speaking then looked down at her lap.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered and, mercy me, John started to sob. We were in a restaurant, a public place. The best thing I could think to do was help them out to the foyer, Faith clinging to her husband.
Lying in bed that night I was overcome with a cold, yawning nausea in my belly. I was angry with Faith. I was angry because she was forcing me to face a reality that I had resolutely avoided, and now I knew she was right and somehow we were going to have to dredge up the courage and strength to go part of the journey with her—if it was to be the ‘good’ dying that she wanted. Good dying! I wanted to cry out in derision but I knew I had to put away the anger and embrace what was to come.
Faith began to prepare us all. When I went up to help her bath the littlies the next night, I found her sitting on the toilet seat, supervising and absently pumping her shunt. She seemed calmer, more tranquil than I had ever seen her. Robbie, the eldest, he’s six, was watching her from the tub.
‘Are you making your breathing more better?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Faith smiling at him. ‘Now get busy with the nailbrush on those dirty toes.’
‘If your breathing gets badder, will you die?’ he asked with interest.
‘I think I probably will,’ answered Faith and she leaned down to give him a hug, wetting her jumper in the process. ‘Finish your bath, quicksticks. Daddy will have dinner ready soon.’ That was part of the plan too—John in charge of the kitchen.
More and more regularly Faith had her meals, such as they were—dry biscuits and Vegemite—in her bedroom.
‘I want to start the departure long before I go,’ she told me. ‘So it isn’t a terrible change for the children. You know, last night, Evie woke up at about three and she called out for John to come. That’s a major breakthrough. Even a week ago only I would have done.’ She sounded genuinely pleased but I knew the courage such generosity cost her. She was besotted with her children.
As she got weaker and weaker she spent more time in her bedroom, existing on a cocktail of antiinflammatories, pain-killers and Tamoxifen. She became increasingly skeletal and terrible to look at. But she was busy. She made little books of memories for each of the children, filled with postcards and photos and details of their progress and who their godparents were and the names of people she felt they could turn to later in life.
Ellen went into a drawing frenzy—sunflowers, big, bold, generous sunflowers. ‘If I do a really special one for you, will you take it with you?’ she asked her mother and Faith said, ‘I’d love to.’
She wrote four little storybooks, each one about a family of children with no mother and a wonderful father, and the children would lie on the bed with her while she read them aloud. As I passed the doorway one evening I heard Robbie ask, ‘Who will Daddy marry after you die?’ and I heard Faith reply, ‘It will probably be someone like Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.’
John, too, was changed by this new phase. He was quieter, calmer. ‘We’ve said it all,’ he told me, ‘and having said that we love each other and me having told her I don’t know how I will manage when she is gone, there’s nothing more to be said. So, if at times we seem matter-of-fact and businesslike with each other it is only because the most intimate has been said. We have looked into the abyss together and said our goodbyes at the edge.’
Every day Faith would force herself out of bed even if just for a few hours. She would shower and dress, each step painfully slow and wearying. But the day came when the trip back up the stairs was beyond her. John picked her up, little scrap of a body she was by then, and carried her up to bed, and they stayed in the bedroom with the door closed for a long time. When John finally came out his eyes were swollen, he was drenched with sorrow. He came down the stairs and put himself into my arms.
‘You know, don’t you, Faith won’t be coming down again?’ he said. ‘She’s starting the long sleep.’
And she was. For three days she lay there, vaguely aware of our comings and goings, motioning the children close whenever she saw them. ‘Let them come whenever they want,’ she whispered to me. ‘Let them see me off in their own way.’
On the afternoon of the last day when Faith’s breaths came slower and slower we were all with her in her bedroom. John stood by the window nursing Luke, Robbie sat at the foot of the bed carefully watching his mother, Evie was curled up beside Faith, sucking her thumb and, with her arm curved back, patted Faith’s cheek. And Ellen, good heavens, Ellen was drawing a big yellow sunflower in texta colour on Faith’s bald head! I went forward, appalled, but John’s hand on my arm and his gentle ‘ssh ssh’ restrained me. Just as Faith exhaled that long last breath, Ellen finished off her very best sunflower.
Robbie slid off the bed and walked up to his mother’s head. Tenderly, with his tough, little boy’s hand, he stroked the sunflower.
‘Bald is beautiful,’ he said.
fish food
Daddy and Glenda had brought the two little girls on a beach holiday. They’d been there three days and Kit was having lots of fun and Melly was hating it. Melly hated everything about the holiday. She hated that the house was wooden and unpainted and stood on stilts. She hated the way it shook when Daddy or Glenda came up the outside stairs. She was scared that one day it would fall right down. She hated the stuffy little bunk room that she shared with Kit and the rough grey blanket that smelled old and hairy and she hated being in the top bunk because the sheets were all sandy but she couldn’t reach up properly to shake them clean and Kit had bagsed the bottom bunk and was mean and wouldn’t swap. She hated the shower down in the dark under the house because it was just a concrete step with a drain, no doors or anything, so Daddy and Glenda could see her when she had her shower, and she hated the toilet down there too because a frog had jumped out from under the seat the first time she had gone to sit on it. And they had all laughed, even Kit, when she had cried in fright. Most of all she hated Daddy for bringing Glenda and Glenda for even dreaming to come. There was also a carpet snake curled up on the old water tank and horrible bushes of dark hydrangeas all hung about with spider webs beside the carport.
Melly hated the way Daddy was always touching Glenda. Oh, she could see them, all lovey-dovey at the sink having fun with the washing-up. Since when had Daddy thought the washing-up was fun, eh? And Glenda whistling. She hated Glenda whistling. And she hated it when Glenda would say, ‘I’ve got to have a pee.’ You were meant to say, ‘I want to do a wee.’ She hated it when they played games and Glenda said, ‘I want to be on Melly’s team.’ Not on your life. Melly always said, ‘You can’t. I’m on Daddy’s side.’ Then she’d see Daddy and Glenda exchange grown-up looks. Oh yes, she’d see them all right. Then Kit would be all crawly and say, ‘I’ll be on your side, Glenda.’
Mealtimes were about the worst because they all had to be together then. Melly wouldn’t eat what Glenda cooked and hated her even more because she really was very hungry. ‘I hate that,’ she said when Glenda put a yummy hamburger on a crisp toasty bun in front of her. ‘Melly,’ Daddy said in a warning voice but ‘Never mind,’ said Glenda and they exchanged one of their looks. Melly was glad because she knew she was making them unhappy. Only trouble was that it meant they were all unhappy, and that was a nuisance because she wanted to talk to Kit and tell her silly bosoms and botty jokes and make plans for adventures and things, and she badly needed to tell Kit how frightened of the snake she was, too. Still, she could put up with hating everything so long as it was maki
ng the holiday awful for Daddy and Glenda. She hadn’t really wanted to make it awful for Kit, not at first, but now she did because Kit was being such a pig.
Like now. Daddy had suggested a walk along the beach after dinner and though Melly had said she wasn’t coming, Daddy had said she couldn’t stay at home by herself and besides, she was scared of being by herself, so she had had to come. And just look what that big crawler, Kit, was doing. She had found a pointed stick and with it had drawn a huge heart in the hard damp sand. Inside the heart she had written, ‘DADDY LOVES GLENDA’, and now she was printing some other stuff around the heart. Melly pretended not to be watching but she was so angry with Kit she just had to look. Kit had just finished.
‘Come and see,’ she was screaming at Daddy and Glenda who were having a bit of a nuzzle at the water’s edge. ‘Come and see what I’ve written.’ She ran towards them to urge them along. Melly darted over to the heart. Around it Kit had dared to write, ‘LOVE IS IN THE AIR’. It took Melly a few seconds to read because she was only five and still read a bit slowly, but she had time to jump into the heart and scuff most of it out with her feet before the other three drew up.
‘Ooh, Melly, I hate you. Daddy, Melly’s spoilt my heart.’
‘Now, girls,’ said Daddy. Looks.
Melly sauntered off, whistling a little Glenda-type hum to show how little she cared then quickly crouched down and drew her own heart. ‘I LOVE MUMMY’ she wrote in big letters and they saw that all right! Then she darted away and ran as fast as she could to the end of the beach where she crouched, out of breath, behind some rocks and watched.
The sun had fallen behind the sandhills and although the sky was still streaked with pink it became hard to make out the three figures further back up the beach. Melly was a bit sorry now that she had run away so fast. They seemed to be taking ages to arrive and none of them had thought to hurry on ahead to see if she was okay. She felt lonely behind the damp, weedy rocks and the scuttle of crab claws under the overhang scared her. When next she peeped out she thought she could see Daddy giving Kit an aeroplane, swinging her round and round by her leg and arm. Melly gasped in outrage. They didn’t care! They had forgotten all about her! She’d show them. Awkwardly now, in the closing dark, she scrambled further along the rock face and wedged herself deeply. ‘I’ll show them.’
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