by Liz Byrski
‘Doesn’t Bonnie like babies?’ Caro asked. ‘She avoided Bek like the plague when we went back to her place after the opening.’
‘Don’t take this personally, Caro,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s nothing to do with you or Rebekah, but I think you may have hit the nail right on the head.’
Bonnie closed her office door and leaned back against it, her heart pounding. She felt she might throw up at any minute. Slowly she made her way to her desk and sat down. The room seemed to have a life of its own, circling and dancing around her in and out of focus. She put her hands flat on the desk in an attempt to steady herself. She’d been doing quite well since she left the house. For a moment there, while she was talking to Sylvia, she’d felt almost normal. But then … she remembered about deep breathing, how good it was supposed to be for calming you down, and she sat back in her chair, closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. It helped a little, but not enough. How was she going to get through this if every tiny step forward led to a huge step back? Reaching for her bag, she drew out Jeff’s photograph and stared into his face, as though by peering intently into his eyes she could make him come back. But he was forever frozen in time.
Laid out on the desk in front of her were the neat columns of figures that Fran had extracted from the restaurant and gallery returns. So Fran had mastered the accounts. Bonnie gave a small, tight smile, thinking of her friend struggling to manage the financial side, the thing she had promised her she would never have to do. What would that have cost her; that and being here, virtually alone, during those first difficult weeks?
Bonnie bit her lip as she went through the paperwork. While she had been struggling with her own grief there had been no space to think about what her absence had meant to her friends. There were the wages and salaries records, and then contracts for the new staff. She looked through them carefully, admiring Fran’s efficiency, touched by the strength and loyalty she had shown in taking over the reins.
The last of the three contracts was Caro’s. Bonnie paused, staring at it, resentment battling with common sense and fair play. Caro was, of course, the best person for the gallery, it was an entirely sound decision, one which Sylvia and Fran had no doubt discussed in her absence; one she could not argue with or reasonably change. She liked Caro, and knew she would do a good job, and she would simply have to cope with it. They could not, after all, be expected to understand how it felt for her to know that not only was there a baby in the Boatshed today, but that she would be there regularly in future.
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘The thing to remember,’ said Jodie, resting her hand on Fran’s arm as she pressed the bell at the gate of the hostel, ‘is that the facilities are less important than the environment itself.’
‘What do you mean?” Fran asked, her anxiety increasing with confusion.
‘Some places look really elegant, beautiful floral arrangements, mix and match soft furnishings, snazzy artwork on the walls. But what you need to watch for is the way the staff treat the residents while they’re showing us around. You’ll know it when you see it,’ Jodie murmured as a middle-aged woman in a smart grey suit opened the door.
‘Ms Whittaker,’ she said with a reassuring smile. ‘Do come in. I’m Janet Roberts, director of nursing,’ and she reached out to shake Fran’s hand.
Fran had woken that morning with a sense of dread at the prospect of the day’s program. She had been putting this off since before Christmas and now it was nearly the end of January. Bonnie had slowly returned to work in recent weeks, taking control of things again, managing each day with a rather brittle air of goodwill. She seemed frail somehow, lacking in her old energy and decisiveness, but at least she was there, and her hostility to Sylvia was a thing of the past. Thankfully, Fran had been able to hand over the reins and get on with the book.
Lenore was due to arrive in mid-February to spend a couple of weeks working with her, and Fran had thrown herself into it with feverish energy, using the impending visit as an excuse to avoid confronting the issue of her mother’s future. Lila was so cheerful, and although she was often totally out of touch with reality, she hadn’t seemed to be any danger to herself or anyone else. Not, that is, until the preceding week, when Fran had found her in a frightening state of confusion, in her dressing gown at four in the afternoon, unsure what had happened to her. It seemed that, forgetting which day it was, she had decided on Friday, but finding that the tablets for Thursday were still in the Webster pack, she had taken two days’ drugs instead of one. The following day, she had got lost on the way back from the village office and Ray Barton had found her in tears trying to get into the wrong house. There was no real harm done, but it was a warning that time was running out and she would not be able to live alone much longer.
‘I can help, Fran,’ Jodie had said. ‘I go to heaps of places in my job. If you want, I could suggest some of the nicer ones and I’ll go with you to look at them … that is, if you wouldn’t think I was interfering.’
‘Interfering? I’d think you were saving my life,’ Fran said. ‘Honestly, I don’t know where to start.’
So here they were on a guided tour around the first of seven retirement centres that had secure facilities for people with Alzheimer’s.
‘This is a typical room,’ Janet Roberts said, throwing open the door of a sunny room containing two chintz covered beds and Queen Anne style chests of drawers and wardrobes. ‘We find our residents are happier sharing – it provides them with both company and reassurance.’
Fran’s stomach churned nervously. Having read horror stories about these places she was relieved to see that although it did have an institutional air, it also had a certain graciousness of décor. They moved on down the passage to a bathroom that was shared between two rooms, each accommodating four people.
‘It works well,’ Jan continued, ‘although sometimes people do lose their way and end up in the wrong bedroom or bathroom.’ She turned back to them smiling. ‘You’ll see the names of each occupant on the door along with a flower that matches a flower on the door of the corresponding bathroom. We hope they make the connection but it doesn’t always happen. In the gentlemen’s wing, there are tree motifs on the doors.’ She stopped briefly and looked hard at Fran. ‘This is such a difficult time for families,’ she said. ‘We do understand what you’re going through.’
Fran, who was feeling so unbelievably awful that she was sure no one could possibly understand how it felt, smiled weakly in appreciation. ‘She’s very nice,’ she whispered to Jodie as they were borne off to visit the residents’ lounge and the television room.
‘Yes, but this will be the telling moment,’ Jodie whispered.
A couple of elderly women were wandering from side to side along the passage ahead of them, occasionally grasping the rail to steady themselves.
‘Come along now, you two,’ Janet said imperiously, ‘make way, make way.’ And the women stopped and pressed themselves back against the wall, staring in confusion as Janet steamed ahead with Fran and Jodie behind her.
Jodie turned to Fran and raised her eyebrows. ‘See what I mean?’ she whispered.
‘I can’t imagine how I’m going to do this,’ Fran said that evening as she and Jodie sat facing each other exhausted. ‘She’s going to be devastated. If only there was some other way. Maybe I could manage here …’
‘No, Mum,’ David said. ‘We’ve talked this through before. I know it’s terrible, but Gran needs to be somewhere safe, for her own sake. You have to be at the Boatshed, you have to have a life. You can’t do this.’
Jodie nodded, sipping her tea. ‘David’s right, Fran. I’ve seen people give up everything to look after someone with Alzheimer’s, and it destroys them. Honestly, Lila will be better somewhere that’s safe and friendly. You can’t be here all the time – suppose she just let herself out and wandered off? And she may deteriorate quite rapidly and then you’d have to move her again. Another upheaval at that stage would be really bad.’
‘It f
eels so selfish,’ Fran said, feeling her eyes fill with tears. ‘She looked after me all alone, it was a real struggle, I owe it to her …’
‘No,’ David said again. ‘You don’t, Gran did that because she had to and she chose to. This is different. Do you think if she was really herself again she’d want you to give up everything to spend the next few years looking after her?’
Fran sighed and wiped her eyes on a handful of tissues. ‘No, no, I know she wouldn’t, but she’s different now, and it’s so sudden and so sad … and I just don’t know how I’m going to tell her. And I need to stop her riding her lovely scooter …’
David sat down on the arm of her chair. ‘You don’t have to do it alone,’ he said putting his arm around her shoulders. ‘Caro and I will go with you. Honestly, Mum, you have to do this, for Gran and for yourself.’
Later that night Fran wandered aimlessly around the house, tidying things that didn’t need to be tidied. How was she to tell Lila that she was no longer capable of living alone? How to explain that she must give up her own home, so lovingly refurbished in varying shades of purple, and live in a place not even of her own choosing where everything would be determined for her by someone else?
Flicking through the TV channels for a distraction she discarded serious current affairs on the ABC, a Japanese film on SBS, and a lot of half-clad youthful bodies on a reality show, and settled finally on a gruesome cosmetic surgery makeover. The woman looked perfectly okay until the surgeon, his own face tightened into an unnatural permanent smile, started to highlight with a purple marker the areas that ‘needed work’. Fran shifted restlessly on the couch. In the last few months she had got on top of her craving for sugar, but tonight it had started to bug her again.
‘If you eat plenty of protein and vegetables you’ll beat the sugar cravings,’ Bonnie had told her a few months earlier. And she had; she’d lost a little weight and stopped obsessing about Twix bars, and KitKats, and other sinful indulgences. Now they were back inside her head again, and not only in her head but on the screen in front of her – KitKats, closely followed by a picture of a Big Mac dripping with yellow plastic-looking cheese. Fran stared intently at the screen, wondering why someone with a flair for the creation of fine food was such a sucker for junk. She could just slip out and get some. What was that about the calories not counting if no one saw you eat it? It would make her feel terrible, of course: heartburn, headache, increased heart rate, bloating, raging thirst, guilt, inadequacy, more guilt and more inadequacy. On the other hand … Within minutes she was on her way to McDonald’s and then to the all-night petrol station for the chocolate.
By the time she got home, the made-over woman, her face in a cloned smile, was revealing ridiculously taut breasts and thighs to her adoring friends and family. Fran flicked the channels again and settled for Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, feeling the perceptible mood lift as the burger, fries, two KitKats and a Mars Bar delivered the brief anaesthetic interlude. An hour later, having passed the chemically induced peak and heading for the trough, her heart beating uncomfortably fast and nausea threatening, she slumped into the inevitable mood change. Seventeen years alone. What was wrong with her that she had no one in her life? At any other time Fran might have reminded herself that her single status was largely her own choice. But she couldn’t feel that, not tonight.
The next morning, with a thumping headache, she reluctantly called the two places she and Jodie had felt stood out above the others; hostels where the staff very obviously treated the residents with respect and affection. There were endless forms to complete and photocopies of other documents to assemble, but by midday Lila’s name was on the waiting lists and her needs assessment placed her quite near the top. Fran swayed back and forth between anxiety about Lila’s safety and relief that the waiting list bought her a few more weeks or months of independence. With a growing sense of loneliness she slipped the documents into envelopes to mail to the hostels, feeling she was committing an act of treachery against the mother she loved and who was so rapidly disappearing.
*
Will picked up the phone and put it down again. He’d done that half a dozen times but hadn’t managed to sum up the courage to dial the number. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to speak to Sylvia, he really did. He needed a conversation that would file down the raw edges. He’d left Melbourne quite suddenly, which was probably a good thing, but in the rush of organising it and of Ryan collecting him, and Bonnie wandering around like a stunned mullet, he hadn’t had a chance to talk to Sylvia.
‘Take care, Will,’ she’d said, holding out both her hands as he left. ‘I’ll be thinking of you.’
He’d taken her hands and mumbled something incomprehensible because he’d felt like crying.
‘I could come to the airport,’ Bonnie had said, tears bright in her eyes. ‘You might need a hand.’
Ryan, primed by Will to expect this, had graciously and efficiently deterred her with an assurance that he could manage Will single-handed. At the time Bonnie had been barely speaking to Sylvia and the tension was palpable. He had tried to explain that the responsibility for the secrecy rested with him but Bonnie hadn’t wanted to hear it. Since then, things seemed to have improved. She had called him a couple of times, apologising for overreacting, trying to explain how he and his accident had become so closely linked to losing Jeff that it had knocked her off balance. Her friendship with Sylvia now seemed to be restored, but it was all a bit too complicated for Will. He had listened and tried to understand but he couldn’t quite get where Bonnie was coming from. And now it was almost the end of January and he still hadn’t had this important conversation he needed to have with Sylvia.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said to Tania, tossing the phone restlessly between one hand and the other. ‘I want to talk to her, but I want to make it right, not stuff it up.’
‘What would make it right?’ Tania asked, taking a bottle of Verdelho from the fridge bag she and Ryan had brought with them, and motioning to him to open it. Ryan, who had walked straight in and put on the television to watch the cricket, glanced back over his shoulder.
‘Leave well alone for a while,’ he said, dropping into a chair.
Will ignored him. ‘I don’t know, really,’ he said to Tania. ‘I suppose I want to tell her it’s all right; that I’m all right. That I realise I went … well, I lost the plot.’
‘In wanting to marry her, or in getting pissed and falling off the bridge?’ Tania asked. She’d also brought a baguette and cheeses, knowing Will wouldn’t have anything in his fridge for lunch, and she started unwrapping the food and setting it out on the benchtop.
‘Both, but mostly the former.’
‘But you did really want to marry her,’ Tania said. ‘When you told us in the restaurant, you weren’t in any doubt.’
‘I know. I don’t know what came over me, really. She was so strong, so … so sort of complete. Don’t really know how to explain it, but she didn’t play games, she was just herself, and I did … still do … love her, but I can see it would never have worked.’
‘Because?’
‘Because we both want different things from life, we’re at different stages. Because of the age thing … I thought it didn’t matter, but …’
Tania walked around the benchtop, took the bottle and the corkscrew from Will, put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him downward so he was perched on a stool. ‘Look, Will,’ she said, ‘I can tell you why it wouldn’t have worked but you won’t like it.’
He stared at her. She knew him better than anyone and he knew she was about to deliver some horrible home truth.
‘Okay, tell me, I can take it.’
‘It’s not the age that matters, it’s what you do with it. I love you to bits, Will, but sometimes I wonder if you’re ever going to grow up. You have the tenacity of a butterfly when it comes to relationships. You’re a hit and run man. Oh, I know that suits some women who are as scared of attachment as you are, but it’s
not very mature. You haven’t got a clue about what it takes to build a relationship that’ll last. The reason it could never work for you and Sylvia is that she’s obviously very grown up, and you’re still behaving like an overgrown teenager.’
‘But – ’ he began before Tania held up her hand to stop him.
‘I told you you wouldn’t like it but it’s true. You’re forty-three, Will. If you want a mature relationship, then you have to change yourself, not just find someone who’s mature herself and hope she’ll do it all for you. There’s a lot of years ahead – it’s time to learn another way. You don’t have relationships, you take hostages, and then, after you’ve kept them in benevolent emotional captivity for a few months, you kick them out. It’s no way to live, Will, and it’s certainly no way to grow old.’
That evening Will sat alone on his balcony, watching the sun set over the river, considering what she had said, trying to understand how he could be different, and how, had he been different, it might possibly have worked. He thought Tania was probably right. The old way didn’t seem very attractive anymore. This experience with Sylvia had opened him to risk, made him emotionally vulnerable. It was a new feeling and it scared him horribly.
The sun sank behind the dark silhouette of the city skyline across the river and the myriad colours of the lights in the buildings were reflected in the still water. Perhaps that’s what he wanted to tell her; that while it still hurt like hell, he knew that she was right. She had changed him and he was grateful. Yes, he was grateful for that. He picked up the phone again and this time he dialled the number.
Sylvia put the phone down and lay in the darkness, looking out through the half-open curtains at the shadowy shapes of the trees. Having lived so long with Colin, whose life and emotions had always been focused elsewhere, Will’s sudden and devouring attention had at first been seductive and later smothering. There must, she thought, be a happy medium, but perhaps it was not something she would ever experience. She lay absolutely still, feeling the tears on her cheeks, making no attempt to stop them.