Rose by Any Other Name

by Maureen McCarthy

  ‘Dad!’ Cynthia stands up quickly and yells, ‘you can’t do this! Not to Mum!’

  He holds up his hand to silence her.

  ‘I want you to know that I love you girls very much and I always will and . . . that your mother is a wonderful woman.’ Then he begins to cry. Tears rush down his cheeks. ‘She is a wonderful woman,’ he says again, ‘but I don’t love her. At least not in the way a man should love a woman.’

  I am truly amazed by all this. I’ve never seen my father cry before. Not ever. Not even when his brother died, and that was the saddest I’d ever seen him. There is silence. I don’t know how long it goes on. All I know is I can hear Mum’s old clock ticking on the desk. I look at my sisters and they are all, like Mum, staring at Dad.

  ‘Do any of you want to say anything?’ he gasps, looking around at each of us in turn. ‘Ask me anything?’ None of us speaks. I think we’re all hoping that one of us will say something really sharp and pithy, something that will stun him into seeing reason and make him change his mind. There are a million thoughts flying through my head but I have no clear idea of what to say. Then a coherent sentence does come to me. Who is she? I want to scream, but I can’t get my mouth to open around the words.

  ‘Well then, I’ll go now,’ he says quietly, turning away, ‘but I’ll be back soon. I’ll ring. I’ll see you all very soon.’ He is almost out the door when my mother scrambles to her feet.

  ‘Don’t do this, Justus,’ she screams hoarsely, beseeching him with both arms. ‘We have been married for twenty-eight years! I am the mother of your children! I beg you, please don’t leave me! I’ll die!’

  I’ll die! I’ll die! I’ll die!

  My father stops in the doorway and slowly turns around to look at her. I catch pity on his face, then a flickering mess of sorrow and tenderness. A froth of hope rises in my chest. He is wavering, on the brink of turning back. But he straightens his shoulders and his face hardens.

  ‘You won’t die, Patsy,’ he says quietly, ‘you’re a strong woman. You have many people who love you,’ then his voice cracks as he whispers the last words, ‘justifiably. Many people who love you.’

  Then he’s gone.

  Road Trip

  I have my first glimpse of the ocean in more than a year. We’re chugging behind a caravan through Torquay and when we round that bend it’s there, and I’m surprised at how moved I am just by the sight of it. A shimmering vast expanse of bright blue wedged up against the light sunny sky. I turn to Mum but she is looking out the side window, her face turned away. I can see by the hunch of her shoulders that something is getting to her and I have a moment of foreboding. It’s been very quiet between us since Geelong. What happened back there after we drank our coffee? Did I miss something? Did I say something?

  Only eleven in the morning and it’s hot already.

  ‘I’ll stop at Lorne,’ I say, ‘maybe have a swim. You want to?’

  ‘Yes.’ She begins drumming the fingers of one hand on her knee. ‘Maybe I will.’ She shifts in her seat and keeps drumming with her fingers. It makes me edgy because I know she’s got something on her mind. But I stop short of asking because her answer is likely to make me more than edgy. We are crawling along behind the caravan and I’m starting to feel claustrophobic.

  ‘Rose, I just wish that . . .’

  ‘Don’tcha just hate caravans?’ I cut her off recklessly. ‘I reckon they should be wiped from the face of the Earth!’

  We’ve been behind this monster for about fifteen minutes. There is a pause. I can almost hear her collecting her thoughts to have another go at me.

  ‘We all miss you,’ she says. ‘You’re living out there in that godforsaken place. With people you don’t know or like. And none of us really understands why.’

  ‘Us?’ I say lightly, but I’m playing for time. How come I thought I’d be able to evade this? Mum and I locked up in a car for six hours and we talk about how nice the weather is? Yeah right. What the fuck was I thinking? I start chewing the inside of my mouth.

  What she says is true, of course. I’m living in a terrible old rundown place, grimy and ugly, with two guys I met at a pub one night. They needed someone to share the rent and it seemed a good idea at the time. Turned out to be not such a good idea at all, but I don’t care that much. I don’t care about a lot of things that I used to care about. It’s that simple.

  ‘Your sisters and me,’ she explains, ‘and your father too, Rose. He tells me he never sees you.’

  Even this quick mention of my father triggers an instant ache in my chest. I want to ask her if she talks to Dad often, and what about? What does he say about me? It’s true I hardly see him at all any more. I avoid it.

  ‘Lots of people leave home, Mum!’ I try to sound in control. What was I thinking, letting her come? ‘Just because my sisters want to live at home forever doesn’t mean I have to!’

  ‘Wanting to leave home is . . . fine,’ she says carefully.

  ‘So what is the problem?’

  She gives me a hard, meaningful look that tells me I’m a completely fucked-up person in all kinds of ways that she can’t even talk about, which is probably true, but is not something I actually want to be reminded of on this beautiful blue summer morning, if you get my drift. I cringe, in spite of myself.

  ‘Why be a waitress?’ she almost whispers, ‘with your brain?’

  ‘Lots of people take a year off before going to university,’ I say airily.

  Don’tcha just hate it . . . when your family don’t understand that you’ve moved out of home to get away from them? And here they are visiting you with their cakes and potted plants and breezy gossip about the neighbours. Can’t they tell you’re not interested? And if they’re not visiting they’re ringing. All those kind, caring phone calls that drive you crazy!

  We’re still crawling along behind the caravan, but inside I’m considering the possibility of moving interstate. As soon as I can get the money together! That would get them off my case and right out of my hair. They wouldn’t be able to visit me then. Phone calls would be more expensive too.

  ‘So you’re going to take up your place this year?’ Mum asks, looking at me hopefully. When I hesitate, she sighs.

  ‘Look!’ I snap, ‘I don’t know, right?’

  ‘But Rose,’ she exclaims, ‘it’s all you’ve ever wanted!’

  ‘People change!’ I say.

  ‘Have you changed?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You don’t want to do Law any more?’ she says disbelievingly.

  I don’t answer. In fact, I do want to do Law. And yet . . . it’s impossible now. Even though I only deferred and the place at university is still there with my name on it, I have this weird but very strong feeling that it doesn’t belong to me any more. It should go to someone else. Only fair. I know this doesn’t make sense, so why talk about it?

  ‘Rose, it isn’t university that we’re worried about,’ Mum says. ‘We know you’re bright enough to do that when you’re ready. We’re all really worried for other reasons . . .’

  ‘Would you mind speaking for yourself ?’ I say icily. ‘I can’t stand the idea of the lot of you in cahoots against me!’

  ‘Against you!’ She sighs dramatically and starts waving her hands about. ‘No one is against you Rose. We’re all on your side, and . . .’

  ‘I don’t need anyone on my side,’ I snarl. ‘Just leave me be! This trip is turning into one big disaster!’

  ‘Oh darling,’ she pleads loudly, ‘don’t say that. I don’t mean to harangue you!’

  ‘Well that is what you’re doing!’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry . . .’ she says. ‘The last thing I want to do is to make you feel bad. I just feel so guilty myself, about what happened last year. I know I was a mess. And I . . . I couldn’t help you at all. I was hopeless and . . . I relied on you too much. And your sisters! Oh Rose, I so much want to apologise for last year and all that happened!’

  ‘Mum! Just
stop it.’ My mouth hardly moves as I speak. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Nothing happened.’

  ‘Plenty happened, Rose!’

  ‘But the stuff that happened to me had nothing to do with you!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  All this apologising is almost as bad as her bringing it up. What am I meant to say? Oh don’t worry. Let’s go on the way we used to. The fact that we’re missing a few – Dad, Zoe, her father and Nat Cummins just for starters – doesn’t matter! That’s beside the point. Oh yeah? I almost say just that to shut her up. I look down at my hands on the steering wheel, knuckles white with tension. If I grip any tighter they’ll crack and fall right off. We’ve just passed through the town, the traffic has eased and we’re coming towards a hill. The caravan in front has begun to seriously bug me. And we’re not even halfway there yet!

  ‘So do you have any other plans for this year?’ she asks lightly. ‘You could, you know, try university for six months and see if . . .’ And then she stops in mid sentence because I’m doing something really stupid, but the sudden alarm on her face excites me and, for some weird sick reason, makes me more determined to keep going.

  I’ve pulled out over the double lines to pass the caravan. Big problem. My van doesn’t have a lot of power and there is a car coming straight at us from the opposite direction.

  Mum gives a loud gasp. Then she starts shouting.

  ‘Rose, don’t! Stop! Pull back.’

  I have a moment to decide. Continue passing with the risk of a head-on collision or . . . pull back. I keep going and the car coming towards me has to slow down and dodge onto the gravel and off the road to let me in. We only just make it. Horns blast angrily. In the mirror I see that the same oncoming car has now pulled over and stopped and behind me the caravan driver is shaking his fist and swearing at me. I’m shaking myself as I turn to Mum, who has gone white.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘My God!’ she yells, breathing heavily, tight-lipped and trembling. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘I know. I know.’ I’m shocked myself but I try not to let on. ‘Sorry again.’

  ‘If a cop saw you do that,’ she is screaming at me now, ‘you’d lose your licence. And you’d deserve to!’

  ‘I know,’ I mutter, the adrenalin still pumping wildly around my system.

  ‘You could have killed us!’ she adds. ‘And a whole lot of other innocent people!’

  ‘Look, I know that!’ I snarl. ‘I said sorry. Okay?’

  ‘Not okay, Rose!’ she fumes, crossing her arms tightly over her chest and hunching herself into her corner, closing herself off from me. ‘Not okay at all.’

  We are quiet for a while, both breathing heavily and trying to calm down. At least I am.

  Do you have any plans for this year? That was the question I didn’t want to answer. If I don’t go to university then the place no longer has my name on it. I have to apply all over again and my future disappears even further into the distance.

  Last Summer, Melbourne

  Last The night before the results come out, I do a bargain with God: as long as Dad comes back, I am prepared to fail every single subject. This is a genuine offer. Not easy to make either. In fact, I have to struggle with it because my schooling and my future career have been very important to me since I entered high school. I have to dig very deep and get it absolutely clear in my own head that I’m not just offering ordinary or disappointing results. I mean out-and-out failure in every subject. I go through all the humiliation and disappointment of this scenario in great detail with every person I know (including Alisha Cummins) as I drift off to sleep. Yes, I decide. I am completely serious and prepared for it all. I will do the year again or I will take the year off. I will change direction completely. I will work in a factory or a charity for very little money. In addition to this I will have both legs broken in a car accident. Maybe one has to be cut off. When I’m over that, I will do whatever humiliating, boring or soul-destroying job required to have Dad back. In other words, I will give up my ambition, my dreams, my whole future.

  I try to figure out another career path that I come to in my thirties (after I’ve put in ten years at the factory and I’m suffering joint problems) and I come up with nursing but only if I can keep the legs. By the time I’m drifting off to sleep it’s all starting to feel okay. In fact I’m looking forward to it. Please God. Please. Send Dad back and I’ll be a really good nurse.

  I’m woken at about ten a.m. on Monday by the smiling faces of my three sisters. I groan and turn to look at the clock.

  ‘What the hell!’ I say. Unlike the previous nights, I didn’t flake out as soon as my head hit the pillow. My wrestling with God took a lot of time and energy, so I didn’t get much sleep.

  ‘Congratulations!’ they shout.

  Each of them has a glass of champagne in hand. Hilda is beaming and holding out an empty glass for me. I’m still too thick in the head to realise what they’re on about.

  ‘A perfect score!’

  ‘What!’ I sit up, fully awake now.

  ‘Perfect!’ Cynthia says again. ‘Your headmistress rang Dad. She’ll ring you later. You’re the only girl in your school who got a perfect score!’ Cynthia is sloshing champagne into the glass now and fitting my unwilling hands around the delicate stem. ‘Only eight in the whole state!’

  ‘Eight what?’ I ask, numb with disbelief.

  ‘Perfect scores! Idiot. Wake up.’

  ‘The Age wants to take a photo of you. They’re going to bring some kid down from Echuca or somewhere, get all of you together this afternoon.’

  ‘So Dad knows?’

  ‘Your headmistress rang him when she couldn’t get through here and he rang Hilda. He’s in court in Sydney. But he’s terribly pleased, of course! He’ll ring again as soon as he can.’

  ‘He was over the moon,’ Hilda exclaims.

  ‘Jeez!’ I shake my head.

  The jumble of feelings is indescribable. Acute disappointment because it means Dad is definitely not coming back. But surprise as well, that my offer has not been accepted. After all, it was pretty generous and big-hearted of me to agree to give up so much. (Bizarre thinking for an agnostic, I know, but there you go!) At the same time, I’m absolutely delighted. I simply can’t help it. The good news zings around my head like a deliciously cold ice cube on a hot day, cooling me right down, making me feel drunk with good fortune, before I’ve even had a sip of the champagne.

  A perfect score! How could I not be pleased with myself! These strong conflicting emotions churn around my guts like soup. One moment I’m euphoric, the next I teeter on the edge of nausea.

  Hilda says excitedly, ‘Why weren’t you up first thing to look?’

  ‘Does Mum know?’ I ask, ignoring her question. Zoe and I decided a long time ago that we weren’t going to look up our results online. We were going to be the cool dudes who wait for the mail.

  ‘We thought it would be better to let her sleep,’ Hilda says. We are all quiet as it hits us all over again. My three sisters squash onto my bed and we look at each other. Only a few weeks ago the very idea of Mum sleeping through such good news in the family would have been unbelievable. Mum would have been the one waiting up while everyone else was in bed, then whooping it up outrageously as soon as she had the news.

  ‘Come on,’ Cynthia says, picking up the bottle of champagne and throwing my old Japanese dressing gown around my shoulders, ‘get into gear girl! We’re going to celebrate this!’ The rest of us follow her downstairs and out onto the steps leading into the back garden.

  ‘Where are the boys?’ I ask Hilda.

  ‘A friend came and took them for an hour.’ She grins and looks at her watch. ‘So I’ve got exactly forty-two minutes from now in which to make serious whoopee!’

  Cynthia starts down the steps then turns. ‘Lets get plastered!’ she shouts, holding up the bottle of champagne, then after a few swigs from the bottle gives a huge, gross burp, which has the rest of
us cracking up like asylum inmates.

  ‘Well why not?’ She has another swig and puts the bottle and her glass on a nearby wooden table. ‘Come on!’

  Dorothy and Hilda go down the steps to join her, but I linger a few moments.

  Our garden is on a huge block for an inner-city house. There’s a pool at the end with blue water shimmering in the morning sun. There are loads of big trees all along the back and side fences, flowering gums, jacarandas, and two huge lily pillys, branches heavy with leaves and flowers. Bright sunlight floods through, making dappled patterns on the bricks around the pool and surrounding lawns. Everything seems to shimmer, almost dreamlike in the clear morning air. A luxuriant bed of ferns grows under the shade of the old cream-painted wooden tool shed and masses of bright flowers hang from pots over the shed walls and side fences.

  There is a crackling, shiny-green sharpness to everything. A sort of hum of ordered beauty underneath the haphazard way it has all been arranged. Mum and Dad created this. So many weekends they worked together in the garden. Over all the years they made this small piece of loveliness happen.

  Dot is looking up at me.

  ‘Time to pull out the barbie.’ She is wistful, as though she knows what is in my head.

  ‘Yeah.’ I try to meet her smile with one of my own. At the beginning of every summer Dad used to make a big deal of dragging the barbecue from the shed. When the weather was good we cooked the meat and fish outside.

  ‘Come on!’ Cynthia peels off her dressing gown and runs naked for the pool. She does a neat dive and doesn’t surface until she gets to the other end. The rest of us look at each other in shocked silence for about three seconds and then, without a word, we immediately do the same. It’s a long pool with plenty of room for the four of us to swim a few strokes, splash around a bit, and dip and dive without kicking each other in the face.

  If you’re thinking that this is something we ordinarily do – go around naked or swim nude in front of each other – then you’re completely mistaken. The four of us are amazingly uptight considering our easygoing parents. Dot nearly dies if someone sees her in her underwear! Cynthia makes gruesome faces if anyone mentions periods – and she’s meant to be a doctor! And Hilda goes berserk if one of us comes into the bathroom when she’s in there.