Rose by Any Other Name

by Maureen McCarthy

  ‘She might not even be here,’ I suggest, trying to be optimistic.

  ‘If only,’ Mum mumbles, and closes her eyes. ‘Please God, make her have taken to her bed with gout, or sore feet, or food poisoning.’ She turns to me, suddenly looking wildly hopeful. ‘She might have the flu?’

  ‘A definite possibility,’ I agree. ‘She could be getting it as we speak.’

  Mum murmurs, ‘Yes,’ longingly, as though this would be the best thing ever.

  ‘Just remember, she might be younger,’ I say, ‘but you’re way better looking. Seriously!’

  ‘Oh Rose, I’m not!’ she groans. ‘I’ve seen a photo and she’s . . .’

  ‘She’s more glamorous,’ I cut in derisively. I really mean this. ‘But only in a superficial, cheap, completely meaningless way!’ Mum begins to laugh, so I continue. ‘Her eyes are piggy small and her hair is a shitty sort of dyed straw and . . . she’s got short legs.’

  ‘Really?’ Mum whispers, as though she can’t believe the good news, because she herself has long and well-shaped legs.

  ‘Absolutely!’ I say. ‘Her bum is way too near the ground. Didn’t the others tell you?’

  ‘I thought they were just trying to cheer me up!’ she exclaims. ‘Whereas I know you . . .’ She stops awkwardly.

  ‘You know that I never try to be nice!’ I say bluntly.

  ‘That’s right,’ she smiles, ‘and it’s very reassuring.’

  ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

  ‘Good.’

  We pull up under the tree on the nature strip.

  ‘Well . . . here goes,’ she mumbles.

  I turn the engine off, feeling strangely torn myself. Gran’s little cottage, set behind a picket fence, looks so pretty from the road with its slated roof, deep verandah and small windows set on either side of the open front door. I haven’t seen it for a couple of years so part of me is longing to go inside again, but . . . it’s been months since I’ve been with my family en masse. Now we’re here I want to turn the van around and drive right back to the city. I think my mother is feeling something similar but she’s braver. She grabs the door handle and pulls it open.

  ‘Let’s go, Rose,’ she says, stepping out.

  Hilda is sitting on the front lawn, watching the twins playing with the hose and a bucket. When she sees us she stands to wave and the little boys come running towards us.

  ‘So you’re alive?’ Hilda calls.

  ‘Not only alive,’ Mum kneels to hug the boys warmly, ‘but kicking.’

  ‘Kicking butt,’ chirps Cormac, and the two of them break up with wicked giggles and start shouting it over and over again. Kicking butt! Hilda is dressed in tailored shorts and a cotton blouse. Her hair has been cut into a sharper bob than I remember. Very straight. She pulls one of the twins back from the road and peers at me incredulously.

  ‘Wow, Rose! Your hair!’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ I’m feeling so . . . self-conscious. All the conversations that must have gone on behind my back! It’s weird coming face to face with my eldest sister, knowing she knows, and that basically she’s known all along.

  ‘Er, how’s Gran?’

  ‘Okay now. She had a little turn last night so they decided to put her in hospital . . .’ Mum and I look at each other.

  ‘I like it,’ Hilda says suddenly, touching my hair.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Well . . .’ she laughs, ‘the cut could have been better! But it looks good short.’ Her eyes shift over to Mum. ‘What’s up, Mum? You’ve got your twitchy face on.’

  ‘Is everyone here?’ Mum asks tentatively, looking towards the cottage as though some alien is going to appear at any moment.

  ‘Dorothy and Dad are sitting with Gran,’ Hilda explains confidingly, taking her arm, ‘and Cassandra isn’t here, so relax. She’s back at the hotel doing work or something, so . . . don’t worry!’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t worried,’ Mum says, embarrassed. ‘Just feeling a little . . . jumpy, you know?’

  Hilda and I raise our eyebrows behind her back.

  So what the hell was I doing living out in a miserable dump in Hurstbridge for the last ten months if they all knew everything anyway? is what I’m thinking as I follow them up the little path to the front door. This whole business would be funny if I didn’t feel so freaked out about it.

  Don’tcha just hate it . . . when you find out that all your dirty secrets are public knowledge? You go around thinking your life is private, that no one knows your business. Well, I’m here to tell you, you millions of multi-talented, meat-eating, hoodwinked, rock-loving Saucers, that not only do the banks, ASIO, the tax department and the credit companies have all your details on file, more than likely your family knows a lot more about your every move than you do. Yep, that’s right! Face it! Your mother reads your diary. Your siblings trawl through your emails. Your friends, hungry for contact with warm-blooded creatures after a day in front of the screen, spread your private confidences like preachers at a religious rally. Don’t blame them. Privacy is dead. Get used to it! But how does it make you feel? Huh? Tell me, how does it make you feel?

  I follow the others inside, down the central passage, past the two front rooms and into the back kitchen where a hive of activity greets us. Cynthia, complete with rubber gloves and a scarf tied around her hair, is on her knees pulling stuff out of Gran’s shabby cupboards. Old papers, dirt and mice shit are piling up around her.

  ‘At last!’ she proclaims before turning back to her work. ‘So is the hitchhiker with you?’

  ‘Good God, no.’ Mum smiles at me. ‘He had more important fish to fry.’

  ‘Well, there is heaps to do here,’ Cynthia says sternly, her head disappearing into the cupboard again.

  ‘Not before I have a cup of tea,’ Mum laughs. Cynthia is trying to make us feel guilty for not getting here sooner, but we’re not biting.

  Bruce is up a stepladder piling old newspapers, jars and plastic containers from the top of the cupboard into plastic garbage bags. He jumps down, wipes his hands and comes forward with a smile.

  ‘Hey, Rose.’ He motions at my head. ‘Someone get at you with an axe?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I grin back, and feel myself blush a bit as he runs one hand over it. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad. No one is treating me like a freak . . . not just yet, anyway.

  Nothing much has changed about this kitchen except it seems smaller and grimier than when I was last here. There is the little window overlooking the back garden. The chipped green dresser with worn canisters sitting on top – flour, sugar, salt. The small yellow stove fitting snugly in between sink and bench. I walk over to the two sleek black and white cats sitting side by side on the table, watching everyone suspiciously. Gough and Margaret, an old sedate couple who’ve been with Gran forever. I can just remember Margaret as a new kitten when I was about eight.

  ‘Hi, Gough,’ I say, as I give the larger one a pat. ‘You’re even fatter than when I last saw you.’

  ‘He’ll die of a heart attack soon,’ Cynthia pronounces disapprovingly from the cupboard.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ I say, just to annoy her. ‘You’re not a vet.’

  ‘Well . . . he’s obese and he’s at least twelve years old.’

  ‘Obese?’ I croon, continuing to pat him. ‘I wouldn’t take that sitting down if I were you, Gough! Have a go at her!’

  I needn’t have worried, Gough isn’t in the least concerned. He looks up at me disdainfully through half-closed eyes, as though he understands exactly what we’re saying and discounts it absolutely. He’s as wide as a football and, in this position, with his legs tucked under him, almost the same shape. Bored with me, he gives a wide yawn and hops daintily (for a cat that wide) from the table and makes his way slowly to the open back door. I reach out to tickle Margaret behind the ears and she swipes at me casually with one open claw, as though to say piss off, before settling back into exactly the same posi
tion on the table.

  ‘What was that for?’ I chuckle. She blinks back at me innocently and growls when I put out my hand again, warning me not to push my luck.

  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ Bruce laughs from the top of the ladder. ‘Margaret’s furious.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, you know . . . females!’ Bruce says blithely. ‘So moody!’ Everyone groans and laughs, except Cynthia, who gives him a sharp, shitty look.

  ‘What will happen to Gough and Margaret?’ Mum is filling the kettle and getting down mugs from the cupboard. ‘I mean, when Gran dies?’

  ‘Harry is going to take them,’ Cynthia replies, ‘and Hilda and I are going to toss for Hawke,’ she looks around, ‘but he seems to have done his usual flit.’

  Harry is the eighty-four year old widower from two doors down, and Gran’s best friend. They’ve known each other since they were at school in the twenties. They’re always arguing (Harry is an arch conservative and Gran is a leftie), but they are very close and have relied on each other enormously over the years.

  ‘You’re in an unstable situation,’ Cynthia pre-empts me casually. ‘Cats need a firm home base.’

  I shrug, as though I couldn’t care less when, in fact, I do. I’ve always secretly thought Hawke would be mine. He is my favourite and my sisters know it. Small, jet-black and very much a loner, he only hangs around if he’s interested. I really like his style. Gran said that his independent streak came from his mother, Germaine, who used to hunt snakes and leave them dead on the mat, until one got the better of her. But Dad always maintains that Hawke’s independence has more to do with Gran forgetting to have him neutered when he was young. But how can I object? Cynthia’s right. (When is she ever wrong!) I have no idea where I’ll be living in six months time.

  ‘What we’re all concerned about is the Collection,’ Cynthia declares, getting up from the floor and fixing me with a fake innocent look. ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘No,’ I say shortly. ‘Have you?’ There is an uncomfortable silence as they all look at each other.

  ‘We all think you’re going to get it, Rosie!’ Bruce grins at me.

  ‘But why me?’ I protest. ‘What did I ever do to Gran?’ I groan, walk to the back door and look out. Gough and Margaret are sprawled out in the sunshine now, with Gough licking Margaret’s ear tenderly, and I have this intense, sudden rush of envy. I wish I was a cat! I mean a real one. Not one of those tacky cheap porcelain things sitting on Gran’s crystal cabinet that I am apparently destined to inherit, but a warm-blooded, sleek, well-fed one who can lie around in the sun all day being licked.

  ‘The Collection is very special to Gran,’ Cynthia adds encouragingly.

  ‘Gee, Cynthia!’ I don’t bother to turn around. ‘Aren’t I the lucky one?’

  ‘Why not be honoured, Rose?’ she adds censoriously.

  ‘Oh I am,’ I say sarcastically, ‘deeply.’

  ‘Come on, Rosie!’ Hilda puts an arm around my shoulders. ‘We’ll make it up to you, won’t we Cynthia?’

  ‘Of course we will!’ Cynthia chucks some rolled-up cleaning rags at my back, then she starts laughing. Whatever can be said about Cynthia’s officious nature, she does have the best, most infectious laugh. It gets everyone else going too.

  ‘We’ll come and help you look after it,’ she yells. ‘I’ll bring my duster and my polish!’

  ‘I’ll bring food!’ Hilda squeals.

  ‘I’ll take them to the footy!’ Bruce chimes in.

  Everyone is laughing now, so I have to join in.

  Everything in this room would be at least fifty years old, most of it older. No microwaves, or juicers, or electric grills, not even an electric kettle. The walls need painting, and dirt and grease is caked in around the stove and sink. Maybe it was always there and I never noticed. I watch Cynthia pile even more old ice-cream containers, egg cartons and empty jars into the mountain of rubbish in the middle of the room, and it hits me that all this might be a wee bit premature.

  ‘Did Gran ask you to clear out the kitchen?’ I ask.

  ‘As if!’ she mutters, energetically pushing stuff into rubbish bags.

  ‘But what if she comes home?’ I’m suddenly appalled. ‘She might like it just the way it is!’

  ‘She’s not going to come home, Rose,’ Cynthia declares, carrying right on with her cleaning. Mum raises her eyebrows as she hands me a mug of tea, and I grimace. Okay. Neither of us is surprised by Cynthia’s matter-of-fact attitude to our Gran’s imminent demise, but even so . . . does she have to be so blunt about it?

  ‘Want to go up to the hospital soon?’ Mum asks me. ‘See Gran?’

  ‘Sure.’ I slurp down some tea and then wander out of the kitchen up to the front room to check on my inheritance. ‘I’ll just drink this.’ Here they are, all twenty-three of them, sitting where they’ve been ever since I can remember. Nelson Mandela. Julie Andrews. Clark Gable. Normie Rowe and Dennis Lillie. Muhammad Ali. Olivia Newton-John and Pope John XXIII. Bert Newton. Gran named all her real cats after people she admired in politics, sport and entertainment, and here they all are in porcelain cat form on top of her crystal cabinet. Only one is missing: Harry Belafonte, smashed when a window was left open during a storm in the sixties. Most of them are sitting up in some cute pose, washing their faces with one paw or waiting to be patted. ‘Oh, shit!’ I groan as I stand looking at them. The cats look weirdly alive in the light streaming through the gap in the closed blinds. How unfair that I should have to have them! And how weird to think that my poor old Gran has to die and these things will go on, into eternity, their smug little faces looking out into the world like benevolent plaster saints! I wish I could say that there was something about them I secretly liked, but the reality is, I don’t like anything about them. In fact, I associate them with Gran’s long-winded stories about the past and although I know you’re not meant to think this, much less say it, those stories were so boring. Especially when it’s hot and you’re thirteen and you just want to get down to the beach!

  I pick up John Curtin, the big, ugly olive-green one sitting at the back of the collection. He was the first, I think. Named after the wartime prime minister, the working-man’s hero who’d begun his adult life as a train driver. Grandpa gave him to Gran early in their marriage when her real cat of the same name died. I turn him over to check. Yep . . . the name is still there, written on masking tape in Gran’s black scrawl, and the year the cat died, just in case anyone is confused.

  Still holding Curtin, I look around the little room and try to imagine life here over the years. I cross to the piano to check out the photos of Dad. Only three, and I know them so well already, but for some reason I like looking at them. Each is in sharp black and white, apparently taken with Gran’s old Box Brownie. The first is of him as a little boy of about eight, playing with two kittens out on the back step. The larger one is of a surly teenager in his high school uniform. We always used to tease him about this one because he looks so much the grumpy adolescent. And the third is a really good shot of him as a long-haired university student in the seventies, standing with a mate on the grass outside the Melbourne University Law Library. I used to stare at this one a lot when I was younger because both guys in the photo look so happy, so much like they’re enjoying their lives. As much as anything else, this photo hooked me into the idea of university. Even at ten years old I wanted to go to a place where I could be like this, too, smart and carefree and easy about my life.

  It’s my favourite of the photos, so I put Curtin down and take it over to the window to scrutinise it a bit more. When I move my eyes from Dad to his mate I suddenly have a weird sense of recognition. But . . . I don’t know the guy. How could I? I’ve been looking at this photo for years. Why would this old friend of Dad’s suddenly ring a bell with me, decades later? I can’t remember Dad even telling us his name.

  I push the curtains back and squint more closely, and it suddenly dawns on me. Nat Cummins! God. But yes. Same eyes.
Same jaw. I smile to myself as it becomes clearer. That slightly raised chin as he faces the camera! Like he’s a bit shy but determined not to show it. Even the way his arms are crossed. The guy in this thirty-year-old photo would have to be his father!

  ‘Rose, where are you?’ Mum calls. ‘I’m ready to go see Gran!’

  ‘I’m in here,’ I yell, placing the photo back on the piano. I pick up old, green Curtin and slip him back into his rightful position. At the doorway I turn and take a final look at the Collection. Oh God! I wonder darkly what it would feel like to go out to the shed right now, pick up a hammer, and come back and smash the lot of them.

  I see Dad through the glass. He is sitting on a hard-backed chair close to the bed, holding Gran’s hand, his head thrown back, eyes closed. He looks dead to the world, but as soon as we come in he is on his feet.

  ‘Patsy,’ he says formally with a relieved, but very strained, smile, not letting go of his mother’s hand. ‘So good of you to come.’

  ‘Hello, Justus,’ Mum greets him just as carefully.

  I step between them and kiss Dad awkwardly. Dad smiles at me and runs his hand across the top of my head.

  ‘You a skinhead now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not sure the judge will agree when you’re making an urgent plea for clemency,’ he laughs softly, then pulls over a couple of uncomfortable chairs from a far corner for Mum and me, and we park ourselves on the opposite side of the bed. Gran grumbles a bit at the commotion but doesn’t open her eyes.

  ‘Is she conscious?’ Mum asks, kissing Gran’s brow before she sits.

  ‘She is quite lucid when she’s awake,’ Dad sighs, and looks at his watch. ‘But she slips away every few minutes.’

  ‘How long has it been like that?’

  ‘Days.’ He shrugs and smiles warily. ‘I’ve lost any idea of time.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘Any time now,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘Her heart is very weak.’