Rose by Any Other Name

by Maureen McCarthy

  ‘Good thanks,’ he mumbles, before turning to the woman next to him. ‘Mum, this is Rose.’ I can see that my awkwardness has made him embarrassed and that makes me feel worse. His mother gives a strained smile and holds out her hand.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Rose,’ she whispers in this very breathy way. ‘So sorry about your grandmother.’ Her hand is unbelievably cool for such a warm day. And so is the smile.

  ‘I’m standing in for my Dad,’ Nat explains uncomfortably. ‘He really wanted to come but he couldn’t. Work in Sydney, you know. Mum doesn’t drive much so . . .’ His voices dies away and there are a few moments silence while we all try to think of something to say.

  ‘Ah, Mum, Rose and Alisha went to school together,’ he says, sparking up. I immediately curl up inside, and at the same time want to clock him. Of all the stupid things to bring up! Why remind her I was the one who hit her daughter? I think the irritation must show on my face because he immediately tries to undo what he’s just said by acting like it doesn’t matter. ‘Long time ago, of course,’ he mumbles distractedly, looking away.

  ‘I know that, Nathaniel,’ his mother says in her crisp, unfriendly voice. Thankfully someone intercepts our uncomfortable little triangle and his mother moves away. Nat and I are left looking at each other. I gulp self-consciously and say the first thing that comes into my head.

  ‘So . . . what’s with the suit?’

  ‘It’s not mine,’ he smiles uneasily. ‘Mum insisted. Funeral. You know.’

  I nod carefully and take a better look at him. He is standing with his arms crossed, looking away at the rest of the crowd. His whole stance reminds me so much of Dad’s friend in the photo on Gran’s piano that I want to laugh.

  ‘Whose is it?’ I ask.

  ‘My old man’s.’ He makes a rueful face and jokes, ‘I wouldn’t buy something like this!’

  ‘You look like him,’ I say.

  ‘When did you meet him?’ he grins curiously.

  ‘Gran’s got a photo of him with my dad.’

  The ice has melted between us and we’re both smiling now. He is about to say something else when his mother edges back from whoever she was talking to, taking his arm again.

  ‘Rose, you’ll have to excuse us,’ she says, ‘but Nathaniel and I can’t stay for the afternoon tea. We must get back to the city.’

  ‘Well, it was very good of you to come,’ I say politely.

  Nat gives me an apologetic smile and allows his mother to pull him away. But at the last minute he turns back and gives me a grin that really warms my heart.

  ‘Hey, Rose?’ he says mischievously. ‘What’s happened to your hair?’

  I shrug, momentarily stumped for words.

  ‘It’s okay.’ He gives me another warm smile, turns his back and walks off with his mother.

  For the rest of the afternoon, right through all the introductions, the polite chit-chat and cups of tea, I keep coming back to that smile. At the same time as giving me a bit of a warm buzz, it makes me oddly frustrated. The conversation was just getting started when his damned mother pulled him away. I would have liked to ask him about Zoe. Does he still see her? What should I expect when I visit her? And what about his life? That whole thing on the church steps was a missed opportunity, but there is nothing I can do about it now.

  It is late afternoon and Mum and I are driving back to the city after the funeral. Not much traffic. We’re taking the inland route and have just passed through Camperdown, heading for Colac, going through the slightly spooky country they call the stony rises. It’s all undulating green paddocks edged with low stone fences, trees in the dimming light like black ghosts against the wide streaky-pink sky. The night slowly closing in like this has me feeling washed out and empty, ready for something new. Good. For the last few mornings I’ve hit the waves for at least three hours and just thinking of it gives me a rush of pleasure.

  Mum is alongside me, asleep, leaning her head up against the side window on a couple of rolled-up towels. I’m sitting up with both hands on the wheel, feeling pretty cool. Pretty on top of things. Pretty much like everything is going to come right in the end. Dangerous! I almost hear Zoe’s voice. Could mean you’re due for a big crash, kid! Yeah, I agree. But why not enjoy it while it lasts?

  I switch on the headlights, and slip in the cheapo CD that Mum bought earlier in the petrol station when we were filling up.

  ‘The Harder They Come’. Jimmy Cliff. Nice. Good one, Mum. I look over, wanting her to wake up to enjoy it, but she’s dead to the world. We were out late last night at the best restaurant in town. Dad’s shout, in honour of Gran, he said. Bruce and David stayed in and looked after the twins, and the rest of us got stuck into the wine – and into each other – in the usual way. It was good. Got to bed about three a.m. Mum had to get up early because she promised one of Gran’s old friends a ride to church. Typical. It’s why she’s tired. The rest of us didn’t get up until after midday.

  I look at my watch. If we’re back in a couple of hours I should just make it. I’ll drop Mum off and then go straight over to the Royal Melbourne. They wouldn’t give out much information about her condition or treatment, so . . . I guess I’ll find out the details when I see her. Visiting hours are from seven-thirty to nine. I’ve got the floor and the ward number.

  The closer I get to the city, the more that hospital visit starts to loom as an ordeal that I’ve got to get through. There is a very real risk of me being hurled back into the events of last summer with no way out, and I’m dreading it. I know it will only take a look, a word or two, or a flick of her wrist to put me back there. But I said I’d go, so I will. It would have taken a bit for her to ring me. This is something I have to do.

  ‘You think we’ll be back by eight?’ I ask. Mum stirs and wakes.

  ‘Oh, I think so,’ she mumbles, looking at her watch. ‘It’s only an hour from Geelong.’ She cranes forward suddenly and I can see what has caught her attention. There is a dark figure standing up ahead by the side of the road, and for just a moment it’s an image from a fantasy movie, the tall spooky stranger come to change our destinies forever. Hairs rise on the back of my neck. But as we hurtle towards him I see it is only a man wearing dark clothing with one arm extended, a hitchhiker no less, and not a particularly tall one either. He’d been standing on a rise in the road and for a couple of moments had taken on a stature that he didn’t possess.

  ‘It’s not . . . him, is it?’ Mum asks, turning to me.

  ‘Who?’ I ask, puzzled. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ I take my foot off the accelerator but don’t brake. We’re about to pass the guy now and I’m hoping Mum will tell me to keep driving, because I want to get back to the city.

  ‘He probably only wants a ride to Geelong,’ Mum says. I sigh and step on the brake.

  ‘After he murders us,’ I mutter.

  ‘That’s my line, Rose,’ Mum laughs.

  I pull over onto the gravel and wait as the dark figure lurches up behind us. He is carrying some kind of heavy pack and I sense something familiar about his gait before the full realisation hits home. Oh shit! The door slides open.

  ‘Thought it was you guys!’ he puffs. ‘Recognised the van.’

  ‘Well hello, Travis!’ Mum turns around with the biggest, most delighted smile. ‘What an amazing coincidence!’

  ‘Yeah,’ he grins at her as though he was kind of expecting it all along. ‘Knew I’d see youse again somewhere.’ Then he looks at me and I can almost hear his brain clicking through all the negative data stored there against me. Well, ditto mate! I want to say. But he nods in a perfunctory way and raises one hand in salute.

  ‘How are you going?’ he says briskly.

  ‘Great,’ I say, not bothering to smile either. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  I watch in the rear-vision mirror as he settles in like he’s been there all his life. Pushes one of my bags to the floor so there is room for his on the seat beside him. Takes off his jacket and p
ulls out his tobacco and rolls a cigarette.

  ‘Funeral yesterday in Camperdown,’ he explains shortly in response to a couple of questions from Mum, blowing the smoke straight into her face. ‘I stayed on at a mate’s place for the night. Hey, you got any other music? This is shit.’

  ‘Oh my,’ Mum says breathlessly. ‘So she died?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he nods without expression. ‘On Saturday.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Travis!’ Mum gushes. Ex-wife, Mum! I want to remind her. Ex-wife. He probably doesn’t care that much, actually!

  ‘And what about your . . . old lady?’ Travis asks after a pause.

  ‘She died last Thursday,’ Mum replies. ‘We buried her yesterday too.’

  I listen to them settling into the funeral talk like old friends, and I wonder what the odds are of me coming across him on the road again. Maybe next week, I think darkly, I’ll be travelling back down the coast to surf and . . . there he’ll be. Travis the dickhead. Shit! Just the possibility of it makes me want to stay home. I would like to know about his son though. I’d like to ask him how the kid is doing and what’s going to happen to him next, but I don’t. I let my guard down with a guy like Travis, and he’ll be walking all over me.

  ‘Hey, you got anything else to listen to?’ Travis asks again. ‘You had Pink Floyd last time, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I nod sharply. No way am I taking this off!

  ‘I’m actually loving this, Travis!’ Mum intercedes brightly, saving me the bother of telling him to go fuck himself. She throws her head back and starts tapping her fingers on her knees. ‘I haven’t heard Jimmy Cliff in ages.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Travis sighs miserably, and winds the window down. ‘Each to his own, I suppose.’

  Mum asks all the questions and I find out all I want to know anyway. He tells us the kid is fine – not that Travis would know, I have to remind myself. But the really good bit is that Peter doesn’t have to leave Apollo Bay, at least not straight away. Travis is on his way up to Sydney for a quick visit to ‘tie up a few loose threads’, as he puts it, and finish up with ‘a dumb little chick’ that he had been breaking up with anyway before ‘all the shit’ happened. (Lucky escape for her is what goes through my mind!) Then he’s coming back down to try to get work in Apollo Bay.

  ‘Oh, what a great idea!’ Mum is over the moon about all this. ‘I’m so pleased to hear that you’ve made that decision.’ Her belief in people should be bottled. It amazes me. It doesn’t even dawn on her that he might, in fact, be making all this up and doing a flit. As far as I’m concerned, the odds that he’ll even bother coming back for his son are small.

  But I don’t say anything. After about fifteen minutes the conversation runs out of steam and silence descends. The kilometres pile up and I start loving everything again, the drive and the quietness and the low sun outside. We sail through Colac and Whittlesea and before long we’re coming up to Geelong. My mobile flashes blue and gives that irritating little jingle that tells me someone has left a message. I reach to pick it up but Mum gives me a dirty look so I leave it. She’s right. The road between Geelong and Melbourne is alive with cops at this time of the year.

  I play Jimmy Cliff through again just to make my point, but when we’re coming up to the West Gate Bridge I figure I’m ready for something else.

  My hand hovers over Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album and I think, Oh well. What the hell! Give Travis a thrill. I slip it in and turn up the volume and I’m rewarded with a nod and a smile in the rear-vision mirror, which is oddly pleasing. Considering how I feel about him, I mean.

  Being up on the bridge at dusk is magical. I’m sailing through the air. Below us the boats and the water gleam. In the soft light, all those factories and refineries and city offices have come alive. I wonder how it will feel walking into that hospital ward in less than an hour. What state will she be in? Who will be there?

  That fantastic old Pink Floyd song goes on and on and it makes tears well up in my throat. Wish you were here. After a while, I don’t know whether I’m thinking of Ray or Nathaniel or my old friend in hospital.

  On the Bolte Bridge now and turning into Racecourse Road. We’ve made good time. I’ll make it inside visiting hours for sure.

  ‘You going anywhere near the Hume Highway?’ Travis suddenly asks.

  ‘No,’ I say, immediately wary.

  ‘We are going through Parkville though, Rose,’ Mum chips in. ‘We have to cross Royal Parade so we can let him off there.’ I look at her without expression. I know that letting him off in the middle of busy Royal Parade will not happen. It will be too inconvenient. As soon as we get there the pressure will be on to drop him further out.

  ‘That would be really good,’ the little punk says enthusiastically. Mum looks at me inquiringly.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Why not?’

  Don’tcha just hate . . . the way you can never do enough for some people? It’s like they really believe life owes them, big time, and because the big, bad world isn’t exactly listening . . . then you’ll have to do. You can be the one to fill in the bits that they’re not getting, until someone better, richer and more important turns up . . .

  But no, I can’t get excited about this one either. Nothing about driving Travis out of my way seriously bothers me at this point.

  We’ve just dropped Travis at a northern suburbs petrol station where he’ll have a good chance of catching a truck going all the way through to Sydney. We’re heading back down Sydney Road when Roger calls me on the mobile. I’ve been working on a new piece for him in my head so it’s annoying being interrupted. I had the feeling I was running with a good idea and now I’ve lost it.

  ‘I’ll answer it.’ Mum grabs the phone before I can reach it first.

  ‘Hello. This is Rose’s phone,’ she says politely, and waits a moment. ‘Excuse me, who do you want to speak to?’ Then, ‘This is Rose O’Neil’s phone.’ She listens a few further moments then shakes her head. ‘He says he wants to speak to Ms Angst,’ she whispers, raising her eyebrows like she’s got a crazy on the other end. ‘What will I say?’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s for me.’ I grab the phone. ‘I can’t talk, Roger. I’m driving,’ I say bluntly.

  We’re in Parkville now, heading down the Royal Parade avenue of trees, past the university. There isn’t much traffic on the road but even so, Mum is giving me that look. I know I shouldn’t be taking this call.

  ‘Okay then. Got your message,’ he says quickly. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yep. Thanks.’ I don’t think he’s ever asked me that before.

  ‘But I’ll be very disappointed if you miss a week, Rose . . .’

  ‘Uh huh,’ I say. Lay the bullshit on with a trowel, why don’t you, Roger! I’d left him a message earlier in the week, telling him that, due to the unforeseen circumstances of my grandmother’s death, my next column won’t be ready in time for this week’s paper. We’ll have to skip a week and I’ll have the next one ready in time.

  ‘People are really enjoying your stuff,’ he goes on edgily.

  ‘Well . . . I’m sorry about that Roger,’ I say, ‘but it can’t be helped.’

  I’m not sorry at all, actually. I know he’s deliberately putting it on me because last time we spoke I asked for more money. I mean, fifty bucks for all that work! This is his way of putting me in my place so I won’t ask again.

  ‘I just hope you can get something from it,’ he says.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The funeral.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I reply shortly. ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘Everyone can connect with their grandmother dying, Rose,’ he says patiently. I don’t answer because I’m actually thinking seriously about the illegality of taking this call while driving, and the fact that if a cop saw me I’d lose my licence on the spot, so I put on my blinkers and pull over into the service lane.

  ‘Didn’t anyone behave badly?’ He goes on. ‘There must have been some excr
uciating or embarrassing moments?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ I sigh. ‘Let me think.’

  The fight Cynthia and Hilda had half an hour before the service about who was going to read the prayers of the faithful comes to mind. And then there was Dad’s surprisingly woeful speech. Everyone was expecting a pithy, funny and succinct few words from the important city barrister, and instead he was sentimental and long-winded. Not that anyone really cared about that. The other woman was another issue. Cassandra. All the locals were interested in her. My sisters and I were sniping all afternoon about her looking like a crow in her stupid black suit and spiky heels. What was she doing there, for God’s sake, hanging onto Dad’s arm like someone had glued her there? She and Mum kept out of each other’s way. I made it my business to go and talk to her, for Dad’s sake. She told me about the case she’s working on and . . . well, it was okay, all very polite. I’m not saying she’s my new best friend, but being nice to her pleased Dad so much that I’m not sorry I made the effort. I could write about all that. Make something twisted and bitter and funny from it. But the very thought of delving into it all is boring me to tears.

  ‘I’ve actually got this problem, Roger,’ I say mischievously.

  ‘Yeah?’ he says eagerly.

  ‘Nothing much is pissing me off right now!’ It’s weird but true. I look out at the wide leafy street and smile at Mum who is sitting alongside me, good humoured now because I’ve stopped driving, but with an increasingly puzzled look on her face.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he exclaims, pretending to be outraged.

  ‘I’m just not particularly pissed off at the moment!’ I say.

  ‘But that’s terrible!’ he yells down the phone at me. ‘Get back to the city and you’ll be feeling bad in no time!’

  Now we’re both laughing. I tell him I’ve got to go. He tells me to sit down and work on a piece as soon as I get back. Have it to him by the morning and we won’t miss a week. Concentrate on all the shit that went down at the funeral, he orders. I tell him to get stuffed and to start paying me more if he wants that kind of effort.