by Nōnen Títi
I offer to take the middle seat to keep the peace between the sisters. Just like when I was younger, the situation makes me so tense that I have a blinding headache when we reach the farm four hours later.
“Here, take these and go lie down for a while,” Granannie says, handing me some tablets.
I do that and don’t come down until dinner.
“You look better.”
I feel better too. It’s nice to be back. The house is a haven of peace, away from school, arguments and Miranda’s loud music. Even Aunt Karen is different here. I catch her humming a tune while doing the dishes.
“Thank you for doing this for me.”
“You’re very welcome,” she says.
Mariette is quiet. She spends most of the evening writing. Miranda talks enough for everybody and probably tells our grandparents more than either Aunt Karen or Mariette would like them to know.
The next morning I wake up very early, nervous about seeing Dad. I have to make sure he feels wanted. I try to write a poem with the words the situation evokes, but I can’t get them right. I need a drink.
The house has that quiet, early-morning feel to it, the chill of no fires yet and the sense of tiptoeing so as not to wake anyone. I open the kitchen door and find a light on near the stove. Mariette and Granannie are sitting beside it.
“I thought I heard someone else was awake. Would you like hot cocoa or do you drink coffee too?” Granannie asks.
Mariette keeps looking in the photo album she has in front of her.
“Cocoa is fine. I can do it.”
But Granannie is already pouring the milk. “Come sit with us. Usually there are too many people here to enjoy the pictures.”
The album shows Dad, his siblings and cousins growing up. The faces match the stories Grandpa Will always tells. Dad and Uncle Guillaume are clearly the little ones, carried around by the older sisters, especially Aunt Marie who bossed them all around, according to Grandpa Will. Most of the early photographs are in black and white.
“Both Guillaume and Charl married young and had their first child before they were twenty-one. The rest waited until they were older, except Marie but it suited her. She’d been taking care of small children all her life. Even now she baby-sits for her own grandchildren more often than not,” Granannie says.
“But it didn’t suit my mother?” I ask her.
“Janey was only eighteen, Jerome. She was no more ready than Charl was. We tried to convince them to live here, but they were young and all-knowing. They wanted to be free. Guillaume was the same, but his wife ran before Glen was a year old and took all their money, which forced him to come here. That was his blessing. Charl and Janey struggled on until she met this older man who gave her the security your dad couldn’t. She loved you boys, but she started over.”
“You see, that’s so stupid. She gets excused for starting over without a thought for her kids. She blamed them for being born and for her problems and ran away. How can that be love?”
The moment our eyes meet, Mariette blushes.
“Just because you have some quarrels with your mother doesn’t give you insight into other people’s lives, Mariette, and it isn’t your place to comment,” Granannie tells her.
But this isn’t about Mariette and Aunt Karen. My private feelings, only trusted to paper… The burning in my chest is desperately trying to boil the water over the rim, but I can’t let it. I can feel her looking.
Granannie closes the album. “Go put these away for me,” she says to Mariette.
“What just happened between you?” she asks the moment we’re alone. I shake my head. I can’t tell her.
“Like so many people, your parents fell in love, Jerome. They called it love and believed it would last a lifetime. But it wasn’t love, it was attraction, an instinctive drive, and it isn’t enough to sustain a relationship with children. That doesn’t mean they don’t love you or Rowan,” she says, and takes my hands.
I’d like to contradict her but I can’t. She doesn’t insist. “Here, blow your nose. We’ll talk later.”
I thank her and excuse myself to go take a shower.
MARIETTE
“What is going on between you and Jerome?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mariette. I may be old, but I’m not stupid.”
“Things happened.”
“On that last night here, three weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you’re deliberately making everybody’s life miserable?”
“Are they all complaining about me?”
“They,” she emphasizes the word and frowns. “They are all worried about you.”
“Oh great.” Just what I wanted. “Tell them not to.”
“Are you giving me orders?” she asks.
“No, sorry, I just… There’s nothing wrong. We just don’t get along.”
Granannie looks at me in a way that makes me feel guilty because I’m treating her as if she’s stupid again. “Problems don’t solve themselves, Mariette.”
My grandmother is clearly annoyed – rightfully so, of course. Thing is, I can’t act around her the way I do with others. “I know.”
I suddenly feel like getting her something; maybe flowers or something pretty. “Could I ride into town with Grandpa Will and Jerome, so I can go to the shops when they’re in the hospital?”
“You’ll have to ask them that, Mariette.”
“No, absolutely not,” Grandpa Will says.
“Why not? I’d only go shopping.”
“Because it’s hard enough for Jerome already without an audience.”
“I won’t say anything, I promise.”
“No, Mariette. Jerome may want to talk on the way.”
I walk out of the room, slamming the door behind me in place of the words that jumped into my head and would have accused Jerome of what I know he’d never do. From the upstairs landing window I watch them drive away.
I hope Uncle Charl will be better soon and not just because Jerome will leave then. His mum was only two years older than I am now when she had him; life shattered, stuck with a kid, no more time for herself. Uncle Charl had to take the first lousy job he could find to feed them. Jane herself went back to work before Jerome was two and he spent his days in the care of strangers.
It must be horrible to think your parents never wanted you. That’s what I accuse Mum of sometimes, but I don’t mean it. Mum was thirty when she had me; a conscious choice once they’d done all their travelling. I wonder if she’d been so keen if she’d known what I’d be like now. No wonder she likes having Jerome – he’s gentle and clever. Miranda is outgoing and pretty. I bet Mum dreams of having just the two of them. But then again, parents are parents. Even Hitler’s parents wanted him, according to Mr Fokker’s movie. What about others? George Bush? Osama bin Laden? Do parents feel guilty if their child doesn’t turn out the way they hoped? Do they feel guilty if they can’t hack it? Is that why Uncle Charl fell apart? Would he have lost it if he hadn’t beaten Jerome? Would he have freaked out if…?
“Shit, what’s the use?” I need something to do for the next hours. I go back to the kitchen where Mum and Granannie are cooking together. “Can I help?”
“Have you finished your homework?” Mum asks.
That isn’t her business, but I don’t say that out loud in front of my grandmother. “I didn’t bring it. I’ll do it when we get home.” How stupid! I should have just told her yes.
“We won’t be home until almost midnight. Why didn’t you take it?”
“Because I didn’t.” Damn, why can’t she trust me for once? I can see I won’t be any good here so I leave. I find Dad and Miranda in the garden playing hoop ball.
“Do you want to join us?” Dad asks.
“No thanks.” I’m no good at that. I sit down to watch them for a bit but my mind keeps travelling back to Jerome and Uncle Charl. How do you walk into a psychiatric unit knowing your dad is mental?
Suddenly I know how to finish my story so I go back to my attic room where I left my writing folder. I started this one a few weeks ago. It’s about a girl who stays out late each night to spite her mother. Then one day she comes home really late to find the father, who she didn’t know before, and some other relatives there because her mother had died and nobody knew where she was. Home Too Late, I name it. Like in most of my stories the father is nothing like Dad. Does Jerome dream of a different father? I get this terrible urge again to look in his diary.
It’s silent on the first floor, but I tiptoe anyway. Jerome’s bag is right there on the chair in his room. The diary is in it. I hold it in my hand. It feels heavy; not from material weight. I find the twenty-first of April, the last day of school before that weekend.
I really hate GG is written on the page; no more.
I wonder who GG is. Maybe some kid at school who teases him. Jerome is the kind of person who’d get bullied easily. He’s lucky to have Fred.
I cautiously turn to the reunion but I don’t get much wiser from the few notes he’s written. It concerns Uncle Charl drinking and driving, a mention of Rowan and a few words about that first night in which we locked the other girls in their tent. The Saturday is described like the Friday, but then nothing. The pages of Sunday and Anzac Day are left empty. “Shit.”
I turn another page. Et voilà, words, finally. And what words!
Justice – Revenge – No difference
Morality’s voice choked on its own evil
Sanctimonious fire
A body in flames
Self-righteousness reduced to ashes
I will be judge for he has judged me
No difference: word or sword
Execution awaits its judgment day
I light the match; its flames will say
Justice – Revenge – No difference.
“Mariette?” Granannie whispers.
Stunned, for a moment I stare up at her. That same instant her hand hits my face. Unable to do anything but take a breath I watch her walk out of the room.
I’ve just now lost my grandmother; I know I have. She’ll never look at me the same way again.
Once my hands stop trembling I put the diary into the bag and go up to the attic. An aching emptiness is in the pit of my stomach. My eyes burn, which is wrong, because I had this coming. I feel an urge to touch my glowing face, but I don’t. I lie down on the bed. My mind keeps jumping between Granannie’s eyes, the way they looked at me, and the contents of that poem. What the hell did he do?
Ages later I hear Grandpa Will’s car return. Nobody comes up to see me; nobody calls for dinner. Not that I would have gone down for it, but… It’s already dark. They’ll want to go home soon. I pack my bag. What if they leave without me? What did Granannie tell them?
It’s nearly eight o’clock before Miranda knocks on the door. “We’re leaving. Dad says to put the sheets in the hamper, pack up and come down.”
“Coming.”
I do what she says with the sheets, pick up my bag and walk down the stairs, my ears alert for sounds. I look over the banister but the kitchen is empty and so is the living room. They must be outside. I need to talk to my gran but not in front of the others. I go as slow as I can, but nobody comes back in.
In the vague light from the porch I see them all near the car. Dad is putting the bags in. Granannie gives Mum a hug, then Miranda and last Jerome. Grandpa Will does the same. I hover near the back door until Mum sees me. “Hurry up, Mariette. Everybody is waiting.”
I try to avoid looking at their faces, while a little voice inside me begs Granannie to stop me leaving. Please don’t let me go like this, but she does. She steps back and lets me enter the car. Neither she nor Grandpa Will insist on the normal last minute embraces. I don’t look out of the window when we drive away. For Jerome and Miranda I take out my book and a little reading lamp.
Hardly a word is said on the ride home, not even by Miranda, who falls asleep halfway. Jerome looks out the window. Nothing shows how his meeting with his dad went; nothing shows if he knows what I did. When he’s really nervous he blinks his eyes a lot. He seldom says it. Usually I prefer people who don’t share everything, but right now I’d like to shake him. He looks back at me for a moment. I turn away.
When we get home I go straight to bed even though my stomach is complaining loudly about the lack of food. Neither Mum nor Dad makes any comment. I can’t sleep. The first thing I eat is the next morning at the milk bar.
“You both look like shit,” Kathleen says. “What did you do, party all night?”
I look at Jerome and find him waiting for me. I shrug to let him know I don’t care.
“We had a weekend in the country so I could visit my dad. We didn’t get home until after midnight,” he says.
Kathleen asks how Uncle Charl is doing. To my surprise Jerome seems to have no problem talking to her. “He was happy to see me. He thinks he might come home for a weekend in early June and if that goes well, for good. We’ll live on the farm.”
“I thought you said there were no schools near there?”
“I’ll homeschool.”
“What about Rowan?” I ask him.
“He gets the choice when the time comes. If he wants he can stay at Uncle Alistair’s. He’s happy there.”
And Jerome is clearly not happy with us. “I wouldn’t mind homeschooling.”
“Neither would I,” Fred says as he joins us.
JEROME
I help Aunt Karen with the washing and packing up. It’s two weeks since our visit to see Dad. I’ve talked to him on the phone twice but this time he’ll spend Sunday on the farm. We’re going to leave tomorrow morning and sleep over again. I can’t wait.
It’s been okay these past few weeks. Mariette doesn’t cause too many problems at school, apart from refusing to wear a proper uniform, but then, neither does Fred and they still look better than some of the others who do, but walk around with their shirts hanging out, their belts so loose the seat of their pants hangs down at their knees or, as Mariette keeps arguing against Charlotte, their skirts so short that the girls are showing off their underwear. None of us go to the assemblies anymore or to PE on Friday mornings. I’m now one of that group. I could even call Fred my friend. He was a loner too, once. Like Mariette he rarely does any homework and yet they always get good grades.
Mariette and her mother still argue, but not as much, and she’s distant towards me but not aggressive anymore after whatever it was that happened between her and Granannie. “We had a bit of a spat,” is all Granannie told us when Mariette didn’t come down. My uncle and aunt were advised to leave her be and not say anything at all, which I think they did. I know Mariette feels bad about it. She hangs around when one of us talks on the phone to Grandpa Will, but she refuses their offers to talk and she doesn’t pick up when it rings.
What I didn’t expect is what she does in the morning: She refuses to come when we’re all ready to go. Aunt Karen has a tizzy in a Mirandalike manner, shouting and threatening, but, of course, there’s nothing she can do.
“Are you sure you want to stay home? We won’t come back early, not even if you call the police because you’re scared at night. We’ll have them let you sleep at the station,” Uncle Gerard teases.
“Don’t be stupid,” Mariette tells him.
Aunt Karen isn’t happy.
“She’s sixteen, Karen, let her try. It’s only one night.”
There is some debate about Aunt Karen also staying behind but eventually she gives in. Not having Mariette near her mother makes for a very calm ride. To keep Miranda from talking all the way, Uncle Gerard puts on an audio book for us to listen to. It’s a great idea I should keep in mind for when Dad starts driving again.
As soon as we arrive Aunt Karen calls home and then vents her frustration in the kitchen. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve read the books, gone to lectures, I follow all the advice, but it doesn’t help. They say olde
st children should be responsible, but I don’t see it.”
“Then stop reading the books and trust yourself,” Grandpa Will tells her, for which he gets scolded by Granannie.
“You have easy talking. You didn’t have to cope with this so-called ‘Information Age’ when you brought up your kids. What do they all say, Karen? How do all those books and lecturers say you should deal with Mariette?”
“Well, this last one said it had to do with which place in the family they take, so Mariette should be like Jerome, but she isn’t.”
“I don’t want to know what the last one said. What do they all say, all of them together?”
Aunt Karen shrugs to say she doesn’t know and admits there’s nothing specific that they all have in common.
“And there’s your answer. There are no rules that work for everybody. Everybody is his own person, both parent and child and it is the combination of those temperaments that make each situation unique. Didn’t you yourself tell me that Miranda was already communicating non-stop when you carried her, and you knew before she was born that she would be different from Mariette? So why do you notice this but still believe some half-cast theory that happens to be popular? Birth order has no influence on what personality a child is, only on how we treat them and what we expect of them. So if a naturally responsible child is born first he gets all the positive praise, but if he’s born last he gets treated like a baby and protests that and vice versa. Don’t fall for the ‘how to raise happy kids’ myth, Karen. If after this much time people still need to write books, isn’t it much more likely that there is no one answer?”
Uncle Gerard winks at me when Aunt Karen isn’t able to argue this logic. “But that doesn’t help me with Mariette,” she says.
“It may be better if you step away from her a bit. You two clash; that happens. You can’t change who you are or who she is. You shouldn’t try to change that. You need to learn to respect each other and hope she’ll outgrow those hormones soon. But you’ll never overcome all of it. That’s nobody’s fault. Step out of your guilt complex. You’ll find it a whole lot easier to deal with her if you stop blaming yourself and stop comparing her to the neighbours. They were just lucky to have kids who follow the masses.”