I imagine an Elayn dreaming her whole life of that crying room; a place to deposit her children while she grabbed at life, gulped the world; I imagine her walking away from the cinema and never coming back. But she did, always did. As I said earlier, whenever I was sick she’d hold me and hold me as if she wanted to leech the illness from me; in some elemental maternal embrace involving a sick child and their mother. We all have untidy lives.
*
It’s a universal desire to be needed. Elayn gave me the gift of being needed at the end of her life. A week before her death I picked her up from a scanning centre and drove her home. She was teary with pain as I helped her into the car. ‘It’s so good to be with you, Nik. You’re so calming.’ I hold on to that. This world is seamed rich. Layers and layers of wonder. Yet in the end Elayn saw it as full of nothing. That’s what pain did to her. She just wanted it stopped.
*
I see it now: if Elayn had emailed me a more specific note on her final night, a note of farewell and fulsome love, I would have rushed around and stopped her doing whatever she was about to do. Suddenly my mind flies open, like a door into dazzling day.
*
As I age my heart is growing young. Because the anger over my mother, anger that has fuelled and swamped and blighted my entire life, is now snuffed. That is something to celebrate.
*
The way of Kabbalah: tragedy cracks you open so your light can shine. And at some point you have to make the decision to open your life to the necessary warmth, to start living again; like a plant turning to the sun, spining yourself tall within the light. A decision you have to make.
*
Helena, dear, brave, Helena: she said to me, one day: ‘“You can be me when I’m gone” is a classic line from one of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books. My youngest son and I strongly identify with it. The whole concept is that the man goes, dies – and leaves his son to be him when he goes. That’s us in a nutshell. And it’s why I’m so concerned about him because I know he’s going to take me with him when I go. And I know that even though intellectually and emotionally he’s as prepared as anyone can be (about euthanasia of a parent), it’s going to hit him harder than what he thinks it’s going to.’
My heart goes out to that beautiful boy in his early twenties. He thinks he can prepare for the considered death of his mother adequately, carefully, slowly, but he cannot.
*
Helena has chosen the best way to die by your own hand, given her circumstances. By dying she is releasing her children to who they should be. She is enabling them to complete their growing up, and this cannot happen while she is with them. They will become someone else after she is gone. It is progression.
*
The intention: to live differently. Parent differently. To live honestly with my children; communicate strongly and clearly with them. To never spring a death by my own hand upon them, to never leave them so skinned.
*
Our little diminishing family cannot be broken. As no family can. There is something too fundamental there. Too much memory, history. Our family is threaded through with a resin of gold now and it is strong. We have come through this. More tender now; with each other, with the outside world. Our edges softened by sorrow.
*
A spontaneous road trip with Biahbi. Sometimes we just have to flee the boy energy (times four) in our house and they let us – grateful to be temporarily rid of us, mad things that we are.
We’re singing songs in the car, loudly, joyously, like no one’s watching, but Biahbi breaks off to tell me I’m really, really not cool. ‘You never were, Mum.’ Ah, the wisdom of the eight year old, and we haven’t even hit fifteen yet. I laugh with her.
I’ll be treading carefully with this one. She’s singular and sparky and strong, with a loud, uncrushable voice. Elayn has taught me how to be with her. I will love her differently, as a daughter; I do love her differently. With celebration and affirmation and chuff. With understanding that we are differently complex females. And with a knowledge that we have to go easy on each other.
Like Win, like Elayn, we both prize control. We kick out strongly against a shaping of us.
I hold my hand out the car window and butt the breeze on the highway. Biahbi laughs and does the same. We grin, each to each. A mother and daughter, twinned strong. I am freshly carefree, differently able. Something has been cauterised.
*
To hold on to: Elayn’s magnificence, most of all. And the understanding, and forgiveness, of the multitudes that we all carry within us.
*
The grief is not over, it never will be over. It still trips me up in unexpected moments, stumbling me all over again. What does it: a reminisce with Paul, the sight of a mate laughing so easily with their mum, a Klimt painting we both loved. Simple things. Two steps forward, one step back, righting myself and then not.
But the moving forward is stronger, swifter now; the seam of melancholy more hidden. Yes, climbing back into the world, firm.
*
I feel I am fully a woman now. Stronger, wiser. Little binding scars all over my life but laughing again and it’s like a hat flying off into the sun. The sheer, glorious whoop of it. This rescue, finally, shines.
*
In the Grand Ballroom of Destiny Reversal Elayn has once again triumphed. I hold the joyous memory of her, and everything she did for me, in the fist of my heart.
When anything interesting happens I want to tell her. I want to tell her this. All this.
PICTURES
Elayn holding me at my Christening
My wedding
Modelling shot
Elayn as a toddler
Wellington, New Zealand
Win and Elayn on her wedding day
Opening night, ballet, Sydney
Ceramic lanterns
With my firstborn child
Modelling tear sheet
Modelling shot
Modelling shot
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A tough journey made buoyant by the good women of HarperCollins: Mary Rennie for saying there was a book in this complex situation in the first place. Catherine Milne for her fierce intelligence. Nicola Robinson for her compassionate sincerity. Jaki Arthur for being one of the best in her business. And Shona Martyn, dear Shona, for her enthusiasm and passion, squeals and squeaks; and for the depth of the wisdom most of all. Thank you, madam, for fourteen fabulous years of publishing. I cannot imagine the writerly path without you by my side, but walk along it I now must. You will be terribly missed.
To James Kellow: for nurturing this extraordinary team.
To my editors at The Australian, Christine Middap and Michelle Gunn: for teaching me so much.
To my agents David Godwin and Kirsty McLachlan: for twenty years of thoughtful guidance. I wish we were geographically closer.
To Philip Nitschke: it could have been adversorial; it was unexpectedly nourishing.
To all my girlfriends: for the flowers, the laughs, the spag bols and the necessary texts when needed. Thank you for checking in.
To Helena, darling Helena: for the joy and the wisdom, the grace and generosity, which will guide me through the rest of my days. Thank you for teaching me how to live.
To Paul, Bob and the Oodies, for seeing me through this; and to the Chap, the dear, beleaguered Chap, who’s had to put up with so much. My heart is brimmed with love for you all. Thank you for saving me, again and again, and keeping me laughing.
And to Elayn, for making me who I am.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NIKKI GEMMELL is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, five works of non-fiction, and, as N.J. Gemmell, six children’s books. Her work has received international critical acclaim and her books have been translated into twenty-two languages. She is also a columnist for the Weekend Australian Magazine. She was born in Wollongong, New South Wales.
ALSO BY NIKKI GEMMELL
Shiver
Cleave
Lo
ve Song
The Bride Stripped Bare
Pleasure: An Almanac for the Heart
The Book of Rapture
Why You Are Australian
With My Body
I Take You
Honestly: Notes on Life
Personally: Further Notes on Life
As N.J. Gemmell
The Kensington Reptilarium
The Icicle Illuminarium
The Luna Laboratorium
Coco Banjo is Having a Yay Day
Coco Banjo Has Been Unfriended
Coco Banjo and the Super Wow Surprise
COPYRIGHT
Lines from ‘Sleepchains’ © Anne Carson reproduced with kind permission by Aragi Inc.
Line from ‘An Arundel Tomb’ © Philip Larkin reproduced with kind permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.
Photograph on page 177 reproduced with kind permission of The Australian Women’s Weekly / Bauer Media.
Fourth Estate
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2017
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Nikki Gemmell 2017
The right of Nikki Gemmell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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978 1 4607 5305 7 (hardback)
978 1 4607 0769 2 (ebook)
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Gemmell, N.J., author.
After / Nikki Gemmell.
Gemmell, Elayn.
Suicide victims – Biography.
Suicide victims – Family relationships.
Mothers and daughters – Biography.
Bereavement – Psychological aspects.
Children of suicide victims – Psychological aspects.
362.28092
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover photograph by Sue Daniel
After Page 18