In a Fishbone Church

by Catherine Chidgey

  Had a phone call from my best girlfriend and made a date to pick her up at Princess Margaret Hospital at 2 p.m.

  Etta takes his hand – full, swollen – and waits for the music to end.

  For the first time in years that I have kept a diary I have gone wrong somewhere no record of today

  As the music finishes she leans in to the radio, turns up the volume, holds her breath. And another piece of music starts, something Etta does not care for, from some stage show or other, and she is surprised to hear herself moan, actually let out a cry, and then she feels justified in doing so, because she was waiting so carefully for the name of the music and it never came, and the kind voice has cheated her. She lets go of Gene’s hand then and holds her own hands to her face, weeping for her nameless music, and she is sure she’ll never hear it again, because that’s just the way of things. She switches off the radio and there is only Gene’s breathing, and the small movements of his hands.

  Etta watches him plucking at the sheet, rubbing the fabric between his fingers as if assessing its quality. It’s one of her mother’s, and still like new. There are shelves and shelves of them; Etta has never had to buy any linen at all. She offered some of it to Christina, and to Bridget as well when she was flatting, but they were not interested. White is so boring, they said, and none of the sheets are fitted, and none of them are queen size. How, they said, did couples ever sleep in those narrow double beds?

  Etta brought Mum some flowers she is down staying with her folks as her sister Bernadette is unwell. Mother Moynihan can’t know she’s been to see us and we’re not to ring Etta at the farm. I don’t understand it and Gene doesn’t either but Etta never mentions her mother so it’s none of our business I suppose

  The wind beats at the side of the house, causing the curtains to move ever so slightly. On the roof the thick black construction paper is buckling underneath tiles, shuddering like stage thunder.

  One night it was so windy that Etta only got as far as the Hoffmanns’ house before she decided to turn back. It was just past ten, not very late at all – although, as usual, everyone in her household had retired to bed – but she realised she’d make little headway in such weather. And if there was a storm, she did not want to be outside to see the lightning. Above her the electricity lines whipped like skipping ropes snapped at girls’ ankles. Etta hadn’t been on one of her night-time walks for a long time, but on this occasion she couldn’t stay in bed. She was thinking about the boy she’d met at the dance, when she was wearing Bernadette’s blue dress and Theresa’s blue shoes, and had her hair pinned in a French roll although little wisps kept escaping and tickling the nape of her neck.

  The boy’s father was a butcher who was famous for his rock and fossil collection, and he himself was an apprentice with Conway’s, although he was also looking into journalism. When they were waltzing, and he placed his hand on Etta’s shoulder, and his fingers couldn’t help but extend beyond the narrow tulle strap, she noticed how soft his skin was. And she told him so. What soft hands you have, she said, not like a builder’s at all, and then wished she hadn’t. But they had circled around and around the hall, over the creaking floorboards, and then they’d had supper, and he pretended not to notice when she dropped a slice of cucumber from her tiny crustless sandwich.

  The wind snatched at her hair, lifting it around her head as if she were under water. Above the noise of it Etta could make out piano music. It was seeping through the cracks around the Hoffmanns’ drawn curtains; trickling through the velvety gaps. (Velvet drapes, said Maggie for years after her first visit to the Hoffmanns. Velvet, if you please, and the war barely over.) Etta left the piano music behind, let it be flung without an audience to the dark macrocarpas. She picked her way across the cattle stop. Her feet crunched on the gravel drive and grit blew into her face. She wasn’t in the least bit tired. She was too distracted to read. She would run herself a bath.

  Even the most ingrained habits can fade if they are not practised for a time. Etta turned on the bath, then went upstairs to get her nightdress, which she had left crumpled and tugged-at in her room. And she placed her right foot on the first stair and began to climb. And the ninth stair creaked.

  Etta froze. She waited on the dark staircase, listening for a door to open, footsteps to approach. There was nothing but the wind.

  She stepped into the green china bath and kept the water running until it was almost overflowing. Until it came up to her neck, and if she moved too much, if she splashed her legs or arms, the water would slosh on to the floor. She sighed. The green was the same colour as the boy’s soft knitted tie. The wind tapped at the window, thrum, thrum, like Maggie’s fingers on the arm of a chair when she was angry. The water lapped at the green china edges. It came up to Etta’s neck.

  The strange thing is, she did not hear the footsteps on the stairs, the bathroom doorhandle turning. Perhaps her head was full of the music that was played at the dance, or perhaps the wind was too loud. At any rate, she jumped when Maggie spoke, and water overflowed from the bath and dripped down its dark green sides.

  Where have you been? Who has a bath so late at night? (Who, who? said the wind.)

  Nowhere. Really, nowhere.

  Mrs Morton tells us you met a young man the other night. No-one she knew from church.

  No, no honestly. (You, you, said the wind.)

  Sweet brandy breath gushed at Etta. A hand was placed on her wet shoulder.

  You’re lying. Wicked hurtful lies.

  The wind pushed and pushed. Gusts of brandy. Another hand, beautiful, pale, was placed on Etta’s head.

  Then she was under the water, and the green was in her eyes and her nose and her throat and her ears, and it was all she could see, this soft green, until she caught glimpses of busy white fingers. And she opened her mouth and closed her throat to stop the green from swallowing her, and then she bit.

  Etta spent as much time as possible with the green-tied boy. He came to her house on occasion, for Sunday afternoon teas during which Maggie summarised the morning’s sermon for him, and cake forks scraped bone china for traces of cream, and fingers tapped the arms of chairs, thrum, thrum. More often, though, Etta went to his house, where she was shown polished shells and semiprecious pebbles and tiny petrified creatures, and even the head of a giant fish that had turned to stone. And eventually she left behind the green Royal Doulton bath, and the house around it. She could not bear to stay there any longer, not with the taste of blood in her mouth.

  The wind has died down now, and Gene’s fingers have stopped worrying the sheet so much. His breathing is slight, hardly stirring the air in the quiet bedroom. Etta sits for an hour, listening to it change. Then she rings Christina and tells her to come.

  This evening Cyril called with Herb Knight both took up valuable time these days I don’t get time to shit Mum complaining of more chest pains I hope she won’t have to go to Princess Margaret again I am lost without her I have never been so short of time

  The

  rainbow

  catcher

  She has gin on the plane. One whole bottle, in miniature. Things are becoming smaller and she’s hardly left Sydney.

  ‘I feel like Alice in Wonderland,’ she says to the man sitting next to her, and he gives a short, tight smile and unfolds his complimentary New Zealand Herald.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come?’ Thorsten said when he dropped her off at the airport in Sydney. ‘I can come if you want me to, you only have to say.’

  Christina did want him to come then. She wanted someone to attach herself to, who belonged only to her. ‘I’m all right,’ she said.

  At Wellington airport, Bridget picks her up in Etta’s car. The speed bell rings almost all the way home.

  Over the next few days there are various groupings of people in Gene’s room; slow shifting constellations. After that, however, visitors are kept to a minimum. Christina is surprised to see Etta handle them on the phone, at the front door, with incre
asing disregard for manners.

  ‘He’s slipping a lot. Just a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘He’s very weak. I can’t let you see him for long.’

  ‘He’s not up to visitors. He won’t know who you are.’

  ‘We’ve decided he’s to have no more visitors.’

  Bridget says she’s going to have dinner at Antony’s. She won’t be gone long, just a couple of hours. His number’s by the phone. Of course, says Etta, of course.

  ‘Can I get you a bit of tea, Mum?’ says Christina. ‘Something light, a salad maybe? A sandwich?’

  But Etta says she’s fine, really, she just needs a bit of a rest. She didn’t get much sleep the night before.

  ‘Okay then. I’ll be up with Dad, if you need anything.’

  It’s just the two of them in the room. She’s monitored his pulse, checked his oxygen tube, his drug pump, his catheter. Apart from these things, these practised, professional actions, there is nothing else to do. His breaths become tiny gasps, small private surprises. Christina’s heard this before, once or twice – enough to know what it means – but she doesn’t know what to do now. She could call down the stairs to Etta, she could telephone Bridget. Her mother, her sister, she could. But Gene frowns, and there seems so little time, and so she touches the back of her hand to his cheek, to her father’s cheek, and then she leans towards him as if to kiss him, but instead holds her face against his, cheek to cheek now, a father and a daughter, waltzing, sort of, inexpert and unrehearsed at a debutante ball, a twenty-first birthday, a wedding. And there is no time.

  She turns off the drug pump, silences the discreet, intravenous fizz. She removes the safety pin securing it to her father’s pyjama pocket. She combs his soft hair. Safety pin, striped flannelette, green plastic comb.

  At the top of the stairs she squeezes past the mechanised chair – the seat has been left down – and then she’s at the bottom of the stairs and going through the door to the lounge and she realises she’s still holding the green plastic comb and it’s left a row of dots on her palm as if someone should place their signature there and she says, ‘Mum.’

  On the way home in the car neither of them says much. Bridget sobs to herself and Antony drives one-handed, resting the other on Bridget’s knee. She wishes that he would move the hand. Then she could fling herself around the inside of his car, hitting the curved interior, ricocheting off the walls like a gas trying to fill a space. She remembers being told this in fifth-form science.

  ‘Will he still be there?’ she says, ashamed at her own ignorance.

  Antony glances across at her, smiling. ‘Of course,’ he says, striking her thigh for emphasis.

  She wishes he would drive faster, but cannot bring herself to suggest this. It’s not as if it will make any difference, she knows, but she cannot bear the thought of Gene’s skin growing cold while they are skimming along the motorway, his blood pooling in strange locations.

  ‘I want to be home,’ she says. ‘Now.’

  ‘Welcome to National Radio, Linda speaking, how can I help you?’

  ‘I wish to know the name of a piece of music that was played at 3.15 a.m. the morning before last.’

  ‘Putting you through.’

  ‘National Radio programming, Mandy speaking, how can I help you?’

  ‘I wish to know the name of a piece of music that was played at 3.15 a.m. the morning before last.’

  ‘You’re sure about the time, madam?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you describe the piece?’

  ‘Classical. Flute and orchestra.’

  ‘Will you hold for a moment, please?’

  … sure to wear, some flowers in your hair, if you’re going, to San Francisco, summer time, will be a love…

  ‘The piece was Fauré’s Pavane. Would you like the details of that particular recording?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. Yes.’

  ‘Hi Mum, it’s me. Just ringing to see how you and Bridget are doing. Give us a ring if you like. I’m on nights at the moment so early afternoon our time would be best. Thorsten says hi too.’

  ‘Hello Etta, it’s Shirley here. Not sure if you got my message on Tuesday, just thought I’d see how you were getting on. I didn’t get a chance at the funeral to tell you how well you coped. I’m sure the Lord was a comfort. I hope you’re enjoying the shortbread. I just thought I’d pop it at the door, don’t know if you were home or not. I did think I saw a light on, but perhaps you don’t want to be answering the door after dark now. Give me a ring, won’t you?’

  ‘Hi Mum. I’m catching the 7.05 home so can you save me some dinner? … Tranz Metro service to Upper Hutt, stopping … Antony’s coming too. Okay. Bye … will depart from…’

  ‘Etta, this is Beryl. Colin thinks he may have left his scarf at your place. He and Janet are away at the moment, so I said I’d ring for him. Could you just pop it in the post if you find it? No hurry. We’re all well. Jim’s thrilled with the rifle, says he’ll get lots of use out of it. Bye.’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Stilton! This is Shana from Halliwell’s Real Estate. We have a number of clients interested in purchasing homes in your area, and we’re keen to get new properties on our books. If you and your husband are interested in selling, you can contact me on 567 6055. Looking forward to your call!’

  ‘Etta. Theresa. I’m not sure if this is right. Can you hear this? I…’

  ‘Etta, Shirley here. Not sure if you got my message the other day. I popped around this morning but you must have been out again. Good you’re keeping busy. I was just wondering whether you’d finished with Jodie’s baby monitor, sorry to bother you about it, I know how busy you are, it’s just a friend of hers has had a wee boy and they’d like to borrow it. So if you could just drop it round some time on your way out. I’ll call in soon. Bye now.’

  ‘Mum’s never home. I either get Bridget or the machine.’

  Claudia yawns. ‘Maybe she’s just leaving it on all the time.’

  ‘Possible. No.’

  ‘Max wants me to go to Melbourne with him next month. It’s his Dad’s seventieth.’

  ‘You can see what you’ll be waking up next to in forty years.’

  ‘I’ve got him a waffle iron. I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Thorsten wants me to spend Christmas with his family. In Austria.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I said no. I’m inviting Mum and Bridget over to stay. Joanne wants to meet them, show them round.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Christ. Collective manicures and lash tinting, I imagine. Could be worse.’

  The train pulls away from Petone station and begins its arc around the harbour. The water is so smooth it could be a lake.

  ‘He wanted to spare you that final sadness, Bridget,’ was what the hospice nurses said. ‘He knew you weren’t home, somehow, and he chose that time to slip away.’

  Bridget nodded, was generous with her gratitude.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ she said. But she knew it wasn’t Gene, the unconscious father, choosing his moment. The choice to go had been hers. It was her own living, breathing need to get out of the house, to escape the spotless room, the understanding, efficient hospice staff, her mother’s fussing housework, her sister’s quietness.

  She wonders, though, whether there was a sound, a movement, a rippling of the eyelids, something – all she knows is that Christina was sitting with him, and that Etta was downstairs, and that there was no time to call out. Bridget wants to ask Christina what happened; how the seconds uncoiled. Such details cannot be a mystery for her sister, who must have seen many deaths. But Christina has not offered the information, seems hesitant to relinquish it. So Bridget will not ask. Instead, on the train into Wellington, she watches the smooth harbour slide past the window and thinks of a lake.

  The girls have risen early, coaxed from sleep by their father leaning over them in his lumpy jersey. It’s still dar
k as they pull on layers of clothes. The lake can be cold, even after sunrise.

  Their mother is asleep in the candlewick motel bed, her arms crossed over her heart. The girls prepare a breakfast tray for her, trying not to make too much noise in the tiny kitchenette where everything clatters and is hard: concrete floor covered with lino, thick china, formica table, steel bench.

  When they get to the lake their father wades into the water and starts casting, flicking the line back and forth in long arcs. All they can hear is the water lapping at the sand and the swish of the line through the air. You have to be very quiet, their father tells them, otherwise you’ll scare the fish away. You have to trick them into thinking there’s nobody there.

  They hunt for sticks and jab them into the sand by the lupin bushes. They drape beach towels and blankets over the top and build houses.

  Their father calls; he’s dangling a trout from a line that’s too far away for them to see. The fish seems to jump and dance in mid-air. It flashes rainbows at them.

  Don’t kill it, don’t kill it, they cry, hiding in the lupin bushes, under the leaves shaped like running tears. The poor fish, Dad, let him go.

  So he does.