New Animal

by Ella Baxter

  I call Jack and he answers quickly, happy to hear from me. I ask him twice how he’s been and then launch in.

  ‘Mum died,’ I tell him, still not quite believing it myself.

  There’s a sharp intake of breath. I hear the same breath leave his body as he sits down heavily.

  ‘Cancer?’ he asks.

  ‘No, a fall.’

  There’s a long silence, and I stay listening to nothing on the line.

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘When?’ he asks.

  ‘Yesterday,’ I say.

  ‘I should’ve known,’ he says. ‘I dreamed of swallows mating.’

  ‘I can’t go to the funeral,’ I say. ‘But Vincent wants you to know you’re invited.’

  ‘God no. I couldn’t; it’s too hard. You should come here—come and be with me. Do you need money for a ticket?’

  ‘No, I can manage. I’ll get the first flight in the morning.’

  ‘Okay, honey,’ he says, his voice breaking. ‘I’ll meet you at the terminal.’

  I hang up so I don’t hear him cry.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The fluorescent lighting at the boarding gate is unreasonably bright as I sit opposite a man reading a paper and stretch my legs out. I lean back and elongate further, while performing a few twists and neck rolls. My feet bump into something, and I look up to see the man opposite moving to another chair. I tuck my legs away and sit upright. I should have picked the next seat along, instead of directly opposite him. He probably thinks I’m encroaching on his space. I pick up my handbag and my small suitcase and move further away, to the next seat in the row. The man looks up from his paper, and smiles briefly. Am I still too close? I pick up my things again, and slip along to the next chair. He looks up again and this time I smile, but he doesn’t return it.

  ‘My mum died,’ I explain.

  He clears his throat.

  I nod.

  He probably understands now why I sat so close before. He would realise that I am not really aware of my surroundings because I am shattered by grief.

  When the plane is ready for boarding I line up with the others. No one asks how I am or checks to see whether I am truly comfortable with this decision. In front of a planeload of passengers I pass for normal. I look around, trying to gauge if anyone can sense how sad I am, whether it radiates out of me, but people are acting extremely normally, showing no sign of concern.

  I sit in my allocated seat next to the window and shut my eyes. I open them again and adjust the air-conditioning vent because it is freezing. No one is seated next to me, but if they were, I know I would tell them my mother died. I think it’s a processing issue that I’m having. Hard to know.

  I read the flight safety information and mentally practise the brace position. I yawn. I use two fingers to feel whether the glands in my neck are swollen. They’re fine. No one cares either way. I take seven small sips of water from a tiny plastic bottle, while looking around the plane at the other passengers. I need to tell someone that I am going to Hobart to avoid my mother’s funeral, because their reaction will let me know if this is a good idea or not. Other people have always been the canary in the mine for me. But right now, no one is available—they are all busy with their phones and books—so I pull the window shade down, close my eyes, and only open them again when I feel the plane dipping to the right.

  Outside the terminal, I scan the parking lot for Jack’s old silver Mercedes, but instead find him leaning against a pole, watching a raven that is balancing along the rim of a metal bin. He’s wearing a loose linen shirt with three out of the five buttons done up, and has slipped his huge feet into Birkenstocks. His tan is deep, and his hair is the sandy, grey colour of a man who immerses himself daily in nature. I call his name, and he throws his arms open and walks towards me.

  ‘Oh, my darling little girl,’ he says.

  I’m quite far from him, so I stop walking but let him continue. He’s still at least six steps away, and I wonder whether he will lower his arms, but instead he slows right down.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to pretend here.’

  He embraces me, lifting me up and jiggling me around for a bit, before placing me onto the footpath and clasping my shoulders.

  ‘Josephine was the love of my life, and my heart will always be hers because she gave me you and Simon.’

  He’s launched straight in. No pleasantries or offer of a quick coffee, it’s just straight to deep and meaningful. He hangs his head and begins to sob, and I step away from him. I have left one grief-stricken parent only to be confronted with another, when what I need is someone to look after me.

  He lets go of my shoulders and lifts the front of his shirt to his face, wiping tears from his eyes and cheeks. ‘Oh dear, oh my,’ he says, wringing his hands, then shaking them out. ‘I’ve been reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead quite a bit since you rang.’

  I pick my bags up, ready to go, but instead of making our way to the car, he crosses his arms instead.

  ‘Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected,’ he says. ‘It’s an utterly radical idea, isn’t it? Just drips with meaning.’

  The raven flaps its wings and lets out a deep croak, and we both turn to look at it.

  ‘A symbol from her,’ Jack says to himself, or to me—I can’t really be sure.

  It’s been a year since I last saw him, and months since I forgot to reply to his email, which was a picture of him holding an empty nest that he found by the river that winds through his property. There’s a whole shelf in his house dedicated to objects he’s come across. Ancient hammerstones, smooth chunks of sandblasted glass, a possum’s skull which he keeps in a sealed jar (Because it fucking stinks, he said). Simon once found a dead kangaroo between two logs by the river, and we checked on it daily for a whole summer, watching as it morphed from a rosette of fur to a small patch of scattered bones. By the end of the holidays the understorey had knitted back together over its place, and when we told Jack, he said that the river is a channel where the new and the decrepit can touch hands.

  Simon and I would arrive every school holiday, an inch taller than the last visit, and the whole property would be a time capsule to how we had left it months earlier. Our shovels still stuck in the sand hill. Paint pots dried to the easel. Half-made shelters from wood offcuts. One spring we planted butter beans, and when we returned, the vines had grown like hair over the sides of the planter boxes, and there were dried beans as long as my finger still attached to the vine. I told Jack that it was a waste, and he should have picked and eaten them. I couldn’t without you, was all he managed to say about it, emotional about feeling abandoned at the harvest and forced to leave the beans to rot.

  He pulls out of the car park as soon as he hears the click of my seatbelt.

  ‘How’s Simon?’ he asks, then adds, ‘And Vincent?’ There’s tension in his voice as he pronounces Vincent’s name, which comes from keeping his teeth together as he says it.

  ‘They’re managing. Simon’s got Hugh and Carmen, and Judy is looking after Vincent.’ I don’t state the obvious: that there’s no one to care for me.

  We drive in silence for a while, then he says, ‘You can stay as long as you like. You know it’s just me in the big house.’ He glances over at me. ‘And don’t be surprised if you don’t feel like yourself for a while,’ he says.

  We pass the golf club, and I count one magpie, two wombats and a large wallaby, all dead by the side of the road.

  ‘There’s a mortuary here—maybe you can get some work. And you’ll be near the river, near the forests, near me.’

  He overtakes a ute towing a campervan, and they give each other the two-finger country wave, and I keep looking out the window, silent, because I’m not sure where I belong at the moment.

  ‘I know how it feels to lose Josephine; after the divorce I fell apart.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I was in pieces until quite recently, actually.’

&
nbsp; ‘Oh.’

  ‘But now … well, now I have to keep it together because you and Simon need me. I’m the last one standing.’ His fingers tighten on the wheel. ‘It’s all down to me now.’

  My mother was still married to Jack when she met Vincent. She had a stand at the local produce market in town, and every Sunday morning he would come to her stall. He never actually bought anything; he just lingered there, making conversation—complimenting her on her parenting skills as Simon and I ran riot among the market stalls, terrorising the woman who sold ducklings and generally making a nuisance of ourselves. At some point, she pushed him to buy something, anything—a single peach or some sweet cherries—but he refused. I haven’t eaten fruit since the eighties, he said while slipping her his business card.

  Jack was my mother’s high school sweetheart and she loved him, but she was also too young to know there were a multitude of other options available. When Vincent began actively pursuing her, he seemed accomplished and urbane by comparison. He had taught mortuary studies in Sydney and had aspirations to open his own funeral business somewhere warmer, whereas Jack could spend a whole morning re-reading a Penguin classic on the deck. There was an unfortunate period of time where she was with both men, and it hurt everyone in the end. She had no money of her own and two young children. When she agreed to an interstate move with Vincent, on the proviso that Vincent made her a partner in the business, Jack raged at her for leaving him, and when she finally went, he made the divorce take up the first three years of her new relationship.

  ‘You look well,’ I say to Jack, trying to lighten the conversation.

  ‘I’m old, Lia. I feel one hundred some days.’ He leans across and opens the glove box, pulling out an open bag of lollies, which he rests in my lap. ‘But let’s not break with tradition. It’s time to reacquaint you with the island.’ He holds out his hand, and I shake some lollies into it for him.

  I take a yellow snake and tie it in a knot before shoving it in my mouth. The chewy gunk of it swells between my teeth, but I push through each chew. Jack is a man of routine, right down to the bag of lollies he keeps in the car and the eager welcome at the terminal. Most trips to Tasmania have either begun with a swim at the beach or a walk through the Museum of Old and New Art, as he believes it’s important to immediately assimilate to life here. Both art and ocean are key to that, in his opinion. I suspect he’s trying to wash the scent of Vincent off.

  Although this is not a usual visit, I am conscious that this is not the time to suggest a variation to the program. It would put far too much pressure on both of us to find new ways of relating to one another right now.

  I check my phone and see I’ve missed calls from Vincent and Simon. There’s a message from Carmen asking if I’m alright. One from Hugh asking if I need to talk. Many from Vincent, with the latest pleading with me to ring him. The only reason he knows I’m not dead, he writes, is because he checked the bathroom cabinet in the bungalow and can see I’ve taken my hair straightener. Simon sends a simple message asking me to call him back. Their grief is now pointed at me, but I am the one grieving the most—I am the arrowhead of sorrow. I need this; I am demonstrating self-care. If anything, I should be congratulated for being proactive. For protecting my mental health. I switch my phone off and drop it to the bottom of my handbag as Jack turns into the entrance of the grey and rust-coloured monolith that is MONA.

  Inside, we descend gradually into the dark exhibition space like cave divers, moving down into the hollowed-out earth via the spiral staircase that wraps around the lift shaft. High sandstone walls loom above as we emerge into the belly of the building. Jack and I knock into each other regularly, struggling to adjust to being in such close proximity. Without saying much, we intuitively bump our way to the cocktail bar, where he orders a wine for each of us. As we stand at the bar waiting, he looks at me closely, as if I fell from the sky fully formed, as if he didn’t witness my slow ascent into adulthood. Having a fully grown daughter seems repeatedly shocking to him. When I dig around in my handbag to check my phone is truly off, he peers intently at my two silver rings, and then at my ponytail, as if trying to get a sense of who I am. I suspect he is trying to gather information on things we share, familiar traits.

  ‘Are you seeing anyone at the moment?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’

  He nods. ‘You’ve probably got enough on your plate.’ He leans his forearm against the bar, then straightens up, looking around the room. ‘This place is really something else.’ He takes a big sip from his glass. ‘I’m glad you and I could come here today and do this together.’ He waves his glass towards a low-lit exhibition space. ‘Your mother loved art. Anything abstract was her thing. Landscapes too. Frescos …’ He raises his eyebrows probably realising he doesn’t quite know what else, and then drains his glass. ‘Shall we?’

  I hover for a moment, in case he suggests we have another glass of wine first, because I could definitely do with a couple more, but he’s already walking towards a huge canvas filled with black brushstrokes. I catch up to him and we stop and stare at the painting. It is so wide that if I stand close enough, it swallows each side of my peripheral vision, and all I can see is black, which is a welcome respite from all the colour of the day.

  ‘And how has work been?’ Jack asks.

  ‘Good,’ I say.

  We walk on, pausing in front of more artworks, but I find myself looking back towards the bar longingly. We could have had another drink. Being in a gallery, however wonderful, is all a bit too surreal for me at this moment. Looking at art while grieving is an experience that I am not entirely loving. I can tell already that the black painting was the highlight, and that everything from now on in will be tolerable, but not entirely the balm I need for my particular mother-shaped wound. In this instance, a swim would have been better.

  ‘What do you think?’ Jack asks, as we stop in front of a soup bowl filled with hundreds of tiny glass pigs.

  ‘Lovely,’ I say.

  ‘Aren’t you glad we came?’

  I look around the familiar space, at the golden light gleaming along exposed rock surfaces.

  ‘Kind of.’

  As we continue further into the gallery, our hands brush a few times, and I move away until there is a wide enough gap that I know it won’t happen again. We find our way into a bright white room. There are blue neon lights hanging from the ceiling at chest height, and underneath the swaying tubes is a gigantic red button sticking out of the floor like a siren. The tubes light up from the outside in, layer by layer, edging closer to the button.

  I stand at the perimeter of the installation, as Jack pushes two lights apart and walks between them. ‘This looks like an invitation,’ he says, working his way in until he’s standing in the thicket of lights, next to the button.

  ‘Are you sure we’re allowed to do that?’ I ask nervously.

  He squeezes one of the tubes, testing its strength. ‘I think they want us to interact with the art,’ he says. He tugs on the tube. ‘Industrial,’ he says under his breath.

  I thread my way through to him carefully as he looks down at the button on the floor for a moment before stamping on it confidently. A woman’s voice booms into the room. No, she moans, no no no. The neon lights begin to blink rapidly on and off. No, she moans, no no no. Jack steps on the button again to see if it turns off, but it doesn’t, and we avoid each other’s eyes while it repeats. No, she moans, no no no. No, she moans, no no no.

  I find my way out of the concentric circles of light and stand near the door, waiting to go. There’s something so brash and jarring about the installation that it makes me feel even more disconnected to the world. I can’t relax around repeated invitations to be introspective.

  ‘I need to get some air, I think.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t quite get this one, if I’m honest,’ Jack says, before following me out.

  I leave Jack slumped in an oversized beanbag looking at the river as I retreat to the closest bathroom,
where I stand next to the sink taking slow breaths. What is it about parents that makes you long for them when they aren’t there, and then as soon as they are in front of you, all you want to do is push them out of the way and sprint past anything that might link the two of you? When I am with Jack, I long desperately for Vincent; I need his humour and energy. And when I am around him as he switches madly through all his moods, all I want is Jack, who leaves a cup of tea by my door then shuffles away before I’ve even noticed he was there. What I want more than anyone is my mother, but she’ll be buried tomorrow and I can’t even squeeze a tear out. I cup my hands under the faucet and wipe warm water over my eyes and down my cheeks until it feels like tears. Like a ticking clock under a blanket to imitate a heart, it’s the closest I can get, but it’s still not good enough. Vincent once told me that the purpose of tears is to let others know you’re not feeling well. It triggers an empathetic response in humans. I think of him crying now, and how confused he would be that I’m not there, and how unfair it is to leave someone who already feels left behind. I ring him.

  ‘I’m with Jack,’ I say.

  ‘You’re in Tasmania?’ I can hear him walking quickly upstairs, thump, thump, thumping. ‘But the funeral is tomorrow—you need to come back.’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘You don’t have to do her make-up; Judy’s organised for someone else to come in. But it’s very important that you’re here. You need to say goodbye.’

  ‘I will. I’ll just do it in my own way.’

  ‘No, Amelia. Come home now. You’ll regret it if you don’t.’

  I hear a scuffle with the phone before Simon comes on the line. ‘What dumbfuckery is this? Of course you’re coming to the funeral.’

  I use my shoulder to hold the phone to my ear while I run my hands under the automated taps, again cupping and releasing the warm water that comes out of the copper spout.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  Simon hangs up. Although we share parents, our posture and a similar laugh, we are actually just circling each other like two planets, alike but unable to touch.