by Dee White
I kick the leg of the chair on the other side of the table. “She was allowed supervised access, just chose not to do it. What if I find her and she doesn’t even like me?”
Troy laughs. “As if that’s likely. All mothers have to like their kids. It’s an unwritten law.”
I kick the leg harder and the chair clatters to the floor.
Troy reaches across and picks it up.
“Wait here.” I go to my room and get the black folder Dave gave me.
I shove it in front of Troy.
“Read this – then try telling me that she liked me.”
While Troy reads, I close my eyes and think about Mum.
Troy’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “And you haven’t seen her since the shopping centre?”
I wipe a wet patch from underneath my eye. I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak yet.
“Why don’t you Google her?” says Troy.
“I have. Couldn’t find anything.”
“Not even about the court case?”
“Nuh.”
“That’s weird.” Troy keeps looking through the short history of my life in newsprint.
He turns to me. “Did you even read these?”
What’s he on about? “’Course I did.”
“And what was the name you Googled?”
“Zara Templeton. That was the name in the bible.”
“Yeah, well I don’t think that’s what she’s called.”
“What are you talking about?”
Troy points to the article about the court case where Dave got custody of me. “Her name’s Zora, not Zara. See!”
I go back to my room. Troy follows. I fling open my desk drawer and rummage through until I find the bible. I open it to the first place. Troy could be right. I read it as an “A”, but it could be an “O”.
“How come Kathryn Armain and Scott Reesborough never said anything?”
“They probably just thought you couldn’t spell.”
“You’re so funny, Troy.”
Troy bows. “I try to be.”
I key in “Zora Hudson”, and am just about to click on “search” when Dave walks in. It’s not right, not knowing my own mother’s name.
“Good news, boys.” Dave glances at the screen and raises an eyebrow.
“Really?” I say in a pretend-bright voice.
“You’re not going to be charged for painting the water tank.”
“They should be paying us,” says Troy.
“You think?” Dave rolls his eyes.
I swivel my chair around to look at him and lean back with my hands behind my head, trying my best to hide what’s displayed on the computer.
“So, what happened?”
“The councillors took a vote and decided it makes the old water tank look better than it has in years.”
“Cool. I’d better let my olds know. Catch you, Matt. See you, Mr H.”
After Troy leaves, Dave moves closer to my computer and I can’t stop him from seeing what’s on the screen.
“What are you doing, Matt?” he says quietly.
I look straight at him. “Trying to find Mum.”
Dave sits on my bed. “You’re asking for trouble, Matt. She’ll only bring you grief.”
“Being without her has brought me plenty of that already.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you, but it was for your own good.”
“You keep saying that.”
Dave sighs. “It’s true. I know what she’s like. I was married to her for a long time.”
“Exactly! You were married to her. I’m her kid. It’s different. I need to know about her. She’s part of who I am.
“Wait here.”
While I wait for Dave, I press “search”. All that comes up are archive references for articles about the court case. Don’t need to read any more of them. I check out “Zora Templeton” – only one hit – a piece about an art comp Mum won when she was seventeen. But that’s it. It’s like she really did die. Like she ceased to exist after the court case.
Dave comes back with a thick photo album. He lays it on the bed next to me.
“Where was that?”
Dave smiles. “You don’t know all my secrets. I’ve been keeping this under the bed. I guess I always knew you’d want to know about her one day. I was just hoping it wouldn’t happen till you were an adult and she couldn’t manipulate you.”
The anger comes pouring out of me. “Can’t you give her a break?”
Dave’s voice is calm and Rosenbaumish. “You don’t know her, Matt.”
Just for once I want him to show me what he’s really feeling.
I fling the black folder of newspaper clippings at his feet. “I don’t care that the judge wouldn’t let her have shared custody. That doesn’t prove anything. The judge was probably just trying to punish her because she’s a woman, and mothers aren’t supposed to leave their kids. Lots of fathers walk out on mothers, but people seem to think that’s okay.” How would a judge know if she loved me or not?
Dave sighs. “She left you more than once, Matt.”
“I know that. It was ages ago anyway.”
“People don’t change.”
“How do you know?”
Dave has the photo album closed on his lap. “Come and sit with me. Let me tell you about her.”
Dave turns to the first page. It’s a photo of Mum and Dad when they were at uni. Mum doesn’t look much older than me.
“You went to uni together?”
Dave nods. “That’s how we met. I was in the last year of my sound engineering course and she was studying art.”
“You were a sound engineer?” That’s freaky. I thought Dave had been born a real estate agent.
Dave seems distracted. As if he’s looking back. “Yeah. I was good too.”
“How come you stopped?”
Dave turns the next page to a photo of him and Mum at a twenty-first birthday party. “She was gorgeous, your mother, when I first met her. Bright, funny, always smiling.”
“What changed?”
“That was only half of who she was.”
I don’t get it. I look at Dave for answers.
“That’s who she was when she was ‘up’. The rest of the time she wouldn’t talk – locked herself in a room and refused to come out. Or she cried and cried, and I couldn’t do anything to make her happy.”
Dave turns the page to a photo of him and Mum in the park. She’s pushing my pram and Dave has a huge basset hound on a red lead. He grins. “That was Romulus. Great mutt.”
It’s like I don’t even know this man. He never let me have a dog.
“Things were good with us at the start. Till she stopped taking her medication. Said she couldn’t paint when she was on it. That’s when she started to do unpredictable things …”
“Like leave me alone in cars?”
Dave nods. “It was an illness – something she was born with – a chemical imbalance in her brain. She couldn’t help it, you know.”
“Couldn’t you make her take the stuff she needed?”
Dave’s mouth tenses into a hard line. “Nobody can make your mother do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“How come you gave up your job?”
“I had to work away from home a lot. Your mother got worse and worse. Started doing more and more bizarre things, like that time she left you at home on your own while she went to see a movie and go shopping. You were just a little kid. It got to the stage where I didn’t feel safe leaving you with her for long.”
“So you got a job in real estate.”
Dave flicks to the next page. “It was long hours, but at least I was home every night to make sure you were safely tucked in bed. And at least it meant I wasn’t far away when she left you in that shopping centre.”
A cold shiver goes down my spine and I don’t exactly know why. Is it a past memory or a fear of what’s ahead?
Dear Leonardo,
Life is like a painting
. Every time you look at it from another angle you see something totally different.
It’s not about colour or shading or even composition. It’s all about perspective – and mood – and looking under the surface.
Matt
11
Dave reckons he’s going to help me find Mum. He’s not happy about it, but he says that if I’m determined to find her, he is going to be with me when I do.
Aunt Alexa is our next lead. She’s Mum’s sister, but Dave hasn’t seen her since the court case.
Dave moves towards his bedroom, the cordless phone in his hand. “I’ll ring her and let you know what happens,” he says.
“No way.” I’m not quite ready to trust him yet. “If you’re going to ring her, it has to be on speaker so I can hear every word …”
“Not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“You promised you’d help me. You promised no more hiding stuff.”
Dave puts the phone on speaker and keys in a number. I flop down at the kitchen table and while Dave talks, I rub my fingers up and down across the smooth surface of the tabletop.
“Hi, Alexa, it’s Dave Hudson.”
“Dave?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s been a while.”
Dave turns up all the coffee mugs drying on the sink. “Yes, it has.”
“Did … did … Matt get my birthday card?”
“He did.” Dave paces next to the table.
“Is … everything okay?”
Dave stops abruptly and fires out the words. “Matt got a birthday card from Zora.”
Thump! Sounds like she dropped the phone.
I take a deep breath.
Dave waits. “Are you there, Alexa?”
For a moment there’s silence on the other end of the phone.
“Yes …” She sounds as if she’s crying.
Dave glares at me. “Alexa, are you … okay?”
A sniffle comes through the speaker. “I’m … a bit … surprised, that’s all …” Her voice is crackly with emotion.
“Us, too,” Dave whispers.
Dave and I look at each other awkwardly, waiting for Aunt Alexa to stop crying.
“How’s … Matty … taking it?”
Dave sighs. “About as well as can be expected.”
“Poor kid … must have been a shock.”
It was – and I’m not a kid.
Dave’s voice is firmer. “He wants to find his mother.”
Aunt Alexa seems to recover a bit. “I don’t know where she is. Haven’t seen her for about five years. Not since she was last in psychiatric care.”
“At Barry Hill?” That muscle in the corner of Dave’s eye twitches like crazy.
“No, they closed that place down years ago.”
Thanks for telling me.
Dave starts pacing again. “So, what happened?”
Aunt Alexa’s voice goes soft and shaky. “She had a bad episode. Spent three months in Gardenvale Hospital Acute Psychiatric Unit.”
Dave sits on the table next to me. “Then where did she go?”
“To a hostel for a while. When she came out she said she wanted a new start.”
“How many times have I heard that?” says Dave.
Aunt Alexa is crying again. “She didn’t want anything to do with her old life – even her family. She moved away and we haven’t heard from her since.”
Dave’s breath is quick and shallow. “Is there anyone else who’d know where she is?”
“Can’t think of anybody. If I do, I’ll let you know.”
That’s it! End of conversation?
“Thanks, Alexa. Sorry to upset you.”
Sorry to upset her. What about me?
Aunt Alexa sniffs. “I thought I’d moved on … you know.”
“Zora’s not that easy to move on from.”
“Give my love to Matty, won’t you?”
“I will.” Dave pushes the disconnect button.
“That was helpful – NOT!” Another dead end.
Dave’s voice is still uneven. “I’m sorry, Matt. I tried. I don’t know what else you expect me to do.”
“Telling me the truth in the first place would have been a good start.”
I slam the front door shut behind me.
At school the next day I stew over Dave’s call to Aunt Alexa. I hated the sadness in her voice. But I still wanted to yell into the speaker, “I’m not a kid, Aunt Alexa. I have to find her, she’s my mother.” And, “How come you butted out of my life just like everyone else?” I can’t believe it. Mum’s out there somewhere, but nobody, not even her own sister can tell me where she is.
I can’t focus on anything Mrs D says, can’t get comfortable. Why do they make school furniture for jockeys? I’ve seriously outgrown these tables. Without even stretching, I keep touching the chair of the person in front of me; Tina Armstrong, Class Goddess. I pull my legs back under me.
Troy, on the other hand, is deliberately trying to attract Tina’s attention.
“She’s looking hot today.” He signals to me. He sticks out his foot and tries to hook it under the leg of Tina’s chair.
Mrs D hears the scraping and peers over the top of her glasses at us. Troy stops moving and Mrs D goes on talking. Troy sinks lower in his chair. He stretches his legs out too far and the chair slips back. He lands on the ground with a thump that Mrs D can’t miss. She marches across the room and looks down at him, sprawled on the floor.
“Troy Daly! What on earth are you doing down there?”
“It’s Tina. I think I’ve fallen for her.”
The rest of the class groans. Tina looks at Troy and asks, “Do you need a hand?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Tina steps out of her chair. She pauses for maximum impact, then puts her hands together and starts a slow handclap. Most of the class joins in. Troy picks himself up, takes a bow and sits back down.
The whole thing’s pretty funny, but I seriously need to be somewhere else.
“I reckon she fancies me,” says Troy.
“Whatever.”
“Mr Hudson and Mr Daly,” interrupts Mrs D, “perhaps you’d like to let us get on with the History lesson and leave the social chat for lunchtime?”
“Not really,” I mutter. I’m so sick of adults treating me like a little kid – as if what I think doesn’t matter.
Mrs D walks between the lines of tables. She stands over me, hands on hips. “Then perhaps you’d like to get out of my class so I can teach those who want to learn.”
“Fine with me.” I pick up my books and leave.
Troy follows. Twenty-two pairs of eyes watch us leave.
“Let’s hit the water tank.”
I can’t wait to get away from school and all the stuff that they think is important, but doesn’t mean anything at all when you’ve just found out your dead mum is actually alive.
It’s warm – we sit in the shadow of the water tank and talk about Mum.
“How am I going to find her?” I pick up a stone and toss it into the distance, watch it being jolted about as it rolls down the hill on an uncontrolled path that seems to mirror my life. “She has to be somewhere.”
“Dah!” Troy skids a stone off down the hill after mine. “A painter with her talent has to be known to someone,” he says.
He’s right. But who?
At 3.30 we head to Troy’s house.
“No need for our olds to know we got kicked out of school,” he says.
Troy goes straight to the fridge and drags out a chocolate cake. Why can’t Dave ever cook anything like that?
We sit at the dining table munching on cake and washing it down with huge glasses of milk. Angie walks in with a group of giggling friends.
“Our basketball went over the fence,” she says to Troy. “Could you get it for us, please, please?” She has Troy’s freckled smile.
“Sure.” Troy gets to his feet and Angie’s friends look at him as if he’s some kind of superhero.
>
When he comes back from his rescue mission, Troy shows me what he’s done on his History assignment. He’s up to about letter number six. And they’re all really good – full of detail about his life and family. Not so easy for me – half my family’s missing and as far as the life bit goes, there’s not much I want to tell about that.
Troy’s mum breezes in from work. She’s the counsellor with the never-ending smile. “Like something else to eat or drink, boys?”
I’ve just finished my second massive slice of chocolate cake. “No thanks, Mrs Daly. If I don’t eat my tea, Dave’s likely to go into a panic and think I’ve turned anorexic or something.”
Troy’s mum raises an eyebrow when I call my father by his first name, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Thanks.” Troy pushes his empty plate forward.
Mrs Daly slides another huge slab onto the plate and sits it in front of Troy. “Make sure you eat your tea too,” she says and heads out the back door.
Troy has never been known to refuse food in his life.
“Mum’s an awesome cook, isn’t she? Bakes on weekends when she’s not working.” Troy’s lips are coated in cake crumbs.
I trace my finger around the rim of my empty plate.
“You thinking about your mum?”
I nod. “Wonder what she’s like now. If she’s okay?”
These questions won’t leave me alone; they keep crashing around in my head.
Dear Leonardo,
Your portraits are unreal. You get how people are with each other – every line and head tilt is always just right. And the emotion. Will I ever be able to translate what I see, how I feel, into art? I guess it’s what I do at the water tank.
Looking at your paintings lets me block out everything else. It’s like getting transported to a whole different world – one where I can be an observer and not have to get involved in what’s going on.
The more I discover, Leo, the more I want to know about you and your work.
Think I’m becoming obsessed – at least that’s what Troy reckons.
Matt
12
Mrs D is boring and sarcastic but she does have her good side. I guess we all do.
She has organised an excursion.