by Rosalie Ham
‘Nine hundred and eighty-seven days, Mumsy. Nine hundred and eighty-seven days since my last drink.’
‘Nine hundred and eighty-seven days,’ Margery said. ‘How are you, Walter dear?’
‘Never better.’ He kissed her at the gate and said, ‘Cracked your glasses.’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs Bist’s house has gone.’
‘They shovelled the whole house into a truck and drove it away last Wednesday,’ she said.
‘Progress.’
‘Then they dug a big hole.’
‘A pool, maybe,’ Walter said.
‘A cellar,’ Margery said, and they gazed at the striped reflective ribbon that fenced off the hole in the centre.
‘Quick workers.’
‘Very noisy.’ Margery moved to her front door, Walter following. He pause on her verandah to rip an extension cord from a power outlet where the sleep-out once was. Across at Tyson’s, the music ceased immediately, and the front window filled with pale, pierced faces. Walter pulled on the extension cord violently, and there was a crash, then loud profanities.
Margery put the frozen chook in the freezer for next week. She didn’t mention Charmaine, Angela’s engagement or her disappointment with Blaine, or Pat, though she did mention again to her son that it had been a very, very noisy week. As she turned the potatoes and pumpkin Walter set the table, then, while Margery shelled the peas, Walter read the paper. ‘See Pat yesterday?’
‘Yes,’ she said, turning on the peas. ‘How’s the hygiene course going, Walter dear?’
‘Good!’ he cried and added, over-confidently, ‘Yep-see-dep-see, job’s right.’
‘What’s the teacher like?’
‘Nice legs, spiky hair, up herself.’
‘Have you got a pen and paper?’
‘Red and blue, and a pencil case.’
They did the crossword. Walter read out the questions and Margery answered as many as she could.
When she turned the peas off, Walter made the gravy and went to get Mrs Parsons. They came back, Mrs Parsons clinging to Walter’s arm. He helped her out of her big wool coat and high red beret and draped them carefully over the cross-stitched antimacassars on the couch. He sat her down on her chair and pushed her up to the table. ‘Would you care for a small glass of sherry, Mrs Parsons?’ He’d been asking the same question for fifteen years, but today she replied, ‘Just a little one, if it’s not too much bother.’
Confused, Walter looked to his mother, who had stalled, a basting spoon in her hand. ‘Well, Walter, get Mrs Parsons a nice glass.’
He got the smallest tumbler from Margery’s precious crockery collection in her mirror-backed crystal cabinet and declared it to be Mrs Parsons’ Special Glass.
Margery served the vegetables and Walter carved the chook and they sat down, as usual, said, ‘Cheers,’ had a sip of sherry and a mouthful of food and Mrs Parsons complimented Walter on his gravy and Margery agreed and, as always, Walter said, ‘Special gravy for special ladies,’ to which Mrs Parsons replied, ‘You’re very kind.’ Then Mrs Parsons said, ‘It’s a shame about Mrs Cruickshank,’ and so Margery had to explain to Walter that Pat had run away from the home. ‘She always said to me, “Kill me before you put me in one of those places.”’
‘Should we take a look?’ Walter said, concerned, but Margery said, ‘Nar, she’ll turn up, and anyrate, the police are out looking.’ She removed Pat from his mind completely by breaking the news to Walter about the Plan for Independence List. Walter put down his spoon, wiped his hand on the serviette tucked into the neck of his guernsey and looked at the list. ‘Job’s right,’ but Margery knew he didn’t understand what was written on the note, so she read out the things Anita said needed fixing. When she got to ‘take the bath out and put a shower base and chair in, OR, put a bench across the bath temporarily,’ Walter rubbed his nose. He jerked his head on his neck when she read out number five and six – ‘move the handrails next to the shower so M can reach them’ and ‘adjust the doors so that they are secure’ – he stood up and turned circles in the small kitchen. Mrs Parsons put her knife and fork down and placed her hands on the edge of the table, glanced at her coat and beret on the couch.
‘She also wants you put smoke detectors on the ceilings.’
‘On the ceiling?’ He circled, clenched and unclenched his fists, and Mrs Parsons pushed at the table, trying to shove her chair back, but Walter settled at the table again when Margery stressed that it was for her own safety, ‘So I can stay at home.’
He picked up his knife and spoon and said, ‘I’ll drop in, have a word with this bossy-britches Anita.’ He laughed, his false teeth perfect under his dyed moustache, ‘Anita the Hun, ha-har, how’s that, eh? Anita the Hun?’ and Margery laughed and Mrs Parsons stopped turning from side to side in her chair, and they went on to enjoy their lovely lunch and Walter went on his way, as he did, when he’d finished his pudding, dried the knives and forks and delivered Mrs Parsons back to the sanctuary of her silent little house.
Sunday afternoon, Margery put things in order in her kitchen, had another nice cup of tea, started another cross-stitch – Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark – then ran a polishing cloth over some of Walter’s trophies: Junior Featherweight, Junior Welterweight, Super Middleweight. Before she went to untie Mrs Parsons’ laces she checked on Pat, found her wide awake but occupied reading the Street directory, so she handed her a vegemite sandwich through the half-open window. ‘Thanks,’ Pat said.
She made herself a cold chicken-and-lettuce sandwich for tea and ate it while she watched the news, but there were no missing-persons reports. Before going to bed she peeped into the garage. Pat was sitting in the passenger seat, head tipped back and mouth open, snoring. Margery left a glass of water on the bonnet of the car, bolted the shed door and fell off to sleep in her cosy bed with Matt Monro singing, ‘Born free, and life is worth living, but only worth living because you’re born free,’ through the pillow. After she’d slept on the situation, Margery decided to do the right thing concerning Pat, mainly because during the night her disappearance had been announced on the Magic Radio, Best Tunes of All Time. ‘Anyone seeing an elderly woman . . . last sighted in the Sydney Road vicinity . . . possibly suffering hypothermia from exposure.’
It took a long time for Kevin to open his door. In the morning light his eyes were bloodshot and his moustache unkempt. ‘Mrs B,’ he said, looking apprehensive.
‘Pat’s in my car.’
‘Right.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Is she dead?’
‘Asleep.’
‘Are you sure she’s not dead?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Right.’ He ran his hands over his crew cut. ‘I’ll be over soon, okay?’
Margery tottered back, woke Pat and quickly gave her a biscuit and glass of cordial.
‘I usually have porridge,’ she said.
An ambulance took Pat to hospital, and Margery spent the day watching a huge mixing truck vomiting liquid grey all over Mrs Bist’s bald, suburban block.
The glaziers replaced Kevin’s smashed window that afternoon, and that night Kevin dropped in. ‘Lucky she had that travelling rug, Mrs B,’ he said. ‘It probably saved her life.’
As soon as it was dark, Margery ducked back out to the shed and removed the rug from the car.
That was the one good thing that happened during that disappointing week. I was big enough to save Pat’s life even though I’d been dismissed by Angela and Blade. He just hacked off the end of my toenails then chucked his nail clippers into the steriliser and said, ‘One more fall could finish you off.’ Little did he know in a matter of six short weeks I’d be sitting here on the forty-second floor very much looking forward to my final fall.
Tuesday came around and, of course, so did Anita. While she was there
I worked on my second cross-stitch. I’d done Cursed be he and was starting on removeth. I must say, that one worked out well, because I edged it with roses, something I don’t often do because flowers are not always successful in the cross-stitch.
I wish I’d brought my cross-stitch now that I’m here. I’ve made a cuppa because you get free tea bags in these hotel rooms, but it’s dreadful. Tastes like water wrung from wet cardboard, and these biscuits are tough, tasteless. The milk, or whatever it is, comes in those little pods Anita used to have in her basket.
Actually, Anita asked a lot of questions that Tuesday. She’d already mentioned a flatmate, so she must have been scheming right from the start. I was watching the builders put together the new house frame next door when I saw her pull up in her loutish car. I know it’s a lout’s car because Tyson and his mates love to stand around it, gawping, and she opened the hood to let them look at the engine one day. They like to look at Tony’s car as well, but the second they even look like they might go near it he rushes out and hunts them away.
Anyrate, she bowled straight into my house, calling, ‘Knock knock, how are ya, Margery?’ and I was ready for her. ‘I’m very well, thank you. You can call me Mrs Blandon.’
She attempted a joke then: ‘You can call me Anita.’
‘Let yourself in, did you?’
‘Sometimes you’ve got no choice with this job,’ she said.
She was obviously referring to the fact that I was stuck in the bath the first time she came, so I ignored her. ‘Don’t presume to let yourself in ever again. My hearing is very good. I would have heard you knocking.’
‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘Before I get stuck into the housework I’ll do your dressing for you.’
I said, ‘You’re not allowed to.’
‘People are always saying that to me,’ she said and just settled herself in front of me, on the floor of all places, didn’t even suggest we go to the bathroom. She unwrapped a plastic dressing pack, so I pointed out that she wasn’t a trained nurse.
‘No,’ she said, ‘but I’m a big fan of General Hospital.’
It’s a show on the telly. I don’t watch it.
Then she peeled the plastic off, washed the wound, dabbed it with some sort of ointment and covered it with another piece of plastic. She’s got a light touch for someone so hard-looking, and she mentioned that if the wound ulcerated ‘we’d really be in trouble’.
She put my washing on, swept, dusted and put clean sheets on my bed, all the while asking the usual questions: had I taken my tablets?
‘I take them every other morning; why would I not take them today?’
‘Do you have any problems getting in and out of bed?’
‘I’m up, aren’t I?’
‘Trouble getting on and off the toilet or the commode?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Would you like meals delivered three times a week?’
‘Would you?’
‘Certainly not,’ she said. ‘It’d be like eating fishing net.’ Then she made a pot of tea and I was very surprised because she made it properly – found everything herself, warmed the pot and popped the cosy on it and left it to draw. Then she put her nose to the milk carton and promptly poured it down the sink.
‘That was Cheryl’s milk,’ I said.
‘I’ll mention it next time I see her,’ brisk little thing that she is, digging into her basket and bringing out a little pod of long-life milk. She asked if I needed any shopping done.
‘I’m quite capable of doing my own, thank you, and anyrate, I don’t take milk.’
‘Milk’s good for your bones.’ Then she squeezed her calcium-enriched, long-life milk into her cup, turned the pot three times and poured the tea, even pausing to tilt the pot as she poured, but the most remarkable thing to me was, she used a strainer! I nearly fell out of my chair. Who’d have thought someone who looked like her could make tea properly? Cheryl’s tea tasted like dishwater. No love in it.
Anita said her mother taught her how to make tea.
I can see now that it was a clue as to who she really was, and I remember thinking at the time, ‘It was as if I’d taught her myself.’ If only I’d had my wits about me.
She sat on the stoop with her tea, smoking a cigarette, and asked me more questions. ‘I can see you like cross-stitch, Mrs Blandon,’ she said, ‘but what else floats your boat?’
I almost said, ‘Minding my own business,’ but I told her that I enjoyed cross-stitch more than anything. ‘I’ve always got a few on the go. I like the proverbs best, but you can always get a nice landscape pattern with cross-stitch. I’m not one for flowers so much, or birds. They’re more for the embroiderers, though I’ve never seen one yet that’s been able to get the curve of a petal right, you know, and the exact colour. I also enjoy cleaning the house, especially the polishing.’
‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met who likes polishing,’ she said, so I explained that I started my job with Doctor Woods when Judith started school. For forty-four years I cleaned that practice from six o’clock in the evening until seven-thirty, and that’s where I developed my love of polishing, because I made that brass plaque on Doctor Woods’ door glow, and then I got to work on his doorknobs and they shone right up until the day I left, and this of course led to my other hobby – looking after Walter’s trophies. And, every evening, I turned the page on Doctor Woods’ desk calendar: You are never fully dressed until you wear a smile, Health is not simply the absence of sickness, hence my passion for wise sayings, which have been such a comfort and guide to me.
It’s a pity more doctors didn’t take note of their desk calendar quotes. No doctor is better than three.
Doctor Woods retired two years ago, so I had to retire as well, though I was down to one day a week by then. ‘And of course,’ I said to this Anita, ‘I’m musical. Every Saturday I visit Pat and play the piano for the old people. Pat lived across the road from me for sixty years, and on Monday I saved her life.’
‘Is that right?’
I could tell she didn’t believe me. ‘I found her in my car.’
‘That’s a good safe spot.’
‘She’s in the hospital at the moment.’
‘That’s not so safe.’
I was pleased for Kevin’s sake that I’d saved Pat, though I will admit that when he rode away to go searching for her that Saturday night all I could think of was Pat tumbling along under the metal wheels of a tram, her sand-covered intestines flopping in the tracks with her wig, her orange eyelids and paste pearls scattered along the bluestones. Well . . . if I can’t be myself with you, Cecily, I’d have to pretend to be nice all the time, and besides, not once, never ever, did Pat attempt to include me, one of her oldest neighbours, in her Grand Final parties in the park or St Patrick’s Day barbecues or Melbourne Cup Day at the pub. I sat on my bed in my front room for years and years watching them all coming and going with their big, stupid hats and plates of sandwiches, bottles of Green Ginger Wine, the laughter and hilarity wafting over to me like waves from a distant wireless.
Of course, I know why I wasn’t asked now, but at the time Pat was in my car, all I knew was that Lance went to those parties and I never was included.
As I say, I wouldn’t have gone, but it would have been nice to have been asked. Pat even went to Walter’s fights when Lance could get cheap tickets. I wouldn’t go, even when I was asked to go that one time. I’m not the type that enjoys violence.
And Pat bragged about that ruddy rosebush, the Barrone Prèvost. ‘It was Grandmother’s rose,’ she use to say, her nose tilting to the ceiling. ‘The original one come all the way from In-glnd in eighteen fordy-two.’ I think that’s a bit of an inflated description, really. ‘Bew-di-ful, isn’t it?’ she’d say, so I’d say, ‘Yes, it’s beautiful,’ and she’d say, ‘You don’t have to
tell anyone a Baronne Prévost rose is bew-di-ful.’
She was just a blatherskite, but I got her back with the Public Scalping Incident. That’s what Lance called it. Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
It happened at the 1976 Ladies’ Legacy Luncheon. Pat and Bill were big in Legacy, and for Ladies’ Luncheon, Pat was allowed to take a guest since it was her turn to give the address. As she was rehearsing her address one last time, articulating and emphasising her words to her assembled Ballroom Dancing Frocks, the phone rang. She was disappointed to hear her guest, Betty, say her car had broken down. ‘I know it’s a long way, Pat, but we could go halves in the price of a taxi.’
After she put the phone down Pat gazed out the front window, wondering how she could get all that way to the Legacy Hall in time. Who drove a car? Across the road Mrs Bist was bustling off down the street with her cane basket brimming with goods for the needy, her cardigan pulled tightly over her large bosom and her arms crossed supportively underneath. And there was Margery, sluicing her front footpath with hot, soapy water.
Pat turned and went to the kitchen, where her husband, Bill, sat at the table hunched over his form guide. The wireless blared above the noise of his nebuliser, chugging away on the table beside his cigarettes, ashtray and lighter.