by Rosalie Ham
‘Boronia, DeeAndra, is not the outback. It is very nice out there. There’s trees and birds and stuff.’
‘I’m having my hair done; I have my hair done every fortnight.’ Margery looked at the watch on her daughter’s arm – her watch. ‘What’s the time?’
Judith sighed and pushed past her mother, heading towards Margery’s front door. She found it locked, so she stood with her hand on the door, eyes filling with tears. ‘I need to use the toilet, and I can’t see why you aren’t just nice to me for once, Marge. I’ve given up my Saturday to try and help you.’ Margery struggled back to her daughter with her shopping cart and handbags and unlocked the door for her.
‘I don’t want to go to the home,’ Margery said.
Judith hurried down the passage. ‘It’s got air conditioning and heating in winter and carpet, Marge – and where are the new floor mats I bought?’
‘I’m not sure, Judith, perhaps they’re out in the sun.’
‘They’re not,’ Judith called from the backyard. ‘It’s that Anita, isn’t it? You can’t even trust the home help these days.’
Margery sat in her chair in the lounge room and had just eased her stocking off when Pudding came in and flopped down on the couch. Margery shoved her damp stocking into her coat pocket. ‘What are you up to today, Pud?’
‘Mum’s sending me to the information day at the university while you’re at the “new modern, comfortable, elder-age living and recreation facility with air-conditioning and heated carpet in the peaceful ambience of a rural setting”.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘Neither am I.’
‘Your mother never wanted to go to university either. Do you want to do beauty and hairdressing?’
Her phone played a tune. ‘God, no.’
‘What are you going to study?’
‘Event management. I’m going to be like Cynthia Plaster Caster.’
Margery noticed that Pud was wearing lace slacks, as though they’d been made from a crocheted tea cloth. ‘Education’s a wonderful thing, Pudding. A privilege.’
‘It’s just a normal, boring thing to do, Gran.’
‘I used to be good at composition,’ Margery said. ‘I always got at least eighty per cent out of a hundred. I studied piano as well. As you know, I still play, in fact, just the other day –’
‘Shush, Gran.’ Pudding put the phone to her ear, lay back on the couch and crossed her legs. It didn’t look as though she had any panties on under her lace slacks.
When Judith came back she put her hand on Pud’s knee and said, ‘My daughter’s going to university next year. She’s going to do medicine.’
‘I’m not. I’m going to be an entrepreneur.’ She winked at her grandmother, though Margery wasn’t sure why.
‘If she gets a degree in nursing, Marge, she can run our aged-care facility.’
‘I’m going on tour.’
‘If you go to medical school we’ll buy you a car.’
‘Uncle Wally told me I’d get Gran’s car.’
‘You can’t have that car,’ Margery said. ‘It’s Morris’s.’
‘Morris is never coming home,’ Judith said. ‘If he comes home he’ll go to jail. Come on, Marge, get cracking, we’ve got an appointment to keep.’
‘What about Pat?’ Marge said, stalling.
‘We’ll leave a note for Kevin. Now come on.’
‘She’s in hospital, sick. Very sick.’
‘She’s old, Marge.’ She tugged her mother’s coat sleeve. ‘Old people are sickly people.’
‘Gran wants to visit Pat,’ Pudding said, holding the phone away from her ear. Margery could hear the thin scratching sound of the person on the other end.
‘I rescued Pat from dying of exposure in my car. She ran away from the home.’
Judith said, ‘Well, that’s dis-gusting. You couldn’t get out of our facility if you tried.’
Pud said, ‘It’s not yours yet.’
‘It will be, DeeAndra. And Marge’ll be safe and secure there.’
‘Sajida here will drug you and tie you to the bedrails, Gran.’
‘No I won’t,’ she said, looking at her watch again. ‘You’re not allowed to do that anymore. Now come on, Marge, I need to drop DeeAndra at the university and get going.’ She pulled Marge’s sleeve collar, trying to get her to stand up, so Margery blurted, ‘Mrs Parsons died.’
‘What?’ Pudding snapped her telephone closed and sat up straight.
‘Dead?’ There was dry spittle in the corners of Judith’s mouth.
Pud cupped her cheeks. ‘Ohmygod, that is so sad.’
Margery started to explain that Mrs Parsons looked as if she’d just slipped away peacefully, but Judith had her mobile phone out, acrylic fingernails dialling. ‘What’s going to happen to her house?’
‘As I said to Kevin, I expect she’ll give it to the nuns.’
Judith headed out the back, grabbing Mrs Parsons’ key from behind the door as she passed. ‘Or the State Trustees. I’ll contact the State Trustees.’
Pudding got up to follow her mother, so Margery said, ‘It’s sacred, that place. It’s her privacy . . .’ but they had gone, so Margery heaved herself out of her chair, following as fast as she could, reaching for firm objects to steady herself, gripping the handrail on the back stairs and carefully negotiating the steps.
Judith had her phone to her ear, talking to Barry. ‘Mrs Parsons died, and Kevin’s already trying to buy her place . . . I’m in her house now.’ She pushed through the shed door then into the lane and Mrs Parsons’ backyard, like a wombat through thick grass, Margery tottering along behind. Inside, Margery’s phone started to ring, and she paused, but she could see Mrs Ahmed over in her backyard draping a floor mat over her clothesline. She glanced across to Judith from behind her hijab, nodded hello, but Judith ignored her, so Margery said good morning, again, and called, ‘It’s not our place to be in there, Judith.’
Mrs Ahmed started thumping the carpet with a broom handle.
‘Then don’t come in, Marge,’ Judith said, but Pudding was already opening Mrs Parsons’ back door. With relief, Margery noticed the dark outline of panties under Pud’s lace slacks. In her hallway, Margery’s phone rang and rang, so finally she turned and hurried up her back steps, but it stopped ringing.
Standing in Mrs Parsons’ austere little kitchen, tears welled in Pudding’s eyes. ‘It’s so sad. Poor Mrs Parsons. She must have been so lonely!’
‘Walter gave her a tin of shortbread every Christmas,’ Judith said, pointing to the biscuit tins lining the walls. ‘I wonder if she ate them.’ She took one and shook it. ‘Empty,’ she said, picking up another. Pudding crept into the lounge room, her arms tight around her chest. The floor was linoleum, and either side of a standard lamp there were two vinyl lounge chairs with a small mat in front. Margery’s cross-stitched cushions were placed neatly on each chair – An undutiful daughter will prove an unmanageable wife and You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. A small coffee table supported an even stack of romance novels, and opposite the chairs was an old radiogram and wireless, but there were no records in the record compartment next to the turntable.
Pudding wept. ‘Mrs Parsons was so sweet and gentle.’
‘And poor.’ Judith was sitting in Mrs Parsons’ rocking chair, an open biscuit tin on her lap, flicking through some old savings account passbooks. The lid featuring a Scottish terrier and a West Highland terrier looking from behind a stone fence propped against the table leg at her ankles. She discarded the tin and passbooks and went to the fridge, holding the door open and staring at the contents – a full jar of honey and some opened packets of dehydrated peas and carrots, No Name Brand cheese slices, Jatz crackers, small jar Vegemite. She grabbed the Vegemite, unscrewed the lid, smelled the contents and put it on the table.
Pud walked carefully up to the front bedroom, and when she saw Mrs Parsons’ bed she gasped, her hands going to her heart. It was a double bed, with two pillows, but just one small dam in one side of the mattress where Mrs Parsons had slept alone for all those decades. A scrap of paper marked her place, just a few pages from the end, in a romance novel on the bedside table. Pud opened the wardrobe door, but there was only one tiny nylon shift and a wool coat hanging there in the naphthalene air, the box of mothballs sitting on the bottom of the wardrobe next to Mrs Parsons’ handbag.
Pud opened the handbag but found only the pastry from Margery’s birthday lunch, solid as a teacup, and a mouldy half of a muffin in rolled-up tissues. She fell to her knees in dramatic grief, clutching the muffin, ‘Oh my god! It’s so, like, sad.’ Then she remembered the second bedroom, stood up and rushed to the small room. Like the rest of the house, it was scrupulously dust-free and precise, the sheet on the narrow single bed was folded back, ready for someone. In the top drawer of the bedside bureau she poked at a folded stack of small, boy-sized singlets and underpants, and took a hanky from the square stack of washed and ironed handkerchiefs. Her phone beeped, so she blew her nose and wandered out into the kitchen, reading the message. It was Tyson. ‘Wot’s in there?’ She typed, ‘It’s frozen in time.’
Tyson texted back, ‘Check bathroom cabinet for drugs.’
Her mother was standing at the linen press in the bathroom. It was crammed full of face washers, tea towels, bath towels, placemats and toilet paper covers . . . all cross-stitched with flowers, puppies, landscapes, and years and years of quotes from Doctor Woods’ desk calendars. There was nothing in the bathroom cabinet.
Margery was in her small kitchen, clutching the doorjamb, when they came back, her sunspots gathered in a worried clump in the middle of her forehead. ‘You shouldn’t have gone in. It’s not right.’
Judith handed her Mrs Parsons’ handbag. ‘Put this somewhere safe, Marge, give it to the nuns.’ She started putting Mrs Parsons’ groceries into Margery’s pantry cupboard. ‘She didn’t have much, Marge, unless she’s cleaned the place out.’
‘It’s like your place, Gran, like, a museum, except all her stuff’s sort of . . . unused. It’s like you get frozen in the olden days, isn’t it?’
‘You should move with the times, Marge, love what you’ve got now.’
Margery said, ‘You shouldn’t have taken her groceries. I hope you didn’t go through her personal things.’
‘We’re uncouth, Marge, but we’re not that uncouth.’
Pudding said, ‘I did see a few things in the drawer in the spare room. Doll’s clothes. Weird.’
‘Why have you got all these bottles of caramel topping, Marge?’ Judith asked, her voice bouncing off the back of Margery’s pantry cupboard.
‘It was on special.’
‘And you don’t need all this fruit cordial. You should have seen how many half-empty jars of out-of-date stuff Mrs Parsons had. You can’t eat it now, and it’s a waste. Just buy the smallest sized things from now on, Marge.’
‘I need the cordial for Christmas punch.’
‘Christmas is nine whole months away – you might not even be here.’ Judith fanned herself with the birthday card Mrs Parsons had bought.
‘Mum!’
‘She might be in the home, DeeAndra. Did Mrs Parsons have a will?’
‘I don’t know, Judith.’
Judith shoved the card into her handbag. ‘Where did she hide her purse?’
‘She never actually told me where she hid her purse.’
‘You need to find it to give it to the nuns, see if she’s left her house to anyone.’
Then Anita called, ‘Anyone home?’ and came briskly through the doorway, smiling, her teeth white beneath her shocking fringe, her basket on her hip, her uniform short over smooth, shapely legs and her sunny, casual energy filling the tiny room. Judith sucked her stomach in and smoothed her stiff curls. ‘You’d know what happened to the new floor mats, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yep,’ she said, studying Margery in an observational, nurse-like way. ‘How are ya, Mrs Blandon?’ She leaned down to look at her two black eyes.
Margery smiled, ‘Triffic, thanks.’
‘Good to know. The hairdresser phoned the council when you didn’t show up for your appointment.’
Judith said, ‘She could have phoned here.’
‘She did. No one answered so I rushed straight around.’ She held up her pager.
‘We were distracted with the sad news of Mrs Parsons’ passing,’ Judith said, jerking her head in the direction of Mrs Parsons’ house. ‘I’m Judith, Margery’s daughter, and this is my daughter, DeeAndra.’
‘G’day,’ Anita said, squatting to look closely at Margery’s wound. She screwed up her nose. ‘Tsk.’
Pudding said, ‘I’m going to see Tyson,’ and left.
‘So, what did happen to the mats?’
‘They were lethal, too dark for Margery to see, and the loops would catch on her shoes. Trying to kill her, are you?’
‘You’re very bold.’
‘Guess that makes us alike . . . in one way.’
Judith’s hands slipped from her hips. She blushed and turned sideways to minimise her bulky frontal view. ‘Do you have a daughter, Anita?’
‘Two.’
‘Two?’ She looked Anita up and down, disbelieving. ‘How old are they?’
‘One’s five and one’s twenty.’
‘Twenty? You started young.’
Anita smiled at her, ripping open a dressing pack like she was tearing up an incriminating photo. ‘I was very popular.’
‘Does your oldest daughter go to university?’
‘She’s got a job so she can pay off her car and her mortgage.’
Judith nodded, somewhat thrown by the fact that someone who looked like Anita would have a daughter who was clearly making what Judith considered a success of her life. ‘I couldn’t have any more babies after DeeAndra.’
Anita worked on Margery’s wound, sitting on the cross-stitched footrest with Margery’s gnarled foot in her lap, Margery’s knuckles white as they gripped the armrests.
Judith continued, ‘I spent the first six weeks of my life in a humidicrib. I nearly died, didn’t I, Marge?’
Margery said, ‘So did I.’
‘Do your girls dance or sing?’ Judith asked, putting her hand on Pudding’s dance photo on top of the television.
‘Depends on their mood.’ Anita was gently poking the skin around the wound when she became aware that the atmosphere in the room had changed. Judith had stopped talking. A short, middle-aged man with a perfectly coiffed, brown-dyed comb-over was smiling down at her.
‘This is my husband, Barry.’ Judith reached for his arm, but he whipped his elbow up and dug inside his grey bomber jacket for a business card. ‘Barry Boyle,’ he said, handing Anita the card. ‘Real estate and aged-care professional.’
‘Wow,’ she said deadpan, turning to Margery’s wound again. Barry dropped the card in her plastic basket.
‘What’d you think, Barry?’ Judith asked, jerking her thumb towards Mrs Parsons’ house. Barry nodded and winked, rubbed his hands together. ‘The two of them together; we could do them like they’re doing Mrs Bist’s. Big renovations. Bathroom upstairs, two bedrooms, a balcony at the back and a jacuzzi. All BIRs, OSP, ROW, a huge cellar and . . . a playground and park three doors down.’
‘Sell them, buy a bigger share of the home. What do you say, Marge? Make enough money to invest in our elder-age recreation facility with some left over for all of us! I could pay off my Visa card. Barry’d love me even more if I paid off my Visa card.’
‘Judith, I could never love you more than I already do.’
Judith smiled and pushed at the back of
her hair, blushing.
‘Well, Marge,’ Barry said, holding his hand in front of him to block his view of his mother-in-law’s gaping shin wound, ‘now that Mrs Parsons is gone you’re all alone, but you’ll have company in the elder-age recreation village.’
‘Instead of sitting in the front room talking to yourself all day,’ Judith said.
Margery said she was not alone. ‘There’s still Kevin over the road; Angela and Anita come once a week –’
‘At least.’ Anita wound a roll of bandage around Margery’s shin, securing a protective wad of dressing in place.
‘And I’ve got a friend called Julien from the Green Environment Society who rings me from time to time to save the whales, and of course Mrs Ahmed.’ She studied something invisible on the palm of her hand.
‘Mrs Ahmed?’
‘Yes, she’ll be down for a cuppa sometime soon,’ Margery said, adjusting the antimacassar on her armrest; Count your age with friends but not with years. Anon.
At the kitchen sink, Anita washed the sticky dishes Margery had rinsed and left to drain. ‘There’s all sorts of services Margery can have from the council. She doesn’t need to go to a home.’
Judith stopped smiling. ‘What she needs is for us, her family, to decide what she needs – not someone from the council.’
Barry went to the sink and stood close to Anita, reached tantalisingly into his jacket again. ‘This is a good opportunity to segue to the list.’ He pronounced ‘segue’ as if it was two separate words.
‘This, Anita, is a very good list. Walter can do the restumping, give the place a coat of paint while he’s at it.’
‘It’s me,’ Kevin called, clacking down the hall in his riding shoes and an aqua bicycle jumpsuit, Fifi in his arms.
‘Ah-har,’ said Barry with exaggerated malice, ‘the rival bidder.’
‘I’ve had my eye on that little house for a long time,’ he said, putting Fifi on Margery’s lap. Margery eased the dog to the floor. ‘I’ve got plans to renovate Mrs Parsons’ place, like Mrs Bist’s, rent it to some young students. I need a project.’
‘That’s one idea,’ Barry said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Want to pop in next door and have a bit of a poke about?’