by Rosalie Ham
‘No,’ Judith said, ‘it’s private, and it’s exactly the same as this place.’
Kevin’s eyes were on Anita. ‘I’m Kevin,’ he said, holding out his hand, but she just said, ‘Hi,’ and went into the bathroom, which she realised immediately was a mistake. She was cornered.
He followed her, grinning like a boy with a new slug gun. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘I doubt it,’ she said, rubbing a face-washer around the handbasin.
‘I wouldn’t forget someone who looks like you. Ride, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Play sport?’
‘Billiards,’ she said and ducked around him back into the kitchen.
‘Live around here?’
‘No.’
‘You married?’
‘Your dog’s pissing on the floor.’
Kevin picked up the dog and said, ‘We won’t bother going to see Mum today, Mrs B. She’s just got back from hospital and isn’t herself yet.’
‘Your mother hasn’t been herself for months, which isn’t such a bad thing.’ She nudged the dog away with her slipper, while Anita placed a square of newspaper on its small, yellow puddle.
‘My mother almost died.‘ Kevin ran one hand briskly over his crew cut, turned to Judith. ‘You know Mr McNickle died? Your mother was playing a polka and Mr McNickle was dancing with Mum and they fell. He broke his hip, got pneumonia and died.’
Margery reached for her cross-stitch basket.
‘Well,’ Barry declared, ‘there’ll be no dancing in our aged-care facility, that’s for sure.’
‘They’re not as agile as they used to be,’ Margery said, threading a needle stuck into the armrest with the help of a magnifying glass. ‘I’ll have to stick to slow waltzes from now on, which is a shame. Spoiled it for everyone, they did. You need something lively if you’ve been stuck in a home.’
‘And,’ Kevin said, bending down to Margery, ‘you had a bit of a car accident the day Mrs Parsons died?’
Judith threw her arm up. ‘What did I tell you, Barry?’
‘Pud’ll be pleased. She wants that car,’ Barry said. Across the road, Pud sat on Tyson’s couch, both absorbed by a video clip on her iPhone.
Kevin said, ‘But it’s a Hillman Minx, a classic. In mint condition!’
‘Good point,’ Barry said, ‘Vintage Car Association might be interested.’
‘I said, “It’s only a matter of time before she kills someone in that car.” Didn’t I say that, Barry?’ Judith was scratching her throat now, her colour rising.
‘It was an accident,’ Anita said, rubbing the floor with disinfectant.
Barry dropped his hand onto Kevin’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go have a look at Mrs Parsons’ house.’
‘Let’s,’ Kevin said, but it was Judith who followed Barry through the kitchen and into the backyard towards Mrs Parsons’ back door. ‘Don’t drag Kevin through, Barry, it’s Mrs Parsons’ privacy.’
Kevin stepped towards Anita. ‘I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.’ She placed the screwed-up, dog-piss-stained newspaper into his extended hand and turned her back. Kevin left, taking the newspaper with him.
Anita put the kettle on the gas ring and lit it. While it boiled she prepared the teapot, strainer and cups, and when she poured it she used fresh milk that she had brought along especially. She also put a yoyo on the table between Margery’s and Lance’s chairs, then sank into his chair with a sigh. ‘I wouldn’t bother painting the house if I were you.’
‘It’d cost my life savings,’ said Margery, reaching for the tea.
‘And let’s face it, you need to hang onto your savings.’
They sipped their tea, the irony of Anita’s comment unnoticed by Margery. Anita idly picked up Margery’s cross-stitch; Great things are done wh . . . ‘You could go for a nice holiday, Mrs Blandon. A bus trip. They have them especially for older people.’
‘I don’t want to be stuck in a bus with a bunch of old people. Why does everyone want to get rid of me?’
‘I’m just trying to support you, show everyone you don’t need to get thrown into a home, show them how independent you are.’ Anita pressed her a little more. ‘Unless you want to go to a home, but if you want to stay here you could get one or two of the stumps done.’
‘I could.’
They sat in silence, drinking tea, looking at their reflections in the crystal cabinet opposite: two women, similar in size, patches of primary colour on their distorted reflections, sitting against a cotton wall of wisdom and cross-stitched scenery.
‘A lovely cup of tea,’ Margery said, which Anita knew was the closest Margery was ever going to get to being friendly. ‘How’s my shin looking?’
‘Holding its own. It’s the falls you’ve got to worry about, broken femurs and black eyes.’
‘It was dark.’
‘Don’t want your bickie? It’s made with butter, not margarine.’
This rare insight into Margery’s preferences was the thing that started her crying. She reached for a tissue but found only her wet stocking in her pocket, and the tears rolled out of her eyes, tracked down her face and dropped from her slightly fuzzy chin into her tea.
Anita said, ‘You lost your friend,’ and Margery looked away, biting her bottom lip. Then she started to cry, tried to gather in her shaky sobs, tea spilling into her saucer, but they came like seizures. Anita took Margery’s cup and saucer from her and rubbed her shoulders, which made Margery cry harder while trying to haul tranquillity from the air, saliva and tears and snot running off her, chin and body jerking in silent sobs. Anita got a damp face washer and Margery held it to her face, but her grief didn’t stop, she spluttered on and on for the first time in decades. Anita sighed, ripped off her Nicorette patch and sat on the back step smoking until Margery’s shudders stopped. When she’d assembled her steely demeanour again, Anita stubbed out her cigarette and made a fresh pot of tea. Margery was able to sip her tea, though she couldn’t get her mouth to work enough to eat the yoyo. ‘You’re very kind,’ she managed to say, and Anita smiled. ‘I suppose they teach you that at home care school?’
‘Yep,’ Anita said, ‘otherwise we’d never know.’
‘Normally I don’t cry,’ Margery said. ‘It’s been a tragic week, and I missed my hair appointment.’
‘What you need, apart from new glasses, is a flatmate.’
‘Are you sure you’re not Irish?’ Margery asked.
She shook her head, ‘Never seen an invisible pixie in my life. Why?’
‘Well, I’ve got a flatmate. An invisible friend.’
Anita looked around the kitchen, past Margery, down the passage and said, ‘Is he here now?’
‘No, she isn’t here. I only talk to her when I need to. If she was here now I wouldn’t have anything to tell her when you’ve gone.’
Anita said, ‘I see,’ but it was clear she didn’t.
‘Mrs Parsons had one as well. She kept a bed made up for hers.’
‘Right.’ Anita came in and put her hand on Margery’s forehead. ‘I might get you checked out . . . those falls . . .’
‘I’m perfectly alright.’
Anita held Margery’s wrist. Her pulse felt regular and strong.
‘Have you had enough to drink today?’
‘Yes,’ Margery said, but Anita topped up her cup of tea anyway.
‘Mrs Blandon, did you know you’ve only got one stocking on?’
‘Of course I do,’ Margery said.
‘Would you like me to make you another hair appointment?’
‘I’m not useless,’ she said wearily, but Anita phoned on her behalf anyway.
As she repacked her basket to go to Mrs Razic, Anita said, ‘Have a nice afternoon tea with the Ahmeds. You and your invisi
ble friend.’
She felt drained, exhausted by her tears, but she changed her stockings, sprinkled talcum powder in her damp shoe, dabbed more powder across her bruised eyes, put on her hat and coat and made the short trip to the Ahmeds’ house. When the door finally opened, four brown faces – one old, one middle-aged and two young – wrapped in brilliant discordant colours looked warily at her. Margery was momentarily startled by the old lady. She wore a thick gold ring in her nose and her face bore scars, long neat gashes from her cheekbone down to her chin.
Mrs Ahmed nudged her eldest daughter, who said, ‘Hello?’
‘Good afternoon,’ Margery said, smiling.
The women smiled back at her. She spoke slowly, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, would you like to come for afternoon tea?’ She mimed pouring tea and drinking it.
‘Come to tea?’ said the oldest daughter, and then translated for her mother and grandmother. They chatted among themselves, arms moving under their coloured drapes, as though there were other people under their long dresses. Margery explained that it was an Australian custom to invite newcomers to the neighbourhood in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. ‘It’s called “being neighbourly”,’ she said.
The littlest girl said, ‘We’ve been here two whole years,’ and Mrs Ahmed said something to her older daughter, who then informed Margery that no, they would not like to come to tea. ‘We don’t want to come.’
‘Well,’ Margery said, ‘no one can say we don’t try.’ As she pulled the gate closed she saw them, watching her from the door, still smiling. ‘You know,’ she called, ‘you don’t need your jihads in this country, the heat’s too extreme,’ but they had gone, squabbling among themselves, the door slamming with finality.
Margery waved. ‘Bye bye. That’s “goodbye” in Australian.’
Back at home, sitting dejectedly in her chair with her cross-stitch on her lap, the Ahmeds’ alarmed voices carrying across the small backyards, Margery said, ‘Mrs Parsons was my best neighbour ever.’
The kettle isn’t ideal but they have four different flavours of tea bags in this room. And it’s comfy – cool, and I imagine in winter it’s warm. I remember Mrs Bist said to me once, ‘When Pat goes into the nursing home she’ll be warm in winter and cool in summer,’ as if she’d be better off than me. She said I’d be better off in a ‘nice, modern little unit’, but had I my druthers I’d slip away in my sleep in my own bed. That little house came to be my cocoon, my refuge; it’s everything I know and love. She should have realised that. Lance said Mrs Bist had tits like a bus shelter, and I had my prejudices against her. In fact, I told her once she was like a crewel needle – sharp with large eyes – but I certainly didn’t want her to die, and the constable said it wasn’t my fault that Mrs Parsons died. She depended on me, and I’m sure she knew I’d never let her down. She didn’t have to die. As I say, she knew. Mrs Bist certainly didn’t know she was going to die, but I believe Mrs Parsons had a premonition, because she cleared out her wardrobe. Perhaps I could have put two and two together and offered to help, asked her if she was feeling chipper or something. You knew you were going to die, Cecily, I’m certain of that.
I wonder if I let Mrs Bist down, whether I should have been more friendly, not held a grudge so much about the clothes hanger, not expressed my opinions about God. Mrs Bist was always telling us about her noble deeds, and we had to put up with all those foster children. I told her once that one of her state wards was stealing Mrs Calabria’s apricots. Sitting on a branch, he was, stuffing every apricot he could reach into his mouth, two or three at a time. Mrs Bist just curled her shoulders back, pulling herself up to full height, her bust rising like an awning on a hot day, and said, ‘God put the inferior on earth as a lesson to those who are privileged in order that they might appreciate their good fortune and assist those less privileged.’
As far as I was concerned she wasn’t privileged, and I certainly didn’t need assistance. You see, it was Mrs Bist who told the council I needed a home carer. She put the ACAT team onto me, and all because one day I met her at the gate and I happened to have the clothes hanger still looped through the zip-catch on the back of my dress. As I explained to Cheryl that first day she came, I used a wire clothes hanger to pull up my zip at the back because I can’t reach, and Cheryl said, ‘I use one to zip up my jeans.’ Then she took me shopping and we bought the front button-through frocks, and as far as I was concerned she had done her job and could have left me alone forever, but she actually turned out to be a nice girl in the end, though she couldn’t make tea. She didn’t have tickets on herself. She didn’t think she was a nurse, like that Anita.
Pat always took Mrs Bist’s side. I made a simple observation one day about the latest lot of boat people who landed in Australia from Arabia or India or somewhere. All I said was, ‘They say they’re refugees, but I think they dress too flamboyantly to be poor.’
She said, ‘They obviously still need help or else they wouldn’t get in a leaky boat and we, us here in the wealthier nation, and that includes all the racist bigots, should give it to them.’
Well, I’m not a racist bigot. I’ve always done the right thing by Mrs Parsons, and I’m friendly to the Ahmeds, though they practically slammed the door in my face. You’d have thought I’d turned up with a bomb the way they reacted. How could I be a racist bigot when I have Mrs Parsons as a friend? Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive. You can’t help being born looking the way you do, can you? And I always said good morning to Mr and Mrs Calabria. They were very well-intended but the Incident with the Pig was a bit much. It was way back when they first arrived. Pat accepted some of Mr Calabria’s bacon, but I declined because at the time I didn’t think raising a pig then slaughtering it in a Brunswick backyard was civilised. ‘Not much difference between a pig and a chook really,’ Pat said. It’s true, I did have chickens in the backyard, and yes, if chopping the head off one and cooking it meant my three children and Lance’s mother were fed, then it was a necessary job well done. I don’t know if Mrs Parsons got any of the bacon. She never said.
As far as I was concerned, every day I did my best.
I remember hearing on the telly once – David Attenborough, I think it was – ‘We all started off worshipping the same sun.’
On reflection, some people would probably say I could have said something to someone when I didn’t see Mrs Bist those days before they found her. And though it was no concern of mine that Mrs Parsons threw out her clothes, I suppose it wouldn’t have done any harm to ask why. Over the years I might have even asked about her life, taken an interest in her broken heart, talked to her a bit more . . . been there for her.
~
It would be soul-destroying if I found you had struggled, if you had fought on your own to stay while I slept, Cecily.
The night Mrs Parsons died I cried a lot, and I cried the next day as well. You cry all over again for everyone that’s already died. You cry for your grandparents and parents, pets and friends, and even the little children and people you see on the news who die unfairly. That’s what crying’s for, to remind you of all the people you’ve lost and how valuable they were. I suppose I may have even cried for Mrs Bist. She was only doing what she thought was right when she told the ACAT team about the clothes hanger.
It was a comfort, I must say, to have Anita there to make me a cup of tea when I was so lonely and sad.
I’ve always had you, Cecily. You’ve been the centre of my life, more or less. That said, now I think of it, I suppose that could have affected things.
Judith said, ‘She won’t have to spend all day sitting in the front room talking to herself,’ and it’s just occurred to me that you, my greatest comfort, could be my undoing.
It’s just that I worry about the plain truth of it; I was not there for you. I slept while you died.
Perhaps that’s why Judith
said I had to ‘live for the now’, and I suppose it could look like I don’t care about other things, the people around me . . .
I came to this room thinking it was their fault, and because of them I’m about to throw myself from the balcony, but I’m beginning to see how they could see things their way. I imagine they think things could have been done another way.
Mind you, Judith also thought I killed Mrs Parsons, so I suppose she thinks it’s all right to kill me, and I suppose it is, since it seems I’ve let everyone down. Well, I’ll save them the trouble, and then they can say I abandoned them all over again.
The phone rang in the stagnant pre-dawn hours when her mouth was wide, her breathing sparse and rattly, and her heart shoving out just enough blood every now and then to keep things ticking over. The shrill ringing ripped her straight from unconsciousness to panic – ‘Morris!’ – and as she shuffled to get to the phone her shoulder bumped the door. Disoriented, she overbalanced and walked head-first into the wall opposite. She recovered, reaching for the telephone, but when she lifted the receiver and put it to her ear, all she could hear was the blur of vacant telephone wires.
‘It was probably Faye or Joye . . .’ she told herself. ‘After Lance’s last will. Morris wouldn’t hang up like that.’
Dimly aware of the ache in her face, Margery retrieved a packet of frozen peas from the freezer and headed back to bed, stopping for a swig of cooking sherry on the way. She wiped the lip of the sherry bottle with the sleeve of her dressing gown and was about to replace it when she thought better of it, held it under her arm and closed the cupboard door. She crept on towards her comfortable bed, staying there sipping sherry until the sun was well up, willing her heart to cease clapping in her breast, breathing deeply, steadily. When she finally rose from bed again, her head felt light and her heart fluttered, nausea churned her stomach, and she felt breathless. The packet of frozen peas had melted, washing blue hair tint onto her pillow. Her reflection in the wardrobe mirror told her the damage: the flesh on the side of her face was black and blue, throbbing, the skin taut like a drum head, and a neat line of dried blood ran across her cheekbone. Underneath the clear Tegaderm on her shin, blood had oozed from the wound and spread, drying like a huge ink spot. As she drank her tea and ate her toast and swallowed her tablets, Margery’s body trembled.