by Liz Byrski
Richard pushes the wheelchair along the paved path that encircles the lawn. Around him, others are pushing their own aged relatives in what looks almost like a ritual circuit; being on the move dilutes the intensity of sitting face to face with someone to whom you have become a stranger.
‘Shall we stop here for a bit, Dad?’ he asks, realising he’s going to supply the answer himself. ‘Yes, here, I think. I’ll park your chair so you can see across the garden, and I’ll sit on this seat.’
Ralph stares silently ahead. The irony of this is not lost on Richard, who remembers the untold number of times he has longed for his father to shut up and keep his objectionable views to himself. Now the silence is equally excruciating. How much does the old man know? Could he actually be playing some sort of game? He’s a canny old bugger, and bloody minded as hell. The times when Ralph’s blunt, ill-timed and loudly expressed opinions made him want the earth to open up and swallow him run through Richard’s mind like an old movie, the worst being the weekend when he had taken Zoë to Bramble Cottage to introduce her to his parents. What a disaster that had been. His mother’s patronising remarks about Zoë’s family, the barbed quips about her strange accent, and finally the row over Sunday lunch. Richard shakes his head at the memory. He’s never forgiven himself for not warning Zoë, not preparing her for the ordeal.
Looking now at his father, hunched and silent in his wheelchair, Richard wonders whether non-recognition means that he has been totally wiped from his father’s memory. Are there bits of him still hidden in there somewhere; as a little boy perhaps, or as captain of the school’s first eleven? Does Ralph remember anything or everything? Richard can’t quite get rid of the feeling that his father is doing this to spite him.
‘Do you remember me at all, Dad?’ he asks now.
Ralph turns his head at the sound of his voice but says nothing.
‘Do you remember me graduating? Did it mean anything to you? Do you remember threatening to thrash me when I got back from Aldermarston?’
Silence.
‘Do you remember Zoë, from Australia, how you made her cry?’
Silence again. On the arm of the wheelchair Ralph’s hand twitches slightly.
Richard sighs and gets to his feet, and takes the brake off the wheelchair. ‘Okay then,’ he says. ‘Better get you back inside, it’s nearly time for your lunch.’
FOUR
Cottesloe, Western Australia – September 1999
The nursery is unusually busy for a Friday; the beautiful spring weather and the prospect of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend have brought the gardeners out in force. Justine loves it when it’s like this, full of people looking for suggestions on how to fill a sunny corner or mask an ugly section of a fence. She’s thankful she has good staff: a couple of old-timers who know the place inside out; a new woman in her forties who’s just gone through a divorce and is throwing all her energy into the job; a new young guy who seems to be shaping up well; and lovely Kevin, from the Down Syndrome Foundation, who has been here for the last three years. Justine looks around with satisfaction; it’ll be even busier tomorrow.
‘You look pretty, Jus,’ Kevin says. He is wheeling a barrow filled with sacks of potting compost through from the storage area to the forecourt. ‘You should get a boyfriend.’
‘Really, Kev? You think I need one?’
‘I’ve got a girlfriend,’ he says, putting the barrow down. ‘Her name is Moira, she’s come to live in the shared house. She’s pretty too, but she’s younger than you.’
‘Well, I should hope so,’ Justine says, laughing. ‘You wouldn’t want a girlfriend as old as me, would you?’
Kevin shakes his head. ‘No way! But I do like you.’
‘I like you too, Kev. And I’ll tell you a secret. I have got a boyfriend.’
‘That’s good. What’s his name?’
Justine puts her finger to her lips. ‘That’s a secret too. You have to keep it for me.’
‘I will,’ Kevin says, picking up the barrow handles again. ‘I promise I will. I’m very good at secrets.’ And he trundles the barrow away towards the entrance.
Justine smiles; sometimes she is bursting to talk about it but she also enjoys keeping her secret. Falling in love has amazed her; it wakes her every morning with a sense of life’s extraordinary possibilities. It makes it hard to concentrate on work, but Justine knows that this happiness is translating into goodwill towards her customers, something that is often severely tested. Some, of course, are always pleasant and, just as she thinks that, one of her regulars, a slight, dark-haired woman, strolls towards her pushing a trolley loaded with two large purple glazed pots, a couple of Spanish lavenders and some sacks of potting compost. She smiles at Justine.
‘It’s really busy here today.’
‘Very,’ Justine says. ‘Wasn’t it you I talked to last time about the star jasmine? How’s it going?’
‘It’s resisting all my efforts to make it grow,’ the woman says. ‘I’m hoping the warmer weather will encourage it. I want it to cover some lattice near the end of the verandah.’
‘More sun will definitely help. Are you sure you’re not over-watering?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Justine takes a small container from the shelf. ‘Try some of this. But don’t overdo it.’
The woman studies the label and takes out her purse but Justine waves the money away.
‘That’s okay, it’s a gift. See how you go and let me know if it works.’
‘That’s very good of you, thanks,’ the woman says, smiling. ‘I’ll let you know next time,’ and she steers her loaded trolley out to the car park.
It’s on days like this that Justine can really see the difference she has made to the nursery. Years ago, when Gwen’s cousin Stan ran it and she came here as a teenager to earn some pocket money at weekends, it had been dark and damp, littered with unused pots, old compost sacks and overgrown plants. There were whole sections that hadn’t been disturbed for years and that, for Justine, was part of the attraction. There was something mysterious about those dense, damp clumps of plants in the shade house, the pots covered in moss, the darting insects, spider webs looping between the fern fronds; a few birds had even built their nests in there. It had the mysterious promise of the jungles she’d read about at school. But the neglect that had created this magical world had almost brought the business to a halt. When Stan died, Gwen had brought in a team to clean it up, and employed a manager who reorganised the place and turned it into a going concern again. When Justine finished high school, she’d told Gwen she wanted to study horticulture. At the time she’d worried that Gwen would be disappointed because Justine had caught up on the schooling she’d missed and could have gone on to university. But Justine knew what she wanted and after finishing the course had gone travelling, working first in New Zealand, then at a vineyard in France, in the gardens of a National Trust estate in England, and, finally, at an olive grove in Italy.
‘And you still want to come back here and work in the nursery?’ Gwen had asked in amazement.
‘I’ve always wanted to, from the first day I saw it,’ Justine had said.
And now she not only runs it, she actually owns it. Gwen has put it in her name. The one thing she wishes now – now that she has this wonderful place, now that she has fallen in love for the first time, when she had thought it would never happen – is that Norah could be here to share it. But she knows she has been incredibly lucky, luckier than most of those who, like her, were torn from their mothers, sent to missions or convents, or dumped with families that exploited and abused them.
The memory of the convent still has the power to make Justine’s skin crawl. She’d been eight when she was taken there and almost twelve when she left, and each day she had planned to run away, always believing that she would somehow be able to find her way home. She had even collected things for her escape and hidden them in an old cigar box that she buried in the sandy soil under the water tank st
and. She had found the box out by the shed where the gardener kept his tools. It was old but strong and she’d tucked it in the waistband of her skirt and, because she was wearing one of the big kitchen aprons, Sister Edwina didn’t notice the rectangular bulge when she smuggled it into the dormitory. That night, Justine had packed it with her running-away things: some coins she’d found in the garden; a lace-trimmed handkerchief one of the lady visitors had given her; a knife from the kitchen; a candle she had taken from the chapel; a box of matches; and a postcard-sized picture of Jesus that she’d found between the pages of a book. It was Jesus as the Sacred Heart, one hand raised in a blessing, the other pointing to his big red heart that had rays of light coming from it. Justine liked the heart because it seemed to be throbbing, which was how her own felt when she thought about running away. But the best thing in the box was a shark’s tooth, mounted on a simple gold base and threaded onto a strip of black leather. Everything else was replaceable, this she would guard with her life. Her mother had worn it as far back as Justine could remember.
‘Your dad gave it to me,’ Norah had said. ‘One day he’s gonna come back for it, for us; you’ll see.’
But he never did come back and Justine wouldn’t have known him if he had. ‘Prob’ly for the best,’ Norah said, ‘him being white, it just means trouble.’ And every day she crushed up charcoal and mixed it with goanna fat to rub on Justine’s face. ‘Makes you look darker, safer, more like me.’
But not safe enough, because one day a car drew up outside, and Norah grasped Justine’s hand and dragged her inside, into a corner and stood in front of her. Two men and a woman stood in the doorway. Norah’s bottom pressed against Justine’s face as she backed her further into the corner.
‘Come along now,’ one of the men said, ‘it’s for the best.’
They grabbed hold of Norah, and she struggled to break free as the woman gripped Justine’s wrist and pulled her out of the corner.
‘Take this, Justine,’ Norah cried, struggling against the men and, forcing her hand to her neck, she tugged at the leather thong until it broke loose. ‘Keep it so’s I can find you . . .’ and she hurled it across the floor towards her.
Justine wrenched free and ran to pick it up, before the woman grabbed her again. As she was dragged, stumbling, down the steps, she could hear Norah’s frantic cries; chilling, gut-wrenching howls like the sounds of the bush at night.
There were two smaller children huddled together on the back seat of the car, their faces streaked with tears and dirt. Justine scrambled up onto her knees and peered out the back window as the car pulled away. Norah was running behind it, barefoot, arms waving frantically, her mouth distorted by that same chilling cry. Justine watched her mother sink finally to her knees between the tyre tracks, and disappear in the clouds of red dust.
Terrible times, Justine thinks now, and there had been worse to come.
Zoë carries the lavender from the car through to the back of the house, and goes back with the wheelbarrow to unload the purple pots and sacks of potting compost. She wants them either side of the glass doors to the lounge room. When she was quite small she and Eileen had lived in a tiny, decaying weatherboard cottage, where Zoë had been convinced there really were fairies at the bottom of the weed-tangled garden. Eileen complained daily about the state of the roof, the inconvenience of the outside dunny and about the rent, which she could barely afford. But at six, those complaints floated over Zoë’s head. To her the garden was a magical place and she was particularly entranced by the two overgrown lavender bushes that crowded across the path on either side of the front door.
‘My late wife called them “peace” and “plenty”,’ she’d heard the landlord tell Eileen one day when she complained about them. ‘She said that was what lavender brought to the place.’
‘Huh! No peace and plenty of mess,’ Eileen had mumbled when he’d gone.
But from that moment, Zoë adopted Peace and Plenty, sitting most mornings on the front step, talking to them and asking their advice, remaining convinced of their power to deliver on their names, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Now, as she drags the pots into place, rips open the compost and begins the process of transplanting the lavender, she wonders why she hasn’t planted lavender before. Years ago in London, a gypsy stood every Friday night outside Kilburn station selling lavender and white heather from a basket.
‘It’s the women’s flower,’ the woman had said as Zoë handed over her money. ‘The plant of love and protection; some say it brings you vision, but it’s what you make of it that counts.’
Zoë had bought it for her wedding bouquet, together with half a dozen white roses.
‘It’s very modest,’ Richard’s sister Julia had said as she wired the flowers together, weaving fronds of dark green ivy between them. Briefly, before Julia had been dispatched to Paris, she had worked for a florist who specialised in bridal flowers. ‘I don’t know why you had to insist on a small bouquet. We should have gone for something a bit more lavish.’
‘Small feels right,’ Zoë remembers saying. ‘It’s lovely, just what I wanted and your making it for me makes it special, and much nicer than something I could get in a shop.’
She crouches down now alongside the new plants, rubbing the leaves between her fingers, closing her eyes and sniffing the perfume of love, protection, peace and plenty.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘The peace and a bit of vision, please – Lord knows I can do with it. The plenty can wait until later.’
‘Talking to the plants again?’ Archie says, coming in through the side gate. ‘It doesn’t seem to be working with the star jasmine.’
‘The woman in the nursery gave me some new plant food for it,’ Zoë replies. ‘Maybe that’ll help.’
Archie kisses the top of her head.
‘These are lovely. Great pots, I like the colour. Isn’t lavender supposed to bring love and protection?’
‘Apparently and, I think, peace.’
He puts his arms around her and draws her to him. ‘So, which do you need, Zo?’
‘All of it,’ she says, kissing the hollow of his throat, which is as high as she can reach without standing on tiptoe. ‘Lots of it. I hate being this age, Arch. I’m becoming a neurotic, menopausal bore but I don’t know how to stop it.’
He holds her tighter, rocking her back and forth.
‘I was reading this book,’ she continues. ‘It’s all about how wonderful and mystical and symbolic menopause is, how women should embrace and celebrate this important time in their lives. I felt like screaming.’
Archie’s chest rumbles with gentle laughter and he hugs her tighter. ‘Oh dear,’ he says. ‘I think the lavender is better than the book. I don’t suppose anyone ever suggested that menopause was fun. I guess it’s just a matter of surviving it.’
She looks up at him. ‘For both of us,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry to be like this.’
‘There’s nothing to apologise for. Come on, let’s go inside. I need a beer and, if you like, we could do a ritual burning of the book, that might make you feel better.’
‘You’re a very unusual man,’ she says, standing on tiptoe to kiss him.
‘I know,’ he says with a grin.
‘What exactly are you doing under the desk?’ Julia asks, setting a glass of red wine down on top of a pile of old files. ‘Digging an escape tunnel?’
Tom emerges from under the desk, his face flushed from the effort of rummaging in a box of books. ‘I’m looking for my diary from sixty-eight,’ he says, straightening up and eyeing the glass. ‘Excellent – what is it?’ He is still distracted by the loss of this particularly significant volume.
‘It’s the Bordeaux we brought back from Calais last month. It’s grim. Should be called Chateau Rip Off; why didn’t we buy something we know we like?’
‘Because life must have its little challenges.’ He raises the glass to her, sips it and grimaces. ‘I see what you mean; maybe it’ll grow on us.’<
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‘I do hope not.’
‘It tastes a bit like rust remover,’ Richard says from the doorway.
Tom sits down in his chair and swivels from left to right in the hope of spotting his diary. ‘I bow to your superior knowledge, though you’d drink anything that smelt remotely like alcohol.’
‘Indeed I would,’ Richard says. ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ He moves a thick leather-bound diary from the top of Tom’s library steps and hands it to him.
Tom’s face lights up. ‘Ah!’ he says, ‘I’ve spent the last hour looking for this,’ as he strokes the cover affectionately and begins to flick through the pages. Mislaying it had been disturbing; he has always been a meticulous keeper of diaries, not just recording appointments but writing a couple of sentences or a brief paragraph to record the significance of each day. He likes this sense of his own history; the reminder that life is built of small pleasures and sadnesses, minor successes and failures. It drives Julia mad, this obsessive chronicling, although there have been many occasions on which she’s had to admit that it’s been useful. Hilary has told her she should be thankful that Tom has never wanted to record everything in Proustian detail; it’s something he threatens her with when she grumbles about the stacks of diaries that occupy several metres of the bookshelves.
‘Oh – listen to this, Jules,’ Tom says. ‘June 15 1968: Took Julia to dinner at the Place du Tertre, asked her to marry me and go to bed with me, she said yes to both. This time I know I’ve got it right. This is the woman I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. Roll on Saturday.’
‘How touching!’ Richard says.
‘Only to someone who doesn’t know what happened next,’ Julia says. ‘Come on, dinner’s ready. I don’t think I can stand another evening of nostalgia.’ She leaves the room.
Richard looks at Tom and pulls a face.
‘Mmmm. Bad choice to read that,’ Tom says with a wry smile.
‘She’s not still pissed off about all that, surely?’