by Susan Duncan
We're silent for a moment or two.
'Opportunities for women were scarce,' I say, 'and there wasn't any government financial support. My generation was the first to grow up understanding we'd survive whether we worked or not.' It was almost illicit to think you could go and line up at a window and get the dole for doing nothing. Anathema to everything we'd been taught.Work hard. Reap the benefits. Save for your old age. The mouse wheel went up in smoke with the dole, and parents, if they wanted, were off the hook. 'You could throw your kids out and know they wouldn't starve,' I add.
My mother sighs. 'I hope you don't think I threw you out when I pushed you to travel.'
'Of course not. You knew it was the only way you'd get to see the world. Dad couldn't say no when you said you wanted to join me to make sure I was alright.'
She looks at me, eyes wide, unsure whether to rebut or confirm. But mostly shocked, I suspect, that I'd worked out the subplot. 'Oh, go on with your story,' she says when she figures out she's in a no-win situation. 'What happened to whatever her name was?'
'Maybanke Anderson. She built a house at Bayview, near where you live now. First, it was a weekender. They held lots of parties with delicious food. Students played games. Some wrote poems and stories.'
'When I was young,' my mother cuts in again, 'we had parties every Sunday night. People came from miles around, bringing flutes, harmonicas – any instrument they could play. We danced and danced. Your grandmother would sew late into the night so we girls always had a new dress. She made one from velvet, once. Midnight blue velvet. I put it on and thought I owned the world. Had a lace collar. God, it was beautiful.'
'Did you sing?' I ask, because my mother had a powerful soprano voice.
'Of course! Every new song that came out. We learned them in a flash. Songs were easier to remember in those days. They had a tune.'
'What was your favourite?'
'Oh, I don't know. Anyway, go on with your story.'
'You love all the old musicals,' I prompt.
'Are you going to tell this story or not?'
I try not to sigh, so I don't sound even more like a mother patronising her kid.
'Well. In 1920, Maybanke wrote The Story of Pittwater. She knew even then that one day people like you and me would want to know who lived here and how. Knew, too, that it only takes a single generation and history is either distorted or forgotten.
'Anyway . . . there was a farm on the other side of Lovett Bay – there's an old picture of it hanging in the hallway at home – where the Oliver family lived. One day, the blackfellas, as she called them, bandicooted a whole paddock of potatoes. Bandicooted? Isn't it a great word? Mrs Oliver kept a musket by her side after that. Sounds like a tough old girl. But . . . and this is the really interesting part, Maybanke wrote a little poem to be sung by schoolchildren.'
I couldn't remember the words on the day I lunched with my mother, so I managed only a vague description of them. But this is what Maybanke wrote.
Australia Fair
Australia fair, I love thee,
The dear land of my birth;
To me thou art the sweetest,
The brightest spot on earth.
I love thy golden sunshine,
The sky of peerless hue,
The soft greys of the distance,
The hills' faint tints of blue.
I love thy yellow beaches,
The clear waves tipped with foam,
The capes that stand like bulkwarks
To guard my native home.
I love the leafy gullies,
Where palm and ferntree hide,
The tall, grey gums that clamber
On every steep hill-side.
I love the ferny pathways,
Where wattle blossoms fall,
While in the leafy distance
The bell-bird rings his call.
I love the old slab homesteads,
Each peach and lemon tree,
The paddocks and the slip-rails,
They speak of home to me.
Dear Southern Land, Australia,
Wherever I may roam
My heart will turn forever
To thee, my native home.
'I can't help wondering,' I say to my mother as we get up to leave the restaurant, 'whether she and Dorothea knew each other, no matter how slightly. I wonder, too, how Maybanke felt when she heard, just six years after her own poem was published, Mackellar's "My Country" being read everywhere, over and over until it became iconic, as familiar as the national anthem. Do you think she smiled quietly, content that her passion for Australia had lodged like an arrow in a suitable heart? Or did the similarities rankle? What do you think?' I ask.
My mother has slumped again. She is barely interested. 'Everyone cribbed from each other in those days. There was no real way of checking. People with the most money were the most brazen.' She tells a story about her father being cheated out of his fruit shop when she was a very young girl that I don't know whether to believe or not. Wading back into the past brings her to life on the trip home. But not for long.
10
FLEURY HAS ANOTHER TOUR group and one of her guides has the flu. 'Could you come along and set out drinks and biscuits in the park? It will only take a couple of hours.'
'Easy. Took Esther there a few weeks ago so I don't even need a refresher course.'
'I don't need you to be a guide,' Fleury says hastily, recalling another day when I helped her out. I had a shocker attack of nerves, forgot all my words, mixed up Captain Cook and Governor Phillip and led my group around the track backwards, crashing into hers midway.
'Just set out the food and drink?'
'That's all,' she says, her voice firmer than usual.
They are a motley but well-heeled lot of men and women, mostly from the US. A hungover blonde. A woman with hair that matches her perfectly manicured and painted blood-red toenails. Men with dark brown hairpieces that clash with their grey stubble. Cheery matrons filling in time. None of them are much interested in Aboriginal rock carvings or delicate mauve grevilleas with their tendrils curled into a frail fist. Some of the boronias bloom, frothy and pretty pink. Native irises, so deeply purple they are almost black, jut up from the chalky white soil. But the tourists sniff. Not big or blowsy enough.
I first walked here when I stayed in Stewart and Fleury's house at Towlers Bay. On their deck with a full moon rising, I wondered if I'd finally found a place to belong. I had, as it turned out, only I was blind to it for a long time. I trudged the track, day after day, until I couldn't breathe. Looking for answers, hoping a deluge of wisdom would drop from a burning blue sky. I thought I learned nothing in the cacophony of those days. Despair, though, can be a great teacher.
'The thing about the Australian bush is that it's subtle. You have to work hard to see it,' I say, hoping to inspire the tourists.
The hungover blonde is unimpressed. 'I don't like to work hard at anything, honey,' she says. 'There was talk of champagne? Are we nearly to the bar?'
She's too young to be so desperate. I look into her eyes. Eyes tell you just about everything – anyone with secrets knows that. She flicks her head around, avoiding me. So young and so much to hide already.
A brown snake slithers quickly and silently across the path in front of us, gleaming like metal in the sun. Everyone screams and jumps. The woman with the blood-red toes confesses she hates all wildlife. As she speaks, a luminous blue march fly with an ugly bulbous head lands on her shoulder and sinks in its sting. She screeches and stumbles off in her impractical sandals to the enclosed safety of the bus. Once, I would have done the same.
The remaining tourists gather for cold drinks and snacks at the West Head lookout with its views across Barrenjoey and the Pacific Ocean. Dolphins, sharks and whales travel north or south along this route, according to the season. When the whales migrate, people line the shore for days at a time, entranced by their massive grace.
A six foot goanna lumbers towards
us searching for scraps, black eyes scouring the scene. Its forked tongue flicks incessantly.
'It's not going to attack,' I explain to the more nervous members of the group. 'If it feels threatened, it runs up a tree with a whooshing sound. Out of our reach.'
They do attack, of course, if they're cornered. Bella found one in her kitchen once, when she came home from shopping. A hulking bastard in a foul mood. When she tried to shoo him out he turned on her. She threw oranges at him and then ran away to phone Stef. 'There's a giant goanna in the kitchen. Get rid of it. Now!' she insisted, all reason gone. Stef was in a meeting in the city.
'Throw a towel over its head and carry it out,' he suggested.
'That advice is grounds for divorce,' Bella replied, her voice colder than ice.
'Call the boys in the boatshed. They're closer.'
When Stef finally came home, Raoul told him the goanna was about six feet long: 'Big enough to run up a bloke's leg and rip his eyes out.' Not that anyone's ever had that happen. 'But this one was big enough!' he said. Stef's reconciliation dinner was very expensive.
The goanna in the park stops to rest. Some people edge closer, others shuffle further away. A man about fifty-five years old with very badly dyed hair stands his ground, staring. 'He's the same colour as the landscape,' he observes. 'The patterns on his skin could be a tree trunk.'
'You're not frightened?'
'Hell no!' He confesses it has always been his dream to visit Australia.
'Well, you've achieved it,' I say. 'So what's your next dream?' We are talking lightly, the way strangers can.
'I've given up on dreams, I guess. Now I have goals.'
'Goals are good. What kind of goals?'
He pauses then says: 'Youth. Youth is my goal.'
'Maybe you should put that into the dream department,' I say flippantly.
When I glance at his face, I see he is serious and my remark has hurt him. Before I can apologise, he wanders off. I stare at the back of his head. His hair distracts me. Maybe it's not dyed, maybe it's a wig? Whatever it is, it fails to deliver eternal youth.
When everyone has gone, I clear the picnic debris. The goanna ambles back, making wide swinging movements with his front legs. Up close, his faded, dusty old skin is peeling to reveal the new, beautifully marked pale green and beige striations underneath. For him, the illusion of youth is as easy as shedding his old skin.
'Doesn't matter what you do to the outside, old boy,' I say out loud. 'Only have to look into your eyes to know you've been around a long time.'
He stares for a moment, then folds his massive front legs over each other, heaves a weary sigh and drops to the ground where he falls asleep. I pack the car with the leftovers. When I return to check I've cleared everything, the goanna is gone. Then I catch sight of movement under the trees. He fixes me with his obsidian stare, his tongue still flicking hypnotically, his skin perfectly blended with the dead and dying leaves. I wave goodbye. He turns, his long tail swishing, and lumbers away.
***
A few weeks after our jaunt to (almost) see the rock carvings, I begin to fear that moving house has unhinged my mother's mind.
'The man next door has orgies every night,' she says. 'I can hear people through the walls. It's terrible. The screaming, then the arguments. Haven't been able to sleep since I moved in.'
At first I ignore her. The idea of sex orgies in a retirement village, where the average age is around eighty and everyone has a bad back, bad knees, a bad heart or uses a walking frame, is laughable. But my mother insists she's not dreaming. 'I've moved to the sofa to sleep,' she says in one of her daily early-morning phone calls. 'It's the furthest I can get from their noise. Thought the woman was being strangled last night.'
'Has anyone else said anything to you? I mean, you all live so close together, surely someone's made a complaint?'
'I haven't said a word. It's none of my business.'
A couple of days later, I run into one of the neighbours heading out for a game of golf. She's a tough, smart dame at the rear end of her seventies who doesn't suffer fools and who abhors laziness. She kindly took my mother shopping once a week until it wore her out.
'Who lives next door to Esther?' I ask, indicating the doorway of the unit alongside my mother's.
'That's Bertie, a lovely fellow. Quiet and gentle. He's in hospital right now. Been there for six weeks. His back is slowly crippling him. Don't think he'll be returning. His daughter wants him to move in with her so she can take proper care of him.'
'Ah, I wondered why I've never seen anyone around.'
When my mother gets into the car for our foray to the local supermarket where she buys cans of soup, truckloads of crème caramel and heaps of cakes and biscuits, I ask her if the orgies have quietened down.
'Worse than ever,' she responds gloomily.
'Have you seen these people come and go?'
'They arrive at about eleven pm and leave before five in the morning,' she says. And for the first time, I am absolutely sure it is pure fantasy, even though it is as real to her as the glittering rings jammed on every one of her fingers. Wraithlike figures in the dark hours, sounds that no-one else hears, a neighbour who doesn't even live there? Highly unlikely.
'Esther, Bertie's been in hospital for six weeks. There are cobwebs across the front door. No-one's gone in the place for more than a month.'
'Yes they have,' she says sternly, looking me straight in the eye. 'It must be the staff then. Using the place while Bertie is away.'
It is madness, I know it, but she sounds so utterly plausible.
'What do you think?' I ask Bob.
'Tell her we're coming to spend a night. To check it out.'
When the stories escalate to two phone calls a day, I tell my mother we're going to sleep over.
'You can't,' she says. 'There's not enough space.'
For the following week, there's no mention of any next-door activities. Then she begins again. 'I'm going to have to move,' she says. 'I really can't take it anymore.'
'Esther, there is nowhere to go. This is it. The last stop. I'll talk to the front desk.'
But I cannot bring myself to say a word. What is there to say anyway? That my mother is going nutty? That moving tipped her into senility? And yet she sounds so completely rational and convincing that I am still not entirely sure she isn't telling the truth.
'Give her a bit more time to settle,' Bob advises. 'It will all probably fade away.'
***
'Got a spare bed for a few days?' Pia asks when she calls for one of our irregular check-ins.
'Few weeks if you can stand us that long.'
'No, don't think I could,' she says, laughing.
'Not coming for a check-up or anything, are you?' I ask, suddenly frightened she might be back in danger.
'Of course not. Just catching up with old buddies.'
She arrives in a cloud of style. Little round, leopard-skin-like Gucci sunglasses perch on her nose. A beige linen skirt swishes around her calves, topped with a white linen shirt and a striped linen jacket. Perfect hair, glossy shoes. There's a gentle whiff of an exotic perfume. She is so un-Pittwater that for a disorienting moment she looks like another species. Then I think back to what it was like to lead a less feral life: the days of high heels, silk and hosiery, the flutter of excitement before a big night out, the thrill of believing that life was being lived on the edge. Do I miss it all? No, not for a moment. But in a way I am glad of the memories, as increasingly ephemeral as they are. Without the past, how would I be able to understand the richness of now?
'You look absolutely fabulous,' I tell her, because it is true. 'Quite beautiful. How come age leaves you alone?'
'I am quite pleased,' she replies, 'with the way I am wearing. Wish I'd covered up my décolletage when I was young, though. All those V-necked sweaters have left a weathered spot.'
'So what's the secret?'
She grins. 'Alcohol, I suspect!' And we laugh because there was a t
ime when we thought wine seemed to hold all the answers. It doesn't, of course.
She makes it into the tinny without tripping on her skirts or getting a spot of dirt on her, clutching her swank little shoulder bag that I know, if I opened it, would be in perfect order. We load on her small suitcase that will be packed with a minimum of clothes for maximum impact. Style, for Pia, is instinctive and effortless. Once, I tried to be like her. Then I gave up. Even when I worked hard at it, I got it wrong.
'Want to go for a browse around Mona Vale tomorrow?' I ask.
'Hmm. It's a big ask, but I think I can manage.'
'Wouldn't mind if you had a chat to Esther. She's going on about all these orgies happening next door. Like to know what you think.'
'How is the old girl?'
'Bit worried she's losing her marbles.'
'The only thing your mother will ever lose is her keys. Don't worry, she's tougher than an old bull. There probably are funny things going on. I've read some amazing stories about life in retirement villages.'
'Maybe. But I don't think so.'
The next morning is still, bright, sunny. A few kayakers drift into Lovett Bay in lurid colours, like exotic birds. The only vibrant colour in a parched landscape. The drought goes on and on.
The next morning Bob offers to take Pia and me across in the tinny for a coffee and some food shopping in Mona Vale.
'Nah. Piece of cake,' I reply. He's working on a new engineering project and I don't want to interrupt.
'Learned how to drive that boat yet?' Pia asks as we set off down the steps. She's as immaculate as ever, although more rural than yesterday. The designer handbag has been switched for a spickle khaki rucksack. She wears pale brown linen trousers, a black camisole with a white linen shirt over it, and baby pink lipstick like we used to wear in the seventies. With a hint of gloss.
'Yeah, I'm pretty good. Pretty good.'
The boats are sardined three deep at Commuter Dock, knocking against each other in what sounds like a grumble or cough. I drop her at the loading landing with our bags and baskets and then swizzle into a gap where there's only one boat between the tinny and the pontoon. A single leap into a single tinny and then one more jump to the pontoon. It's a fine day. No breeze. Easy as . . .