Fauna

by Donna Mazza

  ‘I have something for you from him,’ she says, opening a small suitcase and extracting a wooden jewellery box. ‘He left this to you. He said you loved it when you were a kid and because he hasn’t got any kids that he knows of, he wanted you to pass it down in our family.’ I know what it is immediately and I sting with tears. I take it, thanking her. She looks intensely at me as if trying to read my reaction, wanting me to love him, to show her the signs of forgiveness. I am grateful she is here, so I crack the lid. Inside is a bronze bowl, very old. And a couple of dark bones, that might be from a finger or a toe. His mother had brought it here on the ship from Italy in the sixties. Marco told me his grandfather and uncles were digging the foundations of a house and dug up a very ancient grave—they were amazed at the size of the bones and thought the person must have been very strong. Now, the small knobbly bones take on a whole new meaning and I wonder how ancient they really are. My own hands tingle as I hold them again, stroking one of the fingerbone’s gentle curve as I did when I was younger.

  I wake a little late. In the living room, Mum is on the couch in a silk dressing-gown with Asta under one arm and Emmy snuggled into her on the other side. A jolt of fear, anxiety. I force it down, try to normalise— offer to make tea—but her look pierces me. She holds my gaze and strokes Asta’s head, who smiles up at her and calls, ‘Ma! Nanna come.’ And grins with her huge teeth, eyes liquid and wide. As she grows, she looks so different it is impossible to pretend that she is a normal child. She lobs herself onto the floor, picking up two felt fairies and a rainbow unicorn. ‘Mine babees,’ she says, pushing them out at me. ‘Nanna give dem me.’ She looks back to my mother. There is no fear in Asta and the two of them gaze at each other with a strange intensity, holding it for too long.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Shed,’ says Jake, ‘cleaning up the kayaks and stuff so we can take Nanna out.’ I retreat to the kitchen and she follows me quickly.

  ‘So …’ She pauses dramatically waiting for my response. But I put the kettle on and avoid her eyes, accidentally look at the droop of her breast in the low-cut nightie. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I wondered why I only got photos where I couldn’t see her properly.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to tell you.’ I try to stop the anxiety but my hands are shaky and I can’t keep all the tea leaves on the spoon. She takes over, making a pot and rinsing cups, shaking her head and telling me that I can share anything with her and I know very well how open-minded she is. Nobody in the world would be less judgemental.

  ‘I know,’ I tell her over and over, unexpected tears spiking in my sinuses. But I don’t think she’d understand if I told her the truth and I don’t know what the consequences would be. Perhaps there is nothing worse than what is to come anyway? Either way I will lose her.

  ‘I could have helped you. All this time and I could have been here for you.’ Her dressing-gown gapes, showing her sun-ravaged skin.

  ‘You were with Marco,’ I excuse her but she insists that I have always been her priority, though for me this has never been evidenced in her behaviour.

  ‘He needed you more.’

  ‘Look, sweetheart, I know I’ve been absent for you a lot but this is big life stuff to deal with, having a child with a disability. What exactly is wrong with her?’

  I bumble around, over-complicating the genetic disorder thing, that it’s not a disability and not giving her any clear answer. I know I sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about. ‘Ask Isak to explain it,’ I conclude.

  We take the tea to the table, where we can see the girls—Emmy’s head in Asta’s lap as they watch television. The comparison is not hard to draw—Asta’s face is completely different from Emmy’s.

  ‘Whatever it is,’ she sips her tea, ‘she’s absolutely beautiful. Those eyes.’ She smiles and we fall into silence. I can hear her swallow, the crack of it retracing my steps to those mornings where she made me wait for her attention. How I longed for her sustained gaze, her encouraging words and curlicue philosophy but she kept me hungry. I am returning from far away, toes stretching towards the path we once trod, where I often trailed at arm’s-length, while she was busy with other people. She casts me a steady stare and I can feel the pulse in the arch of my foot.

  ‘So—’ she raises her brows and whispers, ‘whose is she?’

  I jolt at her words, shake a little then breathe; breathe and remember her now in the harsh glare of reality, instead of the humbled replica I hoped she might be. She is not so different from the woman she was, happy to expose my raw childhood self and watch me squirm.

  ‘Come on, be honest. The truth sets you free.’ A favourite platitude. She wiggles her eyebrows up and down.

  ‘She’s ours, of course.’ But I know this is not entirely true and I know she reads me like nobody else. She nods but I see in the curl of her lips she is not satisfied.

  ‘This genetic thing is not in our family, so it must be in Isak’s then. Have you asked them about it?’

  When his mother’s number appeared on my phone I never responded and now she only calls him, usually on weekends, their conversations in Afrikaans to exclude me. I mumble something about not seeing them for so long.

  ‘I would have gone to the wedding, if you’d given me enough warning. I always wanted an excuse to go to the Kalahari.’

  ‘It was very small. I didn’t need you to worry about being there, Mum. It’s expensive to fly there.’

  ‘I would have gone anyway. I could have walked you down the aisle.’

  ‘I didn’t need you to give me away.’ I wasn’t hers to give but I don’t think that’s what she means.

  ‘It’s a stupid tradition anyway,’ she says. A little hurt.

  ‘Mum, it’s years ago now and it doesn’t matter.’ But the concept isn’t so obsolete.

  ‘You met them all though, so you must have noticed if any of them are like Asta.’

  I feel irritated by her persistence in driving me into conversations I never want to have and I want to walk away but I know that will only lead to more avid pursuit. I start to feel quite sick, leaving the tea to slowly chill while she sniffs around my raw wounds. I have to give her something, some scrap to distract her from the truth. Tayto comes to sit at my feet and the children feel a shift in the mood, scattering from their languid places on the couch.

  ‘She wasn’t conceived naturally, Mum.’

  She sits back and waits for the rest of the story, lips parted. I’m not quite sure where I am headed after this first sentence so I relive the horrific miscarriage in detail, including the weeks of waiting for the natural onset of premature birth, when I knew there was no heartbeat. What that did to me and how it left me desolate and broken. How we tried to have another one but it just didn’t happen. At the end of it I am in tears and she is too. I know her hunt will resume later, she will not be sated by my tears.

  Isak often takes Jake and Emmy in the canoe or kayaks to the wide river which spills out into the estuary and they explore the narrow tributaries or skirt around the banks of the peninsula. I have taken Asta in the canoe a couple of times but she can get quite restless if she’s confined for too long and her heavy step can easily unsteady the small craft. She has less sense of balance. It’s stressful, even in the shallow water near our house, so I find excuses, none of which are satisfying to Isak. He just sighs and goes without us, a little crestfallen. Over the past year, since the heart cells, his enthusiasm has waned even more and the boats have gathered spiders in the shed. It is yet another site of erosion between us.

  I have packed an extensive picnic and planned to wait on the shore if it all goes horribly wrong. Asked him to launch in a nice, quiet place with plenty of trees; I know he will read between my words and hear deserted, places to hide.

  Now that she’s a little older, Asta has a range of conventional sunglasses and several hats to choose from. I have mastered a wide-brimmed pattern and Emmy has braided her hair into two thick red ropes. Her solid legs make it diffic
ult to wear shorts or pants that are not excessively long, so I have sewn some for her in rainbow colours, which she likes best. I have come to realise that her view of the colour spectrum is more nuanced than my own and that her love of rainbows is built on a vision that I can’t imagine. Whenever they appear, she is transfixed by them. I have taught her the name of the colours to try and prompt her to tell me exactly what she sees but neither of us seem to have the words to share her insights—‘more lellow, more pink’—the line between us is sketched in inexpressible tones.

  Mum takes a special curiosity in Asta and sits beside her in the back of the car. Asta likes the attention from her ‘Nanna’ and does her best to hold a conversation and show her the treasures she collects, which she stores in various bags. I am watchful and wary but there is a part of me that has accepted the inevitability of exposure to my mother and I am relieved at the thought of sharing this, of unburdening all of my worries. The guilt and fear and grief. She is just too good at digging out the truth from me.

  ‘Aren’t you glad I invited her now?’ In the passenger seat, Emmy is in tiny shorts and a bikini top. The outfit more revealing than Isak would normally allow.

  ‘Yes, thanks Em.’ And she is pleased that she has one up on me.

  ‘I can see. You seem really cheered up, Mum.’ I take her hand, long and bony like my own and hold it to my lips. Her eyes shine with tears. ‘Love you, Mum,’ she says.

  ‘I love you too, Emmy darling.’ And now I cry too. She has broken away from me, turned into an adult too young—just like I did. Unwittingly, I have recreated some of the distance I felt with my own mother and now it is too late. Too late to pull her back to childhood, to look after her. She has had to look after herself, and Jake, and sometimes me, evidently.

  Isak pulls into a gravel track along the riverbank and I drive behind, down through braided paperbarks and thick reeds to a grassed picnic area, shaded with very old river-gums and she-oaks. This wide river trails down from the hills where I got Tayto and spills out into the estuary. It is slow and dark, slopping gently into clumps of reeds and small beaches. A few people fish along the bank, so we veer left to avoid them. I park under a tree and Isak reverses the trailer close to the water to launch the boats. He and Jake work together to untie and launch the canoe and two kayaks—both talking and laughing.

  ‘They’re so alike.’ Mum catches me watching them and I nod, seeing in Jake the shadow of his father when we fell in love. It all seems so long ago now, almost a dream. Isak strides over to the car in an oversized T-shirt and board shorts, a zebra embroidered on his cap. One of his few remaining souvenirs of South Africa. I wonder that she sees any resemblance at all—he has changed so much. In him I see what I have done. He is in ruin, ruddy and fractured by stress and isolation. His rare smile seems desperate.

  Taking Asta’s hand, he says, ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ and whispers to her. She grins widely, lets him lead her to the canoe. Jake holds it stable and Isak supports Asta while she lobs herself over the side and perches on the front seat, one hand on each side. The boat rocks but she grips tightly, lips firmly pressed over her big teeth. It is not often I watch her so, and I notice the angle of her chin, tucked right back. She is so distinct now, and with her hair pulled into braids, the angle of her face is very unusual. The brow ridges firm and solid, hollowing into her large eyes, growing ever more faceted. They have shifted lately to a darker shade of blue, rimmed now with a darker line. Even the whites have a slight blue tint. She has a few freckles. I stand under a tree and watch her, while Mum and Emmy carry the picnic to the boats.

  Isak smiles at my mother, holds out a hand to her and escorts her onto the canoe. ‘Here you go, Sandra.’ He passes her a paddle and she laughs, a little flirty. Emmy and I take the two-person kayak and Jake takes the other on his own, while Isak and my mother row the canoe and we head upriver, against the current. I am not used to paddling and Emmy laughs at my efforts to coordinate with her, passing comments on our meandering course. Isak slows to wait for us and I can see Mum has handed her paddle over to Asta, who pulls it deep through the water, wrenching it back and splashing Mum. The canoe rocks with her movements and Isak compensates, watching her closely.

  Eventually Emmy and I find a rhythm. It feels good to do something with her, imagine how our relationship might have been as we paddle together, angling the kayak, pointing out a grey heron taking flight from a low paperbark tree hanging over the water. A tiny sandpiper drills into the riverbed. As we round a bend, Jake appears waiting at a fork in the river but Isak calls him back, heads for a wooden jetty on the other bank.

  We lay out our picnic on the wide jetty. The kids sit in a row, legs hanging over the side to the water, eating and talking. Mum sits alongside, watching them, seems to drink them in as if they might disappear. I feel a little guilty for distancing us so much, she might have been good for them. I lay beside Isak in the shade and reach for his hand. He peers at me from under his cap, a little surprised.

  ‘You okay?’ he whispers. ‘Out here.’

  I nod, smile at him, and he squeezes my hand. He gestures towards my mother, ‘She’s mellowed.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ I whisper, thinking of our conversation over breakfast. I tell him that she thinks I had an affair because Asta looks so different.

  He laughs. ‘She would. Judging you by her own standards.’

  I roll onto my side and look down at him. ‘I want to tell her the truth.’

  He lifts his cap and stares at me. ‘You aren’t allowed to.’ We are silent and I lie flat again, watch the play of light in the dark, drooping needles of she-oak. The whip of a songbird, wide and pure, curls back and back until it fades. ‘Why?’ he asks into the air.

  ‘I need someone else to talk to.’ I tear up a little at the thought of my loneliness. So many long days of isolation. ‘And she seems better. She’s their grandmother, after all. If not her, then who?’

  ‘I don’t know what they’ll do if they find out.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck.’

  ‘You say that now, but …’ He sits up and so do I, watch the four of them perched on the other end of the jetty. Jake now holds a fishing line in the water. ‘Things could get worse, Stacey.’ His tone is ominous and he reaches for a slice of watermelon, spits the seeds at Emmy’s bare back. She turns and scolds him. They laugh. So close. So bonded. I can’t help but feel jealous. He is never playful with me anymore.

  We row back down the river, faster now as the current helps us. Asta has begun to master the paddling and the canoe forges out, far ahead of us.

  ‘She’s like a little machine,’ says Emmy as we struggle to keep up. I am exhausted and we lag further behind.

  They wait in the distance, pulling the canoe up near the sun-bleached branches of a dead tree. Isak is pointing up at the top of it and as we get closer I can see a large nest, made of thick old wood. In the top, the head of a bird, its curved beak silhouetted against the sky. A brown and white sea eagle glides overhead, wings barely moving. It seems to soar, motionless, yet steers itself deftly to the nest, where it stands on the edge, the baby eagle looking up at it. Mum holds Asta’s hand and they stand on the riverbank, both focused on the nest. It’s a beautiful bird, but it’s clearly nervous at the approach of our boats, its head rotating surveillance. Isak pushes the canoe back into the water and we follow his lead back to the car.

  On the drive home we pass the long walkway where Asta and I have watched the cormorants. ‘Dol-fin,’ she calls, remembering that we have seen them here. ‘Not fish, Nanna.’

  I pull into the car park to show Mum and message Isak, who continues home. We sit in the car for a moment, windows down, and I spot the sea eagle, high above. Point. We are all transfixed as it glides on the air currents, barely moving. Then a flutter, quick and sharp it dives into the water, two thick sprays as the big bird plunges in, catches something and heads away, back towards the nest. So certain.

  Mum borrows my car and goes down s
outh to visit some of her old friends for a couple of days. Not Dad she tells me, she ‘doesn’t want to see that prick as long as I live’. On that we can agree. I do her washing, peg her long dresses on our line. They fly wide and spin in the wind. Asta sits on the grass, staring at the coloured dresses. ‘Nanna gone,’ she says when I ask her what she’s doing. Tayto lies beside her and they stare at the airborne colours. The other kids are at school, Isak is at work and in the wake of their presence we both lapse into quiet sadness.

  When Mum returns, the boot of my car is packed with gourmet produce and boxes of fresh fruit from orchards along the way. A case of red wine, several bottles of olive oil and a T-shirt for each of the kids. She has judged the sizes well, even Asta’s, who walks about proudly in hers, even if it’s a little long, and clasps Mum’s hand with her vice-grip. They carry it all inside and I make us tea, wonder at her newfound affluence. Finally, she’s free of living off the government, she tells me.

  ‘All these years I’ve dodged them and played them, got caught and dodged again.’ She had an alias when we were children and we were never allowed to mention it. Mail arrived to post offices for our fake mother. I used to be ashamed of it, knowing she was duping the government, that we lived on undeserved funds. Your father never paid child support, was always her justification. ‘Now I’m independent, just in time to be an old woman.’ A house, Marco’s superannuation. These must be life-changing for her.

  ‘It must be nice,’ I encourage her.

  ‘Well this place must have cost a packet.’ She casts her arms from the patio around to include everything in our boundary. ‘What happened? You two were always on the bones of your arses in that suburban hellhole. If you were so cashed up, you could at least have come to see me.’

  My instinct is to lie, or try to evade her as much as possible, but I am silenced and I know I must tell her. She is the only one I can tell and I must tell somebody, even without Isak’s approval.