Grace Beside Me

by Sue McPherson

  ‘Thanks, Nan.’

  I play with a rogue curl, bouncing loosely by my ear. It is free of the ponytail I pulled together earlier. My mum’s DNA is in this curl, in my blood and in my eyes now madly blinking away tears threatening to fall.

  ‘It wasn’t long after your mother got pregnant that your dad and her decided to go their separate ways. They stayed friends and came together, as good parents should, when you were born. They both loved you and will continue to love you. As for the drug part, well, she didn’t try them until later.’

  ‘Still, Nan, I was her baby, her flesh and blood. Why would she want to play with that other shit?’

  ‘I don’t know … I don’t know. Just listen Fuzzy, listen to the whole story. Your mother’s family all found living day-to-day without money very hard. And don’t forget your grandmother had diabetes. She had already lost part of her left leg to gangrene and the other one wasn’t lookin’ that much better. More or less, that poor woman was housebound, no husband, not much money and kids to feed.

  ‘Your mother had just turned sixteen when this all happened and was seventeen when she had you. She was the eldest child in her family.’

  Nan puts the sewing on her lap. The house is still. I wait for her to say something. I know it’s not the time for me to speak. A wasp buzzes outside looking in the window, thump! Obviously, too close. The fridge starts up, faint but noticeable.

  ‘Fuzzy, we don’t know when it happened or how it happened. We just know, two months after you arrived, your mother started to change. One minute she was real happy and keen to make a go of it, next thing she was down, real down. Somewhere along the line she found herself a job but none of us really knew where, who she worked for or how she got it. She had money, decent money, and she was able to take care of her family, showerin’ them with big gifts. Your dad, Pop and me all thought it was too much. Gettin’ milk for the fridge was enough. But buyin’ a new fridge too big for the kitchen was overdone and a waste of good money.’

  ‘Didn’t Dad help them out?’ I ask, concerned.

  ‘Of course he did, Fuzzy. So did we. A lot of the community helped them out. That’s just what people did. But spendin’ big on clothes, furniture, TVs, fancy mix-masters and stuff was, like I said, overdoin’ it … I knew somethin’ wasn’t right, so did Pop.’

  ‘When and how did she get to Sydney then?’

  ‘One day she came around here with a girlfriend none of us knew. She dropped your clothes, bottles and a few other odds and ends off with your dad. It was quick. She said she was goin’ to Sydney to spend time helpin’ a sick aunt. She would be back by the end of the week. She was catchin’ the train at Cootamundra. She gave us all a hug … kissed you on the cheek and whispered to your sweet face how much she loved you and said she would be back soon. After that, she was off, gone and out the door.’

  Something stirs inside, warm and comforting. It’s reassuring hearing how she loved me and that she had intentions of returning. I feel a tear drip from my cheek. Nan grabs a tissue and hands it to me with a smile.

  ‘Two nights later I had a thumpin’ headache,’ she continues. ‘I remember floatin’ in and out of silly dreams. Not about you and your mother but about silly things like sittin’ down to a pot of tea and when I poured it out into my cup the lid fell off and out tumbled lumps of brown sugar. I also dreamt I went to the toilet. I flushed it but no water came, I flushed it again and out of the cistern came brown sugar. I could even smell it. Silly dreams they were, bloody silly, and to this day I have no idea what they were all about.

  ‘By Saturday your dad was real worried. He rang your grandmother but she hadn’t heard hide nor hair of her daughter and she said she didn’t have a sister livin’ in Sydney. Your dad was runnin’ around like a headless chook tryin’ to find someone who knew where she was. He never did find out.

  ‘Three weeks later we received a call from the police in the city. A maintenance man in an inner-city housing complex found a body. They found our phone number in her belongings. It was your mother. She died of an overdose.

  ‘Thank Mary and Joseph you didn’t know what was goin’ on. You helped us through some pretty dark hours. You kept on cooin’, makin’ cute faces and just bein’ a beautiful wee baby.’

  ‘Well then, how about Grandma? How come she moved back to Bourke?’ I say, still hurt.

  ‘Had enough, that’s all. She’s a good woman Fuzzy. She isn’t well and she still hurts. Give her time, things may change. Send her love in your thoughts. Grace be beside you always, Fuzzy, that’s all you gotta know.’

  Nan looked over to me and placed her hand on mine. ‘Time for a cuppa, me girl, that’s enough for today.’

  A Tale of Males

  Dad, well, his name is Sonny Boy. Nan reckons the minute she laid eyes on him she knew his name would be Sonny. It’s nice to know he was given a name that fitted right from the start. He has great teeth too, straight and white. Dad, he travels around with work. All his old mates who sit in the pub of an afternoon, yarnin’ and sippin’ their middies, they all tell me he’s a good worker. He must be because he owns a house two doors down from Nan and Pop.

  My dad has many talents but one of my favourites is his ability to recite thirteen stanzas of the great Australian poem ‘The Man from Snowy River’, written by the master, Banjo Paterson. People can’t get over it. Pop introduced Dad to Banjo when Dad was only four. From then on he just took to this particular poem ‘like he was driven from within’. Well, that’s what Pop says anyway.

  I overheard Aunt Nell talking to Nan one day. ‘Sis, that boy of yours has a memory as good as I’ve ever known, there are a lot of words in that there poem and he just ploughs through it. He doesn’t miss a beat.’

  ‘That might be right, Nell, but I reckon it took him up to the age of thirteen to understand how to clean his bloody room proper,’ said Nan, laughing. ‘Not to mentioning us all battlin’ to learn him the “Catholic Creed”.’

  ‘Yeah, that little bugger was the one who sent me hair grey. It took us years to get the Creed into his woolly head. Embarrassin’ it was, never knew when he was gonna bugger it up in front of the whole congregation. I reckon Sister Harris had a pink fit every time we all turned up to church. There would be us mob all sittin’ there in a full church and everyone sayin’:

  “We believe in one God,

  The Father, the Almighty,

  maker of heaven and earth,

  of all that is, seen and unseen.”

  And at the same time, him standin’ up real straight beside us, proud as punch, sayin’:

  “There was movement at the station,

  For the word had passed around.

  That the colt from Old Regret had got away.”

  ‘Sweet Mary and Joseph, I could of just curled up then and there and hid me self under the pew in front of me, too shame it was.’

  Nan laughed. ‘True, me and Pop reckon if the Creed was written by Banjo Paterson the lad would of had the words in his head by the first week, what a blessin’ that would have been.’

  When Dad has a couple of drinks, off he goes. Like Aunt said, he doesn’t skip a beat. Out the words tumble fresh as the day they were written. He’s a good storyteller, my dad, but when he has a beer with Banjo, no one can tell a yarn better. It’s a gift passed down from Pop. Imagine wanting to say and learn all them words like that.

  It’s a good Australian story. It’s funny, you know, because many blokes of my dad’s age are in awe of famous sportspeople, rockers and movie stars. It’s kind of cool how Dad took to Banjo Paterson. The two of them get on real well, there’s no doubt about it. But get this: the more Dad has to drink the more you can hear a Scottish accent. When he’s real pissed you’d bet your last dollar there was a fair dinkum Scotsman reciting Banjo’s work … Yeah! We’ve asked him about it but he says he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Nan reckons it started when he turned eighteen. Just as well it didn’t start earlier or Nan would have figured out he was swigging on a
bottle long before he was supposed to. It’s got us all buggered that one, even Nan, and she’s the queen of all knowing.

  Dad used to be a promising sportsman. He played for Australia as a junior in football and cricket but somewhere along the way he met Rita. They obviously didn’t do too much washing ’cause next thing you know I came along.

  He’s a good-looker, my dad, he doesn’t have trouble with the ladies, black or white it doesn’t matter, they all think he’s easy on the eye. He has a voice as smooth as honey on a warm day. If you didn’t know better you would be thinking Marvin Gaye the man himself was there singing. I grew up with Marvin and Shirley Bassey, Charlie Pride, Ray Charles, Sinatra, Ella, Nat King Cole and Stevie. Most are dead now. You probably think that they are all old-fashioned but when you live with Nan and Pop that’s what you listen to, you don’t have a choice.

  Dad always sends gifts in the mail and rings every Wednesday at 7.30 pm. He expects me to speak proper and go places he didn’t. I love Dad but I know I just wasn’t meant to live with him. Being a girl and all, I guess life could be challenging with just the two of us, that’s why Nan and Pop look after me. God love Nan and Pop.

  Pop has a beautiful singing voice as well as a head of fuzzy hair. I get my looks from Pop. I have his hair – except it’s not grey – and I am the tallest girl in the class, actually I am the tallest girl in the year above me as well. Like his father, Pop stands 185 centimetres tall, over six foot.

  Pop met Nan in Toowoomba. He is a descendant of the South Sea Islanders and his grandparents were kidnapped and shipped across to work as slave labour on the sugar cane when they were only kids. Mr McCardell, the owner of the sugar-cane plantation insisted his name go to Pop’s grandfather. He was a tough old lad who loved, and was proud of, his Scottish heritage. Back in the day, old Mr McCardell was adamant all Island workers must learn to play the bagpipes. There were more than enough players to make up a pipe band, which became a proud addition to the plantation. All members excepting Mr McCardell were South Sea Islander. Over the years the pipes were taught to younger generations. Eventually, Pop’s dad taught Pop and Pop taught my dad, Sonny Boy.

  Pop is extremely proud of his immediate family, even though Nan was only able to have the one son. Pop can draw and paint very well and gives artists a run for their money at the annual art show. I enjoy drawing too and I’m good at it, it’s a gift passed down by Pop that makes me proud.

  Pop is great because he teaches me how to listen, feel and sing harmony. He shows me how to use tools like the router, drop saw and drills. Pop makes me think and he encourages me to seek solutions and to look at different options.

  He reads and thinks and thinks and reads and, because of that, he understands things. He has lots of common sense as well, like the time when I was about seven and I got into trouble for swinging on the clothesline and Nan said, ‘I ought to whip your bum with that bloody ironing cord.’

  Well, Pop in all of his wisdom starts scratching his head then says real polite like, ‘Nan, I reckon you better think twice about that because that old heavy iron you’ve got there is attached to the cord and for the life of me I can’t see you whipping that girl without that old iron banging up against that gammy leg of yours.’

  Nan stood for a couple of seconds taking in the message, trying to understand the conundrum she was now in before saying, ‘Don’t you get too bloody uppity, Pop. If I’m thinkin’ of using the ironin’ cord I will; if I feel that I might use that willow stick out on the back verandah, well I might just consider that too.’ Needless to say, Pop had this time won the battle. A wink and a strong pot of tea more or less put things right.

  Pop also taught me about ‘sit a while’. Without it this family would not tick. When you are faced with something challenging and you don’t know how to deal with it, you can get real low and sad and not sure what to do next. Well, that’s when you ‘sit a while’. You just find a spot out in the bush, in a paddock or at the beach. Turn off your iPod because you need to connect to the wind, the air, the wildlife and the old spirits around you. Sit on the ground and hold some dirt, sand or a rock in your hands, and work towards getting your breathing normal, then slow it down a little. It might take five or ten minutes or it might take an hour, it all depends how bad your situation is. When you calm your spirit and allow it to connect again to Country and if you are still and quiet enough you may be able to feel a subtle shift in your emotions – like a wave of strong wind – then calm. For me, when the shift comes, my confidence grows stronger. I might feel a little lighter around my shoulders and chest and a couple of times I’ve felt warmth on the back of my head. Eventually I look at the situation with my heart more open and I don’t feel so shitty.

  Now, I’m not saying this happens all the time, but every now and then it does. It can be a bit freaky but it feels great to have support when you think you’re on your own. Even though I can feel subtle changes, the big stuff hasn’t happened to me yet. I know this because I ask Nan.

  ‘Hey Nan, when do I know I’ve got this “sit a while” business right?’

  ‘You’ll know, don’t you worry.’

  ‘Yeah, but how?’ I lean back frowning.

  ‘You’ll know ’cause she’ll sit beside you, left side, right side or both sides.’

  ‘Who’ll sit beside me?’

  ‘Grace … you silly bugger. When you contact her proper like, that’s when she’ll come and sit by your side. And when that happens you’ll know alright, me girl. And not in a month of Sund’ys will ya ever forget.’

  Pop says, ‘Fuzzy, when you get your breathing right and you are connected to Country, that’s when your old people, your ancestors, come in to be with you. Even if you don’t think they are there, well they are and that is when you ask for help. It doesn’t matter what problem you have, you just ask for help. Sometimes things are cleared up within the next few days but every now and then we just need to learn a bit more about things. That’s why sometimes a problem will just stick around. If it does, well you just gotta ask your mob to help you learn what you gotta learn quickly so as you can get on with life. You’ll be surprised how fast things can be cleared away. And when you connect proper deep something real extraordinary happens: Grace she be beside you and there can be no bigger gift than being in her heavenly presence, believe you me.

  ‘Remember, my girl, you always have “sit a while”. Your Nan, aunts, cousins, your dad and me, we all do it. And you know what, you should tell your friends as well, they can use it. All cultures are connected to Country. Connection to Country will always uplift the spirit.’

  During the summer Pop wears a sarong, or a mooie as we call it. Down the street, to the footy, wherever he goes Pop proudly wears his mooie with a shirt. It is always bright and colourful, reminding him of his island culture.

  Pop loves words. His Webster’s dictionary has a home on the kitchen table right next to his fork.Years ago, Nan would throw the dictionary over to the sideboard away from the table. But Pop wouldn’t have it and the next thing you’d know the dictionary would be back. Eventually the kitchen table became its home and nothing more was said.Well no, that’s not totally right, Nan still has a moan every now and then.

  The dictionary is dog-eared and worn.The front cover fell off years ago so my dad found a bit of old cow hide he had out in the back shed. Dad used to make and repair saddles so fixing Pop’s dictionary was not a big job. A jack-of all-trades is my dad.

  He cut the leather to size and somehow sewed it onto the old binding. Pop says it looks better than the original. Now, stained by spilt tea and dirty fingers, the old dictionary has taken on a new life. The front cover resembles some hot and dusty landscape, like what we see when we go visiting cousins out Broken Hill way.

  Whenever Tui is over, the first thing she does is pick up Pop’s dictionary. I don’t really get it, but then I’m not Tui, eh? Tui and Pop can natter away for a good half hour scanning pages and looking up new and interesting words.

&nbs
p; ‘Spit it out, Tui Mui, what words of wisdom do you have for me today?’ Pop asks across the table.

  Tui holds the precious dictionary while looking up to the ceiling. Pop stirs his tea.

  ‘In prayer … it is better to have a heart without words … than words without heart.’

  ‘Buddha?’

  ‘Gandhi.’

  Pop smiles and nods. ‘Nice, nice work.’ He looks to the ceiling before saying, ‘We are masters of the unsaid word … but slaves of those we let slip out.’

  ‘Roosevelt?’

  ‘Churchill.’

  ‘Oh, Churchill. Impressive Pop.’ Tui says holding her chin.

  Nan walks into the room with her garden spray bottle. Her mouth is curled up at the end itching to say something. She can’t help herself.

  ‘Roses are red … violets are blue … Tui Mui needs a cuppa while … Pop does a poo.’

  ‘Shame, Nan, shame,’ I say.

  ‘That’s bad, Nan T,’ Tui giggles while holding the dictionary close to her chest. Pop rolls his eyes then sips his tea. Nan laughs and fills up her bottle then leaves the room.

  ‘Word of the week, Pop?’ Tui asks, eyebrows raised and head tilted to the side, eager to hear his response.

  ‘Conventicle.’

  Tui’s eyebrows rise even higher. Her eyes are large and bright with enthusiasm.

  ‘A secret meeting.’

  ‘Cool, Pop … Conventicle, I like it.’

  ‘And you?’ Pop sits up in his chair.

  ‘Plicate.’

  ‘Plicate?’

  ‘It means pleated, similar to your Pipers skirt or like a fan. Plicate.’ Tui puts the dictionary back in its spot on the table.