‘Well, bugger me, Tui Mui … plicate, what an interesting word.’ Pop taps his fingers on the table. ‘Pli-cate.’
Funny Business
Nan has taught me many things: how to make a good egg custard, how to iron a shirt properly, to prune roses, to knit and crochet, to set a table and, one of her favourites, how to hang clothes on the line properly. One of Nan’s pet hates is seeing clothes hung on the line the wrong way. It must be an old-girl thing, I reckon, because Mrs M, the Farmer sisters, old Mrs Cain and Mrs Timothy, they all do the same. Even my friend Tui and her mum peg clothes the same way. So I guess they think this is the most proper, possibly the only, way of drying clothes on an outside line.
This is how it is done. Out at the clothesline give everything a good shake before hanging begins, this helps get rid of wrinkles. Turn all shirts, tops, trousers and jeans inside out so the sun doesn’t fade them. I like my jeans faded so I hang them straight up just how they are. Hang jeans and trousers from the waist, one peg for each side so the legs catch any breeze that is travelling through. Hang all tops and sweaters from the bottom hem so the sleeves can sway in the breeze. Singlets must be hung from the tops of the shoulders otherwise they go out of shape. The same works for t-shirts.
The rule is to place all large items on the outside of the line. Once the larger items are hung, smalls, meaning all underwear, are hung on the inside, so you don’t go flashing your neighbours. You don’t, under any circumstances, show the world your underbits – regardless of how new or sexy they are, these items are classed as sacred. Two pegs for bloomers, one peg each side of the waist. Two pegs for bras, one for each shoulder strap.
Use one peg for each sock, on the top part of the sock, not on the toe. Nan gets real pissed off if you hang them from the toe. ‘It sticks the toe together and it makes it shithouse to wear,’ is Nan’s explanation. To add good airflow, hang sheets over two wires if you have the room, otherwise just use the one. Peg towels vertically using two pegs, one at each corner, and always on the outside wire to catch any breath of air that may pass by. Tea towels and face washers same, same. When everything is dry they are brought into the sunroom. It is my job to fold them up and sort the ironing. All smalls are folded and put into piles for Nan, Pop and me. All jeans, trousers, shirts, dresses, pyjamas, pillowslips, hankies and singlets are put aside for ironing.
Last year Nan went away visiting the aunts for a few days. Dad came over to stay and Pop, Dad and I were here by ourselves. Pop had finished a load of washing that was sitting in the basket ready to be hung out. I decided not to worry about Nan’s clothesline etiquette so I just hung the clothes up any which way they fell on the line. About an hour later I happened to look out the kitchen window and found a confusion of colour and shape in front of me. Not only did it look wrong, it felt awkward. I ran outside, took everything off the line and hung them all again Nan’s way. Isn’t it crazy? Even though she wasn’t within cooee of me Nan still had control of the clothesline. That there is a perfect example of how much power Nan possesses. All a bit freaky if you ask me.
Every year since I can remember Nan has set aside the first week in January to make special connections with family and friends who have passed over. Now, this doesn’t mean she only talks to the dead in January, no, she can talk to the dead all year round.
Catching up with the dead at the start of the year is important because they will give her clues to what is going to happen for the rest of the year. It’s something to do with the sun, the birds, the moon, the river, the trees, old Koorie and Irish stuff. Pop calls it spooky month.
All my life I have known nothing else. When I started school and finally worked out that Nan was different I started to pay closer attention. Bonny Langhurst, a painful girl in my class, made certain she told me how she felt about Nan.
‘Fuzzy, my parents say your Nan is crazy.’
Whichever way you see it, Nan to me is Nan. If I have to put up with her talking to things that most people can’t see, that’s OK. And by the way, the reason Bonny Langhurst’s parents think Nan is crazy is because, a few years ago when Bonny and I were still in primary school, Nan got a message for Bonny’s mum. My dad and Bonny’s mum were at school together. One morning in the middle of winter, Nan said to Bonny’s mum, maybe she should think about buying a water bottle for her kids’ beds. Nan didn’t say why. Obviously Bonny’s mum didn’t take her advice because, only seven days later, they found Bonny’s bedroom full of smoke. There was a fault in her electric blanket. It was only because netball practice was cancelled that day that the Langhurst family came home early. The fire brigade said it was a close call. Minutes later and the whole house would have gone up in flames.
After that incident, Mrs Langhurst went a bit funny. She didn’t talk to us much, even though Nan always went out of her way to talk to her. Rather than being impressed by Nan’s insight, Mrs Langhurst started telling people Nan was strange. But people rallied around Nan even more, excited to hear if she had any messages for them.
The witching hours generally start on the first Wednesday in the month of January. Normally things are sorted out by Thursday night at around eight, and generally by early Friday morning life is calmer. Puss has stopped hiding in the bin where we keep the potatoes and Nan has ceased her conversations with the unknown and hung up her broom until next January. And poor Pop has finally found the courage to re-enter the house after a quiet stretch in his shed.
It’s while Pop is in his blokey domain that creativity grips his spirit and starts to run wild. Last year’s incarceration was productive. Pop made a new coffee table complete with a special cavity for his stash of old cowboy books. You know the ones that look like a small, thick comic with a picture of a cowboy and his horse on the front cover. The poor American Indian is always handed a bad deal. By the end, the cowboy wins the war, gets the girl and, most importantly, is reunited with his horse. Pop absolutely adores his cowboy books. Through the year he swaps with Mr Mac Ferguson and old Mr Craig over at the nursing home. Each year, between them, they must read a hundred or so books about a cowboy and his horse.
Getting back to Nan and her special abilities, at one o’clock in the morning Nan will climb out of her bed and put her little brown feet into her favourite baby-pink ugg boots. Then she will grab her old dressing gown off the iron bedstead. The dressing gown is made out of the same material as my bedspread, chenille. Over the years bits of the design have come off, leaving bare spots. Both the dressing gown and my bedspread are two special things Nan owned before meeting Pop.
Once Nan is rugged up, she looks out the window searching the stars, the moon, clouds, whatever she is guided to. Nan says this gives her a feeling of how things are going in the world. I’m not sure how she works it out but generally by lunchtime on the following day Nan has a good idea what the weather will bring, right up to October. She also feels sickness, or if there is a celebration coming up. And, if she is really tuned in, she can see what marks I will get for an assignment. Fortunately for me this doesn’t happen all the time. I wish Nan would just bugger off and put her energy into making pumpkin scones.
If Nan can tell I am not working hard, my life for the next couple of weeks won’t be easy. Nan will be on my back constantly telling me the same old thing: ‘Fuzzy, you wanna get your smart black arse into gear girl, because they’re tellin’ me here that you’ve been pretty bloody lazy and you know too well what will happen if you keep buggerin’ around with your studies? You will be a nobody. That’s right Fuzzy, a nobody, and don’t you go thinkin’ it’s all easy street and you will be goin’ on the dole because your marks are hopeless. That’s not gonna happen. It didn’t happen to your dad and it isn’t gonna happen to you. Are you listenin’, girl?’
After Nan finishes with the first onslaught, she starts looking around for the teapot and her old cup with the chip out of the handle.
‘Come water or high hell you’re gonna succeed.’
‘Nan, you don’t mean that, you mea
n …’
‘I meant to say you’d wanna do good, Fuzzy.’
‘No, Nan, you meant to say, come hell or high water.’
‘Yes, me girl, that’s what I said now go and do some study and make your Pop and me proud.’
‘Yes, Nan,’ I say with a sigh. It’s easier if I just shut up and agree.
I reckon everybody in the house, including Puss, knows, word for word, what Nan will say. Last time this happened, Pop stood at the sink filling the kettle while reciting the same words along with Nan. Of course he got into trouble but, like always, that didn’t bother Pop. He just walked away giggling to himself, his big dark frame shaking as he carried his cuppa and two arrowroot biscuits coated in butter out the door and down the steps to his sweet piece of heaven, his shed.
Nan’s strange ways are a spiritual gift that even Pop believes in. He says that his old Aunt Lilly did similar things when he was growing up. I guess I’m doomed really. If they both believe, there is no hope for me. Connections to all things weird will one day be part of my life too. I can just see it now, an older Bonny Langhurst telling her children, ‘Well, you know how strange that Fuzzy Mac is, I remember her Nan, she was just the same. It’s just not normal.’
Enough of her, Bonny Langhurst gives me the shits at the best of times. Hopefully when I have my own children Miss Langhurst will have buggered off to Bourke or Siberia. Pop always thought her dad was a bit odd. A few years back Mr Langhurst bought himself a mobile phone, not long after the smaller ones first came out. One day, while down at the local pub, or the watering hole, as Pop calls it, Mr Langhurst walked in talking on the phone like he was real important. You know, talking big figures and throwing around words like ‘blue chips’, ‘bull market’ and ‘interest rates’. Some of the lads around town were fed up with his constant bullshitting. Young Bluey Wallace happened to be sitting at the bar, watching Mr Langhurst talking up on his phone. Next thing, Bluey goes over to the public phone and dials Mr Langhurst’s number. Mr Langhurst is having a great old conversation when the phone in his hand starts ringing. Everyone around the bar burst out laughing. Mr Langhurst’s long freckly face turned pink like the fairy floss you see at the show.
Bluey was shouted a few drinks and Mr Langhurst chose to do his drinking at home.
Hear, See Smell
Nan uses all her senses to work out what information is being sent through from the other side. The other side is still a mystery to me. Nan said that when I get a little older she will start explaining things, if I want to learn. If I don’t want to learn she might just go ahead and explain things to me anyway.
It really isn’t fair, Rhonda Moore’s nan teaches her how to cross-stitch, Penny Arnold’s nan shows her how to bake apple charlotte, and then there is me – Fuzzy Mac’s Nan teaches her how to talk to dead people.
Nan recieves her messages in varied and unusual ways. The stars, the moon and the clouds tell Nan that there will be no real rain for the next few months. However, there will be a decent drizzle around the seventeenth through to about the twenty-fifth, followed by an awesome electrical storm.
After dinner one night, Nan insisted on washing up and Pop said there was a method to this madness. Nan cleaned the dishes then slowly pulled the plug out of the sink. By watching the water circle and flow down the drain Nan was given a message. We don’t know how it works but somehow she saw Pop with an infection in his left ear. Less than ten minutes later an outside gust of wind blew an old terracotta wind chime that Pop had found at the tip shop. Nan pushed through the door and out onto the verandah. She stood still as still. She reminded me of Mr and Mrs Tawny Frogmouth who sat in the gum tree out the back. They reckon we can’t see them because they sit so still. Well, that’s what Nan was like, statue still. She stood on the verandah for a good ten minutes. Afterwards she just came inside like nothing had happened and sat down in her chair and waited for Puss to sit on her lap. An hour later she said, ‘Mrs M is going to have tooth problems.
I can’t tell if she needs barley sugar or if she should stay away from barley sugar, anyway I reckon she might have tooth problems.’
Pop and I just looked at each other and smiled. It’s a wonder we are not in the funny farm ourselves.
Nan always says that simple things like watching a fire can unearth all types of information.
‘Fuzzy, you must be a vigilante.’
‘Nan, you mean I must keep vigilant.’
‘That’s what I said, child, be watchful, you might see somethin’.’
‘Yeah, Nan. I’ll keep my eyes open.’
‘Me girl, you’ve got to keep everythin’ open, your eyes, ears, nose, taste and your feelings. Somethin’ big is comin’, Fuzzy.’
The big message that Nan saw coming finally hit one Thursday night at about eight-thirty. Pop was busy reading one of his cowboy books, sitting on his side of the lounge. Puss was curled up on a crocheted blanket laid out on Nan’s chair. I was sitting at the kitchen table with books, pens and glue scattered around me finishing off my history assignment. Nan was filling up the sugar bowl, slowly watching the small white grains tumble into the wooden container Pop had made on his new, second-hand lathe.
‘Fuzzy … Fuzzy …’
‘Yeah? Nan.’
‘I be seeing somethin’ I’m not too sure about.’
I sat up straight away. Nan’s voice had changed, like it sort of wasn’t really her voice talking to me. I put my pen down and turned to where she was, over near the sink. Nan looked OK, but I could tell she was a little worried. I knew she saw something that needed to be told but I also knew she didn’t really want to tell anybody.
‘Nan, you OK?’
‘Child, somethin’ isn’t right around some people you know, or someone at your school isn’t right or somethin’ like that.’
We just sat there, I was looking at Nan’s face and she was looking and listening to the tap dripping in the sink. It was all quiet except for the drip, drip, drip.
‘That girl who likes wearin’ black …’ Nan says, breaking the silence.
‘Yeah …’
‘That one in your class. What’s her name, Fuzzy?’
‘Do you mean Layla Kirn?’
‘Yep, that’s her. I was talkin’ to her mum down at the chemist a couple of Saturdays ago.’
‘Yeah, Nan … so what’s happening?’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Nan?’ ‘Nah, it’s not her. It’s somebody closer … closer to you.’
Nan stopped talking and looked me straight in the eye.
‘Do you have friends who are close to someone older than them, Fuzzy?’
‘You mean, is someone going out with someone older?’
‘Don’t know what I mean meself. Just that somethin’ feels uncomfortable between a younger girl and someone older … don’t know what that is all about … keep seein’ an empty brown sugar bag … don’t make sense … but … no … got me buggered this one. What’s this bloody brown sugar thing around me again?’
That was it. Nan just stood up, put the lid on the butter, hummed an Ella Fitzgerald song then started a fresh pot of tea. I don’t know how I felt when Nan said all of those things, uneasy I think and now, a week later, that uneasy feeling is still here. Nan has a freaky track record when it comes to this funny stuff, that’s why I listen and take notice.
Nan continued on, happy and content as if she saw nothing. Pop was happy being Pop, reading, cracking jokes and making things in the shed and I, unbeknown to Nan, started to sense grief. Three days after Nan’s vision, I started to feel an uncomfortable weight, or force, on my chest. It moved down just below my ribs. It disappeared for a short time before settling below my right knee on my calf. I felt my calf muscles contract like a cramp. I looked down at my leg and, for the slightest moment, recognised what looked like finger marks. I can’t explain it and I won’t tell Nan, not yet anyway. I don’t know what this is all about but I do know it doesn’t feel right. I try and lose myself in schoolwork, music, frie
nds and family. Nan and Pop are very good at dealing with challenging news, so I’ll just have to do the same.
Just like Pop says, ‘Fuzzy, you just keep moving forward.’
Easy for you to say Pop.
Fear Busted
The last couple of weeks have been full on. I have been studying like mad and I scored sixty-two percent on my maths test, which is fantastic for me. I’m not that crash hot at numbers but, like Pop says, you just have to keep trying. So that is what I did and look what happened. Both Nan and Pop were pleased with the result. They were so happy they gave me a voucher for a new CD. Pop reckons a reward is an intelligent way of saying a fear has been busted. We all love it when someone breaks a fear. This wasn’t the first fear to be busted for the week.
Mrs Marsden, or Mrs M as she’s known, lives across the street from us. Mrs M and Mr M, her husband, were living in the street years before Nan and Pop, and Mrs M’s dad once owned and lived in the same house. Pop and Mr M got on like Boondy and Tiga, our two budgies, great mates they were. But then Mr M got crook with cancer and died six months later. They had two girls who later got married and moved away. Every Christmas and Easter Mrs M packs her bags and flies up to Brisbane to see them.
Pop always calls her old Mrs M, which is funny because Pop is a couple of years older. Mrs M is the one who told me all about using the right moisturiser on my face and all about Estée Lauder, Chanel and Mr Sinatra. When you go into her house there is a place to put your umbrella and your hat, if you are wearing one. There is a mini grand piano in the corner and a special place for the TV remote control, in a pocket placed across the arm of her maroon lounge.
Mrs M is fantastic at making cakes. Her sponges are as light as a sprinkle of icing sugar and taste delicious, especially with fresh cream and Nan’s strawberry jam.
Unfortunately, Mrs M is hopeless with anything that looks remotely like a bug. When she sees one, Mrs M jumps around pulling out bobby pins in a real frenzy then she runs to the bathroom mirror making sure there are no critters nesting in her locks. She runs, legs up real high like she doesn’t want to touch the ground, panting and heaving until she reaches Pop and Nan’s place. By the time she gets there her little round face and ears are all pink and sweaty and her hair is in tangles.
Grace Beside Me Page 4