Stella and Margie Page 4

  She sniffs.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re so upset. But he’ll come and get you in the morning, first thing.’

  ‘I want to leave here tonight.’

  I make a face at Ross, asking what we should do.

  Margie hangs up.

  We stare open-mouthed across the room.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he says, sighing.

  I phone the hospital and speak to the ward nurse, who tells me, ‘Margie’s had the room to herself for ten days. She’s unhappy another woman is now sharing with her.’

  ‘Can you move her to a private room?’

  ‘There’s no singles left, only doubles.’

  I’m told Margie has just been given some medication to settle her down. That she’ll be fine now.

  ‘What the hell?’ Ross says, falling into the pillows with his hands over his face. ‘Why did you ask her to come here?’

  ‘Because she’s got no one else and I feel sorry for her. And she’s your mum.’

  Ross has no words and I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

  ‘She was crying,’ I say. ‘And she’s not the crying type.’

  Ross rolls onto his side.

  ‘You’ll have to go and get her,’ I say. ‘I’ve got the deadline on the arts funding.’

  ‘Can’t. I’ve got to sort out the bore, probably pull the pump apart.’

  ‘You serious?’ I say.

  ‘How long will she be here?’

  ‘Till she can go home.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he sighs.

  Ross’s breathing quickly steadies as he falls asleep. I’m always envious of how easily he can do that. All I can think of is Margie crying, the shaky way she tried to control her breathing.

  The moonlight through the lace curtains makes a distorted swirling pattern across the room and ceiling, and I stare up into the oval moulding and remember the first time I met her.

  That day Ross picked me up at Benalla Railway Station and drove me around the place, showing me things: a waterhole called Polly McQuinns, kangaroos grazing along Earnshaw Track, a produce store in the middle of the bush where we had lunch and a beer. It wasn’t until we were meandering along dirt roads that I realised he was stalling rather than taking me to meet his mother.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s all good.’

  ‘You’re nervous.’

  He reached for my hand.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Should I be worried?’

  Of course, I wanted his mother to like me. When I saw the big old house with the green corrugated roof and wisteria trailing along the back veranda, the manicured vege table boxes and garden, I knew the woman who would step out and welcome me: she’d be warm, energetic, interesting. I approached her full of expectation, smiling. She didn’t offer her hand or embrace me. But I was only twenty-two, needy and desperate to please, so I overlooked her rudeness, supposing it was just her way.

  Ross didn’t look like he belonged to her; I couldn’t pair them. She was dressed nicely – I believed for the occasion of meeting me – in black pants, a white shirt with a sleeveless fitted grey vest. She wore pink lipstick. Her hair was light auburn, the colour of honey, neatly swept up in combs.

  I’d dressed for my boyfriend, not her. And so her gaze fell to my naked waist, my navel and the silver barbell piercing I’d recently had done. All I could do was smile and not care, be myself. So I got on with it and followed her and Ross inside. I chatted, admired the house, still trying to please. Ross was quiet, watching.

  We sat at the dinner table on stiff-backed chairs. Margie poured us tea from a silver pot into dainty china cups – a pink floral design and green scalloped edges – which sat on matching saucers. A crystal two-tier plate carried lemon curd tarts and tiny club sandwiches. If the vibe hadn’t been so intense, it would’ve been funny that this was where Ross lived – the person I knew didn’t fit here, taking high tea with a woman who didn’t seem to know which facial expression to wear.

  Her eyes narrowed on me. ‘And what do you do?’

  I wanted to please her so much that I babbled along, not stopping to catch up with myself to see what was really going on. ‘If you mean what I do for money, I’m a waitress at Dudley’s All Day in Carlton. But my thing is producing and directing community theatre. I’m one of the founders of the Robinson Street Theatre.’ I beamed and paused, expecting another question. But she waited for me to go on. So I did. ‘We’re currently working on an adaptation of Who’s Happy Now?’ I gave details of the three main characters. ‘One is called Horse. But ultimately it’s about domestic violence and family dysfunction, told in an endearing way. If that’s possible.’ I laughed, then broke off and sat back, satisfied I’d done a good girlfriend interview.

  Margie sat silent.

  The jolt came and I knew this was all a mistake. And there I was, so quickly nervous and insecure. I glanced at Ross, who was bloody well staring into his hands.

  Seconds passed.

  Margie turned to her son, who was now looking out the window, and told him she had a headache. She asked if he could take care of dinner. ‘I will not be eating,’ she said.

  I didn’t see her for a long time after that because when she closed the hall door behind her, I asked Ross to take me to the train.

  ‘I won’t be judged by her, or you,’ I said. ‘The old bitch.’

  He drove me all the way to my place in Brunswick, arms ramrod straight on the wheel. I watched the profile of his lovely worried face as he told me how he’d had different plans for his life, but when he was thirteen his brother was killed and from then on he was expected to take over the farm.

  ‘Dad had a really good bloke working for him, Keith Sanders. When Dad checked out, he stayed on managing the place until I was old enough to take over. But I was set on getting my commercial pilot’s licence. One day, down at the yards, Keith told me I was good with cattle, that I wasn’t even twenty and I had a house and farm for life. Then he convinced Mum to send me to ag college in Dookie. And that’s what happened.’

  ‘What about Caroline?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Well, I know she’s just a girl, but didn’t she get a look in?’

  He turned to me with a wry smile. ‘She got an education and a bus ticket to town.’

  Over a crest, the road stretched far; trucks and cars in the double lanes were nudging against the limit, pushing hard going south.

  ‘But you love the farm, right?’ I asked.

  ‘Most things.’

  ‘Do you regret not flying?’

  He answered with another sidelong smile and shrug that I supposed meant he didn’t know.

  By the time we arrived at my place, I’d softened. We bought Japanese takeaway and ate it in my bed. At five in the morning, he said he had to get going. A herd of cows needed to be moved to more feed, and another group were calving and had to be checked.

  But before he pushed out of bed, he put his face close to mine and said, ‘You’re my beautiful girl, and I want to be with you all the time. Marry me, Stella.’

  My answer was quick. ‘Not if you expect me to live in that house with your mother.’

  When I enter Margie’s hospital room, she’s sitting on the chair, dressed in baggy grey trackpants and a pink floral blouse. A white curtain has been drawn around the bed closest to the window.

  Margie looks to the door, waiting for Ross to follow in behind me.

  ‘The bore is playing up,’ I explain. ‘There’s no water going into the troughs.’

  As if she understands Ross’s dilemma, she nods and tries to stand on crutches. I go to her, reaching out to help. She stiffens, either because she’s in pain or because I’ve touched her.

  ‘How are you this morning?’ I ask.

  She doesn’t answer but points to a bag on the floor. ‘There are things in the bottom drawer I can’t reach.’ It’s her dirty washing. She glances at the curtain that
blocks out the other bed. ‘Can we go?’ she says.

  The discharge process takes too long. The nurse thinks this too; the way she flicks the pages, rapidly ticking boxes. She tells us that a district nurse won’t get to Maryhill until next week, but Margie is marked down as a priority patient. ‘It’ll be either Joanne or Alicia – but not to worry, someone will call first.’ Then, as if Margie is deaf and not sitting beside me in a hospital wheelchair, the nurse shows me a diagram explaining her exercises and says she must do them twice daily. The incision site must be checked once a day for infection. ‘And she has a physio appointment on Thursday at eleven in Benalla.’

  Margie is clutching a plastic bag with pharmaceutical packets inside. Her neck is craned upwards like she’s wanting to say something.

  ‘Yes, Margie?’ I ask.

  But all she does is look around as if to see who I’m talking to.

  I push her along the dim corridors to the front entry. ‘I’ll bring the car to the door.’ It’s almost ten. Carrying her bag and crutches, I run to the carpark, anxious to get back to the funding application.

  As Margie pulls and eases herself up into the passenger seat, she braces and winces. The Prado is too high off the ground for an old woman recovering from hip surgery; Ross’s ute won’t be any better. I stand close, poised to help, watching. I know not to touch her.

  Down the Hume Freeway, slowing to forty kilometres for roadworks, I talk while looking ahead through the insect-splattered and dusty windscreen. ‘What happened last night, Margie? Why were you crying when you phoned?’

  I glance at her. She’s ignoring me. Her hands are tightly clasped.

  ‘It was after ten, so late for something to go wrong,’ I say. ‘The nurse said it had something to do with the woman in the other bed.’

  Margie replies, staring forward. ‘She had her television up too loud.’

  ‘Why would that make you cry?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says, putting her shoulders back, hiding behind that proud look of hers. Yet she appears pale and somehow vulnerable, as if last night’s tears could return. She must be very tired.

  ‘We’ll be home soon,’ I say.

  There’s not much of Ross in Margie’s face – perhaps the shape of her nose, but for sure Ross takes after his father. I see a resemblance of her in photos of Mark, and perhaps in Caroline. Margie’s hair is fine and short, no longer that lovely honey-auburn, but now silver. And when she’s mobile, she’s got a sort of innate ballerina grace – the fluid yet upright way her spine and limbs move, and the way her chin is almost always up, as if she’s waiting for someone to bow to her. As far as I can tell, Margie is the archetypical Ballantine wife. So, I’ve always been on a hiding to nothing.

  Today I’ve been up since five to put in a couple of hours on the application. The detail they want for a fifteen-thousand-dollar grant seems unreasonable. And will they really assess everything I send in? Impatience is running through my veins, through my arms, and I’m sitting on 115 because I need to get home. But it’s risky – a cop in an unmarked car could be anywhere along here. An impulsive thought: a few kilometres from Violet Town, there’s a short cut. It’s coming up on the left. Locals sometimes use it to save time, maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Ross has taken me this way a couple of times, but I’ve never travelled it on my own: the road is too isolated, no mobile coverage, and the GPS doesn’t know the bush tracks. It doesn’t even have a sign giving it a name.

  I slow down, indicate, and slip into the exit lane.

  Margie grips the armrest. ‘Why this way?’

  ‘It’s quicker. I’ve only got four days left to get the goddamn application in.’

  I don’t expect her to ask me about it. Since our first meeting all those years ago, she’s never questioned me about anything unrelated to Ross or the farm. I know she’s got her stuck-up opinions about me, but the way I see it, if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have Ross. So it’s mainly out of gratitude that I make the effort to be kind to her. The other reason is that I’ve sometimes seen an awful fear on her face, and every so often she flinches for no obvious reason. Ross says he doesn’t notice.

  When we married, Margie moved to a timber house in Benalla, about the same vintage as Maryhill but smaller. It didn’t take long for me to become Ross’s proxy, often standing at her front door to hand something over or reassure her about a letter, things she’d phoned Ross about that he never got around to. She now seemed a sad, lonely figure to me, the way she would painstakingly rake up the plane tree leaves and was absorbed in her veggie boxes; the way she stared at birds with an ear turned like she was listening to Mozart. The inside of her house has always depressed me: it’s dull, silent, and has the feeling of waiting.

  Thank god for the neighbour, Dot – a tall, cheerful woman who looked at me with a steady gaze, as if saying she understood the predicament. After she died, Margie got thinner and visibly smaller, and somehow more afraid. Perhaps she was just more isolated.

  A weatherboard farmhouse is close to the unsealed road. Red, blue and white horse-jumps are in a paddock. Granite outcrops, eucalypts, wattles and shrubby grass flash by. Dust trails behind the car. It’s very dry here; a spark from anything would set the whole place off. At least fire season is almost over, a relief because there have been no major problems – not here in the north-east, anyway. The dirt road widens and slowly rises to a pine plantation. There are trails with small numbered signs that only mean something to the logging trucks. At a V in the road, I hesitate. Margie is staring at me, frowning. I go with the track that’s had the most traffic. An echidna waddles along the edge of the road.

  Already I’ve decided to put Margie in the small guestroom close to the kitchen. It’s not ideal and needs cleaning, but the other spare room was once Mark’s, and even though I’ve painted it, put in a double bed and shifted the furniture around, she mightn’t like sleeping where he once did.

  I’m relieved when I recognise a large concrete water tank. ‘How do you feel about returning to Maryhill?’ I ask.

  She glances at me. ‘I don’t like going this way.’

  ‘It’s quicker. I know where I’m going.’ And to change the subject, I tell her what’s going on at home: that Isobel worries me because she’s preparing for her Grade 8 piano exam in July and hardly leaves the front room. ‘Wait till you hear her, though,’ I say. ‘She’s bloody amazing, takes after my father.’ Then I ask her, ‘What’s the history of the piano?’

  Margie talks through the windscreen, and I think that Isobel isn’t the only shy introvert in the family. ‘It was Evelyn Ballantine’s. She played well, I remember.’

  ‘We had it restored. Cost a fortune, but the man said it was in good nick and had a clear tone. Did you ever play?’

  She shakes her head.

  Here I am, in full flight, chatting away. I can’t help filling in the silence. ‘Tonight the theatre group is coming over. We meet every Monday night in the dining room at seven-thirty.’ Still nothing from Margie, but I stubbornly persist because the play is important to me and all this will be going on around her while she stays with us. ‘It’s a big deal for me because it’s the first play I’ve ever written. I’ve been working on it since the girls were little. And the group has been rehearsing for the past few months.’

  She looks out the passenger window, a snub.

  I think of putting on some music; instead I keep talking, because I’m totally obsessed with the play. ‘It’s being performed at the old Town Hall in Benalla at the end of April. That’s why I’m desperate to get the funding. There are only eight members in the group and I’m hoping Ross will help out.’

  At the mention of his name, she glances at me. I wait, thinking she’s going to ask me something, but she remains silent.

  ‘We’ve got a lovely old bloke doing the staging and lighting, but he’s in his late seventies. He’ll need help.’

  On the left is a narrow creek and a line of blackberry bushes the size of houses. Kilometres pa
ss, dust billows behind, and I think about the application, the budget, the emails I’ve got to send to chase up references, the publicity with the local paper, an update on my group’s Facebook page.

  We cross an angled bridge that takes us left across the creek. Redbox and peppermint gums arch the road like a eucalypt guard of honour. It’s isolated up here, but I decide I’ll come this way again because it’s quicker and less boring than the run south down the Hume.

  Up ahead, to the right, I see an animal – a cow? – and brake. We stop suddenly. Margie puts her hand to her mouth.

  I inhale. A sambar deer, majestic in its stance and gaze, steps onto the road. No antlers, a doe, and we watch her turn back towards the scrubby undergrowth as if there’s no hurry, and in seconds she’s gone.

  I slap the steering wheel and rave about how incredible it was. ‘Bloody amazing.’ I ask Margie if she’s ever seen a wild deer.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, hugging herself even though it’s not cold.

  I can’t tell what she’s thinking when we turn into the driveway, how it must feel to return to where she lived for more than forty years. I stop and reach into the milk-can letterbox, pulling out the Weekly Times and Stock & Land, and other mail.

  She holds herself tight as she limp-shuffles her way on the crutches to the back door. She won’t accept my help, but agonises over how to step up inside the back porch; then again as she steps inside to the family room. This place is so familiar to her, yet she’s tense and I don’t know how to make it easier for her. I direct her into the room beside the kitchen and she stares at me as if I’ve done something wrong.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ I say. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  She shakes her head but then tells me her laundry needs doing. ‘I’m out of clothes.’

  Inside the bag, her garments are thin and frayed: trackpants and tops, a pilled cardigan, a threadbare pink nightie, bras and undies with no elasticity. They’re in such bad shape that I wouldn’t even shove any of them into a garbage bag and dump them in a Vinnies bin.

  The cotton quilt on the bed should be the right weight for her. I fluff the pillows. Then part the curtains, and open the window. A breeze hushes in. Magpies warble.