Stella and Margie Read online

  I’m gathering up Margie’s laundry when I realise she will struggle to change from her clothes into her nightie. ‘Need help?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘When you’ve changed, would you like to sit in the family room to get the sun?’

  ‘I’d like to rest in bed,’ she says.

  ‘It’ll be easier if you let me help you.’

  ‘I can manage,’ she says, looking out the window as if distracted.

  So I take her washing and go.

  Chapter 4

  Margie

  WHEN Stella comes to my bedroom door, she barely knocks before hurrying in, already onto the next thing. It’s not even four in the afternoon and she’s pushing my freshly laundered clothes into the set of drawers – it’s not possible they’ve dried on the line since she took them from me. It’s a warm day and she’s used the dryer and I can’t quite believe it.

  She tells me I should get up, that she’ll make me a cup of tea. ‘And perhaps you can sit outside. The pergola is gorgeous in the afternoons.’

  I had already thought the pergola would be nice, but I won’t go now. She’ll get the idea she can tell me what to do. ‘A cup of tea and a biscuit,’ I say, ‘if you have one.’

  ‘No worries,’ she says, off again.

  I’m in the room beside the kitchen. She said it will be easier for her to check on me. But she didn’t think of the noise. I won’t rest here.

  A tap runs; a cupboard opens and closes. And the girls aren’t even home from school. I can’t imagine how I’ll cope.

  Stella doesn’t know it, but this room once served as my overflow pantry. Alexander Ballantine designed and built the house in 1920 – a good job except for the small kitchen, which only has one narrow storage cupboard. Ross and Stella have redecorated the kitchen, all white and stainless steel, but it still sits inside the original cavity. They don’t do what we did – the other Ballantine wives and I – eking out space that wasn’t there when we bottled fruit, made jam, or baked and prepared six dozen lamingtons for the footy cake stall. Norman and I didn’t entertain, so the dining room was not a problem, but I’ve always wondered how our ancestors managed to cater for their guests around the twenty-seater table.

  My bed is along the wall where metal racks were stacked with my preserves and Fowlers bottles of cherries, peaches, apricots, pears. Stella now refers to this room as the guestroom. So I am a guest in my old pantry. Propped against the pillows, I see my ghost walk in, wearing the tweed skirt and pale-blue twin-set that I once favoured. I’m efficient, the way I pick up a size-seventeen tapered Fowlers jar of peaches. I close the door behind me, leaving the room in the cool and dark. How bizarre it is to be in this room and notice that time is unstoppable. I feel every one of my eighty years.

  The room has been painted a too-bright blue, like the sky on a clear summer’s day: the same colour is also above the picture rail and on the ceiling. All the ceilings in this house are twelve feet high, but the vibrant paint here creates the illusion of a perfect square and I feel as though I’m inside a large box. I know this house very well and can testify that the ceiling roses in every other room are symmetrical clusters of curly leaves and thistles; except in the main bedroom, which has an entwined pattern of roses and lilies in a large oval shape. The plaster rose in the centre of this ceiling is plain, unadorned, a statement about the room’s insignificance. The light fitting is a large white paper-and-wire ball, ridiculous and modern. And, worse, the window is framed with a hessian curtain; it’s unhemmed and lengths of fabric drape on the floor.

  For half an hour now I’ve been listening to Ross and the girls. They’ve been in the kitchen and moved to the family-room table. I hear laughter, his tenor voice and the light banter of happy children. I’m curious, and recall that Norman was never inside at this time of day. But then Stella would have told Ross to pick the children up from the bus because whatever he was doing wasn’t as important as this concern she has about funding her play.

  I get the impression that Ross is heading out; I know the sounds: the retreating steps to the back door, the clipped tone of his words. He has not come to see me, and I decide I am unhappy here. With this bung hip, everything is a disaster.

  I weigh up my options. They are few. Only one is possibly satisfactory, and that’s going to any rehab place with a vacancy. Shepparton might be an option.

  There’s a knock on my door.

  The little one comes in and smiles. Her red hair isn’t tied back and I’d not realised before that it’s got quite a kink to it. She won’t like it when she gets older.

  ‘Hi, Nan,’ she says.

  ‘Hello, pet.’

  She stands in front of me and starts talking, long, fast sentences, and I’m confused, worrying about which of us is in the wrong. Should I be following this?

  I smile. ‘Did you say rabbits?’

  ‘Yes. Dad’s going to gas them. But rabbits have two holes to every burrow, so you have to fill one in so they don’t escape, then put poison down the other hole and block it with newspaper.’

  I tell her I know all about that. ‘Your Uncle Mark,’ I say, ‘had a ferret.’

  She smiles more widely, as if I said something funny. ‘I don’t have an uncle.’

  She’s ten years old, so I don’t blame her for not knowing. But Mark is in our family, his hand was warm when I held it that last time, and we can never forget him.

  ‘Yes, you do. He was your father’s older brother. My first baby. But he died.’

  She seems unconcerned by this and continues to smile. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Never mind,’ I say. I sit up and hang my feet over the side of the bed. ‘Can you push my slippers on?’ I ask, trying for her name – when I remember, I must write it down.

  She bends over and I curl my toes so she won’t see my long yellowing nails. I am ashamed to appear so ugly in front of this child. She tickles my feet, thinks it’s funny and giggles. I am not amused and reach for my dressing-gown and put it on. I tie the sash. Then move forward, like a launching ship, and stand on my left foot while balancing on the wretched crutches. ‘Open the door,’ I command.

  If she notices a shift in my mood, she doesn’t show it or care. She’s talking at me again. ‘Dad’s getting more dung beetles to live in the paddocks. They eat the cow poo. Did you know that?’

  I walk out of the room slowly, gripping the handles of my crutches, and decide this child thrives on attention and should not be encouraged.

  I stand hunched and scan the family room. Immediately I notice things that I would straighten up, throw out, clean, dust, make disappear.

  The girls are staring into their iPads. Dot had one, and it amazed me how often I’d find her staring into it. These children seem affected in the same way. There’s nothing for it, so I go to sit on the edge of the couch and look at what they’re doing. But I can’t describe what I am seeing because everything is moving too fast – animated people flying in space that then appear to be on land. I can’t keep up and become more interested in the children, their transfixed faces. It’s not normal. They should be outside in the fresh air.

  ‘Have you got school readers?’ I ask.

  Isobel glances at me. ‘No.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a reader?’

  ‘Because I finished my book and get another one on library day.’

  I don’t like her impatient tone, as if I’m a nuisance interrupting her.

  The little one tells me she’s reading ‘level thirty’ words, as if that means something to me. She smiles, and I see she’ll need braces. I glance into their iPads, but this bores me and I don’t know what to do next. I feel a sadness for these children, that they’re being entertained with this rubbish and not outdoors.

  On the coffee table is a bird book with coloured tags that someone has used to mark identified birds. I flick through it and count thirty-five that have been spotted. My tally – after fifty years of birdwatching here and at Bishop Street – is one
hundred and fifty-two.

  Another book lies underneath a tissue box: Maggie Smith’s biography. I recognise her face from Downton Abbey; she played Countess Violet. I pick it up and start reading.

  I move to a window where the light is better and disrupt the sleeping cat. It reminds me of Diva, Dot’s cat, and runs to the couch where it curls, as it pleases, on Isobel’s lap. Having an animal in the house depresses me; I feel the disquiet of unseen germs. But the book engages me, and suddenly Stella appears, demanding the children stop what they’re doing. ‘Isobel, set the table,’ she yells. ‘Jemima, feed the cat.’

  Jemima – the name reminds me of a ragdoll and I don’t know why.

  It’s all action: kids running, Stella reaching and bending in the kitchen, getting dinner.

  I always knew what the meals would be at least a day in advance – a private menu in my head that I delivered, almost without fail, every day for the years I was married to Norman. When it was just Ross and me, I hardly bothered because I never knew when he was going to show up.

  Once Stella is finished in the kitchen and Ross has returned, the five of us sit around the table. I’m at the end where Norman used to sit. I wonder if Ross remembers the places where we always sat: Norman, me, Mark, Caroline and him. I decide not to ask. He seems tense; his shoulders aren’t relaxed. The demands that Stella puts on him must stress him.

  We eat penne from bowls. All she’s done is boil the pasta up in a saucepan and tip a jar of shop-bought tomato pasta sauce on top. There’s no cheese to sprinkle over it. And no meat – a working man needs his meat for strength. I watch Ross scoop up the penne; he seems hungry and this will not be enough.

  ‘When is calving?’ I ask him.

  He moves his neck as if to ease pain, and before he can answer, Jemima interrupts, telling everyone I’ve got the longest toenails she’s ever seen. ‘You should see them,’ she says, holding her fingers apart to exaggerate the length.

  I bear my humiliation by ignoring her and repeat my question to Ross. But if he answers, I don’t hear it. Stella and Ross are clearing the table.

  ‘They’ll be here any minute,’ Stella says.

  When my bowl is whisked away, there’s still a spoon of penne left. I would like to eat it, but no one asks me.

  I need a pain tablet, but the idea of hobbling along to my bedroom to get one, then to the kitchen for a glass of water – versus asking someone to bring everything to me – is too complicated. I do nothing and my hip hurts.

  There’s a knock at the back door and Stella is light on her feet, rushing to the porch and smiling as if she’s happy. The narrow heels on her shoes will surely damage the floor. In the few minutes since the dinner table was cleared, she’s changed into tight white jeans and a pink knit top. Red lipstick, and her blonde hair is clipped high on her head and somehow stays there. Gold dangly earrings make her look more dressed up than she is.

  I return to the Maggie Smith biography, but I’m listening, not reading. Piano faintly drifts down the hallway from the front room – scales up and down the keyboard, then other blocks of keys, but not a real tune. I suppose that’s what practice is. Ross is running the taps in the kitchen to rinse the dishes and pack the dishwasher; not Norman, he never washed a dish in our whole marriage.

  A casually dressed young man, holding a violin case, enters the room. His black hair is strangely shaved on the sides but long and slick on the top, an exaggerated version of what we used to call short back and sides. I can’t keep up with the fashion. When he turns to face the room, I see his eyes are large, soft and dark, like those of a sooty owl, and I think this fellow might be very handsome. He raises his hand in a half-wave to me. ‘Noah,’ he says, and before I think how to reply, he enters the kitchen – as though he knows his way around – and starts talking to Ross.

  Stella has rushed off again. Someone else has arrived. I feel this evening might be very long, yet for me the day has ended. I decide to go to bed, and already I know I will be disturbed by all this coming and going.

  I’m on my feet, gripping the crutches.

  From the back porch, Stella laughs. Then I hear a familiar man’s voice – and with that deep mellow sound comes the image of a face. I freeze.

  In they walk, Stella and Chester. She’s holding his arm as if they’re going for a Sunday afternoon stroll. His smile is as it always was: charming, slightly crooked, his eyes narrowed to a squint. He looks cheeky, a handsome rascal, and I’m furious with the situation, him here in this house, and with her. He’s wearing a very nice blue herringbone jacket and a white shirt with light-brown trousers – unusually dressed up for the occasion, I would’ve thought. These days he’s slightly stooped. I don’t like his moustache; it’s as though he’s trying to look younger and distract from the fact that there’s not much left on top.

  ‘Margie,’ Stella says, ‘you know Chester, don’t you? He’s the group’s poet, and our set-and-lighting man.’

  I know a lot more about Chester Sullivan than she’ll ever find out. I wasn’t prepared to see him yesterday at the hospital. And I’m not prepared now. I don’t want the upset.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ he says, smiling.

  I don’t know what to say. My hip aches and I shift my weight.

  Stella notices. ‘Margie, you look a bit uncomfortable. Why don’t you sit down?’

  Then I do smile. ‘I’m perfectly fine. But it’s been a long day. Have a good meeting.’

  It is my intention to breeze out of the room with my head high, but my slipper kicks against the Persian rug. My step falters.

  Chester’s arm is around my back. ‘Steady there.’

  Other people are walking into the room, a man and two women about forty or fifty years old; I can’t tell people’s ages anymore – everyone looks young.

  Stella goes to them. And Chester releases his hold on me.

  My hair hasn’t been washed in days and I feel embarrassed. I look down to see my baggy trackpants and dowdy maroon slippers. Chester is wearing modern shoes, brown leather with little holes patterned on the sides. His trousers have a pressed crease and sit exactly in the right spot on his shoelaces. I don’t want to lift my face – I’m shy now and don’t trust my facial muscles to remain composed – but I can’t keep staring at our feet. There’s nothing for it. So I glance up at Chester – as he turns to the others, a small group, strangers to me. They’re all talking and there’s so much noise. A woman has brought a cake. A young girl with big-framed glasses and auburn hair is holding a bottle of wine.

  I hobble away on the crutches and don’t look back.

  It’s a long, slow hassle in the bathroom. And when I lift myself into bed and finally reach for my tablets, I decide to take two of the blue ones: one for my hip and one for my heart. They’re the ones that deaden pain.

  I turn off the lamp. There are magpies outside and I close my eyes to their lovely sound. A pleasant breeze comes through the window. How terribly strange to be lying in the storage room while Chester is so close in the dining room, with Stella and those other people in her theatre group. I can hear the murmur of their voices, soft bursts of laughter. I feel my breath and wait for sleep.

  A tap on the door; someone peeks in.

  ‘You asleep, Nan?’ Isobel whispers into the dim light. ‘Mum said to bring you this.’

  I don’t move or speak.

  She creeps in, hovers next to me and tugs the blanket a little higher over my shoulder. Something is put on the bedside table.

  The door shuts quietly.

  When I put the lamp back on, I find a cup of tea and a slice of apple cake on a bread-and-butter plate. I recognise the plate, green scalloped edges with a pink floral design; it’s from the old Royal Doulton set that Evelyn Ballantine used when I first visited here, before Norman and I became engaged. She served slices of coconut and raspberry jam tart, and this could be the very plate I so nervously held. Both she and Freddie smiled a lot; they seemed eager, as if they themselves were nervous.
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  I decide not to eat the apple cake or drink the tea so I can pronounce in the morning that I was very much asleep when Isobel walked in. But I’m weary with the effort of keeping my guard up; most times I don’t understand why I feel so irritable and driven to be difficult. Perhaps it’s habit? Whatever the reason, it’s tiring to be in this house with all the old memories.

  Then through the wall floats the soft hesitant sound of a violin – mellow, almost flute-like. It’s quite lovely and unexpected. I recognise the tune, but can’t quite remember its name. It stops and I strain to hear. The patter of voices. The violin starts again: the same tune, but a little faster, which I think is better.

  It’s no use. I cannot sleep knowing Chester is in the house. I sit up and reach for the tea. It’s lukewarm but quite nice. And the cake looks very moist. So I eat it.

  Chapter 5

  Stella

  AFTER Isobel was born, it was so quiet in the house, lovely though – and I’m not complaining – but I missed the theatre. And because I had swollen breasts and a baby sucking on me, that precious closeness, it was natural to think of my mother, Grace Adams. She died when I was seventeen, so a lot was left unsaid between us, and I’d say now that I misunderstood her. She had an executive position in a bank and spent all her time at work, on the phone or asleep in her bed. I wrote my two-act play as a way of getting to know her.

  It’s centred around a family gathering she held one hot Saturday afternoon in the late 1980s. She asked my brother, Tommy, and me to sit at the kitchen table. It felt formal, like a meeting she’d have in her office. A fan oscillated on the bench. The vinyl chairs were sticky on our bare legs. Our household had been unhappy for some time. Mum had recently kicked out our dad and within a fortnight introduced us to her new lover: a tall, quiet man with downcast eyes called Graham.

  The family meeting didn’t go well. We couldn’t forgive her for discarding our wonderful red-headed, piano-playing dad. And we had so many other complaints. I tell them in the play: some are funny, others sad. Mum was trying to explain to us she was a person, an individual, not just a mother. ‘I did my best!’ she cried. That’s where the play’s name comes from. Tommy and I were cruel; we told her that her best wasn’t good enough.