Stella and Margie Read online

  In between having my three babies, working with Ross on the farm, volunteering at the school and being a part of various local theatre groups, it took me fourteen years to write I Did My Best, and when it was finished I realised it wasn’t really about Mum anymore. To give it pace, pathos and humour, I exaggerated the characters and their grievances, com pressed time and made lots of things up. And I can’t say I understand the decisions she made anymore today than when I started. But if anything, I now agree with her – she did her best. Just like I’m doing with my girls. Will I do any better? I hope so. Maybe.

  Two years after that meeting around the kitchen table, a brain tumour took her away. It accounted for all the headaches, why she so often closed her bedroom door on us. Even so, Graham was allowed in.

  I don’t care about any of that anymore. Truly. What I care about is I Did My Best, the production, making it a success. And I suppose I owe Mum an apology for reshaping her story and turning it into something else.

  Noah, who I’ve cast as my brother, stands in front of the unlit fireplace giving a rendition of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. There are faint traces of grease on his fingernails. He plays his violin with his beautiful dark eyes closed, moving his body, ignoring us. For the second piece, he puts his phone on the end of the table and opens a violin-playing app that prompts him with a Bach minuet. He seems awkward with this choice of music and doesn’t play with the same confidence. I’ll talk to him privately about maybe sticking to contemporary pieces.

  When he finishes he looks at us, waiting for applause. Some actors want loads of praise even if their performance is just average.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I say. Someone claps. He takes a cheerful bow and sits.

  Noah is our tractor mechanic. Maybe once every six months, Ross calls him to come to the farm to service and repair the McCormick: to change the oil and filters, grease the points, and check the belts, seals and hydraulics. Last time he repaired the clutch, a six-thousand-dollar job. Ross and I gaped at each other when he turned up at the auditions and said he was also performing as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz with the Wangaratta Players.

  I hand the funding application to Chester, who passes copies around the table. The mood is relaxed – perhaps too relaxed, or I’m just wired.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Felicity says. ‘What’s all this paperwork for fifteen grand?’

  Felicity, who plays my mother, is in her fifties: a little old for the role, but she’s tall and her voice is strong, which gives her a good presence. I’m not convinced she empathises with the character – that she’s going deep enough into the domestic tragedy. She’s been married twice and I’ve wondered if that’s the problem, that it’s too real for her. Ross listened to the audio of her reading and said she was good. She’s brilliant at the humour. I find it hard to be objective because I’ve been involved in it for so long; I need to let go and trust her. I’ve known her for years; we kept bumping into each other at various productions in the north-east, and when I floated the idea of starting our own theatre group, she kept hassling me until I did it. She’s a retired drama teacher, loves community theatre and is as obsessed as me.

  Owen is sitting beside Felicity. He’s playing my father, the abandoned husband, who appears in Act Two. He’s about Felicity’s age, but they don’t look like a couple, and his appearance is nothing like Dad’s. Owen is bald, wears square tortoiseshell glasses and dresses like a male model in a farm-clothing catalogue: handsome, clean, neat and boring. He fancies himself as a better actor than the rest, but there’s often a cast member like that. The negative energy between him and Felicity works perfectly; it makes sense that their characters aren’t together. Owen’s a radiologist and perhaps didn’t have dinner before he came – he’s on his third piece of apple cake and casually brushes crumbs onto the floor.

  ‘I’ve got till five on Thursday,’ I say, drawing attention to the budget items I need input on. I ask Chester how much he’ll require for the sets and lighting.

  He tugs a piece of paper from his trouser pocket and pushes it towards me. ‘About a thousand for the sets, but it depends on the final design. With lighting, I’ve had a look on YouTube – I reckon we can get away with six spotlights.’

  Amber is texting. She plays me. Her gorgeous copper hair covers her pale face and hides her black-rimmed glasses. ‘Teddy’s waiting out the front…’ she tells me as if asking permission to go meet her boyfriend, but I know she’s leaving now.

  After she’s gone, I worry this meeting has been a waste of time. I’d have done better to work on the application alone, but I thought it a good idea to have their input, to involve them – that’s how community theatre works.

  Next to Amber’s empty chair is Holly. She plays one of Mum’s girlfriends, and she’s also put her hand up to help with the marketing and PR. Tonight she has a bruise on her neck, an unmistakable lovebite. It’s been a long time since I had one – and I’ve never seen one on a woman in her forties before. She should be wearing a scarf. As I think this, I consider myself a prude: finally I have something in common with Margie.

  Three others faithfully come every week. They’re reserved, perhaps shy, and the man is very overweight. They’re willing workers and will take care of everything back of house – setting up, ticket sales, seating; there’s so much small stuff.

  We work through the funding application quickly. I’ve nothing else for them, but it feels too soon to end the evening. I hesitate, wondering what we should do. Perhaps we could read through Act Two, Scene One – it’s when Dad arrives, the tension builds and Grace breaks down, saying, I’m entitled to have a life!

  The Ballantine portraits are in the shadows. The bulbs inside the chandeliers aren’t strong enough to throw a decent light in the long room. The high-gloss polish on the table shines in spite of the dust. The lovely green and pink bread-and-butter plates are now empty, spaced around the table with silver forks on them. I decide to call an end to the meeting.

  But Chester raises a hand. We all turn.

  ‘I have a poem I’d like to read, if I may.’

  I’m intrigued by this man, the flirting poet, farmer and handyman. Ross has told me he’s the father of the boy who was killed in the car crash with his brother, Mark. That the boy was Chester’s only child. I know he lives with his wife, Laura, behind the hedge on Black Wattle Road. Ross picks up gossip around the place – for certain men gossip more than women. He told me that Laura has a serious heart condition and has recently been in hospital. In all the years I’ve lived up here on the tableland, I’ve only seen her a couple of times. Thin and unfriendly. It’s always seemed odd to me that Chester has such a stuck-up wife when he is so outgoing. All I know about Laura is she’s a dedicated botanical artist; we have one of her pieces in the front room beside the piano.

  Chester reaches inside his blue jacket and flaps out a sheet of paper. He takes his time to find his wire-framed reading glasses and put them on. He tells us he wrote this poem forty years ago. He smiles as if remembering something that pleases him. ‘It’s called “Purple Clematis”,’ he says.

  Beyond the row of hollyhocks

  Through bracken lush and green

  I see

  A gash of purple

  A slice of skin

  Your face, your wrist

  A trick, a dream

  I hear

  He has a good voice – deep, slow and commanding. It requires our attention; we’re all looking at him. If he was younger, he’d be perfect for the husband that Owen is playing.

  Your laugh

  The rustling leaves

  The drumming of my heart

  Or is that rain

  Upon the eaves

  It feels as though the sound will shake

  The birds from watchful trees

  Time will shudder to a halt

  And wind forget to breathe

  You’re here; you’ve come

  Purple clematis

  Unravelling her hair across the
>
  Forest floor

  Lifting up her dancing skirts

  Her legs uprooted from the earth

  A fierce, sweet, need…

  His voice is very quiet now, like he’s hearing his own words, thinking his own thoughts, and I try to imagine his wife. This is for her. The poem is beautiful; we’re all transfixed and perhaps a little embarrassed for him, that this farmer cum set-and-lighting man is sharing something so intimate. I’m confused about why he’s reading this to us – his poems are usually clever observations of people, politics. Chester is a philosopher, but tonight he is also a romantic.

  The apples are fresh

  You hold one to my mouth

  I feel the cool, crisp texture on my tongue

  Sweet thirst

  And then your hand retreats too sharply

  And you laugh

  A bull ant works its way across the sill

  The damp skin

  Where lips and white flesh touched

  Burning still

  Chester’s voice trails off. He’s not looking at the sheet of paper because he knows the last words.

  We lie like this

  Entwined and yet unwound

  The purple clematis dress abandoned

  Half-eaten apples on the ground

  When he’s finished he looks at us, taking us in. Noah and Felicity surround him. We sit in silence; no one moves until Chester sits down. He wipes his eyes, but I didn’t see tears.

  ‘Bloody awesome,’ Noah says.

  I kiss Chester on the cheek and pat his arm. ‘Thank you,’ I say. But I’m now worried for him. That his wife is ill and whatever that means for him, I can’t imagine.

  I’m not expecting it when he puts his arm firmly around my waist. ‘So you’ve got Margie back in the house with you?’ When I nod, he says, ‘She was a beauty in her day,’ and mouths a kiss.

  After they’ve all gone, and Ross is helping me clear the plates and glasses, I try to explain Chester’s poem, his voice, the feeling of it.

  Ross shrugs. ‘Always been on the unconventional side of things. But he’s handy in a toolshed.’

  ‘And he says your mother was nice-looking when she was younger. Why would he say that?’

  Ross pauses, thinking. ‘There’s something, I remember.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dunno. Nothing.’

  ‘Bullshit. Tell me. What do you mean, there’s something?’

  He smiles at me across the table. ‘Nothing. Truly. Nothing.’

  Chapter 6

  Margie

  IT’S Thursday morning and Stella has been in the dining room for almost two hours. I’ve heard the kettle boil, the cutlery drawer rattle. Ross has already left the house; I think without breakfast because I didn’t hear him in the kitchen.

  My hip aches, so I shift onto my back. I don’t like this hard mattress. Or the effort it will take to get out of bed and go to the toilet, then dress. My scalp itches and I can’t remember when my hair was last washed. I’ve not showered in the four days I’ve been here and I must smell a bit off. I can’t really tell, although I do feel on the sour side of things.

  I’m supposed to do exercises, so I move my feet up and down a few times. It hurts to lift my right leg, so I don’t. I’m uncomfortable, my bladder is full, and I hate this room and Stella for putting me in here. I turn to the hessian curtains. Not far from the claret ash and magnolias, over where the tap is, magpies start carolling. There are a few, eight or more, claiming their territory. Hearing them cheers me up.

  I sit and carefully position my legs over the edge of the bed. I move slowly, gripping as hard as I can onto these perilous crutches. I’m not bothered with the dressing-gown and step-hop my way out of the storeroom-bedroom and along the hallway in my short pink nightie. My feet are bare and I see my toenails are yellow talons, but I can’t bend down to clip them and don’t know how to solve the problem. The cat disappears around the corner; its tail gives a little wave and is gone. It should be outside, but then it’ll kill birds.

  More than my hip hurts as I pass my old bedroom door. It’s disorientating here at Maryhill – I feel like I’m reaching back in time and claiming this place again. Everything is indelibly familiar, but there’s no doubting that this isn’t my home anymore.

  Stella has put a toilet chair over the bowl. I lower myself. It takes an age. Everything in my body is slow, yet my mind is impatient. My mother’s raspberry liqueur trifle in the diamond-cut crystal bowl comes to mind. A family gathering in my parents’ dining room. Lemon cordial. Laughter. I’m at a loss to understand the things that spring into my head. I exhale. I have no idea what I will do once I’ve had breakfast, how I’ll fill this day. It’s seven-forty-five on a school day and I wonder why the children are so quiet.

  Back in my bedroom, I put my dressing-gown on and lumber out to the kitchen on the crutches. The kettle is still warm and full enough, so I press the button. While I wait for it to boil, I push open the swing door into the dining room.

  Stella looks up.

  ‘Shouldn’t the children be awake?’ I say.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Quarter to eight.’

  ‘Shit!’ she roars, lunging from the dining chair, and without a thank you she’s through the door, yelling at the sleeping children as she runs down the hall.

  For the next short while I watch Stella empty day-old contents from lunchboxes into the bin, then refill them with roughly cling-wrapped cheese sandwiches: uncut, just two slices of bread slapped together with a square of processed cheese. And a banana.

  Isobel barely ate one Weet-Bix for her breakfast and left at least a cup of milk in the bowl. She is so thin and those dark-framed glasses are too big for her pale, narrow face. And Jemima only ate half a slice of toast; the other half is in her hand as she hurries out the door to the car. ‘Bye, Nan,’ she says, waving. Neither child has brushed her teeth.

  When I hear Stella’s car speed down the driveway, I settle in a lounge chair with a cup of tea. It’s not possible to count how many times I’ve sat in this family room. The couches, coffee table and television are different, but most is as it always was. The fireplace, the eight-seater dinner table and chairs. Alice Ballantine’s sideboard is where it’s been for more than a hundred years. I am alone and breathe in the quiet. It’s peaceful enough. And there by the bay window is the cat, staring at me. I look away but feel its eyes on me. Another image of Diva, Dot’s cat, returns: the way it smoothly curled through her legs and sprang onto her lap. They look the same, Diva and this one. But Stella said she was taking it to the vet. I will ask her.

  The pulsing discomfort in my hip reminds me I have a physio appointment at eleven, and I wonder if Ross and Stella have forgotten.

  Stella is back; the car stops abruptly.

  My chair is too low and I struggle to stand. I don’t want the pain that will come with the effort, but there is nothing for it. I edge my bottom forward and push up as I inhale, and I’m on my feet.

  Stella’s through the back door, half-running, in a terrible hurry, and I wonder if something is wrong.

  ‘Margie,’ she says, smiling, and I think her smile is very nice and she’s got good teeth. I can’t say the separate parts of her are attractive – her nose is on the big side and in profile has a slight bump at the bridge – but all put together she is quite eye-catching. ‘Can I get you anything? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say.

  ‘Why are you standing in the middle of the room?’

  I look down at myself and wonder the same thing. Then I remember I have something to say. ‘I’ve got a physio appointment at eleven.’

  ‘Really? Crap. Where’s Ross?’

  I look towards the back door, but she already has her phone out, pressing his number. And as she waits for him to answer, she hooks a strand of hair into the mess at the back of her head. Wherever my son is, he doesn’t answer and she leaves a message: ‘Your mother’s got a physio appointment at eleven.
Where are you?’ Then she turns to me and asks, ‘Have you had breakfast, Margie? You look a bit lost standing there.’

  The cat is at my feet and I lightly kick it away. ‘Is this Dot’s cat?’

  ‘Oh, Margie, you’re a shocker. Of course it is.’ She picks it up and hugs it close. The cat stares at me, hateful eyes.

  God help me. I have nothing to say.

  She phones Ross again, as if for some reason he’ll answer this time.

  The morning sun shows the dust on the floor, and I wonder when it was last vacuumed and mopped. On the table are the children’s dirty breakfast dishes, Ross’s iPad and the local newspaper, which I’ve already read. It’s got a large photo of Stella in it, with a story about her play, I Did My Best. The article says she’s an award-winning director and producer, something I don’t know anything about. I’m more suspicious than curious.

  ‘Where is Ross?’ I ask.

  ‘How would I know? I’m buried in the bloody arts funding application.’ She smiles at me as if I understand.

  ‘I don’t know anything about those things,’ I say. ‘But when’s he coming inside?’

  ‘God knows.’

  The back door slaps. We wait for Ross to appear. He walks in wearing his socks.

  ‘Missed your call,’ he says, looking at Stella.

  I must be invisible.

  ‘Your mum has a physio appointment in Benalla at eleven. You have to take her.’

  ‘Can’t. I’m sorting in the yards. The truck’s coming at midday for the weaners.’

  We look at him.

  ‘It’s the Euroa sale tomorrow,’ he explains.

  ‘But the application deadline is today at five,’ Stella says.