P. O’Reilly - The Fine Colour of Rust

My mother turns her attention to Melissa. ‘And you, young lady, are you doing well at school?’

Melissa looks at her grandmother with an arched eyebrow.

‘Yes, Grandmother,’ she answers.

‘I won’t have any granddaughter of mine being a dunce.’

Melissa turns her head and gives me a dead stare. I can’t believe she’s only eleven.

‘All right,’ I intervene briskly, ‘let’s talk about you, Mum. How are you feeling? When do you get out?’

‘I’m yellow, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Can I get a packet of chips too?’ Melissa says, so I give her some money and tell her to find Jake while she’s at it.

‘Good.’ My mother pushes herself upright in the bed as soon as Melissa has left the ward. ‘Now the children are gone we can talk. I’m going to sell up and move to Queensland, the Gold Coast. Albert’s bought a house on the canals with a swimming pool and a sauna. My liver’s packing up. I don’t know how I got this hepatitis thing, but I can only guess it was from your father all those years ago. That lying cheat. Apparently it’s contagious. You and the kids had the test like I told you?’

‘Yes, we’re fine. Who’s Albert?’ I am incredulous.

‘He’s from the bingo. He’s no great catch, I admit that, but who else is offering me a house in the sunshine?’

‘Not the one with the five Chihuahuas? The one you used to make jokes about?’

‘Having those dogs doesn’t actually mean he’s homosexual. He’s quite virile for an older gentleman.’

‘Oh, Mum, enough detail. And why can’t you say this in front of the kids?’

‘You need to tell them in your own time. I know they’ll be upset I’m leaving, but when they get older they’ll understand.’

‘I’ll break it to them gently.’ I don’t want to point out that we only come down to Melbourne at Christmas and her birthday anyway.

‘Tammy and Patsy’ll miss you,’ I say. ‘And the junior poets.’

My mother almost smiles before she says, ‘I love Tammy’s children dearly, you know that, Loretta.’

‘I know.’

‘Anyway, when I sell, I’m giving you a few thousand dollars. Don’t tell Tammy or Patsy. You need it, they don’t.’

From down the corridor comes a long howl, followed by grievous sobbing.

‘They torture people in here, you know,’ Mum says. ‘The nights are hell. The screaming and moaning, it’s like being inside a horror film.’

I have a bad feeling that I recognize that howl. But rather than spoil the moment, I think about the good things.

‘A few thousand dollars?’ I say.

‘Depending on the price I get for the flat. You’ll get something, anyway. Five or six thousand maybe.’

A holiday for one – or two? – in Bali, I think. Or an air conditioner. Or both! A proper haircut and blonde tips! A bra that doesn’t creak! Champagne and sloppy French cheese and pâté! Silk knickers!

‘I expect you’ll want to spend it on the kids, but keep a couple of dollars for yourself, won’t you. You could use a bit of smartening up. Any men on the horizon?’

‘Actually,’ I say, ‘there’s a rather good-looking mechanic who definitely has eyes for me. He keeps himself quite clean, too.’

‘As opposed to that grubby old junk man you hang around with?’

‘Yes, as opposed to Norm, who has his own special standard of hygiene.’

‘And has this bloke asked you out?’

‘Not yet.’ Needless to say, he hasn’t recognized yet that he has eyes for me. I wonder if I am talking about Merv Bull? Have I developed a crush? Am I becoming Helen?

From down the corridor, the howling and sobbing is growing louder. I can’t avoid it now.

‘You need to look for your mother,’ I can hear a woman telling Jake. ‘Open your eyes, dear.’

‘Loretta, you should give up that political hocus-pocus you’ve got yourself into. Put your energy into finding a partner and a father for those children.’

‘The Save Our School Committee is precisely for “those children”. Anyway, we’ve had a win. The minister for education’s coming to Gunapan in a few weeks. We’ve got a chance to change his mind about closing the school.’

‘Is he married?’

Jake’s sobbing, very close now, startles awake the man in the bed across from Mum. He raises his spotty head and shouts, ‘You buggers! You buggers! Get out of it, you buggers!’

‘Shut up,’ my mother calls over at him and he stops immediately.

‘Nutcase,’ she says to me. ‘Every time he wakes up he thinks the Germans are coming for him.’ Mum lets her head drop back on to the pillow and stares at the ceiling. ‘The Gold Coast. I can’t wait.’

‘So when do you go?’

‘Mummeeeeeeee,’ Jake screams as he runs into the room and flings his round little body on to my lap. He buries his face in my shirt, covering me in snot and tears. Melissa strolls in behind him eating a chocolate bar.

‘The lady says she’s going to clean up Jake’s chips.’

With Jake in my arms I stagger out to the corridor and call out thanks to his rescuer, a woman in a blue cleaner’s uniform who is hurrying back towards the lift.

‘What were you doing on the second floor, Jakie?’

‘Idroppedmychipsntheysaidicouldn’teatthemoffthefloorn dicouldn’tfindyooooooo.’ His sobbing is slowing now. ‘So, so so Itriedtofindyouand, hic, Icouldn’tfindyouandIwent, hm, downthestairsand, ugh, theladysawmeand…’

‘Ssh, ssh.’ I squeeze him tightly to me.

‘I’m tired now,’ my mother says from the bed. ‘Thanks for visiting, darlings.’

On the way back to the motel I ask the kids what they’d buy if they had a thousand dollars.

‘A motel!’ Jake screams.

‘What would you buy, Liss?’ I can see her in the rear-view mirror. She looks out through the window for a while, down at her hands, back out through the window.

‘I dunno.’

‘Go on, a thousand dollars. What would you get?’

She sighs a great heaving sigh and writes something on the car window with her fingertip.

‘Some proper clothes. From a proper shop so I’m not the world’s biggest dag.’

‘Don’t be silly, you look beautiful. You could wear a sack and you’d look beautiful.’

We pull into the motel car park to pick up our bags from reception and have a toilet break before the long drive back to Gunapan. Once we’re on the highway I drive for an hour, and when it gets dark we stop at a roadhouse. We order the lamb stew with chips and milkshakes and sit down at a table beside a man who resembles a side of beef and who appears to be eating a side of beef. At the far end of the roadhouse café is another family. They seem to be trying to stay away from everyone else, like that family at the waterhole.

‘Who are those people we saw up on the hill at the waterhole the other day?’ I ask Melissa, who’s leafing through an ancient women’s magazine she found on the table. She shrugs. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen them before,’ I go on talking to myself.

‘Can I watch TV when we get home tonight?’ Jake asks.

‘No.’

‘Miss Claffy had an engagement ring on yesterday,’ Melissa says. The magazine is open at the page of a starlet wearing an engagement ring that could sink the Titanic. The food arrives at the table. I can tell immediately that I’ve made a mistake ordering the stew. I thought it would be healthier than hamburgers.

‘Is this lamb?’ Jake asks.

‘I think it was lamb a few years ago,’ I tell him through a mouthful of gristle. Grinding this meat down to a consistency I can swallow is a full-body workout.

‘Can we have pizza tomorrow night?’

‘The ring had a diamond on it. Miss Claffy said diamond can cut a hole in glass.’