Peter Carey - Amnesia

Would you like a cup of tea? she asked.

Her guest set the memorial on the table. Gaby thought, oh dear she really wants to sell it to me. Tea?

That would be nice dear.

A bickie?

You don’t happen to have sardines I suppose? She had removed her fur and coat and revealed another layer of black, a smartly tailored suit cut quite snugly. So much better for your memory.

On toast?

A fork would be lovely.

Gaby found the sardines and put the kettle on.

I’m Doris, her guest said.

I’m Gaby. Gabrielle.

It’s a very pretty name. Were you practising your music?

I’m reading.

Do you like to read?

Yes, but this book is a little hard.

The old lady had deep-set eyes, and a very straight mouth that occasionally revealed the smallest most beguiling movement in the direction of a smile. Your mother was a terrific reader.

Well, everybody knew her mother, or claimed to, even if it wasn’t true.

The visitor ate her sardines from a cereal bowl. She slid the photograph across the table. You know who it is?

You look very pretty.

No, the girl.

That’s your daughter?

That’s right. And who is she?

What do you mean?

I am your nanna, the old lady said, using a tiny handkerchief to remove sardine oil so delicately that the lipstick almost survived intact.

How do you mean?

I’m your nanna. I’m your lovely old granny, dear.

Gaby sat down suddenly. She looked through the cracked glass, at the image of her mother. It was not like her at all. Her clothes were awful, like a refugee, like things from a lost and found. She had long socks up to her knees and a tummy showing through her poor tight sweater.

I am Doris, the woman said.

She reached an oily hand to touch her granddaughter’s hair. Gaby drew away.

And you are the most beautiful, she said, of all of us.

Then she permitted the fishy hand to stroke her hair. She entered a disturbing variation of that hypnotic state she sometimes experienced when her hair was cut. Who can say how long the trance might have continued if the front door had not opened.

Here, the old woman said hurriedly. (It was a business card, a little oil-stained, SPRINGVALE TAXIS.) This is me, darling. I am at your service for anything you wish. The zoo, the Dandenongs, I’ll take you where you like. She was gathering her coat when Celine entered.

Hello, said Doris.

Did Celine know who it was?

Visiting my family, the old woman said. I brought you a present.

Gaby watched as her mother examined the framed photograph with its crazed glass.

Keep it, Doris said.

Thank you, Celine said, quickly placing it behind her.

Goodbye, Doris said to Gaby who was startled to see her poke her tongue out at Celine. And then she left, without explanation, soft as a cat, out the front door and out of sight.

I thought she died, Gaby said.

No, Celine said. Of course not. How could she be dead?

It was not her mother’s lie that shocked Gaby but her grandmother’s fur, the sardine smell, the poked tongue. She ran upstairs to wash her hair, knowing that she had been saved to live a happy life.

The unhappy part arrived soon enough.

She came home from soccer practice to see her father arranging polaroids along the mantelpiece. She closed the front door and the draft blew the photographs across the floor. He yelled at her.

She was a beloved child and this was unacceptable. She rushed to her room and locked her door. She waited for the apology. It did not come.

She heard the front gate squeak and knew it could only be her mother returning from her run. She unlocked her door and spied from her tent of darkness at the top of the stair: she saw that the photos had been restored to the mantelpiece. What did her father expect would happen now? Once more the door opened. Once more the photographs swooshed across the room. This time he did not yell. He watched as his wife knelt to pick them up and all was quiet a moment.

Then she throws them in his face and the child is electrified with fright. This never happened before. Sandy falls to his knees. He stacks the fallen pictures as tenderly as a boy with swap cards. When he speaks, his voice is very slow and very reasonable and it is clearly understood, by everyone, that he is in a towering rage. His face is unshaved and savage like something washed up on the beach.

The mother demands, We are not going through this again.

In a cardboard box, years later, there will be a faded polaroid of a weatherboard cottage, a dying lawn, a high lifeless brick fence like a blindfold on its eyes. Who would keep such a photograph and why?

He says, We won’t ever have a chance to own a house again.

Did this all really happen? Of course. She, the beautiful young woman, steps forward with her hands backwards on her hips. What did you say to me, Jack? (Saying Jack to make a stranger of him.)

He says they now have a chance to own a house.

She removes her headband and flicks her fair hair back over her shoulders. She says, You said it was obscene. “It” was the Saturday real estate circus, the yuppie home buyers who travelled from auction to auction in Carlton, double-parking along Canning Street, coveting the old working-class cottages.

Anyway, she says, we can’t be “home owners” even if we want to, not even in Coburg.

The man moves to a kitchen chair. The woman resists the implication that she should join him, but clearly he has something new to say. Go on, she says, from the doorway. What is it?

We have been offered the deposit, he announces.

Christ, the woman shouts. (Christ, the girl hears.) Can’t they just leave us alone? Can you win the election or not? Are you the best thing Coburg ever had? Does the idiot branch understand they’ve got themselves a cabinet minister in the making? Tell them to fuck off. We don’t want to borrow their dirty money.

Then he smiles. It is such a relief for the girl to see her daddy smile.

Not borrow, he says. Some blokes.

Blokes what?

They will make us a gift of the deposit.

Some Greek bloke?

No, not him.

She would have been outraged to know the money would come from Woody Townes. That particular revelation will be delayed until the divorce, at which time their so-called “marital property” will not be theirs at all, but an asset of one of Woody’s secret shell companies.

You be bloody careful Jack, she says. Honest people don’t have that sort of money.

There are great places with big backyards.

I can pay next month’s rent. All of it. I’ll get a second job.

He shrugs and stares into the fridge.

They want me to go to Coburg? Why? You got elected living here. Don’t turn your back. You think you can force me? Do you not understand anything about me?

There is nothing the girl can do to affect this conflict, which she will relate years later. Anyone listening to her adult recollection will hear how little distance she has from the event. She may be a “habitual law-breaker” but she still knows what it is like to flee to her cold bedroom and switch on the blower heater. She can tell you how she locks the door and waits. All her room is vile and empty. She wishes she had a kitten. If she was dead they wouldn’t know.

It is an eternity before her parents understand what they’ve done to her, and then they come creeping up the creaking stairs. Then they love her. Then she curls up in her mother’s lap. Publicly, she is her mother’s replicant. Privately, she feels herself to be a plain square little thing. She traces her mother’s beautiful face with her finger and calls on all her will, the great engine of her terror, to make them laugh and love each other. She can do that. She does it constantly. She performs a handstand and reads a poem. She clears the table without being asked and, when she finds the stack of photographs, she hides them in the drawer reserved for string and rubber bands. She knows she has the power to make her parents love each other. She is the force swinging between them. She is the heat and electricity and she will turn it off, forever, if they frighten her by shouting.