Small Acts of Kindness, page 22
‘Jo wanted to show me it could be done. We’d started making these sun-catchers, you know, little glass pictures of the sun or the moon or flowers or animals, like those ones up there,’ She points to the wall behind. There are little round glass pictures of flowers and butterflies and rainbows. I know what a sun-catcher is. I had one in my window when I was little. It had two stars and a moon.
‘They were for hanging where the sun would come through and catch the colours. Jo’s idea. They were for children, and Jo was the one who sold them. She was brilliant with children.’
‘Did you call her Jo?’ Yaya always used my mum’s full name, although mostly she said ‘your mother’. Do not give me that look, Kiriaki. You have the same naughty eyes as your mother.
Sammy smiles, although she’s still crying. ‘Jojo mostly. That’s what she would sing to you, ‘Jojo loves her Baby Moon.’
She’s quiet for a moment. There’s an electric fan on the table, it whirrs and creaks as it turns towards me. I feel the air on my face. Then it moves back the other way. Sammy starts talking again. ‘I’d make them – the sun-catchers – in my studio and we’d sell them alongside my bigger pieces of glass art. But Jo had this idea of turning it into more of a craft activity – letting children choose their own glass beads to go into frames, so that we could fire them for them to buy and take home. I had to keep telling her that it was more complicated than she thought. We’d need to transport a glass kiln to all these different festival sites and find power sources and shelter. I’d suggested during the winter we could buy a portable kiln and work on the idea. We were too busy all summer for something new.’
She breathes in slowly and out again.
‘She was always so headstrong though. Jo never liked to let an idea go. And she’d seen somebody using a fire pit to fire pottery at one of the shows we’d done. I’d explained to her that pottery and glass were very different and what worked for one wouldn’t work for the other. But she seemed to think that I was just being precious. She laughed about me not liking change and said she’d had to push me to sell the sun-catchers in the first place, which was true. I’d made the first one for you, you see, and Jo had insisted other children would love them too. She said I was too much of a head-in-the-clouds artist and I needed her to spot opportunities.’
Sammy’s standing up, but it’s only to go to the little fridge and take out two more beers – she passes one to me. ‘I was at this arts festival up in Cumbria and Jo wasn’t due to be there. But she wanted to surprise me. She left you with your grandparents to drive up and join me. Except by the time she arrived I’d already shut up shop and gone for some food with friends. If she’d just come to join us, she’d have been fine. But she had this stupid idea in her head. She’d brought an old barbecue with her, and she fired it up and she put these glass beads inside some of our sun-catcher frames and lay them on fireproof sheets and then had them sitting directly on the coals. I think she pictured me coming back and finding that she’d managed to do this thing she’d been talking about. Maybe everything would still have been OK, but it started raining so she wheeled the barbecue over to my camper van.
‘The flames were already out, but you know how the coals stay white-hot and smoky. So she put it under the van’s awning, out of the rain. She must have thought it was all right there, because she had the door shut. But the camper’s window was open. And it was a windy evening. And—’ She’s looking up at me. ‘You know what carbon monoxide is?’
I nod. I don’t know much but I’ve heard stories.
‘Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas. You don’t see it or smell it but that barbecue was churning it out and the wind was blowing it through the window. And Jo was – Jo was sitting in there – doing these sketches of designs, because she was so certain that her idea would work and that she’d have this lovely surprise that would prove how silly I’d been to doubt her. And all the time, she was breathing in these fumes.
‘By the time I came back, she was unconscious. She died in hospital the next day. And you know what the stupidest thing is?’
There was a cat in the upstairs flat in Auckland and it used to watch me coming up the stairs. Sammy’s eyes are like that. I shake my head.
‘The glass in those sun-catchers cracked. Exactly as I’d always told her it would, because of course the heat doesn’t— Sorry, Kiki. Doesn’t matter. But your grandmother blamed me. She didn’t really understand about the carbon monoxide, she only seemed to take in that it was smoke from my coloured glass that had blown in and killed Jo.’
It’s awkward to have her giving me that look again. Because it’s like she’s trying to ask something with her eyes and I don’t know what. I’m thinking maybe this is one of those times when Sue would say I shouldn’t talk for the sake of saying something. So I don’t. I just listen.
‘And then there had to be an inquest, up in Cumbria where she died. The verdict was death by misadventure. But until then your grandmother had assumed that Jo and I were just workmates who shared a flat. Just friends. The inquest meant, of course, I had to answer all these questions about us. And I think that was the final straw. I don’t think it was a moral thing. But I think she felt I’d – I don’t know – taken her daughter away from her, because of there being this thing she hadn’t known about her. Something Jo had chosen not to tell her. She hated me after that.’
Hold on. What was it Yaya hadn’t known?
I hope I’m not staring, I don’t want to be rude – and maybe I should say something. Because this feels like – I don’t know – a moment. But – wait – did you think I knew this, Sammy? Because I didn’t know. I don’t think so. I didn’t even know you existed before today. I should say something? I probably, definitely should. But, give me a moment. Because I’m not, you know, shocked. I’m just a little bit . . .
You spend your life thinking one thing. Or not even thinking it. Just assuming. And I just need a moment.
Sammy’s stopped talking. I reckon she can see I’m trying to put all my questions in my head into order. Because this is fine. It’s different. But it’s fine. But what about Yaya? What about my book of secrets? Where even is Cumbria? I didn’t know very much about how my mum died, but I did know where it happened. That one thing. I even wrote it down. Glasonby. Six-year-old spelling, but I was only little.
The sun-catchers on the wall are hanging from nails by ribbons. The bigger frames are more – what do you call it? – abstract, just shapes and colours and lines. You think you can see a picture of something in there, you just can’t quite see what it is.
‘My mum died in Glastonbury. Yaya and Gramps both said that.’
Sammy’s shaking her head but with smiling eyes. ‘No, not Glastonbury. I think maybe you heard it wrong. The arts fair was in a little village called Glassonby. Jo and I made jokes about how similar it sounded. It’s near Penrith. It’s very beautiful. There are stone circles there.’
I’m looking at the neck of my beer bottle. Not drinking.
‘Is that why I couldn’t order the death certificate?’ I say, half to myself. ‘Wrong place. Pam said I needed to do a wider search. Except the website didn’t have it either. You’d have thought it would have shown.’
Sammy’s reaching out and touching my arm. ‘Which name did you use? Moon? You know about the deed poll, right? You know Jo’d changed her name?’
Too much. Sorry what, Sammy?
I’m on a merry-go-round and it’s heaps too fast. I can’t even focus on what I’m seeing. I can’t even say, no, I don’t know anything. All I can do is just stare and watch everything I thought I knew blur as it spins. No I didn’t know about a deed poll. Nobody ever told me. Except, as I’m spinning, I’m hearing echoes of Yaya’s voice. ‘Deep hole.’ ‘Why did my Ioanna have to change?’ Maybe they did tell me. Or maybe I listened, when they didn’t know I was listening. I just didn’t understand.
Glassonby. Deep Hole. It’s like that moment in the cartoons when the character’s running, and they’ve gone right off the end of the cliff and they keep going. Run, run, run. But then they look down. And they see there’s nothing there.
All those lies Yaya said about my mum – killed by a fire, a camper van accident, leaking gas – perhaps they were all true. She just didn’t realise I didn’t understand. She thought I knew.
‘What did she change her name to?’
Some people have ways of looking at you and it makes you feel calmer. Sammy’s like that. She has a very calming face.
‘Did you ever hear about the Newbury bypass? Or the protesters who chained themselves to trees to try to stop them being cut down?’ And then she smiles. ‘Of course you didn’t. You were only a baby.’
‘Crusties, you mean?’ I say. And Sammy smiles.
‘If you like. Though we saw ourselves more as protesters. Because it mattered. These trees being replaced by roads, it mattered then because if we could have . . . Anyway. We’d both been moved on a few times and some of our friends had even been jailed. I suppose you know your mother wanted to be a lawyer. She’d have been a really good one too. Well, it was her idea – the deed poll. She came up with it. A whole group of us did it. We all changed our names to Free. Your mum said it was only a gesture but it was like a fist in the air. If any of us were arrested again, and they asked for our name, we’d say our name was Free, and it would be true. And if they arrested a whole lot of us, they’d ask us each, and we’d all give them the same answer, ‘We are free’. We’d chant that at them sometimes when they were trying to bring us down from the trees.’
Sammy pauses.
‘But your mum never did anything they could lock her up for. She would never have let anyone take her away from you.’
There is concern in her face. Maybe I’m looking a bit lost even though this feels like a good thing to know.
‘Ioanna Free.’ I’m saying the name out loud, and feeling a bit less giddy. I swallow some of my beer. I’m spinning less.
My mother died in an accident after she breathed in carbon monoxide. And she’d changed her name, which I reckon was the glitch in finding her birth certificate. Not just me being a total dodo. She changed her name because she was clever, and good. My mum loved trees. And she loved me. She wanted to wave her fist, but I was her Baby Moon.
I hold the bottle of beer against my forehead.
But what about Stan Douglas? What about him? He can’t have poisoned my mum if this is how she died. So where does he fit in?
The fan turns towards me and puffs out air. And I take a gulp of my beer.
And I realise something.
I realise I’ve always thought Stan Douglas was my father. Not consciously. Not once have I thought it through to myself like this before, never, ‘Stan Douglas must have been my father’. Never consciously. But deep down, it’s what I’ve thought. That there was this man who poisoned my mother because – I don’t know – she didn’t love him enough, or she loved him too much. Some dramatic story. Tragic. Romantic.
And I’m starting to ask Sammy, ‘Who was Stan Douglas?’ And Sammy’s looking at me like she’s never even heard the name.
It’s a knot in my head. A tangle.
Except even as I’m repeating the name and hearing myself saying it out loud, I can hear Yaya in my head, whispering it to Gramps that night. ‘How can I move on when our Ioanna was poisoned by Stan Douglas?’
And I know. Even as I’m saying it again.
Because I stop halfway through: ‘Stan D-uh-glass’.
I say it again to myself, ‘Stan d-oh-glass’. And of course.
Of course.
Yaya, whisper-sobbing in Yaya-ish to Gramps. And me, a sleepy six-year-old, listening to her, and then writing down what I heard. Or thought I heard. My secrets.
Stan Douglas never was Stan Douglas.
Stan’d (little sob) uh-Glass. Not Stan Douglas. Stained glass. Stained glass poisoned my mother. No wonder Yaya told me I was making it all up.
‘Another beer?’
I nod. As Sammy’s kneeling down to reach into the mini fridge, I see something. There’s a tattoo on Sammy’s shoulder. Two stars and a moon. When I was little, the sun-catcher in my window had this same picture. You know how sometimes you talk before even knowing you’re about to speak. That’s me now, ‘Look at your tattoo’.
Sammy passes me the beer and, for a moment, her hand is on it and mine is too. She nods and turns around again to show me the tattoo better. ‘Second star to the right. This was the design of that first sun-catcher, the one I made for you. Jo had the same tattoo. She had this thing about Peter Pan. But you must know that? She used to – here – wait, let me show you.’
There is a bag hanging from a hook on the wall, next to all the glass pictures. The bag is woven from string and beads and Sammy pulls out a leather purse. She opens the purse and she takes out a photograph. My mother is wearing a short green dress with a skirt that has lots of pieces of material that are shaped like leaves. On her head, she has those things – boppers, maybe? – like two bouncy stems sticking up from a band, with gold stars on the end. And on her shoulders are big gold wings. She’s holding a little girl – me. They both look really happy. We look happy.
Sammy is saying I can keep the photograph. She says she has the negative and when I ask what a negative is, she laughs and says, God, that makes her feel old. She says, wait, she must give me her card, too, then I’ll have her number – and I let her take my number too, so she can call me. And why don’t I come to the studio once her crazy summer’s over.
I’m still studying my mother and me. Because this was really her. All this time.
‘Did she speak in poems?’ I ask.
‘Poems? She wasn’t as eccentric as the outfit suggests. It was just a thing she did for the kids because they thought it was – wait, you mean, like “our sun-catchers will catch the light – and find the second star to the right”. Yes, yes, yes. You’re absolutely right. For the children who came to the stall. The kids loved it. My God, Kiki, I haven’t thought about that in years. She’d do it on the protests too. Her and Ziggy seeing who could come up with the best rhymes. Like “We are right. We are free. You’ll have to pull us from this tree”.’
She’s smiling and shaking her head and saying how funny to remember that. And when I ask her who Ziggy is, she says, ‘Ziggy’s your father.’
And if there was a merry-go-round in my head before, I’m suddenly in one of those fairground rides that sends you flying up into the air and round and over and under until you don’t have the first clue what’s happening.
*
It’s funny how time moves. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been talking very long, but it’s dark outside when I hug Sammy and leave the hut. I have the photo and Sammy’s card in my bag, and my head is so full of all of this new knowledge. So many things to think about, but I can’t even think where I should be going now.
All around me there are people and colours and sounds and smells.
Maxwell said he’d be happy to come and pick me up. But I don’t think that’s fair on him. And I don’t know if I’m ready to leave.
There is one thing that I do know for certain. I need a wee. All that water and beer. But look at that queue, the doors ahead swinging open and then the next person going in and us all shuffling up one, trying not to breathe in too deeply – and you see the feet as they sit down or stand up and I’m all but hopping. So all I’m thinking about is getting to the front and it being my turn and – my God – what a relief when I do and it is. When I come out again, I’m still not really thinking straight, just letting everything bounce around my head. Because there’s so much bouncing around in there.
Ziggy wasn’t my father’s real name. It was Mark something, Sammy thought. Dixon or Nixon – Sammy couldn’t remember because everybody only ever called him Ziggy. She said she’d ask around. Someone might know.
Everyone liked Ziggy. He and my mum were great friends and she’d always said to Sammy that ending up in bed with him was one of the drunkest, stupidest things she’d ever done.
‘She was glad though because it meant she ended up with you,’ Sammy told me. ‘But she was in London when she found out she was pregnant. You know that’s where she moved for her studies? She tried to get in touch with Ziggy but he was never easy to find at the best of times. It turned out he’d gone off to Canada – I think, or Japan maybe – to protest against the clubbing of seal cubs. It’s horrific what – anyway, nobody saw him for years. He didn’t know about you. I don’t think he knew about what happened to Jo until years later.’
I’m coming out of the festival dunny and the sink is like one long farm trough. And as I’m washing my hands, I’m still thinking about all of this. I had a dad. His name was Ziggy. When I told Sammy how Yaya said she couldn’t tell me anything about my father except that he was one of the crusties, she laughed and said, well, fair enough. I asked what he looked like and she said average white boy with dreadlocks and a holey jumper, although somebody she knew said they’d run into him at a festival about ten years ago, and the hair was cropped short and receding. She didn’t have a clue where he was now though. ‘Ziggy wasn’t the Facebook type,’ was what Sammy said. Maybe somebody would know something but best not to hold my breath.
I’m not holding my breath, but I’m kind of lost in my thoughts, trying to picture what he might look like, and I realise I’m still standing here with the water running over my hands. And there’s someone next to me. She’s tall and blonde and she has her hair in plaits and a straw hat on, a bit like mine, except probably heaps newer. And maybe I would normally be too shy to say anything, but it’s been quite a day, and when I realise who it is, her name pops out of my mouth, ‘Annabella.’
She gives me this does-she-know-me look. Because of course she doesn’t.
‘Sorry. You don’t know me. I’m just Kiki,’ I say. ‘Ned’s friend. Norton’s. Or not friend, but I’ve met him heaps of times at the hospital.’
