A House Built on Sand, page 14
‘As I understand it, Rose, you are visiting a place of significance to your past, so it’s only natural that such memories will surface.’
His voice comes to her from a far distance, like the voice of a future that could be good for her. ‘Yes, I see that,’ she murmurs. Marius has a way of making such things seem normal.
‘Rose, I’ve got some free time now, if you’d like to explore your memory further?’
Would she like that? It seems important.
‘That’d be…Marius, can you just give me a moment to check on something?’ Rose ducks out into the hallway and looks around, she thought she heard her mother not that long ago. Walking softly to her mother’s room, Rose looks in the open doorway to find Maxine on the bed, apparently asleep. She continues down to the lounge and eases the hallway door shut behind her. ‘Okay, thanks Marius, it would be great to have a session now.’
‘Excellent. Then make yourself comfortable, Rose, just as if you are in my office.’
She goes over to the couch and lies down, shoving a cushion behind her head. She switches the phone to speaker and puts it on her chest. ‘All right, I’m ready.’
A smile sounds in his voice. ‘Good, then let us begin.’
‘Wait,’ says Rose, blinking rapidly at the ceiling, ‘what if I, well, if I see something that scares me?’
‘Fear is the body’s response to a perceived threat, Rose,’ comes his soothing voice. ‘Remember that you are in a safe place. I will be here the whole time, guiding you. And if at any time, Rose, you start to panic, simply raise your hand and I will bring you back.’
‘Um, but you won’t see me raise my hand?’
‘No, I won’t, you’re right.’ He gives a self-deprecating chuckle. ‘In that case, we’ll simply use a safe word that will tell me to stop. What word shall we use, Rose?’
Her gaze lands on the picture on the wall that Jasmyn admired. ‘Ship.’
‘All right, Rose, if you start to experience fear or panic, simply say the word “ship” and I will ease you back to safe ground, all right?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
It’s a bit off-putting how much Marius uses her name. Maybe it’s a hypnosis technique. She shouldn’t let that distract her from the work, which is useful, isn’t it? He is helping, she reminds herself, helping her find the root of her claustrophobia, and more than anything, Rose wants to lead a life without being disabled by the claustrophobia, often with very little warning. She wants to be able to go into lifts and small spaces, like other people do, and to wear her wedding ring—simple stuff—and not have to live with the fear that something might trigger a massive, embarrassing meltdown.
‘So, Rose, I’m going to count down from ten, and you will start to feel more and more relaxed, so that by the time I reach the number one, you will be in a state of deep relaxation—ten—even though you will be able to hear everything I say, you will be deeply relaxed—nine—and you will be in a safe place from which to access your memories—eight—you are drifting and your memories will rise easily—seven—so that you will go back in time—six—back to the time when you first experienced a feeling of claustrophobia—five—and being very relaxed you will simply see the memory for what is it—four—and I will be here the whole time three—leading you through it—two—while you will be deeply relaxed—one—and now, Rose, you are in a place of deep relaxation and calm, as if drifting on a warm cloud. And as you drift on this cloud, Rose, you will allow certain pictures or memories to drift into your mind…Tell me, Rose, what do you see?’
‘I see a woman…’ It’s the woman with the big mouth, from the yellow popsicle memory, and she’s lighting a cigarette. ‘She’s talking to somebody.’
‘As you listen to this woman talking, Rose, allow yourself to look around and see where you are.’
Doing as she is told, Rose sees that they are outside on a low concrete deck and there are other people there. They are grown-ups, which tells her that she is little, and they are holding glasses and cigarettes and one of them is passing something around that might be a joint.
‘What do you see, Rose?’ asks Marius from a distance.
‘The grown-ups are sunbathing. I’ve got…wooden blocks.’ Rose sees that she is sitting on a sheepskin mat and is putting brightly painted blocks one on top of another. One of the grown-ups laughs, catching her attention. He stands up from a deck chair, tall as a giraffe, a thatch of hair that shines gingery in the sunlight. He takes off his dark glasses and Rose can see his face, full of freckles, a face she likes. He says something to the woman, then walks away.
‘It’s a sort of party, summer…one of them is in a pink bikini.’
Rose watches as the woman in the pink bikini walks across the deck to go into the house.
‘Are you still playing with the blocks, Rose?’
‘I’m…I seem to be getting up.’ She feels herself push against the ground to get to her feet, a heady feeling, and she follows the pink-bikini woman into the house. She sees an expanse of wooden floor with something far across the room that looks interesting—a cake.
‘What does the cake look like, Rose?’ asks Marius, and Rose peripherally realises she must have been speaking out loud.
‘It’s pink, and really beautiful, maybe it’s got flowers on it, and candles.’
The cake is riveting, and she sees herself crossing the expanse of the room, hands held out for balance and the cake firmly fixed in her sights. Then something catches her attention, and she turns to look.
‘Um…’ Rose feels a child’s bewilderment, though she understands what she is seeing.
‘Feeling very calm, Rose, allow yourself to see what is taking place.’
She narrates it from the child’s point of view. ‘It’s the giraffe man, he’s hiding in the far corner of the room and he’s at my level, like he’s playing a game. I want to go to him, but I can see the lady in the pink bikini is standing above him, very close, and I wonder what they’re doing. I start to walk towards them and I see…’
On the couch, Rose squeezes her eyes even more firmly shut as if she can blot out the image. The man’s got his face in the woman’s crotch and his hands are on her buttocks. Those spider-like hands clenching the woman’s bum are mesmerising. The woman looks over her shoulder and her eyes widen, then narrow to a laugh, and she points with a pink-painted fingernail—Rose follows the pointing finger and sees the cake again, the cake!
‘So I go towards the cake.’ She pauses, feeling her breathing change, coming higher and tighter. Something else is happening in the house.
‘Rose,’ comes Marius’s voice from a long way away, ‘I am going to start counting, ten—’
‘Ship!’ she gasps.
The popsicle woman, her face twisted, is in the room, shouting.
‘And as I count, nine, you are back outside playing with the blocks, eight.’
Fractured sunlight. Shouting.
‘Ship,’ she croaks.
Marius’s voice is a harbour of calm which she moves towards. ‘Seven, Rose, look down and tell me what you see in your hand.’
‘A red-painted block with the number six.’ Her breathing starts to become more even.
‘Good, six, and you are safe, Rose, drifting on a cloud, five, feel yourself floating, four, you are gently coming back into the room, three. And very soon, two, you will be wide awake, one.’
Rose opens her eyes and blinks at the ship wallowing behind the smudged glass of the picture that’s hung on this wall for as long as she can remember. She gives a little huff and moves her toes. What the hell was that about? Who were those people?
‘What do you think about what you saw, Rose?’ Marius’s voice.
He will want her to talk about it now, process the memory. ‘I don’t know what to think right now, Marius.’
She sits up with the phone, frowning. It’s not something she can make sense of, except that it was summer and seemed real enough—the cake! But what if it was a fake memory. Don’t fake memories also feel real?
‘How do I know if it’s real?’
‘Does it feel real, Rose?’
‘Yes,’ she whispers.
Maybe it’s all right to be claustrophobic, she decides, it’s not like a fatal disease or crippling disability; she could live with it. She’s not so sure she can live with confusing memories dredged up from the past that don’t make any sense. Maybe the scene and those people seemed familiar because of a film or TV show she has seen and forgotten about, or from a long-forgotten podcast? It could be from anywhere.
‘What I saw,’ she asks, ‘is this kind of thing normal?’
‘Oh yes, very much so, Rose. We bury so much.’ With a pause, he adds, ‘Try not to judge what you’ve seen, Rose. Our job is not to judge the past, but to learn from it, and to find the root of your claustrophobia. Do you feel any closer to that aim after today?’
Does she? Rose’s feelings are muddled, though she feels like they have made some progress, and senses a lightness that’s now within her grasp.
‘Maybe. Least, in the general vicinity.’
‘Good, then perhaps we can pick up on this work in our next session at the clinic.’
She ends the call and leans back in the couch. That man with the gingery hair…who was he? He seemed so familiar, like somebody she ought to know, but how and from where? Could it have been a party that her mother once took her to? There was no memory of Maxine there. Maybe she left her with some people while she was working or something? That was possible, something she used to do occasionally. That time Maxine went down country to see her mother in hospital—Rose remembers sleeping in a bed that was shaped like a sled and there were glow stars on the ceiling. Yes, that’ll be it.
She still feels jangled by the experience. She gets up and smooths down her leggings, sucking in a deep breath to ground herself. Get with the program, Rose: find some fresh clothes for Maxine, food, drink.
So she goes back to the bedroom, stopping on the way to haul up the attic stairs by the chain, clunking and clanking, back into place along the ceiling and out of the way. Quick check on Maxine, now sitting on the side of the bed, staring out the window, and back to the spare clothes. All right, no more mucking around. Rose finds a pink cotton top with a white collar, and a pair of cotton drawstring pants with an anchor pattern, perfect. Taking the things to Maxine, she finds her mother standing at the window, muttering to herself.
‘What was that, Mum?’
Maxine looks around at Rose’s voice, then nods as if her appearance is entirely expected. She looks better after her rest. ‘We should move back here for the summer, Rose, like we used to.’
It seems like ancient history, she and Maxine staying at Kutarere. Rose puts the clothes on the bed and starts to brush her mother’s hair, pulling the brush through the fine brown hair streaked with silver. ‘Paul wouldn’t like that.’
‘He could come too.’
‘Course, he could…though I’m not sure either of us could get away, you know, because of work.’
Maxine makes a distracted sound. ‘Right, work.’
‘Maybe we could spend Christmas here, if the others don’t mind.’ She feels the need to offer Maxine something. ‘We could have a family Christmas again.’
‘I’d like that.’
Her mother smiles into the distance, the gleam of harbour, the oyster farm across the water, and Rose suddenly wonders if Aaron will turn up. Jasmyn will have warned him off. He’s his own man now, though—separated, isn’t that what he said? She isn’t that keen to see him anymore, actually. She should phone and put him off, just in case he is still planning on coming over. She doesn’t want to get caught up in anybody’s relationship problems, and especially not Jasmyn’s. That woman makes her teeth grate.
‘We could go the whole hog,’ muses Maxine. ‘Turkey and all the extras. Party hats and crackers.’
It’s Rose’s turn to smile. The Kutarere Christmases used to be fun. Why did they fall off ? Last year Maxine didn’t seem interested, then before that, Rose wanted to stay in the city and have Christmas with Paul’s family. And there was something similar with the uncles and their families, always somewhere else that people wanted to be. That had become the pattern for a few years. They got into the habit of not coming over here until after Christmas, and then the visits were spaced out.
‘I’m going to organise it,’ Rose decides, putting a hand on her mother’s shoulder.
Maxine looks back at her. ‘Good, Rose. One last family Christmas.’
‘Not the last.’ Rose frowns. ‘There’ll be plenty more family Christmases.’ But even as she says it, Rose struggles to see such a future with Maxine still in it. She turns away, not wanting to think about that. ‘Here, Mum, I’ve got some fresh clothes for you.’
Maxine follows her to the bed and picks up the pants. ‘I’ll be shipshape in these.’
‘Ha ha, anchors, very good.’ Rose claps her hands, just like she does at Little Poppets, inadvertently startling her mother. ‘Okay. I’m going to make lunch.’ She bustles out of the room.
IT’S ALL VERY confusing. We ate blueberries and wasn’t there a pile of pasta? I start taking off my trackpants, hoping Rose is all right. She seems very, what’s the word, tense? It’ll be something to do with that man she’s living with…Paul. I did warn her at the time, but what daughter listens to their mother? He’ll only hurt you, I told her. Maybe I overreached my role as mother, maybe I should have kept quiet, but I knew things about him that Rose didn’t…she was besotted that summer, in deep water. She wouldn’t listen to me, so I tried to warn him off. Keep away from my daughter, I told him that morning when I found him asleep on the couch at Kutarere, and what was he doing in our house in the first place? How did he get in? Was nowhere safe? There was a bottle of brandy I recognised from the cupboard on the coffee table, so he’d been into our booze as well: how dare he!
I told him straight up, just like I did with my clients: I’ll call the cops if you don’t keep away from my daughter.
He just laughed like it was a big joke. Yeah, you do that, missus. Then he waltzed out, the smarmy bastard.
Well, I didn’t see him at the house again, though Rose was sneaking around all that summer, and you can’t tell me she was only going to work, she was probably meeting him down at the beach or in the town, out late at night, away for hours on end. What could I do? She was her own person, no longer little, I couldn’t wrap her in cotton wool all her life, though God knows I wanted to. My Rose. She was naive, hadn’t seen the things I’d seen, didn’t know what the world was really like. I wanted to keep her away from no-good guys…cracked ribs and a broken heart.
So I did what I had to do.
I pick up the anchor pants. Anchor me. It’s a song.
My memory’s not that bad, considering.
Though I am anchored, becalmed. And it’s hard to move on when you’re becalmed.
Be calm, Maxine.
The past comes running at me like a sand-jumper at the Olympics, all insect legs and wheeling arms, catching me unawares. And there’s Tony grinning from behind a billowing sheet. It’s always been like that, the past, like a bogeyman waiting to rear up and grab me by the throat.
‘Go back to where you belong,’ I tell the bogeyman.
The things I’ve done to fend it off, the past, not worth thinking about.
End of the day, it’s all my fault, I’m the first to admit it, so far from blameless it’s like another country, another ballgame altogether. But far too late now to make things right.
I pull on the pants and tighten the noose around my waist.
Anchored.
Though…maybe I can make things right? Maybe it’s not too late after all…anything’s possible. Especially now, with this dementia sentence hanging over me. But Rose…what will she think of me if I come clean? No two ways around it: she would hate me, and even a ghost couldn’t tolerate that.
Tighten the noose around my waist.
No.
I won’t see her hurt.
And I won’t let her see me.
‘YOU LOOK NICE,’ says Rose, glancing up from the bench where she’s chopping carrots to go into a soup, and thank goodness she thought to pick up some supplies in Whakatāne first thing this morning before they came out here.
With her brushed hair and the seaside-y outfit, Maxine looks much more herself, even with the black coat. She even gives a little bow and a laugh as she hops onto one of the breakfast bar stools.
‘A hundred per cent,’ she announces. Their old joke.
Rose tips the carrots into the pot of sizzling onions, then adds hot water from the kettle and a cup of red lentils.
‘Nuggety goodness,’ says Maxine. ‘What’s the occasion?’
‘Sorry, what?’ Rose puts the lid on the pot and glances across at her mother, sitting there looking so bright, so herself.
‘You’re cooking up a storm,’ jokes Maxine.
‘Only a small storm, just for two—soup.’
‘Where there’s soup there’s a way.’
It’s great to see her mother in such a good mood. It’s been a while!
‘Remember those wintery Sundays when we’d have soup and homemade bread?’
‘Yep.’ Maxine sweeps her hand across the breakfast bar. ‘Rēwena. One of my clients gave me the recipe. We made it every Sunday right through winter.’
‘That’s right, rēwena, like sourdough, made from a bug.’
Maxine hoots. ‘A bug!’
Rose puts some crackers in front of her mother and unwraps a round of brie, cuts some slices off it, and pulls out a stool. She watches as Maxine fumbles a piece of cheese onto a cracker and takes a bite, good, then Rose pushes a glass of water towards her, playing mother, their roles reversed.
Maxine puts down her cracker and takes a drink. ‘The simple pleasures.’
‘Yep, the best things in life…’
She finishes her cracker and cheese, watched over by Rose. This domestic scene is interrupted by the cicada chirp of Maxine’s phone. They both look around for it, and Rose spots it on one of the armchairs. She notes the doctor’s name on the screen as she automatically hands it over to her mother; it’s only later that she thinks she should have taken the call by herself.
