A House Built on Sand, page 16
‘Not that you will want to hear about all that.’ The manager is back in professional mode. ‘So how is Maxine doing?’
Rose makes a decision. ‘Mum’s doing really well, thank you, and in fact, she’s going to stay in her own home for the time being. I was just phoning to let you know we don’t need to be on the list after all.’
A slight pause, with no running water. ‘Well, that is good news.’ The woman hesitates, as if choosing her words. ‘But you do realise there is no coming back from early-onset dementia, don’t you, Rose?’ She doesn’t wait for a response. ‘So, although your mother may be experiencing a period of remission, I believe the best option will be to keep her on our list for the time being. We would love to have Maxine here at Sunset Vista.’
Rose pictures this woman visiting Maxine in her room to gloat…some petty-minded girl from the distant past with a vulnerable Maxine at her mercy. Something withers inside Rose—because the manager is right, they will need a place, and Rose likes Sunset Vista, it’s handy to their apartment and it has that secure dementia unit.
There are other places, Rose reminds herself. ‘Thank you,’ she says firmly, ‘but that won’t be necessary.’
IT’S SO LONG ago now. Time stretches like chewing gum, chutty we used to call it, Juicy Fruit or PK, stretching till it went thin then snapped. Put it back in your mouth for another chew, or sneak it under a chair, pressing it in with your thumb, nobody’d ever know, least, not until Mum did her big spring-clean and then it could be any of us. Riding my horse over the hills. Running down the road to see Shelley. Dad on the tractor, feeding out. Back off to boarding school on the bus for another term, black pleated tunic and white shirt underneath, ends of the sleeves getting grimy no matter how many times you soaped them in the dorm basin. Three of us, the Supremes, up on the top floor balcony and singing into hairbrushes, stars for five minutes.
Don’t remember who first came up with the idea, but we just walked out one day, took off. Got a lift along the coastal road from a young couple, the car was full of soft toys. I’ve had so many miscarriages, said the woman over her shoulder, the three of us, three monkeys who hear no evil lined up along the back seat and Mags nudging my knee to make me laugh, but how could you? Poor thing, I thought, wanting something so much, even if it was a baby. She gave us each a koala toy when they dropped us off at Bulls.
No bull, said Therese.
The koala had arms you could open and I hooked it onto the strap of my pack so it bounced against my shoulder as we strode down the wide street.
Let’s buy some chips. Because we could. Waiting on the pavement outside the burger bar and this guy on a motorbike turned up, pulled off his helmet like the hero in his own life. Lo and behold, he was gorgeous, and that’s how I met Tony.
Where’re you girls going?
Mags put out her thumb to demonstrate. Anywhere we want to, she said.
Therese fetched the parcel of hot chips from the counter, came back frowning at the bike. Let’s go, she said. She told me later she didn’t like the look of him. Well, she got the last laugh, because she was right.
I know a place you can stay, he said.
Sure you do. Therese was scathing. I got his number before we walked off down the wide street, Therese in the middle holding the chips and all of us reaching in, helping ourselves, best chips I’ve ever had.
The taste of freedom, Mags said, waggling a chip in the air. The motorbike roared past and I followed it with my eyes.
You can do better than that, said Therese, and what did she know, I mean, really? Did she look into the future and see me lying battered on a couch, hugging a hot water bottle to my guts? Tony high and ranting around the flat like some rabid rooster. Only one good thing he gave me, and that was Rose. I got out of there soon as I realised that it wasn’t going to magically stop, that it was only going to get worse. Downhill, that’s what, like a slalom. Therese would say she told me so, except she was in Oz by then working in hospitals and no longer around to gloat or to commiserate.
What did he look like? He looked like Tony, that’s all. Up on a scaffold at the building site, he’d whistle at any girl who walked past, and me with a watermelon tummy, taking him a cut lunch in my break.
What d’you want to have, love, boy or girl? His mate was nice to me, as if wanting to make up for Tony. Come to the pub with us later.
No thanks, I said, not wanting the baby in all that cigarette smoke and shouty talk and the loud music that made my ears ring. That scene had been fun before I was pregnant, but not anymore. I was working and doing extra study, there were case studies to read and reports to understand. My first job and I was going to make a difference, going to help people, kids especially. Some days it felt like a vocation.
Going out with Heather to see how many teenagers were camped under the overpass, I wore a big jacket so my bump wasn’t so obvious. People gave you odd looks, like they thought you shouldn’t be working. But bugger that, I was still learning the ropes and I wanted to be out there.
We’ll try and get names, said Heather, so we can track down the whānau. We can offer a few of them a bed in a residential home, not that they’ll want it, she sniffed, they’d rather be out here in the cold with their mates.
We went down a rough track and saw the homeless camped out under the overpass. A couple of kids spotted us and ran the other way. Bugger, huffed Heather. A huddle of other kids were in sleeping bags, watching us approach, a couple of them not that much younger than me, one looked about twelve. I stood back as Heather greeted them by name, Black Power girls, and a couple climbed out of their bags to take the sandwiches she’d brought.
Got any fizzy drink, miss? Got any fags? They tittered and snuffled. It was bloody frigid down there, no wonder they were in the sleeping bags. Can I’ve a feel? A girl came up beside me, and put her hand on my bump (the squirm of baby). I pulled back and she grinned. Got a big bun in the oven, miss!
Later Heather asked, What’re you gonna do with the baby when you come back to work? I know somebody who babysits, want to give them a try?
Barnados, it was called, and a stay-at-home mum who took in extra kids for the money. I’d drop Rose off in the morning and pick her up after work. She seemed happy enough, but who knows what really went on? Could be parties or people coming round to smoke dope, anything. Though each time I picked her up, the fat woman would meet me with Rose in her arms, Here you go, good as gold, a perfect little peach—that’s what she used to call Rose. I could gobble her up.
Don’t even remember her name, the fat smiley woman. Sheryl? Serena? It’s gone. Sandra? No, that’s somebody else altogether. And so the days merged into a stream of months, punctuated by punches, and before I knew it, there was just me and Rose, running for our lives to Kutarere.
‘Mum—?’ says a voice.
I come back to myself like swimming against the current in that river, the Waihou, water barrelling out of a narrow gap and me paddling into it, laughing my head off: an effort, is what it is, just to stay in one place.
‘Mum, are you all right?’
Rose is peering at me with her big worried eyes, nothing at all like Tony.
‘Yes.’ Sometimes it’s all you can come up with and that’s all right. Yes. Thank God for small mercies. She smiles like I’ve done something really clever.
‘Like some soup? Let’s have some soup.’
God help me, I’m ready for the bib and the diaper.
‘Thanks, Rose, I’d like some soup.’
I’m saved by the bell, a shy knock and the front door squeaking open. I get a spurt of fear. Is it him, the shadow man? A voice calls out, ‘Hel-lo?’ And look who it is: Renfrew and his friend Bole. Rose looks thrilled and gives them both a hug, as if we haven’t just seen them. She’s probably pleased to have some company other than her crazy old mum. Ren stands back after getting his hug, his usual stiff self, though Bole flutters and looks happy. He has changed from when we saw them at the house and is wearing a dress now, a trendy little number in candy-pink stripes, so I should call him ‘she’ or ‘they’, or maybe I’ll aim to not call him anything at all, that’s the safest way to go when you’re not sure.
‘Look who we found,’ says Ren, stepping aside to reveal a small woman with a bushy haircut and this person actually claps her hands in delight like a child.
‘Yes, it was me!’
It’s a hell of a party trick.
This person seems to rush at me then, and I find myself in an uncalled-for hug that smells of fruity shampoo and even Mum chips in: Brush your hair, you look like the wreck of the Hesperus.
‘Maxine,’ says this person, her face twitching in excitement, ‘I’m so pleased to see you here!’
‘You’ll remember Mary-Beth,’ says Ren pointedly.
‘Of course I do.’ I’m relieved to recognise her in that moment. ‘How could I forget?’
The little woman gets even more excited about that and bounces on her toes. ‘It’s been so long, Maxine. And Rose, how are you?’
‘I’m good, thanks, would you like some coffee?’
Incredibly, this person claps her hands again. ‘Yes please!’
This is going to be exhausting. I stay on my stool and look around for the glass of water which isn’t too far away, though my hand’s shaking so badly it’s hard to get a grip on it and some water spills on the countertop. I catch Ren and Bole glancing at each other. Silly old bat, they must be thinking, even though I’m younger than Renfrew, can’t even take a drink of water anymore, so I leave the glass alone and clutch my untrustworthy hands in my lap.
‘So how have you been?’ Rose asks.
Good at the small talk, is my Rose.
‘Good, good.’ And the woman perches on one of the stools, while Ren and Bole take a seat at the table, in spitting distance. I keep my eye on them, just in case they decide to do something funny, you never can tell with people. ‘I’m working at the golf course now, doing the catering. Toasted sandwiches and burgers,’ she explains to me, as if I should care. ‘Meat pies, too, and six different soups.’
Rose looks interested in that. ‘Six, really?’
‘Yes, make ’em up fresh each day,’ she tells us. ‘People like soup.’
‘We were just going to have some soup,’ says Rose. ‘There’s enough, if you’d like some.’
But the woman waves that away. By the sounds of it, she gets enough soup at work. Then she turns her beady eyes on me. ‘But how are you, Maxine? The last I heard you were still at Oranga Tamariki.’
‘That’s right.’ Children, young people, foster homes, Sandra with her hammer. ‘A parade of faces,’ I elaborate. ‘They come and go, all of them, like the shifting sands of the whatchamacallit, you know.’
‘Like the sands in the hourglass,’ Bole laughs lightly, crossing her legs and reminding me of an aunt who’d been a flapper in her heyday, apparently.
‘Mum used to watch that show, remember, Ren?’ I ask him.
But Renfrew is sulking, his face shut up like a book, a secret book, clapped shut.
‘It was a TV soap,’ Bole explains to the others, who are too young to know what we’re talking about. ‘Utter rubbish, really.’
‘A load of old sardines,’ I agree.
‘Days of Our Lives,’ exclaims the little woman, jiggling on her stool. ‘Though I preferred Shortland Street. Local, you know, something you can understand, and all those spunky doctors.’
‘We’ve certainly moved on from Days of Our Lives,’ says Bole, rather drily.
Then I realise my mouth is parched and the glass of water makes itself known. I reach out for it, and my hand is steady again, good job, so I suck down a mouthful.
‘It takes a village,’ I mutter, to contribute to the conversation.
The woman helpfully finishes that idea for me. ‘To raise a child.’
‘Hear, hear.’ I toast her with the sparking glass of water.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like some soup?’ asks Rose, and we all look at her.
‘We’ve got to get back,’ Ren announces, standing.
‘Back where?’ I ask him, suddenly confused. ‘Back to the farm?’
He looks at Bole with raised eyebrows, as if to say I told you so. ‘Back to Noel’s place,’ he says. ‘Though I’d like to stay here tonight, if that’s all right.’
‘Of course,’ says Rose, coming out from behind the breakfast bar as if from behind a bush. ‘I’ll make up another bed.’
Now I’m really confused. Why would he want to stay here when he’s got Bole, who now looks a bit downcast, as if she really wanted Ren to stay with her, and if they are together, then it’s only right that he should stay there, and not at Kutarere.
‘Well then,’ says Bole, also standing. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’
‘I should go too,’ the woman suggests, though she doesn’t move.
‘No, stay, I’ll put the kettle on,’ says Rose.
Her face is pinched and she looks tense, or maybe angry, but there’s definitely something going on. I hope all these people randomly turning up haven’t upset her. Rose isn’t good with unexpected happenings, with change, she likes to have everything neatly pigeon-holed, it’s why she took to childcare like a quack to water—I blame myself for not giving her a stable enough childhood, all that moving around. Or did I? I want to ask Renfrew about that, but when I look around he has gone and the little woman is talking her head off.
‘Remember how we used to swing on the rope, and drop into the water? Is that tree still there? Growing out of the cliff? Gosh, it was probably really dangerous, when I look back, but you don’t think about stuff like that when you’re a kid, do you? I mean, we certainly didn’t seem to. Not that anybody got hurt. And we always made sure we did it at high tide.’ She whinnies out a laugh. ‘You could make a hell of a splash.’
Who is this person? I look around for Rose, but she’s gone as well. It appears that I have been left alone with a madwoman. It’s probably best if I play along with her story.
‘Our family had a rope swing.’
She beams at me like I’ve just won a prize. ‘Yes we did! It was so much fun. Those were the days, eh? Before all this health and safety business and not letting kids climb trees or just be kids. It’s all helicopter parenting these days.’
Why is she talking about helicopters now?
‘Māori kids used to swim in the river.’ I see their gleaming-wet brown bodies knifing through the summer air, jumping off the jury-rigged board, doing somersaults, knees tucked under chins and hitting the water like a bomb going off. A tidal river that fed into the harbour, benign on the surface with swift currents hidden underneath. ‘A boy got swept away.’
The woman’s face sags, like a clown revealing her teary face. ‘I remember that, such a tragedy.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I offer quickly, hoping she isn’t too upset, you don’t know with people sometimes. Even in the best of situations, somebody can just blow up. Meth hasn’t helped with that, of course.
‘No no no, of course it wouldn’t have been your fault, Maxine, why would it?’ She pats her hands in the air, as if trying to subdue a wild animal. ‘It would have been an accident.’
My mouth is really dry and I reach for the glass of water. But my hands aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do and instead of gripping the glass, it scurries off the bench and smashes on the floor.
‘Oh my!’ The woman jumps off the stool. ‘I’ll get it, no need to worry.’
I’m not worried. Something is troubling me, though…a current below the surface of a river, that river that swept the boy away. Tilting over a little, I spot something red on my bare ankle. I reach down and touch something sharp, pull it away and hold it in front of my eyes (probably the best part of me these days, still in great shape): it’s a shard of glass.
‘Oh! Oh!’ The little woman is standing stiffly next to me with a cloth in her hand, eyes popping. ‘You’ve hurt yourself!’
I look down to see a line of bright-red blood running down into my sandal. It drips delicately from my little toe and onto the floor, making a shiny puddle. Fascinating. It’s quite a lot of blood from such a small wound. And there’s a reflection in the red puddle—a face leering up at me.
Then a loud thump shakes the house.
‘—Mum?’
Rose is back, her mouth bursting open. ‘Oh my God, what’s happened now?’
She crouches beside the bouncy woman who looks to be out cold on the floor, her little legs sticking out. Everything seems so far away, like watching a film. I can’t tell if it’ll have a happy ending or not. Certainly it’s not a great result for that small woman, whoever she is.
Then I get it: she brought the trif le. Bushy woman, though not bushy back then—confusing!
Another day, another Christmas, not to be trifled with, geddit? I’d grabbed the fringed lampshade from the back seat of the car and popped it on my head. Something I picked up at a garage sale, thinking a retro standard lamp would be perfect for Kutarere. I’d fetch the rest of it later when I got the bags.
Time to party, I told Rose.
She clambered out of her car seat, she was getting way too big for it but I felt safer when she was in the back. A flutter of nerves hit as I took her hand to walk across the buffalo grass lawn, aware of people milling around inside. It’s been how long? We’d kept away, Rose and me, but now we were here. It was time for the prodigal daughter to return to the fold.
We clumped up the steps and onto the front deck to the open door. I could see right through to the open back door at the other end of the hallway that revealed the glinting harbour—and it was good to be back, though the sight of the water made me shiver and I got a flash from the past of that doll-body lying on the sand. Still, too still. Though I couldn’t help thinking, Why did I bother staying away for so long?
