Authors: Lynette McClenaghan
She calls the home number. The voice at the end of the phone says, ‘Hello, this is Fiona.’
She is polite and pleasant, telling Christine she hopes they can come to an arrangement. ‘We were beginning to despair that Morris would have to place his father into an elderly care facility. Worse – that we would have to delay our trip.’
Fiona explains that her father-in-law is a retired doctor who refuses to be placed in a facility filled with young people who don’t listen. He swears such a place will become his grave.
Julian and Christine meet Morris and Fiona, and their two King Charles spaniels at their house. Morris tells them that a visiting nurse has been attending to Elliot. The dogs are tentatively booked to stay at a kennel and Morris’s son has agreed to take a block of leave to stay at the house to watch over his grandfather. It would be an awkward arrangement and one they want to avoid.
Fiona excuses herself and retreats to the house.
‘Christine, what can you tell me about yourself?’
A stunned, brittle silence pervades. The Blacks seemed pleasant and welcoming until Dr Black asked this question.
What was Christine to say?
How much do I reveal about myself and my predicament? Does Dr Black think I’m a dubious character – a drug dependent medico? He must think I live a transient existence. Understandably, he’s concerned about his father’s welfare and therefore the background of a stranger he plans to enlist to watch over his father, home and pets.
His words pain Christine, sound unkind, intrusive and convey mistrust. How does she answer this question?
‘What exactly do you want to know about my sister?’
‘I don’t mean to pry.’
‘Then please, Dr Black, state in plain terms what it is you need to know about my sister.’
‘Call me Morris.’
Christine coughs into her hand. ‘Some months ago my estranged husband ordered me out of our house and out of his life. He moved in a much younger lover, together they have redecorated my house.’
Morris flushes red with embarrassment. ‘I don’t need to know…’
‘You did ask and there’s more. Expecting to be subjected to his ugly moods, and outbursts, I stayed in hospital residence waiting for the crisis to blow over then return home. I’m surprised you haven’t picked up these details from the hospital grapevine.’
‘I don’t tune into that channel. I work, come home, attend to Elliot’s needs. After my late wife passed away Elliot suffered a mild stroke and has been unable to live alone since.’
Fiona’s short, quick footsteps tap and crunch on the gravel before she emerges. She asks if their guests would like to take refreshments outside.
Julian affirms. ‘It’s perfect here under the tree.’
Fiona calls the dogs, ‘Scott! Zelda!’ They trot after her heels as she returns to the house. Fiona’s manner loosens Morris and he forgets the question he originally asked. Pointing to the stooped bough of the large tree he describes how as a younger man he climbed that tree to mount ropes he fixed to a wooden plank. He cut and planed the wood to make a swing for his son, but removed the swing after his wife passed away.
He shows Christine and Julian the house and introduces them to Elliot who tells them he would like them to stay. Before viewing inside the house Christine had made her mind up that if the Blacks approved of her she would take up their offer to house sit. She can only guess at the level of care that Elliot requires.
The house has been divided into two residences, each with separate entrances. The Blacks leave Christine and Julian with contact details including an itinerary covering the parts of their holiday that have been arranged. They assure them they will remain in touch. They haven’t booked returns, estimating they will be away for six months or more and reassure Christine that if she cannot maintain the agreement they still have their alternative plan to fall back on.
The property is well maintained. The garden is trimmed to perfection by a gardener and the Blacks have enlisted a number of house maintenance services.
Time becomes elusive. Some days a single minute or hour seems to stretch, slowing down time. When you watch a clock on the wall time stands still. It gives the impression of being stuck in the present, unable to progress into a future, dashing dreams and hopes. At the end of a shift at the hospital a sequence of activities will rush, dissolving into a blur.
Christine wonders whether she has become despondent and disinterested towards her work. Returning home to a new residence becomes a mixed blessing. The place offers her relief from the hospital but doesn’t prevent her from fighting to shut out unrelenting thoughts that flood her mind, making it difficult to relax. She takes her worries to bed where they keep her awake. Some days she collapses into an exhausted sleep on a chair in the living-room, before waking hours later hungry and disoriented. She wonders:
Have I become a caged rat trapped in an ever turning treadmill?
She is still troubled that Julian has remained in Melbourne to watch over her, putting his own life on hold. From the beginning his offers seemed over-generous and difficult for her to accept. She doesn’t expect someone to pull her life back in place. She is ashamed that she is too weak and clueless to deal with the tangle that has become her life. Again, she depends on a man to prop up her life and fix up all that is wrong in her world.
She clung to her relationship with Richard and lost herself within it. Now she fears she has allowed Julian to create a stable framework around her. When he leaves she will be forced to take up the reins of her own life. She’s lived in her skin for thirty-six years and has no idea of who she is. She was a wife, is a nurse and now a long-lost sister to a man who is still a stranger. For a longer time than she can remember, she was someone else. Christine is lost, removed from what she has become.
Before entering the house she stops at the front door, gripped by circles of unease swirling within the pit of her stomach. This kind of malaise has become a common feature that strikes then holds on
for long stretches. Such episodes have replaced the numbed state she fell into when she used alcohol to deal with or hide from problems.
She worries that she has become a burden on Julian; one she suspects he will suffer in silence rather than pack himself back to London. Each day he remains gnaws at her conscience. This thought clashes and wrestles with her fear that he will announce he is leaving this day or the next. Then she will be alone to work her way out of the trouble that has become her life.
She puts it to her brother that his life is on hold to fix hers, but he dismisses her concerns. She tells him that she cannot accept his charity. She argues that she has work, a bank balance and isn’t burdened by children. Arguments, followed by heated silences, convey Julian’s frustration. Other times he drip feeds details about his own life and this partly explains and justifies why he’s staying on in Australia.
‘Do you miss home? Do you think about all the things you’ve left behind while you’re here?’
‘I do and suspect home will be much the way it was when I left.’ He doesn’t dwell on this comment, indicating he doesn’t wish to discuss the matter further.
‘Passing time is slippery, intangible and like water tumbling along in a river then into the sea. That water only appears once even though the river and water seem no different. Don’t you think that people and relationships are like this?’
‘That sounds profound – and confusing.’
‘Have you thought that when you return home later than you expected that everything you were familiar with will have changed and may not be to your liking?’
‘Things might be better. Your take on life and the future seems pretty futile and doomed to loss. Do you think I have extended my stay only because of you?’
‘Why else have you stayed so long?’
Julian deflects his sister’s comments and enquiries, telling her only as much as he thinks she should know. He reassures her that Lucy is overseeing his apartment. Christine fishes for more personal information. She wants to know if he misses Lucy. He says she’s a friend but Christine suspects she means more to him. She feels guilty that if he remains with her when he finally returns to London, Lucy will have found someone else.
Months ago he explained to Lucy that he would stay in Australia and could not give a date for his return. She has since contacted him asking if a friend requiring accommodation could stay at his place. He agreed. Lucy packed his personal effects into storage, leaving basic furnishings in the apartment. Rent from this arrangement would serve as an income and help to offset his personal expenses. Christine is relieved by this scrap of information.
She doubts he will accept money and will think such a gesture crass. Her brother in many ways is still a stranger. However, he reminds her of their parents, cutting a somewhat incongruous figure in today’s world where his charm and compassion seem from another era. He remains poised and still, even when caught in the centre of today’s rushed society; at peace in a transient, fragmented world.
Richard was the perfect replacement for Roland and the marriage a boon too good to pass up. Any fairy tale element this union held gave way to a nightmare that grew uglier and more frightening as time passed.
Did I delude myself into believing that Richard’s wallet made him more charming? A man’s wealth has a sinister side, seducing him into buying all that he wants without restraint; for Richard this was infidelity.
She didn’t place a high value on marriage. It was only after her parents were snatched away from her not long after she left school, her siblings had moved far away and she was abandoned by Roland, that marriage to Richard was too good to pass up. Without a family to witness Richard’s abuse she created a fortress around her life and marriage. Stepping away from the pain he caused,
she threw herself into her work, afraid to expose the shameful existence she chose, rather than leave.
She betrayed herself by hiding the hell she lived behind the illusion of an idealised existence. This wall rendered her invisible to prying eyes, gossip and worse, pity.
Her work in the Emergency Ward was the only facet of her life that validated her self-worth. When she wasn’t Richard’s polite and pampered wife, she was a nurse and of service to those less fortunate than herself. Although colleagues respected her work, she feared that one day the truth about her pathetic existence would seep out. And it did. One day the restraint she carefully exercised would give way to an emotional outburst that would fully explode the myth about her life.
Richard’s cutting comments became a mantra. ‘While you work at that hospital, bowing to the masses, you are no better than a garbage collector.’
She recalls how he nagged at her to join committees filled with the bored and idle wives of friends and acquaintances from the Melbourne Club. She was never going to accede to this expectation or others that Richard attempted to impose on her, dreading the thought that she would fall under his total domination. Although she deflected his attacks along with the affairs he had with seeming indifference, she sought solace from the bottle. This became her medicine to ward off anxiety attacks and despair.
Now with Richard gone, Julian has returned to her life. She knew his selflessness had come at a cost to him as she could not remember him being like this. Had the pendulum swung too far towards altruism? Has he become like a parent? After all these years, did the past hold some power over them despite, or because, they lived on opposite parts of the globe?
Christine holds a tenuous grip on her world. Although she blends into Melbourne’s landscape, appearances can be deceptive as she feels little connection to her home, the lives around her and her own alien existence. She is a social refugee, lost and searching for a place to belong.
It is minutes before midnight when Christine returns from a shift. The outside light switches on. As her feet crunch along the gravel she is struck by an unfamiliar atmosphere. The house is quiet. The dogs whine; one lets out a solitary bark. Although the hall light is on, the house seems empty except for the dogs scratching at the door. She finds them in the laundry with their basket and the room warmed by a heater that has been left on. They race through the kitchen, tails wagging; their distress replaced by excitement.
She considers knocking on Julian’s door to rule out the possibility that he is still in the house. Working in hospitals all these years, witnessing broken bodies, lives and dreams, has conditioned her to expect joy and stability to be fleeting, anomalous, and not to be trusted.
In the kitchen on the large oak table she sees a folded piece of paper wedged between two pieces of fruit in the fruit bowl. It reads:
Christine
I phoned the hospital minutes before ten. You must have finished your shift and left for home. I’m with Elliot at Hillman Private. He’s undergoing some tests. Please ring.
Julian
She fears the worst. As a nurse Christine is confronted by death and illness in all its rawness. When death strikes it reminds of its power – nature’s wildcard. It was like this when Christine’s parents were plucked out of her life.
In the twilight hours she has witnessed the appearance of earth-bound spirits, beings that straddled two realms. These are mostly benign entities. She has no doubt there is life beyond death.
She phones Julian who informs her that Elliot has been treated and is to remain at the hospital under observation for the next hour. They took a taxi to the hospital. Julian explains that he didn’t believe
the matter urgent enough to call for an ambulance. Before ringing off he tries to reassure Christine that everything is under control. However, his voice doesn’t disguise his unease and exhaustion.
When she finds them sitting in the Emergency waiting room her brother wears a pinched expression and Elliot is small and tired. ‘Thanks for picking us up. I should have insisted that we take a taxi home.’
In the car, silence suffuses. Julian and Elliot are understandably tired from the evening’s episode. Christine broods, her mouth is buttoned closed; she’s determined to contain her irritation. She should be relieved that Elliot came to no harm; instead, a dark mood creeps over her. She doesn’t know who her discontent is directed at after Julian explained that Elliot wasn’t wearing his glasses when he took the last cocktail of medication. He misread the labels and this resulted in him taking the wrong tablets at the wrong time.