Another change of pace - a story I had published in the Seniors Magazine some time ago...

My time has come

As she gave the girl her credit card, Belle couldn’t help noticing her own hands - covered in sunspots and shaking slightly.  The veins were prominent and the fingers long.  Long fingers meant things. What was it?  She’d always had an artistic streak, her mother had told her so.  Now, sometimes she wasn’t quite so sure what those hands were for.

The girl behind the counter, with her black dyed hair and tattoo peeping from her long-sleeved uniform, looked harried, as though her mind was elsewhere. 

“Pin?”

Belle blinked quickly and punched in the numbers. She ventured:

“Nice day isn’t it?”

The girl mumbled something and turned to the next customer.  Belle believed it was always nice to be nice.  Maybe she had boyfriend problems – she didn’t look old enough to have children.  When Belle returned to her car, she realised she suddenly felt exhausted, gave up her plans for a drive and headed for home.

 She looked out at the garden.  The daffodils were just coming into their own - they looked lovely in spite of their faces bending downwards after the rain.   So many more weeds.  She sighed.   Now each time she got up from the comfy stool, her knees creaked.  Now she even hesitated to take the path down the side of the house, for it was always covered in a little moss, which sneaked up on you in the mountain winters.  Now the wet dropping leaves became a hazard to be avoided at all costs, lest she fall and break a hip or something.  In autumn the ashes, the oaks, the liquid ambers were morphing from green to yellow, russet to bright red.  Once it got colder, the confident wind blew soft flurries of snow down the main street.  Then the galleries and coffee shops did a roaring trade, as people escaped from the cold quite regularly to eat, drink hot chocolate, buy art and shop for that special gift.

When they’d first moved here, it was to get away from the city and enjoy the crisp clean air, although more often in the winter it was smoke laden, from all the wood fires burning across the valley.   Derek had taken early retirement and spent his days birdwatching while Belle ran a little boutique filled with lovely scents and beautiful imported knitwear. An idyllic life all mapped out for them.  

That August it was snatched from them as suddenly as the searing pain across Derek’s chest.   Fear and bewilderment crossed his face as the paramedics tried to stabilise him – two of them worked on him for twenty minutes before they gave up and quietly manoeuvred him in on the stretcher.  Belle was rooted to the spot.   The older one took her arm gently.

“Do you want to come, love?”

 She rode with Derek in the ambulance.  He was still warm when she touched his forehead.  Absentmindedly, she pushed back an unravelled thread on the collar of his fine wool sweater. Numbly she stared out at the black shapes of the trees flying past.

When her son, Colin, came up for the funeral, Belle was grateful for his brisk but tender efficiency.  He took charge of her finances and did the things around the house.  Her daughter-in-law, Moira, a short bulldog of a woman, was her usual aggressive, carping self,  making little digs that always made her feel old and inadequate.  Belle thought wryly that she was supposed to be the matriarch, yet Moira seemed to have all the power.  Somehow Colin was completely unaware of any discord at all.  Belle often bit her lip.  She certainly didn’t want to upset her son.  

After they left, she was alone once more. A huge weight lifted from her shoulders when she finally sold the shop.  Now at last she would be able to do something artistic, something for herself alone.

She tried watercolours, but there was too much unpredictability.  She couldn’t control the water sufficiently - it kept pooling in all the wrong places.  She went on to print making, but that was too arduous.  Where before she had regularly taken a brisk walk before dinner, with or without Derek, now it was an effort.    Belle started caring less about food too.  It was often enough just to have a bowl of soup or a sandwich.  When the weight started falling off, at first she was pleased.  It was nice to be able to fit into clothes she hadn’t worn in years.  But then, she started feeling unaccountably tired, and some days she couldn’t put one foot in front of the other.  

Her doctor suggested a change of scene – maybe visit her son?  The thought of Moira’s turned down mouth and all-seeing eyes following her everywhere filled her with dread.  She chided her for forgetting things all the time, as if Belle were her child.  

“Hello, Belle, it’s so good to see you.  Come in, let me get Colin to take this upstairs for you.  Colin?” she trilled. “Mother is here.”  She gave her the perfunctory peck on the cheek.  

“Is this all you brought?”  she said brightly, in that smarmy way she had, knowing that she didn’t really want her to stay.  She was probably even now plotting a way, through Colin of course, of making sure that this might be the last time she would be visiting them. She couldn’t help noticing some brochures for retirement homes on the hall table.

Belle knew that Moira would like to see her slotted away in one of those places.   That would be like the end of her life as she knew it. The thought was unbearable.  

She remembered clearly the time her friend Doris succumbed to family pressure and went into Morningside Glen.  Although the cold pale green walls were clean enough and the carpeted hallways and fresh flowers even hinted at opulence,  there was an overpowering feeling of being enclosed, being unable to breathe freely.   Wisps shuffling along in their old cardigans and slippers, pushing those Zimmer frames ahead of them. The musty slightly mothbally odour of old clothes.  She hoped that she didn’t smell like that. The dead eyes.  The resigned hunch of their shoulders.  The unrelenting cheerfulness of the activity supervisors as they tried to coax tired limbs to mild exercise and worn out brains to board games was so depressing,

 One day she’d had lunch with Doris in the communal dining room.  She’d pushed overcooked carrots and rissoles with gloopy brown gravy around her plate.  The residents couldn’t chew steak anyway.  Belle made her exit after the predictable dessert of tinned peaches and custard, citing a doctor’s appointment in the city. 

           ***.

 The more she thought about the time ahead the more she was convinced there was only one way out. Unless she acted now the days and months ahead would be rocky.  One long road, leading nowhere.                                                                                                                                                           

Belle picked up the book that had been sitting on her table for weeks.  A Calm Exit.  She opened it to the first page and the dedication.  For all those who deserve a quiet and dignified death without complications.  Make sure your wishes are followed.  As she turned the pages, she became more and more convinced -  this was the right solution.  

A little face appeared at the window.  Could she be dreaming?  Then a tap, tap, tapping.  Her brain snapped to attention.  She rose from the table.  

“Mrs Leighton, Mrs. Leighton...are you there?  Look at my new kite.”

It was the slight seven year old from down the road.  He always looked needy, seeking someone’s approval, someone’s attention.  Lost.  Hanging around, engaging her in conversation if she was out the front.  She wondered what sort of parents he had.  Might he be one of those latchkey kids?  The kids who seemed to bring themselves up.  At least, Belle could say she never neglected her child.  She had had the luxury of being at home when he was young and was positively thrilled when school holidays came around and she could take him to the Easter Show, make craft angels with him at Christmas. She smiled when she thought about the soccer games, with the under sixes all running in the same direction after the ball.  

But the tiredness now seemed to come from her very marrow.  It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying.

“Look...”  He started to run up the incline of their street, dragging the cheap flimsy fluoro  paper thing with him.   When he got to the top, flushed and excited, he was screaming at her to watch.  He ran back down and the thing was suddenly airborne, trailing behind him.  His little face was ecstatic.  

“Look, look....I’m flying!”

“I can see that...” she laughed suddenly, and it just bubbled out of her - it sounded strange, this laugh.  As though it were coming from someone else.  How long had it been since she had experienced real joy?  She continued watching him and he looked so happy.   When he finally came and put his arms around her, the shock made her recoil.  It felt almost alien, someone hugging her like that.  She picked up his kite.

“Don’t you think you should be getting home now, Aiden?”

He brushed the mucous from his dripping nose in a way that looked almost tough.

“Nah, Mum won’t be home for ages.  I go home whenever.”

Belle frowned. She looked anxiously down the street.  The sun had suddenly gone behind the clouds.  It was almost dark now. There was no-one around.  How worried she used to be if Colin was even fifteen minutes late from school.  What was the matter with these people?  Why did they even have children?

“Are you sure?  What time does she get home from work?  It’s getting dark. “

“I got a key.  I just let meself in.  Don’t worry, Mrs. Leighton.”

“I think you should come home with me.  Then I can ring your mum and let her know where you are.”

“Okay.”

He took her hand, almost too willingly, she thought.  What about stranger danger?  She’d been so paranoid about someone snatching her son from her, she’d often been over-protective, vetting his school friends, restricting his playtime, making sure he was never out of her sight.  Maybe she’d been too emotionally needy herself.  

After she’d heated up some soup and he was slurping it at the table, she picked up the phone 

“Hello?  Look, it’s Belle Leighton from number 44.  I just wanted to let you know that Aiden is with me.  It was getting dark....Sorry, what was your name?”

“Oh.  Sorry. It’s Rochelle.  Could you...?” It was a small breathy voice that sounded oddly familiar.  

“I’ll bring him over right now.”

The little fellow was oblivious, watching the cartoons.  He’d eaten every last morsel and was riveted to the set.  Now Belle was worried.  What if his mother reported her to DOCS or something?  Surely it wasn’t wrong to bring the little boy in out of the cold.  But maybe his mother saw her quite differently – as some sort of threat.  Or maybe she was just a single mother under a lot of pressure.  

“Listen, Aiden, your mother wants you home right now.  We’d better go.”

She buttoned her coat.  He was still sitting there.

“Aiden?”

“Can’t I just stay here?  It’s so warm.  I like it here.”

“Sorry, but you’ve got to go home.”

The tiny figure that came to the door had large eyes with dark circles under them.  It was the girl from the petrol station. She didn’t seem grateful that Belle had brought her son home.  She seemed embarrassed.  Belle could see from the doorway that the place was a mess.  Aiden slipped past her and turned the old television on.  Realising she wouldn’t be invited inside, Belle offered a smile and said,

“Well, I won’t hold you up then.  I just wanted to make sure that he was alright. “

“Thanks for bringing him home. “

She was already closing the door.  Belle left then, and as she walked slowly back to her house, she wondered whether it might be interfering if she kept an eye on the little guy.   Just to make sure he was alright.  Surely there could be no harm in that?

                                                                        ***

The hallway mirror gave her a glimpse of herself she hadn’t seen in a while – she looked the same, fair hair that would never quite straighten into a bob, kind blue eyes and tired lined skin.  That night she fell asleep in front of the television.    

 The next morning she walked slowly around every room, and thought about not being able to recognise her surroundings anymore.  Not remembering the day she and Derek had had a mock fight putting up the pale flock wallpaper.  How they both had glue all over them and had had to wash it off in a bubble bath later.  How Colin’s room still had a burn on the carpet when he’d pulled over the lamp.  They were lucky he hadn’t set the place on fire.    It was her job to navigate the family and all that that entailed – entertaining visitors and keeping everyone well-fed.   The kitchen cupboards had seen better days, but her trusty old Mixmaster had whirred its way through literally thousands of sponges and teacakes.

She had always taken for granted she’d live to a ripe old age with Derek - they’d be doddering about the house together making cups of tea, pretending to fight over the lifestyle and sport sections in the Herald.  He used to always get the sport and she would make a face, pretending disappointment. The tears welled up then.

There was a timid knock at the door.  That could mean only one thing.  It must be Aiden.  He mustn’t see her crying.  “I’m coming.....”  she said, as she, dashing into the bathroom, splashed her face with cold water and dabbed on some lipstick. 

But it was Rochelle.

“I hate to ask…but…could you possibly look after Aiden today?  I’ve got to do a late shift. If….um, if I don’t have a “responsible caregiver” (she said the words as if they’d been programmed into her) they’ll take him off me again….could you?”

Belle tried to hide her delight behind a responsible mature lady façade.

“That would be fine.”

                                                                  ***

Something shifted.  Belle got up early every morning and took Aiden to school.  She still made detailed to-do lists and was careful to eat right and stay active, now she had someone else to consider. She began to look forward to Aiden’s visits.  She made afternoon tea treats which he gobbled up.  Rochelle began to rely on her more and more. 

Belle planted more bulbs for the spring.  Narcissus this time.   Narcissus for the Greek god who saw his own reflection and fell in love with it but when she picked the first heavily scented flowers that September morning, she thought not only of love but gratitude.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 This is a change of pace - a true travel story! Enjoy! 

 

When one does things from altruistic motives, one has to accept that not all will be smooth sailing, that there will be some deprivation, some discomfort. There comes a point where sometimes you merely feel that while it’s alright to be doing Meals on Wheels or helping out at the school fete, you get an itch to do something big, to do something worthwhile to make a difference.  At least that's the theory. 

 

This was the reason I'd gone to Peru to volunteer.  My daughter declared :

 

"Mum's gone into her “Save the World Mode”, rolling her thirty-something eyes.

 

I'd been up to Macchu Picchu ten years before hoping for enlightenment, and been disappointed – it was impossible to find a quiet spot among the hordes of tourists, jabbering away in Dutch, German or English.  The ruins were amazing though. Those ancients had even created their own sundial and had a beautifully functioning society before it was all taken over by the Spaniards, who imposed their own kind of civilisation.

 

Now, after a long flight from Australia, I was on a bus, snaking along mountainous roads where all I could see from the window as we sped by was an arid and parched landscape, tiny land-locked villages and tin shanties, snotty nosed kids, assorted mangy dogs - they made me wonder what I was getting into.  Seven boring hours on the bus, only relieved by the hostess who organised a jolly game of bingo in Spanish.  I barely knew the numbers to ten but decided to have a go anyway.  Needless to say, I didn't win, but when I found out what the prize was, I was relieved.  The winner had to make a speech about how great the bus company was and extol their superior comfort and services.  Everyone clapped as the winner made his speech. 

 

I wasn't prepared for the cold that enveloped me when I almost fell off the bus, the last two steps too steep for my numb legs.  Luckily, Ricardo, a short stocky man with a ready grin who had organised the entire stay in Huancayo, a sizeable town of more than two hundred thousand, met me, waving a swaying cardboard sign with my name spelled incorrectly and hustled me on to the office, where I was relieved of several hundred dollars and the books I had brought for the children.  I was surprised there was such a rush to get this part of the transaction over with, especially since it was 10 o'clock at night. I never saw those books at the school.

 

“Now, I will take you to your homestay.” He said, hailing a rickety taxi, barely held together with prayers and a dangling crucifix from the rear view mirror.

 

We bumped along dark potholed streets and he finally deposited me at my homestay.  My heart sank when I saw how far away from the town proper it was.  A cloud of dust flew up as we shuddered to a halt in front of a reasonably large house.  I was introduced to the parents, Gloria and Emilio and their two daughters, Silvana and Raquel, who spoke a little English. I wondered why they all had parkas on, until I got inside.  The house was freezing – I shivered in my inadequate jumper and jeans.  

 

I was being welcomed over and over and as I tried to make sense of what they were saying, responding in my fractured Spanish, my eyelids became heavy with the anticipation of sleep.  Eventually I was able to indicate to them that I was really tired and would appreciate going to bed early, but I still ended up almost falling over before I was allowed to go upstairs.  Although the bed was lumpy and dusty, sleep claimed me almost immediately – sheer exhaustion.

 

My home stay family were charming but could be volatile.  There were often loud disagreements, but then they hugged.  Having very little Spanish beyond “Si” and basic vocabulary, I pretty much said yes to everything. The first thing I said Si to was an invitation to their god-daughter's wedding.  I was thrilled to be asked, looking forward to some fantastic rustic food and quaint country customs.

 

At about 5 am, I awoke to a lot of yelling and screaming, and doors being slammed.  I just lay there.  Perhaps the old man had had a heart attack or there'd been a burglary or something. I could hear machines, more yelling. I must have dozed off for a while, when there was a loud rap at the door. 

 

‘Apresurate, vamos tarde!’

 

The mother, brandishing a hair dryer, was telling me to get up and get ready.  She had been transformed into a diva in purple satin, with matching eye shadow and mauve lipstick and the girls, hair piled high and lacquered, had been squashed into tight shiny bodices and stilettos.  They actually all looked quite charming, in an early Eighties kind of way.

 

After the church, we headed off to the reception, in an enormous almost empty hall.  Miles of shiny white tiles covered the floor.  It was freezing, so I just shuddered and drew my jacket more closely to my chest, practically strangling myself with my scarf.

 

The bridal party and around two hundred guests finally arrived two hours later. While the tiny four foot eleven bride, covered in lace and satin and her dark eyed groom, with glossy slicked back hair, beamed at us, what followed were numerous speeches.  Not one, but two twenty-four piece bands played loud dissonant music. 

 

‘Nice music?’ Raquel smiled.

 

I smiled back.  The wedding gifts, rather than being decorously displayed on a table, were paraded through the hall. This was a sight to behold. The entire contents of a house - fridges, stoves, microwaves, a giant four poster bed, piles of towels, sheets, tablecloths - were carried into the reception by teams of short muscular Peruvian men.   I spent the next hours standing in the still arctic hall, while everyone got drunker and drunker on beer served in plastic cups.  After taking a few gulps, they blithely threw the contents over their shoulders.  Some sort of weird custom, I figured.  The result was that we were literally skating on beer.  It was hard enough to keep your balance and then they wanted me to join in their dancing too! 

 

It was close to midnight and the evening was going swimmingly, literally, because of the lake of beer we were standing in.  Suddenly I found myself in the middle of an altercation.  There was shouting, I wondered if perhaps an insult I couldn’t understand had been made - and then there was retaliation.  Fists were flying, and Ricardo was trying to keep me out of the melee. Once again, he bundled me into a taxi with the daughters and I was left wondering what was going on.  When we got home and I prepared for bed, the front door closing made me look out the window to see Raquel sneaking back down the road.  Perhaps the melee had involved her boyfriend and she was going to extricate him?  Who knew?  The parents arrived back in their ancient Toyota an hour later.  By that time I had tried to get to sleep several times, but didn’t get up.

 

The next morning, breakfast consisted of hot fruit juice – even though I was still cold, I couldn’t come at that.  This was followed by a soup – strange looking and even stranger tasting.  At this rate, I could drop those few extra pounds easily.

 

Remember that Si? Now we were off to view yet another presentation of the wedding gifts – this time at the home of the just married couple.  Far from being starry eyed newlyweds, they had been together several years and had a couple of children.  We sat outside, again in the bitter cold, and watched the exact same procession of whitegoods on strong Peruvian shoulders, go around and around in their backyard, while soup and meat roasted on outdoor grills.  It was numbingly cold, sitting out there, but luckily I managed to get myself practically glued to one of the outdoor ovens, ostensibly looking after the meat, watching it turn and sizzle.  I didn’t like to ask what it was, as it might have been guinea pig, a delicacy in the region I had not yet sampled. It tasted like chicken.

 

That afternoon Ricardo arrived at the house and after a whispered conference with the parents, said he was moving me to another homestay.  He didn’t give me a reason, but I guessed it had something to do with the dust-up at the wedding.

 

This too, was an average looking house – suburban and ordinary.  There was a mother, Ana and her son Alfonso – he spoke quite good English – but there was a palpable sense of sadness about the mother and it wasn’t until a few days later that I realised why – she had lost her older son tragically two years before – in unfortunate circumstances as I was later to discover.  

 

On Sunday we went out to the cemetery. Ana was beside herself, putting flowers on the pristine grave that overlooked the town.  I didn’t quite know what to do - it seemed like such a private moment and here I was sharing it – a middle-aged stranger from Australia come to teach English. She told me that the son had been pushed from a third storey balcony - she said it was no accident - by one of his best friends, who apparently was jealous of him.  She said the police had no interest in investigating, because the other boy’s parents were wealthy and influential in the town.  I didn’t know what to think.  Here I had a little room at the back of their house – it was nice and private but the water supply was erratic, so I had to time my showers and washing to when I thought it might be available, usually before two pm. Hot water was rare, and I found myself washing my smalls and re-wearing other clothes.  

 

The first day I went out to the “school”- a tiny concrete hut with a dirt floor. Hopeful toothless grandmothers lined up outside, eagerly pushing their grandchildren forward.  The children were cramped in, all ages, all sizes, keen to learn English, sitting on the floor.  I wanted to do something, so I bought a couple of dozen plastic tables and chairs. The kids were lovely and eager to learn. 

 

I went out there every day on the local bus and was always shocked to see open drains like small rivers everywhere, with plastic bags and rubbish floating along. The wonky footpaths in the town were treacherous, too, and you could easily fall into a hole if you weren’t careful. One day there was a loud workers demonstration threading through the streets.  I started talking to one of the participants in a combination of sign language and fractured Spanish. She told me these protests were a common occurrence but hardly any reform ever came about. She shrugged her shoulders and said “corruption”.

 

I lasted a few weeks, but was incredibly lonely as I was the only foreigner in the programme at that time. So I left to go back home, stopping off in Los Angeles where a friend I had met several years before at the Hollywood Bowl let me sleep on her lumpy futon while I waited for a flight home. The world of difference between those two worlds! An entrepreneur, she took me to the Beverley Hills Hotel to meet her friends, then stopping off at Trader Joe’s for a two dollar bottle of wine, we went to a party.  Her cat prowled around me all night and the garish fishbowl light kept going on and off, so it was with eyes practically hanging out of my head that I boarded that Qantas flight for home. Si!

 

 

 

 

 Can't believe it's more than a year since I posted anything...here goes!

FOR THE LOVE OF THE PEOPLE

There was once nothing at all extraordinary about this fifty year old woman. Nothing about the way she looked, or the way she spoke, when she was a teenager living near a rubbish tip would have marked her for greatness.

That is, until she met her benefactor, a man who wore real leather jackets, beautiful shoes and snapped his fingers at servants, circulating easily and comfortably among the poor in the slums as easily as he did in the boardrooms of the rich.

When she first met him in the hotel bar, she was still a teenager with an elastic band holding her pony tail. Shy and quiet, with nothing but a tremulous smile and an eagerness to escape her mundane life. She was about to leave the bar when he touched her arm and said:

‘What’s your emergency?’

By the time she left him, there were diamonds in her hair as well as on her fingers. Under his tutelage her handwriting improved, her nose succumbed to an elegant reshaping and her body was toned. Speech and elocution lessons and a makeup expert connected the dots between ordinary and stunning.

Now her chihuahua’s paw gently brushed her thigh when he wanted to climb down, to eat his specially prepared foie gras from his gold plate.

‘Are you hungwy, my little pet? Here, mummy feed you.’

She picked up the gold spoon. As far as she knew, no-one had ever trained a dog to be spoon-fed. What an achievement, perhaps she could apply for the Guiness Book of Records?

‘Now, darling. You need to have your shampoo.’ She clicked her fingers and a servant magically appeared. That was usually all he needed, and placed the dog in his arms. He nodded  walking away with the precious bundle.

She sat, sipping her tea and looking out at the ocean. It was particularly beautiful today – blue and placid and close yet so far away. The sea was a gift – it could change your mood in an instant. Staring into the distance, it calmed you, made you think of nothing but its blue depths.

She lay back on the chaise longue and closed her eyes. Stillness, quiet, only the scent of the peonies so recently plucked from the garden and the tinkle of bells from the vendors in the street.

It wouldn’t be very long now until they came for her, those people in the street, those who had accepted her largesse so gratefully and easily, who had loved her, hadn’t they? Wasn’t it she who had thrown banknotes from the limousine, who’d visited the poor in their ghettos, who’d donated an hour of her time once a month in the soup kitchen, who’d spoken to them so gently from the television when they were angry about something. Just like a mother, really.

And what could you do to your mother? You had to respect her and love her, didn’t you?

You couldn’t possibly do her any harm, could you?