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F I C T I O N
Cover design: Sandy Cull, gogoGingko
Cover photograph: vigourgraphics.com.au
North Coast, New South Wales. Clementine is twenty-five and
still living in the place where she grew up, rooted there by
memories and her own inability to make changes until she has
understood her past. The past is dominated by memories of
her mother, and her mothers attempts to dramatise and enrich
small-town life and the perceptions of her three clever, receptive
daughters.
But only Clementine has stayed. Is this out of loyalty to her
mothers memory? Or to comfort her father? Perhaps she wants
to find peace with Hugh, her earnest husband in whose house
she most uncomfortably lives? Or is the lure Thomas, who alone
can appreciate Clementines sensuality, and her humour, but who
must remain another of her secrets?
Winner of the 1990Australian/Vogel Literary Award, and reissued
on the twentieth anniversary of its publication, this remarkable
debut novel by a great Australian writer will again be readwith pleasure and remembered with joy.
THEMINTLAW
N
GILLIANMEARS
THE M INT L AWN
GILLIAN
MEARS
Mears writes like an angel The AgeA remarkable novel. Canberra Times
She has depth and insight and lyrical skill worthy of
unmitigated envy. MURRAY WALDREN, The Australian
Sensuous prose that leaves the reader with the luxurious
feeling of having been bathed in warm, scented milk.
It is impossible to read Mears work and not see the world
suddenly, obsessively, magnified into tiny, balletic gestures
of light and dust. Australian Womens Book Review
Winner of the 1990 Australian/Vogel Literary Award
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THE MI NT L AWN
GILLIAN
MEARS
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In memory of Sheila and for my sisters
Tis edition published in 2011First published in 1991Copyright Gillian Mears 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted inany form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without priorpermission in writing from the publisher. Te Australian Copyright Act 1968(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educationalpurposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) hasgiven a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Creative writing program assisted by the AustraliaCouncil, the Australia Governments arts fundingand advisory body. Some parts of Te Mint Lawnwere completed with the assistance of a FellowshipB from the Literature Board.
Lines from Te ransit of Venusby Shirley Hazzard reproduced with kind permission
of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
Allen & UnwinSydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London
83 Alexander StreetCrows Nest NSW 2065AustraliaPhone: (61 2) 8425 0100Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are availablefrom the National Library of Australiawww.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74237 933 3
Set in 00/00 pt fontname by Midland ypesetters, AustraliaPrinted in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper in this book is FSC certified.
FSC promotes environmentally responsible,
socially beneficial and economically viable
management of the worlds forests.
mailto:[email protected]://www.allenandunwin.com/http://www.trove.nla.gov.au/http://www.trove.nla.gov.au/http://www.allenandunwin.com/mailto:[email protected] -
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I N M Y H U S B A N D S H O U S E
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3
ONE
Im telling him about drug squad Alsatians when he begins to
cry. Hes quite far away, curled like a puppy on the collapsing
curve of futon that was a wedding present from his parents.
A sheet has rucked to reveal the beginning of a mildew problem on
the mattress. Condensation dribbles down the inside of the coffee
plunger until I push the grounds down hard. Outside, although
its nearly spring, the sky is wet and old-looking. My husband isnt
crying because police dogs are heroin addicts from puppyhood,
but I keep on relating the more intricate details. As a diversion,
it isnt successful. His crying is a high, unlikely whine. Unable to
comfort, I pat the nearest part, his ankle, then edge away from its
bony coolness. Did my mother make Ventry cry like this? I pull
my hair into a ponytail and dont know the certain answer. DidVentry cry? Of course, of course. A clear memory exists but by
then it was way too late.
Closer up, mildew is like a map. A faint grey outline of
asmania is visible, heart-shaped and whole, so I watch this instead
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of a weeping husband. Trough the doorway into the kitchen, the
leftover sandwiches from lunch with Tomas are curling at the
edges. Lightly, I hold my own hands, squeezing and unsqueezingthem in time to his crying. My hands feel long and limp. Ten
his grief changes key. Hes crying with his mouth stretched so
wide I can see, against my will, years of coffee stains etched on the
underside of his front teeth.
Darling, he says.
Te tattiness of my reassurances alarms me and the way hetakes hope. Now I know Im being like Cairo. My mother was
just like this: quite absent from other peoples sorrow, even that of
her own three daughters. We still cry secretively, as if in deference
to her more permanent absence. Our tongues curl around our
sadness, the way hers once did.
I watch Hugh wobble out and up from the pillow. Around us the
air is threadbare. Dont you have to get back to the shop? I ask.
What was he doing here?
I said Id lend him some sheet music. And he lent me some
Bellini tapes.My husband moves closer. So I have nothing to worry about,
Clemi? He kisses, he licks my face, as if somehow Im the crying
one in all this. You know I could order you in any Bellini youd
like. But youve got them all. Youve got all Bellinis operas.
I know. But he was so enthusiastic. He saw a production of
Norma in Paris.Later, the smell of Hughs dried spit is awful and ordinary
Sunlight soap wont do the job. I have to wash it away with the
knob of Coal ar that sits by the washing machine for extra-
persistent stains.
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* * *
Youre very contained, Tomas had said earlier from his perch on
the small antique school desk with the fold-out bench. Smoke in
a glass jar. Like that.
I was peeling an avocado. Arent they going to be creamy
this year?
What?
Te avocado pears. My grandma calls them alligator pears.
Tats how old she is.
Plumed, he said and seemed pleased with this word. You.
Dont you think? Fire if you blow. On Saturday you were very
offensive. Do you remember?
Really? I kept treading on the long hem of the skirt I pulled on
when he phoned to ask could he come for coffee. Te avocado had
a disease that gave the inner skin knobs. I tried hard to remember
my attempted seduction of Tomas last Saturday night. Memories
were vague. Ten the top fell off the salt container and a white
pyramid piled into the middle of the first sandwich.
Do you usually like so much salt? Hed crossed his legs and
laughed. And do you usually go without pants? Behind his glasses,
his eyes were greenish brown. I looked down at my silk skirt withits see-through smudges and magical swirls. Plumed. He said it
again but when I went for a pee, I wouldve said keeled. Like a
newly hatched butterfly: very wet and very open: winged.
Ill draw the way out to Swallow Lane. Tomas had kept sitting
like an overgrown schoolboy at the low desk. In his patchwork
waistcoat he was as lovely as a careful childs colouring-inveryneat and enticing with just a few wild loops of colour escaped
from the borders. He drew the map using one of Roeys pink
pencils left behind on the desk. Te pencil was short; sharpened
at both ends but neither end particularly pointed. From his
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pocket Tomas took a Swiss Army pen knife. Te shavings fell
into the creases of his jeans. Is that your little girls name? He
fingered the paler wood sliced open for the name. He held thepencil up. Roey?
Not my daughter. My niece. I dont have any yet.
Pretty.
Yes, she is.
No, I meant the names very pretty.
Short for Rosemary. My older sisters. Teyre here on a visitfrom Sydney.
Where are they today?
Picnicking.
Hope I didnt stop you from going.
Teyd already left when you phoned.
And whats your sisters name? he asked.
Alexandra. Teres some photographs behind you.
Hed placed the pink pencil behind his ear and looked at the
board full of pictures.
Tats Roey and theres Alex.
But he was looking at a photo of me taken a few years ago
under the mulberry tree.
Tats the dress you wore on Saturday night, he said.
Hmm. An old mulberry-stained sundress that belonged to
my mother, that slips on and off my shoulders.
And thats how you looked. Is it your drinking frock? Tomas
has a lovely smile. I laughed into it. I let myself. I didnt resist and
ignored the next slightly unsavoury comment he made about the
bottom line of photos Hugh has pinned thereall his favouritemusic students, past and present. You seem different now, Tomas
said. Shyer. Diminutive.
Id had a bottle and a half of claret. Noon. Te old school
clock had clicked over into afternoon. I nearly began to say, as
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I handed over an avocado and soggy sprouts sandwich, how my
husbands house diminishes me. At noon especially. Almost, I was
going to tell Tomas how it is when the pale, saggy, midday cloudshang over the river through the kitchen window, and particular
directions seem vague. And how old weatherboard houses are very
silent. As if the heavy planks of peeling timber cut out the normal
sounds of a country town.
It agreed well with you, Tomas said.
Sorry?Te wine. oo well, huh? I couldnt work it out. Whether
youd had a fight and wanted to be nasty to your husband. Do you
remember what you kept saying?
No.
Are you a fucking virgin?, as you tried to get my fingers into
your mouth.
And I offended you?
You were very naive.
No. I fiddled with sprouts falling out of my sandwich. It was
the wine and your eyes. Im not normally like that. It was his eyes.
In the kitchen where we sat eating it was still his eyes. Te smooth
light from the window over the fern thicket held us. I wanted to be
somewhere airy and anonymous with him. I seem to remember,
I said, that youre here to do some carving. Is that right?
Tats right. A friend lent me this Swallow Lane place for the
next few months. Rent-free. Im going to whittle him some kind
of thankyou. And Im mowing the lawn which is rather big.
I wonder if I know him. I grew up here.
No, hes not a local. A asmanian like me.I smiled to see him folding breadcrumbs into the map and
told him he must go. Hugh usually comes home for lunch,
I explained and took the small square of paper offered. Hes on his
bike today. rying to lose weight.
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A music teacher, isnt he? Tomas had asked. He seemed
a nice guy. Was he yours?
Not at school. Not really, although he sometimes does casualteaching. He used to be a school teacher. Now he just gives extra
music coaching. He was fantastic. Tere was a queue to get onto
Mr Easterns books. And you had to be good enough for a start.
Really! A studentteacher romance?
Sort of. I suppose. And he was involved with the Youth
Orchestra and music camps.So where is he today?
He owns the music shop over the other side of the river. Youd
better go.
Tomas opened the fridge door and took a chocolate-coated
clinker from the open packet. What, he exclaimed, are these? I
thought I was getting a chocolate-coated almond.
Teyre the reason my tongue feels so rough today.
I wouldnt want to be any kind of catalyst.
You wouldnt be that. I could smell Tomas had a lime clinker.
Ten Id begun to steer him towards the front door. Te house
grows darker towards the middle but I didnt bother to flick on
any light-switches. Te rooms were so dark I practically bumped
into him.
errible house from the inside, isnt it, he said. So dark. It
feels unnatural.
It used to be a meat inspectors house. Wed stopped outside
the main bedroom. Hugh says when he first looked over the place
every light in the house was on and even then it was dark. My cat
was asleep in a tight curl on the pillows when I told Tomas howshe liked earwax.
Must take after you, he turned to say.
Id had to hug him then. I hugged from behind.
Hey, he said. I folded against him. Under his shirt, his nipples
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were as cold and hard as a childs. He was large to lean into. Your
hands, he said, are freezing!
I turned him round, thinking something illicit, infidelity,remembering Cairos, and saw all the muscles above his lips were
snapping and twitching. With my tongue I touched the small
vertical scar under his nose. At the front door I told him my sister
and her child would be gone the day after tomorrow.
Come out soon then, hed said. Come any time.
Trough glass, the colours of his coat merged and dazzled.wice he kissed the glass and grinned. Boy grins. A boy bum on
long legs. When his car didnt start, I went as far as the front gate
to watch. It was a fucked-up grey Holden. I laughed to see him
clutch-rolling it along the quiet street. High up, the air thronged
with currawongs. Next door the dog fight was escalating, two
little terriers rolling over and over like cartoon dogs. Teir rage
was funny. I laughed at them and at the shape of the back I had
hugged, bracing at the weight of the car. I was still laughing,
leaning silk skirt, no pants, against the gate, when Tomass car
began so throatily the sound alone appeared to nearly knock Hugh
off his bike.
I wish I was single and solvent.A line from a favourite book. I do
this. I look for myself in other peoples songs and sentences and
feel comforted if ever I am there. Single and solvent. No husband.
Tey could be song titles. In the afternoon hush I try to imagine.
I shut my eyes as I squeeze orange juice and cant remember his
face very clearly; only the sound or the structures of our nervoussentences. I turn the orange: half round, half round. Juice stings
in a cut on my thumb and I have to make my breathing very light
to stop the panic somewhere in the middle of me. In the We of Me.
Carson McCullers, I remember and wonder could I write a song
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about that? wist-twist. wo time. wo time. I concentrate on
orange-squeezing rhythms. A turning point day? I think his face
was like Michael Moons, the boy from St Johns, who used toplay first violin in the Youth Orchestra. Id play first flute just
behind him. Te Northern Daily News ran a feature on Michael
recently. In the accompanying photograph his hair was no longer
the white blond it would go in summer. Somebody senior from
the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was welcoming him into their
midst. Michael Moon seemed to be beaming not at the camerabut at his glittering, illustrious future.
Te lunchtime rain has gone. I feel a weak sun is revolving
round the house. By the time everyones home, well be able to sit
on the riverside veranda sipping juice and marvelling at how the
light pinkens in the branches of the oldest gumtrees. I try to think
calmly of my husband with us. Hugh likes my sister and adores
Rosemary.
Would anyone come if I gulped too much air and called out for
help? Im winded with lust and fear. Windedthat exact feeling
when as a child toppled from a horse you lay trembling and
gulping until your lungs started up again. On Saturday night Id
been telling Tomas of childhood horse days. Tis was because the
band was playing in the old showground barn where my sisters
and I would move in every August for the pony club camp. Camp
beds and horsey, sex-crazed girls and peeing in an old molasses
tin if you had to go in the night because the showground toilets
were too far away. I told Tomas of my irrational homesickness,
weeping for my mother, though home was within sight of the
showground, on the south hill just before the bridge. I tried topersuade Tomas outside so he could see exactly how close my old
home was. I can remember chewing his ear as he tried to retreat.
I wanted to tell him how, aged twelve years, with a chest flatter
than paper, Id watched the breasts of the girl in the camp bed next
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door. I recall my dress slid and moved but that Tomas wouldnt
touch. He danced with his glasses on and avoided my tongue as
best he could. So Id told him of my twelve-year-old breast envyfor Sarah indleys luminous white tits. Tomas had laughed.
I remember only her boobs and the colour of her horse. Id had to
yell it at him. Te music echoed around tin. Tere was too much
space between us and I couldnt be sure if he heard when I said,
Sarah rode a fat chestnut and her nipples were fawn and full.
He kept on laughing and not coming close. in and tinsel. Anold tin barn. All the old horse day associations. Memories of
McGregors Family Band and the Pride of Erin with my father.
Memories of other dances and Michael Moon kissing a girl who
was not me. But also, my husband. Tat night he sat at the corner
of a trestle table looking like a nappy pony with its tail between
its legs.
I slice another orange open. Its seeds lie in an immaculate and
perfect pattern. Te afternoon wind carries the sound of school
buses. Another two hours left before Hugh is home. Itd be better
if Alex and Roey were home first. Heart-shaped petals from the
vase of camellias begin to come adrift. In my husbands house there
are many hearts. Te orange smell is sharp. I rinse my hands and
dry them, and the beginning of tears, on a Windsor Castle tea
towel. Te tears surprise me but I let them fall, trying to analyse
their accompanying ache. Is it guilt? In my husbands house there
has come a lover. I crack my nostrils the way I always could.
Ha! You can still do that can you? Alex has come creepingin. Watch this Roey. Watch your Clementine being a horse. Or
watch Mummy. As Alex bends to show Roey her nostrils flaring,
I stop crying.
I didnt hear the car, I say.
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Are you okay?
Te sympathy has a dissolving effect. Sister sympathy. It has
always worked like this. I cry hard, dissolving, dissolving, buttrying to smile. Sister sympathy. It is effective but impotent
because once youre well and truly dissolved and speechless with
snot and tears, theres no way possible for a hug to happen. It is
awkward and vaguely awful if I ever think too much about itbut
there is no history of hugs between us. We are handshakers. We
shake hands when we see each other, even if it has been a long timebetween visits. We shake hands firmly, the way our father taught
us, gripping hard and looking into each others eyes.
I feel winded, I want to say.My big sister, throwing myself into
her arms. But say instead, Ill be all right. Tese curious spaces
between us. We are close sisters, yet we move around each other
carefully as if to preserve some kind of fragile soap bubble weve
blown around ourselves. Were scared of our secrets. We prefer to
reminisce about childhood.
Whys Clementine crying? Tis is worse. Te snotty hankie
my niece proffers has dry, crusty corners.
Darling, says Alex, why dont you take your juice into the
sunny room.
Irr, Roey wrinkles her nose. All the chunky bits are still in.
Just drink it, Roe.
Hang on. I take down the strainer. You shouldnt shorten her
name to Roe. You make her sound like fish eggs. I begin to pour
the juice through into another glass.
I dont want to sound like fish eggs. Roey has seated herself
where Tomas sat. She examines the old school desk graffiti. Doyou think, she asks, Aunt Clemi, do you think these two ended
up married?
Which two? Te fridge makes funny, groaning noises.
Did Rosalind marry Henry? With her finger Rosemarys
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tracing the loopy heart that holds the neat names. She is to be a
flowergirl soon for her fathers sister and weddings are very much
on her mind.Hang on Clem, Ill just take Roey into the sun room. I hear
them going. No, Alex is saying. Of course Rosalind didnt want
to marry Joseph Henry. Because he wouldve been her very first
boyfriend. Tats why. Itd be like you marrying little William.
Tere is an explosion of laughter and then their voices fade.
With the knife, I slice the letter into a camellia petal heart.Are you sure youre okay? Alexandras back hovering.
Just hormonal. Facing away, Im thinking about how I dont
even know his surname and of how his tongue tasted of smoke
and that Ive never kissed a smoker before or anybody else except
Hugh. But I cant tell my sister this and, anyway, shes keeping
her distance. Im okay. Honestly. But something is easing in me
and it hurts like a very high C note that I probably couldnt play
any more or recognise on a score. I slice the heart petal up but it
doesnt help. Ten Rosemary waltzes back in with an upside-down
orange grin above her real lips. Her hands and wrists glitter with
gold stars. She holds them high above her head and the moment
for any kind of revelation slips away.
Te river separates this house from the one where we grew up. Te
Fineflour is a large river, divided by islands with pretty and plain
girls names. When Alexandra and I go out with mugs of tea to
drink on the levee bank, its not as though we can see much of
the old place where our father still lives. Te angles of the landare wrong. He shares the house with the family puppy who has
inexorably turned into an old dog. Te river is running fast in
the afternoon wind, the way it was years ago when Cairo went
fishing with the Gummer brothers. Wed been riding the horses
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past and I had stopped briefly to talk. I stayed long enough to
see the old yellow handline Cairo was using fall from her hand
and go whizzing away against the current. Patrick had yelled outtheories about what was on the other end. Cairos eyes were on the
mad-looking reel. My eyes were on her. It was years ago and
the uncertain inkling that there was something abnormal about the
way my mother was laughing had occurred to me. She was giggling.
She was giggling at the eldest brother. She giggled for Charlie
Gummer. I can see this scene clearly and remember exactly thecrazy nature of her laugh as the reel disappeared. She was chewing
gum. My mother had many acquaintances in this town but Patrick
was one of her real friends. He was an inspiration and her confi-
dant. His brother Charlie was our neighbour and her lover and
Ive often wished it was him not Patrick who died in the car with
Cairo.
Is Ventry really going to sell? Alexandra squints her eyes up
in the direction of the house. Its top windows would be reflecting
the sunset.
It doesnt ever look quite real, I say. At this time of day
especially, I cant believe Ventrys over there, pottering about. Tat
anything ordinary can be happening in a house so like a fairytale.
Dont you think so? Dont you think it looks enchanted? On Lilian
Island a line of Herefords is trailing out onto the point to drink
from the river that would be cold.
Ventrys probably picking his nose in the kitchen. Alexandra
tips her tea onto the grass. I think its looking terribly dilapidated.
Just like all the buildings over there now. And certainly not inside.
Nothing enchanting about how Ventry lives. Te place smells likean old peoples home.
Whats that supposed to mean?
Old egg. Porridge and beans. Meals on Wheels. Alexandra
pauses. An egginess to the air.
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He doesnt get Meals on Wheels. Even Lettie doesnt get that.
I know, silly, but thats what the house smells like these days.
And poor old Fig. I think hes forgotten where a dog isnt meantto lift his leg.
Te sun casts a strong last light onto the cluster of shop roofs.
Currawongs are in the air again, their calls elongated and faded
from the wind across the river.
Te house we grew up in was built on the hill that begins
at the edge of those shops. Its the dingy side of town. Apartfrom a few attractive residences right on the riverbank it is the
Aboriginal side; the side with five junkshops and a succession
of failed unemployed youth activity groups. Whenever there is
flood rain everything not on a hill goes under. Levee banks have
only ever been built for the more prosperous, more populous
northern banks.
He cant really be going to sell Come to Good, can he?
pleads Alexandra.
It definitely is being sold. Come to Good: its more like a
mysterious invitation than the name for a house. No Robins
Rest, Avalon or Emohruo for our mother. Like the mint lawn
she tried to make flourish, the name was an attempt to transform
the great and stretching tedium of a country-town wife: to
eroticise the ordinary. Eventually her attempts failed, as I feel we
have all failed. I sometimes think she named us to be exceptional,
to stand apart, but, instead, two of us are married and I have never
left this town. In seven years Ive achieved nothing except crossing
the river to live with Mr Eastern, my old music tutor.
When my devotion to my music tutor was reaching its peakI stood in one of Cairos flower thickets with binoculars, trying
to catch glimpses of him. Secretly I believed I was as devoted as
Jay Gatsby, only my lawn was mint not blue. I would focus the
binoculars first on the water and small afternoon boating craft
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going along in front of his house. My toes brushed the secret
curls and lips of orchids. Id poise myself and, hoping hard,
point the binoculars straight at the house. I was never lucky.Te binoculars were powerful but not powerful enough. I only
saw him once, though in the last summer before Cairo died
I would try almost nightly. He was on the roof of his house,
half crouched, half standing. I thought he was looking for me.
Or looking for my house. Now I know he was secateuring
the wisteria vine that grows through the weatherboards, into theroof, every summer.
For a long time I believed the reason I never saw my music
tutor through my fathers racing binoculars was because he was
watching me through the small but powerful telescope hed
owned since he was a boy. I believed he had a sort of pergola
behind the trees in his garden, or an arbour under the jacarandas.
He had one of those chairs which would hold his drink safely.
I imagined that he watched me from there and all my familys
various comings and goings, the beer gently fermenting away at
his heart and his head. Because I believed this, Id make a point
of dressing carefully before I picked up the binoculars or before
I went to join my parents drinking their beer on the patch of real
lawn Ventry insisted be maintained inside Cairos increasingly
unruly sea of wild mints. I would brush my lips with Alexandras
Elizabeth Arden claret-coloured lip gloss and was careful to cover
any blemishes that might show under the gaze of a telescope
strong enough to see craters on the moon. Sometimes I took
my flute out into the softest dusks to practise trills and rhythm
studies. Id be conscious of holding my flute high and horizontaland of the gleam off its silver edges.
During that summer, before our mother died, a wife fantasy
took hold. It was a fast germination. I wish somebody had poisoned
it. I wish I had. Patrick the painter used to try.
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Hes such an old woman, Patrick would say, and youre such a
young girl. He has no joie de vivre. If someone painted him theyd
paint him in shades of grey.But I held on with determination to my odd half dream until,
just as I was ready to relinquish it, it became reality. Hugh began
to make it real one afternoon after flute practice. We were standing
on his light-starved veranda. When he kissed me the music stand
fell over and scratched my arm. He licked my blood. I remember
that and its salty taste on his tongue.
In my husbands house there are many hearts. Like a litany with no
known response, this wont leave my head. It circles, full of sorrow
beneath the dinnertime conversation, and I hate its biblical, solemn
sound. Alexandras telling about ex-racehorses she wants to buy
and about the bother of being pregnant again. If she notices, she
isnt acknowledging any of the disharmony. Hughs face remains
puffy and closed. He clutches his fork, spearing minted peas into his
mouth. Behind him, the mantelpiece lies cluttered with trinkets.
Each time I move Tomass map crackles in my pocket. Ten,
when Alexandra finishes describing her new horse, conversation peters
out. Its so quiet in the dark middle room I think I can hear Roey
building cuisenaire rod towers in the spare bedroom. In my husbands
house there are many hearts. I begin to stack the plates together. Almost
directly above Hughs head is a small timber card box. Te wood looks
very soft as though it would dimple to touch. Wed shared a sense of
smugness buying this for a song at a small second-hand shop. I stare
at the jacaranda box. Its so beautifully made, its hard to tell that thecarved ace of hearts opens the box when pressed. Later, having gone in
to admire Roeys towers that are as colourful as Tomass coat, I take
down the box and press open the heart. I leave the map there, between
a black ace and a cackling joker.
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In the bedroom Hugh groans into me. I like your sister, he
says, but all that talk about horses makes me feel like Ive been
riding one. Rub my neck? he asks. I hate this: how he tries toact like nothings wrong: that the day has been without tears. My
own face feels tight as he lies across the bed. He is growing breasts.
As I pinch out the skin at the base of his neck, they tremble.
Youre sad, he accuses, so that I have to shut his eyes. I pull fluff
from his belly button that has deepened as the fat around it has
become more permanent. His eyelashes are short. Tey feel likeRoeys bridedolls lashes. He wont keep them shut though. He
wants to kiss. I say I have to go to the toilet. Between my legs
the keel is closed and thin-looking. No smell. For a while I sit
there, trying to summon Tomass face. Michael Moons floats in
instead. I think of my tongue in Tomass steep mouth. It tasted
of smoke but I cant remember anything really.
My cat looks dead by the heater. I carry her close to feel
her warmth. When she tries to sneak a lick of earwax, I laugh.
Whats so funny? calls Hugh. I put her out the front door. Te
cat miaows. Tomass lip marks are clearly visible. Tey gleam
like snail trails and I feel glad. Faintly a smear of guilt follows
the gladness.
Did you put her out?
Yep. I cross over to the bedroom window. It opens with more
creaks and protest than usual, the way it does when its cold. Shes
sitting on the path. Yep. I watch cat shadows.
So I have nothing to worry about, darling?
I shake my head.
Why was he round here?I said Id lend him some music.
And did you?
No, but I will.
What does he play?
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19
Guitar and blues harmonica.
Hugh snorts. Tatd be right. Dont go giving him free things
from the shop, will you?No.
I thought, Hugh says, that we might get him to make some
shelves for us. Or fix up the baby cradle and cot. I had a look at
them the other day. oo tricky for my hammer and saw.
Hes not a carpenter. Hes a carver. And an actor.
But hes made furniture before. And set props. Hed take anyjob he can by the sounds of it. I had a bit of a chat to him too on
Saturday night. Why dont you come to bed, darling?
My legs goosepimple over. Hughs proposal to ask Tomas to do
some work is a suggestion of faith. It is forlornly transparent and not
even half-believed by Hugh because he is asking again, that pleading
in his voice: So theres nothing I have to be worried about? Clemi?
Again I shake my head. I wish he wouldnt abbreviate my
name.
You look, he says, like youve just realised your ships left port.
But Im looking into the undergrowth of my land-bound garden.
Small Elizabethan daisies gleam wild and frothy as sea foam but
Im not moving at all. Somewhere outside the river flows without
a sound. Island cattle graze. Birds sleep on their eggs. Rusty azalea
leaves, not waves, rattle in the night as I lie alone and careful not to
touch, in my husbands house, in my husbands bed where he was
himself conceived. When he talks of trying to have a baby, he uses sea
imagery. He talks of the mythical children as anchors or mainstays.
He wants sons he will name after long-dead kings of England. Tey
are also the names of the streets of this town. I cant exactly recollectwhen it was I began to feign affection for his vision of the future.
In my husbands house there are many hearts. Like a nursery rhyme, it
wont go away. I hear Roey or Alex flushing the toilet, and again at
one oclock before drifting into a dream of childhood.
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20
TWO
Idreamt of us bullying Sky last night, I tell my sister over
morning toast. I wrote it down. I write all my dreams
down. In heavy-lidded books that thunk open and shut.
Did you dream in the futon? Its a Cloud Futon. Built for
dreaming.
I feel sick, Alex heads for the bathroom. God but its a pest
being pregnant.
Did you want to be?
Sort of, she takes small sips of black tea. You wouldnt have
any arrowroot biscuits would you? I hate the morning sickness
most. Just like wanting to sick up as a kid and not being able to.
Both my sisters act as though I was never pregnant, though
it was a late and unhidden miscarriage. Old Ventry will bepleased, I say. As if my little pregnancy hadnt ever existed. When
I first found out Id pedalled my bike across the footbridge and
along the river road to his house. My favourite Moreton Bay fig,
by the Catholic girls school, was besmirched with lewd graffiti.
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I remember that and how Id lain on top of Mr Easterns bed,
staring at the ugly, untucked, brown-striped bachelor-sheets.
Cupping my suddenly heavier breasts he said he would marryme; that it had always been his intention. Yes, Id whispered,
and looked up to see if my whisper caught in the mozzie net or
for some sign of approval from Cairo who might or might not
have been in heaven. I think I wanted to heal the unfaithful past.
Mr Eastern, milk me. I spoke softly for it seemed to me my breasts
were like teats in his fingers and that Id turned into a dumb-eyedheifer, ugly in calf. Heifer hips and floppy breasts. Bovine read
the Digest of Feminine Hygienes description of pregnant women
and warned of strange food fetishes.
Ventry, the old bugger, Alexandra is laughing. Always wanted
to turn me into a brood mare.
Tats a terrible thing to say.
rue though.
Hes always been old-fashioned I suppose. Changing now.
You must have noticed. He has notions . . . In the kitchen sink
Hughs lunchtime upperware containers are afloat. Horrible
smells emanate from there so that I have to take two steps back.
About time you two started, isnt it?
Huh. Even I can hear my ill-disguised derision. Do me a
favour and dont mention it to Hugh. Hes clucky enough.
Keen is he?
Keen isnt the word. A father waiting to hatch. I slip a hand
under my shirt to fondle my old-feeling breasts. Wondering
whether Tomas will mind, I span my fingers over the splay of
fine stretch marks that have never disappeared.Is Ventry coming to lunch at Letties? Alexandra sucks an edge
of arrowroot biscuit.
No. No way. He cant stand Lettie these days. Her fuss. More
than ever. Avoids her at every chance and Im not exaggerating.
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* * *
First we go to the shop to buy Rosemarys recorder. Ten we go to
our grandmas place via the town library. Roey clammers for her
hand to be photocopied. I place it under the black flap and she
smiles to see a replica unfurling. Her little lifeline is smooth and
unguilty. Te ink smells of the Gammawash Ventry used to put
on the dogs for fleas.
Isnt he stingy? I burst out.
Who?
Who? Hugh of course. Not even giving my own sisters child a
recorder made in Hong Kong. Let alone even a little discount.
Its your livelihood. And he threw in the Tune a Day.
Do yours too, Mummy.
Alexandras hand emerges all squashed-looking. She grim-
aces. God, she says. So thats what horseriding does. Manshands. Hey! Suddenly remembering, Roey. Its the Horses
Birthday.
Is it? I take the copy of Alexs palm. You just had your hand
pressed down too hard.
Of course its the Horses Birthday. Te first of August, says
Alexandra. Id forgotten.Of course it is, echoes Roey.
Remember Cairo always used to make us carrot cakes?
Clementine? Always. And always they wouldnt quite work out.
Greasy, humpy little things. Clementine?
I place my own hand under the copier, palm up, and am
similarly shocked by the photocopy that emerges. I dont want tothink of Cairo with her first of August carrot cakes or of the carrots
shed grow in the big vegetable beds out the back.
And I always thought you had the loveliest fingers, Alex says.
Long and musical.
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THE MI NT LAWN
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For a moment, from old habits of defensiveness, I feel super-
sensitive to any hint of criticism from Alex. Under the library
lights we scrutinise the hands pictured. Tey look larger than theyreally are and capable of violence.
On photocopy paper the wedding band Ive never worn on
the proper finger is so tight its a wonder a fester hasnt set in. We
begin to laugh but our laughter disturbs the fat librarian behind
the counter. Roey joins in the laughter and tips her head back, as
if our laughter is something that might be seen floating up to thesecond floor. Te librarian frowns.
Lettie is wearing her astronautical tracksuit. Although the days
mild, she shivers letting us in. She kisses us all. She likes to give
out frail kisses, old lace from dead English aunts and hints about
more great-grandchildren.
Hello my darlings.
o kiss her skin is like kissing mauve, perfumed airmail paper.
Happy month, she says. Ooahh, your little nose is cold, she
tells Alex.
A pinch and a punch, says Roey. First day of the month! And
Im afraid her pinch will go straight through Letties ancient skin.
Look what weve got, Roey holds up the hands. Teyre ours.
My goodness, says Lettie. Her hearing aids are whistling and
Im sure she doesnt understand any of Roeys explanations about
photocopiers.
Ello Cocky. Roey stands in front of the old cockatoo who was
our mothers when she was a girl.Ello Cocky, he replies, in his curly old voice. And she laughs
and laughs when he raises his crest at her.
Ello Jacob. Roey stares into his round black eye the way we
used to and wonders can she take him out of his cage.
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G i l l i a n M ea r s
24
Maybe a bit later, darling, Lettie says. Hugh just phoned to
say hes bringing over half a fowl or some fish and chips. Tis
is what he always brings for Saturday lunch but there is pleasureand expectation in her voice. Hugh shuts shop on the dot of
eleven-thirty but spends the next half hour fiddling around,
security-locking the safe and padlocking the premises. For the last
decade he has been believing a burglary by Aboriginal teenagers
to be imminent. In the small hall mirror of her retirement unit,
Lettie checks her reflection. All around the small rooms thereare mirrors, even in the kitchen. It makes me think she needs
the reassurance she is still alive. It makes me wonder about the
nature of vanity. Can it be passed down? Trough the women,
through the generations? Had Cairo lived, would she one day
have become a small, vain grandma? Lettie is still patting at her
hair, which is lilac grey and very sparse. It is true to say that
Cairo also relied on mirrors. Once, the mirror at the bottom
of the staircase at Come to Good was removed or fell down.
I remember how long our mother took to stop looking for
herself there.
Nanna Lettie, can I borrow your sewing scissors? Roey already has
them out of the sewing tin. She sits with a straight back, cutting
my hand out first. Tey are big shears so her task is hard. She
makes small sighs each time the scissor blade nicks a nail or finger.
Ten Letties mailboy arrives at the front door. Hes the new phar-
macists young son, who also ferries her scripts and prescription
drugs back and forth.Well, come in Maxwell.
He hovers behind the screen door. Matthew, he says. My
names Matthew.
My names Matthew, mimics old Jake from his cage.
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THE MI NT LAWN
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Maxwell, can I get you a soft chocolate? Dont take a bit of
nonsense from cheeky over there. She shuffles over to her cabinet.
Max loves a soft jube, she stage-whispers, but Im right outof those.
He takes off with two strawberry creams and her mail. Te
crazy high heels Lettie insists on wearing, even inside with her
astro suit on, scrape on the path.
Wheres she off to? Alexandra asks.
Shes checking to see he posts them. When Lettie returns, hercat bounds in with a giant, first of August grasshopper. Rosemary
keeps cutting out hands. Te cat, after patting the grasshopper
around for a time, begins to eat it. Scissor sounds and sounds of
tearing and Lettie laying out the table with polystyrene meat trays,
fray away at the smoothness of the air. Tere comes the memory,
too, of Cairo showing us how to cut a cockies wings. Something
inside me begins to feel torn until at last my husband arrives.
I never used to call him husband. Once, I called him darling
so often that for at least three years it replaced his name. Now
I cant even pretend to call him anything friendly. Darl he calls
me sometimes, and always I wince. Or he calls me Te Old Girl,
which is what his father calls his seventy-year-old wife. Or Ugly.
He often calls me Ugly as an affectionate diminutive.
Te smell of fish and chips overwhelms the small room.
Lettie sits so close to the bar radiator its possible to imagine the
smell of singed flesh. Te whiting falls apart at the touch. It tastes
of the sea.
Isnt he growing into a fine-looking man? Lettie talks like this
and used to say exactly the same thing about Ventry. As if the tallauctioneer who married her Cairo and produced three daughters
was still a boy with years of growth ahead.
Alexandra winks at Hugh and trails fishy fingers through her
daughters hair.
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G i l l i a n M ea r s
26
Yuck Mum. Youre all greasy. Roey pulls away. Her bobbypin
is a line of red hearts. I look somewhere else. Inside my jeans, I can
feel a throbbing. Its like an emerging pulse. Guilty-glad, I sit on it,on my grandmothers best lounge, and long for tomorrow.
You look funny, dear. Between chips, Lettie peers over at me.
Her glasses are so thick her eyes bulge with the magnification.
Id watch out for her tonight, she adds to Hugh and gives her
papery laugh. Under her white stockings, she has been bleeding.
Tis happens. A small bumps enough to rupture her skin. Teblood looks old, like bubbled-over pie.
Once, before she married, Lettie was a fever nurse. For over ten
years she peeled the sick skin from scarlet fever patients in a small
ablelands hospital. She also tended the B ladies who spent even
the bitterest winters huddled in beds on open verandas. She had a
sweetheart as a young woman but he died in the war. He wrote her
love letters from Cairo, the city, before being shipped to France
and dying there. Eventually she married ed, the overweight taxi-
driver who used to drive her home after night shifts.
He wouldnt hold my hand unless it was gloved, Lettie told
me last Christmas. For fear, you see, of catching disease from the
juices that came leaking out my chilblains.
Ive never understood Letties need to pull his knee-high
portrait out from behind her lowboy to toast his memory on
festive occasions. Because her memories are not fond.
Last Christmas she toasted him with the flagon of Chestnut
eal sherry I brought over. She told me things she never had
before, stroking my arm with her healers hands, watching the
dead mans face.He made me soak in a bath for an hour before hed ever touch
me, she confided. en years after Id stopped being a nurse, he
made me do that. After hearing this I carted the portrait back to
her bedroom and kicked him behind the lowboy. She was crying
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by the time I came back. We settled in this town then, as you
know. Cairo was a late child. Tey strapped me up tight for three
days afterwards. Tey did. And he never treated me politely again.Hed come into my bedroom at night, though Id do my best to
discourage that. Oh yes, he would come. But no love, no love.
So I never wanted another child. A syringe and Lifebuoy soap is
what Id use, the moment hed gone back to his own room. So that
I remembered gladly and do so again now, how Cairo would always
call her own three daughters her little love babies.From Letties bathroom I listen to the sounds of Alex and Roey
giggling followed by Letties pale laughter. Ten I too begin to
laugh aloud: unexpectedly, softly, secretly. For behind Letties toilet
door is a stock and station calendar with a captioned photograph.
Already it has been turned to the fresh month. Te picture is of
asmanian farmlands, with a blue tabletop of a mountain in the
distance. Mt Tomas, says the caption. Mount Tomas!
Full of disbelief, I grin at the picture. An absurd and crazy
desire fills me. Mount Tomas, I cant wait to. From Letties white
toilet, I contemplate my infidelity: the delicacy of it, the guilt,
the humour. I am lustful, is all. Is that any excuse though? I never
have forgiven my mother on those grounds. But neither one of
us was Lettietrained and raised to suffer. I wonder what my
sisters would think? Te quality of the calendar picture is poor
but Id like to rip it off and fold it into a pocket; a secret complete.
Mt Tomas, asmania.
I look in the mirror and see how similar Ive grown to Cairo
just before she dieda starved look. All I would need to make
the resemblance complete would be a cigarette dangling from athickly crimsoned mouth. How hard it is sometimes to believe she
still doesnt live in Come to Good with Ventry. How I would love
to confide in her. Had she and Patrick not died I cannot believe
my life would be like this now. I wouldnt be so stuck or so stupid.
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G i l l i a n M ea r s
28
We would drink a bottle of chardonnay and talk about how close
she came to leaving us, and her reasons for despair. If my mother
was alive I wouldnt be tearing off this month of August from hermothers toilet calendar. Or I wouldnt be tearing it so timidly.
She was our restless mother. Shes a glitter of unreliable memories.
Shes my own personal mystery now who could laugh or cry her
face crooked with emotion.
Once, she was laughing and crying all at the same time. Tis
was the evening she roared off in the family car. Tinking she wasnever coming back, I remember wishing Id taken my flute and
new pair of jeans from the back seat. I always think it was our
little sister Sky who saved us from that shame. We heard the car
tearing down the hill, past the showground. We saw it stop dead.
Sky, who in those days was in the habit of carting one of the
dogs around in a crate strapped onto her bicycle rack, was being
attacked by greyhounds. One of the dwarfmans dogs had torn
free. It was unmuzzled. I think Sky always thought Cairo was
weeping at the sight of all the blood. Cairo had leapt out of the
car, her face already tearful following her fight with Ventry. She
heaved her youngest daughter onto the roof of the car, yelling to
that dwarf, who can still be seen, any day of every week, walking
his brothers greyhounds down the stock-route and around.
Sometimes I go to watch their pied greyhounds do the practice
sprints and am amazed that animals so easy with speed stopped
Cairos attempt to run. Or I can be amazed that the dwarf can be
as alive and ancient-looking as ever while my mother is dead. In
the same way the cockatoo, doted over by Cairo as a child, seems
set to live forever.Sky smelt of blood and dog spit as she hung on Cairos hip. We
gathered and milled around to gain a better view of the torn ears of
both Sky and Fig the puppy. We wouldnt look at Cairo. For ever
afterwards I viewed the bright white and red poppy dress as tainted:
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not just by dog and child blood but by fears of abandonment. And
I viewed it as a traitors dress.
Did I? I wonder if I really did as a child hold such vivid grudges.I think I was probably more interested in the lost triangle of Skys
ear. And later in admiring the look of my own backside in the new
jeans. But it is one of those memory stories that has accumulated
colours and meanings more potent than the event itself.
Roey waves one of the hand cut-outs at me as I sit back down. I feel
my lust is overwhelming. My hand, my heart for Tomas. Tomas
is also the name of the old white horse from childhood, a name
that once worried Hugh because I had it written all over my pencil
case. He thought Tomas mustve been my school boyfriend.
He was envious, he says.
Te telephone goes. It lives in a rose-decorated biscuit tin
to magnify the sound but, even so, Lettie often doesnt hear it
ringing. I answer the phone. Its Ventry for Alexandra. She chats
away. Lettie launches into a familiar analysis of her name. Hugh
squeezes Roeys knee and smiles across at me.
Violet May Elizabeth Stock, Lettie explains for the benefit of
her great-granddaughter. Flower names . . . the Elizabeth rose,
darling, is one of the most beautiful of all.
Pink lipstick is shocking across her old lips. I think of my
mothers name. Lettie called her after the Egyptian city because she
wanted to walk through the streets her first sweetheart had walked
through decades before. Te fake-stone model pyramid Alexandra
and Mike brought her home from their honeymoon down theNile is her treasure. It has pride of place beside a photograph of
Cairo as a young lady fresh from a ablelands boarding school.
Some days I cannot look at pictures of my mother but I do on
our way out this afternoon. She is smooth-smiling the Edward
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Street photographercareless of all futuresher own or those
of her unborn daughters. Her hair is a glamorous sea of blond-
tipped waves.When Lettie stretches her arms out to say goodbye the insides
of her elbows are creased with black-blue blotches. She could
die any day. At the door she moves her fingers round where her
left breast used to be and where she imagines her heart is and
tells of pains that circle there in the night. She wont ever reach
Egypt now.She had always wanted to live in a cottage with her first sweet-
heart. Te cottage would have been white, like her mamas was,
with white and pink pelargoniums and a white picket fence.
Her dreams are becoming whiter and whiter as if old age is
bleaching everything clean and bright. Sometimes she rings me up
late at night to sing,After the ball is over . . .
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Gillian Mears grew up in the northern New South Wales towns of
Grafton and Lismore. Acclaim came early, with her short-story
collections and novels winning major prizes.
Te Mint Lawnwas her first novel, and with it she won the 1990Australian/Vogels Literary Award.
Other books include Ride a Cock Horse, Fineflour, Te Grass Sister
and A Map of the Gardens. Her most recent novel is Foals Bread,
published in November 2011.