gillian mears - the mint lawn (extract)

7/26/2019 Gillian Mears - The Mint Lawn (Extract)

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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.

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83 Alexander StreetCrows Nest NSW 2065AustraliaPhone: (61 2) 8425 0100Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

Email: [email protected]: www.allenandunwin.com

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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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G i l l i a n M ea r s

4

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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THE MI NT LAWN

5

* * *

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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6

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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THE MI NT LAWN

7

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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8

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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THE MI NT LAWN

9

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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10

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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THE MI NT LAWN

11

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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12

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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THE MI NT LAWN

13

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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14

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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THE MI NT LAWN

15

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


18/33


16

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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THE MI NT LAWN

17

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.


20/33


18

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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THE MI NT LAWN

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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THE MI NT LAWN

21

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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22

* * *

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

23

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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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

25

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.


28/33


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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THE MI NT LAWN

27

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.


30/33


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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THE MI NT LAWN

29

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


32/33


30

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 . . .


33/33

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.

gillian mears - the mint lawn (extract)

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