The Memory Tree (4 page)

‘Mr R,’ she said, finally plucking up the courage. ‘You’ll have to get up. The children need you. I’m not bringing your meals anymore.’

Hal just looked at her and turned his back, burrowing further into the bed. He was hiding his shame. Mrs Mac was right, of course—Paulina would never forgive him. He didn’t go down for dinner, but knew he couldn’t stay in bed forever. He’d resume his life tomorrow and bury his grief in the day-to-day.

Poor Grandad. He did try.

That night, Paulina failed to come, and Hal lay staring at the ceiling. Why had she left him? It felt as though his soul had been sliced in two, and grief had dissolved the better half. He trembled at the mere thought of returning to what was left of his life. This room, this house, even their children, were now sources of pain. Absence had invaded every corner—a void that was somehow a presence. There was a malign spirit abroad and it afforded him no rest.

Hal turned feverishly in the bed and looked across at the space beside him. He usually woke up before his wife and loved to lie beside her, listening to her quiet breathing. She plaited her long hair before coming to bed, but by morning there were always loose strands on the pillow. (He had looked in vain for even one of those long, dark hairs only yesterday.) In the dawn light, the curves of her face were luminous and her cheek was usually cradled in one hand.

Hal choked back a sob as another vision interposed. The last time he had seen her, those curves had sharpened and her hands were quietly crossed on her breast.
She looks like a sleeping princess
, Mrs Mac had mourned. But there is a vast chasm between death and sleep, and Hal saw that the living spirit had gone. ‘Please come back,’ he whispered—the same words he had used at what is crassly called the ‘viewing’. ‘Please. I can’t live without you. You’re my soul.’ Murmuring these words like an incantation, he finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next day he awoke, weary beyond imagining, but for the first time in many days, sat down to breakfast with his children. His first words to them were, ‘Not too much sugar on your cornflakes,’ thus arresting Zav’s second scoop mid-air.

‘Mrs Mac lets us,’ the boy responded sullenly.

‘Mrs Mac lets us,’ echoed Sealie.

Looking into his children’s wounded grey eyes, Hal’s body sagged.

‘Come here.’ And he opened his arms. Sealie tucked herself into his chest, feeling the rough wool like a blessing on her cheek. Zav, older and more awkward, stood at his father’s side and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder.

‘We miss her, don’t we?’ Hal said. The children nodded dumbly. ‘And . . .’

At that moment, Hal realised that he could think of nothing else to say. How could he tell them that he had loved their mother more than he loved them? How could he tell them that he felt guilty—that he should have ensured that Paulina was tethered more firmly to the earth? How could he tell them that he thought if anything would keep her, it was not him, but her children—that, in some obscure way, these children too, had failed to keep her spirit from straying? Of course he could never tell them such terrible things. He looked at Zav who was fighting back tears. He felt Sealie’s trusting little head on his chest.

I’ll watch over them, Paulina
, he promised silently.
I’ll love them and keep them safe
,
just as you would have done.
He tightened his grasp on his children and the elusive words came.

‘We’re still a family,’ he said, ‘and we all love each other. Mum wouldn’t want us to be sad all the time, would she? Now what we’ll do is finish breakfast and go and buy a tree. We’ll plant it in the garden. It’ll be Mum’s tree and whenever we need to, we can go there and think of her. What do you say to that?’

The children brightened. Here was their father, taking action, taking control. Despite the aching gap, the world was returning to something like normal. They devoured their cereal with greater appetite, and toast in hand ran out to wait impatiently at the car.

They finally chose a magnolia. Its soft blooms and curved limbs offered both comfort and grace. They dug and mulched with a will and stood back to admire the little tree.

‘It will grow up along with you,’ Hal said.

And it did. Each year the tree grew taller as Sealie and Zav outgrew their shoes and their shirts and their pants; as Sealie outgrew her dolls and her skipping rope and her best friend, Angie; as Zav outgrew his Lego and his comics and his footy cards. The tree grew wide and tall, and every year bloomed with even more splendour. It watched over the house as the children grew to adulthood, as Hal grew more and more strange. It watched benignly as my mother and father were married under its branches.

It’s still out there in the garden, its flowers glowing like pale moons. What Hal had neglected to say that day was that the tree would also witness their ageing. Unlike them, it would retain its beauty, just as their mother did. In their collectivememories, and therefore in mine, she remains a beautiful young woman.

Mrs Mac stayed on with them, providing a home as well as she could. She loved them, you see. What to others seemed like a sacrifice of her own life, an over-wrought sense of duty, was in fact an act of love. Even Hal, who, as we have seen, could be really obtuse—even Hal was sensible to the value of this woman.

When she turned thirty-five, the second birthday after Paulina’s death, he told her not to cook anything for dinner. ‘You take the day off and I’ll provide the meal,’ he said grandly before remembering he couldn’t cook. Hal naturally assumed he needed a woman for the task and the only woman he knew well enough to ask was Rose, the wife of his old friend and business partner. Assuming a similar enthusiasm in Rose he scurried around the corner to her house and, bubbling with glee, announced his plan.

‘I want to cook a nice roast,’ he said. ‘And an apple roly-poly—and a cake. A fruit cake, I think. I just need a few tips.’

When she realised the meal was to be cooked that night, Rose was exasperated. ‘You mean you want me to cook,’ she said. ‘Honestly, Hal, I don’t mind cooking for Mrs Mac, but honestly!’ She was lost for words, she said, and Hal grinned back at her sheepishly.

‘If you could just put on the roast,’ he said. ‘You and Bob are invited, of course.’

He took the afternoon off to help and ate more peas than he shelled as Rose prepared the potatoes, pumpkin, carrots and cauliflower cheese, all the while making an apple roly-poly, a fruit cake and occasionally slapping Hal’s hand as it dipped into the peas. They call it multi-tasking now—women seem to be very good at it.

Mrs Mac was both delighted and embarrassed. Zav gave her a string of fake pearls. He’d saved up. They were nice for fakes.

‘Hope you have a happy birthday,’ he said gruffly, handing her the parcel. ‘They’re not real, but the man said they would fool anybody.’

‘They’re just lovely,’ she said. ‘Can you help me put them on?’

Zav wrestled with the clasp and Mrs Mac admired them in the hall mirror. ‘They must be real,’ she said. ‘They look real to me.’ She hugged him and a pleased flush suffused his face.

‘Yeah. Well. Happy birthday.’

Sealie, who didn’t have as much pocket money, gave her a homemade vase with a bunch of flowers. She had spent all of the evening before decorating a nicely shaped jam jar and was pleased to see it as the centrepiece for the table.

Hal (as suggested by the helpful Rose) had bought her a marcasite brooch.

‘I’ll only wear it on special occasions,’ she said, admiring its intricate filigree. Hal gave her a peck on the cheek. He had another surprise and stood up to make a toast.

‘We want to wish Mrs Mac many happy returns of the day,’ he said. ‘But first, I have a limerick.’

Sealie shot a delighted look at Zav who folded his arms, sat back in his chair and grinned indulgently.

Three cheers for our own Mrs Mac

Who keeps all the household on track

A genius with cooking

And also good-looking

There’s nothing this woman does lack.

Hal sat down, modestly deflecting their praise. ‘I’m not too happy with the last line. I reckon it’s a bit clumsy.’

‘I love it. Last line and all.’ Mrs Mac spoke softly, but her moist eyes met Hal’s and he knew she meant it.

2

A
UNT
S
EALIE ALWAYS RISES EARLY
. She likes to have a small part of the day to herself. This morning, though, she’s agitated, drinking her coffee and buttering her toast with scant attention. She begins to read the letter again, aware that despite her best efforts, the words she sees are irrevocable.

Dear Ms Rodriguez,

I regret to inform you that your appeal against your father’s return to the community has been rejected on the grounds summarised in Attachment 1. A full medical report is enclosed in Attachment 2. As you have been informed, there are no further grounds for appeal.

At our meeting in November, you were informed that this Facility will cease operations on 25 August and all residents are required to find alternative accommodation by 30 May.

We understand that your father still owns the house at 17
 
Fyffe St, Yarra Falls. As no other arrangement has been made, he will be released to your care on 18 April.

Please complete Attachment 3 and return to us for processing at least four weeks prior to that date.

Further enquiries can be made through Ms Adrienne Suitor, Regional Coordinator.

Yours sincerely,

Graham B. Winters

Chief Medical Officer

Aradale Hospital

Sealie folds the letter and glances at the stairs. Zav is still asleep. He sleeps badly at night and finds rest only as the sun rises. She gets up, toast in one hand, coffee mug in the other.
I’ve done my best
, she tells the magnolia tree.
I can only do my best. Your husband. Your son,
she adds with sudden hostility
. What about your daughter?

When the government’s deinstitutionalisation policy was first mooted, Sealie hardly noticed. It never occurred to her that it might apply to Hal. Young wards of the state and people with Down Syndrome were moved back with their families or into small group homes. No-one regretted the large, impersonal and sometimes abusive institutions that were closed, and if Sealie thought about it at all, she approved of such measures.

She continued to visit her father on the first Saturday of every month, for several years taking the Friday evening train and staying overnight at Ararat. The train journey was dull but pleasant, and if she looked up from her book, she saw the flat paddocks stretching out to both horizons. Green, yellow or a fallow brown, their cycle was somehow reassuring. She would lean her forehead against the cool train window and wish that the journey would never end—that she could ride forever in a state of suspension. But Ararat station always came into view and she always alighted with the farmers’ wives, the businessmen and the schoolchildren coming home from boarding school for the weekend. She envied the excited chatter of the children as they ran up to their parents and followed them to waiting cars. Sighing, Sealie would turn away up Main Street to her hotel. She always stayed at the Railway Hotel where she enjoyed the hospitality of Ron and Cheryl Forrester. They were discreet—sympathetic, but never nosey, and when she wasn’t busy, Cheryl came and chatted with Sealie after dinner.

How’s it going, now?
Cheryl would ask, leaning her ample arms on the table.
Could do with a bit of rain,
she’d say. Or,
Ron’s done his back again
. Or,
The grandkiddies are coming to stay for a couple of days.
All safe topics. But her bright, sympathetic eyes saw the strain in Sealie’s face. Even with the passing of nearly twenty years, she always thought of Sealie as the nineteen year old with the sad eyes who, with her head high, had told them on that first day that she was here to visit her father.

‘Poor little bugger,’ she’d say to her husband, as they wiped down the bar or stacked the dishes. ‘She must be a saint to visit him after what he done.’ Ron could only nod in agreement. It was a small town and there were very few secrets.

On these Saturdays, while Hal was still in J-Ward, Sealie had a late breakfast and then walked up the road to the grim, stone building which started life as a jail but was now a ward of the Aradale Psychiatric Hospital. If the weather was warm, she’d stroll and look at the trees and take some pleasure in the blue outline of the Pyrenees and the Grampians. If it was cold, she’d walk faster, but take the long way. Her feet, like her heart, were reluctant, and she’d often pause to tie her shoelace or check her shopping bag. She usually brought small treats for Hal—a new science fiction novel, some toiletries, cigarettes, a store of Cherry Ripes—always the cigarettes and Cherry Ripes. On his birthday she’d bring a sponge cake and later, when he was able to wear them, a gift of silk pyjamas. Hal was soothed by the feeling of silk against his skin, and when he was moved to the main campus of the hospital, he occasionally directed her to buy a silk dressing gown to replace the old, ratty one that he liked to wear all the time. He hated the government issue clothes he was obliged to wear in J-Ward.