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- Herausgeber: IG Publishing
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Lost stories and buried truths will challenge the comfortable order of Stella's life and ultimately her sense of self.
After her mother’s death, Stella is restless and a 1940s diary offers intriguing insights into the girl who would become a mother. Family secrets and an unexpected clause in the will become guides for the journey she must take to the red dirt country of western New South Wales.
Finding her true identity brings grief and turmoil to Stella's secure life, daring her to rethink her own destiny. Will she have the courage her mother lacked?
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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About Grafted. A Novel
Lost stories and buried truths will challenge the comfortable order of Stella’s life and ultimately her sense of self.
After her mother’s death, Stella is restless and a 1940s diary offers intriguing insights into the girl who would become a mother. Family secrets and an unexpected clause in the will become guides for the journey she must take to the red dirt country of western New South Wales.
Finding her true identity brings grief and turmoil to Stella’s secure life, daring her to rethink her own destiny. Will she have the courage her mother lacked?
Grafted explores the conflict between who we think we are and the messy history of who we really are. It compares the indifference of the open plains with the faceless sprawl of the city. It begs the question, do we all have roots somewhere?
Contents
For Florrie
Chapter 1
When had Lillian stopped loving vermillion? When had it become red dirt? Years of stifling, burnt, grit thick mornings will do that to you, Stella thought as she picked up her mother’s diary. The dust of forgotten years cloyed as her hand ran over the cover.
There can have been no joy in schoolwork being cancelled when the alternative was rolling up your sleeves and donning an apron. Lillian wrote of scrubbing away a dust storm that still rang in her ears, watching her mother light a fire for the copper in the backyard. Sheets, towels, everything pink, even the chooks having a rosy glow.
The stories weren’t new but the words in Lillian’s young hand, brought the tears that Stella had struggled to find. Less the mother and wife who had shielded and nurtured. Less a stickler for grace and courtesy as she contemplated bread with dripping for supper. Less accepting of her lot as she complained of the men becoming invisible, down a paddock, up a track, out bush. This was the Lillian who could have been, should have been.
Dust storms, massing locusts, bone dry dams all took their toll. Tomatoes and watermelons were other peoples’ dreams, trees were stunted then denuded, recovering pastures never actually recovered.
The diary entries were sporadic, deeply felt. Ten years of life before cities and small towns shaped the Lillian that Stella knew for a lifetime as her mother.
3 February 1943
The darkness encroached on the yard, enveloped the house. The clatter of corrugated iron was deafening but even that was eventually overwhelmed by the wind. Orange turned to vermillion, coating and caking anything that wasn’t covered. Mum was yelling at Kitty and me to start cleaning up long before the last of it settled.
Last year was worse - that green-brown cloud of famished screamers swept away the new vegetables pushing up from our first proper garden. Even the salt bush was shredded, only the spinifex survived intact.
It was tempting to continue reading but the funeral was tomorrow and Stella scrubbed at the corners of her eyes visualizing the tasks for the day ahead. A final visit to the funeral director then the florist to double-check that the flowers were all sorted for the morning and a last stop at the café where the wake would be held. Stella had chosen the flowers carefully. The arrangement should be elegant, no chrysanthemums, something perfumed although that would be a challenge at this time of year. Lillian had a clear code. There was a right way to do things. Proper china, sitting down together for dinner, napkins, a tablecloth, thank you cards – it was a long list.
Stella was shivering as she walked to the family car, chrome still shiny although it must have been twenty years old. Her father, David, had bought it when he retired and it was his pride and joy but even high end European luxury fades. The grass cracked under her feet. The early frost, a reminder of all those frozen mornings taking the bus to school, sitting on top of the tiny heater, courting chilblains. Perhaps she should have driven up from the city when the call came through that Lillian had taken a turn for the worse. The train had seemed sensible, no time to lose and no head space to concentrate on traffic. Now she would have been happier in her own car.
Still the old one was reliable and as she passed the bulk of the pine-shadowed church, she was glad of its efficient heater. There was no sun this morning. A black frost Lillian would have said and Stella imagined her making her morning coffee and settling down to scan the local paper. Lately she had needed more care, women to shower her, someone to prepare lunch, a nurse to check on the dressings. Strange that days full of appointments and visitors could be so empty. David’s death sat heavily with her for every one of the four years she survived him.
Turning from thoughts of her mother to check her rear view mirror, Stella parked in front of the funeral directors and gathered the bag of clothes. Lillian’s last outfit. She had thought it would be a daunting task but in the end it had come down to the practicality of what still fit after the savages of cancer. The teal blue dress had been a favourite. No jewellery, Lillian had never worn much. And shoes. She had brought the low black slingbacks that Lillian adored—a final birthday present from David. He had bought her a new pair of shoes every birthday for fifty years, always from the best department store in the city and in latter years hardly worn.
After depositing the clothes, signing yet another cheque, agreeing on the beech wooden coffin and handing over the small selection of photos for the church booklet, Stella was seriously in need of coffee. The spread of hipster baristas had thankfully made its way to this small town and she sat with a double shot latte and watched the world go by for a while. Well actually, not much went by, the cold morning was an excuse for a sleepy start in this part of the world.
Two women came down the steps of the church, bucket and mop in hand. Preparing for tomorrow no doubt. The baker across the street was busy – young fellows in their high vis vests and sturdy work boots dropping in for meat pies and mums with toddlers trying to stymy a tantrum with the promise of cake. The coffee shop’s regulars were in for a quick takeaway. A few words about the weather and they were off to work. Out the back Stella could see someone making sandwiches and rolls ready for the lunch time crowd. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the list, already slightly crumped.
The priest was coming to the house at 11am. There was the eulogy to review one final time and photos to be chosen for the wake. Stella had spent much of the previous night cleaning, methodically taking back control. Ticking it off the list now brought a return of that calm. All the family and friends had been notified and the network of cousins ensured no acquaintance was forgotten. She had cancelled all the carers, nurses and medical appointments. The list of upcoming appointments on the fridge also mentioned one for a podiatrist but she didn’t have a name or number. Perhaps the doctors’ surgery could help with that one. Finishing the last of her coffee, Stella grimaced at the time- she would have the priest waiting on the doorstep if she didn’t get a wriggle on.
The house, it had not been home for a long time, welcomed her back with an empty chill. On the surface not much had changed since her childhood. The furnishings were older and the garden barer but it was the stillness that shouted to her that she did not belong. She had been the one to create distance -unconsciously at first, then deliberately. It had been easy to blame her parents, to tell her friends that her family did not understand her life, but Stella knew that was down to her. How could they understand what she never told?
Stella had thought a lot about her years living in this town over the past few days. She had been bright and competitive, not traits the popular girls valued. She remembered the father of a classmate asking her at the school graduation why she was wasting her father’s money going to university when she could easily get a job in the bank. She wondered what he would say now that the last bank in town had closed.
David had loved this town and was proud of the three generations who had lived there. It was his place, deep in his blood. Lillian had been glad of its conveniences after her outback life but she had also missed the city of her twenties. As a young bride, the locals had been wary of her and when she produced a daughter who talked about travelling and tertiary study the school mothers became unwelcoming at best. There was gossip that she thought she was better than them with her carefully set hair, manicured nails and one nice frock for good. Stella, like her mother, knew that acceptance was not a price you could pay for their type of ordinariness.
Lillian had finally found her tribe at the local dramatic society and with a land care group that volunteered to weed the local bushland. She and her sister Kitty were close and saw a lot of each other until Kitty died when Stella was still young. After Stella had left school, Lillian volunteered to help students with their reading on Wednesday afternoons. She and the head teacher became friendly and often went to the city together for a day of shopping in the school holidays.
Father Michael arrived a few minutes after she drove into the yard. Short, slightly disheveled, he was in need of a hair cut and a pair of pants that fit properly. Her smelt like that jacket at the back of the cupboard that you really should have had dry cleaned before you hung it at the end of last winter. Not exactly dirty but a long time since it had been fresh. Lillian had been a regular church goer and David had had a deep faith. Stella always suspected that Lillian had found stillness and reassurance in the church more readily than god but they had never discussed it. As a child and adolescent, Stella had gone to mass with her parents most Sundays and so selecting readings for the service was straightforward. Love, tolerance, resilience, gratitude – those were traits that she associated with Lillian and that she knew Lillian valued in others. Should she make a donation to the church? It would be appreciated of course but no obligation. The church choir was available, a selection of requiem standards, some of Lillian’s favorite songs as the coffin was lowered into the ground, cousins and friends named to read and officiate – more decisions ticked off the list.
Stella sifted and scanned photos all afternoon, well after she needed to turn the lights on and the heating up. How often as a child had she pawed over the old black photo album with its heavy pages and fiddly photo corners that predated Lillian’s marriage to David? Tiny box brownie images, faded places, blurred memories. Luckily, she had sat with Lillian years earlier and added captions, otherwise many faces would have remained nameless forever. She chose photos from when Lillian was a girl, growing up in the far west, with her parents on the farm and later at the pub. There were the debutante photos from her first formal dance, maybe in Nyngan and later skylarking with her girl friends in the city—dance halls, picnics and tennis matches.
Her mum had not been beautiful, classically or otherwise. But she’d had style and poise and she was always immaculately groomed. The only things Lillian had hated about her time working at the telephone exchange in the city had been the way the headsets had spoilt her hairdo. She never had lots of clothes but even when things were tight she chose well cut classics. Better to have one good dress that cost a month’s salary and that would always look good. Back then no one expected you to have a new dress every weekend. Pleated skirts and knitted tops had been the mainstay of her work wardrobe and even as fashions changed over the years she they remained her day to day basics.
Lillian had met David when she was visiting her older sister, Kitty in her early twenties. She had taken the train from the city for a weekend in the mountains to go to a dance at the grand hotel that looked down over the steep rocky valley. There was a big band, some booze out the back and endless dancing. She loved to dance. David on the other hand was all left feet but by some inspiration he had asked her to dance and as they say, the rest is history. David was a local teacher, an only child and thoroughly decent. Lillian was the third of six siblings, practical but also with ambitions that belied her remote upbringing. Those dreams would ultimately be curbed by small town horizons but from that first dance she added a spark to life that David had never imagined.
Less than a year and many trips between the mountains and the city later they were married and they settled into a rented house while they built the small cottage that was to become home. There were photos of Sunday drives, family lunches, Christmas 1956 when they were engaged and then in Bourke for the new year visiting her parents. David used to tell a story about his first trip to Bourke to meet her parents. The drive was hot and dusty in his old Holden and they were tired when they arrived about 10 o’clock that the evening. David was desperate for a shower but his soon-to-be-relatives told him he would have to wait. It was not until almost one o’clock in the morning that the artesian bore water would be cool enough to use.
The wedding was in Bourke too. The men in black suits and white gloves looked uncomfortable and sweaty. The women wore ensembles like the young Queen Elizabeth, a frock with a matching light coat, as their makeup melted in the March sunshine. Lillian’s dress had enough tulle to wrap the wedding car twice over and her four bridesmaids wore fashionable calf length dresses and cocktail hats for the midday wedding. Lillian looked more anxious than radiant in most of the photos and both sets of the parents stared without humour or malice at the camera. Not to say they were not happy with the match, just that the parched grounds of the church yard and the paddocks beyond were a constant reminder that life was hard.
Lillian had to stop work like all married women in government jobs and she set about creating a home that had as little as possible in common with those of her childhood. There were photos of her in the garden, amongst the roses, planting fruit trees down the back, feeding the chickens, even hand feeding a lamb. There she was selecting a carpet for the bedrooms and in that one it looked like she and David were testing out lounge suites.
Except for occasional holidays and Christmases, the photos fell away until Stella was born. Five years until their gorgeous daughter made them a complete family. Both her parents had doted on Stella but David especially saw everything that he loved in her mother in the little girl.
The album exploded with photos after Stella was born. Cradled by her mother at the hospital, a proud David holding her at full length, with her young cousins, with her grandparents, in the christening robe, only seven days old. Her every moment seemed to have been captured in those early days. Pulling herself from childhood reminisces, Stella searched for more photos of Lillian. There were long gaps after the baby years, summer holidays at the beach with David’s cousin’s family, milestone like Stella’s first day of school, occasional dinners with friends, their first overseas holiday to Fiji, a family reunion of her clan in Bourke almost 20 years ago. Stella added a few more recent photos from her phone, attached the play list that spanned her memories of Lillian and closed the file without checking it.
Enough for one night. The fridge was full of offerings from thoughtful neighbours, Stella took out the homemade sausage rolls that Ruth next door had brought in yesterday and heated them in the oven. Then she went in search of some wine. There was usually something at the back of the cupboard, not necessarily a good vintage but well aged. David’s colleagues had given him wine when he retired and sometimes friends would bring a bottle at Christmas but it had only ever been drunk by Stella on her twice yearly visits. David drank beer until he retired and then he gave that up even that. Lillian might have a cherry brandy or Green’s ginger wine for a special celebration, otherwise it was only tea or coffee.
Ah good! There were still four bottles of non-descript red and even a sparkling rose that looked disturbingly brown in colour. Stella chose a red at random that proved to be drinkable and demolished her dinner with a hunger she had not been conscious of. Breakfast was a long time ago and lunchtime had passed without her giving it a thought. Another glass of wine, if only for the calories, Stella poured a generous measure into the crystal that had been a wedding gift. All the good glasses and china, mostly also wedding gifts, were in the glass fronted veneered display cabinet. As a child Stella had been intrigued with its contents and with the sliding doors that were always within reach and yet untouchable. She especially loved the small crystal bell that presumably would have genteelly called the family to dinner if it had ever been used. After tomorrow she would sort through it all, the things with special memories to take home, the keepsakes for family and friends and the rest for Vinnies. Stella couldn’t stomach the idea of selling stuff. It was easy enough online but it seemed crass, a soulless way to mark the end of a lifetime. Stella hoped the final glass of wine would help her sleep before the big day ahead.
It was much later the next evening before Stella had any time to herself. The funeral had gone off more smoothly than she had expected. She had read the eulogy, tear-free, placed the rose petals in the grave before the dirt followed and greeted family and friends to remember a woman well loved. Lillian would have been surprised by how many people came. She hadn’t seen herself as popular, that was David. Her own family had often disappointed her by not dropping by when they passed through town and her nieces and nephews were rarely in touch. Yet, they all came. They remembered her fondly, some thought about their own parents, Lillian had outlived most of her siblings. All remembered a time when life was simpler but also unrelentingly tough.
Stella’s one surviving aunt, Eleanor, hugged her and said it was okay to weep but tears did not come easily. Even Schubert as the coffin was carried from the church hadn’t worked, usually music was her undoing. She knew her failure to make a public show of grief was a disappointment to some, a confirmation to others. Truly, she was sad but she did not feel as devastated as she imagined a daughter ought. Maybe it would come. If it did, she worried it might take her over a precipice.
The house had been sorted, the car packed and she would drop into the solicitors on her way out of town for the will reading. Time to head back to her own life in the city. It wouldn’t be the last time she visited this mountain village that had backdropped so much of her life. There would be the house to sell, bank accounts to be closed and documents to be signed but it would be the last time she would have any claim to it, she would not stay here again. She gave the old car a fond tap as she arranged herself behind the wheel, she would have to sell this old beauty as well back in Sydney.
Looking in the rear vision mirror she smiled as the curtain twitched across the street, those small town busy bodies were still at it. Celebrities complained about paparazzi invading their lives, small town folk were in a whole other league. Everyone at the pub would know what time she left, that she’d packed up like she never planned to come back, that no one had been there to say goodbye. Mrs Marney would lean across the bar of the bottom pub to confide to anyone within earshot, ‘She always thought she was too good for this place. Sad really, not a single friend in her own hometown. Of course, she’ll sell the house. Probably already on the market…’
Walking into the solicitor’s office a few minutes later, Stella wondered if the clinical grey walls were designed to neutralize emotion. The young woman who introduced herself as her mother’s lawyer was perhaps thirty five and coolly professional as she read out Lillian’s will.
‘Lillian’s last will and testament, names you Stella Jane as the Executor of the will and its only beneficiary. Several bank accounts, a few shares and the house appear to be the primary assets but of course we will undertake a full search’.
‘As far as I know, Lillian’s affairs were in good order. She took some pains to sort everything after my father, David, died’.
‘Let’s hope so. It will mean we can finalise everything quickly. There is just one unexpected clause’, the lawyer hesitated.
‘Lillian has stipulated that before you receive the inheritance that her last wish is that you make a trip the western towns of her childhood, including a visit to your Aunt Eleanor, preferably before you set out’.
Strange, but Lillian had a way of knowing what she needed before she knew herself.
Chapter 2
Not like Lillian to reach a controlling hand from the grave, Stella returned to her earlier reflection, intrigued more than anything by the additional provision of the will. So absorbed was she in reliving moments of the past week that the slow weekend traffic was more balm than frustration. She reached her hand across to stroke the cover of Lillian’s diary on the seat beside her, envious of the girl’s passion. She wondered about her own dreams, maybe if she had written them down she would be clearer about what she wanted from life.
Not that she had anything to regret—a great job, an apartment that she had never thought she would be able to afford, good friends, an occasional relationship and she travelled two or three times a year. She may not have ever had a five year plan but she was hardly aimless. She would be lying however if she denied a certain emptiness, an aloneness that came with being the last of your line.
It was a relief to finally open her front door. She dropped the bags in the second bedroom for later, plenty of time to think about what to do with all that stuff. Tonight she needed to unwind in her own space so that she felt more like her usual self. Nothing better on Sunday evening than some Beethoven, toast on the couch and maybe an episode of Escape to the Country before bed. She was beyond tired and tomorrow she had a busy day with important meetings.
When she was still tossing at 2am, recounting messy lists of things to do, reliving the past few days, regretting small missteps, Stella turned on the radio. Perhaps some music would settle the twist of thoughts. Soon the anxiety of not having had enough sleep for the day ahead would raise the bar on insomnia higher, another hurdle to oblivion. She remembered having read somewhere that even when you feel like you have been awake all night that you do in fact sleep more than you realise. She certainly hoped so. She also hoped that the station would follow the unhelpful Star Wars theme that was drawing to its climax with a nocturne or something gentler. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t only truck drivers and bakers who listened to overnight radio.
Grateful when dawn rescued her from more sleeplessness, Stella studied her face in the mirror for signs of the heaviness she felt in her body. Blue shadows, tight lines, flat like the headache that would hover all morning. Thank goodness for make-up and an espresso coffee.
Taking up position in her favourite spot on her balcony she sat with her coffee to watch the day begin. The air was clear, the sky and sea sparkled. A slither of moon was fading from view as the sunshine brightened. She rubbed her arms as a cool gust left no doubt that winter had arrived after weeks of mellow weather.
As usual Stella was making some notes for the day ahead. The scratch of pencil promised order and focus before she was beset by emails and meetings. She had kept on top of the most urgent matters over the past week but not all of the rest could go immediately to trash. The backlog of meetings would be worse—catch ups with students and colleagues who were eager to move on with their projects and were waiting for her input or counsel.
Stella’s work was an important part of who she was. She had done her doctoral thesis on poor access to services for boarding house residents and their stories continued to haunt her work. Last year she had been made full professor and a recent grant meant she had the luxury of concentrating on a new piece of research on homelessness among women. Her plan was to start with oral histories, to explore what was often unsaid. She wanted to hear the voices of those women.
Sometimes she wondered what had drawn her to this area of study. She hadn’t known anyone who was homeless, indeed all her experience was of stability and safety. Sure, over the last thirty odd years she must have moved more than a dozen times and being single she definitely had a heightened sense of the need to be financially secure. Perhaps she was keeping a deep fear at bay. Whatever the initial motivation, she had grown to admire the strength of people who survived the insecurity and hostility of the streets. Some endured it in anger, others with serenity, everyone made the best of what they had which inevitably was not much.
Stretching her back as she stood to face the day Stella rued the four hour drive home yesterday. She must try to go to the gym this week to stretch out all those cramped muscles.
As it turned out, the first day back at work was good. There were a few awkward moments with colleagues who, eyes-averted, offered condolences ‘on your mother’s passing’. Lillian would have shaken her head at the euphemism but people meant well. The cards and flowers from her team were kind but it was their generous effort to give her space that reminded Stella of how well these people knew her.
Anna, on the other hand, had texted before lunch to invite herself over for a drink that evening. Stella would be grateful for the company. A night not thinking about herself could only be a good thing and her friend was the queen of diversion.
Anna also worked at the University. She had an administrative position when they first met and later had been convinced to complete a doctorate. Unlike Stella, Anna’s passion was for teaching rather than research and she was a favourite with her students as someone who, in her words, ‘kept it real without wanting to be their best friend’. Stella worried that she would never achieve her potential without a more selfish dedication to research but Anna laughed her off.
Being hugged by Anna was like stumbling into a lady’s boudoir – warm and moist with gardenia. She held Stella for an instant longer than usual. Silent sympathy, the most eloquent kind Stella thought, until scanning her friend’s face, Anna reverted to form and gave her frank assessment. ‘Have you been looking after yourself? Eating properly? That skirt is hanging on you’
‘Lovely to see you too….’
‘Sorry, but you look like a puff of wind could blow you away. I have been worrying about you and to be honest feeling guilty that I couldn’t get away to be at the funeral. How was it all?’
‘Come in and let me get you a drink and then I will tell you everything’, Stella laughed.
And so for the first time really, she found herself fully recounting the events of the past few days under Anna’s forensic probing. The dash to the airport, drafting the eulogy on the plane, the endless decisions about the funeral, even the faithful supply of nourishingly dull casseroles. ‘But how are you feeling?’ Anna asked. ‘You must be missing your Mum. They say that sometimes it doesn’t really sink in until weeks after the funeral.’
‘Right now, I mostly feel exhausted but there’s something else, as well. A restlessness, a sort of rudderlessness that makes me anxious in the middle of the night. I haven’t been feeling sad so much. But there is a nagging feeling of something being missing. I find myself thinking back over the stories she used to tell and wondering if she was happy with her life. Did she have regrets?’
‘You’ve told me that your Mum and Dad had the perfect marriage, that they were happy’, Anna said.
‘Well yes’.
‘And it’s not like you to be melodramatic. Sure you’re okay?’
‘Yes of course’, Stella’s brow frowned. ‘It’s weird little things like when I arrived back in Sydney, I was halfway through writing a text message to let her know I was safely home when I realized what I was doing. Those subconscious moments when I forget she has gone are bizarre.’
Slowly the conversation turned to more day-to-day matters. Anna was revising the course she taught. Her two girls had been over for lunch last week. Claire had a new job that they were all excited about. Anna and Rex, her husband, were planning a holiday to Turkey later in the year, probably a cruise. Stella made them a simple pasta dinner and as Anna readied herself to leave close to 9pm, both women agreed it was bedtime.
The rest of the week, passed in a blur of the usual busyness. The weather had gradually worsened and by the time Stella woke on Saturday it was raining heavily and looked chilly through her bedroom window. She hugged her coat closer as she walked to her car and made a mental note to advertise her mother’s car online that afternoon. She was keen to have the space back in her garage especially since she may need to store some of the paraphernalia from her parent’s house. First stop was the local farmers’ market for fruit and veg and maybe a piece of that devine goat’s cheese as a treat. Usually she bought her flowers here as well but today was her volunteering morning at the local nursing home and she wouldn’t have time to go home first and put them in water.
Stella had started going to the nursing home five or so years before after an incident one night on her way home from work. She was running later than usual. It must have been after 8pm and the wind felt like it was blowing off snow. She had stopped to quickly fill up with petrol. A woman wearing slippers and a rose quilted dressing gown walked up to her while she stood at the bowser and asked if she knew where she lived.
The poor woman was clearly confused and initially Stella thought she had best take her to the police station but the garage employee said that there was a nursing home on the street behind and perhaps she had wandered away from there. So Stella had helped the woman into her car and driven first to the nursing home to ask if the woman who didn’t recall her name lived there. She did but Stella was dismayed at how nonchalant the young woman who answered the door seemed to be.
‘There’s a code on the door and it’s locked but sometimes visitors leave it ajar when they leave. Her name is Miriam. She’s got Alzheimer’s and she thinks she has to get the bus home so she is always trying to escape. Thanks for bringing her back.’
‘How long has she been gone? It’s really cold out tonight, she’ll be frozen’.
‘To be honest we hadn’t clocked her as missing so it must only have been a few minutes. She’s remarkably sprightly for her age’.
‘Well goodbye Miriam, you’ll need a hot chocolate to warm up before bed’. Stella said.
‘Thank you dear. Will you come to see me tomorrow? We could have cake.’
And so it had started. Every couple of weeks, Stella spent a morning or afternoon at the nursing home. In the first year she only visited Miriam, who it turned out didn’t have any family living close and rarely had visitors. Miriam had been in Auschwitz towards the end of the war and had miraculously been spared. She didn’t talk about those times but there were regular nightmares and she hoarded small things like paper napkins and salt sachets. Occasionally she tried to steal something from one of her neighbours’ lockers but usually she was happy and chatty when Stella came to visit. After she died, Stella would come and read or chat with other residents.
That Saturday, Stella noticed a new face in the communal reading room. Well actually it was his hat she noticed, a well worn, black one that you would expect to see an old grazier wearing. Not a typical sight in this inner city nursing home. The man was alone, sitting quietly, gazing out to the garden where the therapy dog was being spoilt by some of the more mobile residents. His smile was wide, if almost toothless, and his eyes fixed hers as Stella said hello.
‘Hi, I’m Stella. I visit here sometimes I don’t remember seeing you here before. Have you moved in recently’?
The response appeared reluctant but Stella understood that ‘Yes, he was new’ and that he wanted to be go out into the garden. Pete hobbled a bit as he walked, his legs were bowed and his knees were full of arthritis. The courtyard trapped the sun and Stella found a warm spot for them to sit.
‘I miss my little dog’ the man began. ‘He’s a foxy. My nephew is looking after him now. He brings him in sometimes but it’s not the same. I haven’t gone anywhere without him for over 10 years.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I called him, Bindi …. after the burr…. when he was a puppy, he was always nipping me’, he seemed pleased with his own joke.
‘Are you from around here?’ Stella asked.
‘Depends on what you mean by from’ was the cryptic response.
‘Well, you know was your home nearby before you moved into St Gertrude’s.’
‘I lived around here, on and off. Don’t like being pinned down for too long but now my legs ain’t what they were.’
Stella went in search of a cup of tea and a biscuit and sat bemused as she watched the man carefully measure seven spoonsful of sugar into his cup. ‘You, sure like your tea sweet’.
‘Only thing sweet about me. I didn’t introduce myself before but I like you. I thought you were going to be one of those social worker types. I’m Pete.’
‘Lovely, to meet you Pete and I have enough trouble sorting out my own problems without wanting to solve any of yours.’
‘You remind me of someone, from a long time ago. Forgotten her name. She drove me home from gaol that first time. Served time herself by all accounts and then became a volunteer’. Stella waited for the rest of the story but it seemed Pete was done for now.
‘Walk with me over there, will you? That seat near the camelias. One of the girls will find me when tea is ready.’
As Stella drove away she smiled at the picture of the little man in the big hat, closing his eyes against the glare. She wondered how he’d come to be there. Most of the residents were from well-to-do families or had been professional people in their working days. He didn’t fit that mould that was for sure.
