Beth is not well. It’s nothing physical. It’s an illness of a spiritual nature. That’s not to say that she doesn’t have some physical symptoms.
Beth is a Pisces. Around her neck she wears a leather thong and threaded through it is her sign – two fish swimming in opposite directions. That sign sums her up really, Beth is neither this nor that, not one thing or the other – she’s both. She has both an intuitive, imaginative side to her nature and a rational, practical, pragmatic side. She often says, ‘I have to work the contradictory sides of myself in order to maintain my equilibrium.’ And she does this magnificently.
But when Les died, her equilibrium was upset.
When she first heard the news, she felt a wave of sadness. After that came euphoria, this was followed by frustration and then annoyance. Then came, anger. She feels that Les died without ever really knowing her. He’d never wanted to know her, not the real warts and all her, just the facets of her nature of which he approved and understood. She’d wanted so much to be wholly seen and loved by her father. But as the years passed and she’d grown into womanhood, he’d erected impenetrable walls, installed a portcullis and dug a moat. And now her anger churns.
Then it happened.
There was a SNAP. She felt it. It was like a string being stretched to breaking point; she heard it too. It was the sound an air rifle makes when fired into a still night.
What ever it was that bound the two sides of Beth’s nature was broken.
Now there are two Beths.
Not to be wholly loved by one’s parents can create problems of wholeness.
She explains it to her best friend Ooshmo, ‘I don’t want you to think I’ve suddenly developed a split personality like a character in some American movie. It’s not a personality thing. There are two of me but only I can see both – through my introspective eye. You can see my physical, tangible self but you can’t see my other self.’
‘What do you think this other self might be?’ Ooshmo asks.
Beth is quiet for a moment. ‘I’m not certain of it … but I believe it is … my Soul.’
‘Your Soul! So there really is such a thing? And you can see yours?’ Ooshmo is impressed.
‘There’s a part of me that my father refused to see when he was alive. Now he’s dead, It refuses to be seen by anyone!’ She weeps. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like to be disconnected from the most wonderful part of you – to be interpreted when half the picture is out of sight.’
‘Beth.’ Ooshmo looks her squarely in the eye. ‘I’ve read my quota of books on matters spiritual and it’s my understanding that if the soul is not in the body, then, you’re dead.’
‘Well I’m not dead … yet,’ says Beth. ‘But I admit I feel very threatened by the possibility and the stress of worrying that it might wander off one day and never return is almost more than I can bear.’
‘I see. But would it do that to you?’
‘I know my Soul wants to reconnect. I can feel it and I know what I must do. I have to go to Adelaide. I have to collect Dad’s things from the nursing home, organise a service for him and somehow reconcile myself to the limited nature of his affection for me. I have to do this and I have to do it on my own. If my Soul doesn’t kill me, the anxiety will.’
So Beth rejects all offers of support from Sean and the girls and organises herself a seat on the OVERLANDER. Then she rings the Uniting Church in Thebarton and makes some preliminary arrangements for Les’s funeral. Then the Freemasons ring. An old voice explains, ‘Les was a Brother for over 50 years and it would be only right for us to organise a service.’
Brother! Beth’s anger flares. These people are laying claim to a relationship that has nothing to do with blood. They are implying that their relationship with Les is more significant than hers. The surge of ire momentarily weakens her, ‘Yes, of course,’ she says, her voice a whisper. Then she breathes deep and applies her imaginary strength to the old Freemason at the end of the line. She visualises him stark naked, not a stitch except for his pinny. She gives him a Tweety Bird voice. Her strength builds and she adds assertively. ‘Yes of course you can have your service as long as you do it in my church.’
The phone rings again. It’s like that when someone dies. The Landline, the mobile, they both ring incessantly. It crosses Beth’s mind that she should change the ring tone on her mobile to something funereal. The Superman theme seems very flippant all of a sudden. It’s Meg (one of her old neighbours in Melbourne). ‘I’m so sorry. Is there anything we can do?
‘No Meg. I have to do this on my own.’
‘ Are you sure? Are you OK? Have you tried a Rescue Remedy? Wish you were still next-door. I’d give you a big hug. Love you. Doug wants to speak. I’ll put him on.’
Doug hits her with a barrage of practical questions. ‘Adelaide! How are you getting there?’
‘Train.’
‘Where will you stay?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Who’s picking you up?’
‘No one.’
‘How are you going to get around?’
‘Bus’
‘Bus! You don’t want to get around by bus do you?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘I’ve got a friend - Kevin. I’ll give you his number. Ring him when you get there. He’ll look after you.’
‘Thanks Doug.’ She feels like coyote after he’s been flattened by a steam roller. Her chest hurts and she struggles to breath. She uses her power again. She visualises Doug in his Jimmy Barnes T-shirt and gives him a Donald Duck voice. Gradually the panic subsides.
That night, she boards the OVERLANDER and begins her journey to Adelaide – home of the dead.
Twelve hours it takes before the train pulls into Keswick Station. She’s exhausted. She hasn’t slept, her bones ache and the thought of a bus is more than she can contemplate. Kevin suddenly seems like a good option. Why not take the punt? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She flips open her mobile and searches for the number. Kevin answers immediately, ‘Hello Beth.’ (Doug must have sent him her number.) ‘ ‘specting your call. Just wait by the taxi rank and I’ll be there in ten.’
He sounds like a junkie.
She shoulders her backpack and searches for the taxi rank. There’s a crowd. Taxis come, fill up with people and luggage and go. The car park behind drains rapidly. She doesn’t mind. She enjoys a quiet moment with herself. The sky is big and blue, a South Australian sky. She breathes the air and ambience of her childhood. Dry air.
Her reverie is interrupted by the bronchial sound of an engine in need of a service. She looks up and sees an orange Datsun blowing smoke and coming towards her across the car park, across the white painted rectangles, as if they didn’t stand for anything. It pulls up in front of her. A hairy arm stretches across, unlocks the passenger door and retracts. Then a hairy head pops over the roof and grins at her. It’s Kevin. He hobbles around to the boot in bare feet that are used to wearing shoes. His feet and ankles are white and he begins a monologue. ‘I’ll just pop your bag in the back, then, we’ll drop round to the nursing home. You’ll want to get your Dad’s stuff first thing won’t you? It’s not far. Then I’ll take you back to my place. Got a room set up for you. Sad business. Still when Hughie pulls the plug, that’s it isn’t it?’
Beth climbs into the passenger seat and clicks the safety belt. She senses her Soul in the rear behind Kevin. If only he knew but Kevin is still talking; he’s like a soundtrack. He plants his foot on the accelerator and drives back the way he came, across the white rectangles, against the fat white arrows and out into the traffic. Talk, talk talking. He’s oblivious to the effect he’s having on Beth. She sits rigid beside him, her heart pounding, head throbbing, stomach cramping and sweat rolling down from under her arms in rivers. She closes her eyes and tries to slow her breathing. With her imaginative eye, she strips him – slowly. First his shirt, then his shorts then underpants. No Freemason’s pinny for Kevin. Then she analyses him: his white bits and his sunburned bits, his pimply buttocks and little penis poking out of its nest and curving a little to the left. She’s had to imagine him in detail before she can regain any control.
They pull up in front of the nursing home. Kevin says, ‘I’ll wait here for you Beth. You take all the time you need.’ He switches off the ignition and turns on the cricket.
The Nursing Home is a big old house, gutted, rebuilt and filled with old people. It has a long verandah and Beth, shadowed by her Soul, has to walk past a line-up of wheel chairs to get to the front door. She goes straight to reception and explains who she is and what she’s come for. ‘You have our deepest sympathy …blah blah blah.’ It’s like white noise. ‘Please take a seat until I can find someone who knows were Mr Archer’s things have been stored.’ Fizz snap crackle pop.
Beth waits on the lounge; she feels her Soul pulling away. It wanders back to the glass doors and gazes along the verandah at the people propped up in chairs, twisted by strokes, hollowed out by cancer, emptied by Alzheimer’s and it feels a deep compassion. The tangible Beth reaches out for a New Idea and reads about breast reconstruction.
Finally a young woman appears and indicates she should follow. ‘Mr Archer’s things have been packed away and stored out the back.’ Their shoes squeak on the lino.
They come to a room filled shower stools, walking frames, po chairs and in a dark corner, Beth sees two large black plastic garbage bags. Tags tied to the top read ‘Lester Archer’. The young woman says, ‘They’re heavy. What say I get a wheel chair and we can wheel them out to your car?’
These bags are all that’s left of her Dad. Walking beside the sister, through the maze of corridors, she is a picture of detachment but her Soul aches to tear the bags open and find a smell.
Kevin is waiting, as he said he would. He tosses the bags unceremoniously into the back seat of the Datsun. They take off – no indicator, in a cloud of smoke. No talking this time; Beth is grateful for the cricket.
They pull into Kevin’s and while he goes on ahead to unlock the front door, she struggles to unload the plastic bags; they’re bulky and awkward. She drags them across the front lawn and up the steps. She pulls and tugs them over the threshold but one of the bags splits and things spill everywhere: pyjamas, dressing gown, bundles of y-fronts and track pants. She anticipates a smell, a Les smell but there is only a chemical, detergent smell. She tugs and pulls the bag again, trying to get it through the door way but more spills out: shaver, giant book of crosswords, balls of socks and a tube of Rectinol. Her eyes are stinging and her throat feels like she’s swallowed a brick. She tries to step over the bundle so she can push it instead of pulling but its too wide and her foot crunches on something. This is too much. She sits on the top step in the sunshine and bursts into tears. Behind her, in the dark corridor, her Soul cries too.
Kevin watches all this but he doesn’t offer to help. He doesn’t so much as lift a finger and he doesn’t say a word. He turns away and disappears through the house, out the back door and rolls himself a smoke. Kevin has a wise Soul.
Beth sobs herself empty.
Through the last of her tears she sees a little book with a stiff cardboard cover. It’s the pointed corner of the book that has lead to this catastrophe. She picks it up and reads the spine, ‘Growing Stone Fruit in South Australia’. There’s something pressed between the pages, a photograph. It seems that two pages had been stuck together and the photo buried between them but now the glue has dried out. Beth carefully separates the pages and removes the picture. It’s hard to see in the light, so she leans back into the hallway and waits for her eyes to adjust. She feels the presence and the strength of her Soul.
The picture was taken in a garden, under a tree. There’s a swing hanging from a branch and a woman sitting gracefully on it; her legs crossed – long legs. She’s wearing lingerie - a petticoat and Beth can just make out the top of her stockings. She’s showing the camera a tantalising glimpse of a suspender.
Beth is startled by a sound in the hallway. She looks up but no one is there. The face of the woman beckons for her attention. She looks hard; she squints. In shock, she makes a sharp audible gasp. There’s no mistaking it - the ‘woman’ is Les. She hears the sound in the hall again and this time there is someone there. It’s Les! Well not really Les but his Soul. And he looks the same as in the photograph. Beth’s mouth hangs. She watches him walking silently towards her Soul. The two Souls face each other and the Beth, that is flesh, is filled with love and the smell of her old Dad is all around. Les turns and walks towards her and with his long legs, steps over the bags, passes through her and out into the sunshine where he melts into the brightness and is gone.
And so this piece of the puzzle is laid on the table. Les hadn’t known Beth and Beth hadn’t known Les. It was only in death that Les found the courage to show ‘Rose’, as he called his other self, to his daughter.
Beth keeps that photo in the little cardboard book, ‘Growing Stone fruit in South Australia’, and when she’s having a bad day, she looks at it.
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