A
while back I wrote a short story that’s part autobiographical/part fiction. It's about the death of my aunt (true story) and my brother features in it.
MOURNING
HAS BROKEN
© Kathy George
“How was your
flight? Bloody long way, isn’t it?”
I
nod, resisting the temptation to be churlish and say How would you know? because it is after all a long way. Sydney to
Johannesburg. Non-stop. Fourteen hours. And that’s not counting the Brisbane
leg.
“So
how is Helen?” I ask dutifully, “and the boys?”
“She’s
fine. She sends her love.” My brother pauses. “The boys have taken it in their
stride, but we’ve spared them the details.”
“Of
course.”
“They
don’t need to know.”
“No.”
“How’s
Tom?”
“Good,”
I say. “Sorry that he couldn’t be here.”
The
truth is that Tom’s not sorry at all. He told me point blank that he couldn’t
bear the thought of fronting up.
My brother says, “I could scarcely
manage to get away myself. You should see my desk -”
“It’s
not a competition,” I murmur.
“What?”
he says.
“Nothing,”
I say.
He
thrusts his hands into his pockets and looks around as if searching for a new
topic. Rising on his toes, he rocks back and forth. He’s not a tall man and I think
it’s an attempt to appear statuesque. I try to keep my fingers away from my
eyes, which are sore and bloodshot. Instead of getting any kind of sleep I’ve
read an entire novel on the flight.
“How’s
mom coping?” I ask.
“She
seems okay. Dad’s doing a great job, holding it all together.”
I
nod again.
Since
my brother first called me I’ve spoken to my dad twice, and each time he’s been
calm and sensible. Yes, it’s true your Auntie
has been murdered. No, you’re not to make any plans to fly over until we know
when the body will be released from the autopsy. And yes, I will tell your mother
that you love her and that you are thinking of her.
I’ve
had time to mull over the word murdered.
Back in Australia it sounded like a word splashed across the front page of The Sunday Mail. Here, in Africa, it
sounds commonplace and ordinary. Dirty. It even tastes different when I let it
linger on my tongue. There are other words like this, I realise, with different
meanings for different countries. Hunger,
for instance. Clothing. Holiday.
They
call our flight to Cape Town and we shuffle into line while two little Africans
play tag in-between us. The flight attendant tries to get them to behave, but it’s
hard to be cross with a little black kid who has a shiny smile and a strong, healthy
body.
“Stop
that now or I’m going to call for the police,” my brother says, pulling out his
phone.
“Hey,
Zil,” the nearest one calls out to his friend. “He’s gonna call the cops.”
Chests
heaving with exertion they saunter over to us. The one called Zil says, “Can we
watch? Can we watch while you call the police?” and there’s a titter of
laughter down the line.
It’s
a chilly and damp Sunday evening in Johannesburg – the rain is doing its
seasonal tribal dance over the highveld - and we all seem a little pliable and
a little subdued.
We
get seats next to each other, although it’s not likely we’re going to be doing
much talking. No wives, no husbands, no children. Nobody to move the
conversation along. I try to remember the last time we were alone together; it
seems like a lifetime ago.
It
was the year we drove down from the dusty mining town where we lived, to
university together. My brother to complete his third year of engineering, me
to study for a Bachelor of Arts. My first year. A Bachelor of Arts majoring in?
Nothing, he’d tell anyone who cared
to listen. Nothing, he’d say with a
snigger.
Nothing. I was seventeen and embarking on an
enormous adventure. Bursting out of my skin. Tingling with anticipation. And
not a thing happened on that trip. It was dull and dry. A straight road. A
hollow blue sky. The heat of the Karoo shimmering over the tarmac. My brother did
not speak to me. He did not look at me. It was worse than simply being his
little sister. I might as well have been
Nothing.
It
became the most eventful year of my life. In no specific order and having no
bearing on each other, I lived away from home, tried smoking and getting drunk (hated
one, loved the other), hitch-hiked across the peninsula and, fulfilling my
brother’s prediction, dropped out of university. I also fell in love with Tom who
taught me to surf, and to lie under a night sky tracking satellites. Later, he lured
me to Australia.
My
brother’s habit of not talking to me and not looking at me – unless of course
we were in company and I spoke directly to him – had already started before that
trip, and he did not grow out of it for years.
As I peer out of the aeroplane window
and gaze down at the endless fairylights of Soweto drifting below us, I remind
myself that it was a long time ago. That I should put it behind me. We’ve seen
each other with our respective families at least once since then, and although
it was awkward it went smoothly. We’re now both adults. It’s possible we’ve learned
something.
My
brother is three years older than I am. No matter how much I mature or where my
career path takes me, he will always be older. More responsible. More mature.
The first-born. The chosen one.
We’re
picking at our in-flight meals when he says, “I’ve hired a car.”
“So
have I.”
He
looks at me over the top of his reading glasses. He says, “Why don’t you cancel
yours and let me take care of it?”
“Because.”
He
raises his eyebrows. “Because?”
I
try to make a statement by putting down the cutlery with deliberation but it’s feather-light
and too plasticky. I feel defeated before I’ve even begun.
“It
isn’t about taking care of it, it’s about independence. Why don’t you cancel your car and let me take care of it?”
“What? No,” he says, indignantly, and
raises his glass to sip his wine.
From
the depths of my travel bag I haul out my book and bury myself in it. It’s a
dark novel about an Irish family gathering for a funeral, and in spite of my blistering
eyes I reread pages in an effort to gain some insight into my behaviour.
We drive both
hire cars back to my parents’ house. It’s night now and raining in Cape Town
and I let him take the lead, but the road out of the airport is all over the
place because of preparation for the Soccer World Cup. When he takes a wrong
turn I am gleeful.
We finally turn up to find anybody
who is somehow related is at my parents’ home. It’s almost festive. But when I
reach out for my mother, her chest convulses and her face turns wet with tears.
To find her not insisting on my brother and me consuming a second dinner is an
indication of her distress. Someone makes a pot of tea. All I want is a slug of
warm whisky swigged straight from the bottle, the way Tom taught me. I tell
them about the Clem tunnel and how close the project is to being finished and
how Tom could not get away, but not that he broke down and wept when I relayed
the news. My aunt, feisty and lovable, was his favourite amongst his in-laws.
They met long before the parental board inspection and instantly disliked each
other, strange as that may seem now.
And then we talk about what happened.
It has to be said. Some of us don’t know all the details. A warm, windless
Saturday afternoon. A leafy suburb. A lady with white, springy curls who used a
stick for walking. We talk about how my aunt always left the side-door ajar for
the dogs, refusing to be dictated to by crime statistics. About how the police
are calling her “the local Mother Theresa” since everybody they interview tells
them that she never turned anyone begging for food away from the gate. About the
blanket covering the body. The smudged fingerprints. The missing handbag.
In the lull my mother says, “We’d
like you to do the eulogy.” Lack of sleep is catching up on me, and when I
finally turn to look at my brother he’s looking at me. They’re all looking at
me.
“Me?”
I say.
“Yes,
you,” my father says. “You’re the one who has some experience with words.”
As I wander
through my aunt’s garden the next day, I realise that I can’t tell Tom and my
aunt’s story at the funeral. It’s Tom’s anecdote, not mine.
I
sit down under the shady ancient oak tree and turf the blank A4 pad and pen on
to the grass. I slip off my sandals and let the grass tickle my bare feet. My
aunt’s dogs are still at the house. Silky black and white border collies, with
tails like small palm fronds, they are clearly traumatised by the absence of
their mistress and the comings and goings of various strangers. Sparrow lies
quivering at my feet while Jack trots from the front door to the front hedge
and back again. Somebody’s feeding them until arrangements are made to return
them to the dog shelter. My aunt loved animals. A tame squirrel lives in the
tree above my head; every evening a robin waits on the kitchen windowsill for
cheese.
Inside
the house is chaos. My mother has inherited the house and its contents and,
together with my second cousins who’ve journeyed from England, she is trying to
sort out what she wants to keep, give away or sell. I’ve got my eye on a large,
black elephant made out of mahogany which Tom always loved. He’d stroke its
head when he came to visit and say, “G’day, mate”, and in return my aunt would retort,
“Where’s yer jumper?” and they’d both grin and look fondly at one another.
My
best memories of my aunt are all connected with Tom.
My
brother comes out of the house, stands on the patio and gazes at me. In
response I waggle my fingers. He takes a minute to decide to cross the expanse
of lawn, and I wonder what gem of information he is bringing me.
Hands
behind his back, he does a wide circuit of the oak tree; he detours to the
hedge and paces its length. Not once, but twice. And then he does another
circuit of the tree. With an air of mild curiosity. With Jack at his heels. Feet
apart, he finally halts in front of me. His shoes are brown leather, tightly
laced.
“The
elephant’s got Tom’s name underneath it.”
“What?”
I say.
“Everything’s
got a name underneath it. Well, nearly everything.”
“Good
grief,” I say. In hindsight, a really stupid phrase. There is nothing good about grief.
After
a minute he dips his head to the notepad at my feet and says, “Having trouble?”
Reluctantly,
I admit that, yes, I am having trouble.
“Do
you remember,” he says, “when we were kids and Auntie took us up Table Mountain
in the cable car? It was that holiday when mom and dad let us fly down
together. I was about thirteen, so you must have been ten.”
“And?”
I say.
“We
took boerewors and she let us make a
fire on the mountain – absolutely verboten
today of course but that was then – and we held the sausages over the fire
on sticks –”
“And
they were burnt on the outside and raw in middle and no sausage has tasted quite
so good ever since,” I finish.
My
brother raises himself on his toes, the way he did in the airport.
“But
that’s so trite,” I say.
“Trite
is good,” he says. “We’re not interested in magnificent occasions here, in
Auntie meeting the Queen –”
“Did
she?”
“She
went to England often enough I wouldn’t put it past her. They want to know
about the small things, the things that mattered, to you, and to me.”
“What
mattered to you?” I say quietly.
He
takes out a handkerchief and blows his nose. I pick up the A4 pad and crease the
edge of the paper into a triangle. There’s a loud crash and tinkling from
inside the house and we both look up. Jack darts off to investigate, his nails
clicking across the patio.
“At
the rock pools, once, in Fish Hoek. I must have been about six. She showed me
how a sea anemone works. How, if I gently pushed my finger into the middle it
closed its soft, fat fingers around mine, and held me. Tightly.” His laugh is
strained and tinged with sadness. “I was terrified,” he says. “But it was like a
finger hug.”
I stand at
the lectern with blurred vision and a tremble in my voice. The congregation before
me is vast and ripples like an ocean. For years my aunt was the headmistress of
the local primary school and the majority of the mourners are teachers and past
students. The family pew comprises a handful of people, including my aunt’s
maid, her broad brown shoulders shaking with silent grief.
When I give the eulogy, the anecdote
I relate is my own. It concerns a Rudyard Kipling piece called The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo which
was one of my aunt’s favourites. She knew whole verses off by heart and would
often recite them to us as children, waiting for me to come in with, “Off ran Dingo – Yellow-Dog Dingo – always
hungry, grinning like a coal-scuttle.” Then, unrehearsed and inexplicably,
I launch into my brother’s story about the sea anemone. It’s hardly a story, just
a memory of one day in a lifetime of days: the tang of the sea air, the gaudy colour
of my aunt’s dress – she loved bright colours - and the warmth of her arms
around my brother.
Somehow, I find my place in the pew,
and we sing the Eleanor Farjeon song Morning
has Broken, which I’ve always wrongly attributed to Cat Stevens. It’s funny
how you can carry around the wrong information about a person for years...
I’d
like to say that sunlight falls through the stained glass windows on to the
coffin, but nothing of the kind happens. Outside, it is an ordinary day. A
little windy, perhaps. The South Easter is getting up and the seagulls wheel in
the air above us, mewling softly.
We are walking out of the church –
the same church where my parents were married, and where Tom and I took our
vows – when I see my brother is just ahead of me. Together with my father he’s
supporting my mother. And I call out to them, and reach for my brother’s
outstretched hand.
