The Room
Liz smooths the comforter, as she does every day, brushing off fluff that does not exist. Satisfied she moves around the room, straightening prints that do not need straightening, rearranging figurines that do not need rearranging and tweaking doilies that do not need tweaking.
She smiles.
It is perfect.
As always.
The room is ready.
A few minutes later Liz collects her car keys and heads out the door.
A marquee is the first clue that this is not an ordinary day at the reserve. It hovers awkwardly on the boundary, its stark whiteness contrasting with the dark jungle of trees and bushes and curling paths that stretch over two acres
A small clutch of people hover outside the marquee, twittering among themselves. Birds flit overhead.
Liz, spots her parents immediately. Her father, Frank, still tall and broad, even in his mid-eighties, is rolling his brushed check shirt sleeves up, exposing muscular forearms. Khaki cargo shorts show off tanned, ropy calves and large feet stamped into work boots. Tiny, a pencil sketch in comparison to her husband’s solidness her thin face anxiously scrunched; Liz’s mother, Vivienne droops to one side, eyes downcast.
Liz lopes over, gives her mother a peck on the cheek.
‘Hi Mum’ Liz says gently.
She acknowledges her father with a quick look.
‘Hello Elizabeth,’ he booms.
Bones jutting out of her clothing at gangly angles, her face a patchwork of sun damage, a tall woman approaches.
‘Vivienne!’ the woman exclaims in a voice that would strip the bark of an ancient Oak, ‘Frank your husband, such an amazing man, a local hero, a pillar of the community.’
Vivienne nods slightly, visibly shrivelling into herself.
‘Yes yes.’ The woman clutches at Liz with alarming familiarity. ‘So great, The Society is recognising the hours,’ the woman’s voice trills upwards, ‘no years of service and work your father has given to helping establish this reserve.’
Satisfied she has said her gushing piece, the woman strides off.
There is no denying Frank who has spent hundreds of hours planting tree seedlings at this small reserve, has turned a waste-land into the lush oasis it is today.
The president of the committee motions Frank, Vivienne and Liz to stand beside him. They shuffle over, a trio of apparent togetherness. He starts to speak and out it pours. Frank’s selflessness, an amazing man, a local hero, a pillar of the community, endless hours planting, nothing too much, always willing, blah blah blah. They merge and warp into a long groaning soundbite buffeting Liz’s ears.
Liz glances at her mother, standing listlessly, beside her, dressed in her usual elastic waisted beige slacks and long sleeved floral shirt, despite it being a hot day.
Liz’s mind drifts again.
As a child, Liz had not noticed when her mother started wearing long-sleeved tops. She wore them summer and winter. Perhaps she always had. It wasn’t until Liz was eleven or twelve, she noticed the bruises on her mother’s arms on the rare occasion Vivienne rolled up her sleeves.
The memory fades.
The speeches drone on.
Frank speaks.
He drones on.
Liz does not listen. She holds her mother. The crowd does not notice. It is Frank they have come to see. Liz has not. She is here for her mother. She always is. It is the least she can do.
It was thirty years since, Liz had first suggested, ‘Come and live with me, Dave and the children.’ Liz and Dave always had a spare room in all their homes, decorated in Vivienne’s style, floral and fussy, rather than in keeping with the simplicity of the rest of the house. The children called it “Grandma’s Room.” They still do, even though they are grown and living away.
‘We will always have space for you,’ Liz would reassure her mother.
‘Oh, no, I can’t leave your father. It’s all I know,’ Vivienne replied repeatedly. ‘It’s my fault he gets frustrated with me. I need him. I have no way of supporting myself.’ The excuses rolled easily of Vivienne’s tongue, an indication she has practised them in private.
Vivienne often added the standard, ‘he loves me in his own way.’
Clapping invades Liz’s ears.
The sheet is flicked off the post with a flourish by the committee president, exposing a plaque, smart and shiny, exclaiming “Frank MacFarlane Reserve.”
‘So deserving,’ bobby headed individuals gush, surging forward, clasping Frank’s hand. ‘Every word spoken is deserved.’
‘Deserved, deserved, deserved.’
‘You are so lucky having such a humble man for a husband.’
‘My dearly departed Colin held Frank in the highest esteem.’
‘An amazing man. A local hero. A pillar of the community.’
The words hurtle at Liz.
Again.
They soar and sour in the hot air, falling, wrinkling, at her feet.
Frank smirks and pats Vivienne on the back. She stifles an involuntary flinch.
‘Be a dear and grab this amazing man, local hero, and pillar of the community, a cuppa.’
Crockery clatters in the marquee.
Odours drift out.
Egg mayonnaise sandwiches, doughy bread buns sickly cakes, sweet icing, pizza.
Cloying, nauseating.
The temperature rises higher
Cloying, nauseating.
Vivienne raises her right arm. Pushes a strand of sticky hair behind her ear. Her sleeve slips down her extended arm to her shoulder.
Blackness exposed.
Frank notices. His brow furrows, eyes harden.
Vivienne drops her arm.
The sleeve rustles back to her wrist.
Redness slinks up her face.
Liz looks at Vivienne.
‘You can do it,’ she silently pleads. ‘Today, do it today.’
Once she voiced this to her mother out loud daily. Now not so much. Liz knows she has to be patient. She has to wait. For however long it takes.
Vivienne stands tall.
Her blue eyes flash.
She steps away from Frank.
Looks at Liz.
‘Is the room free?’
Liz nods.
Vivienne takes a deep breath.
‘I’m ready.’
by Wendy Taylor
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