Forever

I wake in the motel room. At first I’m not sure where I am and feel a strange mixture of elation and loneliness. I know the bus is waiting so I put my few things together, pack my bag and go outside. It’s a bright, steely grey morning. As I’m getting on the bus, the recurring thought—What’s the point? What’s the point in making this effort, in anything we do; we’re all going to die—comes. It comes when things are a bit hard; hard, but not impossible or overwhelming—then the thoughts are different. The bus, when everyone has been counted, is thrown into drive, and eases powerfully onto the highway. Lately there have been images of a coffin being taken along the back path of the house at the farm. This held a finality I hadn’t experienced before. Cupboards would be cleaned out, furniture moved out of the house. That’s how it goes.

The seating on the bus allows passengers privacy; I look around and realise I could be sitting alone; the headrests mask the travellers in the seats, the road sounds muffle the voices. There are thirty-six people on this four-day trip of South-West Victoria. Everyone but me is over fifty, and I’m getting closer to that. Everyone loves gardens, and mostly they’re good company. There are a few whiney, thin people. Some are seasoned travellers, and some just want a break from things at home. Yesterday we drove to a large dairy farm, and had lunch at a restaurant nestled among old pine trees. Today we’re going to the coast, near Red Johanna.

This is the fourth trip I’ve been on in the last couple of years. Two have been in Victoria, the other was to Canberra. The trip to Canberra, my first trip, was for Floriade. I should have enjoyed it because it was beautiful, and it was a long way from the farm, but I felt guilty leaving Robbie and because it was so nice being away from all that worry—I was surprised that I used the word splendid when I thought of the capital, but it was autumn and the avenues of trees in full colour, rows of showy yellow poplars, and a few streets away, the rich dark wine colour of the claret ash. There were the swathes of bush, and the scope of the Parliament and the War Memorial. I felt touched and this made it clear somehow that it is important to be happy, to try to be happy. The doctor had put Robbie into hospital so I could have a break. Tests needed to be done and the doctor had told me I was exhausted. It was his idea to take the bus trip.

“You’re in this for the long haul,” he’d said, looking at me. He looked serious and his eyes narrowed, and I knew I looked tired, probably done for most money. Even I was beginning to think that. Robbie has been seriously ill now for three years—he’d fallen through the barn roof and broken his back. Early hopes that he would walk again were only that, hopes. He developed problems with his breathing due to damage to his lung and needed a nebuliser. And now he struggles with depression.

I know it’s trite to think, and even to say, that we are all going to die, because we are—that’s what separates humans; we know we are going to die, and we do—or as Mum used to say, in humour, “No one gets out of here alive!” I was young and wondered why Mum said this because it didn’t seem funny, but she would always laugh, and now the bus is running along the highway where there are magnificent mountain ash trees, and ferns growing densely beneath them—I can barely make out the sky for the height and thickness of the forest. This is so beautiful, and how lucky I am to be here. I needed a break. The doctor was right to make me do it. I’m glad he did. I wasn’t game to make that call, I thought I’d last a bit longer. For five seconds I see my reflection in the bus window. It’s a surprise. This is how I looked when I was thirty. Recently I’d seen my reflection in the car window. I looked worn and pale, and it even gave a glimpse of ten years hence. Best not to look, I concluded. Mirrors in the house don’t get much use. But this reflection told the story of a long thin body, and thin arms, dark shoulder-length hair, often tied up, and a square-shaped face. Something thoughtful and quiet about the woman you’d say, and physical, like you’d find her on a horse, which you wouldn’t. But she did wear clothes well, and that gave the impression she liked living where she lived, and perhaps had also lived elsewhere. There had been nothing before in my life that had been as hard as this, and there had been a few things that might have been.

Robbie and I got married more than twenty years ago. We’ve farmed on his, now our, cattle and grain property south of the Grampians. Robbie’s mother was interfering and judgmental, she still is—nothing I do is good enough. It was more than good enough for Robbie, and that’s what matters. Gradually we found ways to keep Magdalena—that is her name, how was a child given such a name?—to keep her more or less at arm’s length. It had been even harder when Robbie was first injured—she’d wanted him at her house, wanted to nurse him. She was understandably upset, we all were, but that just highlighted what had been going on throughout our marriage. Yet strangely, Magdalena saw how devoted I was—our old neighbour told me this, she said careful and attentive, although she thought it wouldn’t last. We became very isolated after the first couple of months, there was the traction, the pain, the constant physio. Very few friends visited after that time, and he seemed to just lose his spirit—he became meek and reflective, stuck in his thoughts, he didn’t do much, hardly went out of the house, didn’t read or watch anything on TV except for the golf, and some horse racing. Magdalena believed that Geoff, her husband, was jealous of the attention she was attempting to give their son and found some subtle, and some less subtle, methods of demanding her time. Geoff suffers with arthritis and failing eyesight. His hearing has been poor since he had the accident with the bull in the crush several years ago.

I can see the sea from the bus. It’s just a glimpse, a fine blue line, and then silver, and now it’s gone. I know it was the sea because there’s a quality to the light. It makes me feel happy. When Robbie had his accident it was entirely unexpected. The shed had been inspected a couple of months earlier by a builder, Robbie had been away, and he had not checked it himself in some years. He’d gone up to secure a piece of tin after a storm, when one of the trusses gave way. The shed was empty, as it had been cleaned in readiness for hay cutting. He lay on the floor, in shock, and later, calling out. It was three hours before Simon came looking for him. Then they had to wait for the ambulance. I was up at the house the whole time. I was shocked when I saw him—how much pain he was in, and knew something was really wrong. I imagined the worst, yet not knowing what it could be. Straight away he was transferred to Melbourne, and he was there several weeks. And then there was rehab. The worse moment, soon after I saw him, was when I had a clear sense of his body being broken. I knew then that some things we shared for all those years would now be changed. There was also a clear sense of no longer being young—although if he’d been twenty I don’t know if I would have felt that. I was aware that we had lived. Later I dreamt of images of young bodies broken in war. I lay awake for long periods when he was in the hospital. I hated that it couldn’t be changed. I knew this couldn’t be classified as a supreme sacrifice, and although it wasn’t a life that had been given, some of the best parts had been taken. And what if it had been his fault, I asked defensively, what if it had been poor judgment, how would that change things?

A large rabbit hops across the road—it is a hop, it isn’t in such a hurry, has none of that desperate plunging scampering that some rabbits have. I wish that Robbie had a different mother. I hate Magdalena. I wish that I could never see her again. I wish we could have Christmas lunch without her—she makes me so uncomfortable, I know when she’s in the room even if I can’t see her, I feel uneasy, inadequate, I feel things from her I never feel from other people, that’s why I especially hate Christmas, other times I can manage to put up with her. It’s the not being good enough, that I could never be good enough because she was born like that—I was born like that—Mum and Dad had a grocery shop, and I’d married her son, from the land. Robbie knows that we don’t get on, he just didn’t know quite how bad it was. In the early years he’d asked me to try, and when the boys came it just became expected that we would have Christmas together. Magdalena even told Robbie once that she “would like Christmas much more if Margo stayed away”. Robbie heard that and later forgot it. This is what families can be like, he thought. Now that he is confined and I care for him as carefully as his mother did he appreciates it, but he knows his mother would always do it. Either way he was grateful, but no longer has much regard for the world he lives in. Nor do the prospects look good. Having a son, having Simon who runs the property, means that the farm can continue, that over eighty years of Haddons running cattle and now growing crops will continue. But it’s like watching someone else use your clubs, like watching from the trees—it is not what you would choose.

“I’ve been living in the South Island for eight years,” Liz, a dark-haired, alert and robust woman is telling me. She has an Australian accent and says she had gone on holiday ten years ago, on a trip like this, and had fallen in love with New Zealand. She sold her house in Sydney and bought a house in Geraldine. “It’s a cold place, about thirty minutes drive to the Alps. It’s so beautiful. We grow peonies. We’ve got ten acres on the outskirts of the town—two acres are peonies. We built a house. That took three years, but it’s been worth it.” She smiles and looks at me. She indicates the woman sitting across one row back, “Harriet—‘Hazzy’, she was working in Otago, she’s a dentist, and we were on a skiing holiday, that’s when we met.” Harriet was gazing ahead in an alert way. Like a sheepdog on duty. Harriet is dumpy, with fine hair cut close to her skull; she has clear skin, and small hazel eyes. She wears a white linen shirt and tailored khaki pants, she looks as though someone has invited her to lunch. It is not clear to this viewer that she is as rewarding and full of pleasure as a field of peonies located in the foothills of the New Zealand Alps, but there you are. There you are. More valuable than the beautiful peonies.

“It’s the cold,” she says, “the pure relentless, calm cold of the place that we love, and of course, the peonies.”

Liz gazes at my face and says, “I hadn’t realised I was unhappy until then. I thought things were as they were. Now I know differently. I love these trips because they can change your life.”

Before I left on the trip there was a phone call from Alice. My sister is eight years older and lives in Sydney. She is married and doesn’t have any children. Alice said she would like to come and visit, perhaps to stay a few days and then spend a night or two somewhere nice. There was a nervousness in her voice when she spoke, and I had an instinct to say, “You’ve been calculating how hard this is!” But I said, “It’s good to hear from you.” I wasn’t sure I could bear it if there was sudden happiness in her life—we didn’t have much contact. Alice was aloof, although it was more that she was protecting herself, she had always been like that, and had lived in Sydney for nearly thirty years. She is a nurse. She did come down to the farm after the accident. I appreciated that; she knew what to do, and she explained things. She reassured Robbie. He was in a lot of pain. Nor did she spend time criticising doctors as nurses habitually do. I was in a numbed state, and terribly unsure—I couldn’t imagine a future—so Alice’s presence gave us time. I liked the idea of Alice coming to visit again. Sisters can’t be replicated. Some knowledge of life is stamped on you.

Just before lunch we arrive at a cattle property. June and Harry Rodda—their name is on the entrance to the property, run Gelbviehs, a rich rust-gold-coloured animal, well muscled, with calm faces. The breed originated in the Swiss Alps. Despite the series of dry years, the ambition and the success of their venture are striking. Before Harry was married he travelled to the USA where he found June—at a rodeo, in Montana, twenty-five years ago.

The place gives the impression of having a lot of staff—the gardens carefully tended with huge rows of rhododendrons, camellias, roses and hellebores. The trees are old, cypresses, walnuts, oaks and Moreton Bay figs.

A woman who must be June Rodda—she’s about sixty, a strawberry blond wearing work pants and leather work boots, races past on a four-wheeled motorbike as the bus pulls to a stop, most likely on her way to check a pump, or a cow. Her jaw is thrust forward, in a resilient and determined fashion; it’s easy to imagine her as a young girl.

My phone rings just as everyone is getting off the bus. It’s Simon. Fearful, I answer, and he says he is just calling to say things are fine and am I having a good time? “You should be,” he tells his mother. “Someone to cook for you and places to see,” affection in his voice. But more that he’ll like it when I get back. “Enjoy it. You’ll be home before you know it.” I appreciate him calling, hearing his voice. And I wish for a moment I never had to go home.

Everyone has moved over to a spot under a grand cypress pine. The rich heady aroma from the resin permeates the air. As I get down from the bus the grazier looks at me and then looks again, as though he’s seen me before, or that he’s been told something about me and is making up his own mind. I wonder what he sees. I’ve been thinking of Robbie, of him in his wheelchair, sitting in the hospital, probably looking out the window. The doctor had decided to keep Robbie in—I didn’t want to think about whether Magdalena had come across to “help out”. Simon had said things would be fine—perhaps he welcomed a chance to do more for his Dad. But they were cutting hay.

Harry waits until everyone has gathered. He turns off his phone, and puts it back in his pocket. Everything about Harry seems capable, efficient and busy; his arms don’t seem to rest at his side, they’re lifted just away from his body, ready for the next task. He looks as though he’s done many things in his life—before farming he might have been a professional in the city, real estate or banking—he looks as though he’s played football, or cricket, or tennis, he seems toned but he isn’t straight, injuries of some kind cause him to lean over and walk with a limp. Harry Rodda is good-looking, well, you could see that he must have been when he was young. There’s something about that—that this has faded, this thing he must have been aware of for much of his life. Of such a woman it is said, a former beauty.

At the end of the session the group gathers, to be told something, or to ask questions. Today the questions are about gardening, about the five dry seasons down here, and about the plants which thrived. Harry points to some pinks which have already been dug up and are lying in a pile. He says they are still probably his favourite. Mounds of mulch have been placed by the beds ready for shovelling.

The group moves across to the cattle crush where the staff are injecting young heifers. Harry walks with Betty Klem, an old lady of ninety, and asks her if this is her first time on the Surf Coast.

“My husband brought me down here on our honeymoon. It was just after the war. This part of the coast seems unchanged to me.” She turns her face to him. “It was very cold on our honeymoon.”

Harry watches as she takes in all that is going on with the heifers. She asks, “When did you start the stud?” He tells her it was eighteen years ago, and then he says they will go down and see the calves, then to the feedlot, and come up to the garden and have lunch in the marquee. After that they could stroll around the garden. He offers Betty his arm, but she says she doesn’t think it’s necessary. “Especially on a farm!”

June comes spearing back around the corner on the four-wheeled motorbike. She parks it beside the shed and comes over to Harry and says something to him. He looks at his watch and makes his way inside.

There is something moving about a couple who work together, particularly outdoor physical work, and who have done so for many years. Their skin is toughened, their faces lined and darkened, and their bodies stretched with the everyday exertion. It’s like looking at people who dance together, there is intrigue in watching their movements, their efforts, and their pleasure in the dance. I don’t envy the Roddas, I’ve never been much of an outdoor girl—although I like doing the garden. Yet they are a stark contrast to my life. There are times now when I don’t even think about Robbie’s confinement in the wheelchair—I’m almost past that sadness. I’ve trained myself for that, to be in the present, that’s where my job is. Yes, the deal that had been cut was for worse.

The third night we stay in a motel overlooking the ocean. We’re booked in for two nights. It is perched up high and takes in more ocean and sky than land. You have that strange sensation that you could be anywhere in the world—on the Californian coast, or perhaps Italy. Some of the women spend a quiet afternoon at the motel and walk on the beach. Others go into town to do some shopping, and some go to a lookout about half an hour away. In the evening we gather for a barbecue on the motel’s terrace. Earlier I walked along the beach. I walked further along than the others. There were huge strands of glistening treacle-coloured kelp washed up on the beach. I tried to imagine the garden of the ocean. Early in the morning I had woken feeling anxious and agitated. I didn’t want to live like I live. I was enjoying the trip and felt resentful that I had to go home. I hadn’t anticipated after Robbie had broken his back how much would be drained from our lives. Or just taken. I’d married Robbie because I loved him. It was that simple. And I do love him. I could even stand, or go on trying to stand, Magdalena because she couldn’t get inside the kernel of what we had—the love, and the clear physical pleasure, and that we were there for each other. It didn’t matter then how things played out, how they unfolded. You knew it would work out. The children were born, and losing Amy at three months seemed unbearable, yet the seasons came and went, and we lived in the present, and for the future.

We shared the world with each other—nothing much else mattered. In the weeks when Robbie started to have the strength to sit in his wheelchair my longing for him was terrible. I would quietly tousle his hair, and run my hand along the back of his neck, a gesture that had been one of our signals, when he would kiss me, and now it felt like I’d done this to a stranger. I fed him, and we talked about the property and what Simon had reported, but everything else was different. Weeks, then months passed, and I saw that he was changing. It seemed he no longer had certain capacities, or didn’t allow himself to explore them. I went to the library and read what I could, and talked to the doctor. He said there is no physical reason for Robbie’s changed sexual responses, although there were powerful other reasons. He suggested I try different things. The lack of response was devastating. I kept thinking there could be someone else, and felt jealous and ridiculous. He seemed uncomfortable, and I don’t know how aware he was. I knew he wouldn’t discuss it. I didn’t know what he thought. Or if he did. I loved the shape of his arms. I love him. I’ve always loved his arms, and his neck—and his eyes, but now they were different and did not hold the life they had previously held. It was like I was touching the arms of a man I didn’t know. Sometimes he would surprise me and use names he had used for me, he’d do this when I was doing something in the room. It was more factual than affectionate. But it was ours. Sometimes I would go over events in the past, when Simon was little, the stories we’d told each other, the glue, the best bits. He listened, he never added anything, but seemed more distracted than part of it. I had to manage my feelings carefully at these times. I would wake at night and cry. It was painful, and it was happening as clearly as if the boat taking him away was going down a river outside our door.

It’s unfair. I don’t want this card. I did go to see someone, the talking therapy, they say it can help. She said I hadn’t only lost Robbie, but the life we had. But not all of it. I could choose how I looked at it. Our life together was gone, and the life we had on the farm, and the life with friends. We don’t go out much. People hardly visit us. The only strong thing is Simon—he’s stepped up into his role. He keeps everything going. He says that’s not true, if I didn’t do the books, and go on the phone, it would all stop. We do have a working farm.

I find it hard to know what my job is. Robbie doesn’t get a choice. I like to think that I do. But I wouldn’t choose to look after Robbie as he is now, I do see parts of the old Robbie sometimes, but mostly he’s gone. But I can’t not care for him. I wish I didn’t have to. Even after this time I haven’t worked out if it’s better to think of him as someone else, or as remnants of Robbie and try to embellish that. The counsellor said I would work it out. That it takes a while. It does. But I must get out. I’m playing golf again, and sometimes I really enjoy that. I play with Nina, we’ve played together since before we were married. I want to take some lessons. I’ve been volunteering at the Op Shop, it should be boring—all those old clothes, and the people who have to shop there—but it always seems interesting. It surprises me how much money we have to donate to local groups when the items cost fifty cents or a dollar.

One morning about six weeks ago I went into Robbie’s room when I got up. He was awake, and lying there. It seemed he’d been awake for a while. I had the impression he had been talking to someone. I kissed him and helped him sit up in the bed.

“Do you want some toast? Or would you rather porridge?”

He didn’t answer. Then he said, “I think there are better things you could do with your life.” He was looking at me. “I want you to think about that.”

“What sort of things?”

“I’m not sure. You have to work that out. But not this. I don’t like it. It’s not fair.”

“Robbie, who decides what’s fair? This isn’t easy—but it’s a lot easier than when you first were injured. I remember just how hard it was then, hard all the time. I was exhausted and worried and scared. I thought how I kept away from stories in the news about other people’s pain—what was happening in Zimbabwe for instance—some news seems to specialise in human misery. There are worse things, if that helps, than this—your story didn’t even make the local paper.”

“You know my view of the local paper,” he said wryly. “They had a photo when Wisdom Mitchell cut his foot.”

“That was because he came off his motorbike, he’s eighty and wasn’t wearing a helmet!”

Robbie smiled. “He’s always been stupid.” He seemed more alert than he had for some time.

“I belong here. I don’t have plans to go anywhere else,” I told him.

“I don’t either.” But I knew he meant this room.

After a while he said, “Porridge.”

“Magdalena is coming over to show me how to knit.” He called his mother Magdalena when he was unsure of her motives. “Some of them are knitting singlets for kids in Africa. That shouldn’t be too hard.” That should keep them busy for a couple of hours, I thought.

About eight people in the group are gathered along the path where a wide bed of perennials is being tended. Hellebores, astilbes, lamb’s ears, pinks, sedums and white Japanese anemones have been attended to. Some of the cuttings lie on the path. The group is broken up and chatting about all manner of things—the earthquake in Japan, the sedum cuttings, where they’ll be tomorrow, the last day. At the far end of the bed I watch Harry as he quickly sorts through some of the lamb’s ears. Does he have any idea how special he is? He has an expression that he is keeping himself going, keeping busy because to stop would let in elements he wouldn’t welcome. It’s fleeting, but there’s also the sensation that he’s unaware of his value in the way adolescent boys are.

He stands up, although he doesn’t end up standing straight, and looks at me. He brings some plants over.

“Are you a gardener?” he asks. I say I enjoy gardening, and would like more time for it. “There’s always more time,” he says, looking up at me. “You mightn’t like to spend it.” He doesn’t smile. There is something intent in his comment.

“I love the pinks—the smell of cloves. I think they will be in the borders in heaven.” It sounds stupid when it comes out—I’d never said it out loud. But I had thought it for a long time.

“Do you have any sons on your property?” he asks. But I knew he was asking about my husband.

He looks at me standing there, saying nothing. He seems to be wondering if it was a hard question. That I would either have them or I wouldn’t. He looks at me and says, “What?”

“You don’t often see a bloke who is as good at as many things as you are,” I say, but I also want to say, and who is also good to look at. But I can’t say it. But I do want him to know. People should be told. There are too many things we are never told. Especially the good things.

He bends down and picks up a clump of lamb’s ears, and I can see he’s forgotten the question about whether I had any sons. But he has heard me. I guess from his deep silence it hasn’t been said often. I like how we can use a silent language.

He reaches over for the fork, and says, “Are you coming up to join the others?”

The group gathers, and he outlines his ideas on the perennial border.

Suddenly it becomes very blustery, and within ten minutes it’s dark; heavy clouds form and it starts to rain. The group quickly gets into the bus. Harry takes his fork and stands in one of the sheds.

I feel ready to go home the following morning. I want to see the farm, to see what’s happening at home, and to see Robbie, and Simon. The bus trip back is pleasant. The rhythm of the bus lulls me into a soft trance, the sun streaming in the window. It’s a very pleasant feeling. When everyone gets off the bus the driver says there is a parcel for me. It is wrapped in hessian, and tied with string. Inside are freshly dug pinks, the healthy spikes with soil still around the roots. I know where they came from. I also know where I will plant them.