Forever Baby: Jenny’s Story - A Mother’s Diary

E & R moved on to a hostel for their last night in Australia. They didn’t like to deprive kind Jo of her room for three nights. Fair enough. Lovely to meet you both. Quick photo. Bye.

Andrew had a busy day too. A meeting in Sunshine with Melbourne Water to discuss the impact on low-income families of their new charges meant he was out and about in Jo’s car so he might as well slip down to the caravan place in Werribee. Home quickly for a pleasant bite of lunch with his dear wife, retreating smartly to work when dear wife bites his head off for no apparent reason. And a meeting of the Crisis Line committee after work. The day was neatly framed by thick slabs of talking Ron at either end.

I wonder, if I'd had an idea, would I have re-ordered my day? Bugger binomial curves, there’s a story that needs to be written. A curse on carrots, a pox on parsnips, can’t you see I'm computing? Dunno. I've just read some of Les’s notes he keeps about the process of writing and rewriting his novel. Wow! It’s no light undertaking.

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Friday:

No, it’s definitely the time. I proved it. Today I switched on the computer with an hour for writing and not an idea within cooee. And I produced a lovely story — poignant, nicely shaped, deep, the right length and not quite the right form for the ABC competition.

I just started typing and the story appeared. 'Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?' I typed and the flowers of long ago bloomed in my mind with their attendant remorses and guilts. The childhood reminiscences flowed but metamorphosed. While I gave Jen coffee I become a boy, as I put her in the pool the dreary reality of the lily incident gained drama and humour, and as I hung out the washing a satisfying ending appeared. By 7pm it was done. Long swim for Jen, and late tea, but a gratifying afternoon’s work indeed.

And apart from that . . . a full morning at work, no dramas. All the dramatic possibilities of Wednesday fizzled into normalities when the results came in. Good. That sort of drama I can do without. Brief Urimbirra business and a lengthy house-call ate into my afternoon. Likewise shopping, cleaning, cooking, washing.

After the story was done, I had a swim with Jen and baked a carrot cake for her birthday and turned the left-over stew and left-over spaghetti sauce into a delectable-looking meat pie, but since no-one was here to eat it and comment on its delicious golden pastry, it hangs on until tomorrow. This pie deserves an appreciative audience.

After tea I produced a draft ‘Conditions and Entry Form' for the CAA Short Story Competition. I'll get comments over the weekend. Kate Veitch dropped off the material she promised. A good sign.

I had another chat with Phillip about Ant. They've agreed that the cleaner looks at his room daily and, if he needs to clean, Ant is charged for every half-hour he spends. And they're sorting out Joanne’s finances so that she can stay too.

I decided, while having my swim and listening to ‘Books and Writing’, that perhaps my ideal job would be as a driver, driving endlessly in and around Melbourne (always within range of Melbourne radio stations), delivering supplies to milk bars, or cake shops maybe, and listening to ABC radio. I'd become so wise and knowledgeable. I'd know and understand everything, and during repeats I'd listen to glorious music on FM or talk-back on 3LO. Bliss.

The man on ‘Books and Writing’ was talking about time, and space, and order, and he made it all so fascinating and elegant. I even enjoyed the hour on the history of pop music while I made the cake and pie. It was about the Beatles. Amazing interviews with utterly hysterical, weeping and hyperventilating young girls after a concert, and descriptions of fans swarming onto the ground at a stadium, and the pressure of them actually knocking over a caravan that the Beatles were waiting in before going out to sing. And some thought-provoking comments from a peeved John Lennon about how all these epileptics and disabled people and people who couldn’t talk used to be brought out to their dressing rooms by their parents or carers and they didn’t know how to relate to these disabled people who wanted to touch them, and how at concerts the front two rows would be filled up with these disabled, brought along and propped there, as if seeing them or touching them would produce a miraculous cure or something. (Read all the preceding in a Liverpudlian accent.)

Andrew went to work early and came home late. He did some good shopping though. Found a vibrator for Jen that seems just the thing. And a dress. And a magnificent crystal decanter for Lynette. I caught passing glimpses of Jo and Jim, and Annabel is still away. She might like the vibrator too.

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Saturday:

Perhaps it was the swim, or the suggestive possibilities of the vibrator, or just the efflux of time, but I had an urge to rouse a reluctant husband and provoke action overnight.

The morning slipped away. I helped Andrew launch the boat, then explored the possibilities of the electric wheelchair, and suddenly it was a rush to make lunch, get Jen ready, do the washing and feed the animals, and get to the Baillieu by 11.15. We just made it, give or take five minutes.

I enjoyed the day. In the first session Les led us in an exploration of the plot and structure of ‘The Stanbul Train’ and in the second Catherine looked at Greene’s characterisation, with particular reference to his treatment of Jews and lesbians. After lunch we did a writing exercise, writing of immediate action, and quite a few of us read out our efforts. Being me, I was pretty pleased with my effort, but didn’t want to put myself forward since I was having a piece looked at in the next session, but then Les said, "Anyone else? Go on, Mary. You might as well. You've been shooting me little looks." Had I? Am I so transparent? A little remark like that, no harm meant, quite takes the shine off my day. Silly.

Anyway, I read mine out too. Les said I'd done the objectification of the telephone well. Amazing what you can do, all unknowing. Objectification of the telephone, eh?

The fourth session was for looking at manuscripts. Annette and Sally had brought along pieces. "Anyone else?" I said I had just one copy of a couple of short pieces. "OK," said Les. "Get copies done and we'll look at Mary’s today, since she won’t be here tomorrow, and Annette’s, and do Sally’s tomorrow." So I slipped over to the Unit and copied 'Jack Spratt' and 'Flowers' at lunch time. I had really only wanted to ask Les what was meant by 'able to be read by a single voice' in the ABC short-story competition and had brought them as examples. But . . . never knock back a chance of exposure.

Funny, the things I'd liked in 'Flowers' were the things that got picked on. The ending seemed too contrived (brilliant contrivation, I'd thought), the fictionalising of it by changing sex was unnecessary, why not stick with a girl, with the greater complexity of emotions involved (in 750 words?!). They missed the hidden depths. Never mind. The future will appreciate it, in ’The Collected Unpublished Works'. Les noted that both stories presented an unsympathetic character, and I should ask myself what it says about me, since I'm not an unsympathetic person. "Oh, aren’t I? Haven’t you noticed all my stories are black, explorations of guilt?"

Another disturbing factor presented later, undermining serenity. Andrew was in a minor grouch when I picked him up, responding bitterly when I asked him if the flowers he had were from or for Lynda and what was up? It seems Lynda had made some remark about herself just being a joke in our relationship, as illustrated by my putting her picture in the frame I gave Andrew for his birthday. We both feel hurt by, and bad about, this accusation, this perception of Lynda’s. It so much more complex than that — a whole host of entangled threads, pull on one and the tension in all the others alters subtly. Lynda is not a joke we have between us but I feel bad about Lynda’s perception because I can see how she may have conceived the idea.

You can see how digesting all that, on top of what the day had already served up, would be enough to turn a girl to the demon drink. So once Jen had had her swim and Judy had cut our hair and had a penicillin injection for her dental abscess and gone home, I sat down with the first of several small Baileys while Jim inexplicably cooked a vegetarian spaghetti sauce for tea (I guess the pie will keep until Monday). Baileys, Baileys, Baileys, then Baileys on ice-cream for a change, then Baileys in milk coffee for supper. It’s a wonder I can still write with my customary erudition and clarity. Daylight saving ends in Victoria tonight. There’s an extra hour to sleep it off.

Natasha came with Judy, sporting a crop of long braids and looking stunning. They seem close and caring, which was nice to see. She talked with great fondness of her family in Kenya and was saying how badly wheelchairs are needed over there.

And the rest of the family. Jo and Kane shopped and went for a job interview, both of them, for jobs at a Blue’s Kitchen, whatever that may be. Jim cooked tea. I don’t know what else he did. Jen wet her pants, repeatedly, smelling out the room where we spent the day, and always played with the noisiest toys. Andrew sailed and did sailing type things. Annabel slept. No-one knew she was here. Sarah kept ringing for her. "No, she’s at Sarah’s." "I am Sarah. She’s not here.” I started to worry and looked in her room and there she was. Then she went to Sarah’s.

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Sunday:

Happy 21st birthday, Jenny. You've made it.

I did it all, with Andrew’s help — Walk Against Want marshalling, and