A good winter, p.17
A Good Winter, page 17
I was going to say how embarrassing that was, but Lara interrupted me. She interrupted me to say that she’d love to go back to university. She’d been thinking of doing a few papers.
So luckily I hadn’t said anything about how embarrassing that would be. But still, I did picture my brother towering over all the other students. Trying to fit his huge frame into a tiny chair. Not so good to be over six foot tall when you decide to go back to university. You’d be like the retarded child who’s ten years older than everyone else in the class. Still sitting there drooling over your desk when everyone else has moved on. To better things. That’s what I thought. But Lara wanted to go back to university so I didn’t say anything about that. I did tell her about how he’d done a project, and named his wine Homestead, and put a picture of the farm on it. I told her about that because it proved that my mother had done the right thing in leaving him the farm. I’d done the right thing in honouring her wishes. All my brother was really interested in was that farm.
She said, Homestead, I’ve never heard of that wine, and I said, Trust me, that’s not your fault, and I steered the conversation away from my brother and all that embarrassment. Because really, we weren’t talking about my brother. We were talking about how I’d taken my money and run from the farm. Like the wind.
I said, So that’s how I left the farm and moved here. My father did me a favour by proposing his theft dressed up as a deal. He gave me the impetus I needed to leave.
I left just like that. I took my inheritance, and I came to the city and bought myself an apartment and fixed it up and here I am. I said to her, The only reason I can still live on that money is that I’ve been careful with it. Frugal. I’ve made wise decisions. It would have all been frittered away if my brother and my father had any say in it.
Lara was still worrying about the attempts at theft. She said, You mentioned that your father and brother tried to steal from you twice.
I nodded and she said, So was that the first time? With the deal?
So-called deal, I said and she said, What was the second time? Did your brother ask you for money? Did Brian?
And I had to admit that, yes, Brian did try to steal from me. Yes, my father was not the only thief in the family. It’s not nice to say horrible things about your family. Not pleasant to have to admit to someone you love that your own flesh and blood will try to steal from you.
It’s not nice to do that, but we were sharing intimacies. We were whispering secrets. Lara had asked me straight out whether my brother had tried to steal from me. I couldn’t lie. So I told her. I started at the beginning, with him duping me to go back to the farm.
I told her about how he’d nagged me and nagged me to go back to the farm. Called me up with his wheedling tone and his I-know-what’s-best attitude. Telling me I’d regret it if I didn’t go back to see my father. Laying on a guilt trip about how my father was struggling to remember people, about how this might be the last chance I had to have a proper interaction with him. About how he might not recognise me if I left it too long.
I should have told my brother that I didn’t care whether my father recognised me again or not. I should have told him that my father had no idea how to talk to a woman. That what a girl needed was a mother. A mother, and that, of all the things that I wanted in this world, going back to the farm to interact with my father was not on the top of the list.
I should have told him all those things.
I tried to tell him all those things, but he wouldn’t listen. I kept trying to explain why I couldn’t come, and he kept batting away my arguments. Until eventually I had to say yes.
All that stuff about my father not being able to recognise me was a ruse. My brother had another reason entirely for getting me there. Lara had asked me about it, so I had to tell her.
He badgered me into going until I, naive and foolish, said yes. I, naive and innocent, didn’t imagine that the real reason he wanted me there was to get my money off me. I let him talk me into trekking all the way to the godforsaken farm because I think the best of people.
I woke up soon enough, make no mistake. Before I’d even reached the farm gate I woke up. Because what did I see but a grapevine. A grapevine! My stupid idiotic brother had gone and planted grapevines. Talk about getting above yourself. Talk about la-di-da and pretentious. Grapevines on a sheep farm.
I saw those grapevines and I pulled the car over and sat there for a minute or two, thinking about what I was looking at. I sat looking at those grapevines and I had the strangest thought—about what would happen if my mother came back. How would she recognise the farm if she came back? She’d be looking for sheep shit if she came back. Not la-di-da grapevines.
I had that strange thought and then I told myself, You know she’s not coming back. You’re no fool. You know she died a long time ago. You don’t care what he does with the farm. He can run it into the ground for all you care.
He could destroy it. He could have it overrun with giraffes or elephants or bloody buffalo for all I cared. He could end up selling it for a pittance because he’d stuffed it up so badly that no one would touch it. End up insolvent and holding a fire sale. Selling the whole godforsaken place at a garage sale. For all I cared.
My mother wasn’t coming back to it and I didn’t care if it went up in smoke.
It’s a good thing I paused at those grapevines and reminded myself that I didn’t care about the farm. It’s a good thing I’d steeled myself.
My brother was waiting for some kind of reaction from me. I think he was a little scared even. He was standing at the door when I arrived, and the first thing he said was, Did you see the grapevines? What do you think?
Expecting me to be upset that things had changed. Wanting me to be upset.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction. I just said, Oh, yes, it’s all very nice. I kept saying that, even when I saw just how much he’d changed the place.
My brother had changed all the rooms around. He’d turned my mother’s studio into a winemaking laboratory. That’s what he called it—the winemaking laboratory. Like he was some kind of scientist. Like he was Albert Einstein. He hadn’t even been to university at that time and there he was, talking like he was the Albert Einstein of sheep farming. Like the hobby room he’d made in my mother’s studio was a scientific laboratory.
I’d already told Lara that my mother painted. I’d told her early on, when we first met. I’d showed her one of my mother’s paintings—the one of the cherry trees on the farm. That was the only thing I took from the farm when I left. I’d shown it to Lara, and I’d told her it was the only thing I’d taken, and she’d said it was beautiful. And she’d thought me brave to leave with nothing. To take nothing with me and set off on my own, with only a painting of cherry trees for company. I know that’s what she’d thought when I showed her the painting. She’d said it was a gorgeous work of art. A gorgeous work of art.
There were lots of other paintings. I could have taken more. I should have taken more. I wanted to take more. But my father said, No. And my brother said, No. They wouldn’t let me. My father went so far as to lock the studio before I left.
In the days before I left, my father kept trying to force stuff on me—sheets and curtains. Pots and pans. Eggwhisks. Single-bed duvets. I didn’t want any of his rubbish. The only thing I really wanted was my mother’s art. He wouldn’t let me near it.
He locked my mother’s studio. And when I tried to get in there, he stood at the door, holding out the cherry tree painting and crying. Carrying on about how her work belonged on the farm, crying, actually crying about how he couldn’t be separated from them, how he needed them near him, how much he missed my mother.
So I just took the one and I turned my back on the both of them.
And what did they go and do? Turn her studio into a hobby shed. A shed filled with his hobby paraphernalia—bottles and casks, tubes and piping. My brother might have looked at those tubes and pipes and seen a laboratory. I was not fooled. I could see past all those arty-farty tubes and pipes and bottles and casks. And past all those arty-farty tubes and pipes there was nothing but a shed. He was nothing but a little boy playing at science experiments. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so tragic. So pathetically, stupidly tragic.
I didn’t keep quiet about the hobby shed. I said, This used to be Mummy’s studio. My brother’s eyes got all big and surprised. His lips got all quivery. His voice was all teenaged when he said, Dad wouldn’t let me change it for all these years.
All broken voiced like a teenager when he said, The thing is that Dad doesn’t go outside anymore. He can’t…can’t go outside anymore. He can’t go outside, and I needed the space and so I moved her paintings upstairs.
Not so superior now, I thought. Under all those la-di-da grapevines you’re just a teenage boy with a wobbly lip and a stupid hobby.
And not so superior when the truth about my visit came out. The real reason my brother wanted me to come. The real reason he’d guilt-tripped me into coming to the farm in the first place. And no, it was not so that there could be some kind of sentimental reunion between father and daughter. Not so that I could have some sort of bonding session with my ancient papa. The real reason why my brother had me trek halfway across the country to the godforsaken farm had nothing to do with sentiment. And everything to do with money. He wanted money from me. My stupid, arrogant, grapevine brother had blown all his money on his stupid, arrogant hobby and now he wanted me to bale him out.
He said he needed the money to pay someone to take care of our father. He gave me a long speech about how important it was to keep him at home. How the old man loved the farm and wanted to stay there until the day he died. How the only way he could stay on the farm was if we paid a full-time carer.
A full-time carer! Who did he think we were? The Ewings? Who did he think I was? Bill Gates? I said to him, A full-time carer is expensive. They cost a lot of money. And he said, I know, I know. That’s why I’m asking you.
Well, you can imagine how upsetting that was—to be guilttripped into trekking halfway across the country by your own brother. And then, then, when you get there, to have him asking for money.
First, my brother tried the soft approach—telling me a long pathetic story about how he’d met this girl, this Sonya, and how they were hoping to live together. How no one was buying wool anymore and he was trying to diversify, how he was trying to do the best by my father, but it was hard. Getting all teary and sorry for himself and saying, It’s hard, Olga. It’s hard.
Not so hard that you can’t blow a whole lot of money on a science kit, I thought.
I saw my brother’s whining for what it was—a ruse to separate me from my money. Another attempt at theft. This one dressed up as aged care.
I didn’t fall for it. I said, If that girl of yours, that Sonya really loves you, she’ll look after Dad. I said, Are you sure she’s not after your money?
And he said, What money? What money?
As if it were my fault he’d turned a successful farm into his own personal folly. As if it were my fault he was trying to grow grapevines when he knew nothing, nothing at all about viticulture.
I said, No.
And that’s when my brother got demanding. Actually demanding that I give him money. Saying it was for my father’s care. Saying, He needs proper care. We need to pay someone to take care of him here, on the farm. We need money to pay someone. Saying, The closest old-age home is miles from here. It will be traumatic for him to move. Saying, It will kill him, the move will kill him.
Actually saying that to me. Like I would fall for that kind of manipulation.
I pointed out that my father didn’t even go outside. I pointed out that my brother wouldn’t find anyone to take on the job anyway. Well, it turns out my brother had already found someone—Mrs Kinkaid who used to work at the doctor’s. Mrs Kinkaid who used to come to the school to immunise the kids and give out polio drops. My brother wanted to pay Mrs Kinkaid of the sickly sweet orange juice a king’s ransom to come in and bath my demented father.
He was demented. No doubt about it. My brother had guilttripped me into trekking halfway across the country to the godforsaken farm just so I could sit in a room with a demented old man. If he thought I could get there while my father could still recognise me, he was clearly mistaken. No, it had nothing to do with my father recognising me. And everything to do with my brother trying to get money out of me so that he could run off with his fancy Sonya and play at being a husband.
My father didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know where he was. He could just as well have been in a sitting room in an old-age home for all he knew.
He just slept through the whole visit. I sat in the room with him and looked at his drooping mouth and I knew that it made no difference to him where he was.
It was, once again, all about my brother. He didn’t want to have to drive to town to visit my father in the old-age home. He didn’t want to take care of my father himself. So he thought he’d guilt-trip me into paying the school nurse a king’s ransom to come and wipe the drool off my demented father’s mouth.
I told my brother no. It wasn’t easy. My brother is not an easy man to stand up to. He got quite aggressive with me. All sanctimonious and aggressive. Extra specially sanctimonious when I told him I was going home. I didn’t want anything more to do with him or my father. The money-grubbing both of them.
I was impervious to his nagging. Impervious and imperious. I got back in my car and I drove home to my apartment and that was that.
And only later, when I’d made it home, did I think about the paintings that had been moved from the shed, and about how I should have taken some with me.
26
I told Lara how hard it was to stand up to my brother. How hard it was to be true to myself, how hard it was to tell myself that guilt is a useless emotion, that he was trying to manipulate me into giving him money, that he’d be forever trying to drag me down, my brother. Trying to drag me down into the dust of the scabby old farm he was living on.
I told Lara on the Kristin-Scott-Thomas afternoon. And I left my hand resting on the table.
She didn’t take it.
She asked me about my father. About what had happened with his care. Like that was the point of the story. She missed the whole point of the story. That was frustrating for me. But I kept calm. I told her that it all worked out fine because Mrs Kinkaid ended up moving into my mother’s old studio so then my brother could pay her less and he didn’t need my money after all.
I could see then why Howard might have got irritated with Lara’s curiosity. It made her miss the point of the story, because she wanted to know about the laboratory. I didn’t get irritated. I explained that my brother packed up the ridiculous winemaking kits, and he and Sonya turned the shed into a flat for Mrs Kinkaid.
All that fiddling with the studio showed how little my father thought of my feelings. How little my brother cared what I thought. If they had thought of my feelings, they would have remembered that I had once wanted to move into the studio. When I was about eighteen and I finished school, I wanted to move into the studio. I thought I could make it into my own little flat. My own girls-only flat.
My father hadn’t let me. He’d said no and then, when I’d asked for a reason he’d started crying.
He could turn the tears on, my father. Especially when there was manipulation to be done.
All I did was ask why I couldn’t move into the studio and there he was, crying and carrying on like a little boy. He said we had to keep the studio as it was in case my mother came back. That’s how manipulative my father was. He’d do anything to get me to back down—even cry and carry on about a dead woman coming back.
I was eighteen and shy and faced with a bawling old man carrying on about a dead woman coming back and what could I do? I backed down.
It wasn’t fair that my brother should now be allowed to change the studio on a whim. To use it as his own personal playroom.
My mother was no more likely to come back when I was eighteen than she was when Mrs Kinkaid was living there. It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair, I said to Lara. They should have left the studio as it was, in memory of my mother. I paused then, for her to agree. I said it again, In memory of my mother. I looked at my hand, resting on the table.
And then my father died, I said.
Lara wanted to know what happened to Mrs Kinkaid.
Mrs Kinkaid ended up staying in the shed for some time after my father died. But that wasn’t the point of the story. The point of the story was that they manipulated me. The two of them, father and son, kept on trying to manipulate me. Trying to manipulate me into paying for my brother’s education, manipulate me into paying for my father’s care. Trying to steal from me. Twice.
I told Lara on that Kristin-Scott-Thomas afternoon. I said, People will always keep trying to manipulate you. They’ll try to get you to do things just to suit themselves. Even your own family will do it. But you have to stay firm.
Firm, I said to Lara. I had to stay firm with my family. If you don’t stay firm, people will take advantage of you. I looked Lara straight in the eyes and I said, If you don’t say no, people will take advantage. I was thinking about Maxine and her Netflix, about Lara’s boss, about the so-called girls when I said that.
I felt better after I’d had my say.
Even though she didn’t take my hand.
Or call me sweetheart.
I felt better even though there might have been a bit of awkwardness between us. But I put that down to her thinking about what I’d told her. Running my story through her mind and thinking about how hard it must have been for me. And what it could teach her about saying no to people. Family even.
It can be hard sometimes, facing the truth. People can struggle with that. I understood that it could be hard for Lara to find herself thinking about how friends and family might abuse your good nature. That can be hard. But still, as a friend, I knew that it would be good for her to start thinking about it, to start realising that I’m the only one with her best interests at heart, the only one who doesn’t abuse her good nature.
