Broken is beautiful, p.26
Broken is Beautiful, page 26
Tears are running down my face and Johnno’s voice is breaking up.
“I miss you too Johnno. Do you think it’s time to come home for a visit? Mum’s partner, Brucey, just died and they are going to have a memorial in March.”
“Brucey, was that loser still around? Mum never stayed with anyone for so long!”
“Not still around. They were apart for ages. But Brucey got very sick two years ago and Mum helped him till he died.”
“Do you think Mum would want me to come?”
“I’m sure she does. And I want you to come too.”
57
Johnno lets me know when he’ll arrive in Christchurch and books a rental car for us to drive up to Golden Bay together. The Government helps out by allowing vaccinated travellers to enter New Zealand without isolation from early March. Johnno tells me he’s vaccinated without it appearing like he has considered the issue in any depth, and I just say, “Me too.”
I take a bus to meet Johnno off the plane. I recognise him instantly when he comes through with the flood of passengers, even with a mask on. How could I have thought I might not recognise him? He’s part of me and that can never change.
It’s like thirty years have rolled away and we are two children in bed telling each other stories again.
“What happened …?”
“And then you …”
“Do you remember when …”
“Wasn’t that funny …”
“When Gran caught us …”
Our drive to Golden Bay is the first long-distance road trip we have ever done together. Luckily, we are well past the “His finger is on my side of the seat,” and “She poked me,” phase of life. Although we do have battles over the radio station. Johnno’s music taste is more at the heavy metal end, and he expresses disgust at the thought of listening to a country station. I want to economise by making sandwiches on the fly while he doesn’t want to get the rental car dirty and demands a good coffee regularly.
We find Brucey’s house in Takaka; neither of us is good at navigating so we take several wrong turns in a town with only one main street. Mum must have been watching for us because she comes to the door in a red and orange caftan. She looks frail and thin in the voluminous fabric, but her arms are outstretched to welcome us, and we share a hug that, at least temporarily, washes away the anger and frustration and disappointments and suggests the possibility of new beginnings at any age or stage of life.
She shows us to a room with sagging twin beds, orange candlewick bedspreads, a flowered carpet and abstract wallpaper patterns that are a time travel head trip. Then we share a cup of Kenya Bold tea because I brought my own, in case Mum didn’t yet subscribe to Kenya Bold, and because Johnno and I are coffeed-up to the max from our drive.
Brucey’s memorial is an open day at his house. Many people pass through, and Mum is the centre of attention. She revels in the spotlight and offers everyone a glass of punch as they arrive. Mum says the punch is non-alcoholic, but it seems to make people very happy. We are all exhausted by the end of the day and are grateful that Shirleen and Ray help clean up.
Over coffee the next morning – Johnno has investigated Takaka cafés and returned with three keep cups full of excellent coffee – our conversations turn more serious. Mum’s talking about Brucey. “It was tough, you know. Looking after him when his mind was going.”
“Yes, I do know Mum. I very much remember how it felt looking after Gran when she got dementia. I should have been exploring the world in my twenties, but instead I was at home looking after an old person.”
“I’m sorry, Julia. I know I wasn’t great as a mother or as a daughter. And I know an apology can’t make up for what I didn’t do. I excused myself as a daughter when I saw what a great job you were doing. I excused myself as a mother because I thought Gran was filling in the gaps, but now I know that wasn’t enough.
“I was so excited to have you at the beginning. I thought having babies in a communal household would make everything fun and easy. Everyone would want to share raising two little delights. And you were both lovely babies. However, communal living isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; when shit needs cleaning up there aren’t many people who volunteer.”
“I have a way you can help make up now,” I say.
Mum looks nervous. “I’m a bit old to be looking after children, dear.”
“No Mum,” I laugh, “I would hardly be pregnant at fifty, would I! I’m talking about helping lots of children, through the business that Fran and Lynda and I have set up – ‘Dolls with Stories’. You could be part of setting up a branch in Golden Bay.”
“That sounds interesting, Julia. Tell me more.”
I explain the ‘Dolls with Stories’ model. Mum says she knows a young immigrant who, like Robbie, is waiting for a new work visa so she can be legally employed. She’s trained as a kindergarten teacher but is keen to keep herself occupied at present so has been helping Mum with the garden for cash. We meet with Frauke; she’s very excited by the potential of ‘Dolls with Stories’ because she worked with special needs children in her hometown in Germany. Golden Bay can become the first branch of ‘Dolls with Stories’ outside Christchurch and I already see how to spread further. Lynda will be thrilled.
Johnno’s keen to help out too. He offers a large donation to support Fran’s salary. He says that, since he became a partner in the engineering consultancy, he hasn’t known what to do with his surplus income, but now it’s obvious.
Fran, Lynda, and I agree to have a get-together in Takaka after six months to check in on progress and that Johnno will join us as a director if he likes the direction the enterprise is headed in.
Life’s going well, but I know it won’t always be a bouquet of golden roses. My relationship with the internet remains infused with caution. I never again want to be sucked back into the depths of the web and the plethora of conflicting information that I could spend my whole existence unravelling without discovering anything about reality. What I do want is to be present in this physical world, with friends who feed each other pumpkin soup from their unruly gardens, glue their lives together with cups of Kenya Bold and coffee, and create shared stories.
Thank you to everyone whose stories have inspired this book, both personal and anecdotal. Please keep telling them to me.
Thanks to my beta readers, Ann Shearer, Chris Nelson, Rew Shearer, Cleone Blomfield, June Baptista, Sue Harcombe. It’s a lot easier to believe in a book when other people engage with the story.
Terri and Lynne, your houses gave me my mental images of Julia’s home, though not of her boxes!
Thanks to Lesley Marshall for her assessment and Rew Shearer specifically for putting me on the right track with dialogue.
Thanks to Holly Dunn who did a superb job on my cover and to Stephanie McConchie for her thoughtful and detailed editing.
Thank you Kerrin Burnnand for the cover photo.
Special thanks to Chris for cooking dinner so I can get on with writing, and all his support in everything I do.
Thanks to Sarah Nelson for being the future. Don’t we all tell stories to share our past with the future?
Jane Shearer is a professional non-fiction writer. This is her first novel, in which she combines her love of gardens, creativity, and the stories people tell.
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If you are wondering what might happen to Julia, Lynda and Fran in the future, sign up for updates on when Threads of Connection will be published at:
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THREADS OF CONNECTION
Life in 2020 is challenging. The sea is tearing off mouthfuls of land, toilets hurl their contents into houses, the council is letting the city disintegrate and energy quotas are keeping people home. Julia, Lynda and Fran are running ‘Humans with Stories’ workshops, helping isolated adults find commonality through story-telling. Can the group spin threads strong enough to weather the storms threatening their community?
Jane Shearer, Broken is Beautiful
