He had been crying. ‘Mum’s dying,’ he said.
I felt stricken. ‘What a bastard!’
‘Yes, it is a bastard,’ said Dick.
I knew his mother well. She was always confronting tragedy. She was a short swarthy woman with strands of untidy hair projecting from behind her ears. She had a deep masculine voice that rose to a falsetto when she was abusing anyone. Her abuse was always directed at those who criticised Dick.
‘My Dick had nothing to do with it,’ she would shout across the fence at one of his detractors. ‘Don’t you come blaming him.’
Dick was a tall gangling youth with loose legs that never quite straightened to a stride. He had a thin narrow face with a prominent nose and a loose underlip but his eyes had always been gleaming of plans of adventure when I was his schoolmate.
He was devoted to his mother and often brought her small gifts—china ornaments depicting girls with lace petticoats and floral frocks carrying baskets of flowers, a woman with a dove nestling against her cheek, ornaments that suggested a springtime world known only to Mrs Hookey in her dreams. She arranged them in a line along her kitchen mantelpiece where the drape protected them from the rising steam of saucepans.
Each week he brought her a bag of over-ripe bananas.
‘She likes them half-rotten,’ he explained to me; then to counter any criticism of her taste he added, ‘And so do I.’
And now she was dying. She was familiar with death in all its violent forms; not her own but Dick’s death which she was always anticipating.
I think it began when Dick was kicked on the balls by a horse and lost one. This was the first death Mrs Hookey suffered, the death of her grandchildren.
I don’t think Dick worried much about his loss ‘though I’ll admit it’s a bit of a bastard,’ he told me once.
‘Yes, it’s a bastard all right,’ I agreed.
He then added in explanation of his mother’s concern, ‘Mum thought more of my balls than any other part of me. It hit her hard.’
‘It must have been a bastard for her,’ I said.
‘Yes, it certainly hit her hard,’ he said.
I was returning on a holiday to the country town where I had been born and I pulled up in front of his gate to have a yarn with him. He lived in a gable-end house with a small verandah sheltering the front door. From the verandah to the front fence was only a couple of yards but Dick had always referred to this narrow plot of land as ‘the garden’. Some struggling geraniums grew along the verandah’s edge but these had been crushed by his dog which had circled in them to make a nest when the day was hot.
Dick had been standing on the verandah when I pulled up. He came over to the fence and told me about his mother and I suddenly imagined her lying on her bed staring at the ceiling.
‘What happened to her?’ I asked.
‘She was standing in front of the stove frying me some bacon and eggs and she suddenly put her hand to her shoulder then she went down. God! I couldn’t believe it. She’s never had anything wrong with her. She was lying there and her face was all twisted. You could see she was in pain. I had to do something. But what the hell can you do. I got down and held her head but she just looked at me. She was crook all right. I then dashed next door and got Mrs Stevens. She’s a cranky old bitch but she did a good job with Mum. She helped me carry her into the bedroom then I got the doctor and I thought he’d never get here. He didn’t do much. He’s been every day since but he reckons she’s had it. She won’t last long. Do you know Aunt Nell? She’s Mum’s sister. She’s with her now. It’s a bastard. I never thought this’d happen to me.’
‘What did the doctor say was wrong with her?’
‘Her heart, he reckoned.’
Dick came through the gate and stood with his back to the car staring gloomily at the house. ‘You’ve just got to wait.’
‘Yes,’ I said. I reached into the car to get a packet of cigarettes and he noticed my camera lying on the seat. It was a cheap, old-fashioned bellows model but to Dick it suggested glossy portraits of the kind you see in photographers’ windows.
‘Hey! Do you take photos?’ He had shed his grief for the moment, responding to some idea that had taken its place.
I explained that I had brought the camera with me to take some snaps of the places where we had played as kids. ‘Like that old well where we thought a witch lived, and I want to get a photo of old Tom’s shed, the one in which he kept the apples.’
Dick wasn’t listening. ‘Now look! Mum’s never had her photo took. We’ve got bugger-all to remember her by. I want to have a photo of me with my arm around her. You could take it over the end of the bed. She can’t sit up but we’ll prop her up somehow.’
I didn’t like the idea. ‘She’d never stand it, Dick. You’d kill her. You don’t realise how crook she is.’
Dick was suddenly lost. He looked at the ground with his arms hanging loosely by his sides. Tears began running down his cheeks.
‘Don’t I,’ he said, his voice quavering. He reached out and grasped one of the stays on the hood of the car as if to steady himself. ‘All I wanted was a photo of me and her together. We’ve never had a picture took together, Mum’d like it.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll take it. Come on.’
He opened the front door and I followed him down the passage to a bedroom doorway through which he called, ‘How is she, Aunt Nell?’ before entering.
I heard a woman’s voice answer, ‘I don’t think she’ll last long, Dick.’ I walked into the room and he introduced me to his aunt. She was a larger woman than her sister but maybe this was because she had not yet begun to shrink with age. She had strong arms and coarse black hair and a deep voice that was surprisingly gentle when she spoke to us.
‘I’ve heard Dick speak of you,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He was a mate of mine when we were at school. I’m sorry about Mrs Hookey.’
‘We’re all sorry,’ she said looking down at the woman on the bed.
Mrs Hookey was wearing a pink flannelette nightgown. Her arms were resting by her side. They were thin and mottled and this was the first time I had ever seen them idle. Her eyes were closed but when she realised Dick was in the room she opened them and looked at him. He had lowered his head until it was close to hers so that she could hear him when he spoke to her. He believed she was an immense distance away from him and that her hearing could never bridge it unless he shouted.
‘This is Alan, Mum. Remember him? He’s going to take our photo together. I want your photo to remember you by.’
‘What next!’ exclaimed Aunt Nell.
The suggestion that she was going to die brought a faint protest from Mrs Hookey. ‘I’m all right,’ she whispered.
‘Of course you are,’ shouted Dick. Then resuming his normal voice which he believed was beyond her range of hearing he said, ‘We’ll have to take it fast while she still understands what we’re doing. Get down to the end of the bed with the camera. I’ll hold her up against me.’
‘Careful!’ exclaimed Aunt Nell.
The bed was an iron one with brass knobs capping the uprights at each corner. I leant over the end and pointed the camera at Mrs Hookey who was lolling in Dick’s arms. He was reclining across the head of the bed with one arm around her back. Her head was resting loosely on his shoulder and her eyes were closed. I thought she might die at any moment and when I caught her image in the viewfinder I called out, ‘Right!’ A ghastly smile changed Dick’s face for a moment. His mother opened a dark eye and turned it on to me in silent acknowledgement of her role. I clicked the shutter.
‘Good God,’ exclaimed Aunt Nell.
Dick lowered his mother gently on the pillow, then kissed her.
‘You’ll be all right, Mum,’ he called out loudly.
I think she tried to smile but I avoided looking at her and hurried out into the passage. In a moment Dick joined me. He was crying again.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Yes, I would.’
We sat in the kitchen and drank it together.
‘The saddest thing that can ever happen to a man is to lose his Mum,’ said Dick. ‘It’s a bastard.’
‘Yes, it is a bastard,’ I said.
I developed and printed the photograph but was reluctant to send Dick a copy. It was too cruel a picture. I decided to keep it for a while, then give it to him when he had become adjusted to his mother’s death.
About a year later I was again visiting the town and I decided to call on Dick. I had the photograph in my hand as I stepped on to the verandah. I had just knocked when I heard a shrill voice berating a neighbour across the back fence.
‘Leave my Dick alone. My Dick was never in your yard. He’s never pinched an apple in his life. You lay off him, I’m tellin’ ya.’
Dick opened the door. His look of astonishment changed to one of recognition.
‘Hell! How’re ya goin’, Alan? Come in.’
I hurriedly put the photograph back in my pocket. ‘Was that your mother’s voice I just heard?’
‘Yes, that’s her—still going strong. That last time you were here I thought she’d had it but it only laid her up for six weeks. I tell you, you couldn’t kill Mum with an axe.’