Oh. My. God. What. The?
See, that’s the trouble with time travel — it lands you in situations without a decent briefing. It has no instruction manual, no cast of characters, not even a clue that you grew and then threw forth an extra human being from your uterus. Is he really mine? How old is he? What is his name? Oh. My. God.
He releases me from his grasp and I smash down to Earth heavier than a meteor strike. Nothing but the remains of an incinerated crater surround my feet, the ones still wearing ugly flat shoes. Up until now my ability to take this freakshow in my stride was admirable. No, really, you have to give me that much, credit where credit is due. My calmness and determination to fit in without raising suspicion was well beyond what both Meryl Streep and Dame Judi Dench could deliver. But now, my sanity threatens to unravel and it’s not going to be pretty.
“Mum, are you alright?” His beautiful face is flecked with concern, eyes the colour of jade searching mine for a glimmer of recognition. But there is none. Although this boy is the spitting image of his grandfather, and my full attention is on studying every line of his face, every curve and hollow, he is a stranger to me.
He looks over my head, “Aunt Lily, what’s wrong with Mum? Has she gone into shock? I don’t think she recognises me.” His voice is tinged with fear, but is otherwise as gentle as tiny waves lapping the shore.
Lily walks over so that she can speak out of earshot of the younger children, who are busy running around playing tiggy.
“Will, your Mum’s head injury was quite serious, lovey. The doctor said that she has temporary amnesia, so she may not recall everything right now, but it will all come back to her. She hasn’t forgotten you, she’s just…still in shock from the trauma.” She lays her hand on my shoulder, bringing me back to life.
“Will, named after your grandfather, William.” Oh yes Juliette, brilliant deduction.
He smiles, mistaking my overhearing of his name for knowledge of who he is. There it is again, the smile that acts as a cradle for my soul. Although he is a stranger to me, there is an instant bond, if only because of the memories he stirs.
“Yes Mum, that’s right. That’s me, your oldest, and best-looking, son,” he laughs.
“As if!” Ethan yells.
“You know it’s true, short stuff.” Will calls back.
“Sorry Will, I didn’t mean to worry you. It’s been…a big couple of days. You’ll have to be patient with me, maybe remind me of some things, OK?”
He puts a gangly arm around my shoulder and hugs me close, “Don’t worry Mum, I’ll look after you.”
Will walks ahead, guiding the three younger children, while Lily and I chat. My mind is not on what she’s saying, it’s still trying to get over the hurdle of having an older son. Of all the events in the last couple of days, this, strangely, is the most disturbing.
“Jules…”
“Hmmm?”
“You’re miles away again. Are you alright?” she asks.
“Yes, I’m just…”
“You didn’t recognise him either, did you?”
I shake my head. “No, not at all.”
“That’s OK, you’ve had a traumatic few days. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Do you want me to tell you about Will?”
“Yes, please.”
“Well, he was born when you were nineteen, although you nearly lost him early on in the pregnancy apparently, but Will was a strong little soul and was born on June 16th,” she starts. “He’ll be fifteen this year and is in form three at school, his last year.
“What, wait. His last year? Why’s that?”
“Because boys do an apprenticeship in the year they turn sixteen, unless they are going to continue on at school.”
“Why wouldn’t he continue on at school?” Utter confusion envelops me.
“That’s probably a conversation you need to have with Chris. Anyway, he’s Collingwood crazy, plays for the local under-eighteens because of his height and ability, does exceptionally well at school and has dreams of getting a scholarship to university to study medicine.”
“But how can he go to uni if he doesn’t finish school?” It’s not a hard concept to grasp, but for some reason my brain is resisting it.
Lily winces. “Like I said, something you need to discuss with Chris, lovey.”
Like the final piece of a jigsaw, it comes into place. The miscarriage I suffered at nineteen, the first positive pregnancy test. Seven weeks had passed before it even dawned on me that my period had disappeared. The doctor confirmed it and Chris and myself worked on getting our heads around being parents. It was shocking to both of us. Chris had finished his third year, and had started a part time internship at a progressive architecture firm. His pay was minimal and hours long, but the exposure and experience would set him up for life. We had only been together for six months.
The thought of giving everything up created feelings of resentment, even anger towards Chris. Why should he get a career while mine was over before it even began? My degree still had two years left until completion, not to mention my own two-year internship. Over the next three weeks we argued, planned, tried to figure out a way to make ends meet and allow me to finish my degree and work. But with nothing behind us, it seemed improbable that my dream would ever come to fruition. My career would probably consist of working part-time as an administrative assistant or in retail. Not quite PR divadom.
Days after reconciling our future I began to experience sharp, stabbing pain that felt like my insides were being shredded. Then came the bleeding, light at first, but growing heavier until it was like a regular period. Chris took me into the Women’s Hospital where they admitted me immediately and conducted all sorts of ultrasounds and blood tests. It showed that a miscarriage was in progress. The result was a mixture of relief followed by guilt at being so relieved. It changed our relationship and allowed me to accept that Chris really loved me and would always be there for me. It was the second time I had fallen in love with him.
Is Will that baby? Perhaps he just wasn’t ready to come to us at that time. Or more likely, perhaps we weren’t ready. We don’t plan on having any more children; it wouldn’t be fair to them. It’s hardly fair on the two we already have. Will’s existence here is like a tease of what might have happened; the person our first child may have grown into.
“He reminds me of my Dad. Will has his smile.” Dad’s face dances before me and for just a moment, I allow myself to think of him, to feel his presence. To miss him.
“Yes, he does. You say that often,” she says quietly, rubbing my back.
We arrive home within five minutes of leaving the schoolyard. The walk is peaceful, cleansing. The warm afternoon sun peeps through the trees, leaving a dappled pattern on the footpath; a virtual sea of shadows. The breeze is starting to lift and soon it will be time to find a light jumper. Autumn is underway and will bring with it cool mornings and late afternoons, the type that are warm for as long as the sun is in the sky. Once it is swallowed by the tree line, the cold starts to creep in, rolling along the ground and curling around windowsills until the whole house is chilled and it’s time to close up.
Autumn is my favorite time of year. The colours: earthy browns, russet reds, amber and orange, the colours of fire lend warmth to a chilly climate. Long hot summers, filled with electrical storms that light up the sky in dazzling displays of Mother Nature, resulting in days and days of humidity, are draining. After three months of cracking heat the opportunity to eat a warm meal and pull on a long pair of trousers is exciting. The trees shedding their leaves gives me hope of being able to start fresh each year, to emulate the change within nature. But every year, my halfhearted attempts fail and once again my family is subjected to another term of Juliette the perpetual promise-maker/promise-breaker.
Dinner-like aromas emanate from the kitchen, so delicious that my stomach starts to grumble. All the kids move into the backyard to see Chris and Callum. Will unpacks his school bag and gets changed into shorts and a t-shirt and his boots. Immediately he is outside, helping his father with the garden, digging and turning over the soil while Chris sorts the bulbs into rows.
Cal runs up and launches into Will’s arms and them squirms out and repeats the process with Ethan. Rosie tries to pick Cal up but he’s too heavy for her and she only manages to lift him up to his tippy toes, his shirt riding up to his underarms. Then he launches at John and the two of them tip over onto the ground into a heap of giggles.
Chris puts down his shovel and approaches us, his hands and face covered in soil. Wiping sweat away from his forehead, he kisses me on the cheek, leaving a dirty handprint on my shoulder.
“Whoops, sorry love.” He moves to brush the soil off, but hesitates, “probably best you do that, I’ll just make it dirtier. There’s four casseroles in the fridge and two on the bench from the neighbours. Anne and Regina, Esme and Beryl and Aunty Maeve all dropped around while you were gone. Gran came by too, she’s really worried about you. Can you go and see her tomorrow please?”
“Gran?” Gran who?
“Yes, and Aunty Maeve too, love. They’re both anxious to see that you are alright, they won’t take my word for it.”
“Aunty Maeve?” I say.
Chris and Lily look at each other and then back to me. Chris sighs.
“After the kids are in bed we’ll go through the photo albums. They might help to jog some memories. If Gran knew the extent of your memory loss, she’d move in here to look after you.”
“She would?” Oh, how horrifying.
“Where do they live? Just so I know where to go tomorrow,” I ask.
“Gran lives opposite Lily and Aunty Maeve behind Gran, across the alleyway.”
Deep inside me a little scream of terror is being released at the thought of family living two houses away. It’s almost worse than wearing flat shoes and flowery dresses.
Lily helps to unpack the kid’s bags while I wander off and have a look around the house. The two beds in Ethan’s room make sense now. The other bed is Will’s. It didn’t ring any alarm bells before because a small nervous breakdown was in progress at the time and it wasn’t about to be paused to do a bed count.
There’s no toilet to be found anywhere, so I walk back into the kitchen.
Lily whistles as she opens the fridge to retrieve the milk.
“You won’t need to cook for a week,” she says.
I cast my eyes over the plethora of casserole dishes in the fridge and on the bench, it strikes me how giving these people are. Never in my life have I ever cooked a meal to help someone out, mainly because my cooking comes with its own death certificate. Yet here they are, assembled before me like entries in the Royal Casserole Show.
“Umm, this is going to sound really odd,” I say.
“More odd than anything else today?” she smiles.
“Where’s the toilet? It’s not…” where it should be. A bit like me.
“It’s in the backyard Jules, where it’s always been.”
“In the backyard, that’s a good one,” I laugh.
But she’s not laughing. In fact, her expression tells me that she’s serious. Touching my arm, Lily points through the window to a little wooden building in the yard, about the size of a broom cupboard, bordering the back fence, linked to the house by a concrete path.
An outdoor toilet? You’ve got to be kidding!
She starts to laugh, “it’s not very glamorous, is it? I’m sure Marilyn Monroe doesn’t have to wander into her backyard to visit the ladies’.”
“But what if I need to go in the middle of the night? It’ll be cold and dark.” A shiver works its way down my spine.
“You either hold on until morning or wrap yourself up and take a torch, and an umbrella if it’s raining,” she answers.
My lips move but no sound comes out.
“Oh, and be careful of spiders too, redbacks like outhouses.”
“So, if I want to go during the night I have to get fully dressed, find a torch and umbrella, leave the house, wander through the backyard and then worry about spiders attacking me?”
She nods. “Yes, that pretty much sums it up. Bet you miss hospital now — with their indoor plumbing. Anyway, we’d best move on now. Bath- and dinnertime.”
Lily rounds up John and Rosie and is about to head home for dinner.
“Just one more thing: how do I heat dinner up?” I ask. From memory, microwaves weren’t invented until the mid-Eighties.
“The oven usually works best for me. It’s this box over here with the front door. See, you turn this dial and light a match inside and voila — fire!” she giggles. “Let me know if you need anything, won’t you? Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, eight-thirty out the front.”
My expression must be one of confusion.
“For the walk to school,” she finishes.
“School, yes, of course. See you then, and thanks for everything today.”
“Pleasure lovey, glad to have you back.”
Will has a quick shower, followed by Ethan, while Cal’s bath is filling up. His clothes are filthy after helping Chris in the garden; it looks as though he was buried. But that’s not the worst thing. Underneath his clothes is…a cloth nappy held in place by the world’s largest safety pins. How do these things work?
I try not to stab him in the thigh while removing the pins. It falls open to reveal nothing but wee. Today has been enough of an eye-opener without having to face my first shitty cloth nappy. The hard part is putting the nappy back on properly. After a fumble of fingers and safety pins it still looks pretty loose. Cal stands up and while it doesn’t fall off, it does look very gapey in spots. It wouldn’t even hold in a fart.
“Chris? I need to ring Lily and see if I can pop over for a minute, this nappy is giving me grief. Where’s the phone?”
“The phone?” Then a short pause. “It’s in the shed, with the car.”
These 1961 people are crazy; toilets in backyards, phones in the shed. “You said we didn’t have a car.”
“We don’t. We also don’t have a phone. Just pop over, but don’t be too long though. I’m pretty hungry, I’d like dinner soon.”
He’d like dinner soon? What is this, a restaurant? Both his arms and legs work, so why doesn’t he get dinner ready? Maybe this is still the era where it’s acceptable to be a Neanderthal, which would make me nothing but a liberated cavewoman. Ug!
Cal is spread-eagled in my arms as we rush over the road to Lily’s. If he craps himself now I’m in a world of hurt. It will make his modern shit-bombs seem like skid marks.
The house is very Lily. It’s painted pale blue with a white roof and deep blue ironwork. The garden is like something out of a magazine — roses in shades of pink, red and white, sprays of lilies and oceans of lavender cuddle the house. The aroma envelops me, imparting calmness and tranquility where only panic and fear existed. It’s a little haven.
“Lily,” I cry out. “I need help again.”
“Come on in, lovey. I’m in the kitchen,” she sings down the hallway.
“Cal’s nappy is giving me a hard time. Can you give me a quick lesson, please?”
“Of course I can. Come here, Cal.” She places him on the kitchen table, flips him onto his back and expertly pins the nappy. “The trick is to make it a bit tighter when you first put it on because it will loosen with movement. Here, you undo it and do it up again.”
“Right.” My tongue pokes out the side of my mouth in extreme concentration. Anyone would think that putting a nappy on is more complex than performing brain surgery.
“Tighter, that’s it. Hang on, not too tight,” she coaches.
“How can you tell it’s too tight?”
“See how his eyeballs are bulging out of their sockets? Well, they’re not supposed to do that. Just a touch looser. Yes, that’s it. Well done. Anyone would think this is your first nappy.”
“One more thing. What do I wipe him with when he craps himself?”
Lily laughs out loud. “Chris was right, you have another personality emerging. I love this new language. Head injuries suit you. All I got from my fractured skull was constant headaches. It’s simple, you just use toilet paper with a bit of water if you need it. Then you scrape the poo, or the crap as you call it, out of the nappy and flush it down the toilet, rinse the nappy and soak it in a bucket of sanitiser until you have enough to do a full wash. Then wash and dry as normal. Just make sure you don’t run out.”
“Ewww, really? What do I scrape the poo off with?”
“Toilet paper. Some women have a scraper or a stick they use especially for it, but you usually use toilet paper.”
“A shit stick? How disgusting.”
Lily dissolves into hysterics again, “Shhhh, not around the kids. Don’t let Chris hear you swearing like that, OK?”
“Why, is he against swearing?”
“Most people are. It’s not what ladies do, but you and I swear occasionally when it’s only the two of us.”
I thank her and make my way home. Perhaps this cavewoman existence will be temporarily bearable with Lily by my side. At least she has a sense of humour.