Editor’s Intrusion

As editor of Alex Gray’s memoirs it embarrasses me to interrupt them. But there are points at which it becomes unavoidable, and this is one.

Hilda had phoned me and asked more desperately than ever for help in dealing with her mother. Though I had known Hilda from babyhood we had never really seen inside each other. I had felt the baby fingers possessing one of mine like little pink caterpillars, the sea anemone mouth moistly pressed against my own. I had experienced the recoil of the adolescent girl, then recognised the ploys of womanhood: the coils or curtain of freshly washed hair offered to one she saw as more than a long-lasting friend – a man. I even considered from time to time what might have turned out another disastrous relationship. It could have been what she wanted. To replace the prime disaster of her life – her relationship with her mother.

Anyway, on this occasion she rang me and said, ‘I’ve got to see you. She’s gone again. I can’t stand any more of it. Wait …’ (I could hear her closing a door.) ‘This time she’s taken a suitcase. God knows where she’ll end up. She intends more than a walk to Watson’s Bay.’

‘I’ll come at once,’ I promised.

‘No. Not here.’ Her breathing grew more intense. ‘I’ve got to get out of this house for a little.’

I wasn’t all that pleased to have to put aside my work, but arranged to meet her near the flower stall opposite the bank at the lower end of Martin Place. My work! Shoving it into a drawer of my desk, I wondered whether it could be of any account. Insistent characters like Hilda, Alex, Hilary, Magda make you suspect their lives count for more than the flesh and blood of your own creating.

Hilda was standing hatless, coatless, gloveless, against a background of ranunculus, cornflowers, gypsophila, and the tight rosebuds of any season. From a distance she looked frail, young, appealing. As one approached she began to wither slightly, till in close-up she became a solitary spinster, who still might have had appeal for those who cherish the nostalgic image of crushed muslin and Lillian Gish. She smiled. She took my arm and squeezed it to reassure me of her support. (By now I had taken to walking with a stick as arthritis was invading my feet.) We must have suggested to anyone who bothered to notice an uncle with a niece or an elderly guy with a sympathetic woman friend. They would not have looked long enough to work out who was guiding who – in the idiom of our day. Anyhow, Hilda and I might not have agreed on the tactics of our relationship this bright morning in Martin Place.

We sat down in a café-snackery of the type which has proliferated over the years along mid-George Street without improving in quality or altering the general style. We both ordered straight black. But Hilda called after the waitress and changed to cappuccino.

She told me, ‘I feel I need a touch of froth,’ tracing with a fingernail a vague path through sugar spilt by a previous customer.

‘When you rang me you told me she had gone.’

Breathlessly, ‘Yes.’

‘Then why did you close the door before we continued our conversation?’

‘Habit, I suppose. Alex plugs into your thoughts.’

‘And you into hers? It’s not uncommon – two people at close quarters.’

She gave a grudging little laugh. ‘Yes.’

‘But had she left already? with this suitcase you mentioned.’

The waitress, a gaunt creature in straight hair and a wedding ring, had brought our coffees, slopping the frothy cappuccino. As the woman was leaving, Hilda seemed to be pleading with her to stay.

‘What an inquisition, Patrick.’

‘I’m only trying to get to the bottom of what you’re telling me – work out a plan of action for the future.’

Hilda, for her part, was harder at work tracing a path through the spilt sugar, till halted by the cappuccino lake.

‘You say she was packing a suitcase. Is Alex strong enough to go down and open the garage door and fetch a suitcase? I know you have a whole garageful of luggage left over from the various Gray travels.’

‘Not those. They’re full of cockroaches and mould. There’s one I keep in a cupboard in my room – in case one of us has to go to hospital …’

‘That’s practical – that’s like you, Hilda.’

‘… or go away … leave …’

‘It was yours – the emergency suitcase Alex took with her?’

Hilda did not answer at once.

‘I’ve reached the point where I can’t stand any more, Patrick. Mother must be committed.’

‘We’ve been through all this before. I’ve tried to persuade you. We must get in touch with Falkenberg.’

She hung her head. ‘No! No!’ Some undignified bubbles appeared on her lips. ‘You don’t understand. She’s my mother.’

‘Better one of you in a straitjacket than two. Let’s be reasonable at least. You, Hilda, I thought were the most reasonable person on earth.’

‘I love her. That’s what you can’t understand.’

‘But darling …’

‘Don’t use that word! She’s made it dirty.’

Describing one great arc, she swept the sugar, the slops, off the table. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said.

I paid the straight-haired waitress, who had been observing us more disapprovingly every minute.

Across the street, Hilda bought a bunch of ranunculus, then a second. ‘She loves them,’ she said, looking radiant in every premature crease of her Lillian Gish face.

We walked away. I hailed a taxi.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ll take a bus, to return to normal. I mustn’t let her know Falkenberg was anywhere near the surface of my mind.’

I wish I could serve Hilda better. I am not even a mentor.