“Mary, I didn’t ask you to garden. Just a little pruning was all I wanted.”
“No, Vanessa, but I knew you would be happy. Because you said your mother liked the garden to be tidy, I finished the gardening while you were away.”
“I see.”
Mary Tendo has her back turned, boiling the kettle, unaware that there is anything wrong.
Vanessa swallows rising fury. After all, Mary was trying to be helpful.
“How was France?” Mary asks her. The tea she has made is too strong and black. Sighing, Vanessa pours herself more milk.
“Oh well, you know, it was just Paris.” She has been to Paris a dozen times. There have been better and worse trips to Paris.
“Vanessa, I have never been to Paris. I think that one day I would like to go.”
Vanessa thinks, it’s maddening how she makes me feel guilty. Even when she’s blatantly in the wrong.
“I have come back with lots of new resolutions,” she says briskly, swilling down the tea in one gulp, burning her throat unpleasantly. “I want you to help me clear everything out. We’ve got too much rubbish. Far too much stuff, I think you once said something like that yourself, that English people’s houses are full of things. Well I want to get rid of a lot of it. But first do you think you should put some clothes on? And where is Justin? Justin can help.”
“I want to talk to you about him, Vanessa.” (Mary’s feeling happy, and proud of herself. The meeting with Zakira was a huge success. Justin and Zakira were in each other’s arms within three minutes of their arrival. While the two of them were kissing and hugging in the kitchen, Mary had filled Trevor in on the back story. “I thought that boy was a bloody fast worker,” Trevor said, but she could see he was worried. “What is the old girl going to say?” After two hours with Zakira, he had relaxed. “She’s a lovely girl,” he told his son. Soon the necklace was back on Zakira’s neck. The amber glowed on her blue-black skin. The tap was mended, the sink no longer leaked, and Justin stayed behind at the end. Mary is ecstatic. She has pulled it off! Justin’s up and dressed, with a job and a girlfriend. She cannot wait to tell Vanessa.)
But Vanessa’s in the grip of the hyperactive state that is her only way of fending off depression. “Not now Mary, we have to get on.”
In this mood, Vanessa carries all before her, but Mary and Justin seem slow and stubborn.
When Vanessa asks Mary to clear out the cupboards in the sitting room, ready for Vanessa to sort, Mary says, “But Vanessa, that will make a mess, and Anya — there is a little problem with Anya. I am not sure she is coming on Wednesday.” (The problem is that Justin’s slept with Anya, the night before his reconciliation with Zakira, and Anya is in love with him. Whereas Justin just thinks she is quite a nice girl with whom he has made a little mistake. Or not so nice a girl, once she has kicked his television, and said he is a Dummkopf, and a loser. Justin thinks Anya might not be coming back.)
“Mary, we are clearing up the mess. If we make a little dust, there are dusters in the cupboard. I hope you know where the cleaning things are.” Vanessa is aware that she sounds rather sharp, and makes a last-ditch attempt to sound reasonable. “I myself am not too proud to clean up. By the way, I really think you should take my coat off.”
Mary removes the coat, which reveals the maddening nightdress, which is semi-transparent and looks — slatternly.
“It is Anya’s job,” Mary says, politely. “It was Anya’s job, to do the cleaning. It seems her name was Anya, not Anna. If she has gone, we will find another one. In fact, she was not even Australian.”
“For God’s sake, Mary, put some clothes on. Are you saying you are not willing to help me?” Vanessa’s voice is beginning to rise, to steer its way up through the unstable octaves. Her heart begins to beat unsteadily. There is a certain blind pleasure in losing her temper.
“I am not saying I am not willing,” says Mary, but her jaw juts mutinously.
Vanessa is too cross to listen properly. Mary’s double negative just sounds like ‘No’. “I think I have been fair with you,” she says. “I have treated you like a friend, Mary.”
Mary’s eyes go dead. It is starting again. “Yes, Miss Vanessa. We are like friends.”
“So don’t you think that you ought to help me?”
Mary looks at the floor. “I ought to help you.” She thinks of the money. She is still hundreds short. She has to survive in this house until Christmas. And yet, the Henman is a madwoman. You do not start cleaning in the afternoon.
“So do we understand each other?” Vanessa victorious. She’s full of adrenalin now, she is speeding. Sometimes these points just have to be made. She can’t let these people walk all over her. When you are too soft, this is what happens. She rides her crest of unhappiness; nobody likes her, not even her son, nor Mary, nor Miss Tomlinson.
“Yes, Henman,” it sounds as though Mary says. “We understand each other, yes, Henman.”
Mary goes to the sitting-room and opens the cupboards and starts to pull everything on to the carpet, bulging files, table mats, half-finished knitting. A box of old pens and broken pencils. A foot-high pile of old Christmas cards. A yellowing turret of ivory napkin rings. She doesn’t think, she just pulls it all out. In the end, almost the whole carpet is covered. She gives it a small but savage kick.
But as she does it, she can hear the Henman screaming. The Henman is trying to get Justin to help. Whatever his response, it is not enough. Her rage, her grief are beyond all bounds. “You are useless, useless, you’ve always been useless. Why are you such a hopeless son? You have disappointed me and your father. Get up, will you, do something!”
In the end, Mary can bear it no more. She leaves it as it is, the ruined sitting room, and goes upstairs to see what can be done, if anything can still be done to save Justin.
“Miss Henman, do not upset yourself. If he will not do it, I will do it. ”
“It’s quite extraordinary,” Vanessa says, in a voice that skates between laughter and tears. “All I’ve asked him to do is collect the photographs, the photographs of his own childhood, the photographs of our life as a family. It doesn’t seem a lot to ask. He has been dossing here for twenty-odd years. He has never given his mother a penny. He has never lifted a finger to help. Now I ask him to do one simple thing and he claims I am hysterical. I will get hysterical if you all want, I am ready to become hysterical—”
“Miss Henman, please, do not shout any more.”
“You are telling me not to shout at Justin. I am his mother. I care for him.”
“Yes, Miss Henman. You are his mother. Of course, Miss Henman, you care about him. But please, Miss Henman, no more shouting.”
And Mary helps her, and they get the work done, and the dustbin is left bulging with paper and celluloid, duplicate photographs, dusty drawings; Justin sleeps with his pillow over his head (and feels he has a right to: the day before, he and Trevor worked a thirteen-hour day, finishing a painting job for a deadline); and slowly Vanessa wears herself out, and the terrible storm in her brain subsides, leaving the beginnings of unease and guilt.