It was quite something to get into a bed alone after such a long time. A true sanctuary, as a bed should be. Not just the extra space but the solitude. No expectation to kiss or have to caress or worse. Between the elephant and the massaging, the hair-counting and weedkiller, I had lost desire for Tilda’s body. That’s natural, isn’t it? I did not want intimate contact. Even a servicing did not tempt me.
Chapter 52
My massage duty has continued from that time till now—two sessions a day. There are no oils involved: oils dull the friction. There must be heat from the contact of skin on skin; it helps the elephant juices flow more freely; the veins and muscles yield like reeds in a current. I must have a knack for it, massaging, so Tilda always reckoned. I’ve done the arm a power of good. Since my first goes at it the swelling has mostly been contained. Just 1 centimetre refuses to budge at the wrist; and where the gauntlet stops mitten-like above the fingernails there is a tendency for inflammation, especially in hot weather. It has stabilised, she says. Not elephant anymore, just hefty human.
To be honest, if I didn’t massage I doubt there’d be much difference. I do it anyway. Tilda calls it ‘precautionary’. I think of it as habit. It’s the most physical contact we have. It has often crossed my mind as being a form of substitute congressing for her: she closes her eyes as if in ecstasy.
For me it’s the opposite. I tend to bow my head and swallow a lot to keep down nausea. Massaging the dry way we do creates a noise like static as our chafing skins warm up. I’ve worn earplugs in the past—bits of cottonwool pushed in deep so Tilda wouldn’t see them—but they make the static switch to a deeper register, a distorted humming. I hear it in my insides; my stomach squirms like a bout of motion sickness. I stroke quicker these days to get the session finished.
It never helped the nausea to have an image repeatedly circulate in my head. An irrational one that I was sure had no firm basis in science, but was awfully convincing: my nausea was the direct result of Tilda’s cancer or lymphoedema exiting her body and, via the massage connection, trying to penetrate mine. The static was the push and pull of my immune system mounting a defence. It was too late for defences, I was certain some days. I felt so unwell I believed a dark quantity must surely have got in.
Before massaging I have touched wood in so many sets of threes I’ve believed calluses might form on my hands doing it, ones so tough it would be impossible for infection to drill through.
Chapter 53
My new futon sanctuary got my mind ticking along clearly and helped my swagger return. Being alone in bed can do that for you. You are less reminded that you share your life with someone. It sharpens your resourcefulness, your self-reliance. I would lie in my sanctuary, scheming. I was making plans that did not include Tilda. I had decided to activate my backstop. I had decided it was time to ring my father. It was time to tell him, ‘Norm, I’m coming home.’
I wouldn’t say I was estranged from my parents. I had written three or four letters, all neatly typed to look professional, like I was knuckling down to grasp basic technology. I left out details that might give the wrong impression: my pitiful pay cheque, for instance; that I lived among mouse plagues. Scintilla was a thriving agricultural Eden by my telling. I was benefiting from observing another culture and other farming methods.
I hardly mentioned Tilda. When I did mention her I used the term my lady friend rather than name her. Backstop logic. They wouldn’t worry they were losing a son to some woman in a foreign land. They wouldn’t get it into their heads to fly out and inspect her like marital livestock. I wrote of Tilda’s cancer in a way that big-noted me: I was being a rock to this lady friend until her recovery was certain. The implication was that I wasn’t permanently shackled.
In their replies I could hear Norm dictating his news to my mother: mortality rates for spring lambing had been normal; weekly rainfall for the year had been average; an average number of hay bales was expected in the summer cut; he intended locking up fifty acres to grow winter silage; his Noble Bijou gelding, Stride For Stride, placed third at Otaki, then won at Te Rapa in the wet. The old girl spelt it out in her embroiderly longhand but his serious tone came through predictable and comforting to me. They were letters that kept a polite distance. I wasn’t interrogated, which I took as clever: they didn’t want to push me away with questions and judging.
I rang the morning Tilda popped out to register for Social Security money. Social Security! What other two words make a grown-up feel so fallen? Tilda saw it as her right, given her health. She made it sound like illness had its virtues and rewards. To me welfare money signified failure and indolence. Name me anyone who comes from rural stock who thinks otherwise. Handouts are for bludgers. Tilda was going to take one anyway.
I sat down on the hallway phone stool and composed myself. I had not called them for almost a year and this call would take some swallowing of pride. Yet I convinced myself no swallowing was necessary. It was my Norm I’d be talking to. He’d be so excited I was coming home he’d say, ‘I’m over the moon.’ He’d say, ‘I’ll put champagne on ice.’ I couldn’t wait to hear the emotion in his voice, his manly effort of holding back tears. Me and him and our thousand acres.
‘Son,’ Norm said. It was him doing the swallowing. ‘Son. Colin. How can I put this? Your mother and I have decided to sell up. We’ve come to the conclusion it’s time to retire, take it quiet. Wind down. The worry has been killing us.’
‘Worry? What’s the worry? I want to come home.’ I presumed by worry they meant worrying about me. ‘Aren’t you excited?’
‘Son, the last few years have worried us sick and dealt us some blows.’ He swallowed loudly, a choking wet squelch. He said, ‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry for what?’
He swallowed again. Sorry for the ’87 stock-market crash. Sorry for listening to his damned accountant. That’s who he blamed for dangling too tempting a carrot in his face. Borrow big and buy shares instead of land and sheep. Build up strong off-farm assets and enjoy tax breaks and dividends. The market soars and a man gets richer than farmers ever are. Pipedreams! Markets soar all right. And markets also collapse. This one did with an almighty thump and brought Norm down with it. Since then he’d spent three years fighting bankruptcy. If he liquidated everything—property, sheep, cows, tractors, fertiliser spreaders, horses—he could clear his debt to zero and have enough cash for a modest townhouse, a nice porch to rock a chair on.
‘We didn’t want to worry you with it. I thought it could be resolved.’ He swallowed again and said another sorry. Said it pleadingly, as if the word was really his hand and he wanted me to hold it and forgive him his folly. ‘My ticker’s been playing up with all the pressure of juggling the finances. But you yourself are fine? You yourself are okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s the main thing. You’re in a good job going by what you’ve written to us. You sound settled, you with your lady friend and all. Is she over her troubles? Seems like you’ve taken on quite a responsibility. I’m proud of you for that, son.’
He was waiting for a response from me. I didn’t give him one.
He said, ‘You were never much interested in running the place anyway. Farming wasn’t your go. You had greener pastures. It’s no skin off your nose, then.’
My mother could not come to the phone. Norm said, ‘She likes to bend the elbow in the mornings these days. To be frank, I figure if it makes her happy, why stop her?’
I said, ‘Fair enough.’ I could not bear to hear him anymore. I said, ‘Fair enough. No worries,’ without parting my teeth. I said it with hate and love and anger. I was never one for talking back to him. He deserved talking back to now, I was sure of that. I had in me a savage talking-back, but the pattern was too ingrained. ‘It is skin off my nose. But not a lot of skin,’ was all I said. ‘You’re right, I’m doing well. I’ve landed on my feet. In fact, I have to go. I’m up to my ears in work.’