From the car window I watched as we passed families going about their small-town, ordinary Saturday – exchanging pleasantries and friendly banter. A weekend where family time was the focus. Children clasping their parents’ hands while they were shepherded across streets and over playground hazards. Smiles and attentive body language silently shouting trust and connection. Safe and predictable for all to see.
We drove past the netball courts where parents stood, hugging the sidelines and shouting encouragement when random passes went astray, or shots missed the target. Because that is what ‘nice’ parents do, isn’t it?
It all looked ordinary. But then I thought … I suppose they think the same about us … a nice, ordinary family driving through town…
“I’ll break your bloody arm,” muttered Mum through clenched teeth. I can hear my little sister whimper, and I see Mum’s contorted face as she straddles her, forcing her arm up her back.
“Tell me, you little bitch.” Every fibre of me desperately wanting to pummel my mother’s wiry frame to get her to release my sister. But instead, I cower in the corner.
How can you explain that to yourself?
How do you tell yourself it’s okay to not protect someone so dear to you because you were too frightened to?
You can’t.
Instead, the helplessness hardens. Adds yet another layer of loathing. Piece by piece, stalagmite-like, it grows.
Fear does that to you.
One by one, our cars converged onto the parking area that melted into the shadow of the hospital. Our shoes crunched underfoot as we headed toward the building. Gingerly, we stepped through the doors marked ‘Entrance’ in faded red paint. We stood in awkward silence until a friendly nurse appeared. She led us down the wide corridor with ‘tour group’ purpose, her shoes squeaking quietly on the highly polished lino. Outside the last door she paused, turned to Dad and said, “We have her on a drip – it’s keeping her with us at the moment.”
We filed into the room, eyes on the small figure slightly elevated by crisp, white hospital pillows. Something familiar in this unfamiliar place. Familiar as a wife, familiar as a mother.
Strands of hair lay limply across Mum’s forehead – charcoal streaks a stark contrast to the tired, pale skin. In the silence, her breathing sighed erratically. She glanced at each one of us without expression – husband, son and daughters. Her glance lingered on the line from her arm to the faithful drip from the suspended IV bag.
Drip, drip, drip. Steady. Drip, drip, drip. Predictable.
I don’t see her coming. She flies at me, shrieking and swinging her arm at my face. My head jerks back and connects with the corner of the cupboard. Immediately I feel a trickle of blood.
“I’ll kill you, bitch,” she slurs. I stand there, stunned. My sister stands motionless, wide-eyed in shock and fear. “ Wheressss that gun … I’ll teach you a lesshon.” Eyes narrowing and breathing heavily, Mum moves towards the back door. We know that the .22 rifle rests on two large hooks above the door. Many times we had seen her bring it down, load it, and calmly put an end to an unlucky possum perched in a nearby tree.
“Get in the car!” yells my sister, snapping me into action. We run. Sprays of loose gravel shoot sideways as I slam the car into reverse. As I accelerate recklessly, the rear of the car fishtails wildly. We giggle uncontrollably. It helps to have a sane reaction in this insane moment. Defaulting to the normal deflects any processing of reality. And we have become masters at it.
The last image we see through the back window is Mum swaying unsteadily but focused on ramming a bullet into the rifle.
Drip, drip, drip.
Dad stood against the wall near the bed. A man of few words, conservative, well respected. He had a serious air and was uncompromising in situations that challenged his beliefs. Never comfortable in emotionally charged situations, his pursed lips and frequent eyebrow raising signalled his discomfort. He rocked back and forth ever so slightly. A faint jingling betrayed his nervous fingering of coins in a pocket.
I wondered how he could not have known. Working long hours on the farm, I thought? Or does conservative’ come with the unqualified expectation that public perceptions must always be maintained?
He had seen flashes of Mum’s outbursts. I smiled to myself, recalling the family dinner-table dramas when my sister refused to eat vegetables. I could picture Mum, exasperated, striding to the rail above the coal range and yanking down the thick leather strap that hung there. The threat was usually enough to prompt the disappearance of the offending veggie – my sister gagging in haste. The strap was then abruptly returned to its resting place. It would hang there innocently … an outward sign that the danger had gone. But inside, the familiar knots of fear were not so easily dismissed.
But to be fair, I thought, Dad hadn’t seen the real action. The daytime alcohol- fuelled action when no-one else was round. Waving a strap threateningly was a world apart from witnessing the whack of stiff leather meeting tender skin. Did he wonder about the clear disconnect between mother and daughters? Did he wonder about the red welts on our legs … or was that a potential wasp’s nest best left undisturbed?
A wooden hearth brush can be a highly effective weapon, causing impressive bruising.
I winced at the memory.
Farm kids collect bruises like badges of honour, don’t they? Even nice kids from nice families.
Belt buckles graze – but then grazes aren’t an issue, are they?
Being winded didn’t leave any mark at all … on the outside.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to see here. Nice family.
Even relatives had no idea. Sensing a disconnect between Mum and us, aunts and uncles had been known to refer to my sister and me as “uppity young madams”.
They had frequently witnessed the result of her lengthy ‘visits’ to the local pub. Watched their sister drunkenly trying to negotiate their front doorsteps. One, two, oops … oh dear, back to one again … to the left a bit! So entertaining! Witnessed the occasional going, goi-n-n-nng, gone lurch into the bushes! It was all harmless, a bit of a hoot, wasn’t it?
While they tut-tutted in amused acceptance, our anxiety only increased. Experience had taught us to recognise the signals and to anticipate a meltdown once we were home.
Out of earshot of witnesses. Out of sight….
I’d not forgotten one particular example of family ‘blinkers’. When a friend was purchasing a wedding present for me, my shop assistant aunt sniffed disdainfully and remarked, “She doesn’t deserve anything. No respect for her mother.” Indeed. Fear does that. Fear is the violence that doesn’t disappear after the actual event. It crouches hidden and silent. Crouches but constantly alert. An internal 24/7 surveillance process with a keep- me-safe filter. Then it explodes, triggered by just a look that only you recognise as a warning.
Glancing around the cramped space, I noted my brother sprawled awkwardly in the unforgiving hospital chair. His body faced away, toward the window. There, yet somehow disconnected. Uncomfortable being part of this pretend family-togetherness-tableau. Knowing full well that beneath the portrayed unity, deep division lay.
Drip, drip.
My sister edged the standard bench seat closer to the edge of the bed and rested her forehead on her hand. Her husband hovered behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders. Safe hands, I thought. Reassuring, I-am-here hands.
Mum’s hands lay motionless on the sheet. I studied them, thinking for the first time how small they were. Lady hands, although roughened skin and short, unadorned nails hinted more of labouring than feminine pampering.
Small hands that worked hard. At times gripping an axe to split firewood or sometimes hacking errant branches into submission. Hands that I had seen vigorously buffing kitchen lino into a mirror-like gleam, and doggedly peeling mountains of fruit for preserving.
The same hands that gently tended to a neighbour’s baby. The very same ones that crafted delicate matinée jackets and bootees.
“Think you can tell me what to do,” she snarls, her face close to mine, twisted with rage. Hands around my throat.
Small Hands. Powerful Hands.
“I’ll show you,” she hisses and shoves me against the wall. Although Mum is a head shorter than me and much slighter, fear renders me helpless.
Fingers digging in, hurting. I’m struggling to breathe…
I forced myself to look away from those hands. Focused on the line snaking from Mum’s arm. And then I noticed.
No drip, drip, drip. The drip line remained firmly in place, but the once plump IV bag hung limply like a recently deflated balloon. A quick scan of the room confirmed no-one else had noticed – each enclosed in their own coping bubble.
“Keeping her with us,” echoed in my head. I tried to look anywhere but at the empty plastic.
The bedside cabinet suddenly became fascinating. I studied the shiny handle on the slightly open drawer. The left-hand corner was lopsided, and I wondered if it ever closed properly. I nudged the metal castor on the bottom of the cabinet with my foot. Moved it to face another way, then back again. Backwards. Forwards.
I stared at the floor, the lino pattern worn from years of foot traffic. I thought about the many families that must have shared this very room.
Priests and prostitutes, dignitaries and dropouts, the fraudsters and the faithful: this house of no judgement had cared for them all. This house of no judgment was not ambivalent about its duty. Sanctity of life was the rule here.
“I’ll kill you, bitch.”
The call buzzer lay within arm’s reach. Tantalising. Help waiting to be summoned, just seconds away.
Just a quick squeeze and the medical miracle workers would leap into action.
Just one firm press and the guardians of life would put it right.
One last look.
Eyes down, I edged past the end of the bed quietly. Opened the door softly.
And closed it firmly on my way out.
Author: Rita Palmer
Rita has had a long career in education.
A primary teacher firstly, she later moved to consultancy. “I worked with teachers and students for some years in New York . It was there I became interested in observing how a child’s emotional background impacted learning and behaviour.”
