The Lost Valley

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The sky was a melancholy blanket of grey, the day unseasonably cold for late spring. A rag-tag pack of dogs chased after the taxi as it turned the corner into Emma’s street, spraying a fan of mud over a pair of unfortunate pedestrians.

Emma’s stomach churned with mixed emotions. Looking forward to seeing Mum, fearful about what she would find. ‘There it is,’ she said. ‘Number thirty-five.’

They pulled up beside the drooping wire fence of her family home. After the grandeur of Coomalong, the rundown house was a depressing sight. The front gate hung from one hinge. A few shreds of white paint still clung to the weatherboards. Weeds sprouted from rusty gutters that sagged from the corrugated iron roof. Straggly geraniums bordered an overgrown square of buffalo grass. The waratah she loved was leafless and brown, its stark skeleton as dead as her dreams.

Emma had hoped to arrive home unnoticed, but no such luck. The neighbourhood was out in force today. Kids riding dilapidated bikes up and down the slushy street. Mr Wren mending a letter box. The Harper clan drinking beer and smoking out on their porch, although it wasn’t even twelve o’clock.

Everybody stopped what they were doing as Emma climbed from the car. The driver fetched her suitcase from the boot, then tipped his cap in farewell.

Old Mrs Phipps was waiting at the gate next door, almost like she knew Emma was coming. ‘Here she is, hoity toity as you like,’ she announced in a loud voice. ‘Thinks she’s too good to come home and look after her poor sick mother.’

Emma ignored her and hurried through the gate. How she hated that woman. Ever since they’d moved from the farm to Sparrow Lane, she’d made life a misery. If Emma read a book in the garden, Mrs Phipps would lean over the fence and say ‘Look at her, miss la-de-da. Lazy so-and-so.’ If Emma planted flower bulbs, Mrs Phipps would snort and say, ‘Stupid girl. Your poor ma can’t eat daffodils. You should be growing potatoes.’ When Emma dug a potato patch, Mrs Phipps shook her head and scoffed, ‘Everyone knows you can’t grow potatoes in this soil.’

Emma couldn’t think of anything she’d said or done to invite such hostility. Although Mrs Phipps was the worst offender, others also seemed to resent her. The general consensus of opinion was that she had tickets on herself.

‘Take no notice,’ her mother would say. ‘They’re a miserable bunch around here and misery loves company. When they see a bright girl like you, full of potential? Well, folks get jealous. They want to drag you down to their level.’

‘Nobody seems to have a problem with Tim and Jacky.’

‘They’re boys,’ Mum had said simply. ‘Boys are allowed to aim above their station.’

Emma had burned with the unfairness of it. I’ll show them just how far I can go. She’d studied hard, constantly topping her class.

‘No point keeping that one at school,’ Mrs Phipps told Mum. ‘With your poor husband in the grave, you need to send her out to work. She’ll only go and get married, and all that learning will be wasted.’

‘Maybe she will, and maybe she won’t,’ said Mum. ‘But whatever happens, I don’t believe education is ever wasted. It broke my heart when I had to leave school to find a job. I won’t disappoint my daughter that way.’

When Emma won a scholarship to Campbell College, Mum urged her on. Saying how proud Dad would have been. Never once questioning her daughter’s ambition to be a doctor. Never once doubting her. Mum was her rock, her anchor, her safe place to fall.

Emma pushed through the rickety gate, mouth dry as sawdust. Licking her lips didn’t help. No spit would come. Her steps slowed as she neared the front door. Maybe if she wished hard enough, maybe she could make it so nothing had changed. Her mother would be baking scones in the kitchen. Or doing the mending she took in to make a living since Dad died. Maybe Mum would be sitting by the window watching for Emma to come, a Women’s Weekly on her knee and a smile on her face.

‘What are you waiting for, you silly girl?’ called Mrs Phipps.

Emma turned to see a host of curious eyes and a wave of panic claimed her. She rushed onto the porch and tried the door. Unlocked, as usual. Her mother always said they had nothing worth stealing.

‘Mum?’ The door opened into the familiar musty hallway, its fading floral wallpaper peeling in the corners. ‘Tim? Jacky?’

Emma’s brother Jack came in from the kitchen – an athletic, red-haired young man whose square, freckled face lit up at the sight of her. ‘Good to see you, little sis.’ He enfolded her in a long bear hug.

‘How’s Mum?’ she asked when Jack finally let her go. His happiness seeped away. He looked as grim as she’d ever seen him. It frightened her.

‘It’s bad, Em. Real bad. She can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t feed herself. You even need to remind her to swallow.’

‘What does the doctor say?’ A sudden shame hit her. The car had dropped her off ten minutes ago. Ten whole minutes, and she still hadn’t seen Mum. Still hadn’t summoned up the courage. ‘Where is she?’

Jack nodded towards the lounge room.

Her mother lay on a bed by the window. Someone had moved the couch out to make room. Food scraps clung to her chin, and something dark stained her blouse. Emma’s nose wrinkled at the smell. The odour of urine vied with that of disinfectant, and something else, something fetid and dank.

‘Mum?’ Emma reached for her hand, a hand she knew as well as her own. It remained stiff and unyielding. Cold too. The whole room was cold. ‘Mum?’ Louder this time.

Her mother moved her head a fraction and called out; a guttural, animal sound. Emma stared, too shocked to react. Then she felt something, a light pressure on her fingers.

‘Oh, Mum.’ She choked back a sob. ‘We’ll get you well again. Whatever it takes, I promise.’

Jack backed out of the room.

‘Where are you going?’ said Emma.

‘I promised Bluey we’d catch up this arvo.’ He reversed more quickly.

‘Hang on, Jacky.’ Emma released her mother’s hand and hurried after him.‘You can’t leave me alone with Mum.’

‘You’ll be right.’ He pulled on his coat. ‘Mrs Shaw’ll be here at five to show you the ropes, how to help her with the toilet and that.’ He put on his hat.

‘I just got home, haven’t even unpacked my bag and you want to throw me in the deep end?’

‘Jesus, sis, I’ve been doing this by myself for three days straight. Sleeping in the chair beside her. Feeding her. Even helping her … you know, when Mrs Shaw got drunk and didn’t show. Don’t know who was more embarrassed; me or Mum.’

‘What about Tim?’

‘You know Timmy, dodges anything hard. He did give me some money to pay for Mrs Shaw, though. Tim and his wife have only been ‘round here once. He got so worked up when he saw Mum, so upset, you’d think he was the one stuck in that bed for life.’

‘Is that what the doctor said? That Mum won’t get better?’

‘He told me to pray.’ Jack gave the faintest shrug, as if sorrow weighed down his shoulders. He took off his hat and wrung it in his hands. ‘There ain’t no treatment.’

No treatment. The awful words echoed around Emma’s head. She felt as paralysed as her mother. It wasn’t possible; there must be something she could do to help. She’d promised Mum.

Jack seemed close to tears now. He suddenly looked much younger than his eighteen years, much younger than she felt. ‘Go on,’ she said, taking pity. ‘Go see Bluey. I’ll be all right.’

‘Thanks, sis.’ He gave her a ghost of a smile. ‘I’ll be back by six. Don’t worry about tea. I’ll get fish and chips to celebrate you being home. I bet Mum could even eat them without making a mess.’

He wrapped Emma in another one of his great hugs, and escaped through the door before she could change her mind.

Emma went back into the lounge room, pulled up a chair beside her mother and started talking. Mum always loved to hear about her life in Hobart. She told her about Campbell College, and her classmates and the dress shop. About Alison and the zoo and the animals. She took hold of her hand, hoping to feel that squeeze again, however slight. Hoping for some sign her mother could hear her. Nothing.

Emma took a deep breath. ‘There’s a boy I like, Mum – Tom. He has a twin brother. They come from a very good family.’

Surely this news would get her attention. Mum always wanted to know if she’d met anybody nice. ‘Make sure he’s rich, sweetheart,’ she would say. ‘I loved your father, of course I did, but it was a hard life on the farm. Miles from anywhere, living off the land. I want more for my girl.’

Emma had roundly resented this advice. She’d loved their simple life back on the farm, as much as she hated moving to the filthy backstreets of Launceston. She missed the space and hills and fresh air. She missed the trees and animals and birds. She missed the wildflowers in spring, the taste of warm, frothy milk straight from the cow, and the vegetable garden that kept them amply supplied with fresh produce all year round. They could barely coax a single potato from Sparrow Lane’s exhausted soil.

A low groan came from the bed.

‘Mum?’ Emma leaned across and looked deeply into her eyes, desperate for some sign of the woman she knew and loved. Her mother’s eyes remained eerily unfocused, fixed on something nobody else could see. If she was in there, it was impossible to tell.

The dam finally burst and Emma crumpled into a blubbering mess. The worst thing, the thing that made her ashamed, was that her tears weren’t just for her mother. They were for herself as well.

Emma couldn’t breathe. She pulled the curtains aside and opened the grimy window. The chilly blast of air was like a blast of cold reality. There’d be no return to Hobart. No romance with Tom. No working at the zoo. No resuming the scholarship. Her chance of a higher education lay trampled in the wake of this tragedy. How could she leave her mother in this foul, stuffy room, dressed in soiled clothes and lying in her own filth? How could she abandon her to the tender mercies of drunken Mrs Shaw, and of 18-year-old Jack who meant well but was in way over his head? Tim wouldn’t be any help. Jack was right about their older brother. Timid Timmy, they used to call him – a boy who seemed to have been born frightened of the world. He’d grown into a man who ran from responsibility and closed his eyes to the hardships of life. Jack’s account of Tim’s visit rang true. Mum’s plight would have scared the hell out of him.

Emma wiped away the tears from her cheek. She may be the youngest – barely seventeen – but there was no getting away from it. She was also the best candidate to care for Mum.

A crush of painful memories tumbled in. The giddy excitement of opening the letter offering her the scholarship. Her first wide-eyed day in Hobart. Meeting the principal, Mrs Woolhouse.

‘So you want to be a doctor? You’re one of the brightest, most talented scholarship girls we’ve ever had here at Campbell College. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t achieve your goal. We have high hopes for you.’

What a shock it had been, being recognised for her brain by people other than her parents. And what a delight. She hadn’t dared to dream of such a thing, yet there she was, shaking the Principal’s hand, receiving the sort of accolades that she’d thought impossible for home-schooled farm girls. Her life in Hobart had been perfect. Her studies, her cosy room at Coomalong, the elegant library. Alison, and her work with the animals at the zoo. Arthur Reid had even promised her a paid, part-time job at the zoo when she finished school. A job that would have seen her through university until she finished her medical degree. Such bitter-sweet thoughts. She’d been going to find a cure for arthritis. It suddenly seemed a foolish and trivial ambition. Arthritis was the least of her mother’s problems.

Wind rattled the roof as the rain began in earnest. It came in sideways, spraying Emma’s face, but she was too numb to feel it. It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself. Time to pack her things away, light a fire, find Mum some clean clothes to wear.

‘I’m going out for some wood,’ she said. ‘Is there anything I can do for you first?’

Emma was almost glad Mum couldn’t answer. She knew what she’d say. Her mother’s voice sounded in her mind, clear as a bell. ‘Yes, you daft child. You know exactly what you can do for me. You can leave here and get your behind back to Hobart, quick smart.’