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My mother survived the dentist although she emerged after one hour of root canal treatment, looking as though a large brandy might be in order. She didn’t whinge, though. Not once.
“They kept telling me to open my mouth,” she said. “I told them you always tell me to close it and old habits die hard!”
“You were brave,” I said.
“For some reason, the worse the pressure, the harder I laugh. I saw myself lying there like a giant fish. A grouper. And it took the pain away.”
I patted her knee. “Mind if I do a quick shop on the way home? You rest in the car?”
“Go for it. I need bananas, by the way. And some of those wonderful strawberries you found last week.”
“Deal.”
I returned to the car about half an hour later.
“Did you know,” Esther said, “that this car park has ghosts?”
“What kind of ghosts?”
“The car next door to this one started up on its own. Like the car in the Stephen King book. Remember that story?”
“It’s not going now.”
“No,” she said. “It switches on an off.”
“Might be the building’s air-conditioning system,” I said.
“Oh, I worked that out. But I prefer the idea of ghosts. Much more exciting.”
“Fine. As long as you know the difference between real and fantasy. Otherwise I’ll have to club you.”
“So far so good. And I’ll do my own clubbing, thanks.” She grinned then, and we drove home, laughing.
“What do you want for Mother’s Day?” I asked.
“The usual.”
“What’s that?”
“A hug.”
“Well, you’re pushing it. But ok. And I’ll pick you up to bring you home to lunch. Any requests?”
“Nothing will ever taste as good as the year you and your brother made me a breakfast of a half cooked pork chop and a rubbery fried egg. You were about three. John was eight. Best meal I’ve ever had. The toast was burned, too. Wonderful. All of it. Your father made the tea. He made good tea. And good rissoles.”
We were both silent. Teary. Remembering years gone by.
Not so long ago, I took Esther to lunch at our local Waterfront Café. It was a sparkling day and she’d been a little unwell. The seafood pizza didn’t liven her up as much as I’d hoped so I decided she should stay with us for a few days until she felt better.
“I’ll go and get your clothes. You stay here. I’ll be back in a flash.” I paused at the door of the café, returned to my mother. “I do mean STAY! Do not move. Do not even change seats. I expect to find you here when I return.”
My mother smiled and nodded. I left. Nervous. I have lost my mother in shopping centres. In supermarkets. Even at an airport.
Once – after she came to stay and forgot her pills – I dropped her at the local medical centre. “I’ll run and get some ice-cream while you see the doctor,” I said. “Wait here till I get back.”
It was a sweltering morning, a couple of days before Christmas. The crowds were manic. I was frazzled. The ice-cream was melting. My mother, when I returned to the centre, was nowhere to be found.
I charged outside and looked around. Spotted a McDonald’s in walking distance. My mobile rang as I headed towards it.
“How’s it going?” my husband asked, chirpy.
“I’ve lost my mother and the ice-cream’s melting,” I snapped.
“Right,” he said. “Talk to you later.” I heard the belly laugh before he cut the connection.
She was nowhere in McDonald’s. Fuming, with one hot flush pounding in after another, I returned to the medical centre. Empty. I sat in the car for 10 minutes, the air-con blasting, the ice-cream beyond saving.
“One last look and I’m leaving her to find her own way back,” I muttered.
I found her sitting in a corner of the waiting room. ““Where have you been?” she asked, a picture of innocence. “I’ve been waiting for ages.”
“Get in the car,” I hissed. “Now.”
Out of hearing range of strangers, I turned on her: “Where the hell have you been? I told you to not to move.”
“I didn’t move,” she said, eyes wide.
In the car, I sniffed the air. Sniffed her shirt. The smell of deep fry hung off her like a second skin.
“You’ve been eating hamburgers and chips,” I accused.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
It took a year to get the confession. She knew by then I’d laugh. She’d ducked under the table when I charged through McDonald’s.
When I returned to the Waterfront Café, my mother was gone again. Of course. A complete stranger told me she was sitting at the end of the ferry wharf, chatting up her father. “He’s bought her chocolates,” she said, happily. “They’re getting along like a house on fire.”
I sighed. Ordered a coffee. And waited.
Last night, the moon was round and full. The water shivered with silver. A magical, spectral light. It was so still, I could hear cutlery clinking on the other side of Lovett Bay. The sound of our neighbour’s daughter practising her clarinet carried up the hill. “Heavenly,” I thought, unashamedly sentimental.
It is our habit each night, when we sit down to dinner, to run through our plans for the following day. “It’s a mother day, tomorrow,” I told Bob. He looked up from his fiery lamb curry and raised his eyebrows.
“Medical or social?”
“Dentist.”
“Ah!” he said, knowing the trip will involve a visit to Esther’s favorite café, the Jammy Cow, for four scoops of ice-cream, a very hot cappuccino and a chicken schnitzel wrap to take home to eat later.
My mother adores this café. The manager, Nyree, makes such a fuss of her. “You’re lookin’ great!” she says, whipping around the counter to lay a gentle hand on my mother’s arm. I understood long ago, that it is her touch that means most to my mother. When you are old and live alone, a fleeting second of skin on skin has the power to sustain. Even heal.
My mother fluffs up. “Not bad for an old girl, am I?”
“Who’s talkin’ old here? Huh? Not me. I’m lookin’ at prime!” And my mother fluffs again, and she feels – I am sure – as though she is standing in a pool of warm sunlight.
“Now,” says Nyree. “Five scoops, right?”
My mother grins. It is a weekly game.
“Just four. Five is greedy.” A white china bowl is filled with chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla and burnt fig and flung on the table with great gusto. My mother sighs happily. Picks up her spoon. Her face is ecstatic. Another truth hits me. When we are limited by age and ability, the mundane becomes celebration.
“How you keep that amazing figure…” Nyree says, walking away, shaking her head in mock wonder. My mother straightens in her seat. Proud.
It is the kindness of strangers that makes her day.
The nights are suddenly colder and our hens have gone off the lay. They too, are slowing down with the changing seasons. We are getting two or three eggs at best, when eight to ten is the summer tally.
The hens are known as Bob’s girls and have names and distinct personalities. The four glossy black ones (Obamiana, Martina, Lucia and Queenie) are full-chested and their fire engine red cockscombs point skywards like a signal from earth to space. They are bossy and try to bully the smaller brown hens into giving up a fat worm or a hard-won spider. They rarely succeed
There are seven brown hens. They hang out in groups of two and four and there is one loner who guards her scratching patches with great ferocity. We call her Esther after my mother. She is our fourth or fifth Esther, of course. So that when my mother asks how her namesake is faring, we can say quite honestly: “Strong as an ox.”
“Still laying?” she asks.
“No. Enjoying retirement,” we reply, not letting on that the original Esther is long gone.
I suspect my mother knows of our duplicity, but we all play the game because a strong strain of superstition runs in our family and my mother might feel vulnerable for a moment or two, if she knew Esther had dropped off the perch (so to speak).
My mother celebrated her 89th birthday last month, by throwing away the walking frame she’s had since her triple by-pass and heart valve replacement surgery (Christmas eve, 2008).
“I can do anything,” she announced firmly, stepping into the tinny to fly across the moat for a birthday lunch. Her hubris wobbled for a moment or two at Easter, though, when she nearly went overboard. Then she rallied: “You’re not rid of me yet,’ she announced, “although you gave it a damn good try!”
She checked out her leg for blood and was disappointed not to find any. “They’ll never believe me back at the retirement village. Not without blood.” And we laughed and laughed.
I remembered her words, too, a couple of days after her delicate and dangerous surgery. She told me in a raspy voice that the doctors had guaranteed her ten years.
I began counting on my fingers. Stopped at 98. She winked, and grinned: “But I reckon I’ll be able to push it out to 15,” she said. And laughed her head off at the look on my face.
“103?” I said faintly.
“Get used to the idea, kid,” she said, having the last word as usual. And I, too, laughed because I admire her toughness. My mother is not a woman who knows how to give in. I watch her and I learn from her. Which is a turnaround. When I was much younger, I thought I knew much more than she did.
We call autumn the quiet time on Pittwater. It’s not that life slows down – although it does a little. It’s simply that there is less cacophony. The cicadas disappear, the white cockatoos rise late and retire early. The kookaburras laugh with less hilarity, the leopard moths fade away along with the golden orb spiders. The snakes – all but a few and those still hanging around are sluggish, retire to their dens to sleep away the cold weather. The goannas still lurk, though. Only yesterday, a long fat monster shot up a spotted gum as I walked past with the dog, hissing and swishing it’s tail in either warning or fear. Perhaps both.
There are more subtle, seasonal changes. Mushrooms and toadstools push their way through the earth overnight. Dew is thick and heavy and feels like rain when you brush past the fanned fronds of cabbage palms. The spring-born joeys are big enough now, to wander from their mother’s pouches and they stare, eyes wide and curious, as though they cannot work out what species you belong to.
The wind seems to go elsewhere. There is no song of causarinas, no branches hurtling through the air, no afternoons of tolling halyards. The stillness slows your spirit and by five o’clock, when Tarrangaua is in full shadow, we begin to think a fire is called for. To ease the chill.
It is a time for slow cooking. Lamb shanks with canneloni beans. Osso buco with mashed potatoes or polenta. A belly of pork basted regularly during a cook that lasts for hours and fills the house with the mouth-watering aromas of garlic, fennel, lemon and rosemary. Soups, too. Pea and ham. Minestrone. Vichysoisse. All dished up with robust breads. And perhaps some cheese to finish.
This is the time the humble but indispensable onion is at its best. An onion and gruyere tart is sweet and rich. Make sure the onions are fully cooked or there will be a bitterness that will disappoint in the finished dish.
Desserts seem less sinful in cooler weather. Does anything beat an apple tarte tatin or lightly poached spiced pears grilled quickly and served with cream or mascarpone?
Food gives such comfort.
This is how I make apple tarte tatin:
60 gr unsalted butter
¾ cup castor sugar
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
6 to 8 pink lady or Fuji apples, peeled, cored and quartered.
Melt the butter in a 26 cm (or thereabouts) paella pan (or any pan you can put in the oven safely). Add the castor sugar and lemon juice and stir over medium heat until it dissolves. Then leave on the heat without stirring, until it caramelises. Add the apple and cook, turning the pieces, until they are all coated with the sauce and the cooking process has begun. Place a sheet of (bought) butter puff pastry over the top (if it is too small, roll it to the required size or cut an extra piece to fit), tuck in the edges and place in an oven at 200C degrees. Bake until the pastry is a deep gold and the sauce is bubbling thickly.
I always over cook the pastry in this dish. It makes it crisper. Turn out very carefully on to a plate. Watch the caramel. It burns! Serve with cream doused with a bit of brandy or vanilla ice-cream.
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