Her breath comes harder now, each a small mountain to be climbed, thankfully not an Everest, not yet. Eyes clenched tight against a gathering storm, I hear gentle eddies upon the seashore – in… out – foam filled as they retreat in silence – or fits and starts of wintry breezes in the grand old fig through the window; just the sigh now, at the end, of the outermost foliage; the rattle of brittle, waxy leaves.

Soon, there comes a tapitty-tap, a respectful knock followed by the metallic click of the latch. All at once my mother’s next breath seems such a private thing. I feel we should own it, share it between ourselves having laboured together so hard. With bated breath I await her next. Deep inside, an icy claw clutches my gizzard. It’s why I’m bunched over the bed like a half-closed pocketknife. I’m terrified staff will recognise a flush of guilt when I also pray it’s her last.

Fuck off comes to mind when the door swings wide but is quickly gone. It was never Mum, nor rarely me. In breezes Rhonda, the RN on shift, and I defer. Amazingly, Mum responds to Rhonda’s deep, manly voice while she sleeps restlessly to my own. 

But after all, who am I? Haley’s Comet? Eclipsed by life’s demands whilst all the while, Father Time cruelly beats his drum? In times, oh how trifling, when I crested my sun, there was a brief warmth that spoke of dust and gases and star formation, and a conundrum of maternal gravity that, once broached, took on a repellence to equal attraction. How I wish I could go back and fill with love the vacuum of those long years when I sped selfishly beyond reach.   

‘I’m here, Mum,’ seems such small comfort, a pissy grain of sand against the sheer weight of

her lifetime of selfless caring. But it’s all I have. Regardless, as the raddle of pain peeps beyond the grey fug that’s old-man-morphine, she’s begun a distant chant that’s set to haunt.

… could you please come soon … could you please come soon …

When I press the buzzer and reach for her hand beneath the covers, there’s a weak flutter of nails; downy feathers, soft against the calloused work-weary palms I’d thought till now emotionally impervious. How wrong was I? How to remain strong, safe within my shell, when I gaze knowingly upon the wizened pebble that once was my Uluru? When I’ve sensed the dizzy heights of those that care; seen the wreck when the pot runs dry such that there is naught to be had but sweet surrender? For Mum; nine long years at the last, unassailable; withdrawn from the world within the quiet bastion of aged care.

Deep in thought, I study her hand and count the seconds. Maybe the buzzer’s burnt out. Maybe no one hears beneath the corridor cacophony of our resident screamer, Cloris, two doors down; a constant, building ululation not unlike the deep lowing of a scrub-bull until, in the dead of night, it greets its challenger with a roar to wake the dead. 

For now, Cloris might as well be the boogey-woogley bugler from Mars. Because inside Room 13, as our bright and colourful resident’s shingle informs: Charlotte Anne; born Narrandera NSW, grew up in Orange, barracks for the Eels, has four sons, blah-de-blah, there’s no let-up, nothing else in my mother’s shrinking universe.

… could you please come soon … could you please come soon …

Her skin is translucent, her veins impossibly blue-black – a tangle of life’s trials narrowed and bunched such that they’d barely seep tepid, soap-softened water let alone life-thickened syrup fresh from the bellows.

Rhonda points out a depression in Mum’s throat. A tiny canyon, it pulses weakly, irregularly. She says it’s a sign. Of what? I won’t ask, but why haven’t I noticed? Or that her hair isn’t as grey as I’d thought – more a salt‘n’pepper – thin and wispy like wind-blown streamers of last season’s Bunched Kerosene grass against the dazzling alabasters of Rhonda’s freshened bedding.  

The doctor is here at last. I hold Mum’s hand as a cannula is inserted. There’s also a gadget called a syringe drive, electronically driven, black cased – ominous at the bedhead. It’s explained to me that it will ensure a gentler road ahead – a cooling mist over sylph-like, highway grade black-top. Also, that if there’s a bad patch of corrugations, the dosage can be tweaked. Which is understood, sans explanation, to be a signpost which screams ‘point of no return, one-way traffic, no stopping or turning’! 

When Rhonda pads softly away, mum’s shingle knocks woodenly, reminding us Anne has four sons.

…

It was when I was at the absolute zenith, light years away at Leopold Downs cattle station in   the Kimberly that I placed a trunk-call to my mother in Sydney – a miserable few coins of reassurance after months of silence – her whitehaired second eldest sweating at the pub pay-phone to drunken jeers and catcalls, in town with the crew to piss-up and chase pussy.

‘I’m still here Mum, somewhere, but you know. How’s ’t all goin’? How’s Dad? How’s Mike, Matt, Chris? Mightn’t make it back this wet season…’ 

Instead of words, I got sobs. Fuck! Mum never cries! It was because of Mike – Michael John, eldest by two years. To my credit, I did come – that time – didn’t know what melanoma was but came anyway. Or that a six-inch gash in Mike’s chest cavity in search of such a thing was a death sentence back in those days. But I did come.

We played golf, had a beer at the local, but only ever one before he went pale and quiet. Went with him to see Dr McCarthy too, the oncology guru at Royal Nth Shore Hospital where Mike and he shared dark humour and a few ‘fucks’of frustration together over the latest tests. Back home, Mum seemed bright enough, flitting around behind the scenes as was her way. Dad was maudlin, as was his way. It was when he began to write poetry. At some point in time, Mike said to me, ‘Whachygonnado… hang around like a bad smell until I cark it?’ I only wish I had. 

And so, deep-space slingshot again, this time to planet Rockhampton Downs NT. From there, it was just a parsec or two further north to Innesvale Station in the Victoria River district. That was when I got the ‘Get your arse here, and quick stick!’, a call from my mother on the homestead radiotelephone. As I discovered later, there was also a letter sent some weeks before, a much gentler ‘Perhaps think about coming home,’ which apparently went around the world and finally to dead letters. 

Mike was twenty-three when he passed away. That night, Dad looked a hundred and three when he poured the first beer Mum ever drank. It was also the first of my near-earth misses, this one by a city block in a speeding cab. But it was a lesson. When stars super-nova, they don’t hang about for distant comets.

There’s another knock on the door – two of the Kiribati Islander girls – staff sent to turn Mum over. It’s the bedsores, the worst of them an angry raw mass on the point of her bony, left shoulder. Rhonda’s fresh pillowslip also needs a change, blood-soaked from a scabbed-over, shaved but not excised BCC on the left-side of Mum’s forehead – stark reminder of medical pragmatism. What use the scalpel when the sun’s going down?

One of the islander girls buzzes for Eeata, the RN on shift – mother hen to her countrymen, and magnet for emotional train-wrecks like Anne’s second eldest son. Brown skinned and voluptuous, Eeata glows with Polynesian vivaciousness. Today, she has a daffodil in her hair. In weaker moments, I see myself sobbing on Eeata’s shoulder – wonder if she feels my unshed tears for what is now truly upon us all – a blanket that lies like a thick, grey pall over the room.

Eeata’s sunshine never fails to lift it. She cackles agreeably when I compliment her décor, pointing out for her the wisdom of our saying, ‘Flowers don’t sit well upon the heads of westerners.’ The confusion in her eyes is plain to see. How to paint a picture of airport gangplanks, grass-skirts, acres of toned burnished umber, and our illustrious Prime Minister’s patronizing grin as he bends for the traditional lei.

‘Bein’ lazy today, Anne, aren’t we?’ Eeata laughs, leaning close ‘Never seen you at bingo. What’s come over you, Anne?’ Mum says

‘Yes, lazy … lazy.’

It’s no more than a drunken slur, an utterance that but for Eeata’s sharp ears would be dismissed as delirium. But it’s also the sweet peals of a bellbird in the rainforest, stunning us all to silence. Then she croaks,

‘Where’s Steve?’

Eeata cackles and points. ‘Your handsome son is here, Anne. Look, he has a foldaway bed next to you, been there for days and nights. Eatin’ all your meals for you, greedy thing.’

Still smiling, Eeata decides ointment and tape for now – on Dr’s advice, a tweak of the little black box for head lolling. When I point out how much Elastoplast loves eyebrows, (in regard to dressing changes) Eeata nods agreeably, lips buttoned tight – they all do – all the Kiribati sisters. It’s ‘the signs’, I know – Rhonda’s signs. There would be more. They would see them. And so, there’s a communal sigh when I go for a walk. I’ve heard their busy chatter a dozen times through the shingle-door when I leg-it along the corridor for a coffee. It’s a comfort.

Outside, it’s wintry sun and tepid coffee. It’s shit – aged-care safety regulation – but who gives a fuck. Right now, I’m numb and happily so. Besides, it’s warm and sheltered in the courtyard, a wintry sun cresting gleaming banks of newly installed solar panels. Outside, I can breathe air that’s not COVID-regulation sterile, and dream of steaming hot coffee. There’s a grey-haired lady at the corner of the building, doing much the same as I’m doing. I know her face, said ‘hullo’ once or twice during rare visits at bingo. She catches my eye. I’m trapped. 

For her, it’s recently deceased hubby who apparently was God – ream after ream – a diatribe, a life history without so much as a pause for me to say, ‘Excuse me, Mum’s still alive and kicking, and right this minute, probably chanting could you please come soon. But I know Mum. She would have listened politely, and so I try. But my mind’s elsewhere. It’s the damned shingle again; has four sons.

…

Matthew McMurry – third in line – suicided at 36. Dad and I attended, leaving Mum to wring her hands a hundred and fifty miles away. Even so, she was our rock. What would she do? What would she advise comes next? What in hell do we do without her to tell us? And yet, thank Christ she’s not here!

Out at the block, a few kms along the Manilla Rd, we soon worked it out – the clean-up, the   dog, the piecing together, the guilt. Other bads were uncooked eggs in the frypan, a trail of aluminium beer cans like Hansel and Gretels breadcrumbs from house to Holden sedan, the fail-safe fitting from exhaust to cab, the letter in the glovebox, and the all-pervading smell. Worst of all, then as much as now, three decades on, was Tamworth Police Precinct, front counter. The OIC looks Dad up and down.

‘I’m sorry Sir,’ he says with a sigh ‘if you could wait just a minute. There are some belongings.’

There isn’t much, a cut-off beer carton full of knickknacks when it’s words we both crave; explanations, a voice from the dead like in the movies, a benevolent echo absolving those left behind wondering. Then we see it. At the very bottom, there’s a scrunched-up page from an Elders Stock and Station note-book – the one that comes before ‘ewes; breed-chart.’ Dad unfurls it and howls like a baby. I seize it from his pincered fingers and hug him tight, trying to be the strong one. Over his shoulder it’s a moving target, racked by explosive sobs – Matt’s last will and testament – a dozen lines, one item per line; all that’s left that’s not hocked or willed back to his parents for want of a wife that’s somewhere, and friends he’s held at arm’s length until they also are somewhere.

When Eeata appears, waving me inside, Dad and I are all alone in the world. There’s not another soul, not the roar of a motor car, not an office phone amidst the hustle and bustle of a busy, regional Precinct at mid-day. There’s just the two of us, drowning in reception, leaned helplessly against the front counter. It’s an image that sees me stride out with renewed purpose across fresh cut dew-drenched lawn. I’ve signed to Eeata I’m coming. She and I already had the heart- to-heart regarding my long history of near-earth misses. She knows I will not miss this one.

Mum stopped eating a month ago, just like she said she would. Not outright, not enough to alarm, just enough so that over time the fire would flicker and fade beneath a blanket of white ash. What she did peck at was enough for Eeata to reassure me over the phone, ‘Yes, Anne’s eating, ate almost half her breakfast this morning’ – breakfast being a sparrow’s portion of Greek-style yoghurt – a spoonful to please, and a firm shake of the head at the prospect of more. What else? How else? Mum’s passing would be the flight of an owl, a thief in the night. Her passing would give no one else pain.

…

It was Matt dubbed Anne ‘The Owl’. There was a family photograph taken during one of my outermost orbits. It was happier days at some metro club or pub – Matt being ‘the entertainer’ as he was dubbed back then – Dad pulling funny faces, chinking glasses with Christopher Martin – youngest and last to fly the coop, last to bear the brunt of the Owl’s purported hyper-sensory powers. Mum was caught front and centre in Matt’s flash-bomb, her eyes staring into the camera lens like a startled barn-owl. Ever after, she was affectionately known as ‘Owley’ by close and extended family. According to Chris, the Owl could stop a speeding bullet and hear ants fart (and smell them). She could jump tall buildings and ruffle at the nape before a lie was even shaped. Brother number four swore bound and blindfolded the mighty Owl could sniff out a dog-eared Penthouse Mag beneath a mountain of dirty clothes, and swoop with unerring accuracy upon the instigator of bad behaviour.

…

Each breath now is anything up to a minute, yet her pulse is strong. On the telly, an orca births in a media bubble at Sea World. For each agitated, swirling somersault, there’s the flex of a tiny, emerging tailfin, and yet another laboured breath. When bub emerges in a whoosh of inky blackness, there’s something else, a jarring rattle that sets my pulse racing. Perhaps she’s just clearing her throat. Maybe it’s the shingle door swung to, just as junior goes ploonk amidst cheers and howls of joy in the strange dry world beyond marine plexiglass. Or some shit-of-a-kid fangin’ by on a pushbike with a clacker on his front wheel – a fold of Kellogg’s cardboard and a plastic peg. Or, was it… well, you know?

It’s not long before there’s another; the gurgle of the sink after the dishes are done, a soggy gargle sucked rather than blown, heralding the next stage of dying as forecast by the palliative care lady. How kind of her. How generous of her to set out a roadmap of failing anatomical functions that smacks of abattoir shut-down procedure at 3.00 pm sharp. So kindly meant, so suitably forewarned, it was all I could do not to shut her outside with Cloris.   

Alarmed, I buzz for Paul, another of the Kiribati angels. Didn’t he say earlier he has something to dissipate the fluid, something to help, not necessarily stop what’s unstoppable? While I wait, I’m all ‘I’m here Mum, Paul has something for your throat.’ I have her hand under the covers, and for just a heartbeat, her eyelids stutter – sightless and alarmed, lips moving silently. She knows I’m in close orbit. But she knows all about death rattles. Fuck yeah! Along the corridor, Cloris starts up again.

…

Before Mike, it was Anne’s mother. After Mike, it was Dad’s mother, followed by Dad’s father, and shortly after, Anne’s younger brother. At 90, it seems she’s nursed so many. It’s what she did, selflessly and if possible, at home. What an agony then, for her to imagine brother number three – ‘the entertainer’ – alone in his beat-up, beloved Kingswood, bereft of comfort at the end. Worse still, brother number four – after a lifetime of schizophrenia and alcoholism – lying broken and bleeding upon the shores of Lake Menindee. Oh, to be there – to wipe the sweat from his brows – hold his clammy hand as the death rattles take hold.

…

Paul is a comfort. Eeata said he’s shy. Even so, over the past few days during his shift, we’ve talked footy, politics, sheep, women, and compared kids’ crazy games. There’s an Island one smacks of schooldays ‘red-rover-cross-over’ except for the addition of a weird, rubbery vine fashioned into a lance – think you’re dead rather than you’re it. Paul laughs self-consciously, and we go quiet for a moment, picturing the scene we both have in our minds, staring across Mum’s prone form. It’s then that a sombre mood returns in ‘Room 13 – Charlotte Anne’, one that shrivels laughter’s warmth until the husks of its joyful peals drop to the vinyl flooring like autumn leaves. Wasn’t it only yesterday, amongst footy, politics, sheep and women that Mum’s eyes flew wide – as did mine and Paul’s – when she gasped, ‘Don’t stop… I’m enjoying the talking!’

Outside, through open curtains and ceiling-to-floor glass panels, headlights flicker and fade beyond darkening shrubbery. How strange. Wasn’t it also barely moments ago when Eeata charged Mum with first-degree laziness? Wasn’t it through the very same windows – bathed in mid-day brightness – I’d been left pondering a will-o’-the-wisp – the subtle change in the quality of sunlight – a melancholic delineation that somehow defines am from pm – An aberration privy to those that set vigil for the dying, when other-worldly concepts intrude upon the mundane? Manifestation of the beat of time itself? For now, I shudder at the thought of dusk’s gloaming without Paul’s companionship.

‘Another one we used t’ play,’ Paul goes on, ‘makes y’ grit y’ teeth properly… now … same way. But

at least,’ he grins, ‘you’re alive.’ He describes an exotic island fruit. Wind-fallen, aged and dried, it’s set alight then hurled at your opponent for a laugh – a fiery water bomb that scars for life! In the dim light from the hallway, I can’t help but glance at Paul’s inner left forearm. From wrist to elbow, it’s a stepladder of pale, thin scars on milk-sweetened mocha. Once more, he challenges the cloistered oppressiveness of ‘Room 13. ‘Nother one again,’ he says, lifting it to the light ‘… courage thing this one… you know… for the girls.’ Eeata told me already; matchsticks lit and left to smoulder. ‘True, bro,’ Paul says, shaking his head at the stupidity, perhaps remembering the twang of burnt hair and flesh. ‘We all got ’em!’ he laughs. I see the scars. I don’t ask if the girl is Eeata.

…

Paul and Eeata have a special connection beyond Kiribati ties. Never having set foot off their Island home, they landed at Brisbane airport together. What followed then was years of study and prac’ before a posting to Longreach as qualified R.Ns. As Paul explains, in Longreach, he felt some of what he’d left behind on the island – the simple things (minus rubbery assegais and fiery fruit cocktails). Back in room 13, things are moving on for Mum. I reassure Paul it’s seems less, but when he’s paged away into night-softened corridors, I see it’s the same as it was. Mum would be proud of me, I’m sure.

Paul hands over to Courtney at 10.30. Mum is gently turned, and the syringe drive scrutinized. Courtney is all hand-on-heart I’ll be shaken in my foldaway at the slightest change. She’s spoken with Eeata There’s no need. I’m confident as I pull the coverlet over my head that sleep for me tonight is the supplementary number in million-dollar Lotto. For me, coffee after supper is high octane aircraft fuel in a 50’s era Villier’s cement mixer. Nevertheless, it comes. And with it, the worst of my near-earth misses.

…

Taree airport, mid north coast NSW.

I have my bag from the carousel. I’ve made it! All the same, I cross virtual fingers, ever damned one I can. Mum has a way of understating drama. Soon enough, grey-haired, pony-tailed Derek – love-gen renegade, Dad’s best mate – strides through the main entrance. There’s something about his manner as he comes towards me. It’s the hustle that’s lacking, eyes averted until the last. All at once, I hate him. He’s telling me what I don’t want to know.

Wingham Memorial Services Club

It’s not lost on me that I’m front and centre of dad’s post-retirement tribal hangout. My hand jackhammers. I have double vision. One moment it’s a splodge of blue ink on a much-folded A-4 page, the next, a sea of expectant faces all the way to the auditorium exit. Some I know, family and close friends. Most, I don’t. In close orbit, Dad had quite a gravitational pull, something I’d almost forgotten about whilst deep space roaming.

I’m fine until I mention how we used to enjoy a beer together at the local, but choke on a gobstopper when I try to say sadly, not often enough. It’s not lost on me that close friends and family would know that as well. With my Uncle Gerry’s arm around my shoulder, I hold it together through the rest of the elegy.

…

All at once, there’s a sudden burst of blinding lights. Am I back at the airport?! Derek hovers close, his stubbled chin inches from my face, shaking me by the shoulder. ‘Sorry Steve,’ he goes ‘but your dad passed away.’ This time, I hate him so much I hiss ‘Fuck off’. Courtney smiles, unfazed, content to let me surface in the soft glow of her blonde halo. ‘Sometimes,’ she says, touching my wrist, ‘it speeds things up when we turn them in the night. But you have time Steve. This time, you have time.’ They’re the sweetest words I’ll ever hear.

It’s well after 1.30 am when Eeata comes in. Courtney tells me later she’d insisted she be told. With her beautiful black mane untamed and draped around her shoulders, dark, sleep-crinkled eyes alight – with the parting touch of a lover’s caress? –  she pads softly into ’Room 13 – lately Charlotte Anne’. At last, I thrill to the hug I yearned for. She is perfect. ‘Better getchya dressed, Anne,’ she says over my shouder, just like it’s wake up and coffee-time. ‘Warm stuff, eh? Cold down home, down Wingham way they reckon. That handsome son o’ yours’ll know, won’t he?’

In Mum’s cupboard, I rummage for her tan slacks – luck onto the floral top she loved, both buried beneath a neatly folded stack of nighties. In the bottom drawer, there’s an emerald-green woollen cardigan she refused to surrender to the ragbag. ‘See, Anne?’ Eeata laughs, ‘your raggy old jumper and tan slacks … hate black doncha, old fusspot you are.’

Out in the corridor, I hear their talk while Eeata and Courtney do what they gotta do. Tonight, there’s a respectful and busy murmur through the shingle-door rather than giggles and the familiar fft of pressure relief that usually follows me along the corridor.  

It’s hard for me to look at Mum when I get the call. She has her teeth back in, which agapes her mouth in a rictus. Theres’s a waxen pallor already a sheen upon her face. It shrinks my gonads to think that the whole effect is contrived China doll rather than the sheer simplicity that was always the Owl. Nevertheless, with her lids tightly shut, hands folded neatly across the hem of her green cardigan, Mum’s hush is stern, ‘Can’t you see? It’s for them, not for you. Or even me!’ 

Talk turns to Eeata’s homeland, which leads to praise and my heartfelt thanks to Paul in his absence, which somehow leads impossibly to the WW2 Japanese occupation in Kiribati. There’s the chair Paul had earlier on for Eeata, pushed back beside Mum’s bookshelf laden with odds and sods and owls. Eeata rests her elbow beside the pot-gutted, wooden one with bright orange D. J. Trump avian crest. Anne’s favourite, it was a birthday gift from her granddaughter, something Kate – our arty youngest nestling – lucked onto during one of her many forays into the delightful disorder of op-shops.  

Courtney claims the bathroom wall, a tiny portion of it. Slim and tall, fair-haired and softly spoken, she leans stork-like with one leg up. She has a smile for Eeata’s loud and forthright manner. Me too. It’s just not reflected in my eyes.  

Eeata tells of a mass grave exhumation by the U.S military when she was a child. According to the   elders, well-entrenched Japanese soldiers once repelled a seaborne liberation attempt by US forces with devastating loss of life. Five decades on, guided to densely overgrown, beach-front burial sites, a U.S. forensics team were dumbfounded when it was revealed that the US Marines had been buried with dignity, row upon row beneath the sandy loam; each with rifle to hand, dog tag carefully arranged for future scrutiny.

It’s totally out of left field. It’s salivating over cheese, crackers and avocado dip whilst emptying shit-cans. It’s Eeata the magician, instinctive grief-councillor extraordinaire. All at once, there’s a world out there again. After a gee-whiz or two, I pit Kiribati’s WW2 legacy against Torrens Creek’s, a small town – a dot on the map west of Townsville. There’s just a smidgen about death, literally the elephant in the China shop – a description of the ruins of an enormous morgue facility to house the bodies of US servicemen and women until mercy flights back home. Mostly, it’s about the starkness of stacks of rusty five-gallon fuel cans – sole reminder of two overgrown airstrips big enough for B52 bombers – a remote bush sanctuary far beyond the range of anticipated Japanese raids. There’s more, until my voice cracks – knowing the Owl would perhaps frown at the ludicrousness of trying to paint a picture of Swiss-cheese cattle yards cobbled together from the abandoned interlocking landing pads. Let someone else speak!   

Courtney contributes snippets of her childhood on a family aggregation north of Winton – fondly recalled days of sheep, horses, cattle, and supervised Distance Ed on the fly-wired homestead veranda. When she catches my eye, the words die on her lips.

‘She liked simple,’ Courtney says, complimenting my choices. ‘Very particular Anne was, but she liked simple.’

Outside, in the corridor, it’s deathly quiet. With a deep breath and a final glance, I switch the light off for mum, then click the latch. I know I can’t wake her, but still… and I know she’s gone. But where? Did she glide on silent wings to sit with Cloris to still her demons, a final curtain call after a lifetime of giving?

On the short walk to the carpark, I stop for a moment outside the blankness of Room 13. A warm night breeze stirs the leaves above me in the old fig tree. A shiver takes me by surprise when there’s a squark and flurry of wings in the upper canopy. My imagination sweeps me away as I hurry from the shadows, desperate to caste around the heavens again. I had no idea how much I missed the stars.   

In the vastness of space, I wrinkle my nose to the acrid taint of super-heated hyper-giants, and shiver amongst clouds of icy gases. A storm of neutrinos plucks at my tail as I race across the cosmos.  And in the velvety blackness, garlanded with the brilliance of a million paper daisies, I hear the echo of Courtney’s parting words. They’ll inspire the epitaph I’ll one day come to write.  

Our mother, our rock; a simple life. Simplest of all, she simply cared.