PERSPECTIVES

MR GORBACHEV Words Ryan Butta

There were only the two of us at Mr Gorbachev’s funeral. Through tear-blurred eyes I watched the shovel blade cut through the sods of earth, the hole in the ground growing deeper, rounder, darker.

It was a beautiful day for a funeral. Not ominous or gloomy. That’s not how death works. It was a bright clear day with nothing between us and that high blue sky. Mr Gorbachev would have loved that sky.

It was always Dad’s job to bury the pets. For the past year Dad had started waking in the middle of the night. Mum would find him in the bathroom, dressed and shaved, ready to go. Most times he couldn’t tell you where. Other times it was to the local library though none of us could ever recall seeing Dad read a book. Last week it was Gorbachev.

‘I need to know how to spell Gorbachev,’ he told my mother.

‘We’ll look it up in the morning,’ she said. ‘It’s 3am.’

‘I need to know how to spell Gorbachev now,’ he insisted. So they had sat together, heads hunched over the telephone screen as they googled up Gorbachev. The next night Dad was up again. This time he went head first through the loungeroom wall.

The aged care facility was only a few houses away from where we lived, wedged in between the hospital and the train line. He would be safer there, but when he left we all felt that something in our family had been severed, a shared history broken, separate futures to be lived.

Dad didn’t want to go. ‘Get me out of here,’ he would say as we waved goodbye. Visits were restricted to an hour. ‘The virus,’ the nurse explained. Some days we only saw him through the fence, long minutes of just staring at each other as a passing coal train obliterated any chance of communication.

Mr Gorbachev was supposed to be Dad’s companion. We didn’t expect to bury Gorbachev before Dad. I packed down the soil with the back of the shovel and rolled a stone over the grave. There was a hollow in the top of the stone that we filled with water in the hope of attracting other birds to keep Mr Gorbachev company.

We were about to say a few words when the builder arrived. I forgot that he was coming around to fix the hole in the wall. He found us standing over the grave. ‘The bird?’ he asked. I nodded, not trusting myself with words. ‘My sister breeds budgies. I could get you another.’

I wasn’t ready for that. I was wondering how I would break the news to Dad about Mr Gorbachev. I sat down under the shade of Dad’s lemon tree to make the call.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi Dad.’

‘How’s Mr Gorbachev?’

‘He died last night, Dad.’ I couldn’t make out Dad’s response.

‘Sorry, I didn’t get that,’ I said.

Dad’s words came down the line slurred and broken.

‘Lucky bastard,’ he said. n Today’s the day. I’m taking the plunge. I’m going to do something I’ve always secretly dreamed about. Yep. Today I’m putting what I want to do first and giving myself permission to sit at my desk and write a novel.

Before I start though, I’d better get a jump on the day and pop a load of washing on the line, and now I’m outside I may as well feed the chooks. Oh, and if I don’t water those white petunias I potted last week they’ll be dead by this afternoon. But I draw the line at cleaning the pool which looks like it’s been filled with dirty dam water, again. No, I will not be cleaning that. Today is for my literary pursuits.

So, with another load of washing going, chooks sorted, plants watered, I breathe in the excitement of really starting my work of fiction. Having read lots of self-help books on how to commit to a project, I ignore the kitchen bench covered in the remnants of six people’s breakfast and coffee. I ignore the unmade beds and walk straight into the room once known as ‘the office’ and now newly rechristened ‘my writing space’. Here I’ll churn out great literature. Jennifer Byrne will no doubt pore over my novel and want to discuss it on a book show. She might even want to Zoom me in live. In which case, the desk needs a dust, the thumbtacked school notices from

OF WEET-BIX & WILDE

Words Emily Harris

last year need to come down, the Post-it note reminders with my passwords to everything need to be hidden and the piles of mail need to be opened and filed.

Finally, it’s done, everything is tidyish and orderly and I’m ready to write. I open a beautiful new document page and imagine the possibilities it holds. I just have to let it flow through my fingertips and on to the page.

Nothing springs to mind. I decide I’ll apply the Pomodoro Technique. Twenty-five minutes of uninterrupted work followed by a five-minute break to recharge. Reset then repeat. I’ll be done in no time. But first I’ll need a timer. Back to the kitchen for a quick rummage through the bits ’n’ pieces drawer. No timer, but I do find the meat thermometer, which I searched for last Christmas. The dirty cereal bowls are still glaring at me from the kitchen bench, with leftover Weet-Bix dried solid on the sides. I throw them in the dishwasher, then—arguing with myself about time management— chuck in the rest of the mess too. Hard-won experience tells me dinner will be so much easier if the dishwasher has already done a cycle and been emptied.

Right, back to my atelier. My head is buzzing with ideas. Perhaps I’ll start with a murder? I sail past the bathroom and leave the towels lying on the ground, past the basket full of clean yet unfolded clothes. Not for me the chores of a mundane housewife. In my head I am already having a literary affair with Oscar Wilde.

These daydreams are interrupted by an insistent beeping coming from the laundry. The washing machine has stopped mid-cycle. Damn, I know what that means. Because of the drought we now have to pump bore water straight up into our overhead tank and then gravity feed it into the house, but the tank is so low it’s pumping dirty water and the filters of the washing machine are all blocked. Total pain in the neck.

Racing outside to start the pump I notice the kids haven’t let the corona-crisis Cavoodle puppies out of their cage yet. Bloody kids. Who wanted these dogs anyway? By the time I get the pump going

and open the cage door they’re like two over-excited preschoolers. They throw themselves at me, full of delight in their unashamed love. They remind me of my kids when they were five years old— not these distant self-possessed teenagers who suck my internet dry with their online learning.

The puppies dance in front of me as I walk back to the laundry to begin unscrewing the washing machine hoses and cleaning out the gunk and filth that has clogged up the filter. Best not to think too hard about this dirty water which washes our clothes and bodies, because it’s also our drinking water.

The cavoodles have gone quiet. After tightening up the pipes and restarting the machine, I find them in my bedroom where they’ve innocently shat on my rug. And it’s not just any rug, it’s my precious Turkish rug, which I’d lovingly carried home from the Aegean all those years ago. Back then I imagined it being lovingly placed under the bassinet of my first-born child, to inspire her to travel and follow her dreams. Obviously, this was before I realised that baby vomit is almost impossible to get out of a silk kilim and that the Turkish rug was safer elsewhere.

I screech at the phone-bound teenagers to toilet train their dogs, but clean up the mess myself, because, as all mothers know, sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself. Somewhat crumpled by the reality of my morning I once again gather my literary ambitions and settle into my chair.

The first line bubbles up and I type: ‘As she waited at the bar for her husband to buy her a drink, Ros Dunham reflected on how effortlessly she’d slipped into becoming a person she’d never expected to be…’

Ooh, mysterious: I like it. My fingers race to keep up as Ros sits, slowly sipping her shandy and relishing the heart-wrenching sounds of country music amid the low hum of conversation. It’s then that a familiar voice cuts straight through my scene: ‘Mum, what’s for lunch?’ n

I OPEN A BEAUTIFUL NEW DOCUMENT PAGE AND IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES IT HOLDS.