The Sleepout

by Diane Nicholls

It’s Saturday morning and I’m down the stairs and out the front door as mum calls, “Breakfast first, Martin.” She spins a slice of toast across the bench. I fold half of it into my mouth and leap off the top step onto the lawn. “Take an apple!” she shouts after me. Whiskey bounces at my heels, begging for toast. She shoves her golden syrup coloured nose under my elbow until I give her my crust. I run along the road to Nanna and Grandad’s house. The pine trees cast a blue shadow. It’s damp and cool in the shade. The pines creak and I think of the possums who live in them, watching me run past. Grandad is putting the new mare through her paces. He waves to me from the sulky and flips the reins to tell her to run faster, giddup. The horse surges and rolls her eyes. Spit from the corner of her mouth flies out and spatters her chestnut shoulder. Grandad says he’s too old for the ponies, but he can’t stay away from them. They get under your skin. Mum and Dad and me go to the trots to watch Grandad’s horses race. I collect the empty fizzy drink bottles that people leave under the stands and cash them in for lolly money. Nanna goes to mass to pray for Grandad’s soul.

Whiskey beats me through the gate and down the drive. She stops to bite the cutty grass and wags her behind as she chews lavishly. Nanna is bent over in the garden, pulling weeds and fussing with the seedlings. “Don’t let that dog on the patch, Martin.” She straightens with a groan and claps her hands at Whiskey, who leaps into the vegie patch. I leave Nanna wrestling the dog away from the garden and scoot around the water tank. A passionfruit vine covers the trellis that me and my cousins climb to get to the top of the tank. We stand on top and sing Mister Sandman like the Chordettes. I take the lead and make sure the girls do the moves like I taught them. Aunt Mim says we should enter the talent quest. Nanna sniffs at that and plants the passionfruit. I reach through leaves and shake the trellis.

“Martin. Leave that vine alone,” says Nanna. She pops around the tank with snippers in hand. “You can help me shell the peas if you’ve no chores at home.”

“I’m going to see Aunt Mim.” I skip past her frown.

Aunt Mim has the sleepout. She uses it when she’s down from the big smoke. Grandad fixed it up, painting the walls the same pale blue as the cowshed. Aunt Mim says it looks like a bathing shed.

“Knock first, Martin.”

I’m not supposed to surprise Mim. She might be dressing. I knock two times and open the door. Morning light streams in through the rear window, leaving a puddle of sun on the big bed in the middle of the room. Mim is sitting on the bed reading. The room smells of lilac talc and dust. She opens her arms and I jump up next to her for cuddles. Aunt Mim is big boned, but I think she is fat in the best kind of way. We snuggle together and stare at the stains on the ceiling. “That’s a mouse,” I say.

“Oh, nicely observed Marty. Did you know mice are a symbol of good fortune in Japan?”

I sit up and turn to Mim. “Dad says the Japs are a bunch of murdering bastards. They’ll slit ya open and eat ya guts for breakfast.”

“Good grief! Whatever will your father say next?” Mim’s eyebrows shoot up, but she is grinning so I nestle onto her shoulder and we look at the ceiling some more.

“Aunt Mim?”

“Mmm?”

“I like mice.”

“Me too.”

            I miss her the next weekend because the calf club show is on at school. My calf, Polly, wins a green ribbon, which is third place, and I win a blue rosette for my flower saucer, which is second place. Polly doesn’t care, but I am proud of her anyway. Mum says the saucer is very pretty with all the pansies.

I’m over in Nanna’s garden nosing round, not minding my own business. I pull a couple of radishes. The soil smells delicious. I nibble the skin off one and give the other radish to Whiskey. She mouths it, then spits it out. I don’t like it either. My lips hum with the radish heat. Nanna’s black and white cat creeps from under the hydrangeas and I chase it around the tank to the sleepout. The cat streaks under the sleepout porch, leaving me lonely. Nanna has taken Grandad to the Remembrance Mass for Fallen Soldiers at the big Catholic church in town. The ponies have the day off.

A moan slips under the door of the sleepout and fills my ears with thoughts of trapped cats. Is there a hole in Mim’s room? A rustle from inside, a tiny yowl, and I open the door. Aunt Mim is in bed with her friend Miss Baker. I like Miss Baker. She has nice neat hair and perfect little half moons in every fingernail. But she squawks when she sees me and climbs out of the bed all pink and naked like a baby.

            “Oh dear. Oh dear me,” she says. She bends down for a dressing gown on the floor and pulls it around herself. This is the first naked lady I’ve seen who is not my mother. I want to say hello Miss Baker, but she clutches the gown closed and hurries past me, slamming the door.

            “Jenny!” Aunt Mim calls after her. She pulls up the blankets to cover her bosoms.

            “Aunt Mim?” I want to hop onto the bed, but Mim is still looking at the door. “Were you telling her one of your stories?”

She sighs and hoists herself up against the pillows. “Grab me that housecoat, will you Marty?” I wait as she struggles to pull it on without letting go of the blanket covering her naked chest.

“Why is Miss Baker crying?”

            “Marty, you know that Miss Baker is my special friend, don’t you?” She waits for me to nod. “Well, sometimes friends have secrets.”

            “Like when Grandad and me found that dead bird and put it in Nanna’s boot, but I couldn’t tell on him because it was our secret?”

“Yes. Something along those lines.” She stretches out her arm and I go to her. “Except this is not a joke, Marty. This is a solemn secret just between Jenny and me and now you. If Nanna and Grandad find out about our secret, they will be furious.”

“But why?”

            “Well, it’s complicated. We have to keep mum,” she says, tapping her nose.

            “Are you secret agents?” I picture Aunt Mim in a long coat with a smart hat tilted over one eye. That’s why she wears man’s trousers. Maybe there is a pistol strapped to her ankle.

            “Marty, you know I can’t tell you that. Jenny and I are both sworn to never speak of it and now you must swear too. Will you do that Marty? Will you swear never to tell our secret?” Mim looks into my eyes and then she spits onto her palm and holds it out. I spit on my hand and we shake.

            Sunday after my birthday, Grandad is asleep in his armchair and Dad is reading the Truth. I’m bored and full of cake and roast potatoes. The garden is drowsy with afternoon jasmine and bumblebees. I have a new fighter plane to fly around. Its grey metal body is warm between my fingers. “Chuk chuk chuk, chuk chuk chuk.” The cat sees me coming and runs. “Bloody Kraut coward. Come back and fight like a man.” But my heart’s not in it. It’s hot. I drink water from the garden tap and sit under the kitchen window to listen to Mum and Mim doing the dishes.

“You always say that, Mim. For heaven’s sake, it’s not as though I do nothing for them all week. I have Martin and Geoff to look after you know.” Dishes clink as Mum scrubs the plates.

            “I’m not disputing that, Dot, but I have responsibilities too. There’s my job in town and the bedsit to pay for. I’m at my limit. It’s too much.”

            “Oh, the nerve!” Water sloshes. “You want to talk about responsibility? Then how about this, Mim? How about you and I go in there and tell them about what you get up to in that bedsit?” There’s a whumping sound and Mum is talking, but it’s too quiet to hear the words.

            “What’s going on in here? Dot?” Nanna sounds cross, so I hunker down and pick the petals off a daisy. “Mim, what are you doing on the floor?”

            “It’s fine,” Mum says. “Mim just had a bit of a turn.”

            There is a long silence and then Nanna says, “I won’t have fighting in this house. Tidy yourselves up. And Mim, do something about your hair. It looks positively Prussian.” The door bangs shut and Mum and Mim both start talking.

            “I’m sorry Mim.”

“Please don’t tell...they’ll send me back. I won’t go, Dot. I won’t go back there!”

“Shh. I know. I’m sorry.” A chair creaks and Mim blows her nose.

            “Huh.”

            “What?” says Mim.

            “I just realised who got Mum’s nose.”

            “Take that back, you witch.” Mim laughs.

“I won’t tell them. I swear.” Mum comes back to the window and washes the dishes.

Mim had mysterious turns that took her away from us. But I remember only the one. That day in August which still whirls on repeat across the back of my brain like an old news reel. My winter jumper is dewy as Mum holds me back from the car. Grandad and a man in a white uniform struggle with Aunt Mim. She doesn’t want to get into the car. Nanna stares across the road as though she has blinkers on. Mum is crying.

            “Stop it. I won’t go. Dot? You promised...Please, make them stop.”

“C’mon girl. Go easy. Don’t make this harder, love.” Grandad gentles her like a skittish colt.

“No! Please...what have I done? Mum? Don’t make me go.”

            “You know exactly what you’ve done, Mim.”

            “You can’t even say it, can you?” Aunt Mim is bright red. The ropes in her neck stand out as she shouts. “Lesbian, mum. Your daughter is a lesbian!”

            Nanna flinches. “You’re unnatural, Mim. Unnatural! You’re not my daughter. I hope I never see you again. Do you hear? Never!”

            Grandad and the man in white wrestle Mim into the car and she sags as though someone has let the air out of her tyres. She looks out the window at Mum and I break away as the car drives off.

“Come back!” But the car is fast and I am slow. Mum scoops me up from the verge and carries me home, both of us weeping.

Mim would come back to us from time to time but never to stay in the sleepout. In between turns, she takes herself on exotic holidays to Cairns and Singapore. She brings me back a wooden mask from Fiji. It hangs on the living room wall at home where my partner, John, loves to hate it. It clashes with all that is tasteful in our lives. But that is the point, I say, and we laugh because he knows Mim too.

            After her treatments and several brushes with ECT, Mim isn’t the same. She hasn’t been able to accept my mother’s death and so each time I visit I’m torn. Will I tell her again and see the grief flood her face or pretend? I never know what is right. Just before she goes into The Eden Lea Retirement Home, Mim takes one more holiday, this time to the Clevedon Motor Inn out on the old South Riggs Road. I get a call from John while I’m working in the grounds of the hospital. The receptionist runs out to interrupt the lawnmower. She signals “phone call,” and I take off my earmuffs.

The Motor Inn is scruffy but clean, and I ring the buzzer in the lobby. I hear voices out the back and follow the sounds outside to a swimming pool surrounded by white plastic loungers. A young woman stands on the edge of the pool shouting at a large and naked Mim who is floating starfish in the middle. A priest is wading into the water while his cassock billows around him. He looks like a clumsy stingray.

“Miss, please come along now. Just take my hand.”

            “Miss Mim! You come out right now. You’ll catch a cold.” The young woman is brooking no nonsense, but I see Mim cast an eye at the priest.

            “Let me assist you, my dear. There’s no need to be scared.” He extends a helpful hand.

Mim spies me and pops up, treading water like a pro. “Marty. Lovely to see you.” She waves, then swims breaststroke around the priest. “Don’t you dare touch me, you pervert.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” The young woman glares at me. “Get her a towel. They don’t pay me enough for this.”

Mim arises from the pool resplendent in her nudity. “He tried to have his way with me.” She points at the priest, who is standing stunned in the water.

            “It’s lovely to see you too, Mim. Let’s go home. What do you think?” I drape a towel over her shoulders.

            “Good idea. I’m not staying here another minute.” She whispers loud enough for the receptionist to hear. “This place is bristling with listening devices. Head Office is keeping tabs on me. Very intrusive.”

I get a janitorial job at the retirement home. It seems easier. I’m the only one she has now. It’s August and I bring in some carnations to perfume her room. Mim is sleeping but wakes when I put the flowers on her bedside table. “Have they gone?”

“Who?”

            “The insects.” She strains to sit up. I raise her bed for her. “The insects. They’re in the walls. Didn’t you see them?–Who are you?”

            “It’s Marty. Your nephew.” She frowns at me. “Dot’s son.”

            “Where’s Dot? I need to speak to her.” Mim tries to get out of bed, so I take her hands and she settles. “Oh Marty, it’s you. I need to get a message to your mother.”

I sigh. “She’s gone, Mim. Remember?”

            “She’ll be in the kitchen. Tell her about the sewerage.”

            “Okay, I’ll tell her. Would you like some water?” I pour her a glass and help her take a few sips. She is small these days. A wasted version of her former self with swathes of skin hanging from twiggy arms.

            “Marty?”

“Yes, Aunt Mim.”

“I don’t feel at all myself lately.” She shakes her head, her murky eyes narrow as she looks about the room. Her rare lucid moments catch me off guard.

            “You’ve been away for a while,” I say.

            “I’ve been dreaming about Jenny.”

            “Jenny Baker?”

            “We lost touch when you were little.”

I swallow a lump in my throat. “Aunt Mim, I need to tell you something.”

            “What is it, dear?”

I think of that cold August morning exactly fifty years ago and wish I could erase the scrappy carnations ripped from the garden this morning. But they will have to stand as markers on this dreadful anniversary. “I’m so sorry. It was me. I told Nanna and Grandad about you and Miss Baker. Mim, I broke my promise. I thought...I thought you were spies. I didn’t understand. Then they took you away.” I’m crying and holding her hand. “It was all my fault.”

            “What? How can it be your fault? Did you know, the sewerage was up to the first floor landing last night? I’m going on the radio to give the residents’ point of view. It can’t go on like this. And they love an academic perspective.”

I press her hand against my forehead. When I am able to look at her, I see she is dozing.

            “Marty?”

            “I’m here.”

            “Jenny taught me about love. She chose me.”

            “She did.”

            “That’s important, isn’t it?”

I hold her hand until she closes her eyes and I am sure she is sleeping.