Page 38 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
And something else: weekends when her father would take her and Kit on adventures, as he called them. She never thought to ask why her mother wasn’t with them, because of the way these adventures were presented: Papa in charge, taking them to camp in the hinterland, or to Fraser Island on the barge.
‘No,’ she says softly. ‘I didn’t know. But I remember you took me and Kit away sometimes. Was that to give Mum time to herself?’
He nods. ‘Time to garden. With that society.’ There’s resignation in his voice.
Cynthia thinks of what it’s been like for her these past weekends, the sense of satisfaction she’s had from doing something literally earthy. Helping people as well as making places beautiful, helping to create an environment in which plants can flourish. Learning about the ecology of the area she grew up in, how there is grassland and wet heath and all sorts of things. Different weeds and how to spot them. Insects and their place in the ecosystem. All of it knowledge that connects her to her world and to other people in a way she has never contemplated before. And the best part is that it has come to her without effort: all she has to do is listen to Shirl and Barb as they impart their wisdom while she and Lorraine dig and tug and plant. For anyone who is having troubles, who is feeling detached from the joys of life, the appeal of this activity is plain. Because, as Cynthia realises, she needed it too.
It makes her heart break to think of her mother feeling so separated from her husband, her children, her life, that she needed to join the society, but it also makes her glad to know that the structure was there to support her.
‘Did it help?’ she asks Wilfred.
His eyes now meet hers and his hands are still. ‘Well, she stayed.’ His mouth turns down briefly. ‘She was going to leave. All of us. But she stayed.’
Cynthia sees that the downpour has stopped, and soon the sun will probably come out, because the rain often visits in short bursts then disappears. It’s a pattern she knows so intrinsically that she can almost tell the weather by observing her body: the tug of a headache as the barometric pressure rises, the sense of her joints almost oozing once the rain starts.
She has the strong desire to go outside and run her fingers over the wet grass, to feel the same earth her mother did all those years when she was clearly experiencing something Cynthia had no idea about and which she is ashamed she didn’t recognise. Her mother wanted to leave them. To not be here. Which could mean either not here in this house or not here on this earth. She is sure her father has deliberately left that vague.
It’s not as if Cynthia doesn’t understand the impulse, because she did take herself away. Perhaps she subconsciously knew what her mother was thinking of all that time. Perhaps she did it on her mother’s behalf, without fully understanding it. It’s not so hard to believe that a mother and a daughter can understand things about the other without them being expressed. Cynthia will never truly know, though, because the past is as mysterious to her as the process that causes a seed to become a plant.
‘Maybe we should go for that walk, after all, Papa,’ she says. ‘While it’s sunny. If you’re not still limping.’
‘I reckon we could,’ Wilfred says, and he puts his hands on the couch to push himself up. ‘It’ll be nice to be outside.’
As he stands he tests his feet. ‘Right as rain,’ he says, then winks.
Cynthia takes his arm and escorts him out the side doors to the garden. Her mother’s garden, with all the secrets she poured into it. Perhaps one day, Cynthia thinks, she will dig them up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Terry!’Lorraine knows she’s shouting into the void, because Terry probably isn’t even in the house – he’s impossible to keep track of these days. But it’s worth a shot. His job this morning was to rake the garden. He’s not supposed to go off skateboarding with his friends until he’s done it, but there’s debris on the lawn and not a rake in sight.
It’s not as if Lorraine is giving him these jobs to punish him – she and Mike are run off their feet with their various commitments. The other day Cora suggested that perhaps Lorraine had taken on too much with the Sunshine Gardening Society and Lorraine had surprised herself with how cross she’d been in response.
‘That ismy timeforme,’ she’d said. ‘Mike gets time for himself even with all the work. Just check his TAB receipts – he manages to put bets on the ponies when it suits him.’
‘He works hard!’ Cora objected, which really riled Lorraine, especially because Cora didn’t take the bait about the betting.
When Lorraine married Mike he was paying back gambling debts – to his mother, because she’d paid them off for him. He swore it would never happen again, to both of them, but he slipped after each son was born. Then he begged for forgiveness and, as far as either of them knew, he’d stayed away from it for almost as long as Simon’s been alive. So either that’s true or hejust hasn’t been leaving the evidence in his pants pockets for Lorraine to find when she does the washing. Because that’s how she discovered it the other day.
‘And I don’t work hard?’ she flung back at Cora, whose nostrils flared. ‘The gardening is important to me,’ Lorraine carried on. ‘I get to see my friendandwe’re doing good works.’
‘You’re a mother,’ Cora had said sniffily. ‘You are not supposed to have time for you.’
‘Well, that’s your generation, Cora,’ Lorraine had snapped back. ‘You sacrifice yourself to your kids and your husband, then you take it out on everyone else as soon as you get the chance.’
They’d stood blinking at each other, Cora looking like she’d been slapped and Lorraine feeling both sheepish about what she’d said and proud of it too, because Cora’s sanctimony really gets under her skin.
Then Mike walked in and Cora burst into tears. Manipulationpar excellenceof the sort that can only be pulled off by someone who feels powerless. Of course, Mike’s used to it and didn’t immediately take his mother’s side, but things have been awkward since – between Mike and Lorraine. Cora’s been carrying on as if everything’s lovely. Probably because she’s enjoying the fact that Mike and Lorraine are tetchy with each other. Or maybe Lorraine is just being ungenerous.
‘Terryyyyyy!’ she tries again.
‘He’s not here,’ comes Simon’s small voice from the next room.
Lorraine walks in and sees her youngest son curled up on the couch, book in hand, looking forlorn. He’s been like that a lot lately and Lorraine is starting to think it’s because it gets him attention from Cora, who fusses over him as if he’s some nineteenth-century orphan with consumption.
‘When did he leave?’ Lorraine makes herself ask this gently because it’s not Simon’s fault that Terry isn’t here.
‘Um … when the cartoon finished.’
