Brother Mine (Part 2)

                   Welcome!

November has done it again. We usually think of Adelaide’s hot weather being in January and February but I reckon you can count on one week of November giving us a foretaste of it. This is the week: 35+ degrees Celsius forecast for at least four days of this week. As long as the garden doesn’t suffer from it, I’m okay with that. I think the feijoa likes it. This is its first flush of flowers since we planted it a year ago. My tastebuds are already preparing themselves, but the flowers are my favourite feature of this small tropical South American tree.

Now for the conclusion of the story we began last week, a historical fiction of an undervalued son and a strange visitor.

Brother Mine (Part 2)

'Richard, my dear fellow! You're ready by the look of it. Let us depart immediately before—' and he peered towards the dining room with one eye and up the stairs with the other, a peculiarity no doubt made possible by his wall eye. Grabbing my sleeve as I stood firmly clenching my teeth to prevent my jaw dropping like an imbecile, Bryant linked arms with me and almost dragged me to the carriage awaiting us. The livery was unfamiliar; everything was as incomprehensible as my apparent imaginings the previous evening.

            For the first mile or so, Bryant said nothing but looked out of the window to one side and then the other, casting me an occasional smile or a wink as his gaze shifted.

             I sat looking sideways at him, trying to recall if I had ever heard of him. I had spent some time in London the previous year, but none of my acquaintances had intimated the existence of such a person. Surely I would have heard some rumour about a fellow of his odd appearance and outfit. City gossips have nothing better to talk about.

            After a time, when I was beginning to wonder if I had been rash in following this character without an explanation, he sighed loudly and took off his wig, scratched his near-bald scalp, and tossed the wig aside, where it slid off the leather seat and onto the floor.

            'I take it you received word last evening of our plans for your future? And that you are not unwilling?' He looked me in the eye most impertinently, or so my father would have judged, and then turned away as if he had seen the answer. I answered nevertheless, since I had no idea what he thought he had seen.

            'I – I was – uh, visited l-l-last night, it is t-t-true. Excuse my ret-my ret-reticence, but I had b-been wondering if I had s-simply drunk too much brandy. Even n-n-now, I confess, I am s-s-struggling to comprehend.'

            He nodded briefly as if that was a matter of course, and I relaxed a little. Whatever was happening to me, it appeared that my understanding was not essential, merely my acquiescence. What did I have to lose? I asked myself. The unlikely proposal of the previous night had seemed to offer more hope than I had experienced since my brother's demise on the Continent seven years earlier.

            'We will be at the port in a little over two hours, so I will begin your instruction immediately. You will cease to be known as Richard from this moment; you are Jack.' And you will address me as, in fact, I am – your mother's second cousin, Frederick Schwingenschloegl.' At this point he took off his outer garments, bundled them tightly and threw them, together with the wig, into the river we were at that moment crossing on a narrow bridge. He pulled out a box from under the seat and proceeded to dress all in black, a respectable German traveller.

            I had not imagined it. This improbable man was offering me the impossible and now I grasped it with fervour. If I could not have my brother, I would be my brother. One day, in the future planned for me by my mother's German relatives, I would return to England to claim the inheritance of the father who would not recognise his younger son. I only hoped my mother would live long enough to enjoy her victory.

Until next week…

Claire Belberg

Brother Mine (Part 1)

                         Welcome!

blue passionflower

The blue passionvine is in bloom – a fantastical flower, if ever there was one. It’s unfortunate that a flower with such promise doesn’t fulfil it with fruit. This was the rootstock of a Nellie Kelly grafted passionfruit. The graft didn’t survive, and now we have rampant blue passionvine trying to overtake the garden, latching onto the orange tree and consuming the water meant for it. But I’ve always enjoyed the peculiarities of weeds, so for the time being the wild vine remains, and I’m enjoying the crazy flowers.

The story of this week began as an exercise with my writing group, where we had to start with the first paragraph of George MacDonald’s Phantastes. In recognition that 1200 words is a lot to read in one burst on the internet, I have divided it into two parts. The second will be posted next week (poetry readers will have to wait an extra week before their next ‘fix’.)

Brother Mine

I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies the return of consciousness. As I lay and looked through the eastern window of my room, a faint streak of peach-colour, dividing a cloud that just rose above the low swell of the horizon, announced the approach of the sun. As my thoughts, which a deep and apparently dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again to assume crystalline forms, the strange events of the foregoing night presented themselves anew to my wondering consciousness.

            I hardly had time to decide whether I believed in them before the rest of the household awoke with all the clamour and bustle that entailed. Sighing, I rolled out of my bed, gave myself a quick wash, and dressed. Just in case the events I imagined of yesterday had, in fact, been real, I took up my cloak and retrieved a small pistol from the back of a bureau drawer. I tucked the latter into a flap inside my jacket which could have been made for the purpose. One never knew quite what had been intended by my deceased elder brother, Jack.

            I headed downstairs as a bell sounded. I knew therefore that my father was already in the dining room, and I checked my appearance in a long and ornately ugly mirror in the hall before proceeding to his inspection. My short black hair was neat, the russet and dark brown clothes well-made and becoming, according to my mother; there was only the uneven features of my shadowed face to displease, and those I had long ago resigned myself to. At least I could remember my brother when I saw my reflection, for we had been as seeds from the same pod. I tried to arrange my face in an affable pose, and approached the dining table.

            'Look like you're only fit for a walk in the woods,' Father grunted. 'Don't you have business today?' He gave me a piercing look under his lowered eyebrows, and I shrank from it as usual.

            'N-n-no, that is tom-m-morrow,' I said, taking a seat at the far end of the table. I prayed my sister would come earlier than was her wont, for she had the knack of distracting Father from his black moods. No matter what I said, my very presence seemed to increase that frame of mind.

            The maid dished up sausages, eggs and the remains of last night's pie while the silence of the room deepened and my father's eyebrows fell so low they almost interfered with his mandibular motion. My sister did not show, and my mother was, I assumed, nursing her constant ill-health in her own suite.

            It was as I bit into the pie that I realised, with a lurch of my stomach, that nothing had changed. Last night's events could not have occurred; they had merely been the expression of my growing desperation to know my father's approval. That moment of despair rendered the taste of pigeon pie thereafter unpalatable.

            I escaped the strained silence of the dining room with only a handful of shattering observations from my disillusioned pater. I stood in the hall for a moment, trying to decide on a course of action that would keep me out of trouble for the day. At that moment the butler announced an arrival.

            Assuming it was one of my father's business associates, I turned to go through the drawing room and thence out of the house to the stables, but Poulton ahem-ed behind me.

            'For you, Master Richard. A—' and here he looked again at the calling card in his gloved hand, 'Lord Frederick Bryant. He says you are expecting him.'

            The fellow who had announced himself so boldly looked quite irregular. I supposed that being a lord and used to having his way, he had chosen his outfit for his own peculiar tastes rather than fashion. I was not enamoured of fashion myself, but I would have found it unthinkable to wear old-fashioned purple hose with black knee-high buckled boots and a red and orange embroidered waistcoat under an open surcoat of shiny black fabric. This too had buckles, polished to gleam even as they tinkled at the jerk of his stride.

Look for Part 2 next week.
Until then…
Claire Belberg

A Month On: the final poem of a trilogy

                         Welcome!

Absent - one rosella

Others may disagree, but I think this spring in the Adelaide Hills has performed a rare show of warming up gradually. This is a pleasant and wondrous phenomenon. Typically, Adelaide’s weather seems to know little moderation; it’s hot as, or it’s cold (by comparison). One can never adapt because the range varies so much, often changing the maximum temperature by 10 degrees Celsius from one day to the next, in either direction. Thank you, Spring, for a gentle introduction to the heat and dryness of a Mediterranean summer downunder.

The final poem of the trilogy 'The futility of attempting capture' is here unveiled. I have added the first two poems (in grey) before it so that you can easily read the whole set. Scroll down to the new one if it all seems too familiar!

Calling card

This morning I communed with a rosella

through the dusty glass of my window.

He perched on a swaying twig of bottlebrush,

seeking a companion

with the ringing call of his kind,

glowing red and orange in the sunshine.

Then he turned an eye towards me

and began bobbing and chucking like a budgie,

inquiring.

With gentle movement, talking and singing,

I sent him on his search with a blessing.

My friend rosella was, vividly tangible,

God’s calling card,

for I, too, had been looking for company,

responding to the song of the creator

and listening, heart open, to his words

as he blessed me on my way.

‘Oh Bobby’

I called him Bobby after that first visit

when he’d warmed my heart

and charmed my imagination with his antics of bird curiosity.

He returned to that lichened twig by my window

several times a day

and I determined to capture it,

to celebrate our friendship

with a photograph, framed

neatly by the window (now washed).

Friendship, huh.

‘Oh Bobby’ became the wail of my longing

as all that remained of every attempt –

me creeping close with the camera poised

while he watched with one eye,

twitched and flew before the shutter closed.

The best I managed was a blurry shot, claimed

in triumph

and accidentally erased the same day –

all that remained was the flash of colour as he retreated,

to return another time with

his luring call and practised nonchalance.

A month on

I imagined he was alone

because he was seeking, waiting

for the right one in this season

of mating and ritual.

Daily I heard the ringing ‘pip, pip’ of the mate-call,

daily I caught up the camera

to frame him in his rosella glory

arrayed just out of reach.

The calls sounded

and I stopped whatever I was doing:

‘This time…’

I have become the lover

at the end of your siren song,

You, wild and free, calling

Me, captive to the intent of a perfect picture, answering.

But your only reply

is that lichened twig where we first met,

quivering with your absence.

I'd love to read your stories of communing with wild creatures, so why not post a comment with your own story here?

Until next week…

Claire Belberg

Lucky Beanie

Welcome!

Already the grass is drying out in the absence of rain. As much as I enjoy the weather warming up (and it has done this quite gently this year, unlike the typical skip-the-middle-numbers temperature spikes), the yellowing as the season marches towards summer is a bit depressing. It gets harder and harder to water the garden enough (while trying to be responsible with our limited water resources), and the risk of bushfire increases. Still, if the possums and parrots don’t get them first, we do have wonderful summer fruits to look forward to. It’s difficult to be too sad about summer.

The story for this week is a quirky play on a song my daughters sang as a warm-up exercise for choir rehearsals. Let me know if you recognise the song!

Lucky Beanie

I pressed the end-call button on my mobile before I let myself go.

            'I did it! I got myself a gig at the Crooked Crown. It's my break, Seona! Do you know who hangs out at the Crown? Talent spotters for record companies, that's who!' I whooped and danced around our flat like a tribal, singing an impromptu tribute to my lucky gig beanie. I just knew that beanie would give me the edge I needed to become a famous singer-songwriter.

            Seona just smiled, the crinkles at the corner of her eyes revealing her genuine, otherwise unexpressed, pleasure. 'Oh, and thanks for the idea,' I mumbled. Seona doesn't say much, but she's so smart, what she does say is worth more than I can think in a week.

            I stayed up late that night finishing off a song I thought I'd debut at the gig. I spent the next two weeks planning and rehearsing my bracket. I made flyers and handed them out to my friends, hoping they'd turn up to boost the friendly numbers. I even told my parents ─ and then had to invent a good line to prevent them from coming. I knew they'd be proud of me, but performing to old folk whose idea of real music is a violin virtuoso in a painfully silent room doesn't bring out my best.

            I should've realised the dream was doomed by the way everything rolled along so easily ─ until Friday.

            On Friday I thought I'd pop by the hotel to suss it out. It's one weird place.   While I was there, I had a chat with the manager who, after some checking and rechecking, finally accepted that it was me who would be playing between nine and ten the next night, and that, in fact, I would be playing a twelve-string guitar and singing original songs, not doing a stand-up comedy act accompanied by a trombone. It's all good, I say.

            At home I pulled out my guitar ─ my favourite, still-paying-the-mortgage guitar ─ to find pale green and black slime all over the fretboard and dropping in lumps into the sound hole. Ah yes, the snack I'd packed for my last band practice and forgotten to eat. Fortunately avocado doesn't smell too strongly.

            Yep, it's all good. Then, as I cleaned the strings, the top E-string snapped. Hurried phone calls to the guitar-playing friends since the shops had shut by then. They'd open the next morning to find a large number of guitarists keen on buying spare E-strings because it turned out that none of them had one. And to make sure they didn't sell out before I rocked up, I camped on the doorstep from six in the morning. Only got moved on twice by the police and once by a drunk who thought I looked like his last landlady.

            By 9:03 I'd been told that the distributors were currently having difficulty supplying steel strings. At 10:03 I found the spare E-string I suddenly remembered I had. Why I had hidden it in a hiking boot remains a mystery. It's just a good thing I tipped up all my shoes in order to find my beanie.

            You've got to understand about my lucky beanie. It's as ugly as heck, murky brown wool mixed with something like sludge green in a rough fibre. It was once my Great Aunt Farula's. I remember the way her eyes sank into the layers of wrinkled skin covering her skeletal head ─ and the beanie she always wore, which I studied intently to avoid looking at her face. Somehow I knew when I inherited it that it was going to change my life.

            I hunted through all my shoes, all my drawers, the dirty washing, the ironing pile and the bags of clothes waiting to be sent to the refugees. I found the much-needed E-string, but not my beanie.

            It was getting dark. I sat in the cramped lounge of our third floor flat, looking around the room at every picture, poster, photograph and ornament as if they might turn into the mysteriously absent beanie. I was out of ideas. I was working hard to push aside the terrifying thought of appearing at the Crown, on this, the night of my big break, minus the beanie. Deep, agonised silence. My thoughts had collapsed into a soggy formless lump.

            Who knows how long I might have remained in this state if my beanie had not inched its way, with jerks and jumps, before my initially unseeing eyes. It was most of the way to the kitchen before eternity thawed into a distinct now.

            I pounced. My beanie screeched. I picked it up. It shuddered. I dropped it. My beanie had never behaved this way before. In fact, it had never behaved. What had gotten into it? I flipped it over ─ and stared, uncomprehending.

            Clinging to the inside was a jelly-like purple thing with tiny nose, mouth, limbs and claws. It quivered but it wouldn't fall out no matter how hard I shook the beanie. I turned the beanie inside out; the purple creature stretched to cover what was now the outside. How dare it take over my lucky beanie! I put it under the tap, first the cold, and then, with a rush of jealousy, the hot water. It made no difference, other than the thing spraying me like a dog shaking to get dry.

            The time was nearing seven. I had to eat, dress, and catch a bus to the hotel by eight-thirty. I left the beanie on the kitchen bench while I prepared some food I had no appetite to eat. I wondered whether Seona would come home, turn up at the hotel, or spend the evening in the library as usual. I cooked her some fried rice anyway.

            I made a crucial decision while I was eating: I would wear the beanie, even with the purple creature inside if it came to that. The beanie hadn't moved for ages. Maybe the thing slept. Maybe it had gone when I wasn't looking. Anyway, I didn't have to wear the beanie until I played, so I stuffed it into my backpack.

            By 8:35 I was at the Crooked Crown. Not a lot of people yet. Which ones were the talent scouts? Couldn't tell, so I searched for faces of friends. Couldn't see any. I dumped my gear at a table near the corner where a couple of guys were playing bass guitars and singing tunelessly. I sat at the bar with a Coke, taking in the smell of stale beer and the distant clatter of poker machines, trying to tune into the mood of the place. Not much mood; everyone was ignoring the musicians. Good, I thought, they'll be fresh for me. I couldn't wait to get started.

            When I returned to my gear, I thought for a moment the backpack had moved. I intercepted a look from one of the bass players, whose gaze returned to the pack just as it lurched towards him. I looked inside, acting nonchalance. Everything seemed as I'd left it. The beanie was still and silent again.

            The guys finished their bracket to a few slow claps, packed up and pushed through the drinkers. I took a deep breath, said a prayer, and moved into the corner to set up. A couple of friends turned up, and sat at my table.

            'Hey, Jodie,' boomed Sasha. 'Looks like Mara's about to play. Should be a great show!' He winked at Jodie.

            I stepped up to the mic quickly. 'Good evening, all. My name's Mara Simbaya, and I'm going to entertain you with some of my original songs. I hope you'll enjoy them. I'll be around afterwards for a chat. So lean back and feel the flow of good vibes.' I pulled the beanie over my dark hair, strummed some chords and launched into an old favourite. It felt good, and the crowd settled to a quiet hum of contentment, while Sasha and Jodie clapped and cheered.

            As my confidence gained momentum and the audience seemed to be eating out of my hand, I tried a few one liners as I moved between songs. They went down well. But in my fourth song the mood shifted. The crowd were watching me closely but they seemed distracted. My song wasn't reaching them. Sweat trickled from my forehead into my eyes; my confidence leaked away. How had I lost my audience? And my best songs were yet to come.

            'Oh my God!' Jodie screeched. 'It's moving! Look at the beanie!'

            Her words drew me out of a desperate focus on the song to the strange sensation on my head. I realised it had been happening for a while. My hair was being nibbled and tugged, accompanied by a squelching sound. I quit strumming to peal the beanie off, intending to throw it aside. It wouldn't budge. I finished the song, and tried some banter into the microphone while I wrestled with my beanie, subtly at first, then with growing urgency. It was beginning to hurt.

            My audience was laughing, clapping and throwing comments to me. Sasha and Jodie had slunk away. I had attention; I wished I was invisible.

            Seona! I saw her at the edge of the crowd. I tried to telegraph her with my eyebrows to come and help me. She saw, watched some more, and then began an infuriatingly calm progress towards me. Nobody rushes Seona. When she reached my side she whispered, 'It's a purple people-eater. Loves hair. Very rare. I borrowed it from the laboratory but I've got to return it on Monday.' She slipped her hand under the back of the beanie, flicked, and removed the beanie without too much of my remaining hair being pulled out. I was free.

            I could feel the heat of the lights on a patch near my crown. I resolutely continued my bracket, but I had no energy for performing, and the listeners drifted away. The last twenty minutes dragged. I couldn't satisfy the half-hearted calls for jokes; I couldn't think. When the feature band of the night moved to take over, I fled to the bathroom. I couldn't see it but I felt a bald patch on the top of my head, and the slight dents of teeth marks in the tender flesh.

            I tried to sneak out the back way, but the manager caught me by the kitchen door.

            'It might have worked better with a trombone,' he said, his droopy eyes flicking past mine, cold as a lizard's. I left without answering. What can you say when your dream dies at birth?

* * *   

That was last week. Last week, last year, time frozen in eternal wastelands.

            I visit Seona at her laboratory on my way to the city, offering to donate the traitorous beanie to support her research on irritating jelly-like creatures.

            'So what's your plan?' Seona asks as she stares at the beanie, which still has a skein of my crinkly hair attached to it. I can see her mind is somewhere else.

            'Some woman rang and asked me to meet her at the Blue Fish Café for lunch. She didn't say much, just said she had an offer she wanted to put to me. No idea what it's about, but I haven't got a life anymore, and, hey, it's a free lunch.'

            Seona is with me now. She's grinning. She knows something I don't ─ so what's new? Her smile stirs hope in me though.

She offers me the beanie. ‘You’ll be needing this, Mara.’  

Until next week…

Claire Belberg