After Cleo (5 page)

We pushed the sofas back while they arranged their cushions and blankets on the floor. It was a squeeze. Those who were able to sat cross-legged and started drifting into meditative states to show the rest of us they were way past spiritual kindergarten. A comfortable chair was placed at the front of the room, along with a small table and a glass of water. Plus a vase of lilies. The monk liked flowers.

Once everyone was settled, I found a space near the back of the room, a couple of cushions along from Lydia. I was surprised she was even interested. Being eighteen, she had plenty of excuses to shut herself away in her room. But she sat effortlessly cross-legged, her eyes round with curiosity.

Expectant silence hung over the room as the monk eased himself into the chair and flicked his robe into elegant folds. He sniffed loudly and cast a benevolent gaze over us. I couldn't help giggling inwardly. No Christian priest, politician or doctor could hope for this level of reverence. His audience was enthralled, not necessarily because they understood what he had to offer, but because of his otherness. The world had made us hard-minded and cynical about most things, but we still craved mystery.

The monk's voice was high pitched and sweet, but there was toughness at its core. Honey pouring over stone. He turned out to be an excellent meditation teacher. For the next hour we observed our breath, tamed our monkey minds, counted backwards and breathed through different nostrils while trying to pretend our legs weren't giving us hell. We ended the session wishing ourselves and all sentient beings health and happiness.

As people stood to bow and leave their donations, the monk announced that the nuns would be delighted to bless our house. Philip watched perplexed while the two tiny women chanted and sprinkled holy water in the corners of every room. He wasn't over the moon about them sprinkling holy water on the television, but I assured him it wasn't every day that people were offered a house blessing. I followed one of the nuns into our bedroom while she christened our bed cover. Her eyes were so deep they seemed to go beyond the back of her head. There was kindness in them, hardship too.

Once nearly everyone had gone, we stood with a few hardcore fans on the footpath outside the house to bid the monk and his entourage farewell. As he was about to climb into the back seat of the car, he flashed a movie-star smile at Lydia. ‘Come visit me in my monastery in Sri Lanka some day,' he said before bestowing a royal wave upon us all.

I laughed the monk's invite off, but Philip was wary, noticing the way Lydia's face had lit up. Even though she acted grown up in many ways, she was still young and impressionable, he said. Gullible, even. He thought the monk arrogant and manipulative with his charm. I told him to stop being a fusty old dad before nudging him back inside.

After the monk disappeared down the street, I'd assumed he was out of our lives. A photo frame in Lydia's bedroom was the last place I'd expected him to show up. Maybe she'd put him there because his beaming face and maroon robes toned perfectly with the new decor – a monk-ish style statement.

‘He's my Teacher,' Lydia said, taking the photo from my hand and replacing it beside the candle.

‘Your
Teacher
?' I echoed, unsure what the word meant in this context and trying to piece together how a half-forgotten Buddhist monk could suddenly reappear in our house as a ‘Teacher'. He certainly wasn't teaching her the three R's. We'd already forked out a fortune in school fees for that. Guru? Mind controller?

‘You stayed in touch all these years?' I asked, straightening the Tibetan wall-hanging and trying to keep my tone neutral.

Lydia was reluctant to answer.

‘I've organised a few meditation retreats for him when he's been back in Australia,' she said casually, gazing enigmatically through her window out to the sky where a crow flapped against grey cloud.

Something jarred inside my chest. I thought I knew my daughter.

We'd had battles of will over the years, but they'd been over trivial stuff like hairstyles and piano lessons. I'd learnt the hard way that confronting her was pointless. Far simpler to let her dye her hair purple and grow out of it. But this felt more serious.

Flipping through my mental filing cabinet, I recalled her mentioning organising the occasional meditation retreat. I'd encouraged her, thinking meditation might give her skills to deal with exam studies and stress in general. It hadn't occurred to me that the monk had been involved. Maybe I hadn't taken enough notice or asked enough questions.

I've never been one of those women who want their daughters to be their best friends, sharing jeans and bedroom gossip. Lydia was raised to be independent and strong. On the other hand, I was taken aback she'd felt the need to hide how important the monk had become in her life.

If she thought I'd disapprove of her exploring a spiritual path, she didn't know me very well. I'd always encouraged the kids to be open minded about that sort of thing.

Surely I wasn't intrusive, the way Mum had been with me when I was young? The Gestapo had nothing on Mum when it came to interrogation. She'd delved so inquisitively into my life, I'd been forced to twist the truth quite regularly. But Mum was easy to shock. She had a long list of things she disapproved of – sex, left-wing politicians, Catholics, vegetarians, people from almost every foreign country . . .

I didn't disapprove of meditation or Buddhism. In fact, of all religions, I regarded it as the least offensive. But I couldn't help wondering why Lydia had chosen to shut me out from an important part of her life. Was it rebellion?

As I straightened a prayer flag, my mind spun into worst-case-scenario mode. I'd heard so many stories about young people getting sucked into religion and exploited by charismatic leaders. It was dangerous territory.

‘Your room looks lovely,' I said, swallowing all the anxiety that wanted to spill out.

I hurried downstairs and closed our bedroom door. If Lydia was in thrall to a Buddhist monk, and had been for years, it was probably too late to do anything about it. I reached for the phone and put it down again. Philip was probably in another meeting.

If only Cleo was around, she'd know what to do. She'd jump up on the covers and nestle purring into my stomach until I got my head around this.

Without Cleo, I had to find another form of comfort. Ten deep yoga breaths . . .

If I challenged Lydia and accused her of deception, I knew what she'd say. She was twenty-three years old, officially an adult. She had a right to keep secrets, even from her mother.

Especially
from her mother.

Forbidden

The dreams of cats and daughters are invariably secret

One of the good things about raising three children is whenever one of them is worrying you sick, chances are at least one of the other two is causing you no strife at all. They may even be bringing you joy.

Soon after we moved into Shirley, Rob and Chantelle acquired a kitten – or should I say a baby with four legs and a tail? A silvery Burmese with golden eyes, Ferdie was a friendly ball of fur. His stocky frame needed filling, which was good because Ferdie loved food almost as much as he adored his doting mum and dad. When Rob held the tiny creature baby-style in his arms, I gulped back emotion. His face was soft and tender as he smiled down at the little creature. Time folded back on itself and I could almost see six-year-old Rob nursing Cleo the same way. Except now Rob was very much a man, well over six feet tall, and the kitten looked like a toy in his arms. Thinking back over how Cleo had helped Rob laugh and play games again after his brother Sam's death back in 1983, I was touched to see him open his heart to another kitten. Cleo had taught Rob to trust life again. Ferdie was providing him with a gentle introduction to fatherhood.

Whenever we visited Rob and Chantelle in their new townhouse across the bay in Newport, Ferdie was the focus of attention. No kitten could have been showered with more devotion. From cat food to flea treatments, Ferdie was given the best of everything.

Watching Rob and Chantelle follow Ferdie's every move as he bounced around their townhouse, I smiled with delight. They were incredibly patient as the kitten attacked their furniture and their hands with equal pleasure. Now Rob was thirty-two and Chantelle twenty-nine, they were at the ideal stage to make fantastic parents of a two-legged, fur-free individual some day, if the stars aligned.

Ferdie was so adorable, I was tempted to bundle him up and bring him home with us for a visit. Not that I dared say anything, since I'd let everyone know my tough line on cats these days. In the meantime, I was in for a delightful surprise with the Cleo manuscript I'd been labouring over. After I sent Allen & Unwin a few chapters, the response from Jude McGee was immediate. She loved it. Contracts were signed and a deadline for delivery of the complete manuscript was set for September. Life was getting more multi-layered by the week. I needed to get a move on if there was any chance of finishing the book on time.

As I waded through the early chapters, I realised it was nearly twenty-five years since we'd lived with a young feline. Watching Ferdie bouncing off the furniture I realised I'd forgotten how full on kittens could be.

But there was also a wedding to organise. Having worn Roman sandals to my first wedding and a half-price suit to my second, I had no idea what twenty-first century nuptials involved. Everything goes in cycles. Our parents had white weddings so my generation rebelled and had hippie ceremonies. Rob and Chantelle were part of the Generation X swing back to church bells and tulle.

I bought a wedding etiquette book,
The Modern Wedding
, and soon understood how World War II could've been avoided. If Hitler had been preoccupied with planning a Modern Wedding he'd never have got around to invading Poland.

According to
The Modern Wedding,
while the bride's parents had traditionally shouldered most responsibility for a wedding, the groom's were more involved these days. With Chantelle's parents out of town, we obviously needed to do more than show up on the big day and have a good time.

The list of Must Do's was daunting. I hadn't realised that popular venues were generally booked up a year in advance. ‘Our' wedding was only a few months away. We needed to find a venue as soon as possible. A guest list had to be drawn up, invitations designed and sent, replies recorded. Photographers and celebrants, flowers and a wedding cake had to be found. Plus cars, gift registries, hair and makeup, musicians, seating plans and table decorations. And thank you cards, gifts for bridesmaids and groomsmen. Not to mention the bridal dress. Rob and Chantelle were so busy working full time they didn't seem to realise that if they wanted a traditional wedding they'd have to carve out their nights and weekends to accommodate a schedule and stick to it.

Philip was at a work dinner and I was engrossed in
The
Modern Wedding
one evening when Lydia floated downstairs in a waft of incense.
Meditating at 9 p.m.?
I thought. She was taking it seriously. When I showed her
The Modern Wedding
she said she couldn't understand the fuss. She'd rather get married on a beach. Generation Y Lydia was showing signs of swinging back in the hippie direction. Hang on a minute! Was she even
thinking
about marriage? Maybe her relationship with Ned was more serious than she'd let on.

Interrupting my thoughts, Lydia said she had something important to tell me. I tightened my grip on
The ModernWedding
. The kitchen clock pulsed a heartbeat through the room. Could we possibly be faced with simultaneously organising nuptials on the beach?

‘I'm going to Sri Lanka,' she said.

Sri Lanka?
The flower-power wedding evaporated.

‘You mean you'll go once you've finished your studies?' I asked.

‘No. Soon,' she said, avoiding eye contact. ‘In a few weeks' time.'

‘But Sri Lanka's in the middle of a civil war!' I gasped, dropping
The Modern Wedding
on the bench top.

‘I've met people who've just come back,' she responded with the confidence only twenty-three-year-olds can muster. ‘They say it's perfectly safe where I'm going.'

A lead weight sank through me, anchoring my feet to the floor. This couldn't be happening. Didn't Lydia take even a passing interest in current events? Sri Lanka had been in the throes of civil war for nearly twenty-five years.

‘Exactly where are you going in Sri Lanka?' I asked, trying to keep emotion out of my voice.

‘The monastery.'

Of course!
So this was what Lydia and her monk had been cooking up over the past four years. Why hadn't she told me? I felt deceived. Philip had been right all along. The monk
had
been exerting some kind of power over our impressionable daughter.

‘There are plenty of Buddhist monasteries around Melbourne,' I said. ‘Why do you have to go all the way to Sri Lanka?'

‘To learn more about meditation.'

‘There's no shortage of meditation classes in this part of the world,' I countered.

‘I'm going to help in an orphanage as well,' she added, as if it might soften my attitude.

Admittedly it did, though only a little. Close to 30,000 Sri Lankans had lost their lives in the tsunami of December 2004. Families had been decimated. With its history of war and natural disaster, Sri Lanka had to be one of the most grief-stricken places on the planet. However, I was in no mood to sacrifice our daughter to its misery.

‘The monastery's really remote, in the mountains in the South,' she said, opening the fridge and slipping an organic blueberry into her mouth. ‘The war's miles away up in the North.'

There'd been a serious gap in our daughter's education. Surely she understood war was something people ran away
from
, not toward. She'd been sheltered all her life, coated in SP30 sun cream every summer and given the best education we could afford. Unlike our generation, she'd never met uncles who'd been maimed at El Alamein. Sepia photos of young men slaughtered at Gallipoli meant even less. She'd grown up in a world where supermarkets were always brimming with food. Lydia had no idea what she'd been protected from.