The Healing Party (18 page)

For the first few days after the chemo, Mum was unwell and seldom came out of her room. This time, she was also coping with hair loss. Mum's much-admired hair, which she had oiled, massaged, coiffured and prettily arranged around her face over a lifetime, began to abandon her. No artful combing and pinning could hide the baldness. Chunks of her hair were left behind on the pillow when I lifted her out of bed in the morning, and they clogged the drain after her shower. It was a slow torture. She averted her eyes from all mirrors except for the pocket compact she used when applying her make-up. The remaining sorry tails of hair sticking out of her head and the patches of bald skin gave her a derelict appearance.

*

About a week after Mum's chemotherapy, Anita surprised us by leaving work early and coming over after lunch. Carrying two bulging plastic bags, she headed for Mum's room. ‘I've been shopping,' she said. Anita often brought catalogues, magazines and newly bought items to show Mum. Shopping was their thing. Before the cancer, they would spend hours together on weekends, walking the malls, hunting down bargains and trying on clothes. Anita was the big spender, always finding more things that she needed, while Mum browsed. Mum often complained about her spending too much.

I followed Anita into the bedroom. She pulled a chair up next to Mum, who sat at the window overlooking the backyard. ‘This is such a fantastic buy,' Anita said, pulling a blue button-up shirt with a 400-dollar price tag out of the Myer bag. ‘A designer brand, reduced by 50 per cent. People were fighting for it. It fits me perfectly.' I remembered the advice Anita had once given me – act with confidence, and no one will disagree.

‘Now, guess what I have in the other bag,' Anita said. ‘Your wig. It arrived this morning. It came nicely wrapped in tissue, but I opened it.'

‘You have such a nice-shaped head,' I said to Mum. ‘Now that you have a wig, you could shave all your hair off, like some other women who have had chemo.'

‘No!' Mum said with sudden vehemence. ‘I am not a man!'

Anita glared at me. She pulled the wig over Mum's head. It was a jet-black shoulder-length bob, similar to a hairstyle she'd had in the sixties. Anita tried several different arrangements, combing the hair behind Mum's ears, sweeping it to the side. When she found the right style for Mum, Anita put Mum in front of the dressing table. Mum raised dull eyes to her image.

‘There, young again,' said Anita. The glossy thick wig looked impressive until you noticed how its vigour accentuated the pallor and sag of Mum's skin. ‘You wear the wig in the daytime and at night you wear this hat,' said Anita. She showed Mum a soft black knit in the shape of a turban. Grabbing the wheelchair handles, Anita pulled Mum away from the mirror so she would not have to look at herself when she took off the wig to try on the hat.

A few minutes later, Patsy arrived, carrying a jar in outstretched hands like a chalice. She walked straight over to Mum without seeming to notice the wig on her head. ‘This oil has been anointed by the bishop,' she said, with a proud tilt of her chin.

Maria was having a short break from vigil coordination. I went to the family room to check whether the next person on the roster had arrived. They hadn't, and Rob and Vishka, an elderly couple from the Friday night prayer group, had finished their hour and needed to leave. Kneeling down, I took their place but instead of praying, I tidied up the altar, which had become cluttered with flowers, cards, scapulars and other prayer aids. Worried that I would have to fill the hour myself, I looked for the roster. Janice was scheduled on next. She was the eighteen-year-old daughter of one of Mum's cell group members and had been coming over nearly every day of the past week. Plain as she was, there was a light shining from Janice's face. When she was silent, a smile played upon her lips as if she were hearing a heavenly song. When she talked, she did so with utter conviction. People called her the young Joan of Arc. Mum always joined her at the altar when she came. She disturbed me, but I tried to focus on the fact that Mum took comfort from her presence.

I heard the front door open. People coming for the vigil had been told to let themselves in and out. It was Janice. I went to get Mum.

While Janice and Mum set themselves up in the family room, Patsy and I lingered in the kitchen. Patsy put on the kettle. I put away some dishes. We pretended to be busy, but were mostly hanging around the kitchen table, from where we could see and hear Mum and Janice.

Janice pulled their chairs close together in front of the altar. She held Mum's hands in hers and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Jesus loves you,' Janice said. ‘I see Him right now, looking down on you, putting His arms around you.' Her voice was compelling. ‘He is saying to you, “You are perfect. You, Irene, are my precious child. I love you. I will never abandon you. I will never fail you. Give all your sufferings to me …”'

My heart rose to my throat. I put down the dishes, unable to concentrate on anything but Janice's words.
You are perfect. I love you. I will never fail you.
Yes, this was exactly what Mum needed to hear.

Leaning in closer, Janice cupped Mum's head in her hands and described a vision of Mum rising out of the wheelchair, laughing and rejoicing, witnessing to and bringing many people to Christ. Her lips were a few centimetres away from Mum's face. Mum must have been inhaling Janice's breath.

It amazed and embarrassed me to watch them. In my family we never got that close, pressed against each other, eyes locked, breath on each other's faces. To pick Mum up from bed, I had to wrap my arms around her and squeeze her to my breast. I enjoyed holding her – it was the only chance I had to be close to her – but I couldn't bear it if we were too close. I always turned my head away so that I would not smell her. I was shy of that deeper smell that was hers only, made up of her inherent chemistry, that not even the strong drugs Mum was taking or the cancer could alter.

I looked at Patsy. She stood transfixed, listening and watching. Her shoulders were slumped and her face crestfallen. I could feel her hurt. When we were children, people had called Patsy and me the twins. We had been able to take one look at each other and know what the other was thinking. After Mum and Dad were born again, I rebelled, while she became more obedient. Slowly we had moved apart, but still I yearned for that former alliance.

‘She doesn't even know Mum,' I whispered to Patsy.

Patsy frowned. ‘What did you say?'

‘She doesn't even know Mum,' I said, louder.

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' Patsy said.

*

I took a walk up to the corner shop. When I came back, it was quiet in the house. Anita was rinsing vegetables at the kitchen sink, Carmel from the drama group was at the altar, praying, and Mum was lying on the couch in the lounge room.

I went into the kitchen and started to peel the onions. Anita, ignoring me, looked to be fuming about something.
What now?
I thought. Maria came downstairs from the studio, informed Carmel her hour was up, chatted with her for a few minutes and saw her out.

Maria had the next hour. Before she took her position at the altar, she beckoned me over to her in the family room and warned in a low voice, ‘Your book about dying – Mum and Dad are really upset.' My stomach turned. Entering the lounge room, I saw it sitting on the coffee table next to Mum's reading glasses and bible. The title,
On Death and Dying
, stood out, stark black in capital letters against the tomb-grey cover.

Mum was pale. Without looking at me, she pointed to the book with a jerk of her chin. I flipped the book over so the cover couldn't be seen and sat down next to her.

‘I'm sorry, Mum. I didn't mean for you to see it,' I said.

‘You tell your dad,' she said.

Dad strode down the stairs into the room. I realised he had been waiting for Carmel to leave.

He stood in front of me, face terrible, arms tense at his side, fists clenched. ‘We are a family of believers!' he said, his voice thick. ‘We have claimed the miracle! We reject the evil of Satan!' Jutting his head forward like a bulldog's, he jabbed his finger at me. ‘Now take that book away!' he shouted.

I picked up the book and went to my room. Maria followed me. ‘Are you all right?' she said. I pushed past her.

‘I'm going out. I'll be back after dinner,' I said, then grabbed my handbag and rushed out.

*

It was strange how alive I felt as I walked away from the house. Dad's anger still tore through me. It had been no more than I deserved.

I fought the urge to ring Jason, to hear his slow, hesitating voice, to feel that we belonged together, to tell him how Mum was getting sicker and more silent, how all of us had to say she was healed, and that I now felt angry or guilty nearly every moment I spent with my family. But I couldn't ring him. Maybe he had moved on. Besides, I knew what he would think about the book incident – he would be on my side. That wasn't what I needed. My family might be right.

I caught the bus to Ed's place. Since the healing party, he had continued to come over to help Dad with his projects and to take part in the vigil, but I had avoided being alone with him. I felt he had more in common with my family than with me.

It was the first time I had been to his house in daylight. If he wasn't home, I decided, I would just wander around the city for a couple of hours. I turned down streets lined with tiny weatherboard cottages. Most of them were unrenovated, with peeling paint and overflowing bins in the concrete rectangles standing in for their front yards. They were student houses now, most of them, with Tibetan prayer flags in their grimy windows and wet, sagging sofas sitting abandoned by the rusty letterboxes. Ed's front door came up nearly to the footpath, with just a thin strip of well-tended garden in between. For five years he had rented this place, he told me. Even through his worst bouts of drinking, he had never missed a single payment. There was the sound of a vacuum cleaner running inside. I rang the bell. The vacuuming sound stopped and I heard footsteps.

‘Hi.' He stood in the narrow corridor, looking confused. It hit me that I shouldn't have come. He had driven us here twice when we had first started going out. Each time, it had been for one purpose only. Rushing to get into the house, fumbling with keys in the dark, we had not talked. He had not even turned on the lights. He had pulled me into the black corridor, then into his bedroom, semi-lit by streetlights shining through the window.

‘I'm sorry for barging in like this. If you're busy, I can go,' I said.

‘Come in,' he said, and stepped back to let me walk ahead of him down the corridor. I glimpsed his bedroom through the half-open door on the left as we passed. The low futon bed was neatly made, the beige cover pulled over the pillows. Last time I was here the sheets had been tangled and fouled up and the futon pushed halfway off the frame with our thrashing. I had been surprised by his violence.

The corridor led to a light-filled, open room. In one corner was an old, brightly painted wooden kitchen cabinet, in the other corner a sofa, and in the middle of the room a small round table with two chairs. The house was clean and orderly, simple but stylish. Except for a newspaper on the table, nothing was out of place. He picked up the newspaper and slotted it into the magazine rack with the same fastidiousness I had seen him display when we prepared for the party. He would be a careful and considerate carer for the old folks, I thought.

He pulled out a chair at the table for me. ‘Have a seat,' he said. He made a pot of coffee and sat down across the table from me. ‘What's up?'

‘It's all this stuff about Mum being healed. I feel like some kind of … of … curse upon my family. I've been so angry. I've been unfair to you too – I'm sorry,' I said.

‘Forget it,' he said. ‘But that's not what you're here for, is it?'

I took a sharp breath. Since when had he become so suspicious of me? ‘I thought you'd be good to talk with because you know my family,' I said. ‘You've been through the healing party with us, you're a Charismatic, but I can still relate to you. And you're sensitive.'

‘What about your sisters?' he said.

‘They're the thought police.'

He smiled, poured the coffee, lit a cigarette and waited for me to begin.

‘You know the book on death and dying?' I said. ‘That one by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross?'

He nodded, blew smoke away from me.

‘I've been reading it and some other books on terminal illness. I knew Mum and Dad wouldn't like it, so I kept them in my room. But this morning I read
On Death and Dying
out in the lounge room. Then I accidentally left it lying around. They found it. Mum looked at me like I had sentenced her to death. Dad was shouting, as though I was a traitor to the family. I should have explained to them why I was reading it. Instead, I said I didn't mean for them to see it. I'm such a coward. The thing is, I must have known what I was doing when I started reading it in the lounge room. I must have wanted them to see.'

‘Of course you did.' He winked at me. ‘Stirring things up a bit in the Chan household again.' He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. I liked the way he did that.

‘But it upset them so much,' I said.

He smiled at me with his warm eyes. ‘They'll be fine, darl. Their faith is rock-solid.'

‘You mean their denial of reality is.'

‘The five stages of grieving in the
Death and Dying
book,' he said, ‘we used them in Alcoholics Anonymous. But what's the big deal, knowing what stage you're going through? Say I get through the denial and the anger, and learn to accept that I'm an alcoholic. Then what? Self-awareness is over-rated. It doesn't change anything.'

I sat forward. ‘But if we could stop pretending the cancer wasn't there,' I said, ‘or if we could at least talk about it, maybe we could cope with it better. But then, I guess, if we're coping with it, we're not rising above it … No, that's not what I mean.'