The Healing Party (6 page)

Mum laughed and her eyes grew wistful. She loved him. There was no doubt about it.

‘I didn't know whether to marry your dad. When I met his family, I thought, “Oh dear! What ruffians!” But I prayed and prayed. One night Jesus put it on my heart to marry him. I heard the name Paul in my heart. So isn't that good, Natasha? Praise the Lord.' She paused. ‘Not my will, but the Lord's will. Like we prayed today – not my will, but Thy will. Not my will, but Thy will.'

S
IGNS OF THE TUM OUR IN
M
UM
'
S SPINAL CORD
had appeared about nine months before it was diagnosed. She and Maria had been with me in Darwin at the time. It was Mum's first visit there.

Maria and Mum stayed in my bedroom while I moved onto a bed set up on the verandah. My housemates were kind about the visit and agreed to be discreet about drugs and partners for the ten days.

When we plonked Mum's suitcase on my bed and opened it, slippery synthetic blouses and skirts frothed out and the fragrance of her floral perfume tinged with mothballs filled my room. Digging underneath the clothes, Mum pulled out a round pink tin of Quality Street chocolates, three packets of Emperor herbal chicken spice and a plastic drink bottle filled with clear liquid. She handed them to me. A piece of masking tape stuck to the bottle had
Holy Water
on it in purple texta in Dad's handwriting.

‘The holy water was blessed by Father Lachlan for you. We can bless your house with it,' Mum said.

I returned the bottle to the suitcase. ‘Thank you, Mum, for the presents, but you keep the holy water,' I said.

‘No, take it. What did I bring it all the way here for?' She took it out again, walked over to my bookshelf and placed it there.

‘No thanks, Mum.' I put it back in the suitcase.

She sighed loudly and turned her back on me to unpack. Then she swung around. ‘It is time you came home. It is the family's home. This year everyone must have Christmas there together.'

‘I am coming to see the family at Christmas. Just not in your home.'

‘So silly. So stubborn. What for like that?'

‘I've told you before – it's just better that way between Dad and me. His house, his rules.'

For the first few days, we did the kinds of things she enjoyed. We took early morning walks along the foreshore before the sun grew strong; we went several times to Darwin's only shopping centre, where for hours she was content to wander in and out of the same shops as in Melbourne, only smaller; and I dropped Maria and her to the Darwin Charismatic meetings they knew about through their links in Melbourne, although I didn't go in myself. I spent those hours with Jason, making up for the nights we couldn't sleep together while they stayed.

It was the first time Mum had met Jason. We had been going out for eighteen months, the longest by far that I had gone out with anyone. I sometimes wondered why it had continued when all my other relationships had ended after a few months. It took Jason about six months, and a lot of agonising about what he truly felt – whether it was just attraction, infatuation, or a mutually beneficial relationship, and what was the meaning of it all anyway – before he said that he loved me. His whole body shook when he told me. I felt that I could trust him. That when he was no longer interested in me, he would tell me.

Mum did not want to be overly friendly with him, or encourage our relationship, because she knew he was an agnostic. Still, I thought she liked him. ‘He seems a nice, quiet young man,' she said. ‘Very simple.'

‘What do you mean by simple, Mum?' I said.

‘You know, look how he dress, that kind of thing.'

Jason spent a few days with us, and it must have seemed as though he was just hanging around aimlessly. He'd turn up in a torn, sour-smelling T-shirt, cut-down jeans and thongs, and not say much all day. He had taken time off work to spend time with Mum and Maria, but he wasn't one to tell them that he had so much work as a graphic designer he had to turn clients away.

For the last days of their Darwin visit, I had in store a special trip out to the bush. Although I had planned the visit to Daly River weeks earlier, I told Mum about it only the day before, in order to minimise the time she had to worry. The drive was only three hours, I said. I described the beautiful virgin bush and termite mounds that we would see on the way, the hot spring that only the locals knew, and the Daly River Aboriginal community where we would stay for two nights with my friend who worked in the art centre.

Mum pursed her lips and frowned. ‘Are you sure?' she said. That's all she said:
Are you sure?
If she didn't want to go or had concerns, why didn't she just say so? I could have grabbed her by her synthetic blouse and shaken her.

Jason started laughing as soon as we were out of earshot. ‘You don't really think she's going to like it out bush, do you?'

‘It will be good for her to see the real bush,' I said. ‘She might just love it. It might be a revelation to her. You have to give these things a chance.'

‘Ze vill go and ze vill love it,' Jason said, giving me a Nazi salute.

The next day, Mum, Maria and I turned off the highway towards Daly River. Bitumen soon ran out into dirt road and then there was nothing but dirt, trees and sky. Twisted scrub continued in a monotonous line below an empty blue expanse. The occasional gum tree raised itself over the scrub, its thin, old branches forming a spindly calligraphy against the sky. I drove on further and absorbed the surroundings. They did not manipulate with grand vistas, spectacular heights, majestic trees or verdant colour. My spine loosened and my breathing deepened in deference to this harsh, low land.

I looked at Mum in the seat next to me. Although our windows were up, the fine dust of the road was swirling through the door gaps and air vents. We could not talk above the hammering of the van over the ruts in the road. Passing cars threw up clouds of dust so thick that I had to stop the van or else continue blind. Mum's jaw was clenched shut, her eyes bloodshot and tense.

It would be okay. The clearing was a few kilometres away. We would stop there and I would show Mum. I imagined how I would bring her up close to the small hidden treasures: she would see the delicate uncurling fronds of the cycad, the fresh yellow of the kapok flower, the textures of the woollybutt tree and the stone-age presence of the termite mounds. I pressed on the accelerator to get to the clearing faster, but the banging over the ruts only became more violent. I was forced to slow back down and let the ruts resume their rhythm.

We finally reached the clearing. None of us moved for some seconds after the van had stopped, mesmerised by the silence and stillness. I opened my door and suggested we take a look around.

‘No, you go. I will just sit here. I don't feel well,' Mum said. Maria and I tried to help her out of the van to get some air. It was when she stepped out that she suddenly shrieked and bent double.

We turned back for Darwin immediately. The trip back was hellish, every rut in the road a punishment, every piece of bush a menace. She writhed in pain the whole way, her eyes shut tight, her face contorted. Her mouth moved and I knew she was praying, though I could not hear her words.

When they returned to Melbourne, the pain in Mum's back receded, leaving a numbness in her arms and legs that wouldn't go away. The doctors decided it was a pinched nerve. Eight months later, the pain came back and one morning she woke up unable to move her legs. This time they found the tumour and a spinal biopsy confirmed that it was cancer. Cancer cells were also found in her large intestine and liver. The cancer had metastasised. Four weeks later, I quit my job and left Darwin to be with her. She was treated urgently with steroids and radiotherapy to relieve the pressure on her spinal cord. This was to be followed by three cycles of chemotherapy. Surgery was not an option. The cancer had spread too far.

*

Mum was to have her second dose of chemotherapy at 12 p.m. today. She was quiet after breakfast, pursing and unpursing her lips, frowning into the distance. She took up a pen and laid a piece of paper on the kitchen table. Hunched over the page, she scratched out one painstaking letter after another.

She seldom wrote, not even shopping lists. I knew her writing from the birthday cards I'd received each year in Darwin. Dad's blessing and call to surrender to Jesus would flow in a stylish and bold script over both pages on the inside of the card. In the bottom-right corner a childish, shaky hand would say, ‘Love from Mum'.

‘You must do what it says,' she said handing me the piece of paper. I glanced at it. She had written:
1. Vomit bucket must leave on chair next to bed, not floor or how I can reach it? 2. Take plants outside house at night. 3. Throw out leftover food – otherwise
sun voo kay
. 4. Soak dried prawns for Dad's noodles. 5. Open all windows before sleep.

‘Make sure you do it, okay?' she said. ‘Last time after chemo I was too sick to remember. You must take the plants out at night, okay?' When I nodded without enthusiasm, she glared at me. ‘Don't you know they suck up the oxygen? Don't tell me you don't know that? Don't you know?' she said, and would not leave it alone until I agreed.

The Come To Jesus drama group was arriving in half an hour for practice. The CTJ performed evangelical plays written by Dad, who was also the director, choreographer and music composer. They had performed in community theatres, in churches and in the Bourke Street Mall. Two years ago, CTJ dissolved. No one in the family would tell me why, but I remembered the arguments Mum and Dad had, even before I left, about his attentiveness to the prettier girls in the group. When the cancer was diagnosed, however, Dad had persuaded Mum to let him revive the CTJ. He said that the Lord was calling on our family to serve Him sixfold, even tenfold. That way we could show the world that in hardship our faith would not only continue but strengthen, and we would be a testament to His power. The group was to perform at the healing party.

Maria arrived at the front door, wearing baggy jeans and a shapeless windcheater. She was Dad's helper on the CTJ, recruiting members, picking them up, and doing the general running around. She was also one of the actors. Something clicked over when Maria was performing – she would be loud, excessive and funny. She turned sideways to get in the front door, her arms laden with shopping bags.

‘Aiya, why can't you dress better?' Mum said, as Maria came into the kitchen. ‘Go and get changed. You look like Vietnamese.'

Maria dumped the bags on the table and started pulling out the contents item by item. ‘I've got the manuka honey, Mum. It's a natural antibiotic. I was looking for the 75 per cent but could only find the 50 per cent – it should still be effective. This here is olive-leaf extract, which is really good for immunity.' She pulled out a brown bottle. ‘This one's a liver tonic. Here's an iron tonic for your blood cells.' I didn't bother asking her how she knew any of this was appropriate for Mum, and she didn't offer an explanation.

‘Thanks. Wah, so many things,' Mum said, but looked uninterested.

Maria got a call and left to pick up some new recruits. She returned with a homeless man and an international student she had converted through her street witnessing. At the same time, a stream of members began to arrive. Soon there were about twenty in the lounge room, most of them young, and recruited from church youth groups and Christian ministries. Only one or two looked familiar from the time I lived in Melbourne. I recognised the types, though. The pleasing young women who glowed with love and vulnerability. Young men with stiff mouths, mannered movements and holy airs. And also a few old men having fun, crackling with newfound vigour. We become
childlike
, not
childish,
the more we give ourselves to Jesus, they testified. The older women, who exuded benevolence, did not come to CTJ, though they sometimes dropped in cakes or sandwiches.

As usual, the homeless and the sick had also been brought into the fold. Sitting on a chair with a bulging plastic bag on his lap was the bearded man Maria had picked up from a Salvation Army hostel. One earnest young man sat next to him, telling him the story of how he had found Jesus, but the bearded man's eyes were on the young women.

Jessie, the daughter of one of the actors, must have been about twelve years old now. She thumped backwards and forwards in her wheelchair, whacking against the restraint strapped across her chest. Mouth open wide and tongue lolling, she laughed out loud at the young woman who knelt in front of her, clapping her hands and singing, ‘Does Jessie love Jesus? Oh yes, she does. Jessie loves Jesus.'

They moved around the house as though they had the right. I had closed the kitchen door, but they entered without knocking. Several of them came in to greet Mum. They smiled kindly at her, stooping down and saying things like, ‘Wow and wow backwards,' and remarking how inspirational our family was. Mum wore a strained smile.

A tender-eyed young woman came up to me, smiling blissfully and opening her arms to hug. Then she saw my face and took a step back.
Losers, losers
, I was thinking. But when I saw the joy drain out of her eyes, I felt ashamed.

Dad called them all into the lounge room. I stood at the side of the glass doors, where I could watch them. Dad was working the room. He was magnanimous and charming and he found a special compliment for everyone. He patted men's shoulders, he kissed the women and he looked down at his feet with a delighted, cheeky expression after telling a joke. He lingered around the girl with the alluring Irish looks. Maria, too, was working the room. She was getting chairs, serving soft drinks, making sure that everyone was comfortable.

Now a middle-aged man in a blue suit and a paunch came to the front door. Dad rushed to welcome him. ‘Make way, make way!' Dad shouted. ‘Here he is, Geoff Atkins! Make way for the prophet Geoff! Everyone, this is the man who prophesied Irene's miracle.'

Dad gathered the group together and asked Geoff to say a few words. Geoff licked the lips on his pug-like face. ‘Well, I was in the middle of work. I own the Retravision store in Chadstone – by the way, if any of you want a discount, just turn up and yell out, “Jesus is Lord!”' Laughs and shouts of ‘Jesus is Lord!' came from the group. ‘Anyway,' Geoff continued, ‘Paul told me to come down and take a look at you. So here I am. He said we need to sponsor some of you. So I said, here's my cheque book. And I'll tell you something you already know: Paul Chan is a saint! And he wasn't born yesterday either. He was – what was it again, Paul? The Renaissance Man of Hong Kong! He was on his way to becoming famous in Australia too. And he gave it all up. Sacrificed it all for Jesus!'