29
Griff
I scrape the last of the velvety black-forest mousse I made from my bowl, cascading flavors of dark chocolate and cherry coating
my palate. As I lick my lips, loud crying echoes down the hall. A gurney rolls to a halt in my doorway, while the orderly
idles in conversation with the nurse. A petite, middle-aged woman clutches a red hanky, her sobs sharp and unfiltered. Oh
no. It’s Walt’s daughter.
I stare at the fingertips dangling below the white sheet and hang my head. Poor Walt, aka Lisa’s “grandbrother,” was an amputee
from his time in Vietnam and had the most amazing prosthetic arm. It even came with a flesh-like silicone hand. The first
time he popped it off, it scared the bejesus out of me.
I squint at the fingers but am not quick enough to identify if they are his real or fake ones. I bet this is how the judges
feel on the cooking show Is It Cake?, trying to decipher whether each contestant’s creation is a real object or a hyper-realistic dessert disguised under layers
of fondant.
“I’m afraid our policy means your father can’t be cremated with the prosthetic arm,” a softly spoken funeral director says
to Walt’s daughter. “Would you like to keep it?”
“No.” She sobs. “It’d be too strange. Can someone dispose of it for me, please? It’s still in his room.”
“No problem, madam.”
I glance at the lumpy pillows I used as an alibi under my sheet, an idea coming to the boil. The gurney moves on, and I don’t waste my chance. Dashing to Walt’s room, I find the arm under the bed—my favorite hiding place as a teen. The thing even has hair and veins!
Footsteps approach. It’s now or never.
I grab it, stuff it under my jumper and head to the door. Act casual. Easier said than done, with a metal socket sticking
into my clavicle.
“Look, Mum, isn’t this a lovely place? You’d be so happy here!” A man with a fake tan and faker smile beams at an elderly
woman, who clearly knows she’s being lied to. “Gosh! The bedrooms are a good size, aren’t they?” he says, as though talking
to a toddler.
At what point does a child begin to treat a parent like they’re the kid? Is there a magic age when the two switch places?
Is it seventy? Eighty? Or does it change when the parent’s hair turns completely gray?
“Oooh, Mum! They even have a knitting group! You can probably bring your own needles.”
Her expression says exactly where she’d like him to stick those needles.
Lisa and I bought the lies these poor people have no doubt been fed on the initial tour. Should I tell them that meaningful
activities here are about as real as Big Foot’s arse? Or should I, a native of this micro-city, provide translations for them?
Musical Mondays: sit and listen to a crackly radio.
Travel Tuesdays: watch a travel documentary. (This wouldn’t be too bad if they didn’t have just one DVD. As much as I love Italy, there are
only so many times one can see the Leaning Tower of Pisa until one’s brain starts to tilt itself.)
Wacky Wednesdays: have a sparkly hat forced onto your unwilling head during kindergarten craft.
Thirsty Thursdays: drink warm shandies or “mimosas” made from Tang and cask wine.
Fun Fridays: play board games. (But the only game is Scrabble, and all the vowels are missing because Winifred, the oldest resident,
gobbled the lot.)
Sleepy Saturdays: be allowed to sleep in. (As in, the staff have an excuse to be more negligent and not get us out of bed until nine.)
Spiritual Sundays: be able to attend one of the religious services offered by the chapel, which even gets its own new brochure, showing Gladys standing next to a priest and a gentleman in a turban.
(That would be all well and good, except I was there when the photo was taken and know that the priest is just poor Rob, whom they dressed in a black shirt and white clerical collar, and the gentleman is Raj, the friendly Sikh who delivers the incontinence pads.)
The one real activity is listening to that new guitarist.
“No, Mum,” the son chides, “the other residents are not perverts. I’m sure they’re all lovely. Look, there’s a nice chap.”
I freeze as they approach.
Their smiles fall away as their eyes catch on my belt area.
“Please, please don’t make me live here!” the woman cries, dragging her aghast son away. “I told you this place is full of
unsavory characters!”
I glance down. The fake hand is poking out of my jumper and clutching my crotch. Bloody hell.
I stumble to my room in fits of laughter. Beau would have been in hysterics.
No sooner do I start to shut the door than Patricia, the resident flirt, swans in without warning, a skin-tight dress clinging
to her meager frame. Gladys told me she got kicked out of her nursing home up north for indecent behavior. I don’t believe
she has dementia, but she was stuck on this ward after a spectacular escape—they eventually found her in a five-star hotel
in the city, sharing cocktails with a gentleman friend.
“Hello, handsome!” she purrs. “Oooh! I was about to ask you if you need a hand with anything, but I can see you’ve got things
covered!”
I frown, then realize Walt’s fake hand is still on my groin.
“And I thought I’d seen every trick in the book! Prosthetics, hey, Griff? I’m impressed.”
“I’m busy at the moment, sorry.”
“I can see that. I’m good at getting busy.”
I hesitate. “Patricia, I should tell you . . . I’m gay.”
“And your point is?” she asks, glaring unashamedly at my “point.” “I’ve never let that stop me before.
I almost married a gay man once—a lavender marriage, they call it.
Fabulous dancer, he was. You’re the youngest man here by far.
With youth comes . . . flexibility!” She pouts and swirls her long gray strands in her fingers as she approaches me.
“You know, I’m considering getting a bob cut like Eileen.
What do you think? You’ve always had such great taste. ”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the hairdresser?”
“Because I can’t afford to go.” She sighs. “My daughter’s restricted all access to my account. Said I have an online shopping
addiction. Apparently, six kaftans, a sequined blazer and a novelty handbag shaped like a lobster qualify as ‘excessive.’
Anyway, I must be off, it’s time for Neighbours.” She blows me a kiss and exits, leaving me to my project.
Once the idea of making a dummy comes to me, I waste no time. Sewing is something that’s always come naturally; maybe that’s
why I’m so good at trussing a chicken. Beau and I wore the same size clothes, but he was taller. He had a beloved pair of
brown corduroy pants from Harrods in London that he’d bought shortly before we met. After a rare fight, I drank too much and
secretly took the hem up so they would fit me. Even when I was at the bottom of a bottle of merlot, my stitches were impressive.
After months of malnutrition, the pants are far too big for me now.
Grabbing the scrappiest beige tablecloth from the op-shop pile and a fistful of sewing supplies from the craft box, I spread
out the corduroy pants and my least favorite shirt, trace a rough outline in pencil, and soon stitch together a limp silhouette.
Spare pillows from my cupboard provide the stuffing.
“Breathe in, Cliff,” I urge my stunt double, as I squish him into the clothes. Positioning him in the bed facing the wall,
I pull the comforter over him, placing Walt’s fake hand in full view.
I plonk down on the bed and readjust Cliff’s head. It’s missing something: hair. I look at my own meager locks in the mirror;
I’m down to essential strands only. But thanks to her recent visit, I know someone who has plenty and wants to get rid of
them.
They say there are Fifty Shades of Gray, yet Patricia and I have the exact same one. I hurry to her room, scissors in hand.
“Oooh, changed your mind, have you, Griff?”
“No, Patricia. I was just wondering if you’d like me to cut your hair. For free, of course.”
She scans me up and down. “Are you any good?”
“Yes, my cutting skills are world class. I’ve won awards.” Surely cutting hair can’t be that different to cutting spring onions
or micro herbs? “If you don’t like it, then I’ll pay for you to go to the real hairdresser.”
“Okay then.”
She sits in the plastic shower chair in her ensuite, and I chop off half her locks in one straight line and pocket them. The
cut is slightly crooked but could be worse . . .
She stands, catching sight of herself in the mirror. Her mouth falls open as she runs a hand through her new do. “How did
you . . . I . . . ?”
I brace for a slap.
Instead she approaches me, arms outstretched. “You amazing man, you’ve taken ten years off!” she gushes, staring at her reflection
in the same way Beau used to look at me. “You should have become a hairdresser, you know!”
I resist the urge to tell her that according to my stolen résumé, I was one for twenty years.
She leans in, lips puckered. Before I can duck, she grabs my cheeks, and, for the first time since Lucy Robinson at the junior
prom, I’m kissing a woman.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go on a date, Griff?” she asks as I pull away.
“I’m sure. Sorry, Patricia. My heart’s closed for business.”
Her face twists in mock offense as she walks off, her neck making some alarming cracking sounds. With her new cut, she kind
of resembles a gray-haired Bob Dylan—if Dylan had saggy boobs, that is. She did say she wanted a “bob” cut.
But she is delighted, and that makes me glad.
I return to my room, where I remove the chopped ponytail and glue the strands over the dummy’s scalp. The top of the head
and blank face still look a bit odd, though. An old footy beanie and a blindfold later, and I think we have a winner.
Being me, I have to take it to the next level. Gladys was happy to give me her granddaughter’s discarded koala toy, which the child had refused to take home. The thing expands in and out like it’s breathing. I pop it under the shirt, and even I think Cliff is real for a minute.
For the pièce de résistance, I remove Beau’s old briefcase from my cupboard. The smell of the faded leather conjures joy and
grief all at once. It used to double up as an overnight bag. How many times have I got out this case to pack for weekends
away? Now, instead of me taking it on a journey, it’s taking me to a place that I’d give anything to return to: a world in
which he breathed.
The brass buckles make a familiar click as I snap them open. I remove Beau’s Dictaphone and a bunch of old and new cassette tapes. He was a wonderful teacher and
often practiced by recording his lessons beforehand, wanting to give his best to the students, as he did to everyone in his
life. Sometimes I listen to the old tapes just to hear his voice. I never get very far, though; my eardrums handle grief even
less well than my heart does. But I can’t resist right now, and I hit play.
“Can anyone tell me why the equal sign was so humble? No? Because it knew it wasn’t less than or greater than anyone else!
Pause for laughter.” He chuckles at his own joke.
I slap my forehead. Beau’s corniness knew no limits, but his students loved him for it.
“Today we’ll be learning about—”
I cut it off. I must focus on the task at hand.
Unwrapping a new cassette, I hit record and give my best snoring impression. I’m good at it and have a scar on my right ankle
to prove it from when Beau accidentally kicked me in bed with a toenail so sharp it almost julienned my calf. I consider the
length of the kitchen shifts; I’ll need at least three hours of this to be on the safe side. I fake-snore in blocks at a time,
breaking for the toilet, water and Teddy Bear biscuits. Finally, I have enough.
The tape finishes rewinding just as someone knocks on the door. “He’s probably asleep, but better double-check.”
It’s Cliff’s time to shine—an earlier gig than planned, but a great chance to see if he’s up to the task. I switch on the koala toy and roll under the bed, hitting play as an agency carer enters the room.
“Yep! He’s asleep. At least that’s one less we have to help.”
I sigh. Insufferable place.
The door creaks closed, and I emerge and shake the hand formerly known as Walt’s. “Congrats, Cliff, mate. You’ve got the job!
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
To celebrate, I grab a permanent marker and draw eyes and a crooked smile on Cliff’s face. He should be happy; maybe I should
be too. I’m not there yet. But now it doesn’t feel like a complete impossibility.