Current Issue + contents + contributors + thanks News Next Issue Submit Links About Contact     The first thing she notices when she gets off the plane is the shadows. She notices them before Margaret the Aunt, who's waving a white handkerchief at her like a damsel in some long forgotten fairytale; before the heat soaking into her clothes; before the dirt and claustrophobia and many, many eyes. The shadows are darker here. They spill on the grey concrete runway like black satin ink and she thinks of sin her mother. Her mother standing on the porch, the shadow of the house long and loud against the mud and grass that make up their property. Clue, her mother says as the car pulls out of the driveway. Even though she doesn't hear the word, the name, she knows what her mother says and she bows her head in the backseat and cries. Margaret the Aunt is upon her now. 'Robin!' The big woman practically roars as she engulfs her in a huge Aunt hug. 'Isa! Look at you! You gone so tall!' Robin's not that tall really. But it's been fourteen years ages since she's been back, and her relatives haven't seen her in all that while. Not that Margaret the Aunt was a blood relative or, for that matter, even related to the family in any way at all. It's just that Margaret the Aunt was her mother's best friend and that made her family by association. People are staring at them, at her, and she knows they think it's odd for this bustling Fijian woman to be hugging this bug-eyed Chinese girl (and they would think she's a girl, even though she's thirty two) in the waiting room of this farce of an airport. The male eyes are checking her out; the female ones are checking her out in a less friendly way. 'Aunt Margaret,' she says, for some reason feeling silly to be addressing Margaret the Aunt in such an informal manner. She tries to smile and succeeds a little. 'It's good to see you.' For just an instant she sees the question in Margaret the Aunt's eyes (Is it? Is it good to see me?) before it's quickly replaced by a familiar warmth. Suddenly she feels like a child again, listening to her mother and her mother's best friend gossiping in the kitchen like the housewives they are. And as with all things from that time, Robin feels the underpinning of sadness, the bittersweetness of the past. 'Come, come, let's get your bags!' Margaret the Aunt makes a path through the throng of people, scattering them like a warrior in battle. Robin doesn't ask why her father isn't here to greet her; she's not stupid. But she asks about Jacob. Margaret the Aunt looks at her in what is almost pity. 'He's working today,' she says simply. Robin understands that she's made a big mistake, a monumental mistake, and all she wants to do is pick up her luggage, get back on the ridiculously small aeroplane and go back to her life in Sydney. Where there were winding streets and too many cars and safe, civilized people. Where her work was, her friends were, her home was. Where she was known. Instead, she just nods and follows the woman who is her mother's best friend. The big marama, they always called her. Robin wonders if they still do. * They pull up to Robin's there's no place like home house, which is no longer her house, just as the sun is setting. The drive has been silent the entire way, even though Margaret the Aunt has cast furtive glances at her, seemingly wanting to say something but deciding against it. Robin knows she should ask something reasonable like, 'How is she?' or 'So, what have you been up to all these years?' but the questions die in the thinking. Robin sneaks a peek at the house and suddenly time superimposes itself on the walls and cracks of this place she once called home. Suddenly it is 1992 and Emmy-Lou Harris or Nancy Sinatra, some crooner anyway, is playing on the radio above the kitchen sink and Dad is snoozing in the Sunday sun and Mum is ironing the clothes, and Jacob is playing cards with his friends at the dining room table and all is well, all is super, because the bad stuff hasn't happened yet. The bad stuff is still to come. 'Do you want me to come in with you?' Margaret the Aunt asks finally, as though fearing Robin would never get out of the car. 'No, no thank you,' Robin smiles at her. 'You've been…I can take it from here.' She feels like such a white person when she says that. I can take it from here. 'Thanks for the ride, Aunt Margaret. And for coming to meet me at the airport.' 'Isa, luvequ, of course,' Margaret the Aunt says and she is big marama, no matter if people still call her that or not. 'Welcome home.' Welcome home. * Robin stands on the porch where her mother once stood. The memory is so clear she almost feels the imprint of her mother's feet beneath hers. Once, long ago, her mother had stood here and said Clue goodbye to the 'wild one', the girl who thought she could. The seashells lining the garden were still there, the dolphin wind-chime still hanging from the ceiling of the porch, the steps still painted blue. Somewhere, children are playing 'hide and seek'. She is surprised at the ache in her heart. When Robin calls a hesitant 'Hello?' from the doorway, no one answers. She pushes the screen netting which opens easily (no one in Fiji locks their doors, or even closes them for that matter) and places one foot on the well-worn wooden floor. 'Hello?' she tries again, and this time her father materialises out of the comfortable dimness of the living room. He is old now. Time has marked him the way Moses marked the houses of the children of Israel with blood. His hair is grey and receding, his face still handsome but lined, his hands calloused. His eyes are sharp though, and his physique is still trim for a man in his sixties. Robin remembers him differently from how she remembers her mother. With her mother it is always one long trail of memory, one reel, one novel. With her father it is through a series of vignettes, a multitude of photographs, several short stories. They stood there in that once-in-a-lifetime magnetism, when all that was unsaid between them were like sentinels at their side, both of them full of hurt and anger and tired love. 'Hello, Dad.' Robin's voice is soft. He nods at her and she thinks she sees his hands tremble. 'Hello, Clue.' The nickname stings her. It had only ever been her parents and Jacob who'd called her that. Clue, a name given to her before she could remember-it had been her first word, and no one had ever known why. 'She's waiting for you.' He says solemnly. Robin nods and walks around him to get to the bedroom, and a whiff of his Dad-smell hits her with such force that she almost falls. It hurts, this coming home, it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. And then he says: 'She was never the same after you left.' God, why do parents hate their children so? Why do they crush them, twist them, mould them to fit in their preconceived definitions of what their children should look like, think like, be like? Robin had once read somewhere that parents hurt their children from the very beginning, from the very moment they are born. All their failures, their shortcomings, all their missed opportunities come rushing to them in those moments of creation and they understand they've been given another chance to live again, to succeed where failures walked, to step into the path of opportunity and scream 'Yes', no matter what the cost. No matter what was left behind. There is nothing Robin can say in response to his statement, so she leaves him standing in the dim hallway and goes to her mother. The shadows in her mother's room are dark, just like at the airport. The room is gloomy and still, as if the air itself has remained motionless for these past fourteen years. The orange-red-yellow light dances behind the cream curtains, asking to be let in. A wasted body lies on the bed. Her mother, who once stood on a porch and whispered her daughter's name, is dying. Death has called her home. 'Mum?' Robin whispers softly, afraid the Grim Reaper will come too soon if she speaks any louder. 'Mum, can you hear me?' Her mother moans and opens her eyes. For all her frailty, she fixes Robin with a bright stare. Robin hesitates and takes her hand, squeezes it briefly. Her mother, after a pause, squeezes it back. It shouldn't be so simple, not after all this time. But in that one gentle squeeze, in the heartbreak and forgiveness and regret she feels there, Robin bows her head, the way she did in the backseat of a car whilst her mother watched from the porch, and cries and cries and cries. * Fourteen years ago a girl named Robin, who had always had such full wings, such large castles in the sky, had told her parents and her brother Jacob that she was off to become an actress, one of those screen legends of Hollywood immortality. They had been, in turn, amused, incredulous, angry and then downright furious. Such big dreams were not meant for a small island life. But people choose what they let go and what they hang on to. And Robin chose a life away from the sea and frangipanis and markets. To her, it was the only choice to make. If she stayed, she feared she would go insane, turn into a mad bag-lady, one of those ones who rummaged through the bins, or worse, she would become normal, she would settle. Robin couldn't stand the thought of settling, of compromising, of being second-best. So she left. One sunny day in October, she packed her bags, said goodbye to her family and got into a taxi. From the backseat of the car, she could see her mother standing on the porch, and even though she couldn't hear it, she knew her mother had whispered her name. She had underestimated the nature of her father's wrath, her mother's silence, her brother's incomprehension. Sometimes, one person in a family is just so different, even the people closest to her can't catch a glimpse into her world. In the end Robin didn't become Rita Hayworth or Ginger Rogers. She didn't even make it to Hollywood. She did however become one of the most respected fashion designers of her age, with her creations featured in a mass of high profile magazines. Her international reputation was growing more each day, beyond Australia, beyond her wildest imaginings. Renowned designers and journalists were calling her up, charming her, telling her how much they liked the new designs, would she consider a partnership, what was her inspiration, it was all just fabulous darrllinngg! And yet the only opinions she desperately wanted was that of her father, who time had marked; her brother, who would not see her; and her mother, who now lay dying in the twilight. * There are no happy endings in a tale of families. Was it Tolstoy who'd said that? Robin doesn't know. She sits on the porch and watches the occasional car go by, the darkening of the midnight blue sky to black. Her father is inside the house cooking curried crab and just the thought of it makes her mouth water. Her mother is resting in front of the television. In the darkness, a figure is coming home. Robin gets up to greet her brother. Do you have a comment about this piece? email your thoughts to Harbinger. Top