Magpies

By Mary Brooks

Another entertaining selection of short stories by author Mary Brooks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: May 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503504912

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Copyright © 2015 by Mary Brooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/30/2015

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Contents

A New Life

Carole

Christmas Day

Christmas Stall

The Divorce

Fire! Fire!

Garage Sale

Germaine

The Lottery Ticket

Magpies

Masquerade

Peaceful

Perspective

The Recession

Study

The Break-In

The Chicken or the Egg

The Chorister

The Concert

The Dutchman

The Hurricane at Sea

The Letter

The Mini

The New Receptionist

The Rabbit’s Foot

Thief in the Night

Three Letters

Tsunami Diary

Two Mothers

Two Sons and Their Father

Yanchep

Young Tony

A New Life

Dear students and friends, by the time you are reading or hearing this letter, I will have gone to heaven to join our blessed Mary MacKillop. I say goodbye with a heavy heart because I have loved you all, but I am happy. I am going to a wonderful place with our Mother Mary, our Lord Jesus, and Heavenly Father. I trust you can all be happy for me, and please do not cry.

Love to you all,

Anitra

A nitra was twenty-six and had been a teacher at the Mary MacKillop School for three years. She had been teaching young primary school pupils in Grade 2. It was then that she had been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, already spread to her bones and her lungs.

She had known she had cancer because of the hard lump on her breast but had prayed she would be cured. She had not gone to her family doctor at first until she had the flu and needed a medical certificate for school. It was then that the doctor examined her chest and found the big lump distorting her small breast.

‘Anitra,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you come to see me earlier?’ He could not believe she was waiting for God to cure her. He did not believe in God but did believe in the power of modern medicine to offer cure or palliation for many cancers. He sent Anitra to see an oncologist, with a chest X-ray confirming the spread of the cancer to her lungs and ribs.

The oncologist recommended chemotherapy. Anitra was reluctant, but her family insisted. Her mother and father were devastated, and her husband too. Although he respected her religious beliefs, he also believed in the power of modern medicine and tried to explain to Anitra that it was God who gave men the intelligence and skill to develop the medicines.

To mollify her family, Anitra began chemotherapy. Three months later, it was obvious that that particular regime was not helping her, and the oncologist changed the drugs. This seemed to keep it at bay but did not shrink the original tumour. He explained to her that surgery was unlikely to help in her case and that all she could hope for was another year or two to live so long as the chemotherapy halted the rapid progress of the disease.

Anitra and Joe had only been married for eight months. He too was a schoolteacher but not at a Catholic school like Anitra. Joe had been what you would call a non-practising Catholic but had tried to reclaim his faith for Anitra’s sake. He started going to Mass again with her. Wearing a scarf to hide her bald head, Anitra insisted on still teaching the young children as long as she could.

Their daughter having cancer caused Anitra’s mother to fall into a deep depression, and when Anitra died, she became housebound, unable to eat or speak to people. Her husband, Peter, was afraid she would die too, and he insisted that she see a psychiatrist. Against her will, the psychiatrist had Mary hospitalised, and when she did not respond to several antidepressants, he suggested electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Mary’s behaviour was very retarded physically, very slowed down, and anything she tried to say was incoherent. ECT was commenced.

After eight sessions, Mary improved enough to go home, but she was still housebound and did not speak much. Her husband, Peter, began to see a psychologist for his own sake as his daughter’s death and his wife’s depression were affecting him badly. Peter kept his faith, whereas Mary gave hers away completely and blamed God for taking away her beautiful daughter. Peter certainly could not understand either Anitra’s death or his wife’s deep depression and anger.

The psychologist helped Peter realise that he must make a life for himself outside the home. Peter arranged for neighbours and Mary’s friends to sometimes come and sit with her so he could go out. He learned to play golf and found peace and tranquillity in the beautiful surroundings of the golf course and a friendship with two other men, one of whom was a widower and could understand his grief and distress. Harry and Lou invited Peter to a barbecue and later to a car drive, in which six cars followed clues to get to Linfield Park, where they all met for a picnic. Peter really enjoyed himself and began to smile a little.

Unfortunately, Mary did not improve, and in fact, she deteriorated. She rarely moved from her bed and lay turned against the wall, refusing to eat most of the time. Peter was distressed and began to find himself getting angry but guilty for his feeling like this towards his wife. It had been difficult enough to come to grips with Anitra’s death, and this stress with his wife was almost as bad.

Reluctantly, he dressed Mary and took her to see the psychiatrist again. He was very alarmed and worried that Mary had slipped into a form of dementia. He advised Peter to put her in hospital again, and he ran a series of tests confirming the diagnosis. Then she persuaded Peter to place her temporarily in a respite facility. Peter felt guilty but relieved. Mary did not notice, and during those three weeks, Peter agreed she needed permanent nursing care, which he could not provide.

Mary would have nothing to do with Peter and she deteriorated rapidly over the next six months. Peter felt he was alone in the world, and indeed he became alone as Mary died too.

Thankfully, the golf companion who was a widower helped Peter adjust to the situation, and somehow this was easier than accepting Anitra’s death. Peter was encouraged to fill his days with happy occasions.

He began playing social bridge and met seven other people who shared this interest. They would meet at different people’s houses one night a fortnight and play bridge and have supper together. One of his golf mates learned bridge as well, and their little club flourished, as did Peter himself.

As well as continuing to play bridge and golf and the occasional social outings, Peter offered his services to the local Meals on Wheels Association. He delivered meals to elderly people and gained a lot of joy from this.

‘Hi, Peter, come in for a cup of tea.’

‘Good morning, Peter, I baked you some scones.’

At sixty-seven, Peter had begun to feel old, but meeting these actively independent old people in their eighties and nineties gave him a new lease of life.

He befriended Hazel, the scone lady, and Miriam, who always made delicious fruit cake. One day he chanced upon Hazel’s son Harold, and Harold introduced Peter to Men’s Sheds.

This was a wonderful gateway to friendship and a fulfilment and satisfaction Peter had almost despaired of ever finding again. Soon Harold and Peter began a project to make wooden train sets as Christmas presents for needy children. It would take them about a fortnight to do each set. This involved measuring the wood, cutting, planing, hammering, glueing, and painting. Using his hands and chatting to the other men were pastimes that made Peter feel he had a purpose in life. He also began to write children’s stories and had these little books published for Christmas presents as well.

This, on top of his enjoyable interests and widening circle of friends, soon lifted Peter out of his grief and anger and helped him feel worthwhile and redevelop self-respect.

It helped him maintain memories of the wonderful times he had spent with Anitra and Mary and put the pain at a distance from his daily life. In his acceptance and new life, he was a wonderful help to others in similar situations.

‘Don’t cry for the pain,’ he would say. ‘Move on.’ He knew Anitra and Mary would be pleased to see the progress he had made and his new happiness.

Carole

C arole was a fifty-eight-year-old divorced lady with two adult children who lived in nearby suburbs with their own families. She used to smoke but was proud to have given it up, and although she was overweight, she tried to keep healthy otherwise. She did have a lot of health problems, but her attitude to life was very positive and ambitious. Carole had asked me to tell you some of her medical stories as well as this story about her successful hobbies.

Carole’s general practitioner was Dr Samuel O’Connor, and he was fond of his patient and admired her strength. He would describe Carole as a chronic pain sufferer with generalised osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, degenerative disc disease of the spine and spondylosis, plus hypertension, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She would take regular paracetamol, occasional anti-inflammatories, blood pressure tablets, and inhalers for her chest. At intervals, she would need cortisone injections in her spine, knees, and thumbs. She declined stronger tablets for her joint pain as these were opiate derivatives and addictive. Nevertheless, with regular hydrotherapy, she kept her pain under control and kept her joints mobile.

‘Yes.’ Carole laughed as Dr O’Connor described all this in medical language. ‘You’ve heard the saying Use it or lose it. Well, I’m slowly losing a kilo or two and keeping my joints moving with regular exercise in a heated pool at Balga. I’ve actually made three friends there, and’—she laughed again—‘we often go for coffee and cake after our exercises.’

Carole went shopping last Wednesday with her friend Susan after the hydrotherapy. They went twice a week. At the shopping centre, Carole was glad to use a shopping trolley for support when she had to walk a long distance. Today they were going to a sale at a shop called Lincraft. Carole was buying material for quilting and padding for both the quilts and also a range of pot mitts and teapot cosies she was making for a craft stall at the church in spring. She and her friend Susan were both buying wool; they both knitted and crocheted beanies, scarf, and knee rugs. Often the two of them would spend a morning or afternoon together with their hobbies. They both belonged to a weekly social craft group as well. It was satisfying to have these hobbies and the friendships associated with them.

Carole’s daughter, Christine, had two daughters, aged three and eight, and another baby due in two months. Her son, Jez, had one son aged four and one aged two. She was often called on to babysit