Bloodrust and other stories

By Julia Prendergast

Frank depictions of family, mental health, youth, ageing, love and lust speak to the fragility of life, and to the dangerous games we play when we cross boundaries. Hidden beneath the mundanity is violence and decay, mirroring the natural environment so lyrically recreated in Prendergast's raw prose ... p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spineless Wonders Publishing Pty Ltd
• Release date: Aug 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781925052916

Book preview

Bloodrust

and other stories

Julia Prendergast

For Matthew.

And for our children:

Albert, Amelia, Grace, Henry, Matilda and Heidi

Contrapuntal

Not Easy to Die

Two-day Room

Orange

Slow Time

The Wind in my  Open Mouth

Like Clay

BBQ

Ghost Moth

Freefalling

Wrought Iron

Today is Tomorrow

Rhodes

Mothwebs, Spinners, Orange

Crossed Wires

Everything That Matters is Silvery White

Firesky

Bloodrust

Sea-song

Straw

Mirage

Christmas

Time

Cockleshell

Riddled Gestures

Publication Notes

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Praise for Bloodrust and other stories

Praise for The Earth Does Not Get Fat

Contrapuntal

CUTLERY DOWN, says her mother, landing the Christmas crystal on the table, slopping sparkling shiraz on the tablecloth. The fizzed wine bleeds bubbles across the embroidery—orange milkweed, each stem a bunch of tiny orange daisies, perfect parallel stitching, her grandmother’s handiwork.

She rubs a thumb against the stain, glassy-eyed, nostrils flaring. No one eats, she says. She retreats from the dining room. They salivate over their plates, piled high with turkey and ham, listening to the wooden slap of the kitchen drawer, thick royal-blue paint smacking raw timber. Her mother returns with a handful of pens and an exercise book. She writes the name of each of the seven family members, one name per page. Tearing the pages from the book, she wraps each around a pen, passing them around like ragged bon-bons.

Write something positive under each person’s name, her mother spits. My favourite thing about Mum etc … Then fold the page and pass it along. NO backhanders or we do it again. Unto forever …

The youngest sibling giggles, reaching for a slice of ham. Her mother strikes a pen against his hand. Start writing, she says. Or there will BE—NO—LUNCH.

Many years later, at the table with her own children, having become the mother, the past intrudes. It’s not only the wines-pattered milkweed. It’s the words—butterfly weed, blood-flower milkweed, scarlet milkweed, silkweed, bastard ipecac—her grandmother’s favourite plant, everywhere like a plantation, an invader plant that thrives in soils that are clay-heavy, sandy or rocky. What’s the relevance of this information? Again and again it returns. She’s sick of her memories.

Her own children are mostly adults now. They’re set for a big night, glass jugs brimming—Prosecco, bright-lit with Aperol spritz; cranberry juice glimmering with Cointreau, vodka, who knows what else? They started a couple of hours ago, before she arrived home—they’re cocktail-pinging, talking across each other, over the Celtic reels, rewriting childhood memories in a slippery slideshow. The booze-hounds are already slurring. The partners can’t get a word in.

She has no energy for this today. Sure, it’s her birthday and, yes, it’s not so often they’re all together, like this, but …

If today were about her she’d be in the bath with a book. Instead, all this food—who wants it? So much cheese. She hates cheese, glugging up your insides like you’ve eaten rock-sandy clay. Who says we need to mark the passing years? What’s the fucking point?

How was your day? asks her older son.

I’m so sick of people arguing the point, she says. Thirty years I’ve been doing this, and then this new cowboy …

Next gen fuckwits, says her older son. Think they know everything. Remind him who’s Queen of the Castle.

God, she loves him. That’s what he calls her: Queen. He’s her favourite, today.

I don’t s’pose it’s got anything to do with you … Says the younger son (#NextGenFuckwit). You know, thinking you know everything …

I’m not up for this today, says the mother, deadpan. She wants to take the wheel of brie and stuff it down his thick throat, in one piece, watch him turn red and gag and NOT BE ABLE TO SPEAK FOR A WHILE.

The husband sees it in her eyes. Chances are, everyone thinks he’s an absolute shitface, he says, turning up the music.

She nods—yep, drown them out with the double-melody, strings and vocal harmony. I mean please, life is so contra-fucking-puntal.

What did he actually do? says the middle daughter (stickler for detail).

So many things … He’s made it crystal clear he thinks he’s more deserving of my job than I am, just because he’s young and articulate and he has a measly penis.

But—says the younger son.

But nothing, says the mother. She will rid him of his measly-penis mentality if it’s the last mothering task she fully commits to. She’s ready to hang up her boots; she’s totally over it, but first … her own cowboy.

You sound like a man-hater, says the younger son.

It’s not gender-specific, she says blankly.

Report him, says the eldest daughter (straight-shooting ambo). Fuck him (not literally).

Parents tell you they don’t have favourites—but they definitely do, and it shifts without warning.

If the mother was one of them, maybe this would be fun, but she’s not really one of them. She looks over at the husband and he winks at her like back in the day. He’s had enough of them, too, and it’s barely begun. He’s made it perfectly clear that he loves the Labrador better than any of those fuckheads. On his desk at work, he has a photo of Harold (the dog) and a photo of her.

That’s it. And yet (in recent history, NOT to be discussed today), he refused to return Harold to the emergency vet, despite his rapid deterioration. They’re scam artists, he said. That’s a summer holiday we’re talking about.

He could die, they protested.

He won’t die, he said. He’s tough.

But what if he does? You’ll have to live with that on your conscience, they said.

I can live with it, he said.

She love-hated him for saying that, without hesitation and with such conviction. It’s true—he would have been able to live with it.

She couldn’t, that’s the thing. Dear Harold—laboured breathing, pain-eyes. He needs IV pain relief and antibiotics, she said. And that was that. Goodbye summer holiday.

There were already too many things waking her up at night— forcing her to come-at-it-again from another perspective, to take account of someone else’s point-of-fucking-view. This is what mothering does—robs your mind of rest.

The husband refills her glass with wine, motions to the tiger lilies on the sideboard. He goes back to his end of the table, pulls out his phone, texts her: Next year. Agapthi Beach.

Where is that? She messages. Greece?

I don’t care what it costs, he messages. Let’s pull the rug out from under. He smiles. His earphones perched around his neck, at the ready. As soon as possible, he’ll muff his ears and make a start on the dishes.

The banter heightens. The younger half rally against her: a string of stories about her long-discarded regimes and potions— eucalyptus oil and metho, ti-tree oil and conditioner, dinner at 4pm, blah-blah-blah. Sergeant Major, they laugh. It’s in jest, but still.

Harold rests his snout on her stockinged foot, raises his dog-eyebrows and sighs. Have some water, Harold, she says, nudging the big old saucepan closer to him with her other foot. She reaches down to turn the saucepan handle away from Harold’s eye. C’mon mate, she says.

TEN-HUT, says one of the smart-mouthed ones.

She wants to bash him over the head with the saucepan—in that moment the idea feels entirely reasonable, a birthday present to self just to see the look on his face. They talk about their shared past but for her it’s not shared. They don’t know her mind’s eye, so much lived experience before they were even a thing, and how she’s changed as the years have passed. They have no idea what the sum of her actually means. And all those years of close tending—she wonders how things would stand, now, if she hadn’t given any of it a second thought.

The fuckwittery of mothering—growing actual people in your own body, the first trout-like flip of them, toggling inside you like a sinewy, slimy secret, a wriggling foreign organ, aquatic membraned flesh metamorphosing into a miniature person who, soon enough, grows large enough to trigger the cruel pelt of your own muscles, turning on you, forcing that tiny human head down-down, hammering your soft parts to open-open, thinning the plump, puckered lips of your cervix, stretching it thin like love, until they’re out, gasping on your chest, wet and wide-eyed like a new lover—yet another seductive, panting newborn, lusting for more—your nipples clinched, openly grazed and drawn yet again for someone else’s pleasure—the tethered, gutting never-enough of it, you for them.

I’m going to vomit, she’d said as the final newborn sucked. Panting madly, she did vomit—the contractions so forceful she thought she was in labour all over again, a looping nightmare. It’s coming back, she cried … What’s happening? They dosed her sky-high with pethidine, explaining about the violence of afterbirth pains for those who were reckless enough to go back.

Blindsided by the early years, she’d borne a whole team of them—fucking idiot—and now look, all of these adult people who think they know her better than she knows herself. She’s fed up, simple as that. This demented cycle of putting-out and forgiving, taking-into-account and allowing-for, wearing-it because you’re the mother and of course you understand the behaviour within the context of fundamental flaws. I mean you’re probably responsible for the flaws, not only for the fuck-ups you remember, or the parental lapses they repeat in their melody of twisted tongues, but before that, for the womb-poisoning—perhaps you passed on the riddled truth about love-hate, hate-love, the bottomless fuckening of mother-love, utterly inequitable—most especially because it cannot be stepped-outside-of, even for a moment, no reprieve whatsoever until you’re dead—then your love might be reciprocated, but don’t count on it—it’s merely a possibility that, one day, they might appreciate the sprawling truth of you.

The mother holds the glass to her lips, draining the wine. She breathes deeply through her nose, eyeing the cocktail jugs. The direction of her gaze means that, in her view, the jugs merge— blood glinting orange.

Cutlery down, she says.

Not Easy to Die

I wander the street near work, looking for something to buy you.

I stop in for Pho because it will satisfy thirst and hunger and sweat-out a mild hangover, adding extra chilli and Thai basil because it will help me decide if I can see the year out in this lobotomising job.

I lost sight of what I wanted. I’m not sure I can turn it around. I shouldn’t have thrown the plate …

As I shred the plum-coloured basil, I notice the soup man, hovering, fingers knotted together.

Holy basil, ah, he says, in meditative singsong.

Shuffling towards the counter, I spy the beautiful plants—miniatures, all different species, arranged in tiny painted pots on a wrought-iron stand near the register.

Do you make these? I say, looking at his childlike fingers. So beautiful, I add.

Holding the shiny black pot, I see my fingers reflected, running my thumb along the spear-shaped leaves—purplish and smooth, slightly transparent, fine red veins exposed.

I hand the pot to the plant-man. I’ll take this, please, I say. And the soup.

He holds the plant at eye-height: Ah, not easy to die, this one, he says.

Perfect, I say.

Two-day Room

Sarah sits and thinks about what Jem said—the two-day room. She wonders if it’s possible—two days, to kill off this hideous yearning. It’s too intense. Already she understands it’s too much. If she’s not sure the two-day room will solve things, she should end this right now.

She wonders what Jem has in mind. What does the two-day room look like? Can she have too much, for two days only, in the two-day room, and leave it there? Be done with this as if enough were enough. Return to her life unscathed.

It’s too much, she said. I’m strong but I can’t do this kind of too-muchness.

Two days, he said: We can lock ourselves away for two days, a two-day room, and see what becomes. We won’t go there if you don’t want to.

Go where? She thinks. Is this a script? Sarah laughs, thinking about how this would go down in the tearoom at work. The nurses would love this. Where does he get this shit? Two-day room—I mean, please …

It’s a gorgeous old pub—a spacious old room in a restored hotel, wood panelling and chandeliers, textured wallpaper, black languid swirls, carved timber wall-lamps. Sarah pretends that this elsewhere-place is back in time, unrelated to her