jmgoyder

That first overnight I stayed at the farm was the only time I ever slept on the floor beside Inna’s bed. I didn’t know why she was so frightened that night except that she thought Husband-to-be had gone out and left her alone. He had never gone out and left her alone before, but they must have discussed it before asking me to stay.

Her bed was positioned in the centre of the room, surrounded by a pale pink carpet, so I simply fetched a pillow from the spare room where I was supposed to sleep, and cuddled down very comfortably. A couple of times, during the night, Inna reached her arm down to squeeze my hand and I squeezed back.

Eventually, Husband-to-be’s veranda party ended and I heard him go to bed in the adjacent bedroom. It was only then that Inna and I went to sleep, our fingers still loosely entwined.

Eventually, Husband-to-be and his mother, Inna, asked if I would be able to stay the night occasionally, just in case Husband-to-be wanted to go out. With my parents’ permission I agreed to do this.

On the first of these stayovers, I was uncertain as to my role because, even though I was now used to preparing breakfast, lunch, and getting dinner ready for Inna to cook, I had never stayed beyond 5pm. That’s when I usually hopped on my bicycle and rode home.

So the 5pm ritual was a bit of a shock to me because that was when Inna and her son (Husband-to-be), and various family and friends, all congregated in the back veranda for ‘drinks’ after the cows were milked. Inna would already have a teacup filled with whisky and soda (I was so naive at the time that I just thought drinking whisky and soda out of a teacup was normal). That first evening I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do, so I served drinks, put the dinner in the Aga, unpacked my little bag in the spare room and said a little prayer.

In the middle of my little prayer of bewilderment, I heard Husband-to-be’s huge voice calling “JULES!” and, thinking it might be an emergency with Inna, I ventured out of the spare room into the kitchen, then out to the veranda which had become rather noisy with chatter and clinking and laughter. Inna saw me and waved her walking stick to the chair next to her, “Come and have a drink with us, Darling,” and Husband-to-be handed me a glass full of something frothy.

He didn’t end up going out that night, so I wasn’t quite sure why I was there in the first place until, in the middle of the night, Inna called me to her bedroom and told me to sleep on the floor next to her because she was nervous of the dark.

So I did what I was told.

The day after the moonflowers blooming,  I arrived on my bicycle as usual, with a feeling of trepidation and anticipation. I knew that something had passed from Husband’s hand to mine in that brief moment but I didn’t know what it was exactly.

I got Inna up and brought her favourite breakfast to her bedside. She sat up on the edge of her bed and took the bowl of Cornflakes, sliced banana, cream and sugar, gave me a smile and called me ‘Darling’ for the first time. By this time I had been working for her for around two months and I had determined myself to love her no matter what because, you see, she was very impatient with my ineptitude and often rather gruff so I think I saw our relationship as a sort of challenge. It wasn’t a very difficult challenge because I adored her and she fascinated me. So, when she called me ‘Darling’ I was elated and grinned my way back to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for Husband and the men.

It was wonderful to finally feel accepted by Inna, and, bright with confidence, I put the frypan onto the Aga, filled it with water and began the egg poaching. Then I put the toast into the automatic toaster, turning it up a little so it would toast faster. I wanted to have breakfast ready before Husband came in from milking; I wanted to have it all beautiful and perfect.

When Inna called me to get her up and dressed, I ran in to help her, forgetting about the toast, so, by the time Husband and the men entered the kitchen, there was quite a lot of smoke around the unpredictable toaster and the burning smell filled the small house quickly. But I didn’t smell it because I was so busy with Inna.

So, when I heard Husband’s voice, booming “Jules!” I left Inna partially dressed and raced back into the kitchen, thinking maybe, just maybe, Husband had picked me one of the moonflowers.

Instead, he picked up the burnt toast and said, nastily, “You are bloody hopeless!”

I started coming to the farm earlier every morning because Inna began to rely on me to get the breakfast routine going and, as I became more competent, my confidence grew. And so did my compassion for this inviolable, immensely strong older woman who fought her increasing frailty with ferocity.

The only trouble with letting Inna sleep in was that, when Husband and the men arrived for breakfast, I would be alone in the kitchen and, without the anchorage of Inna’s instructions, I would flounder and get flustered because the two cowhands would watch me expectantly from the kitchen table, and Husband would often grin or wink at me on his way to the bathroom, or to check on his mother, or to the dining room where he and I would eat breakfast alone together and awkwardly.

My big love for him was something I desperately tried to hide, but every time he said “Jules!” in his booming voice, I would blush from the neck up.

One morning he bounded into the kitchen after milking, grabbed my hand and pulled me outside to see the moonflowers. “They only bloom once a year,” he said, still holding my hand. I was amazed by the beautiful flower, but I was more amazed by his huge hand holding my little one. His hand was rough and dirty and sort of gravelly in texture, whereas mine was tiny and soft and pale and scared.

It was just four words but the effect was, and has been, long-lasting.

You see, I would set off on my gearless bicycle from the country town where I lived to make the journey to Inna and Husband’s dairy farm outside the next town – every morning, rain or shine. It was a good 15 kilometres but, even when my dad and mother offered me a lift, I would usually refuse as I was rather fiercely independent. Sometimes it was a ghastly journey of being rained on, attacked by magpies, or belted with 40 degree heat, but my pedalling was fuelled by such wonderful anticipation that I became very fast and, most mornings, I arrived within the hour right in time to start the breakfast ritual with Inna.

I was a very unselfconscious teenager and had never worn makeup, and I had absolutely no fashion sense, so I would arrive unembarrassed at my dishevelment and, if Inna said I were late, I would answer her ferocity with a huge grin and set to work. I never took charge; I always deferred to her instructions so, mostly, breakfast was a smooth exercise.

But sometimes she would say little hinty things to me like, “You’d be quite pretty if you wore appropriate clothes.” She would point at my Indian skirt and thongs with distaste. Or, “Perhaps you could freshen up in the bathroom before the men come in – comb your hair?” Sometimes she would be at a loss and occasionally I would hear her on the phone to someone saying, “Oh dear me, the girl is hopeless!”

So it wasn’t until Husband grabbed a bit of bacon from the frypan one morning, his shoulder brushing mine unintentionally, then, as he was heading to the dining room, said, over his shoulder, “You should wear lipstick” that I began to alter myself. I began to wear lipstick, much to my younger brothers’ derision.

My parents were nonplussed.

Inna was impressed.

Husband didn’t appear to notice.

The first time she cried in front of me, I didn’t see it coming and I wasn’t prepared. Inna was in her 80s, she had broken her hip before I met her, she suffered bouts of pneumonia and had to be hospitalized on occasion and she was sometimes a tiny bit confused.

It was after her shower which I had learned how to help her with. She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror with a towel around her, staring at her reflection and frowning at what she saw. I was used to her frown, to her sternness, to her abrupt frankness, so my teenage heart did a somersault when she began to weep. “I am so old and so ugly,” she said through her tears and I gave her the first of many hugs. “No, you are beautiful, Inna – you are beautiful,” I said.

Almost immediately, she broke free of my embrace, wiped her eyes and ordered me to get her clothes. I did so immediately, my heartbeat fluttering in a way it never had before.

I adored her. I admired her stoicism. I wanted to be like her.

The Aga was fuelled by kerosene, not wood, and it was Husband’s pride and joy. He had only had the Aga for about a year when I first came into his life.

Inna said I had to be very careful with it and she showed me how to use the hot plate (on the left), the simmering plate (on the right), the hot oven (at the top of the bottom) and the slow oven (at the bottom).

Here is a picture of what it looks like now – no different from what it looked like then, because, over the decades, Husband has polished it and trained Son and me to do the same!

I had never seen such a beautiful thing so when Inna suggested we make some grapefruit marmalade on it, I readily agreed. She showed me how to chop the grapefruit up into chunky bits the way Husband liked it and she showed me how to proportion the sugar and water and we put it on the hot plate to boil. Inna didn’t warn me that it might boil over when I settled her down for her afternoon nap.

It boiled over and so did Husband when he came in from the dairy. This put a slight halt to our romance!

Sometimes Inna liked to take me for a walk around the garden after her afternoon rest.

Sometimes it would take awhile to find her elusive walking stick (the same one Husband uses now!)

Sometimes we would pick grapefruit from the orchard, camellias and roses for the vases.

Sometimes we would venture over to the dairy where Husband and his two farmworkers were finishing up.

Inna would ask Husband to turn one of the milk cans upside down so she could sit down and I would stand awkwardly next to her watching Husband but trying not to.

Sometimes Inna would catch my eye and blink knowingly and my face would flush pink from the neck up.

Sometimes Husband would glance in our direction with obvious irritation because we were in the way.

I would ride my bicycle home trying hard to keep his look of irritation at the forefront of my mind in order to stop my heart from galloping too far ahead

But it didn’t work.

Inna gradually became frailer, so I began to take on the various cooking and other domestic chores by myself. The first thing I would do when I arrived was to take her a bowl of Cornflakes topped with sliced banana, sugar and fresh cream. She would sit up on the side of her bed, take the breakfast tray, give me my instructions and then give me a little smile before beginning to eat. I would then go back to the kitchen and begin the breakfast preparations for the men.

I had quite a bit of trouble synchronizing the breakfast ritual to begin with as I had never used an automatic toaster before, I had never encountered an Aga, and I had never poached eggs the way Inna did. Her method was to half fill a frying pan with water, wait for it to nearly bubble, crack the eggs into a cup one by one (just in case there might be an offish egg) and gently tip them into the frypan.

To say I found this a bit daunting would be an understatement because, you see, I had never, ever helped my own mother cook meals, so I didn’t have a clue how it all worked and had to learn the hard way, via my many mistakes.

Sometimes, Husband would come into the kitchen after milking to the smell of burnt toast and, depending on his mood, he would either grimace or grin. Sometimes, if Inna wanted to go back to sleep for a bit, he and I would eat breakfast together without her presence. Sometimes I would catch him looking at me quizzically, which I always took as a cue to go back into the kitchen to serve the farm workers, put the kettle on, or check on Inna.

Something was happening between us – a little spark – but, at the time, I think Husband and I were both afraid to acknowledge it.