LETTER FROM THE OTHER SIDE. APRIL

Dear Del,
It was so nice to receive your last letter with all its news.
We have had a few things happen over here also and one of the positives is that
Teddy tells me he is making stirling engines.
I have no idea what these things are by the way, except he is making them from used and washed out cat food tins and various other bits he rescues from the recycle bin. These engines don’t appear to be of much use to anyone but Teddy who seems to think they are endlessly fascinating. He drags me out to admire his little cat food tin steam engines chugging away and I try to find some appropriate words of admiration.……… Of course with all things mechanical, they haven’t always gone to plan and he has exploded a few leaving large dents in his brand new shed. Which he says makes it look more ‘lived in.’
He has also joined a group called TADVIC which I think is a state-wide organization. They help to repair, or redesign aids for people with disabilities. He loves it and comes home after the meetings with various projects to do. It has helped to take the place of all the old times at home when he helped his mates repair aging farm machinery so in between blowing up his sterling engines, he is enjoying it. He has also made a couple of water rockets but I have banned them as he let one go that flew across the block. It was one thing to do that sort of thing in a paddock…entirely another in suburbia.
I became furious with the young boys next door a few weeks ago. There were very loud bangs on our roof and I suspected they were throwing rocks onto our roof in retaliation for Teddy’s explosions. Anyway I contemplated going across to tell them off after a really bad afternoon when I had been trying to have a rest because of a dreadful headache. My blood was up and I had my little speech all worked out.
Teddy was in the garage when there was another bang and I was just about to fly out the door in high indignation when he came in grinning like an ass.
I wasn’t in the mood for his silly jokes so I told him what I was about to do. He said he didn’t think I should and I argued about my right to a peaceful life etc. what with him as well as the boys next door it was all too much.
He took me by the hand and walked me out to the garage. There in the back were the boxes of ginger beer I had carefully stored. One by one with changes of temperature they had been exploding and the tops hitting the shed roof!
I did laugh about it later but I was so mortified at how close I had come to making a fool of myself and perhaps ruining our relationship with the neighbours and their blameless children. Never assume my mother used to admonish, she was right so often.
Teddy and I hope you are well and enjoying the cooler days. Once the rain came after such a dreadful summer I resolved never again to complain about it unless we had enough for the water to be lapping at my doors.
You remember I told you Aunt Alice’s brother was ill well, as expected, he died. I hope you have time to sit and read this letter as I just have to tell someone of our day at the funeral.
I can’t talk to Teddy about it because he is still suffering from the day’s trauma and the mere mention of Aunt Alice or Uncle Roger sends him rushing down to his shed to hide with his sterling engines.
Anyway…… back to the funeral. As you know they have had very heavy rains and some light flooding up Wellsgate way and of course it was just our luck for the day we had to drive up for it to be blowing a strong westerly wind complete with rain squalls which buffeted the car as we drove up the Hume Highway. Semi trailers and B-doubles intimidated the car drivers as the wash and spray from the dozens of tyres they have completely obliterated the windscreens wit their muck.
Monica and her husband Tony were very generously taking the day off from their busy jobs to drive up behind us in case we needed moral support and because she is fond of the old couple. As it happens I’m not sure it was such a good idea.
We had picked the old couple up quite early. They both wore their best winter outfits which having been stored carefully during summer, reeked of mothballs. Uncle Rodger even wore his hat…… which I think was first in fashion during the 1950’s. Aunt Alice was rugged up in mauve and her sharp little eyes peered at us with obvious excitement from under her fluffy woollen cloche.
The idea of the long ride and the anticipation of meeting up with various family members seemed to have dimmed any loss she felt from her brother’s death.
Once we turned off the main road they enjoyed looking at the various farms and pointing out places they knew and remarking about the people they knew who had lived in the homesteads. Their memories were very sharp and some of their comments if repeated in public could probably lead to charges of slander.
I felt a bit sorry for some of the animals standing in forlorn groups with their backs to the wind trying to get some warmth from each other.
Teddy had put a new deodorizer in the car because of Aunt Alice’s flatulence problems but he was still forced to lower the window every so often.
She complained he would make her arthritis act up if he kept letting in the cold air and he, rather acidly for Teddy, remarked under his breath it was ‘ better than the air coming out’
Uncle Rodger asked to stop at every toilet he noticed in between giving Teddy endless driving instructions which he bellowed in Teddy’s left ear because he considers everyone is as deaf as he is.
Between Teddy’s tension- I could see his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel- Uncles Rodger’s incessant instructions and Aunt Alice’s problems; I was feeling thoroughly frazzled by the time we reached the little church.
I had hoped we could make our arrival as unobtrusive as possible and enter the church quietly but Aunt Alice soon put paid to that when she strode up to the front pews remarking very loudly that ‘she hadn’t known Alf knew so many people and did they all expect to inherit something!’
I just wanted to shrink between the cracks in the floor boards.
The old timber church shook with the force of the wind and the doors squeaked and clattered. The organist was evidently not used to doing the services and with such a large congregation, she must have been nervous, so it was quite impossible to pick up the tunes of the hymns she was playing. Most people tried valiantly to sing along but succeeded in making sounds more like the whinnying and braying of animals. Aunt Alice still unaware of how loudly she speaks, used the silence as we all sank thankfully back down onto our pews by remarking ‘That sounded like Brown’s cows’. Some younger people in front of us giggled and turned around and both Teddy and I tried to pretend we didn’t know her.
After the service, it was too cold to stand in the wind to chat outside the church so we raced back to our cars…well race is hardly the right word with the old people…..of course the walking stick, walking frames had to be put into the boot, Uncle Rodger’s long legs folded in carefully for him and all the seat belts clipped properly etc… by which time poor Teddy was soaked by yet another squall. The hearse took off at such a pace we were left behind and so by the time we reached the cemetery, quite a few people were already there.
It still looks scruffy with its old pine trees and enormous clumps of white arum lilies and thistles in the old colonial section which give protection to big populations of rabbits and snakes. The latter bask on the granite gravestones when human are not about on summer days.
Once more we had to go through getting the old people out with their sticks and walking frames while trying to shelter us all from the gale as we made our way up the gravel path to the gravesite. The force of the wind blowing through the old cypress cannoned pine-cones at us and rivulets of water ran down the unkempt path soaking our shoes. I caught sight of the group trudging ahead of us and thought how we must all look like a little flotilla of boats sailing on a rough sea as we held our umbrella’s up like spinnakers to try and gain some meagre protection. Aunt Alice still found the breath to tell me I had worn silly shoes for such a day.
The Vicar trying valiantly to maintain some decorum walked in front of the hearse to enforce the young driver to slow down to a more moderate speed. Unfortunately he lost his footing when a gust blew his white surplice up over his head causing the poor man to slip and fall heavily onto the path almost becoming another casualty when the hearse barely stopped in time to miss hitting him.
With difficulty he managed to get himself more or less straightened out without too much hurt except to his pride and trying to ignore the wet and muddy patches on his cassock and his even wetter and muddier backside…..he began the internment.
All seemed to be going well until we became aware the coffin was not going down as it should. The funeral director walked across to the vicar and whispered something. The Vicar peered closer into the grave and a look of resignation crossed his face. Teddy whispered, to me ‘it’s not going down, it floating.’ Tony turned gave Teddy such a look of utter disbelief,….. he is after all a city boy who hasn’t had much to do with the vagaries of country life…..- so Teddy explained as best he could, that the ground of the cemetery had only been donated by the original settler of the area because he knew it held water and wasn’t useful. So after the recent heavy rain it would take quite a while to drain away.
Aunt Alice who has ears like the proverbial bat remembered this after hearing Teddy and so demanded the pall bearers ‘Pull him up again.’ She carried on saying, ‘He never did like water he was always a sook about water and he shouldn’t be left there’ this encouraged her cousin Basil, who is even older than she is to air his grievances against Alf. Something to do with never knowing when he had worn out his welcome and then there arose an almighty row between the two old people. Basil baring his yellow teeth at Aunt Alice stomped off back to his car, his arthritic legs going up and down as if he were a marionette….. Uncle Rodger leaned over and said plaintively in Teddy’s ear ‘see what I have to put up with’?
The Vicar knew by this time he had completely lost control of the situation and called for calm and some respect for the deceased which did quieten them down to low mutterings.
Eventually it was settled and they agreed to lower Alf the next day. By now we were all soaked and there was sleet in the air.
I just wanted to get back home and so did Teddy. Aunt Alice wanted to continue the argument but we eventually got her back to the church hall where we hoped to enjoy a warm drink and dry out a little..
Teddy was famished and looking forward to eating something when Rose, another ancient cousin of Aunt Alice’s, complained that the nuts in the cake she was eating had got under her dentures. She then proceeded to remove them and place them delicately on the tablecloth complete with long strands of saliva hanging from them. They grinned up at Teddy. He looked across at Tony who had been watching in amazement and the two men picked up their drinks and went outside. We didn’t see them again until it was time to leave.
On the way back things were quiet in the rear seat Uncle Rodger had run out of driving instructions and Aunt Alice, was I thought, asleep, until I mentioned Rose’s teeth to Teddy. From the back seat she scolded ‘Yes, some people lose their sense of decorum as they grow older’
Since she was the instigator of most of the day’s problems and we were still suffering from the affects of the egg sandwiches she had consumed, we remained speechless until we arrived back.
It is the first time since we moved here I was glad to come back. But I think you can understand why Teddy is still feeling rather washed out by our day.
Monica is in America for business this week. She has to travel over the Rockies, driving a Hummer having never driven one before and never driven in snow or on the right hand side of the road.
Like everything I expect she will take it in her stride and come home with tales that will ensure we worry even more about her next time she goes. I also expect she is glad to be away from Tony’s taunts about her wacky family.
The tyranny of having to make another meal approaches so I must go. Thank you for being my silent listener,
I look forward to your next letter, cheers for now, your extremely harassed flower child friend,
Cynthia.
P.S It is Aunt Alice’s birthday next month.(C)