Minerva’s Owl
Contents
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Minerva’s Owl
Chapter 1.
“One cannot step twice in the same river.” – Heraclitus
The rain tumbled down all afternoon, soft and grey and hypnotic. Marta didn’t notice, as she had been hunched over her computer for hours. Then, just as small jets of water began to wet the porridge coloured lino floor and the light began to fade, she finally tracked down her old school friend Angela, after years of searching.
With one eye glued to Facebook, as though in fear the page would disappear, Marta slowly pushed the half-full plastic bucket with the toe of her canvas shoe, carefully, infinitesimally, until the water was neatly contained. Her other eye, the eye not plugged into Facebook, flicked constantly like the beam of a light house, from the bucket toward the young man who was bending like a tree in the wind toward a gigantic old fashioned computer monitor. The young man, the way he looked, would have made you think, that he wanted to get inside that monitor, to be sucked into the nursery rhyme world where he felt such belonging.
Marta spent another hour clicking on Angela’s timeline and searching her friends. Memories came rushing back to her, crowding her mind, of groups of girls, the 1980s and consuming thoughts about fashion and boys. Another lifetime ago really.
She drank in the staged life of Desna, set out glossily for all to see; she was now a “sales executive” and, Poppy Davis, who was “married with three really beautiful children.” Evidence was duly presented to prove wonderful lives with family photos, satisfied smiles and designer attire. She found Joy Aristo, who appeared in numerous images, pouting duck like and wearing mostly leopard skin dresses. Sandra James voted the most “popular girl” of year 10 had a page loaded with photos, where like a film star; she flashed her expensive too white teeth in the midst of happy, celebratory people thrusting champagne glasses aloft. I’m having fun, people love me.
She became aware of the long white face staring back at her from the window. She registered in a detached way, the deep grooves beside the mouth and the greying hair. A sudden comprehension caused Marta to realise that it was her own reflection. Then she noted that it was full dark outside and that Toby was probably hungry. A question also broke through, like a knife piercing the skin on the milk, “Is that me? Do I really look like that… now?”
After turning off the computer and switching on a small lamp, Marta pulled herself out of the chair. The young man, her son Toby, also got up, but first he performed a little ritual, taking three steps backward, two forward and one backward again. Now, he could walk freely. He left behind “Alice in Wonderland” and mad scenes of the Queen and playing cards running hither and thither, and followed his mother across the room, into the kitchen toward the fridge which sat sphinx-like on the oatmeal terrain.
Before Marta began to cook the dinner - the same dinner she cooked every day - she pressed on the CD player and the sounds of “Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship boomed into the room. Toby loved the “Hits of the 80s” and he began to smile happily and bop his smooth, dark head to the music. Marta smiled at him as she prepared the eggs, potatoes, peas and corn. She glowed; she loved to see him happy.
After dinner, Marta washed the dishes while Toby took a bath in the lean-to bathroom at the back of the house. He would have sat there for hours in the deep metal tub pouring water over himself: if only she’d let him.
Just outside the bathroom, an old cassette player sat on a timber shelf. Marta had found both discarded in the street after a garage sale. However, the thin sound emanating from that rectangular, black plastic box, did no more than hint at how pan pipes could really sound. Never- the- less, for some reason, Toby seemed to find the acoustic impressions soothing. Luckily for Marta, at this point of the night she was far enough away in body and in mind not to notice the less than harmonious vibrations.
During the night, the rain had have stopped. All was quiet, but something had woken Marta from an enjoyable dream, where she was travelling fast, bumping across waves in a luxury speed boat, wearing an outrageous silver and purple outfit and chatting to Brad Pitt. As she lay soft and silent, still breathing slowly, still partially wrapped in the folds of sleep, she mused that it was funny what the mind does when the “you” part is not at the wheel, because really, she had always preferred George Clooney! Then, she heard the sound; the shuffling footsteps along the path beside the house. It was probably teenagers again. Marta did not have to imagine how Boo Radley must have felt.
No matter how many times Marta had endured the night intruders, who invaded her property on dares, because of boredom or because Marta and Toby were regarded as different and so deemed suitable subjects to taunt and frighten, she never got used to it. With a hammering heart, she heaved herself from the bed and dragged on an old woollen cardigan over her thin cotton night dress. She padded along the hallway and flicked on the back yard light; scuffles and shrieks and fitful laughing were released like a grenade into the night sky. Then all was silent. The moths briefly disturbed, momentarily turning toward the new light source, stopped and then flew upwards toward the glowing moon.
The next day dawned clear and bright, like the world had been freshly painted. As it was Monday, Toby was going to his day program down at the local community centre which ran between the hours of 9 to 3pm. Marta didn’t have a car, so they walked to the centre on the other side of town, leaving the house at 8.00 with Toby’s packed lunch tucked snuggly into his Tomas the Tank Engine backpack. Some would say a strange choice for an 18 year old. At the end of the road, like a ritual, they both turned to look back at their old timber house, which was mostly hidden by the looming umbrella of a Morton Bay fig and softened by a Jacaranda tree. The house had once belonged to Marta’s parents who were long since dead. Marta thought about them often and through her they lived on.
The pair would often stop for a minute at the top of the second hill, to watch the trains’ woosh past importantly. The speeding trains would often infect Toby with elation, a buzz of excitement and for a moment, he would crackle all over with some type of intoxication. This would soon subside and then calm would return, like nothing had happened at all. Sometimes, they would pause at the duck pond in the local park and Toby would stand mesmerised by those clever little animals, busily steaming about the pond. But Marta noticed, as she watched Toby, with eyes like deep, dark pools that he never seemed to wonder where the ducks would go when the weather turned cold.
One of Marta’s favourite books was “The Catcher in the Rye, “but this was something that she didn’t tell anyone. She had nobody to tell. It was odd, that such a simple preference, could have branded her as an even greater weirdo, a possible psychopath or serial killer in the making - in the special world of patterns, signs and warnings. But the way Marta saw it, was that Holden was simply a boy grieving for his brother Allie, who had died of leukaemia. Holden merely wanted the person Allie had been, to mean something. To be acknowledged and not forgotten in an instant. Instead, all about him, people seemed to care more for cheap pleasures, status and getting to the top of the pile. Phony stuff. And yet, Holden himself was beckoned by escapist movies and fun and decadence, he understood how easily these things beguile and ensnare us. Still, Holden knew that his brother, the individual that he was, was somehow unique and authentic. Like a snowflake, a pattern never to be repeated. Corny but true.
Seldom did Marta or Toby talk to anyone during their walks to and from the community centre. Sometimes, a jovial person would wish them “gidday” and at other times, eyes would be pointed at them, narrowed with puzzlement. Then, rarely, there were the eyes which skewered them with somethin
g akin to hate. Why Marta thought? Was it simply because they were different? Because, who could they harm? What power did they have over anything…anyone? Generally, though, although Marta was not sure when it had precisely happened, they had both somehow slipped into invisibility.
While walking back home after dropping Toby off at the centre, Marta suddenly decided to swing by the local charity shop and have a rummage about. She just felt in the mood for a bit of “retail therapy. “Entering the cave like shop, the bell tinkled and she was immediately clouted on the nose with the musty, dusty smells. To Marta, this aroma was all part of the second hand shopping experience and the promise of a good bargain. She felt the excitement rise like the bubbles in soda water and she strode toward the “yellow ticket” items with purpose. Fifty precent off was just too difficult to refuse!
Sometime later, she re-entered the world, stepping out into the street, like a moth leaving the cacoon; with a couple of bags containing her various “finds.” She had some Disney books and a pair of Nike shoes for Toby; a not too dilapidated red velvet curtain that would fit the side window nicely and a few interesting looking books to add to her reading list. She had also bought herself a fanciable polka dot dress that had caught her eye. The dress was slightly tight for now, but Marta had got to thinking about going for some evening walks with Toby, as the days were getting longer. She would soon lose the extra weight.
Walking home with the sun warming her back like a friend, Marta was lost in thought. For the hundredth time, she reflected on how her parents had sold the family home in the small town in which she had grown up. This was not long after she had finished school. The little family of three had then moved to another small town: this town. Her parents had then bought the small house in which she now lived with Toby and they had also purchased a small shop in the main street, so that Marta’s father could fulfil his life dream of running a newsagent. The rent from that shop now provided Marta and Toby with enough money to live a frugal life. Marta shivered suddenly, as though touched by a frigid wind, wondering how they would have survived all these years without the house and the rent.
Reaching home, Marta paused and snipped some sprightly lavender flowers from the gambolling bushy shrub which stood like a protector at her front gate. Rubbing the flowers between her fingers, she breathed in the aromatic oil and thought how small pleasures could be found in most places if you looked hard enough.
It wasn’t just the difficulty of Toby’s autism that had put the brakes on Marta entering the workforce, because she had actually entered the working world many times. She just didn’t manage to keep the jobs. It wasn’t that she was a bad worker, or that she was late for work, ever. It wasn’t that she was unpleasant or slow to learn. The problem was more subtle. And, it was a problem that Marta had carried with her as long as she could remember. The fact was that, she just couldn’t interact and communicate with other people effortlessly the way those around her did. Somehow, she managed to made others feel awkward, but they were never sure why. And this insured, that she was always first to go when jobs were in jeopardy.