VIRAGO

Chapter 10

     Despite her disconnection from society, mother was acutely aware of the significance families placed on eating together. She desperately wanted to recreate this image of reality, to tap into this ritual of social norm.

On the good days, she almost managed it.

If the sun shone into mother's life that morning, we would be summoned to find the long walnut table in the dining room groaning, laden with glinting cutlery and vases stuffed haphazardly with flowers picked from her garden. Anyone peering through the glass would have been struck by the razzmatazz of the situation, the stiffness with which three people gathered, yet this little scene had become Father and I's normal.

Mother would rise before the new day; I think she knew this was at least one thing she could win at, even if everything else in life was failing her, it was within her power to beat the sun. I'd hear footfalls padding outside my door as she crept by, sometimes as early as 4.30am. By six the clattering had commenced; an orchestra of trays and pans involved in her production, sounds I loved to hear for this was evidence of her determination to create some sense of normal into four lives that were anything but.

Unfamiliar with the term cremation, I knew the blackened meat presented some seven hours later had met an end unlike any I'd consumed in the homes of friends. Having spent the morning hunting, I would find father buoyed up; jovial even, courtesy of the several brandies he'd consumed in the saddle. He could be relied upon to return lighter; tipsy on life and possibility following interactions with people other than mother and I. This subtle inebriation made mastication of the meal significantly less challenging for him. I on the other hand, struggled my way through a flesh so leathery, no amount of emergency aid in the form of congealed gravy, could salvage.

There was something wonderful about this entire bizarre production; mother never noticed our discomfort, so taken was she with her accomplishment of setting and serving. With the housekeeper off, this was an opportunity each week where she could be the mistress of her house. She would remain stock still except for her head, atlas and axis rotating like an owl, time shared equally between father at one end of the table and I at the other. Surveying all she had accomplished triggered her full beam, something that made me pleased as punch, for mother had been the most beautiful creature before the darkness inhabited her. Elegance personified in fact. To see her so elated was such a rarity and worth all the struggles of consumption.

I'd chew my way through a thousand carcasses if it meant I could go back to that room, to have her near. Of course she never brought a morsel to her lips; in fact, I'm unable to recall an occasion when I saw my mother consume a meal in the entirety of her lifetime. She created a clever rouse, alluding to consumption whilst we were distracted.

     "I ate earlier darling" she would offer with a dismissive wave, or make reference to been "stuffed to the gills" from a breakfast to which no one bore witness.

With the stealth of an unseen ninja, her grasp on reality gradually loosened. Prior to this, she would regale others during cocktail hour with tales of how she could eat chocolate cake until she popped, expressing her amazement at finding herself still unable to gain weight. Reed thin all her life, I'm sure this created the desired effect of envy amongst her female friends; a further rouse which made me smile with pleasure, for it was indeed clever trickery.

When she no longer set a place for herself at dinner, I recognised this to be the first marker that she had given up. Until then, she'd maintained the charade of sitting before a small portion, delicately pushing her knife and fork around the plate without the cutlery ever actually making contact with the food. This was accompanied by the occasional dabbing; punctuation of a white linen napkin at the corner of her mouth collecting imaginary food residue.