Closed Book

Closed Book
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday September 26, 2015

My teenage son’s dislike of reading is a pall between us. I am alternately saddened and infuriated by his sudden rejection of books. A pile of them sit idly on his bedside table, attracting dust. Their spines are stacked to face his pillow, the titles shouting to his deaf ears.

Every few weeks, I add another book to the pile, hoping it will ignite some glimmer of interest. I encourage, I cajole, I coerce. I paint him word-pictures of his smaller self, bewitched by the favourite stories of his childhood. I remind him how he had always been a rapacious reader; his books as precious as his Lego. I pull the Roald Dahls from his bookcase. We had bedded down with them night after night, the pair of us in raptures. I leave them lying around to serve as small mnemonics of the delights of reading. He is unmoved.

I lose my patience. I rant. I thrust books into his hands. “How can you not want to read?” I demand. “You’re so good at it. You’ve always loved reading. He shrugs: “Not any more.”

Later, to mollify me, he flops on the sofa and makes a pretence of being bookish with Stephen Fry. But I can see his heart’s not in it: he cannot find the stillness required to slip into another’s skin, to listen to another’s voice. Instead, he monitors the clock so he dare not read a minute more than the 30 minutes he’s promised me.

That night, sensing my exasperation has expired, he fronts me in the kitchen. “You’ve gotta let go, Mum,” he says, gently. “Reading’s not my thing, ok?”

I carry his words to my desk and remember the narrow-mindedness of being 15. He must discover for himself what the rest of us already know: that reading will give him a safe place to go. Reading will teach him what it’s like to be someone else. Reading will make him forget himself.

As an only child, I escaped to books early. Aged 12, my library card became a precious ticket for transporting me elsewhere. Our local library had soft carpet and high ceilings and a knack for absorbing my Saturday mornings.

The silence was mesmerising. If I tuned my ear, I could detect the low whispers of conversation at the front desk, the thud of a dropped book or a series of metallic thumps as the librarian stamped a stack of borrowings. The shrill voice of a child would shatter the stillness, followed by an urgent “shh!” from a parent. And then the quietness would envelop me again. Against a warm window overlooking the park, I retreated into my book, only to emerge an hour later, elated but mentally exhausted.

My favourite librarian was a flamboyant gent with a halo of wild silvery hair who’d stop by my desk each Saturday and mime his request to see what I was reading. I’d flip shut my book to show him the cover. He’d nod his approval before sweeping away with his armful of books. In a library, all readers are created equal.

A new book still delivers me its own small thrill. Perhaps it’s the promise of deep reading: slow and immersive. I hanker after that meditative state induced by concentration. With a book, I can sink beneath the everyday. I become oblivious even to the mechanics of reading – the gentle turning of pages -propelling me through a gripping story.

Books have left me euphoric but withered by tiredness; I have fought sleep to stay with their characters long past midnight. I have woken, bleary-eyed after a reading marathon, desperate to begin again.

Is it just me, or is online reading somehow less engaging? Less satisfying? I find myself repeatedly sidetracked by banner ads and neon signage. Click this link? Close that window? Visit that site? My brain splinters. I need the speed limits of ink on paper.

Perhaps my son’s boredom with books is not from lack of reading skills, but his inability to focus his attention. Reading for pleasure takes discipline and practice. It requires a stillness of mind. In his world, no book can compete with the endless frivolity of the internet. I tell him books will be his most constant of friends. He sighs and rolls his eyes.

I am not alone in my disappointment. I hear the despair from other mums whose teenage sons have shunned the pleasures of reading. “Where did I go wrong?” I ask a friend over coffee. She shakes her head: “You didn’t. He did. But it’s your job to fix it before it’s too late.”

“How? I’ve tried everything,” I reply, deflated.

I stop in at the book shop for counselling. “Try these,” says the bright young assistant. “Find the right book and he’ll read again.”

I leave $100 poorer but full of hope. Wish me luck.

Keeping Up Appearances

Keeping Up Appearances
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday September 19, 2015

If I called it a massage parlour you might get the wrong idea. It was a parlour, of sorts, but not the seedy kind. It did offer massage, but only the G-rated variety, practiced in the hurly-burly of a busy shopping centre.

“You wait here please,” said the young man behind the counter. He was a dainty fellow with a squeaky voice wearing a t-shirt featuring a fist and the words ‘No More Mr Nice Guy.’

He ran a slender manicured finger down one column of the bookings diary before consulting a small woman in an apron: “She wants to cash in a gift voucher for a foot massage. Can we fit her in?”

I glanced around the shop. In an attempt to create what interior designers call ambience, the walls and ceiling had been painted a sepulchral black. With its vast doorway, the shop looked more like a cave. A single electric globe, hanging by a naked cord, struggled to emulate daylight. Someone with a sense of humour had sectioned off the rear of the shop with spangled-gold curtains. The sounds of slapping and pummelling threatened to drown out the pan flute soundtrack drifting from hidden speakers.

Along one wall squatted several enormous black recliners, their occupants exposed to the stream of foot traffic in the arcade. In one chair, a bearded man with his trousers rolled up to his knees read a fishing magazine while a young masseuse kneaded his hairy calves. He let out a loud moan as the masseuse rammed her knuckles into his shins. I looked away, half amused, half horrified, an unwilling voyeur.

Slumped in another chair was a grand dame in a pink suit. She was asleep: glasses askew on the bridge of her nose, her slackened mouth hanging open. A pearl the size of a Malteser sat in the hollow at her throat. Her gnarled hands were folded in her lap, several fingers stacked with diamonds. At her feet, a male masseuse was tweaking her toes. Outside, shoppers gawped at this strange window exhibit. A husband pushing a laden trolley elbowed his wife to check out the sleeping matron as they passed. They snickered.

The slender shop-boy waved me towards the one empty recliner. As I parked my own dainty buttocks, the creaks and groan of the faux-leather chair must have roused the lady next door. She looked around self-consciously before acknowledging me. I gave her an introductory smile.

“You’re in for a treat,” she said, her voice croaky with sleep.

“I hope so,” I replied. “But I can’t help feeling it’s a bit undignified!” I motioned towards a pair of shoppers inspecting us.

“Ignore them,” she murmured before closing her eyes once more as the masseuse began rubbing her ankles.

That got me thinking. A generation ago, it would’ve been unthinkable to have a massage performed in the doorway of a shop front. Maintenance, as mum called it, was secret women’s business.

As a child, my mother’s beauty regime was one of life’s great mysteries, usually carried out on a Saturday morning behind a closed bathroom door. Once a month she outsourced her treatments and went to the ‘salon,’ a place that looked more penitentiary than pamper-house. The windows carried iron grilles and were shielded on the inside with venetian blinds. An imposing front door, painted cherry red, was protected by thick metal screen, through which children were not welcome. I rode my bike listlessly up and down the footpath for what seemed liked hours. Finally, Mum would emerge from a side exit, her face florid and shiny.

“What were you doing in there? Why is your face red?” I’d ask. But her answer was always the same:

“Never you mind.”

Now I walk through shopping centres and feel uncomfortable. I try not to stare at the women having their faces painted mid-thoroughfare. I hold my breath against the fumes wafting from nail bars where clients are the window display. Even more confronting is the sight of a beautician, centre aisle, threading a client’s eyebrows with a long white string gripped between her teeth. Call me old-fashioned but is nothing private anymore?

Back in the shop’s recliner, my foot massage was coming to an end. It might have been relaxing if not for the heavy breathing (right) and the groans (left). With eyes wide shut, I prayed no-one I knew was tittering at me through the glass. And then with one final flourish, my masseuse dug his thumbs into my heels and I let out an involuntary squeal. A dozen shoppers turned to stare. Mortified, I clapped my hand to my mouth and flushed scarlet.

“Gotcha!” said my bearded neighbour with a snort.

“Sorry,” I whimpered. “Is that what they call a happy ending?!”

Sitting Duck

Sitting Duck
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday September 12, 2015

I admired her as she glided across the pool. Reaching the deep end, she slid under the water, barely rippling the surface. I watched the sunlight flickering across her submerged shadow before she bobbed up and began another graceful lap.

She was a duck: a Pacific Black duck with a sweet face and a vivid patch of emerald in her flight feathers. “I’ve always loved that colour,” I told her as she hopped out of our pool and flapped her wings. She clucked appreciatively. I think that’s when we became friends.

I might never have discovered her if not for the single and resounding “Quack!” that rang out from the bottom of our garden last Tuesday. I flung open the back door, cocked my head and strained my twitcher’s ear. “Quack!” There it was again, loud enough that I couldn’t tell where the quack ended and the echo began.

A movement under the hedge caught my eye. There, huddled by the back fence was a small, brown duck guarding a brace of ducklings. As I crept closer, she eyed me nervously. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ll look after you.”

She winked at me. Or maybe she had something in her eye. I dashed inside to consult my laptop. “Do ducks wink?” I typed. But Google wasn’t on top of the vagaries of anitine expressions. Instead it offered up the anatomical tidbit that ducks have three eyelids. She nodded when I told her, then continued teaching her babies how to dig up our lawn. I crouched down and filmed her on my phone.

I wondered why she’d chosen to move in with us. Perhaps she’d read last week’s column – about the orphaned nest I’d found – and had me pegged as a bird-lover? Or maybe she’d flown over our house and been impressed by the murkiness of our pool? It didn’t matter, because her family was now my family. I named her Mabel. That was my first mistake.

I never remember David Attenborough naming any of his subjects, even if he’d spent three days holed up in a cave with a lizard. He called the Komodo dragon Varanus komodoensis, not Stanley or Imelda. After a week tracking West Africa’s elusive white-necked rockfowl, the bird was still Picathartes gymnocephalus, not Engelbert or Clive. Sir David knew the dangers of attachment. He wisely kept his emotional distance.

Seeing I’d already flouted the first rule of nature documentaries – do not name your subjects – I went ahead and broke the second: do not get involved in their lives.

But Mabel looked hungry. She stared longingly at my lunch as I sat at the back table to be nearer her. I tore off a crust and crumbled it on the ground. She gobbled up the morsels. I scattered more crumbs. She fell upon them greedily. Between us, Mabel and I polished off a smoked salmon baguette in three minutes.

By mid-afternoon, keeping Mabel and her ducklings safe and happy was all I could think about. I moved to the veranda so I could work while warding off crows. I leapt from my chair and ran shrieking across the lawn when a kookaburra tried to swoop on a duckling. I kept Alfie the cat locked inside so long he relieved himself in the bath. I spent an eon standing sentry by the pool – opening and closing the gate whenever Mabel and her brood fancied a swim. I felt like a hotel maitre‘d, constantly pandering to the whims of a demanding guest.

Feeling overwhelmed by my new responsibilities, I rang the wildlife ranger. “We don’t interfere with ducks,” he said. “You didn’t feed her, did you?”

“Um.”

“You didn’t feed her bread, did you?”

“It came from a French patisserie,” I said defensively.

“She’s all yours then,” said the ranger. “Lock up your cat. Your mother duck ain’t going anywhere.” I was sure he snorted as he hung up.

I spent the next morning chasing crows. I built a pool ramp for the ducklings. I combed the agapanthus for snails while Mabel sunned herself on the lawn. At school pick-up, half a dozen children begged to see the ducklings. We trooped home, cradling earthworms for Mabel’s afternoon tea.

“She must be hiding,” I explained, when Mabel and her ducklings failed to greet us. A grid search of the backyard proved we were duckless. In disbelief, I alerted the neighbours and put the street in lockdown. But Mabel had vanished. I was an empty-nester. I wandered the garden bereft. I searched for her by torchlight.

And then the next morning I got cross. How dare she up and leave like that – selfish, ungrateful bird! After everything I did for her! But being angry didn’t feel good. I missed Mabel. Better to luv-a-duck than not to have loved at all.

Empty Nest

Empty Nest
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday September 5, 2015

We’d ridden halfway up the hill when I noticed a small pile of sticks by the verge. My brain registered the elliptical shape but I quickly dismissed the stick-mound as otherwise unremarkable.

“Start pedalling honey!” I shouted to the 5-year-old freewheeler on the trailer seat behind mine. Small daughter obliged by merrily pedalling backwards, creating extra drag for my screaming lungs. “Stop!” she shouted and I jammed the brakes. “What’s wrong?” I panted.

“Look,” she said, pointing back at the grassy verge. There, on our left, was the jumble of sticks. It was a large nest, shaped like a bowl.

We crouched down to inspect our discovery. A wire coat hanger served as a joist under the nest. Its grey elbows protruded like strange wings from the tangle of slender branches. Another coat hanger, this one cerulean blue, supported a finer weave of twigs laid in concentric circles towards the centre. The nest’s delicate interior was a cup the size of my hand. It was thatched with dry grasses and entwined with a single strand of white wool. A mattress of smooth brown leaves completed the soft cradle.

Threaded through the nest were two lengths of insulated wire – one red, one green – and a piece of electrical cable roughly fashioned into a round. A long strand of resin packing tape, sky-blue, completed the reinforcements. The nest was not just a feat of avian engineering. It was a work of art.

I scanned the eucalypt overhead but there was no sign of the nest’s owner, lamenting her fallen home. We inspected the verge but there were no broken shells or feathers. We biked home and returned with the car to collect our orphaned prize.

I jangled the bell at number 14. A woman wearing a toddler on her hip answered the door. “We found this on your verge,” I said, proffering the nest. “Have you noticed any birds in the tree out front?”

“No. But it does explain the bits of rubbish I’ve been finding on the lawn.”

“Please can we keep it?” blurted my five-year-old, sensing finders-keepers might not hold currency amongst grownups. “Of course,” she said, smiling. “But your job is to find out which bird it belonged to.”

The nest now sits on our hall table like a rare and peculiar crown. I often pause to admire its workmanship. I marvel at the resourcefulness of the bird who created it with just a beak and a primitive pair of opposable toes.

I search the internet for similar nests but for once, Google is lacking. I email an ornithologist who tells me that a bird in nest-building mode will press its breast against the interior to make it round. “Isn’t it a lovely idea,” he wrote, “to imprint the shape of your body on your home.”

My-mother-in law is convinced it’s the work of a bird of prey. “It’s too pretty for a crow,” she says. “A kestrel perhaps?”

I send a photo of the nest to a reader who’s a regular and enlightened correspondent.

“Intriguing all right,” he replies. “It has me beat. I’m guessing magpie, crow or chicken hawk.”

Ever since we found the nest, I’ve become a kitchen-window bird-watcher. Yesterday, I was enthralled by a pair of kookaburras sunning themselves on our side fence. We eyed each other warily as I hung out the washing. Were they studying me in my suburban wilderness or was I in theirs? I sidled inside to find my zoom lens and took their portraits. Have I turned into a bird nerd?

I now block out the noise of traffic on the highway and the din of my mind to isolate strands of bird song on the walk to school. I tune in to a silvery melody, scanning the trees for its singer.

I remember the carolling of magpies as the dawn soundtrack to my childhood. I was quite the bird watcher back then, exploring the local swamp. I never found much but it was enough: an empty broken egg or a bright green feather. “Are the birds nesting early or late this year?” Nan would ask. “Early,” I replied, still nursing my bruised ego after a swan attack. (I’ve maintained a life-long fear of long-necked birds with snapping red beaks.)

The nest has reminded me of my long ago self: a girl with two plaits and a murky bowl of wriggling tadpoles getting a heroes’ welcome on show and tell day. We kids would crowd around the latest offering from our backyard jungles: silkworms on mulberry leaves; a crowd of slater beetles packed into a matchbox; a redback spider held hostage in a jam jar.

For now, the architect of our nest remains a mystery. My money’s on a magpie, but it matters not. I’m just grateful to be a collector once again.