The Colour of Food by Anne Else

Author:Anne Else
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781877551925
Publisher: Awa Press
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The phone call came soon after six in the morning on Thursday, October 22, 1987. Harvey went into my study to answer it. I heard him say, ‘Yes, tell me. Yes, an accident’ and I thought, ‘Jonathan, Patrick, Mum and Dad… Please let it be Mum and Dad.’ Then Harvey said, ‘Thank you, Kathy’ and I sat up straight and said, ‘What’s happened? Oh, what’s happened?’ Harvey came in and sat beside me. ‘Patrick’s dead.’

I found out what had happened from his friends; the Sydney police didn’t call me, and I couldn’t bring myself to try to talk directly to them. He had been promoted, and had gone to an after-work party with Kathy. She had to work in the morning so she had left the party at half past one and gone home to sleep, but he had stayed on. At half past two he had come home, and of course he had had too much to drink.

He was seeing an older woman who lived on the second floor of his building, and once before had climbed up to her window. He knocked on her door, but understandably she didn’t let him in. He went up to his flat on the seventh floor, put on his red and white basketball boots, and pushed the table in his room over to the high, sill-less, metal-framed window. He stood on the table, opened the window, which was taller than him, and leaned out, wondering if he could climb down to her. His friends told me that the police thought he must have decided he couldn’t do it, then become giddy and lost his balance. There was every sign he had tried to hang on. But he fell.

For twenty-four hours I couldn’t eat anything and couldn’t bear the smell of food cooking. Then the cakes began coming – so many that weeks later I found one that had been overlooked, untouched and mouldy in its tin. For days I lived on bits of cake and the endless cups of tea Harvey made for the visitors. He and Jonathan fed themselves on bread and cheese and baked beans, or went out for takeaways when I was safely upstairs, escaping in sleep. In the middle of the night I would wake up, hear Jonathan moving around, and go in to sit on his bed and talk about his brother.

After a week, one kind and sensible friend left a large bacon and egg pie on the doorstep. It was exactly the kind of homely, safe food I needed to bring me back to life. It was weeks before I could face any other kind of meat, or even fish. I came close to passing out when a well-meaning friend had us around for dinner and served us whole fish with eyes.

We had no family in Wellington. Our friends took care of us, and almost all of them knew exactly what to do and not do. An efficient phalanx did the housework, saw to the music

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