Batty Rosie - A Mothers Story

Luke floats out of his bedroom, late again. His hair is tousled, his mood sullen. Its going to be one of those days.

Morning, buddy, I chime.

Its been only a few weeks since we returned from England. Five glorious weeks at home, visiting family, catching up with friends. Forgetting about Greg. And most importantly, coming to realise that my life doesnt have to be dominated by him anymore.

Not even my sons reluctance to eat his breakfast, get in the shower and generally get his arse into gear can break my spirit this morning. For the first time in a long time theres a sense of hope, a sense of clarity. It feels almost as if some sort of veil has been lifted and I can see a future starting to take shape a bright, carefree, happy future.

The clock is showing 8 am. At this rate, Luke is going to be late for school. I know I should probably be more worried when he acts up like this. But he is only eleven, and last year was a tough year. Despite that, Luke seems to have turned a corner. Hes really settled into school and is growing into a fine young man.

As I look across the kitchen bench at him hunched over his cereal, I catch a glimpse of those crystalline blue eyes through his mop of a fringe. My baby boy. My Luke. He may be growing up before my eyes, but hell always be my little boy.

Cmon, I say, rallying. Shower. Now. Were going to be late.

I bundle the dogs into the car and call for Luke to hurry up. Its 8.15 am. He comes flying out of the house, slamming the front door behind him, school shirt untucked and school bag flung over one shoulder.

School is all of 500 metres down the road even closer as the crow flies. But this has been our routine for as long as I can remember. And these days, when its a miracle if I can get three sentences out of him in one sitting, the drive is a chance to force some conversation out of my increasingly taciturn son.

As we arrive at Flinders Christian Community College, theres already a queue of cars. I think back to my childhood in provincial England. We were lucky if our dad was even there to wave us off at the door, much less chauffeur us to the front gate of our school.

I think I do an okay job as a mum, all things considered. Its hard to know without any real benchmark to measure it against, though I do sometimes worry I am too soft with Luke. But hes a good kid. Our lives are not exactly straightforward. Its never been picket fences and a nuclear family for us, far from it. And hes my only child. I wont get another go at this motherhood thing so of course I am going to indulge him a little.

As the car idles, we joke about having to leave home earlier to beat the rush-hour traffic snarl in sleepy Tyabb on the Mornington Peninsula. He still has a wicked sense of humour, even if puberty is starting to dull it. We are simpatico, Luke and I. When all is said and done, its me and him against the world. Just as it has been from the start.

When we arrive at the kerb in front of the main gates, Luke gathers his school bag and opens the door.

Bye, buddy, I say. Learn lots.

He rolls his eyes and walks off.

And so, another day begins. I have some chores to do at home, some phone calls to make for the business and an optometrist appointment to reschedule. Oh, and if I have time, the Kreepy Krawly needs servicing over in Mornington.

As I pull out from the kerb and head home, I look in the rear-vision mirror and see Luke dawdling into school. I cant believe how fast hes growing up. Its eleven years since he was born but it seems like yesterday.

People say they have memories from when they were two or three years old. I dont remember that far back. My earliest memories are mostly of my mother. She died unexpectedly when I was six years old.

Its hard to say if I was close to my mother. I was so young when she died, its so long ago now, and my dad has never been much of a one for talking. What I do have are vague recollections of a presence in my life that was loving, warm and nurturing. And then, all of a sudden, it was gone.

My mother was born Sheila Atkin. By all accounts, hers was a typical upbringing for a girl born in the 1940s in northern England. She trained to become a hairdresser, studying in Leeds. She met my dad through mutual friends. Geoffrey Batty hailed from a proud line of relatively well-to-do farmers in a village called Laneham. His dad was a farmer, his granddad had been a farmer. They raised sheep and cattle, and I can only suppose in the eyes of a hairdressing apprentice from Leeds, my dad presented as quite the prospect.

And so, they married and moved to Laneham. You could drive through Laneham today and barely realise it. Back then, it had a corner shop, two pubs and a church. To those who didnt live there and know its tight-knit community well, its most remarkable feature, other than being on a picturesque bend of the River Trent, was that it was near the town of Retford, which is on the London to Edinburgh train line. With a population of about three hundred people, it wasnt exactly what youd call a thriving metropolis.

But when I was small, and my parents were my world, it seemed plenty big enough to me. I was born at Willingham Hospital in Lincolnshire on 9 February 1962. I was the first born of three children. There was me, Rosemary Anne Batty, my brother Robert, two years my junior, and James, who was five years younger than me.

We had what most would consider a pretty idyllic early childhood: raised in the English countryside, with fields for a backyard, a great big rambling farmhouse and plenty of farmyard animals. We had some of the locals working on the farm Marlene the postwoman was our house cleaner. As we got older, people used to tease us. Because our farm was the biggest one in the village, we were seen as the big farming family. Since it was around the time when Dallas and Dynasty ruled the TV airwaves, they used to call my brother Robert Bobby Ewing.

One of my earliest memories is not wanting to leave Robert when I went off to school. We were as close as any two siblings could be. I can remember him playing on a plough and falling and cutting his eye open. I also distinctly remember James being born. I told Mum I wanted her to call him Paul. I seem to recall I was quite smitten at the time with a local boy called Paul Baker, the son of my primary school teacher.

Memories of my mum are scant. My first memory is of her caring for Robert and me when we got chicken pox. Sadly, though, the main memories I have of Mum are her arguing with my father. I remember her being upset and me trying to comfort her. At the time she died, their marriage was under a lot of strain.

I used to actively seek out people who had known her and could talk about her. Probably because Dad never talked about her, I made it my mission to construct my own portrait of my mum. I had the vague outline, and I used other peoples memories and recollections to provide the colour and texture. She had a great sense of humour but also a temper. I dont remember thinking I took after her, but when I was growing up, a lot of people said I was very like her.

Dad never really knew how to talk to any of his kids. He was the sort of father who was utterly dependable and stoic, but didnt know how to demonstrate his love for his children. He never discussed the topic of Mum and what had happened to her. And as a result, we never really asked him.

My brother James didnt even know how my mum died until, in the days after Lukes funeral, my dad spoke about her dying from a strangulated hernia and complications from peritonitis due to negligence. We werent even told she was dead until after her funeral. I do remember the day she died, however. We went for a walk in the morning. James was in a pram; he wasnt even two years old. We got to the end of our neighbours driveway, then Mum turned and went back.