Escape From the Garden

She shuffled aimlessly here and there. Her arms hung by her sides, suspended at the elbows lifelessly like a somnambulist. Her skin was umber. Her shoulders were hunched up and inward, looking resentful. I turned my back to her, busying myself with my secateurs. I crouched in a ball like a primate, pulling weeds from the cracked pavement. I glanced over my shoulder now and again to check her wellbeing. She was petting the ornamental fiberglass rooster in the raised garden bed. The decagon courtyard was full of natives, overrun by weeds, some 5 feet tall. They left a gummed and pungent residue on my work gloves. I ignored the residents, preferring to work alone in my head. Without warning, she was upon me. 

‘Excuse me,’ she murmured. 

‘Yes mam,’ I answered, standing to attention. 

‘Will you let me blow out the candles?’ she whimpered. 

‘What’s that sweetheart?’ I was genuinely puzzled. 

‘Let me blow the candles out. I know I can do it. I can. I can blow them out,’ she muttered with a trembling lip. 

‘Of course you can sweetheart. Of course you can, you go right ahead,’ I answered without hesitation, however her plight was not yet resolved. 

‘I can do it. I know I can. It’s my cake, and it’s all I want. Please - It’s my day after all. Please let me do it?’ she pleaded as a single tear ran down the channels of her cheek. 

‘You can sweetheart, you can. It’s alright, it’s OK. You go ahead,’ I was now pleading with her. 

‘Oh, thank you, thank you! It’s all I want - I can do it. Thank you...,’ she cowered off cooing, dragging her slippers along the cold morning pavement. I continued consoling her from afar intermittently as she made her way back inside. I had not moved an inch. She returned not two minutes later to comment on the gardens, and she offered her assistance. I told her not to worry, and that I had it under control. She agreed. She offered a smile, and then further compliments. I found it difficult to humour the residents. 

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she offered. I was growing tired. 

‘No thanks I’m fine.’ 

‘Are you sure?’ 

‘Yeah, I’m fine, but thank you.’

It was once stressed at a toolbox meeting to refer to the residents as just that, never patients; clients were acceptable. The landscaping company conducted in-house training sessions every quarter for us Team Leaders. I knew the OH&S Act of 1988 backwards. “Duty of Care” ran like the static loop at the end of a record in these meetings. Some training was specific, dealing with clients and customers. Our supervisor spoke briefly on his personal approach to residents with dementia. Other workers shared their experiences. The supervisor advised to ‘play along’ with the residents’ confused state. We all had our own style, oblivious of any medical recommendations. I didn’t like playing along. There was no dignity in that for either person. I preferred they say, “Hi Gordon, how are the kids?” and I reply, “Sorry mam. I’m not Gordon. But tell me about Gordon. How many kids does he have?” I came home to my flat once, down and out. That day a man hollered for an hour straight from inside the ‘day care’ building. I sunk in my couch, my dog plonked himself in my lap, and I hugged him tight as I pondered on the man’s cries. “HELP...HELP! GOD, PLEASE HELP ME!” I looked at the nurses inside and they carried on about their business. Surely, they could hear. So, I assumed it was ordinary, and that the resident was delusional, and I continued pruning the crepe myrtles convinced all was well. I subsequently visited that care facility once a week, to hear the resident cry out just the same each time, and when attending the complex where the Birthday girl resided, she would offer me a cup of tea one moment, and the next, scream down the ear of her fellow resident, struggling to step out of her way, scolding her that she had ‘SHIT FOR BRAINS!” It all became normalised quiet quickly. My dog pushed his head into the nook of my neck, struggling to get close enough. My brother entered and we had our afternoon debrief. I didn’t address him seriously often.

‘Promise me something; if I ever get dementia, or for some reason I’m put in a home – kill me. Just fucking kill me before that day comes.’ 

Each day of the week, I worked at a different Aged Care facility, throughout the sub-metro area. I had one apprentice, and we mowed lawns, pruned gardens, and pulled weeds. It was hard-yakka and did not pay well. There were beautiful sites and goat tracks. We had easy clients and difficult clients. There were friendly residents and rude residents. The work was frustrating, as we often were not contracted to work enough days to have the gardens up to scratch. All the gardens had potential to be fabulous, yet some clients expected the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in a single day’s work per week. I felt depressed for the residents mostly. I wanted to give them some solace with a serene garden, though time constraints and budgets rarely allowed it. The best we could hope for was minimal weeds, trimmed lawns, and accessible thoroughfares. 

Some of the units in the independent-living buildings resembled for lack of a better word, the eighties. The bricks were brown, the design uninspired, and the smell was stale. I found it perverse that the General Manager arrived each morning in his AMG blazoned with the obnoxious vanity plate ‘VAIN’, while I mowed the dust-bowl lawns, with the resident screaming like clockwork in the background.  

I once walked through the special care unit of a new sight with my supervisor. He said how he hated being in the hospital units, they made him uneasy.

‘They just smell like death.’ He wasn’t wrong. There was a memorial service in the chapel on a weekly basis. We walked pass droplets of dry blood on the linoleum. Falls were prominent. 

On my first day, I was tasked with trimming some low limbs off a tree near a fence line in an enclosed garden in the rear. A resident had recently been caught trying to “escape”. 

‘They wouldn’t know where to go even if they did,’ the site manager joked. 

At this time a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was underway, and there were regular news reports and updates of substandard care and even abuse in Aged Care facilities across the country. A report showed that up to 60% of residents received zero visitors. I recalled the time I worked at a cemetery, a woman arrived at a ceremony for the interment of a homeless man’s ashes into the garden I maintained, and I was in the direct firing line. 

‘I’m the only one who showed up for him! No one else fucking bothered! He died alone. No one cared,’ she vented at me.

‘Oh! I hope you die!’ cried Beryl. 

Nearly all the residents had old timey names; Eleanor, Rita, Noelene. My apprentice was shaken up. I was surprised how struck he was. 

‘I can’t believe she said that,’ he bemoaned. 

‘Don’t worry mate, she’ll forget in two minutes. Probably offer you a cup of tea or something soon, you watch,’ I tried consoling him. I really was quite bemused by how sensitive he was to this. 

Then the man started hollering again. This time far more dramatic. 

‘Deliver me Lord! Lord God! Deliver me!’ he shouted emphatically. 

I wanted to have a look at him. I strolled over to his window, but they were covered with the lace drapes you’d find decorated in your mother’s bedroom. I told my apprentice I needed to head over to the courtyard inside the complex. I swiped my fob at the door. I tried to look busy, like I was walking with a purpose past the nurse station. I checked over my shoulder, before I slipped into the vestibule of the man’s room. 

‘Who’s there?’ he said in a fright. 

‘It’s me, the gardener. My name’s Roy. I’m just checking if you want any work done for your view from the window.’ 

‘They don’t like me near the window. They said the sun was too intense.’

‘It’s pretty hot out there.’

‘That’s not why. They’re doing anything to contain me.’

‘Can I come in? Have a look anyway?’ I knew this was a flimsy excuse, and even more flimsy if I had to explain it to a nurse. But I was happy to play the role of a dumb gardener if it came to that. 

I walked casually into his main bedroom, past his ensuite. The air was uncomfortably warm with a funk of old laundry. He was seated on his bed, staring through the lace curtains. 

‘I hate these,’ he started. ‘I don’t even know what they are.’ 

‘They’re not the most masculine of decor, are they?’ He turned his head at me, sizing me up with his cataract eyes. 

‘Who was your father?’ 

‘Sorry?’ 

‘Your father. Was he good?’

‘He’s still with us actually. He’s retired now. He was in teaching.’

‘A teacher eh? My brother was a teacher. What was his name?’ His face perked up. 

‘Your brother?’ I joked. It did not land. 

‘Your father boy.’ 

‘His name’s Sean.’

‘I see.’ He seemed disappointed. 

‘What’s your name?’ I asked. 

‘His name was Joshua- my brother.’ 

‘What’s yours?’ I pressed him. 

‘My father once told me, “A brother is the greatest gift in the world”. I believed that, with proof, for approximately 2 minutes.’ He spoke as though he might weep, and my hands felt like they might shake with nerves. Something unsettled me, and it wasn’t mine being there inappropriately. It was something in the air beyond the reek; the weight, yet the calm so light, that it might just collapse like my muscles failing shoveling dirt. 

‘What’s you name sir?’ I asked firmly but respectfully. 

‘James ... Lesser’ 

‘James Lessor?’ 

‘James the Lesser’

I was at a loss. But his cadence gave me pause. What on earth was he on about? He had a gravel to his voice, though not the kind from screaming each day alone. The kind of a life lived; a man of promise once upon a time, perhaps. I attempted to probe further, but he rebuffed everything, fidgeting with his robe, and picking at his face. 

‘Are you a man of God?’ he queried.

I was quite taken aback, not knowing how to answer. But I wanted him to keep talking and interested. 

‘Yes, of course,’ I said with great enthusiasm. He pierced me with a glare. 

‘Don’t lie about such things. “The ugliest truth is always better than the prettiest lie.” 

‘My mother says stuff like that,’ I tried to reconcile. 

‘Does she? Why are you here?’ 

In a sudden, I felt at ease. The relief of truth that I had not yet uttered already felt clean. 

‘I wanted to see if you were OK. I hear you scream often.’ He took a moment to process. 

‘It’s a terrible thing to be locked up.’ 

‘I’m sure. You still have the gardens.’

‘Not here son. Here.’ He tapped two fingers on his temple. I heard the hollowy thud. He opened the bottom drawer of his bedside table and strolled over to me holding a single sheet of paper. 

‘Read this. No one will believe you. Why should they? -no one believes me. I figure if I told it like a story, maybe that way people would listen.’ He slapped the paper in my palm, not worrying about creasing it. ‘Take it away. It’s better.’ 

‘What is it?’ He didn’t answer.

He curled up like an embryo on his bed, and asked I put the covers over him. I was happy to. 

‘You be well James. I’m going to call on you again sometime.’ My guts sank, and I felt an urge to vomit. I shoved the paper into my khaki pocket. I paced briskly out of his room and returned out to the garden, not looking back. I was desperate to see what was on this paper. Then I thought, “make it a treat, save it for tonight when you’re in bed.” 

The rest of the day was a blessing, knowing what I had in-store; like a boxed and wrapped present that I knew the contents of. Once home, I immediately took the paper, and slipped it under the foot of my bedside lamp. I was more deliberate than ever that evening, in my routine. Change bed sheets, walk dog, straighten up house, dinner, stack the washer, get my clothes ready for the next day, clean mouth, clean body, empty bowels, get in bed. I took a meditative breath. I took the paper. It was handwritten, yet in a purposeful typeface, recogonisable, but not namable. The print was small, and formatted into four sections, the final three incomplete. The title was all in caps; 

THOMAS

Book 1

The Praised Twin

The air was muggy, and the father’s eyes stung. A cool soft mud lay underfoot in the open stable beneath a canopy of dying stars sighing. The dew dampened the harsh scent of chaff. The father’s bastard supplanter crawled to his feet, beckoning. The gentle mother wailed, and she tensed. A girl made woman. The infant was a son, borne on a ragged cloth to his sire approvingly. The baby whined for mother’s milk, and the proud father obliged, placing him in his mother’s bosom. Yeshua was his name, her first born, and so her deliverer to eternal salvation. The afterbirth was still to come, and with it kindred. Another boy, caught in the sac, swimming the fluid with a slow dance of limb, fell to the earth in ignoble grace. He lay in the stable’s muck unnoticed, softly clamoring wet and alone inside the refuge. His solitude mocked him. An entry to this life unseen, unheard, unannounced. An oxen came forward and tenderly licked the pellicle of the twin’s haven, and was ushered away carefully by the father, thinking the wet lump placenta. He paid little mind; a glance was proffered to inspect it was whole. The oxen’s tongue had broken the membrane and the babe’s face nuzzled out. The little mouth, gargling the waters, gasped its first breath in a sickened choke. The father twitched and saw the second boy. His face lit. He scooped him up with dirt and all in his grasp, and not knowing where else to hand him, placed him in a shallow trough, to spare his mother’s pure breast, near his whimpering brother.

“A twin,” the father said. “A blessing.”

“Yes,” the mother spoke sweetly. “Immanuel!; God is with us”. Her soft firstborn suckled ardently, undeterred beside the runt.

“Behold your brother Yeshua. He is your twin. His name is Judas. He will be your heart forever.”

A shepherd’s flock was called by the lament of labor. The pastor followed and entered the stalls amused.

“My flock were concerned. Is all well?” he asked, wiping his wet brow.

“Two babies sir, a twin,” the father announced proudly.

“Sons?”

“Yes”

“An honour. What are their names?”

“Yeshua, and Judas – Judas Thomas. We are blessed.”

“Indeed, you are.”

The twin made no sound and did not feed. He was content to stare up into his mother’s eyes with love. The father provoked him to feed.

“He will feed when ready,” the mother commanded.

“He was brought here to scrap. He will decide, and by the grace of God will he find his fill. He shan't return to corruption for an age.”

“God be praised,” the father sighed.

The bastard James pulled himself up upon a wooden barrel and beat it violently like a drum.

Lucifer stalled above, tempting star gazers. They invited themselves in to venerate. Their fine cloth swept the mire underneath. A nearby fowl brayed.

The family huddled and welcomed in a cool breeze. The twin slept, the Morning Star fell, and the mother cried a little.

Book 2

The Torment

Book 3

The Architect

Book 4

The Lamb

My chest scarcely contained the thunder of my heart. I felt I had run a mile. No, more like I had just been chased by a murderous specter, hellbent to capture me. What in the world had I just read? I thought of James, and an idea, of going to him and waking him that very night to confirm anything about what he had written. I didn’t sleep for several hours. 

I woke late to my dog pawing at my door for his morning jaunt. I hurried that morning. I was not booked to work in James’ garden that day. But I’m good at lying and concocting excuses. “I set the timer on the reticulation for a.m. instead of p.m.”, should be good enough. I knocked off a little early from my other worksite, and made my way over to James’ home. Just as before I entered as innocuously as I could, slipping past the nurses, offering them a civil nod. I ducked into his vestibule again, and knocked on his ensuite door nearby. 

‘James? Are you in?’ Not a sound. I entered and James was dead asleep. My nerves grew. “Please wake up”, I wished. I moved over to the awful drapes. There was no center parting, so I took a bottom corner and raised it, letting the afternoon light in. James awoke calmly. He took a moment looking blankly into my eyes, then suddenly winced. 

‘Who are you?!’ he whispered nervously. 

‘It’s Roy James. We spoke yesterday.’

‘My first visitor!’ 

‘I saw you yesterday James.’

‘My name is Stephen, but no matter anyway. Counts for nothing by morning. The stones will finish that. Have faith in God. His son is Jeshua. He is with us.’