Super Stump

By Geoffrey Gaskill.

The early evening sun streamed into the room. Outside, the jungle of a garden scratched up against the window as if trying to break in. This was Edith’s favourite room, the room in which she’d spent some of the happiest days of her life. It was the room where she now sat in her chair with a rug crocheted many years before over her knees. On the rug, in her lap, there lay a teddy bear.

Through blind eyes she stared out through the glass into the garden. It seemed fitting that both the room and that jungle outside might be the last things she remembered.

The house was situated on a block that today was a far cry from the place on which the newly married Edith and Sam, had built their ‘dream’ house all those years ago. Back then the area was little more than a wilderness on the edge of the metropolis. Over the years, together they’d dug and weeded, raked and hoed a garden into existence. It became their oasis among houses and shops and ribbons of asphalt that in turn became a small town within a city.

But the old lady didn’t enjoy her garden as she once had. It was there she’d scattered Sam’s ashes some years before she went blind. After that it siren-called to her and in her croaky voice she sang back. It was going to be her last resting place. Then she and Sam would again be together.

She had a sense of the fading of the light and at about the same time each afternoon she sought the comfort of the bear. Those hands had once forced the reluctant earth to bend to her will. They had caressed leaves, flowers, husband and babies alike. Now they were corded and grasping like the talons on little birds searching for some comfort in the going down of the day.

Her eyes didn’t need to look for the bear. She knew it was there and I made sure it was. She made a noise in her throat and moved her lips, willing it to come to her.

I took her hands and lead them to the thing she was seeking. A gummy smile smoothed away the pain and strain and she nodded a thank you. No more needed saying. The leathery skin around her mouth creased inwardly and she mouthed, ‘Stumpy.’ She brought him to her breast, sighed and held him tight as she had once held her children.

I stroked her thinning and silvery hair till she closed her eyes and her head nodded. I could hear the whistling breath as she dozed.

‘Dad?’ a voice whispered.

I looked at the little girl sitting on the sofa on the other side of the room. I went and sat next to her. ‘Yes Ami?’

‘Why does grandma want Stumpy?’

‘Because Stumpy used to belong to her.’

Ami looked put out. She frowned. ‘But I thought he belonged to me.’

‘He does,’ I said. ‘And when I was a little boy Stumpy belonged to me. Stumpy has lived with us for a long time.’

But that didn’t smooth the wrinkles from her brow. ‘But if grandma gave him to you and you gave him to me, why does she want him back?’

‘She only wants to borrow him.’

‘Huh?’

‘Remember the first time you were in hospital? And we brought grandma to visit you?’

‘Yes,’ she said dragging out the word, straining for the memory.

‘She gave you Stumpy then, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, on that day she gave Stumpy his new job.’

This time she did frown. ‘What job?’

‘To look after you while you were in the hospital. So you wouldn’t be lonely when mum or I couldn’t be there.’

‘Oh.’

‘And now he’s on loan from you. He’s keeping Grandma company when we’re not here. Is that all right?’

‘Yes.’

We sat for a few moments, watching the old lady sleeping. The low sun danced through the leaves outside, dappling shadows across the room. Every now and then they would caress the old lady’s face.

Suddenly Stumpy fell to the floor.

The bear was more patches than fur and what remained was thin and showed the fabric beneath. He had only one eye and the stitching up one back leg was a scar from the time my brother had tried to toss him onto the garage. Whenever my older brother and I fought he’d kidnap Stumpy to upset me. ‘I wonder if he can fly,’ he said the day he threw the bear high into the air aiming at the garage roof.

Stumpy tumbled head over heels, bumping and jerking till he came to a halt on the way down, snagging a leg on the downpipe. The fabric was so thin that it tore. Stuffing flopped out like blood. How I’d howled with impotent fury. ‘You’ve killed Stumpy!’ I screamed.

‘Don’t be such a wimp!’ My brother reached up and ripped him from the snag, tearing his leg more.

‘Give him to me!’ I wanted to kill my brother as much as I wanted to protect my bear.

He sneered before dropping Stumpy into a bucket of water at the base of the downpipe. ‘He can’t fly but maybe he can swim.’

‘What’s going on?’ my father demanded, sticking his head outside the back door.

I was as inarticulate as I was inconsolable. I dragged the sodden, ripped thing from the bucket and hugged him to my chest. ‘Stumpy!’ I never loved anything at that moment as much as I loved that bear.

My mother took me into the kitchen and with the same care she tended her garden, we shoved Stumpy’s padding back in and stitched his wound. ‘See,’ my mother said, ‘good as new.’ He wasn’t but for me Stumpy was now a warrior with a wound to prove it.

‘It looks like his arse is in his leg,’ my brother scoffed when I showed him the repairs. I defied him to touch my bear again.

Later I liked to imagine that, like many veterans we’d seen marching on Anzac Days, Stumpy too walked with a limp. Any damage became a new scar, each additional patch was a battle fought and won. Stumpy was more than a hero. He was my best friend.

I picked him up and handed him to Ami. ‘What do you want to do with him?’

She eyed the dowdy thing and then in a firm gesture put it on the table next to the chair under a drooping bunch of flowers. ‘We’ll leave him here where he can keep a watch on Grandma, hey? Then she’ll see him when she wakes up.’

‘Good idea. Time for bed.’

We tip-toed out of the darkening room. I put the beanie back on my daughter’s hairless head and took her hand. ‘You have a big day tomorrow. Chemo.’

‘Yuk!’

Suddenly she stopped and looked back at the old lady. ‘But Stumpy won’t be there with me.’ I saw the hesitancy.

‘Yes, he will,’ I said. ‘Do you think Stumpy would let you down?’

‘But he’s watching Grandma.’

‘Hey! Stumpy can do two things at once, you know. He’s not known as Super Stump for nothing.’

‘Super Stump?’

‘Sure! Stumpy is a superhero. Like Superman.’

She looked up at me, dubious. ‘Dad!’

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You think Spiderman or X-Men are something? They’re nothing compared to Stumpy!’

‘Stop it! You are being silly!’

‘And,’ I said, looking as conspiratorial as I could, leaning down and whispering to her. ‘I’ll let you into a secret. He’s only a part time teddy bear.’

She cocked her head, looked more sceptical but laughed anyway.

We walked hand in hand down the corridor, stopping every now and then to hitch up her pyjama pants. ‘Dad?’ She stopped and frowned.

‘Yes, mate?’

‘Do you think Grandma would mind if I borrowed Stumpy to take to the hospital tomorrow?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course, I’m sure. We’ll pick him up early and we can return him later. I’ll tell grandma he’s gone off doing some superhero stuff and will be home in time for dinner. Now, then,’ I said tucking her into bed, ‘do you want to hear about one of Super Stump’s amazing adventures?’

She giggled and laughed and hooted as I told her of Stumpy and his incredible adventures fighting the bugs ‘that almost ate Geelong,’ till sleep overtook her. I wondered how long this beautiful innocence would last in the face of disease and hospitals.

By now night had fallen and the darkened garden looked in through the windows. Moths bumped on the glass trying to get in. Otherwise, it was peaceful out there. Another day gone.

I thought about Stumpy, superhero and part-time teddy bear. If he could save Geelong from city-eating bugs, comforting a dying old lady and taking care of a sick little girl would be child’s play.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Geoff spent thirty something years of his working life telling children how to write.

At retirement he decided to practise what he preached. Much of this output sits in his top drawer at varying stages of ‘completion’.

Otherwise he is an actor and director in the local theatre scene. After all, actors and directors are storytellers too.