Free The Healing Party by Micheline Lee Page B

off work to spend time with Mum and Maria, but he wasn’t one to tell them that he had so much work as a graphic designer he had to turn clients away.
    For the last days of their Darwin visit, I had in store a special trip out to the bush. Although I had planned the visit to Daly River weeks earlier, I told Mum about it only the day before, in order to minimise the time she had to worry. The drive was only three hours, I said. I described the beautiful virgin bush and termite mounds that we would see on the way, the hot spring that only the locals knew, and the Daly River Aboriginal community where we would stay for two nights with my friend who worked in the art centre.
    Mum pursed her lips and frowned. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. That’s all she said: Are you sure? If she didn’t want to go or had concerns, why didn’t she just say so? I could have grabbed her by her synthetic blouse and shaken her.
    Jason started laughing as soon as we were out of earshot. ‘You don’t really think she’s going to like it out bush, do you?’
    â€˜It will be good for her to see the real bush,’ I said. ‘She might just love it. It might be a revelation to her. You have to give these things a chance.’
    â€˜Ze vill go and ze vill love it,’ Jason said, giving me a Nazi salute.
    The next day, Mum, Maria and I turned off the highway towards Daly River. Bitumen soon ran out into dirt road and then there was nothing but dirt, trees and sky. Twisted scrub continued in a monotonous line below an empty blue expanse. The occasional gum tree raised itself over the scrub, its thin, old branches forming a spindly calligraphy against the sky. I drove on further and absorbed the surroundings. They did not manipulate with grand vistas, spectacular heights, majestic trees or verdant colour. My spine loosened and my breathing deepened in deference to this harsh, low land.
    I looked at Mum in the seat next to me. Although our windows were up, the fine dust of the road was swirling through the door gaps and air vents. We could not talk above the hammering of the van over the ruts in the road. Passing cars threw up clouds of dust so thick that I had to stop the van or else continue blind. Mum’s jaw was clenched shut, her eyes bloodshot and tense.
    It would be okay. The clearing was a few kilometres away. We would stop there and I would show Mum. I imagined how I would bring her up close to the small hidden treasures: she would see the delicate uncurling fronds of the cycad, the fresh yellow of the kapok flower, the textures of the woollybutt tree and the stone-age presence of the termite mounds. I pressed on the accelerator to get to the clearing faster, but the banging over the ruts only became more violent. I was forced to slow back down and let the ruts resume their rhythm.
    We finally reached the clearing. None of us moved for some seconds after the van had stopped, mesmerised by the silence and stillness. I opened my door and suggested we take a look around.
    â€˜No, you go. I will just sit here. I don’t feel well,’ Mum said. Maria and I tried to help her out of the van to get some air. It was when she stepped out that she suddenly shrieked and bent double.
    We turned back for Darwin immediately. The trip back was hellish, every rut in the road a punishment, every piece of bush a menace. She writhed in pain the whole way, her eyes shut tight, her face contorted. Her mouth moved and I knew she was praying, though I could not hear her words.
    When they returned to Melbourne, the pain in Mum’s back receded, leaving a numbness in her arms and legs that wouldn’t go away. The doctors decided it was a pinched nerve. Eight months later, the pain came back and one morning she woke up unable to move her legs. This time they found the tumour and a spinal biopsy confirmed that it was cancer. Cancer cells were also found in her large intestine and liver. The cancer had metastasised.