The Opening

The package has been sitting in the hallway all morning staring at me blandly, as only brown paper can.

I wasn’t expecting anything in the post – no online purchases, no celebrations to mark, no legal matters to attend to.

I’m assuming it has been misdirected. And then I look closely at the address.

There is no mistaking, Att: Ms Verity Sanderson, 344 Courtier Road. That’s me.

I open it, with some hesitation, and I am a little relieved as the photographs slide out.

Gathering them up, the pile is thick, maybe an inch or two and I recognise the photos.

The first one is black and white; a child, about three or four, thumb in mouth, Benson Bear tucked up under her chubby arm, all primped up in a floral dress with matching ribbons, and staring directly at the camera, no hint of a smile.

I squint a little, taking in everything about my sad little self.

I remember that day. We were in the country for a family holiday. I notice the band aid on my knee and the graze on the other one. I had fallen off the swing. An innocent enough misadventure, but it sparked a huge row between my parents.

Mum screaming at Dad, Dad slamming doors, mum smashing a plate and me, well I am the bystander, small and inadequate. It wasn’t their first fight but this one was blazing.

Suffice to say there were no photos of the three of us after that.

In the next photo I am 10. I’m with Mum and we are wearing matching outfits.

Deplorable.

Plaid slacks, polo neck tops and black patent leather shoes. Even our headbands are similar. We are eating ice-cream at some kind of sideshow. She is pretending we are girlfriends… “smile for the camera honey,” she giggles and under her breath, “Vee, can you at least pretend you are having a good time,” I remember her voice was strained, as she discreetly pinched my arm.

It must have been one of mum’s boyfriends who took the shot, maybe Frank…or was it, Phillip? Either way, despite the ice-cream, I’m unhappy.

Right underneath is one of me with Dad. I am wearing an oversized hard hat and hamming it up for the camera, a rolled-up set of house plans under my arm, the other hand stretched out to display his new construction in the background.

My limited time with Dad was often spent “on the job” – reading books in the car at building sites, doing homework at his office, ordering supplies at hardware stores and timber yards. He had to work hard to stay afloat.

I flip through the photos. There are some with Granny and Gramps, Dad's parents, at their little farm. Me on a horse. Helping Gramps pick oranges. Granny and me baking. Happy times…rare times.

There’s a Christmas photo at Mum’s family home with Grandfather and Grandmamma. We are all matching here too, Christmas sweaters and hair coiffed with hard-set kiss curls at the sides.

I still hate the smell of hairspray.

We are at a very formal table themed in red and gold, a ham dressed with all the trimmings, expensive bon bons beside each place setting.

Mum’s new man that year, sticks out like a sore thumb. Dave was so relaxed - denim jeans, shiny boots, a flick of shoulder length blonde hair and a corduroy jacket. I didn’t mind him but there was no way he would last.

There are school photos for each awkward year of puberty, moving from puppy fat through to that gangly period, where features grow unevenly. I get thinner in each one. I never smile.

The next shots are at Mum and Roger’s wedding. I am maid of honour in a pink taffeta flounce of a dress. Mum is a white and pink layer cake. Roger, in a grey morning suit, sporting a Tom Selleck moustache, has a matching pink carnation buttonhole. He smiles like a Cheshire cat.

Grandmamma's wearing a darker shade of pink and a Queen Mother hat, its feathers threatening her sense of containment. Grandfather had died the year before, and Grandmamma, lasted another 15 months before joining him in what I imagined as a salubrious heavenly mansion – all the angels with matching halos.

I remember feeling relieved that they were gone, and then hugely guilty about it, but they were the coldest people I have ever known.

I flip through the next round of photos. There aren’t many highlights until I get to university.

Putting aside two beautiful ones of my dad I recall a special dinner date for my 16th birthday, a sweet little Italian restaurant, where I had my first sneaky glass of red wine. Dad and I are clinking glasses in the photo, our plates full of pasta carbonara, we were really happy.

But now I take a closer look and I see it, the signs were there, he looked worn out. The cancer was already lurking.

I cry.

By my 18th birthday he was gone, and I was left with Mum – all hairspray and outfits.

I haven’t seen her for several years. It isn’t how I wanted things to be. But Mum always chose Roger over me, and he was a terrible stepfather, turning the gulf between us into a virtual canyon.

I gather up the photos and shove them back in the box. I don’t want to see them anymore.

I pour myself a gin and tonic and pace the hallway.

Who would send me these? A documentary in Kodachrome of a fractured, lonely childhood. It’s not like I need reminding; I carry those sorrows like a sack of coal.

The sadness seeped into everything. My first great love described it as a bad tattoo. Indelible, lying in wait under whatever perfect disguise I wore. He persisted for a while, but it is hard to be a lover and a counsellor.

And the sadness has hounded me across more than one relationship, so that being alone, has for some time, seemed the safest option.

I return to the package.

I scatter the snapshots onto the floor and with another gin in hand plonk myself on the rug and look at the ceiling.

I scratch around for one at random, take a quick glance, then flick it away.

Every shrink I have ever seen has advised that I need to sort through the sorrow, find my child self and attempt to heal the wounds.

Well, here she is – the younger me – the shunted child, captured on film.

I sit up and decide to sort them into piles.

First three piles, bad memories, neutral and good memories.

The piles appear. A small group of happy times, a larger group of negative memories and some neutral moments.

It gathers me in. I order and reorder them. I take each painful memory and interrogate it – some move to the neutral pile. Time passes, the daylight dwindles, and I keep working at it until I am satisfied with the order of things.

I pull out an empty photo album from the back of my wardrobe and fill it with happy and neutral memories.

I take the others, and burn them in the fireplace, ritualistically poking and stoking each one until they bend and curl into ashes.

I tell the sad child, that there were happy times, and ordinary times and that she has survived, she is OK.

Now, all that is left is the package itself. The cat has been tapping at it for the past half an hour when I scoop it up and one more photo falls at my feet.

It was taken moments after I was born. Hair tousled, Mum is looking at Dad and me with so much joy, I gasp.

She is cradling me, and Dad is cradling her, his finger stroking my little cabbage patch face, so gently I can almost feel it now, a ghostly whisper on my cheek.

On the back of the photo in mum’s handwriting is – “4.05 pm, May 25, the best time of our lives”.

The need to know how and why the package arrived vanishes – this is enough.

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