Even with my mother in residence the days around me continue to unfold with a clear emphasis on design and rhythm. Tides match pace with the moon’s cycle, winds blow in off the sea still icy with their journey from the south. At dusk the harbour becomes an intense blue that bleeds into the darkening sky. The island in the sound hovers on a cushion of air as water overcomes the solidity of earth, robbing it of its daily colour. Land fades into the background. The day dies.

This is a time that I cherish. In fact it is why I bought the cottage. The canny real estate agent organised a twilight showing. A couple of bits of cheese, some crackers, a glass in my hand and a sunset that could make a person weep. I was hooked. Blind to the rundown condition of the building or the overgrown tangle of a garden. I snapped up the property at the asking price. Too anxious for ownership to risk losing out to another bidder. Greed, I decided, was sometimes a necessary evil.

Sitting out the back, my chair deep in the fragrant garden, I settle into my vigil. I have left all the lights off. There is only the glowing end of a mosquito coil and the pinpricks of light beginning to gleam in the sky. I sit and wait for my eyes to adjust to the dimness and relish the sense of emptiness that settles around me. The open expanse of blackness that stretches away from the house and down to the sea. Echoing sound of insects and frogs at the bottom of the garden. Alone at the end of another day. Just me and a myriad of stars. Or, seeming so. I once heard that there are less than a thousand which we actually see and can count. That was a particularly hard blow. There is also of course, still, my mother who is out for dinner but whose return I know is inevitable.

I believe the day she moved in was the beginning of the end. I know I had mentioned a certain tightness in my financial situation during one of our weekly phonecalls. I was initially surprised she might think that she would be an appropriate housemate, someone to help with expenses. My comments had, after all, been made in passing.

Why she would suddenly decide to become a long-term houseguest was a matter which escaped me. Not that I should be surprised. I readily acknowledge I never understood the woman. That the truth of her mission has only just become apparent is, I feel, a further example of the mystery which is the woman who gave birth to me. It is evidence I may be forced to bring to bear.

The cottage is compact, much smaller than the house I lived in before. Then I was part of a couple. A pair. The type of unit my mother is bent on recreating. David, the boy of my mother’s dreams. It seems that other house offered a stake in the type of life everyone else wanted for me. Myself, I figure the spatial sacrifice was worth it just to be free of the rut we had settled into. Looking back, I can’t believe a relationship I figured would last maybe the six weeks of his Christmas vacation stretched out for fifteen years. I was barely twenty and my life at the time was a hazy whirl of nightclubs and hangovers. The final year of my Arts degree was just over and I’d finally decided I was never going back to my parents’ farm. Aside from that I had no particular plans. I woke up in David’s flat one afternoon in December. He had just finished a stint with a suburban newspaper and was taking a month and a half before starting a new position as staff writer on a fairly ordinary local magazine. I think I might have been lulled into a false sense of commitment because of the sex. I never really had any long-term designs on his body, nor his mind. We just drifted into a life together, and then he never wanted me to leave. Since I didn’t really want to go home, I guess I never did.

My cottage has become my sanctuary. It seems an age since I had any space to call my own. You know what I mean, that blurring of boundaries that creeps up on you when you cohabit for an extended period of time. The thing is, my mum moved into my refuge. Suddenly, overnight, cosy became cramped. Bedlinen appeared in the closet, ironed. Bottles of Chardonnay replaced the stubbies of light beer in my newly lemon-fresh fridge.

The speed of the invasion continues to leave me breathless as I recall her arrival. I opened the door one morning and there she was. It was barely seven. I was certainly not prepared for an early morning visitation. “Oh darling, you don’t mind, do you? I’ve just gotten so tired of the smell of wheat and dust. I think I’ve developed hayfever. You’ve made me sit up and take notice. I’ve decided it’s time for a change. No more plodding along. You’ve been so brave about dear David. The divan in the spare room will be fine.” Her carefully set hair was gently washed to a soft blue, her smile gracious. I wondered at the time what there was to be brave about. Now, looking around at the rearranged bookshelves and fragrant bowls of rose petal pot pourri, I see that there is in fact a need for me to be brave. My cottage has been made over. My living space has become a constant surprise. I never know if I’ll come home to paper or paint.

On that first day she stood there, a mountain of luggage piled around her and a taxi purring at the gate while the driver waited for the fare. It was clear from the bags heaped around her that this wasn’t a weekend visit. She’s fifty-eight. Do people suddenly develop allergies in middle-age? I’m afraid I was speechless. I certainly wasn’t in a position to articulate the greeting she hoped to receive. I did consider for a short time that her prolonged stay was payback for my lack of warmth.

I’m starting to think that I may always have been a little slow on the uptake. We passed the six week mark before I began to think there might be something purposeful in my mother’s presence. At that stage I was feeling rather unnerved, even a bit surprised at the way our living arrangements developed. For the first time my mother and I talked as though we were engaged in conversations. Even so I couldn’t help but notice that she was clinging to a status quo which is redolent of my late adolescence.

It is the little things that piss me off. I came home one day to find all my mirrors had been moved. “It was such bad feng shui as it was darling.” It led to our first argument since she arrived. Up until then I had been trying to not let her proximity to my still fresh single adult life irritate me. I’d practically worn a track along the edge of the water as I tried to think happy, calm thoughts. Never mind my explanation that I was trying for an impression of openness, and a glimpse of the sea to be reflected into the sitting room - perhaps even be caught by the mirror in the hallway. All my reasoning was brushed aside with a wave of a freshly manicured hand. This in itself distracted me for a moment, my mother has never been a great one for beauty salons. She has always been too practical. The type to roll her sleeves up and get on with the job. Working alongside my father. Tending her precious garden. The transformations blossoming about me a further testament to her protestant work ethic. Yet there she was with pearly nails shaped to perfect ovals. I drew a breath in surprise and simply forgot to grit my teeth.

Despite its closeness to the sea, my cottage angles away from the water, and hardly any of the windows look out onto the beach. I can’t understand why a house so close to such a beautiful stretch of beach is turned from the view. One day I will knock out some of the walls and put in floor to ceiling windows. French doors with wide panes of glass too. In the meantime I’m battling against a woman who is spending her days reading manuals on interior design and is able to complete projects which completely shift the emphasis of a room while I am at work. The chintz curtains in the spare room irk me beyond comprehension. “Now, darling, that filmy voile was lovely but it really did nothing to give you any privacy. Anyone could have seen inside as they walked along that path. These are much more practical.” She was breathless and flushed as she teetered on the ladder. I had surprised her by coming home early. Needless to say, I’m trying to rearrange my work schedule but I have to confess that I am wary to actually do so. I guess I’m working on a theory of engagement so I can feel I’m doing something to restore my prior little utopia.

After eight weeks I have to admit I was settling into her routine. I came to realise that a central key to my own survival was to let my mother, and the energies of her various projects, just wash over me - setting the changes to the rhythm of the tides. I completed a mental audit of the alterations she was effecting around my home. I figured that, so long as she did not embark on any structural work, I could live with her innovations until such time as I was able to compromise between her vision and my plans.

At some point I started thinking of my mother as a decorating rollercoaster. Questions about cost and reimbursement are blithely waved aside. She seemed to leap from tea and toast in the morning to a full day of planning and action - all with very little indication of what changes were about to be effected. I was feeling the pressure of work. There was simply no time to argue with the woman. Subtlety, I was learning, was an essential component to my mother’s success.

I confess that up to this point I suspected that my mother’s relationship with my father had reached some sort of hiatus. Nearly forty years of marriage and living in a small community, I reasoned, must eventually take their toll. I extended this theory and dismissed her prolonged occupation of my spare room as an instance of substitution. She was ignoring my father by lavishing attention, regardless of how unwelcome, on me. Looking back I see that this was an impression that my mother, shrewd to the last, worked hard to promote but without seeming to do anything at all. Her entire visit was, I realised a sleight of hand. Occasional comments which I overheard as she checked in with my father, the little sighs and whisperings about her indecision of what to do next.

Slowly, the pieces of a puzzle which had been nagging at me ever since that comment about hayfever fell into place. For the past twenty seven years my mother has taken out the best garden prize run by the local council. Her corn dollies have won ribbons at our region’s agricultural show for nine out of the last ten years. Competition is, after all, tough. I even found some pieces of wheat stalk tossed into a garden bed one morning. She’d been plaiting and shaping on the sly while I was at work. No, my mother was not bent on shaping a new life away from my father.

It took a not inconsiderable effort hold myself back, not to confront my mother. Clearly enough there was some mischief afoot. I could not put my finger on it quite at the time, but my mother had taken on an air of the conspirator. I remembered her smile from our days of planning surprises for my father. The little secrets we would keep when I found myself in trouble at school. The games we used to play were alive in her face as she showed me change after change when I came home from work, when she poured me a glass of Chablis, when she threw out my favourite pair of jeans because there was a charity drive in my neighbourhood. At first I thought I was being overly sensitive, maybe even a little paranoid. Now I can see that she was playing me like a puppet. Furthermore, it became obvious that the woman was trying to goad a reaction from me.

My mother was nesting, setting my house in order. This sat uncomfortably with me. After all, I had barely moved in when she arrived. I think now that she wanted to galvanise me into action because of the limitations of her timetable. She must have set aside three or four months to work on me. My mental schedule of when to repaper rooms and tackle the garden was clearly out of sync with hers. I had to go away to a conference in Sydney. I was gone for three nights. When I returned my garden had been renovated, complete with a wall fountain, standard roses and lavender bushes. It was a major job, but she just shrugged it away. I figured she must have had some assistance, even with her talents there was no way she could have transformed my garden so completely.

I have spent quite some time my new garden. It takes advantage of the skewed arrangement of the house on the block. I had never fully appreciated the sweep of the coast around to the headland. The perfume of the roses and lavender mixes with the tang of salt. The back of the house, with its uneven verandah and too few windows, shelters the tubs of gerberas and petunias. I am now able to look out at an expanse of water but not be blown away by the fierce southerly. My breath catches at the cleverness of the layout. My mother, champion gardener though she might be, could never have completed the labour on this miraculous transformation. This is the work of a skilled team despite the obvious signs of my mother’s own hand in the design. Looking about me I notice echoes of her own garden, beds we planted when I was a child. By the path is a variety of lavender I remember from my grandmother’s house.

A few weeks ago I realised my mother had given me a gift of beautiful memories to make my new house a home. Sitting back I was struck by the impact the garden will have when I eventually renovate the house. It invites the French doors I have planned and with new steps leading from the veranda it will be like a separate room, almost swimming in the view of the sea. The thought that perhaps my mum has tired of her beloved oceans of wheat crossed my mind. My breath caught in my throat and I wondered how long I would have needed to live here before I saw my cottage like this without my mother’s meddling. I love the garden and the response it evokes, but the regret that I did not journey and labour to the end myself refuses to be tamped down.

I waited until the weekend, today actually, to make my stand. After so many months, my mum has settled in to a steady routine. With the little projects firmly entrenched through the cottage, and the remarkable facelift in the garden, it has become clear to me that perhaps it would be safer to get out of the house more, and make sure my enterprising parent is out with me. My mother would never play the tourist, but loves the part of the bargain hunter. The weekend markets offer an excellent diversion when dealing with a difficult parent. I believed I was finding my stride in my defence against my mother.

I broke the news of my intended excursion over dinner last night so I was able to get her out of the house quite early. My plan was to get to the markets and find a new rug for the sitting room. Well, she was bound to get around to it eventually so at least this way I was able to be in on the selection process. There is a place that sells really interesting rugs just on the outside edge of the market. Someone looms them down south. I also wanted to pick up some fruit. Perhaps I also like that quest for the best deal.

Our first stop was the rug shop. They don’t have a huge selection but the rugs are beautiful. Such amazing colours. The first rug I looked at was the one I bought. Nevertheless, we spent ages in the shop looking at the colours, feeling the pile of the wool. As I arranged for the rug to be delivered I felt a pang of guilt, it represents a considerable investment and I feel I should reimburse my mother for the landscaping. I shudder to think what that must have cost. For the past week she has been stonewalling my questions and my offers for payment. “Just think of it as a housewarming gift darling,” she said when I last asked her what I owed. She actually patted my head and walked away. I will pay her back for it one day, I am uncomfortable with her usual response of “Well, we’ll take it off your inheritance.” The casualness of the remark chilled me for a moment. Perhaps she is dying.

We browsed for a while, but for once in her life my mother was uninterested in a bargain. I noticed her checking her watch at regular intervals. I was surprised the scent of a bargain was not enough to capture the attention of a woman I have seen in a near trance as we sped towards the city for the January sales. When she suggested that we hurry along, “You know darling, I think we should get our shopping done and head for home. Maybe we could have a coffee first but I’m just not in the mood for this today.” I thought she must be ill. My next thought was that she was feeling the pinch after splashing out on the garden. She waved my concerns away, “No darling. I’m just not in the mood. Why don’t you head for the fruit section? I’ll catch up with you.” There seemed nothing for it, so I plunged in.

Walking out of the fruit and vegetable section I had to pass through a maze of cut flowers. Bright colours brushed against pastels and the aroma was as sweet as life itself. I was studying a bucket of carnations when I was caught off balance and found myself standing at a table draped in purple rayon, sprinkled with silver glitter and stars. “I see a long-lasting love, and the joy and happiness that sharing brings.” The old crone sitting at the table grabbed at my hand as I tripped and was hunched over it. She sighed. Her hair wound into a greasy bun, fastened with a single hat pin, she smelled faintly of tobacco and the staleness of age. I remember she tried to catch my eye as I struggled past with my basket full of fruits and vegetables. I bought more than I intended and the basket was heavy on my arm. I was impatient to move on, to be clear of the crowds, particularly to be free of the hand holding me captive. My arm was beginning to ache with its burden of avocado and nectarines. Whatever happened, I knew I was going to have to get away quickly, before my mother caught up with me and got all hopeful just on the basis of an old woman’s ramblings. I was, in fact, becoming uneasy, my mother hadn’t appeared in the produce hall.

The palm reader looked up as I scanning the crowd for my mum, “You’re lonely, right now. Lonely but not alone.” She let me go as quickly as she had grabbed me and I stumbled backwards into the crowd which surged forward and carried me a little way past the woman’s table. I moved against the flow of the shoppers to hand the woman five dollars for her efforts, however unsolicited they were, and then went in search of my errant parent, the woman’s voice following after me “Not for long though. There is someone new on the horizon. You’ll soon find your match.”

It was almost twenty minutes before I found my mother, in the coffee shop at the centre of the market. There was a busker playing show tunes on a clarinet and my mother was with a woman I’d never seen. The basket felt like it was full of lead. My arm was hurting so much it was on fire and perspiration was beading on my forehead, running down my back. I had to push through the crowd to get across to the cafe area. When I arrived both women looked up in surprise, my mother had a faint smile flickering around the corners of her mouth which she seemed to be trying to control. “Darling, this is Clare Evans. We were at school together. Put that down and get yourself a drink.” Then, she had turned away engaging her friend in conversation, denying either of us the chance to respond. My mother’s friend smiled at me and then she moved her head closer to my mother, the better to hear her above the noise of shoppers, cappuccino machines and a lurid rendition of ‘Hello, Dolly’.

There was a queue at the counter and it took me some time to place my order and arrange for its delivery to the table. I ordered more tea for my mother and her friend and a double macchiato for myself. Perhaps it was the effort of carting around my extravagant purchases, or maybe I was affected by my encounter with the palm reader. In any case, I felt in need of a strong draught of caffeine. I also ordered scones. When I returned to table there was a particularly attractive young man sitting with the two women. The son of my mother’s friend, as it turns out.

“Darling, this is Clare’s son, John. Why don’t the two of you get acquainted?” That was that, with a wave of her hand and a smile from Clare we were left to our own devices. I appreciated the lines of John’s body. He has that clear muscle definition that comes from working outside, not from pumping iron, and laugh lines around his eyes. I figured he must be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. For the first time in quite a while my heart began to beat that little bit faster. I could be seriously interested in this man, but I couldn’t ignore my mother’s furtive glances. She was sending a constant message of approval. I was waiting for her to jump from her seat and extol his virtues. With each glance I became a little more uncomfortable.

We finished the scones, and drained our cups, but neither my mother nor Clare seemed inclined to move. John must have picked up on my edginess because as the waitperson came to clear our things he looked at me and raised his eyebrow. Who knows, maybe he was enduring a similar torture. He stretched and stood up. “Sorry to put an end to this, but we need to be at Sarah’s and Tim’s by two. I need to go home and get changed.” I idly thought that there was nothing wrong with his appearance, but shied away from taking my thoughts any further. “It was lovely to have met you both.” A flurry of goodbyes and they were gone.

My mother was whisked away in a taxi at six, dressed to the nines for a dinner with some old family friends. I’d no idea she was going out. I brought my dinner into the garden and enjoyed the sunset from the jarrah bench near the new rosebush. I was surprised to hear the old ship’s bell I had picked up while I was away at the conference ring at six thirty. I had only finished mounting it by the front door late in the afternoon. This was the first time it had been used and I jumped at the strangeness of the sound as it clanged into the gathering dusk. I was more than a little surprised to discover my visitor was John. “I’ve just come from my sister’s and her husband’s. They live a few blocks from here.” He looked even better than he had this morning. I was annoyed to find myself tongue-tied for a moment but then my curiosity got the better of me and I invited him in for a drink. “Yes please. You don’t have any white wine, do you? Only, my mother is staying with me while her bathroom is renovated and she keeps filling my fridge with stubbies of light beer.” My interest, already piqued, broadened to encompass suspicion. There was something familiar at play here.

As I led him through the house John stopped me in my tracks as he remarked “When you knock out that southern wall and put in a series of windows you’ll have a magical view.” Hardly any one I knew had been in my cottage, and I had only met John in the morning. I turned slowly to ask if he knew the people who had lived here previously. He didn’t, “No, but I’ve been working on the garden for your mother, on and off for the last three months. Didn’t you know? I hope she’s happy with the result. It was quite an investment for her.” I realised I needed a drink quite desperately and ushered him through to the kitchen and out to the garden where he took a deep breath, inhaling the night scents. “Yes, this is how I thought it would be. I think I got the balance right.”

My mother is a shrewd woman. So, it would seem is John’s. He’s gone now, waiting for his mother to return from her surprise dinner date, to rattle her cage just a little. As for me, well I expect mine will be home soon. I can’t wait to trap her on my own line. In the meantime I suspect that her little plan has worked. I’m rather enjoying the crisp freshness of this Chardonnay and John’s phone number is in my diary, marking our date next week. The day has faded, leaving behind perfumes cloaked in night, a full moon trailing across a calm sea. I look out onto the view, pleased with the design unfolding about me.