Truly Madly Guilty

'Um, yes. So I was pleased to see you here actually,' said the woman. She held a child's tiny transparent umbrella tightly over her head. The rest of her was getting wet. She shot a pained look at Erika's mother's front yard. 'I, ah, just wanted to let you know that we're putting our house on the market.'

'Ah,' said Erika. Her jaw clicked as her back teeth began to grind. It would be so much easier if this were one of the horrible neighbours, like the couple with the Jesus Loves You sign in their window, who made regular complaints about the state of Sylvia's house to the Department of Community Services, or the snooty ones across the road, who made aggressive legal threats. But this woman was so nice and non-confrontational. Michelle. Dammit. She'd accidentally remembered her name.

Michelle clasped her hands together as if to beg. 'So, I know your mother has ... um, difficulties, please know I do understand, I have a close family member with mental health issues, oh gosh, I hope this isn't offending you, it's just that -'

Erika took a breath. 'It's fine,' she said. 'I understand. You're saying the state of my mother's house will affect the value of your property.'

'By maybe a hundred thousand dollars,' said Michelle pleadingly. 'According to the agent.'

The agent was being conservative. By Erika's calculations the loss could be much higher. No one wants to buy a house in a nice middle-class suburb next door to a junkyard.

'I'll get it fixed,' said Erika.

You are not responsible for your parents' living conditions. That's what the children of hoarders were told, but how could she not feel responsible when she was this poor woman's only hope? Someone's financial outcome depended on Erika stepping up, and she took financial outcomes seriously. Of course she was responsible. She saw one of the blinds at her mother's window twitch. She'd be inside, peering out, muttering to herself.

'I know it's hard,' said Michelle. 'I know it's an illness. I've seen the TV shows.'

Oh, for God's sake. The TV shows. Always with the TV shows. Everyone was an expert after half an hour of neatly packaged television: the drama of the disgusting rubbish, the clever counsellor, the clean-up, the happy hoarder seeing her floor for the first time in years ... and fixed! They all lived happily ever after, when in fact cleaning away the rubbish was only alleviating the symptoms, not curing the illness.

Years ago, Erika had still had hopes of a cure. If she could get her mother to see a professional. There was medication. There was cognitive behavioural therapy. Talk therapy. If only Sylvia could talk to someone about the day Erika's dad had left and how it had triggered some latent madness. Sylvia had always been a compulsive shopper, a bright, beautiful, nutty personality, a real character, a party girl, but she'd stayed on the right side of crazy until she'd read that little two-word note he left on the fridge: Sorry Sylvia. No mention of Erika. He'd never found her particularly relevant. And that's when it had begun. That very day Sylvia had gone out shopping and come home laden with bags. By Christmas the purple flowered carpet in the living room had vanished beneath the first layer of stuff, and Erika had never seen it again. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of the outline of a petal and it was like coming across an ancient relic. To think that she had once lived in a normal house.

She accepted now that there would be no cure. There would be no end until the day Sylvia died. In the meantime Erika would keep battling the symptoms.

'So I'd better -' Erika gestured with her mops towards the house.

'I got on well with your mum when we first moved in,' said Michelle. 'But then it was like I offended her. I was never sure exactly what I did.'

'You did nothing,' said Erika. 'That's just what my mother does. It's part of the illness.'

'Right,' said Michelle. 'Well ... thank you.' She smiled apologetically and fluttered her fingers in a 'bye-bye' way at Erika. Far too nice for her own good.

As soon as Erika reached her mother's front porch, the front door opened.

'Quick! Get inside!' Her mother was wild-eyed, as if they were under attack. 'What were you talking to her for?'

Erika turned sideways to come in. Sometimes when she went to other people's places, she automatically turned sideways to enter the front door, forgetting that most people had doors that opened the full way.

She inched her way past the towers of magazines and books and newspapers, the open cardboard boxes containing random junk, the bookshelf filled with kitchen crockery, the unplugged washing machine with the lid up, the ubiquitous bulging plastic rubbish bags, the knick-knacks, the vases, the shoes, the brooms. It was always ironic to see the brooms, because there was never any floor free to sweep.

'What are you doing here?' said her mother. 'I thought this was against the "rules".' She made quotation marks with her fingers around the word 'rules'. It made Erika think of Holly.

'Mum, what are you wearing?' sighed Erika. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Her mother wore what appeared to be a brand new blue sequinned flapper-style dress that was too big for her thin frame and a feathered headband that sat low on her forehead, so that she had to peer up to keep it from slipping into her eyes. She posed like a star

on the red carpet, one hand on her thrust-forward hip. 'Isn't it beautiful? I got it online, you'd be proud of me, it was on special! I've been invited to a party. A Great Gatsby party!'

'What party?' Erika walked down the hallway towards the living room, studying the house. No worse than usual. The normal fire hazards everywhere, but she couldn't smell anything rotten or decaying. Perhaps if she concentrated on the front yard today? If the rain slowed to a drizzle?

'It's a sixtieth birthday party,' said her mother. 'I'm so looking forward to it! How are you, darling? You look a bit washed out. I wish you wouldn't turn up with equipment as if I were a job you had to do.'

'You are a job I have to do,' said Erika.

'Well, that's just silly. I'd rather just have a chat with you and hear what you've been up to. If only I'd known you were coming I would have baked something from that new recipe book, the one I was telling you about when you got so grumpy the other day -'

'Yes, but who is turning sixty?' asked Erika. It seemed unlikely that her mother would be invited to a party. Since she'd retired from her job at the nursing home, she'd lost touch with her friends, even the most determined, patient ones, or else she'd discarded them. Her mother didn't hoard friends.

Erika walked into the kitchen and her heart sank. The front yard would have to wait. It had to be the kitchen today. There were paper plates sitting on top of the hotplates. Half-empty food containers with green mould. She wasn't meant to be here for another two weeks, and if it wasn't for the problem with the front yard, she wouldn't be seeing this, but now that she had seen it, it was impossible to walk away. It was a health hazard. It was an affront to human decency. She put down her buckets and pulled out the packet of disposable gloves.