Writing that last post was like opening a window to the past and memories have been blowing in ever since. But the memory that has intrigued me most in the past few days comes from my sister, Mel.

I have probably already mentioned my mother's close relationship with alcohol. As the men have come and gone, and the children have over time slipped out of her sphere of influence, the booze has remained a loyal, if punishing mate. Sometime in the late 80's, tired of the drunken ranting, Mel, who was perhaps 14 or 15, and my brother, Rhys, 6 years Mel's senior, thought they would try their hand at a bit of drunken hypnosis, mixed up with some mischief. While Rae was out drinking somewhere (in those days most likely the Sports Bar at the Windsor in Mairangi Bay) they placed a cassette tape in a battery powered stereo which they in turn placed in her wardrobe. When they heard her arriving home, they ran in and turned it on. She stumbled into her room, and into bed. I don't know whether she heard any of the tape, but it was entertaining enough stuff for us at the time. After thirty minutes of silence, Rhys had recorded, in a small high pitched voice, a plea:

"Help me ...... help me.... I'm in here.....can't you see me....get me outta here.....help me!"

After some minutes more silence, he adopted a deeper, more soothing voice:

"Raaaae, Raaaae, this is your cooonscience speaking. Stooop the drinking Raaae. Stooop the driiinking. Your children neeeed you."

While I don't remember any fall-out on that occasion, Mel does recall the reaction they got to another cassette tape escapade. We had tried many times to explain to Rae how distressed we were by her drunken rants and erratic behaviour. She never took to this information kindly. If we were game enough to bring it up, we would be subjected to a vehement tirade of insults. We were told we were vermin, that we drove her to drinking, that it was her only luxury, that we never wanted her to have fun. Writing it down makes it seem almost innocuous, but the snarl in her mouth, her beady eyes, the slow drawl winding up to a screech, the spittle coming out of her mouth, the finger pointing - I remember it as terrible and terrifying. So, one day, Mel and Rhys recorded her drunken ravings, and the next day, they took the "ghetto blaster" down to her room and hit "play". Mel recalls that Rae emerged from her room hung-over, and bewildered. But, as the penny dropped that it was in fact her own voice from the previous night, she bared her teeth and claws. When Rae was angry, the violence in her words, her tone, her manner, could be vivid, and scorching. It would feel like she was holding a torch to my skin, was blowing a horn in my ears and was slowly squeezing my heart with her gnarled fingers. Mel says that on this occasion, she had never seen Rae so livid.

Mel and Rhys left the tape recorder alone after that.