A Woman of the Inner Sea

by Thomas Keneally

  —He works for my husband, Jack.

  —Wish I had a big dumb bugger like that working for me.

  He went on looking at her. Had she given any sign, he would have taken her away and hidden her.

  But of course she knew she had to face him. He was someone from the Kozinski world she could meet without peril to the new woman Shirley’s steak and white bread was making of her. She was grateful to Paul for not coming in person. That would have been impossible.

  —Sure? Jack insisted on knowing.

  —Oh yes.

  She took the card with her as she went through into the saloon.

  He sat with his back to her. She walked round past his great shoulders and saw that he had one eye raised, as if she were a stranger, as if they had not floated together in the green water off the Vistula’s stern. His eyes were precisely as she remembered: those of someone who was used to terrifying people in a whimsical way. His arrogance came from the fact he thought himself a character, and because he had done good, frightening work for the Kozinskis, they told him that, the thing he wanted to hear. You’re really a character, Burnside. A legend in the building business. People either shat themselves with fear or with hilarity.

  —Your boss gave me a big welcome.

  Jack had given him a glass of beer, and he sipped it once while assessing her.

  —I love a bit of hostility. Mother’s milk.

  He showed his teeth. He thought all this stuff was subtle, but he looked melodramatically feral.

  —Let yourself go a bit, love, haven’t you? That Murray bloke who fancies you mightn’t fancy you like this.

  —Good, she said.

  —No, I was just commenting, Mrs. Kozinski. I can get you back to where you were.

  This stupid promise left her less frightened.

  —We met a few times, I think. On that boat of Mr. Kozinski’s.

  —Pleasant days.

  She would have made it sound sarcastic, less neutral and more edged. But she did not want to cause him to take one attitude or another.

  He said, I’ve been honored for a long time by association with your husband’s company, Mrs. Kozinski.

  —Paul’s mother is Mrs. Kozinski. She was endowed in that high office by the Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa and by the Holy Father. Ask her and she’ll tell you.

  —But you’re Mr. Paul Kozinski’s wife.

  —I reverted to my maiden name.

  —Understood.

  He’d begun nodding and was playing at being conciliatory. He had produced a thick envelope from the pocket of the vast suit coat slung on the back of the chair.

  —Mr. Paul Kozinski asked me to give you these documents.

  —Mr. Paul and Mr. Andrew.

  —Well, yes. These are for signature. Maybe you’d like to look at them.

  She did not take the envelope. She let him put it down on the table. There it lay. She would have been happy for it to get beer-glass rings on it.

  —Mr. Kozinski’s very appreciative of the fact that you’re not seeking anything as marriage settlement, or at least he presumes that, since he hasn’t heard anything from you. But he realizes he has a responsibility to you. Some of the papers to be signed are to do with relinquishing directorships in a number of Kozinski subsidiaries. It doesn’t seem likely you’ll want anything to do with them anyhow. And you’ll see he hasn’t been ungenerous. There’s a letter of agreement in there which will entitle you to a two-million-dollar settlement payable in six monthly installments, the first within fifteen days of your signature.

  —Yes, she said. Very nearly anxious, she distracted herself with the aftertaste of the delight in bounding over plains with Chifley. She relished the echo of that happiness.

  High above the town, somewhere between the apex of the Railway Hotel and the roots of time, there was a prodigious, proud, languid bark of thunder. It seemed to her that Burnside blinked.

  —God, listen to that. They get floods here, don’t they?

  —It’s all they talk about.

  —So … you’ll see the documents of resignation. And you’ll see also an annulment petition to the Archdiocesan court. Sign that, and you don’t have to mess around with the buggers any further. Then the settlement document for when you’ve signed all the rest. There’s a cross and a penciled K.K. where you sign each document. Katherine Kozinski. You mightn’t want to sign them Kozinski, but you’d better, because that’s the legal requirement.

  She didn’t care enough for all this to tell him the Kozinskis could take their settlement to hell. Why should she say something for the entertainment of the muscular servant of the Kozinskis? Who would add it to all his other smartarse stories of divorce in the private investigator business? For he was, it seemed, a licensed private investigator. At least his card said so. And she didn’t want him to be able to classify the story. She would like him to be left with so little he didn’t have a story at all.

  Anyhow she knew her part-change, her mid-transmogrification, would be his story.

  —Jesus, should see how she’s let herself go.

  Damn him.

  —You’ll be able to afford to leave here, he said. Of course, Paul wouldn’t have wanted you here in the first place.

  —Very kind of him. But this is where I am.

  Burnside frowned since it all seemed to be going so easily. Something professional in him mistrusted the ease.

  —Probably just as well if you sign now, he nonetheless urged her. You’ll probably go on thinking about Paul Kozinski and the whole sad business while ever these papers are around.

  —Don’t mention the sad business!

  —I was just saying …

  —Don’t say! Don’t fucking say! Don’t say!

  —All right. Whatever you want, Mrs. Kozinski, but it doesn’t look as if you and Paul will get together again. So why not sign? And the annulment … I believe your family’s very Catholic too, and you’d want a Church annulment. So the document in there initiates the process.

  —I know. You explained that.

  —None of this divorce and annulment stuff is a big deal. Not for people like the Kozinskis.

  —Old Andrew Kozinski is a Papal Knight.

  —That’s what I mean. So that document needs signing with the others. It’ll go through like grease. Would you like me to open the envelope now?

  —I wouldn’t.

  —Just that if you signed them, I could drive back to Wagga and catch the eight o’clock plane. We all have families …

  But then a pallor, she saw, an awareness of having made a gaffe crossed his face.

  —Oh Jesus, I know what happened … that business out at the beach … Please forgive me, Mrs. Kozinski. I didn’t mean …

  You could give forgiveness cheaply to someone like Burnside.

  —We all have our families, she affirmed.

  He thought she had let him off the hook and he was pleased to be able to resume his main argument.

  —Listen, as I say, why not open these now?

  He decided to be forceful, and picked up the envelope and was working at its flap.

  —Leave them alone. They’re my papers.

  —That’s right.

  —Then leave them alone.

  —Sorry. Look, I wish you’d—

  Again a great elemental cough of thunder. The Railway Hotel itself seemed to move. The heavens ground their way across Myambagh like a river over gravel.

  —You leave them with me, she said.

  She didn’t know why she’d want to delay things. What he said was good sense. Get rid of them and of him. He had interrupted her sea change, her change of form in Australia’s most oblivious town. None of it could start up again until he left. If then.

  Yet even at a cost to herself, she wanted to delay the Kozinskis’ purposes. She remembered old Kozinski’s story of the Pole and the lamp and the Chinese army. She had got to the level where relative balances of torment were what mattered, or where the lost took joy in minute ge
stures. She would utterly know her own shame, take it into herself, reinforce by decibels Paul’s scream on the night, if Burnside were to walk into Paul’s office and when asked if she’d resisted would be likely to say, No, there weren’t any problems.

  —You’d better stay here, Kate advised him. You’ll get these in the morning.

  —You know you’ll sign them in the end, love.

  —It costs twenty dollars a night, and—for that—steak until it’s coming out of your ears.

  —Since you know you’re going to sign them, I was hoping you’d save me the trouble.

  —The Kozinskis will pay your hotel bill, I’d think.

  —Well, of course they will …

  —Stay here then.

  —I don’t know what crowd you’re mixing with at the moment, Mrs. Kozinski. But maybe you ought to tell them I’m licensed to carry a firearm. If I’m visited during the night …

  —Don’t be stupid.

  —It’s just there’s some big bastards out in that bar. The publican himself is a big bastard.

  —Yes. But he doesn’t have your malice. Just stay here and shut up and I’ll see you in the morning.

  She remembered one last thing.

  —You’re not to eat with me. You’re not to eat what Jack calls tea. Not with me. There are plenty of other men here you can eat it with.

  —I understand, he said in an ironic way. In his general delivery, he had mixed objectives: sometimes he desired to sound like a cop, sometimes like a company law barrister. He was trying for the barrister tone now.

  It came to her again that of course he would tell everyone where she was now. They would all come after her. Worst of all, her solicitous parents. So that perhaps all she wanted through her stratagems was one more night numbly embayed in Jelly’s plentiful, radiant flesh, another evening to practice the two-pour schooner, another chance of the perfect marsupial dream.

  Burnside. Capable of driving a few hours down the highway and catching a plane, of getting back to the place where people would ask, How was your visit to the bush? She had prevented that. He would stay, with his envelope full of consent forms which Kate would likely sign in the morning, and he would be thickened a little, coarsened by Shirl’s spuds molten with butter and by plentiful custard. Given that, Kate thought, something might happen.

  Since it was a night so blinded by rain that the police might have stayed home, Jelly took the risk of driving them home to his place.

  It was vastly cold, the way a town in the plains can be. Jelly was sure the police would not be out tonight with their little breath kits.

  He wanted to know, Who was that big bugger?

  —Burnside. My husband sent him.

  —What with?

  —Divorce papers.

  Closing one eye, he measured the significance of this.

  As he drove, he kept saying, This could develop. Jesus, this could develop.

  The rain he meant. Myambagh’s streets looked negligible beneath it.

  —They’re all under their little iron roofs, murmured Jelly, and he stared out as if considering counting the thick beads.

  Without asking more about Burnside when they got home, he slept for an hour in the dark. But she didn’t. She enjoyed his bulk beside her. It still glowered from the night’s intake of rum. When she woke him, he stirred in an uncomplaining way.

  He said, Jesus, what in the bloody hell?

  But these were purely token sentiments. In Jelly, genuine anger seemed to have been choked out by temperament, weight and history.

  —What in the bloody hell?

  —I want to put on the light, Jelly.

  —Light?

  Unlike city people, those in Myambagh were very particular about turning on lights at inappropriate hours. She noticed that they kept their houses black all night. No light burned in the Railway Hotel either, not even to deter a thief. The grandparents of the Myambagh people had seen the coming of electricity to the town’s hearths. And a tribal memory told them, in the meat of the night, not to be flippant with light.

  —The way it’s raining, she explained, there might be a power failure later. I want to show you something, Jelly. While there’s still power.

  There was one bulb in the room, the overhead one. The bedside lamp she’d seen on her first visit was empty. No prodigality in Jelly’s world. One source. One light.

  She found the shoulder bag she brought to Jelly’s every night and took her wallet from it. She knew the photograph was in there, though she had not looked at it since the catastrophe. She knew the picture would put the question and evince a guilty plea from her.

  —There you are.

  When she became the different woman, of course she would be able to look at the thing and meet their soft hopeful demand. She might even find tears, and be average maudlin at their faces.

  She extracted the picture from the back pocket of the wallet and offered it to Jelly as the rain scarified his metal roof.

  —Those are my children.

  Taking the picture, Jelly shook his head to jolt his vision into the right mode—inquisitive, respectful, ready with the apt word of praise.

  —I’ve lost them.

  —Lost them? Their father take them away?

  —Yes.

  —Jesus. Why’d he do that?

  —He argued he was a fitter person. His mother argued that too.

  —Jesus.

  After thought and still looking at the picture, he said, Lovely kids. I know there couldn’t’ve been any cruelty, not with you.

  —He said there was.

  She told him that just to end the story.

  —But I bet there wasn’t. Was there?

  —Nothing deliberate.

  She saw him frown. He wanted the simpler answer, the motherly reassurance. She took the picture back out of his hands whether he was ready or not, replaced it, put the wallet back in her bag, and then went and switched off Jelly’s melancholy light.

  In the darkness, Jelly said, I don’t know what to say, Kate.

  But by his voice, he intended to go into the subject. She got in beside him. He felt deeply warm, but the surface of his flesh was cold.

  —Don’t start talking.

  Her lips brushed something facial.

  —But, listen …

  —What were you going to say, anyhow? Something that would fix everything up?

  —Jesus. I have a hard time fixing a fuse.

  —There you are. Shut up then.

  And indeed he seemed grateful to be acquitted of the task.

  —Send her down, Hughy! he murmured on the edge of sleep.

  An imprecation to the Australian god of weather, the god both of drought and of swollen streams. A prayer to the god of downpour from the god of the bar.

  When she woke again, the light was gray-blue in the room. The rain was still in the same high voice. She was cold. Jelly had left her, and she had never been in his bed alone. She saw that he stood across the room, sighing his way into an enormous pair of waders.

  —Jesus, I’ll look like Donald Duck in these. You didn’t hear the knocking at the door, eh? The sodding river’s over its banks, and there’s a tide of water on its way cross-country from Narromine. I’m signed up as an evacuation official. They need me on the books over at the old Palais Theatre. The Palais’s built up a bit high, you know. Sorry, love.

  She smiled at the curiosity of it: that he did her the courtesy of speaking like an ordinary lover, one who had a normal duty to rest at the beloved’s side till dawn at least.

  —You ought to get back to Jack, he said. I bet in no time they’ll have you out at the racecourse filling sandbags.

  He had negotiated himself into the waders at last. He looked slick and authoritative now, liberated from his daily duty as pensioner and servant of the bar. A temporary rescuer, and looking like it! She could visualize him saying to an old lady, Don’t worry about the house or the dog, love. Water mightn’t even get over the doorstep. Take this cup of
tea, and the helicopter will be here any second.

  —There’s something I want you to do, Kate. If I bring the stuff in here, I want you to take it over to Jack’s.

  She looked at him a time, not knowing what stuff he meant. He thought her solemnity meant agreement and was gone before she could ask.

  She began to dress, and was into her shoes, which were still wet from the night before, when he came in slicked with rain and carrying a small Esky, the standard accouterment of picnics as enjoyed by homo australiensis.

  Jelly was gasping somewhat in his glittering rain gear.

  —It’s not volatile, he assured her.

  —You’ve got dynamite? You’ve really got it?

  —Jesus, of course I bloody have, Kate. I told you.

  He picked the Esky up again and did a demonstration of carrying it for her, creeping across the room and placing the thing softly on the bed.

  —Carry it by the handle, see. You could drop it without any problem, but better not. The detonators are in there too, safe as you like. Wrapped up in foil. The blasting box I’ll bring later. In this downpour, I don’t want to overburden you, love.

  —And where do I take it?

  —Oh. Sorry. When you get to the Railway, you know upstairs? A whole walled-off section they open up in what they call civil emergencies. Just put it in there. Tell Jack. He won’t mind. I’ll be along later in the day.

  Kate touched the handle experimentally. He thought she was terrified of the potential detonation still, so he explained further.

  —See, if I leave it out the back it’ll get drowned. Once it gets wet, you have to ask the police and the bloody army in to dispose of it.

  He shook his head at the prospect. It was intolerable that his mission should close with such low comedy.

  —I’m not worried, she told him.

  Though she did want to live long enough to sign the Kozinskis away, and to see Burnside move out into an air blinded with rain.

  Kate settled into her wet shoes now, ready to go. Not washed or rinsed, she presumed the day itself would look after that.

  She lifted the Esky and found that it felt quite natural. Carrying it, she followed Jelly into the corridor. The front door was juddering in the wind. Jelly turned to her, a yellow frog king.