by Peter Corris
The Other Side of Sorrow
( Cliff Hardy - 23 )
Peter Corris
The Other Side of Sorrow
Peter Corris
1
‘Hello, Cliff. It’s Cyn, as you always used to call me. Cynthia Samuels. I know this must be a bolt from the blue, but I have to see you. I need to tell you something. I’ll be in the city tomorrow and I want you to meet me at the cafe in the State Library, say at eleven-thirty. Please, please try to make it. Here’s my number in case you can’t, but please try.’
I scarcely heard the numbers she recited on the answering machine tape in that strange way people reel off their telephone numbers. Her voice and tone were unmistakable even though I hadn’t heard them for more than twenty years. Cyn was my ex-wife and our parting had been as tempestuous as the relationship itself. We got a no-fault divorce under the new law and went our ways. I kept vaguely in touch with Cyn’s life through her father who I played a bit of tennis with. But he’d died some years back and that broke the connection.
I played the message again. ‘I want you to meet me…’ That was typical of Cyn. She always expected to get her own way. With me she had, but only for a shortish time. As it turned out, our ideas of how to live were completely different. This had been obscured from us at first. By sex, mainly. Cyn was an architect who either sat in an office or went out to places she was helping to put into strict order. She liked life to follow suit. I was a private detective who spent as little time in my office as possible and most of it out dealing with messes that rarely got completely cleaned up.
When we split up we had virtually no assets. Our equity in the Glebe terrace consisted of the small deposit we’d jointly put down. I took out a personal loan and paid back her half and that was about it. She’d disliked the house and Glebe anyway, and went back to the other side of the harbour. I signed the divorce kit papers she sent me and we spent about five minutes in court establishing that our marriage had irretrievably broken down. We didn’t shake hands and wish each other luck. I’d always felt bad about that.
All this and much more came back as I listened to the tape for a third time. Inevitably, I remembered the fights more clearly than the good times. There were plenty of both – screaming matches that almost, but never quite, got physical, at least on my side. Cyn accused me of every crime in the book – neglect, dishonesty, infidelity, drunkenness, irresponsibility. Increasingly, as things got worse between us, the accusations were valid. In the end my failure to show up for ‘a talk’ which I’d sworn to do was the last straw for Cyn and she left, cleaning the house out of all her possessions.
I remember getting home full of remorse for not keeping my promise and finding her gone. I immediately went looking for the gin bottle to help me through it, but she’d taken the gin.
The good times were less sharply focused in my memory – beach holidays, dinners, late night walks through Glebe and sexual bouts that left us both exhausted.
On the third run-through I paid more attention to the present than the past. The voice, although recognisable, had changed a bit. Still firm, but not as firm, still clear but not as clear. And for Cyn to say please three times in a short message was unusual. This made me curious. But I was surprised to find that traces of the old hostility persisted. Bugger it, why should I put myself out for her? was one impulse. Against that, she said she had something to tell me and information was my business. I had the phone number written down and I could have called and suggested a meeting in another place at another time. But how petty was that?
As it happened, I didn’t have a lot on at the time and after successfully concluding a long-running fraud investigation I was solvent if not flush. That evening I wandered around the house, noting the signs of neglect and decay that advanced and retreated over the years as I spent or withheld money. The house was worth a fair bit now, but I could never bring myself to move. Inertia? Nostalgia? I wasn’t sure. As I moved around I kept thinking about Cyn and the short time we’d spent here. Were there any traces left of that time? I laughed when I realised that there was at least one – a missing staircase baluster which I’d grabbed on the way down after Cyn had pushed me. Hard. After a while I gave up and went to bed. The last I’d heard Cyn was living with her advertising executive husband in a Wahroonga mansion and I bet there wasn’t a broken baluster in the place.
In the morning I took a good look at myself in the bathroom. I still had all my hair and it was more dark than grey. The cheeks were seamed and the multiple broken nose wasn’t beautiful, but the money I’d spent on my teeth had been worthwhile. Plenty of crows’ feet, but no jowls yet. A bit soft in the middle but not too bad. I knew it was ridiculous, but I shampooed my hair, shaved closely and put on a clean shirt, newly dry-cleaned pants and brushed lint from my well-worn blazer. No tie.
In these pre-Olympic days, when they’re ripping up the city and turning it into a series of holes in the ground and cranes in the air, it makes no sense to take a car into the CBD. The traffic crawls and is diverted into places where you don’t want to go. Parking costs a packet and you never know when you’re going to be a victim of road rage, or a perpetrator. It was Monday, supposedly a light traffic day, but I wasn’t tempted. Some day a politician is going to have to find the guts to ban private cars in the city or institute an odds and evens system. I wasn’t holding my breath. There’s talk of reinstating a ferry from Glebe to Circular Quay and I’m looking forward to it. I caught a bus.
As I sat on the bus I looked at my dollar-twenty ticket. Geoff Towers, my accountant, would insist on me submitting it as an expense even if I wasn’t on the way to see a client or pursuing an investigation.
‘You’re riding on public transport, right?’ Geoff Towers once said over a similar tiny amount for a rail journey. ‘You’re seeing things, right? Noting changes in schedules and timetables. Security arrangements or the lack of them more likely. That’s a professional activity. You think those consultant arseholes the Tax Office hires don’t write off paper clips?’
‘How about when I’m having a beer in the Toxteth on a Friday night? Observing humanity.’
‘Arguable,’ Geoff said. ‘Eminently arguable.’
That train of thought led me back to Cyn and what she had to tell me. After telling me goodbye she’d had nothing else to tell me for twenty-plus years. ‘I hope I never see you again,’ was one of the things she’d said towards the end. Well she hadn’t, apart from our moment in court. In the time between the split and the divorce I’d tried often to contact her but she’d thrown up a high wall. She’d told our few mutual friends not to talk to me about her and instructed them to tell me not to ask. In all the time I was with her I never knew Cyn to change her mind. This had to be something serious.
Libraries have changed in the last twenty-five years more than most institutions. They used to be gloomy, wood-panelled places with a musty smell and tight-lipped women in twinsets. Now they’re brightly lit, computerised, and the senior reference librarian is likely to be sporting tattoos and a lip ring. The cafe was below decks in the library but natural light flooded down from a massive lightwell. That was welcome. Since I incurred some damage to the cornea of my left eye I’m slow to adapt to changes in the light. Too dim and I’m fumbling, too bright and I’m dazzled. As it was, in this bright space with very few of the tables occupied, I spotted Cyn almost straight away and before she spotted me. Always an advantage, that. The tables were grouped around an indoor garden and waterfall. Cyn was sitting near the centre of the place. She was reading with the book held well out in front of her. That was a sign that she was short-sighted. Cyn would be too vain to wear glasses in public. I pulled up and looked at her. The hair was
still blonde and luxuriant; her wide mouth was closed firmly and the sculptured features that had thrilled me were still in evidence. Always slim, she looked even thinner in her late forties than she’d been in her twenties. That was Cyn. When she was slender she’d tried to be skinny. Well, she’d made it.
‘Hello, Cyn.’
I’d snuck up on her, gumshoeing it. But you couldn’t faze Cyn. She slowly lowered the book and levelled her blue eyes at me.
‘Cliff,’ she said, ‘Sit down.’
It was always like that. Just when I thought I’d got the drop on her in some way she’d fake me out. She was paler than I remembered and there was something frail-looking about her neck bones showing above the collar of the white silk blouse. She was wearing a blue linen jacket, almost certainly the top half of a suit. The shoes and bag would match in the same way the string of pearls and earrings matched. The pearls were a mistake though, they drew attention to that fragile neck.
I sat and undid my blazer. ‘You’re thinner,’ I said.
‘I’m older.’
‘Most people get fatter. I have.’
‘You’re all right. Better than I expected. That nose’s seen some wear and tear though.’
I grunted. ‘What about a drink?’
‘Same old Cliff. What time d’you start these days?’
‘I gave up spritzers with breakfast a while ago.’ I held out my hands to show my nicotine stain-free fingers. ‘And the fags.’
She laughed and as the skin tightened over her face I thought, Christ, she really is thin. Too bloody thin.
‘Me, too,’ she said. ‘Yes, let’s have a drink. They serve wine by the glass here. By the big glass.’
A teenage waitress in a white blouse, long skirt and the heavy shoes they like to wear, arrived and we ordered glasses of white wine and open sandwiches. We’d both been heavy smokers when we were together and now we exchanged stories about how we’d managed to quit. When the food and drink came I attacked mine as a way of not asking her why we were here. I wanted her to explain herself. Still fencing, as in the old days. She made a brave show of drinking her wine and eating but I could tell it was a battle. But she was the old Cyn still, not going on the back foot. She asked me about my business and if I’d kept the house. I said business was okay and I had.
‘It must be worth a bit,’ she said, playing with an olive and a cube of cheese.
Eat it, I thought. Put some meat on your bones.
‘I like it too much to sell it,’ I said. ‘I like the memories – good and bad.’
She nodded and pushed the olive and the bit of cheese around. I felt that I was losing the fencing match so I said, ‘I was sorry to hear about your dad. I had a lot of time for him.’
‘I know. I don’t suppose you heard about my husband?’
That stopped me. I took a drink and realised my glass was almost empty while hers had barely been touched. What the hell, I thought. I reached over and tipped half of it into my mine. ‘No,’ I said. ‘What?’
She lifted an eyebrow when I pinched her wine and again the movement emphasised her lack of flesh. ‘Colin died about six months after my father. Heart attack. He worked too hard, didn’t sleep, didn’t exercise
‘I’m sorry. Really. You were together for a long time. Kids and all. That’s tough.’
She put her fork down, lifted what was left of her wine and wet her lips before putting the glass down and pushing it over to me. ‘I’m dying, Cliff,’ she said.
Her eyes were fixed on mine as she spoke and her voice was firm. I knew she was speaking the truth.
‘Cyn. No.’
‘Yes. Breast cancer. I’ve had ‘em both off. Radiation, chemotherapy.’ She reached up and touched her hair. ‘This is a wig. Fooled you, eh?’
I suddenly choked-up. ‘Cyn…’
She reached over and touched my hand. Her touch was as cold as if she was already dead. I’d seen it before – the dying comforting the living – and I’ll never understand it. I shook my head. ‘Fuck it,’ I said. ‘This isn’t right. Not you.’
She smiled. ‘Yeah, fuck it. But it’s true. I’ve only got a few months, if that. Probably less. I was in seeing the Macquarie Street man today. No hope.’
‘There’s clinics. Mexico. Germany…’
‘I’ve been to all the clinics I can take. I’ve got a good doctor. He’ll see me off when it gets too bad.’ She laughed. ‘That’s all right. It’s too bloody soon but it’ll be easy, whereas the rest of you never know how it’ll come, do you?’
I gulped some wine. ‘That’s right. Jesus, Cyn, I…’
‘Bear up, Cliff. We’ve got a bit to get through here. It could be worse. Both the kids… my kids, are old enough to cope. My mother’s still around to help. You remember her. She’s a toughie.’
‘Sure.’
‘I used to pick up the odd scrap about you from Dad, but not since he died. I was curious about you but I couldn’t show it too much. Colin was jealous of you.’
‘Of me?’
‘Yes. He was one of those indoorsmen who secretly yearned to be an outdoorsman. When we fought, as we often did, he’d say things like, “I suppose your private eye never made a mistake.”’
‘Hah.’
‘Right. You made plenty. But I kept a couple of books you gave me and that bullet thing. You remember.’
I remembered. I’d brought back the brass casing of an artillery shell from Malaya. Polished up, it made a nice vase.
Cyn made another attempt to eat but gave up. ‘Colin hated that. I’m a bit of a bitch as you know. I used it against him. Don’t get me wrong, the marriage was fine, but married people play games. You know.’
I knocked back some more white. If this went on I was going to need a bottle. ‘Colin needn’t have worried. After the time in court I never laid eyes on you again. Anyway, indoorsmen make more money than outdoorsmen.’
‘That’s the sort of half-smart thing you used to say. It made me mad.’
‘I know.’
She leaned forward across the table and I could feel the intensity in her. ‘Tell me, Cliff, are you… in a relationship at present? I assume there’ve been a few over the years, but…’
I desperately needed something to do with my hands and if there had been cigarettes available I would have taken one. I put both hands on the wine glass and swilled what was left of its contents. ‘Look, Cyn,’ I said. ‘You’ve told me about the cancer and it’s just about the worst thing I can remember hearing. But where’s this going?’
She leaned back and drew a deep breath. The effort of doing it seemed to cause her pain and she aged ten years as she fought for composure. ‘Cliff,’ she said softly. ‘I was pregnant when we split up. I dithered until it was too late to have an abortion. The child was born. A girl. You’re her father.’
2
My first reaction was disbelief. This had to be some kind of fantasy, a product of the treatment she was having or a mental aberration associated with the disease or the prospect of death. It couldn’t be true. Cyn read me right immediately.
‘You don’t believe me.’
‘I’m sorry, no.’
‘It’s true, Cliff. You remember how it was. I hated you. I wanted nothing more to do with you, ever. It’d all gone so terribly wrong. Everything we’d planned had turned to shit.’
I nodded.
‘I had the baby in Bathurst at a Catholic hospital. I used my own name and I didn’t tell anyone about it. Not even my parents. Look.’
She opened her handbag, took out a sheet of paper and thrust it at me. It was an admission record from St Margaret’s Hospital for Women dated about seven months after our final breakup. Cynthia Louise Weimann had been admitted ‘close to confinement’ and discharged eight days later.
I was still resistant, almost hostile. ‘It proves you were pregnant, I guess. It doesn’t prove there was a child.’
‘I know this isn’t easy for you, but it’s true.’ She handed over another document. This was a not
ification, dated three months back, that Mrs Cynthia Samuels had put her name on the register of women who had given a child up for adoption. The sex of the child was given as female, the place of birth was Bathurst and the adoption date was four days after the date of the hospital admission. I’d done some work in this area once or twice. The purpose of the register was to allow adopted children to locate their natural parents if they wished. They had the option. I folded the paper and handed it back. My hand was shaking, but I still didn’t want to believe it.
‘Cyn. You must have been through hell…’
‘I’ve seen her, Cliff,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen her!’
She wept quietly and I comforted her as best I could. I got another glass of wine and Cyn had mineral water. With an effort she composed herself and told me that she’d caught sight of a particular young woman several times in recent weeks. She was convinced that this woman was watching her. I was still sceptical.
‘You haven’t spoken to her?’
‘No. I’ve never been able to get close enough. She sort of… slips away.’
‘What makes you think she’s… who you think she is? It could be someone, I don’t know, sympathetic but not sure whether to approach you. Or…’
She shook her head. ‘Cliff, she’s the living image of your sister Eve twenty-four years ago. I’m telling you she could be her twin. I know she’s our daughter.’ She scrabbled in her bag and came up with a photograph. It showed Eve in jeans, boots and a sweater smiling into the camera. Short dark hair, thin, beaky nose, wide mouth, my sister was arresting rather than pretty. She was close to 180 centimetres tall and when she was young athletics and surf swimming kept her lean. She’s heavier now which doesn’t hurt her golf. She plays off eight at Moore Park.
‘It’s a copy,’ Cyn said. ‘I had you and me cropped out of it. Don’t know why I still had it. D’you remember where it was taken? A picnic we all went on in Centennial Park.’