by Louise Allan
We were interrupted by the whine of the screen door. When we turned, Ted was standing in the open doorway.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ His voice came loud and echoing. He was trembling and his face was ashen.
Nora dropped the earrings. They rattled as they hit the cement.
‘Ted…’ I tried to move towards him, but my legs were shaking and the ground was tilting.
‘What are you talking about?’ he repeated, staring at Nora. He was standing on the doorstep, holding the screen door open with one hand.
Nora was frozen, her hands to her cheeks.
Ted stepped out, letting the door bang shut behind him. ‘Tell me what you were talking about?’ His face was snarling, his voice sharp and loud.
Nora shook her head and swallowed.
He stepped closer to her, the air whistling through his nostrils. Nora kept shaking her head, her eyes unblinking.
Ted kept moving closer, until he stood right in front of her, glaring up at her, his hands clenched at his sides. ‘Who is my father?’ He spat the words, droplets of saliva spraying in the air.
Nora shook her head again.
Ted raised his finger so it was close to her face. It was trembling. ‘Tell me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Who is my father?’ He said each word slowly and clearly.
‘I’m your father.’ It was Alf. He pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch. Ted whirled around to face him. Alf inhaled and stood tall. He kept his voice even and straight. ‘I’m your father,’ he repeated.
Ted snarled. ‘Stop lying.’
Grace appeared at the screen door, Ben behind her. Their eyes were wide and frightened. I could see Len down the hall, scratching at his temple.
We all waited for Ted to move or speak. He looked from Nora to Alf, his breathing still audible.
‘Stop lying, both of you, and tell me who my father is.’ Ted’s shoulders were heaving.
Nora shook her head again. Her face and neck were blotched and mottled.
‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s me,’ said Alf. He swallowed and his mouth trembled. ‘You’re my son.’
Tears welled in Ted’s eyes and he looked about to crumple. He inhaled and pulled himself taller again. ‘I’m sick of asking for someone to tell me the fucking truth. Can someone tell me who my fucking father is?’
We waited, holding our breaths.
‘His name was Marco.’ Nora’s voice was low and deep and sounded as if it was coming from far away. She kept herself composed, as if she was talking about an acquaintance she barely knew. ‘Marco,’ she repeated in an Italian accent.
Ted was still and not breathing. He looked as if he’d been hit and was about to fall. Alf stepped closer, his arms out, but Ted pushed him away. ‘Don’t come near me,’ he hissed.
Alf stayed where he was.
Ted stood in the middle of the porch. His breathing grew even heavier, and ugly sounds rose from his throat, gurgling noises as if he was about to choke.
I went towards him. ‘Ted…Ted…’
Alf tried to reach him, too, but Ted pushed him away, punching and kicking.
Grace screamed and flung open the door. ‘Stop! Stop!’ She ran to Ted.
‘Go away!’ Ted screamed, flailing out at Alf and Grace and me. ‘All of you. Go away!’ He shoved us out of the way, trying to reach the door.
Grace kept reaching for Ted, crying, ‘Stop! Stop!’
Ted jostled past Alf and Grace. He reached the screen door, pulled it open and ran down the hallway towards his room.
We stood on the porch in a daze. None of us knew what to do. Alf stood by the door, his hand in his hair. Nora was by the balustrade, rocking to and fro, her arms wrapped around her waist. Ben and Grace stood by the doorway, tears in their eyes, their faces ghostly pale.
Then Alf took off after Ted. I followed. Ted was in his room shoving clothes into a duffel bag.
‘Ted…’ said Alf from the doorway.
He didn’t look up but grabbed a shirt and shoved it into the bag.
‘The fact you’re not my biological son has never meant anything to me,’ said Alf.
Ted finished packing the bag and pulled the drawstring closed. He shrugged on a coat and swung the bag over his shoulder.
‘I don’t care who made you,’ Alf continued. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you are my son and always have been.’
Ted wiped his face with the back of his hand and sniffed before looking up at Alf. His eyes were dark and heavy and his face was pale. ‘Don’t you think it might have been important to me to know who my father is?’
Alf’s face puckered. ‘Doesn’t being your father for the past seventeen years count for anything?’ His voice was hoarse, pleading.
Keeping his eyes downcast, Ted walked to the doorway. He paused for a moment, then said, ‘Let me through.’ His voice was a growl.
Slowly, Alf stepped aside, his shoulders drooping.
Ted’s face was small and scared as he walked past us. He strode up the dim hall, opened the front door and stepped outside. I followed him with hurried steps. Len’s anguished face looked up as I passed the lounge. Ben, Grace and Nora were still waiting on the front porch. We watched Ted stride down the steps and up the path. When he reached the gate, Nora gasped and ran inside.
‘Ted!’ called Grace. She hitched up her frock and bolted down the steps. The crickets were still chirping as she ran after him. She flung her bare arms around his waist as he crossed the road, struggling to keep up with his long strides. They reached the other side and the green of her skirt dragged through the long grass. Ted kept walking, bag over his shoulder, Grace stumbling alongside, still clutching him with her arms.
When they were a hundred yards or so down the street, they looked up as they heard a distant hum. It grew louder, and Ted turned and waited. Grace’s arms still clasped his middle. The car’s headlights flashed into view and blanched their faces, and Ted stuck out his thumb. He shielded his eyes and when the car pulled in, he bent and spoke to the driver through the passenger window. Then he opened the door and threw his duffel bag onto the seat. Before he climbed in, he looked back at the house. We were all still watching. I stepped forward, but he climbed into the car. Grace stood alone in the long grass as it pulled out, her face in her hands and her skin as pearly as the moon. The red tail lights disappeared around the bend and the smoke from the exhaust faded into the night.
He was gone.
Then the noise began. Like a siren squeezing through a pinhole. Soft at first, then rising in volume and pitch until it burst, like water from a dam, into an open wail.
I went to her and sat beside her on the bed. She was curled up, still in her burgundy dress, wailing with wet grief. Alf came in, his face desolate. He crouched beside Nora and his big hands lifted her shoulders and held her close as her cries rose and fell, rose and fell.
I left. Grace was in her room, sitting on the edge of her bed, her eyes rimmed red, her curls soft around her face. ‘It’s not true, is it?’ she said.
‘Yes, it is true.’
‘How do you know?’
I sat on the bed beside her and took her hand. ‘It’s true, Gracie.’
‘Ted’s still my brother, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he’s still your brother,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter who your dad is, or who your mum is for that matter, we’re all still family.’
That night I lay in Len’s arms in the spare room and wept. I wept for the boy who’d left, the boy who’d just lost a father. I wept for the father who’d just lost a son. And I wept for the mother, too.
All night the house felt restless and filled with the sighs of the sleepless. Occasionally, I heard Nora’s cries, like a cat mewling into the night. Outside, the wind gusted and the house creaked, and every now and then a window rattled as if agitated, too. Somewhere in the distance a bird cawed and kept cawing, again and again, punctuating the lonely night.
Len eventually drifted off, but I cou
ldn’t sleep. I felt as sombre as if there’d been a death. If there was one night I wanted to unravel and start all over again, it was that one. I wanted to pull Nora’s words out of the air, take the conversation back, so Ted would never overhear us and the joy of the night could continue.
Yet, I knew it was inevitable that the truth would come out, as truths do.
Just before dawn, I rose and walked into the lounge. The mantel clock ticked, regular and soft as always, and I walked over to the statue of the Holy Family beside it.
Mary held the child Jesus in her arms. Her lids were hooded as she gazed lovingly upon her son. Beside her stood Joseph, also admiring the child. The child who wasn’t his.
I stepped closer and blessed myself, and for the first time in many years, I prayed.
I prayed to Mary to look after the young man who, this morning, was alone. My eyes didn’t stray from hers as I mouthed the words, ‘Ave Maria, Gratia plena…’
I prayed to her as a mother who knew what it was like to lose a son. ‘…Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.’
‘Keep him safe,’ I whispered. ‘He is my child, too.’
Chapter 26
The next morning, I cooked breakfast. The sizzling eggs and bacon made the house smell busy and cheerful, but my eyes felt puffy, and my chest and limbs felt boggy and sore.
Len looked weary as he ate his scrambled eggs. Alf emerged, dressed and shaven, but with a stoop to his gait. His shoulders sloped and, between mouthfuls, he paused and rubbed his forehead. When he’d finished eating, he carried his plate over to the sink.
‘I’ll go searching for him,’ he said.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Len.
I could think of nothing else but Ted as I made the beds, especially when I passed his empty room. The bedspread was unrumpled and his books were stacked neatly on the bedside table.
Later in the morning when Nora didn’t appear, I made a vegetable broth and took it to her along with some buttered bread. I stood outside her door for a minute and braced myself before I knocked. She didn’t answer, so I twisted the door handle. The venetians were closed and the room smelt stuffy. She was lying on her side in the dimness, facing away from me.
‘Nora…’
She stayed as she was.
‘I have some lunch.’ I crept in with the tray. ‘It’s soup.’
‘I don’t want anything,’ she said.
‘You need to eat,’ I said.
‘Leave me alone.’
‘What if I just put the tray by your bed?’ I said.
‘No. Take it out.’ She didn’t turn. ‘Just leave.’
I retreated. I busied myself in the kitchen, scouring the stainless steel of the sink and sorting the cutlery drawer. Then I sat at the dining table and drummed my fingers against the wood as I gazed out of the window at the driveway and the paddocks beyond. The clock chimed one o’clock, then two o’clock, and, finally, I heard the car.
Len appeared at the doorway to the dining room.
‘You didn’t find him?’ I said, standing.
He shook his head. I heated up more broth for Len, then went to find Alf. He was down by the back fence chopping wood, stripped to his singlet, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was working quickly, picking up a log, steadying it on the stump and bringing the axe down with a loud crack. The wheelbarrow behind him was half-filled with a jumbled pile of split wood.
When he saw me, he let the axe head drop to the ground and pulled the cigarette from his mouth.
‘I’ll run you in to catch the bus soon,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘I’ve made some lunch.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Len said you didn’t find him.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll go into the bank tomorrow when it opens.’ He drew back on his cigarette and the tip glowed orange, then he exhaled a thin stream of smoke through pursed lips. ‘I don’t know what else to do. I keep telling myself he’s seventeen, he’s old enough to look after himself and he’ll be all right.’
I brushed my hair from my eyes. ‘Let me know as soon as you hear anything.’
Alf took his hanky from his trouser pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His hair stuck to his brow, and he looked drawn and tired. He puffed on his smoke again. ‘He’s my son, Ida. I’ve never thought of him as anything else.’
‘I know.’
‘From the minute I laid eyes on him, that day on your verandah. I know he’s not, well, he’s not mine by birth and he looks nothing like me, but that doesn’t count for anything as far as I’m concerned.’ He finished his smoke and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot. He kept his eyes on the ground for a while, then sighed and looked up. ‘We were just getting on our feet. Nora was, well, she was the best I’d seen her since…I don’t know when. Since those days dancing at the hall. Everything was falling into place, and I thought things were looking up. I thought…’ He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I thought we might be happy.’
I rubbed my forehead. ‘I’m sorry if this embarrasses you…’ I paused, and when he looked up, I went on. ‘But there aren’t many men who’d do what you’ve done. Bring up another man’s child as his own. I just wanted to say that.’
He kept his eyes on mine and they reddened. He turned away and took a few steps towards the fence, pulled his hanky from his pocket and blew into it. When he faced me again he was trying to smile. ‘You’re a good woman, Ida.’ He looked big and sad.
‘And you’re a good man, Alf.’
‘I’ll unload this wood and then I’ll come in,’ he said. He swung the axe so it stuck fast in the chopping block, then picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and wheeled it into the woodshed.
Later that afternoon, we packed our suitcase and Len carried it out to the car. I went into Nora. She hadn’t moved, and the room was even dimmer now the sun was lower in the sky. I stood at the foot of the bed and rested my hands on the polished bed knob.
‘Len and I are heading home now,’ I said.
Her hair scratched against the pillow as she nodded.
‘If he’s not at the bank here, I’ll go around all the banks in town looking for him.’
More scratching.
‘I don’t know what else to say…’
She pushed herself up to sitting and the bed springs squeaked. She looked wretched. Her hair was sticking up except where it was flattened on one side. Her face was swollen and her eyes red-rimmed, the whites shining in the dimness. ‘I wish I could wind back the clock and take the words back,’ she said. ‘I’m berating myself for being so careless, for not seeing Ted there…‘
‘For what it’s worth,’ I said. ‘I think you did the right thing by telling him when he asked. We’ve just got to hope he’ll…get used to the idea.’
She lay back down on the pillow and covered her eyes with her arm. ‘I just want him back.’
My heart lurched. ‘I don’t think he knows that, Nor.’
‘I didn’t know it myself,’ she said.
We were silent for a while. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ I said. I kissed her and left.
Len held my coat and I slid into it, then I pulled on my gloves and hat, and said a reluctant goodbye to Ben and Grace.
‘Will Ted come back?’ Ben asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
His face pinched and his eyes filled. He was growing taller and broader and turning into a man, yet he was still a boy.
‘You’ll see him again,’ I said. ‘We all will. I’m sure of it.’
Outside, the day was waning. The sun was low on the horizon, a hollow circle of light that brought no warmth. Suddenly, I felt heavy and tired. I dragged my feet down the steps, up the path and over to the car. I didn’t want to glance back at the house as Alf drove out—at the red brick and grey cement, and the trimmed lawn and pert roses. It looked lonely and terribly sad.
Alf dropped us off in Ben Craeg and we boarded the bus. I rested my forehead against the window as the bus rat
tled into town and watched the edge of the road whiz by underneath like a pottery wheel. By the time we reached Pearson Street, the sky was dark and the streetlights were coming on. Len carried our suitcase up the steps. He fiddled with the key before unlocking the door.
I felt like a ginger-beer bottle all shaken up and needing to be uncorked, and I could barely contain the noises threatening to gurgle out of me. As soon as the door was open, I ran inside, straight to our darkened bedroom. I shut the door behind me and leant against it. I let myself cry, hard sobs that made me shudder.
There was a tap on the door. ‘You all right, Ide,’ Len said.
‘Just give me five minutes,’ I managed to say.
I pushed my sobs down again and wiped the tears from my cheeks. When my breathing had slowed, I went out to the kitchen.
Len was down by the back fence, surrounded by a yellow circle of light from the kerosene lamp. He sat on a stool, a wooden needle wound with twine in his hand, mending a hole in a fishing net. He shuttled the needle in and out, in and out, looping, checking, hitching, looping, checking, hitching across the breadth of the hole.
As I watched him, I imagined our three boys. They’d have been dark like him but taller. They’d be grown up now and working—one for Stan, maybe, the plumber next door; another for Max, the butcher; and the youngest, Leonard, he would have been sitting by the fence with his father, helping him mend the nets. I had a feeling those two would have been close.
I opened the back door and went over to Len, squatting down next to him. He set the shuttle down and slid his arm around my shoulders. With his other hand, he stroked my chin.
‘We’ll find him, Ide,’ he said. The lamplight glowed yellow and made his face look warm.
‘I hope so.’ I rested my arm on his thigh and I could feel the warmth of his body through his trousers. ‘I still miss our boys.’