But on a certain evening in March, towards the end of the series, my peace of mind was ended. It only needed a fragment of gossip, as it so often does.
I came into the control-room early. The doors to the bright-lit corridor hissed shut, and I paused in the dimness, adjusting my eyes. I was wearing rubber-soled shoes, and had made no sound. There were only two technicians at the long control-desk: a bald vision-mixer called Stan, and a lanky boy from the sound crew whose name I didn’t recall. They hadn’t heard me come in; they sat looking through the window into the studio, which was slowly coming to life. Lights were being carried into place like tall toadstools; the floor manager stood chatting with a cameraman. Darcy and Pat weren’t out there yet; Katrin and Brian, already made up and in their costumes, were seated on high stools. Brady leaned close to say something to her, and she smiled up calmly into his face, eyebrows ironically raised: it was the way she often looked at me.
‘More of a true romance every week,’ Stan remarked. ‘And they don’t do much to hide it on camera, do they?’
‘Some people reckon it gets hotter off-camera. An’ that poor limping bugger hasn’t even woken up yet.’
They began to chuckle, but then the boy saw me, and nudged Stan.
I moved to the control desk and opened my briefcase, while they greeted me with loud, unnatural affability. Taking out my script, I went through the motions of preparation. I couldn’t look at Stan or the boy. The voice of the floor manager in the studio, coming through the mike, was asking me for information; making jokes. I’d come on duty; I was now on the bridge of my ship, which was sinking.
‘Tam Lin’ opened the show; Brian and Katrin had made it their signature. Tonight it had a malicious, jigging merriment in the fast passages that seemed new; it had become the song of adultery, as iron bands tightened around my head. From where he stood, working on the bass guitar to add to this merriment, Darcy Burr could look straight through the control-room window at me. He did so now and caught my eye, grinning at a joke I must have seen at last.
The following evening he whistled me out into Challis Avenue for a walk.
He had big news, he said: the album the Rymers had just made for IRC, which was shortly due to reach the shops, would now be released in Britain as well. The company’s head office in London was apparently impressed with it.
‘And that’s not all, Dick. I’ve been talking to Phil Brown, their Artist and Repertoire Manager, and his boss is coming out from London in a few weeks. He’s looking for talent, and he wants to meet the group.’
He paused impressively, waiting for me to enthuse, but I said nothing.
‘You realise what that means? We could get a tour to the UK. Television appearances — the whole thing.’ His sideways glance had never been more triumphant. ‘Suppose we get a song on the charts there? We wouldn’t come back here at all, then. We’d be on our way, in Britain.’
His dreams of mystical fame were being given substance at last; the human sea was waiting. But I came to a stop, compelling him to pause too.
We’d been walking the narrow streets of Woolloomooloo, in the hot twilight; down in that gully of slumdom and bad smells, derelicts in other men’s suits had tried to beg money, or cursed us. The place depressed me, but Darcy seemed to like it; he often led us there on our walks. Now, as darkness gathered, we were making the long climb back up McElhone Stairs to Potts Point, the lights coming on among the wharf sheds below us. Climbing steps still gave me trouble; my leg ached, and I’d stopped in order to ease it. But I’d also halted because I was angry.
‘Why wasn’t I told about this before?’
‘Look, I only just heard about it from Phil.’
‘But presumably you’ve had the idea of a tour of the UK for some time.’ I had a sudden giddiness, only partly caused by the steps. ‘I’m the group’s unofficial agent. Don’t you think I should have been involved in these discussions?’
He peered at me, trying to read my displeasure. It no doubt seemed excessive, and I heard the pomposity of my own words; but suddenly everything was moving too quickly. Our former positions were reversed; I was importuning, while Burr set the conditions for the future. The Rymers would be out of my control when the current series ended next month; they’d be lost to me, and Katrin might well be lost to me too. She’d go to Britain with Brady; and if they weren’t lovers yet, they’d inevitably become so.
This was a prospect of my own invention; a product of my state of mind since yesterday. When I grew calm, I’d see it merely as an exaggerated fear, not fact; and the notion of going abroad hadn’t even been discussed with her. But here on the darkening stone steps — empty except for Burr and me — it all seemed likely; it had the certainty of disaster.
‘Don’t get upset,’ Darcy said. His voice was soothing. ‘You wouldn’t go against a chance like this, would you? Knowing what it could mean to Katrin and all of us? There’s no group without Katrin. You wouldn’t be against her going, would you?’
I didn’t answer this directly. Instead I asked: ‘What would you see me doing over there, Darcy?’
I saw severe threat in his face, and I understood now how anger had once put him in gaol. ‘You’d be our producer,’ he said softly.
‘Really? What would I produce in Britain? The concerts? The records? Don’t con me, Darcy.’
But now he’d regained his composure; his face changed back with great rapidity, and he smiled. ‘There are lots of things you could do over there,’ he said. ‘And if I want you for our producer, you will be, Dick. You and I make the Rymers. Brian and Katrin don’t really understand that, because they’re instruments — and instruments have to be simple.’ His voice sank lower. ‘You’re worried about those two, aren’t you?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing, mate — I just thought all the talk might be bugging you. Naturally there are rumours about them. People like to see them as lovers, and they see themselves that way when they’re on stage. Well, that’s all right — we want that, don’t we? They’re our lovers — they’re what make the Rymers work.’
But I no longer savoured this partnership of ours; his use of ‘we’ revolted me unreasonably. If he sensed this, he didn’t show it; he’d drawn even closer in order to confide, glancing down the steps to ensure that no one was approaching.
‘Patrick understands the situation,’ he told me. ‘So does Deirdre. She and I are getting to be real good friends. She’s still in love with you, isn’t she Dick? You’re the ones who were meant to be lovers.’ He watched me with sly care.
‘It’s all in the past,’ I said. ‘I’ve told you that.’ He was invading every part of my life, and now I wanted only to get away. I turned and limped up the steps towards the lamps of Victoria Street — conscious all the while of his knowing grin, coming up behind.
In a dream that night, he and I stood at the top of the stairs, glaring at each other in a fury. I punched Burr in the face; he looked surprised, blood coming from his big nose, and then I saw that he was Brian Brady.
‘You stole my comics,’ I told him.
My cousin and I began to fight, grappling beside the iron spears of the safety fence that ran along the edge of the ridge. I could hear the hateful thrumming and piping of ‘Tam Lin’, song of adultery; and now we swayed on the top step, my fingers around his throat, his big fists flailing about my body. Below us yawned the well of the stone stairs, foul with memories a hundred years old. I was desperate not to fall in, but we both lost our foothold, and plunged into air.
We were falling, Brian’s face hugely surprised above me. ‘She’s in the West Wind,’ I said; and his expression showed that I’d found him out.
Over the years, I’d found that when I was worried, my bad leg gave me trouble, aching and growing weak so that the limp became noticeable again. This began to happen now.
I decided to say nothing yet to Katrin about the UK tour. That discussion would have to come, but I postponed it; and I tried to assume
that Burr had exaggerated, that the man from IRC would offer no such glory. I knew I deceived myself; in some form or other, the group’s common dream was about to materialise, and my role in it would be one quite frequent in dreams: that of invisibility; voicelessness. I would watch their joyful faces unseen; I would helplessly speak, but no one would listen. I would not really exist. I saw myself in Britain as the comic, unemployed husband, the cuckold who followed the group about, who sat at the edges while people smiled and murmured about the fortunate, famous duo whose money supported him: his wife and her guitarist lover.
Inward anger grew, but it was an anger I couldn’t yet voice. If a long-term move to Britain were made, it would have to be without me, I’d already decided that; and if Katrin insisted on going, our marriage would end. But to oppose a short tour would be churlish. As to the rumours about Katrin and Brady, what evidence was there to back them? What would I charge her with? The talk of two stupid technicians?
Over the next few days, I felt ashamed of both my anger and my doubts; she was always affectionate towards me, and I saw that she and Brian behaved blamelessly together. Their moments of almost marital affection would sometimes chill me, and I began to hate the buzzing of Brian’s guitar strings. But their fondness was open, never furtive, and to challenge it would have been demeaning.
It was Jaan who first noticed my limp. I’d taken him out in his wheelchair for a walk before dinner, going down around the long, moon-bare curve of Wylde Street to the Garden Island naval base. Pushing the chair back uphill, I found the going unexpectedly hard; the limp was as marked now as it had been in boyhood.
Jaan screwed around in his chair. ‘Your leg seems bad, Richard. Does it hurt today?’
‘Just a little.’
He remained screwed about, watching with an encouraging smile, his soft brown hair fluttering. As always, his face had a look of adult knowledge. ‘I don’t often remember that you were crippled,’ he said. ‘You don’t usually limp much. Your leg was never crippled properly, was it?’
‘No, not really. My spine wasn’t affected like yours, mate. The leg just gets tired now and then.’ I knew what he was thinking, and grew uncomfortable. Paralysis had spared me; why hadn’t it spared him?
‘Katrin says you’re all working very hard,’ he said. ‘She practised for ages with Brian last night. Will the programmes finish, soon?’
He watched me; I made some sort of answer, and he turned to the front again. But a knot had tightened in my stomach. Last night, I’d been working back late at ABS; when I’d come home, Katrin had made no mention of the fact that Brady had been there.
After dinner, when Jaan had been put to bed in his room, and old Vilde had gone in to sit with him, she and I stood in the kitchen on the verandah together, washing the dishes.
‘I saw you coming down the street tonight,’ she said. ‘Pushing Jaan. I watched you from up here. Your limp’s very noticeable now. Why is that?’
I didn’t answer; instead, I asked: ‘Why didn’t you tell me Brian was here yesterday evening?’
Her high, surprised eyebrows became more surprised; her wide-set eyes flickered for a moment, dropping to the floor and then returning to mine. ‘I didn’t think it was important.’ Her expression went through two stages: comprehension and tender understanding; a rather deliberate sequence, it seemed to me.
‘You’re not upset, are you? Surely you’re not listening to gossip? We always knew that would be a problem.’
She put her arms around me; my chin rested on the top of her head. I’d always loved her head’s generous roundness. It was dark outside, the curtains weren’t drawn, and I watched our reflections in the black verandah window, where a faint distortion made her look like someone else: a woman I didn’t know, and would never know. I held the real woman tighter, perhaps to prevent her from vanishing.
‘I’ve been stupid,’ she said. ‘A lot of men wouldn’t have put up with this at all. But there’s nothing between Brian and me. Do I really have to say that to you? Nothing but the music.’
She looked up into my face. ‘He’s a very simple bloke,’ she said. ‘He’s unreliable about women, and probably about most other things. I like him, but I don’t approve of him. Without you, he’d just be singing in pubs. But when he sings, he’s someone special.’
She had dropped her head again, and spoke with her face against my shoulder, musingly now, as though I’d reassured her.
‘I couldn’t give this up, Richard. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. I feel I belong to something now; I never did, before. And Brian and I are such a good duo. We might even succeed in Britain, if IRC back us in the way Darcy wants.’
‘He’s talking about a big tour over there.’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps even going there permanently, if you make it big.’
‘It’s possible.’ She looked up, searching my face, starting a tentative smile. ‘That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?’
‘What about Jaan? And your grandfather?’
‘They could come.’ She had gone suspiciously still, in my arms, and for the first time I thought I heard doubt in her voice. ‘We’ll make a lot of money,’ she said.
‘And what do you imagine I’ll do there?’ I kept my voice light.
Her arms tightened about me. ‘You’ll be our manager. And we’ll all have marvellous times.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘IRC would manage you, not me. I’d be a passenger, and I won’t give up ABS for that. So we’d have a problem, wouldn’t we?’
Her head remained down. ‘Don’t say that, darling. You could go into broadcasting there — or theatre. You could do anything, over there. You’ve always said you’d like to go. But it’s all too good to be true, anyway. It may never happen.’
She looked up, smiling again. She didn’t really want to hear what I was saying; she was much too happy.
5
‘Hello? Richard?’
She hadn’t rung for some weeks; I’d begun to think it was a rite she’d grown tired of; and I’d been half relieved and half regretful. But now there was a new note in her voice, making me stiffen warily, sitting at my desk.
‘You’ve heard about my husband?’
No, I said.
‘But didn’t Patrick tell you? I’m surprised. Michael died a week ago.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
‘Yes, it’s sad. But it had to be expected.’ Saying this, her voice grew small, flat and empty; and I was shocked to detect a hint of the small-girl tone, the parody that dismissed all seriousness. Was even death a game to her? But a hint was all it had been; it didn’t reappear, and I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
There was a pause. Then she said: ‘I’m not going to play the hypocrite, darling, I have to admit it’s something of a relief. He was ill for a long time, and you know what the situation was like for me.’ Her voice dropped to a level of deep secrecy, alerting my senses in a way I didn’t want. ‘Do you know what the first thing I thought was, when they rang me from the hospital? If only this had happened years ago, when I first met Richard.’ Another pause. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that, should I?’
She waited, and I tried to put an end to the topic by ignoring it. ‘So you and Patrick are free. You’ll be able to go anywhere you want soon, won’t you?’ I thought this dismissal might offend her; but she had the Irish propensity for jumping from subject to subject, mood to mood, without a pause.
‘I wish that were true, but it’s not,’ she said. ‘He’s left over a million; the house is mine, of course; and Patrick’s inherited a house of his own at Palm Beach. I’ll inherit a lot; but it’s all to be parcelled out to me in dribs and drabs by his snooping brother Paul.’ She grew petulant. ‘As for Patrick, his miserable allowance stays the same until he’s thirty. And if we do things that Paul doesn’t like, he can practically cut the money off; do you see?’
‘How can he do that? It’s your money.’
I didn’t really want to know; I was embarrassed
by all this, but I was obviously expected to ask.
‘They have ways, the bloody Dillons,’ she said. ‘The money’s in a family trust thing, which Paul administers. He can invest it how he likes, under the will. It’s mostly in things called debentures.’ It was the child’s indignant voice that pronounced these key words; grim adult terms she shouldn’t have to use, let alone worry her head about. ‘It’s all been plotted to control me,’ she said. ‘Michael was worried that I’d neglect Fiona, or take her off abroad or something — bloody old Paul made that plain. Paul’s always hated me. Do you know what else he said? “If you play up, Deirdre, I’ll reinvest the money in ways that produce no return at all — and your income’ll be stuffed.” He said that to me.’
‘But at least you’re more free than you were. You can come and go.’
Her voice lost its indignation, and became resigned. ‘Yes. But sometimes I get lonely. Patrick’s not here as often as he was, and I need him, at present. He spends so much time over at King’s Cross with Darcy. I’m alone here today. I wish you’d come and visit me, Richard.’
‘That isn’t possible. I’ve got a production meeting in ten minutes. I must go.’
‘Don’t go immediately.’ Her voice was quick, almost panicky, and I waited.
‘I wanted to talk to you about Darcy,’ she said, and grew conversational again. ‘Patrick’s become very close to him, and he’s awfully impressed with Darcy’s ideas; we both are, in fact. Fiona likes Darcy too. She’s a precocious child for twelve, I sometimes find her difficult to handle, and he’s awfully good with her; he’s teaching her the guitar. I’m thinking of letting him move in here. Patrick made the suggestion; he says Darcy and Brian Brady don’t get on well any more as flatmates. What do you think?’
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