Autumn Laing

by Alex Miller

  I wrenched myself away from him and collected my scattered things. ‘For God’s sake, pull your trousers up, Pat. He’ll be in for his whisky in two seconds.’ I pulled my dress down over my head and ran my fingers through my hair. Pat’s cheek was red where I had been lying against him. I grabbed his arm and dragged him off the sofa. ‘Get up! Get up!’ My heart was pounding.

  He got to his feet and buttoned his fly. ‘We should live together,’ he said. ‘You can get a divorce too. We’ll find somewhere of our own. We can’t just keep going as we are here.’

  I was terrified Arthur was about to walk in on us and heard myself say, ‘That will never be possible! Never! Do you hear me? I shall never leave Arthur. This is my home. Please, tuck your shirt in!’ I was suddenly fully ten years older than him and I was not going to put up with any of his nonsense. I might have been his headmistress at that moment.

  Arthur came in. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘All huddled in here on a magical day like this?’

  He came straight up to me and kissed me. ‘I’ve got some good news. And no rattle in the Ponty.’ He went over to the cabinet and poured himself a whisky. ‘She’s decided to behave herself. Touch wood.’ He turned and looked at us. ‘You won’t have one?’

  Neither Pat nor I drank whisky.

  I was in agony waiting for Pat to tell Arthur everything. I almost heard him saying the words. Pat lit a cigarette as Arthur came over and sat on the sofa across from him.

  ‘What’s your news then?’ Pat said. ‘Apart from the no rattle.’

  Arthur made space among the books on the table for his glass.

  I was incapable of sitting down. I stood to one side, my body trembling, waiting for my life at Old Farm with Arthur to fall apart.

  Arthur looked at me and smiled. ‘You okay? They’ve agreed to let us have the gallery for six weeks. How’s that?’

  I said in a hollow voice, ‘That’s wonderful.’

  Arthur looked into his glass and picked a hair or a scrap of something from the top of his whisky then took a sip. ‘The terms are very reasonable. The only catch is we’ll need to have the show in before March, which gives us less than six weeks at the outside to get everything organised. It’s going to be pretty tight. Most of the pieces will need framing, and there’s the lead times on advertising. Do you think you’ll manage it? Anne will help you and I’ll do what I can.’ He looked across at Pat. ‘Of course you can put in whatever you like, Pat. We’d love you to have something in the show.’

  Pat examined the end of his cigarette. ‘I might have a glass of that after all, if you don’t mind.’

  Arthur said, ‘Please, Pat. Do help yourself.’

  Pat got up off the sofa and went over to the cabinet and half filled a glass with whisky. He turned around. ‘I won’t be putting anything in your group show, Arthur.’ He stood looking across at Arthur. He raised his glass to me and drained the whisky then turned and set the glass back on the cabinet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I noticed he had missed a button on his fly. It gaped slightly with the shocked expression of a fish’s mouth. ‘Good luck with it,’ he said. He did not look at me again but walked out of the library and closed the door.

  Pat didn’t join us for dinner. I went to his room but he was not there. Arthur was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. He said, ‘If you’re looking for Pat, he said he was going to walk to the station and catch a train into the city.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said.

  Arthur turned his paper inside out and reached for his glass. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  I wondered for a brief moment of complete insanity if Arthur was really worth it. Was I making a terrible mistake by clinging to him and the security he offered me? Was I forfeiting my last chance for a life of real engagement with a passionate man who loved me and with whom I would know the dangers and follies of the creative life? Was I merely hanging on to safety and comfort here with Arthur, unable to let go of the commonplace illusion of security, like any other suburban housewife? Were Arthur and I—I asked myself as I stood there looking at him reading his newspaper and drinking his whisky, waiting for me to serve him his dinner—were we cowering with each other in the shelter of our own timidity and weakness? I walked out of the kitchen and went down to the river, leaving Arthur to serve himself his dinner. I didn’t return until late.

  He had done the washing-up and was in bed reading. He greeted me as if nothing out of the ordinary had passed between us. I understood why intimates sometimes murder each other.

  I said, ‘Did he come home yet?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Arthur was not to be distracted. ‘Who, darling?’

  How much did he know? How little did he care? How sure was he I would stick with him? There was no way for me to discover the answers to any of my questions without confessing everything to him. Should I do that? Should I just tell him and be done with it? I hated him for so smugly seeming to have achieved the upper hand without doing anything, while all my lies and scheming and clever stratagems had left me alone and vulnerable and angry and without the certainty of anything.

  I didn’t sleep at all that night but lay awake waiting for the sound of Pat returning. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I felt as if Pat had left me with an ultimatum. Was it even too late to decide to leave Arthur? Arthur slept beside me without once stirring. When I went to Pat’s room in the morning after Arthur had gone to work Pat wasn’t there. I knew he hadn’t come home, but I looked in every room of the house all the same, pretending to a hope that I was mistaken and he had somehow returned without me noticing. I went back and looked in the library several times. I could see him in there reading, turning the pages of Arthur’s father’s books with that infuriating mannerism of his. But no matter how often I went in and no matter how hard I stared, the library remained empty. I felt taunted by his absence, the untidy scatter of books on the table where he had left them, the derisive tongues of torn newspaper sticking out from between the pages where he had marked them.

  I walked down to the river and stood by the log and called his name. The sound of my voice made the river a desolate place.

  As I was returning up the hill, the house and the garden had the air of an abandoned place. Abandoned long ago. When the plague came. Or when the war took everyone. When the unnameable disaster passed over the house with its biblical finality. The stillness was eerie. There were to be no explanations. God does not explain the horrors he casts on us. There are no reasons for our misery. There are no excuses. To complain is pointless. To ask for help is futile. To confess is to confess to the silence. I walked up the hill through the damp green grass and saw my home in flames. Rilke’s words ringing in my head, Whoever has no house now, will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone.

  I looked for Stony but had forgotten it wasn’t one of Stony’s days. And for the first time I knew myself to be alone and vulnerable and helpless here, and I asked myself if I really had found my true home at Old Farm or had I been beguiled by a false turn in life and arrived at the wrong place? Had I really been waiting all these years for Pat? When was the moment of my error? Or was my error to believe in Pat? Was that it? Was it for the exercise of my gift I was being punished? And I did believe in him. I still believed Pat would make great art one day. My belief was a stubborn unreasoned thing that sat in me blind and dumb and refused to negotiate its position, a toad that buries itself in the clay and waits for rain, and when the first drops of rain strike the dry ground it shifts and opens its eyes and gives voice; at last emerging into the air and standing proudly for everyone to admire, the beautiful manly prince. All foolishness was mine that day.

  I sat in the kitchen looking out at the garden for hours, unable to find the conviction to set my mind or my hands to any of the tasks that waited for me. I did no washing, but left it sitting in its smelly pile in the laundry basket; I ordered nothing from the butcher or the baker or the grocer; I did not bother to brush my hair or put on my make
up or cut fresh flowers for the library and the kitchen. It was as if the hitherto benign spirit of my home had withdrawn from me. I knew, as we know in dreams, that I would never find my way back to my innocent days here with Arthur. The silence sang in my ears and nothing moved. The sun stood still in the sky and no wind touched the leaves or set the ripening summer grasses to weaving their familiar patterns. I talked to myself and went again and again into Pat’s room and stood in the doorway and looked helplessly at his rumpled bed, his clothes lying about on the floor, the books he had borrowed open face down, their pages turned under, carelessly discarded, cigarette butts stuffed into a tumbler, and I searched in my heart for the true reason for my despair. I could smell him. I was sure I was never going to see him again. I longed to be making love with him. Just the two of us lost to the world and our passion. And I was sure that would never happen again.

  How long had he been with us? Six months, was it? Eight months? Forever? The day dragged on, empty, lonely, waiting helplessly, minute on minute, hour on hour. When I looked at the clock in the kitchen again I saw it was only five to ten in the morning. It felt like three in the afternoon.

  Pat did not come back that night either. There was no dinner ready for Arthur when he got home from the office. I was sitting at the kitchen table smoking the last of a packet of cigarettes and halfway through my second bottle of claret. He came in and stood looking at me. I was exhausted and drunk and had decided to tell him everything. To throw myself on his mercy, was how I thought of it.

  Without any sign of anxiety in his voice, he said, indeed with an edge of sarcasm, ‘You’re looking a bit peaky. Is everything all right?’

  I was stung and I laughed and my resolve to confess my sins vanished. It was not I who was the sinner.

  I said, ‘God, I wish Freddy would come and see me.’

  ‘Why don’t you call him, darling?’

  I could not accuse Arthur of cruelty. I could do nothing. I put my head on the table and howled. He did not come near me or touch me or seek to comfort me but left me to suffer on my own. I was sure my good world had ended and only the bad world would now have me.

  At around eleven the following morning I was still in my nightgown, lying on my bed, when I heard the screen door out the back bang shut and the sound of footsteps crossing the boards of the kitchen. I jumped up and went to the door of my room as Pat came along the passage.

  He said, ‘So how’s it going here, then?’ He glanced into the bedroom and brushed past me and went on to his own room. I followed him.

  I said, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  He dragged his bag out from under the bed and opened it and began putting his things in it.

  ‘So you’re leaving me?’ I said.

  He stopped and turned to look at me. ‘No, Autumn. I am not leaving you. You are staying here with Arthur. Remember? Because this is your home and you will never leave it or your husband to start a new life with me.’

  I went up to him and took his arm. ‘Can’t we talk? Please, Pat?’

  ‘Have you told him?’ he waited. ‘No. I thought not. Okay. I’m going up to Sofia Station with Barnaby. I might come back here afterwards and I might not. It’s up to you. If you want to change your mind, we can front Arthur tonight and get it over with. We can do it together. It’s the only honest thing to do. This must be killing him. The choice is yours.’ He looked me up and down, as if he was wondering how much more trouble I was worth. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t suit you. You were already skinny enough.’

  ‘I haven’t slept,’ I said. I began to cry. He went on putting his things into his bag and took no notice of me.

  I never did put that weight back on.

  After Pat had gone I telephoned Barnaby and told him I was coming to Sofia Station with them. He did not sound surprised. ‘You’ve always said I should.’

  He laughed. ‘True, Autumn. Does Arthur know yet?’

  Arthur came home from the office later than usual. The lemon chicken I had prepared was spoiled. I was wondering what he would do for his meals while I was away and had been trying to think of someone who could come and cook for him. It occurred to me that if he told his mother he was alone she would come here or he would go to her. The thought of either solution disgusted me. I served the dried-out chicken and we sat across from each other as usual in the kitchen. I said, ‘I’m going to Sofia Station with Barnaby for a visit. He’s always wanted me to.’

  Arthur stopped eating. ‘What about the show? Who’s going to manage that?’

  ‘Get Anne Collins to curate it,’ I said. ‘Curating is what she’s good at.’ I looked up at him. He looked into my eyes and I felt sick with guilt. I was astonished at my ability to dissemble at such a depth. ‘You know Anne. She’ll be delighted to be put in charge.’

  Arthur didn’t say, What about the others? They are relying on us. And he didn’t say, What about me? Who’s going to look after me while you’re gadding about in Queensland with Barnaby and Pat Donlon? He let it pass. He refused to go the way of the grand domestic row. Would it have made any difference to us if he had not avoided a confrontation? Arthur had always laboured quietly at maintaining the status quo with friends and with his family, no matter what. If Arthur had been a sheriff in the wild west he would never have drawn his gun. Did Arthur even have a gun to draw? Was that why he was so perfect at keeping the peace? Was he afraid he would not be able to stand up to a fight? Had he ever had a fight in his entire life? He was silent until we had finished our meal and were standing at the sink doing the washing-up together, me washing and he drying, our usual arrangement. This had often been the best moment in our day, the moment when we shared unconsidered thoughts, when we looked out the window together and admired how well his oak tree was growing, or shared our enthusiasm for our plans, or gossiped about our ideas and the friends we kept close to us. It was the moment in our day when he and I came together and were best friends and companions, undistracted by the presence of other people or by the pressures of our affairs.

  He put his hand on my shoulder.

  I was startled. It was a gesture of peace. I understood that. I stopped scrubbing the pan in which I had sautéed the chicken breasts. But I did not turn to him and acknowledge his request for a reconciliation. I stood there looking steadfastly out the window at my own reflection in the dark garden, and I waited for him to speak.

  He said, ‘Please don’t go to Queensland with them.’

  I resumed scrubbing at the base of the pan.

  His hand lingered on my shoulder a moment, then he took it away.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked, bent vigorously to my task, my shoulder turned against him.

  ‘I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked again.

  ‘Isn’t it enough that I don’t want you to go, but want you here with me?’

  I stopped scrubbing and straightened. I pushed my hair back off my face with my forearm and turned to him. ‘You have always denied me the important things in life. And your reason has always been a selfish reason. You think only of yourself. What you want and what you don’t want are all that matter to you.’ I went back to the pan, which was by now very shiny. ‘I’m going. You can’t stop me.’

  I had first accused him of denying me the important things in life on that terrible night when we returned from Ocean Grove. It was a claim I felt in my heart to be just, but I knew I would have great difficulty demonstrating the justice of it to a fair-minded jury of twelve honest citizens.

  But Arthur did not ask me to justify my claim. He said quietly, ‘No, I can’t stop you. You had better let me have that pan before you wear it through.’

  There are certain moments in our lives when chance and mischance conspire either to elevate us to a new state of being, or beat us down and leave us without hope of achieving our heart’s desire. Such unplanned and arbitrary moments come upon us with the force of revelation and seem to us to be the unfolding and disclosure of our de
stiny. We look back on them for the remainder of our days and say, That is when it happened. Such moments mark the boundary, the point of departure, the demarcation of our before and after. The bend in the river. Such was our visit to Sofia Station with Barnaby. I have often asked myself whether, if I could have foreseen the outcome of that visit, I would have persisted in my determination to go with them. Or would I have attempted to thwart the unfolding of my fate and looked for some other way forward? I never know which of my two answers to this question is the right one.

  The pain in my arm woke me half an hour ago. I was lying on my cast, pushing it into my upper arm. It is almost dark. The sky beyond the garden is white and green against the larger evening, the trees in perfect silhouette. I suppose I have been snoring and am dry in the throat, but there is no water left in my jug. My exercise book has fallen to the floor. My pen is caught in the folds of the blanket but I can’t be bothered getting at it.

  I call out to Adeli. My voice is hoarse and weak. The house is still and quiet and my call is absorbed and silenced. I had another nightmare. I do not wish to write about my pain and my nightmares and the thousand other afflictions of old age. I endure them. There is more dignity in endurance than in complaint. The demoralising effect of the nightmare will wear off. It will fade. I touch my face with my fingers. My glasses are still on my nose. Some things don’t change while we sleep. There is a capriciousness in it. I call to Adeli again and hear her cough as she comes along the passage in her stocking feet. She has been outside in the garden. Does she meet someone there? Does she have a friend? Do they make love among the rhododendrons? Or on the lawn, naked together in the moon shadows of Arthur’s oak tree?

  I am low tonight. Mean-spirited. Drained by remembering. Empty. At this moment I can’t believe my energies will ever revive sufficiently for me to write the account of our visit to Sofia Station. My mind speaks to me. It says, Let it end when it will. I reply defiantly, I will end it when I am ready. But where is my conviction? I listen to the voice of my mind and I long to give in to the slide into perfect torpor; the offer of death my mother called to share with me, it surfaces and whispers to me, Let go, Autumn.