Martin screamed, ran to his room, slammed the door and wailed.
Over the next month, Martin extracted more specifics from Edina, who subscribed to Karen Blixen’s wisdom that all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story.
The car had begun filling with water and Robert had had to judge – against instinct – when to open his window and allow the water to pour in. And when, with Martin unconscious and water almost up to the ceiling, he might only then try to open the door, and pull Martin out so that both could climb to safety. But how his foot – left almost powerless by his fractured femur – had become caught in a mangrove root, and leg spasm had prevented him from being able to stand upright. Edina avoided relating the next likely stages. How Robert had tried to keep his head above water, perhaps just able to reach up and gulp air, and realising that he was drowning, had made a superhuman effort to save Martin. She stated simply, ‘Somehow your dad was able to throw you onto the grass.’
‘And Daddy drowned?’
‘We don’t know for sure.’
But Martin knew for certain.
‘It may have been from his injuries,’ said Edina.
‘He saved me…but didn’t save himself.’
‘We don’t know, Martin, if he could have saved himself.’
Edina wanted to say that all parents had contemplated one or more scenarios where they had the capacity to choose whether their child would die or whether they could die in their stead. She had prayed to God that she might die if Joanna could have been spared. She chose not to explain.
Martin mused, his eyes now bright. ‘He died saving me. He could have saved himself. He died, instead of me.’
Edina started crying again.
Her husband dead, and in horrifying circumstances. Her ongoing grief for Joanna. Her sorrow at Martin’s distress. But principally her awareness of how Martin’s character and trajectory in life would be forever shaped by the burden of having his father die for him.
Oh Jesus! the never sacrilegious Edina exclaimed to herself.
BELLA’S STORY: PART A
‘So what’s the story, lady?’
‘My story?’ Bella exclaimed.
‘You know what I mean, lady.’
‘I’m in a real hurry. I have a very important meeting on now and you want to know the story of my life?’
The parking policeman grunted. ‘You’re over the limit by two hours. I book you. You rip up the ticket and throw my bag up on the shop roof. You’re mad!’
Bella abruptly pulled open the door of her convertible SLK Mercedes with the top down, stuck her right middle finger up and kept it there as she climbed in and drove off recklessly, yelling: ‘I’m late and you want to know my life story!’
MARTIN’S MATURATION
Martin had only vague memories of the next year or two. He cried some nights and felt a stomach ache whenever he thought of his sister and father. He remembered Edina spending more time in her bedroom. Edina committed herself to being strong in front of Martin, a carapace to a degree, but her inner steely resilience had been truly hardened by the flames of grief.
Edina now worked part-time as an English teacher to pay Martin’s school fees. Martin spent more time with his frail grandparents, who offered little more than cups of weak tea and arrowroot biscuits. He was no longer ‘Martin’ to them but ‘poor Martin’. He still smiled a lot but it appeared mannered, at times almost a tic. His obsessional rituals – especially his washing routines – increased. He commenced lining up his pencils and biros in strict horizontal rows.
Edina increased their wordplay time.
Martin contributed by nominating words – such as ‘liminal’ – that he viewed as intrinsically beautiful.
Edina sought to build up his vocabulary, asking him the meaning of words such as ‘apollyon’ and then providing its biblical reference and revealing how Bunyan captured it in The Pilgrim’s Progress as the personification of evil. Or she would test his knowledge of literary characters such as Don Quixote’s Dulcinea and how Dulcinea had become recognised as an allusion of the idealised woman. She sought to stretch his interest in words and prose styles and asked him to read the books she referenced almost weekly.
Martin absorbed the material but more enjoyed snuggling into Edina as she read to him. Occasionally, he would revisit his father’s death with her, to check whether he had correctly remembered all the details.
Edina chose to relate only facts, judging that any reference to Robert having died saving Martin would have the potential to shape Martin’s inner world.
She was correct but too late. It was already washing around in his meme pool. Martin, now more earnest and determined to do the right thing, decided early in his secondary school years to become a doctor.
Observers noticed how hard he applied himself in his last few school years. He studied assiduously, played in the Eighth Fifteen rugby team, while his perfectionism and application consolidated his cricket skills and he was appointed captain of the First Eleven. His geniality, gentle humour and sunniness accorded him good bloke status among his peers and he was one of the first invited to social events.
Martin was distinctly more mature than his peers, but there was a covert undertow. His sunny joie de vivre was mostly superficial, as he felt deadened by sadness at times. Until, in his seventeenth year and final school year, when he fell in love. While watching the Fourth Fifteen in the grandstand he saw two girls walking slowly around the oval. This was generally a ritualistic promenade – an affected, purposeless stroll to be performed with nonchalance. One was blonde, wearing a flowing pink frock. Martin, knowing her companion, raced down the stairs seeking an introduction and, over the next twenty minutes, the three walked together, chatting vibrantly and with Martin aware of only one girl.
That night he allowed his immediate infatuation with Sarah full rein, his nightly compulsions of ensuring a strict sequence of pre-bed rituals replaced by a new obsession. He played and replayed images of her beautiful face, lingering over each image and nuance of her eyes, mouth and long, blonde hair, and her pink dress.
Each of the next three weekends, after Martin had played, they strolled around the football field and went to a coffee shop. Sarah shyly met Martin’s request for a photo. He pasted it on the back of his wardrobe door – and would repetitively open the door to stand besotted with the fullest of his genuine smiles.
She agreed warmly to be his partner at the Footballers’ Ball – their first date – and that evening they danced with no one else and talked to few others. Martin loved talking to Sarah, watching her eyes sparkle and her lips glisten, noting and loving the cadence of her voice, appreciating and thrilling to the moments when she might reach out and touch his hand.
They took a taxi to her house and, as her parents were out, went immediately into the living room, Sarah choosing to leave the lights off. One – it was unclear who – reached for the other, before both held each other as if again on the dance floor but now intimately not socially. He bent to kiss her and found himself kissing her nose. They both laughed and then their lips met, and for the next twenty minutes the two just stood, kissing, rocking slowly together and with Martin feeling both a sense of union and bliss.
They sat on the couch and Sarah was content to let Martin fumble as he unhooked her bra – acquiescing as if she had forgotten the mechanics and needed assistance – but smiling shyly.
Martin’s cupped hands captured her released breasts and, as he fondled them, they returned to their kissing, and Martin knew that Sarah had given herself to him that night.
It was years later that Martin heard about the Madonna–whore complex, whereby men see women either as Madonnas to be respected or whores to be used or degraded. Or, as Freud observed: ‘Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love.’ Sarah was Martin’s Madonna – from first sight – to be respected and loved.
He knew they would marry one day. Her whole body would be his one day to explore, stroke,
caress and hold. For now, he wanted no more than to love her. He rehooked her bra – with her assistance – and the two hugged and kissed each other for an hour before Martin left, to run home exhilarated, his arms reaching to the sky, flapping at times, knowing his life had changed. ‘Seismically’ was his word for the change. From that point, Martin knew he would always be a one-woman man.
He idolised Sarah, loved caring for her, loved the comfort he felt being with her, loved discussing the day with her, loved… well he just loved being in love with her. She was his Dulcinea.
Sarah did not need the envious endorsement of Martin by her friends – that he was wonderful and a real catch – to know she had found her man. But she did have a private caveat. Was he not a bit too dutiful, too cautious, too reliable and too ordered? She dismissed these monitions when she compared Martin to previous boyfriends, most unreliable, feckless and irresponsible. While he was cheerful he wasn’t playful or impulsive. Once, when her parents were out, she spontaneously danced naked in front of him when he was reading a book, and noted a transient glimmer of disapproval. On reflection, she concluded he was not simply a goody-goody or a prude, traits she would have found disquieting, but he was sexually inhibited, for whatever reason. In the first few months of their relationship he had been, as he said, ‘in bliss’, kissing and fondling, cupping, holding and caressing her breasts. All sublime to Sarah but she was aware of a greater physical neediness, of wanting him inside her, of the two of them losing control together. It was, she thought, as if he viewed her body as a temple – that ridiculous notion.
It was a year before they consummated they relationship, although Martin afterwards suggested they had more gravitated it. While Edina was at her book club both lay comfortably in Martin’s bed in each other’s arms until Sarah became restless, sat up, slowly pulled down Martin’s pants and then shorts. She was struck briefly by the pinkness of his penis before she reached to hold it, straddled him and guided it into her. Martin appeared momentarily bewildered. During their mounting, Sarah was struck by his looking to the side – at the curtains and not at her – disquieted if not troubled. As she moved herself on him he slowly turned to look directly at her, inhibition melting, to smile at her, in bliss, then in rapture, before the two of them fell briefly into an instinctual animalistic rhythm, mutual orgasm occurred and Sarah slid off to lie next to him, staring into his face – the whites of his eyes no longer prominent.
‘You bliss bomb, Martin. I so love you.’
‘Oh Sarah. That was the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.’ He smiled, perhaps his warmest smile for years.
They slept for an hour before both slowly awoke. Martin stated he was going to have a shower. As he was washing, arms soaped three times, legs four times, Sarah joined him. She noted a transient look of disquiet before he smiled and handed her the soap.
Martin stepped away from the water to stare at Sarah, the first time he had ever seen her fully naked, her hair almost covering her face, water running off her small breasts, and her stringent pubic hair. She gave him a hug and briefly shook his penis, as if a handshake of thanks. She kissed Martin and stated, ‘You’ve been launched.’
They hugged for several minutes, the water running down their joined bodies, before they towelled and dressed. It all felt natural and comfortable, and Martin was struck by how guilt-free Sarah appeared. There were more hugs and kisses as Sarah left Martin at the gate of his home, smiling blissfully. He slowly walked back inside, observing to himself that it had been one of the most seminal events of my life.
Martin and his best friend Dave Bradbury both opted to study medicine, without discussing their motivations. Dave lived in a grand house in the upper north shore, its gardened grounds minimally disrupted by a pool and a grass tennis court (a Great Gatsby setting, had been Martin’s first impression), but he wore no obvious trappings of his privileged early years. Martin admired Dave as someone solid to the core.
In turn, Dave viewed Martin as the most uncomplicated person he had ever met. ‘You’re not crude, you don’t burp, don’t fart, don’t swear, see everything positively and keep smiling whatever. So single-minded in tackling things. I just don’t bloody get it. But I’m hoping some might rub off on me.’
Martin enjoyed the medical course, studying hard enough to gain an occasional credit. Three nights a week he worked as a barman, to allow Edina to work fewer hours. He established friendships. At a second-year physiology tutorial the lecturer, known for his unorthodox but engaging teaching style, smiled at Martin as he sat in the middle of the auditorium.
‘Lad,’ he commenced.
‘Me?’ questioned Martin with his usual wide smile but with slight apprehension.
‘Yes, you, lad. Up here if you don’t mind.’
Martin joined him at the lectern, where the lecturer instructed him to turn and face the student audience. Martin smiled – both in response to the audience and, well, naturally.
‘There you have it,’ the lecturer announced, ‘A real Duchenne smile. So distinctive in this lecture room. Can anyone describe a Duchenne smile?’
One called out, ‘A genuine one.’
‘Of course, tell me more.’
‘It requires two sets of muscles to act. Ones around the eyes…’
‘The orbicularis oculi, producing the wrinkles around the eyes and making the eyes seem more radiant. And the other?’
‘The others are around the mouth.’
‘Excellent. The zygomatic major muscles. Both act with voluntary and involuntary actions. Just use the latter on their own and you have the cheesy false smile. You need both for a Duchenne smile. Observe these slides of Michael Palin and Richard Nixon. Differences? So, for next week, I want an essay on the Duchenne smile, or what has at times been known as the Pan Am smile. Who was Duchenne? What differing parts of the brain underpin the two types of smiles? Why is a smile not of necessity a prelude to a laugh? Is it over-represented in US presidents? Apart from Richard Nixon, heh? And why might it be associated with living longer? And my thanks to this student.’
He turned to Martin, and spoke quietly. ‘Thanks sunshine, you’ve been a good sport. And, incidentally, you’ll go a long way in life.’
Martin smiled. Both naturally and in appreciation of the lecturer’s prediction.
When Martin returned to his seat, Dave Bradbury pushed an elbow into his ribs. ‘You attention-seeking bastard.’ Ten years later, Dave would remember little anatomy apart from this tutorial and a lecture on the muscles of the arm and hand. At a very formal college dinner in Oxford, Dave was asked to give the blessing in Latin before the extremely important dignitaries at High Table began to eat. Knowing no Latin and knowing no blessing, but estimating that anatomy could be destiny, he had reached back to that lecture to intone a set of arm muscles in sombre terms: Bénedic. Flexor carpi radialis, pronator teres, palmaris longus, extensor digitorum, abductor pollicis longus, supinator. Amen.
During the final years of his degree, and when Martin began training in interviewing, his empathy became even more distinctive, always quick to find a point of reference between the patient and himself. Colleagues noted how easily he also got on with them. Even if they offered a view that challenged his values, he would simply smile or, if provoked to respond, he would adjust the debate to find some common point of agreement to avoid conflict. It was no surprise when he was the one voted on by the student body to be awarded the prize at graduation to ‘the student who most showed distinctive good fellowship’.
Edina and Sarah accompanied Martin to the graduation ceremony, quietly sharing their pride. It was a day that marked more than Martin’s graduation.
Edina looked at Sarah’s engagement ring, knowing that his graduation day signalled separation from her. She welcomed such rites de passage. The next would be Martin and Sarah having children. She ached to be a grandmother, hoping her first grandchild would be a girl.
Following Robert’s death, Edina’s grief had evolved slowly. A retur
n to work had lightened her loneliness and she was distracted by the communal aspects of school life, but over those years she most loved the time she spent with Martin, simply chatting about their day or, when she felt a need to be didactic, she initiated a literary topic. It dulled the ache that would surface when she went to bed, sometimes experienced as a cavity in her chest and, at other times, as a churning in her stomach. Several men had invited her out and she had had dinner with three. All these dates were desultory and, combined with the cheapness of one leaving her with the bill, she resolved to remain a widow. She broadened her interests, knowing she had to keep busy, that each day needed to be planned and filled, and that distraction was central.
Dave Bradbury was Martin’s best man. Edina would remember the wedding ceremony as one of the proudest times of her life but, as their car drove off, she murmured Partir, c’est mourir un peu to herself, and knew that she would need to mourn once again.
BELLA AND THE TROPHETTES AT AN EARLIER LUNCH LAUNCH
For a brief period Bella fancied Nancy Grey as a mother figure.
As a lone wolf Bella rarely trusted others, especially other women. But on meeting Nancy at a cocktail party in Darling Point she warmed to her immediately. Nancy was charming and showed a keen interest in Bella, while jocularly disparaging her handsome silver-haired husband whenever he returned to fill their glasses. Nancy appeared different to the other women in the room, not simply because she was somewhat older, but because she was gracious and good-natured, even when she spoke amusingly, if not wickedly, about others in the room. In a way that made Bella feel the two of them had a bond. Nancy even made a kind reference to Bella’s relationship with Jack, her current partner. As Bella warmed to Nancy she was keenly aware that her instinctive guardedness had relaxed. She felt calm and welcomed Nancy’s kindness. And warmed even further to her when Nancy offered her an invitation.
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