The Thorn Birds

by Colleen McCullough

  The night Justine’s thought processes reached so far, her season’s role of Lady Macbeth had an interesting savagery quite alien to her usual interpretation. She didn’t sleep very well afterward, and the following morning brought a letter from her mother which filled her with vague unease.

  Mum didn’t write often anymore, a symptom of the long separation which affected them both, and what letters there were were stilted, anemic. This was different, it contained a distant mutter of old age, an underlying weariness which poked up a word or two above the surface inanities like an iceberg. Justine didn’t like it. Old. Mum, old!

  What was happening on Drogheda? Was Mum trying to conceal some serious trouble? Was Nanna ill? One of the Unks? God forbid, Mum herself? It was three years since she had seen any of them, and a lot could happen in three years, even if it wasn’t happening to Justine O’Neill. Because her own life was stagnant and dull, she ought not to assume everyone else’s was, too.

  That night was Justine’s “off” night, with only one more performance of Macbeth to go. The daylight hours had dragged unbearably, and even the thought of dinner with Rain didn’t carry its usual anticipatory pleasure. Their friendship was useless, futile, static, she told herself as she scrambled into a dress exactly the orange he hated most. Conservative old fuddy-duddy! If Rain didn’t like her the way she was, he could lump her. Then, fluffing up the low bodice’s frills around her meager chest, she caught her own eyes in the mirror and laughed ruefully. Oh, what a tempest in a teacup! She was acting exactly like the kind of female she most despised. It was probably very simple. She was stale, she needed a rest. Thank God for the end of Lady M! But what was the matter with Mum?

  Lately Rain was spending more and more time in London, and Justine marveled at the ease with which he commuted between Bonn and England. No doubt having a private plane helped, but it had to be exhausting.

  “Why do you come to see me so often?” she asked out of the blue. “Every gossip columnist in Europe thinks it’s great, but I confess I sometimes wonder if you don’t simply use me as an excuse to visit London.”

  “It’s true that I use you as a blind from time to time,” he admitted calmly. “As a matter of fact, you’ve been dust in certain eyes quite a lot. But it’s no hardship being with you, because I like being with you.” His dark eyes dwelled on her face thoughtfully. “You’re very quiet tonight, Herzchen. Is anything worrying you?”

  “No, not really.” She toyed with her dessert and pushed it aside uneaten. “At least, only a silly little thing. Mum and I don’t write every week anymore—it’s so long since we’ve seen each other there’s nothing much to say—but today I had such a strange letter from her. Not typical at all.”

  His heart sank; Meggie had indeed taken her time thinking about it, but instinct told him this was the commencement of her move, and that it was not in his favor. She was beginning her play to get her daughter back for Drogheda, perpetuate the dynasty.

  He reached across the table to take Justine’s hand; she was looking, he thought, more beautiful with maturity, in spite of that ghastly dress. Tiny lines were beginning to give her ragamuffin face dignity, which it badly needed, and character, which the person behind had always owned in huge quantities. But how deep did her surface maturity go? That was the whole trouble with Justine; she didn’t even want to look.

  “Herzchen, your mother is lonely,” he said, burning his boats. If this was what Meggie wanted, how could he continue to think himself right and her wrong? Justine was her daughter; she must know her far better than he.

  “Yes, perhaps,” said Justine with a frown, “but I can’t help feeling there’s something more at base of it. I mean, she must have been lonely for years, so why this sudden whatever it is? I can’t put my finger on it, Rain, and maybe that’s what worries me the most.”

  “She’s growing older, which I think you tend to forget. It’s very possible things are beginning to prey upon her which she found easier to contend with in the past.” His eyes looked suddenly remote, as if the brain behind was concentrating very hard on something at variance with what he was saying. “Justine, three years ago she lost her only son. Do you think that pain grows less as time passes? I think it must grow worse. He is gone, and she must surely feel by now that you are gone, too. After all, you haven’t even been home to visit her.”

  She shut her eyes. “I will, Rain, I will! I promise I will, and soon! You’re right, of course, but then you always are. I never thought I’d come to miss Drogheda, but lately I seem to be developing quite an affection for it. As if I am a part of it after all.”

  He looked suddenly at his watch, smiled ruefully. “I’m very much afraid tonight is one of those occasions when I’ve used you, Herzchen. I hate to ask you to find your own way home, but in less than an hour I have to meet some very important gentlemen in a top-secret place, to which I must go in my own car, driven by the triple-A-security-clearanced Fritz.”

  “Cloak and dagger!” she said gaily, concealing her hurt. “Now I know why those sudden taxis! I am to be entrusted to a cabby, but not the future of the Common Market, eh? Well, just to show you how little I need a taxi or your security-clearanced Fritz, I’m going to catch the tube home. It’s quite early.” His fingers lay rather limply around hers; she lifted his hand and held it against her cheek, then kissed it. “Oh, Rain, I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

  He put the hand in his pocket, got to his feet, came round and pulled out her chair with his other hand. “I’m your friend,” he said. “That’s what friends are for, not to be done without.”

  But once she parted from him, Justine went home in a very thoughtful mood, which turned rapidly into a depressed one. Tonight was the closest he had come to any kind of personal discussion, and the gist of it had been that he felt her mother was terribly lonely, growing old, and that she ought to go home. Visit, he had said; but she couldn’t help wondering if he had actually meant stay. Which rather indicated that whatever he felt for her in the past was well and truly of the past, and he had no wish to resurrect it.

  It had never occurred to her before to wonder if he might regard her as a nuisance, a part of his past he would like to see buried in decent obscurity on some place like Drogheda; but maybe he did. In which case, why had he re-entered her life nine months ago? Because he felt sorry for her? Because he felt he owed her some kind of debt? Because he felt she needed some sort of push toward her mother, for Dane’s sake? He had been very fond of Dane, and who knew what they had talked about during those long visits to Rome when she hadn’t been present? Maybe Dane had asked him to keep an eye on her, and he was doing just that. Waited a decent interval to make sure she wouldn’t show him the door, then marched back into her life to fulfill some promise made to Dane. Yes, that was very likely the answer. Certainly he was no longer in love with her. Whatever attraction she had once possessed for him must have died long since; after all, she had treated him abominably. She had only herself to blame.

  Upon the heels of which thought she wept miserably, succeeded in getting enough hold upon herself to tell herself not to be so stupid, twisted about and thumped her pillow in a fruitless quest after sleep, then lay defeated trying to read a script. After a few pages the words began traitorously to blur and swim together, and try as she would to use her old trick of bulldozing despair into some back corner of her mind, it ended in overwhelming her. Finally as the slovenly light of a late London dawn seeped through the windows she sat down at her desk, feeling the cold, hearing the distant growl of traffic, smelling the damp, tasting the sourness. Suddenly the idea of Drogheda seemed wonderful. Sweet pure air, a naturally broken silence. Peace.

  She picked up one of her black felt-tipped pens and began a letter to her mother, her tears drying as she wrote.

  I just hope you understand why I haven’t been home since Dane died [she said], but no matter what you think about that, I know you’ll be pleased to hear that I’m going to rectify my omission permanently.
/>
  Yes, that’s right. I’m coming home for good, Mum. You were right—the time has come when I long for Drogheda. I’ve had my flutter, and I’ve discovered it doesn’t mean anything to me at all. What’s in it for me, trailing around a stage for the rest of my life? And what else is there here for me aside from the stage? I want something safe, permanent, enduring, so I’m coming home to Drogheda, which is all those things. No more empty dreams. Who knows? Maybe I’ll marry Boy King if he still wants me, finally do something worthwhile with my life, like having a tribe of little Northwest plainsmen. I’m tired, Mum, so tired I don’t know what I’m saying, and I wish I had the power to write what I’m feeling.

  Well, I’ll struggle with it another time. Lady Macbeth is over and I hadn’t decided what to do with the coming season yet, so I won’t inconvenience anyone by deciding to bow out of acting. London is teeming with actresses. Clyde can replace me adequately in two seconds, but you can’t, can you? I’m sorry it’s taken me thirty-one years to realize that.

  Had Rain not helped me it might have taken even longer, but he’s a most perceptive bloke. He’s never met you, yet he seems to understand you better than I do. Still, they say the onlooker sees the game best. That’s certainly true of him. I’m fed up with him, always supervising my life from his Olympian heights. He seems to think he owes Dane some sort of debt or promise, and he’s forever making a nuisance of himself popping over to see me; only I’ve finally realized that I’m the nuisance. If I’m safely on Drogheda the debt or promise or whatever it was is canceled, isn’t it? He ought to be grateful for the plane trips I’ll save him, anyway.

  As soon as I’ve got myself organized I’ll write again, tell you when to expect me. In the meantime, remember that in my strange way I do love you.

  She signed her name without its usual flourish, more like the “Justine” which used to appear on the bottom of dutiful letters written from boarding school under the eagle eye of a censoring nun. Then she folded the sheets, put them in an airmail envelope and addressed it. On the way to the theater for the final performance of Macbeth she posted it.

  She went straight ahead with her plans to quit England. Clyde was upset to the extent of a screaming temper tantrum which left her shaking, then overnight he turned completely about and gave in with huffy good grace. There was no difficulty at all in disposing of the lease to the mews flat for it was in a high-demand category; in fact, once the word leaked out people rang every five minutes until she took the phone off the hook. Mrs. Kelly, who had “done” for her since those far-off days when she had first come to London, plodded dolefully around amid a jungle of wood shavings and crates, bemoaning her fate and surreptitiously putting the phone back on its cradle in the hope someone would ring with the power to persuade Justine to change her mind.

  In the midst of the turmoil, someone with that power did ring, only not to persuade her to change her mind; Rain didn’t even know she was going. He merely asked her to act as his hostess for a dinner party he was giving at his house on Park Lane.

  “What do you mean, house on Park Lane?” Justine squeaked, astonished.

  “Well, with growing British participation in the European Economic Community, I’m spending so much time in England that it’s become more practical for me to have some sort of local pied-à-terre, so I’ve leased a house on Park Lane,” he explained.

  “Ye gods, Rain, you flaming secretive bastard! How long have you had it?”

  “About a month.”

  “And you let me go through that idiotic charade the other night and said nothing? God damn you!” She was so angry she couldn’t speak properly.

  “I was going to tell you, but I got such a kick out of your thinking I was flying over all the time that I couldn’t resist pretending a bit longer,” he said with a laugh in his voice.

  “I could kill you!” she ground from between her teeth, blinking away tears.

  “No, Herzchen, please! Don’t be angry! Come and be my hostess, then you can inspect the premises to your heart’s content.”

  “Suitably chaperoned by five million other guests, of course! What’s the matter, Rain, don’t you trust yourself alone with me? Or is it me you don’t trust?”

  “You won’t be a guest,” he said, answering the first part of her tirade. “You’ll be my hostess, which is quite different. Will you do it?”

  She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and said gruffly, “Yes.”

  It turned out to be more enjoyable than she had dared hope, for Rain’s house was truly beautiful and he himself in such a good mood Justine couldn’t help but become infected by it. She arrived properly though a little too flamboyantly gowned for his taste, but after an involuntary grimace at first sight of her shocking-pink slipper satin, he tucked her arm through his and conducted her around the premises before the guests arrived. Then during the evening he behaved perfectly, treating her in front of the others with an offhand intimacy which made her feel both useful and wanted. His guests were so politically important her brain didn’t want to think about the sort of decisions they must have to make. Such ordinary people, too. That made it worse.

  “I wouldn’t have minded so much if even one of them had displayed symptoms of the Chosen Few,” she said to him after they had gone, glad of the chance to be alone with him and wondering how quickly he was going to send her home. “You know, like Napoleon or Churchill. There’s a lot to be said for being convinced one is a man of destiny, if one is a statesman. Do you regard yourself as a man of destiny?”

  He winced. “You might choose your questions better when you’re quizzing a German, Justine. No, I don’t, and it isn’t good for politicians to deem themselves men of destiny. It might work for a very few, though I doubt it, but the vast bulk of such men cause themselves and their countries endless trouble.”

  She had no desire to argue the point. It had served its purpose in getting a certain line of conversation started; she could change the subject without looking too obvious. “The wives were a pretty mixed bunch, weren’t they?” she asked artlessly. “Most of them were far less presentable than I was, even if you don’t approve of hot pink. Mrs. Whatsit wasn’t too bad, and Mrs. Hoojar simply disappeared into the matching wallpaper, but Mrs. Gumfoozler was abominable. How does her husband manage to put up with her? Oh, men are such fools about choosing their wives!”

  “Justine! When will you learn to remember names? It’s as well you turned me down, a fine politician’s wife you would have made. I heard you er-umming when you couldn’t remember who they were. Many men with abominable wives have succeeded very well, and just as many with quite perfect wives haven’t succeeded at all. In the long run it doesn’t matter, because it’s the caliber of the man which is put to the test. There are few men who marry for reasons purely politic.”

  That old ability to put her in her place could still shock; she made him a mock salaam to hide her face, then sat down on the rug.

  “Oh, do get up, Justine!”

  Instead she defiantly curled her feet under her and leaned against the wall to one side of the fireplace, stroking Natasha. She had discovered on her arrival that after Cardinal Vittorio’s death Rain had taken his cat; he seemed very fond of it, though it was old and rather crotchety.

  “Did I tell you I was going home to Drogheda for good?” she asked suddenly.

  He was taking a cigarette out of his case; the big hands didn’t falter or tremble, but proceeded smoothly with their task. “You know very well you didn’t tell me,” he said.

  “Then I’m telling you now.”

  “When did you come to this decision?”

  “Five days ago. I’m leaving at the end of this week, I hope. It can’t come soon enough.”

  “I see.”

  “Is that all you’ve got to say about it?”

  “What else is there to say, except that I wish you happiness in whatever you do?” He spoke with such complete composure she winced.

  “Why, thank you!” she sai
d airily. “Aren’t you glad I won’t be in your hair much longer?”

  “You’re not in my hair, Justine,” he answered.

  She abandoned Natasha, picked up the poker and began rather savagely nudging the crumbling logs, which had burned away to hollow shells; they collapsed inward in a brief flurry of sparks, and the heat of the fire abruptly decreased. “It must be the demon of destructiveness in us, the impulse to poke the guts out of a fire. It only hastens the end. But what a beautiful end, isn’t it, Rain?”

  Apparently he wasn’t interested in what happened to fires when they were poked, for he merely asked, “By the end of the week, eh? You’re not wasting much time.”

  “What’s the point in delaying?”

  “And your career?”

  “I’m sick of my career. Anyway, after Lady Macbeth what is there left to do?”

  “Oh, grow up, Justine! I could shake you when you come out with such sophomoric rot! Why not simply say you’re not sure the theater has any challenge for you anymore, and that you’re homesick?”

  “All right, all right, all right! Have it any way you bloody well want! I was being my usual flippant self. Sorry I offended!” She jumped to her feet. “Dammit, where are my shoes? What’s happened to my coat?”

  Fritz appeared with both articles of clothing, and drove her home. Rain excused himself from accompanying her, saying he had things to do, but as she left he was sitting by the freshly built up fire, Natasha on his lap, looking anything but busy.

  “Well,” said Meggie to her mother, “I hope we’ve done the right thing.”

  Fee peered at her, nodded. “Oh, yes, I’m sure of it. The trouble with Justine is that she isn’t capable of making a decision like this, so we don’t have any choice. We must make it for her.”

  “I’m not sure I like playing God. I think I know what she really wants to do, but even if I could tax her with it face to face, she’d prevaricate.”

  “The Cleary pride,” said Fee, smiling faintly. “It does crop up in the most unexpected people.”