The Tower Mill

by James Moloney

  Hilary had accused me of crimes I’d never thought of, a form of neglect through substitution, if there could be such a thing. Instead of what might have been between a woman and her son, I had inserted politics and grand ideas.

  Guilty, a voice shrilled in my head. How many times had we talked about justice, policy, the myopia of governments?

  But what was supposed to fill the space between mother and son? I had three hours to find out before Tom emerged at the arrivals hall at Mascot, sleepy and expectant and looking for me in the crowd. Panic gripped me. I didn’t know. I simply didn’t know.

  It was easier to focus on the physical things, packing for the return to Brisbane and the nuts and bolts of getting to the airport. Only I knew that something so profoundly elusive awaited me there. In the cab, I found it better to focus on the other thing I had to do: I was going to convince Tom to accept Dolan at the funeral tomorrow. Was that mothering? It would be something, a least.

  ‘Are you late for your flight?’ the cabbie asked.

  ‘No, plenty of time.’

  He saw my surprise. ‘You keep looking at your watch, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh! Actually, I’m meeting a plane first. My son’s flying in from Europe.’

  ‘Been away a long time, has he?’

  ‘Too long.’

  Further and further away. Those had been Hilary’s words in the Botanical Gardens, and, among all she said, this frightened me most. I had pushed Tom away, sent him off to England, as far away from my life as it was possible to be.

  There was a punchline to Hilary’s story about Tom and me. It was the last thing she’d said before we parted, and it was the last snatch of memory I took from the cab into the arrivals hall: my son’s happiness depended on me.

  I saw Mike first, tugging his suitcase behind him on its tiny wheels and looking over his shoulder for the figure who was yet to appear. Moments later, there was Tom with a much smaller bag in tow, hinting at a brief visit, an interruption to his life that would be dealt with, then put behind him.

  I hurried to greet them, aiming squarely for Tom. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ I cried, and now came the tears I’d avoided in the taxi. ‘It was the right thing to come for Terry, and for me, too. It’s so sad that he’s gone.’

  When I showed no signs of letting go, Tom began to laugh. ‘Hey, there’s someone else here you should say hello to.’

  With barely a glance at Mike’s face, I embraced him with the cordiality of an ex-wife.

  We took a cab to the domestic terminal where I tried, once again, to get a seat on their flight. But it was the same story from last night: the plane was full and I was stuck with a flight thirty minutes earlier.

  I had to act quickly then, and, turning to Mike, I said what had to be said. ‘I need Tom alone for a little while. I’m sorry, it’s something between the two of us.’

  He glanced at Tom and even managed a smile, which Tom returned with similar ease. I was too distracted to care. ‘I’ll wait in the departure lounge,’ he said.

  I took Tom by the elbow and I led him along the concourse to a lift beside gate thirteen.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘There are meeting rooms on level two,’ I explained. ‘I’ll tell my paper I was getting background from a visiting legal expert.’

  That earned another of Tom’s smiles, for me this time.

  The receptionist greeted us cheerily and asked, ‘Will you need any av? Tea, coffee?’

  When, finally, she closed the door behind her, I sat back in the plush leather. ‘I’m sorry about all this, Tom.’

  The apology was for the farce I’d subjected him to, but I might have been speaking of Terry’s death – or my thirty-one years as his mother. ‘I couldn’t talk about Barry Dolan in front of Mike.’

  He shrugged at this. ‘That’s what happens when you keep secrets.’

  ‘Yes, Tom, I kept it from Mike,’ I said, without rancour, ‘but don’t you see how that letter gave me my life back?’

  ‘And took away your son.’

  ‘Don’t say that. It was never cut and dried, not with you. You said it once yourself, I could stop being Mike’s wife, but I couldn’t stop being your mother.’

  ‘That bloody letter, what happened at the Tower Mill . . .’ Tom said bitterly. ‘It’s still there, getting in the way, for all of us.’

  ‘Those things have harmed us for thirty years, Terry most of all,’ I agreed. ‘Now he’s dead, is the rest of it going to end tomorrow, as well? Are we going to stop letting these things harm us? Because if the answer’s yes, then Barry Dolan must be at the funeral.’

  ‘No,’ he said, not harshly, as he had on the phone from Singapore, but with equal determination. ‘He killed my father. It’s taken thirty years to hold the funeral, but Terry died that night.’

  ‘All of that is true,’ I conceded. ‘But I told you what he was like, didn’t I, when I went to see him in gaol? He’d had time to think about what he got caught up in. I’ve met him a couple of times since then, too. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to search him out, but he called me once he was released, and the next time I was in Brisbane, I took him to see Terry.’

  ‘Jesus, Susan, how many secrets do you need? Why always alone? Was I still in Brisbane?’

  I answered with a nod. ‘It was before you left for England.’

  ‘Then why wasn’t I there, too?’

  I couldn’t say that I didn’t know, even if the answer that bubbled out of me was too emotional to have come from any reasonable part of my being. ‘Because I’d already brought you far enough into that night beneath the Tower Mill, Tom, and I couldn’t bear to lead you any further. I was protecting my son, as mothers are supposed to do. You’d come to mean far more to me than Terry, who’d become a cause I couldn’t put right, but you were different, you were part of me. I didn’t invite you along that day because Dolan had taken Terry away from me, and I was terrified that meeting him would take you from me, as well.’

  He seemed stunned by this. I certainly was. Where had it come from, and how much more could I say without reaching so deep there would be nothing left to salvage?

  ‘He sat with Terry for half an hour, seeing more than my eyes were taking in. I wish you had been there to see it, you should have been there,’ I said, confessing. ‘He regrets what he did, Tom. You’ll see as much in his eyes, if you let him come tomorrow. Dolan wants to be at the funeral because he needs an end, too, like you and me, and Mike.’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ said Tom, sounding more vulnerable than angry. ‘I mean, does he want absolution, is that it?’

  ‘I don’t think it matters. Forget what Dolan’s after, Tom, and think of what he means for you and me. There were never going to be any public admissions about what happened, never going to be any punishment for men like Dolan or those who egged them on. That’s all you and I have been able to see for years, but now, maybe there’s something real for us at last. If he’s there, you and I can bury more than a man’s body tomorrow.’

  Tom stared into my face as I spoke. Now that I seemed spent, he focused on the floor near his feet, to weigh up what I’d said, perhaps, or to avoid a reply. I wasn’t sure.

  I watched him now, not in anticipation of his answer, more in wonder that this man was my son. How could I have pushed him away?

  ‘Tom, I’ve done a lot of thinking in the last day or two. All the time you’ve been in the air, to be honest.’

  His head bobbed up at this. ‘Me too,’ he murmured.

  ‘What I said before, that death can bring other things to an end. It’s time I said something else that’s been stuck between us for too long.’ I leaned forward in my chair, sure, at last, of what I would say.

  ‘Tom, back when you were three years old, I chose myself, instead
of you. There were all sorts of reasons and I can justify what I did until I’m blue in the face, but what matters is how that looks to you. Hear me say it: I didn’t put you first, and it’s stood between us ever since.’

  Perhaps he was still taking in what I’d said, but he didn’t respond.

  ‘I’m not asking you to forgive me, Tom. The best I can do is admit the truth of it. All these years I’ve told myself, told anyone who’d listen that I was a poor mother, that I don’t have the gene. None of that matters, though, does it? I should have seen how it looked to you, Tom. I’m your mother, and I let you down.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Mum,’ he said through tears.

  I put up my hand to stop him saying more. ‘There’s one thing I want you to understand. Please, Tom, you have to understand this. When I came back from Europe and you were still a teenager – from the time I took you to see Terry in the nursing home, really – I’ve tried to be your mother, and if it seems like I’ve failed all over again, it’s because I didn’t know how. Please believe that. It wasn’t for want of love, or because I was afraid of what you’d take from me. What I didn’t know, what I’m still learning, is how to take from you, to take what you want to give. I need it, Tom. I need my son, for the funeral tomorrow and every day until they put me in a box, too. Maybe by then I’ll have learned the rest of it.’

  A knock came at the door and moments later it opened enough for the receptionist’s face to appear. ‘They’ve just called your flight, Ms Kinnane.’

  ‘I can get a later one,’ I said to Tom. ‘Do you want to stay, talk it out?’

  He closed his eyes and in no more than a whisper, said, ‘No, I can’t. Not now, not yet.’

  He walked with me to my departure gate, too full of his own unspoken words to hear any more from me.

  ‘I’ll wait for you in Brisbane,’ I called, as my boarding pass was scanned, and didn’t miss the irony in what I’d said.

  Would Tom let Dolan attend the funeral? It was out of my hands now, yet whatever he chose, it wouldn’t end there, for he was my son and I would always worry that he might be unhappy, or ill advised, dumped on by others or by his own folly, that he’d be unloved, betrayed, or the culprit in betrayal, that he’d be lonely, overworked, or overly pleased with himself. Such fears would stay with me, not so much that I lay sleepless as I had for the last two nights, but as the background hum to my life.

  On board, I found my seat and settled beside a window with a view of the terminal.

  What had I done, back in that unlikely room? Something had shifted in me. I could use up every minute of this flight to Brisbane trying to name it, or I could simply embrace the peace it brought me.

  TOM

  After I’d seen Susan off down the air bridge, I joined Dad and we went in search of a coffee.

  ‘Your mother had a look in her eye,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen her like that since . . . it’s not right to say it, maybe. Since Terry was struggling for life in the hospital.’

  ‘First time I’ve seen her like that, too,’ I said. ‘She put herself on the line, Dad,’ and I might have added ‘for me’, but was there any need? ‘Before, she’d always held back a part of herself. This time was different . . .’ I needed to think. The coffee helped, and so did Dad’s weary silence.

  Later, after our plane had levelled out on the final leg to Brisbane, I reached into the seat pocket for Dad’s copy of the Australian, or the part of it I’d kept, at least.

  Time played dizzying games around me, as it does when you stare too hard at the one thing. I could sense him watching me. He’d seen that I was studying the legal appointments.

  ‘Force of habit,’ I said. ‘I bet you check out the teaching jobs when you get the chance.’

  ‘Only to find out who’s moving on. I’m not planning a change in my life, unlike some,’ he added.

  ‘What makes you think I am?’

  ‘Oh, the mysterious Hilary to begin with. You haven’t come home just for Terry’s funeral, have you, Tom?’

  His wry smile showed that denial would be thrown out of court. He shifted his weight in the seat, as he so often did in the creaking cane chair on our back deck in Ashgrove, and said, ‘I’ve been reading over kids’ shoulders for thirty years, Tom. You’re looking at that cmc job, aren’t you?’

  What could I do but admit it? ‘It’s the second time they’ve advertised. That’s the usual procedure, two weeks apart, to be sure word gets around.’

  ‘I didn’t think you bothered with the Australian in London.’

  ‘I don’t. Hilary cut out the page and sent it to me.’

  He considered this for a few moments. ‘The Crime and Misconduct Commission. Sounds like a good fit for you, Tom. You’ve cut your teeth at the Crown Prosecutor in London, and then there’s the Tower Mill. After what you told me in Singapore, it must rankle that the police were never held to account. That’s why the cmc was set up, to make sure men like Joh don’t get ahead of themselves.’

  ‘I know what the cmc’s for,’ I said sharply, ‘but don’t you see what would happen, Dad? I’d be setting myself up as the avenging angel who rides in to smite ordinary mortals who’d given way to their baser instincts. I’d be seduced by my own righteousness, my own self-importance. That’s precisely what Joh suffered from.’

  He waited until my little tirade had played itself out, then, with his face as hard and serious as I’d ever seen it, he leaned into my ear and said, ‘Tom, if you can say that to me, and to the mirror every morning, then maybe you’re exactly the type who should apply.’

  I didn’t feel up to an answer, not after twenty-four hours spent more inside my head than the cabin of a 747. And not after the brief stop in Sydney, either. ‘A few things are up in the air,’ was all I could manage.

  Dad seemed to think on this in the way I’d seen him come up with an elusive line for one of his poems, and it didn’t surprise me when he said, ‘You know what Auden said about poetry? That it doesn’t make things happen. That’s why I’ll never be more than a scratch on the eyeball of history. But you’re different, Tom, and I think you know it. You’ve spent ten years getting yourself ready for that job, whether you’ll admit it to yourself or not. Why all that postgrad work in London, if you weren’t? You don’t study admin law to put more burglars in gaol.’

  I have a fair idea of how my face must have looked when he said this. I’d seen it often enough in court, that delicious moment when the defendant’s shoulders slouch in the dock because he knows it’s all over, that hard evidence has overwhelmed his barrister’s diversions and it’s only a matter of time before the guilty verdict is handed down. That was me.

  It was what he said next that mattered more, though.

  ‘Tom, if do your best work on the other side of the globe, you won’t make things happen where it means the most to you.’

  ‘So you think I should move home to Brisbane?’

  ‘I’m not the only one who thinks so,’ he said, with a studied glance towards the legal appointments. ‘Finding the right woman’s the big one, Tom. Trust me on that. But it seems to me a few other things have been getting in the way.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that all the way from Heathrow.’

  ‘I can’t tell you whose son you are, mine or Terry’s, or even Susan’s. I can’t tell you to use your Australian passport or your British one, or maybe make up a special one to say Queenslander. I can’t tell you where you belong, Tom, or what you owe to your countrymen once you make up your mind.’

  He went back to his novel, leaving me to stare out of the window, aware that it was still New South Wales below the wings. There was no border marked on the ground, but at some instant in the next half-hour we would cross over, a transition that had once meant so much to me. It did again, though in an entirely different way.

  On a weekend stay
with me during his residency, Dad had visited the National Portrait Gallery to worship his gods, Tennyson, Thomas and Zeus himself, Shakespeare. I’d gone with him.

  ‘All Brits, of course,’ I said, for the want of something to say since he’d drifted into such a euphoric state words seemed beyond him.

  But my timing was poor because we’d just arrived at the large portrait of a woman with hair like windswept mulga, face on the tilt, her body sitting low on a sofa with knees up and her skirt draped informally between her legs. It was a rare woman who would let herself be depicted in such a pose, and Germaine Greer was certainly that. It’s a fabulous portrait, but it was something Dad said while we stood in front of that painting that came to me during those waning moments of our journey.

  ‘Do you remember what you said about old Germaine while we were standing in front of her portrait?’ I asked him.

  He looked up from his book, a little flummoxed. I prompted him with his own words: ‘You said she wasn’t one of us any more. That she’d lived over there so long, she was English, and that was why her portrait was in their national gallery, not ours.’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  He’d forgotten, but I hadn’t.

  Not one of us, and with those words he’d made something shift deep in my guts as though a vital core had been ripped out of me. I never wanted to feel that wrench again, and, as our plane crossed the invisible border below, I knew that I wouldn’t. Without fanfare, without a word of declaration to Dad beside me, the matter seemed settled and the relief that came over me urged the question – Why had it taken so long to work out? Wasn’t I the same man I’d been twenty-four hours ago, when I’d boarded at Heathrow? More than something nameless in my guts had shifted, even if I couldn’t explain what, or why.

  ‘It’s time you and Mum met Hilary,’ I said. ‘She’ll be at the funeral tomorrow. Not exactly an occasion you’d choose for a first meeting,’ I said, with a shrug. ‘You’ll like her, though.’