‘Dad, I need to ask you something. Not about you and Mum. About something else.’
There is silence. I can feel him bracing himself and I know that he will not be expecting me to move from interrogating him about Mum to asking questions about Emily. But I sense that now, with his guard down, with his frankness about his flaws, it might be the best time to ask him about the secrets he has tried so hard to hide. I need to understand why her death was so hard for him to face and why he had to hide the truth from me.
‘I have found out that Aunt Emily killed herself. And I just want to know why you never told me.’
He takes a moment to answer. I sense his discomfort but I give him no ground and wait until he finally speaks. ‘It was a very unhappy incident in my life. When someone you love takes their own life you are left with a lifetime of wondering what you could have done to have stopped it. There may have been a part of me that wanted to protect you from such unpleasant events but it has always been a very hard thing for me to deal with. That’s why I never talk about it.’
My father sounds defeated. I’m unsure of what to say next. It is the first time he has revealed so much of himself to me. Until Professor Young’s death I had known no one who had committed suicide. It must be one thing to deal with a death that is accidental but different to deal with one that is intentional. Did that explain the anger I had seen in Professor Young’s daughter at the memorial service? Did it go some way to explaining why his family did not want his book of poetry? Death must always bring with it grief, sadness and regrets. Wondering what could have been done to prevent the death of someone you love must be a terrible burden. Death draws a curtain down on everything. There is no time to say what is unsaid.
I remember the scrapbook that Patricia had shown me with the newspaper clipping of the interview where, when asked how he would spend his last night on earth, my father said it would be with me. My anger ebbs away completely.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’ He sounds wary, as if readying for another assault from me.
‘Are you okay?’
He sounds surprised. ‘I’ve been better. But I’m doing all right under the circumstances.’
Nan has stirred. She walks past me towards the kitchen.
I look at Emily’s photograph. Even in the dimness of early light I can see how much she looks like my father. And at this moment, I no longer feel like judging him.
‘I love you, Dad.’
‘I love you, too.’ He sounds confused. Perhaps relieved. But I know he means it.
I hang up and walk to the kitchen.
‘I made a cup of tea,’ Nan says. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, a cup in front of her. An empty cup sits beside the pot for me. ‘I know he’s not perfect but I love him. Even with his faults he is a good man. And I’m not just saying that because I’m his mother.’
‘I know, Nan,’ I say meekly. I sit down next to her. ‘And I’m not just saying that because I’m his daughter.’
‘I understand why you’re mad at him. I want to give him a kick in the pants most of the time myself.’ She smiles and I grin back at her. ‘But,’ she becomes more serious and points a finger at me, ‘despite that, he does deserve your respect. We can’t abandon him just because he’s not perfect.’
‘I think I am starting to understand that too, Nan.’
A week and a half later, when I leave Nan’s for the long drive home, I pass through the town but instead of staying on the highway I find my way down to the river, near the weir. I park in the meadow and follow the well-worn path down to the riverbank.
I look around and I wonder where it happened. There is no one around but there is plenty of movement. The wind plays with the leaves in the tall gum trees. The birds chatter and fuss. The cicadas and crickets sing in the stifling heat.
I sit down on the long grass. I listen and wait. I don’t know what I am hoping to find. You need time to feel a place, to know what it’s telling you. I’m at a disadvantage because the land speaks differently in the day to how it speaks in the night. It has a different spirit. In the light, it bustles with intention. It moves at night too, but it is more thoughtful. Places that seem peaceful in the day, you can almost hear them weeping in the dark.
But I do sense something unsettling. Much would have happened here. Although I am the only one here at this moment, I know all sorts of things go on at places like this along the river - children playing, fathers and sons fishing, girls sunbaking, flirting with boys, people falling in love, having first kisses. But then, in the dark, there are the evil spirits, the mi-mi men, Nan would call them. And somewhere here there are parts of Emily, a part of my father, my grandmother, perhaps even myself, left here because of the events of that one night.
Patricia Tyndale had been right. I felt renewed after my three weeks with Nan. Even with my parents’ separation, I feel a serenity I have not felt before. As I leave the town, the loose gravel of the roads crunching under my tyres, I am grateful that there’s a nine-hour drive back to the city. Time to collect my thoughts. To think. To enjoy the silences.
34
Over the past few weeks, Rachel has turned her meeting with Patricia Tyndale over and over in her mind, especially after Tony had turned up with an overnight bag, announcing that he had left Beth Ann. ‘She knows about us,’ he had said.
‘Did Simone tell her?’ was Rachel’s first reaction.
‘No. Seems she kept it to herself. I told her. I told her about us.’
His arrival on her doorstep and clear intention to move in made her anxious. They’d gone through the facade of Christmas. The ludicrousness of their situation became most apparent when she took Tony home for lunch at her parents’ place. After all, she couldn’t leave him brooding in the apartment. Simone had chosen to spend the day with her mother and had only committed to ‘perhaps’ drop by for dinner.
Her parents were pleasant with Tony, asked polite questions, made him feel welcome. But she could see that look - of worry, concern, disappointment - when they arrived. He so much older; she so young. Her mother’s hug when she left was just slightly longer than usual, her father less at ease.
But even before then, when Tony had taken her out publicly, everyone had stared. She was convinced there was whispering behind their backs. She didn’t like the attention and wanted to shrink from it. Tony must have sensed it too. He went out less and less. ‘Let’s skip this one,’ he would say as an engagement loomed.
And now, as the new year approached, she felt the time had come to act. She had always had a kind of superstition that the tone of New Year’s Eve sets the path for the rest of the year. There was no point in putting it off.
She’d had a dream the night before that she was lying in her bed and she had rolled off and Tony had rolled on top of her and was crushing her. She woke up with a start, catching her breath.
She’d rehearsed what she wanted to say. How Tony would respond was unknown and anticipating his reaction made her stomach tighten with anxiety. Always best to do it in the morning, she’d read somewhere. Then there is the rest of the day for other arrangements to be made. She’d already prepared.
She looked at him across the table strewn with the remains of breakfast. He was handsome, the grey streaks of hair and the lines made him more so, she had always thought. Yes, she loved him. But not enough. Not for right now. Not enough to choose this as her life. She counted to ten and took a deep breath.
‘Tony, we need to talk,’ she said.
‘What about?’ he answered warily, looking up from his paper.
‘Tony, I didn’t want you to leave your wife for me. It wasn’t the deal we had from the start.’
‘But things have changed from where we started. It’s different now.’
‘Look Tony, I made a mistake in getting involved with you. Not a mistake, that’s not right. You are an amazing man and I love you. I’ll always love you. But this relationship with you is not the best thing for me right now. And I don’t think i
t is what is best for you either,’ she added more quietly.
Tony looked stunned, as though she had sliced a knife through him. Then a cloud came over his face. His eyes became smaller, squinting. His jaw set hard.
‘How dare you,’ he thundered. ‘How dare you do this to me. Don’t you know who I am? I’ll finish you. You’ll never get a job in this town again. You’ll be fucking nothing. Fucking nothing.’
The slam of Tony’s fist on the bench top was forceful. The plates, cutlery and jam jars all rattled in its wake.
An unexpected calm came over Rachel. ‘It’s already over,’ she said softly.
‘I’ll finish you at work. I’ll finish you around this town.’
‘That’s what I meant, Tony. I’m already finished. I know that. I knew that the day your daughter saw us in your office. The way she looked at me. She knew - about you and me. And she will only ever see me as being where I am because I slept with you. Your colleagues will never take me seriously either. They’re not interested in anything I say, what I have to offer, because they know I’ve slept with you. I topped seven classes at uni. I almost got the University Medal. But those guys you work with - and your daughter - will never be able to see past the fact that I had an affair with you.’
‘I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t mean it.’ Tony quietened, his initial panic replaced with resignation. ‘I need you.’
A smile slipped onto her face. ‘Tony, I would make you miserable.’ She knew that breaking up with him would also mean having to find a new job. It highlighted the enormity of her mistake.
Patricia Tyndale had given her a great gift: the strength to know that she could make her own path without anyone else’s approval or endorsement, on her own terms, her way. Aboriginal people judge you on what you do … you will gain acceptance when you prove yourself. You do not need the approval of others to be Aboriginal.
If she didn’t start again now, it would be too late.
35
‘So I’m an orphan,’ I say.
‘Your parents aren’t dead, drama queen,’ Patricia says.
‘Their marriage is,’ I retort and watch Patricia’s lips purse.
Tanya and I are sitting at Patricia’s table. The balcony door’s open and we can hear the street noise from below. A gritty, light breeze drifts through.
‘Were you surprised?’ Tanya asks.
‘Actually, I was. I just never thought Mum would kick him out. Dad’s made it look as though he left but she told him to get out when she found out about the affair. She kind of surprised me. And I like this new Mum. She’s really determined.’
‘More power to her,’ Tanya says. ‘That will show him and his little squeeze.’
Unexpectedly, Patricia rises. ‘Do you think Rachel Miles would have been so vulnerable to being seduced by a man old enough to be her father if girls like you had been friendly and supportive rather than turning your spoilt noses up at her?’
She glares at us and, without looking at the cigarette packet, stretches out her arm and swoops it up, stalking out to the balcony. She closes the sliding door behind her.
Tanya and I look at each other.
‘Ouch,’ Tanya says, trying to make the mood lighter, but neither of us feel like laughing.
‘You can always tell when she has the shits because she smokes outside. Any other time she is happy to puff away here,’ I say.
‘It is a strange concept that we should feel sympathy for the woman who broke your mum and dad up,’ Tanya observes.
‘Well, since Dad moved in with the little squ …’ I stop myself. ‘Since Dad moved in with Rachel, I have to confess, I do feel a bit sorry for her.’
‘Really?’
‘I can’t explain it but I do.’
Tanya smiles. ‘It sure took your mind off other things.’
‘I haven’t mentioned what’s-his-name in a very long time and I don’t intend to start now.’
‘I know. And I’m proud of you.’
‘I’m proud of you too, getting over that other what’s-his-name.’
‘Better off without him.’
‘So you say now. But I’m glad to hear it. There are more important things to worry about.’
‘Like what?’ she grins.
But I want to be serious. ‘You know that book Professor Young sent me before he died?’
She nods.
‘And how he sent a note with it?’ I pull the folded paper out of my wallet and read aloud. ‘… a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.’ I fold the paper up. ‘It’s from a book called The Plague, a novel about facing an untimely death and not knowing how to deal with it. I’ve been really puzzled about why he wrote that phrase and what it means.’
‘And?’
‘And I finally think I understand. It’s not about craving to have “the warmth and wonder of a loving heart” that loves you but to have “the warmth and wonder of a loving heart” to be able to love others. That’s what it means. That must be the message Professor Young was giving me. Maybe he lost his ability to love others. I don’t know. Maybe that’s the reason why his daughter was so angry with him when he died. But I know I don’t want to lose it.’
‘How could you? You have a really big heart. You’re always in love.’
‘I have a heart that has been quick to fall in love with ideals, with fantasies, but I’ve never been as willing to love realities.’
‘Wow. You learnt all that at your Nan’s place?’
‘Yeah.’ I smile back at her. ‘I had a lot of time to think. And you know what else I found out?’
‘What?’
‘My Nan is not as deaf as she likes to pretend she is.’ The balcony door slides open and Patricia joins us again at the table. ‘Well, have you two been reflecting on the errors of your ways?’
‘You could say that. And we were just about to discuss when I’ll go back to my studies. It’s time for me to return to Boston.’
‘You know that we’re proud of you for what you are doing. We never had those chances. But,’ she gives me a piercing look and taps a finger on the table, ‘it’s what you do when you get back that will be important. That’s what we’re waiting to see.’
Tanya and I eye each other. She winks. We are used to Patricia’s lectures about our shortcomings and brace ourselves for another one.
‘I’m not one of those people who thinks that you can learn more from real life than you can learn from books. I’m one of those people who believes you can learn from both. So I am not concerned that you have your head in a book all the time, Simone, but it does concern me when you are not reflective enough about what you are learning from real life.’
Tanya gives me a look that attempts, with sarcastic seriousness, to agree with her.
Patricia catches it, looks at Tanya, looks at me and then back at Tanya.
‘You two are little shits,’ she snaps.
Suddenly, I start laughing. Tanya starts too. Unexpectedly, Patricia joins in with her thick, throaty laugh.
36
‘When was it that you women decided to be so independent?’ Tony asked.
‘About the same time you decided you didn’t want to be denied things just because you were black,’ Patricia replied, reaching for the bottle of wine.
‘Why do I come here thinking you’ll give me some sympathy?’
‘I always know you are desperate when you turn up on my doorstep. You only come to me when you’re really in trouble and because you know I’ll tell you the truth. Everyone else feeds you bullshit.’
Patricia topped Tony’s glass up.
‘Your daughter was here yesterday with her friend Tanya.’
Tony looked glum.
‘She judges me, you know.’
‘I gave her a lecture about that.’
‘Well, it didn’t seem to do much good.’
‘She’s going back to her studies.’
Tony seemed to cheer. ‘That’s something.’
‘I’ve never known someone to adore their father the way she adores you.’
‘Not lately.’
‘She’s hurt but she’s come a long way. What you put her through is not an easy thing for a daughter to come to terms with.’
‘I know. But it hasn’t been easy for me to come to terms with either.’
‘That’s just like you, to turn yourself into the victim.’ Patricia smiled and then took a sip from her glass and eyed him. ‘You’re a show pony, Tony Harlowe. Always were. But you’re decent too. Underneath that ego is a good man. And you can’t hide that.’
‘That’s about the nicest thing you have ever said to me.’
‘Well, don’t get too comfortable. I’m not one of those people who get silly over your charms.’
Tony turned on his wicked grin. ‘There was one night when you succumbed to them.’
‘Don’t go overstating one small kiss when we were children. And besides I was probably drunk.’ Patricia stood grabbing the empty wine bottle on the table. ‘Looks like we’ll need another one of these if you are going to start getting sentimental.’
She avoided Tony’s gaze as she busied herself in the kitchen. She cut up some cheese and bread and foraged in her cupboards for more food.
‘It’s all I have for a surprise visitor,’ she said as she placed the plates on the table.
Tony’s mood was pleasant but quiet. He was looking down at his hands. He seemed smaller, older.
‘What happened to the girl?’ Patricia asked as she sat back down.
‘She kicked me out. Then she packed up her office and left the Legal Service.’ Tony looked down at his wine. ‘I can’t believe she kicked me out before New Year’s Eve.’
‘Yeah, no better way to start the New Year than with a kiss from someone who is secretly hoping to see the back of you.’ She gave Tony her best signature wry smile.
‘I hate it when you’re right.’
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