The change was a bonus in every way. Sean now had his own bank account, which imposed adult responsibilities, his lessons, which provided the mental stimulation he craved, the regular company of the father he loved, which offered the chance of a productive relationship. Rory was soon accompanying Sean on the long bush walks. He even rode the bike with him to the local football, an acknowledgement of respect less tangibly evident when father chauffeured son around like a child. At last, Sean, who wore his dignity with grim determination softened by gentle and sometimes mischievous humour, had compelled Rory to become his father.
She had to wonder – did Rory actually enjoy Sean’s company or was he merely acting out of a belated sense of duty inspired by guilt? Whatever the reason for the change, she hoped time and familiarity would bring about genuine long-term companionship, hoped Rory would value Sean as the loving son he’d always wanted.
By New Year, when Miss Dixon was free to tutor him, Sean was almost past needing her. He was happy, fulfilled, busy, energetic, healthy. Yet the decision had been taken and, at sixteen, they all felt he had more capacity for formal education.
The weekly schedule was rearranged. By his seventeenth birthday he’d become a familiar sight riding his bike to lessons with Miss Dixon in her weatherboard home just off Main Street, working with his father and Tom and Valda in the store. Saturdays were for resting, walking, playing and attending sports events. Sundays, as always, he went to Mass, took his place with the collection team, handed out newsletters, queued for communion and chatted out front with his friends. Only strangers stared. Sean McClure was as integral a member of church and community as anyone else. He was working, learning, contributing, taking his place as any other teenager, markedly even more constructively than some.
Sometimes at Mass, no longer required to restrain him, she sang with the choir. Her clear sweet soprano voice, for too long used only for Sean’s entertainment or to sing along with radio or recorder, had adequately weathered the years. The freedom to sing with others, taken for granted by her fellows in the choir, was almost novel. She’d forgotten the elation of blending her voice with other singers to make beautiful music.
Equally satisfying was the significance of her physical separation from Sean and Rory. Father and son were able to sit together to share the bonding experience of Mass. She need feel no guilt. A very small part of her inner self felt, at last, at peace. On Todd’s rare visits home from university, he and Sean renewed their friendship as though the years had not altered anything. Generally, at these times, Sean spent a week or more at the farm with Todd and his family.
“He’d be wonderful in a farm job,” Fran told her. “He’s great with animals.”
“Rory’s looking around.”
Fran was surprised. “I thought he was okay at the shop.”
“Sure. He’s okay. Rory’s happy to have him there. They actually like each other.”
“So why look for another job?”
“Sean wants what he calls a regular job. Regular kids don’t work for their fathers.”
“Some do,” Fran pointed out. “This is farm country.”
“You know Sean. He wants a regular job; we can’t stop him having a go.”
They’d come to believe that over-protection was to be avoided. Wise parents prepared and then encouraged their children to fly the nest safely.
Chapter Fourteen
The mountains, tinder dry, were close enough to touch. The broad low sweeping plains, tinder dry, were too close. A single careless spark, a lightning strike, a miscalculated burn-off, an unpredicted north wind, any one of a hundred ignitions. Fire was waiting, as it always waited. The too recent tragedies of Ash Wednesday’s fires had reinforced the memories of 1939’s ‘Black Friday horror’. Tasting fear, they once again cleared around the house as well as the roof and guttering; they cleared dead branches, ensured the hoses were attached back and front, reviewed their fire emergency plan. If fire came again, they’d be ready. As ready as anyone was.
“See you, Mum.” Sean waved from the passenger seat.
“We’ll be home on time.” Rory backed into the road.
“See you, Rusty!”
The dog strained on its leash.
She stayed at the gate long after the car had disappeared, then she freed Rusty.
Twenty years old, reliable, steady, afraid of neither responsibility nor hard work, today Sean was taking yet another new step. His father was driving him in to the steady job he’d wanted for so long – stacking, cleaning and labelling at the general store. The manager, having observed his efforts at his father’s shop, had agreed to try him out.
He’d set his own alarm, made his own breakfast, showered, dressed and packed the lunch he’d prepared last night. For the first time, he refused help of any kind. He was a working man going to work. He could get himself ready. His shirt was too thick for what promised to be a warm day. She’d managed to maintain silence. Although she’d frequently had to persuade him to change clothes because he’d misread the weather, he was going to have to learn this, too, from experience.
Back inside the house, the clock ticked off the same interminable minutes in the same desolate emptiness as it had for too many midnight vigils. But this was early morning.
She turned on the radio, dialled through the three available stations – a talk show, pop music, classics. Irrationally irritated, she turned it off. A summer fly buzzed at the back fly-wire door. A single blackbird cawed, the loneliest sound in the bush. She made the beds, washed the dishes, cleaned the house until, again, it shone. By noon it was all done. She made lunch, drank a pot of tea, returned her untouched salad to the fridge and settled to read yet another provocative tome from the obliging library.
The phone taunted.
Reading was impossible. She set the book aside.
Chores waited, jobs she should be doing. She’d done the essentials, there was always more. Gardening, mending, sewing, washing, ironing, cooking, preparations for the evening meal, even silver to be cleaned – a hated rare chore but impossible to avoid. Work was not possible, not today.
She dialled the phone.
The answering voice at the general store was politely incurious. “May I help you?”
She hung up.
Just after one – the afternoon to be lived through. Why wouldn’t he cope? Even the warm shirt was an imagined problem. He almost certainly had a lighter one in his satchel.
She couldn’t read, couldn’t work and, afraid to leave the vicinity of the telephone, wouldn’t walk far from the house. The bed beckoned – to sleep through the hours. She was tired enough. She turned down the quilt, the blankets, stroked the smooth sheets, stripped to her underwear. No deadline to meet, no afternoon school appointment with Sean or Mothers’ Club commitment or meeting with Fran or watching for him cycling home from Miss Dixon’s.
She woke in a lather of sweat, checked the bedside clock – three, mid-afternoon and hot. She slept again, woke at five, prepared tea.
Just after six, Sean raced through the door. “Hi, Mum!”
She’d seen the car and held herself at the sink. “Did you have a good day, love?”
“Great.” He emptied his satchel, threw used lunch papers in the waste bin, pulled out the heavy shirt and took it out to the laundry; he’d changed to a light one.
“No problems?”
“Hell, no. It’s easier than Dad’s.” He disappeared into his bedroom.
“Tea’ll be in half an hour, Sean.”
His blaring television was her only answer.
“Don’t worry so much, Tess.” Rory came in from the garage. “He enjoyed it.”
“Did you ask them how he went?”
“Why?”
“I thought you’d ask.”
“They’ll tell us soon enough if he’s not up to it.”
No problems. Nothing different. Neither Sean nor his father was even mildly excited. Sean had made a tremendous forward stride and they both took it for grant
ed. Obviously neither of them had thought she might not do the same.
She fed them, listened to them talk about tomorrow’s weather, the state of the road, customers they both knew and went to bed early. But not to sleep. At one in the morning, she got up and went to the kitchen window.
High summer and no moon, no clouds, only the starred sky that lit the shimmering grasslands and limned the secret mountains. The world slept, readying itself for dawn, for tomorrow – for today, when she’d catch up on the neglected work.
Though she shouldn’t have slept in the afternoon, now she could listen to the sounds of her home, her family; the creak of dehydrated timber, the possum slithering across the roof, crickets shrilling in the garden, her men snoring. Her family. They didn’t need her any more. A housekeeper could do what she’d be doing later. Not true. They needed her. But not critically. Stop thinking. Listen to the night.
Breakfast – they served themselves. They needed to be self-sufficient. She needed to feign sleep but was dressed in time to farewell them at the gate.
“See you, Mum.” Sean waved from the passenger seat.
“We’ll be home on time.” Rory backed into the road.
“See you, Rusty!”
Cooking, house cleaning, making beds, sewing, washing, mending, weekly shopping, gardening, preserving fruit, making jams and pickles, cleaning the silver – work to fill the empty hours.
Weekends as always they went to the football, cricket, Mass. Or Sean stayed with Fran. Or Rory stayed in town, in the flat above the shop. Days – weeks – wash their clothes, iron their clothes, clean their house, cook their food – sleep – dream – sleep – days – weeks – nothing more to fight for. All done. Bleakly into autumn, stripped branches, frosted grass, Rusty creaking into old age – sleeping his days to death.
Rusty sleeping to death. Rheumatism had crippled the dog, pain plagued him. In June, the vet put him down. Sean mourned, but accepted. Bush people know. Bush people accept. She turned off the radio, turned down the quilt, cried into the sodden pillow. Someone should cry for Rusty. She slept.
Winter. Freezing. Sean and Rory driving to work before she woke, before she roused to farewell them at the gate. Sean and Rory coming home to hot soup, thick stews, steaming puddings, watching telly, sleeping. Sleeping to death.
Fridays, no matter what the weather, she rode the bike into town, spent the housekeeping allowance at the general store, arranged delivery to Rory, waved to Sean – usually diligently stacking shelves. Occasionally she stretched the allowance to buy a luxury – a blouse, a scarf. Asking Rory for more was not an option. Business had deteriorated, the store barely turning over enough to keep it open. Small towns were dying; people were shopping in regional cities, in Roland.
He’d survived the first winter working full time. There was no reason to believe he’d not survive many more; he’d flourish through the winters and the summers to come. At least for longer than the doomsayers had foretold. The medicos had predicted early death. The educators had predicted illiteracy. The social workers social incompetency. Sean had defied them. But not at first. At first, she’d defied them on his behalf. He hadn’t let her down.
At last, he’d celebrated his twenty-first. Fran had arranged a family party on the farm, a happy affair where the youngsters had danced and the elders had talked – and watched and listened and smiled. There’d been cards from Beth, from the handful of aunts and uncles who’d remained in contact, a telephone call from Monica and assurances of a long-term job from the manager of the general store.
Gravely celebrating the responsibility of his official adult status, he’d taken over the job of buying the food. Why, he asked, should his mother have to ride into town through frost and fog and rain and heat when he could shop from the store himself? She didn’t object.
She could begin to hope that maybe the dire forecasts had been wrong on all counts. Maybe his good health would last. She could stop waiting. She didn’t have to fill the empty days while she waited to become a nurse, a carer, an advocate again. Sean had grown past needing her. Rory had grown past wanting her. Beth was well past needing her. The empty days no longer needed to be limited to family. The empty days were her days. She could fill them as she wanted to. Singing. She could sing. In middle age? Too late to learn or perform. Not too late to be of use and to use the skills she already had.
Following Sunday Mass, she asked about the choir. When did they practise? Now that she had more time, could she practise with them? She could, but choir practice was in the evenings. Not possible, the nights were not empty. If she had spare days, would she be interested in enrolling on the church cleaning roster? Sorry, but also not possible; her life needed to be filled with something more inspiring than cleaning. Until boredom and frustration changed her mind.
The small weatherboard church smelled of polish and incense and candle wax and stale flowers and dust. Usually she worked with a rostered partner, one of a number – piously naive middle-aged women who genuflected often, spoke in respectful whispers, laughed in softly respectful giggles and with whom she had absolutely nothing in common. She deeply admired them, even felt strong affection for them; but she could not emulate them. Naivety had long been alien. Occasionally she worked alone.
Surprisingly, the work was fulfilling. At Sunday Mass, from her place in the choir, she could look out over highly polished pews and gleaming brass and glistening silver and fresh flowers – and know she’d contributed to this beauty. She could sing the hymns and know she was contributing to this beauty too. She could see her men and know she’d contributed to their happiness. She could hear Sean’s heartily discordant voice underpinning the generally harmonious congregation and feel only happiness. For him. For Rory.
Until the weekly homily. Then she looked out at the trusting faces and the bored faces and the sceptical faces and the blatantly sleeping eyes and she wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
The world was falling apart. In Rome, there’d been three popes within a matter of months. Pope John Paul had survived his attempted assassination. He’d spoken out for trade unions. He’d forgiven his attacker. Regardless of local political allegiances he was travelling the world as no pope had ever done, had ever been able to do. He was travelling a world where violence was rife, attempted assassination endemic and successful assassination escalating. The world was shrinking and each new outrage was a universal headline few could be unaware of.
Meanwhile the geriatric priest shakily holding himself up at St. Joseph’s lectern was preaching the same ritualistic homily she’d been listening to all her life – regulated, as ever, by seasonal requirements. He was regurgitating old irrational stories irrationally believed. He was reducing beautiful, potentially stimulating parables of love and forgiveness to simplistic platitudes, at the cost of his shrinking congregation’s spiritual growth.
Each Sunday, in the single opportunity for modern relevance the Mass allowed, the jaded old man harked back to tired old stories and devitalised parables and ignored life as the people in his congregation were living it. What about the war in the Falklands? What about persecution? What about the massacre in the refugee camps of Beirut? By Christian militia! What about the war-ravaged men back from Vietnam? What about the few young people in his dwindling congregation, young people whose entire lives had been overshadowed by violence? Where were the young priests?
Where were the young people? They were not fighting. The fighting was over – at least for young Australians and at least for now. But the young had inherited a terrible legacy. The new generation was not like their naïve parents and grandparents. They were asking questions, they were protesting. They were protesting as her father, had he been born into their generation, would be protesting.
The world had shrunk and the young people were arguing. Some were taking action. Young people were relinquishing well-paid jobs to serve in international aid organisations – as the young people of the church always had. But the call that had once been rel
igious was now pragmatic. The call was not to convert, but to feed and to heal.
The media had reported the charge of murder against Father Gore by the Filipinos he’d gone to serve, the murder of nuns in South America, Mother Theresa’s work and honours. They’d researched and reported long-repressed abuses and crimes against Australian Aborigines, against women and children and men and even abuses of people with disabilities.
Violation of human rights stories were daily, hourly, Australian news. Young people were thinking more deeply, more rationally, more responsibly and in increasing numbers. Young people were, as well, becoming dangerously frustrated in increasing numbers.
Charismatic John Paul had declared, ‘People have a right to join free trade unions. It is a right given by the Creator.’
A promising liberal advance? If so, what about her rights? Would the church and its liberal pope change the rules on the equality of women? Would they tolerate women priests! The bland weekly homily was not only soporific ritual, it totally failed to acknowledge in any way the complexities inherent in its message of love.
What did she expect? Want? Need? Did she want politics from the pulpit? Or comfort? Or false hope? Or…? She should pray.
Parking the bike by the side wall, she collected the key from its hiding place under a pot plant and opened the church door. She hadn’t planned to clean it today; she needed to. The media was screaming the latest violence. Six killed and ten wounded in Hoddle Street Melbourne – massacre by a lone civilian! He wasn’t the first and time was showing he wouldn’t be the last. Fear was walking once peaceful, once safe, communities. Universally. The world was galloping into madness. The world was at her breakfast table, in her house, in the posters outside the shops, on the pocket radio she carried. There was no escape.
The church smelled of dust and tired incense and the faintest perfume of the fading flowers; the cleaning team wasn’t due until week’s end. She started on the flowers, emptying the dying blooms into the waste bins, pouring the precious water on the stunted front garden. No point in dusting surfaces today; the dust would be thick again by Friday. No point in polishing silver and brass; the glow would be dimmed by Friday.
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