by Joy Dettman
Uncle John would, but he was only two years younger than Robert.
‘You’re thinking about it?’ Chris said.
‘I’m thinking that Mum and Dad don’t know I’ve been seeing you again, and that I’d prefer not to tell them.’
‘Fly up for the weekend and we’ll tell them together,’ he said.
Spit it out. I had a son to Morrie. Say it and get it over with.
Didn’t. Left the spa and dressed, took a tram home.
*
On the Tuesday night before he flew to Sydney, he came to her door still clad in his workday business suit and tie. He looked at his best in a business suit. He had a pleasant face, still enough hair, dark, curling a little. She didn’t love him, but look where love had got her. She liked him. Knew she could have a good, stable life with him.
Wasn’t free to have that good stable life with anyone.
She made coffee, her brand of coffee out of a supermarket jar. He made his coffee from beans ground fresh, then brewed it in an electric percolator, and in more pleasant surroundings. The laminex surface of her tiny table was marked by newsprint. She hadn’t noticed it until she placed his coffee down.
‘I’m not much of a housekeeper,’ she said.
‘It’s not much of a house to keep,’ he replied with a smile. ‘It seems smaller than I remember.’
‘It is small.’
‘I took the liberty of booking a seat for you on Friday night.’
‘I can’t.’
‘A more pressing engagement?’
‘I’m not ready to tell them, Chris. Promise me you won’t contact them while you’re up there.’
He’d had them on side two years ago. Myrtle had damn near been in love with him. He’d got on well with Robert.
He studied her face for a moment, then lifted his briefcase to the table. ‘I wasn’t intending to raise the subject again this evening, but . . .’ He removed a catalogue of display houses, which opened readily at a page displaying a very fine house and its floor plan. ‘The block has been vacant for too many years,’ he said.
She concentrated her attention on the floor plan. Three toilets: one in the bathroom; one off the main bedroom; one out back, accessible to a built-in pool and spa.
‘It’s big,’ she said.
‘It can be yours. Ours. Our children’s.’
One room was marked Study or fifth bedroom. She wanted that study and an electric typewriter; wanted to retire from teaching; wanted to put an entire year into writing. Wanted a fluffy black and white border collie pup too and he didn’t like dogs. There’d be no room left in his backyard for a dog – and you don’t marry a man for his study or fifth bedroom. And he’d withdraw his proposal fast if she told him about Robin.
‘How many times do I have to say it? You’re a good friend, Chris, the best.’
‘We’re much more than friends,’ he said and took a tiny maroon velvet box from his briefcase, a familiar box. She knew what was inside it. Diamond earring studs she’d worn until . . . until Morrie.
Stood. Walked to the sink to look out. My fault for going to bed with him. Shouldn’t have done it. Just following Marion’s orders and now look what I’ve done.
And even if she were to seriously consider marrying him, even if she were free to seriously consider it, the Pope wouldn’t allow it.
‘You’re a Catholic,’ she said, grasping at straws.
‘We worked through that two years ago.’
They had. He opened the maroon box – beautiful sparkling things. Narcissistic too – had to look in a mirror to admire them. She sighed, and wanted a smoke. Sighed again.
‘I married him, Chris.’
‘You married who?’
‘Morrie – back in June of ’69. Your church, your family, don’t recognise divorce.’
He was taken aback. He closed the box, placed it back into his briefcase. ‘Helen and Michael aren’t aware of a marriage.’
‘We were married at two o’clock beside his dying mother’s bed and we separated before midnight. An eight-hour marriage wasn’t worth broadcasting.’
‘Cara, Cara, Cara,’ he said, then, glancing at his watch, stood. ‘I have a plane to catch. We’ll discuss it when I return.’
‘Have a good trip,’ she said.
She didn’t rise to see him out. Watched his back to the door, then out the door, watched the door close. But he changed his mind and knocked.
‘Was the marriage annulled?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘There were complications.’
He looked at his watch. A punctual man, he’d allowed X amount of minutes to her, and he’d overstayed his allocation. He wasted a few seconds more with a kiss.
‘I’ll call you,’ he said, and she closed the door.
He’d forgotten his catalogue; or perhaps not forgotten it. He wasn’t the type to forget anything. She leafed through the book, admiring the many fine houses, but thinking not of houses but of Myrtle and Robert, who would have been delighted had they known that Chris had forgiven her. Marriage to a responsible man was their idea of happily ever after. At the cousin’s wedding, one of his sisters had seemed happy enough to welcome her back into the fold. Probably desperate to see him married, to have a house next door instead of a vacant paddock.
He wouldn’t want me to work. I could put a year into writing.
Balancing Act was ready to be posted off again. Rusty was on her desk. She’d planned to write a new synopsis tonight then post both to Jim Hooper’s publisher, let them know that she wasn’t a one-book author.
And why keep wasting money posting bulky manuscripts – with cheques for return postage – when she knew in her heart they’d use those cheques to return her novels? Had to do something different with her life, something positive, or in thirty years’ time she’d still be sitting here posting off manuscripts no one wanted to publish.
The Pope recognised annulments; she knew that much. Had probably left it too late to get it annulled. What if it wasn’t too late, if her mistake could be wiped out? Chris would know if anyone knew, and he probably had an uncle or a cousin who worked for the Pope.
Robin.
Most two-toothed babies were cute, but Robin was no longer two-toothed. Cathy’s Timothy would turn two in December and he was a demanding, screaming, foot-stamping brat.
What if . . . if she flew up there on Friday and took Chris out to Amberley? He’d either run for the hills or see Robin as proof that she was fertile. Did the Pope condone annulments if there had been issue from the marriage . . . ?
What a bloody mess. What a hopeless bloody mess.
What if Robin had been conceived out of wedlock? Would that make any difference?
And what the hell was she thinking about anyway?
*
He rang at ten thirty to let her know that he’d arrived in Sydney and to give her two contact numbers.
‘Did you cancel that Friday night flight, Chris?’
‘I’ll get the girl onto it tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Don’t. I changed my mind.’
‘Good girl,’ he said.
*
The plane was an hour late loading, then it taxied out to the runway, turned around, taxied back and unloaded. It wasn’t fated, and she didn’t want to fly on it anyway. Knew its motor would blow up while it was in the air. Three-quarters of an hour later, they filed on board again. Her seat was on the wing, and she waited for it to fall off all the way to Sydney. It made weird noises before it landed but it did.
Took a taxi to Amberley. Late when she got there. Let herself in, tiptoed to her room – his room – in the dark, in bare feet – as she had at fifteen. No Myrtle and Robert waiting to pounce tonight. No lights left burning. She could hear him breathing. For minutes she stood in the dark, case in hand, listening to him breathe.
Hadn’t told Myrtle she was coming in case she changed her mind again. Should have told them. No sheets on her bed. She slept on the mattress protector beneath prickl
y blankets, unwilling to disturb the house looking for sheets.
He found her at six. He’d climbed from his cot and she awoke to him standing alongside the bed, staring at her. He didn’t know her, but didn’t bawl for Nanny. She lay there, waiting for his siren, but perhaps flat on her back she didn’t appear threatening.
Watched for a while. He watched her back. He had more hair and beautiful blue eyes.
Didn’t move, afraid he’d yell. Didn’t speak, but started singing, softly. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.’ Missing Mummy sang that song when Myrtle gave him the telephone. ‘How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high . . .’
And he raised his little hands up above the world so high, and tears rushed her. Her hands wanted to reach out and hold him, but she lay still, her throat choking her. Like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. Covered her mouth, sucked air through her fingers while her vision blurred.
‘Dawoobybed,’ he said, finger pointing.
As he’d started the conversation, she replied. ‘Beautiful boy.’
Sat up then, very slowly, afraid he’d bellow as Timothy bellowed. He stepped back, but no siren.
‘Indadwoobybed.’
In need of a translator, she altered the subject. ‘Do you still like Weet-Bix?’
‘Nannaweetabit,’ he said.
That required no translation. ‘Mummy can make Weet-Bix. Will Mummy and Robbie have some Weet-Bix?’
She’d slept in her bra and briefs. He watched, interested, as she pulled on jeans and a sweater, slid her feet into walking shoes. She offered her hand then and he took it. Swamped by feelings she didn’t recognise, she walked blind to the kitchen.
Closed the parlour door, closed the kitchen door, and he put his arms up to be lifted into his high chair. She lifted him, held him, smelled his hair, her own, though a lighter shade of gold. Quickly then she sat him on his high chair and turned to the cupboard that held the Weet-Bix. Made breakfast for two, and when she offered him a spoon his eyes told her that it wasn’t the right spoon, or perhaps not the right thing to do. He knew what to do with that spoon and the Weet-Bix.
She’d never been fond of cereal. At fourteen she’d named Myrtle’s Weet-Bix blocks dry chaff. Milk turned chaff to mush, but that morning she ate mush with her beautiful boy, who for that one meal belonged to her.
Big mess to clean up when he was done, and, as she lifted him from his chair, his soggy nappy, too weighty to hold its position, slid to his ankles. She lifted him from it and he kicked his feet free, and chuckled when she picked it up with finger and thumb to drop it into the bathroom basin.
A search of her dressing table drawers exposed a pair of romper pants. She sat him on her bed to get them over his tiny feet, to pull them over his bottom. His little legs looked like a little boy’s legs, like the legs of little Jimmy of the sailor suit.
The romper pants weren’t right though. He told her so; and when she didn’t understand his explanation, he pulled at his lightly clad bottom, babbling his disapproval.
‘Shush,’ she said, finger to her lips. ‘Nanny’s asleep.’
He put his little finger to his own lips.
Found socks and shoes, a blue hand-knitted cardigan, and they crept out the front door and went for a walk up the hill, where they met a woman walking her long-haired retriever. Inquisitive, investigative retriever. Given any excuse to sweep that little boy into her arms, Cara did, and he clung to her neck.
‘He’s too friendly,’ the woman said.
‘He’s still a pup,’ Cara said, and turned and walked back with the woman and the dog, her boy riding on her hip. She’d carried the bulge of the unknown before her for months, weighed down by it. Today, his weight was as nothing.
‘He’s got his mummy’s hair,’ the stranger said.
‘He’s got his daddy’s mouth and legs,’ Cara said.
They gave the dog a pat before they parted at the gate, then crept inside again, to Nanny and Papa’s bedroom doorway. They were still sleeping. Fingers again to lips, they closed Nanny and Papa’s door then crept back to the kitchen to draw puppy dogs on Nanny’s shopping list, and pussycats too, with long tails, and many things he could name, or make a good attempt to name.
Robert wandered out at eight thirty, shocked to see her in the kitchen and more shocked by the time. Myrtle slept on.
They had a puddle to wipe up from the kitchen floor, but plenty of romper pants in the dressing table drawer.
‘Blue pants,’ Cara said. ‘They’re blue. Can you say blue?’
‘Boo,’ he said, and Myrtle slept on while Cara claimed that beautiful boy as her own – claimed him until ten, when Nanny came in a rush from the bedroom. He knew who he belonged to and ran to greet her.
At six Cara met Chris at his hotel, Robin, not Chris, on her mind that night. She was enamoured of him, obsessed by him.
Chris ordered dinner in his room. They ate with a notepad between them. He wanted the exact details of her eight-hour marriage, asked for how long she and Morrie had cohabited.
‘We didn’t. On our wedding night he told me something I couldn’t live with, then he left, and left me to find my own way home. I told you, we were married for eight hours – from two o’clock until around midnight.’
‘You’ve seen him since?’
‘His mother died a few days after the wedding. I saw him at the funeral.’
‘You drive his vehicle.’
‘As said previously, I have a vacant parking space and a licence. He had to leave the car somewhere.’
‘You correspond?’
‘He writes occasionally. I don’t reply.’
Posting him a copy of Jim Hooper’s centenary book didn’t count as correspondence.
‘Was I correct in my initial observation – that he swung a little left of centre?’
She sighed. ‘No.’
‘The marriage was consummated?’
Before the wedding, after the wedding – and in my dreams.
‘Barely,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t fly up here to be given the third degree.’
‘A marriage unconsummated would, without question, be considered null and void.’
He waited for her reply, his dark eyes pleading with her to take the easy road. Would have if she could have. Couldn’t. Robin had been registered as the son of Morrison Langdon.
‘I slept with him, Chris. For the week before we married, he stayed with me at the flat.’
He eyed her, his mind no doubt sifting through those final days of June ’69, attempting to work out if she’d gone from his bed to Morrie’s. For minutes, he busied himself with his notes.
‘He told you something on your wedding night you were unable to live with. Can you be specific?’
If anyone could wipe out that marriage, Chris could. It had to be undone. But if he got it undone, he’d expect her to marry him.
Would she swap Robin for him? No.
‘Why has the farce been allowed to continue so long?’ he asked.
‘I told you, there were complications. And remarrying has been the last thing on my mind – and still is, Chris.’
‘Don’t allow one bad experience to cast its shade over the rest of your life.’ He emptied his wine glass, then again took up his pen. ‘Was he involved in criminal activities?’
‘No,’ she sighed. She wanted a smoke and couldn’t have one. She sighed again then told him Morrie’s version of why the marriage hadn’t survived their wedding night.
‘His mother was dying, his father was well on the way to senility, and they were trustees to Morrie’s grandfather’s estate, which he was to inherit on his thirtieth birthday or when he married. He was desperate to marry me before his mother died. I’d been in love with him for years. I didn’t argue, and at the time I had no knowledge of his grandfather, his inheritance, or much else about him. He lived in England. We wrote long letters, but I was lucky to see him twice in a year.’
As she relayed the tale, the fiction writer almost believed her own words.
He believed. ‘The complication?’
‘He’s got a ghoul of an aunt, his mother’s sister. In the event of his mother’s death, the aunt was to become guardian of the estate until he turned thirty – or married. Had the marriage been annulled immediately, she would have had him in court for the past two years.’
‘Isn’t that carrying loyalty a little too far, Cara?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You’re still in love with him?’
I’m in love with his son.
She looked him in the eye, determined to say no. Couldn’t.
‘I’ll take your lack of reply as a “yes”.’
‘He’s on his side of the ocean and I’m on mine. My lack of reply was meant to signify that your question doesn’t deserve a reply. As stated earlier, I came here to eat, not to be given the third degree. Can we change the subject?’
He closed his notepad. ‘So, what have you done with your week?’
‘Posted two manuscripts up here on Thursday, then looked at an electric typewriter. They cost big money.’
‘Of the thousands of novels written each year, few make it as far as the publisher’s desk,’ he said.
‘Mine will – one day.’
She didn’t share his hotel bed; didn’t allow him to drive her home in his company-supplied car either. She took a taxi to Amberley to share a room with her son, and woke again to him on Sunday morning. He’d taken his own napkin off. But Myrtle must have caught up on her sleep. She came to the door and took charge.
She knew Cara had met Chris for dinner, and over breakfast her eyes asked the question.
‘He is looking into having the marriage annulled.’ That’s all Cara had to say about her dinner date.
She learned what she’d done wrong with the spoon the previous morning. Myrtle still spoon-fed Robin his Weet-Bix. Less mess to clean up when he was done. Maybe that’s what life was about – making less mess.
Left her beautiful boy at two. Left him in Myrtle’s arms. Waved to him from the taxi, aware she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.