by S. J. Finn
‘Everybody saw it!’
‘We’re adults. We were in a pub, for God’s sake.’
‘Have some consideration.’
‘For what? The fact you’ve just told me this is your town, as if all lesbians should be moved on so you can walk around without fear of bumping into one?’ (I’m prone to ebullient speeches if I’m stressed. My mother has the same tendency, and, although I haven’t consciously followed in her footsteps, I’m not exempt, unfortunately, from doing just that.)
‘I’m just relaying what they said. That it was gross, over the top.’
I shrugged challengingly, looking at him nonplussed. ‘I don’t know what you want me to do about that. What do you want me to do?’
In the time he took to construct an answer, I’d already stepped around him, my eyes burning with upset. I strode towards the hall to collect Marcus, where his little legs were taking him over an obstacle course of equipment. While he was finishing, my blood pressure rose in direct correlation to the effort required in pushing my umbrage down. My sharp call gave him a message of urgency. We shunted out of the hall, my hand sternly gripped around his, his little legs running to keep up.
On hearing this story, Renny, as I’d predicted, was furious. With Marcus tucked up in bed, she’d paced.
‘Hippies. More bigoted than a bunch of conservatives. Backward, pathetic men with long hair in pony-tails. This town! I can’t stand it.’
The escape to Melbourne had been made six weeks later. Renny and my relationship would never have lasted if we’d stayed. It wasn’t just in Dave’s mind anymore, it had been put in mine: the town had become his.
FIFTEEN
Renny’s memories weren’t all in regard to excusing me. Some were told as a way to point out my flaws – in particular, my inability to get on with things. She wanted me to be realistic about life, to take responsibility for my tendency to want to hold on. She reminded me of something that had occurred six weeks or so after Dave and I had separated, and of which I’m deeply ashamed.
In an amalgam of horror and depression in the early hours of a long and feverish night, I’d rung Dave. He informed me I’d woken him from the first restful sleep he’d had since I’d gone. I apologised for this amongst flurries of tears and recriminations, blathering on about how I thought I’d made a mistake. He was calm, cut off. He told me to call him the next day if I still felt the same way.
In the morning, under the steely light of a cloud-ridden sky, I knew that madness had gripped me in those dark hours. I was struck by my stupidity and lack of strength. Regret swarmed in me like locusts on a wheat field. There was no way I could go back to Dave.
I confessed the phone call to Renny. She was hurt, furiously hurt. I was making the ground heave for all of us. I crawled under my doona to nurse my guilt. It didn’t help. My face ruined, I surfaced with my hands, if not covered in blood, then certainly sticky from all my snuffling. It took me two weeks to convince her I hadn’t meant it, that making the phone call to him had been a mistake. Renny, ever practical and learning a harsh lesson about me – a tendency towards doubt that kind people call self-reflection – said we should live together so that this wouldn’t happen again. It was the beginning of autumn and we’d known each other for four months. Since I was living in Ange’s house full-time then I had to ask her if she’d mind if Renny moved in. Renny would have to travel back and forth for work, but between us, we’d been travelling up and down the highway almost every day anyway. As for Ange, she was happy to have the company and the extra cash.
Renny shifted on a cold morning when the wind was lashing about. Despite her mattress having been secured on the back of her load, somehow it flew off. We laughed with a kind of fatal bemusement, hoping it hadn’t landed on the windscreen of another car.
Even though we looked for that mattress every time we drove along the highway, we never saw it. It had disappeared into the murky, fetid, whipped-up air and remains a mystery to this very day.
SIXTEEN
To find a friend at Marlowe Downs was more than a stroke of luck, it was a celestial experience. When I first saw him, James was standing in the courtyard just outside the staff kitchen window where I stood making a coffee. His round Phil Collins features nodded at Elliot who towered over him, swamping him with his excited, jagged speech. Watching them with half an eye as I pushed on the coffee plunger, I could tell I was going to like this guy. He was dressed in plaid pants and an olive green shirt that changed colours when he twisted or laughed, showing a tinge of magenta, then shades of steel blue. His hair was cropped closely to his scalp and he wore jewellery, chunky silver rings and leather bands around his wrists. To be truthful, I think it was his teeth – straight, gaps between each, stains from black coffee and cigarettes marking them – that convinced me about him. Those stains were a suggestion of rebelliousness in a land of conformity. Even eccentricity was a kind of tradition at Marlowe Downs, but a jewelled man with stained teeth? That definitely was not a typical occurrence.
‘Hi!’ I said, walking through the open door, squinting into an ill-defined sun.
‘Oh, Monty.’ (Elliot, doing his bit.) ‘This is James. New psychologist. This is Monty, full-of-guts-and-knowledge Monty from the country.’
‘Hi,’ I repeated as we shook hands, Elliot’s reference to the country, and the “full of guts” thing, resonating in me with mild irritation.
‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Welcome to MeadowLea.’ (This was actually Renny’s joke, and technically a steal.)
James laughed.
‘Thank goodness for polyunsaturates,’ Elliot chipped in, his hands deep in his college professor pants as if he really might have a couple of six-shooters hidden there.
‘Which team are you in?’ James asked, a generous grin still hugging his face.
‘Same as yours,’ I widened my eyes. (News of his arrival had already been announced.)
‘Feel like a school kid,’ he said.
We both laughed.
James’s office was on the opposite side of the building to mine, past an internal courtyard where a fernery was home to two tortoises and many goldfish. I enjoyed walking through the place to visit him. It was like going on a small trip, especially when I had a new destination – somewhere other than the kitchen – to go. Depending on my mood, I’d either wing along the corridors or slink around them clandestinely trying to avoid the long breath that would be needed to supply answers of this and that – requests, which invariably meant more work in an already busy schedule. It, the slinking, always reminded me of TS Eliot.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the streets
Rubbing its back along the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
Those words. I’d repeat them endlessly. Always in those corridors. I wasn’t even sure what they were about but to me they seemed about breathing. I guess they kept drawing me along, helped to protect me.
See? Even I was becoming eccentric.
James was fastidious, his room so tidy it was a mirage of itself. His files were to envy. While mine were piled in nasty towers outside my filing cabinet, his sat beautifully, well behaved and up-to-date, in the sleeves allotted to them.
‘You’re obsessive,’ I scolded him one night after I’d crossed the labyrinth to talk him into doing a cognitive test on a kid I thought had Asperger’s. (Trying to rouse a psychologist was like trying to wake sleeping beauty without a prince on hand.)
‘I like it neat.’ He didn’t move from his desk where a slim file sat open, his hand poised to continue.
‘My office is like an upturned ship compared to this.’
He laughed. ‘So long as you remember to jump before it goes down.’ He finished his note, swinging his hand in a signature below it.
‘Yeah.’ I was walking around, looking at his displays of plastic dinosaurs, animals carefully placed.
‘So, how long’s it been?’ I asked.
>
‘Three and a half months.’
‘Passed your probation.’ I grinned at him.
‘No one’s said anything.’
‘If there’d been a problem, you’d know. Mind, we should be asking if you’ve got a problem with us?’
‘Only problem is Nigel.’ James was tapping his pen on the file he’d just noted something in. ‘He told this kid’s mother that her son found her annoying and the way he could tell was because he found her annoying.’
My mouth fell open. For a minute I held back and then, ‘How has he gotten away with being himself for so long?’
‘Does anyone ever challenge him?’
‘Elliot has attempted. But like un-detonated missiles his comments sail over Nigel’s head. Everyone else seems inoculated against him.’
James laughed.
‘Seriously. It’s like the place has created a completely separate set of social norms just for him.’
‘He’s in a powerful position.’
‘Power the organisation has willingly handed him.’ I sat heavily in one of his armchairs. ‘The whole thing’s weird. At one end of the stethoscope he does exactly what I ask. Follows my instructions or impressions about a family to the letter, which doesn’t necessarily make me feel confident. And at the other…’ I shake my head. ‘It’s like he’s a compliant, necessary evil.’
‘But exactly how evil?’ James said. ‘That’s the question.’
‘He’s got that Christian thing. You know, always smiling and nice even when he’s thinking condescending, judgemental things.’
‘God-lover. Send me to hell any day.’
‘They’re not going to take you in hell!’ I said. ‘Your neatness, it wouldn’t be tolerated.’
James was the one person I could talk to on that level. Two frogs amongst toads, or, of course, the other way around. The best thing was to share a client. Words were the enemy in Marlowe Downs and when you came across someone who spoke clearly and precisely, or, even better, if they spoke in your vernacular, it saved hours of tedious barking-up-the-wrong-tree. James and I would go on a hunt for what we thought might be the thread, the key, the computation of what was going on for a kid, while a considerable few would kill any enthusiasm or outside possibilities by wanting to dissect everything you meant when you said things like: The child is protecting herself against sadness, or, The child’s omnipotence has taken a road that leads south. Even worse, others actually passed over completely central and crucial points to laboriously concentrate on something unimportant, such as wanting to investigate the type of laundry detergent being used at home if the kid was bedwetting.
James and I made an alliance without ever naming it. We bitched, we debriefed and we unofficially supervised each other. When James ran testing for me I’d repay him by seeing the mums of some of his kids. Although we probably didn’t share any more work with one another than we shared with others, it was always easier than alternate collaborations I entered into. In work and play our friendship was like a shining light on a very dull horizon.
SEVENTEEN
It would be nice to think that in the aftermath of separation the things people said and did could be excused as emotional flotsam, that the thoughtless comments meted out in the grief of having lost something – even if you’d been the one to drop the bundle – could be forgiven. And, while it’s true that some of the incidents between Dave and I fell into that category and were allowed to drift away without bitterness, there were others that never receded from our minds. It was these events that informed a new history between us – a history that became instrumental, one way or the other, in every future negotiation.
The first of these post-marital betrayals was magnified by the element of surprise and, in hindsight, fuelled by the underlying, unspoken argument of control. Despite the phone calls and trips to see Marcus, I discovered that when it came to him I was experiencing a severe lack of power. There was no getting away from a certain reality: one parent suffers when the other has the child living with them. Knowing a child’s day-to-day routine, their school programs, concerts, extra activities and general struggles is parenting and when one parent is deprived of that it translates into grief and estrangement.
I could have done more to push against this: been more chummy, for example, or entered into longer and friendlier discourses with Dave. But it wasn’t just that I chose not to; I found I was having difficulty sustaining any conversation, let alone long ones, despite this being what Dave seemed to want. The problem was that whenever I tried, he would become tediously circular, talking in platitudes. I simply didn’t have the energy or the fortitude to engage. Instead, I led myself down a path of withdrawal rather than be the recipient of a spool of unnecessary chatter. Any reasonable relationship was dying through an over supply of gratuitousness. He still acted as head of the family, even though there wasn’t any family. Renny had another label for it: passive aggression. I couldn’t fully come at that, however. Despite everything, I didn’t want to think I’d been married to a dud.
To try to make up for some of this and to give Marcus an experience he wouldn’t forget, I decided to take him on a trip and, since I wanted it to be special, I made a list of destinations. Fiji, where children were loved, New Zealand, more expensive and perhaps not so much fun for a kid, or Bali – a Bali that was a cinch after other long trips to far stranger lands, trips I’d shared with Dave. Yes, Bali seemed like the go. A week only, I said to myself, to explore the island. A hut on the beach, away from Kuta and the throng of tourists. I made plans, picked up passport acquisition forms and spoke to Dave on the phone, his normal pressed-surprise echoing into the receiver. ‘Oh, okay, I guess it would be cheap.’ (Was he thinking of me?) There was nothing that I took to be negative. Nothing I thought he objected to.
‘Just need you to sign the passport forms. I’ll put them in the mail, pick them up next week when I’m down.’
Renny and I, having had Marcus for the weekend, dropped him off at school and drove to Dave’s. I know, by then, we must have worked hard to get things patched up after the kissing debacle and other disagreements because Renny came with me and we were all being very civil to one another. Dave showed us through the house he’d just bought, was half pulling down, going to begin renovations on.
I remember actually feeling light, literally, because the three of us were behaving the way adults should; we were speaking, even complimenting one another. After fifteen minutes or so we wandered back up the driveway towards the road.
‘Oh, the form?’ I said.
‘Geez, nearly forgot.’
Dave turned and, whistling People Are Strange by The Doors, he sauntered off towards the house.
Renny and I bowed our heads. I swung my foot across the pavement in a self-conscious movement, wanting and, at the same moment, not wanting to know what she thought. When she raised her eyebrows at me and smiled, I knew she wasn’t thinking much, which was also a promising sign to me.
Dave came out waving the form good-heartedly.
We made friendly, relieved goodbyes and hopped into our car to head back to Melbourne.
‘For a minute,’ I said, ‘I thought he wasn’t going to have it done.’
‘You should check, make sure.’
‘You think?’
‘Course.’
Renny had travelled one block northwards and was negotiating a right-hand turn around a roundabout as I pulled the papers back out of the glove box.
It was the oddest thing to see them not signed. How could Dave have followed through with a charade like that? How could he have changed that much? ‘They’re not signed,’ I said, ashen voiced, the papers quivering as incomprehension reached my nerve endings.
‘We’re going back.’ She pulled on the steering wheel.
Dave was yanking debris from the lawn at the front of the house. Renny pulled up beside him.
‘You didn’t sign them,’ I said, piling out of the car.
He stood up, looking superciliou
s with surprise. ‘Oh, I never said I’d sign them.’
‘You never said you wouldn’t!’
Ah… no.’
‘You’re not going to let him go?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t have to have a reason.’
‘What?’
‘That’s typical,’ Renny said, out of the car as well, calling from across the bonnet, all peace exploding. ‘He’s not going to help you, Monty. You might as well face it, he’s never going to help you.’
I eyed Dave. ‘You’re saying this to me for real. You’re not going to let Marcus come away with me?’
‘No.’
‘Is it no or yes?’
‘He’s not going.’
I got in the car, slammed my door shut.
Renny mouthed a few more expletives before getting in too and taking off. I burst into hysterical sobs – the mood, I thought venomously, he wanted to reduce me to. When I finally sobered, swallowing my failed attempts to execute the trip – my reflection staring back at me in despair from the grubby glass of the car window – we drove home in stony silence.
EIGHTEEN
With the possibility of an overseas holiday obliterated, I was determined that the two of us still needed to go away, as much for the memory of a journey that only involved him and me as for any other reason. I decided on Alice Springs, a camping tour to Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon. Dave can’t stop me taking Marcus there, I thought. I swallowed my pride. I needed Dave to drive Marcus halfway to Melbourne, so that I wouldn’t have to do the round trip. I tried again to have a decent conversation with Dave about where and when to rendezvous.
‘Eventually he’ll be old enough to travel on the train,’ I said, coming up with a bridging comment.
‘Alright.’
We agreed on a time and place.
‘Have you written it down?’ I asked him, wanting desperately for this arrangement to work without a hitch.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, Dave, to ask. But just to be sure, can you read it back to me?’