Simon kicked at a tuft of grass. ‘I’m going to cop it too. I didn’t tell Nana we were playing with the ant oven. She never would have let me come. And now she’ll hear about this for sure.’
‘Maybe Daddy won’t tell anyone,’ Katie suggested helpfully, but they knew that he would.
‘Well, if this is your last day of freedom for a while let’s make the most of it,’ May decided. ‘What do you want to do?’
Simon stopped and looked at Katie. ‘I hear the blossom trees are very pretty in the orchard. How about a climb?’
Katie ran as fast as her little legs would take her to the orchard as the others followed.
‘Pretty trees, huh?’ May teased. Simon shrugged in his way, laughing as she added: ‘Girl.’
Veronica saw her son as he ran home across the paddock, his fair hair bright in the sun. Something was up. Then she saw Jack following at a distance and knew something was definitely wrong. She could feel his anger from where she was sitting.
‘What happened?’ she demanded as soon as Pete reached the verandah.
‘Nothing,’ he mumbled, trying to walk past, but she held his arms and turned him to face her.
His face had a nasty red welt across it and she gasped. ‘Did you fall over?’
‘Just leave it, Mum.’ He shoved onwards, walking through the door and into his room, trying not to cry as he went.
She waited for Jack, her arms crossed nervously. ‘What happened to Pete?’
‘That boy has no respect!’ he spat, slamming into the house and pouring himself a drink. ‘I’ve a good mind to send him away to military school. Teach him some discipline.’ She watched him as he threw back the whisky and poured another, but said nothing.
‘You know what he did? Remember those soldiers Dad made for him when he was a little tyke? Hand carved? He burned them in that damn ant oven! Threw them in to see what it would look like. Well I know what it looks like goddamnit and let me tell you, it isn’t much fun to watch. Absolutely no respect for what diggers did for this country. Where is he? I haven’t finished with him yet!’
She closed the door behind her and stood to face him. ‘He’s just a boy, Jack. Calm down now. They were just toys to him.’
‘They w’more than toys. Dad carved them himself. They were bloody Light Horse…had the hats and all.’ He downed his drink again.
Veronica was torn between sympathy for Jack, who was obviously remembering the terrible day he saw Tom die, and the anger she felt over her son being hit.
‘Where’s he bloody gone?’
‘He’s nursing a swollen face, which I take it you gave him.’
‘Don’t tell me how to raise my sons, Vera,’ he warned her darkly. ‘This is between me and the boy. I’m going to teach him how to act like a man and show respect to men who’ve been to war.’
‘What? You’re going to take him down to the fields and shoot things, are you? Shoot him?’
‘Shut y’mouth!’ He swung his arm to slap her but she held his hand.
‘No. You don’t,’ she warned, shaking. ‘You don’t.’
He stared at his hand then back at her, crumbling as he realised what he’d been about to do. ‘Oh God. Oh God, Vera, I’m so sorry…’
She let his hand drop. ‘You will be if you ever hit my sons again. Or Katie. Or me. The war is over, Jack. Don’t make another one here.’
He stared at the door long after she’d left, turning to fill his glass. That was the problem.
The war wasn’t over at all. Not for him.
Veronica couldn’t sleep and it wasn’t because of the baby. Little James slept peacefully in his cot as she stole out onto the verandah and watched the moon rise. The home they had built next to Highview might have been a paddock away but she swore she could hear her father’s snores as she gazed over at her former home, wishing she could go and crawl up in her old bed and tell her mother all her woes.
Hugging her arms to herself, she wondered how it had ever got this bad.
It had been wonderful at first, when he’d come home and they’d had a life together at last. Gone was the constant threat of being ripped apart, gone was the endless waiting and gone was the heartache she’d felt every day she was away from him. They made love every night and sometimes in the morning too before he headed off to work. He drove in and out, the ownership of an automobile making it possible for him to live at home during the week as well, in the beautiful house they had built between their parents’ farms. They had painted it themselves, choosing cream and light blue, and little Pete enjoyed stirring the tins for Daddy, entranced by the coloured paint he called ‘funny mud’.
Then, as life settled back down, he started staying in town occasionally, telling her he had to work late. She didn’t mind too much, spending the time with Pete whom she felt she’d been neglecting a bit anyway. But then she fell pregnant and he started staying in for days at a time. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t because he didn’t want another baby, after all he was managing the business end of things for both their families now, but she wondered. He was very proud of his son but he hadn’t found much time for him, falling straight back into business and the commitments of his former life. Fatherhood had not caught his full attention.
Then she woke up one morning with terrible cramps and, within a day, knew the baby was lost.
Devastated, she sent him a telegram and waited for him to come, but the days came and went and still there was no sign of him. Finally she took matters into her own hands, driving into the city and walking to his office. Never actually having been to his work before, she was surprised by how young and pretty his secretary Susan was, and how uncomfortable she became when Veronica asked about Jack’s whereabouts. Suspicious, Veronica went across the street to wait in a teahouse and, sure enough, Jack came swaying down the street and straight up the stairs to the apartment he kept above his office. Drunk. Not that she was surprised that he was drinking; she’d expected he was indulging too much, given his constant stays in the city. It was more that fact that he was drunk at eleven o’clock in the morning that irked her. And that he hadn’t bothered to come home in five days, despite the fact she’d just lost their baby.
Something shifted inside Veronica that day. She was done with turning a blind eye and pretending they didn’t have a problem and she decided that when he finally did turn up at home, sober and sore, she would sit down and tell him exactly what she thought. The next day he did just that and she sat, wearing a black dress, her hair pulled back, waiting for him in the parlour.
‘Hello, darling. I’m so sorry I…’ he began, bending to kiss her, but she pulled back and he looked at her in surprise. ‘What’s this? Oh love, I am so terribly sorry. Truly. How are you feeling?’
She smoothed her skirt and gestured to the other chair. ‘I’d like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind, please.’ He sat, somewhat reluctant, and she cleared her throat, forcing her tears down. ‘I came to see you in town yesterday; I don’t know if your secretary told you.’ He nodded slightly and she continued. ‘She’s very pretty by the way.’
‘Is that what this is about? Because if it is you have no worries on that score…’
‘No. I’m hardly that pathetic, I would think. I saw you walking down the street…actually when I say walking it was more like a stumble, you were so drunk.’
‘Oh come on, Vera, can’t a man have a drink? I think I’ve earned the right–’
‘Not at eleven in the morning when he should be at work, no. And not when his wife has lost…’ she paused to compose herself ‘…lost a baby. The pub is hardly the choice a man should be making at such a time, wouldn’t you agree?’
He jumped up and walked about the room. ‘For God’s sake, Vera, I told you I’d been working. I can’t exactly say no to an associate if he wants to wet the whistle no matter what time it is. That’s part of business.’
‘And who is it that you can’t say no to at home in the afternoon?’
He paused at
that, then rounded on her angrily.
‘You! Do this, do that! Look at the baby, visit your parents, ask Pattie for dinner, do you like these curtains, hold the bloody knitting wool! A man needs a blasted drink in this…this woman’s world!’ He threw his arms out, encompassing the room, and placed them on his hips.
‘It’s your home too.’ She felt her anger building and calmed herself down, taking a deep breath. ‘It’s your home too.’ She stood and walked over to him. ‘I know you’re used to living with men after these past years and this is…hard to adjust to, but you need to be here to make it yours. Your son needs you too. It’s supposed to be a family home, not a woman’s world.’ She held his hand. ‘I need to know you’re not going to let me down like this again, Jack. I needed you and you weren’t there. You’re the last person I thought would ever do that.’
He looked down guiltily. ‘I meant to come, Vera. I really did. I just…’
‘What? Jack, tell me what’s troubling you, please. Even when you’re here you’re… somewhere else. How can I help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong?’ She put her arms about him, holding him close, and for a moment she thought he was going to let her in, but then he stepped away and walked to the door, avoiding her eyes.
‘I’m just finding work tiring, that’s all. Better check on the horses before dinner. I’ll see you in a bit.’
And so it had continued over the years. There had been happier times, times when he tried for a while, coming home at night and avoiding the bottle. He was silent and she knew it cost him, but after a while he would take to playing with Pete and the new light of his life, little Katie. She cherished these precious times and the nights of lovemaking that followed, but they were always short lived, as the dreams tore him awake and he took to the bottle again to send the memories to deeper places. Then he would be back to staying in town during the week, coming home on weekends to a blur of dinner parties, cricket, church and visiting, before taking off again. She had little time to talk to him and she suspected that was the way he liked it.
Her only clue to the demons that tormented him was the words he called out in his sleep in the dead of night, when he couldn’t guard his tongue; he was back fighting the enemy and calling out warnings to his mates. He often called out that someone was aiming for the cross, thrashing about and yelling for them not to. Other times he cried for Tilley, begging to be allowed to take her home. Veronica knew that very few were able to bring their mounts home, and that most of the men chose to shoot their horses rather than leave them to be mistreated. He never told her what happened to Tilley and she couldn’t bear to ask.
But his worst nightmare seemed to be about a man’s face, and he sobbed the same words repeatedly in his sleep. ‘Don’t look at me, close your eyes.’ This had grown louder and more heated in recent months; hence her constant exhaustion whenever he was home. Perhaps it had something to do with the way baby James watched him so solemnly, his gaze following his father whenever he was around, which seemed to unnerve Jack, prompting him to say more than once, ‘He seems to know something about me.’
She still loved him. Deeply. But the Jack she knew was buried inside him somewhere and she had to live with an imposter day after day. It frightened her to think he would never resurface, especially tonight. For all he suffered he’d never lashed out and hit any of them before.
Veronica stared out across the pale silver fields, her mind filling with images of burning soldiers. Tom dying in agony. She flinched, pushing away the horror. It was bad enough to imagine, let alone witness. Her heart ached for Jack, forced to carry it. How deeply he’d reacted to the burning toys allowed some small light onto the depth of his pain and hinted at the other dark secrets that lay within her wounded husband, imprisoning the kind man at his centre.
And he was wounded. He carried wounds as debilitating as Mick’s burned leg and Iggy’s missing foot, because to the rest of the world he appeared healthy and whole. He was one of the ‘fortunate ones’ who, despite being there from Gallipoli until the very end, somehow exited the war without a scratch.
They couldn’t see the scars but she felt their presence. Every single day.
Lines of pink were staining the sky by the time Veronica had stirred from her reverie and made herself a cup of tea, returning to the verandah to sip it and watch the sun rise alone. Perhaps it would bask into her heart and heal it a little, as nature always had done. But the heralding song of the kookaburras was joined by the sound of hooves and she looked across to see Iggy arriving.
‘Rare time for yourself?’ he asked, smiling down at her from Sheba.
‘Very rare.’ She smiled back, glad to see him. Somehow he always found a way to make her feel better about things with his gentle ways.
‘I figured you might be up.’
Veronica didn’t respond. Iggy knew she always rose early when she was troubled and undoubtedly Simon had told his father of the previous day’s events.
‘Want to go for a ride?’
She did. Iggy helped her saddle up her new horse Kelly and they set off together, urging the mares into a canter across the fields towards the dam, circling them under the stand of gum trees.
He didn’t try to talk about Jack and she was glad. Iggy knew him probably as well as she did and they both knew Jack wanted to fight his battles alone.
‘How’s Mildred doing?’ Veronica thought to ask as they paused for the horses to drink.
Iggy patted Sheba and shrugged. ‘Getting used to things, I suppose. Simon’s good for her. Having a miniature version of me to fuss over keeps her busy.’
‘And how about you?’
He considered that for a moment, his brown eyes clouding. ‘Mixed feelings. I was never quite the son he wanted, but he was different after Rose died. A bit softer, you might say. Even came to my last concert, which was kind of nice.’
‘I’m sure he was proud of you. How could he not be, Maestro?’
‘That’s a conductor, Vera,’ he said, starting to chuckle.
‘Well I’m sure you could do that too if you put your mind to it,’ she said, smiling back.
‘Just glad I had a good nurse in Egypt so I can play at all.’
‘A good doctor!’ she protested. ‘I just changed the bandages.’
‘You did a lot more than that,’ he said, serious now.
They rode back in silence, each thoughtful. It was only when they got to the stables and she was unsaddling Kelly that he looked at her a little oddly, seeming to have something he wanted to say.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
He reached down and plucked a gum blossom from her braid.
‘You’ve flowers in your hair,’ he said.
She watched in confusion as he then turned and rode away. He hadn’t even said goodbye.
Thirty-two
October 1929
‘Surprise!’ Mick laughed as he and Iggy entered the room. Pattie and the children had strewn the place with decorations, including a large comical drawing May had done in ink, echoing her late father’s talent. It was a picture of Mick with a horse leading him to a trough, reading You can lead a man to water but you can’t make him happy to have grey whiskers!
‘What grey whiskers? That’s an outrage!’ he protested, pointing at the offending image in the picture and stroking his own new moustache, pretending to be insulted.
‘Dose ones!’ Katie pointed.
‘Come here, you wretched girls!’ He stomped after Katie and May, who ran giggling about the room, before stopping in front of the drinks cabinet. ‘They make fun of a poor old cripple and all you lot do about it is stand about laughing! You could at least offer a man a drink!’
Pattie poured him one and handed to him with a little curtsey. ‘Your drink, Sir Whiskers.’
Mick burst out laughing. ‘Thank you, o-leggy one,’ he replied, kissing her hand.
Veronica laughed too as Pattie actually blushed.
It was the first time they’d sat together for a meal si
nce Mick had returned from Florence, where he’d spoken at a variety of medical conferences, and the whole family plied him with questions over dinner. Veronica sat back enjoying the stories and marvelling at the descriptions of the river, the cathedral and, of course, the art.
‘And how was David?’ asked Iggy.
‘By all appearances I would say…cold,’ replied Mick, to everyone’s amusement.
Pattie raised her hand. ‘I’m helping to organise a fundraiser for the Red Cross, an art show actually,’ she announced. ‘I’m looking for volunteers to pose for some classes…’
‘Well, it goes without saying they’ll want me,’ said Kevin dramatically. Veronica giggled at her father as he struck a few imaginary poses.
‘I would have imagined they’d all be asking for you,’ Veronica heard Mick murmur across to Pattie. Watching her blush for the second time that night, Veronica wondered what had got into her.
After dinner it felt like old times as Kevin took out the fiddle and Iggy played the piano, inviting Pattie to sing after noticing Jack looked a little the worse for wear. He’d drunk steadily through the meal.
She chose ‘I Want to Be Loved Be You’, pausing before starting.
‘Hmmm, let me see. I think this song calls for some back-up vocals by a fair maiden. Why, Mrs Whiskers,’ she exclaimed as she popped her hat on Mick’s head and wrapped him in a shawl, ‘I do believe you’re the very lass I’m looking for.’
Mick grinned, pouting his lips, batting his eyelids and ‘boop-boop-be-do-ing’ in all the right places. Veronica smiled as she watched, feeling glad to see them both joking around.
They’re good for each other, those two, she thought before something else halted her musings, something that gave her a familiar stab of pain. Jack was stumbling forward and her stomach lurched as he interrupted them.
‘Nuh, nuh…I want t’sing a real song…play “Australia Will Be There”…one f’the boys eh, Igs?’ He leant in a bit too far and Pattie held him.
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