Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 13, Issue 3

by John Clanchy

  ‘What are you saying? You don’t know what you’re saying.’

  Her mother’s hands had become puffy, swollen. They trembled until they found a glass, something they could wrap themselves around.

  ‘I’m saying,’ Leonora said slowly, ‘that I know where Bo—’

  ‘Cyrus.’

  ‘Where Bo Willoughby is.’

  ‘Have some respect.’ Tilly spat. In panic. Swallowed. ‘For your father.’

  ‘In Washington.’

  ‘Never. If you ever—’

  ‘I have it. His telephone number.’

  Though using it, Leonora knew, would shatter everything.

  ‘I forbid you to do it.’

  ‘Mum, I’m twenty-four.’

  ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

  ‘I need someone.’

  ‘You can’t blame him.’

  ‘Do you know, I used to dream… I used to make up stories about him. I still do. About my father.’

  Which she could never show to anyone but Miss Pearce. Not her mother. Never. Stories like that might have killed Tilly.

  ‘You can’t blame Beau for your trouble.’

  ‘Can’t I?’

  Everything was dissolving now. Her mother beat at the walls of the kitchen, flailed at the cupboards with her dry arms—unable to find her way out of the room.

  ‘Just because…’ She came back, having found what she wanted. ‘Just because you’ve gone and got yourself in trouble.’

  ‘We’re both in trouble,’ Leonora said, seeing what lay ahead. ‘We’re both in need of help. Now. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Talent.’ The glass flared, briefly, in rising. ‘Miss Pearce—’

  ‘Can’t you see that he has to do something? Take some responsibility? After all this time…’

  Given what Chad had become. The adolescent that, with the passing of time, he’d become.

  ‘Miss Pearce said you had talent. With words. Imagining, anyway. With that talent, she said, you could be anything, anyone. Make a name for yourself.’

  ‘Leopold,’ Leonora said. Trying out the name, softly, to herself. ‘Leopold Willoughby.’

  Her mother thrust her head away from the light.

  ‘With that talent…’ she cried. Spitting again. Against the glass. ‘You were given such talent.’

  Leonora—seeing her mother’s lips stretched so tight—thought for a moment she might bite the rim off the glass. Instead she merely dissolved in tears, in spilt milk.

  ‘And what have you done with it?’

  At the motel she does not unpack. She is unable to trust her nerve for that.

  Though it has held so far. Held off panic, disbelief, at each step of the journey. At the alien-ness of everything. The breath—the first heat of it on her cheek—of the Pacific, Hawaii, the crossing point. Two hours only in the transit lounge but even there, secure, watched over, behind bamboo and glass, she’s aware of the heat outside, of strange spices, airborne, fruit already rotting. The sun—overnight?—breaking through a Mogadon cloud. Through that and the second gin…

  ‘You wanna try for doubles?’ the steward: young, moustached, unbelievably—Americanly—straight, helpful, asks as she returns the empty glass to his tray. He’s been eager, attentive, with seatbelts, lockers, fluttering all around her since the moment she got on board.

  ‘Doubles?’ she asks. It’s all she catches.

  Seeing her panic, he retreats to something simpler:

  ‘This your first time?’

  Those Americans. So intimate, so soon. She spread her fingers—she’d got used already to doing this—setting the cage of bone over the swell there, just above her groin. He looks, sees, understands. Retreats. In mild panic himself now.

  ‘I meant Stateside. First time Stateside. Ma’am,’ he adds, offering respect. Unmixed. A second gin…

  From Los Angeles to Washington she doesn’t drink. She hangs on. From the airport to the motel in the taxi cab she continues to take it in. The strangeness—of trees, cars, traffic, houses, three-storeyed, with their stomachs, guts, laddered, worn on the outside. Like that famous building in Paris. Just to think that people—people one knows, people like Bo, Chad—could live so strangely.

  It’s Chad who’s brought this on. Brought her here. Two months and suddenly his letters, cards, stutter, miss a day, then two, dry up for a week. She had not expected this. Yet.

  ‘Beau wrote every day,’ her mother reminds. ‘For nine months.’

  The drought breaks. In a shower of cards. Post-manoeuvres. There are even photos. One—with Chad in the centre with two of his buddies, their arms around two girls (Thai?)—reassures her. Until she asks herself who took the photo. She looks again, sees how his eyes, his gaze, don’t embrace the camera. But look beyond it. He’s put on weight. If she’d come across the photo by chance, she’s forced to admit, she’d barely have recognized him.

  ‘What do you imagine this Cyrus Willoughby can do?’ Stephen had wanted to know. He’d come to Kingsford Smith to see her off. ‘After all this time?’

  ‘If he’s my father—’

  ‘If? You mean you don’t know?’

  She heard the shock in his voice. At the ultimate shame of this. A child not knowing its own father.

  ‘Don’t you see…?’ she pleaded. So much had become clear to her in these last three months. Trimester, a book called it. ‘My mother never gave him a chance. Not really.’

  ‘A chance for what?’

  ‘She may not even have told him.’

  ‘You should ring. Call.’

  ‘Call?’

  ‘It’s crazy. Before you go, before you do anything, you should call. He may be away himself. Or refuse to see you.’

  She knew then the terror her mother had felt. At the idea of just calling. Over that extent of space. Of time.

  ‘I mean,’ Stephen had said, ‘what if he won’t even…’

  ‘Even what?’

  ‘Acknowledge you?’

  The call still had to be made. But at least now it would be made from here, from close up, where the tones were familiar, local, a motel in Washington. Her bag, still unopened, ticketed, allowing flight, lay on the bed beside her. Within hand’s reach.

  She’s foreseen this moment a thousand times, the phone clasped on her lap, her fingers reaching out, punching numbers. And delivering her, direct, into his presence.

  ‘Cyrus Willoughby speaking.’

  Though without ever imagining how one could respond. To such an announcement.

  ‘This is Cyrus Willoughby.’ His voice, in fact, is anonymous, nondescript. ‘Is someone there?’

  ‘Leopold?’ Absurd, but it’s all she can get out. Push out through the bars of her teeth.

  ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  ‘Your middle name.’ She can understand his fright. There is this inane giggling on the line between them. ‘Is it Leopold?’

  ‘Look, who is this?’ She’s frightening her own father to death. ‘What are you after?’

  ‘I’m Leonora,’ she says, and waits for this to sink in.

  ‘Leonora?’

  ‘From Sydney. Leonora Willoughby.’

  ‘You mean Australia?’ As though this explained all the strangeness that had gone before. She hears the strain easing from his voice. ‘You’re from Australia.’

  ‘Willoughby.’

  ‘What are you saying? Are you saying we’re related…?’

  It’s absurd—put like that. Never having met.

  ‘That there’s some kind of relation?’

  ‘I think you knew my mother—Tilly?’

  Is it the line, or is there the first clink of recognition? ‘Tilly Carpenter. She knew you—a Cyrus Willoughby—in Sydney.’ Leonora knows she must lead, not rush him on this path. She understands this. ‘I have a photo of you.’

  ‘Now hold on.’

  And she knows it’s come out wrong already. Even to her it sounds like an accusation.

  ‘What are you saying here?
’

  She catches a woman’s voice, behind him, the note fragile, rising. A wife perhaps? Enquiring?

  ‘You’re coming out of a bar.’ The slide of this—she can project it anywhere—fills the empty motel wall in front of her. ‘Near the Rocks.’

  ‘Did you say Willoughby?’

  ‘Leonora.’

  ‘Did you say your name was Willoughby?’

  ‘Your hair’s short, it’s hard to see your features clearly.’

  ‘Is this some sort of shakedown?’

  ‘You’ve got your jacket slung over one shoulder.’

  ‘This is crazy. This must be twenty, thirty years.’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘You say that.’

  ‘I’m twenty-four.’

  ‘Is this a claim? Is this some claim you’re trying to make?’

  ‘Bo Willoughby,’ she says.

  It’s enough. The line is muffled—his hand over the mouthpiece?—but she still hears… Some crazy thing… just leave me… leave me deal with it, won’t you?

  For nearly a minute there is nothing. Then—low and hard—he’s there. This man. Her father.

  ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Can we meet?’ When all she wants to say is the pram, you promised to send me a pram. ‘Can I come to see you?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘I have your address.’

  ‘You come here and I’ll—Christ, you can’t come here.’

  ‘I’m in trouble.’

  ‘I’ve just married again.’

  ‘I’m in trouble, and I need your help.’

  ‘My wife, she’s pregnant. Three months…’

  ‘Trimester.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘It’s called…’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Somewhere else, then.’

  ‘You keep away from here. Do you understand?’

  ‘Somewhere near the motel. Near where I’m staying…’

  The Howard Johnson two blocks from the motel is nearly empty when she arrives. She’s twenty minutes early. She wants to be here, to see him, have the advantage, when he comes in. She still hasn’t unpacked. She orders a coffee, donut, sits, plays with them. Dazed by all this brightness, late morning glare, glass, chrome. A man three tables away—one of only two other customers—wipes sauce from his chin. Fat, pasty, eats. Stares, unblinking. Consumes while he watches. Her legs, breasts. As he did when she came in. She turns her head, ignores him. She waits for her father.

  Ten minutes, and she knows he won’t come. Two workers from the caryard next door come, grab takeaways, coffee, flirt with the girl behind the counter, leave, discussing a ball game. The man gets up, goes for chips, on his way to the counter and back makes a detour close to her table, insinuates his fat thighs between her table and the next when there’s a corridor free beside his own. He holds the bucket of chips low as he passes, his eyes moving over her all the while, as though he’s offering. He says nothing, as though he—and she—can take it or leave it. Goes and sits, looks at his watch. And eats, as he looks.

  Why should he come, her father? A crazy woman. All this way, unannounced, in trouble, making claims. A voice. A few scrappy details. A smudged photo. That could have been snatched from anyone’s album. If it weren’t for the Bo—

  ‘You wanna try for another coffee?’

  He has his own cup in one hand, the fingers, palm, of the other, gross, swollen, extended familiarly (to show there’s no weapon?) towards her. She doesn’t look at his face. Just shakes her head. Sees the legs, heavy rolling buttocks move carelessly away. Those Americans, she hears her mother say. She could at least be civil. The place is open, staffed, she’s in no danger from this man.

  From anyone. The deadline comes, goes. The second customer’s gone, a young woman, some quiet grief, she’s made no mark, and there’s only the girl at the counter now, the Gross Man (she’s named him), and herself. Her father won’t come, she knows that, she’s always known that—why should he? He’s got responsibilities enough. Of his own. Here, in America. A new wife. At the end of her first…

  She’s weeping before she knows it. There’s water on her face, her fingers discover it. She sees herself in the glass of the window beside her, sees how ugly she’s grown. Opposite her, Gross Man sees too. Watches, waits. While her skin dries. And she promises herself this: if he asks me, I will go with him. I will do whatever he wants. Somehow—gross, ugly, in tune with her despair—he knows this.

  He looks at his watch one last time. Fingers spreading on the round formica table before him, he pushes himself to his feet. Wipes his chin—it’s pink, clean, shining—drops the crumpled serviette on the table, comes across. To make the claim they’d both known he would.

  ‘You look like you could do with a real drink.’ The voice soft, familiar. From such a frame. ‘We’ve both been let down.’

  ‘Let down?’ They’re the first words she’s spoken to him. And she sees the shock of them. Is it the hard Australian light in her voice?

  ‘Jesus,’ he’s saying. ‘You’re not this Leonora?’

  ‘Leonora?’ She has no speech of her own.

  ‘This Leonora Willoughby?’

  ‘Naismith,’ she says then, as though finally choosing. ‘My father’s Jack Naismith.’

  ‘The damnedest thing.’ Slipping his bulk as easily as a shark in water into a chair across the table from her. Without waiting to be asked. ‘This girl rings out of nowhere…’

  ‘I’m waiting for Chad.’

  ‘She rings out of nowhere, this Australian. Calls me Beau…’

  ‘Bo?’

  ‘I’d forgotten, erased it completely. You know how you do…?’ He’s not even seeing her anymore. He’s looking past her, way out over her shoulder somewhere. As he begins some story:

  ‘And then just as I’m walking out to the car, just as I’m starting the car to drive here, I suddenly find myself thinking about some girl. Out in Sydney. This is twenty-five years…’

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she says, as the waitress wipes up between them, wanting them to go. ‘I’m having his baby,’ she says.

  It’s the waitress who looks then. Who goes.

  ‘We meet in some bar.’ He’s straining to remember, to see through the blur of time and memory. ‘Some place in Sydney. Some place by the water.’

  ‘The Rocks. You mean the Rocks.’

  ‘We’ve been dancing.’

  ‘It’s late,’ she says. ‘The streets are empty.’

  ‘Some photographer comes by. Takes a snap. We look so—’

  ‘Young. So…’

  ‘Thin.’

  She looks as well. Looks past him. At the couple in the photo. So young, pale, so impossibly thin.

  The man is laughing now. He’s shaking his head at something he remembers, something he’d forgotten, erased completely but which he now remembers. His fat cheeks are quivering with the pain of his laughter. He could just as easily be going to cry. ‘It’s love,’ he remembers, his voice breaking.

  ‘I know,’ she says, laughing herself. Her breasts are bruised, strangely hurting. ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘It’s love…’ they end up saying it together. ‘Love at first sight.’

  Leonora knows she will revisit this scene. She will look backwards and forwards across it. Trying out each word, each action, on her inner ear.

  Wondering all the while how Miss Pearce might assess it.

  A Lovely Afternoon

  Stephanie Buckle

  I hear them on the deck below me, the loud banter of family. Cherry’s shouting at Mark, Comeand get the fucking meat or we’ll never eat! It’s unbelievable how they swear in front of the children. I never swore in front of my kids. Their youngest, Shelley, is whining, Mum says you’ve got to share! She’s the image of her mother already. Is it very bad to dislike a child?

  I close the blind, in case one of them comes round the balcony and peers in at me (nothing would surprise me), and I lie
down on the bed. The relief of alone-ness! If only I had an excuse to stay here for the rest of the day. Could I resurrect yesterday’s headache? Or tell them that the trip to Sea World has exhausted me? They wouldn’t believe me.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Tom’s caught me red-handed down my bolthole.

  ‘I just lay down for a minute; I’m a bit tired. I’m coming.’

  ‘You’ve been gone for half an hour,’ he says.

  ‘I’m sorry, I had no idea it was that long.’

  ‘But why do you have to disappear at all? The neighbours have come round, and I’m looking round going, Where’s Jeannie? She was here a minute ago.’

  ‘Having a lie down for half an hour when you’re staying in someone’s house isn’t the crime of the century.’ I put my arms round him, but he’s still a little stiff.

  ‘You do it all the time,’ he says. ‘You’re always disappearing. Sometimes it feels like you don’t want to be part of things.’

  ‘Of course I want to be part of things,’ I say. ‘Come on, are we going down, or are we going to stand here arguing about it?’

  Tom loves his family, of course. When we first met, he told me Mark was ‘the most straightforward bloke you could meet: honest and hardworking.’ I expect he works hard Monday to Friday; there’s no evidence of it at home. And Mark’s sister, Linda, conspicuous by her absence today, he said was ‘ambitious and smart.’ She’s taken up studying law, apparently, after her second baby, although I have no idea how she’s managed to do that when I understand she never finished her Year 12.

  He said I would love them, anticipating these new relationships as if they were one of his DIY projects. He loves his family and he loves me, so we’ll all love each other.

  Going down the stairs I can’t get in front of him, and it looks as if he’s fetched me out, like a naughty child from her hiding place.

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ calls Cherry. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to.’ She’s holding bowls of salad, which Tom immediately relieves her of. My hands are empty.

  Cherry and Mark’s friends are here too; the living room is full of people. Large people. Everyone talks at the tops of their voices; the children shout and scream. The men stand with their feet apart, holding their stubbies, their pot bellies shameless, speaking in grunts and monosyllables and sudden bursts of incomprehensible laughter. It’s a language of allusions, and does not include me. Though some of it might be about me. Their gazes glance off me; they seem to either stare or avert their eyes—is it possible to do both at once? I feel overdressed.