by Tess Evans
Have to stay awake and keep moving as much as I can. I could drift off to sleep and never wake up. His mind, which a few minutes before had begun to think rationally, spiralled once more into fear. Never wake up. He saw the school chapel and the sad faces of his mates. What would they say about him? He began to compose his own eulogy. It was exceptionally flattering (and why not?). He felt a bit more cheerful as phrases like ‘fearless adventurer’ and ‘sporting hero’ presented themselves. But what then? When the service and the songs and the eulogies were finished, they would go back to their lives, and he would face the blackness alone. He felt his dick harden as this realisation sent an unexpected thrill through his body—an orgasm born of fear. At sixteen, Zav experienced the awful seduction of oblivion.
Now he was almost depleted—his body infinitely weary and his mind, tested to the limit, sagged like a deflated balloon. Curling up under his rock, he finally fell into an uneasy sleep.
In his catalogue of the future, Zav didn’t mention a child. I suppose I should be hurt by that oversight, but as you probably know by now, I don’t bear grudges. Even so, it’s a bit confronting to think that if my father had died on that mountain, I would never have existed. That one sperm required to meet with that one ovum would never have been produced. And the Rodriguez story would have been quite different from the one I’m bound to witness.
Not long after dawn, the SES located Zav, and wrapping him in a thermal blanket, they radioed for a helicopter to winch him to safety. He was taken straight to the base hospital where they stitched his head, treated him for moderate hypothermia and diagnosed cracked ribs.
‘We’ll keep him under observation for another twenty-four hours,’ the doctor told Hal. ‘He may be concussed.’
‘Thank you doctor,’ Hal said. Thank you, Lord, he prayed. He was so tired he could barely stand up. He stumbled into Zav’s room, where the boy lay sleeping, his bruised face exhausted and vulnerable on the hospital-white pillow.
‘You’re safe,’ Hal said, kissing Zav’s cheek before sinking into a chair and taking the boy’s hand.
Hal spent an uneasy night alternately dozing and thinking. What if Zav had died? At sixteen. So much promise. He felt a knot in his gut as he fought back tears. Had he been too hard on the boy, he wondered. He had seen so little of him, really. He took his turn driving the boys to sporting events, but how many times had he stayed to cheer like other parents? Would it have hurt to be more supportive? To be there? On the other hand, maybe he hadn’t been hard enough. Zav obviously didn’t care if he got into trouble. What he did was unforgivable. That boy was always in trouble (this wasn’t strictly true, but Hal was tired and not thinking clearly).
He looked at his son’s hand. It was almost as big as his own. He touched the bruises and scratches, stroked the fingers with their torn nails. The fingers were long and shapely. Rodriguez hands, Hal realised. Zav had Paulina’s eyes, but he was a Rodriguez, alright. A stubborn bugger. When he wakes up, I’ll tell him I love him, Hal promised himself. In unwitting imitation of Zav’s long-gone mother, he brushed back his son’s hair and continued to hold his wounded hand, until he also found respite in sleep.
They were both wakened by the nurse who came to perform the standard observations. At the sight of the pretty young woman, Zav snatched his hand away from his father’s.
‘What are you doing here, Dad?’ he mumbled through his bruises.
Hal looked at his son. ‘You nearly kill yourself and you ask why I’m here? I’m here because you’re a selfish little prick. I can’t believe you could be so stupid! I could kill you myself right now.’ The nurse’s disapproval was palpable. Hal reddened and lowered his eyes. ‘Well. You’re safe now, I suppose. Is there anything you need? To eat? Or read?’
‘No.’
‘I might get a coffee then.’
‘I’m okay. You don’t have to stay.’
Hal paused at the door. ‘Zav. I . . .’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Poor Daddy. Poor Grandad.
After periods of equilibrium or depression, Hal would become energised with one of his schemes. After the party, there was his plan to hire the Melbourne Town Hall for a prayer meeting. ‘Or maybe the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Billy Graham did very well there.’
Reasoned argument didn’t work. Hal could be cunning and would go ahead anyway. Godown, who knew him so well, convinced the others that the best way to proceed was to go along with the scheme, and while appearing to cooperate, delay it long enough for Hal to snap out of it. This caused Godown some anguish. What if he were thwarting God? What if Hal, for all his apparent eccentricity, was an agent of God’s will? Godown prayed about it, but couldn’t bring himself to allow Hal full rein.
Not long after Zav’s escapade on the mountain, Hal began to plan a pilgrimage. He called the family to gather round the dining-room table where he had spread a large map.
‘I think it’s pretty clear that we need to find a way to give thanks for the miracle of Zav’s rescue,’ he said. ‘What we’re going to do is fast in the desert for twenty-one days.’
‘Twenty-one days!’ At sixteen Zav could hardly last twenty-one minutes without food.
‘I’m sorry, Zav,’ Hal said with gentle regret. ‘I know the Lord went forty days, but I have to be responsible about this.’
‘Dad. We’ll die if we don’t eat.’
‘The Lord will take care of us.’
Godown stepped in. ‘A fine idea. But the Lord expects you to do it right. We need to go into trainin’. Like a boxer or one of them marathon runners. Need to find out what to do. Can’t be sloppy if we’re doin’ it for Him.’
The others looked doubtful, but Godown pressed on. ‘We’ll start tonight by not havin’ biscuits with our supper. We need to do it gradual-like.’ He exchanged a glance with Mrs Mac who had been about to demur.
‘A good idea,’ she said with sudden insight. ‘The very plan we need.’
Godown set Hal the task of plotting routes and finding suitable texts for fasting and desert living and Mrs Mac managed to make the meals look smaller by using larger plates.
Two weeks went by. Hal had decided upon the Simpson Desert and spent time at the army disposal store looking for camping gear. Godown was right. The Lord would expect them to be properly prepared. He also continued to trawl both Old and New Testaments. There’s a lot of desert wandering in the Bible. Then a Gospel story scuttled the plan more comprehensively than Godown could ever have done. Hal read it with appalled eyes.
‘Godown, come here. I’d forgotten this bit.’ He held out the open book like an offering. ‘Look. Luke 4, 1–13.’
Godown read,
And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil.
‘Could we withstand temptation, Godown? Even for twenty-one days?’
‘The Lord did. But us, well . . .’
‘I can’t put myself in temptation’s way. I can’t lead my family into temptation.’
‘The Lord’s prayer, Hal. Lead us not into temptation. Tells us straight.’
‘Exactly. What sort of man would do that?’
‘A proud man might.’
‘The sin of pride. The Bible has rescued me from the sin of pride.’
‘Let us give thanks.’ As they bowed their heads, Godown’s gratitude was very real indeed.
Mine too. It was bad enough that my father almost killed himself on the mountain without my grandfather starving him to death in the desert.
9
WHEN SEALIE STARTED HIGH SCHOOL at the age of twelve, she was five foot three. By third form she was five foot nine. Madame Wodzinski, her ballet teacher, had watched her grow with increasing disquiet and even suggested to Hal that it was possible to take hormones to prevent further damage. Hal went straight to the family doctor. Much as he wanted another ballerina in the family, he was no fool, and when Dr Plunket talked to him ab
out the possible side effects of the hormone treatment, he refused to countenance any further discussion.
‘I’m sorry, Madame. And I would appreciate it if you said nothing of this treatment to my daughter.’ Madame sighed. Sealie was easily the best pupil she had, and she had been hoping to prepare her for a scholarship to the Victoria Ballet School. Instead, she had to tell her that she would never be a ballerina.
‘It has nothing to do with talent, you understand,’ she told the weeping girl. ‘You can still dance for pleasure—’ she looked down at her hands ‘—and teaching is not such a bad profession.’
Sealie stared at her. Teaching! Watching others aspire to something she could never have? Not in a million years. She wiped her eyes. She couldn’t go out into the street looking like this. ‘I’m sorry, Madame. Can I stay a while? I’ll lock up.’
Sealie watched as the elderly woman left the room. Madame needed a stick now, but she walked with a dignity that the young girl had always admired. Sealie shuddered. Teaching! That was for old women whose careers were over. Madame herself had danced with the Prague Ballet before coming to Australia. And she, Sealie, would never achieve more than centre front at the Collingwood Town Hall. It was so unfair.
Alone in the practice studio, Sealie found that her previously ready tears had inexplicably dried up. She felt hollowed out. Her dream, her passion, what she had called her vocation, had been scooped up and disposed of with devastating efficiency. If she couldn’t dance, she was left with nothing.
She looked around the once familiar surroundings as though she were lost. Except for a shaft of light from the west window, the room was in shadow but the air was still warm with a faint smell of sweat and rosin. Sealie smoothed her practice skirt and turned to the mirrored wall. Saw a slender figure with a straight back, a neatly coiffed head and slippered feet placed in the third position. She and the figure in the mirror curtsied gravely to each other and stood poised, as music, with the fragility of smoke, insinuated itself into the room. It was so soft at first. So soft, that she sensed rather than heard it. It was as though the sound were travelling over immense distances. She began to follow the dancer in the mirror; arabesque, glissade, pirouette . . . She—they, were dancing, with exquisite precision and grace, the Pas de Deux Waltz from Les Sylphides.
And when the dance was over, there was a final grave curtsy, both before and within the dimly lit mirror.
Sealie leaned against the wall and wept for her loss with hard, dry sobs.
Swollen-eyed, she left the studio that evening to find Hal, waiting for her as usual.
She got into the car and he put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Okay, love?’
Sealie concentrated on tying her scarf.
‘I guess a milkshake won’t fix this one?’
She gave him a watery smile. ‘Grew out of those a while ago.’
‘You can still dance. Nothing to stop you dancing.’
‘No.’
‘No, what?’
‘Just no.’
At home, no-one knew quite what to do. Sealie barely noticed that Mrs Mac had made her favourite apple sponge or that Zav offered her first go at the leftover slice. She went to her room straight after dinner.
‘Homework,’ she muttered. They looked at each other. Sealie was not usually so conscientious.
‘I’ll go,’ said Mrs Mac, brushing down her skirt. ‘She might need a woman.’ Poor Mrs Mac. She felt the hurt as if Sealie were her own child.
She stood outside the door with her hand on the knob. ‘Sealie? Can I come in?’ Because Mrs Mac was not their mother, because she had tried so hard to make up for their lack, the teenaged children treated her with more consideration than they might have their real mother. So instead of ‘go away’ or a sulky silence, Mrs Mac was invited, albeit not welcomed, in. She sat on the bed, where Sealie was curled, back to the door.
‘It’s not fair.’
‘No, it’s not fair.’ Mrs Mac stroked the tangled curls. ‘I can’t make it better, darling. I would if I could.’
‘Mummy would know. Mummy would know what to do.’ At that moment Sealie wanted so much to believe this.
Mrs Mac sighed. What would Paulina have said? ‘She was a lovely woman, your mother, but some things—’ She had no idea how to finish this sentence without diminishing Paulina. She patted Sealie’s hand. ‘It’ll be better in the morning.’ Feeling helpless, she left the room followed by Sealie’s disbelieving glare.
Downstairs, Godown and Hal sat down for their regular Bible discussion.
‘Don’t feel much like talking tonight,’ Hal said. ‘I know we saw it coming, but . . .’
‘Don’t have to talk, Hal.’
And they sat together in silence until Mrs Mac came in with their coffee.
‘We’re in for a few bad weeks,’ Hal said, as he stirred in his sugar.
‘She might be stronger than you think,’ the housekeeper replied. ‘But we’ll all have to keep an eye on her.’ She remembered the rhyme Hal made for his five-year-old daughter. Even then, it was clear that Sealie had a practical streak.
There once was a girlie called Sealie
A princess, I promise you. Really
She danced off to Mars
And on to the stars
But came home in time for her mealie.
Mrs Mac was right. There was something in Sealie’s essence that was strong and durable; something more than the resilience of youth. Over time, she had constructed a coping mechanism, a shield against contingencies. While Hal indulged his daughter, she also had to cope with his strangeness. During periods of depression when he was silent and withdrawn, it seemed as though he occupied a whole different country. Almost as disconcerting were times when his high spirits and feverish activity had her on edge, waiting for the plunge. Then, Sealie longed for the return of the person she thought of as her real father, the kind, funny, loving, ordinary Hal. The little girl had seen her mother die; she had lived with a good but unstable father. And she had learned to cope.
She did this by packing her feelings out of sight, the way she did the objects in the boxes that crowded the room at the top of the stairs. In the attic of her mind lay a box into which she folded and lay the terrible, wrenching loss of her dream of the ballet. Then, with a grim sort of courage, she continued to attend classes, continued to dance because her body willed it.
Her friends enjoyed the drama. They shrieked, they clutched at their heads in disbelief, they hugged her solemnly and spoke about her in hushed tones. They offered complicated advice, none of which was at all useful. Their inevitable schadenfreude and love of theatrics, however, was mingled with genuine sympathy, and after a week of high excitement, they contrived to leave her alone with Cassie, who they all agreed, was Sealie’s best friend.
‘I knew I was getting too tall,’ Sealie confided as they ate their lunchtime sandwiches. ‘I just didn’t face it till she told me straight.’
‘Old bat,’ Cassie sympathised.
‘Not really. She had to do it. I almost feel sorry for her.’
Cassie tucked up her skirt and stretched her plump, freckled legs out into the sun. She looked at her friend. ‘What’ll you do now?’
‘Don’t want to think about it.’
‘You could go to uni like Zav.’
‘You’ve got to be joking. I’m not exactly a star student.’ She stretched out her own legs, causing a pang of jealousy in Cassie’s loyal breast. ‘I can’t think of anything else I want to do.’
Sealie looked so truly miserable that Cassie was at a loss. Then she smiled. Of course! ‘Remember those books we used to read?’
‘The Sadlers’ Wells books?’
‘No. Cherry Ames—the nurse books. You used to say if you couldn’t be a dancer you’d be a nurse.’ Cassie thought she detected a spark of interest. ‘We could be nurses together.’
‘Don’t be silly. You’ve always wanted to be a nurse. People don’t decide to be nurses just like that.’
‘
You’ve got to do something.’
‘Mmmm.’ Sealie’s shut face forbade further discussion.
Despite her unenthusiastic response, the idea of nursing fitted Sealie’s current mood, her own sense of theatre. She couldn’t be a ballerina. Once she accepted that, why not nursing? It was a noble calling. Despite her personal tragedy, she’d sacrifice her life to the care of others. She saw herself, stern and beautiful, gliding through darkened wards, lifting a glass to parched lips, holding the hands of the fearful, bringing balloons to a sick child. She has had some great sadness in her life, the other nurses would say. She has dedicated her life to others. Sealie felt tears of sympathy for her martyred self as she pictured her gentle rejection of the handsome surgeon who saw not only her external beauty, but the beauty of her soul.
‘If I can’t be a ballerina, I’ll be a nurse,’ she said a few weeks later. And began to look at what might be required.
I have to say that my aunt Sealie was and still is, a gutsy girl. Just as well, really, given what followed.
‘Poor little thing,’ said Alice. Mrs Mac and her sister were coming home on the tram after an afternoon of shopping. ‘What will she do now?’
‘Says she wants to be a nurse. She’d make a good one, too.’
Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘Sounds as though she’s a bit spoilt for nursing.’
‘I don’t know. She’s patient with Mr R, I have to give her that.’
‘How’s he at the moment?’
‘Pretty normal—well, except for the religious bit.’
The religious bit was always there—sometimes quiescent, but always there. In the fabric of Hal’s life, it had become the warp thread, the basic structure of the pattern of his days. He had settled into a faith that accommodated his highs and lows, his hopes and fears with texts, the wisdom of which he believed in utterly.