The Memory Tree

by Tess Evans

  ‘He is that, Eileen. But a mighty troubled one.’

  Godown was conflicted. Religion, once a solace to Hal, had become part of the torment. He discussed this with Mrs Mac every time they met.

  ‘I just don’t know what to do, Eileen. There’s my promise to the Lord to spread the Word. But with Hal, I done more harm than good.’

  ‘Does he still go to your church?’

  ‘Yes. The music soothes him, I think. And I try to preach God’s goodness ’stead of His wrath.’ He looked into the distance where the spire of St Theresa’s soared above the trees. ‘Maybe he should go back. To your church, I mean.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Mrs Mac. ‘He walked away from the church a long time ago. I’d slow down the Bible studies, though. That man has always lived in his head too much.’ She changed tack suddenly. ‘Do you still play cards?’ She had often joined them in a game of cribbage or made a fourth for five hundred when Bob’s wife went to her pottery class.

  ‘Sometimes. He can’t concentrate like he used to.’

  ‘Pity. He needs some sort of hobby to get him out of himself.’

  Get him out of himself. An odd term, that, when you apply it to someone like my grandfather. It seemed that more and more he was being inhabited by someone other than himself.

  Eileen had taken to bringing sandwiches and a thermos of coffee when they met in the park and as they sorted the ham and pickle from the egg and lettuce, Godown thought about what she had said. ‘You could be right,’ he responded, demolishing a sandwich in one satisfying bite. ‘He’s got too much time on his hands.’

  So Godown suggested that they take a break from Bible study and was surprised to find Hal meekly amenable to the suggestion. They watched television or listened to music in the evenings instead. That left the whole day free now that Hal was as good as retired. Bob was relieved when he stopped coming to the office, and continued to keep Godown on the payroll as an unofficial carer.

  ‘It’s Hal’s business, too. Might as well spend some of the money we make on looking after him.’ He grinned. ‘It’ll keep him out of my hair.’ Bob took pains to sound casual, but was deeply worried by his friend’s decline and resolved to speak to Zav when he returned.

  Godown investigated lawn bowls, golf, tennis, ten-pin bowling, bocce. He had read somewhere that exercise is good for depression. Lawn bowls and bocce were discarded first. He couldn’t see Hal involved in team sports. Tennis was a possibility, but was Hal fit enough? In the end, golf seemed like the best solution. He and Hal could play together. No necessity for other people to be involved at all.

  ‘Golf?’ Hal would have none of it. ‘Do you know how many people are struck by lightning on a golf course?’

  ‘Only those stupid enough to play in a storm.’

  ‘Lightning can come out of the blue. Literally. They won’t get me on a golf course.’

  ‘Who? Who won’t get you?’

  Hal placed a warning finger on the side of his nose. ‘You’d be surprised, my friend.’

  As it turned out, Hal found his own occupation. The local gym had installed a swimming pool and he found the flyer while sorting through the mail. Fun and fitness at the YMCA. Come and swim in our new salt water, heated pool. Pool membership only also available. Hal had been a strong swimmer at school; his long, smooth strokes earning him numerous medals and, once, a place in the interstate school swim team. He decided in an instant. Godown had been on at him about fitness and here was the perfect solution. They could swim together every morning.

  ‘Not me,’ said Godown. ‘Can’t swim. Never could . . .’ Anticipating Hal’s argument, he added, ‘and I never will.’

  So Hal swam laps. He started with six and was soon swimming twenty-five in the fast lane. In the water, the noises abated. Mostly they stopped altogether, if you didn’t count that little dark-blue buzzing. Fifty laps. Twice a day sometimes. He got out of the water, prune-skinned but invigorated, and saw the middle-aged flab replaced by increasingly defined muscle. He looked healthier and ate better. Godown’s reports to Mrs Mac, Bob and Sealie were all positive.

  ‘Apparently he’s looking much healthier,’ Eileen reported as she and Alice ate their chops and veg. ‘Mr R was good to Moses in the past, but I don’t know what he’d do without him now.’

  ‘You neither.’

  ‘Me?’

  Alice just smiled.

  This period was a welcome respite from the worst of the voices and Hal swam as though his life depended on it. I suppose it did, in a way. He went to the pool in the mornings and often in the afternoons he and Godown drove to Carlton to give my mother a break for an hour or two. If the day was fine, they’d tuck me into my pram and take me to the park. We saw ducks, aeroplanes and one day, a kite.

  ‘When you’re older, little Gracie, we’ll make a kite and fly it all the way up to the moon.’ Grandad was always making promises like that.

  If the weather was too hot or too wet, we’d stay inside and play This Little Piggy and Round and Round the Garden. My mother was grateful for these interludes. It’s sad to think now that she enjoyed this time away from me. Natural, I know; but sad.

  Yet while Hal swam and played grandfather, while he wrote to Zav and worried that Sealie was working too hard, he had a secret. When the late news was over, he’d say goodnight to Godown and head for his room, unlocking the door and locking it again behind him. After putting on his pyjamas and dressing-gown, he’d sit in his chair and open his Bible at random. But now he understood that the texts on the page were not at all random. God was guiding his finger.

  Sealie’s first days off coincided with one of Hal’s better periods. She wanted to tackle him about Mrs Mac, but Godown advised her not to.

  ‘He had a bad patch back there, but the swimmin’s good for him. Give it time. He’s still a bit down but lookin’ forward to you comin’ home. He always cheers up when you’re around.’

  Sealie was full of news about her nursing and her eyes sparkled as she told them about Sister Iron-Knickers and the Great Bedpan Scam (the upper case was obvious from the tone of her voice). ‘Marilyn and I had been caught sneaking in late one night. Only twenty minutes, Dad,’ she said, noting Hal’s frown. ‘The second-years leave this window open and Marilyn’s a bit plump so she got stuck. I was trying to pull her through and we were killing ourselves trying not to laugh aloud. Then old Iron-Knickers came in and switched on the light. She had curlers in her hair!’ Sealie chortled at the memory of the sight. ‘And face cream!’

  ‘Your mother used face cream.’

  Sealie corrected herself. ‘Nothing wrong with face cream or curlers. It’s just that she was trying to look dignified.’

  ‘Hard to look dignified in curlers and face cream,’ Hal agreed.

  ‘So we had bedpan cleaning duty for a week! I think it was more for laughing than for being late.’

  ‘Serves you right,’ Hal grinned.

  ‘No. Wait. Marilyn had this idea. We don’t have enough money for bets, so if we want to make a bet with someone, we bet “slaveries”.’

  Godown looked uncomfortable but held his peace.

  ‘Annie, you know, the one I told you about last time. She owed me enough slaveries to cover most of the week.’ Sealie was enjoying herself. ‘So poor old Annie had almost finished the week, when Iron-Knickers found out. She called us all in to her office and bawled us out AND we all got another week on bedpans.’

  They knew they should have disapproved, but Sealie’s high spirits were such that they laughed along with her.

  They were proud to hear that she was posted to a ward and admired the photo Marilyn took of her in her nurse’s uniform.

  ‘You look just like a real nurse,’ Hal marvelled, and they all had another laugh. It was so much like it should be that Sealie returned to the hospital with little inkling of the extent of her father’s deterioration.

  Busy to the point of exhaustion, she didn’t spend all her days off with Hal. She spent a lot of time with Kate and m
e. She met with Mrs Mac, and sometimes she slept. She was rostered on over Christmas and on her first day off in the New Year, she decided to visit her father.

  ‘I feel a bit guilty,’ she explained to Marilyn, who was anxious to introduce her brother to her good-looking new friend. ‘I haven’t seen Dad properly for ages.’

  She found Hal in his study, looking out onto the garden. His Bible was open on the desk, but his mind was obviously elsewhere. Pulling up a chair she took his hand and sat with him the way she used to.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts, Daddy.’

  Hal took her hand between both of his. ‘I don’t like the way this war’s going. Zav’s just as likely to try to be a bloody hero.’ Sealie was surprised. She had never heard her father use even a mild swear word.

  ‘Zav is the world’s greatest escape artist—always on the edge but always ends up okay. Anyway, you haven’t asked me how I’m going.’ She affected a pout. ‘Sister Iron-Knickers is more dangerous than any Viet Cong.’

  ‘You’re as good as a tonic, Sealie. I miss you both.’

  Sealie looked at him shrewdly. ‘Are you keeping yourself occupied? You’re a bit young to be retired.’

  ‘Nothing to do with age. Just finding work all a bit boring.’ They both knew that he hadn’t been to work regularly since falling out with Bob over the wedding plans. Hal had tried unsuccessfully to communicate through their secretary, and the truth was that he found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. It had, in fact, been many weeks since he’d been to the office.

  ‘I can help Kate with Grace,’ he told her, his face softening. ‘She’s a great little girl, our Grace. She recognises her old grandad, you know. Loves it when I take her out in the pram.’

  I did, too.

  This was a period of relative peace for Hal. No witch cackles, no radio static, no sniggering and snickering. No jeering. The Voice was gone too as, one by one, the noises in his head fell silent. The last to go were the angel-songs, the cool, blue rivers of sound that washed away all other colours before themselves fading into a blank white. Hal’s mind was a tabula rasa: scoured, cleansed, pure, ready for the voice of God.

  He didn’t know this, of course. All he felt was a blessed relief in the silence that was no longer a void. Now it was comforting and warm. He found enjoyment in simple things— his swimming, the sun and rain on his face, the smell of roast lamb.

  In his newfound fitness, he’d run along the path with my pram. ‘Brrrrmm. We’re in a racing car.’ He’d scoop me up and fly me around. ‘You’re superbaby. Up, up and away!’ When he was in the right mood, my grandfather certainly knew how to have fun.

  But Hal’s obsession with scripture hadn’t abated. If anything, it was worse. He no longer sought Godown’s reasoned interpretation and he read the texts in the lurid light of his delusions. One evening, feigning a yawn, he headed to his room. Godown sighed as he heard the key turn in the lock.

  Now! Hal let the Bible fall open on his lap and saw it was opened at Genesis, chapter 22. He peered at the page through his recently acquired reading glasses. God said unto Abraham ‘Behold, here I am.’

  ‘Yes, Lord. I’m here to know your will.’ Hal returned to the text.

  Then God said unto Abraham ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest and get thee to the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering . . .’

  ‘No!’ It was too horrifying to even think about. But this was God’s sacred word. Who was he to deny God? Hal began to pace the room, running his hands through thinning hair. I can’t. Not Zav. Not my only son. He stopped, feeling a flood of relief. He’s not even here, Lord. He’s in your keeping, not mine.

  And the voice of God was momentarily silenced and Hal was reprieved. But he was trembling uncontrollably and his shirt was drenched in a cold sweat.

  15

  ON 31 JANUARY 1968, ZAV came off picket at ten o’clock, ready to roll into his foxhole. Every cell in his body screamed for sleep, but before entering that dark space, he stopped and listened as he always did. Hearing a sinister scraping sound, he groaned. ‘Hey, Scottie. Can you give us a hand? Scorpion invasion.’

  Scottie came over and sheltered the light of the torch while Zav chopped at the deadly visitors with his machete.

  ‘No peace for the fuckin’ wicked,’ Scottie said amiably as he returned to his own tent. ‘Mine’s clear.’

  ‘See you in four hours.’

  ‘We should be so lucky.’

  Zav returned to the tent and lowered himself into the foxhole. Once inside, he lay on his back, fully clothed, smelling his own stale sweat. It was surprising what you got used to. He said a silent goodnight to Kate and then, as usual, strove to recall my face. As my baby features swam uncertainly towards him through the moisture-laden air, he fell, all at once, into a profound sleep.

  In the men’s surgical ward, Sealie was attempting her first unassisted dressing. The wound was abdominal, from a simple hernia repair. She had washed her hands and unwrapped the dressing tray, careful not to contaminate it. She unpacked the sterile gloves and poured disinfectant into the bowl. So far, so good. She double-checked. Everything was in place. She never thought she’d miss Sister looking over her shoulder and glanced automatically to where she usually stood.

  ‘What are you waiting for, girlie?’ Mr Stanley was not her favourite patient. Rude one minute, sleazy the next, he wore an aggrieved air as though the staff were personally responsible for his plight.

  ‘Won’t be long, Mr Stanley,’ Sealie chirruped though gritted teeth. ‘Hold still while I remove your bandage.’ She was gratified to note that she did this with considerable skill and smiled to herself before putting the soiled dressing into the rubbish bag.

  She turned on the tap and washed her hands again. The gloves slid over her fingers like a second skin. Now. Her brows drew together as she picked up the swab, using the forceps as she’d been taught.

  Hal and Godown were minding me while my mother went to the hairdresser’s. She planned to have her hair cut short and feathery, like the model, Twiggy. She found long hair a nuisance with me to care for.

  ‘Zav likes your hair the way it is,’ complained Hal. ‘So do I.’

  ‘Takes too long to dry,’ she replied. ‘I shouldn’t be more than two hours.’ She gave him the nappy bag and the bottle, while Godown got me out of the car in my basket. He was tickled when he found out that it was called a Moses basket and always sang a little tune when he carried me in it. Here comes old man Moses, carryin’ the Moses basket. He managed to fit the words, more or less, to the tune of ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain’. He held back on the power of his voice when he sang to me and it had a sweetness then, that fell softly on my ears.

  Hal came back from seeing Kate off. ‘How about we have a bite to eat and then take the little one for a walk by the river?’

  In 1968, Tet, the lunar New Year, fell on 31 January, and Zav and his mates looked forward to the traditional ceasefire. Not for long. Under the cover of Tet the enemy began a major offensive. In the early hours of 1 February, the Australian troops came under sustained attack. Zav and Scottie had barely slept three hours.

  When stand-to was called they ran to the perimeter, throwing themselves into their bunkers, eyes straining to pierce the darkness beyond. Rubber trees? Viet Cong? Shadows? How can you tell?

  ‘Do you hear something?’ Zav whispered. He was painfully aware of the fear that had begun to crawl from that visceral place where it always lay in wait. Now it settled on his skin; cold and clammy, despite the humidity of the tropical night. His thoughts returned briefly to Satan’s Slide. The cold. The fear that trembled on the brink of ecstasy. That experience had been silent and solitary. But this . . .

  ‘Choppers . . . what the . . .!’

  Zav looked at Scottie in horror as the night splintered into a thousand shards. Flares lit the base, creating a lurid, deceitful daylight in which, unaccountably, they could see tracer bullets carving a path through the sky. Staccato
volleys of gunfire, helicopters and mortars assailed their ears in a terrifying cacophony. It was as though the air itself was exploding and the earth a manifestation of pure sound. The noise swelled like some monstrous, dissonant orchestra and assaulted not only their ears but their bodies and minds.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ Zav wasn’t sure if it were his voice or Scottie’s. Or maybe it was all of them.

  It seemed as though they were suspended in time and space, but in fact the call to fire came within less than a minute. Suddenly, they were soldiers. Grim-faced and efficient, the young men did as they were trained to do.

  Chloe and Ariadne cried out in their sleep.

  While Zav fought through that terrible day, his sister went efficiently about her duties.

  Mr Stanley flinched as Sealie began to clean his wound, moving the swab across the line of the incision as she had been taught. She looked up annoyed, as he made a hissing sound through his teeth.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Stanley,’ she lied. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’ She picked up a fresh swab, repeating the procedure several times until she was sure the wound was completely clean. Choosing to ignore the hissing that continued unabated, she applied a clean dressing and taped it down firmly, eliciting a triumphant yelp from the patient.

  ‘Finished now, Mr Stanley,’ she announced and returned to the wet room where she disposed of the waste, washed her hands and cleaned the dressing tray and instruments ready for sterilisation. Rhonda, a second-year nurse, grinned as Sealie scrubbed viciously over the surface of the tray.

  ‘Male surgicals. All sooks. Old Stanley’s one of the worst.’

  ‘You know what gets me?’ Sealie responded. ‘He spent half an hour last night telling everyone what a good idea conscription is.’ She affected Stanley’s self-righteous tone. ‘The army turns boys into men. That’s what he said. And then he bleats when I change his dressing!’