by Alex Miller
‘Maybe it’s time you gave up the piano then. It seems to make you anxious, more than anything.’
She was silent a while then she said, ‘Have you ever really thought about Mum and Dad’s bedroom?’
He waited.
‘Just that double bed out there in the sleep-out. A small chest of drawers and that awful old wardrobe. No pictures. No chair. No mirror. Their smell. Their lives were terrible. Terrible! We’re stuck now.’
‘What do you mean, stuck?’
She took her hand out from under the covers and took hold of his hand. She turned it over and looked at his palm, as if she thought she might find the answer there. ‘I’m not being fair to you. We can’t sort out another person’s life for them.’ She looked up at him and smiled. Her eyes were reddened and still teary. ‘I’m sorry I made a fuss. I’m all right now.’ She ran her fingers up his arm and held his bicep. ‘You’ve got lovely arms. You’ve been a real workman. You’ve done real things. Dad would have liked you.’ She smiled. ‘Really. I’m all right. You must get back to your essay. Go on! It’s just that their lives were so narrow. And now they’re gone and there’s nothing. Just that barren room down the back of the house and the smell. It was really all over for them so quickly. Nothing happened.’
‘There are your dad’s drawings and his notebooks,’ he said. He tucked the covers in around her chin.
‘Mum was so inflexible. God, I can hardly bear to think of her.’ She looked at him. ‘I don’t know what I want from life. But I don’t want what they had. I’m terrified I’ll finish up just like her despite everything. I loved her. But I hated her.’ She said with sudden fierceness, ‘I just won’t let myself become stuck!’
He said, ‘You’ll work it out over time. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.’
She said, ‘Oh, fuck off, for Christ’s sake! Go and do your fucking essay.’
He got up. She reminded him of his own desperate need as a boy to make the leap and escape the narrowness of his situation.
‘I’m sorry!’ she cried out as he was going out the door. ‘I just can’t bear it!’
He went over to the bed and got undressed and put out the light and climbed in beside her. He held her in his arms. He thought of the time she stayed overnight with him in his room at the boarding house, the way she had needed to be held and reassured, almost as if he was her dad and she was a little girl again. There, there, everything’s going to be all right. Wipe your tears and I’ll read you a story.
She said, ‘I feel as if I haven’t got any time. It makes me breathless.’
25
He had done the shopping and was digging over the garden patch where the lettuces had been in the summer. He thought maybe if he made an effort to get the house and garden back into some kind of order she might begin to feel more secure and settled. It wasn’t clear whether she was suffering grief from the death of her mother or sheer bewilderment from some other hidden cause.
She came out and stood watching him. When he straightened she said, ‘Have you got a cigarette?’ She went over to him and he gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. ‘It’s going to be good when you’ve done that,’ she said, and she turned and went back inside the house.
He caught the elusive scent of the flowering gum. He went back to work, digging over the plot. Would her inner world and his own become joined one day? Or would they always remain strangers to each other in some deep way?
A blackbird was finding worms in the dug-over ground. Morris Aplin, the labourer on Warren’s farm, had taught him the correct way to dig a garden bed. The blackbird was not afraid of him.
The following Thursday Lena called him at home from the hospital and asked him to meet her at lunchtime in the Exhibition Gardens, next to St Vincent’s Hospital.
He saw her before he got off the tram. She was sitting on a park bench, her back to the street, facing the big fountain in the park. Her shoulders were hunched over and it looked like she was reading a book held on her lap. She was just like any young professional woman having a bite of lunch on her own in the park.
She looked up and watched him coming along the path towards her. He waved but she didn’t wave back. He had the feeling she was watching him from another place. When he reached her she held out both her hands to him. He took her hands in his and leaned down and kissed her. He sat on the bench beside her. She put her arm through his and cuddled up close against his side. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said, and she rested her head on his shoulder. It was a lovely sunny day, a huge shade tree spreading its branches above them, the cascade of the fountain catching the sun. The clatter of the trams and the roar of the traffic accelerating along Nicholson Street behind them.
She lifted her head from his shoulder and straightened her hair. She was looking drawn and tired around the eyes. She had been trying to lose weight. He’d repeatedly tried to reassure her that she was perfect as she was. He said, ‘Did you eat a proper lunch?’
She smiled. ‘What is this? Did I eat a proper lunch? You sound like Mum. Next thing you’ll be asking me if I’m warm enough.’ She laughed.
‘You’re looking a bit strained, that’s all.’
‘I know how to eat,’ she said, her tone a touch sardonic. ‘And yes, I probably do look a bit strained. I need a break.’ She looked at him, unsmiling now, and put her hand on his arm. A tram was squealing past when she said something he didn’t catch and he leaned closer and asked her to repeat it. ‘I’ve enrolled in a course of Italian language and culture,’ she said, and paused. ‘It’s at the university for foreigners in Perugia.’
‘You’re going to Italy? A break from what? From us? From me?’
‘Of course not from us. I need a break from work. From routine. You said yourself you left the outback because the life there became routine. Well, I need to try myself out too. Don’t get upset. It’s not that strange. Lots of people do it. Helen Armitage—you’ve met her—she did it. And other people. There are lots of Australians studying in Perugia.’ She shifted a little away from him. ‘Please don’t make a fuss,’ she said.
‘You speak German and French. You don’t know any Italian.’
She gave him a funny lopsided smile. The smile more than half convinced him she wasn’t telling him the real reason why she was going. ‘You can come over after your exams and we can spend Christmas there together. You’ll be able to practise your Italian.’
‘This is bullshit.’ He imagined himself abandoned in her house while she played some game in Italy. ‘Are you serious?’
She touched his cheek with her fingers. ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry about anything. I know what I’m doing. You can come over after your finals and we can even spend some time in England. I can meet your family. It’s a sensible plan.’
‘It’s a stupid plan,’ he said. ‘You’re deserting me. Wait till after I’ve done my finals, then we can both go and spend the long vacation there together.’
‘You’re carrying on as if I’m doing something weird. You’re just not used to people travelling and doing things and being out in the world. Working-class people don’t do that kind of thing. But we do.’
‘This is pure crap! We? Your own lot? What are you saying? What am I? Ask Martin. He’s the one who understands race and class. The only one I’ve met so far.’ He was thoroughly pissed off.
‘I did try talking to you,’ she said calmly. She was looking away over towards the fountain. A man was taking a photograph of a woman. The woman was posing for him. ‘You just didn’t show any understanding at all of what I was trying to say so I went ahead on my own.’ She took his hand in hers. ‘Don’t be angry. I’ve deposited enough in our joint savings account for you to buy your airfare when you’re ready to come over.’ She smiled. ‘We’ll be able to speak Italian together.’
‘You’ve tricked me,’ he said. ‘You’re leaving. You can’t do it.’
‘And you can’t stop me from doing it. I’ve hardly spent a minute outside Melbourne. You’re being sel
fish and unfair.’
How strangely cool about it all she was. Living in her private world of ideas and plans. ‘Postpone it till we can go together,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’m asking you to do. I’m not asking you to give it up.’
She stood up. ‘I’ve got to get back to work.’
He sat looking at her.
‘I’ve got to go, really. There are people waiting for me.’
‘Deros?’ he said.
He got up and they walked back to the hospital together, arm in arm, just as if it was a routine day in their ordinary lives. He hated her for what she was doing and the sneaky way she was doing it. At the hospital entrance she turned to him. ‘I’m going by boat! Did I tell you that? It’s a cargo boat! It’s going to be my first real adventure.’ She laughed and kissed him on the cheek then turned and went into the hospital. He stood there for a long time.
26
Her boat left from North Wharf. They were loading it with timber. The air was full of the smell of fresh-sawn hardwood. There were six other passengers. Three couples. All older. Her cabin was tiny. The passages on the ship stank of marine oil and black grease. Seamen walked about whistling. They looked like an insolent lot to Robert. He felt sick and abandoned to see her boat cast off and leave the wharf. He stood looking until the tugs turned it around and began hauling it out towards the Bay as if it was a great dead whale. He could still see her white handkerchief. She was showing him how faithful she was, semaphoring her trust in him. He had never seen her so happy as when she stood looking down at him from the deck.
He drove home through Port Melbourne to the beach, turned left at Beach Road and headed for Red Bluff and the bayside suburbs. The water of the Bay was still and cold and grey, the red and black cargo ships all looking just like one another. He pulled into a beach car park and watched the only boat that was heading out towards the open sea.
When he got back to the house he stood in the hallway listening. The grandfather clock was tock-tocking. He went down the hall to the kitchen and made scrambled eggs and toast and a cup of tea and he sat in the alcove and ate his meal and drank two cups of tea.
The weeks became months and he heard nothing from Lena. He kept the house as clean as Mrs Soren had kept it and he looked after the garden and put in his order for meat with Mr Creedy, the butcher, once a week. He paid the electricity and the gas bills from their joint savings account and he found where Mrs Soren kept her spare bags for the vacuum cleaner. He kept the Red Bluff home of the Sorens in good order, as if he was taking care of it till the day when it could all start up and be normal again. He was so busy with this and his studies it took him a while to realise he was waiting for things to return to the way they had been. Once he started thinking like that he began to suspect that maybe the change was a permanent one after all and he’d missed his cue. Which opened up an enormous question for him. Had he been left behind not only by Lena, but by the subtle change that was supposed to have been a sign to him? Was that it? Here he was taking on a poor copy of their old way of life while they all went off on a new tack. Dying and running away. Father and son first, then mother, and now the daughter. Leaving it to him. Trusting him to take care of it. Which was exactly what he was doing. Their bidding. That’s what it began to feel like when he was out in the garden weeding the vegetables. He would stop and look up and half expect to see Mrs Soren watching him approvingly from the back door.
There were eerie days and nights when his solitude was a burden and Mrs Soren’s ghost was no company for him. And there were calm days and nights when he was productive and content and for hours at a time even preferred his solitude to having company. But always in his mind there was Lena and his anxiety about where she was and what was happening to her and why she hadn’t written to him. He sent off several letters to the Università per Stranieri at Perugia, one written in Italian and corrected by his old teacher. But he received no acknowledgement. Nothing. Not a word. It began to feel as if she had cut her ties and gone out into the world and would never be seen again.
Lying awake at night in their big bed in the blue room he developed elaborate and horrible fantasies about her fate—scenes of rape and torture on board that ship, her corpse being thrown overboard by the insolent sailors. His need to know something, anything at all, one way or the other, crawled in his head all day and all night. For brief hours he would be distracted and forget her, then remember with a sudden leap of the heart. Sitting alone in Keith’s study poring over his books one night he heard himself yell into the silence, ‘So where the fuck are you?!’ There were times when he was a little unhinged and stood at the window looking out into that deserted street, the front garden, the telegraph pole. The nothing of the suburban. And he did not have the courage to go out and face it.
27
Robert was sitting with Martin in the silence when the door to the hall opened and Birte looked in. The cautious way she opened the door and peered around it into the room, she might have been checking to see if Martin and Robert were still there or had left hours ago. She stood in the doorway looking at them. ‘It’s all right, Martin; don’t look at me like that,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to interrupt you.’ She was carrying a sheaf of typed manuscript. ‘I want to give Robert my brother’s lecture on Thomas Mann before he goes home. And I want to show him our card from Lena.’ She opened the door wider and said to Robert, ‘So she’s in Florence, falling in love with art. I didn’t know Lena was interested in art. She wasn’t interested in art at school. Why didn’t she go to Germany?’ She waved an impatient hand at Martin again. ‘It’s all right, Martin, I just want to hear from Robert what Lena is doing. I know you’re never going to ask him.’ She fully opened the door and the light from the hall fell across Martin. ‘She tells us nothing on the card.’ Birte’s voice had taken on a plaintive, puzzled tone, as if she felt hard done by for only getting such a skimpy bit of news from Lena.
Robert said, ‘I’ve heard nothing from her.’
‘What are you saying? We have heard from her but you haven’t? Why haven’t you heard from her?’
The two empty bowls in which Martin had earlier served his usual mid-afternoon offering of cool yoghurt and sliced cucumber sat on the low table, glowing whitely in the light from the hall.
Birte said with irritation, ‘Why don’t you put on the light, Martin? You look like lovers sitting in here in the dark. Robert didn’t hear from Lena, Martin!’ She stamped her good foot. ‘Did you hear what he said?’
Martin murmured, ‘There’s no need to shout, Birte.’
‘She sends us a postcard and she doesn’t send one to Robert. Why is this? I don’t understand. Tell me, what is the reason for it, Martin?’ It was a peremptory demand. She wanted an answer.
The end of Martin’s cigarette glowed then faded. He lifted his shoulders but said nothing.
Robert said, ‘Is there an address on the card?’
‘I’ll get it!’ Birte hobbled off down the hall without giving him the copy of her brother’s lecture on Mann. Martin and Robert sat and waited. A moment later there was the sound of Birte coming back, her injured leg going thump-drag-thump, her voice complaining of the pain as if it were an infuriating companion.
Robert got up and went out into the hall. She handed him the postcard and watched him read it under the hall light. The first thing that struck him was that either this was not Lena’s handwriting or her neat handwriting had altered dramatically, had escaped from its sedate order and gone wild. He stared at the card for a long time before the freely looping scrawl began to make some sense to him. Her writing looked more like a flurried impression of storm clouds than a series of words.
Dearest Birte and Martin,
I’ve seen the magic of drawing and can’t wait to do it myself.
I’m ashamed now that I’ve never really looked at your Käthe Kollwitz.
My love and hugs to you both,
Lena xxx
Robert turned the card over and looked at the pictu
re. It was a free pen-and-wash drawing in which the carelessly applied blobs and stains of brown ink made suggestive sense. A group of figures huddled together beside a broken tree, battered by a violent storm of wind, the arm of one figure flung upwards as if to shield them from the wild swirl of lines in the sky above them, lines that might have been a dragon or a devil falling on them, a fierce mythical bird of prey. The artist was Pier Francesco Mola. The title of the drawing was The Expulsion. It was so free it might have been modern but the date was the early seventeenth century. So Lena had been fascinated by the wild energy of the disordered blobs and scrawls? The drawing’s simplicity was deceptive and Robert could imagine her looking at this picture and seeing herself flinging ink and random lines onto a sheet of white paper, her emotions transmuted into visible signs, an action of exuberant freedom. He turned the card over and read the message again. My love and hugs to you both. No reference to him.
He looked up from the card.
‘Why doesn’t she write to you?’ Birte asked in a small voice. ‘Martin and I are worried about you. You don’t look well. Martin tells me to mind my own business, but you and Lena are my business. Is there nothing you can tell me?’
He looked at the card in his hand. ‘Her dad used to draw,’ he said. It was the slimmest of threads, scarcely a thread at all, but it was all he could think of. There was no address and no date. He imagined her out there alone, writing the card while sitting at a cafe table in a sunlit square in Florence, then getting up and posting it, drifting in her freedom without ties or responsibilities, no fixed address, no dates or times tethering her hours. No marriage vows. No duties. No mother to remind her of her responsibilities. Out of the cage, free to move around at will. Free to dance in the limitless space of her liberty, a stranger abroad, a foreigner, an outsider, terrifying and compelling, glimpsing the possibility of a goal, a reason for being there, a reason for living. To draw meaning and purpose out of the helpless chaos of her inner life. Or was she just sleeping around? It made him feel sick to think about it.