An email from the Dean of Studies asking for the Prof’s thoughts on the ‘severity of punishment bringing such disrepute on our esteemed establishment might warrant’.
A touchingly sincere email from Jennifer Hayden herself asking the university to forget about my email, citing the ‘pressures of academic discourse’ and the ‘exciting findings such evident passion for the field might yield with a little firmer guidance’.
The second page of each of the aforementioned emails, asking the user to be mindful of wasting paper, and only printing out emails if ‘essential’.
Though one could, and one will, proceed to argue that the Prof’s sincere promises about fighting against the bureaucracy for me to stay, and trying to reduce the severity of my punishment, look like utter crap in the light of these emails, one will hold back from wielding such childish accusations in light of provable evidence. More likely the Pommy git pushed for me to be removed to get me out of the way and allow his blossoming romance with my girlfriend the space it needs to grow into something more substantial.
I am painfully aware that my ‘evidence’, so far, amounts to nothing but conjecture and far-fetched contrivances, proof of a far deeper well of insecurity in my own self-confidence more so than confirmation of any wrongdoing on Em’s behalf.134 But we would need more space than this thesis has to offer were we to delve into those depths. I will admit that I began to doubt my own reasoning around this point – Jennifer got to me, and Max Whitlock and Nicholas Curtin-Kneeling, all crowding into my head and throwing their doubts at me. But Alan faced far worse, and made something of it, so I took a close look at the emails I found in the Prof’s bin – torn in half, covered in mayonnaise and coffee, destined to be destroyed. A confirmation email for the hotel stay in Paris, sent from Em’s work account to the Prof’s for authorisation:
Hey Ali – all booked, confirmation attached. Close to the conference centre like you asked, but off the main street. Good reviews online. Easy taxi from the airport. Em xxx135
Signed off with three x’s, one more than is universally accepted as appropriate for emails between work colleagues, reminiscent of the lurid, promising neon lights of Soho bookstores and adult toy shops. Have scoured my own messages from Em and found a high correlation between instances of three or more x’s at the end of a message and occurrences of physical intimacy during the course of the next twenty-four hours. Or am I reading too much into it?
And, just as I’m about to throw the email back into my own trash and curse myself for being so suspicious, I look over the confirmation from the hotel: one booking confirmed.
One room, one king-sized bed.
Well, fuck.
Unless that’s just the confirmation for the Prof’s room, and there’s a separate confirmation for Em’s room, I think, clutching at the flimsiest of straws, hoping against hope that the erratic beating of my heart is the precursor of a heart attack, please, or an aneurism, anything that’ll drop me dead in my tracks rather than face the awful truth I know I have to face.
So I send Em the message, and we make plans for tomorrow night, and I see the rest of tonight opening up with a depressing reliability before me: sitting at my desk shuddering and crying for an hour or so, finishing a bottle of wine, arguing with myself all evening like a shell-shocked veteran trying to convince myself I’m wrong, finishing a second bottle of wine, more crying, more arguing, a sad, solitary wank in the shower, followed by more crying and arguing, et cetera ad infinitum. Spread out in front of me on the desk are my years of research into the Unknown Digger and Alan Lewis, the fruit of thousands of hours of hard work to prove that the man I believe wrote a bunch of Aussie poems actually did, and it’s like I haven’t learnt anything from them. Like I’ve been so busy analysing the rhyme schemes and syllabic structures I haven’t been paying attention to what they say. What would Alan do? He’d charge back into the fray, he wouldn’t give up, no matter the odds.
I call Sam, and ask her where she’s meeting Em for dinner, and please, please, I say, I just want to speak to her, that’s all.
And then Sam says, But Matt, we don’t have plans? I thought Em was with you?
When did she stop calling him Alistair, and start calling him Ali?
Alan Lewis sacrificed his life in that Turkish village so that I could travel halfway across the world on a whim, so that I could pursue my dreams wherever they happened to take me, so the entire population of Australia, including his descendants and friends and fellow soldiers, could live in a world free of fear. He ran into that dark hut three times to save his mate, and anyone else he could find. The explosion that killed him may have torn apart his body, leaving no trace of his physical existence, but through his poetry he has lived on, and given Australia and its people new life.
And in the spirit of Alan Lewis, tonight I headed once more into Em’s dark-windowed apartment, knowing full well that whatever happened, some part of me was never going to re-emerge.
She opened the door with her back to me, distracted by something Artie was doing in the kitchen, laughing. Hey, she said as I walked in, and I realised this was going to be harder than anything I had ever done before in my life, including leaving Perth.
We need to talk, I said. My voice trembled, and Em turned around and looked at me properly for the first time.
Are you crying?
No. Although I could at any moment.
You want a glass of wine?
No. Artie ran and jumped up at me, then lay on his back waiting for a tummy scratch. I sat down on the kitchen floor and tousled his fur. Em fussed in the kitchen, telling me all about her day, explaining the new tutorial the Prof has her planning for once I’m gone, about how good it was to see Sam again last night, how she wants to make a habit of it, how they want to join a yoga class together.
I know about you and Alistair.
I focussed all my attention on Artie’s tiny puppy feet.
Silence from the kitchen.
I know you shared a room in Paris, and I know you lied about working late, and I know you weren’t with Sam last night because I called her.
I spoke too fast, trying to get it all out before she had a chance to explain herself. To her credit she didn’t interrupt – just nodded and pulled her hair back from her face and put her hand on the table like maybe she needed help to stay standing.
I finally looked up from Artie and we stared at each other for a minute, neither of us speaking.
I know you’re in love with him, I managed. QED. I didn’t know that at all, but sometimes it pays to make an educated guess, and then backtrack and prove the point with the benefit of hindsight. She choked back her words so I knew I was onto something. There’s a point you get to in all research, in testing out any theory, where the pieces start clicking together in your head, where every fact you find and every possibility you can think of matches up with what you’re putting forward and you get that heart-filling warmth where you know you couldn’t possibly be wrong. I felt that back in Australia, on my first research trip to Canberra and the national archives – the first time I laid eyes on the original Unknown Digger poems, and my mind flew to Alan Lewis and everything I knew about him, and suddenly every hurried line of poetry in the collection in front of my eyes made sense.
I felt something similar in Em’s kitchen, my hand in Artie’s fur, my gaze fixed on Em’s unblinking eyes. A different heat, maybe, but the same fluttering of the heart, the same sweaty-palmed, standing-onthe-edge-of-a-cliff nausea that could either end in glorious flight or a broken body dashed on the rocks of knowledge a thousand feet below. Not sure which option I really wanted at that moment. Not sure I know now.
I’m sorry. She whispered, like if she broke it quietly to me she could ease the truth between my ribs like the Turkish blade that killed Trooper ‘Nugget’ McRae.
And how quickly that wonderful moment of clarity dissipates, clearing the space for months or years of relentless questioning. We went to the pub with friends a few months bac
k, when I was blissfully ignorant and Em was still my beautiful, lying future-wife. We had all been drinking, and someone started talking about the movies they’d loved as kids, and soon we were all reminiscing about the terrible, brilliant eighties blockbusters we’d been raised on. Someone couldn’t remember the name of that actor, with the shock of red hair and the squint, who appeared in all the best worst movies of our generation, so I pulled out my phone.
I looked it up, brought up his website, his acting credits, his entire career. Found out he’s a shoe salesman now, doing a bit of convention work on the side. And we all smiled and nodded and fell into silence.
Nice going, Matt, Em said, that night in the pub. I ruined it with my need to get to the bottom of everything, my insatiable need to be right. Still doing it now.
Em was crying, silent tears streaming down her face, and Artie could tell something was up because he’d gone completely silent and stopped wriggling.
I never, ever meant to hurt you, she said. Her voice sounded strange. You have to know that. She took a step towards me and then thought better of it and stayed where she was.
But you did.
But I did. And I’m so sorry. I … she trailed off, unsure what to say, probably trying to come up with a placating lie, some way to ease her guilt. I wanted to tell you, I promise.
But you didn’t.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. You were so happy.
We were so happy, I tried to reply, but the words were mangled in my throat, and suddenly there was snot dangling from my nose and my eyes were itchy.
You were so happy. She sat down at the kitchen table and Artie jumped out of my hands and crossed the room, his tail wagging. And I didn’t want to be the one to destroy that.
I bought you Artie.
Don’t, she raised her voice and Artie’s tail stopped mid-wag. Don’t do that.
I thought you were happy.
I know (and what I wouldn’t give for my own dynamite explosion to blow up her flat at that moment, as she so effortlessly laid my own ignorance out before me), and I was. Sometimes. I’m sorry.
You said.
It wasn’t meant to happen. At some point we became, I dunno, closer, than we had been, than we should have been. And then it just felt right, and to Ali’s credit –
No. I surprised myself with the loudness of my voice. Artie ran back over to me to lick my fingers.
I did this, I know. I’m sorry. But you have to know, it was never planned. Swear. I never wanted to hurt you. And I am so sorry you found out like this. I was going to tell you, but then the Jennifer Hayden article came out. And everything at work.
She paused for half a minute to get up and turn off the oven, then walked back to the table, looking out past me toward the couch and the TV and the backyard and the purplish bruise of sky visible through the back window. I never wanted to hurt you.
That’s it? I said. At some point I must have moved to the couch, because that’s where I was sitting. Em was standing by the kitchen table. I played with Artie in my lap, trying not to look at her, but watching what she was doing. She turned an apple over and over in her hands, throwing it up, catching it, spinning it in her palm. Graceful movements, like a dancer.
That’s what I wanted to say.
I didn’t say anything for a long time, and neither did she. We let the minutes slip over us like rain, waiting for a break in the clouds.
Do you love him?
Artie had his teeth around my finger, and he bit down harder as I wiggled. A minute passed.
I do.
How long? I refused to cry.
We only slept together in Paris.
How long have you been in love?
Longer than that.
Thank you for your honesty.
Thank you for understanding.
It was all so clean. Disinfected. Like a hospital. Like the kitchen where I cooked last week and the couch we fucked on and the bed we fell asleep in every other night had all been bleached or burnt or sprayed with chemicals, and any remaining trace of us, any of our happiness or passion or love, had been wiped clean.
I said I should go.
What, now now? She looked around the kitchen, at the oven and the delicious smell coming from it, at her plates and her cutlery, her chipped mugs. Her painted walls, like they would be enough, and then back to me. I nodded. She walked me to the door and kissed my cheek. She stayed there, with her arms around me, her mouth by my ear, breathing like she’d run a marathon, squeezing me tightly, like she could keep all the love from gushing out of the gaping hole in my chest where my heart had once been.
I said, I don’t trust anything you say.
That’s fair, she said. I lied to you. Past tense, like she’s stopped now.
Did you ever love me?
I still love you.
All this time – every initial thought that led to this thesis, every word I’ve typed late at night, every research session in the Imperial War Museum’s archive, every dead end and possible breakthrough, every half rhyme and enjambed line, every unnamed soldier’s death and forgotten battle – I’ve wondered: If it came down to it, would I have the presence of mind, the courage and the bravery to do what Alan Lewis did, that fateful day in the fields of Har Megiddo?
At every setback and stumble, and there have been a few, I’ve asked myself: What would Alan Lewis do? Like even after all this time, he would have the answers.
But Alan Lewis is dead.
So the real question is: What would Matt Denton do, when faced with his own Armageddon? And now I know.
I’d run away, like all miserable cowards, to the ends of the earth, to hide my shame.
I caught the next train to Brighton.
ARMAGEDDON. SEPTEMBER 1918.
At the front of the column, he’s the most exposed.
The cobbled streets echo the clopping of the horses down the narrow lanes. Dust on the rim of his slouch hat. Worn leather beneath white knuckles. They pass windows, flung open, the inhabitants of the city watching them ride by from the shadows. No parade. No celebration. Dark-eyed children scamper in their wake. He glances up at the centuries-old stone, runs his hand along the dark sun-stained wall as he rides past. Eyes open for danger. Alert, muscles tensed.
The Turkish garrison has been abandoned, the rooms emptied, shutters knocking in the breeze. The dust dances in long beams of sunlight. Someone has left a letter, unfinished.
The column stretches out behind him, like the long trail of sheep brought into pasture. The heads of the horses droop like the men’s shoulders. Rifles slung across backs. Flies skitting by their ears.
His arms are dark with sun, rangy and muscled. His men follow where he leads. He keeps his eyes forward, scanning the buildings, silently watching. Never looking back. He can’t allow himself, bottles it all up inside, plasters a smile on his face and cracks black jokes like the rest of them. All the while staring straight ahead, ignoring the tiny splits in the walls of the buildings, the long scars of the many wars, like his, that have marched through this city like his men straggling behind.
He leads the way through the streets, the worn point of the Allied advance. His men haven’t slept in days, their horses need water. The war keeps asking them for more. He’s not sure he has more to give.
He rides on.
My love,
It’s been years now, surely, that we have been riding, passing the same watering hole, the same small tangle of buildings that calls itself a village, the same bleached bones of the horse that never made it home. I am in a foul mood.
I fear the war has made me a cynic.
The men have grown battle-hardened, sharp and angular. I hardly recognise them. I received another letter from Ma. Dad’s illness has taken a turn for the worse, and it doesn’t look like he’ll make it through to harvest. What happened to the world we left four years ago? What will we return to? Will Australia even remember us?
There’s a man in the first patrol: Gordon, a sunken sort
of bloke, small eyes and a shaggy toothbrush. Can’t say I care for him. Quietish, so you never know what he’s thinking. Wouldn’t draw sniper fire, if you catch my drift. Got his missus back home, and a little one, growing bigger every day. Gets a parcel now and then. Like any of us, he’s trying to avoid cashing in his ticket.
Yesterday they brought round the mail. Haven’t had it for a while, riding scout. Gordon got his. I didn’t read it myself, but word spread quick. The little one was swept off the rocks at Point Peron. They didn’t find the body for two days. I’m sorry, his wife wrote, but the local banker has been my pillar, here when I needed him, and we are to wed.
The war has found infinite forms to take a life. I’ve put Gordon on round-the-clock watch. When I catch my share of metal, I hope you will find a new bed to warm. I wouldn’t blame you. Mine has grown cold and callous. I forget what your skin feels like.
The saddle grates. The dust blinds. It’s too late for me.
Yours, despairingly.
They ride into the village at daybreak, making good time, following the trail of the Jackos where it meanders through the gully. He eases his horse into a trot, flicking his eyes around the huts, watching for movement. Dark earth. Dust hangs in the air. The Turks were here. His horse breathes like a smoker. His thighs ache – riding for three solid hours, keeping touch with the Jacko outriders, following in the column’s wake.
He dismounts, and leads his horse over to the well, ties her to the wooden strut while he pulls up the bucket dangling on the nearby rope. Nugget is by his shoulder, startling him, and he drops the rope, the precious water splashing back into the darkness.
‘Steady, mate,’ says Nugget, yellow teeth pulled back in a smile. He’s always fucking smiling, is Nugget. Nothing – not the sand or the Turks or the other men – nothing fazes Nugget. Not even Alan, the darkness weighing on his chest, growing heavier each day. The sickness, eating away at him. The ever-present fear. Nugget has stood by him through it all. Held his hand through the dark times and carried him in the darker still. Always smiling. Nugget should make him feel safe, but all he does is make him feel inadequate. How small he feels in comparison to the tiny Irishman.
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