Absence Makes

by Bruce Menzies

  ‘She was that kind of woman. Once her mind was made up, you couldn’t shift her with a barge pole.’

  ‘She may still come round, Baxter.’ She desperately wanted to assure him all was not lost.

  ‘Aye, she might. And then again she might not.’ He was silent.

  ‘Your granddaughter is quite something.’ She told him about her meeting with Vickie, gilding the lily a bit and passing over the classified data. ‘She will be out here before long.’

  He seemed content with that but wondered about Peggy and her brothers.

  ‘I’m not sure what Peggy will do. Vickie promised to work on her, as she put it. As for Alex and Ken, I had no luck. The family is very close-knit and won’t say anything. I assume they’re both in Sydney and I intend to get on to it in the New Year.’

  Again, she was clutching at straws. Unless someone cracked, Baxter’s search for his children would remain unfinished. They both knew this would leave a hole in his life, a hole that could not be filled unless Alice underwent a change of heart. Having pondered this at length, Simone found it difficult to comprehend the depth of feeling that blocked the chances of reconciliation. How could Alice – or anybody, for that matter – become so unforgiving and rigid, they would erase from their lives someone who they once loved? It was not uncommon, she knew, having encountered examples within her wider family. ‘They don’t talk to each other,’ said her mother, referring to one of her cousins who wouldn’t speak to her own father. ‘Why?’ Simone asked, astounded, as she enjoyed good relations with both of them. ‘Oh, they had some sort of fallout years ago,’ was all her mother could offer. Nobody knew what it was about let alone how to deal with it. It was not a subject for discussion, certainly not in the presence of her cousin or uncle.

  Like other contentious family issues, the dispute – whatever it was – ended up in someone’s Too Hard Basket. But the ripple effect – the sadness, the incomprehension and the hurt – trickled through and was felt by them all. Simply crazy, she thought. How we can do this to one another and never find a way out? And Baxter, having come this far yet achieved so little, could he still hold out hope? The resolution he sought seemed elusive, and she could not blame him if he lost heart. If anything, that made her more determined to press on with the search, wherever it led.

  Meanwhile, it was the season of good cheer. She showed Baxter his gift, a swanky cap picked up in Soho. He tried it on and asked her how it looked.

  ‘Great,’ she enthused. ‘You’ll make an impression when you’re next at Steve’s.’

  ‘A bit hot for summer.’ But he gave her a broad smile and a peck on the cheek.

  ‘I have something for you.’

  She must have looked surprised.

  ‘It’s from someone you know.’ He was looking pleased with himself.

  ‘You’ve got me, Baxter. What is it?’

  ‘Turn around.’

  She did as she was told. One wall had a towel draped over something.

  ‘Take off the cover.’

  She removed the towel and gasped.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ On the wall hung the drawing she’d last seen in Jim’s studio. It had been framed, beautifully too.

  ‘He did a good job.’ Baxter was chuckling. ‘He’s no Picasso. At least I can recognise you.’

  She pretended to hit him with the towel. ‘You rascal, perving on a poor, naked girl. What will I say to the matron?’

  He laughed. ‘She’s seen it. I wanted to hang it in the front office. You can guess how well that went down.’

  ‘Did Jim post it to you?’

  He did not answer but rubbed his hands together and grinned.

  ‘What are you hiding from me, Baxter?’

  ‘He came to see me.’

  She was flabbergasted. Jim had been reticent to leave his studio let alone journey outside Melbourne.

  ‘And he gave me some interesting information.’

  She sat open-mouthed as he related the details. When Baxter was sent to Graylands, Alice’s shame had been overwhelming. To help repay the bank, her jewellery was sold, along with the few bonds that came to her from her father. She was bitter and destitute by the time she arrived in Melbourne, and she wanted to obliterate her past.

  ‘And that’s what she did,’ said Baxter quietly. ‘She changed her name and the kids’ names as well.’

  Baxter was not the only forger in the family. Jim Townsend had set to work, preparing false birth certificates for the four of them.

  ‘He was much better at it than me. Being an artist and all.’

  She flashed on her recent visit to Deepdene. ‘Don’t you dare call me that!’ Alice had bitten her head off when she addressed her as Mrs Moncur.

  ‘What name did she chose?’

  Baxter smiled. ‘Her mother’s maiden name – Basset.’

  Simone was still stunned. Rather than drive straight to Fremantle, she parked on the ridge. It was too hot in the car and she found a shady spot under the trees. To her left, the wide river curved towards the city. On the opposite bank she could make out Heathcote Hospital, another institution with something of a reputation. Suddenly, the world felt small.

  The connection was clear or was it? Baxter’s children were no longer Moncurs. Peggy, of course, had taken on her husband’s name but Alex and Ken were both Bassets. And so were Jeff and Ross. No, it couldn’t be. It had to be a coincidence. How strange. She’d left Baxter without saying anything. No point in creating false expectations. Keep a lid on your excitement, she told herself. You need to think this through.

  She sat with her chin in her hands. Ken and Alex were supposed to be in Sydney. As a surname, Basset was not uncommon but neither was it as humdrum as Smith or Jones. At the Claremont Post Office, she could look through the directories on the way to her parents. How many Bassets were there in Sydney – or Perth, for that matter? Too many, no doubt. It wouldn’t be that simple. It couldn’t be that simple! And yet – it was a breakthrough, a huge breakthrough.

  Simone wracked her brains. Ross had mentioned his father. Did he give him a name? She couldn’t recollect. What had he divulged about his parents? Nothing much at all.

  A gumnut hit the ground beside her, and she jumped. Get off your backside, girl. You have work to do.

  21

  Ross had no desire to go. Christmas arrangements, negotiated months ahead, were never straightforward. He looked at his watch. Five thirty. June had been in the bathroom for half an hour. He knew better than to enquire when he might get his turn. For a couple purportedly practising open marriage, he could not come to grips with the exclusive-use notion that revolved around their ablutions. Admittedly, the bathroom was tiny. The previous owners were short in stature and this may have explained their renovations. The plaster ceiling hung low and a squat bath was installed next to a single basin above which hung a mirror. June, he knew, would be standing in front of the mirror, not messing about with eye liner or make-up, for these beauty essentials, along with armpit shaving, had been given the feminist flick. No, she would be peering at her reflection, checking that her earrings and hair band did not clash, and that her dress fitted snugly and was not too provocative for her parents, much as she would like to provoke them, especially at the ceremonial ritual that was Christmas Eve at the Prestons. The earrings would be changed a few times and perhaps the dress too, before she was satisfied and ready.

  In the hallway, he heard the telephone. ‘It’ll be my father again,’ yelled June. ‘Don’t answer it.’

  ‘Hey, I need to take a shower!’ Ross could no longer contain his impatience. He had no interest in answering the telephone.

  The shower head stood above the bath. June hated plastic curtains and preferred to mop up the inevitable puddles. She did not mind Ross cleaning his teeth when she was immersed under the jets. Her body was in fine shape, and he suspected she revelled in the opportunity to flaunt. On the other hand, she had no wish to see him soaping his armpits while she attended to herself in the
mirror. ‘It distracts me,’ she told him. ‘There are times when I need to be alone. This is one of them.’ Initially, he wrestled with a sense of injustice but consoled himself with the thought that the loo was separate. He wondered how couples survived with bathrooms that lumped everything into a single space. He was happy they had The Little Room on the Left - or Lulu, as they called it. Even in an open marriage, a level of privacy was essential.

  ‘Just a couple more minutes.’ She sounded tense. On the phone, her father had been abrupt. ‘Be on time,’ he cautioned. ‘We want to be able to sit down together.’ June made a face as she replaced the receiver. ‘Bloody Dad. Wants to control everything, even at Christmas.’

  Especially at Christmas, Ross thought. Martin Preston was an enigma. His parents emigrated shortly after the First World War. They came from a mining community in the English Midlands. After landing at Fremantle, they headed to the Goldfields where they struggled with homesickness and heat and the fragility of employment opportunities that marked the post-war period. Through sheer pigheadedness, as Martin told it, his parents stayed in Kalgoorlie and raised a family. Like countless others, they hit rock bottom during the Depression. The elder boys left school early and found farm work in the wheatbelt. Martin’s schooling came to an end when he was fourteen. He was the youngest and remained at home, working as an errand boy for the big mining company where his father had intermittent employment, and later in the assay office. On his eighteenth birthday, he enlisted in the navy and saw action in the Pacific. To June’s knowledge, he never mentioned the war.

  After leaving the navy, Martin returned to Kalgoorlie. Both his parents passed away while he was on active service. ‘Did he miss them?’ Ross enquired. June shrugged. ‘Who knows? He will talk about them if you ask. But I don’t think he ever found time to grieve them.’

  That seemed about right. Martin returned to his job with the company. He threw himself into his work, and, at a very young age, became a junior manager. His ardour was not confined to his job. In the early autumn of 1950, he impregnated Patricia Helm, his secretary. Under the judicious influence of his employer, he did the right thing and married the girl. June was born later that year.

  Through June’s eyes, the marriage was lacking from the start. Her mother was unprepared for child-raising, and her father inattentive and otherwise occupied. Some sort of scandal was set to break. It involved the mining company. Many in Kalgoorlie were ‘on the gold’, as the saying went. June never found out if her father fell into that category. But one day Martin came home and announced to his wife they were moving to Perth. Despite her tears and protestations, Patricia was given to understand there was no alternative. A month later they left for good.

  Martin worked for a time as a stockbroker and found his niche. Money flowed into the household. They bought a stately old home in Claremont. Within a few years, June had a brother and a sister. Patricia did not grow into motherhood as some had predicted. She endured her pregnancies and dreaded the births. Her milk did not flow, and she suffered the guilt common to young mothers when things didn’t go according to plan. With her family in Kalgoorlie and no friends in the city, she felt desperately isolated. For a number of years, she existed on the precipice. Retelling the story, June was scathing. Her mother was always on the edge of a ‘nervous breakdown’. Nobody talked about post-natal depression. Nobody quoted statistics about how many women suffered from it. Her mother was left high and dry. Of course, she had a family doctor, the same one they still use. ‘A male,’ said June, sarcastically, ‘who soothes and prescribes but who couldn’t deal with an emotional issue if it landed on his nose. Bloody ridiculous, really.’

  Ross had nodded. He knew June held fears around childbirth. Under the auspices of her studies, she researched early childhood theories and the advice given to young mothers. She would work herself into a lather. ‘How come our society was so backward? Hippocrates was talking about emotional postpartum problems as far back as 700BC. Why are our doctors so ignorant?’

  He was not expected to answer her indignant questions. She simply needed a listening post, and he began to understand this was an implied condition of their marriage. When this recognition dawned, he ceased to wilt under the force of her tirades, and did what he could to pay attention and murmur acquiescence at what seemed appropriate moments.

  On the subject of his father-in-law, he was less sure. He could not figure out what Martin thought of him. Their conversations were polite but lacking in substance. Ross found he had little to say and he tried not to react to the occasional comments about public servants and useless politicians, having already had a gutful of these from his own father. These comments usually arose when Martin downed a few drinks. Like most middle-aged men of that vintage, his social habits were forged in a bar or around a keg. He knew how to turn on the bonhomie and play to his audience. Financial success bred an outward confidence that, in June’s view, masked a deep-seated sense of inadequacy.

  In the early sixties, her father left the stockbroking firm where he honed his investment skills and headed up a small consortium with a lawyer and an accountant, both of whom were golfing buddies. Their forte was the formation and floatation of mining companies. Ross could not get his head around the details. Share issues and preferences and company structures were so conceptually foreign that Martin soon gave up his attempts to educate his son-in-law. This in itself was not a problem but June’s father was a one-track pony. If the conversation veered away from business matters, he had nothing to contribute. Like many men accustomed to the power of their own voice in the workplace and boardroom, Martin Preston assumed he would be listened to wherever he went. Ross, though he did not argue outright, made it clear from his passive disinterest and the occasional stifled yawn that this was not a universal truth.

  With June’s mother, he was more at ease. She delighted in books and film and, as she later disclosed, in poetry. Though they merely exchanged small-talk at family gatherings, he detected a longing in Patricia. He was also aware, when he thought about her, of a certain thrill. A shimmer of anticipation overlaid with pangs of anxiety, as a dismissive voice in his head reminded him these thoughts were unhelpful to his prospects of matrimonial harmony. In the recesses of his mind, he could hear his mother’s voice: Seek trouble and trouble will find you.

  Christmas Eve already carried portents of trouble. June was primed for a confession. Neither of them had explained to their parents why they had separated or why they were together again. Ross was fine with that. They don’t need to know. And they won’t understand anyway. June, as she was apt to do on family matters, disagreed. She declared she was sick and tired of hiding under a bushel and leading what she termed a double life. Clearly, she had her father in her sights. ‘I have taken too much merde,’ she said. ‘Now, I’m going to draw a line in the sand.’

  As he waited for the bathroom, Ross contemplated whether he too was ready to draw a line in the sand. Since June’s return, and the abandonment of his job, he felt unburdened. He was happy to have his wife back in their bed, and he loved having time on his hands. Voracious reading gave him fresh insights. Enhanced understanding gave him a better appreciation of the positive implications of his intermittent misery. Life was not all beer and skittles. As well as revelling on the peaks, you had to learn to live in the valleys. Against all his expectations, a scintilla of self-appreciation began to creep in. He knew he needed to find work, and that their ideas about living in an open marriage were yet to be tested. But, on another level, life contained a sweetness that felt both precious and nourishing. Why then, he wondered, would they rock the boat in front of all the family at Christmas?

  ‘We have to.’ June finally vacated the bathroom. He noticed she wore her amber earrings and a bright headscarf. ‘You look like a cross between Maria Callas and a Russian peasant,’ he said, as his eyes canvassed her tight red dress.

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’ She was not displeased with his appraisal but wanted to ram home her p
osition. ‘We have to talk straight with our parents. They need to accept us for who we are, not as some idealised image of who they want us to be.’

  He thought about that as he climbed into the bath and turned on the shower. The water took time to warm up and he sat on the edge of the bath and dipped his toes under the jets, adjusting the taps until the temperature was right. Standing up, he let the water cascade through his hair and down his body. As he soaped himself and felt the warmth on his skin, he relaxed. Accept us for who we are, he mused. An expression came to mind. Something attributed to Mahatma Gandhi when asked what he thought of Western civilisation. ‘A good idea,’ declaimed Gandhi. Yes, thought Ross, a good idea, just like parental acceptance. A good idea, with bugger-all chance of coming to fruition.

  Simone was late. After meeting with Baxter and agonising on the significance of his disclosures, she lost track of time.

  We apologise for any inconvenience, said a sign on the post office door. Our office will be closed from 5.00pm Christmas Eve until 9.00am on 27th December. Simone glanced at her watch. Two minutes past five. Through the window, she could see staff in paper hats unfurling decorations. For a moment she contemplated rapping on the window. She simply wanted to check the interstate directories. It would probably take no more than ten minutes. Would they open up? She doubted it. Preparations for the Christmas party were too well advanced. A portly man – probably the postmaster – appeared from behind the counter. He carried a tray of drinks. As she pressed her face against the glass, a woman caught sight of her. Moments later a blind came down and she could see nothing.

  ‘Damn. Maybe the library’s still open.’

  She dashed over the road to her car. A parking inspector hovered. ‘I just popped across to the post office,’ she protested, seeing the ticket in his hand. He looked at her without sympathy. ‘Lady, you’re in a loading zone.’ He lifted the windscreen wiper and carefully placed the ticket face-down. ‘Happy Christmas to you too,’ she snapped, grabbing the ticket and climbing into her vehicle. But the inspector had already turned his back and begun his slow march along the street in search of fresh victims.